This was a student project by Elizabeth Lagedrost for Jane Amidon's LARCH 644 course, Spring 2007. The original site is understood as a series of layers that vary in their stability and permanence. Design layers are added to the site, and they become stitched together with elements of permanent infrastructure. Thus stability is achieved through these elements of permanence, while customization and flux of program occur around these elements in varying grades of permanence. The concept of palimpsest defines the many layers of the site and their varying degrees of stability and permanence. The layers of the site and the design are reinforced reminders of how the site has changed and the customizable approach to program. Additionally, layers serve as memory of the site's past and the changing nature of the design over time. The final layer to the site is one of experiential phenomena. This becomes the seductive element of the design, a return to the picturesque beauty and experience of landscapes, while at the same time serving as a productive environment. This experiential human centered quality is reminiscent of the picturesque landscapes; the heightened aesthetic influence of nature and ones experience with and within it. This phenomenon is extended upon to new degrees due to the scale of time and the flexibility of site program. Thus, the experience can change by the moment, hour or over years. Intensity of experience also changes with time and within program ultimately representing the combination of productive and seductive. Intensity engages both the experiential quality of the site as well as its activity and productive nature. Thus, this contemporary picturesque is one, which goes beyond a framing of nature and is an immerse experience of moments of activity and change. The final design then creates a new 'nature'; one that emerges out of the picturesque and combines beauty, flux and productivity into one landscape.- Elizabeth Lagedrost Keywords: student work, KSA, drawings and plans.
