Here is a bit of landscape architecture for you all as a change. A while ago I posted a thread about rendering experiments in Artlantis that I was doing http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums//showthread.php?t=1005, and here is the project almost finished in real life.

It is a small courtyard, about 80 sq meters in Gothenburg in Sweden. We have been working on this project for a couple of years on and off, and it is finally starting to come together. It is surrounded by rather tall brick buildings from the late 19th century or early 20th century and serves as an entrance point to some of the apartments in the building. It is connected to the street via a rather long covered walkway out to the street. Previously the courtyard was just covered by asphalt, and it was very dark and little used for other things than pure logistics.

Due to the fact that part of the building also lays under the courtyard, we had to work with materials that did not required a lot of depth as well as to raise all planting above ground. Materials on the ground are cast concrete and Norwegian black slate. The furnishings and the plant boxes are all designed specifically for this project (apart from the lose chairs and table). We also ended up cladding one of the facades. The courtyard is now used a lot more than previously.

Here is a plan

From a balcony looking down

Ground level

Detail

More detail

night

And last, a night detail

Spot on, my friend, excellent work. :craqueur:

Simple yet beautiful. Excellent work.

Wait a min, are these photo's real life photos or rendering from the program. *rubs eyes* i'm at the state where i can't tell what's a rendering from computer or a real life photo. :not worth

Love the courtyard, nicely and cozy! :craqueur::clap::rock on:

Wait a min, are these photo's real life photos or rendering from the program. *rubs eyes* i'm at the state where i can't tell what's a rendering from computer or a real life photo. :not worth

Love the courtyard, nicely and cozy! :craqueur::clap::rock on:

I hear what you are saying: it's so hard these days. But there is a clue... (Mikael you should maybe sort that for the publicity shots)

Personally I think the landscaping is a bit obvious - and the line slamming into the blank wall at the end doesn't work well I think. That said you have completed it brilliantly. The finish of the paving especially is excellent, razer sharp joints. The furniture is nice and simple and I guess quite functional - you can sit and not be too close to your neighbour.
The lighting looks good too.
Overall I think good job :clap::clap:

There's no way that those are renderings. The plants give it out.
Anyways, it's a beautiful project.
Is the wooden facade part of it or was it there already?
So what's the deal? Does it connect more than one building or just one?

Sorry, these are not renderings, they are the real thing if anyone could not tell. I am sorry if that was not clear, maybe the text at the start is a bit confusing.

I am happy to say that the wet spot on the roof is soon to disapear, there is a green roof (sedum) delivered next week.

The timber facade is done by us as well, it had an old painted really ugly timber facade from the late 90s before.

This courtyard is a small part, a quarter I think, of a larger space that is surrounded by a building that forms a block in the city structure.

most excellent work.!

It seems so natural. Simple and beautiful.

Some great details and the overall design is very pleasing, well done Mikael

It is really impressive Mikael!!
I like the use of timber for d facade, kind of soften the 'compact' (brick?)surrounding buildings~

Hi there,

This project is competent. I think it can be better (naturally), judging by how meticulous (or not) you have been. Some points to think about. It's up to you to decide whether this makes sense to your design approach.

-when tracing lines whether on the floor or in built-in-furniture, I usually think that direct line trace is 'dangerous' because the workmanship may be awful and that I find overlapping geometry more attractive. (i have noticed it by the way you trace the floor line to the dimensions of the furniture, also the timber edges onto the steel frame)

-was it your intention to have a 'conical' habit tree? I think a more sculptural, low multibranching tree with either unique leaf forms/colours or peculiar bark characteristics makes an interesting departure to the more unforgiving geometry of the 'designed' spaces.

-why did you not make the planter box soil level (brim of the square pot) the same finish level with the furniture around it? That would make a more subtle transition between wood and earth.

-also, what governs the design/placement of the bands of different floor finish. I can understand the off-centre placement but I reckon that one particular band overflowing into that 'tunnel' is rather near to the wall on it's closest side. I think having it at 2 feet would make the point of proximity better. In other words, where proximity is desired, choose a distance that makes it float rather than make it ambiguous.

-I think you might have missed a great opportunity to turn that downpipe into something that would 'meander' on the horizontal plane. I think it best to take something that you can't ignore out of practical necessity and turn it into an art piece.

Hope this is accepted as constructive criticism. Sift as necessary.

Zhin.

overall great project, well executed use of materials, Excellent lighting:rock on:

I think I agree with Zhin, I didn't even notice the metal downpipe at first, it does not detract from the design, but now that I look it could have been a great opportunity to introduce some dynamicism into the project.

Also,

Why not make the timber boards repeat itself on the vertical sides of the furniture? The way you had it were 'H' shaped steel panels/powder coated aluminium/stainless steel I can't tell. I think you could've still kept the frame finish (that's fine) and clad it with the same timber boards.

It's just a pity that you have these bands and would arrived with 3 finishes altogether when thinking of surface along: the timber, the steel/aluminium/metal work and the stone. Could have made it two surfaces only in the interest of simplicity.

Similarly, the shrub planting could (to my mind) be used in the shape of one of the bands (you have four)..it would kind of be poetic to have something very 'natural' and organic, confined to very set patterns. In fact, it would have been lovely to plant those (looks like some kind of Calatheas but that's just me in the tropics) bright luminous leaves in the planter box, let it droop on the side and instead of the stone finish, allow at least 450mm planter depth for planting media and let those bright greens dominate one band/wing.

I might sketch these out tomorrow and post it.

I'm only asking questions. You probably have your own design rigour to tackle with here and it's me trying to understand what kind of 'rules' or inspiration made you prioritize some over the others.

Hope these helps

Regards,
Zhin

Thanks everyone for your comments/critiques and questions. I am really busy at the moment but will do my best to answer as soon as things settle down a little. Please bear with me!

Ok, here we go, an attempt to answer some of the questions and critique.
Thanks Zin for taking your time to look at it in a rather detailed manner.

I try to address the points in the order of them appearing in your posts.

Tracing lines in works is as you say always a gamble. Even though things perhaps do not line up 100% in this case, I do feel that we manage to come quite far in this case. Workmanship is a problem, but in this case we thought we would give it a try since we were rather involved in the process throughout and the craftsmen were of a high standard compare to many other project. This is also a very small space, and the need to keep it rather simple steered us away from a perhaps more complex or overlapping geometry. The surrounding buildings and wall also gave a rather fractured appearance to the space, and by using rather simple graphics and objects, we tried to give the place some order.

Regarding the tree, the intention was that the crown would sit lower, but when planted it appeared high. Multibrancing was considered as well at the start, but we choose not to at that point. This is something that is not that obvious today, so you certainly have a point there. Regarding the choice of tree it is a very young Prunus variant (cherry) and the branches will gradually spread out and down as the tree matures. Regarding the unique appearance of the tree, it is probably as good a it gets in Sweden in an environment like this, white flowers in early spring, nice greenery throughout the summer, beautiful autumn colours and a trunk that is really beautiful with a slight copperish colour.

The soil level is higher, simply cause we needed to give the tree more dirt, to maximise its ability to survive. This is a rather tough environment, the roots are contained in a rather small volume that has no contact with the ground which makes it rather sensitive to draught as well as freezing. We felt we had to do as good as we possibly could to give it a fair chance of survival. All greenery is contained in raised planter boxes and movable, since there is an occasional need to bring in a motorised sky lift to do work on the surrounding buildings.

Regarding placement of the lines or bands in the ground, I am not so sure that it is experienced as ambiguous, but I could be wrong. It ends up or leads to a door in the “tunnel”, so its placement makes perhaps more sense on ground level. But sure, we played around with the location of the bands, but could not really find a perfect start and finish in both ends. We considered this, but still felt that they contributed in other ways, which justified having them and to a certain extent also their placing.

The downpipe is perhaps a missed opportunity. It was replaced, the previous one was twice the diameter and painted a horrible beige. I was glad that we convinced the client to replace it at all, but perhaps we settled on the solution a bit to quickly. We were rather happy with the craftsmanship, but I guess it all depends on your starting position. Anyway, it could have been turned in to something different perhaps.

The furniture we wanted to give a very light appearance, hence not letting the timber come down on the sides and make a more primary and solid appearing shape. There is also a practical reason in that they are easily removed from the central planting box in the case that the courtyard need to be cleared as stated above. I do not really agree that there is a problem with three materials, I think it still works.

Regarding using planting in one of the bands, the main problem is, as stated in the first post, that there are parts of the building under the courtyard that meant we could not go down at all. We had in the best case scenario 100 mm to work with from the underlying existing concrete slab covering the cellars underneath to the entry levels to the doors. We even had to cut and raise some doors, to be able to do anything at all. The possibility of going down into the ground in a conventional manner would have turned out a very different proposal/solution!

Hope this answers some of your questions, and thanks again for your time and effort, much appreciated!

Here is a bad mobile phone photo of the formwork of the "band" as it runs into the door. The Door was moved forward to where the frormwork ends.

Another one during the pouring of the concrete showing the previous facade and down pipe.

Hi again,

Thanks for replying, I thought you went off the radar for a while. I was very glad to read your justifications to your planning and design of that space.

So in light of that (and also the images of its existing conditions) I think that it was a well executed project. I was convinced by your reasons but I (evidently) would have done things a different way. Then again, I am on the other side of the planet, and do not have the benefit of the real experience of being, dwelling in that place.

It seems to me that many of the decisions made were based on trying to simplify the setting, hence the simple geometries and perhaps the restraint from overkilling it by over-detailing. I think that in itself is commendable. One of the most profound statements I have treasured from my architectural education is that one purpose of architecture is to solve problems and not to create more problems (unless of course this inevitably arises out of necessity).

I look forward to seeing more projects from you. Any website link?

Zhin

Any website link?
www.gulo.se

Here's one of those litle threads you may miss, just like walking past you may miss this courtyard, but its worth a stop! ;)

Good work! :)

:clap: wow! so nice! i like it

Very nice courtyard! It transports a nice feeling.

very simple and impressive, a design that I would love to have in my own courtyard one day

loved it. Great job!!!

Mikael... I am truly impressed...
Simple...subtle...stylish work there! Inspiring

beautiful... i love that space...
Congrats

good

Cheer, good jod