samuel k. basta

design portfoliomla 2012risd

DESIGN PO

RTFOLIO

samuel k. bastamla 2012

389 cohannet sttaunton, ma 02780

CONTENTS

CONSTRUCTED GROUND

TIDAL WAVEWALLS ....................................................................................... 6-7

8-9

10-13

14-17

18-21

22-27

28-29

30-33

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URBAN FARM LAB

A NEW FACE

TRI (CYCLE) NY

ASH TO ASH

LANDSHIFT

DETAILS AND GRADING PLANS

OUTSIDE THE STUDIO

CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE

ECOLOGY | SITE | DESIGN

URBAN SYSTEMS

LANDSCAPES OF RETURN

DESIGN THESIS

TECHNICAL DRAWINGS

MISCELLANEOUS

DESIGN STATEM

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As a designer, I see myself as a scientist, a historian, a sociologist, a craftsman and an alchemist. Designing is like solving a word problem while dancing the ballet. It requires equal parts skill, logic, artistry and effort. When mixed together, these ingredients are transformative. Design is also a series of collaborations, between client and landscape architect, between employer and employee and between peers. At the end of this complicated choreography of people, ideas and expended energy emerges a place made better and people made happier. It is all of these things which drive me as a landscape architect. My approach to design is systemic. Studying the place and its systems (social, ecological, geological, historical) inform me as a designer and through this information I generate a dialogue with the place. Only by understanding these systems can one begin to intervene. Dissecting systems through a site analysis consisting of on-site study, historical and contextual research, and modeling of existing conditions is the first step in the process. Using tools such as photography, hand drawing and modeling and digital drawing and modeling allows me to draw conclusions about a site and how to work on it. Moving forward using these same tools I am comfortable as a collaborator, confident as a leader, insightful as a critic and diligent as a worker in the design process.

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CONSTRUCTED G

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The Constructed Ground studio focused on experimentation and use of landform in the landscape. It was a 6 week studio located in India Point Park in Providence, RI. I used this studio to learn about modeling media and techniques to which I had not yet been exposed- whether it was the use of plaster with its ephemeral plastic-ity or modeling clay and the quest for accuracy in such a moldable material. Reflecting back on the studio, I learned a lot about my process and what types of work helped to push me forward conceptually. In a studio that was so concerned with landform, I figured that pushing to and perhaps past the limit of plausible landforms was important in understanding them. In a landscape along the intersection of a bay and a tidal river, the large retaining, wavy walls evoke seawalls. The elevation in the park is low enough so that at certain times during the day, certain parts of the park will be inundated by water and evoking the phenomenology of the tides.

TIDAL WAVEWALLS

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ECOLO

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Ecology | Site | Design was the first full landscape studio which I took. The site at large was the Woonasquatucket River Gre-enway which runs through the struggling Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, RI. A siting strategy for a farmers’ market was devel-oped through rigorous site analysis both on the ground and through digital means. The site was selected by studying the vehicular circula-tion patterns through the site, the adjacencies to existing community buildings and the locations of vacant lots. The market assumed the form of a series of triangles which have “sliding sides” that interlock the triangles into each other, creat-ing wide views down towards the river and easy circulation routes through the market. The triangular forms also allow for community gardens, some of which are test plots for a local school so that the children can have a hands on learning experience and reap the nutri-tional benefits of fresh produce. The walkways through the market are actually raised boardwalks over a drainage swale, so the choreog-raphy of the market aligns with the flow of water down towards the river.

URBAN FARM LAB

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1938 19381955 1955

20102010

CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE

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Constructed Landscape was the first studio in the middle of a city and was also the first studio in which I could apply my newly developed digital drawing skills. The site for the studio was in the North End of Boston, MA. Immediately I was drawn to the collision of the old and the new - how the Central Artery had cut off the North End for so long, allowing it to develop and maintain an old world character with its mostly Italian population. When the highway came down, tourism became a mainstay in the neighborhood. It became clear to me that I needed to find a way to incorporate new technology into the park, a showcase of how the North End and the city of Boston was pushing forward, but also make sure the neighborhood was still able to claim ownership of this park as their own. These two goals where what drove the project forward and began to inform my design decisions.

A NEW FACE

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The existing grade change in the park was great, as it was carved into the side of a hill. A massive brick retaining wall held the hill at bay and created a flat park on grade with the street to the south and climbed to grade to the north via a series of terraces. The challenge of making this park accessible to anyone became the largest design problem to solve. To solve this, I found the length that a path needed to be to transverse the grade change and still fall within the ADA’s requirements. By playing with and adjusting the path, a park layout began to take shape. There are four major design elements on site: At the highest section of the park is a tiered filtration system to clean water from the roof of the adjacent parking structure, followed by two sets of community gardens - one for residents of the neighborhoods and one for the many restaurants of the North End - and at the bottom a relatively flat area with rubberized play structures for children, which also act as storage tanks for the water cleaned by the filters. This water is used to water the community gardens. The pumps for this redistribution of water are powered by piezoelectric cells underneath the main circulatory path. Foot traffic from Boston’s Freedom Trail should be sufficient enough to power the pumps and all the lights in the park.

A NEW FACE

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CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE

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SITE SECTIONS

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BROOKLYN

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CITY HALL PARK

CADMAN PLAZA

BROADW

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VESSEY ST

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BROOKLYN BRIDGE

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STUDY AREA

The core of the Urban Systems studio was taking advantage of the new bike lane on Broadway to help make New York City more bicycle friendly. It was our task to do site analysis, locate and choose a park which was adjacent to Broadway which we would develop into a hub of cycling in the city. To me, City Hall Park was the perfect place to locate this hub. What better way for the mayor to demonstrate his support for a bike friendly NYC than to have City Hall be one of the movements central locations. City Hall also receives lots of traffic due to its placement at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge (Brooklyn has the fastest growth of bike commuters), its proximity to Ground Zero and a busy subway stop. It also occurred to me that since the steps of City Hall are the site of many protests and rallies, that I had to make not only a cycle friendly park, but also a place that could accommodate the potentially huge crowds of a protest.

TRI (CYCLE) NY

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URBAN SYSTEMS

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Bicycling v. ParkingBicycling v. Parking Chelsea: Chelsea:$3960-8400/yr$3960-8400/yr

Bicycling v. ParkingBicycling v. ParkingFinancial Dist.:Financial Dist.:$3120-9600/yr$3120-9600/yr

Bicycling v. pub. Trans.Bicycling v. pub. Trans.With 1 yr of monthly Metro With 1 yr of monthly Metro Cards: savings $1248Cards: savings $1248

Bicycling v. ParkingBicycling v. ParkingDowntown Brooklyn:Downtown Brooklyn:$3120-9600/yr$3120-9600/yr

Steam v. Oil heatSteam v. Oil heat1.5 mil tons of CO2 saved 1.5 mil tons of CO2 saved through Cogenerationthrough Cogeneration

2MI.

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Bicycling v. Driving:Cost Benefits: $193 fuel savings, 9% co2 reduction, Savings compared to cab: $3640/yrPersonal Benefit: 120-248 cal./Day

Bicycling v. Driving:Cost Benefits: $386 fuel savings, 17% co2 reductionsavings compared to cab: $5720/yrPersonal Benefit: 240-496 cal./Day

Bicycling v. Driving:Cost Benefits: $580 fuel savings, 26% co2 reductionSavings compared to cab: $7800/yrPersonal Benefit: 360-744cal./Day

Bicycling v. Driving:Cost Benefits: $772 fuel savings, 35% co2 reductionsavings compared to cab $9800Personal Benefit: 480-992 cal./Day

http://aliciapatterson.org/sites/default/files/styles/node_image/public/Valbrun02_5.jpg

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The park currently has a beloved fountain and is also a place where people come to each lunch. I decided that these are two elements which I wanted to keep at the park. The fountain turned into two detention ponds. One is in the more public park of the park, to the south, and one between two buildings - a more private lunch courtyard in the north and northeast of the park. The central feature of the park is the protest platform. It sits in front of City Hall, with the top most tier at the same elevation as the steps, where the mayor often gives speeches. While this stadium type platform allows for large congregations it can also be used as a place to rest or picnic in the park. There is a smaller but similar structure where the Brooklyn Bridge lands on Manhattan, to give people a break after the long trek across the bridge. Both of these structures provide secure areas to lock bicycles. The “TRI” in the title refers both to the three landmarks that this park is adjacent to, but also to the threefold system of cycling hubs developed by a fellow classmate and I as a secondary portion of the studio. The hubs will have three scales: large scale (adjacent to Broadway), a medium scale (hubs near city landmarks), and a small, intimate neighborhood scale. All three would have a similar bike parking structure and will feature bike share bicycles.

TRI (CYCLE) NY

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URBAN SYSTEMS

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ASH TO ASH

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LAND

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bare land:some mosses and lichens(Stereocaulon vulcani)

pioneer plants:ferns and grasses(Polypodium pellucidum)

secondary plants:shrubs(Metrosideros polymorpha)

pioneer trees:sun loving plants

climax forest:mixture of shade tolerant and sun loving trees

pioneer plants:ferns and grasses(Polypodium pellucidum)ll d

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procession Corten steel “stitch”

ash deposition and fern spore placing

ceremony

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Landscapes of Return dealt with a long standing facet of landscape architecture: death and the cemetery. The site which I selected was on the flank of Mt. Kilauea, an active volcano in Hawaii. A certain poignancy came from the stark, desolate lava fields. Along with the concept of the ash of the cremains (an end in life) would mingle with the ash of the volcano, building new earth and eventually growing new life. The phenomenology of the place and the ritual of placing the remains add up to a complex and moving experience. Placing loved ones in their final resting place is a journey, as was their life. The cyclicity of life and death, destruction and regrowth and the journey to a place of return all struck chords with me, becoming the driving forces behind this project.

ASH TO ASH

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The entire process of interment consists of the procession up the volcano, encountering different thresholds (leaving the town, passing though successional forest, driving along the crater and source of new earth and to the ceremonial site), a ceremony at a simple altar, movement across the lava field via cor ten “stitches” that act as bridges and the placing of the ashes. When first reaching the intervention, the mourners would drive down into the earth and have their view of the ocean blocked as they parked. Once they get out of their cars, and begin walking towards the corridor to the altar, they have a moment where the ocean is again revealed to them and framed by the stark black lava. This moment is truly one in which the mourners are forced to confront their emotions and begin to say goodbye to their loved one.

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LANDSHIFT

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My design thesis concerned the duality of the experience of landscape - the fact that we experience it though both our physical bodies and our minds. In this way, then, the physical sensory data which we receive has a direct correlation to what we are thinking when in a given place. I state that in the modern world, we are constantly in motion, the result of a fast paced and globalized world. Landscape, then, can be a mitigator of this, a place where we can take a moment for ourselves. I studied how to make landscapes be a place of pause. I achieved this by searching for ways to make people mindful. Mindfulness is the state of being where one is completely present from moment to moment. A perfect way to enact this mindfulness is to exploit the dual experience of the landscape. It is to have the physical body jolt the mind into a state of being present. Through my studies, I concluded that orientation change, cross-slope change and slope change were all perfect moments of pause and these moments were perfect for cultivating mindfulness. This all led to the thesis of: Periodic shifts in the landscape encourage noticing, which calls the embodied experience to the fore and fosters mindfulness.

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LANDSHIFT

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George St.

Benevolent St.

Charlesfield St.

Brook St.

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BEB

Brown University

George St.

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Brown University

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The site on which I chose to test my thesis tenets was on the Brown University campus. This was a perfect testing ground because college students always have their minds elsewhere, whether on a test or on a text. The area on the Brown campus which I chose was a series of courtyards adjacent to busy intersections. These condensed spaces would provide a rigorous test to my three main shifts. If I could apply the same three shifts which I encountered in a large, rural setting to a small urban one and they succeeded, then they would be validated. To begin my interventions, I drew from the multi-resolution urban grid - the grid of streets, the grid of one building’s relation to another and the grid of the relation of architecture to the landscape. Upon the three chosen courtyards I overlaid a grid of my own resolution, 5’x5’. It was within this grid which I began to intervene on site.

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In the southern courtyard, I slid the grid to create openings for planting (dense bamboo, which one cannot just walk through). The sliding also resulted in a “stacking” in some places on the grid, creating different slopes in different areas. The combination of having to change orientation because of plantings or walls and the changing slopes, this is certainly a place of noticing. The paving of the courtyard moves through the entries of buildings and across streets linking the courtyard out into the grid. In the second courtyard, a large landform with triangulated facets caused for multiple cross slopes across the courtyard. With ones balance point constantly changing, this becomes a place of noticing as well.

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A selection of detail drawings and grading plans from various projects.

DETAILS AND GRADING PLANS

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Esek Hopkins Middle SchoolProvidence, RI1”= 50’

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Festival Space

03 Grading Plan

Scale = 1:20 N

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OUTSIDE OF STUDIO

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new york, 21123d modeling: rhino

rendering: photoshop52” x 27” risd fleet library

graphite and charcoal54” x 54”

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OUTSIDE OF STUDIO

floating top dining tableash, danish oil and wax polish

60” x 30” x2 8”

urban walk site lines diagramink on vellum

24” x 60”