Located in the rural countryside, North of Austin, Texas, Rural Lights is a landscape architecture project focused on composition and visual experience through concepts of land art. In this studio, we learned and discussed artists and works such as Malevich's abstract but playful compositions of geometries, Donald Judd's autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and hierarchical minimalism, James Terrell's work in the "light and space movement," Tadao Ando's Chichu Art Museum and his emphasis with "stillness and simplicity," along with many more artists.
This project serves as a way to highlight the natural landscape that it is developed within. Using the darkness, stillness, and solitude found in this isolated ranch, the use for Drones both takes on the modern ecological and agricultural practices of functional seed dispersion during the day, and becomes a dynamic and festive light show at night. The main program utilizes the large, flat land to display an array of drones at night, lighting up the sky. Secondarily, there lies a smaller amphitheater, educational classrooms in a procession, and a drone hanger which plays with the existing typology of nature versus building, creating views to the natural landscape and integrating it into the learning experience on the site. This project deals with the intense sunlight on the linear alignment of the project, curating experiences between "the wilderness," curated exterior activities, open-air program, and self-contained interior architectural elements.
