The network of pink pipes responds to the need to drain water from the ground of the city before the construction of buildings or infrastructure below ground level. The unprejudiced decision to allow pipes run free in the urban space, plus painting them the same pink color, has meant that they become a landmark in the German capital.

“What are those colourful tubes for? Is it an art installation? Are they used for transporting natural gas? These are some of the typical questions asked by those who visit Berlin. Colourful external tubes, running throughout the entire city, are one of the first things to be noticed. They immerse themselves into the landscape of the city, not only in modern Prenzlauer Berg or Kreuzberg, but also meandering through the historical sights in Mitte. I myself was also deceived, thinking it to be just another piece of modern art. But here we present you with the explanation of the meaning of 60 km of coloured Berlin’s pipes.”

“Berlin is surrounded by several lakes, and is home to the river Spree. Not to get into too much detail, it simply means that the ground Berlin is built on is quite marshy. […] With groundwater in Berlin existing just two meters under the city’s surface, consequently, it is impossible to dig any tunnels without the risk of flooding the German capital. […] Thus, the pipes surrounding Berlin serve to pump water from the ground and transport it to the canals, allowing both together to drain the basements of the city and to facilitate the urban works. For more than a century already, a company named ‘Pollems’ has been responsible for the system.”

“And what about tube’s colours then? Bernd Kempf, managing director at Pollems, told BBC that years ago they asked a psychologist which colours they should choose to paint the pipes. She suggested pink and purple, mostly because they are the colours prefered by children.”

“And to also solve the tube’s last riddle, why do they have all these twists and turns? The answer is down to earth as well. When temperatures fall under 15 degrees, the material can shrink or break. Avoiding long linear parts prevent the pipes from doing just that.
The idea of the twisting pink iron tubes is one of the landmarks of Berlin and the idea is being copied by other cities in Europe, e.g Warsaw.”

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La entrada Pink pipes | Berlin se publicó primero en More Than Green.

The project by RCR arquitectes recovers the place subtly and makes it accessible to visitors. An intervention that reinforces the character of the landscape and activates the surprise factor in its discovery.

“In the volcanic Natural Park of La Garrotxa in Les Preses, near Olot, there is a unique place: a sea of rocks that is the product of the basaltic mass of the Croscat volcano and the result of man’s hard struggle to own a piece of land to harvest. A fertile terrain in which the plots were gradually levelled and the stones removed to be used later in broad walls, mounds and sheds. Their morphological bumpy and tactile texture stimulates the senses.”

“The project aims to recover the place cleaning it of weeds and undergrowth, strengthening its rough character through the sight of the accumulated stones and suggesting an itinerary that permits discovering the park little by little. A series of signs or the vegetation itself show landmarks, forks and frames along the path. A biological agriculture, of products hardly ever harvested in the region, is kept in good condition.”

“The most marked intervention is located, however, in the access to the precinct. A series of grooves, traced between the volcanic stone by discontinuous walls of Corten steel sheet, creates an initiation path of ridged triangular geometry, endowed with a severe, bold and, to a great extent, unknown beauty.”

Images: Plataforma Arquitectura

Text: AV Monografías 137 (2009) Madrid: Arquitectura Viva

La entrada Piedra Tosca Park | Strengthening the singularity of the volcanic landscape | RCR se publicó primero en More Than Green.

Polder Cup is a one-day football championship in the polders. The special features of the typical Dutch landscape imply that the football pitches are crossed by water channels or that the field is muddy, which requires adapting the rules and inventing new strategies for the game. Thus, a standard global practice is reinvented by inserting it in a specific context, acquiring a local character.

“The facade of the Witte de With art institute in central Rotterdam was adorned with a grass-green banner featuring images of meadows marked with white lines and criss-crossed with straight ditches. Together, the meadows formed four football pitches, one large and three smaller, and the chalk lines appeared ragged compared to the perfectly straight lines of the ditches. The ditches divided the playing fields into asymmetrical blocks that were dotted with hollows and bumps. The banner invited passersby to participate in a football match in the polder, but the unconventional playing fields were a warning that the rules would have to be adapted to suit the situation.

Passersby were confronted by the changes to the rules and the disruption of recognisable scenes. The football pitches re-divided the familiar landscape of parcelled polders, and the ditches and the marshy ground that characterise this typically Dutch landscape determined how the game was played.

(…) As well as being demarcated by the white chalk lines, the boundaries of the football pitches were delimited by real corner flags and real goalposts. Balls that ended up in the ditches were recovered with nets and missed shots were retrieved from the banks using canoes and oars.

(…) The game activated and actualized the geometric polder landscape of ditches and meadows, investing it with a degree of individuality. The event transformed, in De Certeau’s words, a stable and incontrovertible ‘place’ (lieu) into a dynamic ‘space’ (espace).

(…) In Polder Cup the tall grass, the pollen and the squishy ground restricted the players’ movements. The ditches not only transect the pitches, but the presence of water also meant that the official rules of the game have to be ‘rectified’. Players were not allowed to leap over the ditches, which meant a defender could never move to the opposite side of the pitch. Consequently, the players had to discuss and revise their tactics and devise new strategies in the heat of the moment, without them being formalized.”

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Images: Maider López

Text: Ilse van Rijn

La entrada Polder Cup | Football pitches in the Dutch polder | Maider López se publicó primero en More Than Green.

The intervention establishes a new relationship between the bay and the city, or between the water of the bay and the citizens. The dynamic nature of the tide is translated into changing sounds in the jetty, transforming this into a recognizable and mysterious place. Moreover, the jetty was built reusing stones from a local abandoned cemetery, what drives the memory of the place.

“The Wave Organ is located on a jetty that forms the small Boat Harbor in the Marina district of San Francisco. The jetty itself was constructed with material taken from a demolished cemetery, providing a wonderful assortment of carved granite and marble, which was used in the construction of this piece. The installation includes 25 organ pipes made of PVC and concrete located at various elevations within the site, allowing for the rise and fall of the tides. Sound is created by the impact of waves against the pipe ends and the subsequent movement of the water in and out of the pipes. The sound heard at the site is subtle, requiring visitors to become sensitized to its music, and at the same time to the music of the environment.”

“The concept was developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stone mason George Gonzales. Inspiration for the piece came from artist Bill Fontana’s recordings made of sounds emanating from a vent pipe of a floating concrete dock in Sydney, Australia.”

“In 1980, Richards (a Senior Artist at the Exploratorium for many years) received a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that enabled him to conduct an extensive period of investigation into the physicality of the Wave Organ phenomenon.”

“A prototype, built at the same location, was presented as part of the New Music ’81 Festival. Though very rudimentary in nature, it generated enthusiasm and support for a permanent work. Permit acquisition and fundraising efforts by Frank Oppenheimer, Founding Director of the Exploratorium, began soon after, but actual construction did not start until September 1985, seven months after Oppenheimer’s death. The Wave Organ was completed in May 1986.”

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Images: Listen to the world

Images: Dimart

La entrada The Wave Organ | A wave-activated acoustic jetty | San Francisco se publicó primero en More Than Green.

The installation uses the existing roof of an old brewery to hang a huge cloud of white ropes from it. Thus, the project encourages playful and collective use of the public space in which it is located. The variation in the length of the ropes creates a relation between full and empty that enables different modes of using and experiencing the space.

“Adult girls and boys revived their inner Tarzan when the installation ‘The Rope Show’, with 3500 ropes suspended from a giant canopy, was inaugurated at the former Carlsberg Brewery area in Copenhagen, Denmark on 09 December 2010. This project is the third of three spaces at Carlsberg experimenting with temporary installations, which should attract citizens of Copenhagen to stay and be active in the public spaces between the former brewery buildings.”

“The focus of the project was to utilize an existing roof and create both active experiences and intimate spaces without spoiling the rare quality of the existing large covered public space. This approach springs from an overall strategy to build on the existing character and qualities of Carlsberg, and reinforce them through temporary urban installations.”

“Both intimacy and challenges are created through a simple concept of hanging around 3500 heavy white ropes fitted with orange ends in the roof structure. The ropes hang closely, with approximately half a meter between them, and produce both a clear outer contour and an internal maze with the possibility of losing yourself.”

“The dense jungle of rope is in some places cleared as the ropes are cut at precise heights in order to form vaulted spaces of varying sizes that can be used as hangouts and for various events. Similarly, there is a pedestrian and cyclist path cut straight through.”

“The construction is in some ways reversed as reinforcements of the canopy and the suspension points of the ropes are all located at the top, allowing the structure to have minimal contact with the ground instead of standing on a solid foundation. The suspension converts gravity into a dynamic force, which helps to keep the ropes in almost constant motion. Only a slight breeze will send swirls through the ropes and make the entire structure seem unstable. It can be experienced as the weightless state of seaweed swaying in a current.”

“When passers-by swing in the ropes they get a sensual experience of moving three-dimensionally in an extraordinary space. The urban jungle is an example of a distinctive urban space that is not subject to a strict functional programme, but is open to be used and experienced in mysterious ways by the public.”

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La entrada The Rope Show | A playful urban installation made of ropes | Copenhagen se publicó primero en More Than Green.

“To help families and children-parents to confront the enemies of child health such as obesity, sedentary lifestyle or the virus”, the Spanish Agency of Pediatrics (AEP) has created “The super-healthy troops”. A series of comics, videos and multimedia material awareness to children about how to stay healthy.

Super-healthy Troop is a set of children fighting in the stories against “Mr. Armchair (sedentarism), that traps children from television screens and video games, Mr. Glotonetix (obesity) that steals breakfast, or against the virus army commanded by Mr. and Ms. Measles Mumps. “

The strategy is given by the same acronym (in Spanish) of the agency that promotes this action, AEP: Food, Exercise and Prevention.

The development of the “super powers” are given for education in these matters to children and, incidentally, to the parents. The one hand basic recommendations are given in terms of food in order to maintain a balanced diet, also give basic information provided to encourage physical activity, and finally encourage children to maintain good personal hygiene and follow the vaccination schedule .

(via trucosdemamas.com)

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(comics)

La entrada Super-healthy troop | Superheroes to encourage children’s health se publicó primero en More Than Green.

The Active Pool is one of the four main spaces at the Fort Worth Water Gardens (Texas, USA), an urban oasis designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1974. The waterfall, which is eleven meters high and shaped by a terraced geometry, surrounds a small central pool to which all the water is poured.

The particular design of this fountain invites visitors to descend to its very center, offering them a unique walk in which water is the protagonist. Thus, this urban element provides more than refreshment and relief from the hot weather of Fort Worth, enabling the user to experience firsthand the power, strength and movement of an everyday element: water.

“It’s the sound that captures most people’s attention: the roar of 10,500 gallons [40,000 litres] of water per minute hurtling down the four-story sides”.

“And then there’s the spectacle of the water cascading down the concrete terraces and splashing past the steps that lead visitors down to a pentagon of large blocks at the bottom of the sunken waterfall. Here, in the center of it all, the cacophony of the falls muffles conversation, leaving visitors to stop for a moment to soak in the scene”.

“The Active Water Pool is the centerpiece of the 4.3-acre [1.7-ha] Water Gardens, an open-air complex of waterfalls, pools, fountains, plazas, walkways, and trees located adjacent to the Fort Worth Convention Center. Famed architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee designed the Water Gardens, which have provided a meditative haven in the heart of Fort Worth since their opening in 1974. While not open to swimming, the Water Gardens are a popular destination for walks, picnics, and events on the plaza.”

(via Texas Highways)

(images via Eric Hunt)

(images via hyperallergic)

(images via Architecture in Fort Worth)

La entrada The Active Pool |A waterfall at the Fort Worth Water Gardens se publicó primero en More Than Green.

This project from 1983 pays tribute to the characteristics of life in Miami, between water and land. The work complements the environmental conditions in which it is located and achieves that the islands become the protagonists of the city during two weeks, attracting the attention of both locals and tourists who went to Miami to visit the controversial work. Moreover, the project entailed the collection of forty tons of garbage from the surroundings of the islands.

“In 1983, eleven of the islands situated in Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, were surrounded with 6.5 million square feet (603,870 square meters) of floating pink woven polypropylene fabric covering the surface of the water and extending out from each island into the bay. The fabric was sewn into 79 patterns to follow the contours of the 11 islands”.

Two years earlier, attorneys, biologists, ornithologists, mammal experts and marine engineers started to work on the project. Also as part of the preparation during that year, “the marine and land crews picked up debris from the eleven islands, putting refuse in bags and carting it away after they had removed some forty tons of varied garbage”.

“On May 4, 1983, out of a total work force of 430, the unfurling crew began to blossom the pink fabric. Surrounded Islands was tended day and night by 120 monitors in inflatable boats”. Three days later the installation was completed, covering the eleven islands.

“For two weeks, Surrounded Islands, spreading over 7 miles (11.3 kilometres), was seen, approached and enjoyed by the public, from the causeways, the land, the water and the air. The luminous pink colour of the shiny fabric was in harmony with the tropical vegetation of the uninhabited verdant islands, the light of the Miami sky and the colours of the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay”.

“Surrounded Islands was a work of art underlining the various elements and ways in which the people of Miami live, between land and water”.

“I had visited Miami earlier, and was very influenced by the flatness and horizontality of the landscape; also the way earth and water mix gently here”, said Christo more than three decades ago.

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La entrada Surrounded Islands |Christo and Jeanne-Claude se publicó primero en More Than Green.

“A deep railway cutting which sliced through the urban fabric has been converted into a pedestrian and bicycle corridor in a resource-saving collaborative process that also respects the memory of an industrial past”.

Since 1894, a railway line had enabled traffic between the cargo port and the central station in Helsinki, including an open ravine (1.5 kilometres long and 7 metres deep) that bisected the urban fabric. However, in 2008 this infrastructure became obsolete due to the transfer of the port, and the future of the cutting was called into question.

“Covering the man-made canyon to make an underground tunnel would restore continuity to the urban layout, but this option is expensive and will take time. Meanwhile, another plan which has been in the pipeline since 2003 took the form of a process involving residents, university students and a range of municipal departments. It was about temporarily converting the railway into a space for cyclists and pedestrians”.

The track, named “Baana” (“rail” in colloquial Finnish) after a popular competition, was open in 2012. The place was prepared for bicycle and pedestrian traffic through a very modest intervention, incorporating some landscaped areas and leisure facilities including a basketball court, petanque pitches and table tennis. To keep the essence of the original rail landscape, the dimensions of the space, as well as its main elements and materials, were respected. On the other hand, new side accesses would be opened to enhance the permeability of the corridor.

“The somewhat gloomy ruggedness of the cutting contrasts with the new sports and artistic installations in colours as bright as those of the goods containers that used to move along the track”.

“The already-existing wild plants have now been supplemented with flowering creepers, several varieties of tall grass, and different types of bushes with perennial foliage to give an individual touch to each section of the cutting”.

“The option of this austere, versatile and resistant project of recycling the railway track has been so enthusiastically received by very different kinds of users that the authorities are now considering widening the bicycle tracks and even introducing a network of similar Baana routes throughout the city. Fruit of a complex process of cooperative endeavour involving the administration, academics and residents, this example of temporary urban planning safeguards industrial memory, saves resources for the future, and also establishes a non-commercial shared space. Given the success of this exercise in balancing costs and benefits it would seem that the eventual project of covering of the cutting can wait”.

(via publicspace.org)

La entrada Baana | Reuse of an old railway pass | Helsinki se publicó primero en More Than Green.

An initiative taht has transformed several public spaces in Santiago de Chile. This tactical urbanism intervention is one of the many ways by which South American society reclaims the streets and transforms them into social platforms.

Pavement to Plaza is an activist initiative that has intervened in many public spaces in the world. The movement remarks the idea that a high percentage of the urban space is underutilised because of the fact that, amongst other reasons, the streets in many cities are excessively wide. They also highlight that in some urban areas the “streets and public rights-of-way make up 25% of the city’s land area; more space than all the public parks combined”. In this line, they employ several political and low-cost tools in order to transform roads into parks and streets into plazas. They have also negotiated with autorities in Santiago to implement parklets in the streets and carry out streets extention in many urban areas.

Along with this, their website provides the citizens with manuals to encourage social groups to develop this kind of interventions in an independent way. Amongst these manuals, citizens can learn how to build a parklet. They define themselves as a urban laboratory aimed to experiment with new ways of inhabiting the city.

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(photos via Okuplaza)

La entrada Pavement to Plaza | Chile se publicó primero en More Than Green.