color/ texture/ feel

Over the past few months, I've worked on a variety of digital plan renderings. Each rendering uses the same basic principle of texture and tone application, however each is tweeked slightly to convey a different feeling and emotional connection to both the site and design language.

The first rendering is an expansive mountain garden that seeks to seamlessly integrate the designed with the surrounding natural systems, vegetation patterns and topography. The second is a competition proposal for a 9/11 memorial where the guiding principle is to achieve a quiet, reflective environment. The last rendering is a more punctual contemporary residence set into a mountain context.

Do you buy into this claim that graphic representation can successfully match the concept? Do these plans do that?

Image credit: Ed Krafcik/ Design Workshop

Image credit: Ed Krafcik

Image credit: Ed Krafcik/ Design Workshop

rethinking waste

These images are from a project looking at the potential for adaptively reusing a landfill site in Leonia, New Jersey. The rendering illustrates the overall concept of challenging the typical notion of waste as ugly and discarded. We designed multiple voids in the landscape that revealed the infrastructure of waste which supported the program of the park. These voids were termed scars, acting as a reminder that the waste we produce does not disappear. We wanted to construct compositions of physical, non-toxic decay that would change the way people interact with and understand waste. The plan called for a series of scars, each addressing a different component of the landfill system and the decomposition of waste products.

The design created a vision for a 21st century park; one that interacted with multiple urban systems and provided people with valuable open space and an educational tool for all age groups and demographics.

precedent setting

Nearly a year ago we were busy developing concepts for an exhibition to display student work for the Rutgers University Landscape Architecture Department. These concepts grew and were developed into the pulse, a collaborative student effort that changed the face of the landscape architecture department. This past weekend at the New Jersey ASLA convention the pulse was awarded a merit award for communication in landscape architecture.

The pulse communicated student work to the public in a way that had never been done before in the department. It gave people who were unfamiliar with our profession and our curriculum the chance to understand it by looking at a variety of portfolios that spoke to a variety of work. We also communicated the design process of the pulse, from concept development to construction implementation, in the form of 8 boards. This narrative combined with the abstract form of the pulse to create a user experience that was truly unique and memorable.

The project also spoke loudly to our department chair and university Deans. A new course was developed and implemented this spring semester and will continue to challenge students to think about design across the spectrum of abstraction to implementation.

The pulse became more than just an exhibition; it morphed into a teaching tool and a form of design communication that has set the precedent for what Rutgers students can achieve in years to come.