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LECTURE PROJECTLA 203 SPRING 2016Amy Chen

table of content

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theory response

lecture discussion

photo essays

insights

lexicon

FIELD

A condition ground created in which the relation between the objects within are concerned more than the object itself. Field condition is used in landscape architecture a method to create an expandable design by following a rule of relations.

RESILIENCEREVITALIZATION

The ability to take in challenges from the changing environment and maintain the systems. diff erent from adaptability, resilience achieves by embracing the changes rather than altering the systems.

The act of recreating a space to correct or bring back from an unpleasant or unideal state, in hope to bring in more social, economic, or ecological benefi ts or value to the area. The word has a strong sense that the previous condition is in urgent need to be changed.

Swamp area are often targets of conservationist where they attempt to bring back a systme to dead swamps.

ADAPTATION

The ability to change or transform in response to the dynamic environment. different from resilience, adaptability alter or rearrange the internal system when facing changes.

URBAN ECOLOGY

A process in an urban area where new pieces and infrastructures are constantly being constructed, maintained, resulting a new inter-relationship within the system, and older or unadaptable infrastructures being demolished, returning potentials of land use for a new infrastructure or plants thriving in the cracks of urban cities.

HYBRID ECOLOGY

An interaction occurring near the edges where more than one infrastructures or systems meet and emerge as one combined, complex and coherent system.

PARADIGM

A leading idea or role principle of a profession of which most or many others follow or refer to. A paradigm can shift, change along with the changing environment, thinking, and ecology of the subject.

The use of playwood as material to create topography by subtracting was a fairly new idea introduced to the program. It is now a paradigm of project model in fi rst year studio.

PATTERN MOVEMENT

A repetition of a figure, form, or invisible subject that creates a uniformity or rule within. Pattern can be used in landscape architecture as a way to make unrelated programs coherent, as a field, and as findings of cultural, ecological, and environmental considerations.

A dynamic and constant motion of object or matter which is being attracted or push by force, over time. Movement is always associated with speed and direction. For instance, the earth rotates due to the gravitational force by the sun and runs in a speed 1 rotation per year.

NODE

A focal point where more than two lines emerges and join from various dimensions. In the non-objective way, a node can be an area where multiple related or unrelated things come together and begin to build up or alter the relationship.

theory response

Ecology, as commonly known, is the relation among animals and the environment within the biosphere. As the dominant species, human beings fail to consider all living things from various scales, rather, we only see and value things which bias toward our immediate needs. The eyes take over the critical decisions in life; we seek for the aesthetic over the hidden meaning, and we appreciate the rare things over the largely populated ones, rather than understanding both of their values. The moose may look ugly, like the fl ies is disgusting from human perspective. Yet within it, there exist another micro-scale ecology which small bacteria rely on. Similarly, fl ies are carriers of bacteria and virus, small living things. Human may be disparate eliminate the fl ies, but they are signifi cant to bacteria. The value judgement is diff erent at diff erent scale of ecology. While human only appreciate oxygen, so called an essential element of life, it is dreadful to some micro-scale species; on contrary, they live on nitrogen. This leads to a question whether designers should consider the “balance” of all living things. Often biasing toward human and the ecology which we are familiar with and seeing the global impact, landscape architects ignore micro-scale impact. Perhaps, by looking into microorganisms, design and assist a balance of all ecologies, what is unneeded by one goes to the need of another. With understanding of the ecology within an ecology, we can reevaluate and appreciate the existence of all seen and unseen.

Selections from Discordant Harmonies -Danial BotkinWithin the Moose’s Stomach: Nature as the Biosphere

Chris Reed and Nina Marie ListerPROJECTIVE ECOLOGIES

Under the time driven world, all things change and move at different rates. Lives are short-lived, while the landscape changes and continents shift at slow process. The relation which people share with the world and environment is therefore dynamic. This relation is also essential to observe and understand in the design thinking. There are countless of things from which people may experience, and at different scales. Following the advancement of civilization, the range of observing or understanding people and their environment have been expanded to global scale. With the rich historical background in Los Angeles, various projects intend to convey a message about the past and big ecological issues; yet many are disconnected from the users. For more than half of them, the benefits, use, and future of it are rather important to them. As the paradigm of every project, landscape architects study the historical, social, ecological contexts of the site, or even its regional and global impacts; they create strong reasons for decisions and purpose or meaning of a design. Nonetheless, the relation of people with the world would not be obvious without deeper research. People only experience the immediate environment, an ephemeral moment from a 10-year period of site context. A strong relation of people to environment, as geography, therefore should also include the moment of experience of the near environment. Landscape architects then can allow the large context to drive a design project, and the immediate experience of people to reveal the relation of them with the world.

In the desirable Mediterranean climate, plants grow vigorously, and biodiversity expands. Yet, following introducing the non-native plants, the geography of biodiversity has shifted rapidly with the overtaking of highly adaptable and aggressive plants and animals. The natives fail to resist and compete against this force and therefore face the risk of endangerment. Many landscape managements in the Los Angeles region are highly aware of and protected against invasive plants. Yet, let alone the beauty, we ignore the benefits of these invasive plants and their role in the ecosystem. To compare with native species, the fast growing and characteristics of invasive plants may in fact be a better solution to the human needs. With deforestation, the imbalance ecosystem as a cycle is distorted. Non-native plants thrive and produce more photosynthesis, the same significance we expect from all plants. This is not to say the non-natives should over take the terrestrial lands. Conservation can occur at where a network of species relying on each other, but which may be unnecessary in the urban setting where high management in the setting is required, rather non-natives may be more fit to our concerns of economy and resource. To take from the thinking of letting go when it is best fit, landscape architects must understand all faces, positives and negatives of every decision from more than one perspectives, then negotiate among which there may be inevitable sacrifice but a number of intended outcomes.

Building a Restless World -Gillian Rose Weeding the Jungle

Smout Allen Emma MarrisAUGMENTED LANDSCAPES RAMBUNCTIOUS GARDEN

In the world of landscape architecture, every designer holds a belief and bias which influence and result in their unique proposed deign. In contrary of architecture, whereas the individual’s credit and idea is definitely significant to the designer, landscape architecture involves more collaboration, sharing and exchange, among designers from the beginning research, analysis stage, to the process and method of design. Collaboration in the early processes allows a strong shared goal or methods; but later collaboration among the established pieces, though fragmented, has a rather deeper investigation on the elasticity of each, which then allows the ideas to find their own relations. This leads to a thinking of our profession as landscape architecture, that whether the ordinary process and method had limited the potential of interactions and happenings of unexpected things. Perhaps, under the diverse world of opinions, no idea, process, or method should necessarily align or agree exactly. No single idea or voice should be lost to bring forward another. The variation but with unknown potentials can coexist with relations. Scale is sometimes encouraged to put aside to allow creative findings of this relation. Many projects in Los Angeles are worth being investigated on their relations to each other. The LA river is capable of connecting all ideas and beliefs of the local drought condition, ecosystem, and economical and social values which many projects existed or proposed hold. The collective projects, each poised to collaborate with more, may bring another fascinating identity to Los Angeles.

The L.A. city has been a context-rich site, in both cultural and historical. For many years, projects in L.A. city had adapted finding patterns for ecological and hydrological functions, recreating a site with found pattern and build upon it. Those had little to concern the spatial quality and experience of the users, or at most, it may attempt to create a naturalist look for aesthetic. In the recent decades, new projects were introduced. Some had little to do with functions; some’s intent is merely to open up a space for the public to relax in the busy urban area. In small scale, pattern can assist in spatial organization, explore and generate new outcomes. In a larger scale, pattern can begin to reveal or build relationship among unrelated things, and allow expansion of a project with rules. The city of LA had become more fragmented, for the various need and programs from city to another. Pattern may serve to organize the programs as well as keeping the overall coherence. The new generations of landscape architects should consider to create and guide the future by not attempting to recreate and repeat the patterns of the past. The earlier use of patterns, still, are ways to study a site, with patterns in historical movements, development, etc. However, applying patterns with no strong spatial organization becomes merely a decorative piece. In the contemporary use of pattern, repeated matters are not identical, but because of the pattern and organization, they become coherent.

Selections from Discordant Harmonies -Danial BotkinWithin the Moose’s Stomach: Nature as the Biosphere

Fabricating Landscapes in the Age of ‘Green’

Nat Chard+Perry Kulper Karen M’CloskeyFATHOMING THE UNFATHOMABLE SYNTHETIC PATTERNS

lecture discussion

Landscape architecture, as a profession, has excelled the design think on fi rst nature, conservation or restoration, and third nature, the design for the aesthetics. Yet, the second nature, the practical productive landscape, is often ignored by designers and left to the engineers. As result of a practical and human biased built system, the landscape began to have problems over time; for example, the L.A. River was once an effi cient solution to fl ooding, yet became not only unadaptable to the need of human in the current drought condition, but also a problem in which creates a dead place unfriendly to users. To begin taking over the development of second nature, designers should explore the method to which prevent the same problem done by engineers. Knowing that the second nature does not have to be separated apart from the nature and beauty, by understanding the hidden power in a landscape, designers can make critical decisions on the bias and consequence. Collaborating with experts, analyzing historical, ecological, and cultural context, with more creative ways to look for the “unknown unknown” allows designers to have deep understanding and insight of the landscape. A design project to consider, perhaps as a paradigm for a second nature design, is the Middleton Place in Charleston, SC. The site applies all three natures as a system or ecology. The site consists of a water system, fl owing from the aesthetic third nature garden, to a productive corn fi eld, and to the fi rst nature river. The three natures, also explained as poiesis, praxis, and theoria, are should all be put into the thinking in designing a productive landscape.

Roxi J. Thoren

Developing a Praxis and Poiesis of the Place

The Bowtie is an 18-acre lot located along the LA River. Originally a Southern Pacifi c Railroad train yard by industrial buildings, the Bowtie is currently under the California State National Park. The organization collaborate with the Clockshop intending to transform the lot to become a public park and to activate the park. The project includes artworks, Woodbury design studio projects, campouts, education program and other programs. This year’s Woodbury design studio constructed benches along the edge of the river. The benches were intended to attract attention from the other side of the river, where many bicyclists often pass by yet had never noticed the park that provide more social and recreational area for the community. The river is a valuable part, especially the section next to bowtie. This section of the LA River is the only part with natural soil bottom. Like the landscape’s power speaking for itself, for several times, the water broke through the concrete shortly after concrete was poured in. As a shift from the past industrial era, landscape architects should begin to consider the potentials around the highly valuable land areas, where many activities of all living thing used to occur yet is now dead and inactive. Many landscape architects, including Mia Lehrer+ Associates, have submitted proposals, however, the funding is always an obstacle to the big changes. Little, aff ordable projects and collaborations like Clockshop with design students and artist are a great way to promote public awareness, perhaps more unexpected result is waited to come.

The Bowtie Project

photo essays

SKIES OF THE WORLD

REFLECTION OF THE AWARED ENVIRONMENT

insights

Over the two years in the study of landscape architecture, I observed and learned two main aspects in the curriculum which students are encouraged to consider in each studio design project. Interestingly, both approaches could be seen among the students. The fi rst is broadly accepted by the profession. This is, other than aesthetics, defi ning the landscape with more function, needs, and user bias, including human, plants, and wildlife. During fi eld trips, students visited Walter Hood, a well-known landscape architect who served for the community. He took his responsibility at a small scale with great changes. With a diff erent approach Peter Walker concerns the experience of people by creating a pleasing and comfortable environment within the city. In another aspect, landscape architecture also concerns the plant. From LA241, 242, and 243 Plant Identifi cation and Design, students learn beyond knowing the plants, but they learn the battle among many plant communities. The fi eld trips to many high-ecological areas have demonstrated how invasive plants have taken over, which then lead to decrease in diversity and creating a mono landscape. This also concerns the wildlife. Many landscape architects also create landscape with plants as the main food resource of wildlife. They attempt to keep up a balance food chain. While landscape architecture has various aspects and responsibility, all concerns of human, wildlife, plants and ecology are tied together just as all livings things have relationship among each other. Whether a landscape architect concerns one, many, or not, the impact is always greater.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AS A RESPONSIBILITY TO CONCERN THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE, PLANTS, AND WILDLIFE

Just as many professions tend to anticipate the future and prepare for opportunities, landscape architecture is also digging to new thinking of future, but rather to ‘lead’ the new thinking. While designers constantly ask why and seek for a reason behind every decision, the new thinking may only be experiment, not widely accepted or supported. In first and second year landscape architecture undergraduate degree program, students receive projects that are very open-ended. Studios are very much designed to encourage creative ideas with a few exceptional rules each project has to follow. While all instructors have different approach to teaching the outcome and effect can also vary from students. Instructors are a great part of influence and guide to the students. Often times, instructor’s suggestions can be vague, questioning why a student made the decisions and provide many ideas, sometimes contradicting; the student may be inspired or could be more confused. Some instructors give direct examples, and the student may also be inspired or could use the idea directly with out more thinking process. Instructors guide students in their own ways that are neither right or wrong, but merely experiments with new design thinking which may not be applicable yet to the real world. Nevertheless, the end goal is finding potential future leaders that can change or alter the profession starting from a little curious idea.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AS AN EXPLORER OF FUTURE SYSTEM AND THINKING