Folly Forest
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Firm: Straub Thurmayr Landscape Architects and Urban Designers, Winnipeg
Team: Dietmar Straub and Anna Thurmayr
The children at Strathcona School now have the stars at their feet. In reviving this paved play area, local landscape architects Dietmar Straub and Anna Thurmayr punched holes into the 50-year-old asphalt surface, then outlined these geometric perforations in bright yellow and red, and planted some 100 trees inside them. To add rich texture and provide ground cover for the new plantings, they arranged bricks, logs and stones inside the bases. The budget-friendly, reanimated space, complete with such objets trouvés as a rusty cauldron and silvery wooden beams, now gives a whole constellation back to this low-income neighbourhood.
Mangfall Park Rosenheim
Location: Rosenheim, Germany
Firm: A24 Landschaft Landschaftsarchitektur, Berlin
Team: Steffan Robel and Joachim Swillus with Carole Blessner, Stephan Huber and Joachim Naundorf
To reconnect Rosenheim to its rivers, Berlin landscape firm A24 ingeniously transformed 13 hectares of urban waterfront in the city in Upper Bavaria. The backbone of this brilliant scheme is a 500-metre-long boardwalk, which morphs from ramp to promenade to landscaped steps leading down to the water’s edge, and connects to eight pedestrian bridges. While these bridges link the riverbanks, the previously buried Mühlbach creek was uncovered, and guarded inlets along its path were reimagined as urban gardens. A timbered platform rises above tiered lawns, provides a viewing platform to the Chiemgau Alps, to the east. a24‑landschaft.de
