jakub vagasky - portfolio full

Foreword

When I first thought about creating a portfolio, the first thing that came to my mind was that I should present my work in very comprehensive and visual way. By turning pages, the viewer will make a little adventure, not only to my work, but also to my way of thinking, my style and a background story behind every project I worked on. He will slowly get deeper into un-derstanding of my ideas and drivers behind them. It is like slowly lifting the fog that is covering my individuality, but still never seeing it all. This would bring intrigue into his mind, expecting and longing for more.This would bring intrigue into his mind, expecting and longing for more. However, when I first started working on it, I knew I could never achieve it completely. Flicking through numerous images, photos, sketches, draw-ings, diagrams and memories, I found myself facing one of the hardest ques-tions of all and that is - how can I convince the reader, that my work is good enough? Everybody has different taste, style and therefore one person like one thing and another person something completely different. In art and design, the work is usually perceived by ‘Loving it’ or ‘Hating it’ and by what emotions the work triggers. This was bothering me from the begin-ning. I know who I am and what I do, but unless I can explain this clearly to the reader, it will never be good enough. As a student, I have poor experience in a real life. I’ve done thing or two, but theory in school cannot be compared to many years of experience in a practice. At first, I used to criticize my every move, trying to find a deeper logic in everything I’ve done. It was always about trying to find the most effective solution, even if it would be very expensive. Although I liked my projects, I was sceptical if people would use it and enjoy it and if it can be built in reality.

As I talked to people who were dealing with same problems, I was taking baby steps towards learning, how to open my mind to new possibilities. Many times I felt that I can do anything I want. Thinking outside of the box – changed me slowly into being crazy with my ideas, and the complete freedom has enlightened me. Figuring out new innovative ways, trying to come up with something unconven-tional, was the hardest and most crooked way. It became successful only few times.

At this point, research became most important tool. The better understanding of the site, the more designing ideas were coming to my mind that could possibly work well. I figured out that once the problem was identified, the very straightforward and simplest approach should be taken. Sometimes research took most of my time, which should have been put into my designing process and drawing skills. I found it challenging to look into every aspect of my work in such a short time. However sometimes projects takes months or even years, so every little detail can be looked at and every issue can be identified and resolved, small projects will take looked at and every issue can be identified and resolved, small projects will take only few weeks or days perhaps. To work on time and meeting deadlines is crucial when someone wants to be a landscape architect.

When I am presenting my work, I want to show how my thinking changed, how I pro-gressed from the first time I set foot in a college until now. I honestly feel that taking the hard way is always better, than doing everything in a way I am used to.

“Taking it to the next level,” I thought to myself, “is the best way for improve-ment.” “You can never do better, if you never try!”

Urban Design Park Design DetailedDesign

Research Project

Miscellaneous

Urban Design“Urban design is primarily and essentially three-dimensional design, but must also deal with the non-visual aspects of environment such as noise, smell or feeling of danger and safety, which contributes significantly to

the character of the area.”

Royal Institute of British Architects

DETAIL

Aviemore

Aviemore is a small city in easter Highlands. it is very popular tourist city during winter, but during the rest of the year, there are not enough tourists.The project was divided into two parts. the first The project was divided into two parts. the first one was dealing with city itself. The brief was trying to solve urbanism problems on highstreet, where the city centre looked very RUral and uneven. We tried to recreate the city look by putting buildings more densly together and creat-ing one public square.The second park was about 50 houses, that are supposed to be built on a nearby meadow. Creating layout, and taking care of sun position,viewpoints and nature, we gave the place a character.

Scottish pineHighlandsUrbanismTourismMeadowLocalsLayoutLayoutNorthRuralSnow

Aviemore

Fort William

Fort William is the biggest city in Highlands. It had significance in a past as a biggest fort in north. Nowadays there are only ruins of it. Al-hough city has grown, it is very poorly connected to Loch linnhe and there is a separation by A82 highway. To cross the road and get from high street to water side, people have 3 crossings, that are almost 500 meters apart. This is a big that are almost 500 meters apart. This is a big barrier for locals to enjoy beautiful sight over the lake. In first part we worked in a group on larger scale,to figure out dynamics and cope with major problems of the site on scale 1:500.It the second part we idvidually chose part of our project and went into details to scale 1:100 and detailed drawings 1:10.

lost connectionconnectivityseparationelevationcharacterHighlandsold fortold fortbig towntourismLake

Fort

William

Daytime

Nighttime

Fort

William

Fort

William

Daytime Nighttime

Fort

William

Fort

William

II

Park Design“Park Design solutions adress spacial constraints as well as functionality, placemaking and character of the place”

SIMPLICITY

Hailes Quarry Park

Hailes Quarry park is an old landfill site that was once a granit quarry. The topsoil is mostly 2 meters deep and uderneath it is contaminated soil. The brief of the project was about creating a space for people, because now it is not very used. There is straigt connection to union canal which There is straigt connection to union canal which offers great variability for tourists as well as people going to city. Hailes quarry park is im-portant link between spaces of the poorest part of Edinburgh. The entrances to the park are hidden and there is not much vegetation in. The project is meant to incorporate people from sur-rounding houses to use the space more, as well as constructing car park for visitors. The plan was to create 2 football and 1 rugby fields, 4 tennis pitches and perhaps even more.

bad neighbourhoodgranit quarryunion canalusabilitycharactercontourslandfilllandfilltopsoilplantssports

HAILES

qUARRY

pARK

Reality VariationsHAILES

qUARRY

pARK

Valleyfield

Valleyfield is a big storage area for Pulverized Fuel Ash (PFA) from nearby longanet power sta-tion. It is still used for storage, but it should be closed by 2028. Our plan was to create place of local and national interest and distinction, once the place will be fully capped. We were also prepared to create new lagoons for more ash. The site is located in Fife, in Firth of Forth and from north side is bordered by railroad.In the past the place used to be just small island, which was used for big salt pans. At that time Scotland was one of biggest exporters of sea salt. After the war, prize of salt has dropped and industry had died. The site is very windy and is hard to grow anyThe site is very windy and is hard to grow any-thing on PFA due to high salinity, and absence or abundance of some chemicals and heavy metals.

Ash lagoonslandfillwildlifeislandwaterSandSaltSaltwindrainbayPFA

PHASE 1

All planting beds and woodAll planting beds and wood-land area are seeded with legume plants, so they ix NO2 to soil. Poplar, ragweed and willow are then planted to eliminate heavy metals from the soil. These trees will be cut down after 3 will be cut down after 3 years, burned and reseded again. Existing woodland is unafected.

PHASE 2

After three years, woodland After three years, woodland can be planted. The main woodland area now contains small specimens of elder, hazel, hawthorn, birch, willow and sycamore. Sepa-rate birch forest and wetland planting begins to grow. planting begins to grow. Planting beds are planted with barley, sugar beet and sunlower, collected every year.

PHASE 3

Woodland is starting to grow Woodland is starting to grow into height. Planting beds have been cultivated by sun-lower and sugar beet or barley to remove salt and ar-senic from the soil. The irst willow beds were seeded. After three years soil analy-sis should say if conditions for growing medical plants and herbs are suficient and not health threatning.

PHASE 4

Site is in full production from planting beds and woodland, wetland and birch forest have reached expected height.

Valleyfield

Valleyfield

TIME Detailed Design“By means of detailed design big ideas can be worked through,into every detail and they can come together in a powerfull, convoncing way.”

Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament was somewhat controversial, but once you look at it, you love it or hate it. I was amazed by how much detail landscape archi-tects have looked at and how much work they put into it. It is a magnificient cityscape and details of the pond and benches were carefully thought of. That was the reason why I chose it for my student pro-ject and why I looked into technique how it works and how it is done.

water pondsexpensivesecurityDetailedtouristscarefulguardsguardsparkhill

pARLIAMENT

pOND

Crammond

Crammond is very nice part of edinburgh especial-ly during summer. It has beaches and Crammond island which is accessible by public, but only during low tide. it is favourite place for a walk or picnic. the beach on the shore is however rocky and full of shells and dead see weeds.Our project was to propose structure, that would bring more people to the site, and look at very details of it. As it is on a beach but there aren’t many sunny days in edinburgh, it was preferable to make some kind of shelter.

ice creamhigh tidelow tidelocalsIslandwaveswaterwaterPierparkSeasun bus

CrammonD

PUNCTUALITY

Research“Defining the space, it’s use and function becomes vital part of any

successful design. It is a stepstone to unveiling the full potential of the site.”

River Tyne

River tyne is a river flowing from midlothian hills, through east lothian to the sea. on a way, it passes lot of towns and plays important role for agriculture. east lothian used to be most technically advanced in agriculture in the past. The soil is very mineral rich and mostly used for its qualities for growing food. Our project was looking at towns and communities Our project was looking at towns and communities around the river and propose a sustainable or self sustainabale plan.We looked at nature, agri-culture, industry, hydrology, steady development of communities and much more.

sustainabilliyagriculturewoodlandsrecylcleScotlandwetlandshistoryhistoryeconomywalley

River

Tyne

GOLF COURSES GRAZING AREAS HEATHLAND

FOREST CULTIVATED SOIL WITH CROPS RIVERS, LAKES, STREAMS, BURNS

PROTECTED AREAS ROADS, PATHS SCENERY

BUILDINGS CONSERVATION AREAS, SSSI RIVERS, LAKES, STREAMS, BURNS

River

Tyne

CONCEPT

Miscellaneous“Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”

Martha Graham

Royal Botanic Garden of EdinburghThe botanic garden in edinburgh is one of the nices gardens in the world, and one of my most favourite places. It is huge place where one day walk is not enough. Due to mild scottish weather, many plants from across the world can be seen here growing hapilly. The Botanical garden uses various way how to The Botanical garden uses various way how to teach people about plants they see, and they offer many courses to study.

The main idea for the project was to choose few The main idea for the project was to choose few plants which are from one genetic group or family of plants. There are small differences in every plant species, since they’ve been developing sep-aratelly for a certain amount of time, and they had different conditions to cope with. Not all the changes must be visible at first sight since plants have mutual predecessor, but usually it is plants have mutual predecessor, but usually it is very easy to spot the difference even for common people moving around botanical garden.

I was intrigued by how many useful trees and plants are in rosaceae family and that is the reason I chose to create Rosaceae garden. The most common Rosaceae plants on our gardens are: Apple, Pear, Cherry, Plum, Peach, Strawberry, Raspberry, Rose, etc.

differenceeducationbloomingtourismeconomyhistorybeautybeautydamagegreenwind

RGBE

LEGEND

Alm - Achemilla molis Alc - Alechemilla conjuctaArd - Arucus dioicusCrl - Crataegus laevigataFlv - Filipendula vulgarisFrv - Fragaria vescaFrv - Fragaria vescaFrm - Fragaria moschataFrc - Fragaria chiloensisMla - Malus angustifoliaMls - Mallus silvestris Pts - Potentilla sterilisPte - Potentilla erectaPrs - Prunus spinosaPrs - Prunus spinosaPrn - Prunus nigraPyc - Pyrus communisRsc - Rosa carolinaRsg - Rosa galicaRbi - Rubus ideausSmg - Sanguisorba minorSgo - Sanguisorba officiSgo - Sanguisorba offici-nalis Spa - Spiraea albaSpd - Spiraea densiflora

Dunbars Close

Dunbars close is a hidden gem of Edinburgh. It used to be herb garden for local hospital, later it was given to city. Nowadays, it is one of a few formal gardens in edinburgh. It has classical elements of herb garden, it has aplle trees as well and old yew hedge..

HistoryHiddendreamyclosedformalherbsboxesboxessunnyurbangateOld

Dunbars

Close

SpISSKY STVRTOK

Spissky Stvrtok is a small town Located in North east of slovakia. The place has a rich history, starting with a nearby settlement which is be-lieved to be 3500 years old.The town has a small gothic chapel, which was made according to Saints chapele in PAris.

The project was set in minorite monastery, which now serves as Healh center for elderly and men-taly disabled people.The recostructed area is the atrium, which is now in poor condition. We went for something traditional - Garden of eden, formal flowerbeds, hedges, paving.then we tried to introduce few modern elements and facilities that were required for running the center. that were required for running the center.

Ill PeopleMonasteryCAthedralLimestoneTourismHistoryGothicGothicTatrasCastleWillow

Spissky

Stvrtok

RENDERING