Product Description

Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape presents 23 projects that reveal the surge of creativity and discussion surrounding the designed landscape in a broad, principally urban, international context. In the last 20 years, many significant new public spaces have been created for sites that have been reclaimed from conflict, environmental degradation, and abandonment. The projects, found throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, were selected for their outstanding design, and for their variety of contexts, materials, scale, and types of spaces. This fully illustrated volume includes an essay by Peter Reed, Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, that demonstrates how these innovative projects expand the definition of the modernist landscape while responding to a variety of conditions such as program, social function, and the transformation and reclamation previously industrial areas. The essay is followed by a full-color plate section featuring the selected projects. Catalogue entries for each project provide a succinct description of the site, its transformation, and design concepts illustrated by photographs, drawings, and models.

Includes work by George Hargreaves, Martha Schwartz, Peter Walker, James Corner, Peter Latz, Ken Smith, Tom Leader, and others. Essay by Peter Reed.

Paperback, 9.5 x 11 in./168 pgs / 300 color and 30 b&w.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1365623 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Customer Reviews

Interpretations of the ground plane
The book is filled with a series of exceptional projects in dealing with the transition between the interior and exterior space and the multiple ways of ground sculpturing. The projects are displayed with photographs, renderings, and drawings which further explain plan and section design. The book is inspirational and a great reference material.

"Required Text" for Design Students and Faculty
A great book on many levels, its a must for any architect's, urban designer's, and landscape architect's library, whether student, faculty, or practitioner. The projects are well selected from the past decade or so, many of them already canonical. The images are also well chosen, with a mix of plans, details, perspectives, etc. The graphic design (not over designed) makes the book a pleasure. The shortcoming might be that there are only a few pages per project, so some may like more depth. However as an inspirational anthology and reference, its worth every penny.

Exciting Urban Projects
A great collection of different planning straegies. Provides unique and refreshing solutions for designing different urban hardscapes, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. It is also well put together and well thought out.