From October 14th to October 19th, I once more had the pleasure to spend time in Tromsø.
To the busy ones : a visual résumé in six posts on the tumblr : ett, to, tre, fire, fem, seks.
Les than a week, but a whole new experience ! Invited to teach an introduction on phytoremediation in a subarctic climat context to a first year master class in landscape architecture in Tromsø, I then tutored them for the workshop.
Landed on tuesday night, I started on wednesday morning with the review of the former week assignment. It was necessary for me to sit for this presentation, as it was a good way to get a first impression of the students. Then, talks went on the students’ personal works ; it was interesting to get to see where they are in terms of defining the stakes, meeting local actors, finding information, etc. Wednesday afternoon began with my course on phytoremediation (or phytoremeditasjon in Norwegian), followed by Kristian N.’s course on plants adapted to the arctic climate. We ended the day with the presentation of the assignement for this two days workshop to the students.
Challenges with those seven students were multiple. All having different academic backgrounds, their knowledge regarding landscape architecture and design is, for most, only beginning to grow. They entered this master with bachelors, ranging from geography to landscape architecture, architecture, environment studies, anthropology and even former jobs in horticulture for some. This workshop was to be their first real design work – the first group had an architect bachelor and the second group a landscape architect bachelor, which helped balancing space design knowledge. Setting the level of the assignment may have been the greatest challenge when preparing this workshop. We expected them to present a master plan, one cross section, two perspectives, and a planting plan to illustrate more in detail how the design was responding accordingly to the phytoremediation demand. A prior analysis work was to be lead on site and then in class, with the help of the tutors. Two sites were chosen : an urban parking lot which has only slight pollution issues and a ship yard area that is literaly filled with pollutant compounds, from arsenic to oil derived products.
Thursday morning, I went on the parking lot with the second group, to get an idea of their space analysing capacities. I rarely intervened, letting them leading the walk through the site and exploring the stakes on such a space. I was then available in the studios for questions, letting them organize their work strategy, awaiting for Marianne Lucie S. She is an architect and landscape architect, currently teaching in Tromsø and had kindly agreed to help me with the students during the afternoon. Right after lunch, students presented their first leads. Having a tight schedule and to ensure a certain pace in their work, we asked them to present a first draft of their program for the site with a plant palette for 16:30. Their work was good and generous, with many ideas and thinking « out of the box ». To spice things up, Marianne and I had decided to make the final presentation a hand-made-only work, inviting each of the students to try and produce a perspective of their own, depicting the atmosphere of their project.
The following morning, friday, a slight pressure could be felt, building up as models, sections and other graphic works were being completed. Beginning of the afternoon, everyone gathered to listen to the presentations of the two groups, with a full jury composed by Anita, Marianne, Kristian and myself – plus an extra observer from the art academy which provided a good feedback on the students work (thank you Hedvig!). It always is good to get the point of view of someone not familiarized with the issues of landscape architecture and cie, in order to appreciate the quality of the communication for a given work. The overall quality was good, and coming from students with such diverse backgrounds it was really interesting to see how these backgrounds where blending into design proposals, giving a greater depth to their works. Of course, common (small) errors were observable : scale misconceptions, graphic imprecision when compared to related speech of the student… all landscape architects have been there, there is enough time to improve and plenty of spaces to exercise one’s skills. One critical critic (no pun intended) to be highlighted : what you don’t show on board, you don’t get to talk about it. If a client/professor doesn’t see it on paper, words made out of thin air are no use to defend a design, however good it might be.
It was a terrific first experience of teaching for me, two months shy from finishing my last internship (although already being a graduate student). A thousand thanks Anita for the invitation ! Thanks Kristian for your expertise on plants – and the nice tour of the northernmost botanical garden in the world ! Thank you Marianne for the insights, relevant thoughts and help with the students.
It’s been a blast and I got to realize that research and teaching at the university is definitely a path I’d like to walk down. Now on to the PhD then !
Les bocaux d'arnaud 