The spotlight tonight is on Kuhn, a Zurich landscape architecture office.
The studio's work is evolving into a graphic language in their high profile schemes such as Louis-Hafliger-Park or Neugestaltung Tessiner Platz.
(Louis-Hafliger-Park)
(Tessiner Platz)
The strength of their shapes, colours, contrasts and patterns is immense and works perfectly with
the architectural tone of the surrounding buildings.
Calmer in Louis-Hafliger-Park and busier in Tessiner Platz, the dialog between architecture and landscape architecture is there and is well taken care of.
This strong visual approach is a great tool for Kuhn into giving a clear identity to spaces and this graphic language creates technical opportunities to design such common things as tree pits in a unique way so that all seems bespoke i.e. specific to that particular place.
This patterning technique works especially well in the Tessiner Platz where the street furniture is a second layer sitting on the seemingly random pentagon patterned canvas. This pattern has exceptional visual balance reminding me in some way of the compositions of Burle Marx although less complex and more geometric.
As most Swiss practices, the detailing is excellent and materials are used in very thoughtful way.
A practice to watch out for in the future.
