This was a student project by Ben Kohls for Dorothee Imbert's course LARCH 5620 in Spring 2018.
The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches for 469 miles and is considered one of America's most beautiful roadways. The Parkway serves as a link between the Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Parks and is one of the most visited Parks in the country with millions of visitors every year. This project illustrates the indirect influence of the English Picturesque style on the design of the Parkway as noted in Mary E Myers article, The Line of Grace: Principles of Road Aesthetics in the Design of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The three main design principles are beauty, variety and motion. Beauty is centered around the winding roadway known as the serpentine line of grace; variety is in the diversity of vegetation, scenery, and topography; and motion unlocks the design through automobiles and bikes. The plywood base shows a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway going through the mountainous terrain from mile markers 41 to 52 at a scale of 1 inch equals 1000 feet. The transparent glass sheets are showing section layers highlighting the three design principles and how they work in unison with one another. - Ben Kohls
