Wildwood Plaza

Uster, Switzerland

1. Lichtung

Photo © Daniela Valentini

1. Lichtung

Photo © Daniela Valentini

2. Lichtung

Photo © Robin Winogrond

3. Lichtung

Photo © Daniela Valentini

3. Lichtung

Photo © Daniela Valentini

Landscape Architecture

Landscape Architects: Studio Vulkan Landscape Architecture

Location: Hegetsbergstrasse, Forhölzliwald , Uster, Switzerland
Year: 2014
Client: Stadt Uster

Strikingly different experiences of “being in the woods” display nature as a machine of response.

Today the urban dweller searches for increasingly powerful experiences of "landscape" and "nature" in shrinking territories on the edge of town. It has become the charge of the landscape architect to look for new languages which at once immerse us in the sensations of landscape while providing functional space for recreational users. Thus a genre of soft tourism rethinks recreational space.
The city of Uster is surrounded by three distinct landscape typologies, each with a strong atmosphere and materiality: woodlands, glacial drumlins, and lake marshes. For a new path encircling the city our design proposes a circular void, a looking glass or cyclorama from which to immerse oneself and observe these various landscapes.

Our projects explore place as a catalyst for imagination, a dialogue between place and people. There is a long tradition in landscape architecture of creating spaces for us to lose ourselves in. This project explores this tradition.