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My BA's work collection
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a01P O R T F O L I O
A C A D E M I C P O R T F O L I Oby Dav id Roh r
C O N T E N T S
Early plans
Implementation I
Serial vision
Implementation II
Art gallery
Urban design
Housing development
Strategy
Miscellaneous
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E A R L YP L A N S
11
H U N T E R S Q U A R E
I n t r o d u c t i o n t h r o u g h d r a w i n g
As freshmen, our very first task was
to measure and draw. Our tutor took us to
4 open spaces with nothing more
than paper and pencils. These places
were located in an urban context but
all had a completely different way of
dealing with the surrounding.
Having a background in landscape
construction works, I thought it was a
rather plane first exercise,
but I was mistaken.
Measuring the place in footsteps was time
consuming but it is this specific time spent
in those places that allowed me to slowly
feel the genuis loci, the spirit of the place.
This would turn out to be a first step to
change my perception and my relationship
to the open realm.
◄ HUNTER SQUARE : L-shaped plaza wrapped around a 17th century church, positioned on the royal mile, Edinburgh’s main
historic artery.
Its touristic character, the various pubs of it’s surrounding and its key position at an important junction keep this place busy at any
time. Trying to measure things with steps got me
a couple of funny looks.
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H O P E ' S C O U R T
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D U N B A R ' S C L O S E
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D Y N A M I C H E A R T H
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I M P L E M E N T A T I O N I
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It was a sunny afternoon when we
visited the park of Cammo estate.
We had to take the bus from the city
center to the outskirts of Edinburgh.
We could not quite remember where
exactly we had to stop and asked
the driver for directions.
These details may seem irrelevant, but I
am convinced that the journey is part
of the experience of a place.
The brief consisted into picking
a sculptor and fitting his work in
a semi agricultural context. The
entrance of the park opens into the
suburb and the site shares 2 edges
Fitting sculptures in a former estate
with fields.
Walking through the park, I was struck
by its unexpected rustic beauty, and
by it’s lack in human presence.
These where the premises of what was
going to be my project.
I wanted to contrast with the feeling
of emptiness and contemplation
of this place, therefor I based my work
on the relationship between the body
and the space surrounding it.
I chose the creations of
Anthony Gormley. His sculptural work
on the human figure in the landscape is
an ongoing source of inspiration to me
and succeed to express what words
struggle too.
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S E R I A L
V I S I O N
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Another way to represent a place
A lot of our work in first year was based
on observation and experimenting
with visual ways to represent them.
The serial vision project consisted in using
the technique described by Gordon Cullen
in The Concise Landscape, in which
a space is represented by a series of
perspective drawings placed along
a defined route.
My group was composed of Anna, Chris,
Jonathan and me. We wandered a bit
around town, map in hand, trying to figure
out an appropriate path long enough to
provide a series of 60 pictures. Afterwards,
we would just print and trace them
in the studio.
Thanks to this exercise, my perception
of urban spaces shifted a little more:
I realized that there are many ways
to represent space and therefor that space
is rather a concept than a tangible reality.
I M P L E M E N T A T I O N I I
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C R E A T I O N
From implanting to designing
We already altered an outside space with
someone else’s work, it was now time to create
our own structures. We went on a tour around
Edinburgh and visited a couple of medium sized
sites from the the cost line to the suburbans.
Back at the college, we were to pick one place
to design a built feature small enough to allow us
to push the design to the detailing stage.
I chose Blackford Hill because its vegetation
and waters felt like an urban oasis which turned
out to be more of a green island: When I climbed
up its steep slopes I discovered that the site was
bigger than the eye could see at first sight.
Arriving on top of the hill, I finally turned around
and was rewarded by a 360° view of the town,
the sea, and the Highland foothills. It was the
most nature I had felt in Scotland since I arrived
and that would reflect in my work.
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ST
RU
CT
UR
E
Just a timber frameThe top of the hill offered these amazing
views in all directions but was exposed
to quite strong winds, rendering the whole
experience not as appreciable as
it could be. My idea was simple enough:
let’s build a couple of sheltered benches up
there so that people don’t feel the need
to go back down after 10 minutes.
Considering the natural feel of the place,
I decided to work as much as possible with
natural materials, and designed this timber
frame out of oak.
Now it does not seem to protect much from
the wind and looks like a bit of a tripping
hazard, but this is only the frame supporting
the main material, and is supposed to
be just a temporary built...
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3500
830200
10003000
1235
DIM
EN
SIO
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& G
RO
WT
H A self- constructing structure
The frame is actually just a support for vegetation which is
meant to be planted in between the timber planks which act
as both surface an support. The costs of this design would
be ongoing hence it would neede biannual tree care to get
them to the desired shape. This cost was to be balanced out
in some proportion by the fact that when the trees gradually
grow into their position, the planks are to be removed to avoid
phloem vessels compression and strangling. When the whole
structure has been taken apart, the cycle can start again
some place else, to take advantage of one of the site’s many
views.
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A R T G A L L E R Y
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First contact with earthworks
The Notthingham art gallery project
was the first one without site visiting.
The whole design process was realized
remotely. Having been told since day one that
good practice is designing from the outside in, I
felt a bit destabilized by the inability
of making physical contact with that outside we
were suppose to design from. It seems now that
being able to adapt is a landscape architect’s
key quality.
In parallel to this project, I was following
a course on contours and the mathematical
exercise of cutting and filling. I used
this knowledge to create a design with
underground parking, and used that same soil
to elevate the building at the adjacent
woodland’s canopy top. This provides the art
gallery with whole day natural lighting, and
allows underground levels to be built without
any need of digging.
The costs of the retaining walls supporting
the massive earth works would be partially
compensated by the fact that the design
has virtually exactly as much cut than fill,
and by the considerable benefits of having
a car-free park designed as the gallery’s outside
extension.
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G R O W I N G D E T A I L S
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U R B A N D E S I G N
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Q U A T E R M I L E P L A Z A
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More than residual space
The Quatermile development project is one
of Foster and Partners architects’s numerous
award winning development, and is conveniently
located 5 minutes away from our campus.
Designing in an enclosed yet well connected
space was something new and a form
of introduction to high profile plaza creation.
The eminently strong architecture forming
the four edges of the site had to be addressed
with special attention and the small size of the
site made it prone to quick cluttering.
The glass omnipresence made this place
quite cold and the relatively narrow accesses
rendered it almost private-like.
My concept was to try to attract people into
the plaza with circular shapes and vegetation
in contrast with rectangles of glass, while trying
to harmonize the design by anchoring building’s
lines and corners in the ground through change
in materials.
H O U S I N G D E V E L O P M E N T
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48484848484848484
How housing can structure open space
This time we went on a completely
rural site for a project in housing
development. The site was over 10
miles away from the city center and
located on what used to be agricultural
infrastructure. The strip shaped field was
about 3 hectares big, and the brief asked
to fit in 50 units. With a density as low as
16.6 units/ha, the main question seemed
to be how do I make this relatively vast
open space lost in the fields,
as welcoming and attractive as possible?
Private gardens
Houses
Courtyards
Public spaces
Front gardens
Proposed contours
Existing contours
KI
RK
NE
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OW
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But this is not quite how this projected started.
We first went on a sort of housing development
tour and tried not to be too loud doing so
because believe it or not, residents may not
appreciate a bus of students walking around
their houses, camera in hand.
I found myself quite interested
in the Bo’ness - phase 2 and the
Princess garden developments, because they
got me thinking about the feel of privateness of
a place in contrast with it’s actual status , and
the idea of a grey area in between public and
private.
In matter of houses, I have always liked
the ancient roman style with its patio acting
as a secured open space in the middle
of the building, and the feeling of security seems
like a key value in housing strategies.
I replicated that square shape in a fractal fashion
in this design: The house rows surround 2 main
open spaces. On the right hand side plan,
the upper, longer square is allocated to
playgrounds both for younger and older
children, whereas the bottom, smaller one is
more of a terraced quiet place. On a smaller
scale the house’s lay out is an alternation
of fenced private gardens and semi-public
courtyards offering parking spaces and
hopefully, less of the anonymous feel you get in
too repetitive housing schemes.
Public, semi-public and private
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HO
US
ING
DE
VE
LO
PM
EN
T
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S I T E M O D E L L I N G
5252
SECTIONS & CONTOURS
S T R A T E G Y
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B E T W E E N F O R T H S
Changing focusThe last project I would like to write about,
is the Stirlingshire one. It practically
consisted in a day trip around the county
and a quite open brief asking to take into
account both the current state
of the landscape and it’s potential
for change. In doing so we where to take
a position on what we felt was the right
choice for the future. That would allow us
to develop a strategy proposal on a large
scale. This map shows Glasgow’s Clyde
forth to the west and Edinburgh’s Firth of
forth to the east. In other words, this is the
place where we could expect one day to
see the development of Scotland’s main
Metropolis.
I worked together with Monika on
the idea of revealing where the best places
for tomorrow’s development might be and
how to take full advantage of what lies in the
landscape. To add a little more edge to our
project, we wanted to create a new status
for developments to come: something in
between the hard-to-get national park title
and your common large scale development
strategy, taking advantages of both.
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◄ This conceptual drawing of the current state of the resources and developments represents the central position of the topographic prominence and the resources wrapped around it.
◄ This is what our strategy aims
to achieve: Interconnection and
symbiotic activities in a place fit to create an example of long-term and large-scale sustainable
planning project.
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ST
RA
TE
GY
M
OD
EL
60
From digital to realTo help us building a mental map of such
a massive “site”, we decided to build a model
composed of layers representing the density
and connectivity of a specific characteristic of
the landscape. We decided to group them under
5 families: Agricultural, Woodland, Hydrology,
Urban settlements and Recreational poles.
For each of these group a abstract map would
be drawn to help focusing on one strategic part
of the landscape at a time. By doing so
I mapped existing features with full circles
and paths and potential development sites with
outlined ones. The model was designed as both
a conceptual representation and an analytical
tool hence the layers where loose and anyone
was free to stack them together in whichever
order chosen, allowing to view and work out
specific places and developments.
M I S C E L L A N E O U S
C O P P E R W I R E S M O D E L S
AB
ST
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CT
IO
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E A R L YD R A W I N G S
L A S E RC U T I
L A S E RC U T I I
Work collected during my BA(Hons) MScat the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland.
contact: [email protected]