Suspended landscapes
Built at the turn of the 60's and 70's, the Dufferin-Montmorency highway occupies a key route. This aerial, fluid and functional momentum has led to the destructuring of the sectors it overhangs. In the intervention zone, the elevation of the highway, although intended to avoid any interference with the urban fabric, has compromised the continuity of the St-Roch and Old Port districts. The dismantling of the "cul-de-sac" ramps, whose function was never more than projected, has left residual forms, enclosed basins whose function today is limited to the structural integrity of the ramps still in use, like a crutch margin.
Let us imagine a head to head of twigs in a poetic space without use. The disproportion of size between the schematic representations of twigs and the twigs marks the need for man to magnify what he looks at to assimilate its essence and puts forward the influence that he has on the environment. On the highway, the copper patterns stand as whole sections of forgotten subjects, an ecosystem of fictitious and malleable morphologies capable of re-establishing the notion of scale in the urban landscape. Whether perceived from the road or from various points in the city; in part or in totality, this verticality inclined towards the city marks the coherence of a procession.
The proposal is in line with the current perspective of restoring biodiversity and the environment in urban areas (air quality and heat island mitigation). The grasses (pioneer species) contribute during three seasons (color and inflorescence) to the decor of the hanging garden. The use of copper as an overlay material illustrates the evolving nature of the patterns within the hanging landscape. The copper patterns oxidize over time under the effect of weathering, highlighting their sharp verticality, evoking both traditional urban elements such as roofs, steeples, chimneys and antennas, but also plants, forests, twigs, birds and mineral formations present at various scales in nature. The lighting concept reveals a more introverted and intimate nightlife of the place. The use of spotlights on bollards generates linear beams targeted to dramatize the appearance of certain patterns through both lighting and cast shadows.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
The monumentality of this proposal, which relies essentially on the manipulation of scale relationships, was deemed particularly appropriate to the characteristics of the site and the challenges posed by the project. The magnification of grass stems, on the scale of a highway, stages the excessiveness of the infrastructure in its relationship to nature and to humans, while at the same time provoking a feeling of smallness in the latter. The user of the road could feel like an ant to be next to the immense inclined stems, almost worrying, which evoke the movement of the grasses which form a continuous bed at their base. However, in contrast to this allusion to movement, the rigidity of the work, both literally and figuratively, did not convince the jury. The duality between the natural and the artificial lacks nuance, which is particularly noticeable in the abrupt scale relationship between the real and artificial grasses as well as in the difficult formal relationship between the copper rods and their anchoring to the infrastructure. A flexible or deformable structure discreetly anchored, as suggested by other unsuccessful teams, would have been more appropriate here. On the other hand, if the graphic design of the presentation renders well the idea behind the concept developed, it is far from certain that the stems, in their hard material reality and given the variegated context in which they are inscribed, would be so obviously similar to grasses. This proposal is less risky than others in terms of its short-term realization, but its return in terms of impact does not live up to the hopes raised by the proposal that received the first prize. However, the jury wishes to acknowledge the effort of a young team whose proposal was selected as one of the best.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
31 scanned / 11 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Axonometric Drawing
- Axonometric Drawing
- Elevation
- Section
- Section
