Filed under: Focus IV
I have been to Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester as well.
Project Information:
Water features, an elegant pavilion and dramatic lighting make Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens a place that can be enjoyed by day and night. Designed by EDAW and Tadao Ando.
A major civic space, it lies between the city’s main hotel district and retail area. Before recent transformations, the space was last re-planned in the early 1960s.
By the late 1990s, the whole area was suffering from a lack of investment. The sunken Victorian gardens which lay at its heart had become cut off from their surroundings by busy roads and tramways, had taken on a neglected atmosphere and had become a focus for a variety of anti-social behaviour. Then, in 1996 an IRA bomb blast destroyed a large section of Manchester’s retail and office area to the north west of Piccadilly Gardens and following this, an international urban design competition was launched for the reconstruction of the whole city centre.
After almost two years in construction, the gardens were reopened in May 2002 in time for Manchester’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games in July. EDAW’s spectacular remodelling includes over a hundred semi-mature trees, a large lawned area, a fountain plaza traversed by a catwalk bridge, and a recreational pavilion designed by Tadao Ando.
http://www.cabe.org.uk/case-studies/piccadilly-gardens
Filed under: Focus IV
I have seen the Wheel of Manchester during our uni trip.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
It is a 42 carriage wheel similar to the London Eye. What interested me about it is that it is transportable and it has a unique bench next to it. The bench looks like a car without a top or a moving bench maybe.. I thought it looks cute.
Another interesting fact is that you can see local landmarks in Manchester at the top during the ride. Such as: Urbis, Manchester Town Hall, the CIS tower, No.1 Deansgate, Old Trafford etc…
Wheel facts
- It is one of the world’s largest transportable wheels
- It was brought in to Manchester in 24 containers
- It took two weeks to construct in Exchange Square
- Other locations in Manchester considered included Piccadilly Gdns
- It has 42 gondolas – including a VIP gondola
- Each gondola can take up to six people
- The VIP gondola walnut interior, leather seats, cocktail cabinet and a phone
- It is 60 metres tall. It weighs 300 tonnes.
- It has 21 spokes and 51,000 light bulbs
- It is held in place by almost 9000 gallons on water
- It was built in Holland
- It cost approximately £3 million new
- It was located in Paris for three years, at the end of the Champs Elysee.
- It was a favourite ride of President Chirac, for whom the VIP gondola was made.
Filed under: Focus IV
EDAW is briefly a world-renowned design and planning company, EDAW’s Europe region is led from London and includes offices in Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast.
I looked into some of EDAWs latest work. There is an interesting project in London. It’s the Green Wall Project in Westfield London. It is a £1.7bn development that needed to be completed with distinctive landscape and design which includes a landmark of 170m long living wall. Below you will be seeing some photographs of this project:
EDAW created a grand entrance, attractive and accessible pedestrian streets and vibrant interior and exterior public spaces. The streetscape incorporates a powerful graphic device of flowing lines in black and silver-grey granite paving which draws shoppers into the space from the new underground, overground rail and bus stations completed by the developer. The generous public realm includes seating, planters, street furniture, trees and ornamental planting.
The scheme places great importance on integrating the new development into its urban context with landscape playing a key role in upgrading the local environment and providing screening and buffers between the development and existing houses and transport interchanges.
Source: www.edaw.co.uk
I have been to a few of EDAWs projects in Manchester and Liverpool. The one in Manchester is the City Centre Redevelopment. EDAW has done the framework, detailed masterplan and the oublic realm startegy vision.
Source: www.edaw.co.uk
Their plan was to re-energise the city centre with new public spaces, greater pedestrian access and reduced road traffic, new homes and an economy expanded from 8 hours /day to 18.
At the north of the site a former car park has become a green oasis called Cathedral Gardens where the contemporary-style exhibition centre called Urbis has opened. South of here, and close to the heart of the blast, a former four-lane road interchange has been transformed into Exchange Square designed by landscape architect Martha Schwartz. Two timber-beamed pubs, known as The Shambles and damaged in the blast, were dismantled and rebuilt in a different location opening up views to St Ann’s Church. New Cathedral Street was created too, completing the vista from church to cathedral.
Looking on to Exchange Square is the Arndale Centre shopping mall where fortress-like walls have been pierced by new entrances relating to the local street pattern for greater permeability and shops have been incorporated at street level. And completing the sides of Exchange Square is a large new department store.
The work has stimulated regeneration of surrounding areas including large developments such as the Printworks, a former newspaper print works reinvented as an entertainment hub with cinemas, restaurants, a gym, clubs and bars.
I have taken a few pics of Martha Shwartz Project in Manchester.
I really liked this project at Exchange Square/Manchester.
The water fountain looks really good. Although it was a shame i havent seen it working.
Filed under: Focus IV
I found this ad in the LA journal. I checked the website and I found a wide variety of interesting paving materials, products, etc.
Filed under: Focus IV
I looked mainly into green walls/ roofs for this focus week. I found some interesting examples that I would like to share.
I found those images/articles in the Landscape Architecture Journal Vol.99 Issue no.5 May09.
Filed under: Focus IV
This project is called the ” Wonderwall”. This wall consists of different layers. First there is a steel construction with it’s own foundation, attached to the roof construction of the building.
The second layer is a seperating wall between the interior and the exterior of the building.
The third layer, which is attached to the steel construction, is the ”growing wall”, made of metal, plastic and a felt fleece with notches and small buckets. Every planmt grows in it’s own bucket.
There is also a rain, feeding system with hoses and sensors attached to the wall. 50 different types of bushes, plants and trees have been planted in the roofs and facades. What’s interesting that every wall has it’s own climate therefore demands different kinds of plants.
Found in A+U (Architecture and urbanism) Journal Issues no.463 in April09
Filed under: Focus IV
A vertical garden project still on going in Los Angeles, USA.
Done by: John Nouvel.
I thought it looks really good yet sustainable.
I found this image in the A+U (Architecture and urbanism) Journal Issue no. 463 in 04.2009
Filed under: Focus IV
California Academy of Sciences
San Francisco, California, USA 2008
Green living roofs being landscaped with drought resistant plant species.
I thought it looks active and used by all ages more than the landscape beneath it. It also looks good on top of a building.
Below you will be seeing different views of it and some sketches and plans.
I found this article in the A+U (Architecture and urbanism) Journal Issue no. 463 in April 2009
