Topographic Form


Spring 2020, Spring 2021
1st year studio, coordinated by Rennie Tang and Nina Briggs
Landscape Architecture Department
College of Enviromental Design
Cal Poly Pomona, CA
https://env.cpp.edu/la/la





LA1121L is the second course within the lower division design sequence. This studio focuses
on the generation of topographic form using a variety of different modeling techniques and
materials. Using an iterative process, we observe and record patterns in the landscape, then
investigate how to translate these patterns into physical form. Investigations emphasize
the generation of 2D and 3D form through spatial operations that are controlled by a
combination of digital and analog tools. Abstract topographic constructs serve as an
introduction to landform, how it guides water flow and how it can be manipulated to create
strong visual, performative, and experiential effects.

“The land we inhabit is an accumulation of past events we can make visible by means of landscape
architecture… It assumes that we think of the discipline of landscape architecture as involving
not only the planting of certain forms of flora or the shaping of geography toward scenic ends
but also the acts of digging, naming, articulating, and otherwise clarifying what already exists.”
– Aaron Betsky -