L019_The Green Room
Rotterdam, NetherlandsThe “Green Room” is a temporary landscape intervention specially designed for the city of Rotterdam that is part of a series of interventions in the public space of several European cities named “Domestic Monuments”.
The “Green Room” experiments with the role of hybrid interventions (mix of landscape+ architecture+ sculpture) to activate the urban life of the public space of our city centres.
The intervention transforms an unused part of the public space of the city into an open room for the citizens. The innovative use of vegetation in walls, floors and sitting elements of the room characterizes the project with a strong identity and an iconic character. The “Green Room” works as a quiet green island that flows in the anonymous public space of the city.
The “Domestic Monuments” interventions are based on ten main principles:
1. The “Domestic Monument” encloses a quiet spot that creates an oases effect within the busy city
2. The “Domestic Monument” encloses a small space with human dimensions in the large space of the city
3. The “Domestic Monument” provides an open room with domestic character in the public domain
4. The “Domestic Monument” is personal in contrast with the anonymous street
5. The “Domestic Monument” is made of vegetation that contrasts with the stone or bronze of classical public artworks
6. The “Domestic Monument” is temporal and alive in contrast to the permanent classical monuments
7. The “Domestic Monument” is something to use, to play, to enjoy,…to live and not only something to admire
8. The “Domestic Monument” is an uncompleted work to be completed by the people and not a self-sufficient monument
9. The “Domestic Monument” is a sculpture to stay inside looking through the windows to the city outside
10. The “Domestic Monument” is a monument for the citizens
The “Green Room” consists of two main elements: the prefabricated green walls and the seating platform.
The prefabricated green walls consist of a three-dimensional steel mesh attached to two aluminium planters. The planters are equipped with a drainage system and are covered with a thermal isolation layer in its interior face to protect the roots of the plants in winter. The ivory plant (Hedera Helix) covers completely the three-dimensional steel mesh to form a solid green wall 60 centimetres thick and three meters high.
The green walls integrates three square windows located at different heights to promote the interaction of visitors of different ages with the wall. The corner shape of the “Green Room” protects the visitors against the strong dominant wind from the west and the windows frame the views over the Maas River and the Erasmus Bridge, icon of the city of Rotterdam.
The seating platform works as a geometrical topography created by cubes of different heights that can be used as seating elements, tables or play elements. Its soft finishing in artificial grass makes the element attractive to the touch, inviting citizens to use the element.
All together, green wall and seating platform, create an hybrid green urban element, half natural, half artificial that invites the citizens to use it in very different ways working as a small urban stage or meeting point.
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