Student Work

5/4/2015

Round One of Final Presentations...

This past Thursday we gathered up all of our graphics, compiled our boards, battled the printers and pinned up our final presentation boards for our presentation to our fellow students and faculty in the department. The presentation began with a brief walk down Nichol, followed by an overview of the studio and the final deliverables of the engagement plan group and the urban design group. The engagement plan group offered a series of programmed events (which can be seen on the banner across the top of the blog) in the various open spaces along Nichol while the urban design group presented a phasing plan, a streetscape design, an open space design plan and a redesign for recreation park.

 The presentation left us with a lot of feedback and lots of improvements to make for our next presentation on May 13th. The next presentation will be for the community-both the New Brunswick neighborhood and Rutgers will be represented.

We know we have a lot of work ahead of us but we're excited to have the opportunity to share our hard work and ideas with the community. Check out what happened at our final presentation & click the link below to see more on Flickr: Go to the Flickr Photostream

4/29/2014

Preparing for our Final Presentation...

With final presentations for faculty and the community on the horizon, we sat down & had a dry-run presentation. Kicking things off with a brief presentation covering every angle of our process, the former strategic planning group will tackle the introduction to The Nichol Avenue Project.

Delving further into the final deliverable, the engagement plan will present an in-depth calendar of events as mentioned in the previous post while the urban design group will have phasing plans, proposed buildings, open space design and a proposal for a new Recreation Park. Here's a look at what we presented today, and as usual keep up with our Flickr account for even more photos: Click Here to Check Out Our Flickr!

A look at Eugene's proposal for Recreation Park; an improvement for the Nichol Avenue community.

The Sketch-Up model James is working on to show a proposed phasing plan.

The Engagement Plan group's calendar of events that integrate both campus & community in the open spaces around Nichol Avenue.

With the final work due by the end of this week, you can expect a slew of posts to keep you in the loop so stay tuned!

4/24/2014

Meet the Community Engagement Group!

The third group we'd like you to meet is the community engagement group. Made up of juniors Danny & Arturo along with senior, Areli, the community engagement group is responsible for developing a calendar of events & programming open spaces in the area to bridge the current gap between campus and community.

Up to this point the group has identified stakeholders, along with community and outreach groups along with the existing activities both within the Cook and Douglass campuses and in New Brunswick. They have also developed a list of new campus activities which are currently being organized into a community calendar of events. For the final presentation you can expect a complete calendar with fresh, new ideas of how to utilize new and existing open spaces along with illustrations of what these events will look like.

We're coming down to the final days so stay tuned for the final product!

4/22/2014

Sneak Peek...

While the bulk of our final work is well underway, here's a look at what we have prepared from the mid-term up to this point in the process:

Land use diagram of Rutgers' Cook Campus produced for the mid-term.

Stay tuned for more Student Work & the rest of the studio groups, what they're producing and how we're holding up as the final deadline quickly approaches!

4/22/2014

Meet the Urban Design Group!

Composed of undergraduate students James Cocorles, John Jacobs, Eugene Fernandez and Brian Maher as well as graduate student Xiaoxia Wang, the urban design group is responsible for many different assets of the final presentation. Elements such as streetscape design, a redesign proposal for Recreation Park, land development, massing & phasing plans as well as an open space design are all currently underway.

You can expect to see illustrative sections, a Google Sketch-Up model of the area, phasing diagrams and an entirely different approach to not only Recreation Park but open space in general along Nichol Avenue for the final presentation. Keep checking the page to learn more about each group & the work we are producing as we get closer to our final presentation!

4/17/2014

This week students in the Praxis Studio submitted a proposal to the Rutgers Strategic Plan Group. The proposal advocates for the use of open space as a catalyst to improve the interaction among all people at Rutgers and in its surrounding communities.

 

4/10/2014

Meet the Strategic Planning Team!

Now that the purpose and goals of our studio have been established for you, we figured we'd pull back the curtain and give a closer look at the teams of people currently tackling the various aspects of the project. Moving forward we have four groups & each week we'll show you just who we are and what we've learned so far & where we intend to go. We'll start by introducing you to our strategic planning team.

Made up of graduate student Jenny Kanak Burkhalter and seniors Josh Mieloch and Nate Kelly [pictured below], the strategic planning team is responsible for the final strategic plan recommendations as well as plans and graphics. The group has looked at the Rutgers Strategic Plan and identified areas relative to the project. They have also done an awesome job of proposing design initiatives that relate to the Strategic Plan.  You can expect to see proposals such as street art walks, community gardens and other community engaging activities in their final proposal in an effort to activate the open spaces & streetscape of Nichol Avenue that appeal to both students and residents of the area. 

3/14/2014

Mid-Review Work

Coming to the end of the first half of our studio, we lobbed all the material, diagrams and information that we have acquired thus far for our mid-term review. While we have certainly made some head way in our process, it was very helpful to have some fresh eyes and clear minds there to give us pointers as we move forward. Elements of the studio that were covered included the New Brunswick and Rutgers Master Plans, historical timelines, traffic circulation studies, concepts & issues diagrams, an analysis of street typologies, existing conditions and a re-cap of our case studies. This week we'll be on spring break recovering from a hectic week of mid-terms & preparing for a lucrative second half! Take a look at some of our presentations from yesterday:

Eugene and Danny presenting the New Brunswick Master Plan...

Jenny, Arturo & Josh presenting issues and concepts...

Xiaoxia presenting street typologies...

2/11/2014 

Layered Map Exercise

The second part of our mapping exercises involved building off our previous drift and measured drift maps.  We added materials, usage, and circulation maps in this step.  Some students chose to create these maps on pieces of trace paper and overlaid different levels of their analysis.  Other students experimented with demonstrating all their compiled analysis on one paper as clearly as possible.  This exercise furthered our knowledge and observations of Nichol Avenue as a site.

 Nate Kelly

 Chelsea Beisswanger

Arturo Hernandez

1/31/2014

Drift & Measured Map Exercise

A drift map is a walk along the boundary of the project site observing and taking notes of things we found important. We then made a map of our walk the depicted or observations and thoughts throughout the area. We found that although everyone traversed the same area, everyone had a different experience. After hearing everyone's experience our class has obtained a unique and deep understanding of the project site.

Scott Miller

Brian Maher

Areli Perez

Jenny Burkhalter

Arturo Hernandez

Jenny Burkhalter

Last spring, students from the Landscape Architecture department at Rutgers got together to sketch, explore and think about Nichol Avenue.

 They amassed four sketch books filled with drawings, doodles and reflections and a 13' long composite sketch on a Japanese accordion Moleskine. That work generated many questions about the street and the community (being explored now in the Praxis studio).

Here are links to some of their work. 
Work details:
http://nycsketch.blogspot.com/2013/04/nichol-avenue-project-rutgers-landscape.html

Final exhibit:
http://nycsketch.blogspot.com/2013/05/nichol-avenue-exhibit.html



View Nichols Avenue Sketch Project in a larger map