More than one million people are reported to have walked on water at Lake Iseo in northern Italy, courtesy of two miles of fabric walkways called the Floating Piers.
The project was conceived by Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude in 1970. Realised almost 50 years later, it cost around $22 million, funded by Christo himself.
From June 18 to July 3 in 2016, the lake was reimagined with 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric, carried by a modular dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes floating on the water.
Wired describes its construction here, and Christo’s story, notes and drawings here.
Photo: The Floating Piers at the island of San Paolo, Italy by NewtonCourt, Wikimedia Commons.
Secrets of bent trees:
The Daily Mail reports that bent trees all over the United States have baffled experts for decades.
Researcher Dennis Downes says they were cultivated by First Nations tribes to mark hidden trails in the forest, though most of the tribes have long since moved on.
Downes has taken up the work of geologist Raymond E. Janssen who documented trail marker trees in the 1930s and 40s, and travelled to 13 states in his search.
Establishing the origins of the trees, says Downes, is important for protecting them from clearing in the future. Read the full story with the Atlas Obscura.
For pictures of more curved trees in western Poland, visit here.
Photo: Dennis Downes.
Boom to clean the ocean:
A 100 metre-long prototype barrier has been launched 20 kilometres out to sea from The Hague to collect rubbish on the sea’s surface.
If found to be successful, the Guardian reports the structure could be deployed at a larger scale in the ‘great Pacific garbage patch’.
The snake-like barrier is made out of vulcanised rubber and harnesses sea currents to passively funnel floating rubbish, even tiny particles, into a cone.
A cable sub-system will anchor the structure at depths of up to 4,500 metres, keeping it in place so it can trap the rubbish for periodic collection by boats.
If all goes well, full-scale deployment of a 100km-long version is planned for the ‘great Pacific garbage patch’ between California and Hawaii in 2020.
The largely crowd-funded project was founded by 21-year-old Boyan Slat in the Netherlands. It was developed with dredging and marine contractor, Royal Boskalis Westminster and the prototype co-funded by the Dutch government.
Photo: Erwin Zwart, The Ocean Cleanup.
Inside the Eames house:
Naomi Stead from the University of Queensland visits the house of Charles and Ray Eames, a place she has studied and dreamed of for years but never before seen.
There are rules to visiting the house: you cannot go inside but you may peer through the many windows and open doors. You may take photographs, but not for publishing.
Stead says, “Completed in 1949, [the house] appears totally contemporary now – completely in tune with how we now live, or would like to live; a remarkable achievement for a nearly 70-year-old house.
“As you walk up the long driveway, you feel a strange sense of dissociation and suppressed hilarity, as though you had entered into the pages of one of your books, or been sucked into the screen of one of your own lectures.”
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
Did you catch these most-read case studies, furnishing tips, new product announcements and special industry events in your StreetChat updates in 2023? Each month our StreetChat enewsletter publishes new projects, products and trends from the public domain; subscribe to receive it in your inbox. 10. Which design firm can see Longhorn Cattle from their office window? 2 countries. 9 cities. 300 landscape architects. Street Furniture Australia and USA partner Spruce & Gander visited offices in Australia and Texas. There were key similarities and some notable standouts. 9. Jazz at The Mint: Product and Book Launch Sydney landscape architects gathered at the iconic Mint Courtyard to launch a design book by our founding directors Darrel Conybeare and Bill Morrison, and expansions to the Linea collection. 8. 2023 Good Cause Giveaway goes to …
Street Furniture Australia has designed and built prototype charging stands as part of a Transport for NSW program to deliver free phone chargers at 15 Sydney train stations. Developed by Street Furniture Australia’s inhouse industrial designers in collaboration with Transport for NSW, the prototypes offer wireless, USB-A and USB-C charging, and can power 7 devices at once. They were built at the Street Furniture Australia factory in Western Sydney. Two Power Spots are now installed at Liverpool and Campbelltown stations. The $1 million Power Spots Project rollout to 15 transport hubs including Bankstown, Hurstville, Lidcombe, Penrith, Wynyard, Central, Town Hall and Bondi Junction will be completed by late 2024. NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the Power Spots provide peace of mind: “In the modern world, our phones are our …
President of AILA in Western Australia, and Coordinator of the Recreation and Landscape Unit with the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife, Nathan Greenhill shares his work with StreetChat. Please, tell us about yourself. What drew you to landscape architecture? Being a landscape architect and working at Parks and Wildlife is a series of lucky moments in time. At high school I was interested in geography, biology and technical drawing. I attempted art but was never that great at it, but always loved to make things at home and try to problem solve. I was on my way to studying environmental science when a good friend’s brother started landscape architecture and suggested I look into it. With a bit more research on the degree and the profession I decided to give it …
Superblocks to the rescue: Barcelona’s radical new strategy will restrict traffic to a number of big roads, drastically reducing pollution and turning secondary streets into citizen spaces for culture, leisure and the community. “In a city as dense as ours, it’s all the more necessary to re-conquer spaces.” Visit the Guardian article. Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash. 7 placemaking tips: The Project for Public Spaces is a wealth of knowledge and research on how to create vibrant places rather than just useable spaces. Vox Urban highlights seven pearls of wisdom. In three words, these are: Engage with community Place, not space Collaborate with partners Prepare to push Observe local users Triangulate related elements Value, not cost. Read the full story. Photo: Sydney Living Museums. 104 year old street artist yarn bombs town Grace Brett might be …
The next Highline: underground? Smart optics bring natural light and flourishing plants to the Lowline experiment, a foray into subterranean parks. “It is lit by soft, bright rays that bounce off an aluminium canopy. When a cloud passes by, it gets dimmer; you look up almost expecting to see a skylight. Ferns, palms and Spanish moss hang from the ceiling. Funnelled from three solar panels on the roof, the light is refracted but still natural, so it contains the full spectrum of colours that plants need to flourish …” Visit the Economist 1843 article, or go to the Lowline website. Photo: Lowline. Why do we work so hard? The problem is not that overworked professionals are all miserable. The problem is that they are not, writes Ryan Avent. “I could anticipate with …
