Architecture:'naturescape' by kengo kuma, milan, italy

For milan design week 2013, kengo kuma's urbanistic ideas are given a new context in the ever-burgeoning landscape of skyscrapers.
His 'naturescape for urban stories' presents a vision for a living space in the midst of urban development in the center of the design capital.
These 'urban stories' are suspended between sculptural environment and architecture, an abstracted and layered japanese garden comprised of pietra serena stone, bamboo, water and gravel, the topographic installation creates a terrain of depressions and elevations that dictate the shape of water and the paths of movement. The quiet, form-making power of water confronts the material tenacity of stone, while exposing the ability of the aqueous force to render the pietra serena delicate and soft. The design posits that the urban environment can be intensely livable and inextricably connected to the original architecture of the earth. The project was a enthusiastically backed by a collaboration of frassinagodiciotto and il casone, together with agape, pratic, tribù and vaselli, and with technical support from davide groppi.