Animated Landscape is the portfolio, blog and online scrapbook of landscape and architectural communication studio Room60 LLP.
Discover Pensthorpe
The Pensthorpe Nature Reserve is located in Pensthorpe, Norfolk about one mile from Fakenham. The reserve covers over 600 acres, with the River Wensum running through it, and was the location of the BBC programme Springwatch from May 2008 to 2010.
This animation was produced by Room60 to showcase the new possibilities for the landscape and architecture at the heart of the visitor attraction. Including new therapy gardens and natural playscape by Davies White Landscape Architects and redeveloped hub buildings by White Design Associates.
A sneak peek at the new Des Moines Water Works Park Animation
As we mentioned a few months ago we were working with Ed Wall of Project Studio on their Des Moines Water Works Park proposals, and were subsequently making a short film about it. Well here’s a sneak peek of a rough edit of an animation that attempt to explain how the network of sensors across the park and beyond would function in the day to day life of the park.
ROOM60 SHOWREEL 2012
It seemed about time we updated our showreel…so er…here’s our updated showreel. 2 minutes and 22 seconds of animated Room60 beauty. Now how’s that for a slice of fried gold?
The Garden of the Beasts at Hampton Court Palace
In September 2011 we were part of a team led by Davies White Landscape Architects that were chosen from over 200 design teams by The Historic Royal Palaces to develop design proposals for a new £1.5 million children’s garden at Hampton Court Palace.
Also part of the team were leading arts charity, The House of Fairy Tales, RHS Gold garden designer Dan Lobb and RIBA Architect James Bennett. We are delighted to announce that our project ‘The Garden of the Beasts’ was selected as a project finalist. The entry included fully illustrated proposals, an animated film (by us with narrative by The House of Fairy Tales and illustrations from Josh Knowles, Nikki Pinder and Lesley Barnes), an interactive game (by House of Fairy Tales) and a merchandising range
Above is a short conceptual animation that brings to life the story of Bess; a young Elizabeth I, discovering a secret garden created from her daydreams by the King’s Beasts that reside all around the Palace and its grounds.
To see more of the proposals visit our Garden of the Beasts portfolio page on the project.
Des Moines Water Works Park
The finalists for the Water Works Parkitecture competition were announced last month and collaborator of ours Ed Wall of Project Studio led a team that has been shortlisted. Other finalists include Sasaki Associates, Martha Schwartz Partners, AECOM and Nomad Studio. The project, titled Park Works, is a collaboration across landscape, engineering, infrastructure and architectural disciplines.
The Park Works proposal sets out a new, dynamic, and working park for Des Moines, Iowa. The design creates a responsive and adaptive plan that will develop, over days, seasons, and years, from the scale of the watershed to the everyday experience. This unique Park Works plan allows park managers, individuals, and communities to share information, learn from, participate in, and build the spaces, structures, and activities of the new Des Moines Water Works Park.
The international Water Works Parkitecture competition is organised and sponsored by the Des Moines Water Works Board and Iowa State University. The competition encourages responses that will consider the park and river as a public open space that combines the ecology and the community and contributes to wider social, economic and environmental success. The second stage of the competition continues until December 2011 where the finalists will present their proposals to the jury and the public.
In December, Ed brought us on board and we worked with his team at Project Studio, with Christian Gabriel of Thomas Balsley Associates, in the final stage of the Des Moines Water Works Park Competition.
The team put together an ambitious proposal that was only made possible by a fantastic London/US based team including Christian Gabriel (Thomas Balsley Associates), Brett Douglas (Genus), Fred Schwartz (Frederic Schwartz Architects), Steven Handel (Green Shield Ecology), John Paul Goedken (JP-SE), Mark Land (Snyder Associates), Bryan Bertrand (CPMI), Tim Marshall (ETM), Helena Rivera (A Small Studio) and us at Room60. Finally, without the design critique and stunning drawings of Aaron Carpenter, Harry Bix, and Joe Sanders this proposal would have only been a jumble of ideas…
We produced visuals and graphics for the proposal as well as some animated snippets for the presentation. We’ll be editing all that into a short film soon but for now check out the gallery of images above to get a feel for this fantastic project.
The Great Play
A few weeks ago we went down to help out a friend of ours working on a new playground project in Peckham.
The current playground at St. James the Great Primary School in Peckham doesn’t provide any opportunities for outdoor play and exploration and they would like to make the school garden part of their childrens play environment so that it could be used every day.
Recent Kingston graduate James Garis is taking on the task of transforming the space and we went down to help out with a bit of clearance with other local volunteers so he could get an idea of the lay of the land and get proposals moving.
The short film above gives you a bit more info but essentially the next stage of design and build has to be done for next to nothing so anyone that wants to get involved with their time, money or resources please contact James at inhabitgardens@gmail.com.
NEW VIDEO | ‘Invest in Green Infrastructure’
Check out our new animation on the benefits of Green Infrastructure. A collaboration between us and landscape architect Michael Wood CMLI, whose drawings feature in the Landscape Institute’s Local Green Infrastructure booklet, was shown for the first time at the final LI lecture at the Garden Museum on 16 November.
It is designed to communicate the significance of GI in just a couple of minutes and encourage viewers to download and read the publication. Ian Philips CMLI described the video as;
“a powerful piece of presentation to help sell the GI message to new audiences”. He said: “The Local GI booklet has been aimed at a non-technical audience and anecdotal comments so far indicate that it has been very well received and is achieving its objective of reaching a broad audience. I think the YouTube video is an effective means of supplementing this approach and engaging new audiences with both the LI and green infrastructure.”
To download the publication Local green infrastructure: helping communities making the most of their landscape, click here.
Introducing the now Award Winning Room60!
Our awards shelf is beginning to take shape after we were awarded with a Highly Commended for our animation ‘The Spell of the Kingston Ancient Market’ last night at the Landscape Institute Awards 2011 in the Communications and Presentations category.
The Judges comments were;
A very well-crafted video, which really gave you a feeling of the market town and space. There’s great potential to use this medium to help the target audiences get a sense of a new scheme
Check out the video here and the rest of the award winners and commended schemes in full here
p.s. We lost out to a publication produced for a project run by Kevin ‘Grand Designs’ McCloud. Won’t be watching that back to back on E4 anymore then!
Bah.
The Great Play
The current playground at St. James the Great Primary School in Peckham doesn’t provide any opportunities for outdoor play and exploration. They would like to make the school garden part of their childrens play environment so that it could be used every day.
Recent Kingston graduate James Garis is taking on the task of transforming the space and we went down to help out with a bit of clearance with other local volunteers so he could get an idea of the lay of the land and get proposals moving.
We’ll be posting a very short film about our day soon…
Featured on Architectural Videos*
Check us out! We’re featured on Architectural Videos* blog with our “Helix is Happening” animation. They clearly have good taste! And if you’re interested they’re definitely worth a ‘Like’ on facebook to keep up with the latest and greatest architectural videos out there…
Follow Architectural Videos* on Facebook
Free music for films from Moby
For any one out there interested in making a film but stuck for a bit of a soundtrack (cos using copyrighted material can get you in a bit of trouble) check out mobygratis.com. because he’s letting any non-profit and independent filmmakers, students, and anyone in need of free music the use of a relatively large library of his stuff to use er…gratis.
Cheers Moby.
Oxford Biochar on peoplefund.it
Oxford Biochar (you might remember we made a short promo for them) are currently featured on peoplefund.it (a place to find good ideas that might just change the world). Visit this link and maybe pledge a bit of cash, you get stuff in return of course. Needless to say it’s mainly Biochar based stuff but it’ll do wonders for your garden…
The Guardian finds and features our Durham film…
Just three clicks from the Guardian’s homepage, sits a piece on the Durham Heritage Coast’s recent accolade from the Council of Europe. And *ahem* features our short film about the project made for the UK Landscape Awards last year. Anyone who’s seen, heard or was in ‘Get Carter’ will know this place. It was grim. But now…
…well check out the article and you’ll see…
Oxford Biochar. The future for soil…! Animated by us.
Oxford Biochar was founded by Drs. Girardin and Layberry and consists of a team of scientists passionate about the potential of biochar as a solution to several key environmental challenges our planet faces this century.
We’ve just produced an animation for them to describe the benefits of their product and help them reach out investors and potential funders.
Matt and Leo did an amazing job for Oxford Biochar. We provided them with an incredibly tight deadline and a challenging task, and the film they delivered exceeded our expectations. They are easy to work with, quick, reliable and understood what we needed better than we did. We will work with Room60 on all our films from now on…
Dr Cécile Girardin, via LinkedIn.
Be a G.I. Joe and critique our new work…
We’ve been making a short animation on Green Infrastructure and we’d like some feedback and thoughts before we make some final amendments. Get in touch via our Contact page if you’d like to take a look and help us out.
PARTAKE. New Artists, No boundaries.
Twenty-four artists, from a multitude of disciplines, presenting their work in a collaborative effort to break down the boundaries between practitioners, exhibits and the public. Including Room60 collaborator and Landscape Architect Harry Bix.
At the Old Truman Brewery starting with the Private View this Thursday evening…
Landscape Institute Award Nomination!
We’re puffing our chest out to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for a Landscape Institute Award in the category of Communication & Presentation for our short animation “The Spell of the Ancient Market Area Kingston”. We find out if we can justifiably call ourselves award WINNING on the 17th November…
One of our very first animations “a Sylvan Remnant from Arcady” (made for a competition with Schoenaich Landscape Architects) is currently part of an interesting little exhibition at the Garden Museum…”From Garden City to Green City”. Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance…
We’ve packed up and moved office!
You can now find us for a cuppa at;
Studio 3, 51 Portland Road,
Kingston-upon-Thames,
London, KT1 2SH.
The Helix is Happening!
We’re delighted to reveal our new short animation ‘The Helix is Happening…’ about a project in the heart of Scotland that aims to transform under-used land into an exciting new parkland. This fantastic open space will have sports and event facilities, beautiful wetlands and woodlands, heritage, nature and stunning public art in the shape of the 100ft high Kelpies.
Check it out and let us know what you think…
We’ve been checking out this video by Royksopp and will be looking to use some of the techniques in our new animation about Green Infrastructure, enjoy for now…
Street Summer from Channel 4
This August, Channel 4 celebrates the contemporary urban arts scene with ‘Street Summer’, shining a light on street dance, urban sport, rap/spoken word, hip hop and street art. That’s all well and good but we do dig this trailer…
This ain’t by us but we’ve just discovered it for a bit of future inspiration…some amazing technique and the band come from Mold…a town in North Wales we based ourselves in whilst filming for the UK Landscape Awards last year. Hope you like it…
BIG LANDSCAPE
BIG LANDSCAPE 2020 looks to the future both for landscape schemes and for today’s students who as tomorrow’s professionals will be shaping that future.
Oooh and look; Room60 are guest speakers on Day 2!…We got the Skills. Wot Skills? The Future Skills.
Room60 have been invited to speak at the BIG LANDSCAPE 2020 CONFERENCE organised by SLIC (Student Landscape Institute Council). On Saturday 2nd July we will present our work communicating landscape and architecture using moving image and animation. Other speakers will include: John Hopkins (Project Sponsor, Landscape & Public Realm, Olympic Delivery Authority), Professor Lorraine Gamman and Marcus Wilcocks (Design Against Crime), Professor Eckart Lange (University of Sheffield), Jo Watkins (President of the Landscape Institute), Peter Wilder (McFarlane Wilder), David Knight (Royal College of Art), Ed Wall (Project Studio and Kingston University), Noel Farrer (Farrer Huxley Associates) and artist John Gerrard.
a small studio
We’ve just helped to update and refresh the website of ‘a small studio‘ in time for their feature in ‘House & Garden’ magazine…we sorted the homepage and the site CSS and framework, including a template project page; they filled in the rest…check it out and feedback if you’re that way inclined…
NEW ANIMATION! The Spell of the Kingston Ancient Market
We’ve recently teamed up with Outerspace Landscape Architects on the Ancient Market Area Kingston Competition and worked closely with them to produce this animation; bringing to life the activities and vibrancy of the future improved market and environs…
This is a test sample for an animation we’ve just completed for Outerspace Landscape Architects for their competition presentation to Kingston Borough Council…we’ll get the final one posted on here at some point once we’ve ironed out a few issues but see what you think of this original anyway…
“Why Invest in Landscape?”
We’ve been filming for the last few days at Ecobuild. The seminar series, “Why Invest in Landscape?” A LOT of footage to get through…..talks will be uploaded in a few days