Gardens

A concept development in North Brabant for affordable social housing in the forest edge. Image Courtesy B-too Magic mix Living, for us, is not just retreating into a house. It is about forming a community where everyone has their own space, whether its owned or rented. A mix of residents enriches the social aspect of living. Living is a shared experience! Image Courtesy B-too Living on the forest edge The buildings of Gebied1 coexist with nature, they are integrated into the green surroundings. The residential buildings each have their own plot with the possibility of parking. By creating green spaces in between the plots, a park-like atmosphere is obtained. The design fosters a unique and vital connection between the area an... More

Nestled in a natural Ouachita Mountain hillside along Lake Hamilton at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the Evans Children’s Adventure Garden welcomed a new tree house to the grounds in summer of 2018. This tree house is the first of three planned for the garden that will provide an interactive educational experience for visiting children as part of an ambitious plan to bring children back into the woods. The tree house uses a rich visual and tactile environment to stimulate the mind and body to strengthen connections back to the natural world, while accommodating the needs of all users.   This unique structure is a defining small project for modus. From design to fabrication we were able to merge our childhood... More

Heritage is this gamut of inherited objects, ideas, culture, and traditions. Not to be confused with preserving or restoring old things, values and ideas; It is often the collective of the tangible and intangible that has been passed on over time. Chettinad in Tamil Nadu is a city known for its wealthy merchants that were once hosted to wealth from across the globe.  But the Great Depression of the 1920s’ led to their gradual downfall. Even the opulent homes crumbled as the inhabitants couldn’t afford its upkeep. The city today, perhaps, resembles a discolored painting. A standalone palace haunts a desolate land with impressive exteriors but disintegrating within. In the case of Chettinad and alike, what does the current time inherit?&... More

Rathbone Square is a flagship project for Great Portland Estates plc that has taken the former Royal Mail sorting office site and transformed it into a high-quality mixed use development with a new publicly accessible garden just off Oxford Street. Designed as a sorting office in 1951, the site was formerly inaccessible to the public. Now, two L-shaped blocks stepping from six to nine storeys surround a garden that takes up 20% of the GDA. From the outset, Make worked with Publica to choreograph the routes and connections, and Gustafson Porter + Bowman to design the garden square. The garden gives a feeling of discovery that is typical of Fitzrovia, and provides an oasis away from the hubbub of Oxford Street. The routes through th... More

Tricarico is a place where the connection between context, knowledge and community has given shape to a landscape of great interest and extraordinary beauty.The "The City of 100 Gardens" project consists of two actions, a material one that includes landscape refurbishment and the introduction of new elements in the urban and gardens's context and an intangible one, aimed at defining strategies for the participatory management of the spaces and knowledge.The abandoned gardens will be transformed, thanks to special agreements with the owners, into community's gardens and orchards, for the production according to traditional methods. The spaces that are cultivated, instead, through management protocols with the owners, will be cultivated with... More

London-based practice Architects of Invention (AI) led by Nikoloz Japaridze has submitted a design proposal for 500 residential units in Birmingham’s Digbeth area. The practice was approached by Chinese private equity fund PGC- Capital whose The Jewel Court, 77 one-two bed luxury apartments, is already on site in Birmingham. The design concept - ‘Garden Hill’ - is inspired by The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: an oasis-like residence for Birmingham’s growing, multicultural population. The two dramatic 25-storey staggered towers, hung with gardens at every level, give all occupants and visitors access to private and shared terraces and a spacious rooftop garden. The entire block is made of CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) a... More

Since Forties the community of Castagneto Carducci looked at Parco delle Sughere (Cork Oaks Park) as a place where the sense of common identity could be materialized in a physical space. Cattle market firstly, then trailer park in Eighties, since 2000 's the park was managed by social advancement associations. In this way the park became an important place for sociality and leisure. Today this place hosts the most significative events for collective participation. Nevertheless, getting on in years, the equipments and the structures became inadequate, for dimensions and functionality, in regard to the current needs. Territory Looking at the shape of the territory, it is possible to see how it is made of linear elements: the continuous Th... More

A geometric grid Recent urban developments tend to create homogeneous and generic landscapes and cities. The urban plan of the Grünewald district, which is part of the new European district in Luxembourg, was developed based on a geometric grid. The mixture of building blocks, private gardens and squares has the structure of a chessboard. The district is on the edge of a plateau, where it borders the open landscape overlooking the valley. The fragmented orchard It was challenging to provide the neighbourhood with a strong identity and to create a sense of togetherness. We developed the principle of the 'fragmented orchard' that spreads across the entire network of squares and gardens. Three types of orchards can be distinguished: an... More