Days 3 and 4

After finishing up their work on the first design assignment, Kelly and I took the students back to the Cut to introduce the project. All of the students have previously completed some brief work on the cut and have some experience with the site, which is going to greatly assist them this semester.

This time the students saw the Cut in a barren state. The Cut has been been cleaned and graded per the recent work by CSX to take up all of the abandoned track and railroad ties. In the the process they quickly regraded and scraped the site, clearing away all vegetation. We had a few minutes to talk about the path we choose to get to the Cut and what we thought of our experience as we approached our project site.

We spent the next day at Railroad Park touring the project with the Executive Director, Camille, to get a hands on tour of design application. Camille shared her issues and opportunities that have been discovered during the past year with the designers' material selections, the details of how those objects connect, practical relationships about how the park is used by the public and material selections for those designed spaces. It was an eye opening tour to connect design choices with end users and their associated costs. We ended the day with assigning the next leg of analysis maps the students need to quickly conquer.


This was followed  with a pin up and review of the maps and data collection the following day. The students have made a great start and will be refining their analysis and interpretation of the data throughout their work this semester.


Day 5 gives the students an opportunity to show Kelly and I their first impressions and initial concepts of ideas for the semester leading to Tuesday's first jury with stakeholders.