SkyGate: The Modern Day Eden
SkyGate’s tranquil oasis is
set to cast its puritan lines, minimalist synchronicity and functionally
aesthetic spaces, across the epicentre of inner city Beirut.
The assertiveness of
SkyGate’s architectural façade is offset by the soft, enveloping arms of the
surrounding green. From the piazza to the entrance lobby to the ‘villas in the
sky’, the landscape’s are crafted into an artfully organic mosaic, accented by
the omnipresence of- water, textured minerals, natural light and lush
vegetation. The landscape pattern follows the façade’s directive to a tee, the
result being complete interconnectedness. Intermittent square perimeters of
leafy vegetation and raised basalt platforms add texture and variance to the
pleasantly flush ground level. Infinity water features and pools are
intersected by green installations, creating uniquely asymmetrical frames.
Potted Bonzai, fragrant Gardenia’s with white flowering buds and the sweet
suckle of Jasmium, create a tapestry of rich ground cover. Metrosideros with
pomegranate red blooms teamed with Laurus’s, and their bursts of sun-kissed
yellow, wrap around the perimeter to create dense, colourful hedges, in essence
providing a natural barrier between the SkyGate and the world at large.
The vegetation cascades down
the façade, interlocking with the architecture, as melodiously as the black and
white keys of a piano, and as functionally as the teeth of a fine comb, only to
sprawl at the base with the same resolute interconnectedness, marrying all
structural forms until the landscape reaches the boundary of the property. The
landscape provides a natural continuation of the façade, moving dynamically
through the structure like the unfurling of a carpet. The evergreen seduces the
architecture into perfect synergy. No element is out of place or superfluous.
The landscaping provides an elegantly measured response to the call of the
façade, as seen by the plantations adorning the continuous stream of balconies
and terraces.
SkyGate sets the stage for
the interplay between soft and hard landscape elements. This sensitive
juxtaposition captures the essence of the project: to blur the lines between
vegetation and man-made structures, until they become unified as one aesthetic
whole. In this sense the architecture becomes increasingly personalised by the
presence of clean geometric landscapes and pristine spaces, the ultimate
retreat. Grey Basalt stones and pebbles
act as a textured carpet. Colour is carefully used to create accent points
throughout otherwise minimalist landscape, as seen by the lavender leaves of
the Jacaranda or the blood orange blooms of the Delonix. Tall Cupressus’s are
used to juxtapose the dense, sprawling branches of the Quercus and the
Chorisia.
Infinity pools offer turquoise
lagoons, which wash across the expansive balconies. A sense of transcendental
calm is born within the wells of water features and mirrors, which trickle,
with the same resonate verve as the strings of a harp, across the sounds and
sights of SkyGate. The features are used to mirror the façade of the building,
accentuating it’s impression of oneness.
SkyGate offers the
avant-garde minimalism and geometric asymmetry of a landscape worthy of
mounting up on the wall as a piece of abstract art. It is, but it’s very
nature, an Urban Eden.