Modern Water
As I flipped through this month’s issue of Metropolitan Home, I found myself thinking “clean lines, modern, predictable…yawn, clean lines, modern, perfect but predictable…does anyone who lives here have a personality?…nice, modern, predictable…is this the same house I was looking at a few pages ago or is this a different one?” until I arrived at “The Well-Watered Garden.” As soon as I saw the industrial stencil writing on the wall, I knew it had to be Julie Bargmann’s work. I should admit a bias that Julie was my favorite and most inspiring professor. This space looks pretty damn cool though, bias or no. The only thing about it that through me off was that the writer used the term “water feature.” Julie would never say “water feature”, even if someone was trying to force her to say it via water torture.
While the Met Home pictures are lovely and glossy, the collection of process photos over at Julie’s D.I.R.T. Studio website are a lot more interesting, and the writing doesn’t mention “water features.”*:
Turtle Creek carves a deep ravine through a Dallas neighborhood where the mosquitoes are as big as horses, and the houses are larger than life. Amidst the elaborate manicured landscapes sits a vacuous abandonedpumphouse with reservoirs that once supplied the neighborhood’s water.
These asphalt and concrete volumes transform with a new flow of arts events and everyday play. Wild and wooly edges of native Texas tangles creep into thick edges, framing the luminous voids.
Initiating a model for regeneration at a residential scale, existing structures and surfaces are carefully curated and reframed to keep the patina growing. Water flowing through the site is captured for bird baths and filtered before cascading into the creek.
Turtle Creek, how big is this place? I think there is a swanky inn somewhere around there that I can stay at for free if I earn a million more Neiman Marcus InCircle Rewards Points, and I think that cool Van Valkenburgh project was on Turtle Creek as well. This creek must be Texas-sized.
If you want to get the most intimate view of this project, check out the ASLA’s award page.
(Above) I love this: “Entrance corridor and wet garden. Wall stone was cut from the same quarry vein. Recycled material includes 70 year-old broken concrete slabs (garden floor), old electrical panels (steel benches), and a re-fashioned steel well-head (cocktail table).”
*By the way, in addition to never saying “water feature” again, never say “hardscape” either. Your cooperation is appreciated. While you’re at it, please never say “Room Porn” or “House Porn” in my presence. We’ll keep adding to this list of pet peeves as we go along. Oh yeah, I hate it when people say “urbane” when they mean “urban,” and not “sophisticated.” Which design terms and archispeak bug the hell out of you?
top photo scanned from Metropolitan Home magazine
all other photos swiped from asla.org, taken by Tom Jenkins
August 14th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Love, love, love the reuse of this old pump house as a garden and arts gathering place. Thanks for the links - I enjoyed the process photos and the detail on the ASLA sites. The use of recycled materials and the overall transformation of the site is so inspiring.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
HI Colette! I agree, Julie taught us to preserve the history of sites, and not just clean up and erase them. I think you’d enjoy reading more on the D.I.R.T. site - Julie has done amazing things on a lot of industrial sites, collaborating with artists, environmental engineers, preservationists, architects and the E.P.A. One of the highest profile ones is the Ford River Rouge Plant.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!!!
Becky
August 14th, 2007 at 10:27 am
In the wider sense, the use of ‘gentrification’, when the real aim is ‘blandification’ (I just made that word up) irks me to no end.
It is not that hard to take a run-down area or property and make it beautiful without making it look like somewhere else and losing the original style and personality.
In the North of England, there are large swathes of terraced housing that are in dire need of improvement. Studies have categorically shown that these homes could be simply and beautifully restored and updated, without losing their looks or history.
Instead, the British Government are intending to simply raze whole streets to the ground and replace them with cookie-cutter semi-detached ’starter homes’ that are poorly-designed and built to barely last the length of the mortgage. I should also point out that this course of action will cost far more than remodeling the existing housing.
It makes me want to weep into my cup o’tea.
Perhaps we should forward a copy of the ‘Well Watered Garden’ article to Gordon Brown?
August 14th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Jonathan, I feel your pain. It’s one thing to tear down Pruitt-Iago in St. Louis (an abysmal public housing failure), quite another to raze history. Unless the buildings are full of asbestos, mold, lead paint, and are sick housing, I am all for restoration and preservation. I think our idea of what deserves to be restored needs to change with the times. Modern architecture and Arts and Crafts architecture seem to be in the most danger right now, as their lots have suddenly become judged as more valuable for the awful McMansions we have sprouting up all over historic neighborhoods (Can you tell I’m bitter? I blogged about the ones on my own street awhile back). In this vein, lots of the Harvard 5’s modern masterpieces in New Canaan Connecticut are being torn down to make way for monster homes.
Here in the states, I tend to associate the term “gentrification” with a typical scenario like Boston’s South End/Roxbury. Artists (i.e. urban pioneers), who need cheap space and have appreciation for great old buildings move into neighborhoods with high crime rates. Then a few gay men with fabulous taste follow suit, fixing up delapidated brownstones and restoring them to their former glory. (in the South End, brownstones that were $150K in the early ’80’s now garner $50K for one parking spot behind them, and upwards of a million for one floor today). A few hip spots to eat and shop pop up, and then the yuppies follow. Within a few years. As this goes on, the original population (who have likely been there for generations) are shoved further out. Then the artists get priced out and move farther out, to say, Jamaica Plain. Then the whole cycle starts again down the road in Jamaica Plain.
By the way, “blandification” is a perfect description! I love it! Thanks so much for taking the time to write! Feel free to forward the pump house to your P.M.
becky