foranamanda_thesisbook

beautifuloperationalizing collage and montage in the Cameron Run corridorjuxtaposition

This thesis submitted to Virginia Techin partial fulfillment of degree requirements

Master of Landscape Architecture

December 10, 2014

Thesis CommiTTee

Paul Kelsch, Chair

Laurel McSherry, Committee Member

Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Committee Member

This thesis book is dedicated to my family.Thank you for believing in me every step of the way.

CONTENTS

I

II

Contents

Problem SettingThe Problem of BeautyJuxtaposed in the LandscapeCollage and Montage

PrecedentsMill Race ParkGuadalupe River Park

The ProjectSite SelectionSite Inventory + AnalysisDesign

Conclusion

Bibliography

View beneath I-495 at the mouth of Cameron Run at sunset. (2013). Photo by Alex Gonski.

PROBLEM SETTING

Infrastructure and beautiful nature can often seem at odds. Urban waterways are inaccessible monofunctional floodwater conveyance channels, while the wild streams of our imaginations are pristine and picturesque. Within some existing infrastructure, a beautiful juxtaposition exists incidentally where wild meets control. This thesis asks: through the restoration of a channelized urban stream, how can this beautiful juxtaposition help to create a robust ecological corridor? Through a translation of the artists’ tools of montage and collage, the juxtaposition of these scenarios generates swimmable infrastructure through making. beautiful floodwaters.

View south of a weir along Cameron Run. (2013). Photo by the author.

The Problem of Beauty

Beauty is subjective and immeasurable, and seems delightful rather than practical. However, recent examinations of beauty in landscape architecture have presented compelling arguments that, if removed from the inherited history of picturesque frames, taste, and tradition, it can perform in non-traditional but no less significant ways. It is possible for a new framework of “beauty”, beyond inherited picturesque aesthetics, to performative landscape design - but what form can it take, and from where is that form derived?

In her seminal manifesto, “Sustaining beauty,” Elizabeth Meyer (2008) postulates that a new aesthetic is needed, one that embraces the experience of beauty in landscape as a part of sustainable landscape architecture. Beautiful places generate connections between people and landscape process through “somatic, sensory experiences…that lead to new awareness of the rhythms and cycles necessary to sustain and

regenerate life” (p. 15). This is “not simply an act of pleasure, but possibly, one of transformation” (p. 8).

Through a focus on identifying and exploring juxtaposition as found condition, technique and result, how do the layered and multifarious strands of meaning in the landscape become present through beautiful juxtaposition?

NATURE AND CULTURE IN LANDSCAPE

Our relationship to nature is a biological and evolutionary response that is mediated by culture. Culture has often transfigured the real into the mythological and symbolic, and many of our social constructs and ideas about landscape are embedded in this transfigured mythology (Cosgrove 1984). However, these deeply imbedded cultural constructs of nature are evidence that our relationship to nature is within the nature of human psychology. In Biophilia, E.O. Wilson (1984) describes the human relationship to, desire for, and love of nature as innate, and shows that, beyond cultural constructs, in its purest form, a love of the beauty of nature is a deeply embedded part of being human. He shows that biophilia is a compelling and evolutionary reason why “nature” and our concept of it is integral to being human. This relationship exists in tandem with beauty, but is not isolated to the restricted definition provided by the contemporary conception of the picturesque, and by dividing and separating “nature” and “people” in a dichotomy, we lose an opportunity for aesthetic and experiential moments.

The environmental (and social) issues often caused by the nature/structure dichotomy leads to places that are indiscriminately butted up against one another, but are masked or altered in a way that either makes them

appear in conflict or deny the ties between them. For example, interstate walls that shield both sight and sound as they cut across or along a river, rows of evergreens dividing parking lots from parks, and flood walls that protect and conceal neighborhoods as well as restructure and alter the ecology of streams.

Perhaps places that we think of as beautiful or ugly, natural or unnatural, are not so distinct, and value could be hidden or may need to be integrated in a way that changes the perception of these places through beauty. In other words, these already juxtaposed places may offer a way to derive a more grounded and site-specific way of approaching both site and processes.

CHANGING AN INHERITED AESTHETIC

“We must come to see that we are trapped not just in a tyranny of the visual imposed by an inherited picturesque aesthetic, but that even the range of possibilities for visual stimulation and pleasure has been needlessly narrowed.” -Catherine Howett (1987)

The tradition of the ‘inherited picturesque aesthetic’ has marginalized other aspects of landscape, but if this is to change, the question of how aesthetics should be considered must be addressed. In “Sustaining Beauty. The performance of appearance” Elizabeth Meyer (2008) argues for the reviving and redefining of beauty and it’s performative

and crucial role in the sustainable design of landscapes. Meyer establishes that reactions to sustainability from within the field of landscape architecture are insufficient in shifting aesthetics away from diluted picturesque forms, and that when beauty isn’t actively discussed, it isn’t actively addressed. (Meyer). A conflict is identified between beauty and ecological designs as goals, and she refutes the perception that beauty in landscape must be defined as “picturesque” beauty, as well as against the often unchallenged and accepted position that aesthetics is a null concern when presented with the overwhelming ecological and performative needs of landscapes. She presents a case for “sustaining beauty,” a new aesthetics that becomes a performative tool as a link between people and land.

In “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames”, Joan I. Nassauer (1995) argues that despite growing environmentalist concern and a desire on the part of many

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Amanda Foran -- Master’s of Landscape Architecture Thesis 2014 Beautiful Juxtaposition: Operationalizing collage and montage in the Cameron Run corridor Problem Setting

A juxtaposed scene: view beneath I-495 at the mouth of Cameron Run. (2013). Photo by the author.

Overgrow outflow of former Cameron Run streambed into Cameron Run channel. (2013). Photo by the author.

people to make landscapes that are ecologically functional, cultural norms and expectations still frequently preside over managed landscapes. She stresses that without a form to the presentation, ecosystems are much too easily misunderstood. There is a difference between a scientific concept of ecology, a cultural concept of ecology, and a cultural concept of nature. To ensure that healthy ecologies prevail, they must be designed in a way that mediates these three concepts. Even a supportive and educated public will ignore scientific information about the health of a place if it doesn’t meet the expectation of ‘nature’. These expectations are problematic because they have little bearing and sometimes are even in opposition to functioning ecologies. She then makes the case that an aesthetic of perceived human intention and care of places will generate stewardship and

protection. Cultural interpretation dictates whether or not we think a place has ecological value (or value at all), whether or not it actually has qualities of healthy ecological function, thus cultural interpretation and understanding are again vital to the pursuit of healthy ecologies. (Nassauer 1995)

In Sustaining Beauty. The performance of Appearance, Elizabeth Meyer (2008) introduces a new aesthetic possibility that actively uses beauty as a way to create sustainable landscapes that engage with human and natural systems and processes. Meyer describes this beauty in terms of qualities that the landscape should embody; particularly important among these is “the recognition of art” as a form-based set of tools for designing. This ‘recognition of art’ is brought about through

juxtaposition, collage, and montage. Beauty includes the need to defy certain expectations and to be something one experiences rather than something one sees. Here, Meyer establishes that in part, beauty can be generated by dissonance in the landscape. (Meyer 2008, p. 17). One description of the relationship of art stands out: that of the collage or montage. Both are examined more closely later on, but at a base level, they each create juxtaposition. Although juxtaposition doesn’t necessarily always generate beauty, here it is closely tied to the description

presented by Meyer, where it lends itself to an aesthetic that engages with human and natural systems. She uses Crissy Field Park, in San Francisco as an example:

”This close juxtaposition of human and wildlife program space without the in-between buffering or visual separation... offers another approach. The city residents...notice the extreme contrast between the accessible playfields of grass, and the sometimes inaccessible, constantly changing tidal wetland marsh” (Meyer 2008, p. 14).

Nassauer’s juxtaposition takes seemingly opposing aesthetics and impressions, and brings them to bear in the same context, in other words, she also seeks a juxtaposition, even though it is focused on formal strategies. This re-presents all components in a new light: the orderly frames can be used beyond the strictly defined agricultural rows or front lawn hedges to wetlands, and that the ecologies within wetlands are valuable and require human care. This nesting of one inside the other that helps to simultaneously meet and change expectations of landscapes. One crucial component of Sustaining Beauty, one that seldom appears

elsewhere, is montage, or the creation of juxtaposed conditions that evolve over time. This can also be described as the vertical juxtaposition of elements, creating unexpected conditions around the history and future of the site, material usage, or even time in

Sustaining Beauty // Orderly Frames

the weathering and the build up of material.

Meeting expectations of form will not solely generate the kind of surprising beauty that so often bonds people with land. Deliberate juxtaposition through collage or assemblage

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Crissy Marsh, Crissy Field Park, San Francisco (n.d.). Source: Presidio of San Francisco via National Park Service. Historic Airfield Hangers, converted to Mason Street businesses, Crissy Field Park, San Francisco (n.d.). Source: Presidio of San Francisco via National Park Service.

of what is familiar and desirable with what is unfamiliar and messy challenges cultural beliefs and practices that limit aesthetic and ecological possibilities (Meyer, 2008). Because landscape has such meaning attached to it, juxtaposition appears as a subtle influence in the creation of beauty, and beauty itself is challenging and meaningful (Hickey, 2009).

REVISITING THE PICTURESQUE

Picturesque has come to be defined as a static aesthetic, something that is pretty but lacking in depth, whether ecologically sound or not. The “picture” is privileged over the health of the landscape. The picturesque has created a false understanding of what “nature” and healthy nature is, and that it is irrelevant to process and “sustainable” or “green” landscape design.

Tracing back to the early definitions of the picturesque qualities of landscape, William Gilpin (1792) describes the qualities of the picturesque:

“Turn the lawn into a piece of broken ground: plant rugged oaks instead of flowering shrubs: break the edges of the walk: give it the rudeness of a road: mark

”The contradictions of the ‘picturesque’ depart from a static formalistic view of nature. The picturesque, far from being an inner movement of the mind, is based on real land; it precedes the mind in its material external existence. We cannot take a one-sided view of landscape within this dialectic” (p. 159-160).

Smithson goes on to describe that “Dialectics of this type are a way of seeing things in a manifold of relations, not as isolated objects,” and by acknowledging that a “park can no longer be seen as ‘a thing-in-itself,’ but rather as a process of ongoing relationships existing in a physical region,” Smithson (1973) establishes that these relationships must be seen and experienced together - juxtaposed - to create a solid dialectic. (p. 160)

Similarly, Joan Nassauer (1995) proposes that the introduction of smoothness and order to the qualities of aesthetically undesireable ecological landscapes become aesthetically pleasing. Is it possible then to take the messy processes and beautiful unpredictability of nature and give it a place within the smooth and functional urbanity? Juxtaposition

occurs in this way in sidewalk cracks and vines crawling up buildings, but may or may not be compelling enough to deserve its retention. Could it be exaggerated to create a shift in the way both natural and human order are perceived in this context, and engage with Gilpin’s picturesque qualities of landscape as seen in Smithson’s dialectic?

Pure formalism in sustainable design is less capable of integrating nature’s change and flexibility that could offer additional beautiful moments. Beyond resilience, a picturesque dialectic would embrace and allow for happenstance. The massive changes made to the landscape by people is also embraced, and can be as much of a healing practice as detrimental. (Smithson 1973)

Perhaps the contemporary dialectic could even include impressive and expansive infrastructure.

it with wheel- tracks; and scatter around a few stones, and brush-wood; in a word, instead of making the whole smooth, make it rough; and you make it also picturesque. All the other ingredients of beauty it already possessed.” (p. 8)

Earth artist and landscape observer Robert Smithson (1973) argues that there is still some value in this original definition of the aesthetic: “Price and Gilpin provide a synthesis with their formulation of the ‘picturesque’, which is on close examination related to chance and change in the material order of nature.”

A different and challenging sort of beauty that accepts the changes and inconsistencies of the landscape; beauty that has the capacity to include the aspects of healthy ecological functionality alongside an interstate. He goes on:

The Beautiful and the Picturesque

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The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton), 1836. Thomas Cole. Source: Wikimedia Commons. (Owner: Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

A View of the Roman Campagna from Tivoli, Evening, c. 1644-45. Claude Lorraine. Source: Wikimedia Commons. (Owner: London, The Royal Collection.)

Synthesis

CONTEMPORARY DIALECTIC

If there is to be a new aesthetic of beauty, it lies not solely in the calming and serene ideas of orderly beauty or in the contemporary formulation of picturesque nature, but in the synthesis of the two through juxtaposition.

The processes of the landscape, and the usefulness of places that are set aside for “parks” is taken advantage of by Olmsted through a thorough understanding of the underlying processes that guide the landscape. This is the synthesis of natural forces and human works that is healing and generative. However, without the retention of some precondition that led to the landscape as it now is, the former life of the place is easily erased. Olmsted engaged with processes of the landscape during early industrialization (Smithson 1973). The urban landscape has changed, and values have shifted. The design of Central Park engages in a dialectic of natural and human processes, but the model does not necessarily translate to the needs

of contemporary cities. The creation of “nature” in an enclaved park allowed much of the built environment to become devoid of ecological functionality, including leftover spaces such as interstate and power line rights of way, and even within the land occupied by functional use. Changing the aesthetic pursuit in these place, or by considering the aesthetics of them, it may be that they can become present as places through aesthetic transformation. By drawing attention to them, through juxtaposition, they become present in the minds of those who see and experience them. What are the juxtapositional qualities of these spaces, and how can interventions both increase their ecological function and aesthetic appeal?The dialectics present in the contemporary urban landscape are an antithesis of degenerated, unhealthy industrial landscapes and the thesis of the creation or transition to “beautiful” parks for people and ecologies. But a new aesthetic requires a shift from viewing the two as opposed to

one another. The synthesis is between the two, created by the unusual beauty of both, and it is first made visible through juxtaposition. However, it is not seen in parks and places that overhaul conditions, removing and replacing, but are rather seen when elements of repair and healing are brought together with the existing conditions and site narratives. This generates an aesthetic of the visible, making present the true conditions of the urban landscape.Linking Landscape to Art

The different effects which art is able to produce, however various and incommensurable they may radically be, are commensurable at least in this: that each in some degree makes a demand on our attention. - Geoffrey Scott

Because it is discussed broadly, it is unclear how Meyer’s (2008) approach through “the recognition of art”, is generated through “montage and collage” or “juxtaposition and attenuation of form” in a given piece of land. However, within art, these terms are somewhat more clearly defined in terms of material, usage and meaning. An exploration of the link between art and landscape precedes a definition of the practice of “collage” and “montage”. This thesis then considers how the close histories of art and landscape can be used to inform an ecologically regenerative design that is bridged with contemporary aesthetics of collage and montage.

Arthur Danto’s (1978) “Transfiguration of the Commonplace,” suggests that the nature of art is in perception and meaning of something, allowing that the ready-made work of Marcel Duchamp as well as the Mona Lisa

can both be significant works in their own right. Something becomes art, rather than a mere object, when its context or appearance has meaning. Similarly, Elizabeth Meyer (2008) argues that the beauty she seeks in landscape is not purely formal but instead is performative through its meaningfulness.

Additionally, collage and montage as art are both process and result, where the result displays evidence of how it came to be. Not only does the long history of a site create possibilities for new aesthetic forms, but the process by which it becomes regenerated and designed can be part of the final form and experience.

Danto later argues, in The Abuse of Beauty (2003) that the conditions that created freedom and depth of meaning in art in the 20th century, regardless of beauty, have left the significance of beauty in human lives out of the dialogue. This neglect arises in Meyer’s (2008) argument, and again in Nassauer’s (1995). Going even further, art critic Dave Hickey (2009) argues that it not just in a revival of accepted ideas of beauty that its agency arises; rather, it has agency within art when adjoined with something that defies our expectation. Art, by its nature, challenges itself, culture, beliefs, attitudes, and relationships. By integrating this approach to existing aesthetic choices in landscapes, the problematic picturesque aesthetics can be challenged while bringing beauty to bear in design.

COLLAGE AND MONTAGE

Within both Nassauer and Meyer’s writing, the concept of juxtaposition arose as a technique for crossing over from nature to culture, and that already existing beautiful elements’ aesthetic appeal could be enhanced. The basic definition of juxtaposition is the placement of things adjacent to

one another. Adjacency becoming juxtaposition is dependent on what the elements are, the proximity, and what imagery or connotations these juxtaposed elements contains. Juxtaposition is a way in to understanding how we might begin to discuss and allow beauty to be part of the landscape architecture discussion. Juxtaposition generates a dialectic, two seemingly opposed concepts, a program for nature, and a program for people, infrastructure and nature, and generates a third through bringing their oppositions to bear - a beauty that privileges neither and embraces both.

Meyer (2008) identifies “Hypernature: the recognition of art” as a quality that deploys “tactics associated with montage or collage” such as “attenuation of forms, densification of elements, juxtaposition of materials, intentional discontinuities, [and] formal incongruities.” (p. 17) These tactics of artists, found within montage and collage, lead to

recognition and are capable of performing by pulling awareness from the self and towards the world.

How can a landscape architect interpret collage and montage in a way that is applicable to landscapes? Are they to serve metaphorically, physically, or both? What distinguishes collage and montage techniques?

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Montage + Collage

standing, although it is actually three distinct statues. When seen in context with the film, the lion itself is a symbol that can be read as part of the larger narrative of the story.It is important that not all parts of the montage are visible at any given time, but the memory of what surrounds the present effects the way it is understood and interpreted.

Kuleshov, an artist and filmmaker, evidenced the importance of juxtaposition as an effect for understanding. In the case of the experiment on the upper right of this page, what is seen first will effect the impression of what is seen next. Although the man’s expression is the same in all three, when paired with a different image prior to seeing his face, he may appear hungry, sad, or lustful. These juxtapositions help set the stage for how contemporary ideas about materials and landscape, when juxtaposed with unexpected programs, materials, or landscape typologies, can alter perception, creating new understandings of places.

Montage is the cutting, the removal of extraneous material or information from film or a narrative. Soviet film theorist Sergei Eisenstein wrote that

“montage is an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots” wherein “each sequential element is perceived not next to the other, but on top of the other”.

A collection of ideas and narratives, montages reveal these concepts in sequence and through their relationship to one another.

The lion statues on the left, part of a film sequence by Eisenstein, make it seem as if the lion is

“Art form and technique, incorporating the use of pre-existing materials or objects...collage is closely associated with 20th-century art, in which it has often served as a correlation with the pace and discontinuity of the modern world” (Kachur 2009).

Collage is directly related to the materials being used, and that these materials carry meaning as “objets trouvés” (Kachur 2009) extracted from the world. The above examples by Jasper Johns and Pablo Picasso illustrate using both physical materials that embodied their own meaning, as well as imagery that has a context that is carried through in the art work. Landscape as a work of art may incorporate materials and views that echo of past stories and bring the meaning into the new design.

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Stone Lions. The Battleship Potemkin (1925), Still photographs. Film by Sergei Eisenstein.

Photographs used in the Kuleshov Experiment (c. 1910-1920). Lev Kuleshov.

Racing Thoughts. Jasper Johns (1983). Encaustic and mixed media on canvas. Guitar. Pablo PIcasso. (1913). Mixed media.

PRECEDENTS

Once it was decided that an urban stream would be the focus of the design, two existing parks, Guadalupe River Park in San Jose, CA and Mill Race Park, Columbus, IN, were selected as studies of how strong formal design elements of both structure and nature were used in restoration design projects. Each project features different components and goals that ultimately inform the design at Cameron Run.

Guadalupe River Trail, San Jose, CA. (2008) Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: Kudzu Cocktail Blog. (Photographer: David Godshall)

Guadalupe River Park TrailHargreaves Associates

CONTEXTThe Guadalupe River Trail and Park is a restoration project in San Jose, California, funded by the federal flood control project to protect the city. Formerly weaving through empty lots and empty factories, the river had been abandoned and had become an isolated and ignored area through the heart of San Jose. Hargreaves Associates was hired by the San Jose Redevelopment Agency to redesign and restore 50 acres (3 miles of river) into parkland.

DESIGNFluvial dynamics were used by the USACE to determine the form of the channel, exaggerated and repeated as a uniform wave by Hagreaves Associates to create a “narrative about the city and the river”. (Woodbridge) The design includes large flood meadows that are part of the accessible park experience, as are a series of gardens and other programmatic areas.

The design of the flow along the river recalls a narrative of what is happening in the city directly beside it - a story that unfolds as you move through from urban to rural, controlled to wild in both form, function, and surrounding landscape.

Hargreaves employed two primary layers: the underlay - the topographic contours of the channel itself, and the overlay - gardens, parks (open spaces), plantings, and habitat creation.

The channel had to be wide to accommodate yearly flooding, but most of the time is only a small flow. This was seen as an opportunity by the city and citizens to make it a public restoration effort. Roadway bridges were integrated into existing construction needs, and were able to provide access to the open space.

It is important to note that a portion of the river (central stretch) was not built per the master plan design because of efforts to “leave more of the river untouched”. Unfortunately this led to a bypass channel and a lack of integration because it couldn’t be widened. This has the opposite effect of integrating and accommodating flood water in urban environments, because it is hidden underground, and thus, its flux and the experience of the shifting land and water is lost.

In furnishing the built park, a set of historic cottages were removed (Kahn) and turn of the century furniture was chosen, which could seem to be at odds (Kahn). As a precedent study, this brought up the question of what to keep, what to remove, and what references the site furnishings and materials choices have can contribute to the interpretation and feeling of the park. (Kahn)

Precedents

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Amanda Foran -- Master’s of Landscape Architecture Thesis 2014 Beautiful Juxtaposition: Operationalizing collage and montage in the Cameron Run corridor

Above: Guadalupe River Trail Map, San Jose, CA. San Jose Redevelopment Authority. Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: Guadalupe River Park Conservancy. Below: Plan illustration of Guadalupe River Park, in San Jose, California. Source: Woodbridge, p. 40-41 (1991).

Image 1 and 2: Guadalupe River Trail, San Jose, CA. (2008) Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: www.rhorii.com. (Owner: Ronald Horii)

Image 3 and 4: Guadalupe River Trail, San Jose, CA. (2008) Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: Kudzu Cocktail Blog. (Photographer: David Godshall)

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ANALYSIS

To bring the project into the terms of this thesis investigation, the elements of the park previously discussed are described here in terms of both montage and collage, the experienced and the material.

maTerial Collage

The engineered infrastructure juxtaposed with both intentional and volunteer plants, especially where there is tension between the two, is an operation of the collage of landscape materials.

experienCed Collage

The visual experience of the planted gabions next to concrete is striking, as is the low-flow channel that is straight and narrow against the curving and energetic forms of the gabions. These forms also imply what happens there at other times of the year. What Kahn critiques in the park furniture choices actually makes the park more intriguing by accepting and making use of something that is a familiar style juxtaposed against something that isn’t totally comfortable.

maTerial monTage The rise and fall of the river is an element that is visible both in terms of the form and in terms of experience over time. Additionally, the wild grasses and plants popping up after years along the edges of the concrete, allowing for indeterminate activity, makes a striking and interesting form within the restoration.

experienCed monTage

Moving along the length of the paths from urban to rural and the changes along the path, the narrative becoming apparent. Visiting the site over time, the variable flows will also tell a narrative about the history of the river itself in relation to its present condition.

Precedents

Guadalupe River Park TrailHargreaves Associates

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Guadalupe River Trail, San Jose, CA. (2008) Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: Kudzu Cocktail Blog. (Photographer: David Godshall)

Guadalupe River Trail, San Jose, CA. (2008) Design by Hargreaves Associates. Source: Guadalupe River Park Conservancy.

CONTEXTThe 85-acre Mill Race Park was disused industrial land along the confluence of two streams that become the White River in Columbus, Indiana through the 1980s until the River Rats, a local river advocacy group, finally obtained funding and support for a full park . Formerly home to a tannery and several large gravel pits, the site had been called Death Valley (Beardsley, 38).

DESIGNThe site became a park capable of flooding, leaving sculptural landforms peeking above high waters. John Beardsley describes the decisions made by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to layer and use the forms and structures of the site as part of the new park. “Instead of obliterating the past, Van Valkenburgh made use of it.“ He goes on to describe how one of the gravel pits became the irregularly formed pond and the other became Round Lake, the focus of the park. (Beardsley, 39)

The structures on the site, designed by San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz, are more than functional, but are sculptural and serve as a series of follies in the landscape, bright red and in stark contrast to the pastoral curves and clumps of trees. Several of the bridges were “found” in other parts of the city or had been brought to the site, and link the park into the rest of the current city as well as its past.

Round Lake has a distinctly urban feel. It is surrounded by elegant street lamps and a sidewalk, and planted with evenly spaced trees reminiscent of a promenade. The rest of the site transitions from strict geometry and a grid closest to the city, to the curving and “natural” forms that bridge the space between the urban and natural form of the river. The walking paths mimic this, going from rectangular to a winding perimeter along the riverfront.

The covered bridge, an element brought in and recycled on the site, forms the junction between Round Lake and the pond, perched on the banks, and announcing unapologetically the juxtaposition between rural and urban, wild and orderly.

The intention for the berms was to create “prospects” (Beardsley, 42), but according to Beardsley, they are not high enough to serve this when the architectural elements of the site are accounted for, as the stage stands above the highest one. The berms along with the covered bridge were meant to be the only elements left during high flood stage, having the appearance of random floating objects. (Beardsley, 43) However, the prominent observation tower and the tops of the trees are also visible above the floodwater, bringing both nature, structure, and landform into juxtaposition during this condition.

Mill Race ParkMichael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Precedents

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Plan illustration of Mill Race Park, in Columbus, Indiana. Source: Beardsley, p. 40-41 (1993). Plan illustration of Mill Race Park, in Columbus, Indiana. Source: Beardsley, p. 41 (1993).

ANALYSIS

maTerial Collage

The dramatic topographic condition created by the filled berms, and the use of the existing forms from the gravel pits and the tannery generate a visual juxtaposition between more modern forms and industrial ones. The recycled covered bridge and other reused or retained elements echo of the historical context of the tannery while being part of a present day park. The architectural elements, through color and form, also serve as diliberate juxtapositions to the natural and the industrial forms.

experienCed Collage

Not only moving from the urban to the rural in form as one approaches the river, the park internally juxtaposes a variety of elements that echo of strict geometries and naturalistic form. This constantly tugs back and forth in terms of experience, allowing the various site conditions through history to be present at different places throughout.

maTerial monTage

The excavated earth from the creation of the pond and Round Lake became the sharp forms of the berms, especially the amphitheater, and the water is allowed to flood in certain areas to create certain effect.

experienCed monTage

The flux of river heights is the primary way in which experienced montage may be interpreted here. The dual usage of Round Lake for iceskating during winter serves as a programmatic juxtaposition, in the sense that at times the lake is inhabitable, and at other times not.

Precedents

Mill Race ParkMichael Van Valkenburgh Associates

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Flooding in Mill Race Park. (2011) Source: wibc.com

Mill Race Park, Columbus, Indiana (n.d.). Note: Copyright Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Mill Race Park (at flood stage), Columbus, Indiana (n.d.). Note: Copyright Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Pavilion structure, Mill Race Park, Columbus, Indiana. Source: Stein, p. 114.

Reclaimed covered bridge at Round Lake, Mill Race Park, Columbus, Indiana. Source: Beardsley, p. 42.

THE PROJECT

The project would arise out of a regional analysis and study of a found landscape, and eventually lead to a design intervention using collage and montage. Each functions as an operation for both designing on paper and as tools for designing with landscape materials.

Collage with paper representing the changing and displaced floodplain and riverbed over time.

Study Area

The process of choosing a site began with a study of the urban ecological conditions in my current home of Alexandria, VA. The places where water meets land are often the most fruitful places for potential restoration, with the spaces that are unbuildable often becoming intersticial “no-mans land” that becomes filled with infrastructure. The investigation of beauty had led me to seek a place where “nature” openly collides with large scale infrastructure, generating potential and actual juxtaposition.

Thus, I began by studying the waterways of Alexandria, and looking for a place where juxtaposition and beauty go unnoticed or where they have the potential to be expressed.

The map on the lefthand page shows the waterways, parks and open spaces of Alexandria. An additional criterion was that it be a place where there was no existing plan or design, allowing a full thesis exploration of program and aesthetic Upon studying the hydrologic corridors, the length of Cameron Run, extending from Holmes Run Park all the way the mouth that empties into the Potomac, was ripe for intervention.

View of Great Hunting Creek, looking south from Shuter’s Hill, (c.1850-60). National Archives, Brady Collection.

Project

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Cameron Run Corridor Inventory + Analysis

The analysis of the Cameron Run corridor led to the location of the final design. This process ultimately led to the selection of a specific area within Cameron Run to focus the thesis project design.

A collection of historic maps was overlain to generate an approximation of the location of both the former Cameron Run, and its floodplain. The addition of fill and straightening of the channel over time led to flooding problems and the destruction of habitat for many forms of life that formerly called this home.

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current water channel

filled former floodplain

filled former water channel 1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

WY


Poto

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Rai

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Metr

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

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FILL


filled former floodplain

filled former water channel 1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

WY


Poto

mac

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CSX

Rai

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Metr

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

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FLOOD ZONES


100 year flood levels


1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

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Poto

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Rai

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

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PH R

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FLOOD ZONES




1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

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Poto

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

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PH R

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Eisen

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SEDIMENTATION


in-channel sedimentation 1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

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Poto

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Rai

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Metr

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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etro

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Eisen

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Metr

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Statio

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SEDIMENTATION


in-channel sedimentation 1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

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Poto

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CSX

Rai

l line

Metr

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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RICHM

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Hun

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Eisen

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Statio

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experienced montage

material montage

INTERPRETING THE SITE: MONTAGE + COLLAGE

material collage

experienced collage


1”=600’

N

RIC

HM

ON

D H

WY


Poto

mac

Riv

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CSX

Rai

l line

Metr

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

D

EISENHOWER AVE

RICHM

OND H

WY

Hun

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etro

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Eisen

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Metr

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Statio

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experienced montage

material montage

INTERPRETING THE SITE: MONTAGE + COLLAGE

material collage

experienced collage


1”=600’

N

Project

Upstream construction through the 20th century led to sedimentation in this lower part of the watershed, exacerbating these problems.

This drawing set establishes the location and relationship of these site conditions, and rather than view them as inherent problems to be removed, seeks to investigate them as material and experiential conditions that can be integrated as part of the restoration design.

The drawing on the bottom right illustrates how these materials found on the site could be regarded as materials to use in a ‘collage” intervention, and the experiences that exist and those places where this juxtaposition is missing.

3332


Cameron Run Corridor Inventory + Analysis

Once the materiality and circumstances of the wider conditions of this area became clear, these drawings begin to investigate available space that both requires and allows for intervention. The surface conditions were important for establishing what was able to be altered and what might make useful materials for collaging aspects of the design.


Poto

mac

Riv

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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EISENHOWER AVE

RICHM

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SURFACES

parks and forested areas

streambed

unforested open space

1”=600’

N

concrete or asphalt


Poto

mac

Riv

er


FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting CreekTE

LEG

RAPH

RD

EISENHOWER AVE

RICHM

OND H

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etro

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Eisen

hower

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Statio

n

SURFACES

parks and forested areas

streambed

unforested open space

1”=600’

N

concrete or asphalt


Poto

mac

Riv

er


FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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EISENHOWER AVE

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GENERAL PROGRAM

parks

parking lots

stream bed

public infrastructure and utilities

1”=600’

N


Poto

mac

Riv

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

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PH R

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GENERAL PROGRAM

parks

parking lots

stream bed

public infrastructure and utilities

1”=600’

N

A program inventory was made to establish patterns of existing inhabitation and use, as well as likely places for intervention.

Project

3534


Site Selection

Project

This early stage drawing and photographic collage reflects a collection of experiences while walking or biking along the accessible parts of the former stream bed and the existing channel.

Through a combination of photographing, collaging, and study through mapping, a set of particular sites would emerge as areas for design.

3736



Poto

mac

Riv

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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EISENHOWER AVE

RICHM

OND H

WY

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etro

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Statio

n

SITE SELECTION

former floodplain (approx. 100 year)

current 100 year floodplain

existing stream bed

flexible program (parking lots̀)

1”=600’

N

pre-channelization stream bed

A B C D

LOCATION

EXISTING PROGRAM / USAGE

FLOODING

ENVIRONMENTAL / HABITAT

OTHER

COLLAGE / MONTAGE POTENTIAL

ANALYSIS

Cameron Run Regional Park / Cameron Run channel Eisenhower East Huntington Park Country Club

Park, public - heavy use Former landfill, post-industrial, vacant or commercial Park, public - light use Golf Course and country club

The site itself has mild to no problems: the only issue during 500 year flood; Hensley park suffers from poor drainage. Area is upstream from more severe flooding that might be ameliorated by slowing the flow and providing space for flooding.

Severe flood along Telegraph Road and in adjacent commercial district Severe flood in adjacent neighborhood allowed to flood, doesn’t cause major damage. functioning as a golf course.

Major: adjacent channel is degraded and lacks biodiversity, must be regularly dredged.

Hard surfaces, little habitat or open space; very little usable landscape, most is degraded. Toxic soil, landfill and dump.

Potential for more wildlife habitat, but no major issues ??

Hensley Park plan, Integrate CRRP into Eisenhower West as major amenity (no mutually exclusive programming)

Plan exists for this area, parking will be reduced drastically except around the metro station; also located on a former landfill with unknown to severe toxicity

Plan for levee to protect houses as an addition to the park is funded by the USACE Doesn’t seem to offer enough challenges, and is a relatively functioning landscape

Concrete materials and dredge material are available as collage material; experience is currently dull and singular usage, area is not associated with its past as part of a floodplain

The idea of a crossing of water and vehicles and the integration of more social open space in highly developed and developing urban areas could be interesting. Highly visible from metro, overpasses, and on and off ramps might make for exciting montaged landscape design.

Straightforward need for both flood-safe design and / or levee; park design. Has both flooding and the ability to flood programmatically, so the juxtaposition may be less of a design challenge

Similar to Huntington Park, doesn’t offer much design challenge or programmatic flexibility; also it is already a functioning landscape.

A’ AND ‘B’ ARE BOTH LARGE AREAS WITH MULTIPLE POSSIBILITIES AND CHALLENGES. BOTH SHOULD BE STUDIED FURTHER TO SEE THE MAXIMUM AMOUND OF AREA THAT COULD BE FLOODED AT A GIVEN TIME. ALSO NEED TO DETERMINE IF FLOODING DOWNSTREAM CAN BE AMELIORATED BY WIDENING AND SLOWING UPSTREAM.


SITES C AND D SERVE AS GOOD EXAMPLES AND PRECEDENTS FOR NON-COLLAGED BUT ALSO FUNCTIONING LANDSCAPES IN THIS AREA. ‘C’ ADDITIONALLY OFFERS THE CONTRAST OF THE ADDITION OF FILL AS A LEVEE - A CONTINUATION OF EXISTING PRACTICES RATHER THAN RE-THINKING THE PROCESSES THAT CREATED THE PROBLEM. ‘D’ IS ALSO ALREADY FUNCTIONING AESTHETICALLY. IT SERVES AS MORE OF AN EXAMPLE RATHER THAN A PLACE IN NEED OF INTERVENTION.


A

B

C

D

flexible program (parks and open space)

Site Selection


Poto

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

Cameron Run

Hunting Creek

TELE

GRA

PH R

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EISENHOWER AVE

RICHM

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etro

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Eisen

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Statio

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SITE SELECTION

former floodplain (approx. 100 year)

current 100 year floodplain

existing stream bed

flexible program (parking lots̀)

1”=600’

N

pre-channelization stream bed

A B C D

LOCATION


FLOODING


OTHER


ANALYSIS



















A

B

C

D

flexible program (parks and open space)

A B C D

LOCATION


FLOODING


OTHER


ANALYSIS



















Project

The overall corridor was chosen for the inherent juxtapositional qualities it already possessed, however, how did these qualities manifest in experience? How could collage and montage be defined within this site? Where could an ecological intervention using collage and montage be most beneficial?

Four possible locations were identified that could benefit from intervention. After creating a matrix of needs for the site, area “A” arose as a prime location. The available land and location in the watershed, as well as the confluence of the historic stream bed and the straightened channel, made it a unique place to begin the design intervention.

3938


Cameron Run Weirs

Once the crossing of the two waters had been discovered and the potential for an intervention identified, the site became the focus of a finer grain of site study. The instream-bed sedimentation was well documented, but what of the flood channel infrastructure that, when surrounded by the materials of the stream, generated the juxtapositional qualities?

Project

The next step was a close examination of the weirs that lie within the channel, the elements of control that would become the impetus for a series of interventions.

4140


How do montage and collage operationalize in the landscape? Montage and collage are both action and result - and the actions (cutting and pasting) - generate works of art through the juxtaposition of materials and meaning.

Once a thorough understanding had been gained of the material, scale, and function of the weirs, I embarked on an exploration of how these two operations could play out along the site.

Cameron Run Weirs

Project

4342


DESIGN

The design began with drawings and collages imagining possible conditions for these weirs, and expanding on how cut and paste might manifest in the channel. The design responds to the site conditions through answering questions about possible program, and most importantly, how juxtaposition is both retained and created through collage and montage.

Weir Cuts

The first move was in response to the existing constraint of the water flow, and the need to clean the water. By designing a series of cuts through the weirs at various depths, the water is released. Using only cuts, the operation served to transform the function from “weir” that restrains and slows, to “spreader” which controls an even amount of flow over the entire width of the channel. The water is collected behind each weir in a sediment basin (another cut), and then spread very shallowly and evenly across on the other side. The slow even spread begins the process of chemical pollutant removal required to make the water swimmable, creating the first step towards cleaner water.

Design

4746


The cuts, however, have limitations in terms of their ability to clean the water or generate healthier ecologies. The next move was a study of how cuts might be created in or along the weirs to catalyze plant growth, or provide places for the “collaging” of the structure that could be a home to plants. The drawings to the right are an exploration of cutting and pasting by making a collage; studying the experience of each weir and what kinds of places cuts and pastes of both the existing concrete and added materials might generate.

Design

Weir cut + paste

4948


At this juncture, it became important to integrate the program into the new site as a final tool for decision-making. For what human and social purpose was landscape architecture required to make these interventions?

In the early studies of the site, it became apparent that this area had once had a rural quality, and had been populated by numerous springs that were home to restoration, play, and clean water for early Alexandrians and Native Americans alike.

It takes little time to conjure up imagery of swimming holes throughout Virginia that naturally occur in places that are far removed from the built environment. Places that are seen and felt to be pristine. The question of a juxtaposed program for this site for beautiful-infrastructural-urban wilderness became, “What does an urban swimming hole look like?”

Using the studies of the weirs once again, this digital collage imagines a new life for the weirs, and studies the spaces in between, bridging the beautiful American wilderness with the picturesque qualities of crumbling infrastructure.

Program

Design

5150


The urban swimming hole would need to be understood technically in order to make a case for restoring the stream to the level that is safe to swim in. Fortunately, the “natural pool” is taking hold in the US as it has in Europe, with the first ever biofiltration pool system in the US implemented in Minneapolis, MN in 2013. The sketches on the left were studies of how this type of filtration might translate to the channel. The collage here was the first study of how existing materials (black and white) would be integrated with new plant and soil material(color photographs) to clean the water. A backdrop of a plotter ink test was used to “test” the layout and implementation as a design.

Cleaning

Design

5352


2006 flash flooding event: 44’-6”

major flood: 37’-0”

flood stage elevation: 34’-0”

base flow elevation 27’-9”

weir 1

2006 flash flooding event elevation: 42’-6”

major flood elevation: 35’-0”



weir 2

weir 3

weir 4









existing weir section-elevations 1/8” = 1’-0”

upstream

downstream

2006 flash flooding event: 44’-6”

major flood: 37’-0”


base flow elevation 27’-9” weir 1




base flow elevation 25’-9”weir 2

weir 3

weir 4





2006 flash flooding event eleva-tion: 34’-6”




weir cuts section-elevations 1/8” = 1’-0”

upstream

downstream

Measuring Volume - before + after

Design

In order to make decisions about how the water would flow into the swimming hole, and how it would be cleaned, this drawing represents the discernable data regarding how much water would be in the channel during a set of events. The drawing on the right represents the same section cuts through the length of the weirs to show how the cut and paste” technique works with the concrete and the various levels of the water as it fluctuates.

Regional Design

Design

With a program of cleaning the water for both restoration and swimming, the exact location of the swimming hole and an overall scheme was required to ensure that the project could work regionally as well as locally on the site scale. Several conceptual illustratives and the prior studies of the flood zones and former stream bed helped to generate a broad regional plan that reconnected the channel to its former stream path without simply recreating the the former condition. Over the course of its run through the City of Alexandria and Fairfax County, Cameron Run would become a quiet stream, weaving in and out of infrastructure and parks, and the open spaces in industrial corridors and the

rights of way would be made intentional wetlands, waiting quietly until a storm, when the edges of the former floodplain would reveal themselves by filling. The planned parks and developments south of the site itself would also need to integrate the lowest areas as flood retention or detention areas, and would incorporate various park programs during dry times. The plan on the following page shows an approximate layout for the stream path and the overflow areas, and combines with collage a set of possible programs and experiences that would be integrated as Cameron Run becomes part of the life of the city.

5756


Regional Design

Design

5958


1”=50’

NCAMERON RUN RESTORATION PLAN

former channel becomes marsh

and habitat, paths wind throughout

along tops of berms

cameron run, restored to former path to allow passage of

anadromous fish and expanded habitat - once ecology is

stable, urban fishing program resumespark program combined with stormwater storage infrastructure

stream path restored, and parkin

g lots absorb exc

ess water th

at marshes

cannot accomodate, re

joining the stre

am with its former flo

odplain

before rejoining the stream, the cleaned water is held in an urban swimming hole, both slowing the progress of water downstream and generating a novel program for the city

water from fairfax co side becomes part of larger stream

restoration, and rejoins the rest of cameron run downstream of

eisenhower-telegraph junction

A

A1

C1B1

B C D

D1

What follows is a set of diagrams explaining how this site plan was derived from both existing conditions and future possibilities. The proposal for this section of the regional plan becomes developed as a demonstration of ideas. Using collage and montage as both operation and intended experience, recreational program is juxtaposed with habitat, and creating spaces where parking and recreation are sometimes quickly converted to areas for the overflow of water in large storms. Important existing conditions on the site, such as the waterpark and the program of fishing, are retained and enhanced by their relationship to the new swimming hole and channel-turned-wetland.

Design

Channel Site Plan

6160


Existing circulation patterns are relatively monofunctional, moving people, water, and cars in only two directions, parallel and never interacting. Large swaths of parking and Eisenhower Avenue prevent most people visiting the water park or other area parks and trails from sensing the relationship between all of these elements.

Design

Existing Conditions - Circulation

6362


The relationship between the waters in Lake Cook (the former stream bed) and the water in Cameron Run channel is lost to experience as it passes through a long pipe to fill the lake (retained with a small dam) and then slips out into the channel beneath Eisenhower. Sediment builds up, creating pools of stagnant water and the weirs prevent fish from moving upstream. Lake Cook is stocked with fish that only serve the singular fishing program, and have little to no ecological value for the area.

Design

Existing Conditions - Flow

6564


The designed circulation pattern continues the trails that descend from the Holmes Run tributary by weaving amongst the designed wetlands and juxtaposing the urban street with wild plantings. The parking lots serve as novel experiences as the revived stream is fed through them in exposed and planted cuts, and the rest of the paved area is lowered to accomodate large storm events. In large storms, the water park and batting cages would not be in use, leaving the parking lot empty. A new multi-use sports field replaces the relocated animal shelter, bringing recreation back to this park space.

Design

Proposed Conditions - Circulation

6766


The new hydrology protects and encourages anadromous fish to come upstream, and once a healthy population has re-established, the fishing program can occur throughout the stream. The channel flows slowly, moving water gradually through a series of cleansing areas to the pool. The cuts made through the parking lots re-introduce water to the lowest points of the site, bringing a new concept of what an ecological restoration could mean in heavily paved places. Overall, the flow of water is released, but control is reintroduced through planting and topography, slowing and collecting the water strategically, while not restricting its movement.

Design

Proposed Conditions - Flow

6968


Small cuts in the weirs and large cuts in the land are made to allow for the movement and collection of water; these operations of material montage lead to a healthier ecosystem, and set up the conditions for the “pasting”, or addition of soils and plants. The movement and collection of water then becomes the experiential montage, the narrative that unfolds as one moves through or experiences the place day after day. The more opaque the blue, the more consistently wet the area is.

Design

Proposed Interventions - Montage

7170


The orange indicates a place where a “collage” element has been added. The collagic materials include the control berms introduced into the channel, the plantings throughout, and the relocated material made from the cuts (sand, soil, concrete). The yellow “V”s indicate some of the planned vantage points from which the juxtaposition of form or program can be seen. This juxtaposition makes use of the familiar to bring the unfamiliar conditions to one another: rural and urban, geometric and natural form, beach and wetland, collide in the same visual space while revealing their relationships to one another.

Design

Proposed Interventions - Collage

7372


1”=50’




along tops of berms





g lots absorb exc

ess water th

at marshes


joining the stre


odplain





A

A1

C1B1

B C D

D1

Full Site Plan

CHANNEL STRUCTURE SECTION-ELEVATION (TYP.)

large central berm - bike and nature trail crossing

small berm typology 1

small berm typology 2 1/8”=1’

Collage in the Channel

Between each existing weir, the newly constructed chambers hold and allow water to flow slowly over. A small baseflow maintains healthy wetlands, and even in large storms the structures will function to detain the water. Collected pieces of broken concrete from the old weirs are utilized along the central berms as crossing paths, creating a change in texture from the rest of the paths through the site.

Design

1”=50’




along tops of berms





g lots absorb exc

ess water th

at marshes


joining the stre


odplain





A

A1

C1B1

B C D

D1

7776


Design

Spring

Autumn

Winter

Montage in the Channel

The existing Eisenhower bridge view is accentuated as the seasons and precipitation shift, making new readings of this formerly neglected landscape possible.

In the winter, the underlying structure of the red osier dogwoods that build the bays for cleaning reveal themselves as the leaves are lost and the colors of the surrounding plants become muted. The striking lines make an otherwise little-noticed structural change clearly apparent.

7978


8180

Amanda Foran -- Master’s of Landscape Architecture Thesis Design

The sectional experience of the channel begins upstream with densely planted naturalistic wetlands where the rain water enters from the stream overflow. Moving along downstream, the plantings become more regular and repetitive, slowly making a montage-like experience along the walk. A series of paths criss-cross through, connecting each of the cleaning phases to one another in experience. Each of the parts become clear when the waters merge at the swimming hole, the juxtaposition of new and old, nature and structure, formal and informal.

CHANNEL SECTION, VIEW NORTH 1/16”=1’

walking from the east, you see urban elements that echo Old Town, juxtaposed with groupings of particular plants in

the swimming hole. These plants gradually become more dispersed and wild as you move west and upstream

pedestrian path winds aross and around the channel, using repeated plant and structural material

that changes throughout the year to tell of the relationship between nature and infrastructure

coming from the west, the mass of aquatic and lowland plants echo ideas of “wild nature”, but

become tame and urban, echoing a flower garden by the time the swimming hole is reached

Sectional Diagram of Wetland Channel (view North)

1”=20’

NURBAN SWIMMING HOLE PLAN

urban beach

aquatic flower gardens

restr

oom a

nd

chan

ging

room

s, en

try

pavili

on

pavili

on

shelt

er

fishing pier

restored stream

marsh and overflow treatment

restored stream

A A1

B

B1

P1

P2

This area of the design is detailed out to show the ways in which the naturalistically restored stream is experienced adjacent the fluctuating swimming hole. The entrance walk is wide and has a series of showers along the columns with views to the former channelized stream path and the restored stream, lush and wild.

Design

Cameron Run Swimming Hole - detailed plan and view

An urban beach is juxtaposed with wild urban nature, making possible a myriad of readings and experiences during different seasons, but drawing into focus the anticipation of summer storms that will fill the swimming hole and then receed. The anticipation of phenomena generates attachment and care for a place, using beauty and experience intermingled with urban nature.

The aquatic plant beds, or “flower gardens”, in the swimming hole itself condense the planting scheme and bring attention to the relationship between what appears as “natural” but is in fact designed, and what is obviously designed.

8382


Grading Plan + Digital Model

Simultaneously working on the grading plan and a digital model allowed for adjustments to be made based on the way that the experience was coming together as a three dimensional space. The slopes along the entrance path were adjusted

elements as more length was needed in the grading of the walkway. The four views of the overall model show the various grading conditions in three dimensions while also including the relationships between the structures, walls and ramps.

to accomodate both the stairs and the variable water levels in conjunction with the elevation of the weir as the water flowed into the swimming hole area. The width of the wall and the experience of walking down a ramp to get into the water were added as

8584


cut concrete from the 4th weir generates the top prospect here sand collected from channel dredging and

subsequent maintenance creates urban beachesrestroom and pavilion after Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House, New Jersey

wood deck fishing pier and overlook pipe outlet runs beneath I-495

and rejoins the stream path in Fairfax County

restored stream separated from channel, allows passage of anadromous fish and other wildlife

cuts made here are distributed to the 3rd weir, cut lines are polished concrete

arrow arum (peltandra virginica)

blue iris (iris versicolor)

milkweed (asclepias tuberosa)

sweetflag (acorus calamus)

red osier dogwood (cornus sericea)

CAMERON SWIMMING HOLE north view section-elevation (A) 1/8”=1’

black willow (salix nigra)

Cameron Run Swimming Hole

8786

Amanda Foran -- Master’s of Landscape Architecture Thesis Design

At the swimming hole entrance is a small restroom and entry building, borrowed from Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House. A path leads down to a mirrored pavilion shelter.

On a summer day, the pool is at a mid-level depth. When the water rises, each of the successive “beaches” and decks becomes covered, as well as each plant bed at differing depths.

Design

Cameron Run Swimming Hole - rise + recede

Each phase of filling represents an approximate storm size, but is designed to change levels with any increase in flow and create variety between levels as well. There is always a base flow of water that maintains the health of the wetland plants.

The water level at a 2-5 year storm will cover the first “beach” area, allowing for a shallow and soft surface that is different from the rest of the harder swimming area floor.

With most of the swimming hole filling as a result of a 10-50 year storm, one of the wooden decks is covered as well as two of the “beach” areas. This leaves dry areas for playing and exploring available most of the time, while changing the experience frequently.

In a 100 year storm, the paths and surfaces are entirely overwhelmed, changing the swimming hole into a deep and drammatic landscape while detaining the water and preventing downstream flooding. Beyond a 100 year storm, the water can flow over and down the rest of the channel.

8988


Design

Cameron Run Swimming Hole - sectional rise + recede

The individual aquatic flower beds are shown in section along with the experience of the wilder marsh in the background. In a large storm, it takes 12-15 days from the time of the storm to fill. Once full, it will slowly start to drain, so the full swimming hole will become an event.

9190


Design

9392


Design

9594


DEFENSE

The thesis culminated in a public defense held on December 10th, 2014 in the West Room of 1001 Prince St, Alexandria, VA.

CONCLUSION

From the outset, dealing with beauty as an investigation within landscape architecture meant embracing the inconsistency of definitions and beliefs about what constitutes “beauty”. As a landscape architect, I felt that there must be a bridge between what is expected and loved in nature as beautiful, and what a healthy ecosystem, especially an urban one, actually needs and can maintain. Within the complicated relationship of human aesthetics to land, I found that working on the line between the two produces a more rich and enticing approach than avoiding addressing form altogether. Yes, aestheticizing landscapes has created many problems. But by using humans own natural ability to push boundaries of what may be beautiful in the practice of art, we can also begin to use it as part of a way of re-connecting ourselves with beautiful land that we didn’t know we had.

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Documents

beautiful nature

beautiful juxtaposition

landscape process

beautiful places

beautiful floodwaters

performative landscape

cultural constructs

new framework of beauty