Our urban environments share strong similarities with the natural world, but they are often overlooked. There are members of our society, however, that look upon our cement playgrounds with a different eye than that which is normally accepted. Skateboarders see architecture, color, space and texture in a way that promotes full interaction. Their surroundings become living entities in which to interact and learn. The ideas presented in this paper are enforced with personally developed illustrations, as well as photographs of urban environments and the natural world. It is a reflective essay, one that pulls from my personal accounts and ideas of the urban landscape.
There are a number of instances in the urban environment where one might happen across a direct relationship between nature and industrialization. This piece describes and visually portrays those instances. There is a major difference between this work fr
The image entitled "flowering around" encapsulates the idea of systems set in place in the urban environment compared to similar systems set in place in the naturally occurring environment. The image is straightforward: a flower growing out of a piece of
Urban space, when considered from a multitude of different angles, begins to become full of life. An office building in downtown, looked at on a sunny day, takes in the environment from behind and breathes the air just as a mammal does. It does not mainta
This image is a visual portrayal of the way I see electric poles and lightpoles in a city. They seem to create their own forests, casting dramatic shadows, towering over inhabitants, providing homes for a number of different birds. They are monuments in a
This is the only image in the series that contains depictions of actual living creatures. Their gaze meets at the center, the focus, which is a striped tree growing up and into the atmosphere. Of all the imagery, Stairway To Heaven has been left up to the
The image titled “Graffiti Growth” is a mixture of symbols one might see traveling throughout a cityscape. It contains a bit more abstraction than the other images I have put together for this project. The idea of graffiti is of-ten associated with the ne
Imagery from the defense itself.
To the right hand side of my presentation, I set up a wall containing examples of my process, failed designs, color palletes, etc.