On 19 April, Günther Vogt will hold a lecture at the LE:NOTRE Landscape Forum in Rome, looking at the "Rural fringe". The event will take place at the University La Sapienza from 17 to 20 April.

For further information, please check the website of  the LE:NOTRE Institute.

LONDON

Missing Link - Lower Lea Valley to the Thames

Günther Vogt has chosen for the students from Harvard a site in London - a strip of land, approximately 0.8 by 2.4 kilometers, located in the Lower Lea Valley. The Lea Valley contains the Lea River, one of the few remaining tributaries of the Thames that extends north through the East End of London, into the suburbs and beyond. This river valley has played an important roll in London’s history and development and it has received increased attention in the past few years as it was named the site for the 2012 Olympics. It is also now targeted for major redevelopment projects funded by private developers in cooperation with the City of London. The site that was chosen is not the Olympic site; rather, it is an industrial and post-industrial wedge of land that should connect the Olympic site along the LeaRiver back to the Thames via Bow Creek, a largely impassible zone that separates the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham. Certain themes readily emerge: the post-Olympic hangover of the city, the speed of capitalist speculation, decaying and new infrastructures, and the sociological and economic pressures they create.The site itself is characterized by its sectional and programmatic complexity, hydrology, fragmentation, pedestrian impermeability and economic disparity.

During the research last week, where all Harvard students came to London, a workshop at the VOGT London office took place. Modelstudies and the way we design and work with models where shown to the students giving the students an insight of our daily work as landscape architects.

Inspiring the students for the upcoming project, different techniques where presented such as drawing e.g. with pencil, water colours, crayons and charcoal and using various kinds of paper.

During our daily work in the office the first formulation of a project program and the communication of a final design concept, the countless thought processes are recorded in the form of sketches, drawings, plans, models, movies and 3-D visualizations. This way of thinking, working and designing where comunicated to the students during this workshop.

Over the past ten years, Vogt Landscape Architects have designed a wide variety of public and private open spaces in Switzerland and Europe. These include the Athletes village for the Olympic Games in London.

Miniature and Panorama provides a survey of their work, divided into different types of outdoor spaces — landscape, park, square, garden, cemetery, courtyard, promenade and interior spaces. In several essays in this publication, Günther Vogt outlines his understanding of landscape architecture as a heterogeneous field that unites different aspects of natural and social sciences and design. His essays are complemented by contributions reflectingthe spirit of his work from artist friends Olafur Eliasson, Hamish Fulton, Roman Signer, Olaf Unverzart and Christian Vogt.

"Designing knowledge - results and methods of research by design in landscape architecture" - on 22 June, teachers from universities from all over Europe will lecture and discuss this topic. Günther Vogt will participate in the symposium with a lecture titled "Knowledge based design".
The conference will be open to the public and held in English.

You can find the program here: www.entwerfen.tu-berlin.de

Occation: Conference Designing knowledge
Date: 22 June, 9:00-18:00
Place: TU Berlin, Institute for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Extension building, EB 301

Welcome to our new website! After ten years, VOGT is treating itself with a new internet presence. Have fun exploring!

Please excuse possible mistakes and non-running functions in the beginning. We will correct them as soon as possible.

The Sulzerareal Wek is becoming the focus of a nearby-town-center development in Winterthur. VOGT Zurich is making its contribution in the form of an urban mission statement, which we have developed together with Gigon Guyer Architects. As part of the Architecture Forum Winterthur, the results of the test plan are presented and Günther Vogt and Mike Guyer introduce the mission statement. The evening concludes with a discussion on both topics.

Forum Architecture Winterthur: Current construction events in Winterthur
Sulzerareal Factory 1 – Test plan and urban mission statement
20 March, 19:00
Gallery Knoerle und Baettig, Jägerstrasse 50, Winterthur

To walk from tor to tor across Dartmoor National Park in England is to experience the same structure again and again, and this makes it a fascinating landscape for thinking about the shape of a walk. Tors are granite outcrops: the highest elevations on the open moor, and often the only landmarks. Because of this, Dartmoor walkers use the tors for orientation, climbing up onto each one for a far-reaching view to the next: landmark becomes viewpoint.

The transformation of panorama and portrait photographs into a conceptual model provided the starting point for the ‘Four Tor Panorama’, installed in June 2010 as part of a Vogt exhibition at London’s A Foundation. Visitors could virtually trace our steps, gaining insight into the way we read and interpreted the essential structure of the unique Dartmoor landscape.

'Four Tor Panorama'
VOGT Case Studio, Stampfenbachstrasse 59, 8006 Zürich
 

VOGT Zurich and Christian Kieckens Architects from Brussels won the competition about the new crematorium in Zemst.

The landscape design focuses on the three elements of the surrounding: forest, meadows and water. While the enlarged area of the forest hosts practical functions, like parking and an access road, and screens less attractive elements in the neighbourhood, the meadows, apparently sprawling from the open landscape to the crematorium, lead the view to the horizon and offer paths for strolling. Both areas interlace and offer spaces of calmness and for memorization. Within the crematorium realm, the ditches typical for the area are widened to broad water elements, lying in the meadows like naturally. They are mirrors of the sky and expression of the landscape’s metamorphosis into a park at the same time.

VOGT London, as a member of David Chipperfield Architects team, has won the competition for lot D5 du Trapèze à Boulogne-Billancourt, a residential development in the West of Paris, within the famous former site of Renault factory. Part of the site is an island, ‘l'île Seguin’, now masterplanned by Ateliers Jean Nouve. It is anticipated to become a cultural hub in Paris and will include a cultural center, social facilities, extensive parks, gardens and shops.

The jury specifically prized the sensitive consideration of the direct surrounding of the Trapèze and Île Seguin as well as the wider context.

In collaboration with the architects Bünzli & Courvoisier, our office VOGT Zurich has won the competition “Landolt-Areal” in Zurich.

In the south of Zurich, close to the Sihl, a new housing area is developed. The comp-shaped building’s open spaces incorporate the surrounding elements: while the eastern areas with their topography and the selected plants are influenced by the close landscape, the precisely designed courtyards in the western areas closely follow the design of the neighbouring yards.