Park

Allow "Park" to assume multiple meanings.

Museo Soumaya

Mexico City's Museo Soumaya was designed by Fernando Romero.  The aluminum hexagonal tiles on the exterior suggest an apiary aesthetic, stitched by Linda Evan's seamstress.  The first curvilinear museum was spawned by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939, this is the new age Guggenheim.

mario botta

Botta's maquilage of Church of San Giovanni Battista is a figure ground basket weave of tenuous stone.  Employing native granite and marble to embellish the rhythmic dovetail ribboning effect is remarkable.

inheritable stairs

carlo scarpa
debunking code
castelvecchio, italy

Escape Plan

I'd gladly run if the house was on fire if, it were by way of these "strunners"*.  The web of steel gills against the architectural coins adds to the charm of West 44th Street.  Beautility.

*My latest portmanteau- to suggest stunning runners.

Human Nature

I lived in New York City at a time in my life when MacLaren referred to my go to set of wheels, a stroller. The shoe leather express was the easiest form of transportation and allowed Junior and I to explore the great city with bliss and efficiency. Generally.

It was frustrating when pedestrians stopped in the middle of rush hour foot traffic or at bustling street corners to have a conversation. Folks all over the city had this tendency not just the holiday tourists on Fifth Avenue. Why couldn't they take a few steps to the side and let woman and child get to music class?

Human nature is the culprit. We like to have the maximum choice of decision to splinter from organization or stay. Getting jabbed and snarled at by people navigating around you is far better than committing to a conversation and getting stuck off to the side by the fire hydrant with your Super. William Whyte wrote an excellent book based on his research on "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces". His findings continue to fascinate and entertain.

Why do the most successful outdoor spaces have the highest percentage of women inhabitants? As a gender, we are more discriminating as to where we will sit and more alert to the potential dangers around us. It makes perfect sense but I love when you add the food vendor coefficient to a public open space. Food attracts people, who attract more people who signal to a female, safety in numbers. There is a strong link between design and human nature that is not always realized.

When I worked for the New York City Housing Authority in the Landscape Architecture Department we adopted a unique approach to design. Doe-eyed and fresh off the bus from Cambridge, my Harvard education had led me to believe that public open space should always be lit at night, signally a safe place for human interaction to unfold. In this situation however, undesirables would use this light to conduct "business". To add light and sense of security to these areas would prove to be a huge design flaw. On site visits we witnessed handiwork of vigilantes, who as a means to spare children from the dangers of lit areas would have literally shot the power lines to smithereens. In dim light, the undesirables couldn't decipher the money denominations to finalize their transactions.   Therefore, opened up shop in better lit conditions, making the neighborhood far safer. I know what you are thinking. But, it didn't seem appropriate and the moment never right for me to shoulder tap the thugs with my brilliant recommendation that they should conduct business in colorful Canadian currency.

Grand Central Station...are you a door opener? Most people are not. Given the option, non door openers will even get in queue two to three people deep to avoid having to open an unused door. It's important to note that Whyte figured this out in the 70's before Germ-X or Purell. The next time you are at a department store, chances are that you will wait your turn in line and select the busy revolving door already in motion rather than forge your way to a stile at rest......it's not coincidence.

Tourniquet

Thomas Heatherwick is at the top of my dance card.
To mark the transition into this under recognized London hospital, he bandaged it's skeletal structure with braided stainless steel frames.  With a Tensor Bandage je ne sais quoi, his installation supports the weight of the structure, resuscitates the cement and glass fabric of the neighborhood and subdues the overbearing scale of the cityscape.

A Caspian Must See

Zaha Hadid's glass and reinforced concrete Heydar Aliyer Cultural Centre in Baku is splendiferous. With a Le Corbusier-like pitch, it appears that the roof structure was sown from the creases of the surrounding topography. The blur between the emerging landscape and architecture is fantastic.

Estate Planning

My comfortable Libran logic is steeped in symmetry, proportion, scale and balance.  However, I delight in the unruly behavior of Michael Smith's home which completely hoodwinks the Golden Proportion.  Circles and squares form nice rotundas and water features but they have been assembled it seems, with little regard to the other.  The effect is interesting.
Sitting skewed on the property within puzzle piece shaped pools, the residence looks like it is temporarily moored on site.  This approach allows the suggestion of a breezy Rockford File lifestyle within the heavy hills of California...an architectural feat.

Dusseldorf

Frank Gehry designed this multi clad structure in Dusseldorf.  The true success of the site is the intimate outdoor life which unfolds along the hem of the surrounding large scale architecture.  Gehry's oversized windows and the sidewalk that zips right up to the facade of the structure work in tandem to make the occupier of the space feel better scaled in the environment.  Love it.

kiosk curiosity

Thomas Heatherwick was commissioned to upgrade London's traditional newspaper stands in Chelsea.  The walls of his output remind me of a stack of fanned magazines.  An engineering whiz, he designed the sides with hinges to allow the kiosk to open like a blooming onion-love it.

Cool Hunting

www.coolhunting.com is a tantalizing website devoted to the amalgamation of travel, art and architecture. Josh Rubin, the site's founder (and esteemed Ted Talks member) harvests the globe for far-flung inspiration. Daily posts will capture your imagination and trap you in the cognoscenti of the design world.

Company's Coming

I get an architectural kick out of watching cities structurally resuscitate once winning their bid to host the Olympic Games.
This ritual reminds me of my mother preparing for one of her extreme dinner parties. (Floral arrangements grow from thin air, dance tents erupt in the backyard, oyster shukers prepare their ice beds on the patio, musicians rehearse in the living room, candy dishes are extolled of cashew dregs while the caterers go bananas in the kitchen.) There is a huge degree of work involved to master the fine art of entertaining.
In London's case, the scale is exponentially extruded. The world is coming to visit. Their improvements campaign to bolster their urban infrastructure is well underway. On my radar is Heatherwick's Olympic Cauldron (yet to be unveiled) and the King's Cross Station renovation by John Mcasian + Partners (above).

Ideas Worth Sharing

www.ted.com has replaced the ambient drawl of Yellow Ledbetter types which typically stream through my kitchen. The premise of the website is "Ideas Worth Sharing". I dialed it up and selected Architecture/Landscape Architecture from the search menu as my "theme". With the gracious bandwidth of it's cerebral content, I felt as if I had returned to the crimson halls of college.
Delivered by leaders of the profession, I was connected with a syllabus of lectures to refreshingly audit. I started with Daniel Libeskind's lecture on "17 Words of Architectural Inspiration" and then enjoyed Thomas Heatherwick's chat "Building The Seed Cathedral"(my latest crush).
Fantastic.

Catering to the Designer

Jungsik is a contemporary Korean restaurant in the West Village. The artistic design of the food is unbelievable. The Landscape Architect in me fell for this dish "Four Seasons".


Meanwhile, to satiate my architectural undertones, Jungsik also has an exhibition space that features cultural art. Currently on exhibit is Daksahl- circular architectural motifs that are customarily conveyed in Korean cooking. Their detailed language is stunning.

2 Harrison Street
New York, New York

Zellner's Canvas

Susanne Vielmetter commissioned architect, Peter Zellner to design her gallery space in Culver City. The exterior he conjured is extraordinary. Just as an artist would use gesso to prep a canvas, simply, Zellner bathed the facade in a rich ebony. I love how he then trafficked an obnoxious, "scribble" tattoo to it's veneer. Perhaps in a nod to pointillism, he positioned picture-style lighting fixtures to dot the roof line. The lone street tree and light standard cleverly balance the intensity of the scribble to the left. Genius.

Geneology of a Scaffold

By way of introduction, a patronymic was a handle historically used to trace the lineage of a family. Recently, a lone prototype of New York City's renewed scaffolding system was celebrated at 100 Broadway. In finding the skeletal traits of the dubbed "Urban Umbrella" to be prosaically familiar and irreverent, I have traced it's architectural patronymic to support my perspective.

On the father's side:



1851- Urban Umbrella's steel girders had me start at Paxton's Crystal Palace. Located in Paris, this marvel was the birth of Modernism with it's congruent palette of construction. It's prefab mandate would soon give rise to the Eiffel Tower in 1889.

1871- The Great Chicago Fire called for immediate construction opportunities to reclaim the ravished urban landscape. At this point, Modernism immigrated to the USA due to the ease of construction adeptly demonstrated in Europe.



1958- With acclaimed success, Modernism's glass and steel sheath, began to blanket the American landscape. Mies van der Rohe brought the Seagram Building to New York City. "God is in the details" began to proliferate throughout the City.


In tandem with these paternal advancements, the Urban Umbrella's mother was blazing her own trail with a vein of artistic and feminine architectural strokes.



1920- The Art Deco movement presumed Paris. In revolt to Modernism, the iconic Metro entrances began to grace the French urban landscape. This dialogue would too trace over to America by way of the Chrysler Building. I'm feeling a Montague and Capulet moment.



1936-Frank Lloyd Wright would configure the Johnson Wax Headquarters. In true Art Deco tongue, he devised ornate and at once organic, concrete lily pads poised to sustain clerestories to yield high loads. Under engineer's eye, Wright would prove that these columns would suffice up to 60 tons of load bearing material. Visually, the Urban Umbrella most closely resembles this early achievement.

Mom and Dad get hitched:

2011- the Urban Umbrella is born on the streets of New York and is introduced as a cutting edge design replacement to traditional scaffold.


Personally, the designer shoplifted from a century of phenom engineering greats to recycle a concatenation of architectural beauties that leaves me in wonder of the individuality of the design. In lieu of the patronymic, it could be considered a mutt. While it captures an interesting experience to the untrained occupier of the space, it is a mundane cornucopia of prodigal past genius.

I love design that pushes the envelope. Our technology is far superior than our ancestors so, I'm left dumbstruck by design that is so heavy handed in historical rhetoric and uninspirational in it's delivery. A strong architectural patronymic is a fabulous foundation when married with an unexpected turn of routine.

The Urban Umbrella has had me coin a new term, "Trust Fund Design". It has solely relied on the riches of it's successful architectural ancestors and has fallen short of procuring it's own identity within the context of the urban fabric.

Ouch.

Alluring Architecture

Tacklebox Design first hit my radar when I was befriending the florist, Saipua in Brooklyn. A couple of Googles later I was smitten.
This architecture firm has nurtured a skill in working with materials in their most natural state and in a truly inspiring way. For Saipua, the firm cobbled a small, street-side seating vignette from simple rough-hewed wood slats. I also admire the Grand Central Station kiosk they created for Aesop from 1800 recycled newspapers. The rock floor details are stunning too.
I love the way their portfolio references nature while being inspired by the urban context of the installation.

Check them out at www.tackleboxdesign-ny.com.


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The Home Within Us

A wonderful client of mine first turned me on to the work of her architect, Bobby McAlpine. Her beautiful home is just breathtaking and I feel my garden presence there is just gild on the lily. McAlpine's work is stunning.
Ironically, it was another client that introduced me to McAlpine's Rizzoli International coffee table book titled "The Home Within Us". I began to sense a trend and bought the book on the spot. Yes, it was a collection of fabulous photographs but, as I was warned, the text was so rich and insightful (which is not always the case with coffee table books). I loved his pendulum effect and the inspiration he evoked. Even if you are not an architect, there is so much to take away from it. A great idea for your next hostess gift.



Clearly, I especially loved this clever interpretation that was featured in House Beautiful Magazine.

Ya Dig?

Architectural Edibles

I'm not sure how it happened. Lady luck or given the fellow "r a n d o m l y" drawing the names just happened to be Canadian too. In any event, Pierre announced my ballot second in the lottery to assign dorm rooms. To the shock of the crimson crowd, I selected the uninspired room with a lone window that offered a SPECTACULAR view overlooking the home Philip Johnson designed while earning his architectural degree. From street level, the entire property was shrouded by an ominous and tall brick wall that squelched all hopes from the inquisitive eye. However, from my second storey post, this secret world was mine for visual consumption. Delighted with my good fortune, I had a maquette of the MOMA's sculpture garden as my primitive screen saver. (Now if only Lucio, the crazy from down the hall would leave me alone.)

Appropriately, I positioned my drafting board to afford optimal views of the well appointed courtyard across the street. (Invasive? No, art appreciation.) Mr. Johnson's iconic glass curtain walls of the residence set the stage for the modern landscape plan. Proportion, clean lines and symmetry were all components of the simply sophisticated design. By my graduation, his subliminal propaganda in favor of the modernist movement had taken it's hold. My handle was more Easter Island than Villa d'Este. I had honed a true respect and preference for sleeker,minimal and contemporary landscapes.

The antithesis of this style would be the craze that is currently sweeping the nation. The homegrown, "Care to trade seeds?", put your overalls on, let's grab the pitchfork..... vegetable garden. It should come of no great surprise then, that I'm not a devotee of the aesthetic qualities of the standard issue veggie patch*. If it's attached to someone else's address or in queue to dress up my Cobb Salad all the better. It seems like a traffic jam of roots and leaves that Mr. Johnson would never espouse. Functionally dysfunctional too. Let's leave the Children on the Corn Redux for the folks in Hollywood. My yard cannot accommodate corn as high as an elephant's eye in tandem with the tasks of soccer games, slip and slides and camp outs. But qualities of the homegrown revolution are enticing....and a French panier filled with a cornucopia of fresh bounty at the back door would be richly appetizing and gainfully employed.

(*Now, now. I can almost anticipate my distended inbox from the groundswell of disgruntled "veggie patchers". Please, I mean no malice...I'm Canadian after all. That's synonymous with "I'm really terribly sorry to bother you but it seems that your beautiful bamboo has swallowed my children and the entire house." All the power to you. Please invite me over to admire the rhubarb and we can swap borscht recipes.)

Remember the Venn diagram with three circles and the little "patch" of overlap in the middle? Yup, the middle ground of compromise. May I suggest another option in practicing sustainable food production while maintaining the integrity of your lawn's square footage. Dismantle the vegetable garden and farm it's members out into the framework of the existing garden. The architecture of these edibles is beautiful and deserving to take a featured presence in your garden. One would never dream of pairing Agassi, Roddick, Federer and Nadal on one side of the net. Think of gardening as a spectator sport too. Why clump these plants into one big bunch where their features can't be best displayed and appreciated. In my opinion, less is more. This approach, while not for everyone suits my lifestyle (pleasurably busy), design aesthetic (who wants the look of a links course off the patio) and vegetarian palate (mmmm...fresh pesto).

There are countless ways to introduce husbandry into your yard that won't draw concern from you spouse or have your children referring to the scarecrow in the background as "Dad". I harnessed Phil and his architectural cronies to draft a little inspiration from in thoughtfully infusing your own garden with architectural edibles.

Try the Frank Lloyd Wright approach to showboating tomatoes and express your love of the Guggenheim. English Garden Solutions markets a spiral steel hoop that fits into planters and trains plants vertically. Their promotional photos show awesome spiralled tomato plant columns that I would expect to see in a swank Miami Beach enclave during Art Basel. When the tomatoes are planted in multiples, these would be great accents flanking an entrance and delicious in a sauce or salad.

Luis Barragan spinned his color wheel with a Junaknoo sensibility. Azalea pink walls matched with fluid pools of blue. Follow suit by infusing a dull tract of shingles or fence with sophisticated espalier fruit trees. While an economic use of space, the expression of color through the seasons would be exceptional. Pump up the volume with a sinuous edge of cabbage, carrots and cosmos.

If it's your goal to master the art of french cooking, channel Gustav Eiffel's machine aesthetic along a vacant stretch of backyard fence. Shop the garden center for decorative trellised obelisks and station them every 10 feet or so (depending on length of fence). Paint them a high gloss contrasting color and try your hand at peas. Alternately, Battle Hill Forge fashions iron tripods or larger tepees that can carry the load of richly planted gourds while creating a hideout for children with a cocoa bean floor. Use as a folly in the landscape...Blend it like Blenheim baby.

Tickle the aviaries a la Renzo and Piano's Pompidou Center. Many companies are now promoting green wall technology that seemed to be everywhere at the Architectural Digest Home Show. It's an industrial looking grid of small metal pipes that attaches to a vertical plane and allows you to grow small scaled plantings of arugula, lettuce varieties and smaller herbs. Think of it as a Gee's Bend quilting bee and create your own pattern using color and texture variations. On a spartan patio this can add a great deal of spatial wealth.

Add Richard Meier to your dream team. Among many things, this architect is noted for his singular color sensation. A homogeneous hedge can be dressed up nicely under this inclination. Let's go out on a limb here and just assume that said hedge is green. Go on and stud it with like colored produce. Think broccoli, spindled cucumber or even cabbage. The inverse would also work. Source a vegetable, herb or fruit that you fancy that is both visually appealing/delish and pair it up with like colored flowers for a gourmet planter or window box.

In a pickle? If you are not sure what to plant to keep in tune with the demands of your grocery cart, look to the recipes from which you cook to influence your planting decisions. Earlier in the year I catalogued the frequency of produce used in Ina Garten's six cookbooks. The Barefoot Contessa relies on these edibles most: Onion,Carrot, Potato, Tomato, Celery, Garlic, Parsley, Thyme, Basil, Dill, Raspberries, Strawberries, Blueberries and Apples. Should you share in my affinity for HRH, use this information as a culinary compass to fashion your own jardin potager.

In the meantime, I'm fit to be balled and burlaped. I'm afraid that it's back to the drafting board for me. As it turns out, my pint size seed sowers were slightly heavy handed during an epic seed dispersal activity. The fledgling boxwoods in my yard are now in hot competition for survival with their new neighbors,the beet family. Harvest is on the horizon and the logistics of operating a pressure canner are those that I'm not familiar with. If only Warhol was around to dole out pointers on his experience with canning.

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