Audrey M. Cropp
MLA 2013
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01 |resume 02 | delta oods . a story of the mississippi 04 | desoto park . the gradient green 12 | community design tool kit 16 | fort proctor . digital spectrum of time
about me
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Audrey Marie Cropp, B.F.A 1000 Park Blvd. Baton Rouge, LA 70806 515 803 6884 | audreymcropp@gmail.com
Objective: Work as a summer intern to increase my knowledge and professional skills in Landscape Architecture.
Education Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA Master of Landscape Architecture, expected graduation May 2013 University of Iowa School of Art and Art History Iowa City, IA 2008 Bachelor of Fine Arts in 3-D design and minor in Drawing with Honors
Digital skills: proficient at both operation and integration of software Autodesk’s AutoCAD Autodesk’s 3ds MAX Arc GIS
Adobe Design Suite Adobe After Effects Google’s Sketch Up
Experience: Graduate Assistant, Coastal Sustainability Studio
August 2010 - current
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA Team coordination and project visioning for trans-disciplinary studio Digital representation of coastal restoration projects (GIS maps, 2D/3D renderings, video production) Creation of CSS database to collect information on state-wide coastal restoration plans
Summer Internship, Coastal Sustainability Studio
May 2010 – August 2010
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA Developed final production of ‘The Delta Floods’ commissioned video Use of historical information and current event data to produce original animation sequences Created 3D perspectives of future project visions
Ground HOG Landscape Management LLC, Mandeville, LA
September 2010 – December 2010
Field documentation of design precedents Original digital perspectives for presentations
“City of Eufaula” Risinger Design, Vero Beach, FL Graphic Design Copy editing city planning document and final layout production and preparation for digital presentation
“HandsOn New Orleans”, United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area, New Orleans
July 2009 – July 2010
Community Development Coordinator Served as a coordinator of community programs including the design and volunteer coordination, event planning, facilitation of community services and programs, and development of engagement strategies and empowerment tools.
Freret Street Corridor Project, Design Corps, New Orleans, LA
May 2008 – July 2008
Organized team’s research and drawings for the City of New Orleans Public Safety and Zoning and budgeted project funds
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Delta Floods a story of the mississippi river
Following the Mississippi River flood of 2011 Louisiana State University’s Coastal Sustainability Studio, with funding from Chevron, produced a documentary of the “missed opportunity” to restore the delta. The project required field work and documentation in communities and affected ecosystems during and post flood. The research and design solutions framed the 9.45 minute video that tells the story of Louisiana’s attempt to tame the great river and the relationship since. Project completed in collaboration with the Coastal Sustainability Studio Summer 2011 team.
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Delta Floods a story of the mississippi river A blend of analog and digital representations of current and historical events outlined the relationship of Louisiana and its ever changing deltaic system. Through critical analysis of this information design challenges to urban, agrarian, and rural settlement are acknowledged and potential design solutions are proposed.
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During the research phase of the project I created a database to catalog the various types of imagery and information the group collected. This allowed for information to be found by date, quote, and location. The information included site video, GIS maps, professional photography, historical cartography, sketches, and diagrams.
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The historic images along with diagrams told the story of Louisiana’s attempt to tame the great river and the evolution of that relationship as the delta changed.
The flooding event provided a platform to discuss the current flood control measures and how they were affecting the deltaic way of life.
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Using hybrid illustrations that combined photography, mapping, and diagraming, the video explains issues to the living delta but also highlights the resiliency of southern Louisiana. The ďŹ nal minutes of the ďŹ lm suggest further avenues of research and design that could reconnect Louisiana with its coast.
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http://www.coastalmasterplan.louisiana.gov/resources/videos/
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Desoto Park The Gradient Green
The design of Desoto Park focused on responding to the dynamic nature of the landscape while reinforcing and creating connections between the park, city, and community. This was achieved through on site research to understand the seasonal ood condition of the site. The program incorporates the cyclical deluge of the park in both an economically feasible as well as didactic design. Completed in collaboration with C. Brett Davis, all work displayed are by Audrey M. Cropp.
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Desoto Park the gradient green
The park’s location and size provides great potential for use as an iconic civic space. Within easy walking distance of downtown Baton Rouge’s major commercial and small scale political and civic campuses, the park’s location provides opportunities to act not just as a civic space but as a link spaces together.
industrial connection to the city
north south forged connection
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Field research revealed natural areas of connection from urban to river through visual vectors, physical pathways, and interfaces. Forced areas of connect highlighted areas were needs of connection went unmet and means to supplement those connections were implemented. These offered the most in design solution.
park, civic, & urban intersection
off the grid forced connection
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Design development focused on responding to existing site elements and incorporating landforms that would integrate cyclical and linear changes in the landscape. North to south, the zones include an open ďŹ eld, a pond, and batture land. Enclosing the design is walking and cycling path that connects from the existing levee path at the southern end of the park. The eastern edge being above the 100 year ood line, it can sustain visitors at any time of the year.
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Community Design Tool Kit The Community Engagement Design Toolkit is a duplicable framework to help new design-oriented NORDC staff capitalize on the agency’s momentum and set a standard for community participation to aid in the design and successful development of recreation spaces.
“If NORDC is to reflect the values of the communities of New Orleans, it will need a mechanism for engaging them.” Dalton Savwoir - Gentilly Civic Improvement Association
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The Community Design Tool Kit The first step to designing a tool to aid an organization was to evaluate their current assets and resources. Through research I developed a partnership matrix to help NORDC visualize which partners they had, what they were contributing, and the gaps. I also went one degree outside these partnerships, their partners’ partners to show ways to fill in these gaps.
NORDC Existing Partnerships and Contributions diagram
Currently the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission is in the process of reinventing itself, but the agency, at present, lacks a framework to acquire or include structured and consistent community input in its recreation design development process. Having had a year of in-service work with recovering communities of New Orleans,
graphic visualization of NORDC Partnership database
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Based on a year of service working with communities in New Orleans and the information provided by the partnership study, the goals were to create a tool that acted as a duplicable frame work for engaging communities and gaining quality input. It also aids both designers and communities in sharing a common vocabulary to help correctly assess needs and assets for feasible design solutions.
introduction
project menu map, for pre planning, assistance in route or follow up
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“Engaging communities effectively is the most difficult part of participation planning. We need a ways of communicating on both sides or nothing gets done.”
A large part of the potential success of this design tool for NORDC and other organizations was outside critique from professionals and communities. The following were consulted in the development of this project.
Kathleen Onufer, Program Associate Claiborne Corridor, Louisiana Foundation
Haley Blakeman, ASLA, AICP, Community Planner and Project Manager, Center for Planning Excellence Ruth Meyers, former director of Demonstration Projects for United Way, consultant for Project Homecoming Alexandra Miller, Director of Program Development, EnviRenew
Mapping: a list of existing assets/partners Activity 1 : Looking at what you have
local ca
who you know network
what you know SKILLS
national ona
individual vid
example and blank diagrams provided for each step of design engagement, large tear out sheets for duplication
Kathleen Onufer, Program Associate for the Claiborne Corridor, Louisiana Foundation David Perkes, AIA, Founding Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio¬ Dalton Savwoir, Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, Interim Vice President and Gentilly Terrace and Gardens Laurie Watt, Former President of Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, Mirabeau Gardens
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Fort Proctor digital spectrum of time
A trans disciplinary team within the Coastal Sustainability Studio used Fort Proctor as a case study for a set of larger questions the Louisiana Coast, questions about the parameters for preservation (building, environment, landscape, and infrastructure) within systems of reconstruction.
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Fort Proctor digital spectrum of time The project team focused on two aspects in the current site inventory; documentation of the current site/ fort and testing of materials to determine the structural integrity of the architecture. The documentation was synthesized in a series of animations that focus on illustrating the conditional qualities of the site and the events that have inuenced change.
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The animation combine field research and geodetic documentation to create a series of heuristic tools which the have entitled the “barometer of the conditional.” The research phase included HDR photography, GIS mapping of historical and existing conditions, and field research to document building dimensions, hydrologic conditions, and vegetation.
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My Responsibilities to the team All GIS incorperated data, landscape photography and ďŹ eld research Mapping of historic and current landscape changes, responses, and conditions Modeling of site and landscape with Ben Buehrle Rendering/story boarding animations with Bradley Cantrell & Ursula Emery McCLure
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Ursula Emery McClure, Associate Professor of Architecture Bradley Cantrell, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Michele Barbato, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Bogdan Oporowski, Professor of Mathematics Ben Buehrle, MArch Candidate Taylor Alphonso, MArch Candidate Audrey Cropp, MLA Candidate Claire Hu, Engineering