2016 SoLA Vertical Studio

The students from the School of Landscape Architecture recently took part in our annual Vertical Studio on the site of the former Hilgendorf building on campus. 

The School had been given the opportunity to come up with ideas for a temporary landscape that would replace the existing gravel surface until the new science building construction begins in 2017.

Staff members guided the students through various design activities to engage the students with the site using unconventional on-site design generators. Mike Barthelmeh and Simon Swaffield split the 120+ students into three groups with each group carrying a 50 metre length of Lincoln-themed coloured fabric. Through orchestrated and explorative movement the students created patterns and spaces which were recorded using SoLA’s drone at each phase.

Next Jess Rae and Nancy Vance arranged the students into pairs and with one blind-folded and the other leading them, they traversed the site along transects, noting at one metre intervals whether the landform was rising or falling. Once they had completed their transect, the noted elevation was then translated into a single ‘slice’ and with all of the other ‘slices’ the students composed a Tactile Topography model of the site.

Silvia Tavares and Andreas Wesener then encouraged to the students to think about structural form and microclimate within the site. In small groups, the students selected a ‘found’ recycled object and come up with concepts for how to use it to enhance the site experience.

The final design exercise for the day was led by Jacky Bowring and Mick Abbott and the students were given a strip of the site to design a planting scheme using a restricted plant palette. Once they had completed this, they arranged them back into the site plan on a large table and using post-it notes, they voted for their preferred plan. Once the preferred plan was selected, the students stood on the site with a colour-coded A4 paper above their head to indicate the species, while the drone took an aerial shot of the planting scheme in-situ.

Overall, there were a huge range of exciting design ideas which will be woven into a design proposal. The day wasn’t just about design though… it was a chance for the students to interact with each other outside of the studio walls and across year groups to create and renew friendships. (source: The SoLA Blog)