Etats d'eau

Christophe Girot, Wasser(zu) stände Schnee, Eis, Hagel, Hochwasser, Nebel, Trockenheit -für die Stadt ist eines so katastrophal wie das andere. Die jahreszeitlich bedingten Metamorphosen des Wassers ängstigen und bezaubern den Städter zugleich.Christophe Girot, The Different States of Water Snow, ice, hale, floods, fog and drought put city-dwellers in a state. The metamorphoses of water during the different seasons are a source of both concern and delight for city-dwellers.La neige, la glace, la grêle, la crue, le brouillard ou la sécheresse mettent la ville dans tous ses états. Les métamorphoses de l'eau suivant les saisons inquiètent autant qu'elles enchantent le citadin.Christophe Girot, Estados del agua La nieve, el hielo, el granizo, la crecida, la niebla o la sequfa subrayan o llevan al paroxismo los diversos estados de la ciudad. Las metamorfosis del agua segun las estaciones inquietan al tiempo que encantan al habitante urbano.Girot Christophe. Etats d'eau. In: Les Annales de la recherche urbaine, N°61, 1993. Les saisons dans la ville. pp. 129-132

The Elegance of Topology: a Return to Site Design

Presented on March 5, 2014 at 6:00 p.m. in the Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium on the Georgia Tech campus.The Douglas C. Allen annual lecture on landscape architecture was established and endowed by alumni, faculty and friends in honor of Professor Douglas C. Allen (1947-2014) in appreciation for his long-time dedication to the College of Design (formerly the College of Architecture) as a teacher, colleague and leader. A Georgia native and landscape architecture graduate of the University of Georgia and Harvard Graduate School of Design, Allen joined the School of Architecture in 1977. Over his career, he introduced thousands of architecture students to the history and design of landscapes and cities and to the inextricable bond between architecture and urban design. In addition to his teaching, he was honored as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and served as Associate Dean and Interim Dean of the College of Design.Christophe Girot is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Department of Architecture of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His research address new topological methods in landscape design, new media in landscape analysis and perception, and the recent history and theory of landscape design. Emphasis is placed on the fields of action in contemporary large-scale urban landscape with a particular attention given to sustainable design. Girot practices landscape architecture in Zurich and has built projects in Berlin and Paris. His work has been published and exhibited in several countries including “Groundswell,” the first exhibition on Landscape Architecture at the MoMA in New York.Runtime: 73:02 minutesTopology is a term in landscape architecture which equates with the term tectonics in architecture. Broadly defined, it is about an intelligent and structured response to terrain. Topology encompasses the entire range of scales from the specific to the local and from the local to the regional, both in scope and in meaning. It is precisely the underlying logic of any physical design, to want to restitute a certain sense of continuity on the ground we tread upon. Topology delivers clear and simple solutions to very complex problems, by making the obvious physical choices pertaining to a site knowingly. One could say that it heralds a return to an elegant vision of the world, where landscape architecture can rise to the expectations of future city dwellers and their lot. This presentation will endeavor to show a set of concrete landscape projects and examples at a large scale where topology contributes actively to the recovery the spirit of place

Experimenting Proximity. The Urban Landscape Observatory

What are the best tools for assessing the quality of an urban space or landscape, in terms of social, physiological, aesthetic, and functional well-being? What features – spatial, material, or visual – can make some areas of a city welcoming, and perhaps even inspire a sense of belonging? And how do we define “landscape experience”? These are some of the questions behind Experimenting Proximity, an extensive compendium of the teaching and research experience conducted in EPFL (Construction and Conservation Laboratory) and ETHZ (Institute of Landscape Architecture) about visual representation. Authors present a new approach based upon video and experimental mapping, which deals with the notion of “physicality” and stands as the cornerstone for an improved correlation between built form, landscape and public space. All technical and theoretical aspects are developed in the book, as videos and maps can be examined in detail in the website www.experimentingproximity.ne

Informing Topology: Performative Landscapes with Rapid Mass Movement Simulation

Designing with natural processes such as erosion and sedimentation has been problematic for practitioners from the design fields. In general, they lack the design expertise and tools necessary to readily achieve equilibrium in morphological and hydrological systems. In the context of natural hazards and continuing deterioration of local soils (MONTGOMERY 2012), an informed response to this challenge is necessary in order for designers to take advantage of the advent autonomous earth moving equipment (JUD et al. 2017) to achieve sustainable landscapes. We propose a design workflow where simulations of natural systems are inherently linked to the digital modelling environments of the de-signer. By connecting geotechnical and hydrological simulation packages to innovative 3D modelling tools, an iterative design methodology between digital construction processes and natural processes becomes possible. This prepares the ground for an informed and scientific design and construction method in landscape architecture.ISSN:2367-4253ISSN:2511-624

Grounding landscape design in high-resolution laser-scanned topography

Topography in landscape design is understood as the foundation on which the dynamics of climate, soil, vegetation and human impact are negotiated. Surprisingly, topography plays a secondary role in the process of designing modern cities, despite being an ineluctable factor on large spatial and temporal scales of built environments. We argue that topographic representation and conceptualization in urban design has been neglected recently despite possibilities of high-resolution scanning techniques. The resulting shortfall of topographic inclusion in design methods limits the achievement of a coherent relationship between terrain, land cover, building and urban space deemed necessary to support evidence-based design methods. This text presents a design method that draws on topography to compose new landscape forms based on site-specific features. The method merges survey and digital modelling to achieve a selective manipulation of georeferenced point cloud models, which are used to represent the measured physical form of the environment. The topic of topography is discussed by first explaining shortcomings of topographic representation and its inclusion in design development, then by devising a design method that draws from point cloud models to handle the physical form of the environment, and finally by discussing the generative role of topography and the new design possibilities offered by this method.ISSN:1862-6033ISSN:2164-604

Robotic embankment: Free-form autonomous formation in terrain with HEAP

Automating earth-moving tasks has the potential to resolve labour-shortage, allow for unseen designs and foster sustainability through using on-site materials. In this interdisciplinary project involving robotics and landscape architecture, we combine our previous work on autonomous excavation of free-form shapes, dynamic landscape design and terrain modelling tools into a robotic landscape system. It tightly connects survey, design and fabrication to exchange information in real-time during fabrication. We purposely built a LiDAR survey drone for tight integration. The design environment contains terrain modelling tools to balance cut and fill volumes for material-neutral, on-site construction. Its parametric nature allows it to adapt the geometry to changing site conditions during fabrication. Our autonomous walking excavator is used to create these free-form shapes in natural granular material. We propose an excavation planner for free-form embankments that computes the next excavation location and subsequently the location where the excavated soil should be dumped. This robotic excavation system achieves the world’s first autonomous completion of free-form embankments with high accuracy. A 20 m long S-shaped and a two-faced embankment with a corner with roughly 0.03–0.05 m average error were created