Water Garden in Tochigi

 
Photo by Iwan Baan

Today I am sharing a landscape design from 2018, a beautiful water garden in Tochigi, Japan. 

I see it as a fractal garden design with healing, calming, characteristics. Each reflection, similar and different at the same time. There is not a single detail to miss here.

From Arquitectura Viva: 

The idea that architecture is a form of nature has become a maxim that the firm Junya Ishigami + Associates faithfully follows in its work, an oeuvre now enriched by the Botanical Garden Art Biotop: Water Garden in Tochigi, Japan. The singularity of this project lies in all the recycling it involves: on the one hand, Ishigami has reused hundreds of trees that were supposed to be felled altogether, and on the other, he understood that taking advantage of an existing irrigation system would be the best way to create the watery soil on which a new kind of natural environment that has much to do with architecture would be able to thrive.

Photo by 9 Monkeys (Google)

Photo by O Kaneko (Google)

From DesignBoom:

‘the primary objective of this project was to create a new form of nature as an extension of nature as we now know it; the future of nature through the eyes of man. the site was originally heavily wooded before it was cleared for rice fields. later, it became meadowlands. by maximizing the environmental potential of this land, we will create a new landscape that fuses ‘density’ and ‘relationship’ which do not coexist in nature.’ says junya ishigami to designboom.

Photo by Tao Tao (Google)

Photo by Yaziret E B (Google)

The landscape of Amorepacific Headquarters

 

Today I have been reading about British architect Sir David Chipperfield, who has just been announced as the Pritzker winner 2023, the highest recognition in the architecture field.

From all his work, I am sharing some interesting pictures of the landscape design for the Amorepacific Headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, 2017. The photographs belong to Noshe, David Chipperfield Architects, Ute Zscharnt, and were downloaded from ArchDaily where you can read the building description in the architects' own words.

I find the view through the sculptural trees fascinating. And the combination and contrast of the rigid facades grid, with the tortuous thin trunks and the rounded planters with lots of ferns. 

The trees look so ethereal and permeable like the facades per se. Note the lighting and the floor reflections.

As described by the architects: "Nature permeates the building right up to the roof gardens, where large trees express their sculptural quality complemented by amorphous water basins."

The trees scale and the translucent floor. See how the planter is square and flat in the circulation. 

The human scale.

Another translucent element in the floor, which has a square grid.

The trees scale in the overall magnitude of the building

The "hollowed" cube and the technical grid so beautifully inserted in the existing environment. See how a different grid is used in the building on the right.

One of the floor plans with the trees planters

One of the floor plans with the trees planters