How to Cook in Architecture: An Urban Layer Cake with an Intriguing Landscape Design

Article by Eleni Tsirintani 8 House and Landscape Design, by BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The architects have designed a neighborhood in horizontal layers, like a built cake, as they put it in their presentation.  The distinct layers diversify and intersect according to the program and the functional demands. The massive scale of the intervention questions the boundaries between building and urban planning. The diversity of spatial experiences, the combination of functions and the great importance given to sustainability are only few of the project’s merits. 8 House: A Gordian Knot in Copenhagen The project is located in the outer edge of the city in the area of Orestad, in Copenhagen. It is the largest private development ever undertaken in Denmark. The complex accom...Read More

Article By Tahio Avila We take a look at 5 Projects That Make Incredible Use of Water Let’s get lost in the projects that landscape architects are developing more and more every day. It’s clear we are in the sustainable era, where every design we make should be eco-friendly and sustainable. Searching for projects that include the element of water, I realized that every one of them had something in common: the concept of sustainability. Over the past several years, landscape architects have been using water as an accessible resource, using it as a way of getting renewable energy or just designing projects that will help the community collect it. The projects in this article will help us understand why water shouldn’t be a single-use item. Many interesting projects have being developed in co...Read More

Article by Luis Guísar The historical war site, the Bluff, by OMGEVING, in Ypres, Palingbeekstraat, Belgium. OMGEVING architects were in charge of the landscape design for one of the most important battle zones of World War I, the Ypres Salient in Belgium. The design was conceived subtly, in order to respect the site’s history and its present conditions. It was not OMGEVING’s intent to send visitors down into war trenches or inside a bomb crater. What really mattered to the design team was to improve access for visitors so that visitors can see what the unique landscape framework in which the fighting took place looked like. Thus, the design leaders decided that the project would pay tribute to the site’s history by its own subtlety. Historical War Site To Understand the Present, We Must U...Read More

Article by by Elisa A.M.Varetti 10 SketchUp tutorials that will suddenly turn you into a SketchUp pro. Have you always wanted to know how to use SketchUp but never tried to because you thought it was too difficult? Have you always wanted to learn SketchUp’s deep secrets and become a master in this software? If your answers are yes, you need to read this article and discover 10 unmissable tutorials that will teach you, step by step, how to improve your knowledge and make you become a SketchUp Master. Be sure to pay attention to all of them and use them to develop you skills in your spare time as each one of them has something different to offer in terms of practical information. 1. Let’s Start WATCH >>> Just the Basics 1. Import Reference Image – SketchUp Tutorials For Landsc...Read More

Article by Nick Shannon Tagus Linear Park, by Topiaris Landscape Architecture, in Póvoa de Santa Iria, Portugal. Water is the most important resource on earth, and everything we do as landscape architects has an impact on water in one way or another. It is a major part of why cities are located where they are, and the interface between land and water is a dynamic zone where development often occurs. Man has altered the shore condition through building on floodplains or under sea level, causing damage in the long term. Today, we need to make waterfronts more resilient through new development and design while encouraging public access through public space. The field of landscape architecture can become a leader in this movement, and a lot of projects are addressing these issues. Topiaris Lan...Read More

Article by Terka Acton Public space renewal in Celje’s Old City Centre, by Darja Matjašec, Sergej Hiti, and Klara Sulič of Ljubljanski urbanistični zavod, d.d. (LUZ), Ljubljana, Slovenia. Cities must adapt if they are to survive. Faced with a shrinking, aging population in its city center, the municipality of Celje resolved to redesign and revive Celje’s open public spaces. For the most recent stage of this work, they engaged Darja Matjašec, Sergej Hiti, and Klara Sulič of LUZ. As landscape architects working in Slovenia, LUZ’s designers are experienced in negotiating the delicate balance between honoring the past and creating spaces for the future. This is something of a Slovenian speciality, as LAN’s Erin Tharp showed in How Velenje Promenada brought light and sunshine back to the city. ...Read More

Article by Lidija Šuster Following on in our world series we have selected 10 awesome projects that perfectly represent landscape architecture in China today. It is known world-wide that China is a very active country in all areas of life (civil engineering, martial arts, all sorts of industry, etc.), but what stands out the most is the landscape architecture. As a part of a “Got Talent” series, like USA’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent, we are now introducing you to the top 10 outstanding projects from China. Let’s take a closer look at them, because they’re showing us what sustainability, functionality, creativity, and environmental care really means. 10 Awesome Projects From The China 10. Zhengzhou Vanke Central Plaza, by Locus Associates, Zhengzhou Creating high-quality public spa...Read More

Article by Carlos Cortés Hand drawing is not just essential in landscape architecture. It’s also fun! Here we have the complete beginners guide to improving your hand drawing. Do you feel amazed when looking at other people’s drawings or sketches? Do you think you don’t have what it takes to do your own hand drawings? Give a try —you might be surprised. Landscape architects use hand drawing to express ideas visually. It’s also a tool to analyze and explore the environment. If you are not sure on how to start or think you lack the ability, take a look at our guide. Here, we will show you some tips to start improving your hand drawing skills. Improving Your Hand Drawing First of All, Can You Draw? If you can talk, you can sing If you have fun, you can draw! Of course you can draw — you...Read More

Article by Erin Tharp LAN Writer of the Year 2015-16, Erin Tharp, takes a closer look at 7 Top Photoshop tutorials for digital rendering. One of our roles as landscape architects is to help our clients visualize the design that we are trying to sell to them. Plan view drawings usually aren’t enough to do that and oftentimes clients ask for renderings that will reveal what the project will look like once installed. One of the best tools we have at our disposal for this is Photoshop, but to use it we need to know some tricks to make our renderings actually look realistic. So here are seven Photoshop tutorials, ranging from super easy to slightly complicated, and all available on YouTube to help you perfect the art of photo rendering. Digital Rendering with Photoshop 1. Sketchup to Photoshop:...Read More

Article by Rosa di Gregorio Amstelveen Zonnehuis Care Home, by HOSPER, in Amstelveen, Netherlands. Sustainable development is becoming, in many places around the world, the way of re-thinking the city. To face issues like urban decay, brownfields and marginalization of some districts, instead of planning new buildings in non-urbanized areas. We see the implementation of the concepts of re-use, refurbishing and transformation of the current building heritage. An experience like this has happened in the Dutch city of Amstelveen, by the HOSPER studio. HOSPER is a multidisciplinary design bureau for landscape architecture and urban development. In this example we find the presence of an obsolete Care Home that has bestowed on the whole neighborhood the nickname of ‘elderly island’, leaving thi...Read More