Urban Meadow BKYLN

2003 - Brooklyn, NY, USA

Urban Meadow BKLYN

Brooklyn, NY, USA

CLIENT Clean Air Communities, Con Edison, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The lily Auchincloss Foundation, American Stevedoring Inc., The Independence Community Foundation and The Architectural League / STATUS Completed 2003 / SIZE 8,000 SF / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associate, XS Space, The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation+Greenthumb, Office of the Brooklyn Borough, Center for Climate Studies – Columbia, University, Alan Dye Graphic Design

New York City-based landscape design firms XS Space and Balmori Associates have transformed an 8,000 square foot vacant lot owned by The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation into a verdant meadow with gently rolling hills of grasses, wildflowers, and flowering trees in downtown Brooklyn, NY. Initially conceived as a temporary landscape, this project received such overwhelming support by the local community that the New York City Parks Department adopted it under the auspices of its Community Garden “Greenthumb” program. Since the completion of the design and installation by Balmori Associates and XS Space this summer, this new park will be maintained by local residents.

Two large signs posted at the entrance to the park enumerate the environmental benefits of this newly vegetated site’s footprint on the environment. Scientists from Columbia University’s Center for Climate Studies were asked by the designers to study the impact of this site on surrounding air and water pollution, the Urban Heat Island Effect, and resulting health problems for NYC residents. The scientific data they collected quantifies the site’s increased capacity to absorb storm water run-off, offset carbon emissions, and create a cooler microclimate.

Urban Meadow BKLYN marks the launch of an ongoing collaboration between XS Space and Balmori Associates exploring innovative ways to temporarily transform vacant urban lots into productive green spaces. The landscape design firms are currently pursuing a proposal 5 LANDSCAPES / 5 BOROUGHS proposing a landscape project in each of New York City’s five boroughs. This proposal directly addresses Mayor Bloomberg’s PLANYC 2030 to reduce global warming emissions and provide easily accessible green space to every NYC resident. The designers are currently meeting with Community Boards throughout New York City to develop a list of potential sites for these landscapes. The design team is seeking sponsorship by various foundations, non-profit organizations, private corporations and developers.

Old Detroit, New Scale

2010 - Detroit, MI, USA

Old Detroit, New Scale

Detroit, MI, USA

CLIENT TIME Magazine / STATUS Written & Designed 2010 / DESIGN TEAM  Balmori Associates

Industrial cities reaching the end of an industry on which they were based, unable to stem the loss of jobs, the loss of capital and of people has become familiar to us since the 20th century.  In the US perhaps there is no example as stark as that of Detroit, though Manchester in England, Essen in Germany are equally dire European examples.

Four points can serve as start-ups:

·  To address the city’s issues not in physical layout terms of master plans.

·   To address population needs in terms of developing transformations of the base industry and conserving its knowledge base at all costs.

·  Any new venture which wishes to build a new urban nucleus needs to look at broader parameters e.g. not look at a map of the city, but also at its suficial geology, its position on the planet climatically, at its life history and not only of human life but of that of plants and animals, and of rivers and streams.  New spots of growth will grow then from a different model of a city.

·  To select the scale of the intervention, a critical element. In these circumstances, master plans for whole cities are the wrong instrument, at the wrong scale.  Infrastructure set up in the nineteenth century has made us think that we must do things at the same scale e.g. whole city, all at once, which a decaying city can never afford.

Given our new technologies we can create smaller units with local control – that can eventually hook up with each other is so desired, in other words, a web of systems.  It allows for modest regeneration where needed.  Water systems can be treated this way, electrical, sewage, etc…

"NOOKS" for Dome Colony X

2009 - New York, NY, USA

"NOOKS" for Dome Colony X

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Fritz Heag, Dome Colony X at San Gabriels at X INITIATIVE / STATUS On Exhibit 2009 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates

Two critical parts of public space use need a fresh look: the places and ways of sitting in it, and the places and ways of walking on it. We have become very interested in playing with these elements and the piece that we produced for the “Dome Colony in the San Gabriel’s“, for Fritz Haeg’s two month long exhibition at the X Initiative Art Space was a way of playing with seating and planting. Envisioned as dynamic space and furniture piece; in form, it is a garden that engages the Colony. It is not only designed for visitors to move and play with, it is a social community space that invites them to linger, and just be. Can you work with some units for seating which people can assemble themselves (varying the height closeness to others etc.)? Using this as a premise the units allow you to make nooks where one person can be alone, or some can be for two or a large group. We named the experiment “nooks” for this reason.

The secondary idea grafted on this was if plants could be incorporated into the system. This time they are shown conceptually by providing paper flowers that people can plant in the space. The Garden narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space, therefore changing the way that the space is perceived and read by the user. The users that “plant” flowers in it, transform it with time.

The 21st Century Park

2003 - Chicago, IL, USA

The 21st Century Park

Chicago, IL, USA

CLIENT The Graham Foundation / STATUS Competition 2003 / SIZE 1.5 acres / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Artist Brian Tolle

 The 21st Century Park is a backbone threaded into the city – not an isolated mass serving one area.

The 21st Century Park is a way to flow through the city – not just a destination.

The 21st Century Park is a filter, healing, cleaning, purifying air/water, an active environmental engine.

The 21st Century Park is a spine threaded through the city which gives you a way to flow through it. It creates oases along its length. The aesthetics are drawn from how the parts are organized in space.

The 21st Century Park engages streets – doesn’t leave them out.

The 21st Century Park is a tool for intervening in the City.

I got up this morning, it’s Saturday, and decided to go for a run in that new park they just finished.  A piece of it runs three blocks from my house but you can go all the way downtown on it.

The 21st Century Park is a spine threaded through the city which gives you a way to flow through it.

Took the street down from my stop on the EL. It is nice and narrow, full of crabs and haws with chunks of prairie on the sidewalks.

The 21st Century Park engages streets – Doesn’t leave them out.

As I am coming towards the shore between the trees and shrubs I find myself on the water on a boardwalk with green islands on each side. There is such a great view out here.  I see water forever on one side, the shore on the other, lots of birds singing as I run along it.

The 21st Century Park is a filter of healing, cleaning, and purifying the air and the water along it.

Went down towards Hollywood Beach, by way of the new walk in front of the towers, to get a friend of mine to go running with me.  His apartment is on the 12th floor and it is great to look down and see all the green islands.

 The 21st Century Park is a tool for intervening in the City.

 Let’s go swimming, my friend said, so we changed, took along some towels, went out to the curving pier and dove into the water.  We took a kayak out after that and had fun going in and out of the water lagoons created by the boardwalks, where the water was clear and calm, and then in the choppy waters outside.

The 21st Century Park is a spine which creates oases along its length. The aesthetics are drawn from how the parts are organized in space.

Govenors Island

2006 - New York, NY, USA

Govenors Island

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Governors Island Preservation & Education Corporation / STATUS Competition 2006 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates

Governors Island is at the southern tip of Manhattan, an island is one hundred and thirty -two acres, half of it a historic park with old military barracks and handsome buildings, which are scheduled to remain, the other half open for proposals. The island ‘s separation from Manhattan required stepping up it’s open space attraction, so we designed three glass structures, or biomes. You can enter one of these in winter and experience the warmth-and - light-rich atmosphere of a desert in a glassed-over desert landscape. Imagine New York city in the middle of winter, when the cold winds bite, our fingertips freeze and snow quickly turns to brown slush. Who would not welcome the opportunity to shed their layers of clothes and bask in the dry desert sun just 5 minutes away from the city. Now imagine New York City in the middle of summer, when the humidity is restless and the air stagnates. Would you not enjoy retreating to a dry climate where a breath of fresh air is only a short ferry ride away.

Another biome consists of a tropical lagoon, also for winter enjoyment. Some people call New York a concrete jungle, where the diversity of people, the constant flow of energy, and the variety of places compose an intricate network of life. Here in the rainforests on Governors Island, people can experience another kind of jungle, one of tropical delight. Here visitors will be enclosed in a temple of forest trees, draped with vines and exploding with tropical flowers. As you move from the smell of fertile on the ground through the warmth of the moist air to the canopy walkways, the layers of the rainforest each respond to different light conditions , from darkness on the forest floor, to the draped sunlight through the middle section , up to the bright and airy tops of the forest.

The last is an Ice house with icebergs and tundra vegetation, where you can go in summer. The arctic climate of the tundra recreated in New York’s backyard, will be the grounds for both curious scientist and tourist to commingle. Here visitors will be invited to explore the delicate lichens and mosses that cover the rocky landscapes and peer into the various pitcher plants of cold waters. The sculptural foundations of snow and ice will provide a sanctuary of light. In colder months, while you must keep your jacket on, the Tundra will offer a different winter experience from one we are normally exposed to. Park, beach, boating, farm and garden would fulfill other open spaces desires. But the biomes would ply a role of connectors, providing experiences much different from those offered by most city parks.

The Habitat Project will also celebrate the native and cultivated vegetation of the Hudson River valley by providing a special area for research and education. From sustainable technologies to urban agriculture, they are in the center of the island will be designated for agricultural development. The public will be able to take courses in organic farming as well as purchase some of the produce grown on the island. This area could also provide the restaurateurs, in the historical district, with fresh produce and herbs. 

Toronto Waterfront

2006 - Toronto, Canada

Toronto Waterfront

Toronto, Canada

CLIENT Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation / SIZE 3.5km / STATUS Competition Finalist, 2nd Place, 2006 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / H3Architecture / Lobko Architect / NARCHITECTS / Weiz + Yoez / Halcrow / Sasaki Associates / Snohetta

The finalist scheme for the competition to redesign the Toronto Waterfront was inspired by the city of Toronto’s medley of thriving and lively neighborhoods and international population. Instead of a homogeneous master plan we assembled multiple ideas, inspirations, and visions, and crafted a unique waterfront. The design strategy was to reach into the city to connect the vital urban energy of its streets and neighborhoods to the waterfront, transporting Torontonians out onto the lake to be in it, on it and surrounded by it. Toronto Waterfront’s weather is cold and windy in winter, and hot and breezy in the summer. The public spaces we designed reflected and indicated the rhythms and measures of temperature, wind, light and shadow. This makes a vibrant and variable waterfront experience. We proposed a series of gestures that read at the scale of the entire harbor, at the neighborhood scale, and at the human scale. We conceived specific designs and programming ideas for heads of slip, new piers and a new Queens Quay boardwalk that give each place a unique and magnetic attraction and an iconic waterfront.

Saarinen Garden Cranbook Academy

1995 - Bloomfield Hills, MI, USA

Saarinen Garden Cranbook Academy

Bloomfield Hills, MI

CLIENT The Cranbrook Academy of Art / STATUS Completed 1995 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates

The Cranbrook Academy of Art was established in the early part of this century as a complete artistic community embodying the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. Eliel Saarinen, the community's architect, designed a house and garden for his family on Academy Way. Both house and garden had fallen into disrepair and have been recently restored.

Balmori Associates, responsible for overseeing a full restoration of the garden, studied many historical sources to guide the restoration design including an early garden plan, most likely drawn by Saarinen; photographs of the academy from the 1930’s and later; and various archival films. In addition, the plant palette of C. DeForrest Platt was determined from his original planting plans and informed all planting decisions.

 

Tong-Shan Jie Residential Complex

2011 - Shanghai, China

Tong-Shan Jie Residential Complex

Shanghai, China

CLIENT China Vanke Co.Ltd / STATUS Under Construction / SIZE 18.5 acres / 7.49 hectares / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Pelli Clarke Pelli / CCDI 

Located in the heart of the Huangpu River Complex district of Pudong, Shanghai’s booming economic development zone, Tong Shan Jie Master Plan calls for eight residential towers, a hotel, and a clubhouse arranged around a figural open space. The Master Plan defines a new sustainable landscape, increases environmental awareness, and provides high quality urban living.

The design intention is to tie the architecture together through landscape and program while enhancing the individual character of each tower by creating unique gardens such as a moss garden, a trellis garden, and a rock garden. The main sunken garden features water cascades, a reflective koi pond and a floating tea pavilion within a lush landscape of cherry and magnolias trees. The necessary underground parking garage ventilations became an opportunity to establish visual and spatial connections through water, light, and vegetation. 

Balmori Associates collaborated with video artist Marina Zurkow and computer scientist Nikolaus Correll to develop interactive features. The pavilion, whose floor is made up of hundreds of LED “insects”, has the ability to detect touch, including footsteps. Dragonfly shaped LED lights interact with people as they enter the pavilion. The dragonflies might cluster around a single user’s feet, scatter if there is high foot traffic, or hover during low traffic. The dragonflies can also “travel” with a participant over the floor. Fast foot actions might startle them and cause them to move away quickly. They might act as individuals or with a swarm mentality. When the pavilion is unused the insects have sets of behaviors that are affected by the weather, becoming sluggish when the atmosphere is hot and wet  and speedy when crisp and dry. 

 

Tianjin Culture Park

2009 - Tianjin, China

Tianjin Culture Park

Tianjin, China

CLIENT Tianjin New Library / STATUS Invited Competition Entry 2009 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

The Tianjin Culture Park is both a centralized park that defines the heart of the cultural district and an extension of the surrounding city.  Sweeping arcs of pathways and landscape carve out a layered hierarchy of active public space and parks that unfold, weaving together the cultural, retail, and social architecture of the surrounding areas.  The architecture is embedded with this network of paths and park. Water features facilitate the flow of the landscape through the site while the spines of the adjacent pathways animate the flow of the city. The main promenade moves across the park from the city to the museum, library and performing arts core.  Secondary pathways connect the retail to the museum and the city.  Each of the pathways run parallel to water and defines a character of park.  The central plaza is a grand space for public spectacle and events.  Moving across the site a large canopy with a moon gate separates a market park for smaller scale gatherings and events.  The canopy is repeated 3 times as sculptural elements that both define the different spaces and provide shade and covered spaces for markets, cafes and site amenities.   They canopies are also iconic sculptural elements which frame the architecture and orient the site.  The next space is an entry plaza to the museum and library, with benches and gardens to relax and socialize.  

The water features serve a dual purpose to the park.  They are part of water collection and filtering system and have varying levels to allow for various uses and feeling and light reflection.  The first (starting from the west) is a naturalized pond with interpretations of traditional bridges traversing willow trees and gardens.  The next pool has a few steps that people can sit on and rent a model boat.  The pool leading up to the museums and library is also line with steps and is a shallow reflecting pool – then in times of low rainfall or for events can be drained as additional plaza space or ice skating in the winter.  The pools all engage the architecture, allowing the buildings to borrow the image and feeling of being near the water.  Waterfalls in front of the large iconic canopies feed the water in front of the performing arts center.  Finally, in front of the retail mall, floating decks sit in the water as people eat at cafes under the canopy.  The movement between the levels will be choreographed to provide a visual spectacle, and clean the water.

We propose to make Tianjin Culture Park a Special Ecology Zone or SECOZ: an area that encourages experimentation in groundbreaking ecological technologies, creating a space that demonstrates the leading edge in the transformation of public space into an active ecological engine.  The SECOZ transforms Tianjin Culture Park into a green connector; a continuous swath of green open space filters air and water and provides relief from urban congestion.

The Winter Garden at the World Financial Center

2002 - New York, NY, USA

The Winter Garden at the World Financial Center

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Olivia and York, World Financial Center / STATUS Completed 1988, Restored 2002 / SIZE 18,000 SF / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Pelli Cesar Pelli

The Winter Garden in Battery Park City’s World Financial Center serves as the cultural center of the 3.5-acre complex. This glass hall is the main connector of all public circulation within the project and with the World Trade Center site. Its success as a public space is due in part to its dedicated programming staff; Balmori Associates worked closely with them, carefully laying out all the activities desired in the space before designing its paving, landscape, and circulation.

After suffering severe damage in the September 11th attacks, the Winter Garden underwent a $50 million renovation, reopening a year later. The passageway leading to the World Trade Center has been replaced by a glass façade, providing a new entryway to the space as well as a view of Ground Zero. Visitors to the garden descend a huge semi-circular staircase from the upper level to the palm grove below. The garden’s glass walls are lined with shops and restaurants; movable public seating can be adjusted around the space’s perimeter. Newly created galleries along the walls host exhibitions.

Sixteen palms are planted in a rectilinear grove, with the floor around them paved in diagonal patterns of imported marble. The palm variety is Washingtonia Robusta, a native American tree with a narrow trunk and lush foliage, rugged enough to withstand the hall’s dry environment and wide temperature range.

Fashion Institute of Technology

2003 - New York, NY, USA

Fashion Institute of Technology

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Fashion Institute of Technology  / STATUS Competition Entry 2003 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Joel Sanders Architect 

Woven or knitted, textiles link the diverse disciplines and departments that make up FIT, from fashion (fabric) to painting (canvas). Hence, the theme of textiles informed our entry to an invited competition for a new interdepartmental classroom building at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Our well-dressed building is clad in an ensemble of materials – woven glass on the exterior and gold carpeting and upholstery on the interior – to weave together a series of interactive spaces for the FIT community. From the soaring street-level atrium to the administrative roof terrace, this golden “thread” defines a continuous circulation path through the building, activated along its length by multipurpose student activity zones.  The project is fully sustainable, featuring natural ventilation, daylight, and green roofs, all aimed at improving quality of life while increasing energy efficiency. The building’s unique cladding creates a breathable membrane that shields the building from the elements while permitting it to draw energy and air directly from the outside environment.  

Duke University Central Campus Master Plan

2011 - Durham, NC, USA

Duke University Central Campus Master Plan

Durham, NC, USA

CLIENT Duke University / STATUS Completed 2011 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Pelli Clarke Pelli 

The New Campus landscape will follow the founding principals and identity of Duke University, for which it is so successful and appreciated, as a University of buildings connected to the land, as thoroughly described in the recently published Duke University Landscape Guidelines. The New Campus will respond to the existing Piedmont topography and landscape of Hollows and rolling hills, and seek to bring together the West and East Campuses by blending their respective legacies of a University in the Forest and a University in the Park. Natural drainage systems and ecological patterns will be preserved and enhanced through thoughtful landscape design, forest management and the use of native vegetative cover. Open spaces and tree-shaded allées will create visual and physical connectivity with the forested spaces, creating a blend of forest and habitable space that weaves between the architecture.

The New Campus will emphasize University connectivity by providing landscaped pedestrian ways to historic East and West Campuses, as well as bicycle and public transportation routes, and finding its own unique character through a focus on sustainability. The New Campus will link forested spaces and restore the natural environment so that the system may better perform ecological services including stormwater management and pollution filtering, while providing enigmatic landscapes that make Duke a “living laboratory”.  In this way, the New Campus can be a visual display of ecological processes that informs academic study, campus enjoyment and the replication of similar sustainability models elsewhere at Duke University, as well as beyond. 

The Solaire

2003 -New York, NY, USA

The Solaire

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Albanese Development Corporation  / SIZE 9,530 SF / STATUS Completed 2003 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Pelli Clarke Pelli

As the first ‘green’ residential high-rise in the United States, the Solaire building has introduced a new intercon­nection between architecture, its urban setting, and landscape in sustainable design. Balmori Associates col­laborated with the design architects, Cesar Pelli & Associates, to incorporate ecologically beneficial green roofs and a hydrological system into the infrastructure of the building.

Balmori Associates employed two types of green roofs for Solaire: an extensive vegetated roof, or a covering of groundcovers and sedums in 4” of growing medium; and an intensive green roof, which has deeper planting beds for a variety of vegetation ranging from perennials to bamboo trees. Located on the 19th floor, the inten­sively planted rooftop provides outdoor public space for the residents of the building, high above the city.

There are many ecological benefits to the inclusion of the greens roofs. They absorb solar heat which in turn lowers the building’s temperature, saving energy, and helping to mitigate the urban heat island effect. Rainwater is absorbed by the vegetation, reducing the amount of storm water entering the municipal system, and is cleaned of heavy metals and pollution in the process. The excess run-off is collected in a basement cistern, along with the building’s grey water, and is later used to irrigate the green roofs as necessary and is channelled to nearby parks.

Balmori Associates was given a 2004 Green Roof Award of Excellence for their design by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. The Solaire was the first building to be designed in response to an ambitious set of new guide­lines for green architecture developed by the Battery Park City Authority. It has been awarded a Gold Leed Rating and received New York State’s Green Building Tax Credit. In 2002, Solaire was one of five projects selected by the United States Department of Energy to represent the nation at the International Green Building Challenge in Oslo, Norway.

Cleveland Clinic Lerner Institute Courtyard

1998 - Cleveland, OH, USA

Cleveland Clinic Lerner Institute Courtyard

Cleveland, OH, USA

CLIENT The Cleveland Clinic Foundation / SIZE 1.5 acres / STATUS Completed 1998 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Inc, / Cesar Pelli Associates

Two parallel paths stretch down the Green, fronting the new 14-story Cleveland Clinic building across the street. The Green is the complex’s unifying core, around which future additions will take place. The paths, lined with benches and trees, are narrow enough to facilitate contact between those sitting across from each other. Careful plantings manipulate perception; telescoping lines of trees mimic perspective, making the green seem longer than it when viewed from the clinic building.

At the other end, a circle of flowering trees closes the perspective. Seen from the highest floors of the clinic, the oval becomes a perfect circle. At ground level, it creates a small, enclosed landscape within the overall linear pattern, suitable for intimate gatherings.

The plant material is appropriate for a campus. White Oaks will become sculptural giants to anchor and frame the whole landscape 50 years hence; Sweetgum will offer fall color; Techny Arborvitae will provide green in the winter; and crab apples supply both spring flowers and fall color. These materials were also chosen for salt tolerance. Two paths, paved with granite and lined with teak benches, travel the full length of the green and serve as circulation corridors between the clinic buildings.

The Highline Park

2003 - New York, NY, USA

The Highline Park

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Friends of the Highline / STATUS Competition Finalist, 2nd Place, 2003  / SIZE 1.5 miles / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, Zaha Hadid Architects, SOM, Studio MDA, Studio MDA, Merill LLP

When The High Line is redeveloped, it will bring an exciting range of new spaces into play for New Yorkers. The team recognizes that the qualities of movement through these spaces will define the potentials of The High Line, and that understanding these must be the primary outcome of the design work.The redevelopment of the High Line demanded multidisciplinary teamwork at the highest levels of creativity and design experience. The team established by Zaha Hadid Architects, Balmori Associates, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP and studioMDA linked together these world-class offices with substantial building experience into a networked studio for excellence in urban design.

Each of these offices is renowned for well-defined strengths and specializations, and yet together they have discovered a common language and approach in responding to the spatial and temporal challenges underlying the project. The creative adaptation and reuse of old structures typically requires that we suspend our preconceptions of their uses and qualities, and one of the best ways of opening our thinking to new possibilities occurs through the thoughtful process of graphic abstraction for which Zaha Hadid’s office is famous. The team discovered a natural synergy in this approach, for it enabled open discussion of a complex range of issues and details long before deciding on specific uses and placements. 

Building an Urban Living Room Come Se Gallery

2010 - Rome, Italy

Building an Urban Living Room Come Se Gallery

Rome, Italy

CLIENT Galleria di Architettura “Come Se” / STATUS Design completed in NY in 2009, Exhibition in Rome June/July 2010/ DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Civico Zero & Save the Children

What should a public space be, asked Balmori in an online twitter forum with invited landscape architect Erik de Jong, planner Arnold van der Valk and their 40 Dutch students. We extended the conversation to the Meatpacking District, the neighborhood of our office, by participating in New York festival for contemporary psychogeography, “Conflux City 2009”. The ideas we collected on sharable space, urban decorum, and contextual appropriateness were broadcasted in a short video on blogs including the New York Architectural League’s Urban Omnibus.

With these ideas we developed design principles for the Urban Living Room:

Re-use materials – design to avoid waste create rough, industrial aesthetics

Keep it simple – Low tech and inexpensive construction and maintenance

Anticipate changing requirements – plan for easy reconfiguration The Urban Living Room is made of simple, inexpensive and interchangeable elements – a base, a pole, a canopy – to perform the functions of planter, shading, space partition, seating, lighting, rainwater collector…and even a birdhouse. Put together, these components create a public place, a space where one can linger, relax, and just be.

In 2010 Balmori Associates took the Urban Living Room to the first edition of Rome Architecture Festival, La Festa dell’ Architettura di Roma. Balmori Associates provided the organization “Civico Zero / Save The Children Italia” with guidelines for the construction of an Urban Living Room. The children and adolescents of the association, who recently arrived in Rome from Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, often homeless, sometime without papers, and who do not speak Italian or English, built their Urban Living Room.

Diagrams of the components indicated Materials a barrel filled with gravels and cement or with soil when used as a planter, galvanized steel poles, rubber mats made from tires for the seats, and sail cloth for the canopy and partition. But materials on hand in Rome were different from the ones originally selected for the New York City project: the barrel was replaced by cars and trucks’ wheels, the poles were orange PVC construction pipes, and the canopy and lightshade were made from an olive collecting net. Hosted by the Architecture Gallery, Come Se, the Urban Living Room opened in June 2010 accompanied by photographs telling the story of the construction of the Urban Living Room taken by one of the adolescents of Save The Children, the young Ivoirian, Mohamed Keita.

Earth Pledge

2002 - New York, NY, USA

Earth Pledge

New York, NY, USA

CLIENT Earth Pledge Foundation / STATUS Completed 2002 / SIZE 975 SF / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Licalzi Consulting Engineers, Mark Licalzi / MGA Architecture, Walter Radtke

The construction of the Earth Pledge (EP) Kitchen Garden green roof inspired Earth Pledge, a New York City not- for profit, to embark on the Green Roofs Initiative, its ongoing project to facilitate green roof development in New York City as an ecologically sound and economically viable solution to urban and environmental problems.

In 1998 Earth Pledge renovated a 1902 Georgian Townhouse to serve both as their office showcase for sustainable materials and technologies.  Over 70 companies contributed.  Diana Balmori, principal of the landscape design firm Balmori Associates proposed a green roof system atop the new Workspace project.  An avid gardener, Earth Pledge’s Executive Director, Leslie Hoffman, immediately adopted the idea, seeing it as a beautiful means of dovetailing the organization’s two central programs of Sustainable Agriculture and Cuisine and Sustainable Architecture and Design. 

Earth Pledge and Diana Balmori partnered to design the roof to suit EP’s needs. Balmori designed the roof to highlight the wide variety of plant life available for green roofs, including native flowers and vegetables.  The design exploited the unexpected juxtaposition of its midtown Manhattan locale with the principles of organic gardening.  Herbs and flowers were planted in parapet planter boxes around the perimeter of the roof to increase the amount of growing area.   

Since its initial design and construction, the Kitchen Garden has evolved to reflect EP’s diverse interests.  The northern plot remains devoted to annual vegetables, including heirloom tomatoes and eggplants, and perennials such as beebalm, lavender and sage, taking advantage of its “semi-intensive” depth of 8-12” of substrate.  The southern plot, with a depth of 2-4” of growing medium, has been converted to a more typical “roof meadow” style green roof, featuring several varieties of sedum.  This “extensive” portion of the roof is a model for the kind of low-maintenance green roof infrastructure that the Green Roofs Initiative facilitates and promotes.   Meanwhile, the northern garden plot continues to demonstrate horticultural possibilities for stronger roof structures in New York City. 

The Earth Pledge green roof embodies the basic principles behind the Green Roof Initiative: that it is possible to create sustainable, beautiful solutions to pressing urban problems.  As New York City becomes a center for green roof development, the Earth Pledge roof will continue to evolve and thrive.

Talgar Master Plan

2007 - Talgar, Kazakhstan

Talgar Master Plan

Talgar, Kazakhstan

CLIENT Alau Co. LLP / STATUS Competition Entry , 2007 / SIZE 6 acres / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates / Space Group

The landscape design for this project was an active ecological surface, filtering, cleaning, building and sustaining Talgar and the regional surrounds. Innovative development strategies add a layer of ecological infrastructure that enhance the diversity and richness of the site. The site operates as a responsive habitat, constantly evolving and changing according to the ecological processes and social usage patterns.

This fluid development strategy twines the landscape with development blurring the lines between both. Swaths of open space that protect sensitive natural features, steep slopes and wetlands, allow for fluid movement of both people and nature between site conditions. Considered insertions of residential and commercial development will advantage the spectacular setting and respect the existing terrain while maximizing site development potential. A unique system of physical and visual passages and linkages between the region and the people, the constructed and the natural, the ground and the sky, it allows for free movement from one realm to the other. With few barriers in Talgar, enhanced interactions will contribute to an environmentally responsible, adaptable and efficient development. This strategy will reach beyond the site as Talgar engages adjacent developments and landscapes.

Talgar was designed to be a Loop City with zero waste. In nature, all waste from one system becomes the food for another. Loop City emulates nature’s efficiency; independent but interconnected infrastructure systems help reuse waste and reduce pollution while taking care of essential development functions.

Samsung Learning Center

2007 - Seoul, Korea

Samsung Learning Center

Seoul, Korea

CLIENT Samsung Corporation / STATUS Completed 2007 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates, NBBJ Architects

Balmori Associates’ landscape intervention for Samsung’s employee education center tower features multifunctional land burn containing programmatic elements that wraps around the site and its adjacent edges.  This landform is the organizing principle for the Samsung complex and interfaces with the building’s architecture.  The surfaces and materials of this three-dimensional landform create a multilayered interface and the opportunity for new types of spaces.  Alternating sheaves of landscape and architecture exist on both horizontal and vertical planes.

The linear landform flows from existing landmass of the site and its adjacent edges. It is the organizing principle by which a new learning center identity is patterned in the spirit of Samsung’s paradigm. Common materials are used in fresh combinations to create richly layered and textured surfaces and lines. These surfaces and lines are an effort to explore the interface of landscape and buildings. Reconfiguring the space in between and making new connections create more fluid passages- not blurring the line between landscape and architecture – but widening it. This thick interface creates the opportunity for new types of spaces. Thus, the widening of the line is to create transitions- alternating sheaves of landscape and building on horizontal and vertical planes. It is a complex interface that is layered – the thicker the line the better – and results in a new spatial entity.

Sound Waves

2013 - Bejing, China

Sound Waves

Bejing, China

CLIENT Beijing Garden Expo / STATUS Completed 2013 / DESIGN TEAM Balmori Associates 

Sound Waves embodies the feelings triggered by viewing nature as depicted in Chinese landscape painting, reproducing the appearance of the magical Guilin’s mountains of the Li River. Bands of planting, like three-dimensional brushstrokes, play on the conventional reading of topographic contours, not connecting points of equal elevation, but instead mapping areas of similar conditions.

To capture over 140 different site conditions, Balmori constructed a parametric computational model of the garden that adapts to and aligns with transient information flows. Advanced programming methodologies allow the model to analyze year-round natural conditions of a particular area of the site, including sun hours per day, slope conditions, altitude, and wind exposure. The model performs by subdividing the site into a fine grid of points, which are then analyzed individually.

The experience is shaped by various paths that ascend and descend through the garden, hovering above and cutting through the site to offer perspectives to the hills and over the valleys. Balmori’s selection of plants builds upon the goals of the Expo with a focus on seasonal colors, textures, smells, and capacity to clean the city’s polluted air.