Progress Report 3

Progess Report 3

Presentation Tomorrow, July 21st

I will be presenting the results of the last 4 weeks tomorrow, July 21st, at 4:30pm, Room 901, in Wurster Hall. You can download a presentation brief in doc format here, or in pdf format here.

If you have been wondering why I haven't posted anything in the past couple of weeks, it is because I have been rushing to put together materials for this presentation. On Thursday morning I will post a lot of what I present tomorrow.

Progress Report 2.5

I have uploaded a pdf with seven images that provide some of the rationale and inspiration for this project. Each image is accompanied by a short text explaining what is relevant or compelling about that particular image.

Progress Report 2

The project has changed in two major ways: the timeline has shifted, and I will now be making a trip to New York in late July to see Central Park, the Highline, and many other places.

Now, instead of focusing on research and data gathering until late Fall, I will do a four week mini-project, touching on all the steps I had planned for the entire project. At the end of the four weeks I will present my work to a faculty jury on July 21st. Then, I get to repeat the whole project over the next academic year with the wisdom gained from the first round. At Nicholas's request, I've made an assignment sheet for this four week project, downloadable here. This assignment sheet details what I will be producing over the next four weeks, and offers an even more concise project description than the one I posted before.

I now get to go to New York! I plan to go for one week, from July 28th through August 4th. I was allowed (barely) by the Haas Scholars Program to add this trip to my research budget. Two major precedents for this project are in New York: Central Park, by Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Highline, by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

I have been collecting images that are relevant to the project, and they should be embedded in this slide show. Click on the little speech bubble to see the captions.

I will add to this set of images continually, as well as select five of the most compelling ones to describe this project. Some of them are precedents, while others illustrate relationships between design, nature, and urbanity. I have added citations as captions to the images; more detailed notes on each one will be posted soon. As soon as my camera arrives, I will be making a trip to San Francisco to capture some of my own images for this project.

Software training has been delayed further--I need to make some urgent repairs to my laptop before I can reinstall windows or any other software.

After moving into the studio space in Wurster Hall, I now have other people to talk to, and who recommend books to me, including Eleanor, who recommended portions of: Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, James Corner, Ed.; Common Landscape of America, 1580 t0 1845, by John R. Stilgoe; Landscape in Sight: Looking at America, by J. B. Jackson; A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time, also by J. B. Jackson.

I am focusing on a smaller set of questions from the outline and brainstorm I posted last week. Here is an image, with the new questions highlighted in pink.

Progress Report 1

The project is off to a good start, getting this blog up and running is the most visible accomplishment this week. I found a way of allowing readers to download documents from this blog, including a revised project statement aimed at summarizing the project for possible collaborators and guest jurors. In the long run, I may switch to a website of my own, rather than this blogging platform, to enable better file hosting, flexibility, and long-term integration with an online portfolio. In addition to the revised project statement, readers can download my current reading list, for editing, feedback, or anything else one might want to do with a reading list. Any feedback on the blog is completely welcome.

I’ve given myself a crash course in OmniPlan and OmniFocus, project management and task management software, respectively. With OmniPlan I’ve begun a detailed list of different tasks that is prioritized and carefully scheduled, and which allows me to coordinate the help of others. Displayed here are screen shots of my OmniPlan project. The ability to designate long, convoluted chains of dependency, and then have my tasks prioritized to account for these dependencies has proven invaluable. This will save me a lot of inefficiency and headaches throughout my project.

I visited the GIF yesterday, and with the help of Jeremy Freund, obtained a student license for ArcEditor, a GIS software, and access codes for three GIS training courses: Learning ArcGIS Desktop, Basics of the Geodatabase Data Model, and Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning Using ArcGIS 9. I will begin these courses in about two days, as soon as I finish removing a virus from part of my computer and get a few other tasks done.

To make my process and inquiry as transparent as possible, the outline for this project will be a large diagram, 24” x 36”, consisting of many specific written questions, grouped by topic. I wanted to be able to bring this diagram to my presentations so that I can get feedback on my approach to the project. Below is a small snapshot of the diagram in its current state, based on my most recent brainstorm of questions. In this most recent brainstorm, I sought to be as specific as possible, as well as to focus my questions on what is currently the case.

All feedback is welcomed, whether it is about the project, my writing, the blog, or any associated documents or links that I’ve provided.