Landscape Architecture Blog

I'm taking on some new interests by pursuing a degree in Landscape Architecture, with a concentration in Environmental Restoration, and in my first semester we started blogs for a landscape history class:

http://formsandlandscapes.wordpress.com/

The classes include drawing, native plant id, design, engineering, drafting and work outdoors, so it combines alot of my interests and I get to keep photographing and exploring (more excuses to travel!). Looking at the work of Frederick Law Olmstead makes me want to visit NYC in the near future to check out Central Park and Prospect Park with a new focus on design, as well as some of his parks in the Pacific Northwest and Louisville, KY.

Here is a basic graphics drawing assignment, actually one of the
short projects we did this semester, from start to finish:

Base map with contour lines (what the instructor gave us)

Color-coded map with prohibited areas colored in
(either too steep, too flat, or too close to the protected wetland and stream)

My plan drawing with required fields, amphitheater, park office, trails and parking

 With the wetland and amphitheater colored in

 Adding the title and base color for the trees

 Adding the ground cover and the rest of the title block info

 With the fields and evergreen trees added in

 A close up

The critique in the studio with a few of my classmates' projects.  Mine is on the far right.

I'm enjoying drawing again, but the pace is very quick and it has been a long time since I spent days in the studio at a time, so it's been an adjustment getting back into the culture, but as my engineering teacher said, he loves Project Runway because he loves that studio culture and I love watching the creative solutions everyone comes up with.

I love the diversity of what I'm learning, too.  I'm studying native plants and visiting ecosystems in different parks in the area, doing calculations for engineering and storm water management, learning how to draw landscape graphics and layout pages, and learning about the history and writing papers, so it's like every part of my brain is being used at once and I get to be outdoors in nature.  Being bent over a table drawing for hours at a time has taken a toll on my back and drawing hand, though!