Language of a Landscape: Does Music Inspire Space and Does the Space then Improve the Music?

From firsthand experience overseeing the construction of one of the more elaborate and unique park spaces I have personally encountered - personally or professionally -  it is with much anticipation that I continue to drive toward the completion of the recently endorsed "Miami Beach Soundscape" (formerly referred to as Lincoln Park). This will be West 8's first built work in the United States and has been, in 'concert' with the New World Symphony's ambitious vision for it's newly completed facility, a work of art and architecture that I think seeks to aid the evolution of music.

As David Byrne reflects on his own musical ruminations and hypothesizes a model of creativity; do artists write stuff for specific rooms? Do we have a place, a venue, a context in mind when we make things? From the sparse outdoor 'friendship circles' of the African desert to the hymns of gothical cathedrals, Mozart's parlors to  the symphonic chambers of Carnegie Hall, we have been writing music for social situations, not musical situations. Miami Beach Soundscape seeks to provide a new venue that aids in the resistance against a pandemic of "arena rock", bars that lack the visual and physical presence of a "band", and the mutable accouterments of our personal MP3 players.


As predominantly visual thinkers, the conceptual "language of landscape" remains a powerful one. According to Anne Whiston Spirm ASLA the world around us imbued with both syntactical - "features (nouns), processes (verbs) and the principles governing their interaction" - and metaphorical layers. Our ability to use language as yet another tool to educate others about our environment through the shaping of our craft has given life to this once defunct surface of asphalt and oil stains at Miami Beach. In doing so, it is classical music that inspires this space, and it is the space that will undoubtedly improve the music; at least our appreciation of and for it.

Landscape "Nouns" (Features) of the Miami Beach Soundscape
"a SQUARK (park + square)" = slightly larger than a European square but not quite large enough to be a traditional park.

THE PROJECTION TOWER
Skin + Stem + Box
Darth Vader
Pandora
Shrek
The Bulb
The Onion

PERGOLAS (Shade Structures)Baskets
Amoebas
Pods
Monkey Bars

SOUND SYSTEM COMPONENTS
Ballet Bar
Media Hydrants
Bon-Bons
Fat-Boys

While its more iconic pieces - the pergolas - announce the parks entry points, the benches and pathways rise and fall with a subtle topographical undulation that resembles the calmer beginnings of a Mahler composition. As the 350+ palm, live oak and poinciana trees sweep a cool breeze across its green stage, the "ballet bar" embraces this places' audience with a sound that defies location. A term coined early on in the design process, one of the parks most distinct "landscape features" (nearly 180' long and 2' in diameter X 2) - in part inspires the space, but most certainly also improves the music.

Like the movable fold-up chairs of Bryant Park - icons of the place - familiarity with landscape gives space context. While the language of Miami Beach Soundscape is yet to manifest its iconic presence, it offers more than mere background material. It has generated a story - one complete with it's own list of references that deny definition only to those unfamiliar with the park.

Like some birds, we change what we do to fit the context. This "park project" seeks to synchronize the New World Symphony's precision-driven interior soundscapes with that of the atmospheric-driven soundscapes of the exterior. With a rather "humble" hall designed by Frank Gehry - the signature organic shapes introverted in this structure better known as "characters" - the park's mutli-million dollar AV system promises to deliver a listening experience that is comparable to that inside, but moves even further to deliver an environmental experience that is unrivaled.

*For more information and construction updates to this project - check out my channel @ http://www.youtube.com/user/blairguppy?feature=mhum

Madfish 003: Straight from the Hornet's Nest

Cover

003.BLOG | In an attempt to further identify and discern the tonal colour of our auditory world, DJ Madfish is set to release his third musical composition. Anticipation of his wife’s impending delivery of new life has renewed his vocational journey through the tonotopic landscape of our receiving world. His first release since leaving Canadian soil, accompanied by a shift in sonic colour, is the direct result of both a perceived and real experience of his auditory landscape. 

DJ Madfish cross-pollinates his occupational pursuits with his extracurricular aspirations and vocational talents. As left brain and right brain work to create visual smells and tangible sites, it is the potential born of the auditory landscape that inspires madfish to bring you tasty sounds.

“These phenomena get to the heart of what it means to have memories. Most of us have a set of memories that we treat something like a photo album or scrapbook. Certain stories we are accustomed to telling to our friends and families, certain past experiences we recall for ourselves during times of struggle, sadness, joy, or stress, to remind us of who we are and where we’ve been. We can think of this as the repertoire of our memories, those memories that we are used to playing back, something like the repertoires of a musician and the pieces he knows how to play”. (D.Levitin, This is your brain on music)

In an effort to preserve the contextual experiences of this time, this 3 set album encodes today’s memories - a vivid and high fidelity set of memory cues for future retrieval and playback in the theatre of our minds . . . and remember, don’t take life too seriously ;)

Inside Leaf

Battling 'Scape Schemas: A Relentless Effort of Preservation

Snow fencing - $200. Chain link - $750. Saving another mature tree - priceless. 

Mischievousness? Sociopathic lack of conscience? Ignorance? Unbelievable? Perhaps all the above reflect a recurring abuse of direction and care associated with tree protection measures on our building sites. Arguably analogous to storing ones kitchen-ware in a baby's crib, or setting up extending a "slip n' slide" across the neighbours tulip bed, battling the abuses of contractor 'oversight' is a never-ending few of us will ever have to endure.

 

It is comical in its predictability; at the same time shocking in the apparent and conditioned lack of regard. But, I believe it fair to say that as landscape architects it is all too common for us to reprimand contractors for their flagrant abuse of tree protection measures. Met with raised eyebrows, head scratches, and "who me?" looks, it is never surprising how egregious their mistakes are. Arguably, they are not mistakes but willful acts of disregard for the embodied energy and the incredible value such 'objects' contain. Might we ever escape the human learned cognitive categorization of what landscape is? Perhaps it will be only then that we might find ourselves pausing to question a current lack of understanding of what "living architecture" provides us.

To understand this behaviour and lack of integrity for following legal plans and conditions of permits, we need not look much further than the our own cognitive conditioning of what "landscape" is; more importantly, recognizing an obvious and persistent fallibility in understanding the rationale or purpose behind our intentions, as designers and stewards of the earth, to preserve the inherent value living amongst us and perpetuate its existence and holistic productivity into the future for generations.

Landscape, historically documented and culturally perpetuated through visual art, paintings, and photography may be most profoundly understood and learned as cognitive - 'scape - schemas through the written word. More recently in modern times, it is the "art of gardening", commercialized by the likes of Home Depot, that continues to erode a much broader understanding of what landscape is and has to offer us. Ranging in purpose from nutrition, healing, recreation, and spatial (aesthetic) design, landscape presents a more  human function in the global mitigation of climate.

The process of categorization and human cognition is undoubtedly steeped in evolutionary necessity for survival. It is the process in which our experiences are recognised and understood; fundamental in all kinds of interaction with our environment. Environmental psychology presents us with convincing evidence and correlation between commercialization and environmental degradation. As our society becomes more disposable, so too does our lack of respect for the living environment. It is not a far stretch of the imagination that landscape has become as interchangeable as an evening dress - mere "green" drapery.

One need not question the laudable goal of seeking to reduce the immensity of embodied energy within our built environment. Perhaps not fully grasping the significant realities of the components of energy usage - the operating and the embodied - it is understood that it is necessary to comprehensively address the vast amount of energy consumed by buildings. Why then, is it such a challenge to evoke that same sense of necessity with our 'living' built environment? Trees require very little operating energy and present relatively low embodied energy. Specifically mature and established trees provide not only significant aesthetic value, but environmental and human value in their ability to clean and store carbon. Harvested for short duration uses, in the construction of buildings or as temporary 'landscape' aesthetic with a relatively short service life, the carbon dioxide may soon be returned to the atmosphere with less sustained environmental benefit.

So, if reusing materials, or even reusing entire buildings by retrofitting them, reduces the total amount of embodied energy even more than using recycled materials, how can we convince the builders of our environments to apply this same logic and purpose to preserving our existing, living materials?

Sport Utility Vehicle: Techno-Apparatus in an Age of Urban Decline

With slightly more than a year under my belt living in New York City, I remain simultaneously curious of and resilient to the anesthetizing effects of such a vibrant, mentally wearing (often hostile) yet threateningly exciting cityscape. While my discoveries and adventures extend beyond the confines of this urban jungle, my observations remain disturbingly consistent - "bigger is better" here, and one's perceived requirement of protection from an increasingly hostile and dystopic environment resists the increasing pressures and realities of resource scarcity and a decaying urban infrastructure. We continue to elude ourselves of these worldly realities and select biophobic armatures that perpetuate our dissociation from that which we hold in cautious reverence. (Original publication here).

"Instead of struggling to keep the public domain in good repair, we find it more effective to take action at the personal level, to defend ourselves from the urban environment with vehicles capable of enduring potholes and missing manhole covers" (Thomas J. Campanella).

The perception of urban decay is a direct result of our seduction into an increasingly technophilic lifestyle. Images we consume, products we use, or landscapes we experience behold connotations and fantasies similar to those associated with the Sport Utility Vehicle. Through these processes of consumption we dissociate ourselves further from the ‘real image’, allowing ourselves to be allured by an ‘ideal image’ contrived by current ideological constructs and prevailing mythologies. The result is not only urban decay, but also the decay of an aura associated with reality.

The ‘ideal image’, as suggested by Robert Thayer is under our own personal control (Gray World Green Heart). By controlling a fantastical conception of what our environment actually is we are able to perpetuate an ambivalence toward dystopic visions of reality. Such an image can undermine our understanding of the fragility of the global landscape. It is ironic that the real image of contemporary society, arguably, is the visual and physical manifestation of the technological utopia we all hoped for gone bad.. The perception of urban decay is not unfounded. We need only view movies such as Blade Runner, The Road Warrior or The Matrix to become convinced that our cities are becoming increasingly alienating, estranged and threatening – a dystopia that clearly illustrates our inability to manage and plan our future.

SUVs are but one of many technological defenses we use to arm ourselves against the inherent dangers and annoyances of an urban dystopia. We are empowered by all that we possess. In an age where quantity begets quality, the SUV is the emblem of a fear-laden consumer culture with a desire to become completely self-reliant. But we deny our inherent biophilic connections. As Thomas Campanella states, the sport-utility vehicle is all about this impulse to fortify, to withdraw from the Civitas and pursue life in private.

Our own conceptualizations of an idyllic world are culturally generated but personally experienced through technological armanment and apparatus. The SUV has become a benevolent technology designed to defeat the evil and threatening landscapes of dystopia. Here is a device that expands and extends the powers of the individual in an increasingly hostile world.

The perils of urban life extend themselves far beyond our reaches, into the 'ideal' landscapes outside the city. These ideal images are becoming fantastical illusions, and nostalgic recollections perpetuated by mythological constructs, that the well-spring of spiritual renewal is located in nature, far from the city (Thomas J. Campanella).

As real environmental problems grow and technologies progress, the potential for a global cultural denial of these problems seems inevitable. Is it possible to create a landscape fantasy so vivid it threatens to replace reality altogether (Robert Thayer)?

The SUV is one technological component of a culture that seeks and ideal image of landscape and is willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to experience this image. In an insatiable search for such an illusory image, our cities fall susceptible to decay and degradation.

The contrast between the machine and the pastoral ideal dramatizes the great issue of our culture (Robert Thayer).

As we become entangled with technological innovations: introversion, and a resignation from society and street life is not unrealistic. Increasingly we experience the world through some form of techno-filter. Through the tinted windshields of our SUVs and movie screens; or in sounds recorded on a chip and heard through a portable device; our experience of the 'real image' to which we aspire is becoming further distanced from its tangible and corporeal qualities.

Landscapes have always been a focus of artisitc representation and replication. However, wtih technological advancement, the ability to enhance these representations to a point where they are virtualloy experiential has become desirable. Whether we experience the 'ideal image' from the comfort of our homes or from the dirver's seat of the SUV, the real-life experience of that particular landscape is forever altered.

As Walter Benjamin states, the situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated.

Not only are we perpetuating our dissociation from the real image of urban life, we are contriving a new reality that is based entirely on technological invention and a subsequent apathy toward integration into public life.

A New Dawn of Analysis: Social Media Data as Spatial Design and Urban Planning Tool

A volcanic island emerges from the still and placid waters of lake Titicaca? Perhaps a virtual eden off the shores of Second Life? Sorry - neither. This virutal landscape, better known as the island of "twitter land New York" is a graphic representation of collected geospatial data, compiled from its inhabitants better known as the "tweeters of twitter". Sweden may have been first, but social media tools have arguably brought the potential for expanding awareness of the design and construction industry. Social media is no longer a novelty and has, in fact, given way to a new form of social exchange economy - socialnomics.

Like a word cloud that takes on scaleable proportions not dissimilar to our chaotic urban environments, perhaps there is some method in the madness. As opportunities to create space for the voracious appetites of a continued and expansive growth of our fellow man worldwide, it strikes me as entirely possible that a new form of understanding must be struck of how and where we, as designers, are to intervene.

As I suspend debate on the effectiveness and necessity of social media tools in marketing the professions of the construction industry, I am more immediately curious about the data being generated; or the stored potential of that which is to be generated. For years site architects have relied on "traditional" observational site analysis in providing clues to the preferred, habitual and, arguably, the desired use of space. In our attempts to sculpt, craft, and heal a place from such spaces, the more scientific data is typically engaged in support of the ecological and environmental improvements attempted and made. Could a technological medium such as twitter - one of the most understudied, often obnoxious, mostly self-serving, and completely impersonal forms of communication - in fact serve to generate a more socially responsive design of space and the planning of the built environment? I'm open to the possibilities.

Source:
http://urbantick.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-city-landscapes-interactive.html

House of Cards: Designing Beyond Paper Facsimile

As I work toward notching another "built accomplishment" on the proverbial belt, I find myself pondering the likelihood of emerging from the experience buried in change order ink, frustrated client with "busted budgets", and an overwhelming sense of helplessness about my ability to affect change within a crippled industry - an industry where the design professional's role as "masterbuilder" continues to fade as quickly as an owner's costs continue to rise. According to construction lawyer Barry LePatner, however, we (designers) are simply one cog that helps spin the wheel in "an industry that consumes $1.23 trillion and wastes at least $120 billion each year."

Why is the construction industry fraught with such lackluster performers and skyrocketing costs that outpace inflation? With such lofty ambitions accompanied by unprecedented developments in materials and technology, why is it that productivity within the building industry falls so short; even continues to decline? 'Starchitecturally' designed icons living-on in isolation throughout the world aside - think South African Football Stadiums towering above their shantytown neighbours, an already crumbling Yankee Stadium standing antagonistically abreast one of the most disadvantaged boroughs, or the miami airport now 4 times its "fixed budget" - such a decayed and unresponsive infrastructure continues to retard development throughout our economy in more ways than are easily conceivable. This must be a cause for concern as well as demand for a better quality built environment.

By no means do I claim to have the answers, nor the ability to right this sinking ship alone. In fact, it has become clear to me that I am simply an ill-fated part of the problem - an "unsurprisingly inadequate education". MIT professor Kelly Burnham (1959) suggested that "the combination of genuine design ability and a sensitive understanding of the housing industry is rare, and almost nowhere is it being taught." Arguably, "there has been no improvement since" suggests LePatner. As my fellow colleagues and I might often found harassing our engineering colleagues for their mathematical and scientific approach to design, we are quick to ignore the failings and lack of understanding of our own "(in)complete"  training. Art, architectural history, architectural theory, and the social sciences are equally fraught with a disengagement from the complementary understanding of the built environment. In reality, each discipline could benefit from one another immensely but this is rarely encouraged, and even less structured.

Resisting a lengthy critique of the debilitating effects of degree inflation, it is worth nothing, I think, that perhaps the most poorly encouraged piece of education is the hands on training and apprenticeship. Unfortunately in a continued and valiant attempt to distinguish ourselves as 'experts' in the field we have, for many reasons, withdrawn from our historical abilities - perhaps our right - to assist in the timely, responsive, on-time-on-budget delivery of the built environment. A fear of litigious recourse, an insecurity in knowledge, and what LePatner refers to as "asymmetric information" between builders, owners and designers, continues to ensure that the house of cards is stacked against us with our 'ace-up-the-sleeve' - first hand knowledge - nowhere to be found. Instead, our newfound professionalism remains a mere graphic facsimile of the built environment.

Not Simply a Well-Furnished Landscape

"The idea of people walking in landscape and looking at sculpture is part of the heritage of English landscape design," says Mr. Murray, director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England. "But the development of a permanent space for contemporary sculpture is, relatively speaking, new."

Storm King Art Centre in the Hudson Valley would beg to differ as 2010 sees it celebrating it's 50th year. Not dissimilar to Dia:Beacon in its mysterious draw as a destination for locals and visitors from the far reaches of the Hudson Valley and beyond, the sprawling well-crafted grounds of Storm King are guaranteed to please.

Perhaps over-intellectualizing this place by attributing it's very appeal to something more than simply a great 'park' to exercise one's children or to pass a lazy day winding (by foot or tram) its many trails. I cannot help but feel a certain learned sensitivity, however, to centuries of social activity in the pastoral garden traditions of 'the old country'. Meandering circulation connecting strategically placed 'points of interest' and staged views of follies framed in the distance illustrate an historical tendency toward the mystery and intrigue of the once carefully crafted stage set that was the English Garden.

At SKAC, however, scale figures predominantly; a site-specific setting-off of human interpretation with the immediate and distant environs. Hulking sculpture calls forth the gentle roll of the surrounding mountains, others interpret a more precise geometry of plan and elevation against a more immediate backdrop. While its is certainly the large gestures, with their bold interpretation of kinetic movement or thoughtful use of colour that capture ones fascination with this place, its replication via photographic image defies reverence. Instead, the subtleties of wind, rain, fog, sunshine and cloud seek to perpetuate an ever-changing scenography that lives symbiotically somewhere between nature and nurture.

Encountering works of contemporary and modern art is certainly less intimidating in these agreeable surroundings. As your journey unfolds throughout the grounds every piece, in turn, discovers an added dimension in relation to the specific living context it inhabits. Perhaps, for this reason, the only thing new about Storm King Art Centre is that the term 'Sculpture Park' has been omitted from it's name - instead bearing only the name of a museum that pays homage to the confines of room; earth and sky.

Hudson River Haunts: More than a "Nabisco Thing"

Beyond the trips of Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, and the Legendary town of Sleepy Hollow lies a gallery/exhibit space unlike any other. Still striving to retain it's expansive production and manufacturing history, the refurbished printing plant (built by Nabisco) turned art gallery - Dia:Beacon - is a site that elicits intrigue and solicits participation up close and from a distance. Although the rotational and permanent exhibits of the Dia facility are left open to interpretation, its experientially and sequential stories (legends) induce a unique understanding of art-in-place.

Dia:Beacon is a satellite campus of the NYC art juggernaut competing for pole position with the likes of the Met, MOMA, and many other converted industrial facilities. A site that houses spatially ambitious contemporary and modern art installations, paintings, and multimedia experiences also serves up an exploratory gallery experience like no other. For the ambitious and curatorially curious, Dia:Beacon serves up art that seeks to define and encourage outdoor participation and waterfront engagement - blurring the lines between art for consumption and landscape as art.

A thoughtful intervention about 1km away from the main galley space itself is a 'pause' along the Hudson River waterfront created by George Trakas. Aspiring to the likes of  Robert Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty', 'Beacon Point' seeks to provoke our senses and shed light on our influences upon the vernacular landscape. Most striking and memorable is the symbiotic experience of this place with the Dia facility. Distinctly affiliated with it's familial counterparts within Manhattan, Dia:Beacon resides outside the zone of influence; the intellectualized and philosophical realm of the art circles of Manhattan. A distinctly unique destination of sorts, Beacon Point and the supporting facility relentlessly draws visitors from far and wide, creating an aura of mythology around itself that only distance, reputation, and perhaps even legend could possibly maintain.

More than the art itself, the physical spaces of the gallery and it's environs speak volumes and elicit a corporeal response to place that is truly unique. The route upon which one journeys to this mythical landscape along the historical haunts of the Hudson River undoubtedly has a distinct influence on their degree of enjoyment and ones anticipation of arrival. Route 9, obviously a more aged and meandering route, tantalizes ones emotive responses to the emergence and plethora of green that abounds ones vehicular experience en route. Mature 'tunnels' of London plane and chestnut trees line romantically intimate single lane drives through rolling topography that drift through nodes of urban historical settlement. Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, and the likes of Dobbs Ferry lay in wait to tell their story through the low density and small town feel of old American settlement, heavily informed by industrial evolution (and gradual dissolution) along the Hudson River. This historical and slow-paced sequence on the trip to Beacon succeeds in couching our anticipation and expectations of art within the context of an experiential pilgrimage. Arriving to park our car within a diverse orchard of flowering fruit trees and a seasonally changing landscape only serve to elevate one's leisurely pleasures of the day and highlight the site-specific nature of this facility and its accoutrements.

Perhaps the Sunday drive is not entirely a remnant of the Model T Ford era that promoted the use of the vehicle as a vessel for freedom and personal expression. In fact, my recent visit to Dia:Beacon only serves to reinforce an idea that predates the vehicle and the socially contrived associations of the 'gallery-goer'. The exhibition of art is much more than mere consumption. Instead it is a catalyst for exploration, critical thought, and most importantly the experience, acknowledgent, and appreciation for 'the journey' involved in our daily lives - that which are of a scale that cannot possibly be accommodated by only conventional means.

All the World's a Stage ...

While actors the likes of Jamie Foxx and Russel Crowe attempt careers on the microphone, and singers such as 50 cent attempt to make a dollar or "die tryin'" on the big screen, an evolution of "starchitects" have resorted to shift their sights on the built forms of the theatrical arts.

A multitude of theatrical performances in New York City this spring - ballet, opera, and theatre - incorporate architectural design in various ways. Thematic or set design, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that this synchronistic phenomenon comes at a time when development continues to wain, employment remains stagnant, and hope for the advancement of investment in the public realm remains cautious. Architecture of Dance, The Glass House, Attila, The Bilbao Effect, and Theatre for One are architectural interventions that provide an exciting new layer within the performance arts, and instigate a new dialogue with their respective audiences.

Calatrava's kinetic designs for the 'Architecture of Dance' - inspired in part by the condition of the human body - creates scenery that activates the dancers of the NYC Ballet; orchestrating and choreographing a distinct interplay between humans and the built environment.

Herzog and de Meuron team up with Prada - expanding their namesake haute couture to include costume design for the Metropolitan Opera's 'Attila'- to evoke a viscerally provoking backdrop of rubble and vegetation. Civilization's encounter with barbarism has never been more constructed and is thus rendered, arguably, in a light that is perhaps antithetical and somewhat subversive.

The 'Bilbao Effect' by Oren Safdie, puts contemporary architecture on trial. Socially constructed notions of what art is are often perpetuated through our misunderstanding of architecture and landscape, and its significant role in the cultural evolution of society - both positive and negative. Rather than perpetuating our notions of architecture and art as inanimate objects that that hang in a gallery or embrace a plaza, the effects of contemporary architectural design may also encompass visual acts or a theatrical event. 

There appears to be great potential for stages - theatrical or urban - to become works of art in and of themselves. These theatrically constructed landscapes have the potential to “quicken our senses, stir our emotions, and convey aesthetic integrity . . . Each links us to the people who created it . . . Each holds our history” (Lipske). Like the designed landscape, theatrical 'art'chitecture seemingly presents itself as becoming a contemporary medium for the expression of wealth, discontentment, and political criticism. 

Perhaps through our exposure to and understanding of theatre-andscape analogs we might better establish and associate relationships and similarities between the processes and intentions of theatrical space, with those of the designed landscape. Arguably, it is necessary to understand these relationships as a way of better informing the processes of landscape design, and the architecture of the urban environment. The brick wall, billboards, and the public washroom stall have all become galleries for the art of our era. As our culture moves further away from public art traditionally associated with the statuesque, it is important to acknowledge this change, designing our urban landscapes as canvases for the future. Dated tableaus, and replicated images of nature do little to invigorate urban life.

"Theatre for One is a portable performing arts space for one performer and one audience member, that turns public events into private acts, making each performance a singularly intimate exchange." Erected in Times Square, the surrounding landscape and public space are more poignantly articulated as settings, or ‘scenes’ of urban event. 'Landscape as Theatre' enhances the memorable qualities of public spaces, enhancing our experiences within a constant state of flux, and changes in scenery. Like the theatre, the individual affects, and is affected by changes in their environment. Through this interaction, the urban landscape frames its own presence, and defines its relationship within and to the city. 

It obvious that architects are finally recognizing the potency that historical and contemporary notions of, and meanings associated with the theatre to inform the designed environment; for the “theatre itself not only had the architectural meaning, derived from the ancients, of a playhouse and the performances staged there, but also meant a conspectus: a place, region, or text in which phenomena are unified for public understanding” (Cosgrove). 

While our attention here in the 'Big Apple' may be captivated by the accessible and nearly tangible qualities of 'starchitecturally' designed performance environments, the tableaux of urban life still struggle to facilitate civil action, recreation, and public awareness, and at the same time allow for the flexibility and continuity of scenographic transitions over time. Like stage designs, however, we may draw from this present phenomena, an understanding that the ephemeral nature of the life of urban spaces requires design solutions that serve current needs, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate future uses.

Drawing Lines with Meaning

While technical drawings have existed throughout time, most drafts people have used some combination of table with slanted top and parallel rules. Other tools include the T-square and compass. Archaeological evidence even suggests the architect of the Greek Parthenon went so far as to scratch a technical drawing onto the marble floor to guide his workers.

Fast-forward to modern times; the pantograph helped usher in the modern use of mechanical and computer-assisted design (CAD). While some continue to use the drafting table and handheld tools, CAD has infiltrated even the smallest of offices and sole proprietorships to output technical drawings accurately and efficiently. Are we at risk of creating spaces and places that are less “thick” with meaning? Does the potential for a serendipitous culmination of experiences – as those we receive when we travel by foot instead of car, rail instead of air – give way to sterility and precision?

A new city, a new office, and a new career with a firm that expounds the very meaning of technical proficiency has left me pondering the nuances of what lies within the intentions and act of drawing a simple line? While the act of expanding ones proficiency elicits some excitement, in what way do the designs we manifest digitally, differ from those created through a less glamorous but still well respected discipline of hand drawing? How do the outputs of ISO, ARCH and ANSI differ from those where graphite meets linen, oil meets canvas, and art meets artist?

Perhaps I am dating myself, or at the very least beginning to sound like my parents - even my parent’s parents- reliving "the good old days" when beer was beer, not “lite” or “calorie reduced”. However, as I reflect on my most recent, even somewhat obsessive and masochistic musings with CAD, I find myself questioning the ability to imbue our work with the same infusions of experience, conscious thought, sights, sounds and smells associated with the simplicity and meaningfully deliberate representation of a hand drafted sketch.

In our attempts to model the real world, computer-aided geometric lines are used to represent straight objects that lack substantive width or height - an idealization of such objects programmed to be infinitely long but also lacking substance. While our brains become increasingly absorbed into a rigorous, unrelenting and repetitive digital logic, ‘real world' coordinates geo-referenced to a set of globally positioned system of data will strive to provide us with assurances of our place, even our existence here on earth. X, Y, and Z will be forever drawn within our documented, file-shared, and x-referenced lives, but will take no account or even acknowledgement of our experiences within the situated realities of that which we conceptualize, create, or document with a writing instrument. It is only then that substance to paper will resemble our real-time world. Instead, and in the meantime, I will assign myself to rotating around and around a limitless model space of infinite coordinates, all the while left wondering "when can I print?" If only it were the right scale ...

And so I am left; caught in a middle ground as a multi-talented individual that seeks solace in his ability to perceive the world through more corporeal representation, but a desire to utilize the productive abilities of a language that seeks to elicit my curiosity for exploration like a new city. It is with the knowledge that adaptability may be my strongest trait that I venture forth, seeking my opportunity to conceive of the next Parthenon that exists beyond the mere reproductive qualities of Autodesk’s newest drawing utility.

Beyond Thunderdome: Encouraging Growth in a "World of Danger"

(Brooklyn Bridge Park - View toward Brooklyn Bridge)

What have we become that our litigious culture - safety over savvy, suitful superfluousity over fun, and fretful fear over friendly frolicking - continues to abandon personal responsibility and drives us further toward the removal of opportunities for learning and fun from our play environments?

(Stainless Steel Play Domes)

Bloody noses and tales of thermal torment have graced the front pages of many a publication recently, over the highly anticipated but recently relegated opening of Brooklyn Bridge Park. "They should take them out and put in something like a jungle gym, remember those?". Yes, we remember those, along with monkey bars, see-saws, and backyard ravines - all exciting, playful, may I say daring memories of being a child. Our human fallibility's of short-term memory  prevent us from recalling a chipped tooth, a painful laceration, even a broken bone. Many of these were acquired not from innocuous play equipment but from our own tendencies to push ourselves, dare one another, even ignore our parents well-guided intentions of concern. "They're dangerous", "I want them removed" are just some of the statements of fear and fury being expressed around the city of New York by residents and parents alike. Though concerns regarding our children's welfare may never be abated, it strikes me as troubling and unfortunate that we are so quick to absolve ourselves of any personal responsibility and/or control.

Let me not lead you to believe that I would wish a child to be "horribly scarred or injured". Unfortunately as a design professional I am caught in a terrible middle earth that is tasked with responding to the greater health and safety of the public while providing places for mystery, adventure, and fun - the best of which often come with a hint of risk and a dash of danger.

I recently visited the park and can attest to the shiny draw of the "controversial metal climbing domes". Perhaps if there had not been so many kids sliding, climbing, and running across them I would have taken a shot at conquering them myself. One of the first bright and gloriously sunny days that has dragged us from the icy confines of winter and into spring, the anticipation and enjoyment of the park was evident. Simply but thoughtfully laid out, Brooklyn Bridge Park teases New York's residents - far and wide - and leaves them in anticipation of the many sequential phases to come.

The advent and continued growth of prefabricated playgrounds, I believe, promises to do more harm than good to our children's personal and physical growth. Overly didactic in their elicitation of creative play and physical challenge, designers are responding with a much needed revolt against a lobby group - play structure manufacturers of prefabricated equipment (with the exception of a few) - that continues to legitimize and politicize children's play. So powerful are these groups, they seek to ostracize, arguably criminalize any attempt at providing alternates to the dumbed-down structures we see littering our urban and suburban neighbourhoods. MVVA's "steel domes" are one attempt at providing creative elements that allow for flexibility, appropriation, and creative play. Every tragedy, I believe, has a silver lining. While I am intrigued as to whether or not the designer's had fully thought the play structures at Brooklyn Bridge Park through, I remain supportive of their attempts.

Perhaps the maturing trees will provide the intended shade and cooling so that kids may continue to enjoy the domes throughout the warmer months. Maybe more permanent tents or structures will need to be provided to mitigate the thermal effects on the structures. Unfortunately, no matter how many warning signs are posted, rubber play mats installed, or surfaces ground smooth we live in a world that confronts us each day with the potential for harm the minute we walk out our front doors.

I can only wonder who we blame when our child burns themselves on the clothes iron, stove, or hot water within our own homes. Who is at fault for burning themselves while drinking hot coffee - the woman who ordered it or the retailer that sold it? The first and last time I ever touched a hot stove was the last. It is amazing how a park that has been so anticipated can quickly become so criticized. We are a being that often remains discontent, dissatisfied the minute we have nothing to be upset about, yet everything to be joyous about. My sympathies lie with the parents who have been 'affronted' in some way, but my empathies lie with the children for whom are caught and remain helpless amidst a litigious battle that is destined to overshadow the potential benefits of this great new civic amenity.

From Slab to Fab: The Concretus Ambitions of Modern Society

As we build taller, we are confronted with a small window into the aspirations of a societies' people. From the cathedrals of Europe, to the Pyramids of Giza, fast forward to today's modern day steel structures such as the Empire State and Taipei 101 buildings. We have arrived at an era where cultural landmarks 'of the people' are now 'for the people' - cathedrals of commerce and private opulence that are in a perpetual state of skyward-reach.

The impending arrival of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai equals - perhaps supersedes other modern marvels - epitomizing the stunning achievements of structural design and material advancement. Erected as an impressive series of rotations toward the heavens, the newly built structure - now the worlds tallest - was made entirely of reinforced concrete.

More than simply an aesthetic obsession with concrete, it is of particular interest (to me) that over the past centuries, buildings have made a significant shift from vernacular materials - locally quarried stone - to a seemingly generic and 'placeless' material that is reproduced with varying degrees of success around the world. With a response to creativity and gravity defying feets, concrete may never replace the timeless and human qualities of stone, but it will most certainly support today's designers and engineers in crafting the ambitions of today's modern societies.

Stunningly, the compressive strength of concrete has tripled over the last half century, further facilitating the physical legacies of our social and cultural achievements. Our cities, bridges, and buildings have become taller, lighter, and increasingly streamlined. While we can all attest to such advancements in construction and engineering, less can be said of our horizontal experience of this world. With the punishment we inflict on our roads and public spaces, and the expectations for endurance we expect but take for granted from each, our dependence upon them grows with every passing day. Unfortunately, our vertical pursuits are given much higher priority - a result of an evolution toward upright cities for the affluent. Such is certainly the case at the Burj, with resdiences priced for the nearly-royal.

From an historical worship of stone to the modern day eruption of "free enterprise" - signified by the advancements of steel - there is something to ponder about our lofty achievements with today's most prolific building material, concrete. I suspect the rest of us plebeians will continue to persevere however. Traveling between such impressive yet ironic structures of our time, we shall hold a contemptful jealousy for the impromptu matches of hopscotch we continue to endure - forever avoiding the cracks, gaps, and outright upheavals of our horizontal world.

Everyday Brush Strokes

As a glimmering exodus of people emerge from their homes the evidence of a thawing winter abounds. Like memorial monuments arranged in homage to an historical event, the remains of snowmen dot the Oval Lawn at Central Park - reconvening themselves to a place within the hydrological cycle of the living landscape.

While standing proud and defying even the most casual observer, the landscape architect's eye is particularly obsessed with such banal details of everyday life. Decay, death, and their inherent acknowledgement of the passing of time all manifest an environmental patina of change that measures our engagement with the built and natural environment. Embracing, enhancing, and simply revealing these changes remains our biggest challenge and our greatest achievement.

Central Park is, perhaps, one of these more fundamental and momentous achievements - a place before and of it's time. The gloriously colourful passing of seasonal time is manifest in the manmade arrangement of such subtle but impressive events  - a carefully crafted choreography of elements that respond to the worlds cyclical processes. Independently they may be taken for granted. As a bold expression of character, form, and perhaps even personality, however, these elements possess the ability to command an attention that may otherwise be superseded. 

This art, that lives as part of our daily lives, brings a softer and quieter resistance to the more brazen and ostentatious realities that abound. As architects create shapes to appropriate voids and musicians create sounds to capture silence, I posit landscape architect's have the earthly ability to understand the basic human requirements of inhabitation amongst our tumultuous present realities of urban life. 

The formulation, manipulation and arrangement of objects and space itself create places that serve as testimonials and careful reminders of our closest ally - the natural world. While our experience of light exists in the patient and brooding presence of darkness, our connection to place and our sense of belonging is experienced in the passing of time. Finding beauty not in the arrangement or physical presence of things themselves, but in the patterns they create, the shadows they cast, and the passing of time that they document, provides a more lasting impression. One can only hope that we take the time to notice, and to dwell.