HS 401 Projects

Service Learning and Community Engagement with the North Carolina Association of Physician Assistants (NCAPA) Veteran’s Memorial Garden: Impacts of the HS 401 Landscape Design                                                                          HS401 Spring 2016

There are many ways design faculty implement community engagement. There is little evaluation about the different ways these efforts may impact student learning or the community satisfaction.  Julieta Trevino Sherk has incorporated community-based service learning in her landscape design construction studio for the past 7 years. In order to better understand the impact that service learning/community engaged teaching strategies, the students and the communities’ impressions are being assessed relative to the process and the products from the HS-401 Landscape Design course studio projects. The goal of the study is to validate teaching strategies in order to improve the process and outcomes of the implementation of service learning/community engagement and eventually, to share lessons learned.

Methodology

Students develop purposeful stakeholder design games using Henry Sanoff Engagement Methodologies. Following are some example of activities students designed to focus their scope of design work with the community input.Wish Poem allows free flowing ideas from all members of the room to be brought to the attention.  Design Image takes input and use it to design landscapes that more closely represent the participant’s wishes.  Descriptive Words to discern specific opinions about aesthetics and types of landscape elements

Discussion

Students evaluated participatory group activities and developed a hierarchy of the community’s responses as seen in the following objectives:

• Create remembrance wall and path or art piece structure with the most important meaning as honor, followed by courage commitment, and sacrifice.
• Accommodate gathering for memorial garden with the primary use of celebration for large events, and small events
• Incorporate landscape elements including, in order: Remembrance Wall, an Accessible Path, Flowering Plants, Recognition Plaques, Benches and Flag Pole
• Stakeholders voiced a preference for the use of a reflective material and of brick on the memorial
• Students discerned a stakeholder preference for simple seat walls with low maintenance plantings and simple lighting

Students presented the results to the community along with their design ideas including construction documents and cost predictions.

Conclusions

Community workshops enriched students’ connection to the local people as they experienced hands-on applications of skills introduced in the course.  The community plays a role in the teaching of the students, and in turn receive ideas and information that they can use to make their project a reality.

Comments from Stakeholders:

“The students did a terrific job listening to our ideas and wish list items and incorporated them into their designs with their own individual creativity”

“It was great to see the design proposals and cost estimates, and to have each student present their ideas. I could really see us having an excellent memorial here at the center, and I was able to see all of the ideas and thoughts that were discussed at the earlier meeting.”

Before the end of the course, with the help of the students’ design ideas and graphics, the stakeholders are already more than halfway to their reaching their financial goal.

The Carolina Campus Community Garden Project    HS401 Spring 2016

NC State professor Julieta Sherk started working with Lorch years ago on designing the solar greenhouse as a way to provide Wolfpack students with a hands-on opportunity while that fostering fosters a sense of the larger sense of community spanning the campuses.  “I like to bring my students out to do design-build-work so we are here to do just that,” Sherk said. “We’ve done community service projects all over the state, and we’re delighted to have a chance to give a little help here.”  During a recent week, NC State students in Sherk’s Construction Studio course were on Carolina soil to pitch in: moving gravel into place around the newly built solar greenhouse and to uproot then replant/relocate a fig tree for better drainage to allow for the grading of the future accessible path to the greenhouse.

The NCSU Horticultural Science, Forced Bulb Garden at the NCMA Art-in-Bloom Event Project    HS401 Spring 2016

Beautiful, well-designed landscapes have the power to elevate a planting design to the level of art.  This was the case at the “Art in Bloom” exhibition at the NC Museum of Art from April 7th to the 10th.  An exceptional garden was created by Julieta Trevino Sherk, PLA and her NCSU Horticultural Science landscape design classes.  They worked alongside volunteers and professionals from Myatt Landscape Concepts with careful guidance from Dr. August De Hertogh, an NCSU Emeritus Professor, and one of the world’s leading experts in flower bulb physiology.  Over a 7-month period they forced 2,000 Dutch daffodils and 400 donated Allium bulbs, using coolers and greenhouses to precisely control temperatures required for bulbs to be in flower at the specific time of the exhibit.  The flowering bulbs were planted in the bed that surrounds Henry Moore’s “Spindle Piece” sculpture, located between the NC Museum of Art’s old and new buildings.  For a brief moment in time, the garden, a ‘Matisse’ cut-out-inspired shape, was a exploration in contrast, color and texture.   The garden proved to be a horticultural science achievement for which people and technology aligned to make it an ephemeral reality in design excellence.  Although in place for only a week, the undulating five-petaled flower-like design of golden to white twinkling daffodils surrounding the dancing purple alliums was glorious.  Its impact was confirmed by the thousands of photographs taken by visitors.  In addition, local artists delighted in using the garden as a subject for their paintings and brides chose to have portraits made with the garden as a backdrop.  The project was the result of an extraordinary community effort, which made a transformational moment in the landscape.  Passion for horticulture and beauty was at the core of this technically complicated expression of art; a gift to the community representing the goodness in life.

The Kinston Streetscape Renovation Project    HS401 Spring 2014Community engaged service learning project was conducted by the HS401 construction landscape design studio. Kinston is located in Lenoir County along the Neuse River and suffered devastating floods during hurricanes Fran and Floyd.  The students worked with the City of Kinston planners, City Council members, and the African–American and historically marginalized community between downtown Kinston and the Neuse River. Nearly 20 years after the floods, Kinston and Lincoln City are still struggling to recover—physically, economically, and in some cases, emotionally—from the devastation.  The studio convened workshops to collaboratively identify appropriate design interventions. Then, with input from stakeholders, students produced responsive designs with construction documents, and cost predictions for the proposed interventions. A graduate student, who worked on the project is taking the information and adding to it to develop his MLA project, and is presenting an abstract of this work at the Association for Community Design Conference.  A donation of $500 was gifted to the class for their efforts.

The Wolf Plaza/Free Expression Tunnel Plantings Project     HS401 Spring 2014

Landscape was designed and built in collaboration with the NCSU Grounds Management and Landscape Construction Services (GMLCS) office in the Facilities division. The project included the design develop and construction of the ‘signature’ landscape for Wolf Plaza and its immediate surroundings.  Wolf Plaza was in need of renovation, and several challenges with the site conditions and culture needed to be addressed.  The existing plants were failing, possibly due poor soil conditions and the effects of heat from underground steam pipes.  The landscape around an existing large oak appeared unfinished and ‘left–over’.  The plantings on the slope along the ramp from the tunnel were in need of renovation, and the general area was not fostering social interaction.  There were also activities like skateboarding and hammock use in the vicinity that could be observed, recorded and addressed.  Students developed designs, construction documents and cost predictions that responded to these issues, using their site analysis and synthesis.  They presented their work to stakeholders and funders, developed the final designs taking their input into account.  Students built the design, which consisted primarily of developing appropriate soil profiles and choosing, procuring, and installing boulders and plantings.

The Children’s Garden and a Kitchen Garden at the Elizabethan Gardens, in Manteo, NC    HS401 Spring 2013

The gardens are situated on ten acres in Manteo, North Carolina. Many public gardens have been successful in both expanding their membership base and drawing in tourists by including a children’s garden. As such, the HS 401 studio in the Horticultural Science Department at North Carolina State University partnered with the Elizabethan Gardens to develop a conceptual design for a new children’s garden, and a kitchen garden. The Outer Banks Community Foundation provided grant funding for the design collaboration. The NC State Horticulture Landscape Design Studio facilitated the community engaged design process and created conceptual designs. Community input was gathered during a four hour workshop held at the garden in January 2013. The students created designs for the children’s garden and kitchen garden spaces, and presented them to the Elizabethan Gardens’ management team including administrators, staff and board members. The management team identified the most desirable design program, theme and elements from the student’s conceptual designs. They then contracted with a local design firm to combine them into one plan that will be used for fundraising and a phased implementation. This project provided the major foundation for a graduate students MHS project, and one of the undergraduate students from the class was subsequently hired as an intern at the Elizabethan Garden to support the efforts of the fundraising and design development. The Elizabethan garden provided food and lodging for the students and me and all the supplies necessary for the community workshop.

HS401 Spring 2013 The Polk Hall ‘Heat Mitigation’ Garden was part of the streetscape at the corner of Polk Hall. The NCSU Grounds Management and Landscape Construction Services (GMLCS) office worked with a Horticultural Science studio to design a landscape at the southwest corner intersection of Stinson Drive and a utility access. Everything previously planted in this space failed, because of heat from underground steam pipes.  The team came up with an innovative technique that ventilated the underground heat away from the soil through an insulation and pipe system. This made it possible to create a green, artful sense of place at this very visible and active corner. Boulders were used to strategically raise grade to allow for proper planting soil depth.  The design features an undulating green wall and plantings that conveyed the artful idea of motion. Fortuitously, one of the boulders placed at the edge of the seat wall “turned itself” as it settled to expose the heart–shaped end, and the team jestingly coined the planting, the ‘love’ garden.  A student form this class was hired by the University to work at the GMLCS office.

HS401 Fall 2011 Wilder Arboretum in Knightdale, NC will be located at a city park and be a place where trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are cultivated for scientific and educational purposes. After meeting with the Wilder family and Town representatives, students designed concepts for the Wilder Arboretum Master Plan that promote a better quality of life in Knightdale by seeking, through education, to sustain public gardens as a valued cultural resource in the community, and region. As a place of beauty in a rapidly expanding suburban area, the Wilder Arboretum shall strive to become a satellite center of horticultural education to its larger sister, JC Raulston Arboretum.  One of the students in the course has been working with the recreation department to do design development drawings for the construction of the project.  I and one of the students in the class have continued to serve as a consultant to support the coordination of the construction of the arboretum.

HS401 Fall 2011 In the Research Triangle Park Greenway Beautification Project Students collaborated with the Research Triangle Park Association and Greenways Inc. to design and build landscapes that enhanced the access for bikes and pedestrians that link people to their destinations in the research triangle park. They took into consideration safety, accessibility and recreation on the greenways.  They provided proposals that allow people to become more active and therefore healthier.  Their proposals addressed the plantings for the new bridge at Kit Creek along the RTP greenway.  They focused on designing an educational experience which raised ecological awareness and created a resting spot at the reservoir dam.  The students built the landscape in collaboration with Myatt Landscape Concepts, our industry partner.

HS401Spring 2011 City of Oxford Downtown Streetscape and Open Space Master Plan. Landscape Design studio collaborated with Oxford Economic Development Corporation to support their efforts to renovate and brand the historic downtown core. The stakeholders will use this master plan presentation to fund raise and direct their urban development. A donation of $1,000 was gifted to the class for their efforts.

HS401 Spring 2010 Fairmont United Methodist Church Labyrinth Garden, Raleigh, NC. Students collaborated with church leaders to develop designs and programs that focused on inviting the surrounding community to the church landscapes while accommodating the church needs.  Students produced construction documents for a seating wall and a ‘grand entrance’ arbor that helped to welcome neighbors. Designs included spaces for many or a few to gather including a flagstone picnic patio near playground, secluded seating, a swing provide a general gathering space for receptions, hot dog dinners, and vacation bible school. A labyrinth of flag stone stones and moss doubled as a “floor” for general gathering space keeping space open for the children to run and play. Additional plantings were proposed to define and bring in more diverse plants.  Consequently, the labyrinth and associated arbor were built by the church.

HS401 Spring 2010 Neighbor to Neighbor entrance planting, in Raleigh NC was a planting design for a faith–based community center. The entrance planting for an adaptive reuse of their warehouse into a recreation center provides a beautiful place for disadvantaged children to recreate, which supports N2N mission of appreciating ethnic and cultural diversity and emphasizing human dignity and equality.  Students experienced service learning, and one student from the class volunteered to implement the design.