Workshop II: Landform and Planting Design Plants Audit

Catalog description

Workshop II combines two of the most elemental tools in the practice of landscape architecture: landform and planting design. Grading - the shaping and sculpting of the landform - is both art and science, and thus Workshop II aims to provide an appreciation of landform as an evocative component in the design vocabulary as well as a critical tool in solving difficult design problems. The basic techniques and strategies of grading design (slopes, terraces, water management, grade change devices) will be introduced, practiced and reinforced, so that grading design becomes an integral part of the students' design approach. Lecture, field trips, modeling, in-class exercises, and group projects will be used. The Planting component provides students with a working overview of the principles and processes of planting design. Plants will be considered both as individual elements and as part of larger dynamic systems. The natural distribution of plants, concepts of plant community and successional patterns, and the relationship of planting an topography will be used as the initial framework for planting design. Planting design typologies will be examined as an outgrowth of these "natural" patterns. The role of plants as a key element in the structural design of the landscape will be explored through a combination of modeling, plan and section drawing, temporal studies, writing, field trips and case studies. Emphasis will be placed on process and evolution: the temporality of planting (daily, seasonal and annual changes), establishment and maintenance of plantings, and the process of planting design. During the first week of May, a five-day field ecology course focuses on techniques of urban revitalization, sustainable land use, reclamation, and restoration. The field trips offer insight into the diversity of approaches to using plants to promote positive environmental change.