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.

Focus Week 2 - Tate Modern- The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei

This exhibition called 'Sunflower Seeds' is made of millions of small 'works' each almost identical. These porcelain seeds were each hand crafted in small scale workshop in China, (hence being almost identical) they were also painted by hand. The 100 million seeds that were seen during the exhibition formed a seemingly infinite landscape.

The artist, Ai Weiwei, used traditional methods to make these porcelain seeds, a method that has seen China excel in porcelain exports over many years. The exhibition was sealed off on the 22nd of October, so the public could not access the porcelain seeds as the dust from the seeds were causing visitors health issues.

The process of making these porcelain seeds could have been much cheaper and also much quicker if it was made by a mechanic process. But as mentioned above Ai Weiwei was adamant to have every single sunflower seed 'almost identical'. The idea of having each one hand made will undoubtedly ensure that they will be unidentical but at the same time look the same.

This is a great example showing how far designers/artists will go to ensure that their intended specifications are met. In my opinion this exhibition would not have been as impressive if the sunflower seeds were made by a mechanic process.

A video of the making process was also being played repeatedly throughout the day, this made the experience so much more excited. I felt more appreciation for the work, after watching this video.

Fantastic exhibition! 9/10

Focus Week 1 - Way Finding

Over the past few years of studying Landscape Architecture, my knowledge in this field has greatly improved/increased. Hence after visiting South Bank again a few days ago (after a good couple of months) it was fascinating to see how my 'design improving' mind was picking up on things and relating it back to what I had previously read or worked on.

One thing in particular was the way finding around the south bank area.

Way Finding is an important part of landscape architecture. It will help visitors/users of a certain landscape or park to be directed to certain landmarks or sites of interest across the landscape.

As I identified that his can be an important part of my upcoming projects, I spent time reading a book on the topic.

The Wayfinding Handbook: information design for public places - David Gibson

Although this book is intended for Graphic designers, it gave me a great insight and many ideas on way finding. This book describes the history of way finding to the planning and strategy of where they can go.

The author goes into great detail about topography, symbols and layout. This book is a very easy read, the detailing of images and interesting texts keeps you very interested!

Highly recommended!

Focus Week 1 - Views on John Pawson's Minimalism Ideology

After attending the John Pawson exhibition I was keen look further into his work.

His design work is associated with the 'minimalistic aesthetic', a term used to describe an art movement where designs are taken apart to show basic features.

In my opinion this is a 'safe' way of designing - as less constraints are encountered during the design process, however I feel that it could hold back your design thoughts hence reducing creativity.

After looking at the work of John Pawson, it is quite apparent that he is very talented at designing with minimal aesthetics.

Tilty Barn Essex 1995

Tilty Barn is a series of residential spaces which was made from a complex of agricultural barns.

Using this as an example, a 'minimal aesthetic' approach can be seen in this image.The walls have been stripped down to expose beams and other supporting structures. Its refinement of modern elements such as modern furnishing/fire place and flooring are all simple but bring out the beauty of the design.

Although I still strongly believe that this kind of design approach can limit your creativity - John Pawson is very talented at doing what he does!

Focus Week 1 - Week John Pawson Exhibition

John Pawson - Plain Space - Design Museum
"The father of modern architectural minimalism"

-The New York Times

The Design Museum presents an interestingexhibition of the works of John Pawson.

John Pawson in conversation with Alain de Botton from Design Museum on Vimeo.

John Pawson, is often described as a 'minimalist' as he is known for his deep reduction process, which leads to remarkable designs of simplicity. Some of John Pawson's major projects include : the Cistercian Monastery in Czech Republic, the Sackler Crossing (Royal Botanic Gardens) and the Calvin Klein store in New York Madison

The quality and detail in the models that were on show was very refreshing and inspiring. (see slide show)

John Pawson's project - 'Casa delle Bottere' was also included in the exhibition. This particular work caught my eye as it had an ecological dimension incorporated in the project, which at the time came in very handy for me as i was researching the topic surrounding sustainable materials for my dissertation.

http://www.johnpawson.com/home

Focus Week 1 - BFI

The BFI has a number of resources, and has a collection of the world's most significant collection of film and television. The BFI has over a million tites, from the earliest silent films to the new advanced 3D techonology movies.

My visit to the BFI was brief, in which time i spent in the mediatheques, watching short clips and documentaries in the British film culture. Interesting films and clips that were watched included, Designing a Nightmare, The African Trade and Another Case of Poisoning.

Going to Southbank was great, the way-finding element to the surround buildings, proved to be inspiring, as this was an area being studied in studio at the time. Pictures shown below.

Studio - Precedent - LED Sheep

Whilst looking for precedents for my final project design, i came across a very interesting video.
Funny enough this proved to be a good source of inspirations.

Enjoy!

Focus Week - Commencing 16 November 2009

16/11/09

Year 2 Landscape Architecture started off with a bang, after hearing the great news of the field trip to Barcelona!

Hoping for better weather, and the prospect of seeing great landscape landmarks was the main agenda for everyone.

View from our hotel room.

Favourite places Visited:
Barceloneta Beach
Gaudi : Sagrada Familia, Park Guell
Gothic Cathedral
Placa Reial

Who was Antoni Gaudi?
Gaudi was a Spanish architect who operated in the same time period as the Art Nouveau movement. He was famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs.

Main Work: Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo
Projects: Parc Guell, Colonia Guell

During our time in spain, many landmarks were visited. We also attended a few exhibitions of the design of the 'New Barcelona', and how the designs were thought of.

Focus Week - Commencing 15 May 2010

With all my major deadlines dealt with, the last week of our second year was a focus week.
During this week I decided to visit Kingston Museum, which was hosting an art exhibition funded by Artgym.

The aim of this exhibition was to, bring together the residents of Kingston from different cultures and generations.

I found this exhibition interesting, as different forms of art pieces was produced to represents the relationship from the past present and future.

Different forms of art pieces varied from paintings, collages, billboards, a form of wind chimes to simple boxes with diagrams and information.

It was interesting to see art pieces from different age groups, and how the specific age groups think about the 'past, present and the future'.

An interesting feature at this exhibition was the 'response wall' which seemed to be very busy. It was a way for visitors to leave feedback, which is a feature lacking in many of todays exhibitions.

During this week, i also visited Fairfield park to improve skills on measuring trees and tree canopies (MAINLY without a measuring tape)

As i often found it hard to measure these features with a tape measure (especially when alone) I spent time thinking of a way to measure it by the amount of steps I took to cover the required ground.

This proved to be very helpful, and I definitely feel it was time well spent.

My most interesting finding: 10 steps measures out roughly 5m60.

This could make it easy to measure canopies if i was to walk from one end of the tree covering to the end of the tree covering.