LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 2015 -2018
WADE COTHRAN ALEXANDER
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UGA . STANTEC . CLEMSON .
SELECTED WORKS
WADE COTHRAN ALEXANDER E D U C AT I O N UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA | 2016 - PROJECTED MAY 2019 , GPA 3.90 MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Thesis: Value Based Design of Former Southeastern Plantations Using Millway Plantation as a Model. CERTIFICATE IN CULTURAL LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION CLEMSON UNIVERSITY | 2012 - 2015 , GPA 3.54 BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN HORTICULTURE
SKILLS DIGITAL :
AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil 3D, LandFX, SketchUp, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, ESRI GIS, Laser Cutting
TECHNICAL :
Sketching, Hand Drafting, Hand Rendering, Model Making, Photography, Graphic Design
WRITING : Microsoft Office Suite, Research, Technical Writing, Article Writing, Editing BOTANICAL :
Plant ID, Urban Tree Care, Nursery BMPs, Entomology, Plant Pests and Diseases, Sustainable Design, Irrigation
POSITIONS & HONORS LABASH 2019 MARKETING DIRECTOR
| 2017 - PRESENT | 2018
EXPERIENCE UGA TOUR COORDINATOR
SCNLA OUTSTANDING HORTICULTURE STUDENT OF THE YEAR CLEMSON HORTICULTURE CLUB PRESIDENT
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2015
4 TERMS, 2013 -2015
STUDY EXPERIENCES CORTONA | 2018 This 2 month study abroad in the Italian region of Tuscany, fed my interest in art, and allowed me to experience and learn from the great Italian artistic masters. While there, I engaged in a studio class that focused on compact public space design, and I took an Art History class that informed my studio projects. COSTA RICA | 2018 This Maymester class explored sustainability in the tropical environment. Over a 3 week period, we traveled throughout the eco-regions of the country interacted with local university architecture students, visited different carbon neutral built environments, and re-designed a medicinal botanical garden at UGA Costa Rica. WEST COAST | 2017 This 3 week summer semester experience took us from San Francisco to Seattle, during which we stopped at numerous notable firms, their built work, as well as fantastic natural environments. This experience has informed aspects of my studio work.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES UGA COLLEGE OF ENVIRONMENT + DESIGN, ATHENS, GA | 2016 - PRESENT Graduate Assistant. Taught “Plants of the South” to Undergraduate Landscape Architecture students 2016 and 2018. In 2017, worked in tandem with faculty and staff to develop AutoCAD Civil 3D basemaps and construction plans for class materials as well as for their public outreach projects. REFERENCE : Donnie Longnecker | 706.542.4702 | longneck@uga.edu GWINNETT ENVIRONMENTAL AND HERITAGE CENTER, BUFORD, GA | 2017 Graduate Outreach. Developed several conceptual masterplans for trail and educational areas within the site, with accompanying presentation graphics for the center to generate interest from donors and stakeholders. REFERENCE : Steve Cannon | 770.822.8000 | Steve.Cannon@gwinnettcounty.com FOUNDATION CLAUDE MONET, GIVERNY, FRANCE | Spring 2016 Garden Intern. Included maintenance of historic grounds and waterlily gardens of the historic impressionist painter Claude Monet. Focus on culture, design, plant choice, floriculture, historic vernacular, and artistic vision. REFERENCE : Jan Huntley | janhuntley2@hotmail.com STANTEC CONSULTING, NORTH CHARLESTON, SC | Summers 2015, 2016 Landscape Architect Intern. Worked closely with Landscape Architects, Arborists, Civil Engineers, Traffic Engineers, as well as government and private professionals on a variety of projects. Responsibilities included construction detail drafting, planting plan drafting, median design, park design, street scape design, digital rendering, hand rendering, site furnishing specification, presentation materials, and cost summaries. REFERENCE : Jenny Horne | 843.740.6344 | jenny.horne@stantec.com SOUTH CAROLINA BOTANICAL GARDEN, CLEMSON, SC | 2013 - 2015 Lead Nursery Assistant. Worked with SCBG managers and directors in the effort to grow, care, and maintain seedling, propagated stock, and for-sale plants in the nursery. Spent hours of face time with plants local to the Southeast and learned growing, irrigation, maintenance, and managing techniques. Managed and trained new student workers in 2015. REFERENCE : Dr. Jeanne Briggs | 864.723.7639 | jeanneb@clemson.edu
RELEVANT HOBBIES
I enjoy gardening, painting, writing, playing music, and going to performances. I think it is important to have an interest in the arts to be a Landscape Architect, as many other art forms can influence a design and inform the creative process. I also enjoy camping, hiking, fishing, and boating. I feel another way to gain inspiration is interacting with the nature and wildlife in order to learn lessons on how to emulate them in the built environment.
WA D E A @ G . C L E M S O N . E D U
F O RWA R D
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3 8 5 N O RT H B I L L U P S S T. AT H E N S , G A 3 0 6 0 6
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843.708.4723
First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to look over this portfolio. It represents many hours of hard work, iterations, frustrations, computer crashes, and late nights to create the products shown here. I am proud of them and am excited to share them with you. But before we move into this body of work, I would like to tell you a bit about me, who I am, and why I’m interested in Landscape Architecture. I grew up in Charleston SC, as did my father, his mother, her father before her, and so on, back 7 generations. My mother has an equally strong tie with the upstate and piedmont, in which I was also able to spend much of my time. I have a tie to the land and a connection with the culture that no description can truly give merit. When not building Lego spaceships, or erector set cars, I spent my childhood playing in the marsh and allowing the salt-encrusted air to tangle my hair, or sitting under tall pines, the sweet smell of fresh cut timber drifting through the forest to me. Perhaps it was then that I truly started appreciating the outdoors and how we interact with it. It was out of this interest that I started a vegetable garden at a young age that would eventually turn casual interest into a fantastic undergrad experience studying Horticulture at Clemson. Art also has come to define many periods in life for me. My grandmother was a watercolor painter; spending time with her provided an influence that I did not realize until I was much older. I went to arts infused elementary, middle, and high schools in Charleston, and through that was exposed to professional theater, music, visual art, and literature offered in our area, as well as the work of my very talented peers. It seems that art and design follow me, or perhaps I subliminally follow it. I was able to work in Monet’s Garden for about 2 months, combining my love of gardening with the influences of the great impressionist painter. Upon my return, Athens GA did not disappoint, as it provided live shows and art galleries within its entirely different but equally fantastic arts scene. UGA also provided me the opportunity to study in Italy with a more artistic lens on Landscape Architecture. These experiences have informed my design eye, and through meeting individuals from across disciplines, upbringings, nationalities, and economic classes have made me a people-oriented person. Hard work has always been important in my family, as well as the reputation you gain from that hard work. My father always told me, “You lose your money, your car, your house, but as long as you have the reputation as a hard worker and an honest man, no one can take that away from you”. For this reason, I started working when I was 13. It wasn’t glamorous work, just a bus boy at a local seafood joint, but it taught me the importance of being on time and earning an honest paycheck. I continued this practice through college, working manual garden labor throughout. This mentality has treated me well, and has molded me into a deadline and result driven individual. Community is special to me. My father held public office for 8 years as a City Council member for the City of Charleston, and my mother worked for the school system for 40+ years. They both instilled in me the importance of engaging with your community and helping your neighbor whenever possible. I was fortunate enough to Intern with a great Landscape Architect crew at Stantec’s North Charleston office. We completed Kingfisher Park in the Summer’s Corner housing development, and after it was open for a few months, I went back to visit. I was able to see people walking their dogs there, young families picnicking, and high school kids tossing a disc around. It gave me a sense of fulfillment to see our designed space in use to better others’ lives. It was then that I knew for sure that Landscape Architecture was the profession that could culminate all of my interests into one. It is the nexus of space, art, hard work, and community, and it’s the place where my skills have found a calling.
RODIN’S “ADAM”
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Graphite on vellum
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S DESIGN PROCESS
Step by step visual narrative to how my mind works
PIAZZA GARIBALDI
Compact and versatile public plaza in the Tuscan countryside
THE JUNCTION
City scale planning to support economic growth and quality of life in Athens, GA
ETHNO-BOTANIC GARDEN
Re-design of a cultural medicinal plant garden in the Costa Rican Cloud Forest
FORT VALLEY STATE
Campus resign of a Historically Black University in South Georgia
pg 6-7 pg 8-9 pg 10-11 pg 12-13
pg 14-15
Innovative educational landscape at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center
pg 16-17
AQUAPONIC CENTER STORMWATER PARK
Ecological and atheistic design of an underutilized retention pond in Athens, GA
VOLCANISM PLAZA
Hypothetical design exercise using an ecological process as inspiration
4 PITT STREET
Functional residential design of a single house on the lower peninsula of Charleston, SC
HUTCHINSON SQUARE
Professional redesign project of Summerville, SC’s historic central square
pg 18-19 pg 20-21 pg 22-23
pg 24-25
Street tree and neighborhood park design of a large planed unit development in Summerville, SC
pg 26-27
SUMMER’S CORNER TECHNICAL DOCS.
A collection of AutoCAD details and GIS analysis graphics from various projects
GRAPHIC DESIGN
A collection of graphic products created for local and national organizations and events
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photo project cataloging the spaces we leave behind using empty seats as the medium
VISUAL ART
A collection of paintings, sketches, and doodles from various notebooks and life periods
pg 28 pg 29 pg 30-31 pg 32-33
DESIGN PROCESS Everyone has a method to their madness. Starting out by hand sketching key lines and connections of the space is vital to extrapolate form and meaning from a space. From there a concept, or possibly several concepts, will continue to be refined until they begin to merge with the programing, theory, and space within and around the site. After the designs forms have been solidified, sketches are taken into the computer to validate scale, buildability, and create a basemap for construction drawings and illustrative plans and vignettes. Example: “LaVela� Severini Courtyard
| Cortona, Italy
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Marker on trace
PRELIMINARY KEY LINES AND DIAGRAMS
PROCESS GRAPHICS AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
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Colored pencil and marker on bond
FINAL ILLUSTRATIVE GRAPHICS
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AutoCAD, Sketchup, Photoshop
PIAZZA GARIBALDI
C O RT O N A , I TA LY
This small urban plaza overlooks the Tuscan countryside, and is highly used by vehicles as a turnaround space for the medieval walled city of Cortona, Italy. Its prime location at the entrance of the city presented an opportunity for a hypothetical redevelopment project. This design allows flexibility of space that serves multiple functions such as event, overlook, dining, recreation, and amphitheater space. This design achieves this through compact abstract forms that lack specific use, allowing the visitor to use elements for their own specific needs.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND MASTER PLAN
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Colored pencil and marker on vellum
ILLUSTRATIVE GRAPHICS
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Colored pencil on vellum
THE JUNCTION
AT H E N S , G A
On the backside of downtown Athens is an underutilized opportunity adjacent to Hoyt Street. Its proximity to business, the college, and nightlife makes it a prime location for redevelopment. A place to work, a place to live, The Junction comes at the nexus of connectivity, creativity, and fun. This new community offers a multifaceted neighborhood where Athenians can experience a downtown living experience, with all the comforts of an independent, diverse, and sustainable home. A new urban roundabout park and a pedestrian oriented mixed-use core supports a variety of incomes, while expanding existing recreational, civic, and tech spaces bolster quality of life and financial stability of the city.
ILLUSTRATIVE MASTER PLANS
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AutoCAD and Photoshop
INFORMATIONAL GRAPHICS
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AutoCAD, Illustrator, Photoshop, StreetMix
E T H N O - B O TA N I C G A R D E N
UGA Costa Rica
This project was a collaborative effort to facilitate access to the knowledge and resources held within the medicinal plant garden to the academic and local community of Monte Verde, Costa Rica. This design takes an existing but declining garden and reworks the existing paths and plant placement to rejuvenate the space. The design takes on both European and indigenous forms to better communicate the different eras of Costa Rica’s History, and provides micro-climates for the sensitive species of the area. The design and graphic products below are what I contributed to the 24 hr project.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ITERATIONS
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Marker on trace
MASTER PLANS AND INFORMATIONAL GRAPHIC
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AutoCAD and Photoshop
F O RT VA L L E Y S TAT E
F o r t Va l l e y, G A
Using the historic axis as a base, this design strengthens green-space connectivity within campus through extension of corridors and streamlined pathways. New academic, housing, and athletic amenities are at the core of this plan, bringing Fort Valley State into the future of student success in a complete campus. Emphasis was placed on canopy cover, storm water management, and ecologic services to further balance human and natural needs. This design was a collaborative effort between Anne Schiffner and myself. These graphics are what I contributed to our presentation.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND MASTER PLANS
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Marker on trace, AutoCAD and Photoshop
ILLUSTRATIVE VIGNETTES
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AutoCAD and Photoshop
AQUAPONIC CENTER
Buford, GA
This project was part of a public outreach partnership between UGA and the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center in Buford, GA. This center is a publicly funded operation devoted to educating visitors about environmental stewardship, water use, and sustainable practices. This project scope was a conceptual master plan for a sustainable aquaponic center whose graphics would be used to garnish support and fundraising efforts for GEHC. The design merges the functionality of a fish and vegetable producing industry with the aesthetics and usability of a park.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND MASTER PLANS
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Marker on trace, AutoCAD and Photoshop
ILLUSTRATIVE VIGNETTES
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AutoCAD and Photoshop
S T O R M WAT E R PA R K
Athens, GA
This hypothetical project located on the east side of Downtown Athens integrates the functionality of a stormwater retention site, the environmental benefits of bioremediation, and the lifestyle perks of a park and boutique commerce center. The design transitions from rectilinear structure on Broad St and disintegrates to a loose organic suspension boardwalk over the primary wetland, bringing humans close to the stormwater structure underneath. This design uses an otherwise underutilized space and reformulates its interpretation to satisfy both aesthetic and utilitarian needs.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND MASTER PLANS
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Marker on trace, AutoCAD and Photoshop
ILLUSTRATIVE VIGNETTES
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AutoCAD and Photoshop
VOLCANISM PLAZA
Athens, GA
This garden emulates the experience of walking through a volcanic landscape towards a central caldera. The shattered plant beds, hardscape, and sculptural elements channel the deconstructed tectonic atmosphere of the space. Variegated grass material gives texture to the barren landscape, while the shade structure reproduces the ash cloud overhead.
AXON VIEW
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AutoCAD and Sketchup
PLAN AND VIGNETTES
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AutoCAD and Sketchup
4 PITT STREET
Charleston, SC
This design was created for a family friend who resides in a traditional Charleston Single House on the Peninsula of Downtown Charleston. The design focuses on retaining classic courtyard design principles and building materials, and applies them to a functional living and entertaining space for the current residents. Brick and Tabby paving provide a uniquely Charleston feel, while the clean lines and minimal form updates the space to the 21st century. An added storage shed provides the residents additional storage, a luxury hard to find in these smaller historic homes.
MASTER PLAN
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Colored Pencil on AutoCAD base
LANDSCAPE PLAN AND VIGNETTES
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AutoCAD and Sketchup
HUTCHINSON SQUARE
Summerville, SC
This project was one that I was fortunate to work on with Stantec North Charleston’s team during my first internship with them. Hutchinson Square is the historic square of Summerville, SC and as the town has grown, a facelift was much needed. I assisted Landscape Designer Mike Slagle heavily on the displayed final graphics. These graphics were used in town meetings and were distributed to local publications. The project is currently in phased construction.
INFORMATIONAL GRAPHIC AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
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Sketchup, Photoshop, and Indesign
PRESENTATION GRAPHICS
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Sketchup, Photoshop, and Indesign
SUMMER’S CORNER
Summerville, SC
Summer’s Corner is a large neighborhood development currently being constructed in the lake country of Summerville. I had the pleasure of working with Stantec for two internships. I worked heavily with the team under Jenny Horne on the design and planting plan associated with the street tree planting of Phase 1A. The next summer I was tasked with designing a park next to the neighborhood pool. This park included a wetland that we expanded and augmented with native beneficial flora of the Lowcountry. Both phases are now built and being enjoyed by the community there.
PHASE 1A STREET TREE PLAN
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AutoCAD and built work
KINGFISHER PARK LANDSCAPE PLAN
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AutoCAD and built work
TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS From my undergraduate, graduate, and internship opportunities, I have gained hundreds if not thousands of hours experience with AutoCAD construction details and technical documents as well as GIS suitability analyses. The below graphics demonstrate this competency, showing construction details from “The Dorchester� convention center in Summerville, transportation analysis from Brunswick, GA , and a building suitability overlay map from a wetland lot in Athens, GA.
CONTRUCTION DETAILS AND ANALYSIS MAP
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AutoCAD and GIS
GRAPHIC DESIGN In addition to taking graphic design classes at Clemson University, my time in Athens and with the College of Environment and Design has helped me communicate design outside of the landscape. From tee shirts for Georgia Students of Landscape Architecture to logo production and marketing materials for the national LAbash conference, I found myself taking on more and more graphic responsibilities for print and digital products.
MARKETING MATERIALS
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Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign
PHOTOGRAPHY
Vacant Seat Project
I started this photo project in 2017 and have been compiling ever since. It takes a look at the places people leave behind and the story those empty spaces tell about the former occupant. Seeing space without people informs how the space works with people in my opinion, an opinion largely informed by Gilles Clément ‘s “Third Landscape” theory. These spaces also capture the beauty of the everyday, often disheveled and tossed aside; they offer form and comfort we often overlook.
SPRING 2018
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Photography
SPRING AND SUMMER 2018
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Photography
VISUAL ART
paintings and sketches
Art has been an ever present influence on my life. I enjoy cataloging the spaces around me through visual representation. I have always been fascinated by Weveryday moments and the beauty they manage to capture. This could be a sunset in the Piedmont, a door handle, or the bridge of a ferry buzzing with people. I also doodle a lot; it’s part of how I understand and make sense of the world around me. Below are some samples of these visual outlets.
PAINTING AND SKETCHES
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mixed media
COLLECTED DOODLES
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mixed media
WA D E A @ G . C L E M S O N . E D U
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3 8 5 N O RT H B I L L U P S S T. AT H E N S , G A 3 0 6 0 6
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843.708.4723