I came
I saw
I sewed

In this master thesis I have explored the different ways we can work as landscape architects.

I have used a mix of media such as embroidery, photography, model, hand drawings and technical drawings to create new landscape designs for a new housing area called Trongården. It all has been in collaboration with the engineer firm Sweco.

The purpose with the project is not to be conservative and implying that we should go back and work only analogue. It should be understood as an antipole to digitalism, and as a reminder that the values of nature and aesthetics are important for the quality of life, given that humans are living organisms and part of the

ecosystem as well.

Projectframe

The project embeds a methodological exploration as well as a historical research about the Arts and Crafts Movement. This movement was started as a critique against the industrial revolution at the time and this is comparable to the digital revolution that we are facing today. My conclusion is that the Arts and Crafts Movement’s ideas about nature and aesthetics and different working methods are still relevant today even though the progression started 120 years ago. By using embroidery I can make a drawing 3D and add texture to the drawing, closely to the texture of plants.

SITE AND ASSIGNMENT

I got the assignment from Sweco; Department of water and energy, that are working with the storm water management of a new housing area in Trongården. The storm water solution Sweco has proposed is landscape based and it means that the landscape proposal has potential to be recreational as well. Arkitema has designed the architecture of the new housing area.

Trongården is the name of the site that Sweco is working with. Trongården is a part of a bigger area called Hjortekær.

Municipality of Lyngby Taarbæk

Ortophoto of Trongården

Registration

I started the project with excursions and photo registrations of the site.

I biked to the site two different times and with several assignments. The purpose was to get the landscape identities of the site and its context under my skin, that later would lead to findings that is the foundation for my concept and design proposal.

While at the site, I was strolling or biking around out of intuition.

Back home again I used the embroidery as a notation and reimagination tool, the sewing and registration in collaboration, works to collect the experience and memory of the sight, it is a way to make the registration/understanding process physical, meaning that when I take the time to sew I also slow down the whole process of getting to know a site and its a way to work in a more conscious way. What I get out of it, other than learning, is a physical product in form of an embroidery drawing/map that

is useful later in the design process.

After an excursion I got many impressions from the site both physically and intellectually. One way to express and conclude the pressions is to use my hands by sewing, because

there are many things I know in my hands.

In that way the method is more aesthetic then computer drawing since the approach is more sensual than intellectual, and as mentioned before

aesthetics here is about using all senses in the expression.