Arlington Burial Ground - Final Presentation

My design showing animation. The site is coming to life with site and sound

A closer look....

Blue fescue is at the start being stiff and more ridgid. Chasmanthium is in the second section, with more movement, sound and hight. The peak point is with the Miscanthus being the tallest and providing the most movement and noise.

Materials used were grass, wood decking and gravel/stones. The different materials enhance the noise and focus your senses on the life around you rather than the activity on the street.

A section through the site showing the increase in height of the grasses, as well as the bottoms of the steams. More turbulance is added to each section, increasing the water movement and noise.

Three sections showing each space, A B and C. A small seating area and water fountain is added to the peak point C. This is the area with the most life and where I want the people to stop and spend time.

Cemetery Video and Readings - Julie Bergeron

I thought the Cemetery Club was really neat. I think that a lot of elderly people need companionship and are sometimes lonely, especially ones that have lost a loved one. It is probably comforting to some to go to the cemetery to visit the deceased. Having a group to get together with each week at a place where they already find comfort, seems to be a great idea. Also the quietness and peaceful atmosphere must be relaxing to them. I know that my own grandmother likes to visit the cemetery often, but also enjoys having something to look forward to (for example, coming to visit us) So having that meeting every weekend would give a person something to enjoy and look forward too.

The Vegetal Setting of Death was interesting to me. I am taking a history class now but there were many things in this article that I had not read about before.
Jean, I also worked in a flower shop for many years and you are right, a lot of our expensive work was done for funerals .The history of the wreaths were something I had not thought much about before. The wreath made for President Carnot must have been impressive. I would love to have seen this "Triumph of floral art"!
Regarding the trees in cemeteries, I found it pretty ironic that they thought trees decreased the circulation of air when they do just the opposite. There was one thing I didn't understand. The Bishop of Rennes ordered all the trees to be removed because " the people of the fields make evil use of them" I didn't understand this. Was that referring to the parishioners spending their time in purgatory "in the branches of the beautiful cemetery yew trees"?
Overall I found the reading interesting but really enjoyed the Cemetery Club the most.

T Duffy Arlington Project Final

The main design, InTErTwInE

A couple of perspectives on my design idea.

I have said this on a few others, I should have made the plan small and the detail larger scale. And my flags would be wrapped around each other....maybe that too is intertwine.

These should have been on the same page as the other cross sections.

This didn't really tie into the Intertwine theme, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

I should have layered the topo on the plan, and done the cross for the whole section

Somehow I lost the image of the big tree closer, but the idea was that with the sun angle, all plants would receive appropriate lighting.

Same as the other one, I should have made the plan smaller and the cross and detail larger scale

I should have layered the Existing & Proposed 

Long Cross Section. I should have made the plan smaller and the section in a larger scale

Inspirations

A quick perspective of the main element of the design

The Vegetal Setting of Death/Cemetery Club

The reading on use of vegetation for funeray work was interesting to me because I used to work as a floral designer and of course the bread and butter of the floral industry is funerals. Weddings are big too but florist shops do not make as much money on weddings as a good funeral because the types of flowers used for weddiing work are far more expensive than usually the types used for funerals. As in the article "trees and shrubs" become dedicated to death and in floral work branches and copious amounts of foliage branches are a cornerstone of any arrangement. Also, dish gardens (which are a small basket with three or more small plants inside) are popular for memorials that can be kept growing in memorium. I can tell you that chrysanthemums and roses are still tremendously popular and offer a great variety of color as well as the symbolism of love and rememberence. It's no wonder that horticulture is heavily used in representation for death and rememberence since Romantic and Classical landscape architecture used design and particular plant choices to symbolically market themselves and to evoke strong feelings in visitors, even Olmsted picked and chose what he wanted to create feelings and mood in his designs.
The movie The Cemetery Club actually inspired me to be more creative with my Arlington project design. I was searching for a concept that would embody an appropriate useage for a sacred place and the process by which the residents around the cemetery would come together on top of that space to talk and interact, to "gestalt", provided a simple model of use I could inspirationally gleen from. The process of facing death is also interestingly explored in the movie as the participants have lost longtime companions and are in that phase of life where death is a more likely scenerio and inevitable horizen. I thought the movie was gently provocative.

Luis DaSilva - Final Circulation Design for "The Old Burying Ground" in Arlington, MA.

"Final circulation path design for the old burying ground".
The site includes a 3' wide pathway that leads throughtout
the cemetery in ramdonly directions and each path connects
to a resting area beautifully decorated with benches and a
2' high concrete curbs acompany with plants and other furtures.

Pictures of the most important cornes of the buring ground and

specific locations where will take the major design changes.

Selected materials and plants for the new construction and

design of the old cemetery.

Luis DaSilva - "The Cementary Club Video"

The cemetery club video is a very short video with a duration of only about a minute or so. However, I could still observed in the 1 minute video, how people can make a good use of the space in the cemetery for different events. For this video, I found very interesting to see this group of people - most of them in their old ages - getting together for this occasional meetings to discuss their ideas and opinions on topics such as current events, science lectures, literature and other subjects of their interest. I found even more interesting to see that this group of people would go every Saturday on summer days to the local cemetery to have this meetings. The cemetery in general, can be for many people a place where you go to morn for their past loved ones instead of been a place where you can go to have a recreational moment. A lot of people can think of the use of the cemetery for many purpose, but for this group this place was a place where they could meet their friends once a week - on a warm weather - to talk about their common interest and concerns. The old people in this video, many struggles with loneliness and the purpose of this meetings was to bring them together to share the similarities and concerns. The cemetery in this occasion, I believe it was a place of comfort for many of them in the video, simply because of the fact that the majority were almost at the end of their life and actually meeting once a week their friends at the cemetery would make them feel that they are not alone. The task every week was to bring chairs and different topics for discussion. Every meeting they would accommodate under a nice shaded tree in an open area on the cemetery. It's nice to see that we can make good use of a cemetery for different occasions as well in the same time still maintaining the respect for the dead.

class 10-27-08

T Duffy Arlington so far 3

This is the Plan I think I will go with. I think I will have time to render it.

Now on to sections and perspectives.

T Duffy Arlington so far 2

I know the colors are a little harsh at the moment, but here's what I have so far. BTW, this image wouldn't load as a jpeg, I had to make it a png.

T Duffy Arlington so far

T. Duffy Work Arlington Project Week 5.2

I have felt that I was limiting myself to the property lines of the site, when in fact this site is part of a larger landscape, that of the Arlington Civic Block. I did these quick birdseyes to see what else was there and how did it relate. What I discovered is that while the buildings are basically rectangular, the landscape has many circles and curves. This spoke to me, bringing together my vision of intertwining (my model was that of a wreath with the elements intertwined.

Luis DaSilva - Analysis, Concept And Design of Arlington Old Burying Ground

Concept - Julie Bergeron