Recent drawings and projects

Here are some recent drawings and projects from 2008. (Click on image to enlarge.)
This is a master plan that the Andrews University chapter of Students for the New Urbanism came up with at a charrette in October. There is a small square at the entry to the development where there are live work/units and 5 townhouses. There are 10 small single family units and 3 treehouse units. The through road connects to an existing neighborhood to the north. This property hopes to join with an existing 'greenway' walk of several miles. It is a half-mile walk or bikeride to a university campus.The next five drawings are from the Analytical Study Abroad tour with Andrews University School of Architecture. Above is Pienza, a small town in the Tuscan landscape of Italy. It is a walled city that reveals an ideal relationship between the city and the working landscape. As a class we walked from Pienza to the next town, San Quirico d'Orcia. We stopped to draw and watercolor the beautiful landscape.This is a study and comparison of two piazzas in Rome: Piazza de Renzi, a small mostly residential piazza; and Piazza san Maria in Trastevere, which is a larger more public space. This is a perspectival study of framed views found at the Paris Opera House.A canal study (another form of a street) in Brugge, Belgium.
These are drawings in Sundborn, Sweden, the home of painter Karl Larsson. There is a special relationship here again between the town and country. In Sundborn as well as in Pienza, the church is the hinge that connects the two. It is on axis with the road from town, and on axis for one arriving by water.

These three watercolor renderings are from a week ago: Foreground Building Studio. It is a proposal for a Chicago Field House in Welles Park, in the Lincoln Square Neighborhood. It would house a cafe, gallery, meeting hall, and natatorium.
The parti (see site plan at top right) is that the building is a backdrop for activities along N. Lincoln Avenue and the ball fields. It is an urban building that terminates a street and acts to connect to the rest of the park. The terrace along the street offers a place to eat, to sit, to rent bicycles, and to watch the baseball game.
Lastly, this is an image from Urban Studies--one of my favorite classes--with Professor Andrew von Maur. There are four diagrams studying the figure-ground, street network, public spaces, and civic buildings in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It also shows examples of background buildings and a foreground building.