SKOGSKYRKOGARDEN - The Woodland Cemetery_ Stockholm study trip

For me, the culture of cemetery parks is very unique and unfamiliar. Because, in Korea, there are just few cemetery parks and the monumental landscape is rare yet. Therefore, visiting Skogskyrkogården was very meaningful experience and impressive to me. I have been fascinated by the solemn and tranquil atmosphere of big scale nature landscape. The harmony of architecture and huge peaceful nature landscape makes mysterious but beautiful atmosphere. I suppose the architectural design of Skogskyrkogården has reasonable limit to respect nature landscape. Skogskyrkogården is designated as a UNESCO's World Heritage site in 1989.

Conceptual Landscape : Paris as a laboratory for the park of the 21st century

For my final landscape studio project, my main concern was making strong concept. I have found strong and successful landscape projects has strong concept and it gives strong meanings to the site.

Landscape journal Topos deals with some conceptual landscape design in their 33rd issue: Intention and Reality. In particular, chapter: 'France: from theory to practice' introduces two French conceptual and theoretical park design. Parc André Citroën and Parc de la Villette demonstrate that a theoretical basis fundamentally influences design.

I was hugely inspired by Bernard Tschumi's cinematographic themes for Parc de la Villette. In 1983 Tschumi won the international competition for the planning of the Parc de la Villette, He designed 'spatial and programmatic sequences' for the park.



Tschumi was in charge of planning, in addition to the design of the follies, and superimposed three ordering systems: the points of the follies, the lines of the paths, and the planes of the sport areas. This network questions the order that is inherent to architecture with a superimposition that attempts to bring together three non-related systems. The process and arbitrary result ignore the basic tenets of architecture throughout history-composition, hierarchy and order. Each follie is based on a cube and deconstructed, according to rules of transformation (repetition, distortion, superimposition, interruption and fragmentation), without any functional considerations.


My final design for mile end park redevelopment has storyline which has five different programmes and sequences depend on the surrounding conditions. Although I was inspired by Tschumi's concpetual approach, however, I added some functions to my desgin. Because I believe 'functions' of urban park landscape are also important for visitors. It was my first try for conceptual approach for park design and was so interesting.

Emotional design

Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain is my favourite landscape design in London becuase this brilliant water feature successfully communicates with visitors.

Diana was the best loved princess in Britain and the fountain is a monument in Hyde Park for her.

I believe good design is offering great experience to user(visitors). Gustafson Poter succeed in evocating Diana's soft character and her ethical activities through using water. The most impressive fact is that the physical elements of fountain design such as smooth shape of the fountain, or materials enable people to move emotionally! I believe it is the power of good design.

Particulary, I suppose the design for peaceful sound from flowing water was best idea to reflect Diana's character. In order to make various kind of water flowing sound, they designed different depth and different width depends on the part of the fountain.




Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain

Location: Hyde Park, London, UK
Completion Year: 2004
Designer: Gustafson Porter

Picasso to Julie Mehretu modern drawings, the British Museum collection

Picasso to Julie Mehretu modern drawings, the British Museum collection
7 October 2010 –25 April 2011


Currently, the British Museum exhibits many of the great artists' drawings of the 20th century collected over the past 35 years.
The collection starts with Picasso’s study for his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and concludes with Julie Mehretu, the Ethiopian-born artist who is one of the stars of the international contemporary art scene with acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim in New York and across the world.

The collected drawings are not selected artists' famous major works. But, I believe it is rare opportunity to enjoy their practice pieces and early studies. (unfortunately, taking photos was exhibited.)

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia

The theme of British Museum's Room 24 is Living and Dying and when I visited Brisith Museum 'Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia' was attracting people's attention.

a 13m long 0.4m wide fabric incoperates over 14,000 drugs. According to the description of the piece, It is the estimated average prescribed to every person in Britain in their lifetime.

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia explores the approach to health in Britian today.
It contains a lifetime supply of prescribed drugs knitted into two lengths of fabric, and illustrates the medical stories of one woman and one man.

Through this object, Susie Freeman, Dr Liz Lee and David Critchley wanted to say that maintaining a sense of well-being is more complex than just treating episodes of illness.

Ecobuild 2011

Ecobuild is the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. This year Ecobuild was held at the Excel Centre in east London with more than 600 speakers and 1300 exhibitors, all held over 3 days from Tuesday 1st March.

I attended two days and interestingly in this year Kingston University launch a library of 1200 samples of sustainable materials that use fewer virgin resources and that are easily renewed.

To be honest, comparing with last year, I felt Ecobuild have become a giant commercial event. There were a lot of material and product companies and some parts lost point for sustainability and future environment.

For me, the most interesting session of Ecobuild was seminars and lectures for sustainable design and landscape. In particular, Grant Associates’s presentation for their winning design ‘Garden by the bay’ in Singapore was really impressive. (Even it was not entirely focused sustainable design..) They described their strong narrative planting scheme with different story and environmental concept. Moreover, I could realise their design consideration for relationship between building and garden. But I still want to know more about their scheme for ecosystem of the garden.

[Stockholm Trip 2011] Hammarby Sjöstad

When I visited Hammarby Sjöstad, it was entirely covered by snow so that it was hard to look. But, the winter night sight view was also offering unique and enjoynable atmosphere of Stockholm's new morden cityscape.This new urban development in residential area is designed environmentally friendly and enough to attract an urban population. The public space is designed to take advantage of the proximity to the water and street life is developing along the quays. Most uses at ground floor level create public interest.

My small aim of visiting Hammarby Sjöstad was exploring details of landscape design. I focused on how designers considered for materials, delicate shape and elements for designing morden residential landscape.

[TED] Don Norman: The three ways that good design makes you happy

“Design is to transform the world from the current to the desired state for other people. ” - Brian P. Baily(UIUC)

What is good design?
and What matters should designer care for their final design. During my university studies and when I do my studio projects, I am mostly seeking this questions to get good solution. and I have found my interests are focused in the relationship between space, nature and people and the interaction between these. In my designs I like to develop this relationship further.

In this video, Don Norman indicates some important point for people who hope their design makes good experience to its user.
he studies how real people interact with design, exploring the gulf between what a designer intends and what a regular person actually wants.

but he is himself and that makes him so pleasurable to listen to. So enthusiastic about his subject that i carried on lstening to him and started looking at more of his talks.

I believe his thinking and theory are of course hugely related with landscaep designing. Because Landscape architecture is also the design process to solve exisiting problems and offer good experience to its users. Urban designer and landscape architecture have to care about how their design will effect to its users and visitors.

I also recommend his books.

UK Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010, Heatherwick Studio

I am hugely inspired by this facsinating pavilion which is the winning design of Shanghai Expo 2010. The design team is Heatherwick Studio based in London. The theme of the Expo is “Better City, Better Life” and a key client objective is for the UK Pavilion to be one of the most popular attractions. I believe they strongly accomplished that aims with fabulous design concept and story of 'The Seed Cathedral'. The Seed Cathedral is a platform to show the work of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and their Millennium Seedbank.

This video describes well the narrative of their design concept.



Their works are always strong and creatvie. I also like and want to recommend their lots of other creative architectural works and sculptures susch as rolling bridge in Paddington Basin, London.


Here is their website : http://www.heatherwick.com/

Images, section drawing and original information from - http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

'Landscape is.. Undertanding' _ Sam Johnston from Gustafson Porter

The forth speaker for question of 'what is landscape?' is Sam Johnston. Recently, He is working in Gustafson Porter landscape practice and teaching at Kingston University landscape studio.

His presentation was also about the answer for the question 'what is landscape?'. He described how should we feel and think for 'landscape'.

I like the way he define landscape.
He said,
"everything is under the sun.. out there and in here."
It means we need to have an understanding of the other and an awareness of self.
Those things contain character, emotion, opinion, culture, history, and future, past, present.

Also, He defined; landscape is 'Two sides of our skin, the two sides of consciousness and the two sides of our responsibilities.'

After his lecture I have found that I need to concentrate and be honest to what I taste, smell and see.
I need to try to understand everything around my every day.
Because it is landscape! :)

'Landscape is .. telling the story' _ Studito Weave.

'Landscape is .. telling the story' _ Studito Weave.

Before I attended their lecture, I had already known Studito Weave through their famous work 'The Longest Bench' in littlehampton. Maria and Je who are founded Studio Weave presented their creative, young and energetic works. They are working diverse set of projects across the country. Maria and Je defined 'landscape' as 'story', becuase when they start to develop their project, they focus on researching its historic background character and use the narrative of spaces for their design concept. Most of their architectural, landscape architectural works have some story, therefore understanding their project is like listening a story. They believe strong historic background gives reasonable link and concept to new proposal and I was inspired by this interesting way that Studio Weave approaching to project sites.



Here is their website: http://www.studioweave.com/

'Landscape is .. Experimenting' _ A Models

'Landscape is .. Experimenting' _ A Models

Christian Spencer Davies introduced 'A-models' which is his beautiful model making practice. He presented the series of his models pictures, and it showed how models represent real architectural projects. I like his sophisticated choice of matching colours and materials for models. My favourite is particularly Black & Gold. Beautiful models can support architectural design and could make it as a winning design for competitions. He also described how he get inspirations for his model. It was from various kinds of art works and coming accidentally. I did not really know well about model making practice, however after joining his lecture, I have realised making model is also one of the strong and independent part of the whole architectural design. I became really really big fan of his works!

Here is his website: http://www.amodels.co.uk

What is Landscape?

As a student who is studying landscape architecture, I am always asking the question 'what is landscape?' during my entire academic years in University. The idea of landscape is always chainging and we need to make our own definition for landscape. As a final year student, in order to go further to my next step, I am trying to describe 'landscape' in my way. During over two days in this focus week, The Landscape Interface Studio in Kingston University made a great opportunity to explore many diverse and challenging ideas of landscape through presentations and conversations. Six individuals discussed their work in the context of “What is landscape?” and they tried to make their description of landscape.

the programme and six individuals were:
***** Tuesday 25 / 2:00 – 5:00pm *****
Heather Ring, Wayward Plants (www.waywardplants.org)
Christian Spencer Davies, AModels (www.amodels.co.uk)
Maria Smith, Studio Weave (www.studioweave.com)

***** Thursday 27 / 2:00 – 5:00pm *****
Sam Johnston, Gustafson Porter (www.gustafson-porter.com)
Will Sandy, Three Green Dots
Trenton Oldfield, This is Not A Gateway (www.thisisnotagateway.net)

I attended both two days presentations and conversations and it allowed me to observe other peoples way of thinking, getting inspirations, and solving problems and to share their concerns.

[Film Review]How much does your building weigh, Mr. Foster?

This 78mins film tracks the success of the world's leading architects, Norman Foster, and his continuing quest to improve the quality of life through design. It includes interview not only with Norman himself but also from colleagues, friends and other colleagues ranging from artists such as Anish kappor, architects including former partner Richard Rogers to U2 musician Bono.

For me, there were two interesting aspects that was covered by the film. The first thing was his journey from design student to pioneering architect and second thing was Normans ecological and sustainabillity ethos. Indeed, his buildings have provided revolutionary ideas about sustainability issues. Most importantly and ground breaking though is his work on Masdar City, the world’s first and only self-sustainable city in Abu Dhabi, relying completely on its own resources and renewable energy.

The film is so beautiful and captivate to watch that I felt the run time is too short.

After watching the film, I wanted to meet his work in real world and visited British Museum to see and feel his masterpiece in modern world.

Graphic communication and techniques in landscape architecture

Graphic techniques for masterplanning
24.01.11 11am–2pm, Colum O’Keeffe, Group A Studio 167

In order to improve communication of design intent through graphics and further understand graphical standards in professional practice, third focus week is mainly focused on improving Graphic techniques.

I attended one day special class offered by my university studio. Colum made a session to teach graphic skill especially for masterplan. Our group learned advanced level of photoshop and Autocad skills. Above image is what I made during his 3 hours class. It was a great short masterclass!!

Ecological Landscape Project Case Studies

New urban culture must be created in which untouched natural areas and human density are developed conjointly so that they respond to real human needs and values... The city of the future will be denser, and nature will have greater presence there. The relation between 'architecture and city' will give way to new relation between 'architecture and nature'.

Over the last decades, the importance of relationship between city and nature has been higly emphasised. I believe that many of recent landscape projects are in responsible for approaching sustainable landscape design. I reaserched some case studies of ecologically designed parks which have the clear objectives to encourage visitors to connect and enjoy nature. The Parks that I chosen was:

1. Beijing Olympic Forest Park in China
2. Landscape Park Duisburg Nord in Germany
3. The Red Ribbon Tanghe River Park in China

Eclogical Park Study 1: Beijing Olympic Forest Park

Beijing Olympic Forest Park: "Axis to Nature”

Landscape Architects: Sasaki Associates, Hu Jie
Location: Beijing, China
Year of Completion: 2008

Titled the “Axis to Nature”, the Olympic Forest Park is the “green lung” of the Beijing Olympic Venue. The goal of the park design is to create an ecologically sound, publicly accessible open space. The local biodiversity was carefully studied for planting concept. The Wetlands provide recreational areas and establish a diverse ecosystem for insects, aquatic plants and other wildlife. The many educational facilities will encourage city dwellers to develop a better relationship with nature. Educational themes include the understanding of plants as part of nature, the cultural context of landscape, and ecological technology such as the collection and re-use of storm water.

Eclogical Park Study 2: Landscape Park Duisburg Nord

Landscape Park Duisburg Nord,
Landscape Adventure park formed by industry

Landscape Architects: Latz + Partner
Location: Duisburg Nord, Germany
Year of Completion: 1991

The existing patterns and fragments formed by industrial use were taken, developed and re-interpreted with a new syntax, existing fragments were interlaced into a new "landscape". The whole park is a big adventure playground. Old industrial structures are transformed by adaptation and new interpretation: Fantasy allows to use them in new ways, to deal with them and to play with them.

Eclogical Park Study 3: The Red Ribbon Tanghe River Park

The Red Ribbon Tanghe River Park, Reconciling Water Management, Landscape Design and Ecology

Landscape Architects: Turenscape
Location: Qinhuangdao, China
Year of Completion: 2005

The Minimum Intervention Approach to Urban Greenway
Against a background of natural terrain and vegetation, is a “red ribbon” spanning five hundred meters, which integrates the functions of lighting, seating, environmental interpretation, and orientation. While preserving as much of the natural river corridor as possible during the process of urbanization, this project demonstrates how a minimal design solution can achieve a dramatic improvement to the landscape.The major design objective was how to preserve the natural habitats along the river while creating the new urban uses of recreation and education.

Graphic Communication for Landscape Architecture: Learning Auto CAD 2011

Landscape architecture must be able to convey their ideas to other professionals and clients. Good communication skills are essential and digital representation of plans and proposals are an important skill in landscape architecture in order to develop their presentations, proposals, and studies. Therefore many employers require excellent design, CAD skills, and preferably 2d and 3d rendering skills.

During the third week of this year’s focus weeks, I will have a self learning week for improving my ability for using Auto CAD.

I have found some great on-line tutorials for learnign CAD and decided to follow it's curriculums. The schedule is:

Day 1: Introduction of AotoCAD 2011, NEW, OPEN, SAVE, SAVEAS, LINE, ERASE
Day 2: OSNAP (Editing Line)
Day 3: CIRCLE, ARC
Day 4: OFFSET ,TRIM, EXTEND
Day 5: COPY ,MOVE, PAN,MIRROR, LIMITS, ZOOM
Day 6: ARRAY, FILLET,CHAMFER
Day 7: ELLIPSE,RECTANG,POLYGON
Day 8: UNITS,REGEN,LIST,DIST
Day 9: BREAK,STRETCH,LENGTHEN,JOIN
Day 10: Practice 1

Day 11: SCALE,ROTATE,AREA,BOUNDARY
Day 12: PLINE,PLEDIT,SPLINE,XLINE,RAY,EXPLODE
Day 13: POINT, DDPTYPE,DIVIDE,MEASURE,NODE
Day 14: LINETYPE,COLOR,LTSCALE,CHANGE,MATCHPROP
Day 15: LAYER
Day 16: Practice 2

Day 17: SOLID,TRACE,DONUT,FILL
Day 18: STYLE, TEXT, MTEXT, DDEDIT
Day 19: MLSTYLE, MLINE, MLEDIT
Day 20: BLOCK, WBLOCK, INSERT
Day 21: HATCH, GRADIENT, HATCHEDIT

The running time of each individual tutorial takes about 20~25 minutes. Therefore my plan is taking 2~3 tutorials everyday. I am really looking foward to that I could master CAD skills during this focus week!