Landscape Representation III: Landform and Ecological Process

This course seeks to expand the fundamental relationships between dynamic landscape processes and the methods in which they are understood, conveyed, and graphically communicated. As a continuation of Landscape Representation I and II, the course is positioned to examine leading models in digital representation techniques as they relate to \’time-based\’ successional landscape and urban design operations, processes, and systems analytics. The course provides a foundation into the exploration of digital media and the subsequent modes of conceptual, organizational, and formal expression.The focus of the course will be on the simulation, creation, and execution of methods in visual communication and representation of landscape processes. The breadth of the course will include a range of graphic investigations; from methods in informative mapping to techniques in illustrating time-based processes, from procedures in generating terrain models to distilling three-dimensional datasets, from synthesizing geological, ecological, and hydrological processes to depicting current fundamentals in planting strategy and field ecology, and from building expanded axonometric perspectives to establishing the fundamentals in montage operations.With a hands\’on approach to graphic communication, the course provides a platform for engaging a range of digital based programs that are essential in the production of complex modeling forms and three-dimensional expression. The group will navigate advanced programs, methods, and applications in graphic representation in order to: develop a proficiency in manipulating 2D line-based datasets; establish fundamentals in terrain modeling; and introduce techniques in expanding distilled three-dimensional information.Weekly lab exercises and lectures will provide the foundation for the group\’s collective exploration, research, and discussion. Through a series of working labs, students learn various software applications and numerically-driven techniques as a means of introducing basic concepts of rigorous terrain construction and extraction. This format aims to establish a fluency in the medium of digital terrain modeling, process representation, and 3D communication as well as to provide a point of departure for an in-depth familiarity with leading graphical representation precedents, techniques, and methods.Software Covered: AutoCAD, Adobe Illustrator CS5, Rhino, RhinoTerrain, Adobe Photoshop CS5