The Atlantic’s CityLab on Kennedy Center REACH

While the landscape is still literally growing into place, it’s already a muscular asset of the new campus. There are symbolic treatments, like the grove of 35 gingko trees planted to honor the 35th president, but the geometry steals the show. Along the sloping terrace, Holl and landscape architect Edmund Hollander built a few curving stretches of green that the architects call “sedum swoops.” These correspond to curvilinear roofs or walls that form the pavilions. These bends in the surface are planted with sedum, a succulent grass sturdy enough to grow vertically when the curvature of the landscape calls for it. Imagine a triangle that’s been lifted and turned at its vertex, with one face covered in greenery and the other textured concrete.


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