James Corner
|
|
|
Founded with the mission to provide innovative design that solves complex problems existing within cities, through the use of public spaces that not only benefit the people, but benefit the ecological system from within. With a staff of over 50 landscape architects and urban designers induced with passion for people and the revitalization of urban life, Founded in 2006, James Corner Field Operations continues maintain the duties of working with people and communities to enjoin soft ecological landscapes into the public realm that provide the sensation of theatrics within ethics, all whilst benefiting the unseen and out of mind ecosystem below.
|
Education & Early Start
Corner once sat in on a lecture by Dan Kiley in 1980. This would become one of the inspirational moments that encouraged corner to pursue the profession of Landscape Architecture.Corner went on to graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University in England. Then in 1986, he received a Master's Degree in Landscape Architecture with an Urban Design Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts.
From there Corner went on to work for well established firms including Wallace, Roberts, and Todd on projects such as the New Jersey Hudson River Waterfront Redevelopment, and for Richard Rogers and Partners on the redevelopment of the Royal Docks in London and finally Gillespie and Partners on the design of the International Garden Festival Park in Liverpool.
From there Corner went on to work for well established firms including Wallace, Roberts, and Todd on projects such as the New Jersey Hudson River Waterfront Redevelopment, and for Richard Rogers and Partners on the redevelopment of the Royal Docks in London and finally Gillespie and Partners on the design of the International Garden Festival Park in Liverpool.
Idea of Intimate Immensity
“the idea as simultaneously feeling intimacy and immensity, such as in a forest where the trees embrace one on all sides but whose edges cannot be grasped, hence the immensity of the forest is also felt.”
As an Author
|
When James came to America, he set out across the United States to understand the landscape with photographer, Alex Maclean, he assembled a book of aerial photography titled, Taking Measures Across the American Landscape. Published in 1996. Corner imagined that others would be able to see the landscape as he did and to understand the history and geometry within the landscape, developed though time. |
|
Other publications include:
The Landscape Imagination Collected Essays of James Corner 1990-2010, published in 2014 & The Highline with Diller Scofidio + Renfro published in 2015 |
|
As an Educator
|
In 1988, James started teaching at University of Pennsylvania. He had a unique approach to teaching which were based on interests upon “developing innovative approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism.” Then 2000, he was elected chair of the Landscape Architecture Department.
|
|
Awards & Recognitions
There includes a resume of awards and accomplishments achieved by James Corner and his firm, Field Operations.
- National Design Award - 2010
- Time Magazine “Ten Most Influential Designers,” - 2007
- The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award in Architecture - 2004
- Daimler-Chrysler Award for Design Innovation - 2000
- G. Holmes Perkins Award - 1996
Sample of Projects Completed & In Progress
Members Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Benfro working on the Highline project.
From left to right: Elizabeth Switkin, Ricardo Scofidio, James Corner, Elizabeth Diller, Matthew Johnson.
From left to right: Elizabeth Switkin, Ricardo Scofidio, James Corner, Elizabeth Diller, Matthew Johnson.
The Highline - NYC
|
The unarguably most well known project by JCFO is The Highline in NYC. The elevated park in NYC was built atop of the derelict and crumbling infrastructure of a formal elevated train that would transport passengers above the city streets on the east side of Manhattan. The 1.5 mile long piece of elevated rail was in disrepair and swept aside as a forgotten memory of NYC before a photographer brought to the light, the self seeding plant ecosystem that took over. James Corner has said that the Highline changed the way the thought of landscape once again. The systematic challenges of infrastructure repair and management of the existing ecosystem remained. There already had been the expression of nature, but using creative means to open the space to public passage while provide the raised level feeling of experience NYC in an open air environment remained. The idea of “How to dramatize the experience?” was solution to the problem. Corner introduced the idea to propagate simple experiences such as people watching and voyeurism, allowing people to be free to sit together and experience one another amongst an urban bewildered environment. The Highline was to become this green ribbon, juxtaposed along the city grid. Theatrical views and other vistas to the sky were of key concept for the Highline. It was designed so that it would give people a feeling of coming across a secret magic garden in the sky, a place to escape the concrete and buildings. |
Freshkills Park - Staten Island
|
On Staten Island, FreshKills Landfill was in great need of rehabilitation. There lay a four square mile landfill which posed difficult technical aspects. It was described to be too big to build a park on in short amount of time. JCFO decided to stage the park over sequenced periods of time, first through a highly systematic analysis. Issues of future management of the site and continued the decontamination of toxic materials buried and lined under the soil are present. A poetic project that would grow overtime and evolve just as life does. Special attention was to be paid to the ecosystem biodiversity and microscopic engineered techniques to assure the parks improvement with time.
|
|
|
In total, when the park and it’s three phases are finished in 2035, Freshkills Park will be the second-largest park in New York City and 2.7 times the size of Central Park in Manhattan. It will serve to public with a varitey wildlife, programming, and circulation all to serve the public realm.
|
|
|
|
Qianhai Water City - Shenzhen, China
|
Working from city to seat scale, JCFO has undertook a project and been awarded to design the entirety of the ‘arterial parks’ for Qianhai Water City in Shenzhen, China. The park will include features that use the water and educate the public of the local ecosystem in which they stand. JCFO is also in charge of the streetscape planning and development and connecting all working sectors of the city to one another. The city is deigned in a system of districts with core elements for each district located in the center and having direct connections to the park systems.The city will ultimately thrive off the gratitude for economic and public enjoyment uses of water within an urban landscape. |
A Few Notable Images
Tongva Park - Santa Monica, California
Private Residence - Nantucket, Massachusetts
Race Street Pier - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
When you are able to understand the systematic techniques, you have more fun with the process. The whole world becomes one big game of elaborate instructions. When you realize this, you are more liberated when you know you can play with it.
-James Corner
|
|
Page Prepared by:
Joshua Wilcox Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Student SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry AAS | LEED Green Associate [email protected] |
