The methods used to illustrate our ideas about landscape consist of marks and data that create a network of information that informs us and others about designed works. These methods are premised on a system that displays a final product, one that is polished but also stagnant and unable to be compromised. By contrast, much of the development processes of an actual landscape (i.e., growth, seasonality, singularity, and decay) are not at all prevalent in the visual language that represents the field of landscape architecture.

The introduction of new methods of constructing drawings digitally as well as digitizing analog documents is an exploration that much of the field of landscape architecture is not utilizing let alone exploiting. Landscape documentation has not been fully explored and the complexity that a site already contains or may contain in the future is left unconsidered, without a thought or debate. Layers of time, amorphousness, and potential are each exploratory paths that cannot be documented through built form, but are important aspects of a project that need to be developed and represented.

A representative drawing, one that depicts a single idea, is the predominant form of our visual communication. The integration of a designer’s process and individuality (personal signature) is a missing component that could add fascinating information and personalization into constructed illustrations. The documentation of such processes allows for a project to record ideas that are becoming instead of being, ones that could reveal many facets of an intricate idea. The absence of process in our drawing methods not only dismisses that opportunity but creates a distance between designers and people external to the discipline and further separates the potential for collaboration to strengthen built forms and systems. A construct drawing, on the other hand, one that is built from many forms of media, contains pieces that allow viewers to glimpse the people who built them. The result is much more interesting work that could explain the considerations informing the placement of objects within a landscape system and what influences other forms of design have upon the creation of a space.

These forms of drawing are by no means new and have been practiced for decades using found images, different tools for making marks, and media surfaces. A shift in personal values that places emphasis on the creation and documentation of individual process is what’s required now for the prevalence and use of such drawings. As technologies and various forms of media multiply, the limitations of traditional drawing methods will become obsolete, as will the inability to convey the necessary complexity of landscape systems and the processes used to complete a design. It’s time to start exploring methods used to create and convey ideas that will not presuppose an exclusive relationship between our documented work and our thought processes.

This drawing by Perry Kulper, an architect and associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, was created in response to the Central California History Museum competition. Kulper’s new book, Pamphlet Architecture 34: Fathoming the Unfathomable, with Nat Chard, is available through Princeton Architectural Press.

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One Response to “An Evolving Construct: Toward Representative Drawing Methods”

nunger8

I don’t agree, read http://www.thehousethatlarsbuilt.com/2014/04/lessons-learned-your-first-idea-is-not.html
– Nereida
May 6th, 2014 Reply

Cultural Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism: Corporate Campus 3.0

As populations have begun a trend toward ‘re-urbanization,’ companies are faced with creating workplaces that centralize their business while also giving employees the sustainable, community-driven environment they desire. There is no greater place to see this creative tension than in the hotbed of the technology industry — Silicon Valley.

Demographic and sociological changes are transforming how a campus “works” for companies attracting mobile, educated, talented employees. These knowledge workers seek out the best fit for their career, of course, but they are also highly motivated by sociological and lifestyle aspirations. That means companies find they can no longer just ‘build it, and they will come,’ but are creating workplaces that are often a key reason an employee chooses the company, and more importantly, stays.

Cultural urbanism and landscape urbanism, two design trends that have been taking on a strong influence in real estate development, are springing up in Silicon Valley and San Francisco and resonating in places from Beijing to Salt Lake City. What do these guideposts offer facility designers worldwide?

Beijing Finance Street, Photography by Tom Fox.

In Northern California, workplace design is creating spaces that take into account the cultural and physical surroundings that make the area unique and attractive in the first place. This ‘cultural urbanism’ borrows from a place’s context so that facilities enhance the work experience as well as contribute to the communities in which they are built. In purely urban environments like San Francisco, companies such as Twitter, Salesforce and others are adopting spaces that reflect the urban vibe and excitement of living and working in one of the world’s greatest cities.

It’s a slightly different story in Silicon Valley, whose origins were orchards and farms before technology took root. The context and attractions of this suburban environment derive more from the landscapes and outdoors — and also bring the outdoors in. ‘Landscape urbanism’ suggests that facility designers approach a campus here even more through the lens of the land and natural systems and literally build upon those cues. But even Silicon Valley is becoming more urban as densities increase along highway and rail corridors.

According to a report published by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in 2012, 30 percent of the total population of Silicon Valley is 25-44 years old. While this is essentially average for American cities, it’s unusual for this once-suburban locale whose very name — Silicon Valley — eludes having a main city or “address.” Every day, masses of young professionals commute from surrounding areas. They want to work in the technology industry, but also want aspects of an urban lifestyle with the convenience of the city.

In all these situations, corporate real estate directors and developers are changing the standards of the corporate campus — urban and suburban alike — from one dictated by the car and an interior-focused workplace, to one of landscape-driven, culturally-resonant urban design. These workplaces incorporate a sensibility of their individual settings, while maximizing the opportunities of sustainable design, ample public space and local infrastructure.

The question, then, is how do developers and designers create places that promote cultural identity and foster more frequent and higher-quality social interaction, both within the workplace to foster ideas and creativity, and within the community to enhance responsible corporate citizenship?

This was part of the ASLA Northern California Chapter Lecture Series this Spring 2013 (May 21, 2013). Read the full article on The LEADER, May/June 2013, here.

Rene Bihan is the Managing Principal of SWA Group’s San Francisco Office and the lead writer for “Landscape Is The Answer,“ a blog series here on IDEAS focused on understanding landscape (and design’s) role in creating better urban, social, and environmental places.

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Posted by ReneBihan
in Landscape Infrastructure, Landscape is the Answer, Landscape Urbanism
on 20 June, 2013

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Which vessels sink and which ones float? Houston’s bayous are good for more than draining our floodwaters, they are also places for play. The Rice Design Alliance (RDA) knows this and we were happy to attend the second annual Anything That Floats event on April 28 at Sesquicentennial Park along Buffalo Bayou. Sponsored by the… Read more »

Posted by Jenny Janis
in Bayou By Us
on 20 June, 2012

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In the decade since Salt Lake City hosted the Olympic Games, the City has continued its transformation into a very urban place. The strict grid of numbered streets that radiate from Temple Square has been an effective framework for the layers of sophisticated urban design and infrastructure investments. Thanks to one of the most comprehensive transit systems in the country and broad sidewalks that provide real estate for the City’s expanding urban forest, residents and visitors alike have embraced the walkable downtown.

I was in Salt Lake City last week for the grand opening event for our project at City Creek Center, which was a huge hit. 700 new housing units, 1 million square feet of revamped downtown office space, iconic shops and the novel stream that trickles through the new outdoor shopping street have been graciously lauded for the project’s success.

This project juxtaposes the seemingly natural and the very contrived. When we first met with our clients Taubman Centers and City Creek Reserve they talked about resurrecting the original City Creek which once flowed through the site, but has been buried underground since the development of the downtown area. At first we struggled to get beyond the semantics – you can’t restore the creek if there is an underground parking structure in its path – but we understood that they wanted to recreate the experience of the original pristine waterway. We wanted the creek to live up to the idea of a natural creek, but that it be rooted in a contemporary setting –requiring attention to the detailing and emphasis on the urban context.

As it turns out, the man-made City Creek is now the largest flowing watercourse built on structure in the U.S., and it is also one of the most technical designs that SWA has undertaken in its 50-year history. We used local trade professionals and sources whenever possible including rock work by Outside the Lines and Kepco+, raw material from Utah’s Brown’s Canyon near Park City, and quarried by Delta Stone Co. Some 600 boulders were used for the creek, promenade seating areas and other aspects including the 17-foot cascade that takes the creek down from the upper level to the street level.

Where we had to supplement the locally cut stone, we relied completely on technology. Rock cut in Minnesota arrived and fit together perfectly with the rocks that were cut in China. I would argue that this landscape was just as technically precise as the architecture that surrounds it.

And the architecture is a fantastic complement. ZGF designed the residential towers. Local architecture firm, FFKR led the office design and Callison Architects in partnership with Hobbs + Black designed the retail center itself.
But, to me, the real story is on the street.

The context of the site goes beyond the immediate architecture. As a streetscape, the project heavily relies on its interaction with the city around it. The urban design challenge was in converting the supersize, vehicular Salt Lake City grid to a comfortable dimension for residents, office workers, shoppers and passersby. By giving boundaries to the city’s 22-foot-wide sidewalks and punctuating them with moments of garden nodes and places to sit, we were able to infill empty space with urban space. The new proportion not only has to relate to the surrounding architecture and infrastructure, but it is the cornerstone to creating an urban atmosphere that connects the meaning of the site and the project itself to the character of the city.

I like to think we were successful. Do you?

Weigh in on our Facebook page.

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Posted by ReneBihan
in Landscape is the Answer
on 17 April, 2012

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September 2011 marks the three year anniversary of the opening of the new California Academy of Sciences museum. As the project landscape architect — led by John Loomis in our Sausalito office — we look back at the green roof design and its performance. Living Roof Performance Stormwater Capture The 106,500 square foot green roof… Read more »

Living Roof Performance

Stormwater Capture

The 106,500 square foot green roof absorbs 3.5 million gallons of rainwater each year, reduces stormwater runoff by 93%.

Natural Building Ventilation

Cool air runs down the steep slopes of the hills on the roof, funnels it into the open-air plaza and vents warm air from the building through the skylights. Skylights are mounted with sensors that gauge the interior temperatures and automatically open at a given threshold. The roof keeps the interior temperature an average of 10 degrees cooler than a standard roof would and, thanks to the evapo-transporation of the retained moisture on the roof surface, animals and people benefit from its natural cooling effect.

Energy Production

The 60,000 photovoltaic cells that surround the living roof creeate shade for pedestrians below and generate approximately 213,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. This prevents the release of 405,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emission into the air.

Public Education

Its role in promoting public awareness of living roofs was part of the reason the project was awarded LEED Platinum certification. The museum expected to see 1.6 million visitors annually, but the actually visitor count has far exceeded those projections.

Native Habitat

The living roof is planted with nine native California plant species including Fragaria chiloensis, Prunella vulgaris, Armeria maritime, Sedum spathulitholium, Layia platyglossa, Lupinus bicolor, Eschscholzia californica, Plantago erecta, and Lasthenia californica. Each native plant attracts a variety of native insects, birds, moths, wasps, bees, and other bugs essential to the bay area ecosystem. We tested, with the help of our ecology consultant Rana Creek, a total of 25 native plant species on site for their resilience within the micro climate of the museums location. Read the California Academy’s living-roof habitat monitoring report.

Heat Island Mitigation

While evidence of heat island mitigation is anecdotal, The museum area is cooler than average surrounding area temperatures, but this could be largely attributed to its location within Golden Gate Park. The fact that the roof is irrigated to keep the plants looking good all year likely contributes to lower termperatures than if the plants were allowed to go dormant during the warmest months. The new building footprint is also 1.5 acres less than the original and these 1.5 acres were returned to the site as green space. On the flip side, arguments can be made that the building itself obstructs cool air movement from the ocean. There are currently no reports that confirm or deny these claims.

Cost Comparison

- The total project cost was $488 million.

- The final construction cost was $258 million.

- The cost of achieving LEED Platinum was 8 percent of the hard cost of the project.

- The cost of the green roof was $19 per square foot.

- The cost of the green roof construction was an additional $9-16 per square foot, yielding a total of $28 – $35 per square foot, approximately 3 to 4 times the cost of traditional roofs (including cool roofs qualifying for LEED solar reflectance credit), which cost approximately $6 to $10 per square foot.

Challenges

- The use of irrigation on the green roof over time is still subject to a debate. While the design intent is to remove irrigation systems and let the green roof run dry during the summer seasons (representative of a native California landscape) – the image of the green roof has become so iconic that the roof is still being maintained – and irrigated – today. The long-term vision is to remove the irrigation system.

- The roof can only be accessed through the elevator to the roof. Unfortunately, the maintenance crew has to use the same elevator – and there is no storage capability for supplies on the roof.

- It remains to be seen how the roof will last over time. Most buildings require long-term weathering and re-waterproofing. In 40- or 60-year’s time, what will be the procedure for updating and maintaining the roof and building, particularly one of innovative and unique construction?

- Deemed a “high maintenance superstar,” by writers such as Linda McIntyre (LAM), the roof is both celebrated and lamented for its high cost in time, money, and energy. While critics state that the cost is excessive and could have been used to implement a greater quantity of green roofs; McIntyre points out the difficulty of quantifying the success of a design that “captures the imaginations of millions of people,” that teaches and educates millions of people, communicating that design and sustainability matters and inspiring dozens of new green designs as a result.

Image Gallery:

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Posted by GerdoAquino
in Landscape Infrastructure
on 20 January, 2012

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Earlier this week ULI awarded our Beijing Finance Street project with their Award of Excellence. Beijing Finance Street is a 3.36 million-square-meter (36.2 million-sf) mixed-use development that features offices, luxury hotels, retail space, and apartments organized around a meandering central park. For me, this award is confirmation of the importance of this project type. ULI… Read more »

Posted by ReneBihan
in Landscape is the Answer
on 30 June, 2011

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Posts Tagged: Architecture

An Evolving Construct: Toward Representative Drawing Methods

One Response to “An Evolving Construct: Toward Representative Drawing Methods”

nunger8