Personal Trajectory

Dissertation

The topic of my dissertation is "Sustainable Landscape: The Reuse of Materials in Landscape Architecture"

This dissertation covers a wide area surrounding the topic of sustainable landscape and the reuse of materials.

Dissertation can be found here

Management Plan

This Management plan is for Pembroke Lodge Garden in Richmond Park.

This Management plan covers a range of topics from the trimming of hedges to the mulching of flower beds.

Management Plan can be found here

Below are three incomplete pages from my upcoming portfolio.

Focus Week 4 - Ecobuild 2

Much like last year as mentioned in the previous post, this years ecobuild was mainly focussed on solar and tidal power (Renewable energy). However it was clear how they have developed these ideas. The image below shows how solar panels are encorporated in roof tiles, saving space and being more aesthetically pleasing compared to the big gas looking cylinders that were on display last year!

Sustainable floor surfacing in the form of recycled bottles and other plastics were on display in the form of small tiles held together with mesh. As this was closely related to Landscape Architecture, I was very keen about this product. The representative told us how plastic is readily available all over the world and how these tiles have many different finishes. However despite being so easy and cheap to make, the product was rather expensive!

Being a multi-purpose product, it is also sold for swimming pool flooring!

An aspect of my Studio work was to incorporate something from ecobuild into my design.

After seeing the Greenroof stand at the exhibition I was very keen to look further into it for my final design.

The image below shows an idea of thought process behind having a roof garden in my design.

Focus week 4 - Ecobuild

With over 48,000 people attending Ecobuild last year, a lot was expected this year. Ecobuild is huge exhibition based on the future of design construction in the built environment. It is a place where companies show off their new sustainable technology to designers, architects and to people who have a particular interest in the sustainable movement.

A lot of attention was focussed on renewable energy, with many of the stalls in north part of the Excel promoting solar energy. Landscape architecture has benefited from this, for example using solar energy in landscapes to power lighting. However is this the strategically best way to incorporate renewable energy in landscapes?

Tidal Energy (in a smaller form) on a landscape can add a water feature (which is always pleasant) and also provide energy, which can be stored in a dynamo to help power lighting.

The extra advantages would be: (1) water being incorporated in the site. (2) having a more reliable source of constant energy (as sunlight is not always available for solar energy)

Surely it has to be agreed that energy from the constant movement of water is not seen very often at all even though it has greater advantages to solar energy!

All in all, it was great to see the new technology involved renewable energy! Sustainability is becoming more and more important, and rightly so!

More to come!

Focus Week 3 - What is Landscape?

This week's Focus Week was a series of lectures/seminars by Landscape Architects and other designers. These talks were based around the topic of 'What is Landscape'. A great topic, as I found myself often thinking what Landscape actually is! Furthermore I could have a proper answer to tell my friends who think I am studying to be a gardener!

The best and most simple answer was "Landscape is everything under the sun" which came from Neil Porter.

First up was Studio Weave. The people responsible for the 'Longest Bench' situated in Littehampton. See Captions below

These designers work in a strange but exciting way, where they create stories behind their designs. Personally I feel that it is a great way to attract people to visit the site!

One of their story as such was 'Freya and Robin' which was at Kielder Water. A love story that took place from both sides of the bank. After hearing the story, I could understand how the approach of having a story behind a design can encourage people to visit the place.

What is Landscape? - Christian Spencer Davies

Christian Spencer Davies - AMODELS

A fantastic talk by Christian, who showed us many of his 'strange' and unconventional models was a perfect example of how designers can have their own style.

AMODELS have made models for big architects and designers such as Will Alsop and Zaha Hadid.

Major projects that they have been involved in are; Diana Princess of Wales Memorial (Hyde Park) and a model used in the film Breaking and Entering by Jude Law!

Christian Spencer Davies believes in making models "unrealistic and colourful which are full of life"

A lot of people attending the talks might have disagreed with his approach, however I believe that it is a great and unique way of making models.

Caption below: Oyster Pleasance; Lincolnshire County Council

What is Landscape? - Heather Ring

The talks were getting very diverse and interesting throughout the week!

Heather Ring from Wayward Plants helped run the plant exchange where new homes are found for unwanted plants.

An interesting 'project' that she was part of was a Guerilla Garden situated on Upper Street. a Guerilla Garden is when planting is undertaken without permission!

Heather had many little projects that she done, however in my eyes they were more like 'movements' and not projects.

She summarised her thoughts on what she thought landscape was. 'An exploration at a small scale" "a way to see people interacting"

Although my interests lie with creativity shown in projects, Heather's 'movements' was a great way to show how her temporary stalls and pieces went a long way in gaining a lot of recognition and attention.

Focus Week 3 - CAD/Photoshop

CAD and Photoshop tutorial

During this week, I was learning how to make plans on AutoCAD which was to be rendered in Photoshop.

The first step was make a new layout on AutoCAD to place a the plan onto

Once this has been set up, 'print' using CutePDF setting the scale to 1:1.

A view port is then made to centre the plan onto the page. When scaling, in the command bar, type Z ENTER, S ENTER followed by desired scale in the format of 1/200 ENTER.

Once this has been done, the image can be opened as a PDF on Photoshope. Resolution should be set to 150 dpi, and the required page size should be set.

The PDF is now up on Photoshop and is ready to be rendered. Specific areas were selected and 'masked' with a picture or effect.

This red area selected it to be masked with a paving effect.

The process is repeated for different elements such as trees, grass and planting. Special effects can be added to improve the quality of the layers. For example, the trees were given a shaded effect as seen above.

Finally the unneeded surrounding, like the buildings were deleted and what as left was given a different shade. this effect highlights the landscape within.

Final piece

Focus Week 2: Managing Landscapes

The news of our upcoming report of a management plan had me puzzled!

So I decided to visit a well known landscaped park where management aspects could be apparent in the design. I decided to visit Thames Barrier Park.

Thames Barrier Park was created to help regenerate the area. Hence the attractive public space alongside residential and commercial areas was created. Thames Barrier Park was designed by Allain Provost.

It was apparent at first of all the small details in the landscape and how complex a management plan for this site can be. The well trimmed hedges, well cut grass and well pruned trees were obviously managed in a strict routine.

However after scouting around the park, I was pleased to spot a few things that could have possibly been missed out in the design process or management plan of the park.

These stone seating areas/sculptures seem to be the ideal height shape for skateboarders to use, which in my opinion is a great idea. HOWEVER! was the materials well thought of by the designer to allow this? Should the management team have decided NOT to have skaters use these seating areas?

These questions came to my mind after spotting damage made to the seating area. It became very clear to me how even the smallest things should be taken into consideration while designing.

I also feel that the management team should intervene in a situation as such, despite the ideas behind the designers thoughts.

Despite the trees seemingly being well managed I also spotted the strimming damage made on trees. A very 'amateur' mistake (both from design and management). Strimming damage injure trees, which can have an impact on its water intake. In some cases trees can even die.

There are many simple ways in conquering this issue.

Strimmer guards are often used to protect against damage. This can be deemed as being unappealing in a park as such by the designer and many other. However a more appealing idea would be to use gravel around the tree base!

This trip proved to be very inspiring and revealing to me! Great ideas have come across for my Management Plan!

The next few days was spent on reading about landscape management. An interesting book I came across that related to both management and design was ''Sustainable Landscape Management: Putting Principles Into Practice -Ann Marie VanDer Zanden and Thomas W. Cook''

A book I will definitely refer back to while doing research for my management plan.

The combination of research and visiting sites has proved to be great way of unblocking my mind.

Focus Week 2 - Anish Kapoor, Sky Mirror sculptures Kensington Gardens

Anish Kapoor's first London installation came after he spent a long time contemplating where to put his work. The giant curved mirror structures have a found a new home in Kensington Gardens, until march 2011. An innovative idea, attracting many people to the park.

Anish Kapoor's reflects on the geometries of the Kensington Gardens, and explains why he decided to incorporate his sculptures here. See Video

This installation is a perfect example of how simple a design can be. However if it has a meaningful function/purpose and if set in the right place it could be a very good piece of work!

The Serpentine Gallery is currently presenting large scale major exhibitions. The exhibition is running from 28th September 2010 - 13th March 2011.

The placing of the sculpture was thought of to contrast and reflect changing colours, greenery and the British weather in Kensington gardens.

This diagram shows the placement of the objects of the park. It is obvious that Anish Kapoor chose different conditions across the park for his installations to encapsulate the factors such as greenery and changing colours from summer - autumn - winter - spring (a great idea to have the exhibition running across this time span)

In my opinion the beauty of these sculptures is that it can be dismantled and brought elsewhere across the world to portray changing weather across changing seasons.

To be honest I didn't appreciate this exhibition on my first visit, however after researching the reasoning and ideology behind it, I appreciated it much more when I visited it again 2 days later.