Laura
Woodcut
Coming Home
geneva st.
Neighborhood
Behind the Palentine
Fall Leaves
Woodcut series: Human Impact Man-hand-an bridge This series is a is a study of the impact humans have on the environment. At first glance they may just look like common scenes, but look closer and reconsider...
Scuba
Humans in Nature
Roma
Fisheye of Pantheon
My sketchbook was how I came to know and understand the city of Rome during the four months that I lived and studied there.
View of Rome from Aventine Hill
San Lorenzo, Firenze
Chiesa di Santivo
Capitoline Hill
Il Tempietto
Bazilika San Gorg Martra, Gozo
Charcoal Charcoal is often used for gesture drawings but I wanted to push the medium in a differnt direction. This large scale drawing attempts to capture light and shapes to create a realistic still life.
Size: 30” x 40” Time spent: 60+ hours
Size: 30” x 40” Time spent: 45 hours
Acrylic A study of light and color through the medium of acrylic paint.
Paint techniques and colors based on Portrait of Madamme Matisse
Watercolor: Philadelphia
For one week in the summer of 2010 I went out onto the streets of Philadelphia to try to capture the mixture of old and new architecture and the urban feel of the streets.
Watercolor: Portrait Using one strong light source and a mirror, I studied different ways of capturing shapes and shadows on the face.
Chess Set I created a set of blocks that also functions as a chess set. A group of blocks adds up to create each chess piece. The more important the chess piece is, the more blocks are used to create it.
take own image!!!
Knight
Rook
Each chess piece is a simplified depiciton of its actual chess piece. For example, the bishop piece looks to be weating a bishop hat, and the knight looks like a knight riding a horse.
Breakdown from blocks to chess set
Urban Book
barcelona metro system
A book is a structure that is built to contain information. This book is designed to reflect Barcelona’s geography, population, and metro system in its structure and its content.
I researched and studied three main aspects of the city; its geography, population, and metro system. I came to find that all three of these parts are layered, which lead to the strucutre of the book.
Book within a book: Each section of the book structure has a smaller book inside of it depicting information about the three main layers I focused on that make up Barcelona: metro line usage, tourism, and population history
pages in small books
Each page in the three small books is, itself, a piece or art. The pages display information about the metro line, the population of Barcelona, and the histroy of the metro.
Systems
[sis-tuhm]: noun. A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole. In order to understand a system you must first break it down into parts, then build it back up.
map of Osaka subway system
after breaking the osaka metro map down to its essence, i discovered two main parts: interweaving lines, and surrounding curve. these parts were then turned from 2D to 3D
I created my own system by maintaining a construction method throughout the 3D transformation: thin notched to thick. Each component of the whole also grows from “thin” to “thick”.
Analyzing Pallets
space
line
movement The simplicity and functionality of the wood pallet is what inspired this project. I began by first interpreting the essence of a wood pallet in 2D and then converted these drawings into 3D.
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space + line + movement Maintaining a “rule� of connection, the space, line, and movement structures were combined to create one large structure. After creating one cohesive piece,I narrowed in and focused on the connection of pieces. This lead to the next part of the process.
* System of Construction: “Crate”
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I chose a small part of the now combined structures that showed three different ways that sticks and planes connect. By enlarging the scale every detail had to be considered of how these pieces would work together in the Connection Study.
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Connection Study
Size: 18’’ x 18” x 103/4” Oak, wheat board, pine
System of Construction The system of construction of the Connection Study lead to my next step in my design process. The language was first analyzied and then translated into a new structure that could be used by humans.
Site Model
Method: Thin planes held by thick blocks meets at the corner, where the plain shifts and the method of construction is reversed to thick planes held together by thin.
Human Experience The language used throughout the Connection Study and now applied to the Site Model maintains a simplicity and a rhythmic balance. This simplicity makes the Site Model welcoming and inviting and also speaks to the adaptability and user-friendliness of the Site Model.
User Friendy: Users can alter their expeience in the Site Model by physically sliding the blocks or the benches to their liking.
Site A specific site was chosen which altered the way I designed the site model. Things considered with a specific site in mind were: view, feeling of enclosure, and reasons for use.
Community Garden I designed and built 5 raised garden beds for a community garden in Geneva, NY. I worked with one other community member to build the structures.
Two members of the Community Center and I met with middle school aged kids twice a week to teach them how to plant and care for a the garden. Then we would harvest what we had grown and teach them how to cook with it.
Before
After
Wayfinding Castle Heights
Hildreth Hill
Geneva, NY
Geneva New York is made up of eleven different neighborhoods but most city residents do not identify with a neighborhood. I worked on a project to try to create a stronger sense of identity and a belonging through the use of design.
For a week I biked all around two specific neighborhoods; Castle Heights and Hildreth Hill.I sketched different houses, streets, and buildings to try to capture the essence of each neighborhood before designing logos for each.
Castle Street
Logo Options and Early Renditions
H H The Heart of Geneva
Hildreth Hill Hildreth Hill
In a neighborhood vote a logo was decided on to represent Castle Heights and Hildreth Hill.
If all eleven neighborhoods had a logo to identify with, each neighborhood would become more defined as a community, futhuring the level of cohesion and pride within the entire Geneva community.
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Final Logos
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Inventory of Wayfinding in Hildreth Hill Neighborhood
Simultaneously as I was working on the logos I was also taking inventory of all the street signs in the same two neighborhoods. I found that all of the street signs could describe where you were, but did not give any kind of identity to that location. It was here that the two projects merged into one.
Key:
Former Street Poles: 15 Signs: 30
Classic Street Poles: 5 Signs: 10
Former Neighborhood Watch Signs: 12
Current Street Poles: 6 Signs: 12
Current Neighborhood Watch Signs: 4
Wayfinding Options for Geneva Wayfinding, as defined by Kevin A. Lynch, is “a consistent use and organization of definite sensory cues from the external environment�. After looking at case studies of cities with successful uses of wayfinding, I proposed different options that could work well for Geneva.
Proposal and Signs Today The option that seemed most applicable, since we were doing an inventory of all the street signs, was what is referred to as a sign topper, a small sign that sits ontop of street signs. Another intern and I proposed our project to the City Manager and the Director of the Department of Public Works.
Today there are permanent sign toppers with my logo on top of every street sign in both of these neighborhoods!