Beauty Captures Machine
Time: 11. 2022
Location: RISD Beach, Providence, RI
Class assignment ( hand drawing and making)
Designer: Jia Hu
Instructor: Elizabeth Dean Hermann
Just like a dragonfly’s gentle touch upon the ground.
Beauty Captures Machine is a mobile landscape tool that embodies this philosophy—employing minimal intervention in nature while guiding people to discover and capture the most beautiful moments at RISD Beach. Though modest in scale, the landscape tool brings and apply meaningful value to the larger environment, telling a quiet story of nature’s beauty. It offers a layered, ever-evolving experience of the landscape, celebrating wildness and our relationship with it.
In Praise of Wildness:
Exploring a Minimalist Approach to Landscape Architecture Design.
Sunset Storytelling
Beauty Captures Machine is precisely positioned at the best moment for viewing, guiding people to gaze at the sunset. Through landscape sightline analysis, the most suitable location and timing are chosen, directing viewers to the exact points where they can face the horizon as it blazes in deep, radiant reds—capturing the most enchanting moments. As the sun slowly sinks, a warm and ethereal glow spreads across the sea. This installation not only observes the transformation of the sunset but also turns it into a visual narrative of nature.
Seasonal Storytelling:
Designed for mobility, "Beauty Captures Machine" gracefully transitions to different locations, capturing unique scenes and moments throughout the changing seasons.
Plants Spatial Experience
At RISD Beach, spatial experience is shaped through the careful transformation of plant-based enclosures. New arrangements are created through modifications of the site’s original vegetation, with tree planting used to refine spatial qualities. The journey begins along a tree-lined path on high-elevation farmland and continues through trees, phragmites, and salt marshes before reaching open water. The spatial experience sequence is defined as: bunching, narrow, suddenly brightening, gradually narrowing, extremely narrow, gradually opening, extremely bright.
Spatial Narratives Through Plants
Best View Points
From high to low elevation, the plant zones can be categorized into three layers: Upland Farm, Farmland, and Salt Marsh Land. Each layer is defined by distinct forces—some shaped by human intervention, like farmland, and others by natural dynamics, such as the sea’s high tide line. The boundary of the Phragmites closely follows the tidal line, illustrating the ever-shifting relationship between land and water. Together, these elements form an interconnected ecological system, where every component is interdependent and deeply connected.
Through view analysis, the installation identifies optimal points for observing and capturing the most breathtaking moments. This thoughtful spatial strategy enhances the viewer’s experience, allowing the installation to not only frame beauty but also foster an immersive and interactive connection between people and the coastal landscape.
Nature RISD Beach
Each plant layer is defined by different forces—some shaped by human intervention, such as farmland, and others by natural forces like the high tide line of the sea. The boundary of Phragmites aligns with the tidal line, illustrating the dynamic interaction between land and water. Together, these factors create an interconnected system where every element is linked.
Silhouetted Storytelling:Crafting nature's chaos—the intricate forms resemble the organic weave of living beings. These shapes, carefully shaped by natural forces, seamlessly blend into the surrounding landscape.