Work commences on carbon-zero community park and school: Grontmij

Crouch Hill - Gronmij

Grontmij announced that work has commenced on the Crouch Hill Park and Ashmount Primary School development, in the London Borough of Islington.

The Crouch Hill development is a highly sensitive scheme and comprises Metropolitan Open Land, a Site of Metropolitan Significance for Nature Conservation and a local park. The site is adjacent to the Parkland Walk, a disused railway and a popular North London walking route between Finsbury Park and Highgate.

A new central green space will give the public access to out-of-hours community activities in the school including, a shared games court. New paths will link local housing and the Parkland Walk to attract visitors and improve safety. The whole site will become more permeable and accessible, with easy-access routes for wheelchairs, young children and parents with pushchairs. Paths through existing trees are designed as raised boardwalks, to ‘tread lightly’ through the site and a sensitive lighting strategy will improve community safety in key areas, while respecting bat foraging corridors.

Continue reading Work commences on carbon-zero community park and school: Grontmij

UNStudio win Beijing Creative Zone competition

UNStudio has been awarded 1st prize in the recent competition for the masterplan of the Beijing River Creative Zone, located in Yanqing, 200km from Beijing. From the nine projects presented (Foster+Partners (UK), Zaha Hadid (UK), Atelier d’Architecture Christian de Portzamparc (FR), AS. Architecture-Studio (FR), Beijing Tsinghua Urban Planning &Design Institute (CN), Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (CN), NPS (US) and KCAP (NL)), UNStudio’s design was selected as the winning entry.

The Beijing Creative Zone represents the urban typology needed for a new open learning environment in ‘Urbanity in Nature’. The design for the Creative Zone encompasses compression on a dual scale; the greenbelt and the urban fabric. The urban fabric of the edge is formed by the interweaving of two distinct yet highly interconnected strips. In the creation of an Architectural Park, ateliers and pavilions are organised on the basis of the Chinese garden’s emphasis of “一步一景” (“One View Per Step”).. The parkland becomes an international showcase of experimental projects and emerging design practices. By implementing the four clusters of a products life cycle ‘Think, Develop, Produce and Sell’ as a continuous loop of activity, one creates a platform for all steps of the process towards product sales.

[SOURCE: UNStudio]

[IMAGES SOURCE: UNStudio]

Turenscape win World Architecture Festival Award


Turenscape (Beijing Turen Design Institute) has been awarded the Landscape Category award at the 2009 World Architecture Festival for a 22-hectare park in Tianjin, China – The Adaptation Palettes: Regenerative Landscape Design

Through Regenerative Design and by allotting landforms, the natural process of plant adaptation and community evolution is introduced to transform a former deserted shooting range used as a garbage dump, into a low maintenance urban park; providing diverse nature’s services for the city including containing and purifying storm water; improving the saline-alkali soil, providing opportunities for environmental education and creating a cherished aesthetic experience.

For more information go to the [SOURCE: World Architecture Festival]

[IMAGE SOURCE: World Architecture Festival]

CROSS POSTED WITH CHINA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

Should humans dictate nature in the name of conservation? – The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail reports

On naked patches of land in Western Canada and the United States, scientists are planting trees that don’t belong there. It’s a bold experiment to move trees threatened by global warming into places where they may thrive amid a changing climate.

read more @ the SOURCE: The Globe and Mail – Should humans dictate nature in the name of conservation?