The Malt House Landscape: A Community Space in the Making

This summer, our Malt House landscape hosted its first two events, marking the beginning of becoming a vibrant neighborhood public space. Though still under development, the community has already started to enjoy and benefit from this new landscape in West Harlem.

On June 25th, the Architectural League of New York celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of Urban Omnibus, the League’s publication dedicated to observing, understanding, and shaping the city. Terrain Work’s publicly accessible landscapes in West Harlem were featured along with new architectural additions to the neighborhood by Gluck+ and Levin Betts Architects. The event included a tour of the Manhattanville Factory District projects by Janus Properties, concluding with a reception at the newly inaugurated Malt House Courtyard.

The West Harlem Innovation Network also hosted a networking event for industry professionals on July 30th at the Malt House Courtyard. This gathering provided an opportunity for professionals, students, and researchers to connect and build community in West Harlem.

The design for the Malt House landscape, originally part of one of Manhattan’s largest breweries during the late 1800’s, embodies the chemical reactions found in the brewing process by taking individual elements and combining them into something greater than their constituent parts. Salvaged pieces of the old brewery complex such as steel beams, cobblestones, and the remnants of the brewery foundations are reconfigured to become a landscape that reflects the past, while looking forward to a whole new array of activities for the community in the future. It provides a venue for events such as public art displays, musical performance, dancing, outdoor movies, open air markets, community gatherings and a shady spot to gather with friends.

Another more recent phase of the Malt House landscape has taken an existing asphalt parking lot slated for future development and transformed it into West Harlem Going Wild. With a limited budget, this space was creatively transformed using discarded construction materials and spontaneously occurring plants, turning an underutilized lot into a productive landscape for people and wildlife. The events underscored the courtyard's potential as more than just a green space—it serves as a model for future urban development in marginalized urban spaces. As cities worldwide face the challenges of climate change, grass roots projects like West Harlem Going Wild offer a beacon of hope and practicality, fostering resilient and livable urban environments.

The Barking Club Miami Revealed!

Terrain work is thrilled to share the design for the Barking Club Miami. The Barking Club, in collaboration with Odd House, provides an oasis on the edge of Miami for dogs and their owners to play, socialize, and create community. The site is currently overwhelmed with Maleleucas, an invasive species that threatens the health and stability of the Everglades ecosystem. Terrain Work’s plan creates a new home for the Barking Club with a long term management strategy that eliminates the Maleleucas and reintroduces a native everglades plant palette to provide shade and habitat for creatures of the everglades and their furry friends. Learn more about the Barking Club Miami here.

Terrain Work Receives Honorable Mention in Incheon Geodam International Competition

Terrain Work’s proposal “An Ecology of Knowledge and Culture” was recently awarded Honorable Mention for the Incheon Geomdan Museum Library Complex Cultural Facility International Design Competition. The proposal, in collaboration with Strange Works Studio and Emergent Studio, was inspired by the Korean landscape spanning from the Mountains to the Sea. The proposed landscape reveals the complex and diverse ecotonal landscapes that exist within the Korean Peninsula. It also mediates between repositories for three distinct forms of information – the library (recorded information), the museum (cultural objects embedded with information), and the landscape (biological information), allowing residents to engage with Incheon Geomdan’s intellectual, historical, and biological history. To learn more about “An Ecology of Knowledge and Culture” click here.

Gravity Field Wins Azure 2023 Award

Terrain Work is honored to receive the Azure Magazine 2023 jury award for the best experiential installation for “Gravity Field”! Drawing over 1,000 submissions from around the world, the 2023 Azure Awards edition represents the best in global architecture and design. Collectively, the diverse range of awarded projects exemplify excellence in innovation, aesthetics, creativity, and social and environmental responsibility.

Gravity Field was one of the international winning entries selected for the Jardins de Metis Garden Festival that has been on display at the garden since 2022. Jardins de Metis is the biggest contemporary garden festival in North America with over 60,000 visitors each year.

“Gravity Field” demonstrates the robust adaptability of plants in even the most extreme conditions. A floating cloud of 171 sunflowers transform during the course of the installation. The sunflowers are initially grown upside-down, but curve up toward the sun defying gravity. To learn more about Gravity Field click here.

Al Fresco Wins American Society of Landscape Architects NY Award!

Terrain Work is excited to announce that Al Fresco Botanical Garden has won an American Society of Landscape Architects New York award for 2023! Located in Peoria, Illinois, the botanical garden highlights the rich diversity of flora and fauna found in the riparian riverfront ecology of the Illinois River while embracing the site's cultural history as an amusement park in the early 1900s. Al Fresco offers a dynamic and infinitely changing experience for visitors based on the rise and fall of the water level of the Illinois River. Al Fresco presents visitors with “Ecological Amusement” by weaving together the natural and cultural history found on the site while showcasing plants from one of the most ecologically productive habitats found in North America. To learn more about Al Fresco click here.

HAPPY 2023 FROM TERRAIN WORK!

From all of us at Terrain Work we wish you a happy and healthy New Year in 2023!  We look forward to what the new year brings with all of our friends, collaborators, and clients.

Hudson Commons Wins Urban Land Institute NY Award For Excellence in Development

We are proud to share that our Hudson Commons project in NYC with KPF Architects and Cove Property Group was the recipient of the Excellence in Office Development Award for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) of New York. Terrain Work’s landscape for Hudson Commons, creates a landscape that views the Manhattan skyline as an integrated topography full of peaks and valleys embedded in its underlying geology. This ‘Urban Mountain’ changes in composition and experience as it climbs up from the ground to the peak of the structure.   Plant communities, strata, and programs are all linked to their corresponding elevation within the Hudson Commons giving shape to a distinctly different set of experiences as the various terraces climb up the 17 story structure. Learn more about the Hudson Commons Project.

POP Rocks Featured in August Issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine

Terrain Work’s public art installation, POP Rocks, is currently featured in the August issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine. POP Rocks is an interactive permanent art installation in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco that is a result of a competition organized by Mission Rock Partner to enliven the public realm of their new development on San Francisco’s historical waterfront. Mission Rock partners is a joint venture between the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer that is creating a vibrant new neighborhood in the heart of downtown San Francisco. To learn more about POP Rocks click here.

Terrain Work Wins Public Art Commission in San Francisco

Terrain Work is delighted to announce that our public art installation, POP Rocks ,has been selected as a permanent art installation in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco. The Mission Rock development is a joint venture between the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer. The competition for Mission Rock Street Rooms provided an opportunity to shape the identity and experience of San Francisco’s historic waterfront.

“Erupting from the sidewalk, POP Rocks, creates a dynamic sandstone sculpture that invites people to interact with it.  The sandstone highlights the unique geological rock formations found in the San Francisco Bay Area while integrating splashes of orange and yellow reminiscent of the native California poppy wildflowers. While developing our artwork, POP Rocks, it was important for our ideas to be embedded in the enduring history of the San Francisco Bay Area landscape while creating a place where the whole community could delight in the unexpected.” - Theodore Hoerr, Founding Principal Terrain Work. To learn more abut POP Rocks click here.

Taystee Ribbon Cut with Governor Kathy Hochul

Terrain Work was delighted to be part of the ribbon cutting ceremonies for Taystee in West Harlem recently. Governor Kathy Hochul and Lt. Governor Brian Behjamin led the festivities along with Janus Property partners Scott Metzner and Jerry Salama. "The completion of the Taystee Lab Building is a milestone in the next chapter of Harlem's rich history," Governor Hochul said. "Anchoring the Manhattanville Factory District, the new state-of-the-art building will serve as the home for innovative companies developing the next generation of life science research and technology. As we continue to build back from the pandemic, today's investments that support our life science infrastructure will ensure that we are better prepared, better equipped and more resilient in the future."

Terrain Work is honored be part of this transformative project in West Harlem’s Manhattanville Factory District with Janus Property and LevenBetts Architects. For more on the Taystee landscape click here.

Terrain Work Wins Public Art Commission To Be Featured on Broadway!

Terrain Work is excited to announce that we have won a public art commission through the City of New York and DOT!  On Saturday, April 21st from 9am to 3pm, "Broadway Bouquet" will be displayed on Broadway in the Flatiron district of New York as part of the Earth Day celebration.  The  artwork will be a featured piece in the NYC Car Free Earth Day festivities when Broadway is shut down to automobiles for the day.

"Broadway Bouquet" takes one of the most familiar and portable landscapes found on countless street corners in Manhattan and turns it into a larger than life experience, which is quintessentially New York.  The artwork captures the scale-bending qualities of the city while giving people a glimpse of how plants and urban ecology in new civic spaces can spark the imagination.  Learn more about 'Broadway Bouquet' here.

Vote For Terrain Work's Park Avenue Proposal: Text F005 to 502-219-3839

Terrain Work's design proposal "The New York Plant Circus" to re-imagine the future of Park Avenue in New York has been selected as a finalist for the Beyond the Centerline international design competition.  To vote for our design text: F005 to 502-219-3839 (one vote per phone number allowed).   Voting closes at 5 PM EST on Friday, March 9th.  You can learn more about the competition by visiting Beyond the Centerline.  To see our complete proposal for The New York Plant Circus click here. 

Terrain Work Selected As Finalist for Park Avenue Competition in NYC!

Terrain Work has been selected as a finalist for the Beyond the Centerline international design competition to re-imagine the future of Park Avenue in New York City.  Our entry "The New York Plant Circus" will be on public display at Park Avenue Plaza located at 55 East 52nd Street in Manhattan from March 5th-9th.  You can also see our design featured on CBS News and Archdaily, and read about the competition in the New York Times.   Public voting will be open from 8 AM EST on Monday, March 5th to 5 PM EST on Friday, March 9th.  More details to come on this project soon at www.terrainwork.com!

Hudson Commons Begins Construction!

Terrain Work is excited to announce that our project Hudson Commons at 441 9th Avenue in New York City has begun construction!  The project, in collaboration with COVE Property Group and KPF Architects, consists of 40,000 square feet of landscape that climbs up a commercial office tower.  Hudson Commons offers premier office space in the heart of Manhattan providing an innovative approach to work-space environments that encourages indoor to outdoor interactivity with a landscape that is designed for both work and relaxation.   To learn more about Hudson Commons click here or visit www.terrainwork.com.

Artist House: Terrain Work Design for a Mid-Century Modern House

Terrain Work has created a new landscape for the Artist House,  a mid-century modern house set on a five-acre lot of a mature hardwood forest of oak, maple, and walnut trees in rural New Jersey.   The house was originally designed and constructed by two local artists and educators, Robert and Rowena MacPhail, during the late 1950’s .  The project is a collaboration with Gary Rosard Architect who is providing a full renovation and expansion of this exquisitely unique historical structure.   The garden for the house draws upon the artwork that is thought to have influenced the artist's design of the structure with its sloping triangulated rooflines reminiscent of the works of Maholy-Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky.   The garden takes two-dimensional concepts found in these artist's paintings and extends them into three dimensional expressions of space, color, and movement in the landscape.  To learn more about the Artist House click here.

Terrain Work Designs Master Plan for Wheels o' Time Museum

Terrain Work recently completed a new master plan for the Wheels O’ Time Museum in Peoria, Illinois.  The museum houses an extensive collection of over 30,000 square feet of antique and collector cars, trains, airplanes, tractors, fire trucks, and bicycles.  In addition it recently acquired an innovative house from the 1930's constructed entirely from steel by the renowned industrial designer R.G. LeTourneau. 

Terrain Work’s master plan for the museum incorporates the newly acquired Le Tourneau house into the museum campus to create an interconnected series of wheels that each contain different gardens designed to display museum artifacts and provide a variety of programmatic functions  for the public to enjoy.  To learn more about this project click here.

Terrain Work Designing the Landscape for 441 9th Avenue in Manhattan

Terrain Work is collaborating with COVE Property Group and KPF on a new project at 441 9th Avenue in Manhattan.  The plan is to reposition 441 Ninth Avenue as a “new” Class-A office development targeted to meet the needs of various tenants including TAMI (Technology, Advertising, Media and Information), fashion, financial and legal tenants.  We are thrilled to work with a world class team of design and development experts in the heart of Manhattan.  Stay tuned for more to come on this project at www.terrainwork.com

Terrain Work is Hiring!

Terrain Work is looking for a creative and enthusiastic Landscape Architect or Designer with 1-4 years of working experience.  Individuals with strong design and graphic representation abilities who are able to take drawings through construction are preferred.  Candidates must be proficient in Rhino, AutoCAD, and the Adobe Suite to be considered for this position.  Ability to sketch and/or build models with an interest in hybrid graphic practices is desirable.  If you are interested in working in a small atelier practice where you will have the potential to grow with the company, please email your resume and work samples to thoerr@terrainwork.com.  Please no phone calls.  

Terrain Work is a New York City based design firm founded by Theodore Hoerr whose work explores how the emergent qualities of nature and culture create new forms and experiences in the built environment. They approach each project with a curiosity and collaborative spirit born out of the belief that landscapes should perform as both cultural provocateur and ecological system.  

Theodore Hoerr Preaching Plants at RISD

Theodore Hoerr, Founding Principal of Terrain Work, will be teaching Plants & Design at RISD with fellow plant aficionado Adam Anderson of Design Under Sky this spring.  We will focus on how to innovate with plants in design and bring these living creatures back to the forefront of the design conversation in landscape architecture. 

Over the last few decades plants have often been reduced to "green infrastructure" while the discourse surrounding them has been limited to largely ecological functions.  These issues are important, no doubt, but they cast plants as more an instrumental tool rather than an artful muse.   Plants have also been frequently maligned as just another "material" along with the likes of stone, brick, or concrete.  We aim to change this.  Along with our students our course will explore how plants have the ability to create culture, shape space, and provide atmospheric effects creating new experiences in the built environment.   If there are any plant lovers out there we would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!  Contact us at thoerr@terrainwork.com.

242 West 53rd Street Featured in Field Condition

242 West 53rd Street is now being featured in the blog Field Condition.    Situated in the heart of Manhattan and intertwined in a sixty story residential tower designed by Cetra Ruddy Architects and constructed by Pavarini McGovern, the landscape for West 53rd Street is embedded into the building at various levels offering a wide array of landcapes for vertical urban living.  To learn more about this project that Theodore Hoerr led while a Principal at Balmori Associates click here.