Leonardo da Vinci – Experience, Experiment and Design

I went to the V&A to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition.  The exhibition showed some of his sketches and some of his designs and inventions.   

Some of the sketches displayed were of drawings of the human heart, rules of proportion and architecture.  With the sketches you could also see the notes he made with his backward handwriting.                

                 

Above the sketches were animations of his drawings and some of his inventions.  They showed his drawings in 3D and how some of his inventions would work and informed some of the things we see today such as the helicopter.

The exhibition was a good opportunity to see Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and how detailed they are, how important they were and how they have influenced how we are today.  The animations were affective and brought his drawings to life and gave the chance to see how his inventions would work.  However, the size of the exhibition was disappointing; it would have been nice to see more.  There were few drawings and sketches and the animations felt like they were done to bulk up the exhibition.

www.vam.ac.uk

Studland

I visited Studland to do research for my landscape management report.  Studland is located on the south coast of England in the county of Dorset.  It offers a 4 mile sandy beach, sand dunes and heathland.  The area attracts over 1.5 million visitors a year and on a peak day in the summer Studaland can receive over 30,000 visitors.

Studland beach 

The coastal site forms part of the Purbeck Heritage Coast and is a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.  The beach is split up into three sections South, Middle and Knoll beach.  However, over the past 10 years the Studland has had to deal with rapid coastal erosion.  Previously the National Trust tried to defend the beach from the sea using man-made defences such as gabions.  But since 1998 the National Trust has adopted management retreat which means any man-made defences will not be replaced.  They now feel that any man-made features on the beach can adversely affect the beauty of the area.

  

Sand dunes 

The dunes are of high national importance because all 6 British reptile species inhabit the area; these include the smooth snake and sand lizard.  However, they have been breached a few times due to strong stormy weather.  They are also suffering with erosion due to trampling.  There are some areas on the sand dunes which are sectioned off from the public to allow marram grass to re-colonise and stabilise the sand dunes.  These sectioned off areas also provides added protection to the reptiles.

 

 Studland Heath  

The heath is 1559 acres and has been a National Nature Reserve since 1962.  It is also an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and has other protection policies due to its importance for nature conservation.  The National Trust have been managing the site since 1982 previously it was managed by English Nature.  Since the National Trust has taken over with its management they have put in board walks and nature trails to encourage visitors to spread over the whole of the Studland site. 

  

Visiting this site for my report it offered me another area to study instead of urban projects which I have looked at in the past.  I really enjoyed looking at the natural elements of a site instead of the built environments.  I like looking at the natural processes of this site such as sand dune succession and erosion processes.  It was also good to see the conflict between nature and man and how to solve the problem to allow them to work side by side.  I would like to continue to look at this field of study during the next semester as I find this a lot more interesting and enjoyable. 

www.nationaltrust.org