Precedents

Looking at precedents ...
Cospuden Lake in Saxony, Germany.
Once this site was a devastated coal mining heritage. Nowadays it is a popular and admired place for water sports, holidays, recreation and leisure. 

Dysart Harbour in Fife was once an industrial pit. After the mining stopped the wall became part of a beautiful marina.
Thorpe Park in Surrey was an old gravel pit. The after-use of this pit was the transformation into a theme park which is highly popular.



 

 

 

Lake Vrynwy looks like a natural lake but it is a human-made water reservoir. It is surrounded by woodlands which underline the "wilderness" feeling of the reservoir.
Kielder reservoir is a related precedent case to lake Vrynwy. What is more, the reservoir is used in a tourism orientated way: fishing, mountain biking, walking, horse riding, ... a long list of outdoor activities is offered.


Inspiration and design precedents ...

Parc de la Villette, Paris

Northumberlandia, USA
To get more impressions watch this video.
The 400m long land sculpture, called "Lady of the North", shows an opportunity how to deal with landscape, land art or artistice landscape architecture in a really large scale. Northumberlandia is an extremely direct and slightly offensive design, it is kind of notorious. That is why it is also highly critisised. But the general approach of involving a giant artwork into the design proposal for the site lake 'Geiseltal' or to develop the whole area as the "largest artwork in europe" is definitely worthwhile to be considered.


The "earthworks" of Robert Smithson 
Robert Smithson's "earthworks" can be described as large-scale land art.
The "Spiral Jetty" as well as "Spiral Hill and broken circle" show varieties to deal with water and land in an artistic way. They influence my design work by involving researches about land art into the design process. Additionally, Robert Smithson's works of art function as real "viewer magnets". Regarding this fact, a connection between art exhibits and touristic development has to be considered. 


Le parc des buttes chaumont, Paris 

This 25 ha big public park was a gypsum and limestone quarry in ancient times. So, it has an industrial background like the site arounhd 'Geiseltal' lake. 
The park was commissioned by Napoleon III and carried out by Jean-Charles Alphard until it was opened to the public in 1867 during the Universal Exhibition.
The main design principle of the park is that it is a totally artificially open space. All features are human-made structures and artistic or artificial elements but they are supposed to seem naturalistic.
Regarding this completely artificial origin of a natural-looking setting, it underlines the role of art in landscape architecture.
The site around 'Geiseltal' lake is also totally human made. The entire landform and the lake are the result of works which where necessary to redevelop the area after the open-cast mining was closed down. The next step is now to develop and to design the lakeside to create a successful and useful public open space like the "parc des buttes chaumont"