Azure recognized these four leading examples of landscape and temporary architecture from around the world with 2016 AZ Awards of Merit.
For the sixth annual AZ Awards, our intrepid jury narrowed the field from over 800 submissions, received from dozens of countries, to select just 48 finalists that stood above the rest. In addition to presenting the AZ Award winners, Azure recognized these projects, products and concepts with Awards of Merit.
The following four projects are Awards of Merit winners in the categories of Landscape and Temporary Architecture.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
The Goods Line
With the ambition of using the project as a model for urban renewal, the government of New South Wales, Australia, pulled out all the stops for this 275-metre-long park, built along an abandoned rail line in Sydney. Aspect Studios and Chrofi were glad to take part, outfitting the green space with a walkway of connected polygons, which defines communal and leisure spaces that house custom steel furniture in brilliant yellow. Next to a Ping-Pong table and an amphitheatre, a communal desk for 30 people, with built-in power points and Wi‑Fi, lets mobile workers enjoy the outdoors, even while they’re on the clock.
Location: Sydney, Australia
Firms: Aspect Studios with Chrofi, Australia
Team: John Choi, Sacha Coles and Michelle Weiss, with Dale Lenden, Paul McCormack and Bruce Slorach
Floating Connection
China’s rapid urbanization and soaring demand for public space led the municipal authorities of Harbin to hire Turenscape of Beijing to regenerate and transform an isolated wetland into a major park, and the expansive grounds for MAD Architects’ fluvial Harbin Opera House. By the Songhua River, the water table varies by two metres between seasons, so Turenscape’s installations and landscaping needed to accommodate the rise in water levels. At the highest points, they planted semi-natural meadows that change colours throughout the year, giving returning visitors new surprises each time.
Location: Harbin, China
Firm: Turenscape, China
Designer: Kongjian Yu
TEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
Los Trompos
Last spring, the terrace outside Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center became a psychedelic playground animated by giant, multicoloured spinning tops made from woven fabric over metal frames. Los Trompos, the work of Mexican designers Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena, is both an invitation to play and an enchanting conceptual design piece, one that enlivens a granite piazza with bursts of colour. All of the tops actually spin, though it may take some teamwork to set them in motion. Esrawe and Cadena were inspired by the universality of their subject, since children everywhere play with tops.
Location: Atlanta, U.S.
Firms: Cadena + Asociados and Esrawe Studio, Mexico
Team: Ignacio Cadena and Héctor Esrawe, with Ricardo Bideau, Arturo Bonilla, Jorge Castruita, Sofia Centeno, Alejandro Flores, David Flores, Javier García-Rivera de la Plaza, Moises González and Alberto López Monzón
EH&I Pavilion
Both a carnival funhouse and a De Stijl–inspired masterpiece, the pavilion is the kind of exhibition space you can’t figure out until you’ve spent time in it – a lot of time. For the RAI Amsterdam design fair last fall, i29 Interior Architects created display cases made of bright wooden blocks in the full spectrum of colours, with exterior panels finished in a clean monochrome that offered no hint as to the collections of small objects within. The designers also used mirrored surfaces everywhere, and with no clear way to navigate, touring the exhibit space became an exercise in surrendering to the unknown.
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Firm: i29 Interior Architects, The Netherlands
