Part I: Jiangchen Zhu

It’s desk crits today.

After reviewing our project Mayke and Vince give us feedback on our design. The blog is to write about our design, the feedback and what we want to focus on next.

After the research we taken and want through the documents. we analyse the water depth, water movement, circulation and ecology of the site etc. We come up with  the proposal. We would like to create a series of new habitat along the dike between Oostvaardersplassen and Markermeer by building double dike system. The new dikes will serve as pedestrian pathway, ecology habitat, nutrients and water exchange structure. We also look at year round birds migration patterns and how does the movement of water could create new landscape in the Oostvaardersplassen.

The feedback from Mayke and Vince are, the logic of the project is there and would be nice to have a clearer story to tell about the design as a whole. Based on the research and analysis we made to the design itself, the connection in between needs to be strengthened. The emphasis of the scale. The birds species and what’s their preferred habitat.

Based on the feedback, we would like to work on more on sections, that could lead our way to create space for the habitat and how does the system operate. The needs of creating visual representation, perspectives to help us understand the scale of the design, and place for wildlife and people. The drawings could inform audience and us of thinking about the design. To do further research and analysis of birds, overlay the breeding time and observing time on the calendar.

The desk crits was helpful and we had a good discussion.

Part II – Andrew Beck

Today, Mayke came to visit us at the hostel and offer some feedback on our developing studio projects. We had been instructed to leave all of our work in neat piles to be reviewed by Mayke and Vince while we went out to lunch. Although we were never explicitly told the theory behind this style of absentee critique, I imagine the extra effort that we put in to ensure that our drawings were clear was likely on Vince’s mind.

After visiting my group’s usual lunch spot, a gyro place, we returned to hear the feedback and continue working. Mayke cut right to the chase and highlighted areas that my group has long struggled with during this project, scale and responsiveness to the existing landscape. I imagine that this is a struggle that many of the groups have faced. The scale of the spaces that we are working with are great, and creating forms and designs that respond to an already entirely manufactured landscape has been a new challenge. Additionally, the Dutch culture is unique and different than ours, so we are challenged to perceive and value the land as they might and curate our designs accordingly.

Images: 1-2; Yungui Cai, 3-5; Anya Moucha

• 

• 

• 

• 

•