Interview with Kathryn Gustafson | Urbidermis and Gustafson Porter + Bowman

Spaces that fit

It is this reflection that helps to understand who the different people that will be passing through the space actually are, or even the implications the space’s history might have. Knowing a place is of vital importance for creating what Kathryn calls “spaces that fit”.

To transform a design or project into a space that fits its context, “it’s all about trying to figure out how people actually function together and creating the situations”. For Kathryn, the important thing is that urban spaces and furniture allow the interactions people need depending on their context.

Indeed, an example of these interactions takes us to the beginning of the collaboration between Kathryn and Urbidermis (at the time the urban division of Santa & Cole). And it takes us to the Venice Biennale, to a project in which the landscape architect proposed the intervention Towards Paradise.

This piece included sections for reflection. Sections that require a pause and time to think. A pause in the shape of benches where one could sit and stop. But it also comprised sections for the imagination, sections to lie down on the grass and be inspired by the floating sheets and balloons. To think about the idea of paradise.

A project as dreamlike as this one is nevertheless still a clear example of spaces that fit. A space that responded not only to the expectations of the organizers, but also to the real experience of the visitors, because “you know you don’t want people to just like walk through it. You want them to slow down, stop. Look at what’s around them and think about it.”

The key, again, lies in stopping to observe and understand what people’s concerns are. Responding to their needs. Whether these are tangible, like accessibility, or less visible, like safety aspects: “[The idea is] that they can do what they want, right? That they feel comfortable. And I think for that to happen, it has to be safe. So they don’t worry about something happening. And so you don’t […] feel like you’re in an area that is restricting you to do stuff. It just has to be seamless.”

Ultimately, it’s all about finding out how it can fit. So the role of design is simply that of adding to people’s experiences. Add the right lighting, comfortable material and a space that reaches out to them. „That aspect of touching the soul of somebody is, for me, the most important thing you can do. So that they can appropriate it. They make it theirs“, the landscape designer highlights. Like that favourite bench we all have in our local park.

Talking with Kathryn is understanding first-hand how it feels to make a place yours. To appropriate it. The way she explains each project and talks about the places is simply the living example of that connection. She talks to us about the spaces that represent her way of understanding landscape architecture and her relationship with people. A relationship that, as she says herself, “is not only functional but also emotional in a way.”

Parc Central – Valencia

For Kathryn, the city of Valencia is one of the world’s most beautiful. A city that, thanks to this landscaping project, she has become very familiar with. Like all the places she has worked in.

The importance of the river, the environment of the Albufera, the Mediterranean climate… The relationship this environment has with water was key when it came to designing a park that fits. A park that also kept in mind the area’s historical context and its agricultural past.

Understanding the setting was key for a project like this. But so too was understanding its purpose. How the people who would be passing through would be using it and how it could become a place that really added value.

In this process, Kathryn came to Urbidermis to find part of the solution. To find a solution together that would respond to the project needs, to collaborate with a studio that was willing to adapt to such a unique context. Because for her, “the important thing is trying to figure out who does what, how they do it well and having conversations about it.”