The University of Idaho Argonaut

Professor Elizabeth Graff’s landscape architecture class put its land art exhibit, “Beyond One Bottle,” on display outside the Teaching and Learning Center last week. The exhibit focuses on water use. Steven Devine/Argonaut

Sophomores in Elizabeth Graff’s design studio took a different approach to landscape architecture last week with a land art installation on campus.

Working in groups, students planned, designed and constructed their project between the University of Idaho library and the Teaching and Learning Center. Graff said the project was meant to make people think about where people get their water, how it’s used and how the habits of daily life impact the Earth’s resources. The project also enabled students to learn some interdisciplinary skills.

“We broke into teams and everyone did something different,” Graff said. “Whether it was communication … getting permissions everywhere, from being able to weld in the sculpture studio to talking to facilities and getting the timing right.”

The installation featured a portal — a wreath of plastic water bottles — which the viewer looked through to see the water tower in the distance. A stream of surveying stakes were placed in the grass in a wavy pattern and looked as though they were flowing from the tower. The project took students three hours to install and weeks of work in the classroom.

“In my 20 years of practicing landscape architecture and architecture, I have never worked with such a group that was able to collaborate so well and pull it off,” Graff said.

Ali Knox, one of Graff’s students, has a minor in art and said the project was unique and gave students the opportunity to do something different.

“It kind of showed (the class) a new route, a new avenue to go down and just something to think about more conceptually,” Knox said.

Graff, who came to UI a year ago from Rutgers University, is also the lead investigator for the “Earth from Above” outdoor photography project. The project has gone all over the world and is set to premier in New York City in 2010. Graff has used the land art project as a prelude for her class’ work on the “Earth” project.

“Working on this art exhibit is so neat because it’s just another avenue,” Knox said. “It will push us along further in the program as well as when we get out into the working field. I think we are going to have more of an idea of what we can do with landscape architecture.”

Graff said both projects encourage students to think outside the box and use the skills they are learning in class.

“It is experimental learning, taking everything we normally study in textbooks and actually doing it,” Graff said.

Graff’s students will work on site analysis and layout design for how the “Earth” project will fit into Bryant Park. The venue location in New York City is yet to be finalized, but New York Public Library and Bryant Park is a strong potential. Since the project will be installed in New York City, students aren’t able to experience the site.

“It is really interesting to see how much harder it is to design for a place (to which) you have never actually been,” Knox said.

Graff said her students have learned to think three-dimensionally and collaborate with one another. She said the land art project has been an amazing experience for her and her students, and she has learned all the inherent lessons that come with doing a project for the first time. She said she would definitely consider doing something like this in the future.

More information on the “Earth from Above” project is available at www.earthfromabove.com.