Sierra Mills Druley Creative PortfolioMLA Fall 2015

Table of Contents

About This Portfolio:

* All creative work featured in this portfolio was created by Sierra Mills Druley unless otherwise specified.

Landscape Reflections (Personal) The Power of Space.......................................................................................................1-2 Discovering Internal Horizens...........................................................................3-4 Spaces that Speak.............................................................................................5-6

Multi-Sensory Storytelling with the River Stories Project (Academic)................7

Assisting the Landscape Designer (Professional)...................................................8

Imagining Landscapes (Academic)...................................................................9-10

A Phenomenological Ethics for Design (Academic).........................................11-12

Nearly all of my creative work has begun with the discovery of abstract patterns and connec-tions through sensory experiences in built and natural spaces. So, I have chosen to begin this port-folio with a series of “Landscape Reflections,” combining photography with narrative imagery to illustrate my personal, critical reflection on a selection of landscape themes that have influenced my professional and academic pursuits. From there, I move to showcase some of the experiences that have helped me develop the skills necessary to begin graduate study in landscape architecture, and demonstrate my ongoing creative engagement with real and imagined space. I close the portfolio with highlights from my undergraduate honors thesis, which is my most important work related to landscape space, and reflects the phenomenological perspective that has driven me to pursue a career in landscape architecture and urban design. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sierra Mills Druley 1952 NE Tillamook StPortland, OR 97212sierramillsdruley@gmail.com(503) 602-2054

Landscape Reflections: The Power of Space

“It was around midnight when I woke up and climbed out of my tent. At first I stumbled, blinking and dizzy because the sky was bigger and more brilliant than felt possible. The stars--and there were mil-lions of them--winked against a perfect, velvety-black dome, and the Milky Way stretched in a dense, swirling arc across the sky. When I gained my footing, I saw that snow had covered the meadow in a crisp, sparkling blanket, and moulded our tents into bright little igloos. It was powerfully silent. I only stood there for a few moments, shivering beneath my down parka, boots sunk deep in the snow. But those moments were thrilling, beautiful ones. That giant starry vault seemed to trace the nature of the universe--its capacity for beauty, destruction and rebirth. Standing there, I felt myself in communion with infinite space. Maybe I should have stayed out in the cold, gazing up at the miraculous cosmos, willing to accept its secrets. But I’ll admit my curiosity was tempered with fear of a world so vast and powerful. So I crawled back into my tent, and zipped myself into a puffy sleeping bag. What awesome wonder comes from limitless space, and what lovely comfort in confinement...”

In the Spring of 2013 I spent six weeks backpacking through the Kanchenjunga Wilderness Area in Nepal with the Wildlands Studies Red Panda Research program. My digital camera broke during the first week, and so I relied on a single disposable film camera to capture the vast and breathtaking landscapes we explored. On the facing page are photographs I took of Mt. Janu (top two) and Mt. Kanchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world and the geographic focal point of our journey. On the night of my 21st birthday, we were camped at Kanchenjunga’s south base camp, 15,000 feet above sea level. While we slept, an unexpected snow storm hit, and I awoke in the middle of the night to a dramatic and other-worldly landscape. A few days later, I reflected on the experience in my journal:

landscape Reflections: Discovering Internal Horizons Living in Eugene as a student at the University of Oregon I had access to incredibly immersive and vibrant natural landscapes. Whether on a field trip for a biology class, an outdoor volunteer project, or a hike with friends, I became mesmerized by the beauty and intricacy of the smallest spaces: the internal horizons of an ecosystem. Along the banks of the Mckenzie and Wil-lamette rivers, and on the forested slopes of Spencer’s Butte and Mt. Pisgah, I discovered entire landscapes that unfolded in the space of a few inches--tiny slices of life whose dynamism and power mirrored that of the vast and overwhelming spaces I encoun-tered in Nepal. I took the photos to the left during two different explorations along the Willamette and the Mckenzie, as I sought the rich aesthetic possibilities unveiled by looking closely. In the spring of 2014, I reflected on this theme in my journal, imagin-ing the world that unfolds within a single carnation:

“It was a clear day in late April when I saw the red carnation lying on the pavement. I reached down to pick it up and was immediately mesmerized. Full petals ruffled and folded away from its hidden center--soft, light, and radiant crimson. The petals had a velvety, luminous quality like the sumptuous folds of fabric in Jan Van Eyck’s “Man in a Red Turban.” Just as the white of his canvas shone through layers of paint in his famous portrait, the living cells within these petals were themselves producing a kind of bioluminescent pigment, giving the carnation a deep and earthy glow. Looking closer, the thread-like fibers of the flower became visible and I could imagine scarlet pigment bursting in waves from its cells, reaching and spreading across the surface of its petals. It amazed me that this enchanting, living work of art had grown from a humble seed buried in earth--how a tiny, voulnerable clutch of cells had evolved into this lovely, glowing, soft and sensuous miracle...”

Carnation, ink and watercolor, 2014

Landscape Reflections: Spaces that Speak

“My legs are tired and aching as I wind through the emergent expanse of grass and gravel that marks the last mile of my run. The field is rimmed by spiny thickets of himalayan blackberry and dotted with swaying trees. Industrial wooden spools lay abandoned near the railroad tracks that run along its northern edge. I can hear the distant rumble of a cargo train and the steady rush of the river. The cool wind pricks at my cheeks. As I near the base of a tall, gnarled cottonwood, a sudden rustle of leaves calls me to stop and look up--like a million glistening insect wings they wink and sparkle in the sun, beating and rustling as the wind picks up, moving against each other in a rapid play of greens. A strong gust catches me from behind as if to lift me up, pulling me toward the swarm of sunlit leaves. Seed pods lift and swirl in the air, light and delicate as communion wafers. A raw kind of joy washes over me. I am caught the play of light and shadow, sun and wind, the infinite relatedness of things. Here, I think, is a wordless truth that could be felt by any human, at any moment in time. As I walk away from the meadow, my heart is unbearably light, my mind is wide and clear. I am speechless and brimming with meaning...”

When I moved to Portland in September of 2014, I came ready to explore my new urban habitat. What I encountered as I wandered in and around the city were nodes of palpable spatial meaning, places shaped by the mingling forces of hu-man culture, urban development, and ecology--spaces that speak. These spaces, from the Madonna in a grove of Douglass Firs at Marylhurst University, to the underside of a concrete bridge stretched across the Willamette river, communicated something to me about the potency of tacit meaning we feel in certain spaces--a pre-reflective, pre-linguistic meaning that speaks to humanity’s inexorable position within a larger, breathing system. This concept is captured in an experience I had on a run through an industrial area near my home in Portland:

Multi-Sensory Storytelling with the River Stories Project

As a member of the River Stories Team in the Environmental Lead-ership Program at the University of Oregon, my mission was to help connect residents of the Eugene area to their only water source, the Mckenzie river, through photogra-phy and storytelling. I collaberated with 9 teammates to design, curate, and install an interactive exhibit at the Lane County Historical Muse-um (pictured to the right) which showcased voices of long-time McKenzie River residents through photographs, audio recordings, a video collage, and printed “story-boards” which are pictured to the right. I functioned as the team’s aes-thetics and design lead, shaping the artistic vision for our installation and designing the logo and poster for our opening (pictured to the left) which draws a quote from one of our most memorable interviews and highlights the central question of our installation: What if you could listen to your watersource?

Assisting the Landscape Designer

The images on this page were created during my work as Assistant to the Land-scape Designer during my senior year at the University of Oregon. A large por-tion of my work involved identifying, mapping and measuring trees on campus. This helped me develop a more intimate and diverse knowledge of tree species, and inspired the watercolor illustrations of Horse Chestnut and Red Maple leaves pictured here. I also assisted the Landscape Designer with new plant or-ders and planting layouts. The ink rendering above is my vision for a courtyard space on campus slated to be re-designed.

Imagining Landscapes

PERISTYLE

Plane Tree

Plane Tree

Central Fountain

Central Fountain

The laurel garland is a traditional element of Roman Interior Design

View from portico into summer house courtyard.

Portico

The images to the left are taken from a group proj-ect reconstructing Pliny the Younger’s Roman villa which I completed for ArH 477: History of Land-scape Architecture. I used pencil, watercolor and Adobe Photoshop to create the detail of the peri-style courtyard, portions of the central board, and process images. This collaberative project was my first experience with landscape architecture ren-dering, and I left wanting more. Imagining Pliny’s Villa with my team affirmed my love of creative group work and gave me a glimpse of life as a land-scape architecture student. Our project was voted the winner out of 32 groups.

Pictured on the facing page are a few illustrations from individual creative projects I completed in the same course. The top two images are from a study of garden imagery in the “Decameron” in which I explored themes of abundant lushness, leisure, andsensuality using watercolors and collage. The two images below are colored pencil illustrations from a “landscape symbolism” project in which I chose to design a landscape based on the act of perception, with the roles of subject and object intertwiningand eventually reversing through the progression of the space.

A Phenomenological Ethics for Design Design that Invites: This element of our phenomenological design ethic encompasses the need for details of the human habitat, beckoning forms, and internally-nuanced natural materials. Design that invites brings us into a more explicit relationship with our senses, asks us to participate in space, provokes curiosity and playfulness. It takes an ele-ment of experience and concentrates or alters it such that we become newly aware of our pre-reflective engage-ment with the material world. Design that invites is design for spaces and living identities that are always-becom-ing-- each continually birthed anew by the oscillation between the space itself and those who dwell within it.

Design from Within: Design from within occurs consciously within ecological, social, and cultural contexts. Approaching design from our embedded position within a perceptual universe forces us to consider the horizons that are always concealed from us, the facets of the perceptual universe that are always beyond our grasp. Design from within recognizes the unknowable, and mindfully addresses our interweaving with the rest of the natural world. In many ways, design from within can be seen as a design of humility--a recognition of the placement of humanity within a larger and inter-dependent world of experience.

Design that Empowers: The last element of our phenomenological design ethic emphasizes the role of design in shaping identities and encouraging (or inhibiting) perceptual efficacy. Design that empowers changes our relationship to space by making us newly aware of our role as participant in meaning-making. It empowers people to engage in rich, multi-sensory identity-creation in common and useful spaces. This aspect of our design ethic entices users of a practical space to consider anew their place within a wider socio-ecological webwork, forming a new and excit-ing strand of connection between themselves and the breathing world they inhabit. In this way, design that em-powers uses a platform of utility to open the door for a deeper sense of belonging, inspiration, and account-ability in place.

In the spring of 2014 I completed my undergraduate honors thesis, “Habitat in the Flesh: Toward a Phe-nomenological Ethics for the Design of Built Space.” The project was a result of my rootedness in both environ-mental studies and philosophy, as well as my interest in sustainable urban design. The idea that fueled my project was that perceptually enriching experiences in urban space, which can be facilitated and encouraged by design, are essential to the ideal of urban sustainability; when we feel deeply connected to a place we are much more likely to care for it, revere it, and protect it. So, urban design, as the scaffolding for the formation of these percep-tual connections, can be a didactic force that supports an ecologically responsible relationship between people and place. Viewed in this light, the design of sustainable spaces must be philosophically informed in order to bring users of the space into an ecologically responsible relationship with it. In my thesis, I investigated the interaction of people and place to identify an ethical foundation for engag-ing, resilient urban form. By exploring the ways in which we engage with and find meaning in space, I sought new ways to address questions of sustainability through design that speak to human experience, rather than ef-ficiency metrics alone. Drawing on contemporary philosophers, architects, and urban theorists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, David Morris, Steven Holl, Arnold Berleant and others, I constructed what I termed a phenome-nological ethics for design that seeks to re-orient our approach to design toward a rootedness in social, cultural, and ecological contexts. I argued that such an ethics can serve as an important tool as we seek to build urban spaces that enrich, enhance, and energize human life across its’ spectrum, and bring us into a closer and more accountable relationship with the natural world. This ethic functions more as a perspective with which to approach the design process, rather than a list of hard rules. The three aspects of the design ethic: design from within, design that invites, and design that empow-ers, can be understood as overlapping spheres--inseparable and inter-related dimensions engendered by a phe-nomenological approach to design. The oscillations between body and world, self and other, humility and em-powerment, are reflected in all three dimensions, each bringing forth a unique manifestation of these perceptual interplays.