LSA 220: Introduction to Landscape ArchitectureA Designer’s Profile: West 8Sarah Hoagland

11/12/2013

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Adriaan Geuze: founding partner

and design director of West 8

West 8 is an urban design and landscape architecture firm based in the Netherlands. It

was founded in 1987 by Adriaan Geuze, who had just recently received his masters degree in

landscape architecture from the Agricultural University of Wageningen, and Paul van Beek, who

later left the firm.6 Geuze was not alone in enjoying early success. The 1990s was a time of

growing opportunity that allowed countless young talents to flourish in the Netherlands. Like

many regions around the world, the Netherlands was experiencing a period of

internationalization. Boarders were disappearing, and practices expanded and grew as a result

of the contact with new ideas and styles.5 Over the years, the firm continued to grow, taking on

new partners and designers as well as opening new offices in New York and Belgium, expanding

its vision to an even wider audience.6

As with the work of any artist, all the firm’s designs share a certain essence that is purely

West 8, which distinguishes them from others. Part of this connection comes from common

materials, motifs, and the like, but a great deal of the congruity is derived from the strength of

the firms guiding ideas and mission. Founded by a Dutch landscape architect, West 8 has a

tradition that is tied heavily to the Netherlands and its history. Because of its place below sea

level, the Netherland and its design traditions are based in the relationship between land and

water and the manipulation of the two, or as Geuze himself put it, the Dutch make land and

then paint it.7

But if you look at any of West 8’s designs, it becomes abundantly clear that the firm sets

out to do much more than simply paint the land. Geuze and his team think critically about each

space and create innovative landscapes that are rooted in the new modern era and not in the

past. They don’t just bring the Netherlands to other parts of the world, but instead go to great

lengths to ensure that they place each site within the greater context of the region.1 In an essay

titled Accelerating Darwin, Geuze emphasizes his goal to move forward in design. The firm

certainly references past models in its work, but they do so in a way that revitalizes the past

instead of replicating it. In particular, Geuze talks about his attempt to move away from the

highly programed and over-simplified model used in countless public spaces today that have

clear codes which dictate where and how visitors move within the space. Humans are a highly

adaptable, dynamic and inventive species, and according Geuze, don’t need to have spaces

constantly adapted for them when they are perfectly capable of adapting to the environment

themselves. Public spaces should be places of “anarchy, exploration, and self-expression” that

have a life of their own. Geuze also talks about his rejection of the idea that urban public

spaces/parks are places of escape, separate entities within the city. In Geuze’s mind, public

spaces should be designed as places that provide new ways to experience urban life, not escape

it.4 One of West 8’s more large-scale project speaks to this last idea.

The Madrid Rio project, a revitalization of almost 7 million square meters of land

contained in six different districts of the city of Madrid, was all about giving people a new way

to experience urban life. The focus of the project was to bring life to the city and to the banks of

the Manzanares River. Working with teams of architects from Madrid, West 8 developed a

series of spaces connecting the existing green spaces, bringing the people and the river into

closer contact and reconnecting the two sides of the river.3

The design progressed in many stages over four years. The new green spaces were only

possible because the city had moved a fourteen-mile stretch of the M-30 highway

underground. The massive six-lane highway had been blight on the city, had restricted the

public’s access to the river, and the three years of construction on the underground tunnels

only solved part of the problem. Errors in calculation and communication had led to tunnels,

constructed from either end, which missed each other in the middle, tunnels that ran into the

foundations of bridges, and a host of other problems that took long periods of time to resolve.2

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Before the M-30 highway was moved underground it ran along the banks of the

Manzanares River, restricting the public's access to the water.

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The Saon de Pinos with the M-30 running beneath it

The project resulted in completed tunnels, but a disaster above ground, so West 8’s task

was to clean up the mess. The process was made even more complicated by recent laws in

Madrid, which called for the division of projects into numerous parcels, each given to different

local contractors. This made it necessary for West 8 to produce hundreds of designs and plans

that were as simple as possible to understand and reproduce and that were done section by

section as the construction was completed and the project was passed into the hands of

another group of contractors.2

The project did not suffer largely from the complicated process though. Working in

stages, the firm designed and oversaw the construction of four major sites: the Salón de Pinos,

a linear space along the river lined with pine trees with irregular trunks that bend in all different

directions, the Huerta de la Partida, an interpretation of an orchard with a groups of fruit trees

and a mosaic walkway lined with benches, and the Arganzuela Park, the largest site on the

project along the river.

(3) Salon de Pinos

Huerta de la Partida

Arganzuela Park

Beyond creating new spaces to facilitate connection, West 8 also designed several new

bridges to go along with the renovated ancient bridges that physically connect the two sides of

the river. The Cascara bridges are two such examples. They are heavy, rough concrete arches

designed by West 8 with a murals by a local artist done on the ceilings.8

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The Y-Bridge is one of the many bridges designed by West 8 for the Madrid Rio

project to connect the two sides of the Manzanares River.

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The Cascara Bridges were designed by West 8 to reflect the form of a whale,

massive and heavy but graceful in its movement.

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The plan view of Lincoln Park reveals its relationship to the buildings the

surrounding environment.

Another project, on a much smaller scale, was the Miami Beach’s Lincoln Park fronting

the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, a new concert hall in Florida. The space is small,

and though it’s called a park, it’s more on the garden scale at a little over 1000 square meters.3

Overall, the design of the park is relatively simple. Early on in the process, the design team

decided that they wanted to limit the amount of hard surfaces so that the space felt more like a

park, despite its size. The networks of white concrete paths are all that interrupts the green of

the gently rolling ground. They crisscrosses the park in an irregular pattern, none cutting a

direct path, forcing visitors to move through the park and giving the illusion that the space is

bigger than it seems. The irregular pattern of the walkways is echoed in the custom pergolas,

which along with the trees provide shade to visitors.8

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The white concrete paths, which crisscross Lincoln Park among the trees,

are the only hardscape elements in the space.

Here the challenges were mostly culturally and aesthetically oriented, without massive

transportation and logistical issues. For instance, the city wanted a hurricane resistant

landscape, so that put limitations on the kind of materials the firm could use as well as the kind

of space they could design. However, it was still an exciting project for West 8. Because of the

site’s location in Florida, Geuze and his design staff used tropical plant materials, which don’t

often appear in West 8’s designs. Also, since the project was a soundscape, acoustics had to be

top notch. The sound systems the directors wanted to install were massive and would have

dominated the space, so West 8 worked with people from Disney (masters in hiding

installation) in order to preserve the character of the park.2

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Unique hand-fabricated aluminium pergolas provide shade for visitors and

give the space a whimsical and light character.

Here is where the cultural divide comes in. Landscape architecture is dependent on

culture. People are strongly rooted in nature, but every culture defines nature differently. For

the Dutch nature is made, where as other cultures, like the United States for example, view

nature as wilderness.5 Geuze said that in the United States, the project was viewed as having an

avant-garde and contemporary character, while he viewed it as having a more agrarian feel.

Also, when designing pergolas to provide shade for visitors, West 8 had to go through many

design solutions. On the American side, the original design was questioned owing to the feeling

that people might try to climb them, something the designers had never considered. West 8

came up with numerous solutions, some involving certain portions of the structure which

rolled, a bench to surround the base, as well as thorny plant materials, all of which were

rejected before the final solution was proposed, which shows the more cautious and strict way

of thinking in the United States when it comes to public spaces.2 The difference in thinking is

what makes West 8’s designs so appealing though. They bring bits and pieces of a different

culture to other parts of the world, and create spaces worth being excited about.

Works Cited:

1. "Adriaan Geuze | 2012-13 Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor " Posted March 22 2013.

Knowlton School. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIoDPcn6Hc4.

2. "Lecture by Adriaan Geuze " Posted Dec 10 2012. California College of the Arts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUQ3JalxR0.

3. "Madrid Rio" Posted Nov 28 2010. Madrid.es. http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=YrPqLGaTdjo.

4. Avermaete, Tom, Klaske Havik, and Hans Teerds. Architectural Positions: Architecture,

Modernity And The Public Sphere. (Amsterdam: SUN Publishers, 2009), 101-108.

5. Lootsma, Bart. Superdutch: New Architecture in the Netherlands. (New York: Princeton

Architectural Press 2000).

6. West 8, "About West 8." Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.west8.nl/about_west_8/.

7. "Dutch Profiles: West 8." Dutch Profiles Recorded June 28 2013. DutchDFA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTdH8KiTkaQ.

8. West 8, "Projects" Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.west8.nl/projects/.

Media Sources:

1. http://www.portmancmcmiamibeach.com/project/adriaan-geuze/

2. http://www.espormadrid.es/2008/06/pasarela-en-y-de-san-conrado-s-5.html

3. http://www.west8.nl/projects/all/madrid_rio/

4. http://www.designboom.com/architecture/west-8-miami-beach-soundscape-lincoln-

park/

5. http://www.madrid.es/portal/site/munimadrid/

menuitem.f46cde3ab6c0b0aa7d245f019fc08a0c/?

vgnextchannel=6091317d3d2a7010VgnVCM100000dc0ca8c0RCRD&tipofichero=imagen

&vgnextfmt=especial1&vgnextoid=5394768f5818a110VgnVCM1000000b205a0aRCRD

6. http://www.west8.nl/projects/cascara_bridges/