Late Winter Plants: The Barberry Family

Berberidaceae 

This wonderful family of plants has lots of winter interest and many interesting uses. I've been focusing on the genus of Berberis (Barberry) and Mahonia (Oregon Grape) due to their color this time of year.

Berberis sp.

What makes them stand out this time of year?

Berberis darwinii

- Evergreen (mostly all)

- Beautiful small flowers      

- Plethora of foliage colors

Cultural Uses:

Mahonia aquifolium

- High Vitamin C content kept Scury at bay for many native people
- Acne Cure made by the Slaishan native from the bark and root
- Eyedrops use berberine a chemical found in the plant in some brands
- Ailments such as Gout, Fever, Cancer, Hypertention and more are treated sometimes with barberry
- Барбарис is a candy made from Barberries

AutoCAD: The Process

Process Work: Planting Layout

This is a screen shot of what the model space drawing looks like. This is what I've been staring at for 8 weeks straight. There are three different line weights for the dense planting and a much darker one for the trees.

In paper space (the area where you set up how thing print) I have started to add the labels as place holders before going in and specifying which plant is which.

The Results

This is the West Court Planting, as you may notice AutoCAD isn't printing the line weights right because some layer options aren't working. Other than that it's about 70% done!

South Court

North Court

Now to get back in there and label all the plants and count them up. That's what the excel sheet's for, so I don't have to do all the math myself.

Construction Documents in Process

Studio: Technical Drawings

This is what I'm doing 24 hours a day 6 days a week: mastering the skills needed to translate our designs into meticulously drafted AutoCAD drawings.

Just 2 of 15 pages I've been working on over the last couple weeks.

This is a detail of a fountain I've designed. It will be made of a sandy concrete and glass tiles, the water will spill over the rim in four directions. This ties it into a more elaborate 4 directional fountain in the ceremonial west courtyard.

A first attempt at dimensioning, it's amazing how easy it can be once in AutoCAD! My next task will be adding in some base lines and text to further explain the dimensions.

I am creating a forest floor in these smaller Courtyards. This is done through more random planting arrangements. The next step is to go back in and add a master list and flagging specific plants.

            Overall it's nice to be making some headway on this project. As a team we printed our first rough construction set and the teacher is redlining it as we speak. I look forward to posting more drawings as they get closer to being finished.

Escaping Studio: Exploring Oregon

The Start to a Great Adventure

            Amazing things do come from too many hours in Studio staring at AutoCAD model space. Other than of course precise beautiful construction documents. The need to get some fresh air and get away becomes overwhelming. 


           Setting out with no real plan other than a direction and a mission: to experience a new place each weekend. I've never done this before mainly because planning a real trip takes time and money which are always devoted to school. Since purchasing a truck, I realized two things: that going anywhere I could think of was possible on a whim and large mud tires with a little bit of a lift is a great ice breaker for meeting people. Most of the experience i've had of the greater Oregon landscape comes from I-5. I use it to get home to the San Juan Islands in WA. The trip usually consists of an overly stuffed car, two chatty cats and a lot of cafine and very few stops. This was not what I wanted for my adventure this weekend, I would choose a direction and go as far as I can in a day. 


Supplies:
- 1 Toyota Tacoma with 6" lift and big mud tires.
- 1 Camera + 4GB memory card
- 2 sketchbooks
- A bottle of water and a few granola bars
- Adventures attitude and willingness to be impulsive


Mission: 
- Set out in one direction
- Go only as far as can be retraced in that day (no over nights yet)
- experience as much as possible along the way 
- have fun

 
          I choose to head West, into the on coming storm and drive as far as my truck would take me! It should be noted that Top Gear (a British tv show) proved toyota tacoma's make wonderful boats. I don't think i'll test mines aquatic abilites though.

Here's to the start of many adventures!

Construction Document Studio: Design Phase

Construction Documents Studio

This project is for a local Presbyterian Church that is converting half their property to Student housing. Our charge is to take a conceptual design and refine it then develop a set of construction documents. I am working in collaboration with a classmate to design this site, our "firm" name is Bassett Sterle Landscape Architects (BSLA). We just wrapped up the design phase and now we are moving deeper into the details of how to build each element we designed. 

The Site Plan

As a group we took CAD drawings from the architect, customized them and laid out our design all in Auto CAD. I was in charge of designing the two courtyards to the right,  and rendering of this plan.

Sketch Up and Hand Renderings

These images were composed with a model that was collaboratively built by BSLA. I then used scenes and perspectives from this to hand render a proposed planting and material feel.

This illustrates the major transition from the larger courtyard in the West into the smaller courtyards. This is also a transition from areas connected to the church buildings into student housing areas.

The northern courtyard design focuses on creating a softer edge to the buildings and places for students outside.

In the Southern Courtyard, the focus is more on circulation and a central water feature