Uncategorized – Page 13 – Chadd G Hippensteel

Palm Leaves, Banana Trees, Denham Springs!

Palm leaves are not always palmate, originating from the center, in fact sometimes the leaves emanate from the stem in thick alternate blades, similar to like the plant above.

This is not a Palm, however. It is a Flowering Banana, Musa ornata, which is one of a few Banana types used in ornamental landscaping. The others being Hairy Banana, Musa velutina, and the Hardy Banana, Musa basjoo, which is also known as the Japanese Banana. It can grow as far north as Zone 6b, and can be overwintered if covered. ! Cool.

Photo Credit: materialscientist post on Wikipedia “Musa bajoo” page. Accessed 3/22/19. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Musa_basjooSochi1.JPG#mw-jump-to-license

I’m hoping to use some Palms and banana’s in my studio design to help Denham Springs downtown “Spring Up,” and become a comfortable destination.

LSU Design Building, my Classmates, Big Day Tomorrow

The LSU Design Building:

For those of you who don’t frequent this place, it’s right next to the stadium.

My classmates UU, aka Skinny Jeans, and XaXa, aka Beating and Negotiating, are putting in long days to get through their Master’s degree. Here they are:

Our class model is nearly complete, thanks in large part to the work by JB, aka Time Machine. Here’s the model:

In the background, PH aka Alkaline. Our Green Infrastructure boards are in the foreground. I’ll share mine later. Sauce brought be an awesome coffee today. Thanks.

Tomorrow is our big presentation day. I have class all day, so I’m excited to get up early, get a workout and a big meal…then go show Denham Springs what listening to community input is all about!

Made a Sculpture

Tonight I worked on a sculpture, taking advice from my professor Mr. B, a friend in Architecture Mr. S, and a couple coworkers in Design Tech land, W.G. And Dot O’lecke. With all their combined help x the expert organization of my friend Sauce, I managed to put together a compelling section of a streetscape. It’s far from done. Here are the progress pictures.

finished molds for plaster pourin’

Rollin up trees… for modeling. The first group of molds with plaster, about 30 lbs of it dry, when combined with water, completely filled a 5 gallon bucket. The empty mold. This thing is held together with 1″ pin nails, and it totally split open when plaster started to harden…but not before leaving an awesome wood-grain pattern on the side of the slab. One of the Prescedent Studies I did for the project. A park in France, using permeable pavers, gutters, and street trees. The finished molds, overflowing with plaster.