Eco -Villages

Last week in our class our professor shared with us a few videos for Eco - Villages, as I mentioned before I wrote an paper this semester about Eco Villages... Today I wanted to share with you One of the movies that we saw last week.

About the Video: "An introduction to Crystal Waters covering permaculture design, innovative housing design, intentional community living and land restoration. Crystal Waters is situated in rural south east Queensland Australia. Filmed in 2001-2002.

This video is the first of several related videos covering Crystal Waters. Please check out this playlist for all the videos featured. The bakery videos and wildlife video are well worth seeing."

Sustainable Landscape Construction

    This semester I had the opportunity to read a book named Sustainable Landscape Construction which was required for an online course that I took. The book was written by J. William Thompson and Kim Sorvig, this book is considered as a guide to green building outdoors. I used the information from the book to create and design my project for the LA Grad studio and the Landscape systems class.

    The book consists of 12 chapters, the authors discussed the defination of sustainability and the 10 main principles for sustainably. For  example they discussed how to keep the site healthy, how heal injured sits, how to respect the water and clean, how to maintain the site, and create a management plan. They also spoke about how to use the renewable energy and to know the cost of energy over time. Moreover, they spoke about how to use local materials, use native plants while designing, how pave less by using different techniques and reduce paving and many other issues. I found that this book is really useful, and it is very helpful for anyone who is trying to create a management plan or designing a site ( Large or small scale). .

Presenting our Ideas to the Community

Presenting our Ideas to the Community

We had a wonderful experience yesterday , 12 students from Mississippi State University went to City of Pelahatchie to present their work. We had the chance to meet people and speak about our drawings, concept for the 2 projects that I have posted earlier: The Muscadine Sculpture Garden, and the Research Sustainable Center... It was my third time to visit Pelahatchie, MS, and for sure it is not going to be the last one. They started decorating the city for Christmas, the city is very neat and clean... In my opinion Pelahatchie is a unique city...

Thanks goes to Prof. Taze Fulford for pushing us to do our work for the last 4 months and to create projects that we are proud of. Thanks to the Mayor of Pelahatchie who came several times to Starkville and gave us the opportunity to present our work and for hosting us. Thanks to the Alderman, and to all the People who showed up yesterday and gave us the time to speak about our ideas... It was a great experience... 

 Mayor of Pelahatchie Knox Ross

Pelahatchie at Night 

My Colleagues and our Instructor Prof. Taze Fulford

Rest in peace... G.Glenn Cook

This November we received a heart breaking news, we lost one of our great teachers, Glenn Cook. I met Professor Cook for the first time in 2013, he participated in the MSU LA Design week 2013. Prof. Cook was drawn wonderful free hand drawings. I remember that he was showing up in the studio for days while were finished our drawings to do our presentation in the design week... Our professors told us that he was a great mentor a great teacher and a great friend... Rest in Peace Prof. Cook...

Here is what Prof. Pete Melby wrote on our MSU LA Blog

Glenn Cook was from Lake Charles, Louisiana.  He studied landscape architecture at Louisiana State University where he received his degree in Landscape Architecture.  Glenn was a very strong designer and very knowledgeable about construction materials and construction detailing.  In fact, many of his design projects were featured in home and gardening magazines, including one that was featured in Southern Living Magazine and was the cover feature for that month. 

Glenn started working as a professor at Mississippi State University in 1978 when Charles Parks was the head of the Department, Bob Callaway was the head of the Landscape Contracting program, and Dean Charles Lindley was Dean of the College of Agriculture.  Glenn was respected both as a person and as a professor by Charles Parks, a lifelong friend since Glenn’s days at LSU when Charlie was the Extension Landscape Architect. 

Students enjoyed Professor Cook and the respect was mutual.  Glenn was a hands-on design professor, both explaining his evaluation of their designs, and showing alternative solutions with the soft lead pencil he always carried in his shirt pocket.  He knew most designers are visual learners and he was expert at explaining with his visuals.

Glenn is survived by his sons Steve Cook a landscape architect on the east coast, Tim, a graphic designer in Nashville, Tennessee, and his wife Margie. Landscape architecture has lost a valuable professor and a classic landscape architectural designer.  We will all miss the kind and creative person that was George Glenn Cook, FASLA.

--Pete Melby

Link: http://msulalc.blogspot.com/2014/11/in-memoriam-gglenn-cook.html

PELAHATCHIE Sustainable RESEARCH CENTER...

PELAHATCHIE Sustainable RESEARCH CENTER was my lat project for this semester... feel free to add your comments and opinions

Waterlogged... Water colors

Waterlogue, an application that transfer your images to a water colored drawings. One of our professors introduced me to this application it is amazing ... I used it for my last project to create a conceptual watercolored drawings, images, and diagrams...

Here are some of the drawings that I used for my project... I think that there will be many interesting softwares to create neat, powerful renders ...