Jake Watters Portfolio 2017

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Jake Watters PORTFOLIO

Table of Contents 1..... Table of Contents 2.... Curriculum Vitae

ACADEMIC WORK 4.....Kelangopy Spring 2017 14.... SeaSaw Waterfront Plaza Fall 2014 24..... Rejuvenating the Loop Fall 2016 28.... Allston Tri Fall 2015 36..... Boston Common Spring 2015 40..... Franklin (p)Arc Spring 2015

PROFESSIONAL WORK 44..... West 8 Summer 2016 46.... Surface Design Inc. Summer 2015

CV

Jake Watters

EDUCATION

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA Master in Landscape Architecture, May 2017

Harvard GSD Publications Department Cambridge, MAPublication Editor, Summer 2017

Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH

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BA English Literature, 2009

Layout and editorial duties for Frontier City, a report about two semesters of research and design speculation on the Boston Harbor Islands.

Permaculture Design Certificate, 2008

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MATeaching Assistant, January 2017- May 2017

AWARDS, PUBLICATIONS, EXHIBITIONS

• • •

New Agrarian Center, Oberlin, OH

Platform 10 “Kelangopy,” featured in Harvard GSD exhibition and book. Cambridge, MA. 2017.

Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm “Kelangopy,” featured in GSD/AECOM sponsored exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, MY and publication. Cambridge, MA, 2017.

TECHNICAL LITERACY Proficient •

Rhino 3D, AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite, ArcGIS, Microsoft Office

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V-Ray for Rhino, Grasshopper for Rhino, Adobe After Effects

Familiar

Teaching Assistant for Landscape Representation II Planning and instruction of software tutorials Participation in periodic critiques

West 8 NY, New York, NYDesign Intern, Summer 2016 • •

Assist with design of open space framework for 33 acre mixed-use development in Portland, OR. Construction documentation and production of presentations for client meetings.

SURFACEDESIGN INC. San Francisco, CAStudio Intern, Summer 2015 •

Assist with design of residential, institutional and hospitality projects from concept design to construction documentation.

PUBLIC Bikes, Oakland, CAAssembly Coordinator, August 2010-August 2014 • •

Ensure timely delivery of high volume of assembled bicycles through delivery multiple channels; including customer direct shipping and local stores.

Facilitate product development through regular communication with product designer and manufacturers.

Kelangopy Faculty nomination for ASLA student honor award

In collaboration with Sophie Maguire Instructors: Spela Videcnik, Rok Oman, and David Rubin Kuala Lumpur was founded as a tin mining settlement at the confluence of the Keland and Combak rivers. “Kuala Lumpur,” itself translates from Malay to “muddy confluence.”

Despite owing its name and location to these two rivers, they have been walled-in, built over and hidden. The Kelang River separates the traditional Malay Agricultural Reserve of Kampung Baru and the modern high rises of Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC).

Due to a risk of flooding, the Kelang was straightened and channelized in the 1960s and hemmed in by new freeway development in the 1990s. These changes both isolated Kampung Baru from its cemetery and the new development of KLCC. This barrier could be read as a division between two Malaysias, a traditional agricultural and Muslim Malaysia and a modern diverse and cosmopolitan Malaysia.

Kelangopy seeks to explore two questions, how can a river be revitalized and naturalized without turning it into a park for people and how can we begin to create a public space where multiple publics can congregate. Eschewing forms aligned with specific ethnic symbologies, and “ground” that is free of historic claims and occupations, Kelangopy draws formal inspiration from the landscape of the Malay peninsula to occupy the space above the channelized Kelang river.

Kelangopy offers an occupiable crossing where multiple publics can walk, gather and linger. Reconnecting Kampung Baru with its culturally and historically significant cemetery as well as the new developments of KLCC. Positioning landscape as a bombastic agent of change, plantings of endemic forest species including Ficus benjamina break up the concrete banks, while towering camphor trees compete with steel canopy structures to provide shade in the tropical heat and daily deluges of rain.

Site plan.*

Trashcan Large Planter Rubber Tree Grove

Shade Structure

Donut Walk

Ziggurat Seating Swimming Pool Spiral Staircase Lipstick Palm Court

Amphitheater Plaza Elevator Escalator

Final column inventory.

Outdoor Market

Project phasing *

Maquette: basswood, acryllic, paper, plant material.

Shade structure, paving, plantings.

A canopy of living and non-living trees.

Sub-platform topography reflects soil volumes for plantings.

View from top of platforms toward the historic Muslim cemetery and the Petronas Towers.

View from the “forest floor� of the channelized Kelang river.

Sea-Saw Waterfront Plaza Instructor: Zaneta Hong Studio Coordinator: Gary Hilderbrand An extension of the Boston Harbor walk, this project pushes Boston’s shoreline out into the harbor, a reference to Boston’s history of land reclamation. Consisting of a “dry” upland plaza for larger gatherings and civic events, as well as an undulating circular “boardwalk.” Submerged by the daily tide, the boardwalk reveals itself as a complete circuit at low tide.

The site sees an average variation in tidal elevation of roughly 10 feet daily. Walking the circular boardwalk when it appears at low tide, reveals a complete lilting panorama of Downtown Boston and the new Seaport district.

When paced in its entirety the circular walkway offers visitors a lilting panorama of Boston. The walkway itself, made of board-formed concrete panels, is a weather hardy ode to traditional wharf and dock construction.

The upland brick plaza is punctuated by concrete benches that mimic the gestures of the boardwalk pieces.

Average Low Tide 0.0 m

Mean Tide 1.5 m

Average High Tide 3.0 m

5.0 m Storm Surge

Section transect, detail.

Section transect, detail.

Site Plan

Boardwalk over the harbor.

Where the boardwalk meets the harborwalk.

Upland plaza in Fall.

Maquette: Matte board, acrylic

Rejuvenating the Delmar Loop

St. Louis, MO Instructor: Dan D’Oca (Interboro Partners) Delmar Boulevard is widely recognized as a boundary separating demographics and opportunity in St Louis. A product of Jim Crow policies and mid-century urban redevelopment, Delmar separates two vastly different versions of St. Louis. To the South predominantly white and economically mobile and to the North a city that is shrinking, impoverished and predominantly African American.

Anchoring this major street to the suburb of University City, where Washing ton University in St Louis is located, is the Delmar Loop, a commercial district lauded by the American Planning Association as “an eclectic arts, entertainment, dining and shopping district,” noting that the district is a major draw for people seeking out a vibrant street life.

The Delmar Loop, featuring with its vibrant street life is obviously a draw for people of all walks of life from around St. Louis. In response to business owner and law enforcement concerns over several incidents of youth violence (as well as the observation that teenagers sort of hang out and don’t buy anything), a curfew has been implemented and advanced. Unsupervised minors are not allowed in the Loop after 9pm. Youth, however, still flock to the Loop, noting that there isn’t really much else for them to do. Rather than accepting that participation in the public realm is contingent upon consumption, how can the presence of teens in the public realm be normalized?

On the edge of the Loop’s expansion into St Louis proper, the site of a former Church’s Chicken franchise became a flashpoint in the policing of youth along Delmar when youth were corralled by the University City Police Department across the town line into the parking lot of the Church’s. This project sees that space become a new public space. The parking lot is redone as an open and flexible plaza, featuring movable planters.

The building which housed the chicken restaurant becomes a lending library wherein users can borrow basketball hoops, barbecue grills and other items for play- allowing youth to rearrange furnishings, decide on programming and claim a rightful space in the public realm.

Movie screen, inflatible

N. 0003. IN. 03

Grill, outdoor

Winter GV1962.G26.001

Section-elevation

Tape player, portable

M. 1025. P.133

Mean income

Percentage population, teenaged

Fall Ping Pong Table Folding

GV1221.62.F23

Basketball Hoop, folding

Summer GV861.002 F.1

Chair, folding

Spring Percentage population African-American

Percentage population with advanced degrees

Potential uses through seasons.

GV1860.F16.004

A selection of items for rent.

Site Plan

The Allston Tri In Collaboration with Jonah Susskind Instructor: Bradley Cantrell Studio Coordinator: Chris Reed A former CSX intermodal shipping interchange in Boston becomes a site a for a new model for development. Taking advantage of the site’s location between the commercial and institutional nodes of Harvard University, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a planned regional rail station, this project tries to use the idea of the campus “quad” as a model for transforming an impassable infrastructural morass into a node of exchange.

The scheme capitalizes on one of the most unique features of the site, an unmatched vastness of open space in Boston. We projected three sequential possibilities to individually add value to the sites adjacencies while preserving open space by increasing interest in the site from adjacent communities.

The first phase connects the site to outside communities. The planned construction of West Station introduces a regional rail station, bringing in commuters from outside of Boston. A disused rail bridge is retrofitted for cyclists, connecting the site (and consequently adjacent communities) to Kendall Square. The site’s edges are densely planted with trees, becoming park spaces for members of adjacent communities.

The second potential phase seeks to improve the ecological value of the site. A cut and fill operation opens up a dynamic river’s edge on the North side of the site, the resulting fill is used to cap contaminated soil from the former rail yard. The resulting hill gradually rises 30 ft above the Charles river. It is graded so that looking up it, one cannot see the Boston skyline, until reaching its edge. Planted heavily with conifers and other trees it immediately transports an occupant to a primal New England forest.

Finally, perhaps, the site is ready to be settled. Trees from the parks and nurseries are transplanted as street trees. Gaps in the plantings allow for the construction of access roads and housing that matches the density of the neighborhood to the north. But much of the site remains open due to existing interest and value placed on the space by neighboring communities.

Phase one*: The establishment of West Station, the bike path, tree nurseries and parks along site edges.

Phase Two*: Creation of river front area and promontory land form.

Phase Three*: Medium density housing built on hill, while commercial, educational and cultural institutions take root on the new river front.

Phase One Sections

Phase Two Sections

Phase Three Sections

Deciduous Tree Nursery

Existing Trees

Larg Existing Trees typ. altissima, Acer platanoides, Ailanthus

Nursery Stock Gleditsia triacanthos, Quercus palustrus, Acer rubrum, Alnus glutinosa

New Saplings Fill in Aging Canopy Gleditsia triacanthos, Quercus palustrus, Acer rubrum, Alnus glutinosa

Aged Tree Breaks in Storm Gaps in Planting Promote Circulation Tree Transplanted for Street Planting

New Saplings Fill in Aging Canopy Gleditsia triacanthos, Quercus palustrus, Acer rubrum, Alnus glutinosa

Young Trees Overtake and Replace Existing Canopy Alnus glutinosa Transplanted to New Riparian Edge

Additional Thinning Allows for Recreation

Potential Tree destinies

Nursery Cleared for Cut and Fill Operation Trees Transplanted to Fill Clearings

Study models

Boston Common Instructor: Shauna Gilles-Smith Studio Coordinators: Anita Berrizbeitia, Rosetta Elkin A new path redirects pedestrian traffic from underground subway and parking lot exits into the center of the historic Boston Common. Shifting baffles of apple trees (Malus spp.) restrict views, offering alternating moments of mystery, reorientation, and discovery along the path. New plantings of Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) add winter variety to the current deciduous canopy.

Section Elevation

Detail Plan.

Canopy study models.

Site Plan.

Franklin (p)Arc Instructor: Shauna Gillies-Smith Franklin Park, the crown jewel of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace, was originally envisioned as a vast open space to ameliorate the woes of urban industrial life. Today, however, after the encroachment of surrounding development and the widespread adoption of the personal car, Olmsted’s idea of vast and remote is different than that of the contemporary park user.

Franklin (p)Arc reinterprets Olmsted’s original plan for a promenade called “the Greeting.” While the original greeting took form as a grand entrance and mall for strolling, the Arc forms a central spine allowing pedestrian access to active and passive park amenities. Keyed for an era where the personal car has collapsed distance and the smart phone has decimated attention spans, the Arc provides a smaller promenade than Olmsted’s original but more convenient access to already popular amenities, such as the Zoo, the Playstead and the historic gold course.

The arching quadruple allee forces engagement with the serial plantings and conceals the end of the esplanade. Terraces cut through the pudding stone outcroppings reveal the underlying geology and allow passive gatherings near the entrance while small courtyards with seating and lawns punctuate the space. Rows of trees radiating from the arc lead park goers to existing park attractions. At the end of the promenade, an elevated lookout with flowering trees provides a view of the historic golf course and the distant Blue Hills Reservation.

Sunset at the Overlook

Frederick Law Olmsted’s Plan for Franklin Park in the current context.

The quadruple allee of Red Maple explodes into bloom in Early Spring.

Olmsted’s “Greeting” were it to exist today.

Olmsted’s “Greeting” rotated to accommodate the zoo and the recreational areas.

Site plan.

Serial sections.

West 8 New York, NY Design Intern, Summer 2016 Helped to develop the public realm strategy for a master plan of a proposed mixed-

use district in Portland, OR. For this project I helped to establish prototypical street and sidewalk widths and treatments and worked to offer several concept designs for a combined recreation area and storm water garden. Additionally, I aided in the digital modeling and visualization of the project and its iterations.

When not working on this project, I contributed to the visualization of a college campus redesign for Drexel University in Philadelphia and the schematic design and pricing set for a small public park in Toronto, ON.

Isometric of storm water management park.*

Conditions along river walk.

Curb and paving studies.*

Interface between urban and ecological edge.

Surface Design Inc San Francisco, CA Design Intern, Summer 2015 As an intern I drafted construction documents for permit sets, prepared drawings for client and community meetings and assisted in other steps of the design process. Projects included small residential gardens, boutique hospitality renovations, a civic bathroom expansion and design and conceptual development on larger projects in the United States and New Zealand.

Residential garden, plan. Northern California.

View from aspen grove towards farm house. Master Plan for a glamping resort, Utah.

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Residential garden, front. Northern California.

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Site Plan. Master Plan for a glamping resort, Utah.*

Site Section. Master Plan for a glamping resort, Utah.

Residential garden, rear. Northern California.

Top: Residential entrance way, Northern California.

Bottom: Diagnostic sections, stream rehabilitation, New Zealand.

Top: Corporate campus renovation, Northern California.

Jake Watters San Francisco, CA United States All images made by Jake Watters except where noted by an asterisk

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