Landscape Architecture Portfolio 2017

ISAIAH RAPKO U N D E R G R A D U AT E LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

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ISAIAH RAPKO L A NDS C A PE

A R C HITEC T

BIOGRAPHY

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I ’m 22 y ea r o l d l a nd sc ap e ar c hit ec t fr om Ber keley, C alifor nia . I’m a fift h ye a r s t u de n t a t Ca l

i sa i a h ra p k o@ g ma i l.c om

P o l y , S a n L u i s Obisp o. I’ m p assionat e ab out sust ainab le d es i g n , e c o l o g y, a n d t h e e n vi r o n men t. I ’m cu rren t ly wor king on my senior p r ojec t , wher e I’ m e xp l o r i n g a l t e r n a t i ve me t h o ds o f a da pta ti o n to s ea level r ise in t he San Fr anc isc o Bay Ar ea .

EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

ALTA PLANNING + DESIGN

CAL POLY, SAN LUIS OBISPO

Design Intern | Summer 2015

Landscape Architecture | 2012-2017

Crea ted ph ot o sim ulat ions (r end er ings), p r ep ar ed d ocu me n t s fo r

Co mp r e h e n s i ve , a c c r e di t e d l a n ds c a p e a r c h i t e c t u r e p r o g r am wi t h

pu bl i c o u treac h, and p r ep ar ed d r aft p r op osals t o c lien t s .

c o u r s e s i n c l u di n g p l a n t ma t e r i a l s , de s i g n s t u di o , a n d c ons t r uc t i o n.

GARDEN ARCHITECTURE

BERKELEY HIGH SCHOOL

Intern | Summer 2013

2008-2012

I n tera cted wit h c lient s d ur ing sit e visit s, assist ed in s i t e

Ra c e d fo r t h e Be r ke l e y H i g h Sc h o o l Mo u n t a i n Bi ke Te a m , wi nni ng

su rv ey i n g, and or ganized t he offi c e.

t w o s t a t e c h a mp i o n s h i p s a n d l e a g u e t i t l e s .

CAMBRIA BICYCLE OUTFITTERS Sales Associate | Summer 2016 Ga i n ed cu stom er ser vic e skills, help ed c ust omer s fi nd s p e c i fic gea r, a n d re p air ed and maint ained b ikes.

AWARDS

SKILLS

2015 D esi gn Week C al Poly 1st Plac e

Illustrator

A rcGI S Certi fica te of Tr aining

Photoshop

2009 Ov era l l Ca l i for nia League and St at e Mount ain Bike C hamp i o n , Fr e s h ma n

InDesign

2010 Ov era l l Ca l i for nia League and St at e Mount ain Bike C hamp i o n , JV

AutoCAD

2010 USA N a ti o n al C hamp ionship s Road Rac e, 7t h Plac e

ArcGIS SketchUp Rhino

REFERENCES Robert Trachtenberg | Owner of Garden Architecture

Caitlin Rasmussen | Alta Planning + Design

510.525.9517

5 1 0 .7 8 8 .6 8 8 2 | c a i t l i n r a s mu s s e n @a l t a p l a n n i n g .c o m

Ellen Burke | Professor of Landscape Architecture

Miran Day | Professor of Landscape Architecture

805.756.2813 | eb ur ke02@c alp oly. ed u

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PROJECTS

01_Harmony Revival

02_Chorro Flats: Finding a home for the California Newt

03_West Oakland: Where’s the Food?

04_Additional Works

04_On the Boards

01_Harmony Revival

The town of Harmony has experienced periods of prosperity and abandon during its many years of ownership changes. Located south of Cambria on Highway 1, Harmony is ideally located to attract tourists road-tripping along the coast.

Current owner Alan Vander Horst and project

California Native Garden

manager Tom Halen have plans to renovate the town with a retroďŹ t of the Harmony Valley Creamery Association building. A restaurant, called Bower and Baker, as well as a wine

Relocated Gazebo

lounge and cheese shoppe are planned.

This project focuses on the area directly around the creamery building and pottery studio. The design aims to facilitate an economic revival of Harmony by providing places for visitors to purchase items from the creamery building and enjoy them in the surrounding landscape. The three areas that aim to do this are the public picnic area, outdoor dining area for Bower and Baker, and the Bower and Baker beer garden.

Beer Garden Pop-Up Structure Bower & Baker Outdoor Seating Bower & Baker Beer Garden Public Picnic Area

Pottery

Creamery and Restaurant

The Bower and Baker beer garden would be the center of activity in Harmony. On normal days visitors would be able to enjoy a local beer under a pergola planted with hops. On special occasions, the area could be rented out and customized to suit the occasion. The area would accommodate weddings and small concerts particularly well.

The public picnic area has three picnic tables that can each easily seat eight people. Visitors would be able to purchase cheese, bread, and perhaps a bottle of wine and enjoy it under one of the olive trees planted in each of the tables. Throughout this area are galvanized steel troughs which would be planted with culinary herbs for use in cheese production and in the restaurant. Adjacent to the picnic area is the outdoor dining area, where patrons of Bower and Baker would be able to enjoy their food under a wisteria-covered pergola.

02_Chorro Flats: Finding a home for the California Newt Group Project with Juliana Welch

California Coastal Newt prey: Slugs, worms, moths, snails, crickets, and woodlice.

migratory season: During winter

months,The California Coastal Newt travels up to 3 miles to find to a creek or pond, in orderto lay eggs and reproduce. The amphibian undergoes physical changes during the journey, such as fin-like tail structure and smooth skin.

predators: Crayfish, Bullfrog, and Mosquitofish feed on larvae and eggs, and are invasive to the California Coastal region

Morro Bay’s Chorro Flats is a coastal California wetland which begs to be revitalized. As a perfect habitat for the endangered California Newt, and an ecological gem which is threatened by invasive plant and animal species, this is a comprehensive plan to restore it to health. Minimum impact, maximum immer-

Infographic by Juliana Welch

sion is an overarching goal by which we put visitors into the shoes of the newt. A system of trails represents the migratory journey and life cycle of this amphibious species, native only to California.

Because the California Coastal Newt has very specific habitat needs, ArcGIS was used to determine a suitable location for the design area.

We chose to focus on Southern California coastal counties (San Luis Obispo to San Diego) because the newt is most endangered in these counties.

Firstly, we selected for vegetation that matched the newts’ needs: evergreen forest, mixed forest, and shrubby chaparral and grasslands. For visitor access, we selected areas within 5 miles of a major highway.

We then selected areas of low fire risk to decrease chances of the newt’s habitat being threatened by wildfires.

Finally, we selected for areas within one mile of a stream, which are crucial for the newt’s reproductive cycle.

These selections resulted in 150 site locations in 10 general areas. From these areas, we selected three for further review: Morro Bay, Carpenteria, and Ventura.

After examining the qualities of each site based on infrastructure and aerial imagery, we selected the Morro Bay location for our newt habitat preserve.

Program Elements Water Basins

Trail Network

Bird Sanctuary

Parking

Migratory Pathways

Ecotones

Information Center

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Elevated Pathways

Water Filtration

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Focus Area: Entry and Education The following pages show detail plans for three areas within the master plan.

Entry to the habitat preserve showcases a winding road lined with native willow and bay trees. The parking lot features a demonstration swale which shows the newt basin system used elsewhere in the preserve.

An ADA accessbile boardwalk trail (Tadpole Trail) connects the entryway and parking lot to the visitor’s center, an elevated building and observation area.

The seasonally flooded creek that runs adjacent to the visitor’s center would partially irrigate a native meadow area with picnic tables. A breakwater prevents the meadow and visitor’s center from severe flooding.

Section B-A

Section B-B

Concept Drawing

Floodplain Barrier

B Visitor’s Center

Migration Loop Trail

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Tadpole Trail

Parking Lot

Demonstration Swale

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Focus Area: Migration Loop Underpass

Focus Area: Newt Walk Observation Bridge

03_West Oakland: Where’s the Food?

Food deserts are areas where there is a lack of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy food.

They are usually found in impoverished areas were the main sources of food are fast food restaurant chains and liquor stores. Generally these areas lack supermarkets, farmers’ markets, and health food stores.

Access to affordable healthy food is critical for the well being of a population. Greater distance to healthy food causes low-income families, who perhaps don’t own a car, to buy food at convenience stores or corner stores, which usually sell lower quality food. Food deserts are correlated with health issues such as obesity, high BMI, and diabetes.

West Oakland is known to have an abundance of convenience and liquour stores and an almost total lack of supermarkets. In this GIS project, I examined food sources in and around West Oakland to determine the area most desperate for sources of fresh food such as a community garden or supermarket. From this critical area, I selected four sites ideal for community gardens and a supermarket.

Hercules

San Rafael San Pablo Richmond

Mill Valley

Orinda Sausalito

Berkeley Moraga

Emeryville Piedmont

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San Francisco

Alameda

Oakland

San Leandro

Daly City

San Bruno

Hayward

Foster City

Oakland

Legend

% of Population African-American 19 - 31 32 - 39 40 - 53 54 - 75

West Oakland is inhabited by primarily AfricanAmericans, with the highest concentration in the eastern portion of the area

Legend Shootings and Homicides 2007-2011 0-1 2-4 5-8 9 - 13 14 - 17

More general crime data was not available, but these data show that most crime is concentrated in the eastern portion of the area

Legend % of Population Graduated College 4-8 9 - 13 14 - 22 23 - 34 35 - 44

Lower college graduation rates are concentrated in the eastern and northern portions of the area

Legend

Median Income 0 1 - 27500 27501 - 42935 42936 - 64500 64501 - 145278

Lower incomes are concentrated on the eastern half of the area

Legend % of Population Living in Poverty 0-9 10 - 23 24 - 35 36 - 51 52 - 70

The highest percentage of people living in poverty are in the eastern and southern portions of the area

Feasibility Study To select a site, every store with fresh produce or community garden was mapped and given a 1 kilometer buffer. These points can be seen as light or dark green dots.

The buffer boundaries, along with the boundary of West Oakland, resulted in the food desert, or site boundaries. The orange dots, which far outnumber green, represent convenience or liquor store locations.

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Community Garden

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Liquour/Convenience Store

Grocery 1 kilometer Buffer around Community Garden and Grocery

Food Desert

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2 Kilometers

West Oakland Boundary

Site Inventory

Bus Stops

Vacant Lots

Streets

Boundary

Site Selection

Once the site was selected, the next task was to determine the most suitable locations for a grocery store and three community gardens. To do this, I retrieved parcel data from the City of Oakland and mapped only the vacant lots. I also mapped bus stops in order to be able to determine locations that had increased public transportation access.

Then, a 500 ft buffer (a very reasonable walking distance with grocery bags) was placed around the bus stops. Vacant lots were clipped to only include lots inside the buffer.

From there, four sites were selected based on the “ground truth,� or the real-life characteristics of each vacant lot. I attempted to sort the lots using characteristics such as acreage, but ultimately I found that using aerial imagery as well as Google Street View was the most effective way to determine the quality of the sites.

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Legend Bus Stops Vacant Lots within 500 ft of a Bus Stop 500 ft Buffer around Bus Stops

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Program Recommendations Community Garden Location

The site shown above, on Athens Avenue, would be an ideal location for a larger-scale community garden. Close, but not on a major street makes it very accessible. It is also two adjacent vacant lots, which could possibly be purchased together.

This site, on 20th Street between Market and Curtis, would be appropriate for a smaller sized community garden. There appears to be a shipping container on-site, which could be used for storing gardening equipment.

Community Garden Location

Grocery Store Location

One of the largest vacant areas in the food desert, this site is actually three adjcacent vacant lots. It would be ideal for a small grocery store. Almost on the corner of Market Street, vehicular and public transportation access is high.

On 24th between San Pablo and MLK, this site would provide coverage for the eastern portion of the food desert. Aerial photographs suggest it may already be in use as a tiny community garden. However, it has much higher potential to provide fresh food to the surrounding community.

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Community Garden Location

04_Additional Work: Monday Club

04_Additional Work: Crescent Bench Group Project with Arturo Zaragoza and Daniel Shafir-Schorr

04_On the Boards: Senior Project

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SUBMERGE is a proposal for a resilient bay-front park addressing sea level rise in the San Leandro Bay, part of the greater San Francisco Bay. The design will aim to be a model for how the Bay Area can adapt its coastal edges to the threat of sea level rise and larger floods. Instead of using ‘hard’ infrastructure strategies like seawalls and levees, the park will use ‘soft’ infrastructure like wetlands to decrease wave energy and mitigate flood damage.

In addition to addressing sea level rise, the park will also become a place worth staying and recreating in, rather than simply passing by on the Bay Trail (a cycling path which borders much of the Bay). Three key strategies will be used:

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Fingers of High Ground

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Fingers of high ground are natural or constructed landforms which facilitate gradients in topography and salinity that harbor wetland ecologies and species.

They also can create retention areas for rain and provide protective barriers by accommodating rather than confronting the rise and fall of tides and storms. In addition, they avoid the catastrophic failure that can result from hard infrastructure.

Horizontal Levee

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The horizontal levee concept refers to a natural flood protection strategy that uses stratified wetland habitats to resist sea level rise and storm surges. At the inland edge, a brackish marsh is implemented which builds in elevation as its root systems expand. In the middle is a tidal marsh and on the bay edge is a mudflat. Sediment dredged from the nearby flood channels is used as the construction material.

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Sand Bar Accretion

In addition to dredged sediment, a large amount of sand is deposited in the San Leandro Bay. The resulting sand bar will aid wetland restoration by an accretion process as well as provide a location for upscale bayfront housing (which will help fund the project).

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Amphibious Housing Wetland Boardwalk Fingers of High Ground Bayfront Seating Soccer Fields Plaza

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Freshwater Rentention Pond Tidal Mud Flat Tidal Marsh Brackish Marsh Sand Bar Bay Trail Bike Path

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Thank You. isaiahrapko@gmail.com 510.292.0517