Whether your home needs some curb appeal or you just want to level up your game, you’re going to need some inspiration, and landscape architect Sarita Jaccard has that in spades.

Born in Argentina, Jaccard got a degree in environmental studies from New York University while also studying graphic design, a potent combination of skills that led her to where she is today. She moved to Los Angeles and worked for LA landscape artist Art Luna in 2017, starting her own office two years later. Her time with Luna gave her experience transforming some of LA’s most beautiful high-end properties, including the West Adams home of artist Henry Taylor and the grounds of a Paul R. Williams house in Hollywood.

Jaccard’s projects reveal a keen eye for exactly the right plants and design elements to complement the exterior of a client’s home. Each one has a particular mood. “Edgecliffe,” for instance, has the feel of a modernized cottage garden, with café tables tucked among towering wildflowers adjacent to textural brick facades. “West Adams” accents a Spanish-style home with banana plants, spiraling agave rosettes, trumpet flowers, and striped hammocks. As a certified California native plant landscaper, Jaccard always incorporates appropriate species for the local climate, especially for friendly pollinators.

Other projects by Jaccard are every bit as mesmerizing. “Sunkist” celebrates the expansiveness of the Joshua Tree landscape. Squares of wooden decking interspersed with circular hot tubs and tables slices through the desert floor, accented by drought-resistant native plants. “Oneonta” translates similar motifs to a wholly different landscape, a forested plot occupied by a stark black modern cabin. Here, the hardscape elements contrast with an abundance of lush dark greenery in pleasing spikes and cascades.

Sometimes, Jaccard manages to convince the clients to alter the exterior of their home to suit their collective vision for the landscape design. That was the case with a recent project in Los Angeles, which started with “a lot of broken brick and half-dead grass.” The clients wanted a kid-friendly garden full of drought-tolerant plants that would enhance their view of the surrounding Mount Washington hills. Jaccard convinced them to paint their home black as a dramatic backdrop, then oriented everything from the entrance walkway to the furniture toward the view.

Swaths of small pebbles provide relatively soft yet xeriscape-friendly surfaces throughout the front and rear yards alongside redwood decks, custom-made furniture by Blue Pocket Studio, and pockets of native plants. But the best part is the sunken cedar hot tub, which creates the illusion of an infinity edge and reflects an adjacent oak tree.

Jaccard feels a strong connection to the natural world, and tells Issue Magazine, “I’m inspired by movies, animals, plants, my Argentinean roots, places and things that have a story behind them, perseverance through adversity, cultures outside of my own, and the people close to me.”

There’s lots more inspiration to be found on Jaccard’s website and Instagram @sarita.jaccard.

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BettePlaces is “bathroom architecture in another dimension,” imagining the company’s bathrooms as micro-houses and dramatic monuments within three different landscapes: the remote snowy cliffs of Mount Fuji, the otherworldly alien landscape of “Orbit,” and the white sands of Miami Beach.

Dream Bathroom Locales

Mount Fuji shows off the company’s angular Comodo and Ultra series within a minimalist wood-lined micro hut. Graphic black fixtures echo the hut’s charred “shou sugi ban” exterior and stand out against the pale interior cladding. “Natural materials such as spruce and white enamel create the basis for a warm, relaxed bathroom. In combination with dark smoked glass and soft cotton, the result is a natural fusion of colors and textures. Gentle purism that radiates pleasant tranquility and modern restraint.”

Orbit focuses on futuristic geometries contrasted against stony terrain for its BetteArt bath and BetteArt washbasins, which break down the components of standard bathroom fixtures to pure elegance. “In combination with the roughness of the surrounding scenery, the result is an exciting interplay between strong structure and soft lines that blends gently with shiny silver details,” the company explains. “Opposites have never attracted each other more stylishly.”

Miami takes a more cosmopolitan approach, and one flooded with light. Featuring BetteLux Oval as the central architectural highlight, this bathroom envisioned as a cabana on the beach aims to elicit thoughts of warm breezes and fresh salt air. The company explains that it’s “on the border between modernity and postmodernism,” using edges and circles in tandem with naturally flowing lines to create design elements that feel like “little islands of relaxation.”

Custom Showroom Spaces in Real Life

Bette has translated this idea to its real-life showroom, too. Created by design studio Atelier 522, he new BettePlaces at the company’s headquarters in Delbrück, Germany has created a series of built environments in which individual bathrooms are displayed, most strikingly a round rammed earth structure that looks like a sculptural work of art someone stumbled upon in the desert. Little wooden house-shaped rooms, brightly colored cubes, and tranquil bamboo-lined spaces reminiscent of Japanese spas allow you to imagine all the different ways you could decorate your own bathroom at home around Bette’s products.

“Made from a wide variety of materials, such as concrete, clay plaster, or Yakisugi-charred spruce wood, each bathroom possesses a very specific aesthetic and constructional situation, with Bette products as the highlight,” explains Atelier 522 CEO Philipp Beck. “Product design and architecture merge, showing in the finest detail how good design can draw everything together: from the spaces in which we live, and their individual architecture, to the center of the home – the bathroom.”

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With a goal of establishing a “platform for continuous development of photographic culture,” judges look for both striking images and new talent.

“Creativity and originality were very important in choosing a winning image, and it was terrific to see the excitement and joy of the photographers when they captured the moment,” says Hideko Kataoka, who spearheaded the judging for this year’s Open competition. “The photographs in this competition each make a coherent visual statement about a situation or particular circumstance in an elegant visual way.”

While the overall winners will be announced April 12th, the victors of the National Awards, a category that highlights regional photography, were announced in February, with entrants from over 61 countries.

One standout from the National Awards was “Bike with Flowers” by Thanh Nguyen Phuc from Vietnam, which features a woman cycling past a street mural where the flowers in her basket appear to whimsically float up and onto the wall behind her.

Wonyoung Choi from the Republic of Korea won for “A City Among the Clouds.” Set in the Bukhansan Mountain in Seoul, South Korea, Choi says, “Lots of people climb the mountain to view the sunrise, but it’s a rare sight to see the city covered in clouds as the sun rises. I’ve gone there many times and was lucky to finally see it. I feel gratitude towards Mother Nature for changing Seoul’s architecture from monotonous to colorful.”

In the portraiture category, Hungary’s Edina Csoboth won for her use of light and shadows across a woman’s face, framed with foliage for extra drama.

It’s important to note that finalists don’t necessarily have to present photos of their home region. Mazin Alhassan from Saudi Arabia won for his astrophotography landscape “Stars over Yellowstone,” which shows a glittering night sky reflected on the hottest geyser in the park. And Turkey’s winner Cigdem Ayyildiz captured “Le Mont Saint-Michel at Sunset,” calling it the “eighth wonder of the world.”

Filip Hrebenda, the winner from Slovakia, took an incredible shot of an erupting volcano in Fagradalsfiall, Iceland, complete with a spewing top in the distance and a glowing lava river in the foreground. Entitled “Born of Fire,” the scene could be something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien epic, giving viewers a glimpse into the forces that shape our world.

The Sony team also introduced a new prize this year: the Latin American National Award, which highlights the best work from Mexico, Central America, and South America. The top honor in this new category went to Bernardo del Cristo Hernandez Sierra of Colombia for his black and white motion shot of a diver fighting for perfect form mid-flight.

The National contest winners all receive Sony imaging equipment plus the honor of having their work displayed at the Sony World Photography Award exhibition at London’s Somerset House from April 13th to May 2nd, 2022. The overall winners will receive the title of “Open Photographer of the Year,” as well as a $5,000 prize.

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Sweden-based artist Alisa Lariushkina uses sculpting tools to fashion the intricate details on her re-creations of famous paintings, mostly those of Van Gogh and Monet. She also creates bright, inviting landscapes inspired by the world around her.

Describing her work, Lariushkina says, “I make figures and framed landscapes of clay. I developed my own style in 2015. I use various materials for sculpting: air-dry clay, paper clay, acrylic paints, crystals, and beads. …I can tell you that I came to [clay sculpting] quite spontaneously…Since then, I improved the technology, found the best materials, and made my products more durable and of better quality. I have made a lot of designs and still do new ones.”

With no formal training, the artist played around with the Japanese air-dry polymer material until she learned to bend the clay just right with her hands. The various pieces are then glued in place individually. One picture of an autumnal tree shows her work in process. She first paints the background and then typically works from the bottom up, filling in the scene with clay, placing larger chunks with her fingers, and using her tools to turn and twist the smallest ones into tight spaces.

One observer on Reddit commented on the dreamlike perfection of Lariushkina’s handiwork, explaining: “At first I thought this was AI generated. Then I realized it’s way too good.”

Air-dry clay, as the name suggests, hardens at room temperature, as opposed to more traditional art oven-bake clay. Lariushkina’s choice of medium means no kiln or excessive curing is necessary fo the substance to solidify into a permanent tactile shape.

The three-dimensional effect is playfully impressionistic. Her landscapes seem to come alive with layered curves of swaying green or gold grass and swirling blue skies. Wavy ripples are often texturally contrasted with a wash of tightly wound coils. Sometimes she shapes the clay into bulbous tufts to act as rocks or clouds in her layouts.

Her scenes depict everything from bucolic fields and seaside sunsets to marshlands and ocean floors. And while those landscapes are stunning, Lariushikina has also posted pictures of beautifully sculpted animal ornaments. In these, her clay spirals and loops fill the insides of polar bears, mice, butterflies, and delicate hummingbirds. The artist has even turned her curlicues into unique jewelry like tiny brooches and necklaces.

Alisa’s work is primarily available on her Etsy shop LiskaFlower, but she sells prints of her versions of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and “Cypresses,” as well as one of a summer field, on other platforms. She recently stated on her Etsy shop that she tries to update her offerings with at least one new landscape a month. Her style has been so popular lately that she stays busy making custom pieces year-round.

Fans can also follow her work on her Instagram page.

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Designed over the course of two years, the project is a reframing of agricultural landscape into what Roosegaard calls “agri-culture,” turning fields into living social artwork. Collaborating with scientists, Studio Roosegaard looked for answers to how cutting-edge light technologies could assist plants in growing more sustainably. The use of luminscence is already well established in greenhouses, and LED-lighted vertical gardens in urban spaces are also catching on, but artificial sunshine for outdoor crop development hasn’t yet taken root. The GROW venture experimented with “light recipes” to enhance rural plant growth.

Using a quiet leek field in the Dutch town of Lelystad for a test subject, Roosegaarde and his team installed red and blue solar-powered LEDs at specific angles to illuminate the plants at night. “We started to scan the plants with these wavelengths of light and then suddenly it started to dance,” he told Reuters. “You had these huge fields of fireflies …and the magic started kicking in. I think that’s when the worlds of science and art and design collide and enhance each other.”

The swaying pulses also provide the added perk of ultraviolet pest protection. “The project GROW is a fascinating project and supported by scientific research which shows specific light recipes can enhance growth and reduce pesticide use up to 50 percent,” says Professor and Doctor Jason Wargent, the Chief Science Officer at BioLumic and a leading expert on plant photobiology.

For Roosegaarde the project is a fantastic fusion of domains. “GROW is the dreamscape which shows the beauty of light and sustainability. Not as a utopia but as a protopia, improving step by step.”

Sponsored by Rabobank’s artist-in-residence program, GROW is “a call for enlightenment” in these coronavirus-darked times. “It is really inspiring to work with an artist like Daan Roosegaarde on how to grow a better world together,” says Wiebe Draijer, Rabobank’s Chairman of the Managing Board.

The art of the undertaking was especially gratifying for Roosegaard. “You know the 16th, 17th-century painters, the master painters, they were obsessed with the Dutch sky, the clouds and the light,” he said at his Rotterdam studio. “They made thousands of paintings, mastering the technology to paint it. I feel I’m part of that tradition. They painted on canvas and I have my 20,000 square meters of crop, of leek.”

The designer studied Fine Arts at Rotterdam’s Berlage Institute and founded Studio Roosegaarde in 2007. The firm has since become known for their synthesis of design and innovative technology, inventing what they call “the landscapes of the future.”

Due to restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic, the GROW exhibit is currently available to the public only as a video on the studio website. However, once conditions are more amenable to crowds, the studio plans to recreate GROW in a massive 40-country tour. Each installation will spotlight a local crop with its own tailored dancing light recipe.

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Architecture firm Frankie Pappas envisioned the home as a way to marry the cliffs and the forest of the picturesque site, located in a nature reserve in the Waterberg Mountains of South Africa. In this way, it’s both literally and metaphorically a bridge, and it’s designed to offer shelter not just to its human inhabitants, but also to the local plants and animals.

The architects wanted to slot the home carefully into the building site with minimal disturbance. Most architectural projects with this goal choose to go with lightweight materials and post-style foundations, resulting in both a contemporary appearance and a sense that the building isn’t permanent. Brick, in contrast, has a weightiness and solidity that creates the opposite effect. It feels strongly rooted to the site, and almost impossible to extricate.

As you can see more clearly in architectural drawings, the unusual asymmetrical layout of the home, with its arm-like appendages, is completely informed by the landscape. Not a single tree was removed to accommodate it, resulting in what the architects call “funky bulges and protrusions in the plan of the building.” If the home stood alone in a field, with nothing to obscure it, its shape would look very odd, but here, it just enhances the sense that it contains secrets waiting to be uncovered.

“The shapes of the additions to the central building are dictated by the position and size of the surrounding trees,” they say. “The building makes use of a very simple set of materials which all play their part in making the building part of its landscape. The most abundant material is a rough stock brick which was selected to match the site’s weathered sandstone. The ‘bridge’ portions of the building are constructed from sustainably-grown timbers, whilst glass and aluminum fill in the non-structural wall.”

“The first floor offers to its inhabitants a planted courtyard, a reclusive lounge, a sunlit dining room, a farmhouse kitchen and scullery, a tree-shaded deck, a small pool, and a fireplace — around which most of the cooking and living occurs. The ground floor provide yet more courtyards, a study, library, and a small swing bench under the arch. The cellar creates a climate conducive to curing meats, storing food supplies, and aging wines.”

Refreshingly unique in a time when a lot of architecture looks alike, “House of the Big Arch” illustrates Frankie Pappas’ belief that architecture, landscape, and garden should function as one, incapable of being divided.

And if you’re wondering who Frankie Pappas is, exactly, that question has a similar answer, because there’s actually no one architect with that name. It’s a fictional persona and collective pseudonym chosen by architects who work in collaboration with coders, engineers, artists, and mathematicians to come up with “remarkable solutions to fascinating problems.”

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A native of Montreal, Laramée chooses outdated encyclopedias and obsolete dictionaries as his artistic media. Using a unique combination of carving, sandblasting and hand-coloring, he transforms their pages into realistic topographical scenes, some inspired by real places and others the result of pure imagination. He doesn’t necessarily plan them in advance, either, instead waiting for inspiration to strike and working intuitively to “uncover” the landscapes contained within.

Laramée’s concept for the “Bookwork” series is based on the idea of cultural erosion, which manifests itself physically as the layers of rock and sediment we see in each piece. The artist says he’s fascinated by the way cultures emerge, become obsolete, and are replaced by new ones, with entire histories displaced and destroyed. Noting that we’re constantly told that paper books and libraries will soon suffer the same fate, he questions whether new technologies will really change humanity for the better.

He adds: “When I was younger, I was very upset with the ideologies of progress. I wanted to destroy them by showing that we are still primitives. I had the profound intuition that as a species, we had not evolved that much. Now I see that our belief in progress stems from our fascination with the content of consciousness. Despite appearances, our current obsession for changing the forms in which we access culture is but a manifestation of this fascination. My work, in 3D as well as in painting, originates from the very idea that ultimate knowledge could very well be an erosion instead of an accumulation. The title of one of my pieces is ‘All Ideas Look Alike.’ Contemporary art seems to have forgotten that there is an exterior to the intellect. I want to examine thinking, not only ‘what’ we think, but ‘that’ we think.”

“So I carve landscapes out of books, and I paint romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are. After 30 years of practice, the only thing I still wish my art to do is this: to project us into this thick ‘cloud of unknowing.’”

With more than 30 years of artistic practice under his belt, Laramée has many works in his interdisciplinary portfolio, including theater writing and directing, music composition, musical instrument design and crafting, scenography, painting, literature, and more. At the same time, he has deeply studied anthropology, with fieldwork covering “ethno-musicography of the Fetish ritual in Togo” and “oracular imagination among healers in the Peruvian Amazon.” Ultimately, all of these threads come together to influence each one of his unique artworks.

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The biennial prize will bestow $100,000 USD (the same amount offered for the Pritzker) and two years of related public engagement activities on “a living practitioner, collaborative, or team for their creative, courageous, and visionary work in the field of landscape architecture.”

Underwritten by a lead gift of $1 million USD from TCLF board co-chair Joan Sharon and her husband Rob Haimes, which was matched by the rest of the board and other donors, the fund has been endowed with $4.5M to keep it running “in perpetuity.” The first award will be given in 2021, and any landscape architects, artists, urban designers, and planners with a serious portfolio of landscape-architectural projects are eligible.

“Landscape architecture is one of the most complex and, arguably, the least understood art forms,” says Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF founder, President, and CEO. “It challenges practitioners to be design innovators often while spanning the arts and sciences in addressing many of the most pressing social, environmental, and cultural issues in contemporary society.”

He’s not kidding, either. While architects rightfully get a lot of credit for their proposals and designs, landscape architects contribute critical elements to many projects, helping to integrate buildings into their surroundings. And, of course, landscape architecture can even stand on its own, augmenting adjacent structures without necessarily relying on them to anchor the space.

Historical examples of excellence in landscape architecture include French Baroque gardens like the Vaux le Vicomte in Maincy, France by André Le Nôtre and New York City’s Central Park by Fredrick Law Olmstead. More contemporary examples include the High Line in New York City and the sculptural Tonga Park and Ken Genser Square in Santa Monica, California, both by James Corner Field Operations.

Environmentally sensitive sites can be especially challenging, like Chicago’s community-driven “Wild Mile” partially designed by Urban Rivers and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, or the transformation of a 17,000-acre Superfund site into the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge by Design Workshop Inc.

According to TCLF, “the honoree will be chosen in a multi-layered process, including a year-long nomination period followed with selection by a five-person jury comprised of internationally prominent landscape architects, artists, educators, designers, and others. The Prize will be administered by TCLF and overseen by an independent curator. The jury members and curator will be announced in the coming months.”

To test their criteria, the foundation also participated in an exercise to identify possible recipients of the prize if it had been created 50 years ago, and their list included notable designers from all over the world, including modernist Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx, innovator Lawrence Halprin, who’s known for creating an influential design process, and Dan Kiley, who designed the St. Louis Arch and Miller Garden along with Eero Saarinen.

Learn more about landscape architecture and why it’s important at the TCLF website.

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The first solution featured in the exhibit dealt with Lower Manhattan. Landscape architecture firm DLANDstudio proposed an idea called “A New Urban Ground,” which combined nature and infrastructure. The firm proposed the building up of wetlands just off the coastline, and on the coastline itself, it suggested berms to protect the city from rising sea levels and storm surges caused by an increasing number of hurricanes. For the streets, they proposed a network of green spaces that would absorb excess water. Architecture Research Office collaborated with DLANDstudio on this tripartite solution, which considered both the behavior of water and the fact that a single line of protection would not suffice.

Though entirely theoretical, “A New Urban Ground” showed what could be done for Lower Manhattan and created a new set of expectations that other designers could build upon — something that the Bjarke Ingels Group is currently in the process of doing. In 2014, BIG won a Department Of Housing And Urban Development competition that was initiated in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The objective of the competition was to protect the coastal areas around the New York metropolitan area from future storm surges.

The project, called “The Big U,” will take the form of a 10-mile system of parks, berms, and infrastructure around Lower Manhattan. Forming a big letter “u,” the 247-acre system will stretch from East 40^th Street, around the southern tip of the island, and up to West 54^th Street. Built in collaboration with several firms from the fields of landscape architecture, engineering, and environmental planning, “The BIG U” will be an area that New Yorkers can enjoy like any other part of the city. On purpose, it will not be a “no-go” area, but an attractive space. It will be integrated into the city but still feel like a separate world where people can uniquely experience New York.

It is astonishing how one film, and one image within that film, can truly move oceans. The “Rising Currents” exhibit and “The BIG U” demonstrate how imperative landscape architecture is to the resiliency of cities challenged by the effects of climate change. Collaboration with other fields is necessary, but landscape architecture must be at the forefront.

If you never visited “Rising Currents” and would like the read more about it, you can do so on the MoMA/MoMA PSI blog. To follow the progress of “The BIG U,” click here.

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Over 133 acres of land directly around the most internationally recognizable landmark in Paris will soon get a makeover, transforming the visitor experience just in time for the city to host the 2024 Olympic Games. British firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman has been selected to transform the landscape around the Eiffel Tower in a scheme called OnE | (One Line), which aims to create both the largest public garden in Paris and a sense of continuity with other local monuments.

30 million people visit the Eiffel Tower each and every year, but things like impaired accessibility, a lack of services, congested gardens, and overcrowding make the experience decidedly less magical than it could be. The City of Paris set out to eliminate these problems with the Site Tour Eiffel Competition, launched in 2018.

Gustafson Porter + Bowman beat out entries from Carlo Ratti Associati, Amanda Levete, Agence Ter, and other notable names in landscape design with their vision for a green corridor stretching from the Palais de Chaillot at the Place du Trocadéro to the École Militaire at the Place Joffre, bringing structured paths, vegetation, and pools to this major tourist artery.

The new design also straddles the river Seine, ushering visitors through an array of traditional French gardens, places for hosting temporary events like musical performances, and sculptural exhibitions.

The architects explain: “Along this central green axis, a series of reimagined landscapes interlock: at the Place du Trocadéro, an amphitheater of greenery restores space to pedestrians; a new and enlivened public space unfolds from the Varsovie Fountains towards the Pond d’léna; the bridge is reincarnated as a green promenade towards the gardens of the Eiffel Tower; the forecourt of the Eiffel Tower caters to the crowds with additional services and facilities discreetly hidden amongst the trees; and the raised lawns of the Champ de Mars protect and elevate the landscape.”

“OnE also creates spaces of pleasure and contemplation that punctuate the length of the site and serve to prioritize the human scale. New perspectives are framed and staged, rebalancing the gravitational pull of the Eiffel Tower and activating a sense of arrival throughout. The OnE proposal establishes a coherent and refined hierarchy of uses across the site, improving pedestrian accessibility and city circulation.”

The designers hope to unite the elegance and baroque detail of traditional French landscapes with experimental modern sensibilities. Terraced seating, playgrounds, bicycle paths, restaurants, information kiosks, and modernization of the area’s heritage lighting are also included in the plans. The pedestrianization of the bridge is a particularly nice touch, with lanes kept open for both public transportation and emergency vehicles.

After the loss of much of the Notre Dame Cathedral to fire, it may hearten admirers of the Eiffel Tower to hear that the iconic landmark will stay untouched itself, remaining exactly as it always has other than the land around its base.

The greening of the Eiffel Tower corridor represents just one facet of Paris’ plan to host the most sustainable Olympic Games in history. This first phase of redevelopment is set to be completed by 2023.

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At first glance, you might not even see them, as the new buildings are almost perfectly camouflaged into their environment. Named “Maraya,” which means “reflection” or “mirror” in Arabic, the reflective cultural center celebrates this UNESCO World Heritage Site by ensuring that the natural setting will never be overshadowed by new construction.

Designed by Gió Forma Studio Associato, an architecture firm based in Milan, Maraya combines architecture and land art in its immersive theater, interactive exhibition space, and kinetic art by Leva-Todo. It’s located 22 kilometers (about 13.6 miles) from the popular cultural sites of Al’Ula, a 2,000-year-old ghost town made of stone and mud that draws in many thousands of tourists per year. Unfortunately, Al’Ula is steadily succumbing to the ravages of time, and the old city may not last much longer.

Maraya offers a new destination for the region, wrapped in a mirrored facade and looking very much like a mirage as you first approach. The concert hall makes use of both modern and vernacular materials, with a rustic stone torch-lined path leading to the main entrance. All around the reflective venue, similarly mirrored pillars rise from the desert sand.

“The ‘maraya,’ a giant mirror cube, is a site specific ‘object-architecture,’ an experience that makes us reflect on the incomparable spectacle of the geological epic, the radial abstraction of the surroundings and the singular incursions of man into the landscape,” say the architects. “The mirror cube will highlight the surroundings instead of competing with nature. Unique in its genre, this landscape itself becomes an exhibition space.”

“The ‘maraya’ is inaugurated with the ‘Winter at Tantora,’ a unique show that features big names of international culture on a performing stage carved into the sand and inserted in a video art installation of the Bonsaininja studio showing the visual bond between heritage and future, processing the cultural sites of Al-Ula through 3D and cinematic techniques to highlight and enhance the richness and magic of this scenic unique area.”

From some angles, the new concert hall almost disappears altogether, leaving plenty of visual and physical space for the setting it aims to honor. From others, it glimmers just enough to be intriguing. The creators say the new structure “respects, reflects, and reveals” the beauty of the destination.

The result is nothing short of magical, and a beautiful example of how modern development can enhance existing natural or historical sites instead of replacing them, damaging them, or rendering them unrecognizable.

All photos by Dhafer Alshehri

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Ever since Scotland’s first design museum, the Kengo Kuma-designed V&A Dundee, opened its doors in September 2018, it’s served as a prime example of landscape inspired architecture done right. To achieve this feat, a work of architecture must do three things: draw from the surrounding culture, become part of the physical landscape, and stand out while seamlessly blending in.

Taking design inspiration from a landscape requires a certain understanding of the area around it. In the case of V&A Dundee, the architects chose to celebrate the rocky cliffs on Northern Scotland’s Orkney Island. There, the rock randomly meets the water’s edge as the waves crash against it, causing the stratification that gives the cliff faces such orderly horizontal textures. In a similar fashion, the southern part of V&A Dundee rises and stretches out above the water, breaking the flat plane between land and sea with a jagged edge of its own.

When a building is made to look like a part of its surrounding landscape or draws inspiration from locations of topographical importance, it also has to do a good job of fitting the context. One cannot look at the forms of V&A Dundee, for instance, and not think that they resemble a ship. It looks like it’s supposed to be there — not like a foreign object that has descended from space. Even the texture of the concrete blends in with the color of the water, depending on the quality of the sunlight and the ripple of the waves on the River Tay. Yes, V&A Dundee looks like it has existed for decades, even though it’s less than a year old.

Finally, good landscape-inspired buildings are seen without being seen. This is similar to being part of the landscape but goes even further in the way of not looking out of place. Even inside the main hall where the café and shop are, the narrow and short ribbon windows make V&A Dundee seem like the inside of a ship. This gives the visitor a more natural feeling than the regular fenestration found on the building’s second level, where the permanent Scottish Design Galleries are. Where one feels like a ship next to a river, the other feels like a building next to the river. And while we may have become used to both experiences, the former feels much more real and appropriate in this context. To top it all off, the modesty of the building’s exterior allows it to recede into the surroundings and at times become unnoticeable.

Think of all the waterfront projects that go out of their way to make a bold statement with nonsensical, disproportionate forms and flashy materials. But not V&A Dundee. No, this museum shows how even the humility of a landscape can be transformed into architecture, continuing the story of the land in the most natural way possible.

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Aitken notes that the single-level ranch house is an archetypal 20th century-design in the United States — one whose exceedingly simple shape made it the perfect blank canvas for the project. Developed in the 1920s and 30s, this style marries the modernism of Frank Lloyd Wright with the rugged, straightforward characteristics of traditional houses built throughout the American West. It’s become so ubiquitous that it almost lacks any personality of its own. Cover it in mirrors and it disappears altogether, greeting visitors with a surreal, dreamlike space that will never look exactly the same twice. It’s essentially defined by its surroundings, and by the perception of whoever enters it.

Set in a snowy field beside the vernacular houses of the Swiss Alps, the installation was designed to illustrate a contrast between the idea of manifest destiny in the American West and its presumptive settler colonialism with the staid traditions of Europe. In a way, the apparent “blankness” of the house is a mirage in itself, just as the West appeared unclaimed and ripe for the taking by European settlers in the 19th century despite centuries of habitation by Native Americans. Mirage Gstaad will remain in place and open to visitors through January 2021.

Aitken adds: “In the tradition of land-art as a reflection of the dreams and aspirations projected onto the American West, Mirage Gstaad presents a continually changing encounter in which subject and object, inside and outside are in constant flux. With every available surface clad in mirror, it both absorbs and reflects the landscape around it in such ways that the exterior will seemingly disappear just as the interior draws the viewer into a never-ending kaleidoscope of light and reflection.”

“As Mirage Gstaad pulls the landscape in and reflects it back out, this classic one-story suburban house becomes a framing device, a perceptual echo-chamber endlessly bouncing between the dream of nature as pure uninhabited state and the pursuit of its conquest. Situated against the backdrop of Videmanette in Gstaad, Mirage Gstaad will bring the idea of manifest destiny and the American West into contact with the European landscape and the tradition of the sublime.”

Aitken previously erected a similarly mirrored ranch house in an entirely different environment: urban Detroit. That site-specific installation, which opened in October 2018, is set within the main vault of the historic State Savings Bank, essentially “reactivating” a space that’s frozen in time. Because the old bank is devoid of natural light, lighting design played a significant role in the process, with carefully choreographed white light slowly moving through the interior to mimic the same gradual changes that are produced by the sun in the Gstaad installation.

The post Kaleidoscopic Mirror House in the Swiss Alps Creates an Ever-Changing Mirage first appeared on Dornob.

Built environments are what they are: created by and typically for humans, occupying everything from ancient city blocks to pristine remote beaches. In the latter case, you’re likely not going to fool any passersby into believing the land is still untouched, no matter what you do — but you can at least aim for a sense of harmony with the setting. For a stunning plot of land on the windy Greek island of Karpathos overlooking Afiarti Beach, OOAK Architects hoped to honor the landscape with a design that’s not quite natural, but almost feels like it could be.

“The sparse, untamed, and dramatic landscape was the starting point for the design,” they explain. “Every man-made alteration would be visible in this unique lot with its jagged, textured cliffs that descend into the grand Aegean Sea. The question became how to introduce a foreign object — a house — into this spectacular landscape, enhancing its qualities without altering its character.”

“Rather than trying to mimic the landscape, the house is gently placed on the site as an object, leaving the surrounding landscape as untouched as possible. Landscape and building are perceived as two distinct elements that together create a new entity — much in the way a perfect shell merges with a rock over time and gradually becomes part of the rock formation. Two contrasting objects, living in symbiosis, enhancing and complementing each other.”

“Patio House” makes use of two natural plateaus on the site, cantilevering the home out from the higher one and placing an outdoor lounge area down below, with steps leading all the way down to the sand. The rectilinear concrete volume juts out to greet the sea, enhancing views from inside to take full advantage of the spectacular location. From below, it almost seems to be floating, its outer facade looking almost like an empty envelope thanks to its indoor/outdoor voids creating courtyards open to the air and sun.

Whether the effect was intentional or not, this design choice almost reads like a modern version of Greek ruins, wherein only a few walls and pillars remain, the interiors having long since fallen. The home is also strikingly simple in its design and materials, with the entirety of its interior and exterior spaces focused on the natural beauty outside. Still, it has a quiet elegance that’s entirely its own. Made of exposed, cast in-situ reinforced concrete, the building is supported by trusses and features lots of windows, operable glazing, and signature Karpathian white paint.

For another example of a beautiful compromise between nature and the built environment, check out a Hampton Bay getaway that blends into its scenery with the help of a grassy green roof.

The post Floating Concrete: A Breezy Cantilevered Cliffside House in Greece first appeared on Dornob.

Observation points take on all sorts of forms: mirrored cabins that blend into their landscapes, treetop towers with incredible vistas, and floating platforms for the contemplation of watery scenes are just a few of them. But rarely do they lurk above the caldera of a volcano while mimicking the form of flowing lava like the stunning Nemrut Caldera Observation Route by architect Keremcan Kirilmaz and product designer Erdem Batirbek of Turkey. Created for the Bee Breeders Nemrut Volcano Eyes Architecture Competition, the concept taps into the site’s history as an ever-changing mountain shaped by unseen forces.
Addressing the competition brief to create a dynamic visitor observation platform on top of the dormant Nemrut Volcano in eastern Turkey, the winding overlook provides unobstructed views of the landscape as intended, but the symbolism within its form goes much deeper than that, both physically and metaphorically. It creates a bridge made of vivid red corten steel and perforated stairs between a ski station on the site and the lookout point itself.

“Now dormant and peaceful, Nemrut Volcano was once a giant boiling engine of destruction,” say the designers. “After many millennia of quakes, eruptions, tectonic crashes, and tears, this ancient inferno calmed down and became a colossal monument of nature, movement, and time, that now contains a small serene piece of eden inside. This means that Nemrut’s journey is not complete yet; its story is still being written, while it is being constantly sculpted by movements from within and below.”

“Nemrut Caldera Observation Route was designed as an embodiment of Nemrut Caldera’s continuous movement and ongoing journey. It is not a single platform with a single viewpoint, but it is an observation path that offers a journey with a variety of viewpoints. The visitor is not limited to a constant point on a single platform, [but] is an active observer who moves freely and is able to have unrestricted panoramic points of view.”

The Nemrut Caldera Observation Route won second prize in the competition. The jurors praised the design for its sinuous form in keeping with Nemrut’s history, noting that the detailed renderings were particularly effective in outlining the design and how it could potentially be constructed. The proposal’s one downfall, as far as they’re concerned, is the feasibility of physically supporting the platform.

But winning the top prize was beside the point, say Kirilmaz and Batirbek in a post-competition interview with Bee Breeders. The chance to design something out of the ordinary was a “refreshing exercise,” and a rewarding opportunity to face a challenge and develop creative new perspectives that directly addressed it.

The post Steel Lookout Point in Turkey Mimics the Flow of Lava first appeared on Dornob.