louisa king

Thetopographyof TopographyLouisa King

What is topography?

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Marx, Roberto Burle 1953

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Table of Contents

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07. abstract

12. glossary

14. intro

26. Chapter 1.The Material Topography

54. Chapter 1.The Cultural Topography

82. Chapter 2.Narrative

132. Chapter 3.The Topography of topography

159. Reflection

181. Conclusion

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Thetopographyof TopographyLouisa King

What is topography?

This project seeks to investigate number of approaches to design within my own practice, through a central question about topography. Exploring topography as an object, a concept and eventually pure image, this paper first argues that topography is something that is material, made up of all the tangible contents of the universe. By a process of making, topography is then looked at as a construct of our cultural consciousness that we have invented to make spatial sense of the world and only becomes into being when we start to conceive it. To make sense of how the material and cultural topographies come together, the project begins looking for its structures. From an epistemological investigation I concluded that topography, for me, is being constructed through narrative, this has been explored to find out how topography can come about through a narrative design process. Finally I have moved on to conclude that what narrative is constructing for me, using material and culture, is an image of topography. These findings are then used to attempt to answer the question, (what is topography?), by performing a reflection back on how I have chosen to represent the topography through the research. From this I can see what topography means to me, by observing what I have chosen to bring forward, blur, contrast, punctuate and leave out of its image.

ABSTRACT

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I have travelled to the same beach town with my family, every summer since I was 4. When we first went to Trial Bay, on the north coast of New South Wales, we sighted out in the half moon shaped bay shallows a structure rising from the shallow water, resembling at that time the ruins of a pier structure or jetty. However its distance from the shore and height where spatially disorientating. On closer inspection, it became clear that this pair of pylons, where in fact the exposed top half of a ship wreck. On further exploration off this part of the beach, we went on to find another smaller wreck sitting at the crest of the berm of the dunes. This ship was completely exposed and we could stand on its bridge and jump of its bow into the sand. The wreck looked at though it had been there for hundreds of years. So the story goes that on January 8, 1972 the passenger ferry Sydney Queen and vehicular ferries Koondooloo and Lurguerna were blown ashore by strong winds after breaking their mourning in Trial Bay. These vessels in company of another vehicular ferry Kooroongaba were being towed to the Philippines for scrapping. The Kooroongaba sits out in the bay only visible in strong winds and heavy seas. The show boat the Sydney Queen, sits at the shoreline at low tide, only its steam exhaust sticking out of the sands. And Lurguerna is being pushed further and further into the hinterland. The wrecks erosion along with the beaches erosion tells the story of the topography, so how is this occurring? This research investigates a cluster of related topics as the gather around this central question about topography.

PREFACE.

The Wrecks of Trial Bay

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Teardrop park

Landscape Architecture: Michael Van Valkenburg Associates, Inc

Location: Lower Manhattan / NYC / USA

Area: 1.8 acres, less than a hec-tare

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G lossary of termsTopography - defined and redefined as the research progresses.

Culture An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

Material all things physical in the world I have first argues that topography is something that is material, made up of all the tangible contents of the universe

Image although image is used in theory anything that presents itself to the mind, whether it be real or not.

Representation the practice of materialising a concept into a physical tangible product. Used in this research to refer to the drawing that is produced within the process of design.

Narrative a spoken or written or drawn account of connected events; a story.

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I have always had a great interest in topographies. I enjoyed grading, and undulations and reading topographical maps. My practice would always begin with obtaining the topographical survey of the proposed site; until this was obtained, I would not begin the task! And my design outcomes would always be coming from, fundamentally, this first image I was creating (either on paper or in my mind) of the topography, obtained from that initial set of vectors. But I, like Bernard Cache, ask the question: what is the nature of this vector? (Cache, 1995)

What is the true image of the topography? If the image of the topography was to me then a set of vectors, what is the picture it is conjuring up for me? The topographical map was communicating to me in a certain way that no other mode could. For me it was as if language betrayed what (the) orthographic maps displays (Cache, 1995). But how do I access all the information in the map? I must first understand my own processors to be able to understand what is happening through the readings of these maps.

WORDS

Within my practice and within the broader discourse, we have forgotten how weighted the concept of topography is. What makes it so interesting to me and inspired this exploration was the multitude of definitions that come up through reading and discussions with peers and within critique sessions.

This project has been about what topography means to me, and what that in turn says about my

practice. I hypothesized that the conflict these discrepancies were causing, were coming from a split between the dictionary definition of topography and the origins of the word, they are;

DICTIONARY DEF.

topography [tuh-pog-ruh-fee] noun, plural -phies.

1. The detailed mapping or charting of the features of a relatively small area, district, or locality.

2. The detailed description, esp. By means of surveying, of particular localities, as cities, towns, or estates.

3. The relief features or surface configuration of an area.

4. The features, relations, or configuration of a structural entity

EPISTEMOLOGICAL DEF.

The term topography originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, as the detailed description of a place. The word comes from the Greek words (topos, place) and (graphia, writing). In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, what is now largely called local history (Harper)

What was great about this question is it that forced me to define the word topography for myself. It also gave me a way of positioning myself within a larger theoretical framework, as I could look at others definitions and align or distance myself from them. I have assembled a chorus of definitions from which the following are the two I found to be most aligned

with my own.

Nunes

What topography depicts is a system of representation. The spontaneous or attributed form of the earth. Its functions as the source for defining the relationships between systems and the earth, and functioning of a-biotic processors and those that refer to metabolism of water from Landscape Architecture and 100+ words to inhabit

Nunes is, for me, is talking about the material topography, but implies that it depicts a system of representation. There is an implied disconnection between those representing the topography, what they are representing and who is receiving this image. This idea of representation spoke to me, however there was no hint at how the topography was being represented. It seems simply that topography is a representation of the material world, however this seems somewhat simplified. w

MillerFrom Topographies

Topography originally meant the creation of metaphorical equivalents in words of a landscape. Then by another transfer, it came to mean representation of a landscape accordingly to conventionally signs of some system of mapping. Finally by a third transfer, the name of the map was carried over to name what is a map. Today we might say lets make a topographical map of the topography of Key West Topographies,

Joseph Hillis Miller

INTRODUCTION

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Parc de Pedra Toscain Les Preses, Spain

RCR Arquitectesdesign strategy as being one of un-coveringrather than discovering

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Miller on the other hand offers a system for understanding how the fissure in the idea of topography has come about, through these transfers. This idea of transfer of definitions, meaning and myths of the topography will become more important as the research develops. By exploring the words epistemological makeup, Miller exposes the various motivations of the persons representing the topography throughout history. The idea that our concepts of topography and the way we represent it are highly politicised in this way, has developed to become one of the overarching themes of the research.

NARRATIVE

Topography is not just a set of vectors painted with material. it is also a stage, on which the stories of our lives are played out The way we organize memories through geographical coordinates. Landscape is pre-historic; it is eternal. Topography only comes into being when we begin to talk, write, and conceive it. Topography is a concept of our collective and cultural consciousness. Topography is also made of a tangible materiality, that which we can touch, that which is eternal, and exists whether or not we conceive it to be so. Topography must be understood through this dichotomy that exists within the concepts of topography. For the intervention of the landscape architect, one either sits upon the topography, cuts into its land-forms, re-arranges its configurations and will always be thereby interfering with those conversations occurring between what i have come to refer to as the cultural and the

material topography. What are the conversations that are happening through topography? I have come to see these conversations manifesting through narratives. Those taking part in these conversations, engage in a narrative comprising itself of; geological narratives, tectonic narratives, alluvial narratives, aolian narratives, hydrological narratives, communities narratives, personal (human) narratives. They combine to make up the meta-narrative of the topography.

But what do these narratives look like? How are they represented, and how do these representations translate to designs? What is it like to inhabit my topographical narrative? And what do these images say about what topography is to me?

Site

Topography was chosen as the theme for this research, in order to answer questions about my own practice. It was apparent that topography was provoking me to intervene with it, through every project I would attempt. If I was given a site to work on in a studio, that did not have running through it a soft, morphing surface topography (usually obtained through alluvial river typologies), then I would bring a river through, or excavate to find one, buried underground. I always needed that type of flexibility of the ground; there also needed to be flexibility in pictorial view. The ground must morph to change this view. This simultaneous morphology, happening through both, as Cache explains it, plan vector and architectural frame (Cache, 1995) was for me best observed and tested on a flexible ground like a flood plain. Topography was

always driving every move I made. The finished products, which I will talk about later, always involved a morphology of the ground, the ground was telling a story. There is a drama within the topography; a drama of the ground, through its surface morphology and also on the topography, through the acts of those that inhabit it. This morphology was seen to be playing out through both this material topography and what I call the cultural topography. But where do they meet and what events occur at their meeting point.

I have used as my testing ground for this research a floodplain that once housed a munitions factory, located on the at the top of the Maribrynong River flats, in the suburb of Maribrynong. The site offers me a large alluvial body of earth, which I can, with the help of the river; form into new topographies two suit wherever the research took me.

REPRESENTATION

I have attempted to work initially and primarily through plan, top down, and then sub sequentially critiqued this through the smaller personal, experiential scale. I would however like to add that there is, in fact, an experience at the larger plan view. The experience of the designer; this is both happening through the design process (as a form of critique), but also through the collecting of past experiences, by the designer, in the topography, being assembled and re-assembled through the drawings she produces. These drawing will materialize into real spaces at the 1.1 scale, but will carry with them the imagery of topography being

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Marbyrnong

AvondaleHeigts

site*Defunct

MaribrynongMunitions

Factory

Maribrynong River

site perimter

alluvial path

hard sandstone clis

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explored through the actions of master planning, stretched and skewed on the ground.

It is this transfer of image, across scales and between Representer and Receiver, which drives this project.

To attempt to answer of the questions by critiquing topography, it is too broad to simply look at my practice as a whole thing, and it must therefore be investigated in parts. This project has sought to do this by looking at how I design the topography in terms of;

A physical material thing that can be touched.

A cultural construct that is built on aesthetics

The image of the topographical map, contours and vectors

A programmable surface full of exchanges between objects and ground plain

Narrative as design tool of the topography

The narrative of the ground topography of the site itself.

The final image of the topography; this image, a final image of the topography.

The body of work will now be discussed through eight iterations that show how the research has come to be formed and will conclude some of the questions posed in this introduction, starting with the setting up of the material/ culture divide.

Essednon

N

concept plan crops

sandstone beneath 20 m of alluvial soils

traversable sandstone terrace

soft sandsotne

sandstone revealed by alluvial soil removaland carving of bedrock

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The act of defining the word Topography.

The research takes the position that with the multitude of definitions for topography it has become undefined and blurry . if i am to ask what topography means to me? And what that in turn says about my practice. i need to move through a process of defining the word through both design iteration and the writing of the definition. Each iteration attempts to state, what topography means to the myself at that moment. it is this morphology, along with the accompanying drawings, of meaning that illustrates best the progress of the research

definition

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topography [tuh-pog-ruh

-phies.

Topography is the resulting image of the Material and Cultural worlds collisions through narrative,


-phies.

Topography is whatever I represent it to be.


-phies.

Topography is a completely cultural constructed concept.


-phies.

Topography the material landscape that exists before my comprehension of it. It is the world without human experience, although it contains humans. Humans exist in the Material topography however they are simply objects or ornaments set about a ground plain


-phies.

1. topography is what tells us how all systems will operate. It is the overruling landscape grading, and undulations and reading topographical maps.


-phies.

e recording of relief

terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the landforms.


-phies.

originated ancient Greeceancient Rome, as thedetailed description of

a Greek words(topos, place)

graphia, writing).In classical literature this refers to

writing about a place or places, what is now largely called local history (Harper)


-phies.

(Miller) Topography originally meant the creation of

transfer, it came to mean representation of a landscape accordingly to conventional signs of some system of mapping. Finally by a third transfer, the name of the map was carried over to name what is a map. Today we might say lets make a topographical map of the topography of Key West Topographies, Joseph Hillis Miller

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the definitions of topography as they evolved throughout the research.


-phies.

Topography is an arrangement of many images of the landscape.


-phies.

Topography is is a system

spontaneous or attributed form of the earth. Nunes from Landscape Architecture and 100+ words to inhabit


-phies.

2. Detailed, precise description of a place or region.


-phies.


-phies.

Topography is a stage on which the stories of our lives are played

coordinates. Landscape is pre-historic; it is eternal. Topography only becomes when we begin to talk, write, and conceive it. Topography is a concept of cultural consciences.


-phies.

Topography is the Growth medium which supports the conversations of the Material and Cultural worlds collisions, fusing and growth via the process of narrative. Narrative and process are interchangeable facilitators of the evolution of the

topography. It is through narratives that we make sense of the topography.


-phies.

therefore this image of topography is a completely subjective thing, and its arrangements are as equally subjective and determine further the resulting image of the topography.


-phies.

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the materialtopography

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surface models and follies, looking at strata and pattern

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This is the essence if the motivation for the iteration. The poetic sensibility that underlies what topography is to me, at that moment in time. This is the research, trying to find out what that sensibility tells me about What topography is. It is driven by the aesthetic of the representation of topography on the page. The page is where all of the meanings embedded in the word, the concept of topography, play out. What is this aesthetic type of writing telling me about what topography means to me. It is the lyrical abstraction of topography, what the topography looks like as an image through language. This is the initial starting point to for each iteration, the subjective nature of my work. This is the way I see topography, but what does it produce?

In retrospect, how are these two motivators, effecting the form of the research? This point, written at a time of reflection, is intended to talk about the entire body of research. It is used to talk about the research as an entire body of work. Drawing these two parts, in addition what I already know,

a theoretical framework, from what was initially seen to be a collection of drawings and iteration of topography that were simply floating in space.

THE MOOD. The voices

Reflection

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Iteration I

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def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]

The shape of the land. That which determines all other systems, hydrolic, river, soil. (geology)

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Matter and force, these are the fundamental components of the material topographyGeological parameters and flood gauges, soil types.. I am making topographies, through acting out on the site, with materials. The laws of the universe are important. Topography must perform in a certain way. This is how you make topography. The

process of making seems to be more important at this stage of the project. The first four iterations belong to this stage and are all concerned with the way I make, essentially, landforms and then design programmes for those landforms.

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the plaster model, made by covering the existing contours of the site with a number of plaster pours, then abstracted further by tracing these forms into land masses.

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topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]noun, plural -phies.

1. The lay of the land. The shape of the earth. The topography is what tells us how all systems will operate. It is the overruling landscape grading, and undulations and reading topographical maps.

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topography

Is the topography specifically involves the recording of relief or

terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms.

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The land shall grow through morphology. The morphology was made up of the matter of the material, and the force of the gravity pulling the alluvium along the location. Matter and its motion through space-time playing out on the site. All of the topography can be broken down into energy and force. This is what I need to use to make the topography.

!"

#$ %&&

Reflection

Just making arbitrary forms. plaster being poured onto the existing site con-tours. However what is it Im making at this point? How am I making deci-sions, what are they based on. There is a desire to see what new landforms can be generated. However these decisions are the result of a motivation that I cant quite put my finger on.

The focus at this stage is not on what the topography is, but how you make it. This endeavor into making would end up forcing me to question what is what I was trying to make in the first place. If you dont know what your striving towards, how will you know when you have achieved it.

THE MOOD.

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Iteration II

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!

def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]


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The site is to become a new type of surface. Because the site is a floodplain, it has an unresolved surface. This shall be taken advantage of, to make a new place with a morphing topography. This is the most important type of topography to me as it is able to tell a story, through erosion and deposition. And these stories are within the same time frame as our stories. The new site is to be a place where these two stores, that of the topography and our stories, are told together.

'()

* "+

,-%

"&

Reflection

Applying program to a form is what makes that form a topography? What is the moment when this happens in the design process? when does the landform become topography?

THE MOOD.

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gardens of varying permanency. surface morphology to match program morphology

topography[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]

noun, plural -phies.

1. Detailed, precise description of a place or region.

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topography


The word topography originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, as the detailed description of a place. The word comes from the Greek words (topos, place) and (graphia, writing). In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, what is now largely called local history (Harper)

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Second Stasimon

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pond

Hercules

two heads

eTopographicalFreaks

Bird Girl

atoll

Bearded Lady

But some topographies that Im making arent looking like they should. They are the result of entering the wrong digits into rhino or lofting the wrong surface. These drawings dont

perform in the right way, they are freaks. I dont like them. They were put aside into a folder called freaks and forgotten.

There is an emerging performance of within the drawing. There is a subjectivity underlying what I am trying to create.

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Half Woman-Half Man

delta

Siamese Twin*

(Culture)

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The area from what is now Trial Bay around to Grassy Head is a wide delta with various channels connected to the river. Around 1885, English marine engineer John Coode advised on improvements to various rivers and ports in Australia, including the Macleay. The Department of Public Works prepared four plans for improvements to the mouth, Coode favored improving the existing entrance. In 1893 a flood enlarged an opening near Trail Bay and the department elected to improve that, called the New Entrance, though Coode had thought it not enough to drain all the waters of the district.Work on the new entrance commenced in April 1896, improving the channel and adding training walls. A new pilot station was built in 1902, establishing the town of Trial Bay. Work was completed in 1906. Today the old mouth has silted up, leaving Stuarts Point on a dead-end reach.The high levels of silt in the sands of that bay created over several years a higher than normal sandbar, which shifted on the night of January 8, 1972, to expose the reef that struck the hull of the Lurguerna.

As I moved through the research I noticed that categories were starting to emerge and divisions became clear. At this point I saw a division within my practices; I call this the material and culture binary. I was either being driven by the material world or by the cultural world. I was unsure of which I belonged to as a designer or which is the best for designing topographies. Which world should I align myself with? , I started to refer to this as The Gap within my own practice. The Gap, was excluding me from designing a totally cohesive topography. I would either be privileging the material world, through say allowing the river to have the overwhelming dominance over the site. Or the cultural world, and upholding the right of people to go about there daily lives in a safe flood - free environment.

The material topographyMatter and force

The first half of the project has been about setting up a dichotomy of the division between the material topography and the cultural topography. The task this presents was to design topography, a topography that flexed, morphed, stretched and fused. This was how I saw topography and I wanted to explore this using what I saw to be the ultimate morphing topography, the floodplain. The material topography is the topography that exists before my comprehension of it. It is the world without human experience, although it contains humans. Humans are in the material world simply as objects

or ornaments set about the ground plain. This way of looking at the topography is in fact somewhat useless as it does not really exists, for being human I am unable to conceive of the world outside my own experiences within it. What then is the point of it through this lens? These parallel worlds, material and cultural, need to be understood first as separate, in order to see how the two are in fact constructing the image of topography. I set out to do this quite unguided and free. I moved about the research jumping between what I considered two very separate worlds of designing, namely the physical world and non-tangible dream world; in the material world I quite literally design through the materials of site, or perhaps abstracted ideas of the materials of the site. Geological parameters and flood gauges, matter and force. The process of making seems to be more important at this stage of the project. The first four iterations belong to this stage and are all concerned with the way I make, essentially, landforms and then design programmes for those landforms.

The cultural topography

Iteration V is where I am finding myself slipping into this cultural conception of topography. When constructing topographies through simple materiality, it can become difficult to imagine what the human experience of being in that place is like. I saw this somewhat of a lack of transfer within my own design processors. I was grappling with the idea of landscape being a visual image that affects or perhaps controls completely our experience within it. I choose to look at concepts of the sublime, knowing that the sublime refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. Why I would choose this as a lens is perhaps evidence for how ambitiously I wanted to attack this question about topography.

The sublime is a completely human construct, and does not work as an absolute or exact measure of the physical world. It is perhaps the most elusive widow through which

to start attacking my questions about topography. Perhaps through looking through an impossibly ambiguous window, I could get a hint if what this cultural component of topography was. Not knowing where to start, but knowing I must start somewhere, I chose to view the topography of my site through the lens of the sublime.

topo-,

The splitting of the topography

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the cultural topography

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C. Why would anybody want to live on a floodplain?

L. Because it would be beautiful.

C. But a park next to a river that doesnt flood could be said to be beautiful.

L. Yes, but it would be a special type of beauty, a beauty that it also connected with and created by the terror of living on a flood plain.

But what is that beauty?

On each visit back to that beach I would be filled with anticipation to see where the wrecks may have wandered to along the beach, through the water, further down towards the bedrock or out of the territory of that bay altogether. On arrival at the beach the task of finding the exact spot where that the one thats up in the dunes sat, was always a familiar pleasure. As I would move towards that place, the excitement of seeing the ship, its red-rust punctuating the white sands, along with the fear that it might have disappeared forever. One of the ships has already disappeared out into the bay and one is sinking into the shore. And with 12 months between each visit, the storms of winter could and one day will bury the wreck forever. It will become its second sinking, only to emerge one day in some different form. These images of the topography, that come together to explain the narrative of that place for me, are arranged and re-arranged on each visit, to collectively make that topography.

What do I have to say about this exercise? if someone was to ask me about my experiences of using the sublime (in terms of an aesthetic theory) as a lens to ask these questions about topography, I would probably advise them to tread with caution; For as landscape architects we are forced to make representations of images of the landscape; not only though the paper/model/computer representation of our work. But also in the physical built designs

we produce. And as Lytoard explains, through critiquing Kants Analytic of the Sublime, representing the sublime is an impossible feat. For as Lyotard advises, the sublime is by its definition an un-representable image(lyotad, ). Once one finds the correct mode to represent the sublime it ceases to be sublime. However in an attempt to represent, the un-representable (the sublime), we are forced to arrange a series of non-sublime images. It is this process, that Lyotard believes is as close to the sublime that the image maker will get. What images, for example do I arrange through design. There are the images throughout the designing process, spoken about in the introduction; but there are also the images that we are

This iteration gave the research a very important thing. I just have trouble saying what that thing is; but the thing defiantly had a transformative effect on the research. I can say that I started looking more closely how representation of the topography is affecting my design outcomes? And secondly what is this cultural overlay, that exist on the topography? I started to think about the word topography. , place. Am I thinking about place when Im designing topography? Or is it simply a physical object? Or is my knowledge of the experience of being in the landscape, embedded in the forms that I make? How do you separate the two? Is it important to separate the two? I would argue for my research yes! The topography must be broken up into all its parts in order to understand it as a whole concept.

Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the

immensity of the attempt

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason)

topo-,

The Sublime. (down the rabbit hole)

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collage created to represent the process of the conundrum of the sublime.56

I find quite humorous that the research felt at this time to resemble something of Kants explanation of the sublime. Perhaps in a way, one could say that the research should in some way reflect the topic it is currently pondering on. If I were to make a topographical drawing of the research at this point, it might look like this.

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TYPEIV

MeltingThe decay of a geological artifact. The impending doom of the falling away of the ground plain into the depths of hell. Yet the immense spectacle moves us but instills us with a degree of horror by what is "dark, uncertain, and confused* as the river is allowed to eat away at the founda-tion of this place, all that sits atop it waits for impending doom. The massive 100 year flood is not the con-cern here. Its the daily lapping of the tidal waters, causing the ground plain to melt into the river and be sent out to see.

^ Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Part I, Section VII, "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the

ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of

the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling...." In Part II, Section II, Burke wrote: "...terror is in all cases whatso-

ever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime."

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under the lintel, high, lofty, elevated, exalted

A

typeIII

The sublime requires us to shift be-tween incomprehension and compre-hension of the natural world, it is this shift back and forth that enables us to achieve the sublime. And leaves us ul-timately with a feeling of anxiety.

It is the representation of the un-represent able that makes the sublime a useful lens. The aim of representing the sublime is one that will never be achieved. However it is the process of attempting to represent the sublime that is more interesting, as we dig deep into the various histories at our disposal.

This content shifting around an im-possible target is analogy for the infi-nite non-static ground of a floodplain. The inhabitants of that ground will never reach the final point of comple-tion for their surface or their pro-grams. And must continue to re-present their collective identify through its spaces over and over again.

shifting

typeII

The sublime fills us with an awe in-spiring lofty aspiration. It requires us to search endlessly for the ultimate high. The search for this high sends us further and further upwards, towards the heavens. The continuously generating topography is a metaphor for this, its infinite form. .

Under the lintel, high, lofty, elevated, exalt

Topography as the study of place. What is it like to live in a place whose ground plain stretches infinity towards the future?

Along this ground plain all the pro-grams the city could ever dream can be carries out.

CONTRUCTION:

typeI

The sublime sits a tenuous state be-tween life and death. Between beauty and terror. The responsibility of keep-ing these forces at bay, takes its toile upon the sublime, and its will have to choose one side to fall into. The flood, the first day of the bloom or the suburb carnival do not cause this event. These are there results of the sublime and only strengthen its re-solve. The sublime represents the energy that holds together the banal and the extraordinary.

Balance

in an attempt to represent, the un-representable (the sublime), we are forced to arrange a series of non-sublime images. It is this process, that Lyotard believes is as close to the sublime that the image maker will

get.60

Garden plan

Communal Gardens

Wild flower chanel public spaces

Communal Gardens

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gardens that would rotate around the site like a medieval crop rotation, to adjust to diff erent fl ooding sequences of the new topography.

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Submerged

Housing sites submerged in the water courses, but not in the direct center. Housing would therefore not be washed downstream by major floods, but would be slowly eaten away at by the flow of water, down the river and through the new channels.

This housing would be very close together and would force the center channel to deepen eventually

Balance

The sublime refers to a tenuous place that exist between pain and pleasure. I it cannot be talked about as a purely positive thing, or a negative. The process of obtaining the sublime experience is a jolting between the 2 binaries, good and bad. However the result is once of anxiety. Perhaps the floodplain may give moments of great beauty. Post flood bloom seed stacks sit at the flood way entrance. With each flood they disperse wild flower seeds through the low lying areas of the site. Several weeks later the flowers bloom, and a moment of beauty is experiences by all vantage points. When the flood comes, all the hard work that has been carried out in recreational spaces and communal gardens will be swept away.

Melting

Housing is purposive built on ground that will become unstable as time passes. As it falls into the river it is picked up and taken downstream to the more affluent suburbs.

Choosing this housing type is an Investment in ones future

v scraper

The sublime fills us with an awe inspiring lofty sensation. It requires us to search endlessly for the ultimate high. The search for this high sends us further and further upwards, towards the heavens. The continuously generating topography is a metaphor for this, its infinite form.

Translation of Sublime types into section diagrams

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under the lintel, high, lofty, elevated, exalted

A

III

The sublime requires us to shift be-tween incomprehension and compre-hension of the natural world, it is this shift back and forth that enables us to achieve the sublime. And leaves us ul-timately with a feeling of anxiety.

It is the representation of the un-represent able that makes the sublime a useful lens. The aim of representing the sublime is one that will never be achieved. However it is the process of attempting to represent the sublime that is more interesting, as we dig deep into the various histories at our disposal.

This content shifting around an im-possible target is analogy for the infi-nite non-static ground of a floodplain. The inhabitants of that ground will never reach the final point of comple-tion for their surface or their pro-grams. And must continue to re-present their collective identify through its spaces over and over again.

shifting

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Iteration V

mood

In attempt at refl ecting on what I had learnt from the previous 5 iterations was made at this point. How do you designing with all this in mind?

WHAT?

What I m doing

Assigning program and materiality to the landforms generated from the previous iteration, to create these morphing gardens. The gardens are to have. The

Refl ection

Refl ection Interestingly enough what I, in retrospect can see here is perhaps an early attempt at my fi nal interaction; a concept for the site that ties in all I have learnt about topography so far in the research, and work it in to a part diagram part real place, to explain back to me how all the themes work together, to form an overall view of what topography is to me.

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def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]


66

pre-fl ood and post-fl ood topography

68

sections from V iterative concept for new fl ooding suburb for Maribrynong.

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gardens of varying permanency. surface morphology to match program morphology

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topography [tuh-pog-ruh-fee] noun, plural -phies.

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The BINARY

(the gap)

As I moved through the research I noticed that categories were starting to emerge and divisions became clear. At this point I saw a division within my practices; I call this the material and culture binary. I was either being driven by the material world or by the cultural world. SO there is a gap,

But how can I explore the gap?cape

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pond

peninsula

delta

inlet

inlet

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Narrative78

local records found in the ice cream store and Country Club.

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Narrative.

The boats articulate the story of the topography of that place. The Koondooloo has been the most present wreck throughout my visits, having to be negotiated on the shoreline, to now being embedded and alone in the most upper berm of the beaches dune complex. The ferry is now buried deep in the shorelines lowest sand stratum. The third ship is no longer visible and has in fact moved further out into the bay. These boats have traced the narrative of the beachs topography. I have used them throughout the years as a measure for succession, erosion and deposition that the beach has conducted. Without these objects I would not have been able to read and trace the narrative that was playing out upon the beach. The topography of this place, like all topographies, is in a constant state of movement. There are many narratives here. There is the narrative of the boats. They have a maritime history and cultural significance in Sydney and Newcastle. Destined for the Philippines, and sinking in the bay, they remained trapped. However this enables another narrative to begin, namely the narrative of those wrecks, on those beaches. The characters remain the same; however the structure and scale, both physical and chronological, are changed. The topography is made up of an uncountable sum of narratives, operating across a diversity of scales. The job of the landscape architect is to read these narratives, and to create experiences within the topography that play with these structures. For when the narrative is read, the topography can also be read, as narrative is what is constructing the topography. Narrative is the vehicle through which we make sense of our experiences in the topography.

To look for narrative structures that might help reveal the topography, I looked at a very structured narrative, in this case a play, the Antigone. I then used these structures to understand how the narrative of my site is constructing its topography. The Antigone exercise enabled me to see that, in fact, the cultural topography and the material topography are not overlaid on top of each other. The task is not to separate them, as they are inseparable. It is my task to understand them as one whole image of the landscape.

The job of the landscape architect is to read these narratives, and create experiences within the topography by revealing through these narrative

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topography

uclairetamsurface(land)formobjectornament

spewriimphe

place

process

material

cultureprocess

{

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erutlueakingitingageenomena

the Antigone

ogitnAnoerCsurface(land)formobjectornament

speakingwritingimagephenomena

chorus

thymele*

}

This diagram talks about how the dichotomy of the previous V iterations is coming together through narrative to make the topography.

My practice is about wiring narratives through the topography. The narratives are liner and cyclical, the characters are flood, sand, soil, people, songs, fireworks. The narratives cross each other at linkage points when they cross they collies, repel, meld, mesh, fuse and more. The question of what is topography?

Understanding narratives through topographies is a side way into my own design process. What does designing a topography through an established narrative, such as the Antigone, tell me about how I design through narratives. It has told me how crucial concepts of time are to my own practice. Time is explored in 2 main ways throughout.

Time as framework for pinpointing vantage points for by (magic) alchemistic collisions through the topography.

And as narrative, for the story, whose lines cross, and intertwine with others. How can my practice of designing topographical narratives be improved?

As landscape architects we design with stories, these stories manifest through topographies, and richer the design the richer the collection of stories and better articulation of these stories.

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I had to fi nd a way to read and measure the two concepts of topography that emerged where emerging through my research. I understand things through diff erence, through motion, through change and through stories. Narrative is a fundamental way that I make sense of the experiences of topography, both material and cultural.Th erefore narrative was to be used to explore the relationships between the material and cultural topographies. However my knowledge of narrative is very limited and linear

START M I D D L E E N D

And I wanted to develop this further, to generate new designing processors for design the topography. Th erefore I took a literary narrative whose structure I was familiar and began to re-make what I had created in the last iterations.

Th is is the topographies of the Sophocles, Th e Antigone.

Th e play was read and re-read to see how the narrative of could generate a new topography for my site.

Th is is a contour model of my site. At the beginning of the play all the characters started in the thymel (which was the centre of the stage in Greek theatre), but becomes the bluestone capped hill of my site in this exercise. Th ey then move about the model marking the ground as they pass. Th is was done to allow me to generate a ground vocabulary.

Written below is the third episodium of the play and a diagram to explain how I used the play to generate theses topographies.

Antigone, after being put to death by Creon, surrounded by guards, is on her way to her living tomb. She mourns her fate, and the Chorus, touched with pity, but lamenting the infatuation which constrained her to fatal disobedience, condoles with her. Creon, re-entering, chides the guards for delaying her passage, and Antigone, strong in the faith that looks through death, takes her final leave of the world.

By this stage Antigone as moved across the topography as has Creon, the chorus and other characters, towards the outskirts of Th ebes. Th is journey is marked by a soft sombre, but determined carving in the ground, the trial that leads to her tomb. As she passing over this portion of earth she crossing the heavy headed proud jarrings of Creons previous decree made in the interlude, and the soft, wide lofty sweeps of the Chorus choral ode. Collectively the ground tells the narratives of the play and makes a new surface, this is the topography! It is made from narratives of cultural identities with a tangible material.

85

wit and works of man, his daring, his inventiveness which, however, can only bring him honour so long as he keeps within the bounds of law--if he breaks those bounds ruin only

the conduct of Antigone is obvious.

Creon, incensed that a woman should

dooms her to death. But suspecting that Ismene also was an accomplice

her orders her to be summoned

the Chorus the fate of three

cruel imprisonment, and they are commemorated--Dana, Lycurgus, and Cleopatra.

repentance, and anticipating that all will soon be bright and joyous in

in honour of Dionysus. We may here pause to note that Sophocles almost invariably ushers in the catastrophe of his tragedies--it is so in the Ajax, in the Oedipus Rex and in the Trachiniae--by these ironical preludes like bursts of sunlight just before the clouds gather blackest for storm.

A watch has been set to see that no one gives the banned one his funeral rites, and death is the penalty for any such attempt. While he is speaking, one of the sentinels appointed to watch the body--this character is one of the few in the Greek tragedies which border closely on comedy and drama

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Second Stas

Third EpeisodionThird StasimonThird Stasimon

I teration VI

87

First Epeisodion

dipus

simon

def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]


88

Plotting the Topography of the Antigone

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playing out the narratives on a card contour model of the real site.

Working through the narrative of the play, the contour model of the site is manipulative. As the characters move across the site, they play out there narrative through the ground.

The tools to used to manipulate, carve, trace, erode, deposit the material around the site.

How can this be used to read the ground narrative of the site, without the play?

Or does it really matter that the play is used?Perhaps not, for the narrative of the topography are as the research is showing me, completely subjective.

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Third Stasimon

Forth Epeisodion

Fourth Stasimon

Fifth Epeisodion

Fifth Stasimon

Exodus

Third Stasimon

thym

This iteration implies that within my own practice, narrative can also be used to explore site, and break apart the way we see landscape. Narrative as a design tool can not only generate form and place, but perform morphology on the way I position myself within the landscape, lets call this critique through narrative for the designer. The two, form and critique, happen simultaneously as we move through a narrative design process.

Narratives . . . intersect with sites, accumulate as layers of history, organize sequences, and inhere in the very materials and processes of the landscape. In various ways, stories take place. --From Landscape Narratives.

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Topography of the Antigone3rd reading

Prologos

Parodos

First Epeisodion

First Stasimon

Second Epeisodion

Second Stasimon

Third Epeisodion

OUTSIDE THE

mele*

94

thymele*

v

v

v

Third Stasimon

Forth Epeisodion

Fourth Stasimon

Fifth Epeisodion

Fifth Stasimon

Exodus

What is the topography of topography? For me it is a book, full of a non-specific number of stories and narratives. These are not only the stories and narratives of people, or living things , but they are also stories of roads, soil, rivers etc. Everything in landscape can be understood in terms of stories. And topography is the coming together of those stories on a unified form. The design that we perform involves reading, writing, re-writing stories, multiple stores, to create new topographys.

Topography is a combination of a physical topography and a cultural topography. The two are fused together, how? That is what this project seeks to ask.

Th ese diagram, like the model diagram represents a set of vectors from the previous iterations through the narrative of the site, and then being retold with diff erent characters, diff erent time scale. Being told over a week instead of only 1 day. Th ese changes further add to morphology of these vectors.

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Oedipus

Oedipus

Oedipus

Oedipus

Prologos

Parodos

First Epeisodion

First Stasimon

Second Epeisodion

Second Stasimon

Third Epeisodion

OUTSIDE THEBES

Topography of the Antigone2rd reading

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thymele

Third Stasimon

Forth Epeisodion

Fourth Stasimon

Fifth Epeisodion

Fifth Stasimon

Exodus

Third Stasimon

v

v

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e*

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Second Epeisodion

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OUTSIDE THEBES

Oedipus

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Oedipus

Topography of the Antigone4th reading

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Forth Epeisodion

Fourth Stasimon

Fifth Epeisodion

Fifth Stasimon

thymele*

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Second Epeisodion

Second StasimonTopography of the Antigone

5th reading

100

thymele*

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v

v

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OUTSIDE THEBES

p

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Various time scales within the play102

Prologos

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First Stasimon

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Third Stasimon

Forth Epeisodion

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Exodus

thymele*

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OUTSIDE THEBES

physical Scale

thymele*

1:10.000

1:100

1:1

22.588 0.005* 3.600 0.005

11.608 0.05*

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70.6 0.6* 112.0 1.0*

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thymele*

103

By taking the lessons learnt about how scale and time are used to generate the form of topography, the narratives of mySite where diagrammed. What I can see? That geology, for example, is occurring across a number of scales, both physical

and time. My practice requires me to intervene with these narratives and rewrite them through design. 104

Personifi cation of the topography begins to appear evident. As the exodus draws near the topography appear to turn in on itself like clouds gathering black for a storm. Th e topography acts as vessel for the plot an characters. But also to seal Antigone and Haemon within their tomb together. Th is is the cultural topography crafted from the material topography.

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Exodus

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[Image: From Andrejs Rauchuts thesis project at the Cooper Union].

a day-long perform-ance of The Com-edy of Errors

107

For his final thesis project this year at the Cooper Union in New York City, student Andrejs Rauchut diagrammed and modelled a constellation of architectural set pieces meant for a day-long performance of The Comedy of Errors by William

Shakespeare.

precedence

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topography


(Miller) Topography originally meant the creation of metaphorical equivalents in words of a landscape. Then by another transfer, it came to mean representation of a landscape accordingly to conventional signs of some system of mapping. Finally by a third transfer, the name of the map was carried over to name what is

a map. Today we might say lets make a topographical map of the topography of Key West Topographies, Joseph Hillis Miller

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a

topography[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]

noun, plural -phies.

Topography is

the system representation.

The spontaneous or attributed form of the

earth. Nunes

from Landscape Architecture and 100+ words

to inhabit

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the s

week 23 narrative

the sublime

the sublime

the limits of the material worldupon my imagination

week 23 narrative


the sublimeweek 23 narrative

narrative as design generator.

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Another attempts at representing how the nature of topography has changed throughout the research. Here I was attempting to create the topography of the research. Understanding that topography is its self a method of representing values of the landscape.

sublime

the sublimethe limits of the material worldupon my imagination

the topography of things

topo-,

the topography of thingsTo look for narrative structures that might help reveal the topography, I looked at a very structured topography, in this case a play, the Antigone. I then used these structures to understand how the narrative of my site is constructing its

exercise enabled me to see that, in fact, the cultural topography and the material topography are not overlayed on top of

separate them, as they are inseparable. It is my task to understand them as one whole image of the landscape.

the sublime


When constructing topographies through

imagine what the human experience of being in that place is like.

topography becomes whateverit needs to be for design.

The image has come to be a concept that I can

use to make sense of all the themes in my research; the material/culture dichotomy, the

sublime, narrative and the overarching question about topography. This gets complicated however for

ent, depending on who is representing it, and what they are trying to say with that image. It is always politicised in this way. This research

has been a way of critiquing what am I trying to say about topography, through my representation of its image.

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[Images: From "The Migration of Mel and Judith" by Thomas Hillier].

The Migration of Mel and Judith" by Thomas Hillier].

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The Migration of Mel and Judith, Hillier writes, was the pre-cursor to The Emperors Castle and my first real exploration into using narrative as the vehicle for generating and scrutinizing my architectural ideas. It was also where I began using craft-

based techniques and 2/3-dimensional assemblage to illustrate the design process.

The Migration of Mel and Judith, Hillier writes, was the pre-cursor to The Emperors Castle and my first real exploration into using narrative as the vehicle for generating and scrutinizing my architectural ideas. It was also where I began using craft-based techniques and 2/3-dimensional assemblage to

precedence

114

stills from super 8 footage of the ships sitting on the shore

Representation of the image of topography

Louisa all you care about is representation, youre just an artist grrrr (fellow student)

How am I representing the image of topography?

On recollection of those shipwrecks, I can see them now as a series of images flashing though my mind. Memory recalls the images of the narrative of the wrecks and arranges them differently each time I recall them. Not too differently from dreaming about the story of how they came to be there sitting up in the dunes. These images of the narrative are changed with each time I visit the beach and recall this story in my mind. With the gathering of new information or myths of the wrecks, adds to the single images and the final image of topography. Finding the 8mm film of the footage of the beach several weeks after they had wrecked, the ships still intact, beached on the shore, changes this image of the narrative again. Now I see that the hull of th e Kooroongaba was in fact green. The initial image of the rusted, burnt orange artifact draped in creeping pig face, is now compromised. All these colours come together to make a new colour.

The image of the topography is not simply generated by a the physical attributes of the objects (matter) and the natural processors of the landscape (force), but also through this imagery and narrative. Narrative is a very fundamental way people shape and make sense of experience in the landscape (potteiger), but what is the image that they are creating? For the my practice, I see to be a visual one, so what is the role of the image of topography within this practice?

When Im talking about image I refer here to a wider theoretical conception of image explained well by Bernard Cache as anything that presents itself to the mind, whether it be real or not, therefore this image of topography is a completely subjective thing, and its arrangements are as equally subjective and determine further the resulting final image of the topography. These moves need to be critiqued in order to determine what the image is saying about what it is representing, in the case of this research, topography.

The image has come to be a concept that It can use to make sense of all the themes in my research; the

material/culture dichotomy, the sublime, narrative and the overarching question about topography. This gets complicated however for the image of topography is always going to appear different, depending on who is representing it, and what they are trying to say with that image. It is always politicised in this way. This research has been a way of critiquing what I am trying to say about topography, through my representation of its image.

This ties again back into narrative; I am telling stories about the topography through the arrangements of the images of the topography. And can be also references in relation to my endeavours into the sublime, for like the sublime, the key to representing the topography is how I arrange these images. For even one flat cartographic representation of the topography has a narrative within it. A topographical map of a place could be said to be simply a set of vectors on white paper. However I know that there are stories, geological, human and hydrological embedded within that image.

So what does this have to do with design? If the image is at the forefront of my mind when designing perhaps I am just artist, stuck in the wrong profession? No I disagree; for all design is subjective, and this project has forced be to push myself to own that subjectivity and appreciate where it comes from. It is what determines ones sensibility as a designer.

What decisions are being made about what is important about topography? How do they materialise within the drawing?

Drawing the topography is a completely subjective act; topography has been represented in different ways throughout history, I have learnt in this project that topography is a heavy - weighted word. What we consider important about the topography is displayed in how we represent it. When I draw the topography, what I choose to leave out, what I include, what I highlight and the hierarchies within my representation, are saying a great deal about what topography means to me?

I will now critique a drawing from my last interaction and define precisely what I am trying to say about this particular topography, and in turn topography in general.

1. What is it that is being represented through these drawings

2. What are the hierarchies of information

3 What is being hidden from view

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def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]


118

But as design tool what am I learning here from looking at narrative? What is the aesthetic of these narratives? These narratives are playing out through

the ground, therefore how does the surface need to behave in order to tell these stories?

I made these models of this new vocabulary and then began to match them back to the components of the sites topography I wanted to start telling stories with. I was interested in strata and folding, colonization and sedimentation

120

This sub-iteration involved making strata models. Creating one layer of material, waiting for it to set, then overlaying another. i was looking for a vocabulary of sedimentary behaviour. Model works in this way to enable the design language to evolve.

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def:Topography

[tuh-pog-ruh-fee]

The image of the real physical world

123

Iteration VII

124

The site is to become a new type of surface. Because the site is a floodplain, it has an unresolved surface. This shall be taken advantage of, to make a new place with a morphing topography. This is the most important type of topography to me as it is able to tell a story, through erosion and deposition. And these stories are within

the same time frame as our stories. The new site is to be a place where these two stores, that of the topography and our stories, are told together.

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Drawing of the topography imagined through its narratives

126

making the topography of t o p o g r a p h y

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Iteration VIII

129

Topography

Def:

130

ctraced from geological areas where the sandstone bedrock and oodplain are at there most thinnest strata.

when soil is excavated for remediation, these surfaces are ex-posed to the bedrock and pontoons are suspended through joints in the geology. these pontoon create walk-ways and platform to allow for move-ment across the site after ooded periods.

the ground swells through the times of ood, ood spaces are the ultimate unresolved space. However geology works on sev-eral time scales. the sandsstone bed rock, will keep the pontoons in the speci c are, the alluvial soils will allow for a varied direc-tion. sometime the path will not be traversable. and the pon-toons will become habitat for water animals, safe from humans.

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Removal of alluvial soils allows for the expo-sure of the sandstone on the northern turn of the river. Th e sandstone is carved at this point to create a new geological pool. Th e grade will be lower than further down stream will this create a small inland lake during low tide.

By ipping the character pro le of the alluvial soil and the sandstone, by moving the material of the site around the narrative of the river is changed. Th is inturn to a ects the stories of the river downstream.

Contaminated soil is cordoned o into the south portion of the sire. Th is is due to it be-ing of a higher topographical grade than the north side, and also that this is where the ma-jority of the contaminated soil is located. Re-mediating grasses are then planted and over a period of 10 years the soil is cleaned. Th e walls that keep this area high and out of ood-ing site, will then at this point erode, allowing the north site of the site to join the rest of the topography in its many alluvial morphologys.

the two main parks in the south high point of the topography, come to be through the com-bination of two narratives, the soil remedia-tion narrative (orange) and strata excavation. Walls are erected to keep soils separate through rst 10 years of story. However once all soil is cleans this walls break away. Th is form is what is left, it is generated from the geology of the site, and bluestone outcrops exist in this shape. It will therefore never wash away.

Th e path system works of 4 grades and is made of varying degrees of treated steel. Th is will e ect how quickly they will erode. Th e paths are laid down as a framework at ex-cavation stage. Th ey then lay dormant for years until oodwaters erode away there topsoil and reveal, new accesses and pro-gramme. Areas of the site are now accessible.

Th e scienti c narrative of the remediation of the soil means a separa-tion of narratives from the rest of the site. However the materiality of the walls allows for an eventual joining of narrative. Th e once defunct high water channel running along the south side of the site can become activated. Th is can be part of episode III to be looked at during ADR.

Emerging narratives and topography of self-excavation. Th e topogra-phy reveals its strata over time. Th e topography is revealed through these narrative paths. Th ey work through emergence for users to tell the story of the topography. Th e topography emerges through there narrative.

Th e river, once removed of all mitigation and with the help of the carving of the sandstone, is realigned and recon gured. Th is inturn will change the way the entire site functions.

So I set about to make now make a topography out of my site, using what I had learnt from the previous 3 iterations. I wanted to use the narrative to reveal through material and culture, what topography was to me.

This was done by laying down a framework of walls, paths, groins, glades, hills and river edges. This framework was to remain hidden dormant within the ground. And with alluvial, Aeolian and human activity, to site was to perform a process of self excavation on, to reveal its topography.

131

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The site is a contaminated mitigated floodplain in Maribyrnong. It is currently at a point of disjuncture. The contaminated soils of the site means that it is going to be a major cut and fill operation to allow for remediation. My design uses this opportunity to lay down my framework of paths and walls beneath the ground.

I do this for several reasons:

1. I will have access to the sandstone bedrock in certain areas. (This will allow me to set about a series of changes the realign the river at a later stage

2. I am able to set down a framework, that will over time, work to allow the ground to reveal the topography.

And then over a space of 20+ years, the site reveals itself through erosion and deposition.

This project takes these ground narrative and works them into a design. The design is not only a place for my site, but works as a diagram for my research. It is the topography of topography according to myself.

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existing site panaramoic

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site at time of excavation.

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topography


Topography is the resulting image of the Material and Cultural worlds collisions through n a r r a t i v e .

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topography


Topography is a stage on which the stories of our lives are played out? The way we organize memories through geographical

coordinates. Landscape is pre-historic; it is eternal. Topography only becomes when we begin to talk, write, and conceive it. Topography is a concept of cultural consciences.

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topography


Topography is the Growth medium which supports the conversations of the Material and Cultural worlds collisions, fusing and growth via the process of narrative. Narrative and process are interchangeable facilitators of the evolution of the topography. It is through narratives that we make sense of the topography.

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new river inlet


land set aside for remediation of contaminated soil, becomesafter 10 years secondary adjacent open space

wobble pontoons installed into bedrockto allow for a semi permanent path after floodhas swept alluvial soils around site, displacing the ground.

Corten steel for permanent river barrier, creates a permanent open space for recreation

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Ntraversable sandstone terrace

new river inlet


area flooded by river creates small lake within the existing contours

wobble pontoons installed into bedrockto allow for a semi permanent path after flood

has swept alluvial soils around site, displacing the ground.

sandstone revealed by alluvial soil removaland carving of bedrock

Traversable sandstone terrace

new river inlet


Excavation and re configuring of soils for remidiations/laying of framework for narrative paths.

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new river inlet


N

Topography was to act as a diagram of my research. to test what I had learnt.

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NMaterials were chosen that would degrade over time and allow the topography to reveal itself,

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To conclude this discussion I would like to open the research up one more time to the possibility of further critique of this subject. Although I have stated that it is through the image of the topography that I most relate to, further investigation could only deliver realisations about what topography is.

The most important part of this question, surrounding topography, has not been for me to become an expert on topography. But to reveal to myself something about my own practice. This has been done quite thoroughly, however I feel it could be pushed further. For only then will I know exactly what messages Im am trying to convey through my drawings of the topography.

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these images were starting to look at how representation of the topography effects what it becomes through the design process.

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When Im talking about image I refer here to the wider theoretical meaning of image explained well by Bernard Cache as anything that presents itself to the mind, whether it be real or not, therefore this image of topography is a completely subjective thing, and its arrangements are as equally subjective and determine further the resulting final image of the topography. These moves need to be critiqued in order to determine what the image is saying about what it is representing, in the case of this research, topography.

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water colour

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geology

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floodplain*

inlet

annatomy

Representation

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meander

the beach

?When Im talking about image I refer here to the wider theoretical meaning of image explained well by Bernard Cache as anything that presents itself to the mind, whether it be real or not, therefore this image of topography is a completely subjective thing, and its arrangements are as equally subjective and determine further the resulting final image of the topography. These moves need to be critiqued in order to determine what the image is saying about what it is representing, in the case of this research, topography.

retarding basin

inlet


retarding basin

guts

geology

tissue

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VECTOR

model

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floodplain*

inlet

annatomy

Facing page image is a penal from my exhibition that started to un-pack how representation was effecting the nature of topography through the research. This needs to be looked at throughout more effective mode however. The following iteration starts to do this.

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r e f l e c t i o nupon the

representationof the

t o p o g r a p h y

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To reflect and concluded upon my research i will now Unpack

the work I have produced to demonstrate how i am understanding the techniques of drawing and

making in relation to the changing nature of topography.

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ls never

more the curse.

Of the house of Labdacus the

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topography is being made from narratives of cultural identities with a tangible material.

TOPOGRAPHY IS OCCURING ABVOE THE GROUND

MATERIAL culture narrative testing

Antigone, after being put to death by Creon, surrounded by guards, is on her w

ay to h er living tomb. She mourns her fate, and the C

horus, touched with pity, but lamentin g the infatuation which constrained her to fatal disobedience,

40 paths to represent my research

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This was done by taking a section of path of the existing site, and running that section through the research, to measure of the way I see topography has changed.

What this showed was the location of the topography, i.e where the action of the topography is occurring, above, in or below the ground. The importance of framed views or foreground. Is vegetation shown. What role do people play in the topography at that point in the research? All these things come forward when i

reflect on how I drew and made the topography at that point in the research.

These sections where made by directly reflecting on the work from each iteration chronologically.

159

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, air

and w

ater are all examples of mate

rials. S

ometimes the ter

m "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substanc

es or com

ponen

ts

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

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10 paths to unpack the material topography

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10 paths to unpack the cultural topography

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From Material to Culture The material topography allowed me to explore hoe the surface is changing and morphing thorough matter and force. Through making the models I am acting out on the site and observing the effects of my actions. However what is the experience of being in that place? What is the drama happening above the ground?

I am at this point looking for the precipice that the cultural topography hangs from. The use of non - site related images (photos) is used to superimpose onto my site the qualities of the sublime. By taking something which is known to be sublime, and holding up to the I real site, looking for a match. At this point, all the action of the research is happening above the ground. The view experienced from the ground is related strongly to the sun, and appears to be happening at sunrise through an artificial atmospheric refraction which in nature causes the sun to be seen while it is still below the horizon. What images of the topography do I need to arranged and in what order to create the cultural topography?

Line work here using the contours of site, with an array of images from site, and from other sites. Reading about of the watershed behaves in that area, not having a drawing, and having to represent what these written concept looks like. The vectors of the site are used to shape the pictures of the elements of the landscape. What Im trying to show here is all the information embedded in the vector.

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This emph

asizes the power of destiny. Woe after w oe pursue

s a doomed fam

ily. When f r o

m th

e go

ds a

hou

se is

shak

en, fai

ls never

more the curse.

Of the house of Labdacus the

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10 paths to unpack the narrative

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narrative

Collectively the ground tells the narratives of the play and makes a new surface, this is the topography! It is made from narratives of cultural identities with a tangible material. The shape of the line needs to flex and take on an organic nature to allow for the telling of the narrative. Again however it is a re-representat

louisa king

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