LA 203L Studio Portfolio Chris Valenzuela LA 203 Basic Landscape Design Professor Andy Wilcox
Studio Projects
PROJECT ONE Pieces + Parts
Project Description
Project One Pieces + Parts
Project Two
As individuals, students were required to put their crafting skills to the test by developing a very quick but highly crafted set of landscape pieces made of typical landscape program parts. This project will document the nascent design influences as short-lived design responses of individual students.
Mapping and Recon // Origin Stories
Project Three Yellow Accent Color - My Work
Taxonomy of Emergent Spatial Types
Project Four Silver Linkages + Exquisite Structures
Entire Studio Models Lined Up
PROJECT TWO Mapping and Recon // Origin Stories
Project Description
+Unconditioned Ground +Path +50/50
+1/2” Convex Slope +Folded Plane Shelter +Forest
-1/2” Concave Slope +3 Walls +Field
+1/2” Uniform Slope +Elevated Path +Field
-1/8” Uniform Trench +Folded Lifted Plane Platform +50/50
-1/2” Uniform Slope +Observation Tower +Forest
Students investigated, mapped and analyzed the critical systems, associations and alignments of the studio project location and its context. In teams of two, my partner Ernesto Gonzalez and I mapped our assigned transect of the Silver Lake Reservoir. We looked at alignments that are above, within and below their image sites to identify opportunities, partners, beneficiaries and histories of the project alignment.
A Few Elements of our Mapping
PROJECT THREE Taxonomy of Emergent Spatial Types
Project Description Built Frame #1 - Mapping of Different Species Roaming Around Eucalyptus Grove
In this project, we explored the fundamental site condition of the edgethe threshold between water and land; the condition where unlike bodies meet with maximum interaction. This ubiquitous site condition will be interrogated through the testing of typical fixed/structural program typologies adjusted by typical performative actions/operations as controlled by the specific lessons/rules/ relationships of the site as revealed in the mapping project.
3D Print of Taxonomy (RHINO 3D)
Site Plan- Mapping Wind Direction, Different Textures, and Trees
Diagram- Mapping Average Rainfall throughout the year and Sun Angles at Different Times of the Year
Critically Combined Model (123D Make)
Study Models of Taxonomy (123D Make)
PROJECT FOUR Silver Linkages + Exquisite Corpse
Project Description In the final project, we were required to individually choreograph a set of assigned and derived programmatic pieces and performance criteria into the overall conditions of portion/bank of our transect. This phase included notions of broader planting/capturing or opportunistic strategies and patterning in response to assigned program performance. This phase utilized programs that are simultaneously cultural and ecological, formal and informal, understood and misunderstood, indexed and poised.
Final Poster of Taxonomy of Emergent Spatial Types
Conceptual Sketching
1/8” = 1’ Scale Specimen Model
Steps Leading to Critically Combined Model
1/16” = 1’ FInal Design Model
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Programatic Potential Drawing
Implement ramp that leads to platform extending to reservoir
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Plan
Model Perspectives
Final Design Drawings Existing Contours Proposed Contours
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Section A-A’ This section drawing conveys the elevation of the overlook and the close proximity to the habitat of the Great Blue Herons. It also shows the relationship of human to the man made mounds. Scale: 1/16” = 1’ -0”
PLANTING STRATEGY
Existing/Proposed Contours
This planting strategy drawing conveys the various densities and spaces of plant material, which is crucial to both the human and animal experience.
This drawing conveys the alteration of the utilitarian slope that currently exists in Silver Lake Reservoir and the dynamic change that I have proposed.
0’ 4’ 8’
16’
0’ 4’ 8’
SCALE: 1/16” = 1’ -0”
16’
SCALE: 1/16” = 1’ -0”
Overlook Opportunities
Fixed Program This drawing communicates the program of observation offered through the planks incorporated into the slightly elevated overlook. This accomodates my concept of a scenic landscape by giving photographers a view of both the Great Blue Herons in the wetland area and the horizon of the reservoir.
0’ 4’ 8’
16’
SCALE: 1/16” = 1’ -0”
Circulation This drawing communicates the different scales of circulation: primary, secondary, Great Blue Heron circulation, and water.
0’ 4’ 8’
Aerial Section + Linework
16’
Aerial section view of section 10 containing only linework.
SCALE: 1/16” = 1’ -0”
Thank you.
Aerial Section + Render Aerial section view of section 10 containing both linework.
Perspective - Great Blue Heron’s Eye Perspective through the eye of a Great Blue Heron.
Perspective Photographer’s Eye
Perspective - Great Blue Heron’s Eye
Perspective through the eye of a photographer.
Perspective through the eye of a Great Blue Heron.
Smooth Dynamic This textural drawing shows the concept of difference in degree. The dense plant material I have proposed have no meaning outside of their masses, thus they become one and are together to serve a specific phenomenological function.
Perspective - Kid’s Eye Perspective through the eye of a kid.
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Fight the Power
Anti-Coalescence Enclosed to Free This textural drawing conveys the openness of my proposal. One enters the Eucalyptus Grove, passes through the mounds, and then arrives at the open area of the outlook
This diagram conveys the very brief steps I took in creating my mounds. I took the coalescence rulle in which two similar things form to create one being and did the opposite in where i form two elements from one. In this case, I am forming two mounds by excavating existing soil.
Resevoir Edge
This diagram conveys what led to my alteration of the reservoir’s edge condition. The Santa Ana winds, a very prominent force, comes from the East thus hitting the reservoir in a perpendicular angle. I extended the edge opposite of these winds in order to embrace the breeze as it does not hit very hard in Los Angeles.