The up-and-coming Dutch firm ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles), founded in 2001 by Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman, is a think tank of two–tackling the landscape architect’s role in the contemporary city. Based in Rotterdam, an ideal vantage for both research and innovative project-building, ZUS participates in projects micro and macro, ranging from clothing design to large-scale interventions in the landscape. And the team aims high: “Our spatial interventions contribute to a higher state of consciousness of the naked reality of our modern, urban culture and environment, although not always by accepting it as the only reality.” Their 2006 proposal, “Discoforum” is characteristic. Noticing that Rotterdam clubs are divided by race, ZUS created a design that would place one transparent wall in each club facing out onto a shared outdoor space. Such proposals and research are combined with the duo’s own commentary in this volume, making it invaluable for anyone curious about the next wave of architecture and urban planning.
The Landscape Approach (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
A familiarity with the work of Bernard Lassus, the leading French landscape architect, is essential for anyone seriously interested in contemporary landscape experience and design. Now, with this first collection of his writings to be translated into English, the contributions of Lassus can finally be fully appreciated by a wider audience.
Perhaps best known for the speculative base that sustains his work and thought, Lassus is an artist whose philosophical concerns precede and determine his design work. For him, attention to the interactive nature of the landscape underlies all projects. He approaches each site in pursuit of the particular opportunities and challenges it presents and is ever mindful of the way in which observers will experience the space. He does not allow experience to be relegated to by-product of design. Instead, as one of his close collaborators explained, for Lassus “form is not primary, it is induced from the articulation of intention.”
The essays in The Landscape Approach afford readers a look into some of Lassus’s most important projects—the Butterfly Bridge at Istres, the highway rest area at Nimes-Caissargues, the Park of Duisburg-Nord, the Garden of Returns for the Corderie Royale at Rochefort, and the Tuileries in Paris—and furnish provocative insight into Lassus’s unique bonding of theory and practice. As is the case with his garden designs, Bernard Lassus’s volume is a true experience. It is sure to become a classic in the field.
The Landscape Approach (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
Motionless Journey: From a Hermitage in the Himalayas
A sublime photographic record of Ricard’s yearlong retreat in the foothills of the Himalayas.
A photographer and Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard recently spent one year in retreat at the hermitage of Pema Osel near Kathmandu. Surrounded by spectacular scenery, nestled between lush valleys and the towering Himalayas, Ricard meditated daily, waiting for the light that illuminates the path to awakening.
Each day from his sublime viewpoint, he contemplated the different subtleties of light: at dawn, before dusk, and in the evening. At the rhythm of one image per week, he captured the magnificent landscapes that surrounded him. These photographs, taken from the hermitage’s terrace and nearby, reflect the elation of bearing witness to nature’s harmony. 80 color photographs.
