cheep,cheep-cheepwhoosh.whoosh.whoosh.whoosh.clunkclunk–clunkclunk

My thoughts about Project 2.

The site is Perkins Road and Christian Street, aka the Perkins Road Overpass (or underpass, depending on your perspective). I don’t know enough about the history of the area to really go into it, but I’ve been told that there is a strong Baton Rouge social history attached to it. It’s a very strange area if you’ve never been there before, Perkins Road practically touches Chelsea’s (bar/restaurant), I-10 also passes overhead, there are strange angles and nooks from the overpasses and the properties below, all ways in seem like back doors but chelsea’s is a popular bar, and the Bet-R grocery store is like everyone’s quick stop when you don’t have time for real grocery shopping. anyway strange, awkward space that has a lot of potential.

I am interested in the sounds of the place as my phenomena. There are so many different sounds going on, and not all noisy traffic like you might think. The aspect I am interested in is the symphonic effect created by everything together. If I can figure out some ways to map everything I think some incredibly interesting results could come out of it.

• Whoosh – car on Perkins
• clunkclunk, clunkclunk – vehicles on I-10, the sound is a double clunkclunk
• cooo – pidgeons (I think they are in nesting season and not typically that loud)
• cheeping, chirping, tweeting – happy song birds – definitely seasonal, they started up about a month ago when it was still cold. It seemed even louder then. I think they were yelling for warm weather to come. 3:00 – 4:00am start up time
• Whiiirrrr – wood saw
• wind rustling through trees – all day long, typically stronger in the afternoon, getting stronger through the night, stopping around dawn. Very loud when a front is moving in.
• babbling brook – water running over gravel and into a drain. it made a lovely noise. I recorded it, but didn’t think to seek out the source. oops.
• Train – I didn’t see it when I was there, but I know it usually comes through town at night, after dark but before the birds
• People – crunch of walking on gravel parking lot, talking, clanking glasses and dishes, bar noises, drunk people noises – definitely louder as evening approaches, loudest at night, Friday and Saturday

break it down by: type, volume, location, natural v/s not natural… divide it up by: season, time of day, day of week, location

Lots of thoughts rumbling around my head – but I need to focus on the storyboards for tomorrow. Focus. FOCUS!

um, I really want to post some video clips on here, but need to get back to the FOCUS thing.

 

Project 01 concept – kind of a wrap up

I’ve been trying to write a summary of project one for close to a week now, but it just reads like a ridiculous laundry list of tasks and trials.  I just couldn’t even start a post about Project 02 without saying something in summary of Project 01.  Moving on, I present a short version and save anyone reading this from that torture.

Project name: EMERGE (for emergence and emerging)

My concept was inspired by the way the neighborhood has bound together and is emerging into something new. They are neither denying nor clinging to the history of the place, but organizing themselves to build upon what is left – thus came the concept of emergence.

I had the concept pretty early on, and actually felt good enough about it to stick with it. But turning the idea of emergence into a design was a long, drawn out process, with more than half of my work getting abandoned. At some point, a sketch of a wedge like form showed up in my sketchbook, Brad told me to go with it and the landforms were born. The thing with the design process (at least for me) is that what looks like a simple logical path in retrospect really took a lot of sketches, models, plans and revamping all of the above to get to. I can say I went from this: to the very similar landform ramps in my final design and it makes sense. But if I show all of the steps that were in between the two things, then you can see why design is not so simple.  Half of those in between steps are chronicled in this blog.  Now, for Project 02…

 

sections – the last one – finally!

 

post design thoughts

Through the design process I had some thoughts about my design and some changes that I would make if I were to set about on a major tweaking project…

In general, I always wanted the park to be one big endless play space for kids to play in. I want people to be able to move continually through the park without ever needing to turn around. The main thing to accommodate that change would be to put terraces or steps (or even more ramps) coming down off of the large land form where it reaches 6 feet tall in the south-west end of the park. The idea is to provide plenty of stopping points for people to sit and hang out, but also keep people interested in what lies ahead if they continue moving.

I have several strips of grasses running into the land forms, but they are too restrictive and need to be moved away from the edge in some places and simply cut through (at diagonals) in other places so there are no weird little corners that would probably only collect weeds, trash and other debris. Also – they don’t necessarily have to be grasses or reeds as depicted in all of my renderings. Whatever the plantings, they should definitely be native.

I don’t thing the landforms should be totally bound by the brick – it makes it too formal of a division between the level ground and ramping landform. I would keep the brick walls on three sides only, removing it from where the bottom of the ramp meets the ground.

I would also put some seating in the park – something more rustic in the groves (if I can call them that). Ideally I would search for found materials and enlist the community in ideas for the hunt. Broken chunks of sidewalk could be one example.

Finally – make the landforms a little smaller again closer to the sizes they were in my first plan.

that is all I have for now, I’m sure more changes will come to mind if I ever re-visit this project.

 

perspective from on top of the larger landform, looking north-east…

 

standing in the south end of the park, looking west…

 

Standing near the big oak tree, facing east

looking at the ladies looking at the sun bathers…

 

WordPress hates me. i’ve done about 6000 versions of these sections and have managed to get 2 posted, finally, and still don’t know what the difference is between the ones I have and have not been able to post.

 

decisions

feedback from elizabeth was positive, but i’m still in the decision making hell that always ties me down. She said to raise the landforms, landforms are cheap, to open up the field, which was already in the works, that there was no reason not to make the swamp a swamp – but i think further into the crit we moved back to something more friendly to a person passing through (unless she still had swamp in mind – I’m not sure), there could be paths passing through that lead up to the main elevated platform area (I had already started thinking of it as an elevated platform or a promenade) and that the part representing the swamp could have strips of the same vegetation that echo out from the central parts of the swamp. And that wilderness area could be the main landform could become a sort of viewing platform for events that take place on the green field that i am opening up below, oh, she also enthusiastically suggested a covered area that is pretty much the pavilion design that I had been working on – at least in form. That was exciting. It was reassuring to get some feedback that follows along with the changes I am already working on, but she left me saying, “done,” you just need to make those decisions (honestly i’m not even sure what decisions need to be made). She has no idea how hard it is for me to make those decisions. It is THE most difficult thing. The ties that bind me. Anyway, it has to be all figured out tonight otherwise there is no chance in hell – sleep or no sleep – I will be done on Friday. Holy cow, it is already 6pm! I’ve been up for 12 hours and what have I accomplished today???

Alright – here is the visual version of the advice listed above.

now i better throw something together for the Villa Lante project that is due tomorrow…

 

thinking about meaning – trying to crack the code

Trying to attach meaning to everything I do with the park has been driving me crazy.  It feels so contrived and somewhat arbitrary.  Why does every line I draw have to mean something?  And how can a line mean something.  Last semester, I remember Cat saying that one of the diagonals in my lines model (the first part of lines and planes) was very powerful.  The best I can hope is maybe there was some deeper reason I liked that diagonal.  I keep thinking of last semester’s reviews whenever someone would ask why I did some certain thing and my only answer is one I can’t use – that it just made sense in my mind, I liked it and it felt right so I did it.  I swear I don’t understand half the things I think, so much is strictly intuitive.   So, in my attempt at less disjointed thinking i have some thoughts on what to present next Friday.  Clearly, feedback would be awesome.
•    the park is a tribute to how the community has bound together and is emerging from the past into a future of their own creation.
•    The ramping movement of the earth represents the upward momentum of the present.
•    The brick that runs throughout the site represents the historic physical foundations of the community.  The original development.
•    The brick itself is historic – indigenous to the site.
•    The experience of moving through the site is symbolic of the transition that they are in now.  Or maybe just transition in general, since that is what my narrative is essentially about.   (could and should should I make plantings represent that? And if so, how?  something needs to bring the whole thing together, I think vegetation can be the unifying factor.  It could start as one thing on the lower points and transition as it makes its way up.  Plants seem like a good choice to represent constant change in a non-negative way.  Something has to bring it together.  And I need something to make it less boring.)