A small front garden has been created in the Miera Street front yard, designed as a representative space with greenery, which is complemented by functionally necessary landscaping elements. The historical facade of the building harmonizes in combination with the greenery structure and modern pavement materials.
In the courtyard, where a new facade is being created as a modern element, the historical feeling is created by the covering materials – Swedish-era paving stones, marking the car parks, and high-quality clay clinker, which provides a smooth covering – in accordance with the requirements of environmental accessibility. The structure of the courtyard and covering materials allow for small corporate events to be held when cars are not parked here.
The front yard and street space of Miera Street are marked by large trees – outdoor birches (Betula pendula), common mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) as well as a volume of clipped shrubs with ground cover plantings, creating a large proportion of greenery as possible, which is clearly visible from both the street space and the windows of the building. Along the preserved historical fence on the courtyard side, hydrangea (Hydrangea petiolaris) has been planted – increasing the feeling of the presence of greenery in the street space.
To further highlight the green volume of the street space, a large tree is planted – the Dutch lime tree (Tilia x vulgaris). The lime tree was chosen as a symbolically significant tree – both as a medicinal plant and as a street planting tree characteristic of the historical center of Riga and the Miera Street area, achieving the largest possible green mass and a strong aromatherapy effect during flowering.
When demolishing the nearby wooden building, the firewall of the neighboring building was exposed. As a landscaping solution, a symbolic green wall was created in this place – a wooden/metal basic structure, to which stainless steel cables with PVC coating are attached – for vines – in this case also medicinal plants – Schysandra chinensis as well as five-leafed wild vine.
Similarly, in the background, for the purpose of creating space and to visually cover the firewall of the neighboring building, another symbolic plant has been planted – the two-lobed ginkgo (Ginko biloba), which is not only a medicinal plant, but also one of the oldest trees that carries information about the history of the world and humanity.
The sculpture “Swing”, which is the work of artist Olga Shilova, created for the Swiss company ROCHE, organically fits into the landscaping of the territory. The kinetic sculpture “Swing” with two happy young people on a balance swing is created in a free, light and joyful manner, the slender figures of the young people are created expressively, without a particular tendency towards the completeness of a realistic form.
• Name of the project: ROCHE office building, Miera str. 25, Riga, Latvia
• Project typology: Historical office building courtyard, front garden and roof terrace.
• All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape: Ltd. “ALPS ainavu darbnica” Ltd.
• All architecture offices involved in the design: “Didrihsons arhitekti” Ltd.
• Other credits you need or wish to write:
“ALPS ainavu darbnica” team – landscape architects Ilze Ruksane, Maris Buss, Sandra Sarkanbarde.
Artist and sculptor – Olga Silova
