Why landscape? To me, the difference between art and design is that design can be implemented. Knowing this, the difference between creativity and reality, is crucial as a designer, and I am extremely motivated by landscape architecture’s inherent ability to effectuate new forms, systems, and experiences - its potential to employ innovation for positive results. I came to landscape architecture from ecology and filmmaking – two disparate realms I found a way to blend harmoniously in thought and practice. Similar to the dialectical way film editing forges new meanings from separate known parts, I was able to effectively integrate science (a language for comprehending large facts of life), and art (what extends them imaginatively). My passion for ecological systems stems from curiosity and concern, whereas video, as a layered medium of time and space, has allowed me to construct new types of experiences for humanity and raise consciousness. However, neither ecology nor filmmaking accomplishes what landscape architecture does alone. Landscapes connect mind, body and space in the ultimate dimension. Like a night between two days, they function as a continuum, unifying and meeting the needs of people, places, and everything in between. Landscapes are the perfect context for making positive differences and enriching lives, and I intend to spend my life’s work creating them—a choice that directly corresponds to integrating my love for people, nature, and all art forms by channeling them through one medium. Studying at Harvard has been an exciting opportunity and has allowed me to cultivate a profound sense of responsibility, collaboration, experimentation, and confidence in my own decisions. Aesthetically, I have developed a deep interest in design techniques that make a strong impact through simple, efficient means. Bringing bold concepts into material forms, textures, and volumes is just as exhilarating a challenge as learning the fine line between complexity and less-is-more. Theoretically, I am interested in what are the biggest challenges facing design professionals today and what are the most powerful design techniques that can be use to address them? Is biology the best model for design? Can landscape architecture ever be pop culture? Finally, my work experience at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Reed Hilderbrand has only intensified my commitment to built practice - how landscapes are made - where the value of unrelenting craftsmanship and rigor of construction are paramount. Sincerely grateful for your consideration,
Hillary Jane Archer
ROSE REVISITED Intersection of Cambridge St. & Quincy St. Cambridge, MA Course: GSD STU1111, First Semester Core Fall 2012 Studio Coordinator: Gary Hilderbrand Studio Critic: Jane Hutton
This project involved redesigning a marginalized, triangular-shaped parcel at the intersection of three streets in Cambridge, MA. The site needed to feature an urban performance venue and overall attention to civic improvements. My work addressed the parcel as a dynamic point of connection between opposing formal and programmatic forces. Landforms, spatial volumes, and material relationships were developed based on the concept of a dialectic: it is through the tension of opposites that the new is created. Published in GSD Platform 6, Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2013 Model featured in GSD Platform 6 Group Exhibition, Harvard University, 2013
COMPONENTS
SEASONAL DETAIL PLAN
PLAN
STUDIES
VIEWS
Why is a park made? What does it do? How might a park raise awareness in its visitors? How would people act in and react to this space? What occurs if seen from a distance or up close? Design elements include a stairway array with infinite nodes of seating and views, a sunken stage, a sloped entry plaza for fine-grain solitary experiences, layered blue glass walls, year-long bands of red plants, and a double bridge for improved physical connectivity. Storm water is captured by an 1% pitched plane plus lateral pools at the base of the glass walls and later used on site for irrigation.
SECTIONS
HORTUS CONCLUSIS POMARII Franklin Park, Boston, MA Course: GSD STU1112, Second Semester Core 2013 Studio Coordinator: Anita Berrizbeitia Studio Critic: Rosetta Elkin
Franklin Park is a wooded 527-acre parkland designed by Olmsted in 1886. Today the park is very beautiful, but many parts are suffering from neglect and dying trees since it’s both over-mature and underfunded. I reinterpreted Olmsted’s vision for integrating scenic beauty with people acting in community by introducing an urban version of the walled orchard. Orchards are democratic models: places that attract people of all kinds around unforgettable and fun experiences of sweetness. Franklin Park is poised to thrive as an urban fruit hot spot, a magnet for both social and economic richness. Here, experience space is carved into production space, with yields estimated at $250,000 a year, which is six times the current Zoo’s annual worth. For two months, the orchard is an ephemeral apple blossom bomb, exploding with visual and olfactory experiences of rapture. In its peak time, the Orchard is a machine of production, attracting locals and tourists alike. The grid spacing allows for high levels of commercial harvesting to take place alongside smaller scale hand-picking In winter, the orchard is able to accommodate passive or active recreational activities including cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and walking. Above: The oldest apple variety in the US is the Roxbury Russet, developed in the 1630s.
GRID STUDY
Plant List White Pine Norway Spruce Hinoki Cypress Rhododendron Apple Semi Dwarf Apple Heather Creeping Thyme Perennial Ryegrass
PLAN
SEASONAL VIEWS
SEASONAL SECTIONS
SITE ANALYSIS
USER GROUPS
EDUCATIONAL PARK
LANDSCAPES IN A LANDSCAPE FOR LEARNING Tarso, Antioquia, Columbia Course: GSD STU1311 The Forms of Transition, Fall 2014 Studio Critic: Camilo Restrepo Ochoa
A garden must be engaged and lure its visitors with just the right balance of scale, material, light, sequence, access, culture, and comfort. Sited in rural Tarso, Colombia, this project is about a landscape of linear thresholds that catalyze new, site-specific experiences in place through collage. It turns the idea of a building inside out, making a series of transitional, layered outdoor chambers for learning and enjoyment of high quality public space. Like rooms in a gallery, this landscape of landscapes celebrates sensorial walking where soft materials (grass or concrete tiles in grass) equate with relaxation or private learning, and harder materials (concrete, gravel, or wood) with quick passing or large formal gatherings for events and lectures.
20m
PLAN
ENTRANCE WALL
DIVERSION AMPHITHEATER/GALLERY
PANORAM
MA PATIO
RECLUSION/STUDY NOOK
MANGO GROVE
OPERATION REMEDIUM
MULCH AS A MEANS OF NATIONAL SECURITY Joint Base Cape Cod, Sandwich MA Course: GSD STU1211 Third Semester Core, Fall 2013 Studio Coordinator: Pierre Belanger Studio Critic: Kelly Doran Partners: Emily Wettstein, Timothy Wei
The Joint Base Cape Cod has been used for military training activities since 1911 and today is the primary military training facility for the New England National Guard and Army Reserve. The site is located over a sole-source aquifer that provides drinking water for 200,000 people year-round and 500,000 seasonal residents of Cape Cod. Past fuel spills at the air base, explosive training, and remaining unexploded ordinances have contaminated this aquifer in many areas. From the site-as-system perspective that contamination is just a resource out of place, Operation Remedium proposes a series of groundwater-treating mulch biowalls created by interrelated forest thinning and wood mulching processes conducted on site. A biowall is a passive organic filter technology that is injected into groundwater at various depths across contaminant plumes. They can be filled with mulch, a material with a high cellulose-to-lignin ratio. To produce enough mulch for successful groundwater treatment at the JBCC, specific hardwoods (such at black cherry and red maple) and softwoods (pitch pine) are chosen for local harvest. This process simultaneously opens new ecological spaces and forms of forest occupation across the base. Subtle clearings can be enjoyed by intimate hikers through dense coppiced red maple forests in spring, large clearings of “forest rooms� become outlined with the brilliant red foliage of black cherry in autumn perfect for music festivals, grids of pollarded pitch pine fields welcome a mysterious picnic in summer, or generous paths carved out of towering, yellow trembling aspen groves let locals hike alongside soldiers. Ultimately, life is promoted both with and within the forest. Nominated for ASLA General Design Award, May 2014
Process Sequence | Starting on the left with a forest and an existing road, this drawing shows how Operation Remedium would look in one part of the site over time (1
BIOWALL INSERTION and MULCH PROCESS year-10 years) as it experiences the initialHARVEST forest thinning for mulch, the installation of the biowall, and repeated forest subtraction and addition processes for future biowalls.
HEAT TIDE Jamaica Bay, New York, New York Course: GSD STU1212, Fourth Semester Core, Spring 2014 Studio Coordinator: Chris Reed Studio Critic: Leena Cho Partner: Geunwhan Jeong
This project introduces a new understanding of how landscapes can act as a framework for urban development. At Jamaica Bay, with each tide, spikes of short-durational heat are exchanged at different densities across the sediment-water interface, carrying with them opportunities for design and cultivation for urban landscape lifestyles. Water depth and surface material served as leverage points for shaping new types of public areas, private spaces, and everything in-between. For the sea, the tidal zone expanded to welcome a new network of coastal ecologies. For New York, water is offered to new experiences, economies, and above all, the eye and body.
INTERCOASTAL SECTIONS
HEAT TIDE ANALYSIS
Spine
Cross-Spine: Tree Focus
Cross-Spine: Car Focus
Cross-Spine: Pedestrian Focus
Raised Metal Decking
Tidal Street: Thick Marsh
Tidal Street: Thin Marsh
Tidal Street: Plaza Walk
Expansion Joint
Dry Sand Joint
Asphalt Blocks Setting Bed Concrete Slab
A major part of both the landscape experience and the urban infrastructure is the street. Four types of streets were designed and integrated into landform and building block systems to cultivate the new tidal zone into a diversity of urban lifestyles.
Concrete Tree Root Ball Soil
Compacted Stone
Gravel
Subgrade
Drain Pipe Subgrade Asphalt Block Paver Common Condition: All (except Decking)
Tree in Pavement Common Condition: Spine/Cross-Spine
Topsoil 15cm min. Loam Filter Course
Marsh Grass
10cm Subdrain
Course Sand Mud/Debris Subgrade
Subgrade
Marsh Cross Section Common Condition: Tidal Street
STREET DETAIL DESIGN
Turf Common Condition: All (except Decking)
Main roadways, called Spines, were located high and dry on top of mounds and support high-speed multi-modal traffic and transportation routes. Cross-spines, also always dry, connect spines across each neighborhood and always provide a dry circulation route throughout the city. Tidal streets, half-way between a street and a marsh, get inundated by the high tide twice daily, and create unique, intimate networks for people to choreograph differently depending on time of day. Lastly, raised networks of metal decking support circulation in times of high tide, connecting urban landscapes to marshlands, buildings to other buildings, and open spaces to private spaces.
Three moments of transition between different materials and spaces in the landscape are shown here, including a tree in pavement next to a multi-modal Cross-Spine street (hard material condition), a pocket forest next to a concrete paver sidewalk and rubber playground (semi-hard material condition), and a marsh in between a concrete paver sidewalk and asphalt paver “tidal-walk� (soft material condition).
Street -Tree in Pavement - Sidewalk
Street -Tree in Pavement - Sidewalk (All Dry)
Turf - Concrete Pavers - Rubber Surface
Turf (Dry) - Concrete Pavers (Dry) - Rubber Playground (Wet Twice Daily)
Concrete Pavers - Marsh - Asphalt Pavers
Concrete Pavers (Dry) - Marsh (Wet Twice Daily) - Asphalt Pavers (Wet
MATERIAL TRANSITIONS
TIDAL HEAT EXCHANGE
URBAN UNIT CATALOGUE
THE OTHER SIDE OF VERSAILLES Versailles, France Course: GSD STU1408, The Barracks of Pion, Spring 2015 Studio Critics: Michel Desvigne, Inessa Hansch
Work in Progress As part of the City of Versailles’ redevelopment goals, a marginalized parcel at the rear end of the famous park of Versailles struggles for re-integration into the greater context. It is the 26 acre site of the former military Barracks of Pion hinged between Versailles’ historical landscape and urban territory. Here, there are many buildings but no town center; much open space but no public space; infinite roads, but no pedestrians. However, through the lens of landscape the site is re-framed and positioned as a new neighborhood in a forest district - an inclusive civic space foregrounded and linked programmatically to a network of cities and woodlands, all supported by the backdrop of cultural heritage that is Versailles. Le Notre’s classical design techniques of the allee, terrace, bosquet, and fountain are my building blocks for a new place that will feature a connective dike along the historical wall of Versailles, a sunken Main Street mixed-use development zone, raised wildflower fields, and residential communities.
LANDFORM Laura Solano: GSD SCI6142, Spring 2013 Chipboard, acetate, Elmer’s glue, spray paint, Photoshop 14” x 10” x 1.5”
Landform is a generative tool for design. Here it’s a combination of open views, private enclosure, and moments of surprise.
our plan
Scale 1/64"= 1'
BOSTON CITY HALL PLAZA Selected Drawings, GSD STU1112, Spring 2013 Mixed Media and Various Sizes/Scales
The landform was pushed and pulled according to a grid to create elegant tilted planes that intersect at ramps and stair transitions to create smaller pocket spaces, or front porches, for the surrounding buildings. Tilted brick in bands are oriented to collect water and hold plants.
AUTOMOBILE PASTORAL Concept Diagrams, Franklin Park: GSDSTU1112, Spring 2013 AutoCad, Photoshop, Illustrator Various sizes
What is the place of the automobile in an Olmstedean landscape? In this project for the Franklin Park Entrance in Boston, I was interested in the idea of a parking lot being a softedged space.
Before
BRIGHTLANE PARKELT Competition Entry for Brightlane Media, 2014 Photoshop collage
DRAWING (My first landscape design) Xing Park, Plan and Section, 2009 Park and Recreation Design, University of Vermont, 2010 Mixed Media on paper, 20 in x 24 in, Scale 1” = 30’
White Cloud, Dichondra, Button Willow Coding Perennials & Shrubs GSD VIS2141, 2012 Bristol paper, graphite, ink wash, 11 in x 14 in, various scales
Untitled Personal, 2008 Chalk on paper, 18 in x 24 in
28 Oranges Personal, 2011 Mixed media, Various sizes
HILLARY ARCHER 10 Wendell Street Apt. 12A Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 1+(617) 460-9149 Email: harcher@gsd.harvard.edu
EDUCATION
Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge MA / Candidate for Master of Landscape Architecture, May 2015 University of Vermont, Burlington VT, Self-designed B.S. Natural Resources/Urban Ecology, Film Minor, May 2010 Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley MA Spring 2006 / Syracuse University, Syracuse NY Fall 2005
EXPERIENCE
Landscape Architect Trainee, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Cambridge, MA (2014) Landscape Architect Trainee, Reed Hilderbrand, LLC, Watertown, MA (2013) Communications Assistant, Harvard Museum of Natural History (2012) Project Manager Media Communications, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Burlington, VT (2010-2012) Volunteer Partner, Burlington Permaculture Burlington, VT (2009-2010) Consultant, Park & Recreation Design Service Learning Project Hinesburg, VT (2009) Chief Writer, Kleercut Campaign, University of Vermont, (2007-2009)
TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIPS
Teaching Assistant, Undergraduate Architecture Studio, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2015) Head Teaching Assistant, Third Semester Core Studio, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2014) Teaching Assistant, History of Cultural Landscape Preservation, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2014)
HONORS
Top 30 Finalist, 2015 Les Jardins de Métis, Nouveaux Jardins Festival International (2014) ASLA Student Award Nominee (2014) Cum Laude, University of Vermont (2010) Dean’s List, University of Vermont (2007-2010)
AWARDS
Travel Research Grant, Teaching Creativity, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2014) Emmy Award, New England, Cinematography, “BLOOM” (2011) Judges Award for Best Film, University of Vermont Film Festival (2010) Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, University of Vermont RSENR Program (2010)
PUBLICATIONS + EXHIBITIONS
VERITAS, “Symbolic Sites” Exhibition, 40 Kirkland Gallery, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA (2015) Corktown Common Organic Maintenance Manual, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Cambridge Ma (2014) Group Design Proposal, Poly Prep Magazine,“The Campus as a Living Classroom”, MVVA (2014) ASLA Landscape Architect’s Guide to Boston collaboration with Gary Hilderbrand (2013) Published in GSD Platform 6, “Intersections” Site Model, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2013) GSD Platform 6 Exhibition, (Group Exhibition) “Intersections” Site Model, Harvard University (2013) Culture Unplugged Film Festival (2013) Vermont International Film Festival (2012) Website Design and Branding Campaign, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics (2012) Film Feature Story, Seven Days Vermont Newspaper (2011) Weekly Show, RETN TV, Vermont (2010-2012) Landscape Design Analyst: Open Space Inventory and Campus Master Plan, University of Vermont (2010) Rubenstein School of Natural Resources News, University of Vermont, (2009-2010)
SKILLS
Modeling + Analysis: Mac/PC, MicrosoftOffice, Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, ArcGIS, Rhino, VectorWorks, 3DS Max Analog: Model Making and Hand Drafting Video Production: FinalCut Pro, Adobe AfterEffects Research: Academic/Field-based, Analog/Digital, GPS Tracking