Using GIS to Ressurrect a Long Lost Landscape Architect
In summer of 2019 I had the opportunity to pitch a project to the Digital Archives and Special Collections department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. After organizing a collection of architectural drawings by the landscape architect Arthur G. Barton, I became curious about his work and was shocked to realize that there was virtually no trace of the landscape architect. The only thing that existed were brief mentions of his most famous works - Dodger Stadium, Camp Pendleton, and the Space Laboratory.
With over 600 projects in his name, I knew I needed to find a way to bring his story to life. I proposed creating an interactive map of his work and a short article about his life and work for the archives. I spent close to 30 hours transcribing metadata from each project and creating a datasheet in Excel that I could use in ArcMap, Tableau, and RStudio. The first iteration of his story was published in February, which is published below, where I geocoded the addresses to create a usable dataset.
In April of 2020, I was contacted by the editor of the journal Eden, the magazine of the California Garden and Landscape History Society, about publishing my article. I expanded on my research and developed a greater story about Barton. That article will be published in the Summer 2020 edition of Eden magazine. This is an abbreviated version of my former work, meant to illustrate the relationship between the drawings and maps shown in the portfolio.
I still felt that there was more to discover about Arthur G. Barton's work. With permission from the archives, I have used the data I created to explore other aspects of his career. Let this project serve as an example of my experience with web-based applications and software programs. Programs used include R, Tableau, ArcMap, ArcPro, Photoshop and InDesign.
The StoryMap below offers unique architectural drawings and maps to complement the story; the full article on Arthur G. Barton was published in the California Garden and Landscape History Society's journal, Eden. Follow this link to read the article on their website:
NR 218 - Applications in GIS
This assignment was an exercise in map presentation. It focused on finding a suitable basemap, picking appropriate symbology, and using creating feature classes to represent a specific dataset - in this case, DUI arrests from 2007. It was also an exercise in understanding zipcode and city limits data.
This assignment was an exercise in understand map perspectives, formatting, and data retrieval, analysis, and representation.