Porftolio April 2010 by I Maria Calderon

i marialandscape calderon architecture

i maria calderon imariacalderon@gmail.com 212 Boldt Hall, Ithaca NY 14853, USA 614.284.0880

Projects

Hydroloop Rochester

CCAD Dorm Design

Hydrology Park

Aloe [Poly]flection

NYC Piers Estuarian Habıtat

Mını Village design ın Indıa

Mirrorama

Brown field redevelopment

6 Hydroloop Rochester NY

The Rochester inner loop is a sunken highway that isolates the downtown area of the city from the surrounding metropolıtan area, diminishing the economic vitality of the city center. The goal of thıs urban desıgn project is to create a communıty that fills in the gap between the suburbs and the city center. We envision this as an opportunity to develop a community that uses its location near the Strong Museum of Play as an anchor to attract people to this outdoor sustainability museum. The sıte celebrates water as a central desıgn element to both hıghlıght educatıonal opportunıtıes and repupose stormwater as an amenıty ınstead of a constraınt. The resultıng playful and dynamıc spaces create gravıty, drawıng people towards and across the space to brıdge the dıvıde the Inner Loop represents. Collaborators: Mattew Sturz, Allison Gardiner

2 NYC Piers Estuarian Habitat 16

The estuarian species that used to thrive in the Hudson River are now heavily underrepresented due to the constant dredging and rigid bulk head. These species originally live in shallow waters and marshy areas, which are now inexistent. This design uses the remains of two piers in NYC and a series of gabion structures to speed up sedimentation and to create of shallow waters. The strategically placed gabions prevent strong southward tides from completely eroding the subsurface landscape that exists adjacent to the bulked. This design gives people access to the water through middle ground that is created by a series of islands and shallow waters. Visual access to the species that live in the shallow waters created in this middle ground is also enabled once a strong middle ground evolves.

overrepresented fish Still waters shallow, soft b Sandy bottom, vegetation Cover oriented, vege

bulkhead

Plant Habitat Phasing: unvegetated gabions Upland vegetation unvegetated gabions Upland (non(non-tidal) tidal) vegetation Vegetated lower interridal Submerged submerged aquatic vegetation vegetated lower intertidal aquatic vegetation

Habitat population

getated gabions Upland (non-tidal) vegetation tated lower intertidal submerged aquatic vegetation battery park

bulkhead

years

overrepresented fish Still waters shallow, soft bottom marsh edges vegetation Sandy bottom, vegetation Cover oriented, vegetation

attery park

bulkhead

battery park 5

Plant Species

epresented fish Still waters shallow, soft bottom marsh edges vegetation y bottom, vegetation Cover oriented, vegetation

Habitat population

bottom marsh edges vegetation etationbattery park years

Fish Habitat phasing: waters marsh edges vegetation shallow, soft bottom overrepresented fishstill Still overrepresented fish waters shallow soft bottom, marsh edges vegetation, sandy botSandy bottom, vegetation Cover oriented, vegetation tom vegetation, Cover oriented vegetation

Plant Species

bulkhead

battery park

Fish

3 Fish Species

Section

3CCAD Dormitory design

Columbus College of Art and Design will build a new dorm for upperclassmen who want to stay on campus. Through the design principles taught by Landscape Architecture professionals from MMBJ, we first interviewed CCAD students and learned that they were not inspired to live on campus. We discovered that they missed a clear identity and sense of pride and engagement. This realization prompted our dorm design to have a semi circular shape that abounded with community spaces, including the two outdoor courtyards between the dorms, and six roof gardens which are representative of the six fine arts majors offered in this college. Students can exhibit their work outdoors and feel identified with the specific roof garden that addresses their personal interest. The red exhibition beams placed on the roofs are a continuation of the exising ART sculpture. Collaborators: Chelsea Claggett, Candice Estep

Mini village design in India

In the tropical heat of southern east India, the ambitious sustainable city of Auroville strives for sustainability, peace of mind and community involvement. Within the city, a mini-village called Pyracacia, conserves existing trees and tries to minimize impact while sharing common green spaces in order to maximize community involvement. One main driveway circulates the entire development and secondary pedestrian paths connect the communities to a dense forest in the center. Water runoff from the monsoons is collected both at the lowest point of the community and in practices adjacent to each house. Pyramidal thatched houses were chosen for their symbolic attributes of balance and peacefulness. These pyramidal structures have long panoramic openings on each floor that wrap around the entire house, allowing the airflow to cool the house. A community center and an elevated water tower also become emblematic elements of the community.

pyramidal house variations

a house in pyracacia

5Hydrology Park

Easton Town Center is a shopping center in Columbus Ohio that directs all its runoff into a river without any previous treatment. The intent of this project is to re-direct polluted runoff from this shopping center and urban area into a hydrology park that becomes activated during a rain event. As water flows through the three swails, contaminants are absorbed by the planted terraces and water has a chance to infiltratrate the ground before running off straight into the river.

Wooden paths circulate through hydropark

Planted terraces help filter stormwater

Parti and conceptualization of design.

Low Maintenance lawns

Residential Roofs

Paved Surfaces

Irrigated Lawns

Commercial Roofs

Analysis of surrounding conditions shows how impacted river is by adjacent neighborhoods.

6Aloe [Poly]flection Exhibit

Through a grant for student artists obtained from Cornell Council for the Arts, a freshmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first architecture excersize was converted into an art installation three years later, which was exhibited for one month in the Mann Library Gallery of Cornell University starting May 2nd, 2010. This Project presented various challenges which helped me realize the intricacies of allowing a project to manifest itself at the human scale. As if the construction process was not complicated enough, sojourning through the legal aspects of setting up an exhibit can lead the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enthusiasm to succumb. Constuction began in the summer of 2009, in Guatemala City, where the design of the origami pyramids was driven by their ability to collapse into a suitcase, which I then brought back with me to Ithaca. Although I planned for the structure to become an outdoor exhibit, due to risk management, this was not possible. I therefore arranged a joint exhibit with a classmate at Mann library.

Chipboard

Fold

Origami

Arrange

Prime

Spray

Stack

Take

Test

[re]order

Exhibit invitation

the patterns of nature

Cornell Council for the Arts Presents: Mann Library Gallery Exhibit with Landscape Architecture Students I Maria Calderon & Eammon Coughlin Opening March 2, 2010

View from above, interconnected triangles

Exhibit opening day

Detail of chip board with silver spary

Explanatory Poster

[re] order explores two extremely different visions of nature and order.

These visions are taken on by two Landscape architecture student artists who, with the support of Cornell Council for the Arts, [re]interpreted certain events seen in nature and converted them to art.

aloe [poly]flection Is a installation based on the pattern of the Fibonacci

sequence, a pattern and set of proportions found in everything from Nautilus shells, to Sunflowers and Aloe plants. One plant specimen whose structure is based on this sequence is Aloe Polyphyla, a cameo cactus whose polychotomous speark-like leaves spiral from the center, creating a rigorous wrapping of blades that increase in size as they radiate outward. This art installation probes the elemental composition of the Aloe polyphyla plant, its generative patterning, skeletal framework and perseverance of the Fibonacci Sequence as a basis for understanding its poetic attributes. Aloe [poly]flection unfolds into the floor space and reveals the elegance of the Aloe polyphyla plant through reflective construction materials that create a piece amenable to the human scale.

landscape event combines visual works with the written word to bridge various disciplines of philosophy, art and design. The text, drawing on social and ecological criticism, attempts a critique of sustainability and environmentalism through the lens of "apocalypse". In the original Greek, the word does not contain the destructive connotations it now holds, for it literally means "revealing" or "the lifting of the veil". We use this term as a metaphor for the emergence of a new relationship between man and the natural world that has been brought about by current environmental thought. The drawings and renderings - meant to evoke a narrative that accompanies the text - explore a small town in the near future. The town becomes an ambiguous scene - both idyllic and treacherous - existing between trajectories of "apocalypse" and "ecological paradise."

paint

Exhibit was set within Mann Library

Layout of Fibonacci squares on ground. Projected images of plants structured after the sequence.

7Mirrorama

Artists have often been inspired by the form structure of organisms which use the Fibonacci sequence to protect themselves, grow, and capture nourishment. Deconstructing natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work became an artistic process that inspired reiterations of the patterns in this Aloe Polyphylla plant. 10 sections of a combined axonometric drawing of the plant were cut into chip board and fit to form a skeleton of the fibonnacci sequence embedded in this plant. A wire mesh was then sculped on top of the skeleton to form the shell of the skin. Overlaid on top of the wire mesh, a skin composed of broken mirrors was now enameling and rectifying the smooth curves of the spiraling shell. This reflective skin became a scaled landscape with two paths that circulated and went through its surface.

8Brownfield development ın Chıcago A five hundred acre brownfield redevelopment project was a challenge that tested our abilities to understand street widths, density, new urbanist and sustainabile approaches, conservation of identity among other things. My design focuses mostly on creating a strong street network that is easily read and links perfectly with the currently existing neighborhood west of “Southworks”, the name of the old steel industry that used to thrive here. Additionally, I chose to conserve the existing ore walls adjacent to the inlet, or channel that was used to take iron ore out of the barges. These ore walls became an important component of the design of a park next to a high end mixed development sector. We were amazed by the leadership of two graduate Landscape Architecture students, who singlehandedly led this course. Their strict deadlines and exceptional goals pushed our entire class to a level we had never before experienced.

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Wetland Stormwater detention park next to existing ore walls