Madelyn Combs | UGA Landscape Architecture Portfolio | 2022

MADELYN COMBS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

MADELYN COMBS

PROFILE

Landscape Architecture combines research and design to ensure a site is sustainable economically, ecologically, and socially. The goals I have for my career focus on each project individually; research and analysis are an important part of my design process because they help to understand how the site is currently contributing to the community, environment, and economy. Thus, my ideal landscape design would utilize the site analysis to ensure that I design the best possible site that fulfills all community and environmental goals that accommodate the communities I am working within.

My minor in horticulture provides me with insight that enhances and elevates my site design. One of my favorite aspects of landscape architecture is studying the impact of plants on both the environment as well as people. I contribute this plant knowledge, close attention to detail, as well as a desire to design spaces that serve their community and the environment in the best possible way for that individual space.

EDUCATION

The University of Georgia, College of Environment + Design

Bachelor of Landscape Architecture 2020-2024 Athens, Georgia, Third - Year Landscape Architecture Student

The University of Georgia, College of Agricultural + Environmental Sciences

Minor in Horticulture 2020-2024 Athens, Georgia

EXPERIENCE

Internship after completion of Third Year

Location + Date Experience + Individual responsibilities, contributions and designs.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Madison Community Garden Design

The Fifth Street Garden - Madison, Georgia

This community garden was designed to provide opportunities for social interaction and practical learning opportunities to all members of the community. I, with the help of my classmates Soobin an, Ross Moson, and Luke Polaneczky, worked directly with the commnity and board to design an ADA accesible community Garden. Working with the Madison, GA community, we designed a garden plan that is now being constucted and installed within the community.

PROFICIENCIES

Adobe Creative Suite

ArcGIS Pro Matlab

AutoCAD InDesign

HydroCAD 3-D Model-making

Microsoft Office

Photoshop

Illustrator SketchUp

MODERN

C ONCEPTIONS

The Athens Rainforest Retreat is the single family housing landscape design. After identifying which client this landscape would be designed for, I used the design requirements given to complete a landscape plan. The design requirements specified that the single family home should be placed on a .4 acre lot located in Athens, Georgia. AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Photoshop were the digital programs used to complete the didgital renderings for this landscape design.

ATHENS RAINFOREST RETREAT

This tropical, relaxing vacation home has been designed for my dad who loves the experience of staying at each of the Walt Disney World resorts. This modern, tropical space has been modeled after the comforting experience of staying at one of their resorts. This rainforest retreat nestled in the city of Athens, Georgia provides all of the luxuries of staying in a sophisticated resort in your own private backyard .

This oasis provides a conversation pit and a fire pit suited to host groups of family and friends for the perfect summer evening. The open green spaces are great for simply relaxing in this secluded Athens rainforest; there is also a large pool and hot tub in the backyard to provide a true relaxing vacation vibe for the home. The shallow bay in the pool has chairs that are partially submerged in the water to provide a cool, relaxing experience. The outdoor kitchen is fully equipped so that you can chose which kitchen to cook in on a nice sunny day! An outdoor kitchen and bar surrounding the pool area are perfect for preparing food and drinks for a pool day or even for a night swim!

THE KOI POND PROVIDES A CALMING SPACE TO ENJOY ALL OF THE TROPICAL FOLIAGE.

There are cabanas and relaxing chairs throughout the winding paths, nestled among the nooks under the cover of shade. The koi pond provides a calming space to enjoy all of the tropical foliage in this relaxing backyard. Overall, this single family home was designed to provide the comforts seen in a sophisticated resort right in your own backyard. The image above on the right shows the view of the house and garage from the street view. This perspective accentuates the meticulous grading plan completed for this landscape design.

The perspective on the upper left of this page models the view of the backyard from the perspective of the far corner overlooking the koi pond. The plan view on page 10 includes a comprehensive grading plan, as well as a legend highlighting the intended features within my landscape design. I completed a scaled AutoCAD file that I then brought into SketchUp for scale and inclusions of architectural elements in my design. The architectural features such as the house and pool were rendered in SketchUp and further advanced in Photoshop for the more detail-oriented design aspects.

THE GRADING PLAN AND LEGEND HIGHLIGHT THE FEATURES IN THIS LANDSCAPE DESIGN SUCH AS THE POOL, OUTDOOR KITCHEN, CONVERSATION PIT, AND FIRE PIT.

MY UTOPIA: HARMONY OF THE SEA

SEMESTER 4 : RESIDENTIAL/MIXED USE DESIGN STUDIO

My idea of utopia is a space that provides equal opportunity to every citizen. The Harmony of the Sea embodies equal access to education, living space, travel, resources, jobs, experiences, and essentially every aspect of everyday life. One way that this version of utopia can be achieved is by providing one common living space that provides access to all opportunities. I would argue that the best example of utopia that currently exists is a cruise ship; although a cruise ship is a temporary vacation rather than a permanent living arrangement, cruises provide all the leisure of staying at a luxury hotel while also traveling to places all over the world. My Utopia, Harmony of the Sea, combines permanent, centralized living with leisure and travel. Everybody has their own place to live in the “city” with central access to work, schools, and opportunities for leisure such as shopping, fitness, gardening, etc. You can also travel to any city through a series of interconnected tunnels. The cruise ship “cities” are all connected by glass tunnels so that everyone can travel to any of the floating cities at will.

The interconnected floating cities provide a centralized living space with access to all the luxuries in life, providing the ideal, floating utopia: The Harmony of the Sea.

TACTILE ILLUSTRATIONS

CHECKERED SEATING RANGING IN HEIGHT FROM 12-30 INCHES

NEATLY MANICURED HEDGES; DECIDUOUS AND FLOWERING; ALTERNATING TO SHOW CHECKERED PATTERN; DESCENDING IN HEIGHT FROM ENTRANCE : 30-10 INCHES

POLYGONAL SHAPED SEATING THROUGHOUT PLAZA; HEIGHTS VARYING FROM 12-30 INCHES

SHALLOW POOL OF WATER WITH DARK BOTTOM FOR CALMING EFFECT

SMALL DECIDUOUS TREES FOR SHADE THROUGHOUT PLAZA; MEDIUM TEXTURE, ROUNDING FORM

EDINBURGH CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SEMESTER 3 : PLANTING DESIGN STUDIO

For this landscape design, the assignment was to design a new project in the style of an individualized and pre-selected Landscape Designer or Architect. After researching their design philosophy, notable projects, planting approach, designs that set them apart, their inspiration, and the experience of their own landscape, I designed a landscape after the style of Charles Jencks. This modern approach incorporated Jencks’ own design style as well as overarching goals in his life including designing cancer care center gardens.

EDINBURGH RESEARCH PLAZA

Charles Jencks is a renowned cultural theorist, landscape designer, and architectural historian. He is well known as the co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres dedicated to his late wife. As a famous landscape designer and architect, he has many famous works; some of his most notable projects include the Jupiter Artland “Cells of Life,” the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, the Crawick Multiverse, Northumberlandia, and many other highly esteemed projects and works of art.

Jencks’ approach to using plants in the landscape is a bit untraditional for a landscape designer. He really had no focus on the plants themselves and instead focused on the overall landscape. The main experience that Jencks would want you to feel as you walk through his gardens would be an enlightened conversation with the cosmos as to help understand a greater meaning in the universe.

THE LEFT SIDE OF THE PLAZA IS ACCURATELY MODELED AFTER JENCKS’ OWN WORKS WITH THE TURF, HEDGES, AND DESIGN.

THE RIGHT SIDE IS CREATIVELY DESIGNED AFTER A CANCER CELL IN HONOR OF HIS RESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTIONS.

The bright colors and shapes emulate the irregularities of a cancer cell.

This research plaza is a split between traditional yet abstarct hedges and shapes that Jencks commonly used throughout his landscape designs. The other more modern side of the plaza is in honor of Jencks’ late wife who suffered from cancer.

UGA OFFICE OF .02

This planting design was an assignment to redesign the landscape outside of the University of Georgia’s Office of Global Engagement. This ordinary building provided a unique canvas for a landscape redesign. On the left is a detailed plan including the plant types to be planted in the site. There are also four accompanying perspectives; there is a view for each season wherein the beauty of the planting design is visualized throughout the year, across many seasons. These renderings were done by hand, and a detailed AutoCAD rendering was used for the scale of the building.

SMALL EVERGREEN TREES; FINE TEXTURE, PYRAMIDAL FORM

MEDIUM EVERGREEN SHRUBS; COURSE TEXTURE, MOUNDING FORM

CRAFTED LANDSCAPES

Exploring the natural topographic forms and shapes that can be crafted after nature allowed me to explore more creatively with topographic change over the multiple sites I have analyzed.

In my first landscape architecture studio class, we were assigned to draw shapes and lineweights from an abstract nature image. These abstract shapes were eventually shaped into abstract physical models.

ON THE LEFT: SINGLE FAMILY HOUSING.

FIVE TO TEN HOUSES IN A 300’ X 300’ LOT.

MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING: 30 -40 RESIDENTIAL UNITS

In order to understand the components of urban blocks, housing typologies, density, and open space, I designed and built 3-D physical models along with digital study models of three different types of urban blocks. The first model will be a residential block consisting of five to ten single family houses. The second model with be a residential block with thirty to forty multi-family housing units. The third and final model is a mixed-use block consisting of twenty to thirty multi-family housing units and five to ten commercial units. Below are my physical models portraying the three housing typologies.

SEMESTER - UGA SCULPTURE GARDEN 03.2

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA SCULPTURE GARDEN

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As you travel to the space behind the sculpture, you are able to gallivant in a free manner towards the unique seating modeled after the sculpture. From this area, you are able to see the sculpture set up on the hill with a lovely backdrop of the ginkgo trees. Although these trees are real compared to the sculpture, their symmetry mimics the design of the sculpture itself.

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

PLANTING PALETTE

Red Leaf Chinese Fringeflower

(Loropetalum chinense rubrum ‘Burgundy’)

Mature height x width: 10’ x 10’

Evergreen shrub; Blooms early spring to late winter; Attractive fall and winter foliage

Purple Diamond Fringeflower

(Loropetalum chinense rubrum ‘Shang-hi’)

Mature height x width: 5’ x 5’

Evergreen shrub; Blooms early spring to late winter; Attractive fall and winter flowers

Lantana ‘New Gold’

(Lantana camara ‘New Gold’)

Mature height x width: 1’ x 2’

Deciduous perennial; Blooms late spring to frost; Attracts pollinators

August Beauty Gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides ‘August Beauty’)

Mature height x width: 8’ x 6’ Evergreen shrub; Blooms spring through fall; Highly fragrant

Jamur Zoysia Turfgrass

(Zoysia japonica ‘Jamur’)

Mature/mowing height: 1’ - 2’

Deciduous turfgrass; Drought tolerant; low maintenance; Deer and insect resistant

The material lining the path throughout the garden will be made of mini crushed slate chips. This material is ADA accessible and safe for lining pathways. This material can be purchased at a local sand/gravel store.

The standard raised plots throughout the garden will be 4’ x 8’ and 8 inches tall. They will be made of Southern Yellow Pine: a strong, easy to work with, inexpensive wood that can be found locally.

Glossy Abelia (Abelia grandiflora)

Mature height x width: 6’ x 5’

Semi-evergreen shrub; Blooms late spring to late fall; Lightly fragrant; attracts pollinators; Colorful fall and winter foliage

Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Snowflake’)

Mature height x width: 10’ x 10’

Deciduous shrub; Blooms late spring to late summer; Colorful fall and early winter foliage

Japanese Spiraea (Spiraea japonica ‘Limemound’)

Mature height x width: 3’ x 4’

Deciduous shrub; Blooms late spring to early summer; Colorful fall foliage

Yellow Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans ‘Flava’)

Mature height/length: 30’ Deciduous vine; Blooms throughout the summer and into the fall; Striking bloom color, attracts pollinators

Sweet Tea Olive (Osmanthus fragrans f. aurantiacus ‘Orange Supreme’)

Mature height x width: 15’ x 15’

Evergreen shrub; Blooms from early to late fall, Early to mid spring; Highly fragrant

Blueberry Bushes (Vaccinium spp. - choose two local cultivars)

Mature height x width: 3’ to 15’ x 3’ to 10 ft.

Deciduous shrub; Blooms from early spring to early summer; Hardy, edible fruit; attractive fall color

There will be an 8 ft. tall deer fence, as well as an 8 ft. tall wooden fence surrounding the garden. The wooden fence provides a great opportunity for the community to communicate with each other through an interactive blackboard, as well as provide a space for community artwork to be displayed.

English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Lavenite Petite’)

Mature height x width: 2’ x 2’

Perennial herb; Blooms mid to late spring; Highly aromatic foliage and flowers; Attracts pollinators

MATERIALS PALETTE