Green and Gold: Studies in Landscape and Urban Regeneration in Derry, Northern Ireland
GSD 1402, Landscape Architecture Studio
GSD 1505, Urban Planning & Design Studio
with Virginie Lefebvre, Fall 2005

SPONSORS

• Derry City Council
• ILEX Regeneration Company
• North West Office, Department for Social Development
• McGinnis Group, Property Developers

PEDAGOGICAL GOALS

The quality of a city’s open spaces has the power to transform the lives of those who inhabit them. We believe that our spirits are enlivened by what our senses perceive, and that the physical design of the public realm can alter the perceptions of the city to both its citizens and to the world.

The site that we focus on, the Ebrington Barracks in Derry, Ireland, is very much in the public eye and consciousness, however it carries with it a negative legacy. It has been recently decommissioned from an active base where the Unionist army waged war against the IRA. With its decommissioning, we have been asked to devise a program for the site that serves the citizens of Derry in very pragmatics ways, whether that is to propose housing, cultural facilities, civic facilities—whatever comes out of our studio’s exploration at the beginning of the studio, and to determine the physical nature of the open spaces that come out of the program. It is our responsibility as designers to bring more to such a situation than program, by imbuing the buildings and open spaces with meaning through physical design. The Studio focuses not on the specifics of the architecture but more heavily on the design of the public open spaces. The design of these spaces must serve to create a sense of place, identity and pride. These are program requirements which ultimately create space that is highly valued and therefore sustained.

The overall goal for the studio is to deliver a project that:

1. celebrates a new era of peace for the people of Derry
2. expresses the knitting together of a city that has been divided (this is reinforced by a new bridge that is being considered at this site that provides a much needed link between the east and west sides of the river).
3. creates a symbol for the rest of Europe that Derry is up and running and open for business
4. and new hopefulness and that Derry is a good place to live, work and raise a family
5. symbolizes the NEW Derry- a city that is at peace and ready to move forward after having been frozen in conflict for 25 years.

The studio’s goal is to provide realistic ideas and innovative concepts that are well illustrated in the form of models and drawings so as to excite, motivate and give the citizens of Derry a palpable vision for the Ebrington Barracks that take them forward with the site’s development.

EBRINGTON BARRACKS HISTORY

Ebrington Barracks is a very recently decommissioned army barracks. This is no benign army facility that has no live memory and is simply fading out through disuse. It has been in use during war-time conditions until recently and has many negative connotations for the citizens of Derry.

This is a roughly 24 acre site, on the west (or Protestant side) of the Foyle River, opposite from the city center which occupies the east bank (or the Catholic side ) of the Foyle

The site contains a walled, star-shaped fortress and numerous buildings that have been built in different eras and for different conflicts. The last army to use the fort was fighting the IRA during the “trouble” – the 30 year struggle between the Republicans ( IRA forces) and Loyalists forces which began in 1960? on “Bloody Sunday”. The fort has been used by the Protestant or UK forces as a base to fight against the IRA .

A number of buildings on the site are listed- these being the oldest. They are to be re-commissioned and new uses are to be determined for them. However, more than half of them can be taken down. The new uses for this site are not yet determined; however this is a site that is of historical importance in the long and stormy history of Derry and one that has a strong presence in the city of Derry, as it sits high upon a ridge and is visually prominent.

Additionally, a new bridge has been proposed at the south end of the site at Waterside Roundabout that would connect the two banks of Derry, which at the present are difficult to access due to the long distance between the two existing bridges. The lack of connection between the two banks has been a necessity for peace-keeping between the two districts in this highly divided city. Now that peace is possible and likely, there is a need to pull the city together both metaphysically as well as physically. This bridge, the attendant public spaces where they meet the land, along with the planning, programming and designing of the barracks site is the studio problem.

PROBLEM

We endeavor to both devise a program or use for the site that serves the citizens of Derry in very pragmatics ways, whether that is to propose housing, cultural facilities, civic facilities—whatever comes out of a brief but focuses exploration at the beginning of the studio and to determine the physical nature of the open spaces that come out of the program. It is our responsibility as designers to bring more to such a situation by imbuing the buildings and open spaces with meaning through design. The Studio focuses not on the buildings but all the open spaces around the buildings. The design of these landscapes must serve to create a sense of place, identity and pride. These are included in our list of program requirements and which ultimately create space that is highly valued and therefore sustained

The students are asked to determine, in general terms, what the use and purpose of the Ebrington site ought to be. We are being asked to re-establish a new purpose for the site and re-invigorate the public life and image of Derry. This is both a practical and an ethical exercise, since we determine, to a large degree, what sort of activities are encouraged and discouraged in this district. Given there is a stock of registered buildings of historic importance, the class is asked to evaluate these buildings for future re-use and to determine what other buildings might be used or taken away for future building sites.

Additionally, there has been a proposal for a new bridge and station at the northern end of the site. The students will be asked to evaluate the necessity of these infrastructural elements, and if they are seen as positive elements, how they integrate into the existing points of contact on the banks of the river.

The project brief considers the following:

• Providing an assessment of the proposed mix of uses for the site in the Planning Service Document)
  
• Assessment of available research regarding the potential for future use of the sites based on market demand.
  
• The planning and design of the proposed uses for the site to illustrate the potential for the regeneration of the city and region
  
• The development of a program to include a mix of uses for the site including the public realm, open space, landscaping, place making and integration with the existing fabric of the city.
  
• The use of innovative ideas and approaches and creative design solutions in the reuse of the site
  
• The use of examples of good practice and precedents from Europe and North America to substantiate the proposals for the Derry sites.
  
• Recommendations for the future development of the site based on highest and best use.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The studio has a three-phase structure:

1. First we gather data in Derry and the Ebrington Barracks site during a one-week funded field trip to Derry and use this information to inform our progress.
   
2. Second, we conceptualize a Master Plan for the site based on our observations, conversations with local stakeholders and our own core values. We take into consideration the listed buildings and ideas for program, as well as incorporate program based upon conclusion from our initial planning study.
   
3. Finally, we design a portion of the site ( TBD) in sufficient detail to be able to understand the sensory implications of the decisions that were made in the Master Planning phase.

Running in tandem to this exercise, the discussion of art and it’s relationship to landscape design is a central topic throughout the studio and design process.

The Regeneration of Harlow
GSD 1406, Spring 2005

With Jon Fitch guest Studio Critic

Generously Funded by CABE: Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, UK

COURSE DESCRIPTION

INTRODUCTION

The Schwartz Spring 2005 Option Studio focuses on the regeneration of Harlow, a New Town, built in the late 1940's in the UK. Presently there are issues around such New Towns in terms of how they have aged over the last 70 years, as they have changed and adapted to new circumstances, pressures and social evolution.

New Towns, such as Harlow, Letchworth Garden City and Milton Keynes, had significant impact upon city building in the United States, demonstrated in projects such as Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland. Many of the PUD's built in the 60's in the US were based upon the philosophy and structures of these early New Towns first conceived of and built in the UK.

Presently, new realities and pressures have impacted these aging New Towns negatively, causing the government of the UK to re-visit such New Towns to try to improve their conditions. These conditions include the fact that the populations who live there are stagnant – the people who live and grow up there rarely move on or climb up the socio-economic ladder. Consequently, the populations have aged and have tended to be monolithic. The increasing age of the population has created a lack of incentive, money and action to keep the community vital. People are on limited pensions with little economic resources. These factors, in turn, negatively impact the quality of the public facilities, such as the vast amounts of green open space, which characterize so profoundly these New Towns.

This studio examines the affects of aging upon Harlow, a New Town whose initial image and offer rested so heavily upon the inclusion of a bold and expansive open space. Our assignment will be to assess the function and value of this open space that is so cherished by the residents of Harlow, and how to solve the need for growth so that it remains in balance with the value of the open space. While doubling the size of the New Town, we must still try to retain the original spirit and sense of place created for Harlow by the original designer, Sir Frederick Gibberd.

HISTORY

Harlow was planned as a first generation New Town in the late 1940’s. It was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd to accommodate 80,000 residents and significant industry as an overspill center outside Greater London. The original masterplan was formed around a series of local neighborhood centers interconnected by a generous provision of green space.

Harlow now has an aging urban fabric as has suffered from significant underinvestment in recent years. As part of the national Sustainable Communities Plan, Harlow has been identified by the government as a key centre for growth and could potentially double in size within the next two decades. Improving the quality of green space is seen as a key component of this emerging agenda.

While the network of green spaces was originally conceived as an integral part of the original masterplan, their quality and value has been reduced in recent years. What was once a key asset to the town has increasingly become a liability through loss of purpose, changing culture, poor design quality, impact of traffic and ever rising maintenance costs.

FUTURE

Harlow is presently in a growth area located between London and Cambridge. It has been identified by the government as a key center for growth and could double in size in the next two decades.

In order to both upgrade and re-establish itself as a desirable place to live, visit and invest, it must reappraise the value and purpose of its green fabric to ensure that it can accommodate the needs and aspirations of a growing and changing population. Transforming the quality in design of its green spaces should be seen as an essential component within a comprehensive package of urban regeneration and sustainable development initiatives. The focus for this studio is therefore multi-fold:

1. To appraise the original open space design intent of the Gibberd’s masterplan.
   
2. To identify the strengths, opportunities and weaknesses of the town’s current network of public open spaces.
   
3. To establish a series of design principles to improve the quality, value and viability of Harlow’s green spaces in response to changing demographic and cultural trends.
   
4. To develop design proposals for one selected site that draws on the design principles identified for above.(Ideally all students should focus their work on the Town Park, particularly as it may be easier to pull together necessary base information. Within the entire park there is plenty of scope to focus on individual areas)
   
5. To use this as a vehicle to raise the debate about design quality and purpose of green space within Growth Areas in general and ageing New Towns in particular in the UK.

OUTCOME

This effort may help to improve the quality of life for Harlow’s residents, as it is a live issue at present. The site has received some central government funding that will go part way towards its improvement. Local partners will be up to speed with issues and by the spring will be starting to explore design options. The Harvard Studio makes a valuable contribution to this process.

At the end of the studio, key conclusions are discussed in a conference funded by CABE, after which the proceedings and conclusions are put into a summary document produced by CABE Space.

11 Cities and the Milan Convention Center Site
GSD 1402, Fall 2003

The profession of landscape architecture has had a relatively small presence in Italy. The disciplines of architecture and urban design have been well explored and taught through numerous schools, producing more graduates than what has been able to be absorbed in the profession.

Landscape architecture, however, has not had much representation or visibility within the culture. It is, in part, a greater objective of this studio to create a window into the profession of landscape architecture so that the skills, which we have to offer as a profession, might be illustrated to Italian government officials, students, teachers and other design professionals.

The first step in this process is to identify a need, which the profession can address, and then illustrate the process and the results of how we, as a profession, might go about satisfying this need. In other words, we must define an issue and then satisfy it in order to make our case.

I have identified Milan as a city whose open-space is under siege and in need of direction as to how to address their issues of open-space. More specifically, Milan is a prospering city where its need for growth and an expanding infrastructure is not easily fitting within the constraints of its medieval infrastructure. Parking lots are occupying precious open spaces, other valuable open spaces are often falling into ruin, the canal system within the city remain underdeveloped and undervalued as possible open-space and whatever parks still exist have fallen under the pressure of sprawling, un-dense development at its fringes.

One of the greatest challenges is to re-invest the landscape with value, as the “fringe” landscape is both the greatest and most neglected component of “sprawl”. Given the low status of the landscape (in relation to architecture) and its degraded image, it is, in fact, only through the design of the landscape that meaningful connections between cities can be made. Through the design of the landscape, an image can be created and ecological reparations can be made to an environment that is both ecologically and culturally squandered. It is through the design of the landscape that cohesion, image, legibility and identity can be achieved in this marginalized, “in-between” type of landscape.

The topic of this studio is about the landscape of the urban fringe. The students are given the task of creating identity, order and legibility out of the landscape chaos of Milan’s urban edge. In general, this is a very topical issue and can apply to almost anywhere on the globe where city expansion is resulting in the loose, formless spread of sub-urban development best known as “sprawl”.

Although the problem is specific to this particular site and problem, students experience dealing with a problem that one can find down the street from one’s home, or in almost any country one travels. The first step is to define the site, and then to create a context, make a new image for the site and devise a strategy in order to weave the new Convention Center back into existing urban structures such as public transportation, road systems and back to the city centers themselves.

Miasteczko Wilanow; Landscape Matrix
GSD 1405, Spring 2003

Studio:
The studio focuses on the design of the public landscape and design solutions for key elements of public space infrastructure for Miasteczko Wilanow in Warsaw. Each student develops a strategic approach to the design of a landscape infrastructure that embraces the role of public space, strategies for ecological issues, transport and circulation, recreation and leisure. As part of this a specific strategy for the deployment of art in public space is developed as a key component in the urban regeneration.

There are two major studies: The first is the investigation of a design strategy for the intersection of the palace and its historic landscape with the new urban district through the design of the key public space linking the two. The second is design proposals for a series of corridors within the development including a freeway, a major boulevard, two canals and the associated open space.

Site:
Miasteczko Wilanow is described as a sustainable, mixed-use community being built on a 169-hectare site across from the Wilanow Royal Palace. The palace, originally built as an Italianate Villa Nova beginning in 1679 and continuing into the next century, is now a Royal Museum set within its own grounds which include gardens from the 17th and 18th centuries. The palace and gardens were comprehensively conserved and restored during the 1960s.

Historically, the area surrounding the palace was composed of a series of small agricultural villages, woods, orchards, and farmland. Since the Second World War they have been overtaken by city growth and are part of Warsaw’s suburban expansion. The current redevelopment strategy is an attempt to shape this growth in such a way that it respects the 17th- and 18th-century context, preserving traditional reservoirs, natural features and key axes and geometry.

The new district includes a town hall and civic precinct, a lively social, cultural, and retail center, residential neighborhoods, a major church and associated schools and educational institutions, and a major business park. The project is currently in the early stages of construction.

Structure:
The studio visits Warsaw at the beginning of the semester for approximately a week. Students work individually through the semester to develop specific site design proposals. Following the final review, the studio produces a publication of the proposals. The studio is jointly taught by Martha Schwartz and Elizabeth Mossop. Sponsored by PROKOM Investments and coordinated by Guy Perry INVI.

Milan’s South Park
GSD 1403, Fall 2001

The purpose of this studio is to work with each student to explore his or her own aesthetic in the conceptualization and design of Milan's South Park. Students work from a larger urban design scale during which larger open-space conditions of Milan are taken into account, and through the semester work down to a site-scale where specific design solutions are developed.

Introduction

Milan is the expanding industrial engine of Italy. As a result, Milan's success is having a major and devastating impact upon the open spaces and parks of its historic central core. By far, the most visually disconcerting and environmentally damaging aspect of these open spaces is the drastic placement of the automobile. Indeed, virtually every possible open space has been negatively impacted by cars. Everywhere you look in the still architecturally exciting and important historic center, there are cars on top of cars, quadruply parked. A statistic reports that there are over 160,000 illegally parked cars in Milan every day, while no tickets are issued.

Milan is in desperate need of an attitude adjustment in terms of the use of the car. In a city world-renowned for its fashion industry the visual degradation of the city is paradoxical. The studio focuses first on developing proposals for how to create an open-space system within the old city which is created through the removal of cars, and which links to a major new open space which form a major infra-structure for Milan's new development to the south, South Park.

South Park

The major portion of the studio is spent on the development of an intervention on a substantial area of land, about the size of Central Park, included within an area called "Parco Sud Milan" or South Park. This is a large protected agricultural land that forms a green belt around the whole southern fringe of the city.

This site has the unique characteristic of being in the process of being enclosed from all sides by the urbanization and spreading of the many municipalities of Milano. Most of these municipalities are residential communities featuring relatively low-density developments (4 - 5 story average height) that date back to the 60's and 70's. These residential environments are desperately lacking open spaces and venues for public life.

Schedule

The class starts off with a sketch problem, Design In A Box, where we explore the relationship between art and landscape architecture. We take a field trip to New York where we visit museums and galleries, as well as spend a day looking at Central Park so to establish a mental picture of the scale of the park, which is similar to South Park.

The next portion of the class begins with a funded field trip to Milan where students spend time looking at Milan's older center and its open spaces. We then turn our attention to the South Park site where we spend two days exploring, walking, and recording information. During this time we meet with Dr. Carlo Ezechieli from the Politecnico de Milano, Dipartimento de Architettura e Pianificazione, who participates with us and is running a parallel studio in Milan.

After the trip, students work individually to develop their own strategy and design for South Park and how it might connect back to the center through an open-space connection. These designs are fully developed in plan, section, and model which are presented to Milan city officials. An official jury awards a financial prize to the best project, as well as second and third prizes. An exhibition of all the projects is organized in January.

Master Plan & Environmental Design Proposed for Cooper Union New York, NY
GSD 1310-03, Fall 2000

Sakae Sugiura MLA/MUP '01, Plan

Cooper Union can hardly describe its environment as a "campus." It exists now as a series of islands in a confluence of rivers of cars. The area is roughly 6 city blocks. The buildings which compose Cooper Union sit across major avenues, parking lots, and undeclared open spaces creating a very disjointed impression. There exists very little "there" there, which may, ironically add to its present charm.

Cooper Union Square, if planned and designed well, could constitute one of the major open spaces in Manhattan. Given the location and the prestige of the school, the possibilities for its development are great. In addition to all its complexities, it sits on top of a great nexus of underground utilities and subways.

The site's northern boundary is at 9th Street. The blocks, all somewhat triangular in shape, are bordered by 9th Street at the North end, 6th Street at the Southern end, 2nd Avenue on the East Side and Lafayette Street on the West Side. Within this complex of buildings, streets and open spaces exists Astor Place which is the site of sculptor Tony Rosenthal's "cube," an important urban landmark in New York. Cooper Square is the other important open space which composes this area.

While the school's administration has expressed the desire to communicate its focus on technology and communication, within a "hi tech" environment. The three schools - Art, Engineering, Architecture - have somewhat separate agendas. The architecture school, in particular, is very rooted in teaching the "spiritual in architecture." John Hejduk, who had been dean for the past 30 years, developed a program and faculty that perceive technology at the service of the mind. Figure drawing and free-hand are still at the basis of the Cooper curriculum. Christopher's seminar "Sound As A Visual Medium" is, among other concepts, an investigation into "formless materials"- sound and light, in conjunction with models and drawings to investigate this realm of the "spirit" within architecture.
Cooper Union is now in the process of trying to define a "campus" for itself. There have been a number of proposals made over the past 35 years, however there is a marked similarity found in the street planning component of each proposal. Also, immediately adjacent to Cooper Union is Ian Schrager's new hotel which is being designed by the Koolhaas/ Herzog de Meuron team who are hungrily eyeing the site. It is this convergent plan that provides the basis for our student's study.

The problem has been organized into four parts. The first portion of the studio is "Design In a Box", where the students choose an art piece to re-interpret in the media of clay and cardboard. The second portion of the studio entails an analysis and master-plan phase where the basic structure of the site is defined. Thirdly, an over-all site design is required in order to define the specifics of the proposed environment. Lastly, a smaller portion of the over-all site design is selected by the student for closer study and refinement.

The course involves one field trip to New York City (not funded).

Detmold Studio
GSD 1310-12, Fall 1999

Megan Mann MLA '00, Model View

The topic of the studio was the recharacterization and design of an abandoned 50-hectare military site in Detmold, Germany. The major emphasis was on the design of a landscape system or infrastructure based on a concept that would create an image and structure into which existing and proposed structures and uses would fit. This landscape infrastructure had to include open-space elements such as streets, pedestrian walkways, bike paths, parks, green corridors, plazas, service areas, parking, and any other landscape features (such as a munitions area) that comprise the open space.

The problem posed to the students was part of a real, ongoing project that government officials in Germany are presently undertaking in order to find re-uses for such military sites. This particular site is slated to become an extension of the existing village of Detmold. It is essentially going to be a "new town" into which the present town will grow, and is composed of areas of mixed use, such as housing, commercial, work, and institutions. The locations and nature of these areas are to be set, although some buildings and uses have already been determined; however, this initial redevelopment has begun without an overall guiding concept for the visual qualities or image of the "new town." The officials in charge wish to examine, at this point, how the development of the landscape structure can help to organize future development, bring a "sense of place," transform its present image into an area in which people would like to live and work, and induce potential developers to invest and develop. The guiding belief of the government official (our client) is that the visual enhancement of the physical environment through design and the inclusion of art can help bring both an organization concept or framework for the development of the site and interest, visibility, and a new life to the site.

Marcel Wilson MLA ’99, Master Plan

Gold Mining in Geraldton, Ontario
Fall 1998

This studio considered future scenarios for a disused gold mine and its relationship to the town's population of 7,500. Fourteen million tons of tailings covering 190 acres of landten feet deepcompose the principal challenge. In addition, improvements to the town of Geraldton and its main approaches were considered. The studio was pursued in conjunction with Mining Engineering students from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. The studio was sponsored by Barrick Gold Corporation, Lac Minerals, Inc., and John McDonough.

Design in a Box
GSD-1300, Spring 1997
With Rebecca Krinke

The studio immediately began with a two-day field trip to New York City during which a work of art was selected, analyzed and written about. This chosen artwork became the reference point from which all design work in the studio was generated.

Problem #1, Box #1: Shoebox & Clay

Using the selected artwork, students were asked to create a work of art integrating a shoebox and clay. This object was to reinterpret (in the student's own language) his/her selected work.

Problem #2: A Cemetery in Quincy

This problem asked each student to design a cemetery to be located on top of a capped landfill in Quincy, MA. A new typology of cemetery design was employed, characterized by a system of concrete crypts that are stacked several deep inside a concrete structure buried in earth. This concrete vault in the ground has a resonance with the clay and shoebox problem described above, but a cemetery is a place with a specific function and imbued with powerful emotions. The shoebox and clay object served as a source of inspiration for the cemetery design and both projects was discussed together.

Problem #3: Boston's City Hall Plaza

Over 30 years ago, the Government Center Plan which created City Hall Plaza was considered to be on the cutting edge of urban design. Since its construction, the results of that plan have been widely debated. The City of Boston recently organized a competition to revitalize City Hall Plaza and Mayor Thomas Menino has made its revitalization a mandate of his administration.

City Hall Plaza is the symbolic center of Boston and serves as the civic gathering space for the city. Yet the plaza has been almost uniformly criticized as being a lifeless paved space: too big, too windy, too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter. This portion of the studio asks each student to draw on all of their previous investigations into the development of a personal aesthetic and bring that to bear on the redesign of a major public open space: Boston's City Hall Plaza.

Art and Surface Mine Reclamation
GSD-1300, Spring 1996

The overall objective of this course was to explore the landscape as an artistic medium. The student's formal solution to the problem depended on the clarity of that student's personal aesthetic agenda and his/her ability to express these ideas/sensibilities through the manipulation of the land.

To demonstrate that selected mines can, through the inclusion of design in the reclamation process, offer substantial social, cultural and aesthetic amenities to the public at costs equal to or below the standard costs of reclamation.

The means to achieve this objective were to redesign a selected open pit mining site from those that have been geophysically reclaimed in fulfillment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, and regulations 30 CFR Part 700. The redesigned landscapes offered, in addition to meeting required environmental standards, "cultural landscapes" incorporating user amenities whose economic, social, and aesthetic features can be benchmarked, for value comparisons, against similar design features in comparable locations.

The issue at hand was not whether reclamation should be done, but how it was to be done. The standard requirements for this process, although "ecologically" sound, are often accomplished in visually substandard ways: mining companies may fulfill reclamation regulations, yet the end results are often unsightly, awkward, and underutilized. These "reclaimed landscapes" often remain isolated from their adjacent landscapes and are visual eyesores. The continued visual poverty of these landscapes also discourages reuse or reintegration of the land for social uses.

The thesis of this course was that the goals of the reclamation process should be broadened to include a visual component so that despoiled landscapes can once again be useful to society. In order to maximize the transformation of these sites, they must be taken through a design process beyond that which is required by the reclamation process.

The legal requirements and guidelines for the reclamation process are quantitative in nature. They spell out a specific number of trees per square foot, angle of slope, minimum areas of ground cover, water treatment standards, etc. Because of the difficulty in setting visual standards or a general lack of expectation for reclaimed sites by the public, almost all reclamation is done through engineering forms where there are relatively few professionals who focus on visual or qualitative issues. The reclamation process is focused on the quantitative issues of repair or the technical aspects of rebalancing a natural ecology, but holds no requirements that these repairs be done so that the result is a visually attractive or sympathetic landscape.

The results of most reclamation efforts, whether it be the capping of landfills or regrading and planting of abandoned mines, is mundane and perfunctory. Most often, these sites remain strange and awkward lumps, veneered with a thick skin of grass. Transformed to a degree, they remain visual and cultural wastelands.

This course attempted to illustrate that when a reclamation process includes a strong "design component," the resulting product has additional value and potential for future use, beyond that which results from our present set of standards. We would like to make the case for the inclusion of new requirements which include landscape architects and artists into the existing reclamation process. This is the missing step in site reclamation if that site is ever to function as part of our cultural landscape.

more student work......

Design in a Box
GSD-1300, Fall 1994

This course focused on the importance of identifying one's own personal aesthetic language for the purpose of exploring a method for the generation of physical site design. We explored the intersection between one's own personal aesthetic agenda and the programmatic needs of a variety of urban sites.

The sites for this studio present a "BLANK PAGE"—that is, a site which is part of a man-made landscape and has no "natural" attributes. These sites present the problem of creating a place by solving man-made site conditions through our ability to envision, imagine, synthesize, and dream.

The studio immediately began with a four-day field trip to New York City during which a work of art was selected, analyzed, and written about. This chosen art work became the reference point from which all design work in this studio was generated. While in New York, we visited our site for module 2, the World Trade Center Plaza.

Quincy Landfill—Art, Park, Parking
GSD-1300, Spring 1993

The entire semester focused on the 125-acre Quincy Landfill through an analysis phase and a study of the technical nature of this particular landfill. Students were asked to site a program of possible uses on the landfill, such as a cemetery, a park-and-ride MBTA stop, an arts park, and a homeless shelter. The students were required to design these facilities to a high level of resolution, taking into account the parameters of working on a landfill site.

The Redesign of Jacob Javits Plaza, New York City
GSD-1300, Fall 1992

The first part of this studio focused on the issue of how one generates ideas and on the need to develop a personal aesthetic language. Initially, we made a field trip to New York in order to visit museums and galleries, and to conduct a site visit for the design problem: the redesign of Jacob Javits Plaza.

The initial task was to focus on an art work that seems to address the stated problem, and then to express the essence of this art work using a shoe box and lump of clay.