This is an experiment in design typology inspired by Guy Debord’s Theory of the Dérive. The site is a proposed Rail-with-Trail transecting Champaign-Urbana. Four representative typologies of design result from traversing the 6-mile-long site in a dérive, an unplanned ‘drift’ across an area looking for its natural ebbs and flows. They reflect intensity and frequency of expected developments as predicted by land use adjacent to the trail.
The North End Trail Master Plan
This community open space in Urbana, Illinois dismantles the population binary existing in college town America between ephemeral academic residents and permanent locals. It mixes these populations through its dual functions as a downtown hub with open programming, and as a productive landscape for individuals and restaurants.
Designing the Boneyard as a Boundary
Concept models
This is a response to Life Cycle of the Lilliputians, shown in the Diorama section, using the design language of landscape architecture to create land art anticipating the ‘future of nature.’ Taking inspiration from Gongshi (scholar’s rocks) and Isamu Noguchi’s stoneworks, architectural salvage found throughout the woods is reworked into scenic forms, pushing visitors to interact with the ‘non-natural’ refuse throughout the site as though it were geological.
Busey Woods Advancements
This is an entirely hand-drafted proposal for redeveloping an underutilized campus courtyard into a ‘headwaters,’ linking the College of Fine and Applied Arts administrative offices, adjacent to it, to the rest of the nearby College buildings. Accordingly, riverine forms inspire a flowing design for the space.