Two European precedents

Chatting to Beni a while ago about my ideas of traversing the retaining wall and perhaps considering steps as part of my gift, she kindly pointed me towards some European examples that also deal with movement across steep slopes:

Adept and LIWPlanning, Måløv Axis
Ballerup, Denmark, 2010

Stepped seating (adeptarchitects)

This project connects the new district Søndergård with the old part of the suburb Måløv across two large traffic barriers, Frederikssundsvej and the S-train line. It is an extensive landscape project but I am interested in the part pictured above. The stepped seating creates a new condition on the slope. This has similarities to the retaining wall study at Seonyudo Ecological Park which takes elements in the landscape and reconsiders their function. For example, at Seonyudo, a wall becomes a seat, and in Ballerup, a seat becomes a step.

La Granja, Escalator
Toledo, Spain, 2000

Cutting and folding the landscape (Jose Antonio Martinez Lapena and Elias Torres)

The historic city of Toledo has struggled to make vehicular and pedestrian routes compatible. The escalator and staircase transport pedestrians from a car park at the lower part of the city, to the upper part. The staircase is divided into six tracts which zigzag across the landscape. A retaining wall folds over to provide shelter and ‘give continuity to the landscaped slope of the hillside’1. At night the staircase and escalator transform into a fissure of light cut into the vertical face of the city.