interesting stuff and questions…
Optical illusions — when I was google searching some images and information , I found this interesting thing, and I thought it’s kind of related to my concept – conception .I do want to incorporate this into my project because I found that the pillars of the overpass are amazing when I was standing at some angle and the perspective of the series of those columns give me a lot of thinking. But like what I said in the last post, I should think about the site itself and I am trying to think about what the park should look like and what does people do in the surrounding area. That might help me to figure out my design.
After think about the site, three major areas that I could think of: the area for parking , the area for pedestrian and the area for the market. But I don’t want them to be too separate maybe they could be overlap or something… and some questions came to my head when I was thinking more:
- l If the dense columns of the overpass impressed me, how to use them and how to make them more sense?
- l From the overpass plan, there are three separate overpass and the sunlight/shadow made by them is amazing , so how to connect these three overpass , how to make them integrate together?
- l Is there necessary to make a gentle transition from underneath the overpass and outside the overpass? How to connect the two parts together?
- l The falling water is a good way to solute the noise of I-10?
Precedents
We’ve already seen lots of successful precedents in the design week about overpass project and I was shocked by many creative thinking and works designed by our students. A lot of ideas give me and make me think about what are the overpass and garden related to it doing in Perkins Road? That make me more think about what people do here and what people need here.
The precedents give me some good examples.
- Splash Pad Park is located in Oakland, California and is sited in the north of Lake Merritt. The most useful stuff for the Perkins Road of this project is its liaison to the city and its interesting activity held annually and periodically. The park is along Lake Park Ave, between Grand Ave and Lakeshore Ave, and north of the 580 Freeway. Just because of its important location, the park provides featured liaison to the city, the surrounding business used land, community group and some other neighboring merchants. We could see the park as a connecting spot to those area and connect the surrounding spots together and provide the people a decent a space to hang out and take a brake. The similarity between the surrounding environment of Splash Pad Park and Perkins Road is that both of them incorporate many restaurants and business stuff. So how to connect them together and what kind of space do hang-out people need in this area? Maybe especially create a space for the drunk person… Another big event of this park is its annual event and periodical activity. People use the open area and the column of the overpass to do something specially. Open space is common for Farmers’ Market. And what I found interesting is that people use the pillars of the overpass to do a chalk painting festival. Maybe to some people, overpass’s column is boring , the gray color , the tedious not changed shape and its concrete feeling make people uncomfortable. But when some color painting are put on to them , the space become active accordingly. I am also thinking about to do something on the pillars of the Perkins Road, there are lots of amazing pillars when you are watching them at some specific angles.
- Zaanstadt overpass, another highway overpass that has split a neighborhood in the Dutch city of Zaanstadt for decades. What make this park featured is that it provide a lot of sports area for the people, say skatepark, basketball court, soccer fields. But what useful for the Perkins Road I think is this outside area of overpass, Zaanstadt also provides some open area and sports area outside the overpass. These areas are in the different usage according to their surrounding building and environment. For instance —
“In front of the church, it was decided to free the square of the existing greenery to make the space flexible for housing open air fairs and celebrations. On the paving of the refurbished square, with a change in the colour of the blocks, the urban fabric that preceded the building of the motorway is redrawn. From time to time pieces of wood set into the paving indicate the position of the living rooms of old demolished houses.”
“On the town hall side there is a new park with topographical features that adds a little green to the intervention. The park includes a bowling ground, a small grassy hill planted with birch trees, a space for barbecues and a football pitch surrounded by a metal fence.”
So in terms of Perkins Road, what kind of space does people need when they are out of overpass and what’s kind of space fit into the surrounding area? I think when I am going to design the area I really should take all of this into serious consideration.
- Burnside Skatepark , located in Portland, Oregon, is almost the most successful and most famous skatepark. When I was reading the story of the park, I found that what seriously does people need on the site is very crucial for the space. Burnside Skatepark was exactly how develop from this way, the designer and his partner needed a space for skating and they thought of different ways to skate. The park developed from a baby skatepark to a diverse usage park is a perfect explanation that what does people exactly need in the area. Apparently this park is cool stuff when I took the first look at it, but when I explored more meaningful things, I found that the park fulfill people’s need on the site and people really could enjoy themselves and could do whatever they want. The FUNCTIONAL aspect! That also what is useful for Perkins Road — I was always shock by very cool / amazing image and landscape when I was in the first touch of landscape architecture so that made me kind of ignored the real functional need of people for the space. I think I should seriously consider what people do and what people need for the park this time.
my first movie!
This is my own FIRST movie! I know it doesn’t show the idea very clearly but it is my first movie, and I had lots of fun when working on Movie Maker.
I repeated some parts in the video, just changed the speed to reinforce the idea of shadow/sunlight - perception.
Temporal Phenomena - Perception - storyboard
I focus on a short period of time that could give the idea of how perception changing according to the different position. when I was walking through the underpass of I-10 , I found it was interesting the shadow of the overpass changed. The shadow of the two overpass made a stripe of sunlight on the ground and when people move very fast through this area, the view of light-dark-light appear to people’s eye. I also had sort of same experience when I moved other place. The combination of light and shadow made by a row of trees or some series of overpass make the perception flashing, even when you close your eyes you also could feel the light-dark changing if the sunlight is strong enough. Also, if we could think I-10 overpass to be a threshold the object in the far distance is also changing its size when moving through the overpass.
So, thinking about the concept - perception, some different aspects could be a good expression to show the idea. In terms of storyboard, I was thinking about use these key words to analyse : position / perspective / shadow-sun / distance. How the object in far distance changed according to the different position changing? ( I guess I could call it perspective) How the shadow changed? And is there some big different between different stuff move under the overpass? the car… the people…
When driving through the overpass, the changing of the object - perception changing made me think of some of landscape. I have seen some landscape that the designer use the principle of perspective and transformed the three dimensional perspective view to a plan view. So you could have 3D feeling when take a look at the plan not only in the real atmosphere. One example is … unforunately I always forgot the name of the designer and the project … the designer used some triangle in his plan and arranged some columns and blue balls in a perspective angle in real design, and to reinforce the concept the designer also put a perspective painting on the garden wall in the end of the path.
… go back to my storyboard… in short, the idea is : move - shadow/sunlight - perception .
sundial
take a look at how shadow change in the different time in the daytime, the ancient people was smart that they could think of this effective way to record time precisely.
An interesting artwork called Porthcawl Sundial in south Wales.
shadow
It is an awesome weather and I think the shadow I found on the site is quite interesting. I think shadow is a good indicator to show time changing in daytime. No matter the direction of the shadow changing or the pattern of the shadow changing amazed me a lot.
Something will happen at some specific time , for instance, traffic is busy sometimes at some specific time and it is not so busy at other time. And shadow is a natural indicator to show the time changing. Just like the sundial that ancient people used to record time.
Also, this picture I took on the site:
I am assuming that the shadow of the polar will continuously change its direction according to the sun moving in the daytime. And the changing shadow which means the changing time maybe tied to some events on the site, say when the traffic is busy or not.
Below are the busy time and less busy time of the traffic, and I am assuming that it could related to the different time which could be indicated by shadow. And shadow of the overpass could also change according to the different time in the daytime.
perspectives in Project1
the perspective rendering in Photoshop, I still think my original hand drawing perspectives are much better than these which were rendered in Photoshop,
Project 01- Donnelly Park, New Orleans
The final one went back to my initial thinking about the site: how the disaster effect the community ? how people react to the flooding and how people rebuild the city. So the design comes out as a narrative to describe the flooding story in the city. For the whole city, the shape and pattern of the design gave the idea of how the flooding came into the city and how people rebuild the city after Katrina:
open space - live oak and elm tree gave the idea of the city beauty of pre-Katrina
channel - mimic the shape of flooding water as being a kind of memorial
wetland - giving the idea how people rebuild the city
For the community, the park provides different activity space for the neighborhood:
open space - the north part of the park provides a open space for the neighborhood , I want it to be a flexible space, providing people more active space
channel - the sloping down channel directs rain or water to the wetland which located in the south of the park, it’s also a kind of memorial for reminding people Katrina was here before
wetland - the combination of wetland and less moist area and different kinds of wetland species provide an educational area for the neighborhood, the problem is I need to shrink down the area of this wetland and provide more active and easier access space for people.
section-channel
section-wetland:the boardwalk bridge goes across the wetland
section-wetland/channel: how the boardwalk bridge connect the wetland and the channel area
concept diagram: mimic the shape of flooding water
wetland diagram: the combination of wetland and less moist area
channel diagram: rain or water flow into the wetland area according to the changing elevation
perspective-channel and retaining wall
perspective-wetland and its earthwork and boardwalk bridge
perspective-open space and the end of the channel
Maybe because the wired shape of my earthwork, I found it hard to build a model in SketchUp, so I just created a simple base and basic shape of the earthwork and the whole park in SketchUp and then printed them out , then traced them , then use pencil to render them , then scan them and put them in Photoshop, finally put some trees and persons in these perspective. I know it sounds like a complicated process and the rendering of the perspective seems doesn’t fit into the other drawing… I need some practice in Photoshop rendering and SketchUp.
material for the landform
That is the roof destroyed by Katrina. When I saw these pictures a cool idea came to me! I do not want grass covered the landform , I would use the material that is for the real roof to cover the landform and keep the cool shape. Or at least I would use the color of the real roofing material. What is the material for roof in New Orleans? I searched something… and.. metal.. tile..fiber cement.. who knows…
