Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture [Hardcover]

Diana Balmori (Author), Joel Sanders (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 27, 2011

The current environmental crisis calls for a unified practice of landscape and architecture that would allow buildings and landscapes to perform symbiotically to heal the environment. Over the past ten years, a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, and artists have undertaken groundbreaking projects that propose an integration of landscape and architecture, dissolving traditional distinctions between building and environment. Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture examines twenty-five projects, on an international scale, that consider landscape and architecture as true reciprocal entities.

Groundwork divides the projects into three design directions: Topography, Ecology, and Biocomputation. Topographic designers create projects that manipulate the ground to merge building and landscape as in Cairo Expo City in Egypt (Zaha Hadid Architects), Island City Central Park Grin Grin in Fukuoka, Japan (Toyo Ito & Associates) and the City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Eisenman Architects). Ecologic designers develop environments that address issues such as energy climate and remediation, such as I’m Lost In Paris in France (R&Sie(n)), Turistroute in Eggum, Norway (Snøhetta) and Parque Atlántico in Santander, Cantabria, Spain (Batlle i Roig Arquitectes). Biocomputation designers use digital technologies to align biology and design in projects such as the Grotto Concept (Aranda/Lasch), North Side Copse House in West Sussex, England (EcoLogicStudio) and Local Code: Real Estates (Nicolas de Monchaux.)
 
What these projects all have in common is a desire to pay attention and homage to the liminal space where indoors and outdoors meet. The critical connection between natural and synthetic, exterior and interior space, paves the way toward a more inclusive—and indeed more alive—conceptualization of the physical world.
 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With Groundwork, [architect Joel Sanders] and the landscape architect Diana Balmori accomplish on paper what they’d like other designers to attempt in the world: a demonstration of the seamless unity of nature and culture that is demanded in an age of increasing environmental threat. The authors believe that green materials and technologies provide a common medium for interdisciplinary design approaches, just as glass and steel defined the inside/outside continuity of modernism. Much of the book is made up of their examples: from a Parisian house buried among 1,200 hydroponic ferns to a sculpture park built on a former brownfield along Seattle’s waterfront to the authors’ own design for an equestrian facility that morphs into a public park, which they proposed for New York’s 2012 Olympics bid." —Julie Lasky, Designers & Books

About the Author

Diana Balmori founded Balmori Associates, an urban and landscape design firm, in 1990. Joel Sanders is the founder of Joel Sanders, Architect. Both teach at Yale University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: The Monacelli Press (September 27, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580933130
• ISBN-13: 978-1580933131
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.8 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #871,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diana Balmori, the founding principal of Balmori Associates, is recognized internationally for her creative interplay between landscape and architecture.

Diana established Balmori Associates in 1990. In 2006 she created balmoriLABS within the firm to undertake and join the search for form in landscape and the intersection with architecture, art or engineering: Green Roofs, Floating Islands, Temporary Landscapes, Forms of Representation, and Zero Waste City are some of the labs.

Diana has been featured in publications and programs including Dwell, The Architects Newspaper, Monocle, El Pais, PBS, WNYC, Design Observer, Inhabitat, and Utne Reader, which named her 1 of 50 "Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in 2009.

In addition to teaching at Yale University in both the School of Architecture and the School of Forestry and Environmental studies, she has lectured and published extensively. Her most recent book is Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture, written with Joel Sanders (Random House, September 2011). A Landscape Manifesto was published by Yale University Press (2010). She is the co-author of many books, such as Saarinen Garden: A Total Work of Art; Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony; Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives; The Land and Natural Development (LAND) Code: Guidelines for Environmentally Sustainable Land Development; Beatrix Farrand, American Landscapes; Garden and Campus Designs.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent February 20, 2013

By Camille Demarinis

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The ideas expressed in this book are well expressed and intriguing. Love the arguments made about man vs nature and vice versa. Excellent images. Some really beautiful architecture and plant growth in here.