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February 21, 2006
To the next level
I'm your huckleberry.
Posted by austin at 3:01 AM | Comments (12)
February 18, 2006
Keepin' it Weird
I was just at a party at this kid from Texas's house and I stole this awesome mug . I'll return it to him tomorrow, but then I'll insist he give it to me. That's just how landscapers roll.
And I realize that Lori is out there trying to create a big hullaballoo about The Great Beard Experiment of 2006 and attempting to drum up a whole anti-beard contingent to barrage me with clean-shaven propaganda, but let me tell you a little something; people like my beard , I like my beard , and until you find a chicken wing wedged in there somewhere, the beard is staying.
Posted by austin at 3:31 AM | Comments (11)
February 16, 2006
For those of you who don't know...
My mom loves me more than your mom loves you.
Posted by austin at 4:20 AM | Comments (0)
7 days, 2 all-nighters, 10 cups of coffee, 18 meals, 4 unfamilar programs, and...
One kick-ass first board!
After those strip-field models that I told you about earlier we were given our studio site and told to do an analysis study based on an in-class fieldtrip to the site lasting two hours.
The Challenge:
The site is about 4800' x 1200' or, five million, seven-hundred-sixty thousand square feet. It is just north of downtown Philadelphia on the Delaware river. It is the site of a former shipping company. Boats used to moor against the jetty and cargo would be unloaded; shipping containers left in the yard to be hauled off by semis, bags of cocoa on pallets stored in a 900', climate-controlled warehouse, or either placed on railcars to be riden to major cities in the northeast and midwest. The site is large and flat, spotted with buildings, has rail running into it, and is severed in one corner by a section of N95. The majority of the site did not occur naturally, it was piered and filled in the early 1900s. It is a constructed environment with only an industrial past. It is a barre, blank slate. Or is it?
The site is bound on one end by the river, the opposite by the freeway, one side by a waste plant nearby, and on the other side a senior living center, a prison, and beyond those the historic Pennypack Park.
We were also told that the next steps would be to design a miniscule 60' x 60' garden on the site, and then to design a full-site park.
The Result:
Well, what can you do? I traversed as much of the site as I could during the brief visit, taking pictures and notes about things I found and found interesting on the site. The assignment included requisites of three panoramas and three cross sections of them, a plan, material studies, and five detailed sections with photo montages. My board shows the plan at the top bordered on the left with a material study of Permeability, on the right a material study of Emergence. The Permeability study looks from the breakdown of the impermeable asphalt to smaller and smaller pieces, to the sandy dirt found in remote corners of the site, and is represented in the plan as, dark grey->light grey : impermeable->permeable. The Emergence study looks at the plants that have been able to inhabit this inhospitable site since the corportion has been dismantled, it also looks at how these plants have found root in the cracks of the pavement and hasten and further its breakdown. Plant populations, dark red->light red : dense plants->less dense plants. Where the red and grey overlap the plants have infultrated the pavement. Over each photo is a symbol representing the particular study; these symbols can be found on the plan showing their location.
On the plan can also be found one vertical and two horizontal white lines. These are the major cross sections and can seen montaged with panoramas in the white river space below the plan. The short orange lines on the plan are the detailed cross sections and can also be seen with montages on the river below. The bold orange line is the site boundaries, the blocks are the buildings, and the rest is the surrounding area.
The major cross sections are pretty straightforward and I'll just take time to explain one of the detailed sections. The topmost montage is the mid-left orange line on the plan and looks at an area where plants have settled and have penetrated into the pavement near the pier. Along the cross section line, which is hard to see at this size, is a horizontal series of photos showing the surface condition gradient, plants to impervious surface, the thin strips to the left are more pervious, the progressive solidity of the surface thicker photos. Below these I've used inverted images of grasses to represent the amount of liquid that is able to penetrate the corresponding surface condition. This is also used to mirror the actual plant material that is able to grow at each particular condition.
Finished size: 24" x 36".
So, for those of you who've asked, that's what I've been working on since those stupid strip fields. We've now been working on our 60' x 60' garden plots for two weeks. I'm struggling with quite a few aspects of my design at the moment. I'll try to get something out about that soon because I'm sure talking about what I'm trying to do is very different that what I've done, and I'm as interested in the choas that gets me somewhere as you might be.
Peace out.
And yes, this is only one of my classes.
And yes, it is 4 a.m.
Posted by austin at 2:10 AM | Comments (10)
February 13, 2006
Open apology to my friends and family
I'm sorry I don't call. I'm sorry we don't talk.
Posted by austin at 12:00 PM | Comments (4)