Author: kaitwieb

Sunshine House Garden Midterm Presentation

I started off with basic shapes in Rhino to use as a reference for sketching and ideating what moments to illustrate. As I slowly built the garden up, piece by piece in 3D I started to notice thresholds I hadn’t before, which were opportunities for more plantings and material explorations.

Enscape’s extensive plant library helped me to visualize possibilities for the planting plan. The realistic materials and plants gave me a real sense of what the space might look like in real life, so I continued using digital media in photoshop and opted to create my first itirations of perspectives with Rhino instead of hand drawing in the end.

Feedback to incorporate: cantilever the shelter posts, make the rear figure less dark, weather the wood on the walkway. Concrete too light and not appropriate (see below).

Feedback from Daniel I’ll incorporate into the final version from this image: Concrete is too light colored, and not good as seating in Vancouver. Choose an alternate material for seating. Design custom seating for this area.

Sections helped me to further consider how to represent types of use and changes of use throughout seasons, as well as how to show the differences between built and “natural” cover.

Annotations to add-
raised deck, metal roof, wading pool, seating seat, yoga/floorsitting deck

 

Temperature comfort zones throughout the seasons:

Built cover: shade for summer, rain cover for winter. Areas for gathering during isolating winter season.

Planting cover: Deciduous trees for summer shade on grass and seating areas during summer. Tall plants for a feeling of privacy between other users and separation between the main park.

Seasonal “Safe zones” GIF-

 

 

Once the shape language for each micro-space was decided, the hardest (but most fun) part was nailing down sizes and arrangements. I played with texture possibilities, boundaries and overlaps and how the shapes facilitate different experiences through each possible change.

Decking, mulch, tall grass to touch and walk past, soft grass to walk on, mossy areas, sandy areas, big rocks, small gravel, tile, cement, wood…

 

landing on “a” plan that includes paths for individuals to pass through and stop at separate moments to calm down. Sitting in shade under a tree on the grass or raised deck, smelling lavender or touching tall soft plants, cooling feet in a shallow pool, or staying cozy under the roof of the main structure at the north.

The planting plant focuses mostly on tall plants that provide a bordering screen to each path / area, and that serve a multisensorial experience through smell, touch or sight.

 

 

 

The edges of Victoria Park are “framed” by a consistent style of housing

How can this form language be made part of the garden design to integrate the neighbourhood’s aesthetic and connect the community to the park ?

Tiling / Pavers (above)

 

Large pavers or planted plots

Orientations & Arrangements

 

How to create a calming space for soothing within the active park?

Ideation: Rolling terrain to lay against, burms to block noise and create enclosed, safe feeling space, different overhangs/ roofs, some serve as summer seating on top or rain cover below. Hedges that block the south sun in extreme heat, additional shade trees, sensory garden plots.

Patchwork of garden plot squares where each serves a difference function/ type of experience

 

Organic shaped overhead cover, breaks the grid to provide form contrast and part shade/part sun conditions to individual squares.

Looping meditative walk experience with sensory garden stops along the way. Slow water drainage creates a mini stream that disappears into the existing ground drainage, a metaphor for dissipating anxiety.

Comparative gif of ideations

 

 

Grid circulation and cover flow experimentation

 

Physical Model

Rearrangeable ideation

 

 

Changing like the weather

• By the time we reach 40 years of age, half of us will have had or will develop a mental health problem. Between 19.6% and 26.2% of British Columbians – somewhere around one million people – will experience a mental illness each year.(Canadian Mental Health Association)
• In a review of the research, Gregory Bratman, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Washington, and colleagues shared evidence that contact with nature is associated with increases in happiness, subjective well-being, positive affect, positive social interactions and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, as well as decreases in mental distress (American Psychological Association)
• If you have been diagnosed with an anxiety, panic or mood disorder, research suggests that you are already susceptible to greater light sensitivity (Canadian Journal of Psychiatry)