Rhyme Paysage

This semes­ter, when cir­cum­stances per­mit­ted, I worked with our sec­ond-year grad­u­ate stu­dents again on apply­ing game­like sys­tems to vacant lots in St. Louis.

While each stu­dent end­ed on an indi­vid­ual study, our last activ­i­ty before the veil of chaos descend­ed was a group effort from all nine of us. Work­ing on the 20^th Street exit ramp from Route 40, just north of the so-called St. Louis Sum­mit, we imag­ined an open space instead of the soc­cer sta­di­um which is cur­rent­ly (maybe?) slat­ed to be built there. Each stu­dent con­tributed to a com­mon plant palette and ros­ter of built ele­ments, and we all playtest­ed ways to com­bine those ele­ments in a way that was sur­pris­ing, fresh, and some­what sensible. 

Work­ing with some 16-bit tem­plate images which were more balky than they should have been, we man­aged to make an over­whelm­ing – maybe gar­bled? – land­scape with­out any clear author but with some actu­al spaces peer­ing out of the madness.