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the tulip fields of Holland

Revitalization at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens

Vancouver's VanDusen Botanical Gardens has been offering its visitors refuge from increasing urbanization for over 30 years. Internationally renowned sustainable landscape designer Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, in combination with Architecture firm Busby Perkins + Will, have been selected to provide an innovative and inspirational facility to ensure its success well into the future.

overview

The building's five-petal roof will be partially covered with solar panels and green roofing.
The roof system will also collect and process rain water.

main entrance

elevation

Living Building Philosophy

At the heart of the Living Building concept is the belief that our society needs to move quickly to a state of balance between the natural and built environments – to define the highest measure of sustainability possible in the built environment based on current thinking.

The Living Building elements have been attained in many projects around the world – just not all together. It is hoped that VanDusen’s project will accomplish this.

Site
It is understood that the buildings would cause no negative impact. The idea is to reverse the trend of land degradation and invite nature’s functions into a healthy interface with people and buildings.

Energy
A living building relies on current solar income. The building’s energy needs would be supplied by on-site renewable energy on a net annual basis

Materials
Those used will be safe, healthy and responsible for all species.

Water

A Living Building is water independent. The plan is for 100 percent of VanDusen’s occupants’ water use to come from captured precipitation or reused water that is appropriately purified without the use of chemicals. Water would be cleaned using juncos, iris and carex grown in the garden.

Indoor Quality

Healthy for all people – the design will focus on the major conditions that must be present for a healthy interior environment to occur.

Beauty & Inspiration
A Living Building Tells a Story. As a society we are often surrounded by ugly and inhumane physical environments. This project will contain design features intended solely for human delight and the celebration of culture, spirit and place appropriate to the function of the building.

perspective main entrance

conceptual master plan for VanDusen Botanical Gardens

for more information please visit:
busby perkins + will
vandusen botanical gardens

Frank Gehry's Art Gallery of Ontario

The new AGO Expansion and renovation is Toronto-born Frank Gehry’s first building in Canada and marks the very place where he made the initial connection between art and architecture.

Gehry's AGO concept sketch
Sketch courtesy Gehry Partners, LLP

The buildings main facade stretches a full city block and is constructed of gently curving glass and Douglas Fir. This exterior, which encloses the sculpture promenade, allows for natural light to fill the building, connecting visitor and gallery to the community outside.









A sculptural spiral staircase arises from the 2nd floor walkways through the glass roof, to each level of the new south wing.









The new titanium and glass-clad three-story south wing was added to house a new centre for the contemporary arts.

photos via Thomas Mayer
www.thomasmayer.de

Gehry Prtners LLP
www.foga.com

Art Gallery of Ontario
www.ago.net

Canadian Content

what's behind the colours
a project in canadian political pop art

by Iain Russell

Agnes Denes Auction

Cynthia Panucci the Director and Founder of New York based Art and Science Collaborations Inc. contacted me to help support and raise awareness for her organization. November 2008's successful post Ecologically inspired Art Part 1 - Agnes Denes was the catalyst for our discussion, please read below for the exciting details.

Press Release

The celebrated conceptual and ecological art pioneer, Agnes Denes, is on our Advisory Board and is a long-time friend.

Because ours, like many small arts organizations, is having a hard time in these financially challenging times, Agnes has generously donated a framed, archival, signed print of her famous "Tree Mountain" project to ASCI for a PRIVATE SALE.

This print is a digital rendering of the original design drawing for one of Agnes' boldest ecological earthworks to date... "Tree Mountain - A Living Time Capsule - 11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years," 1992-1996, 420 x 270 x 28 meters, in Ylöjärvi, Finland. Eleven thousand trees were planted in a complex mathematical pattern by eleven thousand people from around the world, to be maintained for 400 years. One of the largest environmental reclamation sites in the world, Tree Mountain, was officially announced by the Finnish government at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on Earth Environment Day, June 5, 1992, as Finland's contribution to help alleviate the world's ecological stress. And in 1996, it was declared a national monument to serve future generations with a meaningful legacy by the President of Finland, dignitaries, and participants from around the world.

Agnes' print appears to be a simple oval in design... UNTIL you discover the beautiful complexity of her intriguing use of interlocking mathematical data sets!

PRIVATE SALE: May 2-8, 2009

In 2007, Agnes' print [above] became the inspiration for ASCI's "Pattern-Finding" exhibition held at the New York Hall of Science.

Agnes actually was first to coin the term "pattern-finding," which I believe will eventually become a new, highly developed, interdisciplinary art-sci genre.

ASCI's mission is to raise public awareness about artists and scientists using science and/or technology to explore new forms of creative expression, and to increase communication and collaborations between these fields. Our organization was instrumental in helping to revitalize the art-sci-tech field in the USA during the early 1990's and is now global in scope. ASCI's membership is open, inviting all those who are interested in the lively intersections of the art, science, and technology fields.

We hope you enjoy learning about "Tree Mountain," stop to visit the site the next time you're in Finland, and that you will explore ASCI's extensive website of art-science exhibitions, symposia, featured members, and members news archives.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Pannucci

Founder/Director
Art & Science Collaborations, Inc.(ASCI)
21-years serving the art-sci-tech field
pannucci@asci.org

For more information please visit
www.asci.org
Click here for Print & Private Sale details