How to backseat architect
"Too bad nobody wants to do a background building." Habracken
We have a lot to learn from our friends in landscape architecture and urban planning. Landscape designers are talented at creating a background, middle ground, and fore ground. This is something that we have a hard time doing. Does every building we work on has to be the next personal statement on our architecture? Could less really mean more?
Landscape architecture has this idea of tapete verde, green carpet. It is exactly what it sounds like - a long expanse of grass. This is nothing flashy or over the top, but is really sets the scene for activity. It does not attempt to program spaces (the occupants can and will do that on their own) so it takes a back seat on the action. We can appreciate the tapete verde for what it is and what it allows us to do in those types of flexible spaces.
We have a lot to learn from our friends in landscape architecture and urban planning. Landscape designers are talented at creating a background, middle ground, and fore ground. This is something that we have a hard time doing. Does every building we work on has to be the next personal statement on our architecture? Could less really mean more?
Landscape architecture has this idea of tapete verde, green carpet. It is exactly what it sounds like - a long expanse of grass. This is nothing flashy or over the top, but is really sets the scene for activity. It does not attempt to program spaces (the occupants can and will do that on their own) so it takes a back seat on the action. We can appreciate the tapete verde for what it is and what it allows us to do in those types of flexible spaces.
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| Tapete Verde (Green Carpet) |
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYou've hit on a really interesting idea, and something that is physically taxing for the "all-knowing architect." I agree that not all architecture has to be in the foreground (modernist icons have had their place). I wonder what our tapete verde can become in the realm of building. Maybe it's the colors that we use, maybe it's flexible space, maybe it's in the design process itself. I think we are still responsible for creating limits for the scene, much like the trees do in your picture. Also like the trees, we can do so in a way that doesn't inhibit, but highlights the activities.