From the landscape design for OMA’s CCTV Tower in Beijing and Qatar National Library in Doha to dynamic textile creations for cultural, educational, and retail interiors around the globe, the work of Dutch landscape and interior-architecture firm Inside Outside is notable for a strong graphic quality. This hallmark underlies the firm’s design for a new public park in Milan that, when viewed from above, appears as a patchwork of viridescent trapezoids and circles, as well as bold patterns.

Named the Biblioteca degli Alberi, or “library of trees,” for its rich horticultural variety, the rectilinear park sits on a formerly derelict plot of city-owned land in the Giardini di Porta Nuova area at the intersection of residential, government, and commercial districts and transit hubs. Inside Outside, along with a multidisciplinary team that included urban planner Mirko Zardini and Michael Maltzan Architecture, won the municipal competition for the park in 2003, but political and financial setbacks delayed its opening until last October. While the project was on hold, the surrounding area developed dramatically; nonetheless, more than a decade later, the team found their original concept still to be relevant. “The idea was always to connect all the different areas around the park,” says firm founder Petra Blaisse, “so we drew an efficient web of paths linking the various points.”