Karl Kullmann
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  • Contact
  • Home
  • BIO
  • PUBLICATIONS
    • Peer Reviewed Articles >
      • Landscape of Things
      • Design with (Human) Nature
      • Reconceptualizing Suburban Terracing
      • The Drone's Eye
      • Dis/orientation Machines
      • Mirage of the Metropolis
      • The Garden of Entangled Paths
      • Topographic Urban Innovations
      • Concave Worlds, Artificial Horizons
      • Disciplinary Convergence
      • The Usefulness of Uselessness
      • Hyper-Realism / Loose-Reality
      • Emergence of Suburban Terracing
      • Red Loops / Green Links
      • Topographically Sensitive Urbanism
      • Design for Decline
      • Green Networks
      • De/framed Visions
      • Thin Parks / Thick Edges
    • Professional Articles >
      • Things that Matter
      • The Shape of Things
      • Aerial Reconnaissance
      • Fields of Decline
      • Fluid Geographies
      • High Fidelity
      • Hong Kong, Grounded
      • Design Liquidity
      • Satellites' Progeny
      • Route Fittko
      • Ecologies of Spectacle
      • Grounding Urbanism
      • Garden of Resistance
      • De/framed Gardens
      • Leaping Bridges, Forking Paths
      • The Paradox of Place
      • Is Landscape...? Book Review
    • Book Chapters >
      • Cultivating the City
      • Aerial Visions / Ground Control
  • PRAXIS
    • Public Gardens >
      • The Garden of the Forking Paths
      • Imprint Garden
    • Urban Parks >
      • Fremantle Esplanade
      • Park Rabet Leipzig
      • Centennial Park Sydney
      • Father Collins Park Dublin
    • Urban Design >
      • Kings Square Fremantle
      • Bahnhofsvorplatz Wiesbaden
      • Claremont Oval Perth
      • Fremantle Entry Strategy
    • Linear Parks >
      • Green Line Toronto
      • Rails to Kale San Francisco Bay
      • Emscher River Ruhrgebiet
      • Grünzug Leinefelde
    • Architectural Landscapes >
      • White Lakes Baldivis
      • The Peninsula Perth
      • CBD Courts Perth
      • Freiheit Zentrum Bern
      • Bavaria Hamburg
      • Red Bluff Quobba Station
    • Memorials >
      • Reconciliation Place Canberra
      • Gallipoli Peace Park
    • Speculative Infrastructures >
      • The Living Wall Esperance
      • The Galehouse Fremantle
      • The Darkhouse Cockatoo Island
      • Primate Enclosure Kings Park
    • Datascapes >
      • Urban Growth Scenarios 2050 Perth
      • Mapping Perth Metropolitan area
  • Teaching
    • Design Theses
    • Urban Design Studio
    • Project Design Studio 3
    • Project Design Studio 2
    • Project Design Studio 1
    • Case Study Studio
    • Ecological Design Studio
    • Suburban Studio
    • Detail Studio
    • Rural Studio
    • Bioregional Studio
    • Foundation Studio
    • Digital Visualization Course
    • Ground Up Journal
  • Contact
Project Design Studio 2
Other Landscapes:  Albany Bulb, San Francisco Bay Area / Surfridge, Los Angeles
Other Landscapes
Through two projects, this studio explored themes of otherness in landscape – that is, landscapes that lie outside of normal codified use through exclusion, abandonment, appropriation, or subversion.  Implicit is the idea that unsanctioned examples of successfully appropriated ‘other’ spaces appear to suggest alternative conceptions for reengaging public space.  In both projects the studio considered the value and limits of adaptation and reuse, versus reconfiguration and renewal.
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Myra Messner
Exploring the role of design at Albany Bulb wasteland
Over four decades, the Albany Bulb metamorphosed from a dumpsite to an exotic thicket harboring a clandestine community.  Since the first and second forced decampments of this spontaneous society, the site has endured as a living ruin that continues to inspire the explorative impulses of visitors.  Today, residual structures and decaying scrap-sculptures represent the tangible face of the site and its heterotopic past.  However, as these artifacts disintegrate, a site that was defined by continual transformation, cultivation and creativity since emerging from the Bay half a century ago enters a new phase of stasis.  Although the Bulb has never been more accessible and inclusive as a public space, it now risks losing its ‘edge’ through steady decline into normalization.
 
Students explored the potential role (and limitations) for design in adding a new layer to the Bulb.  Although it may take many forms, the objective of landscape design in this context is to transition the site into a new phase whilst simultaneously upholding the ‘open’ ambiguous wasteland (or terrain vague) characteristics that have come to define the Bulb.  This requires negotiating a potentially fraught condition, whereby the agency of design risks codifying and smothering the un-planned landscape nuances that permeate the experience of the Bulb in the first place.
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Myra Messner
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Yiping Lu
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Yiping Lu
Unlocking the Surfridge deconstructed coastal suburb
Once an opulent 1920s beachside estate, Surfridge was demolished under eminent domain in the 1960s as the jet age expanded to its doorstep.  Wedged between LAX and the coast, the site exists today as a residual buffer zone fenced off from public access.  A self-sown coastal ecology fills the former parcels that remain delineated by the disintegrating suburban street layout.  Designated as a butterfly sanctuary and undergoing piecemeal ecological rehabilitation, the official outlook for Surfridge remains off limits and invisible to the grounded public.  Indeed, the site remains most visible from airliners on final approach to LAX.

Students challenged the official future of the Surfridge site as an off-limits buffer to LAX.  Surprisingly, Los Angeles has one the highest average urban densities in the US.  In this context, a 340-acre urban site suggests cultural and natural potential, even where it is subjugated by the landing gear of jumbo jets.
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Lauren Bergenholtz
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Lauren Bergenholtz
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Jason Prado
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Jason Prado
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Myra Messner
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Myra Messner
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Myra Messner