Landscape Architecture education is as much about learning how to think as it is about learning how to design. Academic studio work provides the freedom to explore ideas without immediately being constrained by convention—sketching freely, testing relationships, challenging assumptions, and allowing a concept to evolve through the design process.
This project was developed as an entry for a national competition to create a children’s garden. The design began with loose sketches and exploratory studies, where ideas of movement, geometry, play, nature, and discovery could develop freely. Those early concepts were gradually organized into defined spaces and experiences, then refined through successive stages of design development before being brought together in the final rendered master plan.
The garden was conceived as a multidimensional environment where children could experience art, performance, contemplation, physical activity, and nature within a unified landscape. Circles, curvilinear forms, overlapping structures, and a network of pathways establish a playful geometry while connecting a diverse series of outdoor experiences.
More important than the final plan, however, was the process of arriving there. Moving from an intuitive sketch to a resolved design teaches the fundamental principles of exploring broadly, establishing a strong concept, testing spatial relationships, refining the details, and ultimately communicating an idea clearly.
Those principles continue to provide the foundation for how I approach design today.
