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Colleen Sloan
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EDUCATION
May 2022
Harvard Graduate School of Design Cambridge, MA Master of Landscape Architecture
COLLEEN SLOAN csloan@gsd.harvard.edu
December 2017
University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA Major: Urban and Environmental Planning; Minor: Architecture ‘Sustainable Europe’ Study Abroad Program
June 2017
(512) 422-7841
327 Highland Ave, Unit 1, Somerville, MA 02144
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE Research Assistant Jill Desimini, Harvard GSD Head Teaching Assistant Jill Desimini, Core IV Landscape Studio, Harvard GSD Teaching Assistant Jill Desimini, From Fallow, Harvard GSD Research Assistant Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich, Harvard GSD Teaching Assistant Karen Janosky, ETT II, Harvard GSD
June 2020 - Present January 2022 - May 2022 August 2021 - December 2021 June 2021 - December 2021 January 2021 - May 2021
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Accenture Federal Services Arlington, VA
November 2018 - July 2019
Management Consulting Senior Analyst • Developed sales growth strategy for various federal accounts, and research for HUD’s Strategic Plan items. • Team Lead for Accenture’s internal NextGen team in charge of increasing use of Adobe Creative Suite in client work.
National Capital Planning Commission Washington, D.C.
June 2016 - August 2016
Intern, Policy and Research • Created a guide to diagnose the inefficient reviewing process of penthouse plans in D.C. by analyzing policies pertaining to the Height Act, D.C. Zoning, and the Comprehensive Plan.
Lyall Design Architects Norfolk, VA
June 2015 - August 2015
Intern, Architectural Design • Created graphics for current projects, using primarily SketchUp and Adobe Photoshop.
LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE, AWARDS + PUBLICATIONS Sloan, Colleen. “Figure 2.3”, Drawing contribution for Jill Desimin’s written piece in The Routledge Handbook of Urban Landscape Research, edited by Kate Bishop and Linda Corkery, forthcoming 2022.
I bring a combination of my landscape architecture education as well as my background in urban planning and architecture to reimagine public space through design. I am interested in the opportunities for interaction among people, material ecology, and infrastructure/industry, and how these three forces interact to renegotiate the boundaries of public and private space and produce new ecological systems. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, drawing and exploring new cities, domestic and abroad.
Featured Project in Boston Public Library Exhibition, Boston Public Library, Maps Collection Featured Projects for Green New Deal Superstudio Harvard GSD End of Semester Nominated Work Harvard GSD NextGen Change Adobe Super Users Team Lead Accenture Member of the Raven Society University of Virginia
Spring 2022 Spring 2022 Fall 2020 + Spring 2021 Fall 2020 December 2018 - July 2019 June 2016 - Present
SKILLS Software: Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Grasshopper, Bison, Lumion, ArcGIS Pro and ArcMAP, SketchUp Physical Models: 3D Printing, CNC Routing, Laser Cutting, Drafting, Sketching
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CONTENTS 01_WASTE AS COMMONS Harvard GSD, MLA Thesis: Landscapes of Repulsion: Hidden in Plain Site
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02_HISTORY AS CATALYST Harvard GSD, Option Studio: The Lincoln Avenue Cookbook
12-16
03_DESIGN AS PROCESS Harvard GSD, Core I: Ashes to Ashes
18-21
01_WASTE AS COMMONS
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LANDSCAPES OF REPULSION: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SITE Harvard Graduate School of Design, MLA Thesis 2022 Author: Colleen Sloan Advisor: Sergio Lopez-Pineiro
This thesis interrogates landscape architecture’s participation in the cleaning and concealing of repugnant sites of industry through the creation of a public mountain range in Iowa constructed from the wastes of the industrial hog industry. The constructed mountains, dubbed the De Soto Range, reveal the repulsions of industry through the collapsing in space of pleasure landscapes and disgust. In doing so, the site becomes a battleground of differing political ideologies, motives, and backgrounds connected by a common reality.
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Iterative sketching and test models were at the heart of this thesis in order to create a design that was structurally and techincally sound while also providing unique and at times sublime experiences at the human scale.
The tectonics and construction of each tall peak ensures structural stability, material containment, as well as allowing for the traversing of pedestrians and vehicles.
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The logic of the mountain’s construction is determined based on the radius of the cranes, construction of circular gabion walls, and access roads used to deliver the waste material onsite. All of these requirements, in the end, lend themselves to a variety of constructed landforms.
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The plan of the mountain, depicted here for the year 2075, shows the layering of material over time. The various colors represent time as well as the variations in the color and texture of the material itself. Vegetation in the low-lying areas includes subtropical Bamboo and Banana Trees supported by the heat production of the site. Plantings become more temperate moving out and up from the center, such as the western peaks planted with Magnolia and Osage Orange trees forming designs such as large spirals of vegetation.
On a clear day, the tallest peak can be spotted across a large portion of Iowa and even parts of Minnesota and Nebraska.
The De Sotos are understood as not a relic of industry but an ongoing landscape system, both natural and artificial, that produces its own by-products and risks.
Combustion Zones Hot Springs
New Material Additions
High Water Content Waste Containment Bamboo
Low Water Content Waste and Compost
Dewatering Facility and Material Processing
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The De Sotos are a spectacle of disgust, a working landscape, a public park, and a political and social tool of expression demanding to be seen.
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02_HISTORY AS CATALYST
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THE LINCOLN AVENUE COOKBOOK Harvard Graduate School of Design, Option Studio 2021 Authors: Colleen Sloan + Scarlet Rendleman Instructors: Gina Ford + Rhiannon Sinclair
Drawing by Colleen Sloan
The Lincoln Avenue Cookbook is a collaboration with local community members of New Rochelle, NY, Walter Brown and Linda Tarrant-Reid to piece together the cultural history of the Lincoln Avenue Neighborhood, prior to the desegregation and destruction of Lincoln Elementary School and construction of Memorial Highway that cleared homes and local businesses. This cookbook serves as not only a repository of food and culture, but also a proposal for a healthy and inclusive future for the Lincoln Avenue Neighborhood. Link to full book: https://issuu.com/virginia277/docs/sloan_rendleman_lincolncookbook_final
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This project is situated within the broader context of The Great Migration, which was not only a movement of people, but also food, culture and heritage. The contributions of African Americans and Carribeans to the culinary and cultural landscape of the United States informs this project’s understanding that food, culture, and crop cultivation have, and continue to, play a role in liberation movements of Black Americans and it has the potential to address food insecurity.
Drawing by Scarlet Rendleman
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Given that our focus for the project was around food and culture, our designs for four significant public spaces around the neighborhood are organized in the book by season and in harmony with seasonal food production activities. Excerpts from the Spring chapter are shown here.
Left: Drawings by Colleen Sloan and lower diagram by Scarlet Rendleman Middle: Recipe drawn/transcribed by Scarlet Rendleman Right: Drawing by Colleen Sloan + Scarlet Rendleman
The half-circle diagram below illustrates the goals and activities of Linda’s grow! Community Garden in New Rochelle which we used as a guide for our proposals.
Throughout the cookbook are family recipes from our two community advocates as well as proposed locations where food items may be sourced, publicly available kitchens, and new public spaces to eat and gather around food. 14
One of the spaces of intervention is in Lincoln Park, where the Lincoln School once stood and where Linda’s grow! Community Garden currently resides. The proposal includes seating, BBQ grills, new paths of circulation, a memorial for the school, and a greenhouse to extend the growing season.
Drawing by Colleen Sloan
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For the final review, as a studio, we compiled all of our projects to present them as one cohesive whole both at the review and at a month long exhibition that would take place in New Rochelle for community members. I was part of the physical exhibit team where myself, Scarlet Rendleman, Melissa Eloshway and Hattie Lindsey designed a model to situate all of the projects geographically.
A zoom in of the neighborhood of focus, above, included movable game pieces cast in rockite and photo printed that represent important places and each group’s project. This allowed community members to move around the pieces where they thought projects should be deployed.
On the large model, height corresponds to percentage of African American population per neighborhood while hatching refers to median income, in addition to etched roads for orientation. 16
03_DESIGN AS PROCESS
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ASHES TO ASHES Harvard Graduate School of Design, Core I 2019 Author: Colleen Sloan Instructor: Emily Wettstein Ashes to Ashes takes the form of a courtyard project that incorporates the material ash, the month July, and the time 10 pm. The design is a microcosm of a much larger process of fire and succession, as depicted below, as well as contributing to discourse about the force of nature and the ways in which we attempt to control it to shape the regrowth of the land.
Year 0
Year 1
Point of no return
Year 2
Year 5
Year 10
Year 20
Year 40
Year 75
Year 100
Year 101
Peak Destruction cycle begins again
Decay
Fire cycle Woody species begin to grow and die making room for new growth
H2O Soil
Biomass
Plant Litter
Nutrient cycling Charred trees decompose
ash
H2O + CaCO3
Nutrient from ash diminish over time
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Iterating on the courtyard design through initial sketches and diagrams.
Plant growth and concentrations
Circulation and Human Occupied Zones
Combining planting, constructed materials and ash
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Time
Site Pre-Fire
Site Post-Fire
Site Post-Fire Phase 2
Site Post-Fire Current State
Site Future Projection
Pioneering Species
Tree Canopy
H2O CaCO3
Lichen
Christmas Fern
Vibernum
Pin Cherry
CaCO3 H2O Ash
CaCO3 H2O
CaCO3 Usage over time shapes the landscape
Topography
Walls and Circulation
Directionality of Run-off
The process begins with a controlled burn of a grid of pine trees. Topography is altered through cut, fill and walls to shape the regrowth of the site over time. As natural processes and intentional plantings take place, one can begin to imagine what the site may look like in future projections. In the final plan, crosses represent the pine trees, post-burn, where nutrient run off collects in the low points creating new fertile zones of regrowth in white. 20
Below: Light studies were conducted to get a sense for the space at night, as an inner courtyard, where light would be streaming in through the windows of the surrounding building. Right: In the final plan, crosses represent the pine trees, post-burn, where nutrient run off collects in the low points creating new fertile zones of regrowth in white.
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