风景园林专业英语阅读

1 Zaryadye Park, Moscow

Project Information

Project Location：Russia Moscow, RussiaProject Classify：PlanningProject Scale：13haDesign Time：2013--Buildtime：--Client：Moscow City GovernmentChief Designer：Kongjian Yu

Project Profile

In June this year, the Turenscape Consortium was selected, as one of a shortlist of 6, to prepare a design proposal for Zaryadye Park, Moscow. Our scheme is titled ‘The Blue Circle of Moscow’, which has a reflecting pool in the shape of a perfect circle as its centerpiece, as a mirror to the Moscow skyline, managing urban stormwater, and around which a myriad of programs and landscapes will flourish.

The Blue Circle is envisioned as a new city icon, which links the past with the present and the future, which reconnects man with nature, which reunites the separated urban space, and which gathers individuals of all kinds.

Project concept

Rooted in the genius loci of Moscow and the site, the Zaryadye Park is designed as an urban ecosystem that provides multiple eco-services to the city and people. By overlaying the richness of site's historical layers, the Park becomes a living puzzle that locks together the city’s memory, culture, ecology and people, which reveals the memory of the past and makes a prophecy for the future. Zaryadye Park is a

contemporary landscape with a new aesthetic based on environmental ethics: it offers high performance and requires low maintenance; it repairs the broken connections between man and nature. Its main feature - the Blue Circle is the perfect counterpoint to the Red Square.

Challenges of the site that the proposal needs to deal with are

1. Urban Ecology: storm water and snow melts from surrounding

2. National Identity: an icon with representative, authentic, natural and cultural landscape

3. Harsh Climate: cold winter and hot summer

4. Recreation and Tourism: provides intimate spaces and also for activities in a crowd setting

5. Heritage and history: existing buildings as open-air museum

6. Site Connectivity: linking Red Square, waterfront, and context

Project Strategies

In order to deal with the challenges we adopted a design strategy, which provides 1. A functional ecosystem that cleans and filtrates city’s storm water and snow melt and support native biodiversity

2. A new icon of Moscow that represents an authentic natural and cultural landscape

3. An oasis that regulates the harsh climate and urban environment and acts as a retreat to provide an intimate experience of nature

4. A place that gathers people and stages different activities in all seasons and weather

5. A public 'balcony' and open museum for the city which catches the best views of Moscow's heritage skyline

6. A uniting space that connects the surrounding urban fabric and the waterfront

Project Description

Zaryadye Park - the Blue Circle of Moscow - is an integration of 4 layers. Firstly, it is a system of Designed Natures. It is composed of 5 major landscape elements that represent Russian

vernacular landscapes - them being, the monastery gardens, meadow, constructed wetland, reflection pond and birch forest.

Secondly, the scheme brings to the fore the footprints remnants on the site. The design visualizes the imprints of the historical buildings and streetscape that lies underneath, and transforms these imprints into a functional wetland and ground pattern.

Thirdly, there are the Winter gardens. Service facilities including café, restaurant, and temporary exhibitions are contained in glass houses.

Lastly, there is the Boardwalk and Skywalk system that are detached from the ground and that integrate seating with platforms and environmental interpretation system for people to experience the designed natures.

2 Quzhou Luming Park

Project Profile

1. Project Statement:

On a site surrounded by dense new urban development, the landscape architect created a dynamic urban park by incorporating the agricultural strategy of crop rotation and a low maintenance meadow. An elevated floating network of pedestrian paths, platforms

and pavilions create a visual frame for this cultivated swath and the natural features of the terrain and water. Using these strategies, a deserted mismanaged landscape was dramatically transformed into a productive and beautiful setting for urban living, while preserving the natural and cultural patterns and processes of the site.

2. Project Narratives

Challenges and Objectives：

The project is located on the west bank of the Shiliang River, in the West New District of Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province, with a population of 2.5 million. The city, boasting a history of over 1,800 years, is known to the world because of its strategic location on the east coast of China. During the World War II, the US Air Force used the small airport at Quzhou as a base for the Doolittle Raid (the Tokyo Raid), on 18 April, 1942. With a total area of 32 hectares, the site is surrounded by intensive urban development, bounded by the river on the west and an urban thoroughfare at the east. It is a remnant patchwork landscape made up of rolling hills covered with a mosaic of exposed red sandstone; vegetated areas of bushes and grasses; small swathes of abandoned farm fields; a riparian flood plain along the river basin; and a linear grove of trees bordering the river. Scattered in this landscape were small village trails paved with river stones, an old resting pavilion, an irrigation ditch leading to a pump house that pulled water from the river. There is an elevation drop of 20 meters from the urban roadway to the riparian flood plain and a sandstone cliff at the water front. The conventional approach in developing a large new urban district in China is to level the site–the method used in the surrounding landscape for urban areas and parks. Simply because this rugged landscape mosaic is not considered valuable or aesthetically pleasing and the cultural landscape elements are deemed insignificant, the common practice of leveling the ground simplifies the mechanical and engineering processes and facilitates the installation of infrastructure such as roads, water supply and storm water drainage. The client’s simple request was that the park should be a multifunctional green space that provides recreational opportunities for the citizens. The landscape architect took

this opportunity to explore innovative concepts to realize the potential for an urban park that is not only a recreational green space, but also serves as ecological infrastructure that provides holistic ecosystems benefits. The design goals also included addressing big picture issues such as climate change, food and energy security, water resilience, and a new landscape aesthetic of productivity and low maintenance. Ideas such as “befriending the flood”, agricultural urbanism and productive landscape, minimum intervention, performative landscape, etc. are integrated into a landscape transformation strategy: “quilting the terrain”.

3. Design Strategy: Quilting the terrain

The transformative strategy of quilting the terrain is executed by the following four strategies:

(1) Preservation of the landscape’s assets

The mosaic landscape pattern and its natural processes are kept basically unchanged: the rock outcroppings and cliffs, the brush and grass cover, the natural drainage system and the fluctuation of river water, the agricultural fields, and the trees lining the river bank are kept intact. The cultural landscape elements including the village trails with the old pavilion and the irrigation ditch with the pump house are treated as cultural heritage elements of the site to be maintained and repaired to preserve the site’s history. These significant natural and cultural landscape features compose a canvas laced with meaning and rich textures, onto which the landscape architect weaved in layers of contextually appropriate design.

(2) “Quilting” productive vegetation into the terrain: While the existing habitats were preserved, productive crops were introduced to cover the abandoned fields. The crops rotate annually according to the season: canola flowers in the spring, sunflowers in the summer and fall, and buckwheat in early winter. Meadows planted with a mixture of flower species also rotate with other productive crops in some areas. Patches of low maintenance perennial chrysanthemum flowers, which can be harvested for Chinese herbal medicine, are grown to enrich the landscape spectrum. Two areas of grassy lawns

are designated for camping, athletic fields, kid’s recreation, etc. The diverse pallet of vegetation creates an overall productive and/or low maintenance canvas that encourages dynamic year-round events and celebrations and provides day-to-day use of the park.

（3）Adapting the water processes and water resilience: The pre-existing drainage system on the site was preserved, and additional bio-swales were added to fields and sloped areas to capture and filter stormwater (which can be used for irrigation when needed). Permeable materials were used on all paved surfaces. Concrete embankments were removed so that the river and wetlands were free to fluctuate naturally. A boardwalk was designed to “float” above the river creating an access route that allows visitors to appreciate the red stone cliffs, which would otherwise go unnoticed. The pavilions were built to be flood-friendly.

（4）Framing the terrain and water with a network of paths and structures: Boardwalks, bridges, platforms, pavilions and a viewing tower form a circulation network that provides visitors with a rich set of interactions with the mosaic landscape. The pavilion structures are inspired by the simple shelters dotted in the vernacular landscape that provide lunch and resting space for working farmers in the fields in this subtropical climate. This network, while detached from the “canvas” of the landscape mosaic below it, effectively transforms the produ ctive and “messy” nature by visually framing it into

a pleasing array of interactive experiences.

(5) An environmental interpretation system was designed to tell the natural and cultural stories of the site and to raise overall environmental awareness.

4. Conclusion

The park has been very successful as a place for local residents to relax and recreate. It has become a dynamic urban oasis with celebrations and many kinds of events–like the spontaneous gatherings spawned by social media for locals who follow the seasonal blooming of flowers. These events encourage residents to be aware of the changes of seasons that are often obscured by the hustle of urban life. This connection to nature

can refresh the memories of a once rural population (80% of the urban residents, as with the general Chinese urban population, were farmers two or three decades ago). On a fine day, one can be easily moved by scenes throughout the park: kids of various ages jumping and yelling in excitement in one of the pavilions floating above the lush vegetation, young people hugging and falling in love in a fields of flowers, newlyweds having their wedding photographs taken with the productive farmland in the background, couples caring for their babies in strollers above the boardwalk, and elderly couples walking arm-in-arm and resting on the platforms overlooking the new city. As the terrain slopes up from the river, the landscape is quilted with productive and fecund vegetation. Offering respite from the dense urban surroundings, these verdant tableaus are framed by an experiential network of boardwalks and structures that look out onto the memories of the past and hopes and dreams for the future.

3 The Mei Garden,Jinhua

Project Profile

1.Project statement

This project uses cut-and-fill strategy to create a constructed wetland that cleans eutrophic water and restores native habitats for biodiversity, adapts the hot and rainy

subtropical monsoon climate for everyday outdoor use, and creates a matrix of explorative spaces inspired by the poetic and picturesque nature of traditional gardening and flower appreciation.

2.Challenges and Objectives

In early 2010, the landscape architect was asked to design the Mei Flower Garden in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, particularly for the appreciation of the Mei Flower, also known as the Plum Blossom, arguably the most appreciated flower in Chinese culture. For over two thousand years, scholars have put in ink hundreds and thousands of poems and paintings appreciating this particular flower. It is a symbol of the moral characteristics highly valued by the Chinese scholars, such as modesty, righteousness，independence, solitude, courtesy, etc., largely because the Mei flowers bloom lonely in the earliest spring and have delicate colors, forms and fragrances. The Mei Flowers should not be displayed in plain sight but rather hidden away. Those seeking to appreciate the flowers must embark on explorations to find the hidden blossoms, or encounter them unexpectedly during an arduous journey. This kind of poetic and picturesque appreciation were designed in the Chinese classical gardens, where a scholar would be sitting in solitude in his courtyard or wandering among the artificial rockeries.

But how can a contemporary garden be designed to respect and echo such a rich traditional cultural heritage? The design must overcome the following challenges: The first challenge is spatial: how to design the space and setting so that the poetic and picturesque method of the Mei Flower appreciation can be achieved while accommodating hundreds of visitors at the same time, instead of a few scholars in a private garden?

The second challenge stems from the physiology of the Mei Flower: the Mei Flower has a very short blooming season, from early February to early March before leaves come out, and it loses its charm immediately after that. Furthermore, the Mei Flower is

small and quietly elegant in color, making it barely visible. How can the garden be attractive and visible in all seasons?

The third challenge comes from the site itself: It is a piece of deserted riparian plain claimed by the building of a hundred-year flood wall. It was narrow and swampy lowland piled with building debris, garbage, and urban runoff. The nearby river water was heavily contaminated (eutrophic). The Mei Flower is picky for its habitat and needs good drainage. While rich water resource is a blessing for an interesting garden, the heavily polluted water presents a major challenge.

The fourth Challenge is the local climate: Jinhua is dominated by the sub-tropical monsoon climate. It is wet and hot in the summer and has about 80 inches of annual precipitation. Outdoor recreational activities are not comfortable for the spring, summer and winter.

In addressing the above challenges, the design takes the following strategies:

3.Design Strategies

(1) Cut-and-fill to create a terraced valley: Making use of the existing terrain, a simple cut-and-fill technique is used to transform the landform and the garbage dump into a 20 foot deep urban oasis. The top terraces of the valley are covered with evergreen vegetation including pine and bamboo that become the backdrop for the Mei Flower groves on the middle terraces. At the bottom of the valley is a constructed wetland with boardwalks on both sides of the creek.

(2) Construct a wetland to clean the eutrophic water: To adapt to the monsoon climate, the constructed wetland at the bottom of the terraced valley is designed as a green sponge and bio-filter that retains and remediates the urban runoff and the polluted river water that is pumped from the nearby river in by a windmill. Four ecologically designed weirs are created to slow down the water flow running from the south to the north end where the cleansed water sinks into the lotus ponds. Each of the bio-filters are composed of multiple vegetation bends, and are integrated with east-west paths and walled boxes that exhibit samples of the Mei Flower.

(3) A matrix of boxes hiding the famous flowers: At the end of the creek and after the water is cleansed by the constructed wetland, the water runs through a matrix of nine boxes and front and rear clearings. The boxes are 4.5 meters (about 15 ft) high and 24X24 meters (about 79 ft) in size. 6 boxes are designed to exhibit Mei Flower of various cultivars; each box is floored with one of the local materials, including black or red tiles, black or red bricks, or white or red gravel. Three boxes in the middle row are water gardens filled with lotus, another poetic flower highly appreciated in Chinese tradition that symbolizes cleanliness and purity despite the dirty environment. It blooms in the summer and has magnificent foliage that is appreciated all through the seasons, and even in winter when its foliage is withered. The black walls are largely covered with Parthenocissus tricuspidata, an creeper plant that grows to cover surfaces and displays brilliant red and golden colors in the fall The individual boxes are interconnected through a network of corridors that are integrated with awnings, providing shade and protecting visitors from rain, creating a comfortable experience even during the sweating hot summer and sticky rainy days. The foliage covered walls are pierced with viewing windows that are inspired by the Chinese traditional garden walls to create a porous landscape.

In addition to the spaces created as such, a network of paths and an environmental interpretation system is designed that explains the ecology of water cleansing processes, the science of rehabilitation, and information about the Mei Flower.

As a result, and after 6 years, the Mei Garden has become a popular place for the residents to visit, whether it is to appreciate the Mei Flower, engage in daily exercise and recreation, or as an educational site to learn about water ecology, native habitats, and climate adaptation.