Exploring Concepts of Landscape Architecture: OKLAHOMA: Alfred Caldwell Project

wanderings

I was born in Oakland California. I grew up in North Central Washington, in the eastern foothills of the Cascades and on the Columbia River. I graduated from a school of 250 students K-12. I didn't attend college until after I was 30, so I brought to school my experience: garden designer, carpenter, concrete worker, florist, greenhouse manager, perennial expert, shrub and tree salesman, bus driver, truck driver, apartment manager and maintenance man. Frequently I worked 3+ jobs a day during my go-get-'em-like-your-killin' -snakes years. So I was well prepared for the vigor's of the University and the initiation rituals of the Architecture department. I graduated from the College of Architecture with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design and a minor in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment. College has allowed me to bundle my many paths into a single and wide corridor. I started my Master of Landscape Architecture program at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 2006.

bearings

Knowing where I've been is the easy part. Knowing where I come from and where I am going is the challenge. I moved into a little rent house out in the country about 15 miles south of Norman Oklahoma. During my first winter in Oklahoma, I dabbled in some genealogy. I found two great-grandfathers and their families buried within a few miles of my new home. It was not just serendipity that my internal way-finder connected and centered me in the place of my forefathers. I have a deep connection with this place.

compass

The spirit of place. Present and past human connections influence our lives. Community, family and place are part of our soul. Regional identity is both cultural and physical. The spirit of place is what nourishes our beginings and tethers our world view. It is also that soul and bond that embraces our community. Technology has allowed us to disregard the environmental aspects of place. The media wants us to believe we are a global society and that our world is getting smaller. Our world gets smaller when we exchange our spirit of place for anothers. The spirit of place must be unearthed again to regain the comfort of belonging.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Alfred Caldwell Project

This is a studio project I finished last semester. We were to identify a Landscape Architect that we wanted to learn more about and we were to copy some of their work onto a board. It was an exercise to become more familiar with the Landscape Architect and his/her design theory. The second part of the project was to re-design the Brick Town Canal system in Oklahoma City as we felt the Landscape Architect would. I am really interested in regional architecture. I chose Alfred Caldwell because I wanted to see how a contemporary of Jens Jensen was designing. I have read much on Jens Jensen and Wilhelm Miller and the prairie style. I was a little disappointed in Caldwell's lack of written theory behind what he was doing. It seemed that he followed directly in the footsteps of Jensen and F.L. Wright, and that was where much of my research ended up coming from. Caldwell was a practicing architect and landscape architect and did some beautiful work like the Lily Pond at Lincoln Park. He was also a professor with Mies Van der Rohe at IIT.

This was a valuable project for several reasons. One, it really allowed me the time to dig deep into the theory of Prairie Landscape Architecture. It also allowed me to step away from myself and let the writings of Caldwell and Jensen dictate the design. Obviously I did influence the design, but hopefully in a manner that represents an interpretation of Caldwell. I really worked on graphics in this design, not because of Caldwell but because of my deficiencies in that area. The whole project really allowed me to explore theory and graphics at a pace I could really learn. This project will have made me a better designer, and I see naturalscapes and the city differently than at the start of the project.