Archinect - News

Snøhetta completes ‘revitalized’ garden at 550 Madison Avenue in New York

2022-11-29T11:10:00-05:00

The Snøhetta-designed public garden at 550 Madison Avenue in Manhattan has opened, completing one step of the extensive remodelling of the former AT&T Building at the same address. Developed with Olayan Group, the half-acre garden is described by the team as “the first new green space in Midtown in decades."

Photograph credit: Barrett Doherty

Known simply as the ‘Garden,’ the 21,300-square-foot green space is located adjacent to the former AT&T office tower, in the location of a formerly enclosed mid-block passageway. The area, open to the public, holds 48 trees, 200 shrubs, 6,300 bulb plants, and 10,000 herbaceous understory plants, as well as public restrooms and three kiosks with food and beverage outlets.

Photograph credit: Barrett Doherty

The Garden is centered around a “tranquil” water feature, and comprises five sections which are themselves anchored by different structures. Distinct “upland,” “lowland,” and “sheltered” garden sections contain a mixture of trees and shrubs, wh...

Bartlett students collaborate with mobile urban garden project in London

2015-07-24T12:51:00-04:00

Kings Cross, a northern-London borough with an industrial history, has been undergoing massive redevelopment efforts since the turn of the millennium. Since then, the area has been referred to as an ongoing construction site, as a university, schools, affordable housing, and a public swimming facility have cropped up. And on July 22nd, undergraduate students at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture unveiled seven structures built into a new public garden in the area.

The structures were built in collaboration with an urban community garden project called Skip Gardens – referring to the “skips” or “dumpsters” (as they’re known in the US) where the flora was planted, making the Gardens mobile. Now, the students’ projects have been installed in the midst of Skip Gardens, and are open to the public, offering new facilities for educational vents, cooking, farming and dining.

The structures are varied, but often feature reclaimed materials. There’s a chicken coop made from bamboo, a hydro...