European Landscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detailing

(John Hannent) #1
The Landscape Park, Riem

landscape: historic field boundaries, existing infra-
structures, the main wind direction. The selection
of plant species was directed by the potential
natural vegetation of this landscape area, a criterion
defined by the city of Munich.


The planting concept includes five different typolo-
gies shown in the table overleaf.^15 All structures for
the woody plants and shrubs comprise consistent,
sometimes very dense grids. Vexlard’s planting
principles distinguish between ‘homogenous and
heterogeneous’ and ‘regular and irregular’ plots,
which offer differing transparency, depth and height
effects.


The materials in the park
Even though it is the structure of the vegetation
in the Landscape Park Riem that plays the star-
ring role, the park’s hard details and materials are


the elements that allow Vexlard’s concept to be
understood. They facilitate the use of the park by
the people around it, especially in the terrace areas
close to the city.

In accordance with the ecologically-oriented plan-
ning concept for the trade fair centre and city quarter
of Riem, it was important that all construction mater-
ials were of the highest quality and met criteria for
ecological sustainability. The palette of materials is
limited to natural stone, concrete, timber and steel.
The material selection avoids spectacular, risky or
short-lived novelties. The park’s green elements, the
woody plant structures and the colourful blooming
grassy meadows lie in the foreground of the design.
The area for the sunken garden by Rainer Schmidt
is intensively designed and contains predominantly
built components. Special details and materials
can be found here, for example, an elastic pathway

4.3
Typical sections (and associated plans) through the
promenade. Section B shows the section through
the western part of the promenade.
4.4
Section F (keyed in Figure 4.2) shows a section
through a tree grove on the promenade.
4.5
View from the elevated terrace onto the open
landscape
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