Evds2702marks’s Weblog

Look at:

• Political
• Economic
• Social
• Cultural
• Ecological

David Nash’s Wooden Boulder (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/art/pages/david_nash.shtml)

“Placing and going”

-Boulder cut and released October 1978 (floated from stream to ocean)

Landscape form is in constant evolution and change

-Boulder last seen June 2003 in ocean

• In society we often look at the landscape from a large scale, far away. We must look at all scales (micro and macro) at the same time to fully understand the space.
• Always ask “Can I read what is going on at the site?”

Natural erosion process:

1. Wind- sweeps material over a surface and causes erosion
2. Run-off (Rain)- erodes material by stirring up exposed soil, flows down hill

• Always refer to the hydrologic cycle
• Hydrologic changes resulting from urbanization (more run-off and surface water in city or cultivated land)
• How can you change the landscape to better fit the landscape (reduce erosion and run-off)
• Consider scale!
• more plants on landscape= less run-off vs. mowed grass
• As society we create unsustainable landscapes
• creates feast and famine with water availability

Water patterns: Linear pattern (folded substrate), Blocky pattern (underlying fracture), Multiple pattern (tightly resistive strata), Incomplete pattern (karstic condition)

River/stream: pool→riffle→pool→riffle…

• must understand the processes – not just ceating human designed solutions

Potable water (if all the earth’s water was put in a one gallon jar, only one tablespoon would be drinkable)

Example: John Todd – designed a building that used black and grey water (living systems)

• Wet lands not only slowly release water like retention ponds but they also filter nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous are taken in and permanently stored in the soil and roots of the wetland plants)

Case study: University of British Columbia – Sustainability Street

EPIC Systems (http://www.epicsystems.com/about-index.php)

-can be interior systems – not just landscape

Human Natures – GARDENS

1. Pieces of practice

2. Drawing an idea- concentrate on an idea rather than an idea

3. A garden is…

• growth, plants and vegetables
• pieces of land where plants have priority
• garden- to assign and ideal environment to yourself
• garden- opposite to existing nature, cultivating the difference, must have some type of boundary to create inside what you can’t cultivate outside

4. Works

•  Gone never to return- a garden as a moment
• learn to respect the qualities of the existing
• themes and sumulation arenas
• 2005 National Garden show, Munich (Amuse Gueule)
• Snow White and The 7 Gardens:

1. The golf generation
2. Hullabaloo, or: how to create a garden
3. Bikini
4. Half as wild
5. Jealous neighbours
6. Social climbers

• Rossoschka (Russia) – an island of death in a steppe landscape: (war graveyard)
• New South Coburg
• Shanghai
• Botanical Garden – Landscape + functions
• Smiling gardens

*I found this lecture very interesting. I really began to realize how we must respect the existing landscape and all that it has to offer before we begin tearing it apart and building something completely new. We must understand the natural process of the landscape so that it may be incorporated into a design and utilized to its fullest extent. Not understanding this process can be detrimental to a design and could cause more problems in the future. Over all I really enjoyed this lecture and it gave me a better appreciation for the natural process that the occurs on the landscape and how we must be aware of it and respect it.