Frank Varro

The non-shortcut would be to go to the site.

Yeah, I’d look at Kiley, Rose, and Eckbo, as they really spearheaded the movement. A former professor of mine, Dean Cardasis, is the director of the James Rose Center, and has done excellent work as well.

Most modernist designs use lawn to a large extent, however, that is mostly for the reason that it is the most common groundplane to use for…[Read more]

The possibilities and difficulties of using BIM in LA
SketchUp is around 7 years old, but still very much in development and growing use in LA.

The issue is, you shouldn’t HAVE to pay to make sure your test was graded correctly, or even to see what you did wrong. It should be all or nothing. Either no one gets to see the tests, or everyone does, for free.

No, life is not fair, but life shouldn’t be made unfair because the people giving the licensing test I need to take want to make cash…[Read more]

The problem is, if a test is hard because the questions are difficult, thats one thing. If the questions are hard because you might make what they deem to be an error, but no practicing person would, and you have no way to find out other than by paying them, thats where it enters the realm of BS. If there is only one correct way to grade it, fine.…[Read more]

In working on reclaimation projects in my undergrad, I know Coconut fiber matting is a popular choice, as it will hold the soil, let grasses etc grow through it, and break down and fertilize the soil in the long run.

Jebus, I hope someone fixes this BS before I have to take this test.

I understand you can’t have everyone pass or it doesn’t maintain the appearance of a qualifying exam, but really? Charging to see what you did wrong? If its not “hard enough” to pass a test where you see what is wrong after failing, they need to make new questions, not…[Read more]

I TA’ed an undergrad course in Computer Tech, and most of the 3D time was spent on SketchUp, as that seems like the hands-down industry leader when it comes to ease of use and quick turn around.

When I was in undergrad I took a computer graphics course at Iowa State that involved Form-Z, and I taught myself 3DS Max, and am starting to teach…[Read more]

My thesis 3D models were all modeled in SketchUp (Except the seating bowl of the stadium, which was done in 3DS Max), and then rendered in 3DS Max.

The Plans are all either Cad or Hand Lines with photoshop rendered color fills. I changed how I do plan renders significantly while working on the project, so there isn’t a total consistent look tot…[Read more]

I’m not sure how much effect they have, but there are ASLA committees that are involved in licensure and testing. You could look it up on ASLA.org, in fact, here’s the link to the two most relevant :
http://asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=4248&RMenuId=8&PageTi…
http://asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=4296&RMenuId=8&PageTi…

You can volunteer to…[Read more]

One of the most important things I learned in Grad School was to always to design like you are working on a competition. A competition seems to give free reign to move forward with crazy, over-the-top design ideas. You can always take an un-build-able design idea and make it do-able, while maintaining the big idea.

Taking a lame, small idea, and…[Read more]

Thanks for the tips! The language is always something I am tweaking, and the action verbs is a good tip that I always seem to forget.

I would love to include more process images, and I am including more on some of the additional 10 sheets I am finishing now, but realistically I just don’t have a lot of it still. Its something I’m not thrilled…[Read more]

I downloaded all the stuff last night, and think I remember the two problems I had with the program.
First, they say their materials work the way actual materials work, which, unfortunately, is not how 3DS MAx/Maya etc materials work. At the time I was looking I didn’t have the time or energy to commit to relearning how to make materials.
The…[Read more]

I’ve been using the Sketchup -> 3DS Max model James mentioned for years (I started playing around with 3DS Max in high school, and always found the modeling to be the weak point, so SketchUp was the perfect solution). I looked into Kerkythea a year or two ago, and while it looked good, I know there was something about it that didn’t jive with me…[Read more]

The biggest issue I have with the animations in sketchup is the little bug where if you move the camera into a shadow, it tends to (or at least it did in Sketchup 6) invert the lit and shadowed areas, making it look like there was some sort of crazy lighting storm.

In terms of frame rate, exporting individual frames will give you the same…[Read more]

I made my pages in PShop as well (InDesign just fights fine tuning a little to much sometimes, and you can’t do the same image tweaks, which my new layout really needed). I made mine 11×17 300 dpi, so when it comes time, I can print them hardcopy at a kickass res. Then I resized to 100 dpi in photoshop, and printed the page to PDF. Doing it this…[Read more]

I’ll see what I can do to get this thread going again with the latest iteration of my portfolio.

This is a complete overhaul from what I had been using, and I’m hoping it provides the right balance of pop and professionalism- something to make it stand out, while showing that I can put together a decent board/sheet once I am hired.

Let me know…[Read more]

Landscape can certainly effect the feel of the space. Just look at Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. What was a Coal->Gas conversion plant is now a park with space for public art and festivals.

Architecture may be important to use as well, but its hard to say without actually seeing the site.

Its hard to say what might work at all without seeing…[Read more]

If your looking for the more hard science, evidence based side, there is some out there. Its not as easy to find as you might think, but as with most research articles, if you find one, between looking at what they cite and who cites them, you get a quickly growing research stack pretty quickly. If you can find case study articles out of Europe,…[Read more]