Jacob Kuhn Landscape Architecture Portfolio by Jacob Kuhn

JACOB KUHN Landscape Architecture Portfolio

JACOB KUHN Email jlk273@cornell.edu Phone 845.825.2883 Address 5 Edelweiss Lane Congers, NY 10920 Education

Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Science Candidate for Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture, May 2018 Planned Concentrations: Environmental Science and Sustainability GPA: 3.821

National University of Singapore Study Abroad Exchange student in Masters of Landscape Architecture Program August 2016 December 2016

Skills

Awards and Honors

+ Adobe Suite + Esri ArcGIS Photoshop Illustrator + SketchUp InDesign Lightroom + Microsoft Office Word + Rhino 5 Powerpoint Grasshopper Excel VRAY Outlook + AutoCAD + Lumion

+ Elevating Erie Design Competition Finalist + Olmsted Scholar Undergraduate Nominee + ASLA Student Poster Session Nominee + Deanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s List, 2014 - 2018 + CALS Global Fellow + Sphinx Head Senior Honor Society

Professional Experience DHM Design Office Intern, June 2017 - August 2017 | Bozeman, Montana + Produced master plan drawings, section elevations, 3D rendered models, and construction details for residential, ranch, and public projects + Attended meetings with clients and and site visits with contractors + Collaborated with interns in other DHM offices on an independent design project focused on community development and cultural/historic preservation in Bozemanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s northeast neighborhood. + Compiled our site analysis and design intervention drawings in a book for DHM Design: https://issuu.com/dhm_design/docs/bozeman_northeast_neighborhood_issu Cornell University Dept. of Natural Resources | Rust2Green Global Citizenship and Sustainability Intern, May 2015 Present | Ithaca, NY + Interviewed community members, private business owners, and government officials about their preparedness for and experience with the floods of 2006 and 2011 in Binghamton, NY + Compiled stories to build a platform of active co-learning with floodplain communities about community resilience and climate adaptability + Partnered and co-researched with six students and one faculty member from Mahidol University, Thailand

French Heritage Society | Potager du Roi Horticultural Intern, June 2016 August 2016 | Versailles, France + Planted and harvested over 30 species of fruits and vegetables + Maintained 25-acre historic garden of Versailles through pest management, weed removal, and soil watering and tillage + Gained extensive botanical and horticultural knowledge on garden design, plant I.D., and urban agroecosystems + Collaborated with a landscape architect and artist to produce design work for a gallery showing

BYBi | Pollinatorpassajen Intern/Volunteer, May 2016 -- June 2016 | Oslo, Norway + Constructed insect hotels and bee hives, and mapped out future programming for a new park project, Parkens Grøde + Collaborated with landscape architects to develop ideas for including pollinators in development projects + Gained thorough insight into urban farming and using landscape architecture for community development + Co-authored and maintained a blog about daily experiences, projects, and meetings: www.bzzoslo.wordpress.com

Extracurricular Activities Cornell University Dept. of Natural Resources | Rust2Green Cornell ASLA Student Chapter Executive Board TRACE Magazine Editor, Student-Faculty Liaison, February 2017 -- Present + Coordinate writing and editing teams, and delegate weekly writing assignments + Design publication layout based on the theme of the issue + Act as student-faculty liaison in communicating faculty projects and research to the department, and in discussing student activities and concerns to faculty

Residential and New Student Programs Community and Respect Residential Advisor, January 2016 -- Present + Develop and run monthly programs centered around community, respect, multicultural competence, and sexual assault awareness and prevention for hall residents + Take nights on-call to address resident concerns + Attend monthly meetings and workshops to develop communication, discussion facilitation, and community leadership skills

Ordinary People Social Justice Theater Troupe Troupe Member, October 2015 -- Present + Write, direct, and perform original theater pieces related to social justice issues on campus and in society + Facilitate group discussions with audiences, and develop partnerships with other student organizations + Developed “Tell Me a Story” project about documenting students’ experiences in relation to social justice issues

CONTENTS

+ WATER TABLE

+ SEDIMENT SKELETONS

+ GOOD NEIGHBORS

+ PROFESSIONAL WORK

+ TECHNICAL WORK SAMPLES

+ PUNGGOL PAYSAGE

+ [RE]APPEARING PIERMONT

WATER TABLE

WEST CHELSEA, NY SPRING, 2017 Project Description The current coastline of West Chelsea is a place completely built on piles. This expansion of the coastline was a slow moving process, slowly filling in the Hudson River and building outwards. One of the largest implications of a site built on piles is its unique vulnerability to flooding and instability. Due to its construction, the site is at a lower elevation, making it more susceptible to inundation by flood waters during a rising tide in a storm event. A foundation of piles is also not the most sturdy base, which also contributes to the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vulnerability. Water Table is a place of community gathering and experience, with a number of elements that, on the surface, enhance the ability of people to use the site, and that double as flood preventative measures. The site of West Chelsea has been through intense flood events, mainly Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which inundated Hudson River Park, as well as a number of streets inland. These storm events will only become more common as sea levels continue to rise. Therefore, Water Table serves as a multilayered and proportional approach to defend historic West Chelsea from future flood damage. The design for this site is a particularly subversive tactic, taking the historic elements of water wheels and the rising tidal levels to create a completely self-sustainable, deployable wall.

Historical & Tidal Study A Place on Piles: 1850 to Today The current coastline of West Chelsea is a place completely built on piles. This expansion of the coastline was a slow moving process, slowly filling in the Hudson River and building outwards. One of the largest implications of a site built on piles is its unique vulnerability to flooding and instability. Due to its construction, the site is at a lower elevation, making it more susceptible to inundation by flood waters during a rising tide in a storm event. A foundation of piles is also not the most sturdy base, which also contributes to the site’s vulnerability.

185 0

Daily Tidal Rise: 4.0-6.0ft, 2-3 times/day Based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the Hudson River’s tide changes quite drastically: from two to three times a day, the tide increases from four to six feet. This tidal change is dependent upon a number of factors, including lunar cycles, time of year, and the estuary relationship with the Atlantic Ocean. The approximate “zero” tidal elevation of the Hudson River by Chelsea Piers is 13 feet, so on average, the river can change in elevation to 17, 18, or 19 feet several times a day. While this kind of tidal action may go unknown to most visitors of Hudson River Park, it has far reaching implications, especially when it comes to the effects of climate change and sea level rise. Based on future projections of sea level rise, by 2050 the Hudson River will rise by 16 inches, in 2080 by 29 inches, and in 2100 by 36 inches. This is a slow moving change over time, and while it may not seem as drastic as Hurricane Sandy or a 100-year flood event, preparations must begin now.

2017

Coa

stlin

1850 Coastline 2017 Coastline Piles foundation Hurricane Sandy Inundation, 2012

ast

line

Concept Typologies

Flood Event

The first concept typology looks at a proportional approach to flooding, preparing for daily tidal change over the next 100+ years, as well as for a major storm event. The notion here is that flood wall will be deployed based on the amount of water expected for a flood. If a minor storm event causes 2ft of water inundation, the wall will be deployed at 2-3ft high. Or, if a major storm event causes 13ft of water inundation, the wall will be deployed at 14-15ft high. Deployable Flood Wall: 0-2ft

The second concept typology incorporates educational elements that are influenced by changing daily water tides. The idea here is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;stick groveâ&#x20AC;? that grows and shrinks based on a rising and falling tide, respectively. As tide increases, hydraulic technology can lift the sticks higher, demonstrating that pieces of the site are intricately tied to the river. Conversely, when the tide begins to fall, the hydraulic lifting will lower the sticks. While this particular element may do little in flood mitigation, it provides a strong learning tool for the community.

Deployable Flood Wall: 4-8ft

Deployable Flood Wall: 12-15ft

Stick Grove: low tide

Stick Grove: mid tide

Stick Grove: high tide

Shifting Pathways: low tide

Shifting Pathways: mid tide

Shifting Pathways: high tide

Everyday Conditions

The third concept typology also focuses on an educational piece. This may include the changing in heights of seating elements or pathways, to depict a continuously different and changing site throughout the day. Another key element of this can be a smaller-scla deployable wall. A single thread of seating elements may double as a flood wall, with connecting pieces of pathway being deployed to meet the elevation of the seating elements. This mini-deployable wall would be more useful in small scale flood events, and it protects a lot of the site from flood damage in the case of minor flooding.

Water Wheel Dynamics The critical instrument that influences the deployable walls and the changing site elements is a series of water wheels. Based on the historical presence of water wheels on site, the technology calls back the past and uses a reliable method of incorporating water into design and into everyday life. The wheels, located under the piers and protected by netting, are connected to hydraulic mechanisms to push/pull the stick grove and deploy the wall when the tide changes above a certain level.

Minor Flood Event

Major Flood Event

Diagrammatic Transect

Seat Element/Retaining Wall

Lowered Topography

Berms and Hills

SEDIMENT SKELETONS

GALVESTON BAY, TEXAS SPRING 2018 Project Description The Houston Shipping Channel connects to the Port of Houston, one of the busiest and most economically prominent ports in the United States. About 8,000 vessels move through the shipping channel in a single year to serve the numerous industries there, including petrochemical and manufacturing giants. With such large traffic moving through the Houston Shipping Channel and Galveston Bay, approximately 30 to 40 million cubic yards of sediment are dredged each year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stores this dredged material and has plans to utilize it in wetland restoration along the Galveston Bay coastline as a second layer of defense from storm surge and sea level rise. For this experiment, I tested twenty different forms that I imagine dredged material could be placed into. I then used a blow-dryer to investigate how sediment and water would interact with these structures if they were to be placed in Galveston Bay. This experiment lead to a number of discoveries relating to what the material of the structures could be, and how each piece of the material supports the structure. Further analysis of slope and elevation was done in Grasshopper and Rhino.

Grid: Chipboard

Grid: Chipboard & Mesh

Waves: Chipboard and Mesh

Decreasing Height Grid: Chipboard and Mesh

Compressed Rectangular Grid: Chipboard

Curved Grid and Tied Edges: Chipboard and Mesh

Increasing Height Grid: Chipboard and Mesh

Jagged Grid: Chipboard

4 Piece Pinched Grid: Chipboard and Mesh

Grid and Winged Edges: Chipboard

3 Piece Pinched Grid: Chipboard and Mesh

Compressed Grid and Winged Edges: Chipboard

Topo Model & Section Cuts

Elevation Analysis

Slope Analysis

Tidal Motion and Coastline Adaptability Collage

Dredged Material Placement Collage

Sediment Systems Collage

GOOD NEIGHBORS ITHACA, NEW YORK SPRING 2016 Project Description The Cayuga Salt Mine, located in Lansing, New York, is one of the deepest, and most expansive salt mines in North America. Producing over two million tons of salt annually and distributing it to over 1500 locations in the northeastern United States, the salt mine is not only a vital source of road salt in the winter, but it is also an influential industry with lasting effects on the community and environment. After researching the salt mine, I was surprised to discover how far reaching its distribution of road salt was, and its attempt at giving back to the local community through volunteering and donations. I spoke with a managing engineer at the mine, and I was curious to know more about the community’s receptivity to these outreach efforts. He told me that it “simply boils down to being a good neighbor.” Taking inspiration from this idea of being a good neighbor, my my vision visionfor forthe theproject project focused on focused ways which the Cargill the wayson in the which theinCargill Cayuga Salt Mine Cayuga Mine can beand a great and can be aSalt great neighbor be anneighbor active membe active member of Ithaca the communities ber an of the communities and Lansing.of Ithaca and Lansing.

Site Selection: GIAC Parking Lot

Cayuga Salt Mine Community Involvement

The parking lot of the Greater Ithaca Activities Center--an organization dedicated to providing recreational activities to youth and the elderly, many of whom are low-income--was the ideal site for the Good Neighbors project. Using conical salt piles as the center of the design, the parking lot becomes a performative space that acts as a site for stockpiling, for community engagement, recreation, and artfulness, and for the visibility of the Cayuga Salt Mine in Ithaca. As winter carries on, community members can come to the site, socialize with friends and neighbors, and collect some salt for de-icing driveways and sidewalks.

Yearly Stockpiling

Economic Contribution

Stockpiling Schedule & Site Performativity | September — November |

| December — January |

| January — March |

PROFESSIONAL WORK DHM DESIGN SUMMER, 2017 Project Description Over the summer of 2017, I worked as an intern at the Bozeman, Montana office of DHM Design, which is based in Denver, Colorado. I was interested in working out west because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a landscape I have very rarely interacted with or studied. Having lived and studied on the east coast of the United States, and having traveled to other cities around the world, my ideas of landscape and urbanism had become focused on limited and liminal spaces, and on the necessity for adding green in otherwise dense and gray areas. Out in Montana, however, there seemed to be the opposite problem. Vast swaths of untouched land in national parks or rolling fields were canvases for cultivating endless possibilities. I was fascinated by the grandiosity of the scale, and I was eager to think outside of the urban box my studies have mostly focused on. A lot of the projects I worked on at DHM, therefore, were either large-scale residential designs on ranches, or land planning for sites like the Grand Teton National Park. After working at DHM, I am able to synthesize diometrically opposed perspectives of the urban scale and the rural scale, and how one of these can inform the other.

Private Residence: Plan

Private Residence: Section

Teton Timbers Ranch Site Context Plan and Section

Hot Spring Details & Digital Model

TECHNICAL WORK SAMPLES Project Description

The following technical work samples are from a project in the Collegetown area of Ithaca, New York. The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts is home to Cornell’s Performing and Media Arts Department, and it’s central to the theater and dance communities on campus. The existing plaza in front of the Schwartz Center is completely unused and vacant, making it an ideal site for updates that are friendly and welcoming to passers-by, students, and audience members. My proposal for the Schwartz Center plaza involved the removal of a three-foot-tall wall that separated the plaza from the sidewalk, and an addition of a stairway that welcomes people into the plaza. The Schwartz Center is an aesthetically fascinating building with an entirely white marble facade. The striking color and look of the building, therefore, also require exciting materials and color for contrast. My design proposal also included corten steel planters with plants in a wide variety of colors that would highlight the visitor’s experience in the space.

Key

No.

Botanic Name

CC1

Cotinus coggygria ‘Young Lady’

CC2

CC3

CC4

CD2

Common Name Smoke Tree

Size

Root

Comments

3-4’

B&B

Cotinus coggygria ‘Flame’

Smoke Tree

3-4’

B&B

Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Dark Knight’ Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘First Choice’ Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Albifructus’ Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Summer Snow’ Daphne x burkwoodii ‘Briggs Moonlight’ Juniperus procumbens

Bluebeard

15”-18”

Cont.

Multistem Shrub form Multistem Shrub form

Bluebeard

15”-18”

Cont.

Japanese Beautyberry

15”-18”

Cont.

Japanese Beautyberry

15”-18”

Cont.

Burkwood Daphne

30”-36”

Cont.

Japanese Garden Juniper Singleseed Juniper Drooping Leucothoe

9”-12”

Cont.

9”-12”

Cont.

15”-18”

Cont.

Palibin Meyer Lilac Weigela

24”-30”

Cont.

15”-18”

Cont.

Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Carpet’ Leucothoe fontanesiana ‘Girards Rainbow’ Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’ Weigela florida ‘French Lace’

JK LA

PUNGGOL PAYSAGE PUNGGOL, SINGAPORE FALL 2016 Project Description Punggol is a rapidly growing, new residential neighborhood in the northeastern corner of Singapore. Until the 1950s, the area showed a typical rural setting with rubber and fruit tree plantations, and little development. The 60 hectare site is covered with secondary forest and preserved dry grasslands, and is expected to be developed into a mixed-use community, where residential, commercial, office and educational building blocks form a “creative cluster.” My vision for Punggol is about seeing what has not been seen before, and using the existing hidden gems on site to revitalize the relationship the community once had with nature. I have proposed simple design interventions to highlight specific natural elements of the site: historical plantations, bird habitats, and water, so as to allow people to explore their curiosities. Through this design, the people of Punggol will discover something in this landscape that’s been there all along. With that, people will create their own relationship with nature in a very organic way; they will connect to the landscape on a personal and emotional level, and that will produce an identity for this community that was once lost, but will be found again.

Site Element 1: Water

Water Typology: Cooling & Wind

Site Element 2: History

History Typology: Viewsheds

Site Element 3: Birds

Bird Typology: Habitats and Placemaking

Site Plan Collage

[RE]APPEARING PIERMONT PIERMONT, NY FALL 2017 Project Description Piermont is a community situated amongst a natural landscape, deeply connected to the Hudson River. [Re]Appearing Piermont aims to enhance Piermont’s relationship with nature and the Hudson through strengthening all of the places and connections that give Piermont its unique identity. The number one priority of these design interventions is to mitigate flooding from both sea level rise and storm events, yet they are also integral in preserving the artistic culture, safeguarding the marsh and allowing it to migrate, protecting businesses, homes, and recreational spaces from physical and economic damage, enhancing the views of the Hudson, and bringing people and nature closer together. Integrating water ensures a greater balance between the community and the natural environment of Piermont. The preparedness for living with water makes Piermont a resilient and adaptive community. The design design concept, therefore, is grounded in elevating the cultures and identities of Piermont’s residents through flood adaptive measures that will ensure the success and viability of Piermont for decades to come, making it “reappear” stronger and more resilient.

Beachfront Schematic Ecology

Regularly Inundated Marsh

Tidal Marsh

Beachfront

2020 SLR

20 yr flood

50 yr flood

2050 SLR

Berm Pathway Schematic Ecology

100 YR FLOOD 50 YR FLOOD 20 YR FLOOD 10 YR FLOOD

Rei

er B d e forc

JACOB KUHN 2018