KEN SMITH KEN SMITH WORKSHOP PUBLIC SPACE
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I’m a landscape architect by training, an urbanist and artist by experience. Public spaces are central to my design practice. An essential part of any city’s infrastructure, they respond to the environmental need for resiliency; the social expectations of diversity; and the collective need for public gathering. My work is distinguished by my belief that all public spaces are essentially gardens. Not simply green spaces, gardens reflect what nature, respite, ecology and human intervention mean to us. Incorporating garden ideas into my projects --especially the toughest, most urban places--reveals unexpected elements of surprise and delight. Pushing beyond standard design solutions in search of original and inventive approaches results in an abstractness that speaks to people of all backgrounds with a specificity, tactility and granularity that is satisfying and real. Public spaces help us tell our collective stories – what we believe about ourselves, our lives, our societies. They take us out of the everyday and help us see new things – and see things anew.
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Ken Smith
KEN SMITH Brief Resume Ken Smith is one of the best-known of a generation of landscape architects equally at home in the worlds of environmentalism, urbanism and art. Trained in both design and the fine arts, he explores the relationship between art, contemporary culture, and environment. He is committed to creating landscapes, especially parks and other public spaces, as a way of improving the quality of urban life. Much of his work pushes beyond traditional landscape typologies—plaza, street, and garden— to create landscapes that draw on diverse cultural traditions and influences of the contemporary urban landscape. Smith’s approach is directed at projects exploring the symbolic content and expressive power of landscape as an art form. His practice, Ken Smith Workshop, was established in 1992 and is based in New York City. WORK Ken Smith Workshop Founder and Principal, 1992-Present Ken Smith Workshop West Founder and Principal, 2006-2013 Harvard University Graduate School of Design Design Critic Landscape Architecture, 1997-2003 and 2015-16 Martha Schwartz Ken Smith David Meyer, Inc. Partner, 1990-1992 Office of Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz Landscape Architect, 1986-1990 Iowa Conservation Commission Park Planner, 1979-1984 EDUCATION Harvard University Graduate School of Design Masters of Landscape Architecture, 1986 Iowa State University Bachelors of Science, Landscape Architecture, 1976 AFFILIATIONS The Architectural League of New York Board Member, 1998-Present American Society of Landscape Architects Elected ASLA Fellow, 2012
KEN SMITH Selected Awards Municipal Arts Society, MASterworks Award, Best New Infrastructure Project, Pier 35, 2019 WIRED Magazine 25 Masterpieces 2016, Croton Reservoir Filtration Plant American Society of Landscape Architects Landmark Award, Village of Yorkville Park, 2012 Rudy Bruner Silver Medalist Santa Fe Railyard Park, 2011 National Park Service Merit Award, Santa Fe Railyard Park, 2010 American Society of Landscape Architects National Merit Award, Ken Smith Monograph, 2010 NYC Public Design Commission Excellence in Design Award - Croton Reservoir, 2009 American Society of Landscape Architects National Honor Award, MoMA Roof Garden, 2009 American Society of Landscape Architects National Honor Award, Orange County Great Park, 2009 American Institute of Architects National Honor Award, Orange County Great Park, 2009 American Planning Association National Planning Award, Orange County Great Park, 2009 American Society of Landscape Architects National Honor Award, Orange County Great Park, 2008 New York City, American Institute of Architects Design Award, 55 Water Street, 2006 Municipal Arts Society MASterworks Award, 55 Water Street, 2006 American Society of Landscape Architects National Merit Award, Lever House, 2006 American Society of Landscape Architects National Merit Award, PS 19 Schoolyard, 2004 The Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices Award, 2004 Museum of Modern Art Permanent Collection, THINK DESIGN, 2002 Permenant Collection, Lamp, 2003
KEN SMITH Project Portfolio East River Waterfront Esplanade and Pier 15 1_ New York City, 2005-2011 Pier 35 and “Mussel Beach” 2_ New York City, 2009-2019 Meatpacking District 3_ New York City, 2011-2019 Croton Reservoir Water Filtration Plant 4_ New York City, 2006-ongoing Santa Fe Railyard Park 5_ Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2002-2008 “The Elevated Acre” - 55 Water Street 6_ New York City, 2002-2005 MoMA Roof 7_ New York City, 2002-2005 TFANA Arts Plaza 8_ New York City, 2010-2015 Torqued, Folded and Bent Topiaries 9_ New York City, 1999+ Glowing Topiary Garden 10_ New York City, 1997
1_EAST RIVER WATERFRONT ESPLANADE 2005-2011, NEW YORK CITY
PILOT PROJECT
PIER 15
PIER 35 / MUSSEL BEACH
I have been working on the public space design of two miles of the East River for eleven years. The site sits partially beneath the elevated highway and partially over water on marine platform structure and includes reconstruction of Piers 15 and 35. I have been working with a multi-disciplinary team and collaborating with SHoP Architects and ARUP. The open space program includes a continuous public esplanade for bicycles and pedestrians, improved connections to the adjoining neighborhoods, and needed open space amenities. Public features tucked under the elevated highway structure include restaurant pavilions, dog run, exercise platforms, swings, ball courts, skateboard area and seating areas.
“I have discovered larger projects are actually a set of smaller projects that often draw on design ideas I explored earlier in my career on a different scale.” The design was conceived as a kit-of-parts that gives the project an overall cohesiveness but allows for variation and adjustment in response to contextual conditions along its length. The project began with a master planning phase in 2005 and the project has been completed as a series of phases commencing with the “pilot project” and Pier 15 that were completed in 2010 and 2011, respectively
ESPLANADE PILOT PROJECT
ESPLANADE SOCIAL SEATING
ESPLANADE SOCIAL SEATING
2_PIER 35 and “MUSSEL BEACH” 2009-2019, NEW YORK CITY
PIER 35 and MUSSEL BEACH anchor the north end of the project. A portion of the historic Pier 35 had collapsed at the west end near the FDR Highway but the bulk of the pier was structurally sound with 400-pound live loads. Since Pier 35 was significantly shorter and narrower than Pier 15 the idea of a two level pier was explored but rejected. A different strategy was needed to make the public space seem spatially interesting and larger than it actually was, and the adjacency of a large Department of Sanitation facility suggested the need for a strong northern edge to buffer the pier from its neighbor.
“The folded forms create the illusion of greater space� I proposed the landscape solution of taking the larger scale of Pier 15 and squashing it like an accordion into the shorter space of Pier 35 resulting in a folded terrain both horizontally and vertically. Spatially this creates a varied subdivision of horizontally folded landscape lawns and dunes and vertically folded large-scale green topiary structure, all of which creates a greater sense of depth -- the illusion of a larger space. The vertical folded topiary screen rises to a height of 35 feet stretching 330 feet in length and creates an effective camouflage for the adjacent structure. I had created a series of smaller scale folded topiaries in the
STUDIES FOR THE FOLDED TOPIARY WALL
MUSSEL BEACH WITH INCOMING TIDE
FOLDED DUNES
FOLDED TOPIARY SCREEN, SOCIAQL SEATING AND “MUSSEL BEACH”
3_MEATPACKING DISTRICT 2011-2019, NEW YORK CITY
The Meatpacking District in New York City is a landmarked historic district in transition from a working district to a retail and tourist-oriented cultural district. The district opens up spatially with triangular spaces that result from the intersection of the local Village grid that sits in contrasts to the uniform Manhattan grid. These spaces are much loved by neighboring Greenwich Village and Chelsea residents for their gritty character and extensive cobblestone paving. The NYC Department of Transportation was initiating a “traffic diet” plan to reduce Ninth Avenue in this area by two traffic lanes and create new pedestrian plazas in conjunction with subgrade utility replacement that resulted in complete reconstruction of the street and sidewalks.
“Two traffic lanes were to be eliminated and I proposed an asymetrical distribution of the resulting space to the east sidewalk areas in order to create a broad pedestrian corridor linking the Chelsea Triangle and the Gansevoort Plaza ” My work involved designing the replacement of all cobblestone paving and curbs, design of new pedestrian plazas, planters and furnishings. The project involved working with numerous public agencies and neighborhood constituencies.
DIAGRAM OF PEDESTRIAN PLAZA AREAS
VIEW OF FOURTEENTH STREET AND CHELSEA TRIANGLE LOOKING NORTH
VIEW OF LINEAR PEDESTRIAN PLAZA WITH MOVABLE PLANTERS
VIEW OF GANSEVOORT TRIANGLE PEDESTRIAN PLAZA
4_CROTON RESERVOIR WATER FILTRATION PLANT 2006-ONGOING, THE BRONX, NEW YORK CITY
For over a decade I have been working on a large-scale and complex infrastructure landscape for New York City’s new drinking water filtration plant in the Bronx, in collaboration with Grimshaw Architects. The environmentally sensitive site in Van Cortland Park includes riparian woodlands and wet meadows. This project is an example of the contemporary trend of multi-use infrastructure with an emphasis on public use and sustainability. The program requirements called for high level security, storm water management, and a new golf driving range and clubhouse.
“The seeming contradiction of a water filtration plant and public golf driving range produced surprising possibilities� The 11-acre green roof of the plant is designed as a sculptural landscape that disguises the below-grade structure and functions as a golf driving range. A stormwater system collects runoff from the roof structure and provides phytoremediation in a series a treatment cells that ring the driving range, as well as reuse for site irrigation. Over 1.5 miles of bluestone and gabion security walls ring the site and are carefully integrated into the natural topography.
WALLS
DRIVING RANGE
NYC DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, FACILITY LANDSCAPE
PARKING LOT BIOSWALE
5_SANTA FE RAILYARD PARK 2002-2008, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
PARK SYSTEMS
This was a transformational project for me - my first working in an arid climate. It was also working in a historic place with a unique local culture. The design challenge was to bring the local culture, history and environment together in creating a new place as part of the redevelopment of the historic rail yards near the downtown core of the city. I collaborated with architect Fred Schwartz and artist Mary Miss working with the Trust for Public Land and the City of Santa Fe. The project took six years and I made 50 trips to Santa Fe to get to know the place and people.
“This park strives to address history, environment, and local culture together in a contemporary way� The park was conceived as a set of park-wide systems defining program, plantings, water harvesting and circulation, all integrated with design of park spaces and features. The alignment of historic rail lines and sidings provide the spatial structure of new pathways linking history with contemporary use. Water harvesting was a key generator of the landscape design including a replica railyard water tank for storage.
RAIL GARDENS
WATER HARVESTING SYSTEM “ACEQUIA NIŃA”
CIRCULAR RAMADA
WATER HARVESTING TANK AND ICONIC PLACEMAKING
6_ “THE ELEVATED ACRE”- 55 WATER STREET 2002-2005, NEW YORK CITY
Study model of topographic dunes with plank walkway assending the slope, (above) Study model of social seating, (below)
I collaborated with Rogers Marvel Architects on the redesign of this public space in the heart of the financial district. The site, which sits atop a parking structure 30 feet above the street, has commanding views over the New York Harbor, but a six foot high building bulkhead unfortunately blocked the views from within the plaza space. I was motivated by the idea of creating a tilted landform space planted with dunes as an abstraction of the region’s terminal moraine topography.
“Abstraction of nature has been a longstanding preoccupation of mine” By tilting up the ground plane six feet I was able to adjust the site visually to create a new horizon line. The design manipulates perspective as one walks up the slope through the series of landscape “dunes” At the entrance to the plaza the view beyond is obscured, but as one walks up the slope and through the dunes, the horizon gradually opens up to reveal the dramatic view of the East River, Harbor and Brooklyn Bridge. A sequence of social spaces support a variety of public needs and activities including quiet places to enjoy the view with comfortable seating, a large terraced space with open lawn for performances and events, summer movies, and plenty of spaces to eat lunch.
HARBOR CONTEXT
DUNES AND SOCIAL SEATING
AMPHITHEATER, LAWN AND BEACON
7_MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ROOF 2002-2005, NEW YORK CITY
PUBLIC VIEW FROM SURROUNDING BUILDINGS
I was commissioned to provide a decorative rooftop, which would ameliorate the barren view of the Museum’s Taniguchi wing from the neighboring buildings. The irony of camouflaging a branded building was an interesting proposition. The museum had a set of requirements that seemed very restrictive at first. There was to be almost no weight load, there could not be any irrigation and no maintenance, which ruled out living plant material, and finally there was only a modest budget. The liberating aspect of the restrictions was that it eliminated the possibility of doing anything conventional in terms of landscape.
“The irony of camouflaging a branded building was an interesting proposition” My design for the roof garden appropriated the visual vocabulary of military camouflage to create a garden that simultaneously disguises the roof while making it highly visible. The design also provides commentary on the nature of landscape with its manipulation of scale and use of natural and simulated materials. The material palette includes recycled rubber chips, crushed glass, crushed marble stone, artificial boulders and artificial boxwood shrubs.
1939 MoMA roof
BIRD’S EYE VIEWS
MATERIAL PALETTE
MATERIAL PALETTE
8_TFANA_THEATER FOR A NEW AUDIENCE 2013-2015, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY
STUDIES FOR BANQUETTE PLAZA SEATING
I worked for the City of New York on the redevelopment of the BAM Cultural Arts District for several years. As part of that project I developed preliminary designs for two new public plazas and streetscape areas. With the construction of the Theater For A New Audience designed by Hugh Hardy I was brought on to design the distinctive entry plaza in front of the new building. The building was designed as a theater-in-theround and had only a very minimal lobby so the plaza became an extension of public lobby and theater entry.
“This plaza functions as an outdoor lobby for the theater�
I conceived the plaza with curvilinear bands of paving to mimic the draping folds of a theater curtain because the new theater space did not have traditional proscenium nor curtain. Exposed aggregate concrete paving bands are separated with curvilinear lines of brushed stainless steel and continued into the theater lobby. I also designed sculptural seat rings based on night club banquettes to provide convivial social seating. The public banquette seats were a principal feature of the space and were custom designed and fabricated for the site.
BANQUETTE PLAZA SEATING AND PAVING WITH CURVILINEAR STAINLESS STEEL BANDS
BIRD’S EYE VIEW
THE PLAZA IS CONCEIVED AS AN EXTENSION OF THE THEATER LOBBY
Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, “Folded Topiary” 2000
9_TORQUED, FOLDED AND BENT TOPIARIES 1999-2019, VARIOUS SITES
When I opened my office in NYC I quickly realized there was too much competition for space at the urban ground plane and that creating landscapes in vertical space offered expressive potential. I was interested in the degraded art form of topiary and so in the late-1990s I began to propose a series of Torqued, Folded and Bent Topiaries, with contemporary form and material for growing vines on sculptural armatures. One of the first of these explorations was for opportunistic structures attached to old buildings. This proposal was to be made simply using chain link fencing, soil and english ivy. Other early explorations included Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle in 2000, and subsequently I proposed a series of streetscape topiaries at East 55th Street in 2003.
“I have long been interested in the degraded art form of topiary as a landscape typology ripe for contemporary reinvention” In 2010 for the East River Esplanade and Piers in New York City I proposed a large folded topiary for Pier 35. This is the largest folded topiary to date. The overall pier design is for a complete folded tectonic consisting of a folded topiary, folded terrain of dunes and lawns, and folded mussel beach habitat. The folded topiary, which is 36 feet high and 330 feet long is to be planted with a mix of English Ivy, Boston Ivy, Virginia Creeper, Trumpet Vine and Honeysuckle Vine in a kind of “survival of the fittest” planting approach.
Lola Bryant Community Garden, Brooklyn, 2005-2009
Lola Bryant Community Garden, Brooklyn, 2005-2009
BAM South Plaza Concept, 2007
10_GLOWING TOPIARY GARDEN 1997, NEW YORK CITY
This was my first realized public project in New York City. Since my practice was young at that time I was mostly getting small commissions, doing temporary installations, and teaching. I won this project as an invited competition for a two-month temporary installation at Liberty Plaza in the Financial District. The commission was ostensibly for holiday lighting but I transformed it into a more abstract site installation. I imagined the installation as a hydrid of a the French topiary garden at St. Cloud and and the Japanese Zen Garden Daisen-In.
“I try to imagine every project, even the most urban, as a garden� The installation was designed to bring color and light to dark winter nights with 17 large cone-shaped luminaries placed over the plaza’s existing and mundane pedestrian light poles. Installed in time for the 1997 winter solstice, the Glowing Topiary Garden lasted through the brief winter holiday season, bringing mystery and pleasure to the shortest days of the year. I collaborated with lighting designer Jim Conti on this project, whom I have worked with on a number of subsequent projects.
Project Credits 1_East River Waterfront Esplanade and Pier 15 Ken Smith has been working as part of a multi-disciplinary team with SHoP Architects, ARUP and the City of New York. 2_Pier 35 and “Mussel Beach” Ken Smith has been working as part of a multi-disciplinary team with SHoP Architects, ARUP and the City of New York. 3_Meatpacking District.Ken Smith collaborated with the Meatpacking Business Improvement District, Marvel Architects and URS/AECOM on a NYC Department of Transportation initiative to reduce traffic lanes and create new pedestrian plazas in conjunction with subgrade utility replacement and Ninth Avenue / Gansevoort Plaza reconstruction. 4_Croton Reservoir Water Filtration Plant Ken Smith is part of a multi-disciplinary design team with Grimshaw Architects, Rana Creek, Great Ecology, Sherwood Engineering, Stephen Kay Doug Smith Golf Course Design and the City of New York Design Excellence Program. 5_Santa Fe Railyard Park Ken Smith collaborated with architect Frederic Schwartz and artist Mary Miss on the redevelopment of derelict old railyard into a major new public park. The Trust for Public Land led and managed the project in conjunction with the City of Santa Fe. 6_”The Elevated Acre” - 55 Water Street Ken Smith collaborated with Rogers Marvel architects on this winning competition design sponsored by the Municipal Arts Society of New York City. . 7_MoMA Roof Ken Smith worked with the Museum of Modern Art. 8_The Theater For A New Audience Arts Plaza (TFANA) Ken Smith was project design lead for the Arts Plaza working for the City of New York. 9_Torqued, Folded and Bent Topiaries Various studies and projects exploring the idea of vertical green vine structures on tectonic forms. 10_Glowing Topiary Garden Ken Smith collaborated with lighting designer Jim Conti to create this eight-week installation sponsored by the Alliance for Downtown New York.
KEN SMITH KEN SMITH WORKSHOP 450 W 31ST STREET, FIFTH FLOOR NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10001 WWW.KENSMITHWORKSHOP.COM