Landscape paradigms

Parc de la Villette

Paris, 1983. It is Tschumi who creates the masterpiece of layer poetics. The project was born following the international competition for the aménagement de l’Est de Paris, from which Tschumi will emerge as the winner. The park presents itself as a container of activities and functions related not only to entertainment, but also to education, thus affirming the concept of “ cultural park “.

The park de la Villette, also created in collaboration with Derrida, represents the programmatic manifesto of architectural deconstruction, which sees the architect and the philosopher lined up side by side to define the general rules and generating flows. You will no longer have a pure and crystallized form, but red points called Folies , which constitute a dissociated series of “generating cells ”, whose transformations cannot be circumscribed.

The system of lines is instead intended for circulation and identified through two straight and orthogonal axes, underlined by wavy canopies, which intersect and join the extreme access points to the park.

The system of surfaces, on the other hand, is formed from the resulting space due to the intersection of the different paths and consists of large extensions intended for lawns.

The Parc de la Villette turns out to be a reflection on time, on the past, the present, the future, and on their relationships.

Fig. 32 Facing page. Diagram of the project Fig. 30 Construction Layers and Elements

Fig. 31 Points as ‘Follies’

Parc aux angéliques

‘Process rather than Site Plan’ - MDP

The project of enhancing Bordeaux’s green open space was originally conceived as part of the Green Plan in 2001. At that time public plazas in the city centre were continuously being rebuilt and expanded. The general urban area, however, was still rather undefined and difficult to grasp in a spatial sense, as the historic city centre still had numerous vacant lots and there was a lack of connections between green open space areas and the plazas.

In 2005 Paris landscape architects Michel Desvigne Paysagiste were commissioned by the city of Bordeaux to develop a plan of how to improve and enlarge urban open space. The office then drafted guidelines and developed tools for a unified design concept, a Charte des Paysages, or landscape charter.

The method developed consisted of a series of case studies: The office analysed approximately one dozen projects and investigated each area according to its spatial unity, borders, typologies, levels, soils and open space structure. Trial plantings on site were undertaken as a result of this empirical approach in order to test the spatial, aesthetic, functional and ecological impacts.

These methods replaced traditional regulatory planning documents and led to numerous changes and adjustments in existing development plans.

Fig. 35 Facing page. Plan of the Project Fig. 33 Layers of Landscape - Spacial unity, borders, typologies, levels and soil

Fig. 34 The extention of the Green Filaments into a Riverfront Grand Park