As a landscape designer and dancer, I like to think about landscapes in terms of syntax – the organization of the space a landscape both occupies and creates. In people, the proprioceptive sense is what interacts with these surroundings to orient us and help us understand how to feel in a space. I am interested in this interaction as a design key: how can a landscape’s spatial organization and one’s sensory or intuitive reading of that affect its sense of place? I also like to explore how designing with many forms of human movement in mind can encourage playful and creative use of space. This portfolio includes works fitting into three movement-defined typologies: spaces to pause in, pass through, and wander around. These typologies inform my design process and the way I aim to use elements like planting, paving surfaces, and vertical structures to form a spatial language to be understood instinctually by people as they interact with a space. Thoughtful design can create landscapes that are not just universally accessible but universally engaging, comfortable, and intriguing.
Studies:
“Serial Vision”
“Serial Vision” Monument observation
Small park features
Performance, public space
Park amphitheater
PAUSE
Give / Rest Small Site Intervention *
Location: Stone Mountain, Georgia, U.S.A.
Motivations: reflection landscapes of exploitation material pathways
Stone Mountain Park is an ecologically sensitive landscape marked by the exploitation of natural resources and human life. On its north face is the largest confederate monument in America, which is surrounded above and below by trails used recreationally by four million visitors a year. The intervention “Give / Rest” at the quarry aims to provide a space to recognize this history, giving visitors a place to reconcile the park’s violent past with its future potential to heal. Located just outside the historic quarry, “Give / Rest” contends with the displacement of stone, used in the many construction projects including institutions of carceral punishment, under the monolithic face of Stone Mountain.
Pause
Photos by Everett Wayman
Mapping Material Movements:
1. Confederate Monument, New Orleans
2. Stone Mountain
3. Fulton County Courthouse
4. U.S. Postal Office, Atlanta
5. Granite blocks
6. U.S. Penitentiary, Atlanta
Stone Mountain granite has been exported worldwide. Notably, though, it constructed institutional buildings and Confederate monuments in the American Southeast.
Field Notes
We begin by researching the quarrying process. Plug and feather tools are used to break blocks of granite from the mountain. Quarrying is the creation of material and the creation of void. The mountain bears markings of a deeply terrible social and industrial history next to markings of its every day use. The search for a site leads us around the mountain. We look for a site that shows signs of this exploitation and feels off-kilter, one that is challenging could be but physically comfortable. At the final site, we sit and listen, we debate, we document it and take samples.
We catalog the material features of our site. It contains many natural materials, its only artificial being steel wire wrapped around the site’s lone pine. We find granite stones, pine saplings, pine straw, broomsedge, many moss species, and a native cactus. There are marks from the removal of quarried blocks which formed this artificial topography.
There is one asymmetrical granite outcrop on the site. It only has one quarrying mark and is too small to form a valuable block. It is a comfortable height for sitting and provides a stunning and uninterrupted view of the mountain. From this angle, viewers see the mountain relatively “untouched” - no sight of the monument to hate occupying its north face. We select this piece of granite as the center of our site intervention. The built bench holds the granite like a gem set in jewelry for display and protection. The legs clasp the granite and the seat top displays its form through its slats.
Natural granite topography: shallow steps
Existing “Bench” granite form Pause
Lone on-site tree: Longleaf Pine
Growing pile of pine, granite, and moss
Existing Site Conditions
Bench Concept: Granite “Jewel” Display Stone setting as preservation
Threshold Installation:
Installation:
Welded plate with 24” threaded galvanized rods
Steps
Hidden, minimal attachment points
Bench Installation: On-site leg leveling and seat attachment
PAUSE
Location: n/a
Motivations: dance revelation garden as costume
ARTIST’S GARDEN
This project was based on the concept of creating a garden for an artist, not inspired by their art but inspired by their artistic process. Creating a space in which the artist can move freely, feel challenged, and gather inspiration. I chose the visual artist and dancer Nick Cave for his multi-disciplinary practice which incorporates movement and the alteration of movement through costume. This work began with natural materials such as gathered twigs and grasses which he used to construct his first sound suit. From there he moved onto artificial materials; often a suit is created from a collection of objects, plastic, ceramic, or fibrous. His sound suits are intended to reveal a truth about their wearer by disguising physical identity, allowing for a freer and more deeply true movement to be expressed in the absence of an audience’s typical first impression. The garden follows his process, leading the user through a series of materials (first natural plantings, then a sculptural installation of artificial materials) and finally culminating in a private space, which shelters the user-wearer.
At the center of the garden, there is a performance space surrounded by alternating hedges. The alternating hedge allows physical but not visual access to the space from the outside. One must enter it to participate. There is access from the private space, which mirrors the suit, and from a more public area, the transitional zone.
Finally, as the user-wearer unmasks by exiting the private space, they cross a reflecting pond, revealing their image back to themself.
Via della Santissima Trinità is an existing pedestrian path connecting Via Santa Margherita to the intersection of Via S. Marco and Via S. Nicolò. Its high walls create a space that contrasts most of Cortona, a small, medieval hilltop town. This isolates the pedestrian from the wide, open-feeling views of the Val di Chiana below. This turn inward allows for one’s focus to shift to small-scale art and creates the opportunity for large-scale art to be effectively imposing, removed from the typical open views found throughout Cortona.
The corridor is pedestrian-only and has two access points - effectively a beginning and end. It begins with a set of stairs and has benches installed throughout. The corridor’s imposing walls and “pinch points” create a variable syntax in this space, closing and opening in a repetitive rhythm. Corners provide the opportunity for surpsise, as users are pinched in and taken into a new space.
Photos by KG Upchurch
Sculptures and jewelry by Antonio Massarutto, ceramics by Shea Peters and Noah Brown
Inspired by the jewelry and sculpture works of Antonio Massarutto and existing niches in the walls of the corridor, this site allows users to freely explore art at many scales. A series of spaces throughout are designed to interact with the existing conditions of the walls, revealing precious details and thoughtfully placed art. Display structures and vertical planting structures extend the wall heights at moments, and cross overhead to mark thresholds. Select existing patterns and anomalies in the stone work are framed with wireframe structures.
Original hand-rendered poster, ceramics by Shea Peters and Noah Brown
This project tackles a former industrial site in the center of downtown Atlanta. The Gulch is currently used for event parking, though it contains a deeply buried history as the location of the city’s original springhead and home of the train lines that made Atlanta. It contains imposing parking structures, abandoned rail lines, great open space, and many strange nooks and crannies that are poorly documented and often occupied by the curious and the unhoused. This design makes efficient use of The Gulch’s multi-layered, 48 acre void, consolidating parking from across downtown and placing The Gulch as the center of an interlocking public park chain. Across the site are a series of networks: pedestrian circulation, cycling circulation, vehicular circulation, public transit, urban planting + agriculture, green infrastructure (the site contains downtown’s high point and low point), and onsite material reuse systems. An upper- and lowerlevel are defined, connecting the site’s strange and artificial topography with a focus on the pedestrian navigation experience.
Photos by Carley Rickles and KG Upchurch
Forsyth St 3 66,939
Foundry St 52,478
Foundry St 2 99,482 Gary St 91,371 Gary St 2 136,756 Gary St 3 269,789 Garnett St 94,919
Garnett St 2 55,510
Haynes St 14,187 Ivan Allen Jr Blvd 54,604 Luckie St 97,655 Magnolia St 146,467 Magnum St 17,217
Marietta St 51,473
North-South Site Functions
The north end of the site consists of upper level surfaces. It has a series of structures with different purposes: open structures, mixed residential and commercial buildings, and parking. The surface is primarily pedestrian- and cyclist-focused, with open paths and accessible connections to the lower level.
The south end of the site is home to the multimodal transit center and connecting edges of the site. As The Gulch spills into downtown Atlanta, an improved sidewalk network and street trees plan softens its edges and creates cross-city connection points.
Lightning Neighborhood Remembrance Garden
On the northwest corner of the existing site is a dry, unused expanse of turf grass. This space is transformed into a garden in remembrance of the Lightning Neighborhood which used to occupy the acres north of the Gulch. A historically Black neighborhood, it was demolished to make room for business developments resulting in the loss of an incredibly important community from downtown Atlanta. This garden scales down the neighborhood, with walking paths as its street network and flower beds in the footprint of each home.
Photos from Lightning, Struck; before and after.
Level 1: Raised surfaces
Level 2: Upper ground level
Level 3: Lower ground level
Site Functions
The center of this design is a multimodal transit center connecting users with parking, a regional train station, a streetcar, bus lines, pedestrian walkways, and a cycling network. The horizontal stratification of the site and the layered uses connect downtown locals, commuters, and people in the area for events to and from their destinations. Pedestrian and cycling connections across site and between the upper- and lower-levels provide safer non-vehicular pathways through downtown Atlanta.
Green Infrastructure Urban Plants
Reuse
Pedestrian Circulation Cycling Circulation
A redesigned street grid with Regional Access Corridor, Regional Transit Corridor, Cycling Street, Local Street, Shared Street, and Pedestrian Street typologies.
The landscape surrounding the former West Broad School has a cyclical history of abandonment. Recently, the state of Georgia has faced scrutiny for segregation and mistreatment within its educational system, with the school playing a significant role in that narrative. This project aims to leverage the abandoned site and the school’s history to address this social wound. By acknowledging the positive and negative aspects of its past, we aim to reclaim the site’s legacy as a community asset, addressing both social and environmental needs. Principally, we aimed to return to the site what had historically been taken away: the agency of the children who this school was supposed to serve.
After thorough research and site analysis, we found our design process centered around four design themes: Learn, Grow, Play, and Reflect. In our ideation phase, we explored the precedent work of landscape architects and playwork practitioners and collaborated with Ana Madrid, a trained early grades teacher and children’s aerial dance teacher. This expertise helped us identify 24 “collectible” objectives which we created opportunities for users to engage within each of the four design themes, e.g. there are tools to find a grounding sensory experience within our reflective, playful, educational, and agricultural environments. We represented our design thinking graphically with the motifs of a game board - the themes and objectives organized as our deck of cards.
Project introduction
Site selection
Site history: 1930s to today
Existing conditions
Internal spaces
External spaces
Play plan
Planting plan
Illustrative plan
Programming gradients
West Broad School Site Plan
This proposal uses food production, diverse play and education spaces, and areas of respite and reflection to enforce our design objectives. An added drop-off lane, setback circulation, and established entrances provide safe access to and throughout the site. Within, permaculture practices promote lowmaintenance diversity and resilience in food production. Areas of play, rest, and education offer young users options for activity and self-regulation. Collaborative play and exploration opportunities allow for self-guided “leveling up” of academic, social, and physical skills. In the reflective play zone, a rig allows adult helpers to change out equipment, switching between hammocks, swings, and open space. Hammocks create deep pressure sensory input, a great tool for children seeking sensory and emotional regulation.
We organized our design process around four themes: Learn, Grow, Play, and Reflect. We looked to create opportunities for the following design objectives within each of these categories:
4. Lever mechanics: Seesaw with adjustable fulcrum
Open Play
1. Monkey bars
2. Swings
3. Tight rope
4. The Mountain
Planting “Pieces”
1. Learning Rainbow Garden
Acer sacharum
Taxodium distichum
Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’
Ilex glabra
Hydrangea quercifolia
Itea virginica
Aronia melanocarpa
Heuchera
Eryngium yuccifolia
Gaura lindheimeri
Aster ericoides
Adiantum capillus-veneris
Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’
Muhlenbergia capillaris ‘White Cloud’
2. Community Garden Beds
Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter
3. Food Forest
Prunus persica ‘Julyprince’
Malus domestica ‘Rome Beauty’
Diospyros virginiana
Asimina triloba
Morus rubra
Location: Athens, Georgia, U.S.A.
Interests: public spaces playscapes movement graphic representation furniture
I am a fourth-year BLA at UGA’s College of Environment + Design. Before beginning my degree I was an environmental engineering student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. That helped me understand my inclination for a design-focused and interdisciplinary field, and my landscape architecture education has led me to a range of interests from native planting to designing for physical and sensory needs. Outside of school, I teach aerial dance to children and adults at a studio where I have trained for 15 years. This informs my interest in the relationship between spatial syntax and the feeling of a body in space, and has led me to design for creative and exploratory use of space through movement.
Technical Skills:
Hand rendering
Sketching
Modeling
AutoCAD
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Indesign
Adobe Photoshop
Rhino
SketchUp
Lumion
TwinMotion
Education:
University of Georgia Class of 2025
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture
President’s Scholar, six semesters
Experience:
Agency Landscape + Planning Summer 2024
Landscape Design Intern
Founder’s Memorial Garden, UGA
Curator Assistant
Cultural Landscape Lab, CED Spring 2023
Research Assistant
Stratford Hall
Research Assistant
Canopy Studio
Aerial Dance Instructor 2016 - Present
Activities:
Experience UGA, Group Leader
engaged 10th graders in hand graphics and inventory/design processes
A Sense of Place, Co-Director
Canopy Studio’s repertory show tracing Georgia’s native and man-made ecologies from mountain stream to ocean
Tree Dance Workshop, Attendee
Led by Serenity Smith, Nimble Arts
UGA Cortona Study Abroad, Student studied visual and movement arts in public spaces in Cortona, Italy
Canopy Studio
Repertory Company Member
Awards:
Finalist, Lost Sites Design Competition
Landezine, Streetlife
CURO Research Award
Researching the effectiveness of Lawrence Halprin’s “Motations”
Student Honor Award
GA ASLA Zone 7 & 8 Awards for “Atlanta Park Chain”
Shortlist, LILA 2024 Portfolio Award Landezine International Landscape Awards
Daniel Zwier/Permaloc Innovation Scholarship
Landscape Architecture Foundation
Neel Reid Memorial Scholarship Peachtree Garden Club
