So, yeah. um crazy.
I just got an email from the Faculty of Graduate Studies at UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) that I have been accepted into the Landscape Architecture Masters Program (MLA). In their Offer Letter, they are also giving me the Henry Syd Skinner Entrance Scholarship worth $6000! (they offer these to 4 of their incomming students every year) wow. I am floored, I guess they liked my applicaiton and portfolio. I'd never put together a portfolio before, and this one had to be bound into a book. It pretty much consumed my life for months. I also put an application into the (building) Architecture Program. I dont know yet what they have to say. I will be finding out from them pretty soon I'd imagine.
Landscape architecture: what is it? Simply, I would design the outdoors. parks, playgrounds, urban and x-urban spaces. Its very interdsciplinary: urban agriculture, Digital/3-D design, GIS, human geography,the natural and pure sciences, geography, forestry, soil and botonical studies, Environmental science and so on.
Its a professional MA. so while I have a liberal arts? MA (Theory and Criticism), this one is all about certification as a Licenced (in North America): Landscape Architect. Its a three (eep!) year degree. So its abit on the long side. But then again, the univerisity is surrounded by forests and a nude beach. 3 years is not really a jail sentence.
I am pretty set on this. I would likely immolate into joyous icarus juice if I ever was tasked with designing and building a playground.
Here is a book review of the text I cite in my applicaiton below. this is what my romantic notion of being a landscape architect looks like....
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/02/010-publishers-say-groundup-ci.php
My proposal of study that I submitted:
Statement of Interest for Masters of Landscape Architecture (MLA) at SALA
2009
Landscape architecture is a natural fit for my progression as both a theorist and practitioner in the realm of the lived-experience of the inter-subjective public spaces of cities. As demonstrated in my portfolio and resume, my media art practice and my graduate school research have engaged different aspects of the theory, history, performance, and design of shared public spaces.
At the most fundamental level my interest in landscape architecture begins with my personal day-to-day experience of inhabiting Vancouver. I wish to study and practice landscape architecture not only to further my theoretical and artistic grasp of public space, but to begin to participate in the design and building of the urban and sub-urban commons in which I navigate and reflect on each day. Further, SALA being located in Vancouver, allows me to effect change in the public spaces of the city which I call home.
The MLA program at SALA is particularly well suited to facilitating the achievement and synthesis of my professional and creative goals. I have achieved my creative goals through producing media art and presenting my work locally and internationally. My professional goals have thus far been pursued in a strictly academic setting. I am applying to the MLA program at SALA to join these passions of mine. It is SALA’s explicitly interdisciplinary mandate which demands a integration of skills ranging from fine arts to model building to sustainable design that promises to engage my desire for the integration of my creative and professional goals into one practice.
Vancouver being home to a rich mixture of cultural and environmental geography adds to my reasons for pursuing studies at SALA in the MLA program. I intend to focus my design work on facilitating day-to-day inter-cultural relations that can be forged in open public spaces like city parks, sidewalks, walking paths, urban interstitial spaces and playgrounds. Currently I am inspired by Liane LeFaivre and Doll+’s recent book Ground Up City: Play as a Design Tool (2007). In this book the writers, both theorists and practicing architects, outline the potential of play as a tool for design of urban space. Especially in cities with culturally rich mixes of populations, they explore playgrounds as a way of building community between cultures.
In this vein, I am interested in designing public spaces that encourage the interaction of people beyond language. In a city as linguistically diverse as Vancouver, this kind of interaction is essential to sustaining the urban community of our increasingly "global" city. In my own neighborhood, I only have to walk past the recently re-designed Victoria Park to see the large groups of those of Portuguese, Polish and Italian descent playing Bocce or playing at the new playground to see this in action. The design of public landscape according to the a basic impulse toward play might allow community members to momentarily transcend barriers of language and cultural difference in these spaces. In many respects learning the theory, design and techniques of landscape architecture offers me the tools to build not a “community centre” but centres for diverse communities.
My proposed area of study would be in MLA’s Urban Design Stream. Its focus on neighborhood, sustainable community design, pedestrian and bicycle transportation system planning, and open/public space design are key to developing my understanding and technical skills relating to inter-cultural spaces. As a whole, the School’s mandate to address these diverse concerns facing the city of Vancouver impress upon me its suitability to my project of synthesizing my work in the art world and the academic world into a career in design.
The MLA program signifies the next step in this process of working through these interests of mine. The synthesis of visual and conceptual theory, technical and practical design skills and its role in shaping the lived-spaces of publics unavoidably draw the artist and theorist in me to this program.
It is both the fit of the MLA program’s mandate and the study and practice of landscape architecture being a natural progression of my practical and creative experiences that make me an exceptional candidate for the MLA program at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
Landscape architecture: what is it? Simply, I would design the outdoors. parks, playgrounds, urban and x-urban spaces. Its very interdsciplinary: urban agriculture, Digital/3-D design, GIS, human geography,the natural and pure sciences, geography, forestry, soil and botonical studies, Environmental science and so on.
Its a professional MA. so while I have a liberal arts? MA (Theory and Criticism), this one is all about certification as a Licenced (in North America): Landscape Architect. Its a three (eep!) year degree. So its abit on the long side. But then again, the univerisity is surrounded by forests and a nude beach. 3 years is not really a jail sentence.
I am pretty set on this. I would likely immolate into joyous icarus juice if I ever was tasked with designing and building a playground.
Here is a book review of the text I cite in my applicaiton below. this is what my romantic notion of being a landscape architect looks like....
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/02/010-publishers-say-groundup-ci.php
My proposal of study that I submitted:
Statement of Interest for Masters of Landscape Architecture (MLA) at SALA
2009
Landscape architecture is a natural fit for my progression as both a theorist and practitioner in the realm of the lived-experience of the inter-subjective public spaces of cities. As demonstrated in my portfolio and resume, my media art practice and my graduate school research have engaged different aspects of the theory, history, performance, and design of shared public spaces.
At the most fundamental level my interest in landscape architecture begins with my personal day-to-day experience of inhabiting Vancouver. I wish to study and practice landscape architecture not only to further my theoretical and artistic grasp of public space, but to begin to participate in the design and building of the urban and sub-urban commons in which I navigate and reflect on each day. Further, SALA being located in Vancouver, allows me to effect change in the public spaces of the city which I call home.
The MLA program at SALA is particularly well suited to facilitating the achievement and synthesis of my professional and creative goals. I have achieved my creative goals through producing media art and presenting my work locally and internationally. My professional goals have thus far been pursued in a strictly academic setting. I am applying to the MLA program at SALA to join these passions of mine. It is SALA’s explicitly interdisciplinary mandate which demands a integration of skills ranging from fine arts to model building to sustainable design that promises to engage my desire for the integration of my creative and professional goals into one practice.
Vancouver being home to a rich mixture of cultural and environmental geography adds to my reasons for pursuing studies at SALA in the MLA program. I intend to focus my design work on facilitating day-to-day inter-cultural relations that can be forged in open public spaces like city parks, sidewalks, walking paths, urban interstitial spaces and playgrounds. Currently I am inspired by Liane LeFaivre and Doll+’s recent book Ground Up City: Play as a Design Tool (2007). In this book the writers, both theorists and practicing architects, outline the potential of play as a tool for design of urban space. Especially in cities with culturally rich mixes of populations, they explore playgrounds as a way of building community between cultures.
In this vein, I am interested in designing public spaces that encourage the interaction of people beyond language. In a city as linguistically diverse as Vancouver, this kind of interaction is essential to sustaining the urban community of our increasingly "global" city. In my own neighborhood, I only have to walk past the recently re-designed Victoria Park to see the large groups of those of Portuguese, Polish and Italian descent playing Bocce or playing at the new playground to see this in action. The design of public landscape according to the a basic impulse toward play might allow community members to momentarily transcend barriers of language and cultural difference in these spaces. In many respects learning the theory, design and techniques of landscape architecture offers me the tools to build not a “community centre” but centres for diverse communities.
My proposed area of study would be in MLA’s Urban Design Stream. Its focus on neighborhood, sustainable community design, pedestrian and bicycle transportation system planning, and open/public space design are key to developing my understanding and technical skills relating to inter-cultural spaces. As a whole, the School’s mandate to address these diverse concerns facing the city of Vancouver impress upon me its suitability to my project of synthesizing my work in the art world and the academic world into a career in design.
The MLA program signifies the next step in this process of working through these interests of mine. The synthesis of visual and conceptual theory, technical and practical design skills and its role in shaping the lived-spaces of publics unavoidably draw the artist and theorist in me to this program.
It is both the fit of the MLA program’s mandate and the study and practice of landscape architecture being a natural progression of my practical and creative experiences that make me an exceptional candidate for the MLA program at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.