iPark Competition- re-compose

Ben and I entered a competition (in response to needing more creative outlets other than our every day jobs) for a memorial design at an "artist enclave" in the woodlands of Connecticut - http://www.i-park.org/Thanos.html . We found out today that our concept was accepted! We only hope it may get built one day. I have long been fascinated by "memorial spaces" and how people utilize them. Below is our narrative and drawings. We will be refining and putting more effort into our drawings and narrative in the next month, so any constructive criticism or advice about construction of the concept is greatly appreciated.


re-compose

The meaning of death and dying is ambiguous. Death can be considered neither an end point nor a beginning. Death can represent creation and destruction. It is a natural process that at times is debilitating to the living and at other times inspiring. The concept for the landscape design project re-compose is to illuminate a natural process, decomposition of a tree, that frames death and dying with optimism and highlights the universal and timeless funerary rituals of how man responds and copes with loss.

A great deal of mankind’s greatest recognizable markings have come in the form of a memorial.  These memorials share many common traits.  As society progressed, these traits reflected a growing understanding of mathematics, engineering, art and design.  Strong  geometries once based on celestial movements were all but cast aside as the contemporary cemetery often relies on the English Landscape notions of superimposed geometric grids of gravestones surrounded by large trees, manicured grass, and gently winding paths. For our solution, we looked for a way to supersede the idea of the English Garden Memorial with a deeper understanding and reverence for the ecological benefits of the wilderness.  

As the first step of our woodland intervention, we replace the grid of gravestones with a grid of trees.  Within that grid, a new composition of the stone pieces is arranged to create a social space for the living to celebrate the act of remembrance, as the space itself harkens to the somber notion of a traditional memorial. The stones are wrapped in timbers to create a biotic and abiotic sculpture that displays the fruitful process of decomposition of a fallen tree by fungi that in time will disintegrate and unearth stone.   

At the interface between the proposed intervention and the existing woodland, native herbaceous species will be planted as a “white garden” to provide 3 important functions:

1. Create a social space for remembrance based on a heightened understanding of ecological function
2. To illuminate the forest with a halo of native white flowers amongst the otherwise dappled darkness of the woodland; and,
3. To “seal the edge” by preventing opportunities for invasive species to proliferate at the disturbed edge

Placelessness

an old thing i wrote for school, but a good refresher for why i chose my profession, especially the week of a student loan payment......


Emily McCoy
Writing Assignment Two
Land Use in America and Landscape Architecture
LAR 521 R. Swink

Placelessness, the phenomenon of increasing similarity among places of different geographic locations or the lack of a distinguishable character (Huang, 1995), in communities around America has detrimental effects on our society in that the lack of character manifests into the loss of local fellowship and pride. This dissociation can lead to economic, environmental and sociological problems for communities. The catalyst for these issues is the capitalist society we live in that allows for laissez-faire land use, but can also be thoughtfully managed through our democratic government and progressive private ventures. Land Use in America by Diamond and Noonan outlines several agendas that provide a backbone for how communities and government approach beneficial land use. Landscape architecture is one of the unique professions that can mediate between narrow disciplines and create comprehensive designs that take into account multiple scales, from neighborhood to region to country to world, to achieve the goals of land use agendas that benefit communities and the people they are made of by creating and maintaining a sense of place.

Agenda 9 “A constituency for better land use is needed based on new partnerships…..These partnerships can be mobilized around natural and cultural resources that people value”

Landscape architecture has the power to coalesce not only different disciplines, like engineering and psychology, but also groups of people of different ethos, for example conservationists and developers. Landscape architects are trained to see the big picture and the microenvironment all at the same time. Very few disciplines take on this task aside from planners. The difference, however, between land planners and landscape architects is that the landscape architect applies land use policies to the land directly, whereas the planner oversees the theory. In our democratic society the people make the decisions, but in turn it is everyone’s responsibility to reveal knowledge that could benefit society (education).
In order to develop sense of place in the community, first it is necessary to explain the benefits of sense of place to the people and then develop the specifics of how that goal will be met by celebrating unique natural and cultural resources that people value. Here the LA can hold public forums as a government employee or contracted by the government to find out what the public values about their community or even help point out the uniqueness of their community naturally and culturally. When people strip down their identity to their community, all interests can be met. LA’s have the power to relate unique natural and cultural resources to economic development through land design and visual representation. Academic institutions of LA can also be involved in giving vision to communities by visual representations. These representations can ignite a renewed celebration of community that abides to beneficial land use planning, while also bringing all interests together to achieve the same goal. This takes form as design charettes, final projects and extension services.

Agenda 10 “New tools are required to meet the new challenges of land use….advances in technology also offer new opportunities for improving land use decision making.

LA’s also can identify and remediate through design and construction natural and cultural resources that can be necessary for the health of the community. These natural and cultural resources may also be a unique feature that creates a sense of place and in turn brings economic prosperity. New forms of technology, like GIS, are extraordinary aids at visualizing land use patterns and consequences of those uses. Again, these visual representations help educate the community about the repercussions of poor planning and destruction of life systems in their community. Governments, the private sector and academia all have the opportunity to continue to create these databases for all of America and make correlations between the data. These correlations have the power to guide good land use and in turn good land design. The computer only represents the data, however people, like LA’s, are needed to critically analyze the data and find significant associations that can be drive theory and application of smart land use.
Agenda 7 “Older areas in cities and suburbs must become a focus for renewal. Government policies should help fill in vacant land in already built-up areas and renew older properties rather than promote unplanned expansion in the urban fringe.

The main aesthetic that can create a sense of place in a community comes from architecture and landscape design. In order to create an effective aesthetic for these purposes, architecture and landscape design should first reflect the history, culture, climate and environmental history of that area, but must also be continuous and not piece-meal. Through planning, zoning and government subsidies vacant lots and run down buildings can be revitalized as an option to sprawl. LA’s in the public and private sector can be involved with governments directly or indirectly creating design guidelines for architecture and landscape, doing historical and environmental research and overseeing public forums and mediation.

Landscape architects are and will play a vital role in regenerating American communities that have been magnetized to the monoculture aesthetic that has plagued so many communities. Landscape architects, along with other disciplines, will aid communities in rediscovering or reinventing the uniqueness we all long for, but also drives economic growth. By mediating people, research, design, use of technology and acts of enthusiasm LA’s have an imperative role in the war on placelessness in the communities we loved, love and will love again.


Huang, Chang-Shan. 1995. How can we avoid placelessness? A phenomenological study of place and place-making with four case studies of landscape design projects in Boston and its vicinity (Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., Laurie Olin, Peter Walker, Martha Schwartz, Massachusetts.) PhD Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.

Monardas on a rainy day/ Back to the basics

The Story of Tobacco Road

East Durham,Tobacco Road,Stormwater Management

Tobacco Road, East Durham NC

This was an early mental spewing of about how I wanted my final project in school to go. Nonetheless, the unearthing of the story about East Durham and Tobacco Road is by far the most interesting aspect of the project...

 

Reinterpreting Tobacco Road: 

Strategies for capturing and releasing a community’s assets through community building and improved stormwater management in East Durham, NC

"In 50 years, Durham had spread rapidly from a village to a bustling factory center, sucking in the rolling pine country around it. Shacks for factory workers mushroomed in the lowlands between the graded streets. The little communities, which clung precariously to the banks of streams or sat crazily on washed out gullies and were held together by cowpaths or rutted wagon tracks, were called the Bottoms. It was as if the town had swallowed more than it could hold and had regurgitated, for the Bottoms was an odorous conglomeration of trash piles, garbage dumps, cow stalls, pigpens and crowded humanity ...."
-Pauli Murray about growing up in Durham in the early 1900’s (excerpt from, ‘Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family’ 1956)

Introduction
Language + Story + Mental Models (Kristina Hill)

In all cultures, stories are the “most entertaining forms of persuasion (Hill, 2000).  Hill poignantly points out the potential capacity for story-telling as a vehicle for communicating the concepts of sustainability- the Narrative Principle- in her contribution to ‘Landscape and Sustainability,’ edited by John F. Benson and Maggie H. Roe.Although stories and language can powerfully highlight ’sense of place’ and promote pride and engagement within communities at several scales, this same story-telling vehicle for communication can promote overly simplified and negative stereotypes of people. In American history, written stories, such Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and verbal stories, such as those about the McCoy and Hatfield Feud in the Appalachian Mountains, have negatively influenced popular views of groups of people that are unnecessarily debilitating to those people.

In East Durham, negative stereotypes and realities about this community throughout Durham’s history have existed. Known as Smoky Hollow and a "hothole of licentiousness," East Durham has always been known as the ‘seedy’ area of Durham and has oscillated between being a place of disinvestment and demolition and a place of renewal and revitalization. In the 1800’s, several factories and mills ‘mushroomed,’ as Murray noted, in east Durham providing jobs and homes for the impoverished community. This activity spawned several businesses and organizations to develop in the area. Then, in the 1930’s, the mills began to close and people lost their jobs. Currently, no industry has filled the textile and tobacco mill’s shoes to replace those lost jobs in East Durham.Later in the 1960’s, the city of Durham oversaw the construction of the Durham Freeway through the Hayti community, a successful and prosperous African-American community. Many of the families were displaced to East Durham and at the same time, many of Durham’s poor were concentrated into the Few Gardens projects.

In the 1960’s, John Loudermilk, once a resident of Few Gardens and West Durham, wrote the song ‘Tobacco Road’ about East Durham.  Embedded in the lyrics are reflections and illusions of poverty and social dysfunction.

Tobacco Road  (John D. Loudermilk)

    I was born in a dump
    Mother died and my daddy got drunk
    Left me here to die or grow
    In the middle of Tobacco Road

    Grew up in a dusty shack
    And all I had was a'hangin' on my back
    Only you know how I loathe
    This place called Tobacco Road

    But it's home
    The only life I've ever known
    Only you know how I loathe
    Tobacco Road

    I'm gonna leave and get a job
    With the help and the grace from above
    Save some money, get rich I know
    Bring it back to Tobacco Road

    Bring Dynamite and a crane
    Blow you up, start all over again
    Build a town be proud to show
    Give the name Tobacco Road

    Cause it's home
    The only life I've ever known
    Oh I despise and disapprove you
    But I love ya, 'cause it's home

Tobacco Road did exist in East Durham. However, let us step away from popular culture and Loudermik’s lyrics for a moment, or forever if you wish, and not forget the utilitarian reason the area was known as Tobacco Road.  Easily, any road in Durham could have been known as ‘Tobacco Road.’ However, the reason a road in East Durham, now Morven St., was known as Tobacco Road is quite simply because it was a ramped hill which was used to roll hogsheads of Tobacco from trucks and carts to railroad cars. Simple, innovative, resourceful.

Today East Durham is slowly revitalizing with HOPE VI funds and a few private developers, however; vacant land, unemployment, crime, those living in poverty and polluted streams and soil are still prominent. Currently on the table are plans that can have dramatic positive or negative affects on this community: the widening of Alston Ave., the Ellerbee Creek Watershed Improvement Project and projects stemming from HOPE VI investments. In order for East Durham to not fall victim to irresponsible and disrespectful planning and design decisions, redevelopment of the community should hold social, economic and environmental health, together, as top considerations.

With East Durham’s erosion of public infrastructure; specifically, roads, wastewater systems, sidewalks and stormwater systems; there are several opportunities to utilize these improvements to also aid in the revitalization of the social infrastructure of the community. Particularly, innovative strategies for dealing with hydrological systems within the community (hydrological systems ranging from stormwater pipes to intact streams) have proven in other similar communities to be compelling, yet non-traditional, vehicles for community building. Not only can such practices protect water quality, but also support community beautification projects, promote economic development and become a leverage tool to access other needed resources.

Just as stories can stigmatize a community, they can also revitalize and enliven them. Perhaps the real story about Tobacco Road as a resourceful and innovative place and the surfacing of other positive stories about the community can repress debilitating stereotypes and promote pride and engagement throughout the community. Innovative stormwater management in East Durham can become one such inventive catalyst, yet uncommon partner for community building strategies. If we can employ our imagination and morph traditional liabilities into assets, social change and empowerment can precipitate from this symbolic yet compelling gesture.
simple + innovative + resourceful

 Dead End Street/ Tobacco Road Medley by the late and great Lou Rawls 

  Stereotype makes it all the way to Germany!

   

Full Paper: Choreographing Sustainability with Communities

ego blog

are blogs egotistical? well if they are, i don't really care. anyhow, since i have little to no social life and no creative outlets outside of work, i started this blog so i could post stuff.

kind of a digital little box of crap that currently is scattered around my apartment and on  who knows how many hard drives.  hopefully,  this will make me get off my butt and continue to draw, sketch, create, etc. which i have neglected to do since i started working 9-5. i will at least start by posting my really old portfolio. maybe some old writing samples will follow.

glory days (school work)