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!

[Film Review]Restored 'Metropolis' in BFI

I was really lucky to watch the restored masterpiece Metropolis in BFI. Metropolis is a monumental work. When it was made in 1927, it was Germany's most expensive feature film, a canvas for director Fritz Lang's increasingly extravagant ambitions (it took sixteen months to film). The film's visual effects and set designs for imaginary future city were so nice and real that it was hard to believe that it is produced about 90 years ago.

The film is set in the massive, sprawling futuristic mega-city Metropolis, whose society is divided into two classes: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Completely separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole. One man from the "thinkers" dares visit the underground where the workers toil, and is astonished by what he sees.

The director Lang, inspired by the skyline of New York, created a whole new vision of cities. His inspiration created a special image of the futuristic city that is still enough to impress modern audiences. During watching this movie, I was particularly focused on its architectural background and the scenery of the future city.

The film contains cinematic and thematic links to German Expressionism, though the architecture as portrayed in the film appears based on contemporary Modernism and Art Deco. The latter, a brand-new style in Europe at the time, had not reached mass production yet and was considered an emblem of the bourgeois class, and similarly associated with the ruling class in the film. Rotwang's Art Deco laboratory with its lights and industrial machinery is a forerunner of the Streamline Modern style, highly influential on the look of Frankenstein-style laboratories of "mad scientists" in pop culture. When applied to science fiction, this style is sometimes called Raygun Gothic.

Metropolis's New Tower of Babel(left) and Brueghel's Painting Tower of Babel(right)

The Complete Metropolis - Official Trailer:

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSExdX0tds4