Class Reflection: November 13th

I found the lectures from this class very inspiring. I was extremely interested in what professor McLaughlin spoke of. In fact it has inspired the city my group will create for studio.
The story of the 35 year study by David Nash with a wooden boulder is incredible. I am always inspired by stories of such dedication. We rely so much on technology to answer our questions and wonders quickly. However, Nash's experiment shows the effects of water shaping the land at the rate it is actually experienced IN nature. Discovering areas of deposit and seasonality cannot be described as wholesomely through satelite images.
I also found it totally insane that such similar landscapes have been affected so differently as a result of political policies. I can not remember the actual law behind it, but the area just south of the border at Alberta is extremely erroded due to over cultivation. The policy that influenced this gave some sort of incentive to the farmers in the states, whereas due also to policy on the Canadian side it is mostly prairie grass cattle ranges, resulting in very little erosion.

The second presenter was from Germany, and unfortunately his name escapes me. I thought his garden designs were fantastic. Also I liked that he showed us very successful designs on a variety of budgets.

Class Reflection November 13

McLaughlan's first portion of last week's lecture again inspired me by deepening my interest in landscape ecology. I found Nash's "Wooden Boulder" to be a beautiful study. The way that Nash placed the boulder in the river bed demonstrated the way that natural forms are shaped by water. McLaughlan also discussed the effect of climate change on landscapes, of how dry areas are become wet, and wet dry, and he, like Jae often has, seemed to encourage the class to really become sustainable. His juxtaposition of massive California sewers and bioswales made the later seem the only alternative. He also discussed more subtle features in our environments which need to be considered. He asked why an eaves trough would run off onto concrete pad when it could instead fall into a pond? These are solutions which seem obvious, but which often go overlooked. McLaughlan's presentation of case studies, and especially that of UBC's sustainable street gave me a vision of what a more sustainable future could look like. By incorporating native plants into a street-scape we can reduce storm water retention, but we will also give a new culture and identity to the community, who will be able to see themselves reflected in their native vegetation.

The second speaker was also from the Landscape Faculty, but his presentation of Garden's differed significantly from the first speaker. His presentation was equally engaging but it presented landscape architecture within the urban context, something we have not seen a lot of. I really enjoyed the narratives he and his colleagues created around gardens. Their abstraction of the context, in particular in Snow White and the Seven Gardens, created innovative gardens based on narrative themes, like Social Climbers and Jealous Neighbours. I also responded to his comment that garden's should contain things that are rare and precious, but that our notion of what are garden is can be expanded, even to include an entire landscape. The speakers projects succeeded at adapting landscapes in the urban setting by considering the cultural and social contexts of the environments.

Class Reflection November 13, 2008

I really enjoyed the presentation that Mr. MchLaughlan highlighted that showed the boulder moving down the stream and through time. What I thought was quite poignant was how nicely it exemplified the force of the natural environment, and it’s ability to constantly change and re-arrange the landscape.

Our second speaker, I too missed his name, really inspired me! I loved the way that his landscape design projects incorporated a level of humor, fun and intrigue (ie: snow white and the seven gardens). I also really enjoyed how that particular project seemed to acknowledge different people’s preferences and worked within their design parameters to create beautiful spaces. By giving people options and levels of intensity for their personal gardens they will in turn appreciate and learn from their environment that much more willingly rather than say if they moved into a home with a sprawling garden that they weren’t able to care for.

Like Kaleigh I also was inspired by the notion of garden existing for a moment in time, something that happens only for a moment, that allows you to experience something that can never be re-created.

Class Reflections, November 13th, 2008

The presentation on landscape form and processes proved to be very informative and quite inspiring as well. Dr. Ted McLaughlan spoke of the continuous processes that shape the land and the cycles of growth, death and decay inherent in our natural environment. He expressed the significance of human interaction with the landscape and the notable role we play in the way landscapes have evolved. One thing I found particularly interesting, was the concept of scale pertaining to landscapes. People usually view the land from a generalized perspective, rarely extremely close up and rarely from very far away. However, when looking at and thinking about a broad range of scales, from macro to micro, there is so much evidence in that landscape telling us about its history as well as its future. Knowing the processes occurring and that have occurred on a landscape at every scale is essential in making intelligent, sustainable choices. Humans have made very clear their imprint on this earth in their ability to alter and destroy natural landscapes. The extent to which we have reshaped the earth is so large that natural processes that were once sustainable are now completely destroyed. Our dependence on infrastructure has created huge a disconnect with the earth and in turn transformed the way we understand and respect the land. A return to allowing natural processes take their course is one way we can reshape how value the planet. Before any human intervention, nature regulated the environment intuitively. The solution is simply to rediscover these functions and embrace what is naturally there instead of creating engineered solutions to problems that can be solved much more organically.
The second half of the class centered around gardens, focusing more on an abstract definition of one. The idea of a garden conjuring up experiences, existing as a moment in time, was something I found so beautiful. The example of a floating garden, a triangle of flowers placed on the water, allowed to float freely and be transformed by the natural environment instilled a sense of hope within me. Perhaps it is this same idea of allowing nature to take it's course and acknowledging the beauty and usefulness in this process.

Reflections for November 13 Class

This week was another split class. Our first guest speaker was Dr. Ted McLaughlan from the Landscape department. I found this lecture to be so useful for our current studio project of creating a city.  He started off the lecture with an example from the artist David Nash. By creating a wooden boulder, Nash was able to see how water would change the boulder over time. He kept track of this boulder for 35 years!!! This example really illustrated how everything we design is put in a state of flux as soon as it's made. Definitely a thought we need to keep in mind when designing something as large as a city. 

An urgent issue Dr. McLaughlan brought up was the depletion of our fresh water resources. He really put the situation into perspective by showing a diagram of the entire water supply of earth as a large water jug and only one table spoon of it was potable water. It wasn't all doom and gloom though,  we were introduced different methods where nature can be used to do the tasks of water retention and water purification. It seems to me that most of the solutions to the problems we have today can be found in natural ecosystems. The most uplifting story Dr. McLauglan shared with us was the return of pickerel to Sturgeon Creek. Watching the pickerel spawn will definitely be on my list of things "to do" when I have a bit more time... I also enjoyed this lecture because he pointed out something that seemed so obvious that I never realized: the progression of a stream system looks like a growing tree!

Our next speaker was also from the Landscape department. I had seen this (almost) exact lecture last year in Intro to Environmental design, but nonetheless it was a good refresher. The images of former projects he showed us were very beautiful. I was especially drawn to Snow White and the Seven Gardens because of it's cleverness. Our speaker (I missed his name) brought to light the things a garden is/could be: a place of cultivation, a moment in time. All the projects shown were so clean in their design, really demonstrating that anything superfluous should be left out.