LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS MAKE TREES

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University of Arkansas Landscape Architecture students consulted a venerable source this semester for advice on a design project involving trees — Mother Nature.

Laurie Fields, UA assistant professor in Landscape Architecture, built the design project for third-year students to build what she and her students call "shade structures."

Before they could actually construct them, however, she said they needed to understand the way trees "grow up and out."

"The specific tree was less important," says Fran Beatty, department head of Landscape Architecture. "What was important was that the students were going to nature to be inspired and to interpret a form."

After they sketched the trees, they created abstractions, and from their abstractions, they reinterpreted each tree's form by constructing six- to eight-inch models.

David Carlton, supervisor of the Workshop in Vol Walker Hall, trained the students in woodworking and critiqued their models on "interpretation of a tree and pragmatics of constructional integrity," Beatty said.

Fields described Carlton as "an excellent critic," particularly during the model stage.

After Carlton critiqued the models with Beatty, the class of 18 voted on six models that they would construct full scale. In teams of three, they transformed tiny models into 10- to 12-feet wooden structures, which are now aligned along the balcony of Memorial Hall on Maple Street.

Some of these shade structures have wood canopies, and others have plants hanging from their "limbs," and Fields said if she has any say in the matter, they will remain on the balcony for a long time. Fields said she is considering adorning them with Christmas lights now that her semester has ended, and she is rifling through her stack of student questionnaires, which she wrote to elicit student feedback.

One student, Megan Dale from Conway, said that her favorite part about the project was "sanding and the nail gun." Dale, along with Laura Rogers and Jim Morgan, both of Fayetteville, constructed the shade structure with hanging baskets.

"I learned it is very important to measure twice and cut once," Morgan said.

Scott Robinson of Ft. Smith said, "Our designs are one thing on paper or in our minds, but they are so cool when actually done to full scale."

Fields said there were a number of skills students took away from this project, and she wants the students to use power tools, lumber and fasteners to learn how to translate their ideas into three dimensions.

"They learned all kinds of things about design, about construction, about how hard it is to build, about how things change and about how to work together," Fields said. "We have a tendency in landscape architecture to design on paper more than we should."

Fields came to the U of A in the fall of 2000 from Washington, D.C., and she has taught at George Washington University, Morgan University in Maryland, the Rhode Island School of Design and Cornell University. She said her background is in fine arts and graphic design first, and landscape architecture is a second career.

She has worked in a number of firms including DCA Landscapes Architects in Washington, D.C., where she says one of her most unique projects was designing a restaurant with a tropical theme.

"We actually brought in palm trees from Florida and had to move them before the first frost," Fields said.

Likewise, her students learned the hardships of hands-on practice.