This blog is a record of my personal development throughout the third year of my degree in Landscape Architecture at Kingston University. The ‘focus’ module encourages students to work on specific areas they feel need developing and provides a framework for such study within the university timetable. The blog is a record of not only this study but also other relevant material and experiences that contribute towards our development as Landscape Architects.
My objective this year is to develop my graphic presentation skills. The areas I feel I need to focus on are hand drawing, photography, model making and digital communication using programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Flash and Dreamweaver. Although I’m not so enthusiastic about CAD skills I realise I need to get to grips with a drafting program before I hope to get a job in the industry.
As I said in another post, improving digital presentation skills is a two-part process but simply learning how to use the software is fundamental. Throughout my degree I’ve been frustrated by my lack of technical skill getting in the way of good ideas and this is why software has been the focus of my personal development. I find it relatively easy to pick up new software packages and get to know the basics but I always seem to stall after a while and get stuck using the same tools/techniques. This is when I need someone else to show me what is possible.
Video tutorials have proved very useful to me although they are mind-numbingly boring and tedious to work through. The problem is that they go through absolutely everything, even the blindly obvious stuff, at a primary school pace. Having said that there are often little gems of information tucked away that make it worth watching. They become more interesting when they reach the complicated functions of programs that you simply can’t work out yourself and are very good for teaching efficient use of time and resources. I have also tried working from books but these are very dry and it can often be hard to see what they are trying to get you to do. In contrast to this is magazine or online tutorials that usually use much more interesting material and teach specific tasks rather then just general functions.
This year I have continued working through Photoshop and Illustrator video tutorials and started on Indesign and Vectorworks.
3D computer modelling is already very popular and it’s obvious that it will become a central part of the spatial design industry as technology and skill levels progress. The flexibility of a computer model allows constant alterations to be made and high-end rendering creates photo-realistic images that are perfect for presentations. This year I hoped to become familiar with one of the ‘big’ 3D programs such as 3DS Max or Cinema 4D but I’ve found they are something that need a lot of time and dedication to master and I had other priorities this year. As a sort of compromise I started using Sketchup, a simple 3D drawing program created by Google. The beauty of Sketchup is its simplicity and I have been pleasantly surprised by its capabilities and usefulness. On a basic level it is brilliant for ‘sketching’ and playing around with ideas. Whereas card models are time consuming and difficult to manipulate Sketchup allows the user to try out new ideas with as little as a mouse click. Although it is very basic and somewhat restrictive the models are created in scale and can be exported into other programs. I found this function particularly useful as simple work can be put into programs like Vectorworks or Illustrator to add detail or exported to photoshop to act as the base for a montage.
One of my main objectives for personal development this year was to get to grips with a CAD program. Although I realise that Autodesk AutoCAD is the industry standard and the program I will most likely be using at work, I own an Apple Mac that doesn’t run AutoCAD. For this reason I have chosen to learn to use Vectorworks and I’ve been told that it’s relatively easy to switch between the two programs. To learn Vectorworks I’ve been using video tutorial CD’s produced by the developer Nemetschek. The tutorials cover all of the programs capabilities such as lighting design, 3D rendering and all aspects of drafting. I’m concentrating on the basics of 2D drafting at the moment and beginning to learn about 3D modelling. Having got over the initial shock of the cockpit style toolbars I found I quite enjoy this program, it is still an engineering tool at heart but I think the way it incorporates 2D and 3D drafting with a half decent rendering engine makes it more of a design program than AutoCAD. The basic functions are similar to Adobe Illustrator and although it’s not as good as 3DS Max for final renders it’s great to be able to do everything under one roof and models can be exported if further polishing is required.
Example of my work
Throughout the year I continue to work as a landscape gardener and although the primary motivation for this activity is keeping my bank balance in order I feel it deserves a mention under personal development. As I said in last years focus studies I think practical experience is very useful in landscape architecture and I find vocational learning the most productive. You can look at pictures in book but actually working with a plant, either planting one or pruning it, gives you a much better appreciation and means you’re more likely to remember the name.
The largest job I worked on this year was a drainage project in a Victorian private park in Notting Hill. The best part, from an education point of view, was that we didn’t have any construction drawings and had to work it out ourselves. Obviously drainage isn’t rocket science and the project wasn’t particularly difficult but its always good to challenge the brain and I found it much more effective than doing a theoretical exercise on paper. The job also involved products, machines and materials that I hadn’t encountered before and I’m now intimately familiar with the soil structure of northwest London (mud).
One of the jobs I enjoyed the most this year was building a deck in west London. I know that back garden decking is something landscape architecture is desperate to distance itself from but actually building it is incredibly satisfying. This type of timber work is relatively simple but proper planning and careful workmanship can make a huge difference and the skills required to do the job properly are easily transferred into many other tasks.
At the beginning of the year I included model making in my personal development plan but as I began to use Sketchup I found that I stopped using real models as much. I love the qualities of a physical scale model and it concerns me that virtual model making is taking over in the industry. Obviously there are huge benefits to virtual models but I don’t want to lose the enthusiasm I had for building models during the first and second year. In order to inspire myself I borrowed a couple of books from the library but although I am still building models I haven’t used them as much as I’d hoped. I think this is partly due to the lack of suitable space in the studio and at home but also because I’ve found other things to experiment with.
The Gift of Good Land is a collection of essays that cover a variety of topics based around the changing face of agriculture and its affect on both the planet and society. Much of the book is presented as a travelogue following Berry’s journeys around the world studying traditional agricultural practices. Berry is a strong supporter of traditional and sustainable agriculture and is very critical of the modern intensive farming in America and the western world. He points out how destructive intensive farming has been to the land and how the skills and understanding of generations of farmers has been lost in decades as agriculture moved to mechanization. I found this book both depressing and inspiring, Berry’s arguments are compelling but the world is rushing in the wrong direction and it’s going to take a lot to change it. His writing style is a little long-winded and he lost my interest completely when he “ attempted a Biblical argument for ecological and agricultural responsibility”. I don’t need quotes from the Old Testament to convince me about sustainable practice.
Stephen Meyer’s short but, I believe, incredibly important book takes a harsh but realistic look at the extinction crisis and our (human) responsibility for it. Supported by huge amounts of research and statistics Meyers outlines how the biodiversity of this planet has suffered from industrialization and rapid population growth. He talks about the interesting concept of ‘human selection’, the process that has overtaken natural selection as the primary force to determine the survival of species. Right from the beginning Meyers states that he believes the crisis is already over and we have lost. He says that so much damage has already been done that the biodiversity we have today cannot continue and although the world isn’t going to end it will not be as rich and varied as it has ever been before. In many respects the book is very depressing but Meyers does offer ideas to reduce the impact or slow the process of species loss and understanding and accepting the problem is obviously the first step. As an individual the book left me feeling a little powerless and somewhat guilty but in the context of landscape architecture I’m glad I read it now and not at the end of my career.
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