Diller Scofidio + Renfro . Keppie Design . OLIN

City Garden . Aberdeen

Diller Scofidio + Renfro  . Keppie Design . OLIN . Aberdeen City Garden

The aberdeen city garden will fuse nature and cuilture into a vital social network atthe heartofthe city. Reiecting the classical model of the cultural building isolated on the green, the garden extends the surrounding urban fabric as an elastic web of 3-dimensional interconnections across its site. The warp and weft of urban lines support both park and cultural actl\|"itles within a resilient fabric of layered programs, conioining history with the contemporary and the urbane with the pastoral. Stretching across the historic river site, this parkland web is permeable, revealing a multi-tiered archeology while connecting to the city's em ergent future as a technological hub for art, performance, leisure and commerce.

A new 3-dimension al Web of pathways through the site emerges from the fabric of the city, drawing it together while revealing its history. it stitches together the pedestrian fabric from Union Terrace across the park. over Denburn Road and through to Belmont Street. Springing from the energy of existing streets, lanes and monuments. the Garden's tendons arch gently out of the ground to sculpturally define the parkland areas above and the spaces of exhibitions. education. events and perfownance in the built strata below, A tapestry oi planted and program med microclimates creates natural gradients from quiet hang outs to meadows for large gatherings.
Shearing between pathways and planted surfaces of the landscape reveals its complex interrelationship with the spaces oi cultural activity, flooding exhibition halls below with daylight. and drawing clerestorv views of the historic context into the interior and exhibiting activities unexpectedly to the street. Three distinctive places define the park: south bythe Union Street Bridge, the Bme, a high hillock with a planted multi-ievei overlook and han g-out: in the central Garden. the Butterfly, a soaring public entrance to the Cultural Centre from Union Terrace and Belmont Street; and to the north the Forum, combining the existing green bowl with meadow terracing down to a lower bandshell. Across the site, the rising and falling topographies frame views ol the Triple Kirks, Aberdeen Art Gallery, His Majesty's Theatre, and St. Mark's Church. Hotic ulturally. the park registers the native character ol Aberdeen's natural landscape from Upland Pine and Highland meadow at the high ground. to rolling Moorland as the Paths descend. and Lowland Heather at the Denburn overlook.

The new City Garden provides three major improvements to the city's connective tissue of streets: {1} Belmont Terrace, a new plaza. connects the Pedestrian lite of Belmont Street directly into the park and provides business opportunities for properties fronting this new urban park; I2] The Union Street sidewalk is expanded into a new Promenade that will draw together thecommerce life of Union Street and the institutional life of Rosemount into the Gardens. I3-I Denburn Road will remain sig nilica ntly open to the sky, with a generous public stair and elevator connecting Belmont Terrace to the frontage on Denburn, the lower level streets adjacent to the Market, and the train station. Bus stops and bicycle parking serve the major entrances to the Gardens. and all areas of the park and Cultura! Centre are accessible to the disabled by ramp or elevator.