Site Analysis & Design I

“I’ve always been really fascinated by patterns and I’m good at spotting them. As I was sitting looking at these maps, I began to see a pattern. You can see the same shape in the topographical map, in the map of rock types, in the vegetation maps, in the wildlife map, even human settlements follow this pattern. It really demonstrates how everything is connected; you cannot consider changes to one of these aspects without considering changes to all of them.”

- Antonia (Tawni) George

The objective of this class is for students to understand and perform the detailed process of site analysis. The site analysis process sheds light on the ecological, cultural, and economic influences of existing conditions within a region and on a site. Analysis is used to inform design concepts with the intrinsic characteristics of the site. Students did this through the study of landscape characteristics, influencing factors, and user and stakeholder characteristics.

The class worked through a series of five projects, organized as a progression from a general site analysis of a special place from their childhood to the detailed inventory and analysis at both regional and site scales.

Students used this evaluation of the site to take a design intervention through the concept stage. The final project is a culmination of lessons learned from these projects and works toward a basic understanding of the complex issues surrounding the decreasing water levels in the Great Salt Lake in preparation for the department-wide Charette.

In one project, students went on a self-led field trip to the Shoshone Nation and site of the Bear River Massacre. The information they gleaned from this visit informed two of the semester’s five projects.