Laura Huby | Portfolio MSc Landscape architect
Contents 01 | Design Strategy & Intervention
Plaszow concentration camp & Quarry
Providing a sustainable landscape framework for the city centre of Hull.
02| The Littoral Landscape 03| IFLA Charette
Restoring cultural & ecological integrity
04 | LIUDD (Low Impact Urban Design and Development)
Using GIS as a tool to design a sustainable subdivision
05| EMILA Workshop
Assessing the landscape for locations appropriate for renewable energy
01
Plaszow has been subject to a vast range of uses within its lifetime, shaping and forming what is left today. Each unique and dramatic life cycle tells a story, many now only half told by the remanence that protrude its currently overgrown condition. It was my intention within this project to restructure the landscape in order to retain and clarify such narratives. The further the walk, the clearer the story becomes, building as a story would, from beginning to end. Using processes such as revealing and concealing within the landscape, the design proposes an implicit approach, creating sense of place reflective of its history that aims to provoke questions and stories of the observer.
Design Strategy & Intervention Plaszow concentration camp & Quarry
02 From 2007 until 2010 ‘Forum for the future’, a company working internationally to provide sustainable development strategies, produced an index ranking twenty of the UK’s biggest cities. Thirteen indicators of environmental performance, quality of life (QOL) and future proofing, measured each city of which Kingston upon Hull ranked bottom every year. This project set the challenge of addressing two primary indicators within the index as part of Hulls current attempts to become a more sustainable city. Providing landscape solutions which worked with the dynamic nature of Hulls tidal river and threats of flooding, was a main driver for the design proposal.
The Littoral Landscape
Providing a sustainable landscape framework for the city centre of Hull.
03 The IFLA conference 2013 held in Auckland focussed upon cultural landscapes. The following project took place in a location thought to be one of the Maori landing spots when they first arrived in New Zealand. A culture complex in its connections to nature which water is at the heart of, this particular area in the past saw the desecration of Maori land. Since then a treaty designating the restoration of such landscapes, now puts pressure to redesign various sites with reference to Maori heritage. This alongside Auckland’s flooding and pollution issues caused by growing urban sprawl, framed a project consisting of complex constraints and design drivers.
IFLA Charette
Restoring cultural & ecological integrity
04
With the expected population growth of half a million people in the next ten years, there is a growing pressure for Auckland expansion and due to current attitude to inner city living and the lack of outdoor space that comes with such dwellings, the council are anticipating expanding urban settlements into green field sites. A three part subdivision development proposal, presented the task of developing a sustainable settlement that would have minimal impact on the existing landscape. Using low impact urban design and development (LIUDD) strategies, such as working with natural water catchments and topography, I developed a proposal determined primarily by existing ecologies. In order to do so on such a large scale it was necessary to use various GIS data to construct a constraints map and identify areas suitable for urban development or retired areas such as native bush and riparian corridors.
LIUDD (Low Impact Urban Design and Development) Using GIS as a tool to design a sustainable subdivision
05
The EMILA (European masters in Landscape Architecture) summer school workshop presented the rare opportunity of working with a range of graduates from around the world to discuss the issue of introducing renewable energy sources into a sensitive landscape. The EU 2020 agenda of providing renewable energy for Grand Paris, raises the issue as to where and how such energy production is to be intergrated into the landscape. Within ten days we were to produce a large scale master plan for Haute Normandie, identifying areas with potential for locating renewable enegry resources. Cultural constraints such as close masures, a traditional farmland formation unique to this paticular area in France, presented the task of being sensitive with location and the type of renewable energy proposed.
EMILA Workshop