Louise A Bordelon Research and Creative Work

LOUISE BORDELON, PHD

LANDSCAPE

ARCHITECTURE

PORTFOLIO

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

plan, section and perspective study

Studies in Light, Louise Bordelon, 2009 Graphite on Bristol

perspective study in lightness pencil on bristol

Contents CREATIVE WORK

Previous Page: River Road Studies Triptych, Louise Bordelon, 2008 Graphite on Bristol

louise cheetham_portfolio_hand drawing

perspective study in darkness pencil on bristol

Interrupting Identities Design Project 02

RESEARCH

Curated Landscapes: The Evolution of the Postcard Shot

TEACHING

Advanced Studio: Cultural Landscape Icons of Denver 09 Graphics 15 Interdisciplinary Work 19

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Interrupting Identities: A Project Concerning The Great River Road

CREATIVE WORK CREATIVE WORK

This project transforms a ninety five mile stretch of the Great River Road into a disembodied museum of sorts. A quilt of memories houses a collection of artifacts sourced along River Road. This acts as a trigger for contemplating the passage of time and the forgotten pasts of River Road. The exploration of site and place expanded beyond the collection into a larger scale of spaces.

Quantities and qualities of precedent spaces (museums) were researched and documented. The conceptual ideas were transformed into a landscape context and a conceptual design methodology extracted.

The testing of conceptual ideas took place at a meander in the River and a palette of design ideas created. Design guide-lines were developed for a variety of different landscape scenarios along the River Road, thus creating said ‘interruptions’.

The road is interrupted in order to modulate space and speed; these punctuations animate the homogeneous landscape into a series of rooms.

These spaces, separated by shifting planes, form the basis of the individual site exploration and create spaces that are accessible and practical. The design intervention rejuvenates the River Road as a place along which to live and tour through the cultural South.

The Great River Road Map, Group Collaboration, 2008.

27’ x 12’ Hanging Installation Graphite and Ink on Bristol Vellum.

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

er)rupting identities 4

Interrupting Identities: the disembodied museum Site Analysis

CREATIVE WORK

the rooms of exhibition land use and directional growth: paper mache and charcoal

growth patterns and industry: collage and thread

land use and ecology: mixed media

punctuating the landscape: a series of interventions modulate space and speed along the River Road

a loaf of sliced rooms louise cheetham_portfolio_(inter)rupting identitiesnasher museum, dallas, original drawing renzo 10 piano design workshop

light to dark 9 nasher museum, dallas, original drawing LOUISE BORDELON renzo piano design workshop LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

CREATIVE WORK

creating spaces for insiders and outsiders_ the everyday industrial is interrupted

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Interrupting Identities: Illustrative Design

LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

RESEARCH

Half Dome from Glacier Point, Carleton E. Watkins, 1881.

Photographing Half-Dome, Louise Bordelon, 2013.

Curated Landscapes: The Evolution of the Postcard Shot

This research examines traveling landscape-objects in tourist environments and their impact on cultural identity in America.

Traveling landscape-objects include any form of tourist paraphernalia or representation of cultural landscapes. For these purposes, I studied different forms of tourist representation of the Natchez Trace Parkway, an entity of the National Park Service. Research areas include the content, location, and changing medium of traveling landscape-objects, while also addressing their meaning, frequency, quality, role in non-representational arenas, and the future of tourist representations.

Methods include detailed cataloging and analysis of over one thousand images of various shapes and forms, ranging from early illustrations of the Natchez Trace Parkway, to historic photographs, postcards and finally digital images found on flickr.com.

Results suggest that we can identify prominent cultural landscape icons by acknowledging where tourists collected the most representations or traveling landscape-objects. In addition, the form or medium of traveling landscape-objects affects their meaning, frequency, and quality in that tourists value the tactile quality of representations. Lastly, the intrinsic value of representations (even in non-representational arenas) is confirmed, and their future secured.

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Full text available at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3260/ LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Traveling LandscapeObjects as Data Source

RESEARCH

National Park Service data (shown Fig 1) indicates vehicular visitor numbers along the Natchez Trace Parkway. This data is used for planning and management purposes. My analysis of tourist images of place represented in postcards and digital images* illustrates different hot-spots of tourist activity.

Tourist images influence tourist behavior, and thus, these representations (or traveling landscape-objects) can be used to determine tourist activity for planning and management purposes. *Digital Images were collected from Flickr in 2012/2013. Since this research (pre-Instagram), I have also used Instagram to geo-locate and collect tourist images of place. It is more widely used across a wider demographic range than Flickr.

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

1942/2014 Exhibition: Landscape Change and Tourist Experience

RESEARCH

This exhibition, installed in the atrium of the Design Building at LSU, Summer 2014) features a series of old/new images, all sourced from the National Park Service, I compare the landscape identity and form of the Natchez Trace as it was pre-asphalt in 1942, to the promotional images produced in 2014.

The character of the road has changed, no longer a vague trail plagued by difficult stream crossings, poor road surfaces, and incised roads.

Instead, tourists experience an easy-driving parkway that has lost the trials of the old route that is long forgotten.

United States National Park Service. 1941. Natchez Trace parkway survey. Letter of the secretary of the interior transmitting in response to Senate resolution no. 222, a report of a survey of the old Indian trail,

known as the Natchez trace, made by the department of the interior, through the National Park Service, pursuant to an act approved May 21, 1934, with a view to constructing a national road to be known as the Natchez Trace Parkway. Washington: U.S. Govt Printing Office.

http://www.nps.gov/natr/learn/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm.2.25.2015, 11:03am

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

TEACHING

Clyfford Styll Museum Instaworthy, Brittany Duncan, 2019

Cultural Landscape Studio: Re-imagining Denver’s Icons

In this vertical (8 week) studio, we focused our attention on cultural landscape icons of Denver. Each of the students assessed how others see their icon through the lens of social media, then they challenged typical ways of seeing the icon, re/presented it, and delved into an historical narrative of the place. They collected a library of textures, colors, and forms that typify each icon, and lastly, studied and considered how people move around the icon and/or use the space that the icon occupies, or dominates.

For the final assignment I charged the students to propose a design installation that will serve to change how others see, use, and experience the icon that each chose at the beginning of the semester. The design proposal must either support, reflect upon, challenge, or replicate the icon.

Required elements beyond the typical plan, section, and perspectives include a detail (to scale), and either a model, or a billboard.

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

TEACHING

KATHRYN LANDERS . STUDIO IV . SPRING 2019

Students undertook site inventory through a series of non-traditional observation practices. They collected textures, used palimpsest studies to spend time observing the site, and (re) represented their iconic landscape through photo collage - erstwhile building a toolbox of color, texture, form, and context that (unbeknown to them) might later be used as design inspiration.

Dairy Block Site Inventory, Kat Landers, 2019

INVENTORY

N LANDERS . STUDIO IV . SPRING 2019

VENTORY

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: AN ICON THAT ABSORBS THE CHANGING CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT OF DENVER

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The site of the future MCA contained a sliver of warehouses.

Fifteenth Street ran directly under the 15th Street Viaduct to create access to these warehouses. This gave life to the deserted scene.

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While most of the original buildings had been demolished, the area that would house the MCA still contained old small warehouses, including the Daniels Fisher Warehouse and the Monarch Mills Grain Building.

MCA Denver was founded by Sue Cannon and a group of volunteers.

It occupied a renovated fish market in Sakura Square in lower downtown Denver.

Rio Dulaney | LDAR 6604 | Final Project | Spring 2019

Mark Falcone and Ellen Bruss (members of MCA Denver’s Board of Trustees), donated a gift of land in Denver’s Central Platte Valley in order to build a permanent home for the MCA.

MCA Denver opened its new 27,000 square foot, environmentally sustainable facility in lower downtown Denver. It was designed by David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates (UK) and was his first museum commission. It was designed to minimize boundaries between the exterior spaces of the city and the interior galleries of the museum. Hidden skylights let natural light in and windows look out onto the streets. Five different galleries provide different spaces fo different works of art.

Designed by Tim Noble and Sue Webster,”Toxic Schizophrenia” was unveiled. It is the only permanent art piece of the MCA and represents the museum’s mission to present innovative and challenging art of our time.

Because Denver has experienced rapid growth over the past decade, MCA Denver launched an $18 million dollar campaign to support the museum in its next phase of institutional growth, and to strengthen its leading role in channeling the city’s creative and youthful energy. Working with Adjaye Associates, the museum plans to undergo renovations, expanding the teen space, adding a rooftop stage, improving the entry, and adding a major artwork for the exterior.

MCA , Rio Dulaney, 2019

The historical analysis and origins of Denver’s icons are interpreted through graphic means. I encouraged students to think outside the box and try to communicate visually rather than with text. The only requirement was mixed media with at least some three-dimensional applications using paper, thread, acrylic, piano wire, and basswood.

Union Station , Tatum Moorer, 2019

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Work-in-progress, Kat Landers, 2019

Ice-Skaters Abstract Model, Kyle Roddy, 2019

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Union Station , Kevin Small, 2019

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Reflect: A Contextual Response

TEACHING

Precedent and Inspiration, Brittany Duncan, 2019

Final Design Drawings, Brittany Duncan, 2019

LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

KATHRYN LANDERS . STUDIO IV . SPRING 2019

Refute: A Challenge to the Icon’s Form Final Design Drawings , Kat Landers, 2019

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Graphite: Sketching and Measured Drawing

TEACHING

Pepper Views, Aletha Spang, 2019 Graphite on Bristol.

Introductory Graphics: Hand, Digital, and Hybrid Drawing The following pages demonstrate some of the products from the process of teaching students techniques of graphic representation. One of my favorite challenges is the student who proclaims that they ‘cannot draw’. Through a series of exercises that explore line, plane, tone, and texture, students develop an understanding of the concept of solid/void, form, and light/dark. Following this we move into more in-depth exercises on perspective and measured drawing.

I like to stretch their imaginations and skills with large drawings and encourage more free, faster drawing. Helping students unlearn their traditional ideas about product and helping them embrace the learning process is a focus of my teaching and I strive to create a supportive atmosphere that pushes them, while providing support and positive feedback.

In 2021 I was awarded a fellowship to undertake research on (UN)grading, a strategy which creates more opportunities for iterative feedback between students and faculty, as well as peer-peer. It is shown to reduce competition between students and build a more collaborative studio atmosphere.

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Daniels & Fischer Tower, Yuecen Jiang, 2019 Graphite on Bristol.

LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Mixed-Media: Large-Scale Conté

TEACHING

Large Scale Vegetation in Conté, Intro to Graphics Class, Fall 2019 The use of large format paper, and conté crayons remove all possibilities of perfection, forcing students to draw quickly, and experiment with tone, color, and shadow without complete control.

The results surprise students, most of whom have not drawn on a large format pages before.

LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Watercolor: Landscape Representation

TEACHING

North Table Mountain, Lauren Kelly, 2019 Watercolor

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Students Hike at Sunrise, Louise Bordelon, 2019

LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Hybrid-Drawing and Photoshop

TEACHING

Hybrid Mapping, Sylvia Pasquariello, 2019 Graphite on Bristol, Watercolor, Micron Pen, Photoshop

Vignette, Derek Updegrove, 2019 Photoshop

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

Integral Studio: Working Across Disciplines

TEACHING

Interdisciplinary learning is essential to understanding how designers operate in practice. A product of education in architecture, tourism, landscape architecture, geography, and anthropology, I have a broad education that lends itself to working across disciplines.

The Integral Studio in the College of Architecture and Planning at CU Denver is a graduate level studio in which multiple disciplines work together on planning and design efforts. Faculty co-teach groups comprised of students from multiple design disciplines. The group work, process driven studio creates a broader lens through which students tackle project work. It is intended that students make connections and grow their network beyond the disciplines, and break down silos within the College.

My involvement as studio coordinator for two semesters was a challenging and robust learning experience. The biggest success was re-framing the group work component by developing group contracts and outlining communication preferences to promote clear communication and boundaries.

Groups submitted weekly reports that flagged group issues early on.

The work generated in the studio was plausible, reasoned, accessible, and coupled with excellent design and presentation materials. As a learning experience these are some of the most valuable studios I have ever taught.

Site Narrative, Westridge Integral Studio (Denver Housing Authority), 2020 Interdisciplinary team of architecture and landscape architecture graduate students: Ngoc Vu, Alyssa Cudworth, Cassidy Bowman, Valerie Cooper

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LOUISE BORDELON LANDSCAPE. ARCHITECTURE. GEOGRAPHY

END

‘Isaura’, Louise Bordelon, 2010 Graphite on Bristol