CPP Spring Quarter Projects

Here are a few of the projects from the spring that I worked on.

More Winter CPP Projects

Here is a construction portfolio from the winter quarter. I really like how it turned out. I'll get to the spring quarter work later this week.

Winter CPP Projects

Not been doing much on here on account of the last two quarters of school. Now that the year has just ended, I'm going to try and do more of the initial ideas that I had planned....sketches, illustrations, photographs, creative things, and get out more of the things have been rolling around in my head. That's the plan anyways. The one area outside of school that I have been keeping up on to some extent is the small container garden. So, I will also be showing what is going on there.

This is some of the work that I did during my winter quarter.

Vladimir Sitta the Man

This is a case study I put together for a design class on an Australian landscape architect named Vladimir Sitta. There are images of some of his more interesting projects, and a short write-up on him. Now being done, I wish I had gone into more detail discussing specifically the projects. Too late for now. Here's also a link to a half hour documentary about him , if you are interested.

21st Century Garden Art-Episode 7: The Experimental Gardens of Vladimir Sitta

Rancho Mission Viejo Park Phase Two

This is the Phase II board for the same park from Phase I. In this plan I have finalized the design of the park with specific detail of the amenities. The topography has been conceptually graded, while the majority of the site is not intended to have any grading. Also included on the board are cross section/elevations and perspectives of areas in the park. Details may be difficult to notice, since this was prepared as a 90" x 42" board.

Rancho Mission Viejo Park Phase One

This is a board I put together for a proposed park in South Orange County. The board is intended to show initial concepts for the park both design and imagery. It would be located at the edge of a new mixed use community and border an ecologically important creek and watershed. The plan I created focuses on keeping the majority of the acreage undeveloped and/or allowed to function as a natural landscape (i.e., it would not be controlled by the mower or chainsaw). Embedded in the park are trails that allow users to see the processes changing the land and offer space to recreate....especially in that they will link to other community trails. There will be programmatic ammenities such as amphitheatre, playgrounds, picnic shelters, rest rooms, parking lot, and demonstration garden for drought tolerant plantings.

More from Wayfarer

Here are a few more shots from the project that I was thinking about using.....and the obligatory sunset shot from Portugese Bend.

Shots from Wayfarer's Chapel

I'm working on a project for a design class, where I needed to take some shots of a well know locale, but the images must be framed or disguised in such way to not immediately reveal where they are from. I was running late tonight trying to get home and watching the sun set too quickly. But I made it to Palos Verdes with about 20 minutes of sunlight left this evening and was able to sneak in and get some shots. It was nice having the whole place to myself. I had thought there were going to be more keepers than there were, but the low light caused many of the shots to blur beyond artistic license. I guess I need to work on having less shaky hands. Anyhow, here are some of the shots I liked and am thinking about using for the project.

More Seattle Photos

Seattle Photos

Great Orange Flowers

Photos of a succulent flower, of which I am not sure the type, but it looks to be related to an agave or aloe. The photos were taken at Augustus Hawkins Park in South LA. It is a natural park that is surrounded by dense neighborhoods and industry. The park is a great refuge from the surrounding neighborhood, and I was really impacted by it's design and the care provided for it by the community. If you have a chance to visit, I think you would be impressed too.

Mono Lake Coral Reef

This was a photograph taken at Mono Lake that I played around with in Photoshop this summer. I can't remember now what I did create this effect, but I like to quality that the photo portrays of a strange place....if you have never been to Mono Lake, it is definitely an interesting place. I can imagine from the effects that this is either an underwater area with coral, or an alien environment.

Some Projects from the fall

It's been a while since I did anything here, so I decided that instead of trying to follow my initial ideas for this space, I'd share some of the work that I have worked on this past fall. Rather, Green Impact needs to be a space for me to show that I can learn and grow as a designer and human inhabitant. So, hopefully the process will show that I am becoming a better landscape architect and earthly steward at the same time.......and that I can develop a vocabulary to explain what I am trying to create.




This is a project I made in construction that asked for land to be indexed in two ways, while storing water in some related way....I chose to index landforms by folding and refracting. I created these shapes grinding with a sanding disc into the plywood and slowly started to create topographical variation. A composition resulted from the forms as I sought to vary them, keeping from making a symmetrical design. I hoped to make a design that appeared fluid and balanced, but was not so simple that it could be immediately discerned. As a result of the indexed forms, there were spaces left in between that were capable of storing water, yet I wanted them to also be able to have the ability to overflow if necessary.



This project was also for construction. The requirement of the project was to poise topographical forms for use by groups of size 3, 30, and 300 people. The project also required that a minimum of three walls were used. I started by using a test black from the previous index project, and forcing changes throughout the design to facilitate spaces poised for different groups. At first I thought it might be easier to adapt the older project than to :start from scratch", but in working through it, I now think that it is harder to change a design that start from a new one with no real restrictions already imposed. Anyway, I developed several spaces of various size that could be occupied by groups based on a chosen scale. During the sculpting of the forms, an idea was given to me that the walls could be formed by splitting the forms and changing the height of each section. I really liked this, since the forms would stay the same and from plan view would seem unchanged, yet there would be equal variation between each form along the walls. The result is an interesting composition, where walls of different forms are displayed, those that maintain equal height, one that halves a hill form, and one that melds into the ground.

The last project of this series was a Photoshop rendering, where I used photographs of the above model. I took macro photos of spaces that could be used by 3, 30, and 300 people. I then placed people and objects over the photos to create those spaces. The result is a oak woodland space with trails, where three people are shown, a desert hillside with stairway and clearing for picnickers, and a meadow that is used as an outdoor theater.