Over the past couple of weeks, we (the Hale County Hospital team) have been working a lot closer with two of Auburn’s landscape architecture professors David Hill and Emily Knox. During “neckdown” week, David and the 1st-Year Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) students came out to our site to show us how to transplant rose bushes and prune vines. The following week, David and Emily came back to Rural Studio to do a day-long design workshop with us. Their feedback has been incredibly helpful and their presence is always enjoyable!
The first thing David Hill and the MLA students showed us was how to transplant the rose bushes in the marble planters. Because rose bushes have to be transplanted during the winter months while they are dormant, we are moving all eight of them to the front entrance of Hale County Hospital.
We also learned how to prune the Confederate Jasmine vines which have become overgrown on the trellis structure. Trimming back the vines allows the sunlight to filter through the trellis and creates more visibility into the courtyard.
This week, David Hill and Emily Knox came out to Rural Studio to spend a day with us developing design ideas and coming up with our spatial agenda. We began with a review of our presentation and spent the rest of the day charretting different schemes. David and Emily chose five “winners” for us to develop further and build in model form.
After two intense days of designing and model building, we re-presented the schemes to Emily and David over a call. We were unable to identify any clear winners or losers of the five schemes, so we will be developing all five of them further over the next few days. This go around, we will test how flexible all of the schemes are for maintenance, diagram how they would be used throughout the day and seasons, create small and large gathering spaces, and build more articulated models.
Having Emily Knox and David Hill assist us on the Hale County Hospital Courtyard project has been a huge help. We look forward to working with them more in the coming months!