excavations
words, gardens, ground
jen lynch
mla 2012, university of virginia
excavation, in three senses, describes each project. excavation of words - interrogations of language, how narratives, vocabularies, and metaphors affect perception and interpretation excavation of the garden - explorations of the garden as a typology excavation of the ground - earthwork, shaping the ground, the ground as medium, reconceptualizations of the ground
of landscape
excavating the garden 2012 mla thesis advisor: elizabeth meyer
In this project, the exhibition grounds of the International Garden Festival at Métis are re-imagined as a built design manifesto that critiques contemporary interpretation of the garden, excavates its latent qualities, and reveals the typology’s significance vis-à-vis sustainability discourse. Sustainability discourse: 1. articulates “nature” through narratives and metaphors that do not convey a sense of environmental agency; 2. interprets technology as passive “techno-fix,” further compromising environmental agency; 3. in the context of design, involves a misinterpretation of ecological models like emergence and resilience; 4. conveys sustainability as a sacrifice; 5. demands a more radical re-imagining of the everyday; 6. evaluates the environment’s value through metrics, vs. aesthetics. The garden: 1. structures temporality, causality, and category in a way that implicates humans as environmental agents; 2. provides a model for technology as a material practice linking ecological process with human behaviors; 3. strategically negotiates control and flux, providing a model for the design of emergent and resilient landcapes; 4. is a pleasure ground, providing a model for alternative hedonism; 5. is a utopian and heterotopic space for testing alternative realities; 6. is an art medium, illustrating the relationship between sustainability and aesthetics. The exhibition at Métis provides grounds for critically examining the garden and generates a momentary discourse about the typology’s significance, but this programmatic context ironically denies the garden its most significant qualities. The exhibition grounds are re-designed, therefore, to both frame a critique of the festival garden and reveal the garden’s proposed relationship to sustainability. Excavation of the typology takes the form of a literal excavation-- the topographic reshaping of the exhibition grounds.
manifesto: grounds for sustainability 1. The garden involves a certain relationship with time — gardens involve cyclical cycles of maintenance, occurring at different scales (daily, seasonal, annual), linear qualities of change (succession), intergenerational transfers of knowledge, and symbolic grounds for timeless, epic narratives. These multiple narrative structures form a narrative model missing in sustainability discourse, which demands an understanding of modified regimes of the everyday, linear progress (“sustainable development”), intergenerational justice, social and ecological resilience, and compelling, imagined futures. 2. The garden represents, symbolically, categories perceived by the culture that creates it; the garden’s separation, however, situates it between the categories it articulates; gardens mediate the tensions they reveal (nature/ culture, order/chaos, body/environment, object/ environment, mythic/mundane); unlike nature-as-wilderness, the garden, as both a design medium and metaphor, generates a sense of the environment as immediate, embodied, and contingent upon human agency. 3. Gardens are a technology that directly engages the body with the environment, everyday behaviors with ecological process; they provide a model for infrastructure at the scale of material practice, vs. through the imposition of a large-scale system. 4. Gardens negotiate the space between order and complexity, design and emergence, illustrating abstract ecological models like resilience and emergence in concrete terms and at multiple scales. The gardener constructs a tension vs. a mere process, and this negotiation of control and flux provides a model for designing emergent and resilient landscapes. 5. Gardens are pleasure grounds, but they involve a unique aesthetic experience arising from a long-term engagement with the site and identification, or empathy, with the landscape. This aesthetic experience synchronizes multiple senses with the garden’s ecological processes, often through work. Gardening is an alternative hedonism, providing a model and metaphor for a more sustainable good life, beyond consumption. 6. Gardens are “other sites”—spaces apart. new perceptions, behaviors, and orders.
As both utopian and heterotopic, gardens function as testing grounds for alternative realities, for breaking rules and forging
7. Gardens are partially closed systems of meaning, and these codes interact with broader systems of meaning within an aesthetic field. for influencing and generating meaning and aesthetics beyond their bounds.
Gardens, as art, provide space
LAR 5210 Spring 2011 Theory Seminar, Situating Sustainability Insructor: Elizabeth Meyer
parterres / basic to ornate linear time
myth time
water speed / transition, wilderness to civilization
threholds / events
everyday time
iconography / actors + meaning
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ALAR 8010
Fall 2011
Thesis Research Seminar
Design research for this thesis interrogated the garden as a typology through the particular relationships, tensions, processes, and aesthetic experiences it structures, identifying how these qualities might perform in discussions of sustainability and design for sustainability. 1 2
Diagramming the garden as narrative structuring multiple scales of time [Vignole’s Villa Lante] The garden in relationship to aesthetic category and sustainability {Taylor Cullity Lethlean’s Australian Garden}
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1 The garden as “other site” - paradise setting, heterotopia, utopian planning medium. 2 The garden as pleasure ground and technology multisensory aesthetic experience synchronized with ecological process through productive material practices. 3 The garden Utopian model and medium [Howard’s Garden City, Wright’s Broadacre City, Migge’s plan for the gardens at Britz]
1915 San Francisco
1910 Brussels
1901 Venice
1893 Chicago
1889 Paris
1888 Barcelona
1879 Sydney
1878 Paris
1876 Philadelphia
1873 Vienna
1867 Paris
1855 Paris
1851 London
Creative Gardens [Rose] 1958
“Bagel Garden” [Schwartz] 1979 The Granite Garden [Spirn] 1983
The Machine in the Garden [Marx] 1964
Parque del Este [Burle Marx] 1961
1969 Basel 1970 Osaka
1967 Cologne, Montreal
1962 Seattle
1959 Moscow
1999 European Landscape Biennale
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Métis Garden Festival 2000
Transforming the American Garden 1986 [Van Valkenburgh] “Bamboo Garden” [Chemetoff ] 1989 1987 Istanbul “Minimalist Gardens Without Walls” [Walker] 1990 Chaumont-sur-Loire 1992 1992 Seville Jardin en mouvement [Clement] The Garden as an Art [Miller] 1993 1995 Johannesburg, Gwangju 1996 Shanghai
1925 - 1958 Elsie Reford’s Gardens at Métis Gardens are for People [Church] 1955
“A garden style in Brazil” [Burle Marx] 1954
Donnell Garden [Church] 1948
1933 Chicago “Modern Garden Design” [Steele] 1936 1937 Paris Gardens in the Modern Landscape [Tunnard] 1938 “The modern garden” [Hudnut] 1939 1939 New York
Gardens [Forestier] 1928 1929 Barcelona
Britz Hufeisensiedlung [Migge] 1925
Dumbarton Oaks [Farrand] 1920 “Jardin d’Eau et de Lumiere” [Guevrekian]
Green Manifesto [Migge] 1919
Italian Villas and their Gardens [Wharton] 1904
Garden City [Howard] 1898
Munsted Wood [ Jekyll] 1895
News from Nowhere [Morris] 1891
The Wild Garden [Robinson] 1870
The Gardenesque [Downing] 1832
ALAR 8995: Independent Thesis Studio 1
1 Métis in its geographic, historical, and climatic context
2 Parallel transformations and recent intersections of the garden as typology and the exhibition as program
petroleum
natural gas
coal
nuclear
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Métis Exhibition Grounds Situating the garden festival’s studio, workshop, cultivation, and maintenance infrastructure within the experience of the exhibition frames a critique of the festival garden and excavates/reveals the typology’s significant qualities.
Site Reading: Three Gardens The Métis garden exhibition grounds, established in 2000 by Alexander Reford, form a landscape addition to the historic Reford Gardens, cultivated from 1925-1958 by Elsie Reford. The historic gardens and exhibition grounds are two garden rooms carved into the boreal forest of the Gaspé Peninsula. Behind a screen of trees, a back-of-house gardening infrastructure of greenhouses, workshops, and meeting rooms is sited in a third garden room. Situating this other garden room within the experience of the exhibition frames both a critique of the festival garden and a generative reimagining of the garden and its relationship to sustainability.
métis exhibition grounds (design proposals)
reford gardens site (existing conditions)
three garden rooms
historic gardens
greenhouses and workshops
garden exhibition
the sublime vernacular agricultural grain
create double to garden festival grounds
display (gardens)
remove existing garden edge (maintenance road to greenhouses)
the beautiful
cultivation (gardening) re-site gardening operations to garden wall
ephemeral gardens
aesthetics of cultivation
the picturesque
garden walls (display)
“timelessness” (e. reford)
garden aesthetics (gardens vs. gardening)
the everyday
audience + temporality
walls structure perception of contrasts (gardens vs. site, gardens vs. gardening) create second belvedere juxtapose views of gardens+gardening
mirror
redefine walls through cut+fill
redefine garden walls
juxtapose gardens and gardening
arrive immersed in gardening or garden rooms
garden wall mediates contrasts (exhibition grounds become garden)
aesthetic experince frames critique
Design Proposal: Excavating the Garden, Re-defining the Garden Wall The third garden and its gardening operations are re-sited to the exhibition’s current wall, calling into question the relationship between the site and the landscape beyond its bounds. The walls of the grounds are redefined through cut and fill; the excavated wall to the west becomes the site of the garden’s excavated qualities - a heterotopic site of alternative forms of pleasure and showcase of technology-as-material-practice. The central garden wall, between the excavation and the garden rooms of the exhibition grounds, structures a critique through juxtaposition - to walk to the wall is to walk the line between two conceptions of the garden. At the southern end of the site, the approach to the exhibition grounds are graded to distinguish these two understandings and experiences of the garden - the gardens are approached either through a cut (the immersive encounter with the excavated landscape of gardening), or at grade, (a gallerylike approach to the gardens). A procession north along the wall’s slope towards a belvedere generates a critical dialogue across the garden wall. The belevedere itself provides perception of both landscapes in their entirety. A finer-grained series of ramps and stairs choreographs splices between both sides of the wall and the intersections of designers, gardeners and festival audience.
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MĂŠtis exhibition grounds excavation 1 Conceptual models 2 Topographic study model 3 Schematic grading plan 4
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The walls of the grounds are redefined through cut and fill. The excavated (cut) wall becomes the site of the exhibition’s gardening operations. creation and maintenance of the garden installation.
Each garden installation has a double within this
The elevated (fill) garden wall offers a new means of perceiving the festival gardens in relationship to their broader site and also pe autumn winds intersect with the plants temporarily present on site, seeds are intercepted by the topography; spontaneous vegetation ove 84
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garden maintenance court (june - september)
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studio
sliding pin-up wall
extended studio space (february - june)
glass wall
lateral section aa’
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cultivation platform (microclimate)
greenhouse plastic (spring) vines (summer - autumn) planter
subterranean compost (generates heat)
vent compost bins on rails
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lateral section bb’ greenhouse plastic (spring) vines (summer - autumn) planter (microclimate)
seed seed drying harvesting (summer - autumn)
vent seed drying trays seed drying machinery (generates heat)
lateral section cc’
Ideograms of critique translated into garden wall details The central wall’s details link and further critique the distinction between the gardens on either side. A series of ramps and stairs choreograph splices between both sides of the wall and the intersections of designers, gardeners, and festival audience. excavated site, reconfigured seasonally
to support and reflect the
erforms as the “exhibition catalogue”—as westerly late summer and early er time registers multiple seasons of the festival.
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Designer as auteur vs. designer + gardner + audience Garden as pictorial vs. garden as temporal, multisensual Technology as fetish vs. technology as material practice
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Métis Exhibition Grounds - elevation, plan, and diagrams describing multiple temporalities structured by topography The garden exhibition grounds’ new topography is a walk through multiple scales of time. Space within the central wall is programmed longitudinally, along the wall, to reflect linear processes taking place throughout the year (studio spaces for February consulations with designers, workshops for early spring garden construction, seed-drying and composting infrastructure for propagation and maintenance), cyclical maintenance operations are visible across the lateral section of the wall, and the extended lateral section indexes the garden’s creation (“exhibition brief”) and its presence as season’s pass (“exhibition catalogue”).
the big fl(ea)ux, the big orange fall 2010 foundation studio advisors: jorg sieweke and kristina hill This project addresses the water infrastructure of New Orleans, specifically the London Ave. Canal (one of three outfall canals that pumps both groundwater and stormwater from the city’s below-sea-level areas) and its adjacent neighborhoods. In scope, it seeks to address the problems that arise when cities are sited in deltas (subsidence/sea level rise, flooding/stormwater management, a dynamic geology competing with a static infrastructure, a psychological relationship with water as threatening, distant, and beyond the agency and influence of the urban population) while, additionally, addressing the social, spatial, and cultural contexts specific to New Orleans. Through parallel research and design trajectories, the ideas of hybridity and a landscape metabolism were explored — these concepts were used to critique the infrastructure of the city while stretching the definition of “infrastructure.” The design proposal conceptually stretches the definition of infrastructure to include: existing, conventional infrastructures blended morphologically with the hydrology and geology of the delta landscape; metaphors for describing the city’s complex ground and their potential to hybridize indentificatory, sustainable material practices with a decentralized, lot-scale infrastructure.
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salinity gradient wetland types | disturbance regime | coastal erosion esi_swamp_LDWF_2001 esi_scrub-shrub_wetland_LDWF_2001 esi_fresh_marsh_LDWF_2001 esi_intermediate_marsh_LDWF_2001 esi_brackish_marsh_LDWF_2001 1518 ppt | tidal disturbance [frequent] esi_salt_marsh_LDWF_2001
esi_seagrass_LDWF_2001
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Map and model of the delta as a shifting gradient of sediment / the interface of two competing dynamics, tides and floods; New Orleans as an analogue for the greater delta of southern Louisiana.
tides wetlands | urban
water infrastructure iterations
1 + 2 Map and model of the delta as a shifting gradient of sediment / the interface of two competing dynamics, tides and floods; New Orleans as an analogue for the greater delta of southern Louisiana. 3 Timeline of modifications to the relationship between water and sediments in New Orleans through evolution of water infrastructure.
floods
elysian fields
technological palimpsest, evolution of neutral grounds typology pontchartrain railroad
marigny canal
18th c.
elysian fields ave.
19th c.
20th c.
21st c.
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catchment area: 303,000 SF [350 F x 900 F] - [(40 F x 160 F) + (20 F x 160 F)] = 303,000 SF -6
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cameron blvd.
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detention volume w/ 30% slope: 76,530 CF 30% slope: [10 F x 3 F] / 2 = 15 SF perimeter: 40 F + 40 F + 944 F + 944 F = 1,968 F
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maximum detention volume - 30% slope volume: 113,280 CF - 29,520 CF = 76,530 CF
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slope x perimeter = 29,520 CF
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detention capacity [percentage] for design storm: 72.16% detention volume / design storm volume: 76,530 CF / 113,280 CF = 72.16%
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1-year, 24-hour design storm rainfall volume: 106,050 CF 303,000 SF x .35 F = 106,050F maximum detention volume (retaining walls): 113,280 CF detention area: 40 F x 944 F = 37,760 SF detention basin depth: 3 F maximum detention basin volume: 37,760 SF x 3 F = 113,280 CF
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pasteur blvd. [st. anthony] calculating the detention capacity for a prototypical Gentilly neutral grounds detention basin
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Timeline of New Orleans’ economic history
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Calculating the performance of transformed neutral grounds
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Conceptual sketch of multi-scalar hydrological strategy
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vermillion blvd.
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pasteur blvd.
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cost to excavate/haul: $48,195 76,530 CF = 2835 CY $17/CY excavation/haul x 2835 CY = $48,195
Modeling hybridity, perceiving the complex geomorphology of New Orleans’ ground through metaphor Oranges and straws represent the blended languages of biology (form structured by water) and mechanics (form designed for the removal of water), across scales. Animation of oranges: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzNHc9olHW0
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1 Plan water is brought to sur2 face and deltaic hydrological dynamics are mimicked through “tidal� (modulated) groundwater pumping and bayou/ floodplain stormwater detention; these disturbances are registered by a gradient of wetland types within the neutral grounds. 2 Exploded axon, existing and proposed relationships between strata current conditions separate water from soil, leading to subsidence, and from human perception; the proposal involves a blended relationship between the strata of geology, infrastructure, and urban development. 3 Mapping of street names from the French Quarter to St. Anthony In conceptualizing the cultural significance of the landscape, older identities, expressed through the language (formal and symbolic) of the garden are explored, strengthening neighborhood identity.
flood condition [1- to 2-metre diameter pipes]
base flow condition [2-metre diameter pipes]
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Section perspective
proposed alteration of street section, atmosphere registers hydrological dynamics.
2 + 3 Branding + Metrics Landscape-as-orange metaphor affects perception of deltaic landscpae, stretches understanding of “infrastructure� to the scale of the lot and the agency of the individual and community
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ecological games without end: rule-based venetian urbanisms spring 2010 options studio collaboration with sarah cancienne, mArch 2012 critic: jorg siewke Venice is intrinsically bound to the ecological processes of its site, the Lagoon. As an ephemeral landscape, the Lagoon’s ecosystem has been sustained through the management of its complex hydrological and geomorphological parameters - the sedimentation dynamics of its Alpine rivers and the erosive currents of its tides. This management was, until the Renaissance, structured by material practices that linked the Lagoon’s ecological processes with the city’s unique cultual rituals and trade economies. In 1557, the Lagoon’s hydro-geomorphological management was re-structured through the introduction of new hydrological principles, or rules, to the Lagoon, which have disrupted its dialectic of land and sea, sedimentation and tides. The Lagoon’s deteriorating wetland morphology and deepening bathymetry imperil the city; acqua alta rises and becomes increasingly frequent. The city’s growing tourist economy has further degraded the Venice’s relationship to its Lagoon; the city is no longer understood as a nexus within the Lagoon’s complex ecological-economic-cultural relationships but instead only as its image. To save Venice, a reconceptualization of the Lagoon’s complex network of geomorphological, ecological, economic and symbolic relationships is necessary. The rebuilding of this complexity is proposed through a new series of hydrological principles and material practices linking Venice’s ecologies, economies and cultural rituals at multiple, interacting scales.
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1 Venice’s Lagoon as a series of engineered environmental parameters 2 Environmental parameters - Tides vs. floods, large-scale vs. small-scale hydrological manoeuvres, seasonal currents
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the sea is the lowest of all surface waters
Brondolo provides sea level
straight channels drain most efficiently
turbidity increases when flow slows
water levels rise when rivers meet
constant flow neither rises nor falls
rivers with no turbidity do not raise their beds or stretch the delta into the sea
embanking and canalizing improves flow
clear canals are more easily navigated than turbid canals
keep separate: large alpine rivers carrying sediment; local drainage canals carrying turbid runoff from hills and marshes; and clear-running streams running from the fontanile
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3 Lagoon morphology moment of Brenta’s initial diversion, 1556, and morphological outcome due to sediment deprivation, 2011
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2 11 hydrological principles of Nicolo Zen rules applied to the landscape disrupt the relationship between ground and water within the Lagoon
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1 Conceptual models “mirroring” metaphor describes Lagoon and city across scales through translations of stories from Calvino’s Invisible Cities
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fresh water must be kept out of the lagoon
Sile Sile
building
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a lagoon is defined by a relationship of optimal balance
elevation defines a salt marsh
barene require high area/ perimeter ratio
dendridic forms are regenerative; linear forms are destructive
land accretes gradually, with the tide
modification of tidal and sedimentary paramters accelerates rebuilding processes
materials
“a wooden pile builds a marsh�
infrastructures are modular/ redunant/soft
geotextiles are economically sustainable
silt, not sand
materials introduced to the lagoon should biodegrade
a mosaic of sediment types results in the formation of complex ground patterns
rigid materials accelerate degradation of the lagoon
flows
interfaces
materials introduced to the lagoon should be adaptive/ flexible/removable
laminar flows build, turbid flows disturb
channelization vs. delta formation
economy + ecology
tourist economy + ecology
tourist economy + ecological regeneration
1 Proposed hydrological rules for the Venice Lagoon reverse hydrological logic of the Renaissance by reintroducing sediments to the Lagoon and accelerating wetlandrebuilding processes through the reintroduction of small, adaptive, ephemeral infrastructures 2 Projected morphological change to southern Lagoon To reintroduce sediments to the Lagoon, a rediversion of the Brenta River through its original course and into smaller diversions is proposed. These diversions are fluctuated to strategically distribute sediment throughout the southern Lagoon, mimicking the shifting fan of the river deltas that originally formed the Lagoon’s ground. The timing of these fluctuations is synchronized with the seasonal water and sediment levels of the Brenta and with the currents caused by seasonal winds, the Bora and Sirocco, which steer and accelerate sediment deposition.
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salt marsh morphology 1811
salt marsh morphology 2011
autumn sediment influx
winter influence of Bora currents
MOSE floodgates generate ideal tidal dynamics
spring sediment influx
summer influence of sirocco winds
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1 Large scale Lagoon dynamics in dialogue with emergent pattern of ephemeral, land-building infrastructure large scale engineering of river diversions and tides are influenced by finer grained, adaptive kit of parts, accelerating the accretion of sediments and regeneration of wetlands 2 At a small scale, an ephemeral camping infrastructure can refract (intensify or dissipate) the effects of the Lagoon’s modulated parameters while, additionally, regenerating historic Venetian urbanisms and channeling the tourist “tide� as a productive, vs. degrading, force. 3 Accelerated salt marsh succession
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wooden piles [anchor camping platform] biodegradable tent panels camping platform geotextile mattress geotextile sleeping bag
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resignifying observatory hill fall 2009 foundation studio critic: nancy takahashi The design proposal restores a relationship between UVa and the Observatory Hill that has been lost. The topography of O-Hill, read at the scale of the body, is carved with the traces of 19th-c. carriage roads. These routes, read through the University’s original maps and early aerial photographs, reveal a previous awareness of O’Hill’s springs, the source of Charlottesville’s Meadow Creek. The 19th-c. roads flowed alongside the creek, forming clear connections between the University’s Lawn, the site’s springs, and the Blue Ridge beyond. In this sense, these roads structured a perception of Observatory Hill as a wilderness/foil to the University’s architectural Grounds, as a threshold to the mountains, and as a valuable source of water. With the development of the University’s Grounds in the 20th century, these paths were re-routed, in ways that paralleled the covering and control of Meadow Creek below. The site’s current roads structure a perception of O-Hill as a periphery rather than a significant foil, liminal space, and natural resource. The history of the site is legible through these roads. By creating a tension between these circuits of paths, old and new, the design reveals the logics of the infrastructures that have historically structured the relationship between O-Hill and the University. This is achieved through partial removal of the current road and treatment of both historic and removed roads as gardens.
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1 Model of site hydrology (copper wire represent Meadow Creek, copper pins represent springs) in relation to past (silver) and present (black) road networks - former road network runs parallel to Meadow Creek and link the University with the site’s hydrology and the Blue Ridge to the west; the site’s contemporary road network severs these ties and this perception of site 2 Photomontage - found conditions, O-Hill as perceived through the “drive-by”
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1 Inverse section drawings describing phenomenological outcomes of disturbance, carved ground as carved light, roads as sites of ecological temporality altered by humans, ie. gardens 2 19th-c. carriage road traces and site installation disturbance to ground makes legible previous relationship to site, alters temporality / process of mesic forest succession on site, and changes phenomonological qualities of site; site is interpreted as garden. Installation reveals relationships between past/present, sky/ ground.
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1 Topographic study model- exaggerating and making insertions within found conditions of the ground to create architecture 2 Perspective - proposed removal of of 20th-c. road and its re-use as garden to generate dialogue with 19thc. road trace gardens
graphic analysis of the lurie garden spring 2010 theories of modern landscape architecture instructor: elizabeth meyer
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1 Diagram of seasonality, mood creation, designer intent 2
Sketch
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1685
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assisted migration
1840
Hardiness zone 6b = -18 to -20 C (Berlin, Beijing, Branson, Missouri) Hardiness zone 7a = -15 to -18 C (Copenhagen, South Boston, VA, Xi’an, China) Hardiness zone 7b = -12 to -15 C (Amsterdam, Griffin, GA) Hardiness zone 8a = -9 to -12 C (Paris, Dallas, TX) Hardiness zone 8b = -7 to -9 C (Istanbul, Turkey, Gainsville, FL, Tokyo) Hardiness zone 9a: -4 to -7 C (London, St. Augustin, FL, Shanghai)
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assisted migrations
ASSISTED MIGRATIONS
Oh! Pioneers
I don’t think we’re in KANSAS anymore
1862
a way to talk about succession without talking about “succession,” in a way that subverts the colonial narrative/ language embedded in successional models
Schlafmohn Opium Poppy (“Turkish Poppy”) Papaver somniferum Turkey is one of the major producers of poppy for medicinal purposes and poppybased drugs, such as morphine or codeine. The USA has a policy of sourcing 80% of its narcotic raw materials from the traditional producers, India and Turkey. The poppy-plant is grown in Turkey by about 80,000 peasants. The poppy is never grown on the State farms, and almost never on large farm holdings.
“That’s a horse of a different color.”
funding hedges/ emerald city
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
1890
1939
1961-1989
1960s
1990s
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berlin europacity spring 2011 competition with julie bargmann and jorg sieweke
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Site reading / timeline
site as hortus conclusus within changing urban form.
2 Conceptual plant palette and perspective sketch assisted migrations engage Berlin’s history of successional parks while challenging it and the narrative/language of succession and urban ecology 3 Diagram of proposed phasing trends and connections drawn across time: projected climate change, colonization of site through assisted migrations, and programmatic development of site
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biscuit run state park spring 2010 foundation studio critic: kristina hill This design proposal attempts to reveal ecological process through the aesthetic experience of a dynamic edge between two landscape patches within a 1500-acre state park. Change in the structure of the edge=park, seasonally, annually, and over time, reflects the habitat requirements and migration patterns of bird species of concern. Color forms spaces along this edge that open and close seasonally in a way that is synchronized with habitat and migration dynamics.
1 Diagram of planted form / park form synchronized with species dynamics and projected climate change / emergent park form over time 2
Detail section of constructed edge
3 Seasonal perspectives describing choreography of seasonal color and species presence
t jeff garden spring 2010 installation garden with alexa bush, seth denizen & joey hays
A concrete plinth at the UVa School of Architecture becomes, for several weeks, a garden that blends the language of the Jeffersonian Lawn with that of the American front lawn. 24 hours, 24 plastic jefferson busts, 2 rolls of sod, 2 cans of pink spray paint.
details as garden walls spring 2011 seminar instructor: julian raxworthy This seminar explored the idea of change through the design of landcape details. Each of these details can be described as a garden wall. Each detail is a horizontal or vertical layer inserted within the site that distinguishes the parcel it defines from its milieu. This layer refracts relationships and processes of the site that intersect with the detail. Each detail is also modular. As the conditions of the site change over time, the arrangement of the modules may be adjusted to exaggerate or diminish conditions that emerge.
Control joint garden When the garden is installed at the exhibition grounds, the directors don’t know that it is a garden. The excavation crew that constructs the new path, adjacent to the garden rooms, is a garden installation crew in disguise. The unremarkable line of cast concrete formally mirrors the linear band of garden rooms beside it. Each garden room contains an ephemeral garden meant to last a season, two seasons at most. The path is also structured by modules, which are not yet perceptible. The concrete of the path is embedded with variables (materials and patterns) that, over time, influence the breakdown of its continuous surface. For each cast of concrete, the subsurface matrix of joints and steel reinforcing bars differs in density and directionality and the concrete varies in depth. With each cycle of freeze and thaw of the 8-month winter, the rates and patterns of failure start to distinguish the modules with different textures of cracking and, eventually, during the summers, colonizations by pioneers species.
Live stakes garden The metaphors of corridor and disturbance are carried easily between descriptions of riparian ecosystems and the urban promenade. Water and people create dynamics determined predictably by season, hour of day, etc. or by chance. The fibrous roots of the live willow stakes reinforce the scoured ground that formally defines the corridor, slowing the erosive effects of disturbance. The multi-stemmed branches of the willows also reflect the effects of the water and human traffic, defining the corridor through disturbance. These parts of the willow, above and below the surface of the ground, mirror each other. These above and below ground forms and processes of growth may be exaggerated-- structured and manipulated—through the weaving and tying of branches and the laying out of the live stakes within the soil.
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australia summer 2011 internship taylor cullity lethlean (melbourne) james mather delaney (syndey) 1
Site readings
Frankston, VIC foreshore dunes
2 Koelreuteria paniculata forest, Australian National Arboretum, Canberra translating the history and aesthetic qualities of the Goldenrain Tree into the formal experience of one of a hundred forest patches of the quilt-like national arboretum 3
Materials research for custom furniture, Perth Waterfront
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Topographic study model, Perth Waterfront
jen lynch
mla 2012, university of virginia
education University of Virginia, MLA 2012, Thesis - Excavating the Garden University of Chicago, A.B. cum laude in History, 2005 Harvard Extension School, Harvard University, coursework in graphic design, landscape history and theory, urban design history, drawing, German, fall 2006 - spring 2009
honors ASLA Certificate of Honor for UVa Class of 2012; Virginia ASLA 2011 Scholarship for Excellence in the Study of Landscape Architecture; Virginia ASLA 2011 Merit Award (General Design); finalist (top 10) for 2011 AECOM Urban SOS competition; thesis exhibited as part of 2012 European Landscape Biennale; fall 2010 and spring 2011 studio projects published in UVa School of Architecture’s annual journal, Lunch
experience Teaching Assistant, University of Virginia Department of Landscape Architecture, August 2010 – May 2012 LAR 5140 (Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture) – advising and grading written and graphic assignments; LAR 5460 (Landscape Digital Media) - desk crits for studio graphics; LAR 4120 (History of Landscape Architecture) - leading discussion sections, grading exams and drawing assignments Research Assistant, University of Virginia Department of Landscape Architecture, August 2011 – May 2012 Assisting Professor Elizabeth Meyer in development of new course material (themes, readings, and lectures) for LAR5140: Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture Intern, Intern,
James Mather Delaney, Sydney, July - August 2011 Site research, analytical mappings, conceptual sketches, and models for Oran Park, NSW public arts strategy; site analysis for Regent Street Avenue of Hope memorial project, Redfern, NSW Taylor Cullity Lethlean, Melbourne & Adelaide, May - June 2011 Analytical mappings for Frankston, VIC foreshore site; design of .4-hectare forest patch for Australian National Arboretum; research, interviews, writing, and photography for research portfolio, Tickle: Pop-Ups; sketch design for Melbourne Docklands waterfront in collaboration with architects and city planners; physical model making and materials research for Perth waterfront; site research, readings and sketch design for Bowden Urban Village Project, Adelaide, SA
Berlin EuropaCity Competition, with Julie Bargmann and Jorg Sieweke, January – March 2011 Site reading/diagramming, plant palette research and design, graphics production Design Research and Charrette, Hamburg, Germany, with Jorg Sieweke, June 2010 10-day research and design charrette addressing delta cities in the context of the Elbe and a decommissioned water treatment island Externships, Boston, January 2010, 2011, 2012 One-week externships at Landworks Studio, Mikyoung Kim, Reed Hilderbrand
other experience Departmental Assistant, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, May 2006 - June 2009 Administrative and research support for department chair and 24 faculty; management of one faculty search and two tenure promotion reviews; symposium planning Farm Volunteer, Bakkedalen Biodynamisk Landbrugen, Faaborg, Denmark, August 2010 Daily work on a Danish biodynamic farm Copyeditor, Lunch Volumes 5 (Flux) & 6 (Systems), Spring 2010 and 2011 Graphic design and editing work in collaboration with authors to prepare articles for publication in UVa School of Architecture’s annual journal
computer skills Mac and PC OS, Adobe Creative Suite, arcGIS, AutoCAD, Rhinoceros; experience with Grasshopper, Firefly