back yard farms in nyc

backyard farms in nyc

per our discussion today about projects involving urban farming.

cph

Urban form -- Assignment 4

  Project Statement: urban space: synthesis: a network

1.     Read both sector plans – Martineztown and Sawmill.

2.     Pick a neighborhood to focus on

3.     Visit your neighborhood and make notes on:
• spatial character – scale of housing, surrounding uses, canopy if any
• zoning – how far are dwellings set back from streets? Are there walls at the street edge?

• cultural character –what kind of cultural symbols are available?
• form – how does the street grid/non-grid “draw” on the landscape? Are there natural features you can discern?
•any other aspects you find engaging about the neighborhood.  Dogs you have met, people you spoke with, etc.

4.     Present your experiential findings along with what you know of history of site – This presentation should help us feel what you understand about the neighborhood.  You will need at least one drawing with notations.  If you want the neighborhood to feel old, try using a technique that communicates that – pen and ink?  If you want the neighborhood to feel hip and groovy, use a technique that communicates that – hip-hop?

5.     create a piece or a proposal, fleshed out with drawings, plans, model and text, developing a visual/experiential system that ties together an urban space

(by which I mean, think of an art work, not as an object, but as a system – is it sound, is it light, is it markers or monuments, is it a theoretical approach?

6.     Due Last day of class: May 4 – One model, one example of your intervention, one plan to scale of how the system works across the neighborhood

7.     Please take advantage of class work time to bring in this project in its various stages and have commentary from all of us.

New Section -- urban patterns - habitation

Please meet at the Rapid Ride stop on Central at 9:45 on Wednesday.  Make sure you have a sticker on your id to get on for free.  We will take several buses and walk some, so be prepared for the weather.



The link below will show you the Albuquerque sector plans.  We will be exploring the downtown area and some adjoining neighborhoods, in specific Martineztown.  Please look at the Martineztown/Santa Barbara sector plan and the Sawmill plan.
sector plans

best,
Catherine

Assignment 3

Plant Communities/Biological Diversity
Due April 18^th, 2011, in class
A transect reveals linear relationships of topography and vegetation by cutting through mosaic vegetation.  Each sectional transect can create different snapshots of spatial relationships of ground and plants.  We traced a specific line -- the tram line from the top of the Sandias to the Bosque, getting a visual set of impressions of the relationships of fir/aspen forest, ponderosa pine forest, pinyon/juniper dominated landscapes, grasslands and riparian vegetation.

Each of these plant community zones is somewhat flexible at its edges, depending on microclimates.  The edges or ecotones are where we see the greatest diversity of habitat and forage for animals, birds and arthropods.  These ecotones become the subject of this assignment -- the spaces where the nominal identifications become blurred.

1. draw a section of the transect we followed, at the scale of a USGS map aka 1:24,000 (1 inch equals 24,000') with contour intervals of at minimum 20', though if you need to interpolate, you may do so and add in 10' contours.  This map should be drawn on vellum to make it easier to use the topographic maps as a guide.  Simply tick off the contour lines, project upwards and draw the section.  Please then, indicate in any manner you like, the approximate areas of the vegetation we covered.   This can be done from memory of our trip, with help from google earth.  You may use literal or symbolic forms to indicate areas and their cross overs.  Color, b&w patterns, fabric, found paper, embroidery, however you choose to represent the plant communities and their overlaps.  Think about the character of plants and their individual specificity as well as their groupings.

2. Choose one ecotone to represent in book form.  As we turn the pages, we should get a sense of a single plant community, its interlocking with another plant community and how, we end up with the second plant community dominating.  This can be represented as recipes, as visual representations, as poems, as lists of biotic communities, any content that fits within a book format.

If you want to have your section fit within your book, you are welcome to have two sections inside the book -- one with the section and the second with your response, or find a way to have the section fit behind, or with your book's content.

Keep in mind that diversity can be seen in a metaphoric sense.  You do not have to foreground this knowledge in your book object, but be aware that there are always possible interpretations.

transect images for your perusal and a discussion of transects

recent work

View master info

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to post the website information for making a view-master
www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/myovm1.html
There is a kit by Shab Levy that includes a viewmaster and reels or you can buy just the reels

Donna

Frazil Ice

I couldn't resist posting this, even if it does come a little late for our water segment.

Lost and Found

Check out this RadioLab episode, which is about how we spatially orient ourselves. In one part, psycholinguist Lera Borditsky talks of time spent in an Australian aboriginal community where one's 'heading' is key to cultural consciousness. To say 'hello', one would ask "which way are you going?", a question to which the appropriate answer would be something like "north northeast in the middle distance, how about you?"

assignment 2 topo

Land Literacy:
Spring 2011
Catherine Page Harris

Topography: due March 7, 2011

Topography changes our physical experience in the world.  Only flying removes us from the folds and plains of topographic change, and when flying we find ourselves mesmerized by the motion of the land beneath us. Topography provides sculptural objects.  Topography is the source of hide and reveal, both on large and small scales.  A view from the top of a rise, comes as our bodies move up the rise, using muscles and breath to climb. A steep ravine opens before us and we glimpse a creek.  In the city, topography stacks buildings, offers shelter, creates breaks in the urban grid, and opens vistas. 

For this assignment, please pick a topographic signature.  We have studied the road, the drain, the ridge and the valley. You can use another signature, if you would like, but please discuss it with me.  You will choose this signature based on two criteria.  One is an aesthetic appreciation for its pattern.  The second is a content based appreciation for its meaning.

1.     On a 10” x 10” piece of paper draw the signature as a finished drawing in plan and section, including its content in some form in the drawing.  You may use graphite, ink or watercolor.

2.     Take that signature and imagine it as a place.  Create a model at ¼” = 1’-0” out of gray or brown chipboard to represent that place on a 10” x 10” base.

3.     Create an outdoor, temporary, installation using that signature and your imagined place.  You may adopt an existing element that has that signature already embedded in it, but you must alter that element, so we see the content you imagine in the topographic element.  Whether we can or cannot visit your installation, please represent it with photographs printed to fit the 10” x 10” module.

Some references that may come in handy: Mary Miss, Maya Lin, Patricia Johansen

Assignment A - water sketchup and reading

Land Literacy: Spring 2011

Catherine Page Harris

 For Barry Lopez reading, go to e-reserves for this class.  You can search under my name.  It doesn't load very legibly here.

Assignment:  Sketch up

Use one of the “a” entries in Lopez’ Home Ground to create an exploration in Sketch-up.  You could start with the form of the word or with its meaning and the land forms or phenomena described.  Please choose a word relating to our current interest, water.

You are not constrained by size as this is developed in virtual space, but you should be able to turn it in on an 8 ½”  x 11” sheet of paper.

There is no requirement for photographic realism, though you can use Photoshop, V-ray and or other programs to add photographic detail.  See http://www.ronenbekerman.com/sketchup-vray-from-start-to-finish-by-omar-estevez/#comments for some tips on photo realism.

For help with Sketch Up, you can look on You-tube where many videos have been posted.

images of our first in class projects