Landscape Architect Articles

Synthesis of Architecture and Landscape06-05-08 | News

Synthesis of Architecture and Landscape

?EUR??,,????'??Most successful architecture relates clearly and unabashedly to setting ?EUR??,,????'??? to landscape. The relationship of design to setting translates into graceful connection, natural integration. Form follows context and accommodates function.?EUR??,,????'?? --Peter Gisolfi, AIA, ASLA photo: Peter Gisolfi Associates

In the new book, Finding the Place of Architecture in the Landscape Architect and Landscape, Architect Peter Gisolfi eschews standard monograph styles and promotes a distinctive, definitive point of view: Architecture should always be connected to, and designed in harmony with natural and man-made landscapes. Buildings should unemphatically enhance the landscape, be disciplined by it, and reconcile the influences of context and program. Put simply, Gisolfi posits, and practices, that architectural design should respond to?EUR??,,????'???not overpower?EUR??,,????'???settings including natural, man-made, and cultural environments. Sustainability is incorporated into every Gisolfi design; he believes living in harmony with nature starts with truly understanding and appreciating multiple environments.

?EUR??,,????'??To me, landscape encompasses what currently exists, whether it?EUR??,,????'???s the landscape of a city, or undisturbed land,?EUR??,,????'?? says Gisolfi. ?EUR??,,????'??As a society, we tend to locate buildings haphazardly, but, when landscapes and buildings are considered together, the built environment that results functions better and is more harmonious.?EUR??,,????'??

With an academic background in architecture, landscape architecture, and music and experience in diverse geographic settings, Gisolfi?EUR??,,????'???s vision was influenced by both people and places. He gleaned invaluable insights from noted architects, landscape architects, and teachers including Ian McHarg, Robert Venturi, Romaldo Giurgola, and Louis Kahn, all professors from the University of Pennsylvania; as well as Vincent Scully, professor of art history at Yale. Professor Scully describes Peter Gisolfi?EUR??,,????'???s architecture as regional architecture, rooted in the Hudson River Valley. His sensitivity to regional influences informs his work even when he builds in other parts of the country.

Gisolfi?EUR??,,????'???s unique academic background and experience result in a design philosophy, of which Yale University Professor Emeritus Vincent J. Scully comments, ?EUR??,,????'??It tends to create intrinsically organized new communities that get along with the old ones and can themselves endure, where trees are as important as buildings and everything can age together, growing old and better suited to each other with the passage of years.?EUR??,,????'??

Peter Gisolfi, AIA, ASLA, founded the firm of Peter Gisolfi Associates, architects, landscape architects, and interior architects, in 1976 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. He is principal-in-charge of design. Gisolfi is also a Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at The City University of New York, where he is Chairman of the School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture. He was previously an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University for 12 years. The work of Peter Gisolfi Associates has received many design awards and has been featured in national magazines, newspapers and numerous books. Gisolfi has written extensively on architectural issues.

Finding the Place of Architecture in the Landscape will be released in Spring 2008..

Source: Corinne Liccketto, Smith Publicity