I’m blogging about an old project from 2007 I did as a student at Colorado State University mainly because I was going to add some setchbook entries, but found that my sketchbook is in the car where I can’t get to it and because I have nothing better to do right now with a winter storm winding down here in Denver.
The Wayne Grace Memorial Competition was an open student competition which has been happening annually since 2000. Each year three cash awards are given to students/teams who can submit projects representative of CLARB standards and the positive role Landscape Architects play in the built environment.
Denargo market Landscape Plan, Denver, CO.
The project I submitted was called ‘Denargo Market’ after the former industrial/post-industrial riverfront site on the lower west end of Downtown Denver.
The design intent was to re-use and re-purpose existing architectural and landscape materials in the construction of a series of pavillions identifying each neighborhood zone from urban agriculture to entertainment and art.
Principal Jim MacRae and former staff Heath Mizer at Design Workshop of Denver introduced the project and guided our class through a charette-paced two-week intensive design process, offering an urban development framework to base our landscape master plan upon.
I was paging through some videos Michael Van Valkenburgh recorded for WNYC Radio on the Brooklyn Bridge Park on Youtube and managed to sumble upon a short piece on Dan Kiley.
I was paging through some videos Michael Van Valkenburgh recorded for WNYC Radio on the Brooklyn Bridge Park on Youtube and managed to sumble upon a short piece on Dan Kiley.
There are so many outstanding moments captured in the short film, but I was particularly intrigued by Mr. Kiley’s comparison of movement in sports with design and the natural environment. Going with gravity, as Dan puts it, not imitating or copying is the key to what I took as meaningful design and ultimately a meaningful or purposeful life. Dan says, ‘If you look like you’re skiing, you’re probably not skiing well.’
Doing the natural thing may mean simply not trying to do anything, right? Well, perhaps not anything on purpose, but with purpose.
With the recession carrying on into 2010 jobs are scarce for everyone, let alone the lowly designer. I have been fortunate enough to land a decent job with a local Landscape Architect and Planner in Berthoud, Colorado. Some of my former classmates at Colorado State have managed to maintain their jobs at some boutique firms in New York City and elsewhere while others have been jobless or underemployed outside the profession for several years. Needless to say, it’s a confusing and frustrating time to be a recent graduate, which isn’t to say that I’ve actually graduated. I’ve finished the studio sequence, but a handful of classes still loom over my future like a dark cloud.
Going to work this week has alleviated some of the mental anguish that comes with unemployment, though the questions still linger. Gravity, as Dan Kiley puts it, is what I should go with and I shall. Fear is what develops from a negative in a dark room as one author illustrates. My fear is of becoming a cliche, a shell of my true self coasting through the darkness. I think it’s natural for any young professional, frought with ambition and an over-inflated egocentric sense of self-worth compounded by a degree of higher education to over-analyze each baby step through the threshold of real life. Gravity isn’t necessarily something we’re born with a sense of, we learn to manipulate and play with it. When we are young and agile we play with gravity; attraction from one animal to another, puppy love, going steady, cliques, and other stupid st
