Urban Gardens
Architecture
Travel by Design
A Vertical Park in Zurich Greens Up the Grid
This breathtaking mix of steel and vines in Switzerland shows promise for greener, healthier cities around the world
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Zurich, Switzerland, was MFO Park in the Neu-Oerlikon District, an industrial area transformed with residential housing, offices and schools. The park sits among the new buildings, and it is a building in its own right: A steel structure acts as an armature for climbing plants. I first learned about the project in 2007. It was completed five years before that, and early photos show plants just starting their voyage up the structure. Half a decade later, the green has engulfed the gray, making for a splendid environment for residents and workers in the area.
This ideabook tours the park, designed by Burckhardt + Partner and Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten. With vertical gardens gaining popularity in residential design, could it offer inspiration for creating your own living wall at home?
This ideabook tours the park, designed by Burckhardt + Partner and Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten. With vertical gardens gaining popularity in residential design, could it offer inspiration for creating your own living wall at home?
MFO Park covers a rectangular plot of land. It is open on one side, and the other three sides feature stairs and walkways for traversing the structure. The whole is covered by a space frame that will someday be covered by vines like much of the rest of the structure.
Most of the area under the roof is just gravel, more a walkway than a place for hanging out. Seating is grouped under multistory areas on the side and near the places where the plants climb, which makes sense, as these are where the shade is.
The structural frame meets the ground via columns and diagonal bracing. At these points are where the plants start their climb. Given the roughly five-story height of the structure, the designers helped the plants with a raised trench, visible here where the plants are hanging down.
One of the nicest touches is the incorporation of lookouts, which encourage people to trek up through the green structure and sit — custom benches occupy the few lookouts.
A grouping of splayed columns — made up of several diagonal members for the plants — is also a distinctive feature. The columns anchor one end of the park by creating a density of green.
The cluster of columns is visible from a raised walkway close to the open end of the plan.
Another view of the cluster of green columns — looking in the opposite direction from the previous photo — reveals a Pac-Man-shape pool below. Note the numerous benches that are found in this part of the park.
With the success of the climbing plants on the structure (thanks to irrigation as well as design, it should be noted), the multilevel structures on the side feel enclosed; they become spaces defined by the green "walls." The overhead plane on the right is not another walkway; it is the raised trench mentioned earlier.
Here is a close-up of one of the soil-filled raised trenches, which includes a gangway for maintenance access on the right.
The density of the green walls is evident in this view of the closed-off end of the park. I love the play of shadows from the roof on the plants.
This last view of the park is from the terrace that actually projects above the roof. This terrace includes custom benches shaped for lounging and sunning. From here we can see the top of the tapered columns and the wires that will be someday be covered in green.
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