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Xian Horticultural Expo 2011 Master Gardens | Martha Schwartz Partners

Martha Schwartz Partners was one of nine international landscape design firms to be invited to design a small garden installation on the theme of “the harmonious co-existence of nature and the city” at the 2011 International Horticulture Exhibition in Xi’An, China. The garden will be seen by up to 12 million people between April and October 2011 and may by left permanently as part of the legacy strategy for long-term development of the site. This project is commissioned by Xi’An International Horticultural Exposition Organizing Committee.

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Cronocaos | OMA’s exhibition on preservation in New York

©OMA

Cronocaos, OMA’s exhibition on the increasingly urgent topic of preservation in architecture and urbanism, opens today at the New Museum in New York. First shown at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, Cronocaos examines the growing “empire” of preservation and its consequences for the way we build, demolish, and remember.

Around 12 percent of the planet now falls under various regimes of natural and cultural preservation. “Through our respect for the past, heritage is becoming more and more the dominant metaphor for our lives today – a situation we call Cronocaos,” OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas says. “We are trying to find what the future of our memory will look like.”

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Garden of 10,000 bridges 万桥园 opens at Xian Expo: West 8

WEST 8 - Garden of 10,000 bridges 万桥园 Xian

The International Horticultural Expo in Xian, China opened on 28th April. The Garden of 10,000 bridges by West 8 is complete along with many other display gardens.

Gardens are telling stories; they are poetry and have a narrative. Our garden represents the human life, the path of people’s lifetime. This path is a path of uncertainty and burden. Many bridges over troubled water. The garden design takes this path of life as a meandering, winding road – continuous and like a labyrinth. The path through nature takes you over 10000 bridges.

For the 2011 Xi’an International Horticulture Exhibition, West 8 designed a Master Landscape Architect Garden, that plays with the limits and the sensation of surprise.

The International Horticulture Exhibition 2011 has many gardens designed by world renowned landscape architects such as Terragram, Martha Schwartz, SLA, Topotek1, Catherine Mosbach, Plasma Studio, GROSS.MAX, EMBT Miralles/Tagliabue, and Atelier DYJG. Also a 9000 square metre garden has been designed by various landscape architecture programs from across the world that were exhibited in July this year at the Creative Nature Exhibition in Qingpu, Shanghai. With many other gardens designed by city and provinces along with some enterprise gardens. The 2011 Xi’an International Horticulture Exhibition will be held from 28 April to 8 October 2011.

4月28日，西安世界园艺博览会之West 8“万桥园”正式对游人开放。

每座园林都有一个故事。它们是诗，在诉说。
我们的园林讲述的是生命的故事，人的生命之路。
这条路跌宕起伏，忍辱负重，
讲述了忧愁河上的众桥。
在这座园林中，生命是一条绵延不绝的蜿蜒小路，更恍如一座迷宫。
这条小路深入茫茫自然，带你去渡万座桥。

2011年西安世界园艺博览会, West 8设计了大师展园中的一座。这座园林模糊了感官上的界限，带给游人惊奇的游园体验。

2011年西安世界园艺博览会将于4月28日至10月22日在中国西安市举行。

Images Courtesy of West8

West 8 Partnered with DYJG Beijing for this project.

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New Lighting Design for San Diego’s Coronado Bridge

An international team led by London based artist Peter Fink (Form Associates) and lighting designer Mark Major (Speirs + Major) in association with Buro Happold in Los Angeles has been announced as the winner of the largest interactive green energy lighting project in North America. The San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, built in 1969 in the spectacular context of the bay, has become a symbol of the San Diego area – just as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges are symbols for San Francisco. The San Diego Bridge is characterised by its graceful 2.5 mile long curved deck supported by over 30 towers reaching a height of 200 feet over the navigation channel. The shipping channels are spanned by the world’s longest continuous three-span box girder measuring 1,880 feet.

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Four finalists present their visions for Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition

The four finalist teams recently unveiled their visions for Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition (MR|DC), the largest landscape and urban design competition in Minneapolis history, each crafting a multidimensional landscape and urban design proposal addressing 220 acres of parkland and surrounding neighborhoods along 11 miles of riverfront from the historic Stone Arch Bridge north to the city limits.

Ken Smith Workshop – City of the River

The river is a catalyst for renewal through new and enhanced park, infrastructure and ecological systems and a series of bold, iconic design scenarios that reflect the area’s history and spirit of place.

Stoss Landscape Urbanism – Streamlines
Stoss LU-Streamlines
A longer term transformation that reclaims the river as civic space, introduces new landscapes, infrastructure and urban fabrics, and weaves the multiple new and existing systems and experiences back into the city.

TLS/KVA – RiverFirst
TLS/KVA-RiverFirst
A set of inter related design initiatives – focused on health, mobility and green economy – that function at multiple scales and are enhanced by community outreach strategies to raise public awareness about consumer choice impacts on the river system.

Turenscape – The Resilient River
Turenscape-The Resilient River
A fifty year framework for investment that focuses on: ecological renewal, social equity, new economies and a new identity for the city of the river, and includes a strategic approach to ecological infrastructure, re-orienting urbanism and phasing over time.