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The Large Lecture Project
LA 201 | Basic Landscape Design | Spring 2016
Melissa Johnson California Polytechnic University, Pomona Landscape Architecture College of Environmental Design
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TABLE OFContents CONTENTS Table of
External Lectures Lexicons Reading Responses Personal Insights Photo Essays
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EXTERNAL LECTURES
ASLA Technology Discussion
Lecture
This was a unique panel discussion for students with proficient Landscape Architect Professionals that gave experienced input on technology used in the field of Landscape Architecture and how students can apply it for their future portfolios and find a niche that allows them to stand out in a portfolio. The discussion began with each professional explaining the programs they used. Auto-CAD is a common denominator that all professionals use, including communication between architects and engineers. 3D rendering programs are important for illustrations and perspectives for the public or client. They like to see what they are paying for, so it is important to “get used to” as one panelist said. Staying up in technologies is very important as it is always changing and used more and more. The most recent addition to frequently used programs is GIS. This program was declared extremely useful to each professional for proper boundary lines, soil properties, development areas and many more. To wrap up the discussion on technology, they also included “Old Technology” such as PowerPoint and high resolution Google Earth images as useful tools that are still used. PowerPoint is a great presentation technique and Google Earth is used to quickly pull aerial images for boundary lines. With all this talk on technology, they made sure to not undermine the effectiveness of hand drawings. Most project managers don’t start with computers because it is too early in the process stage to spend time on the details technologies offer. Going through the design process to communicate idea’s quickly to pass them back and forth, then relying on technology as a tool for presentation, construction, and other details.
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Lecture
Roxi Theron
Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon, Roxi Thoren, presented a lecture based on nature, “unknown unknowns”, art and processes. There has always been an underlying affair between landscape architecture and art that she was able to define it in two terms: Praxis and Poieses. Praxis is design based on “making for the sake of making”. The reasons behind object placement and the final product is not for a destination; it is a process. This refers back to Robert Irwin’s Being in Circumstance where he defined art as a process; a possible site dominate piece. Poieses was described as a process that as a means to an end. What is the purpose to a design; that will become the process. She said identifying processes and working with them create strong designs and help to prepare for “Unknown, unknowns”. Thoren explained examples of “unknown, unknowns” that have caused ecological and natural disasters because of design. Fracking causes toxic gas release and ground water pollution, Coal mines have currently 177 terrain and sub terrain fires with sink holes and gas release, Ox Mine disaster caused Iron sulfite contamination and acid mine drainage into water, etc... Using poises as a process and collaboration with other fields including non-human designers can help us anticipate these negative ‘unknown, unknowns’ and prevent them.
HAND GRAPHICS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HAND GRAPHICS
BASE LINES
3D RENDERING
COLOR & PERSPECTIEV RENDERING
PRESENTATION This diagrams sows computer programs that are used re3quntly among the ASLA board members that spoke with us. In this order they told us what they used each program for and why it was used.
Images at the lecture displaying water contamination from a near by coal mine.
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Lecture
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LEXICON
Lecture
ACTUAL
ANTICIPATED
As a professor, she had her students work with art demonstrations that was in correlation with ecological disasters caused by humans. One such project by student Byan Davis used blocks of ice and white furniture to show the repercussions of climate change. As the ice blocks (or ice caps) melt, our clean privileged lives (white furniture) are supposed to crash the ground and be destroyed. Instead of the anticipated metaphor occurring, the ice slowly creeped to the forest floor and slowly were taken over by wildlife to rot and decay. This project demonstrated a new “unknown, unknown� that could occur in human civilization.
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Phenomenological Bias
Lexicon
Littoral Edge
One of the most common design bias’; phenomenological bias is the immediate perception that involves the 5 senses. It is a response taken one can physically see, feel and sense before a site or experience can be labeled. These are strong techniques designers can use to trigger ones emotional responses.
Lexicon
An edge condition between land and water, the littoral edge holds many dynamic landscapes ranging from cliff sides, wetlands, and beach’s. This exchange in the littoral edge naturally draws people to the space which hold opportunities for interactions.
PHENOMENOLOGY
LITTORAL EDGE TASTE
SOUND MATERIALS
TOUCH
QUALITY OF SPACE
PERCEPTION
SENSES
SMELL
LIGHT
SIGHT SOUND
EMOTIONAL RESPONSES
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
MEMORY
INTENTIONAL/ NON- INTENTIONAL
LITTORAL EDGE EMOTIONAL
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
Everyone’s first response to a site will be based on phenomenological bias’s due to ones past experiences. Some designers can use this to their advantage. The architects of the 9-11 memorial intentionally used everyone’s personal experiences, emotional responses, memory and quality of space to make people feel a certain way when they enter the memorial. The pink line indicates where the water and the land meet. This level plane makes a threshold where people tend to engage.
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Even though this photograph was taken in the ugliest city in America in an urban environment in the middle of campus, I had a loved sitting in this field of mustard seed. To me, mustard seed is a sign of Spring, camping, warm weather, wildlife, and I love the color yellow because my grandmother loved yellow. My positive personal expediences with mustard seed outweighs how I would normally feel about an invasive species and being in Pomona.
This is a smooth littoral edge which has opportunity for interactions between humans, animals with the space.
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Composition
Lexicon
Circumstance
Lexicon
Art is a process, expression and an objective. Many see art as a result, but being in circumstance allows one to see actions, rules and are aware of the processes or taxonomic parallels the artist left behind for the observer.
Composition is a series of parts and layers that create a spatial language. A line in itself is basic; what decisions are made with the line give it direction and composition. Composition incorporates shape, symmetry, movement, weight balance, space, hierarchy, and other qualities and relationships. Each design decision and application creates the composition.
WATERSOURCE The shifted relationships of the two lines change the symmetry of the squares, which ultimately change the composition.
DESERT LAND USE WATER USE
LIMA BEAN
Shape works in terms of composition with square A being static and open, and the second square being closed and dynamic.
FOREST ENERGY USE
The weight of the shaded square shows a grounded composition, while the left square has a tenuous composition. Isamnu Noguchi designed California Scenario based off of the State of California. Each placement of the spaces direct an visitor’s view to certain area’s of the space that are significant to each other. This brings a person from viewing the space to “being in circumstance”.
The symmetry created by OJB draws your eye beyond the tree line to the surrounding mountains. The width and direction of the pathways are an intentional design detail specifically placed composition.
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Second year landscape architects being in circumstance at California Scenario.
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Ecology
Lexicon
Holy Baseline
An ecology is a dynamic landscape both growing and dying that is constantly evolving into a new scape. The human species is often removed from the subject of ecology, which denies our influence and that we are not apart of nature. Over time, evolutionary processes, natural or human caused, will inevitably alter ecological habitat; urban or pristine, to a new scape.
Lexicon
A natural condition that dominated landscapes (specifically North America) without human interference pre-western colonizations. Some believe this is the state open spaces, National and State parks and urban area’s should strive to become again.
WORLD POPULATION AND DEOFORESTATION
HUMAN ACTIVITIES
DEOFORESTATION (billon hectares)
SOCIAL SYSTEMS POPULATION CULTURE
DEVELOPMENT
ECONOMY
PLANTS
VALUES
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
GROWTH
AIR
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ECOSYSTEMS
2.0
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ANIMALS
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1.4
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1.0
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0.8
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BACTERIA
WATER
SOIL
POPULATION (billion)
HUMAN INTERVENTION
1800
1850
1900
DEOFORESTATION ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
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POPULATION
Source: Williams, 202; FAO, 2010b; UN, 1999
This diagram shows the social system (which is human based) and ecosystems (that traditionally do not include human presence) but indicates that both systems effect one another.
Population growth is the main factor in deforestation and other acts of land adjustment. Human has population is a direct effect on what lives and what survives. Developers and planners need to be aware of this consequence as it has a drastic influence on whole ecosystems and climates.
This photograph was taken at an intercity elementary school in Los Angeles. This coastal sage scrub garden was planted by the children from the school who do not have any open space or parks near by. Replacing a playground with native plants engages the children curiosity and reconnects them to nature they would otherwise have not experienced.
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This landscape in Eastern California looks untouched and relatively pristine. But in fact this oversized lake is man-made. But it still provides much needed habitats and supports this local ecosystem. This designer/engineer created a ‘Holy Baseline’.
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Field Condition
Lexicon
Resilience
Lexicon
Resilience is the ability to return back to a baseline, or overcome human and or catastrophic climate conditions by evolving with these changes. These interferences could develop overtime or be sudden, but the ecosystem, plant or animal that survives is resilient.
Field conditions are relationships of fields that respond to each other. Many fields can be added in a landscape, it is the reaction to these fields that create pieces and parts of a space; not a whole condition.
ORIGINAL STATE
OUTSIDE FORCE PUSHES CAVITY INTO ORGANISM
ORGANISM SHOWS RESILIENCE AND PUSHES BACK
ORGANISM IS BACK TO IT’S ORIGINAL STATE
The building structures (black boxes) represent the field. The pink suggests human interaction, green represents Coyote circulatory routes and the orange arrows follow the Pacific Flyaway migratory route. The three field conditions layered on top of each other can show relationships of each individual condition, which shows a designer how the space is occupied.
These photographs from project show the pieces and parts that make up a landscape and how to occupy the landscape.
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This Agave is showing it’s resilience by growing up through the cracked asphalt. It started off as a small crack but grew strength to break up the asphalt even more.
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Invtervention
Lexicon
Syntatical
Intervention is the act of stopping or changing something. Ecological restoration is using intervention techniques to stop land degradation by using many techniques such as regrading, planting, irrigation, etc... To help restore landscapes and habitats that have been destroyed by human development and other impacts.
Syntactical designs are driven by rules that are used to develop the process of a design. These rules could include language, symmetry, hierarchy, depth and alignment.
Peter Walker’s Children’s Park in San Diego used syntactical design using a grid rule for his design process.
This diagrammatic sketch shows a wetland development concept which will expand the littoral edge, create water movement, and creates habitat for native species. This intervention will take a dry and former contaminated site into a larger patch of land to support the native species.
Silverlake was once an untouched habitat which was destroyed by human intervention. Years of contamination and poor planning now require ecological intervention to restore balance to the site once more.
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Lexicon
Again, Peter Walker used his grid formation for the 9-11 Memorial. This time using tree placement to follow his grid.
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READING RESPONSES
Rambunctious Garden
Reading
To conclude her book, Emma Marris leaves the reader with the idea of “Conservation Everywhere”. Current methods of conservation and preservation are taken place in National Parks and open spaces, not in urban environments. Putting politics aside; why not? As a society we have control of what we want for our own successes. Conservation was a moral issue but has recently become a more scientific issue. Many conservation proposals included wildlife corridors. Marris herself believes as a whole we should: “...accept both nature that looks a little more lived-in than we are used to and working spaces that look a little more wild than we are used to”. In urban environments, “nature” is used as a background surrounding the area, but Marris’s proposal had nature as a foreground. Most people would want to support a conservation cause- just not in their backyard. Modern society has a fear to the wild. People love their controlled gardens and call it nature; the wild is not controlled. The wild hold unknown components, and unpredictability that keeps people away in fear. This leads to more of a disconnection to nature than ever before. People are used to what they are familiar with, controlled, for their own sake and comfortable. The key to conservation everywhere, allows for little pieces of native species to survive around man-made nature.
GRIFFITH PARK
LOS ANGELES RIVER
SILVERLAKE
ELYSIAN PARK
Silverlake Reservoir is located near dense downtown Los Angeles, directly between two of the area’s largest open space parks . The Los Angeles River is a corridor for both the Elysian Park and Griffith Park, while Silverlake sits directly in the middle. The reservoir is another potential corridor between both parks and the Los Angeles River.
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Reading
Projective Ecologies
Reading
This script by architect Christopher Hight, was clearly written for architects with a misleading title. This reading expressed the anxieties architect theorists have against ecological design. Reyner Banham theorized two types of architecture design: tradition vs. technology. His concern against technological and science-driven design “unorganized hordes of uncoordinated specialists who could flood into the architects preserves”. While I am far from an architect, I have to strongly disagree with his theories and statements. These remarks seem closed minded and egotistical. Multi-disciplinary designs should be more implemented in our society than an theoretical structure only a few intellectual scholars understand. Multi-disciplinary designs bring in culture, identity, responsibility and regenerative aspects. If design does nothing but fuel the ego of the architect, then it is nothing more than an over glorified sculpture that inhibits our growth as a society to a more sustainable and cultural world. Penelope Dean labeled design as an “intellectual discipline”. These consistent statements from these architects are denying facts and responsibilities. As a designer, we have an immense power for the future of urban development. By denying facts and these responsibilities is ill-considered and regenerative. Hight later concluded “Instead of adopting nature as a model, we need to urbanize ecology”. Biomimicry holds a unique, well organized and regenerative model for design, as proven in Velcro, and buildings that don’t need hearting and air-conditioning based on a termite mounds. Urbanism shouldn’t be put into ecology, ecology should be put into the urban environment.
Marris’s “Nature as Foreground” was meant for a larger scale, but this image still portray’s the garden or “nature” first and the nieghborhood in the background. The mixture of native and non-native (but still climate appropiate) plantings allow for ecological stability and conservation.
For her birthday, my friend wanted to see Disney’s Concert Hall by notorious architect Frank Gehry. As it is a very iconic and unique structure, it is an extremely irresponsible design. Adding a reflective metal and stone building into an already dense urban heat island not only adds to the discomfort being to the exterior, but it sent many workers to the hospital with serious burns from how reflective the material is. I sure ruined her birthday with that remark.
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Projective Ecologies
Reading
Atlas of Novel Tectonics
Reading
The article in Novel of Tectonics I focused on was called “Fineness”. The discussion of using a multitude of materials and medians in the profession, especially this class, to display, demonstrate an convey our models at an array of scales. Three out of the four projects we created detailed “fineness” at multiple scales for our projects. Project 1, we used ‘Pieces and Parts’ to display a craft of topographic change and field conditions using basswood and dowels. The scale was small, but it was efficient to demonstrate our conditions. Project 3 we has laser cut models and two scales and 3D print. Understanding how to use a 3D model, learning what is possible and what demonstrates our point between, laser cutting or 3D. Sometimes the laser cut models can show more of what we would like to enhance based on shadow and assembly manners. Project 4 gave us room to play and explore different medians. We were able to use 3D prints to inlay with our project, or show a greater detail that the laser cuts wouldn’t pick up, and we had more opportunity to explore medians with hatching and our trees, buildings etc... What materials were used, what texture and quality those materials had, at the scale I was working with were all taken into consideration with my models.
Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall
Sun is reflected upon the building
Heat is reflected from concrete surface up; increasing the heat island effect
Sun reflection effects people in other buildings, commuters and anyone walking near the structure
This diagram demonstrates some of the environmental issues that were made with the addition to this structure without any “nature” added to the site.
In Project 3 I had the same model printed out in both 3D and laser cut to explore the options I have for printing and model making.
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Atlas of Novel Tectonics
Reading
Pamphlet 28
Reading
Smout Allen introduced his pamphlet’s “Restless landscapes” with a spot on quote: “Man continues to make the land, relentlessly shaping the surface from wilderness to cultivation. Strategies of mechanization, the necessity of irrigation, and the demands of inhabitation introduce a new order”. This acknowledgment of our changing climate and population increase is important in considering designs for the future. This intervention we cause needs careful examination (scope) and an understanding of scape; time, duration and dynamics. Landscape and Architecture have been up until recently a very “permanent” application. Allen’s description of sand moving back and forth over the dunes, and tidal movements changing support the assessment that landscapes are ever changing; and it is more prudent with our changing climate to address sites as such.
Tidal movement is a great example of demonstrating how landscapes change over time.
Wave Contours
For the final presentation I was able to display my models since Week 1. This demonstrates the materials and scales used to create certain “fineness”.
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Melissa Johnson/ LA201/ Final Project: Part 2
Pamphlet 28
Being in Circumstance
Reading
Reading
Robert Irwin describes art as being a process, not necessarily an aesthetic object or space. Many people roam absentmindedly see art, but do not aren’t “being in circumstance”. This is a valid argument towards landscape architecture and the molding of scape’s. The way people perceive is the struggle with most artists and designers. Irwin explains this issue: “What we expect to know when we insist on predetermining what is possible by positioning as fundamental the proposition of a simplistic and absolute dichotomy between “the perceiver” and the “thing being perceived”...”. These types of predispositions can be separated in four types of art or sculptures: Site dominant, site adjusted, site specific and site conditioned. In my opinion the site conditioned art or sculpture should be used in landscapes due to the awareness it brings to a site and the fluidity. Landscapes and buildings should be more than site specific, and allow people to not only “be in circumstance”, but to “be in space” as well. To do this, landscape architects should work off phenomenal perception by using local culture and habitat for the process of their designs.
SITE DOMINANT
SITE ADJUSTED
SITE SPECIFIC
Statue of David Michelangelo
Slide Mantra Isamu Noguchi
Sain Lucia Scuplture Park Rihcard Serra
Object in landscape irregardless of site
Object slightly adjusted for site by either scale, finish or skew.
Clear indication of artist, but object is specific to site.
SITE CONDITIONED
Liupanshui Minghu Wetland Park Turenscape Process of design was determined by site specifities and needs
This diagram shows the different categories of public site art that could influence ones “being in circumstance” or perception.
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Bein in Circumstance
Reading
Pamphlet 30
Reading
The section in this pamphlet that stood out to me was the discussion on contingency and coupling. A contingent design is an anticipatory act; a design organization depends on “alignments and adaptability between the systems and it’s environment”. This responsive organization connects back to our final project; Why am I aligning my path a certain way and why does is stop where it does? Coupling is: “The opportunity for projecting a future infrastructure lies in building multiple processes with spatial experiences”. This design processes declares “infrastructures as open systems, adaptive and responsive to environments and occupation. The idea of coupling is more responsive to a changing climate and society, than other books and architects have argued. These processes of contingency and coupling is a proactive and regenerative response professionals as it is responsible and adaptable. These processes link Landscape, architecture, non landscape, sculpture, science, with a few others to create a space that can be used for generations.
The office of James Burnett uses these dark shallow fountains as mirror reflections to the tree canopies. This is an example of site specific design. The landscape is climate appropriate, the colors are site appropriate and the fountain is placed appropriate.
AREAS OF MISSED OPPORUNITES THROUGH CONTINGENCY AND COUPLING
In my final project model I added water circulation which works both for human appreciation and aesthetics, but it also works for ecological purposes to filter water to and from the reservoir to keep the water moving. This was used by a little coupling, adding multi-disciplinary actions in my design. But I could have been stronger with contingency and organize my paths and mounds together.
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Pamphlet 30
Reading
INDIVIDUAL INSIGHT
This illustration of the Salton Sea from the book demonstrates coupling and contingency with and organization of infrastructures by blending ecologies, economy and multiple use aquatic zones. This became “Productive Ecologies�.
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Final Introspection
PHOTO ESSAY
Insight
I came into this program with a background in a design-build company, so I thought I knew what I was getting into to; but I had no idea. As first year’s we understood form and space, this year we talked about theory and topographical change. The list of readings required were excellent in that they gave us multiple perspectives on landscape and spaces. After this quarter, it has become very clear to me that Landscape Architecture Department at Cal Poly Pomona is being shifted to Urban Design, which I have mixed feelings about. This quarter did gave us comprehensive understandings of organization, application and movement. But as second years, there is very little discussion on plant communities and implementing them into design; only theoretical discussions on “what is”, dynamics and rules. Our readings, and discussions on “gardens”, “nature”, “ecology”, but I would like to see the department push more in that direction; designing with nature. Currently there is a push towards brining urbanism into nature. Being centered in the most populated area in California, design courses should be pushing students toward nature in the urban environment and how to make those spaces more native and self sufficient. The class discussions and projects have this quarter has pushed my boundaries and thinking process. I’m always thinking about design, how to improve my designs and others. But my biggest struggle this quarter, and throughout the whole program, is using my computer. Coming into this major I didn’t know I would need anything other than Auto Cad; and it as been my biggest downfall. I find myself settling on designs, because I don’t know how to design them with the programs; or I do not have time to learn how to create them. I have never liked being on the computer, but I now understand the importance of computer graphics and modeling. But I have and always will be a “field worker”. I am not someone who likes sitting for more than an hour. I like having discussions with people, going to sites, researching, testing soils, drawing, etc... But sitting down in front of my computer day after day for more than 20 hours sometimes have been pure torture for me. I appreciate good graphics and will continue to learn, but I hope there is more than rendering and Rhino model’s the next two years.
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Photo Essay
Photo Essay One of the biggest impressions this class has left on me is a new understanding of “nature”. Nature has a whole new meaning to me now. I thought it was black and white, nature vs. garden. I believed open spaces were still pristine but the new reality is landscapes have been altered or remediated, to stay or look pristine. One can try to bring nature back, but it is more complex than just a plant design. What baseline is one trying to achieve? Even in ecology there is an understanding that this are always in flux. Things are evolving, dying and thriving; but at what rate things are being affected is what creates our current environmental issues. The pacific flyaway migratory route didn’t start migrating to Silverlake until it was built and since it has been drained the birds have found a new location to stop during their long journey. Luckily Silverlake didn’t provide an ecosystem that caused damage when it was drained. Rehabilitated the landscape should include natives as they are vital to the local ecosystem, but because of the ability for change, it is possible to allow other plants in the landscape as well.
A large portion of this class was focused on materials for study models. The materials you use, the way they are printed and the scale required are all things to take into consideration when working with models. Laser cut models can be assembled in multiple ways which can either demonstrate what you are trying to show or hide it. 3D printings are a way to show more detail in models with a more precise accuracy.
This demonstrates a vertical assembly with laser cutting. It became one of my favorite assembly patterns because it shows topography more accurate.
This is another type of vertical assembly patterns which works well to show topographic change more accurate, but for this linear form I wanted to direct the viewers eye to the platform, which is why I chose this direction.
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While this landscape looks untouched and “pristine” it is under constant upkeep under the State Parks.
A very un-pristine landscape, growing one’s own food requires non-natives for our climate which causes unwanted insects to arrive. Planting nonnatives causes and ecological imbalance in an area.
This “garden” outside of building 7 seems wild and untouched. But to get this landscape, the soil must be tilled and we must bring in the seeds for growth. But while it blooms, it attracts many native benificaries for the location. This a good balance of human remediation.
This is a very structured and highly crafted design by OJB. The site uses climate appropriate plants, but is still far from a natural baseline.
The horizontal assembly pattern worked for this design because of the platforms. I wanted to accentuate those platforms.
Playing with 3D models showed a more accurate depiction of a laser cut model.
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