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LSA 220: Introduction to Landscape ArchitectureA Designer’s Profile: West 8Sarah Hoagland
11/12/2013
(1)
Adriaan Geuze: founding partner
and design director of West 8
West 8 is an urban design and landscape architecture firm based in the Netherlands. It
was founded in 1987 by Adriaan Geuze, who had just recently received his masters degree in
landscape architecture from the Agricultural University of Wageningen, and Paul van Beek, who
later left the firm.6 Geuze was not alone in enjoying early success. The 1990s was a time of
growing opportunity that allowed countless young talents to flourish in the Netherlands. Like
many regions around the world, the Netherlands was experiencing a period of
internationalization. Boarders were disappearing, and practices expanded and grew as a result
of the contact with new ideas and styles.5 Over the years, the firm continued to grow, taking on
new partners and designers as well as opening new offices in New York and Belgium, expanding
its vision to an even wider audience.6
As with the work of any artist, all the firm’s designs share a certain essence that is purely
West 8, which distinguishes them from others. Part of this connection comes from common
materials, motifs, and the like, but a great deal of the congruity is derived from the strength of
the firms guiding ideas and mission. Founded by a Dutch landscape architect, West 8 has a
tradition that is tied heavily to the Netherlands and its history. Because of its place below sea
level, the Netherland and its design traditions are based in the relationship between land and
water and the manipulation of the two, or as Geuze himself put it, the Dutch make land and
then paint it.7
But if you look at any of West 8’s designs, it becomes abundantly clear that the firm sets
out to do much more than simply paint the land. Geuze and his team think critically about each
space and create innovative landscapes that are rooted in the new modern era and not in the
past. They don’t just bring the Netherlands to other parts of the world, but instead go to great
lengths to ensure that they place each site within the greater context of the region.1 In an essay
titled Accelerating Darwin, Geuze emphasizes his goal to move forward in design. The firm
certainly references past models in its work, but they do so in a way that revitalizes the past
instead of replicating it. In particular, Geuze talks about his attempt to move away from the
highly programed and over-simplified model used in countless public spaces today that have
clear codes which dictate where and how visitors move within the space. Humans are a highly
adaptable, dynamic and inventive species, and according Geuze, don’t need to have spaces
constantly adapted for them when they are perfectly capable of adapting to the environment
themselves. Public spaces should be places of “anarchy, exploration, and self-expression” that
have a life of their own. Geuze also talks about his rejection of the idea that urban public
spaces/parks are places of escape, separate entities within the city. In Geuze’s mind, public
spaces should be designed as places that provide new ways to experience urban life, not escape
it.4 One of West 8’s more large-scale project speaks to this last idea.
The Madrid Rio project, a revitalization of almost 7 million square meters of land
contained in six different districts of the city of Madrid, was all about giving people a new way
to experience urban life. The focus of the project was to bring life to the city and to the banks of
the Manzanares River. Working with teams of architects from Madrid, West 8 developed a
series of spaces connecting the existing green spaces, bringing the people and the river into
closer contact and reconnecting the two sides of the river.3
The design progressed in many stages over four years. The new green spaces were only
possible because the city had moved a fourteen-mile stretch of the M-30 highway
underground. The massive six-lane highway had been blight on the city, had restricted the
public’s access to the river, and the three years of construction on the underground tunnels
only solved part of the problem. Errors in calculation and communication had led to tunnels,
constructed from either end, which missed each other in the middle, tunnels that ran into the
foundations of bridges, and a host of other problems that took long periods of time to resolve.2
(2)
Before the M-30 highway was moved underground it ran along the banks of the
Manzanares River, restricting the public's access to the water.
(3)
The Saon de Pinos with the M-30 running beneath it
The project resulted in completed tunnels, but a disaster above ground, so West 8’s task
was to clean up the mess. The process was made even more complicated by recent laws in
Madrid, which called for the division of projects into numerous parcels, each given to different
local contractors. This made it necessary for West 8 to produce hundreds of designs and plans
that were as simple as possible to understand and reproduce and that were done section by
section as the construction was completed and the project was passed into the hands of
another group of contractors.2
The project did not suffer largely from the complicated process though. Working in
stages, the firm designed and oversaw the construction of four major sites: the Salón de Pinos,
a linear space along the river lined with pine trees with irregular trunks that bend in all different
directions, the Huerta de la Partida, an interpretation of an orchard with a groups of fruit trees
and a mosaic walkway lined with benches, and the Arganzuela Park, the largest site on the
project along the river.
(3) Salon de Pinos
Huerta de la Partida
Arganzuela Park
Beyond creating new spaces to facilitate connection, West 8 also designed several new
bridges to go along with the renovated ancient bridges that physically connect the two sides of
the river. The Cascara bridges are two such examples. They are heavy, rough concrete arches
designed by West 8 with a murals by a local artist done on the ceilings.8
(5)
The Y-Bridge is one of the many bridges designed by West 8 for the Madrid Rio
project to connect the two sides of the Manzanares River.
(6)
The Cascara Bridges were designed by West 8 to reflect the form of a whale,
massive and heavy but graceful in its movement.
(4)
The plan view of Lincoln Park reveals its relationship to the buildings the
surrounding environment.
Another project, on a much smaller scale, was the Miami Beach’s Lincoln Park fronting
the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, a new concert hall in Florida. The space is small,
and though it’s called a park, it’s more on the garden scale at a little over 1000 square meters.3
Overall, the design of the park is relatively simple. Early on in the process, the design team
decided that they wanted to limit the amount of hard surfaces so that the space felt more like a
park, despite its size. The networks of white concrete paths are all that interrupts the green of
the gently rolling ground. They crisscrosses the park in an irregular pattern, none cutting a
direct path, forcing visitors to move through the park and giving the illusion that the space is
bigger than it seems. The irregular pattern of the walkways is echoed in the custom pergolas,
which along with the trees provide shade to visitors.8
(4)
The white concrete paths, which crisscross Lincoln Park among the trees,
are the only hardscape elements in the space.
Here the challenges were mostly culturally and aesthetically oriented, without massive
transportation and logistical issues. For instance, the city wanted a hurricane resistant
landscape, so that put limitations on the kind of materials the firm could use as well as the kind
of space they could design. However, it was still an exciting project for West 8. Because of the
site’s location in Florida, Geuze and his design staff used tropical plant materials, which don’t
often appear in West 8’s designs. Also, since the project was a soundscape, acoustics had to be
top notch. The sound systems the directors wanted to install were massive and would have
dominated the space, so West 8 worked with people from Disney (masters in hiding
installation) in order to preserve the character of the park.2
(4)
Unique hand-fabricated aluminium pergolas provide shade for visitors and
give the space a whimsical and light character.
Here is where the cultural divide comes in. Landscape architecture is dependent on
culture. People are strongly rooted in nature, but every culture defines nature differently. For
the Dutch nature is made, where as other cultures, like the United States for example, view
nature as wilderness.5 Geuze said that in the United States, the project was viewed as having an
avant-garde and contemporary character, while he viewed it as having a more agrarian feel.
Also, when designing pergolas to provide shade for visitors, West 8 had to go through many
design solutions. On the American side, the original design was questioned owing to the feeling
that people might try to climb them, something the designers had never considered. West 8
came up with numerous solutions, some involving certain portions of the structure which
rolled, a bench to surround the base, as well as thorny plant materials, all of which were
rejected before the final solution was proposed, which shows the more cautious and strict way
of thinking in the United States when it comes to public spaces.2 The difference in thinking is
what makes West 8’s designs so appealing though. They bring bits and pieces of a different
culture to other parts of the world, and create spaces worth being excited about.
Works Cited:
1. "Adriaan Geuze | 2012-13 Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor " Posted March 22 2013.
Knowlton School. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIoDPcn6Hc4.
2. "Lecture by Adriaan Geuze " Posted Dec 10 2012. California College of the Arts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUQ3JalxR0.
3. "Madrid Rio" Posted Nov 28 2010. Madrid.es. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=YrPqLGaTdjo.
4. Avermaete, Tom, Klaske Havik, and Hans Teerds. Architectural Positions: Architecture,
Modernity And The Public Sphere. (Amsterdam: SUN Publishers, 2009), 101-108.
5. Lootsma, Bart. Superdutch: New Architecture in the Netherlands. (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press 2000).
6. West 8, "About West 8." Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.west8.nl/about_west_8/.
7. "Dutch Profiles: West 8." Dutch Profiles Recorded June 28 2013. DutchDFA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTdH8KiTkaQ.
8. West 8, "Projects" Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.west8.nl/projects/.
Media Sources:
1. http://www.portmancmcmiamibeach.com/project/adriaan-geuze/
2. http://www.espormadrid.es/2008/06/pasarela-en-y-de-san-conrado-s-5.html
3. http://www.west8.nl/projects/all/madrid_rio/
4. http://www.designboom.com/architecture/west-8-miami-beach-soundscape-lincoln-
park/
5. http://www.madrid.es/portal/site/munimadrid/
menuitem.f46cde3ab6c0b0aa7d245f019fc08a0c/?
vgnextchannel=6091317d3d2a7010VgnVCM100000dc0ca8c0RCRD&tipofichero=imagen
&vgnextfmt=especial1&vgnextoid=5394768f5818a110VgnVCM1000000b205a0aRCRD
6. http://www.west8.nl/projects/cascara_bridges/