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excavation, in three senses, describes each project.

excavation of words - interrogations of language, how narratives, vocabularies, and metaphors affect perception and interpretation of landscape excavation of the garden - explorations of the garden as a typology excavation of the ground - earthwork, shaping the ground, the ground as medium, reconceptualizations of the ground

excavating the garden

2012 mla thesisadvisor: elizabeth meyer

In this project, the exhibition grounds of the Inter-national Garden Festival at Métis are re-imagined as a built design manifesto that critiques contemporary inter-pretation of the garden, excavates its latent qualities, and reveals the typology’s significance vis-à-vis sus-tainability discourse.

Sustainability discourse:1. articulates “nature” through narratives and metaphors that do not convey a sense of environmental agency; 2. interprets technology as passive “techno-fix,” further compromising environmental agency; 3. in the context of design, involves a misinterpretation of ecological models like emergence and resilience; 4. conveys sustainability as a sacrifice; 5. demands a more radical re-imagining of the everyday; 6. evaluates the environment’s value through metrics, vs. aesthetics.

The garden:1. structures temporality, causality, and category in a way that implicates humans as environmental agents; 2. provides a model for technology as a material practice linking ecological process with human behaviors; 3. stra-tegically negotiates control and flux, providing a model for the design of emergent and resilient landcapes; 4. is a pleasure ground, providing a model for alternative he-donism; 5. is a utopian and heterotopic space for testing alternative realities; 6. is an art medium, illustrating the relationship between sustainability and aesthetics.

The exhibition at Métis provides grounds for critically examining the garden and generates a momentary discourse about the typology’s significance, but this programmatic context ironically denies the garden its most significant qualities. The exhibition grounds are re-designed, there-fore, to both frame a critique of the festival garden and reveal the garden’s proposed relationship to sustain-ability. Excavation of the typology takes the form of a literal excavation-- the topographic reshaping of the exhibition grounds.

manifesto: grounds for sustainability

1. The garden involves a certain relationship with time — gardens involve cyclical cycles of maintenance, occurring at different scales (daily, seasonal, annual), linear qualities of change (succession), intergenerational transfers of knowledge, and symbolic grounds for timeless, epic narratives. These multiple narrative structures form a narrative model missing in sustainability discourse, which demands an understanding of modified regimes of the everyday, linear progress (“sustainable development”), in-tergenerational justice, social and ecological resilience, and compelling, imagined futures.

2. The garden represents, symbolically, categories perceived by the culture that creates it; the garden’s separation, however, situates it between the categories it ar-ticulates; gardens mediate the tensions they reveal (nature/ culture, order/chaos, body/environment, object/ environment, mythic/mundane); unlike nature-as-wilderness, the garden, as both a design medium and metaphor, generates a sense of the environment as immediate, embodied, and contingent upon human agency.

3. Gardens are a technology that directly engages the body with the environment, everyday behaviors with ecological process; they provide a model for infrastructure at the scale of material practice, vs. through the imposition of a large-scale system.

4. Gardens negotiate the space between order and complexity, design and emergence, illustrating abstract ecological models like resilience and emergence in concrete terms and at multiple scales. The gardener constructs a tension vs. a mere process, and this negotiation of control and flux provides a model for designing emergent and resil-ient landscapes.

5. Gardens are pleasure grounds, but they involve a unique aesthetic experience arising from a long-term engagement with the site and identification, or empathy, with the landscape. This aesthetic experience synchronizes multiple senses with the garden’s ecological processes, often through work. Gardening is an alternative hedonism, pro-viding a model and metaphor for a more sustainable good life, beyond consumption.

6. Gardens are “other sites”—spaces apart. As both utopian and heterotopic, gardens function as testing grounds for alternative realities, for breaking rules and forging new perceptions, behaviors, and orders.

7. Gardens are partially closed systems of meaning, and these codes interact with broader systems of meaning within an aesthetic field. Gardens, as art, provide space for influencing and generating meaning and aesthetics beyond their bounds.

LAR 5210 Spring 2011 Theory Seminar, Situating SustainabilityInsructor: Elizabeth Meyer

linear time

myth time

everyday time

water speed / transition, wilderness to civilization

threholds / events

iconography / actors + meaning

parterres / basic to ornate

Design research for this thesis interrogated the garden as a typology through the particular relationships, tensions, processes, and aesthetic experiences it structures, identifying how these qualities might perform in discussions of sustainability and design for sustainability.

1 Diagramming the garden as narrative structuring multiple scales of time [Vignole’s Villa Lante]2 The garden in relationship to aesthetic category and sustainability {Taylor Cullity Lethlean’s Australian Garden}

ALAR 8010 Fall 2011 Thesis Research Seminar

1

2

1 The garden as “other site” - paradise setting, heterotopia, utopian planning medium.

2 The garden as pleasure ground and technology - multisensory aesthetic experience synchronized with ecological process through productive material practices.

3 The garden Utopian model and medium [Howard’s Garden City, Wright’s Broadacre City, Migge’s plan for the gardens at Britz]

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1 Métis in its geographic, historical, and climatic context

2 Parallel transformations and recent in-tersections of the garden as typology and the exhibition as program

ALAR 8995: Independent Thesis Studio

1

2

Métis Exhibition Grounds Situating the garden festival’s studio, work-shop, cultivation, and maintenance infrastruc-ture within the experi-ence of the exhibition frames a critique of the festival garden and excavates/reveals the typology’s significant qualities.

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ition

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ound

s

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gn p

ropo

sals)

garden walls (display)

mirror redefine garden walls

juxtapose gardens and gardening

garden wall mediates contrasts (exhibition grounds become garden)

aesthetic experince frames critique

display (gardens)

cultivation (gardening)

garden aesthetics (gardens vs. gardening)

audience + temporality

three garden rooms

create double to garden festival groundsremove existing

garden edge (maintenance road

to greenhouses)

re-site gardening operations to garden wallwalls structure perception of contrasts

(gardens vs. site, gardens vs. gardening)

create second belvedere

juxtapose views of gardens+gardening

arrive immersed in gardening or garden rooms

historic gardensgarden exhibition

greenhouses and workshops vernacular

agricultural grain

the sublime “timelessness” (e. reford)

ephemeral gardens

the everyday

the picturesquethe beautiful

aesthetics of cultivation

redefine walls through cut+fill

Site Reading: Three Gardens The Métis garden exhibition grounds, established in 2000 by Alexander Reford, form a landscape addition to the historic Reford Gardens, cultivated from 1925-1958 by Elsie Reford. The historic gardens and exhibition grounds are two garden rooms carved into the boreal forest of the Gaspé Peninsula. Behind a screen of trees, a back-of-house gardening infrastructure of greenhouses, workshops, and meeting rooms is sited in a third garden room. Situating this other garden room within the experience of the exhibition frames both a critique of the festival garden and a generative reimagining of the garden and its relationship to sustainability.

Design Proposal: Excavating the Garden, Re-defining the Garden Wall The third garden and its gardening operations are re-sited to the exhibition’s current wall, calling into question the relationship between the site and the landscape beyond its bounds. The walls of the grounds are redefined through cut and fill; the excavated wall to the west becomes the site of the garden’s excavated qualities - a heterotopic site of alternative forms of pleasure and showcase of technology-as-material-practice. The central garden wall, between the excavation and the garden rooms of the exhibition grounds, structures a critique through juxtaposition - to walk to the wall is to walk the line between two conceptions of the garden. At the southern end of the site, the approach to the exhibition grounds are graded to distinguish these two understandings and experiences of the garden - the gardens are approached either through a cut (the immersive encounter with the excavated landscape of gardening), or at grade, (a gallery-like approach to the gardens). A procession north along the wall’s slope towards a belvedere generates a critical dialogue across the garden wall. The belevedere itself provides perception of both landscapes in their entirety. A finer-grained series of ramps and stairs choreographs splices between both sides of the wall and the intersections of designers, gardeners and festival audience.

66

68

70

72

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76

76

78

80

82

84

86

64

62

60

58

56

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72

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+ BW 66 + TW 78

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78

76

74

72

70

68

76

76

+ TS 77.5

74

2%

8%

2.5%

+BS 70.3

+BR 67.7

+TR 71.25

+BS 72.3

+BR 67.4

+TR 73

7.5%

+BS 65.6

+BS 66.3

+BS 66.2

+TS 68.8

+BR 67.6

+TR 76.5

12%

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Métis exhibition grounds excavation1 Conceptual models2 Topographic study model3 Schematic grading plan

4 The walls of the grounds are redefined through cut and fill.

The excavated (cut) wall becomes the site of the exhibition’s gardening operations. Each garden installation has a double within this excavated site, reconfigured seasonally to support and reflect the creation and maintenance of the garden installation.

The elevated (fill) garden wall offers a new means of perceiving the festival gardens in relationship to their broader site and also performs as the “exhibition catalogue”—as westerly late summer and early autumn winds intersect with the plants temporarily present on site, seeds are intercepted by the topography; spontaneous vegetation over time registers multiple seasons of the festival.

1 2 3

seed harvesting

lateral section aa’

lateral section bb’

lateral section cc’

cultivationplatform

(microclimate)

garden maintenance court(june - september)

studio

extended studio space(february - june)

seed drying

greenhouse plastic (spring)vines (summer - autumn)

sliding pin-up wall

greenhouse plastic (spring)vines (summer - autumn)

planter

glass wall

planter (microclimate)

vent

vent

compost bins on rails

seed drying traysseed drying machinery

(generates heat)

subterraneancompost

(generates heat)

(summer - autumn)

Métis exhibition grounds excavation1 Conceptual models2 Topographic study model3 Schematic grading plan

4 The walls of the grounds are redefined through cut and fill.

The excavated (cut) wall becomes the site of the exhibition’s gardening operations. Each garden installation has a double within this excavated site, reconfigured seasonally to support and reflect the creation and maintenance of the garden installation.

The elevated (fill) garden wall offers a new means of perceiving the festival gardens in relationship to their broader site and also performs as the “exhibition catalogue”—as westerly late summer and early autumn winds intersect with the plants temporarily present on site, seeds are intercepted by the topography; spontaneous vegetation over time registers multiple seasons of the festival.

Ideograms of critique translated into garden wall details

The central wall’s details link and further critique the distinction between the gardens on either side. A series of ramps and stairs choreograph splices between both sides of the wall and the intersections of designers, gardeners, and festival audience.

1 Designer as auteur vs. designer + gardner + audience2 Garden as pictorial vs. garden as temporal, multisensual3 Technology as fetish vs. technology as material practice

4

1

2

3

Métis Exhibition Grounds - elevation, plan, and diagrams de-scribing multiple temporalities structured by topographyThe garden exhibition grounds’ new topography is a walk through multiple scales of time. Space within the central wall is programmed longitudinally, along the wall, to reflect linear processes taking place throughout the year (studio spaces for February consulations with designers, workshops for early spring garden construction, seed-drying and composting infrastructure for propagation and maintenance), cyclical maintenance opera-tions are visible across the lateral section of the wall, and the extended lateral section indexes the garden’s creation (“ex-hibition brief”) and its presence as season’s pass (“exhibition catalogue”).

the big fl(ea)ux, the big orange

fall 2010 foundation studioadvisors: jorg sieweke and kristina hill

This project addresses the water infrastructure of New Orleans, specifically the London Ave. Canal (one of three outfall canals that pumps both groundwater and stormwater from the city’s be-low-sea-level areas) and its adjacent neighborhoods. In scope, it seeks to address the problems that arise when cities are sited in deltas (subsidence/sea level rise, flooding/stormwater management, a dynamic geology competing with a static infra-structure, a psychological relationship with water as threaten-ing, distant, and beyond the agency and influence of the urban population) while, additionally, addressing the social, spatial, and cultural contexts specific to New Orleans. Through parallel research and design trajectories, the ideas of hybridity and a landscape metabolism were explored — these concepts were used to critique the infrastructure of the city while stretching the definition of “infrastructure.” The design proposal conceptu-ally stretches the definition of infrastructure to include: existing, conventional infrastructures blended morphologically with the hydrology and geology of the delta landscape; metaphors for describing the city’s complex ground and their potential to hybridize indentificatory, sustainable material practices with a decentralized, lot-scale infrastructure.

Map and model of the delta as a shifting gradient of sediment / the interface of two competing dynamics, tides and floods; New Orleans as an analogue for the greater delta of southern Louisiana.

0806040201 0Miles

wetland typesesi_swamp_LDWF_2001

esi_scrub-shrub_wetland_LDWF_2001

esi_fresh_marsh_LDWF_2001

esi_intermediate_marsh_LDWF_2001

esi_brackish_marsh_LDWF_2001

esi_salt_marsh_LDWF_2001

esi_seagrass_LDWF_2001

0806Miles

salinity gradient | disturbance regime | coastal erosion

15- 18 ppt | tidal disturbance [frequent]

tides

wetlands | urbanwater infrastructure iterations

floods

elysian fieldstechnological palimpsest,

evolution of neutral grounds typologymarigny canal pontchartrain railroad elysian fields ave.

18th c. 19th c. 20th c. 21st c.

1 + 2 Map and model of the delta as a shifting gradient of sediment / the inter-face of two competing dynamics, tides and floods; New Orleans as an analogue for the greater delta of southern Louisiana.

3 Timeline of modifications to the relationship between water and sediments in New Orleans through evolution of water infrastructure.

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pasteur blvd. [st. anthony]calculating the detention capacity for a prototypical Gentilly neutral grounds detention basin

catchment area: 303,000 SF [350 F x 900 F] - [(40 F x 160 F) + (20 F x 160 F)] = 303,000 SF

1-year, 24-hour design storm rainfall volume: 106,050 CF 303,000 SF x .35 F = 106,050F

maximum detention volume (retaining walls): 113,280 CF detention area: 40 F x 944 F = 37,760 SF detention basin depth: 3 F maximum detention basin volume: 37,760 SF x 3 F = 113,280 CF

detention volume w/ 30% slope: 76,530 CF 30% slope: [10 F x 3 F] / 2 = 15 SF perimeter: 40 F + 40 F + 944 F + 944 F = 1,968 F

slope x perimeter = 29,520 CF

maximum detention volume - 30% slope volume: 113,280 CF - 29,520 CF = 76,530 CF

detention capacity [percentage] for design storm: 72.16% detention volume / design storm volume: 76,530 CF / 113,280 CF = 72.16%

cost to excavate/haul: $48,195 76,530 CF = 2835 CY $17/CY excavation/haul x 2835 CY = $48,195

paste

ur bl

vd.

cam

eron

blvd

.

burbank dr.

prentiss ave.

verm

illion

blvd

.

1 Timeline of New Orleans’ economic history

2 Calculating the performance of transformed neutral grounds

3 Conceptual sketch of multi-scalar hydrological strategy

1

2 3

Modeling hybridity, perceiving the complex geomorphology of New Orleans’ ground through metaphor Oranges and straws represent the blended languages of biology (form structured by water) and mechanics (form designed for the removal of water), across scales.

Animation of oranges: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzNHc9olHW0

flood condition[1- to 2-metre diameter pipes]

base flow condition[2-metre diameter pipes]

1 Plan water is brought to sur-face and deltaic hydrological dynamics are mimicked through “tidal” (modu-lated) groundwater pumping and bayou/floodplain stormwater detention; these disturbances are registered by a gradi-ent of wetland types within the neutral grounds.

2 Exploded axon, existing and pro-posed relationships between strata current conditions separate water from soil, leading to subsidence, and from human perception; the proposal involves a blended relationship between the strata of geology, infrastructure, and urban development.

3 Mapping of street names from the French Quarter to St. Anthony In con-ceptualizing the cultural significance of the landscape, older identities, expressed through the language (for-mal and symbolic) of the garden are explored, strengthening neighborhood identity.

1 3

2

1 Section perspective proposed alteration of street section, atmosphere registers hydrological dynamics.

2 + 3 Branding + Metrics Landscape-as-orange metaphor affects perception of deltaic landscpae, stretches understanding of “infrastructure” to the scale of the lot and the agency of the individual and community

1

2 3

ecological games without end: rule-based venetian urbanisms

spring 2010 options studio collaboration with sarah cancienne, mArch 2012critic: jorg siewke

Venice is intrinsically bound to the ecological processes of its site, the Lagoon. As an ephemeral landscape, the Lagoon’s ecosystem has been sustained through the man-agement of its complex hydrological and geomorphological parameters - the sedimentation dynamics of its Alpine rivers and the erosive currents of its tides. This manage-ment was, until the Renaissance, structured by material practices that linked the Lagoon’s ecological processes with the city’s unique cultual rituals and trade economies. In 1557, the Lagoon’s hydro-geomorphological management was re-structured through the introduction of new hydrological principles, or rules, to the Lagoon, which have dis-rupted its dialectic of land and sea, sedimentation and tides. The Lagoon’s deteriorating wetland morphology and deepening bathymetry imperil the city; acqua alta rises and becomes increasingly frequent. The city’s growing tourist economy has further degraded the Venice’s relationship to its Lagoon; the city is no longer understood as a nexus within the Lagoon’s complex ecological-economic-cultural relationships but instead only as its image. To save Venice, a reconceptualization of the Lagoon’s complex network of geomorphological, ecological, economic and symbolic relationships is necessary. The rebuilding of this complexity is proposed through a new series of hydro-logical principles and material practices linking Venice’s ecologies, economies and cultural rituals at multiple, interacting scales.

1 Venice’s Lagoon as a series of engineered environmental parameters

2 Environmental parameters - Tides vs. floods, large-scale vs. small-scale hydro-logical manoeuvres, seasonal currents

1 2

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fresh water must be kept out of the lagoon

the sea is the lowest of all surface waters

Brondoloprovides sea level

straightchannels drain most efficiently

turbidity increases when flow slows

water levels rise when rivers meet

constant flow neither rises nor falls

rivers with no turbidity do not raise their beds or stretch the delta into the sea

embanking and canalizing improves flow

clear canals are more easily navigated than turbid canals

keep separate: large alpine rivers carrying sediment; local drainage canals carrying turbid runoff from hills and marshes; and clear-running streams running from the fontanile

1 Conceptual models “mirroring” metaphor describes Lagoon and city across scales through translations of stories from Calvino’s Invisible Cities

2 11 hydrological principles of Nicolo Zen rules applied to the land-scape disrupt the relationship between ground and water within the Lagoon

3 Lagoon morphology moment of Brenta’s initial diversion, 1556, and morphological outcome due to sediment deprivation, 2011

1

2

3

building

interfaces

flows

materials

“a wooden pile builds a marsh”

a lagoon is defined by a relationship of optimal balance

elevation defines a salt marsh barene require high area/perimeter ratio

dendridic forms are regenerative; linear forms are destructive

land accretes gradually, with the tide

modification of tidal and sedimentary paramters accelerates rebuilding processes

materials introduced to the lagoon should be adaptive/flexible/removable

infrastructures are modular/redunant/soft

geotextiles are economically sustainable

silt, not sand materials introduced to the lagoon should biodegrade

a mosaic of sediment types results in the formation of complex ground patterns

rigid materials acceleratedegradation of the lagoon

laminar flows build, turbid flows disturb channelization vs. delta formation tourist economy + ecology tourist economy + ecological regeneration

economy + ecology

salt marsh morphology 1811 salt marsh morphology 2011 autumn sediment influx winter influence of Bora currents MOSE floodgates generate ideal tidal dynamics

spring sediment influx summer influence of sirocco winds

1 Proposed hydrological rules for the Venice Lagoon reverse hydrological logic of the Renaissance by reintroducing sediments to the Lagoon and accelerating wetland-rebuilding processes through the reintroduction of small, adaptive, ephemeral infrastructures

2 Projected morphological change to southern Lagoon To reintroduce sediments to the Lagoon, a rediversion of the Brenta River through its original course and into smaller diversions is proposed. These diversions are fluctuated to strategically distribute sediment throughout the southern Lagoon, mimicking the shifting fan of the river deltas that originally formed the Lagoon’s ground. The timing of these fluctuations is synchronized with the seasonal water and sediment levels of the Brenta and with the currents caused by seasonal winds, the Bora and Sirocco, which steer and accelerate sediment deposition.

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a/b/c/d wooden piles [anchor camping platform]1/2/3/4 biodegradable tent panels0 camping platformx geotextile mattressy geotextile sleeping bag

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1 Large scale Lagoon dynamics in dialogue with emergent pattern of ephemeral, land-building infrastructure large scale engineering of river diversions and tides areinfluenced by finer grained, adaptive kit of parts, ac-celerating the accretion of sediments and regeneration of wetlands

2 At a small scale, an ephemeral camping infrastruc-ture can refract (intensify or dissipate) the effects of the Lagoon’s modulated parameters while, additionally, regen-erating historic Venetian urbanisms and channeling the tourist “tide” as a produc-tive, vs. degrading, force.

3 Accelerated salt marsh succession

1

2 3

resignifying observatory hill

fall 2009 foundation studiocritic: nancy takahashi

The design proposal restores a relationship between UVa and the Observatory Hill that has been lost.

The topography of O-Hill, read at the scale of the body, is carved with the traces of 19th-c. carriage roads. These routes, read through the University’s original maps and early aerial photographs, reveal a previous awareness of O’Hill’s springs, the source of Charlottesville’s Meadow Creek. The 19th-c. roads flowed alongside the creek, form-ing clear connections between the University’s Lawn, the site’s springs, and the Blue Ridge beyond. In this sense, these roads structured a perception of Observatory Hill as a wilderness/foil to the University’s architectural Grounds, as a threshold to the mountains, and as a valuable source of water.

With the development of the University’s Grounds in the 20th century, these paths were re-routed, in ways that par-alleled the covering and control of Meadow Creek below. The site’s current roads structure a perception of O-Hill as a periphery rather than a significant foil, liminal space, and natural resource.

The history of the site is legible through these roads. By creating a tension between these circuits of paths, old and new, the design reveals the logics of the infrastructures that have historically structured the relationship be-tween O-Hill and the University. This is achieved through partial removal of the current road and treatment of both historic and removed roads as gardens.

1 Model of site hydrology (copper wire represent Meadow Creek, cop-per pins represent springs) in relation to past (silver) and present (black) road networks - former road network runs parallel to Meadow Creek and link the University with the site’s hydrology and the Blue Ridge to the west; the site’s contemporary road network severs these ties and this perception of site

2 Photomontage - found conditions, O-Hill as perceived through the “drive-by”

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1 Inverse section drawings describing phenomenological outcomes of disturbance, carved ground as carved light, roads as sites of ecological temporality altered by humans, ie. gardens

2 19th-c. carriage road traces and site installation disturbance to ground makes legible previous relationship to site, al-ters temporality / process of mesic forest succession on site, and changes phenomono-logical qualities of site; site is inter-preted as garden. Installation reveals relationships between past/present, sky/ground.

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1 Topographic study model- exaggerating and making insertions within found conditions of the ground to create architecture

2 Perspective - proposed removal of of 20th-c. road and its re-use as garden to generate dialogue with 19th-c. road trace gardens

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graphic analysis of the lurie garden

spring 2010 theories of modern landscape architectureinstructor: elizabeth meyer

1 Diagram of seasonality, mood creation, designer intent

2 Sketch

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Hardiness zone 6b = -18 to -20 C (Berlin, Beijing, Branson, Missouri)Hardiness zone 7a = -15 to -18 C (Copenhagen, South Boston, VA, Xi’an, China)Hardiness zone 7b = -12 to -15 C (Amsterdam, Griffi n, GA)Hardiness zone 8a = -9 to -12 C (Paris, Dallas, TX)Hardiness zone 8b = -7 to -9 C (Istanbul, Turkey, Gainsville, FL, Tokyo)Hardiness zone 9a: -4 to -7 C (London, St. Augustin, FL, Shanghai)

ASSISTED MIGRATIONS

a way to talk about succession without talking about “succession,” in a way that subverts the colonial narrative/language embedded in successional models

assisted migration

assisted migrations

I don’t think we’re in KANSAS anymore

Oh! Pioneers

SchlafmohnOpium Poppy (“Turkish Poppy”)Papaver somniferumTurkey is one of the major producers of poppy for medicinal purposes and poppy-based drugs, such as morphine or codeine. The USA has a policy of sourcing 80% of its narcotic raw materials from the traditional producers, India and Turkey.

The poppy-plant is grown in Turkey by about 80,000 peasants. The poppy is never grown on the State farms, and almost never on large farm holdings.

funding hedges/emerald city

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

“Th at’s a horse of a diff erent color.”

1685 1700 1820 1840 1862

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1 Site reading / timeline site as hortus conclusus within changing urban form.

2 Conceptual plant palette and perspective sketch assisted migrations engage Berlin’s history of successional parks while challenging it and the narrative/language ofsuccession and urban ecology

3 Diagram of proposed phasing trends and connections drawn across time: projected climate change, colonization of site through assisted migrations, and programmatic development of site

berlin europacity

spring 2011 competitionwith julie bargmann and jorg sieweke

1890 1939 1961-1989 1960s 1990s

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biscuit run state park

spring 2010 foundation studiocritic: kristina hill

This design proposal attempts to reveal ecological process through the aesthetic experience of a dynamic edge between two landscape patches within a 1500-acre state park. Change in the structure of the edge=park, seasonally, annually, and over time, reflects the habitat requirements and migration patterns of bird species of concern. Color forms spaces along this edge that open and close seasonally in a way that is synchronized with habitat and migration dynamics.

1 Diagram of planted form / park form synchronized with species dynamics and projected climate change / emergent park form over time

2 Detail section of constructed edge

3 Seasonal perspectives describing choreography of seasonal color and species presence

t jeff garden

spring 2010 installation gardenwith alexa bush, seth denizen & joey hays

A concrete plinth at the UVa School of Architecture becomes, for several weeks, a garden that blends the language of the Jeffersonian Lawn with that of the American front lawn.

24 hours, 24 plastic jefferson busts, 2 rolls of sod, 2 cans of pink spray paint.

details as garden walls

spring 2011 seminarinstructor: julian raxworthy

This seminar explored the idea of change through the design of landcape details.

Each of these details can be described as a garden wall.

Each detail is a horizontal or vertical layer inserted within the site that distinguishes the parcel it defines from its milieu. This layer refracts relationships and processes of the site that intersect with the detail.

Each detail is also modular. As the conditions of the site change over time, the arrangement of the modules may be adjusted to exaggerate or diminish conditions that emerge.

Control joint garden When the garden is installed at the exhibition grounds, the directors don’t know that it is a garden. The excava-tion crew that constructs the new path, adjacent to the garden rooms, is a garden installation crew in disguise. The unremarkable line of cast concrete formally mirrors the linear band of garden rooms beside it. Each garden room contains an ephemeral garden meant to last a season, two seasons at most. The path is also structured by modules, which are not yet perceptible. The concrete of the path is embedded with variables (materials and patterns) that, over time, influence the breakdown of its continuous surface. For each cast of concrete, the subsurface matrix of joints and steel reinforcing bars differs in density and directionality and the concrete varies in depth. With each cycle of freeze and thaw of the 8-month winter, the rates and patterns of failure start to distinguish the modules with different textures of cracking and, eventually, during the summers, colonizations by pioneers species.

Live stakes garden The metaphors of corridor and disturbance are carried easily between descriptions of riparian ecosystems and the urban promenade. Water and people create dynamics determined predictably by season, hour of day, etc. or by chance. The fibrous roots of the live willow stakes reinforce the scoured ground that formally defines the corridor, slowing the erosive effects of disturbance. The multi-stemmed branches of the willows also reflect the effects of the water and human traffic, defining the corridor through disturbance. These parts of the willow, above and below the surface of the ground, mirror each other. These above and below ground forms and processes of growth may be exaggerated-- structured and manipulated—through the weaving and tying of branches and the laying out of the live stakes within the soil.

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australia

summer 2011 internship taylor cullity lethlean (melbourne)james mather delaney (syndey)

1 Site readings Frankston, VIC foreshore dunes

2 Koelreuteria paniculata forest, Australian National Arboretum, Canberra translating the history and aesthetic qualities of the Goldenrain Tree into the formal experience of one of a hundred forest patches of the quilt-like national arboretum

3 Materials research for custom furniture, Perth Waterfront

4 Topographic study model, Perth Waterfront

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jen lynch mla 2012, university of virginia

educationUniversity of Virginia, MLA 2012, Thesis - Excavating the GardenUniversity of Chicago, A.B. cum laude in History, 2005Harvard Extension School, Harvard University, coursework in graphic design, landscape history and theory, urban design history, drawing, German, fall 2006 - spring 2009

honorsASLA Certificate of Honor for UVa Class of 2012; Virginia ASLA 2011 Scholarship for Excellence in the Study of Landscape Architecture; Virginia ASLA 2011 Merit Award (General Design); finalist (top 10) for 2011 AECOM Urban SOS competition; thesis exhibited as part of 2012 European Landscape Biennale; fall 2010 and spring 2011 studio projects published in UVa School of Architecture’s annual journal, Lunch

experienceTeaching Assistant, University of Virginia Department of Landscape Architecture, August 2010 – May 2012 LAR 5140 (Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture) – advising and grading written and graphic assignments; LAR 5460 (Landscape Digital Media) - desk crits for studio graphics; LAR 4120 (History of Landscape Architecture) - leading discussion sections, grading exams and drawing assignments

Research Assistant, University of Virginia Department of Landscape Architecture, August 2011 – May 2012 Assisting Professor Elizabeth Meyer in development of new course material (themes, readings, and lectures) for LAR5140: Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture

Intern, James Mather Delaney, Sydney, July - August 2011 Site research, analytical mappings, conceptual sketches, and models for Oran Park, NSW public arts strategy; site analysis for Regent Street Avenue of Hope memorial project, Redfern, NSW Intern, Taylor Cullity Lethlean, Melbourne & Adelaide, May - June 2011 Analytical mappings for Frankston, VIC foreshore site; design of .4-hectare forest patch for Australian National Arboretum; research, interviews, writing, and photography for research portfolio, Tickle: Pop-Ups; sketch design for Melbourne Docklands waterfront in collaboration with architects and city planners; physical model making and materials research for Perth waterfront; site research, readings and sketch design for Bowden Urban Village Project, Adelaide, SA

Berlin EuropaCity Competition, with Julie Bargmann and Jorg Sieweke, January – March 2011 Site reading/diagramming, plant palette research and design, graphics production

Design Research and Charrette, Hamburg, Germany, with Jorg Sieweke, June 2010 10-day research and design charrette addressing delta cities in the context of the Elbe and a decommissioned water treatment island

Externships, Boston, January 2010, 2011, 2012 One-week externships at Landworks Studio, Mikyoung Kim, Reed Hilderbrand

other experienceDepartmental Assistant, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, May 2006 - June 2009 Administrative and research support for department chair and 24 faculty; management of one faculty search and two tenure promotion reviews; symposium planning

Farm Volunteer, Bakkedalen Biodynamisk Landbrugen, Faaborg, Denmark, August 2010 Daily work on a Danish biodynamic farm

Copyeditor, Lunch Volumes 5 (Flux) & 6 (Systems), Spring 2010 and 2011 Graphic design and editing work in collaboration with authors to prepare articles for publication in UVa School of Architecture’s annual journal

computer skillsMac and PC OS, Adobe Creative Suite, arcGIS, AutoCAD, Rhinoceros; experience with Grasshopper, Firefly

jen lynch mla 2012, university of virginia