European Landscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detailing

(John Hannent) #1
Sweden

The Node is constructed with walls of concrete
and an exterior tongue of steel. Inside the walls
a fill material of crushed bedrock has been used
to permit drainage The original idea was that both
exterior and interior surfaces of the wall should be
covered with 40mm granite slabs with a rough sur-
face, so that the whole thing resembled a citadel.
Ultimately only the inner surface was finished in
this way. Because of high costs, the exterior façade
was covered with tarred horizontal wooden paling.
Small washers of steel were inserted between the
wood and form a diagonal pattern. The metal glitters
in the black surface in the daylight. During the hours
of darkness a sloping light from the upper edge of
the wall creates shaped shadows down the walls.
In this way the large façade surfaces have a desir-
able detailing.

The outpost is a small and tapering platform,
stretching out about 5m from the wall, 6m above
the water surface. It is a steel construction with a
wooden decking of azobe and framing handrails of
steel. Taking a few steps out onto it gives one a feel-
ing of dizziness, like hanging above the water.

In the middle of the flat square plane of the Node
is a place that is elevated by approximately half a
metre, called the Stone Table. You can climb onto it
via steps or a ramp. It is totally free of all kinds of
equipment. You can sit along the edges or on the
elevated plane itself. The supporting walls, the stairs
and the ramp are all constructed with solid granite
blocks. The surface of the plane has the same con-
crete slab paving as the rest of the surface of the
Node. The colour is dark grey with a structured sur-
face and the dimensions are 500 x 500 x 70mm.

8.10
The outpost with a view towards the bridge between
Sweden and Denmark

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