New York architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro are on their way to becoming international superstars, having just trumped Foster + Partners, Snøhetta, and other formidable adversaries to win the Aberdeen City Garden Project design competition for a new park and cultural center in Scotland.
It’s a major jump across the pond for DS+R: While they’ve got extensive projects going on in the States, this is their first major European commission, not to mention a triumph over starchitect Norman Foster.
"The runner-up concept by Foster + Partners was outstanding, elegant and thoughtful, but did not, in the end, persuade the Jury that it could match the promise of connectivity, excitement and spatial diversity of the winning scheme," said competition organizer Malcolm Reading, Bustler reported. The winning design also took into account cost and viability — and offered the tantalizing possibility of being for Aberdeen what the High Line, DS+R's beloved elevated park in Manhattan, did for Chelsea.
‘This is a design that can act as the catalyst to regenerate the whole of Aberdeen’s city center with significant economic impacts for the entire city," said jury member and urban planning writer Charles Landry. "Truly inspiring, it can put Aberdeen onto the global radar screen. Without this type of transformational change, Aberdeen will struggle to meet the challenges it will inevitably face in the future.”
It’s a fabled and oft-pursued “Bilbao Effect,” or in this case, High Line effect, that we strongly caution against. Recent failures to create this coveted tourist-draw include Oscar Niemeyer’s shuttered cultural center in Spain, and Rafael Viñoly’s critically pummeled “Golden Banana” in Colchester, England. Charles Renfro said it himself: "Everybody thinks that they can put a Bilbao up, y’know, a copy. I don't see how these cities could think that just having an elevated train line makes for a success — the kind of success we've seen with the High Line."
Their plans, drawn up in collaboration with Scottish architects Keppie Design and Philadelphia-based landscape architects Olin, take their inspiration from a game of cat’s cradle, evident in the “Granite Web,” as it’s now being referred. It’s both a cultural center and an outdoor space, with elevated, criss-crossing walkways passing over vast expanses of greenery. The plaza below will be used for exhibitions, events, and performances, or just a good lie in the grass in the middle of the afternoon.