Since completing my portfolio this week I have decided I want to improve on my drawing skills. Instead of going for something boring, technical, I have started with designing tattoos!! I have a particular style & I think it is conveyed really well through tattoo designs. Still today there is such a lot of stigma behind tattoos, even though a large proportion of people now have them. If you have ever watched programmes like Miami or LA Ink you will understand how incredible these tattoo artists are, & that the work that they do really is art.
Here are of the some designs I have drawn (colour has been added to some of the sketches, this was done in photoshop) :

ASLA 2010 Professional Awards

On the 27th April 2010 ASLA announced the winners of the 2010 Professional Awards. These awards represent the best landscape architecture from all over the world, divided into a number of categories, including; general design, residential design, analysis & planning, & research & communication. Below are some of the award winners that I particularly like.

General Design Award of Excellence - Shanghai Houtan Park: Landscape as a Living System
Designers: Turenscape (China) & Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture

Project Statement: "Built on a brownfield of a former industrial site, Houtan Park is a regenerative living landscape on Shanghai's Huangpu riverfront. The park's constructed wetland, ecological flood control, reclaimed industrial structures and materials, and urban agriculture are integral components of an overall restorative design strategy to treat polluted river water and recover the degraded waterfront in an aesthetically pleasing way." (taken from http://www.asla.org/2010awards/006.html)

This project was particularly interesting to me & attracted my attention immediately as it is similar to a project I did in the 1st year, in which I designed an ecological wetland landscape & habitat along the coastline of New Brighton, Liverpool. This project & mine both used wooden decking & naturally wild growing plants to create this type of natural but man-made landscape.


General Design Honor Award - The High Line, Section 1, New York City
Designer: Field Operations (New York)



Project Statement: "The High Line is a precedent urban park that reclaims a former elevated railroad for new use, promoting timely principles of ecological sustainability, urban regeneration and adaptive reuse. Preservation and innovation come together to establish an urban corridor for habitat, wildlife and people. In addition to providing valuable open space for New York City, the High Line has become an economic generator for the neighborhood, attracting investment toward new cultural institutions, commercial and residential development." (taken from http://www.asla.org/2010awards/173.html)

Interview with Kathryn Gustafson

The following link is to the ALSA (American Society of Landscape Architects) website where they have put up an interview they did with Kathyrn Gustafson (of Gustafson Porter). The interview is based on her Civic & Cultural Spaces, the start is about policies & is all a little serious, but then she talks about how landscape architects view their surrounding environments, how people utilise different aspects of a townscape, the details of Gustafson Porter's new commission to design the landscape architectural aspects of the Smithsonian African American Museum of History & Culture, collaborations with Norman Foster & many more interesting topics.
I found the article very interesting, particularly as I have just done an analytical & theoretical report on Gustasfon Porter's Swiss Cottage Park project.

http://www.asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=26846

Tree Hotel - Tham & Videgård Arkitekter

The architects have designed light-weight aluminium structures that hang around tree trunks. The cabins are 4x4x4 meters & are clad in mirrored glass. The glass reflects the surrounding environment, creating a camouflaged hide-out, reducing the visual impact in the surrounding natural landscape.

The interior is made entirely of plywood & is big enough to house two people; with a large bed, a small kitchenette, bathroom, living room & roof terrace area. The windows allow 360 degree views out of the cabin.

I am a real fan of this project. It is a very interesting way of creating living space in a natural environment, but without affecting the aesthetic look of the forest. I think this could be the new way of creating hotel space in the future.

Sao Paulo's Graffiti Storm Drains

Street Art duo 6EMEIA started painting storm drains in the Barra Funda neighbourhood of Sao Paulo with an aim to transform everyday life by bringing a smile to people's faces. Storm drains are not exactly an attractive part of a street scene, so these designs bring a lighthearted, more attractive look to them. I really love these, I think that although there is still stigma surrounding graffiti, this kind of art does not impose in an ugly or displeasing way, instead it adds colour & humour to an otherwise bland & dull landscape.

Reverse Graffiti

If you walk around the streets, wherever you are, & look down, a clean surface is rarely what you see. The streets are becoming dirtier & dirtier. CURB are a natural media company that have taken the dirty streets & used them as a business opportunity. It is called reverse graffiti, or 'clean advertising'. Instead of adding paints or spraying to surfaces, CURB remove dirt to form advertising slogans. In their words it is "the process of selectively removing dirt from high-footfall areas to reveal an eye-catching message." This new way of advertising, in my opinion, is pretty ingenious; it is a non intrusive, semi-perminent way to engage the public & grab attention away from the traditional ways of advertising. I would certainly pay attention to this, just keep your eyes down.

These are the models I created for the Greenpeace Airplot project (semester 2). Although quickly made & quite rough they had quite a cool effect, I think, of displaying my proposal. The first model was made from plasticine, cocktail sticks & freshly cut grass. The second, slightly more detailed & representational, was using the same plasticine for the mound, but then painted balsar wood stuck together with glue. When added into a visualisation they took on a completely different look (see image at the bottom)

Swiss Cottage Park, London

For the Streetlife module I chose Swiss Cottage park in North London as the site for my Theoretical & Technical report. The park was designed by Gustafson Porter, in 2006, to create a tranquil & playful area within the contrast of a busy city scene. I visited the site when it was not at its peak aesthetically. During the winter months the park is not as vibrant as in the summer, when people sit on the surrounding grass banks & children play in the fountain. Although the site was not looking its best, I still really appreciated it. Having seen photographs of what it looks like in the summer months I think it is a place I would enjoy very much. My analysis of the site looked in the concepts behind the design, analysis of the site & its surroundings, a look into the detail of the project, including the hard & soft landscaping features & the functionality of the main focal point of the park - the rectangular granite water feature.

The images below are some of the pages & images I produced for my Streetlife Module report

Plan of the soft landscaping on site

Plan of hard landscaping on site

Access & movement on site

Life After The Flood - Studio Lindfors

The threat of global warming & rising sea levels is a constant fear for the planet. New York architects Studio Lindfors have created a series of images showing how the worst case scenario, according to scientists, would affect two of the world's largest cities; Tokyo & New York. They have named it Aqualta, a play on the words acqua alta, which are the high tides flooding Venice. The images show how the cities would cope with the vast quantities of water flooding into them, using wharfs, raised pedestrain walkways, bridges, & navigable canals to replace the road & rail networks. Gondolas & barges are the primary mode of transport, with cable cars hovering overhead. People have migrated upwards in apartment blocks to get away from the rising water levels, recreating rooftops into farms & greenhouses.
All of this seems very idillic & hopeful, when the reality of it would most likely be very different to this. The photoshopped images show a very beautiful & functional city, in the mass panic of a real onset of worldwide flooding I think that beauty is certainly not going to be one of the top priorities.

Mysterious Shadows

Artist Kumi Yamashita's work explores two truths: things are not always as they seem, & sometimes people need to view things in a different light to discover a new meaning or truth. Simple wall-mounted cut-outs reveal unexpected, life-like shadows.

"Origami" - Each of the coloured pieces of card mounted on the wall, lit up from the right, project a silhoutte of a profile onto the wall.

Yamashita uses simple materials; slim pieces of wood, squares of paper, & aluminium letters & numbers. All of her installations have meaning behind them, for exampe the use of letters & numbers creating a profile to symbolize the thoughts & words that may be going through his head.