The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) has revealed the 3 conceptual plan options for the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) on Friday at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The three master plan options were undertaken as Stage 2 of the Public Engagement for the arrangement of arts and cultural facilities as well as various other land uses, including commercial, retail, hotel, residential and public open space.
The three Conceptual Plan Options revealed are:
City Park – prepared by Foster + Partners, led by Lord Norman Foster;
Cultural Connect: Key to Sustained Vitality – prepared by Rocco Design Architects Limited, led by Mr Rocco Yim; and
Project for a New Dimension – prepared by Office for Metropolitan Architecture, led by Mr Rem Koolhaas.
Public comment on the Options is open until 21 November 2010.
Today the designs from the five finalists of the The City + The River + The Arch design competition were revealed to the public at the Gateway Arch Visitors Center with the Design Team Leaders set to present their designs on August 26. The winning team will be announced on September 24 with the design to be implemented for the 50th Anniversary of the Gateway Arch in 2015.
The competition represents how multi-discipline teams collaborate to create impressive landscape architecture that in the current economic times gives us all something to ponder and enjoy. The Competition website lists the extensive team members for each team along with the concept design statement along with slide shows with numerous images and the presentation boards for download.
The finalists were entrusted with designing the area surrounding the iconic Gateway Arch in St. Louis including both sides of the Mississippi River. Each design team has approach the design process in their own way and have created differing design solutions:
Behnisch Team Site Plan
Behnisch Team Overall View
Behnisch Team seeks to create ‘an active catalyst for urban cohesion and renewal in this most centered American landscape.’
MVVA TEAM Site Plan
MVVA TEAM - Historic Landscape Pond
Michael Van Valkenburgh Team ‘proposes a network of finer-grained interventions incorporating natural science, engineering, and design into a holistic philosophy of ecological urbanism.’
PWP TEAM - Concept Plan
PWP TEAM - Bluffs Daytime View
PWP Landscape Architecture, Foster + Partners, and Civitas used research & an understanding of history ‘to derive a sophisticated design solution from a thorough understanding of the site, a solution that will respect history while expanding possibilities for the future.’
SOM TEAM Site Plan
SOM TEAM North Look Out
SOM Team‘will strive to respect the modern masterpiece and its grounds. We will re-envision the core National Park Service exhibits and examine how to increase the flow of public life, and envision active uses on the East St. Louis side within the Memorial Addition.’
Weiss/Manfredi TEAM Site Plan
Weiss/Manfredi TEAM Plaza View
Weiss / Manfredi Team ‘enhance, extend, and transform the identity of the iconic Gateway Arch and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.’
Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe and New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth W. Pinsky recently broke ground on a $12 million redevelopment of WNYC Transmitter Park along the East River in Brooklyn. The project includes the construction of a pier at the foot of Kent Street, an upland connection to the pier, an esplanade for passive recreation, and 1.6-acres of open space to provide residents and visitors with increased access to the Greenpoint waterfront.
“Across all five boroughs we’re working to bring our waterfront back to life for recreational use by New Yorkers, and WNYC Transmitter Park will be the latest, but not the last, new park we’re bringing to Greenpoint,” said Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “Located on the site of the former WNYC radio transmission towers and a ferry terminal, this transformative project will construct a pier, park and esplanade, providing Greenpoint residents with increased access to the spectacular East River waterfront. I am grateful to Mayor Bloomberg, the Borough President, the City Council and federal and state grants for providing $12 million toward this project, and to EDC for managing the site’s redevelopment.”
WNYC Transmitter Park was designed by AECOM (EDAW), McLaren Engineering Group, WXY architecture + urban design with The LiRo Group as resident engineer, and Phoenix Marine Co., Inc. as contractor.
Photo by Daniel Avila Source: NYC Dept. Parks & Recreation
On July 27, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and architect David Rockwell opened Imagination Playground at Burling Slip, an innovative playspace conceived and designed pro-bono by Mr. Rockwell to encourage child-directed, unstructured free play. With a focus on loose parts, Imagination Playground offers a changing array of elements that allows children to constantly reconfigure their environment and to design their own course of play. The Mayor and Mr. Rockwell were joined by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Scott Stringer, Council Member Margaret Chin, Community Board 1 Chair Julie Menin and Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe.
David Rockwell has partnered with Darell Hammond of KaBOOM!, a national non-profit dedicated to saving play, to bring Imagination Playground in a Box to communities across the country. The first Imagination Playground in a Box was launched at the Brownsville Recreation Center playground in Brooklyn, NY in July 2008.
Installation for the national art event “Imaginez Maintenant”
01/07 to 04/07/2010
Hôpital de La Grave – Toulouse
Nicolas Dorval-Bory / Raphaël Bétillon
Music : Michael Andrews – Socks on ears
For More images and information about the installation go to www.nicolasdorvalbory.com or www.raphaelbetillon.com
PAYSAGES EN EXIL seeks to create, along the hospital of La Grave in Toulouse, an experimental journey in which the visitor is invited to explore an unlikely landscape, a condensation of climates, a mix of Natures from all over the world. The project finds its genesis in the description of “wandering plants phenomenon” made by Gilles Clément :
“Plants travel. Grass mostly. They silently move in the way of the winds. Nothing can stop the wind. By harvesting clouds, one would be surprised to get imponderable seeds mixed with loess, fertile dusts. In the sky yet unforeseeable landscapes are being designed. Chance organizes the details, uses every possible vehicle to distribute the species. Everything suits the transport, from ocean currents to shoe soles. Most of the trip belongs to animals. Nature charters birds, berry eaters, gardening ants, subversive and quiet sheeps, which fleece holds fields and fields of seeds. And also man. Restless animal, always in the move, free swapper of diversity.”
In an acclimatization space – a long agricultural greenhouse – are prepared medicinal plants seedlings coming from the five continents. Having “blindly” chosen one of them, the visitor continues its journey and enters a thick cloud, a dense mist born from the spraying of the Garonne river, on the Viguerie footbridge. At the end of this vaporous trail, a surprising garden welcomes him, inviting him to plant the seedling that he has carried so far.
