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