Semester 2, Week 4 (Part 3): 3 Precedents

 I’m inspired by seeing urban spacing being reclaimed by nature and I appreciate most the places that I wish I could go and sit in. I think there’s something peaceful about finding quiet busyness in an city and watching, listening, smelling the world as it carries on around you.

This is how tanner springs appeals most to me. I can imagine taking my lunch there and escaping the loud smothering smog of the city and its industrial expectations. An inward looking space, the biophilic, sustainable wetland park even echos its past uses with metal railway sleepers that found another barrier to the noise & air pollution of the roads outside

I feel this is what is lost by the city dune. The frontage with the road is too open (imo) and I wouldn’t want to stop and sit there. The ground appears too stark and dehydrated (yes they’ve fulfilled their goal to emulate a dune but at what cost when the trees around the site seem not to embed as they should). I do appreciate the hidden car park in the ground below.

The ocean country library’s front of house only directs user towards the entrance of the building. There’s limited opportunity to sit & soak anything greater in than the attractive lights on the path. It’s an outwards looking space but one that seems to push you through to the world beyond instead of welcome you in the the park area itself. Even the lines in the paving suggest directionality, like lines on a hospital corridor floor. They have provided more light to the area and probably made it safer to walk after dark.