Procrastination by Reassessment

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The studio project…  well, it’s finished.  That’s at least something.  I think that it was successful in its purpose, which was more about process than about the actual event.  Off the top of my head, things that could/should have been done differently:

1.  altars should have been lit…  without them as a visual aid, the flow wasn’t right.  it would have provided additional interest in another place on the site.

2.  the project should have been set up entirely at least 2 days beforehand to allow for adjustments.  This was difficult for sure since we not only had to contend with site conditions such as dew and rain, but also the routines between the buidlings which have to occur for the students who work there.  We tried to get things set up, but it seems there wasn’t enough push to get people motivated.  I really don’t know how to address this other than the hope that experience will demand consideration for any future project.

3.  Diagrams and sketches.  Even though we had a lot, they needed to be updated and used during the setup.  If they had been available for people, then perhaps things could have been set up better, faster, without as much questioning?? 

4.  The circulation needed to be adjusted/addressed better – perhaps a simple change of time on the invitation would have done the trick.

5.  Because the visual and auditory are linked, the sound has to be set up with the visuals – therefore the visuals have to be set up then the sounds adjusted around them to fit.  This goes back to number 2 which said that the whole thing needed to be set up way ahead of time.

To be perfectly honest, I feel as though I learned quite a bit but I’m not sure how much the class did.  It feels at times that most people were just in it to get it over with and that they could care less about thinking about any future project that it might relate to.  The prospect of having to do another project like this or even any group work at all is daunting and exhausting.  I would actually prefer to see it fail miserably next time than to take the role of cat herder again.

So on to other things… 

Research presentation, structures final, wall final, STW presentation, plants presentation, hybrids presentation….  sleep.

Looking for Precedents, Projects, the Experiential…

I have about a million projects going on at once and, at points, they all seem to combine.  So, if this seems a bit random… well, you know.  Studio is about projections, sound, light…  the research pseudo-paper is about the experiential in spacemaking…  of course, still looking for innovative thoughts regarding the swamp project… and HYBRIDS, hybrids, hybrids…  what the hell am I doing there?  Something with distortion of images / time / space / perspective… 

Anyway, in searching out projects to refer to in the research paper I found these through the Public Arts Review publication.  It occurs to me that landscape architecture may be going through an awkward phase.  Or, actually, has been going through an awkward phase.  The age-old question of who am I?  Are we gardeners?  Are we artists?  Are we urban planners?  Do we build structure or design around structure?  What is the role of “landscape” in landscape architecture?  What is a landscape?  Does the word carry within it some sort of problematic notion about nature and plants?

It also occurs to me that perhaps the landscape architecture program challenges the notion that getting a masters degree is more focused…  it feels more like a nexus, rather than a focus.  A place where so many fields can combine and then radiate back out.  It has room for all those questions and more answers than I care to think about.

Perhaps it should just be “spacemaking”.  But who would want a degree in that?

Edwin Redl – Matrix  http://www.paramedia.net/

Athena Tacha and awesome team – Sunbursts http://www.oberlin.edu/art/athena/tacha2.html#sunbursts (Oberlin, of course)

Max Neuhaus – Sound in Public Spaces  http://www.max-neuhaus.info/ie.htm

Dan Senn – Catacombs of Yucatan  http://www.newsense-intermedium.com/

Paul De Marinis – Firebirds http://www.thickeye.com/blog/archives/000196.html (uh, awesome)

Suzanne Lacy – http://www.suzannelacy.com/

Leni Schwendinger – Dreaming in Color http://www.lightprojectsltd.com/

Knots

Over the weekend, I went back into the matrices to come up with a design strategy.  I decided that my “buoy” thing would be some sort of device or design that would accommodate the different interactions of the user groups.  It was difficult to come up with what each user group should have in a device.  I mean, doesn’t everyone want shade and electricity?  Anyway, here is the new design matrix as it stands right now.  I think that it needs to delineate the grid pattern more- either by using a dot instead of blocks or by actually putting a grid on it.  And of course it needs words.

The site:

So after that I worked on the design.  Using the thoughts about the different variations of sails on a yacht – stormy weather, normal weather, windy weather – and about the connecting these areas of the swamp that are in my site, Kristi has urged me to go into this in layers.  The first layer is the part that is a completely designed experience, then it goes into pieces of a designed experience, then to “its possible to go here, but I’m not going to tell you what to do” part.  The materials will be deliberate – something light, something floatable, something that will weather.  I’m thinking that my previous models have already told me the materials:  string (rope), wire (steel, steel cable), wood (logs, boards), and whatever that paper represents… maybe a plastic or something.  The string has been a really big part of the process for this project, so I really want to feature it in the design as either the material of rope or the cabling that is used for sails now.  Thinking about rope, I have come to “tether and fray”.  And then of course I looked at knots.

The Carrick Bend has been my favorite so far because is used to join two ropes together, much like joining the two ecologies together and joining user groups together.  I have thought that this can be a sort of layout for how the design begins, then gettting further and further away as the rope “frays” at the ends.

In this part, I need to keep in mind the original beginnings to this project which are the traces that have been left on the land.  What new trace am I adding and how long will it take?  What does it do to the original traces and the swamp itself?

We’re running now!