LiveBlog: Kate John-Alder

The Reality of Process/ The Permanence of Change

Larry Halprin - RSVP Cycles
Ian McHarg - Design with Nature

(look for a paper soon by John-Alder on Halprin in the Landscape Journal)

Richard Reynolds (also a motorcycle companion of JB Jackson) worked with Halprin at Sea Ranch, getting a sense for the site and capturing its ephemeral qualities.

Responses to the environment on site required looking to different sources for process and inspiration. Wind eddys and aerodynamics helped lead to dedsign forms that helped hide autos and shaped buildings that performed in specific ways. Even today the design is celebrated by many who aren't from design backgrounds.

In The RSVP Cycles Halprin kept referencing ecological processes as part of an emphasis on the predictive value of ecology. He seemed especially influenced by Odom and his diagrams of natural processes.
His EcoScore for Sea Ranch integrates his thinking about history, cultural influence, and ecology.


Form Follows Flow Studio taught with K Hill

Sand flows and new forms in the Netherlands inspired this look at Willoughby Spit.
The class graphics were enhanced by a TA who had experience in digital animation. Some of the designs emphasized sand processes, some on the faunal responses, and some on dynamic human access to these sand engines.


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And then we watched the videos.