portfolio
llandscape architecture portfolio
landscape architecture
2016
lChristopher A. Nelson 2016
christopher a. nelson
christopher a. nelson Christopher is a landscape architecture graduate student at the University of Florida. He is expected to graduate May, 2019.
professional skills
education
adobe photoshop
University of Florida
adobe indesign
Gainvesville, Florida
WEBSITE https://issuu.com/christopheranelson
Bachelor of Arts, English 2011 Central Florida Community College Ocala, Florida
MOBILE
Associate of Arts, English 2008
+1(352)299-0971
Professional experience
Tower Hill Insurance Special Unit Claims Examiner June 2013- April 2016
c.nelson847@gmail.com c.a.r.nelson@ufl.edu
GEICO Claims Adjuster II October 2011- June 2013
autocad
google sketch-up Microsoft office hand graphics
C N
table of contents
3
University of Florida Fine Arts Plaza campus culture gainesville, florida
5
Millennium Park case study
chicago, illinois
7
Tallassee Road Park conservation park Athens, georgia
9
Field Skteches
redesigned with you in mind In considering the UF Art Plaza, I was deeply inspired by the works of American Impressionist Raymond Jonson and his affiliation with the Transcendentalist Painting Group. Jonson, born in Iowa, Raised in Portland Oregon and educated at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, believed that the art should do more than reflect the real and the daily events of society. Jonson theorized that art should give physical expression to spiritual forces and feelings and developed a style which uniquely promoted mysticism grounded in mathematical principles and color theory. To that end, Jonson’s paintings escape “the illusionistic renderings of this physical world” and broaden the public knowledge and acceptance of non-objective painting.
Similarly, the UF Art plaza should do more than meet a base aesthetic minimum. The space should reflect its truer purpose in being an extension of the artist work space in which the space should adapt to whatever creative possibilities are desired. This ideal will be amplified by the simple-ness of the space like a blank canvas- limitless in its potential. This canvas, however, will be primed for the artist and offer itself to the artist in a way which Jonson described his works on The Universe series: “the hope (is) to arrive at a state of pure feeling; to create through the spirit rather than the physical; to deal with shapes, forms and color in such a way that they appear exposed to the spirit of man rather than his physical being…”
university of florida fine arts plaza
SECTION 1
SECTION 2
PERSPECTIVE OF PLAZA
july-august 2016
understanding the basics The Millennium Park series was a part of a course focused on the development of graphic techniques designed to hone and refine our skill sets and to practice communicating clearly with graphic standards of the industry. I chose to recreate parts of Millennium Park, aside from being a fundamental part of the downtown Chicago scene and located in my hometown, as I was drawn to its simple geometries and clean lines. I have carried several of the design influences from this project and its contributors into my own works.
MASTER PLAN
SECTION 1
SECTION 2
MILLENNIUM PARK CHICAGO, IL
park study july 2016
PERSPECTIVE OF PLAZA
SECTION 1
MASTER PLAN SECTION 2
tallassee road park, athens ga
november-december 2016
conservation conscious design The Tallassee Tract, once populated with Native Indians of the Oconee Tribe was vacated by 1839 its people having been relocated to a reservation in Oklahoma. By 1850, they had so fully integrated with member of other disbanded tribes that they became extinct as a separate identity. I drew inspiration from what I imagined happened to the Oconee Tribe after they were removed from their land. I imagined that they never forgot their stories, their language, their father-lands. I imagine that they engaged in the ritual of the ghost dance, their hearts full of memories yearning to take them back home. To reawaken their loved ones to dance and sing once more.
field sketches
a way to explore the world I have always had some degree of talent for the arts. There isn't a time in my life that I cannot recall not having drawn to see the world around me or to create the ones I saw within my mind. For me, the arts have been my strongest natural tool in learning not only about myself, but about others as well. I took this approach to further understand the process of design in landscape architecture. It was as though I was seeing the world for the very first time. I recently began a series of landscapes after a visit to the pacific northwest which changed the way that I not only experience a landscape but how I interpret it as well.
fall 2016