LUPANDINA, MARIYA


ABOUT

GALLERY        INDEX:  All   PROFESSIONAL   ACADEMIC   METHODS & TANGENTS

IMAGINING POSIBILITIES FOR A RIVER LOGIC


Hackensack River, New Jersey
Academic
Spring 2025In an alternate reality, where the Hackensack River is integrated into daily consciousness, human systems align with the river’s dynamic patterns rather than dominating or disregarding them. Infrastructure, commerce, and culture are reoriented around principles of regeneration and reciprocity, and grounded in the lessons of specific environmental cycles. To aid in imagining this world, we created artifacts that would exist in this river logic society. Three of which are presented here. 

To play up the playfulness that comes with daydreaming, we used different modes of representation for each artifact. For example, the Watering Hole drawing is set up as a wimmelbild – a hidden object illustration where the drinking water fountain stands at the center of a diverse set of activities that water facilitates.

with Clarasophia Gust & Maria Fairchild







TIDAL CLOCK


Academic

Spring 2025

Methods for telling time are constructed to serve specific purposes. The common 12-hour clock was implemented to standardize time, maximizing efficiency and profit in the transportation and manufacturing sectors. 

The Tidal Clock proposes structuring our days around the asynchronous ebb and flow of the tides to step outside the optimization mindset and begin building a closer awareness of the environmental systems that we live within.

Artifact from the Imagining Posibilities for a River Logic studio project.

For my Arduino code click here.
For the virtual simulation click here.




CHINATOWN STITCH PILOT PARK


Chinatown, Philadelphia
YH Lab
04.23.2025

Furniture prototypes to go in a pilot park in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. The pilot park is intended to provide much need community open space, ahead of the completion of the Chinatown Stitch, a highway cap park. 


with Yadan Luo  & Joe Bondi

LANDSCAPE MONITORING

EMLAB, The McHarg Center - University of Pennsylvania
2023 - present
Coastlines are retreating upland faster than at any time in recorded history. As dunes erode and coastal marshes vanish, the urgency for adaptive strategies along the littoral edge grows. In response, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has placed increasing emphasis on experimental sediment placement techniques to restore and stabilize these vulnerable wetlands. The success of these interventions depends on careful monitoring and analysis.

To support this effort, the EMLab is partnering with The Wetlands Institute and USACE to monitor an active sediment placement site on Sturgeon Island, located in New Jersey’s Great Sound Bay. As an experimental marsh nourishment project, Sturgeon Island serves as a testing ground for understanding the long-term impacts of sediment addition. Our team is using a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to collect high-resolution multispectral imagery and LiDAR data. We process this data using a custom land cover classification system, developed in collaboration with The Wetlands Institute, and analyze it to calculate landscape metrics that reveal how the island’s ecology and form are shifting over time and in response to the sediment placement.

with Keith VanderSys & Sean Burkholder

REINTEGRATING HUMAN & NATURAL SYSTEMS AT LAC MBEUBEUSS 


Dakar Region, Senegal
Academic
Fall 2024At a height of 20-22 m and covering 150 hectares, the Mbeubeuss landfill serves the entire Dakar region and is the largest dumpsite in West Africa. The community in and around Mbeubeuss is simultaneously exposed to harmful conditions and derives essential economic benefit from the landfill. To improve living and environmental conditions while sustaining livelihoods, it is necessary to reintegrate human and natural systems. The region is also experiencing rapid, unplanned urban development, pluvial flooding and an unreliable clean water supply.

To that end, this project porposed a strategy to (1) support a just transition for the regional waste management system, (2) addressing flooding and surface water and groundwater contamination by creating space to hold and filter water and (3) stitching community together through housing, workforce, and public space interventions.

with Briana Belo & Claudia Schreier









INTERROGATING THE SECTION


Academic
Fall 2024




From gravity-oriented to suspension-oriented thinking in the Great Plains.

When we represent geology as a striated section we oversimplify the relationship between land and water. This representation drives our understanding of how surface and groundwater exist and this understanding informs how we use the land.
THE EMERALD NECKLACE’S 
MISSING LINK


Charlesgate - Boston, MA, USA
Landing Studio
Summer  2023
The Charlesgate project aims to restore the broken link in the Emerald Necklace Park System -- connecting this park to the Charles River Esplanade and restoring the Muddy River’s ecological infrastrucutre performance. In the 60s, the Bowker roadway overpass severed Charlesgate’s function as a public park and created additional stormwater discharge. This project aims to provide new public programming under the underpass, improve runoff management, water quality and provide habitat opportunities. The project is in collaboration with The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Charlesgate Alliance, Massachusett’s Department of Conservation and Recreation & MassDOT.


BOXES & THE PARK: WAREHOUSES AS THE NEW PASTORAL

Logistics Warehouse Campus in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania
Academic
Fall 2023 Assuming current trends persist—continued population growth in the Northeast, reliance on the Lehigh Valley for distribution, and rising e-commerce demands—Pennsylvania’s existing land use practices will lead to increased truck traffic and the steady conversion of agricultural land into residential and warehousing developments. This proposal responds by concentrating future growth along Route 22, a major freight corridor already acting as a development vector, in order to relieve pressure on surrounding landscapes. While it accepts the likely redevelopment of land along Route 22 for warehousing, it challenges the conventional notion that these facilities are incompatible with other land uses. Instead, the project reimagines warehouses as part of a new pastoral vernacular—one where infrastructure, industry, and technology are integrated into the agrarian landscape rather than imposed upon it.

Recognizing the burdens warehouses place on local communities—from pollution to infrastructure strain—the proposal calls for developers to provide greater public benefit. By treating the entire site as a park, and embedding warehouse boxes and supporting programs within a layered, multifunctional landscape, the design creates shared value for both the surrounding community and the nomadic trucking population. 

LEARNING LANDSCAPE


Philadelphia, PA
Academic
Spring 2023
Since European settlement, the Fishtown section of the Delaware River served a mainly industrial function. This project proposes to redevelop the site into a city park – reconnecting adjacent neighborhoods with the waterfront. The site’s long-standing industries – represented in the project through four characteristic materials  –  inform the type, location and form of the park’s programming.  The four industries are metal casting, shipbuilding, construction material distribution, and glassworks. The four representative materials are iron, trees, concrete, and sand. In turn, these materials manifest on the site as an urban square, pine-oak forest, pocket scapes, and dunes.



GARDEN OF DISRUPTED EXPECATIONS

Wissahickon Valley Park, Philadelphia, PA
Academic
Fall 2022
Nestled in Wissahickon Park between a central thoroughfare and a trail, the Garden of Disrupted Expectations challenges preconceived notions of non-human nature by exposing underlying infrastructure and incorporating industrial materials. The proposed design also disrupts environmental processes  by redirecting water flow and altering tree growth – taking cue from the existing site conditions. The contrast between dense planting at the edges and white-trunked birches at the center amplifies the experience of the sublime within the new landscape.






URBAN TREE HEALTH TRACKING 


Academic
Spring 2021
Improving street tree health often requires addressing systemic, city-wide issues, making localized action challenging. Yet public awareness, supported by detailed data, can help drive broader change. We developed Vitalitree Street Tree Health Monitor to support this goal. The prototype uses an Arduino microcontroller and sensors to measure four of seven key health factors—such as heat stress and PM2.5 accumulation. These readings are aggregated into a weighted health score, transmitted via a LoRa network, and displayed on the monitor to communicate the tree’s condition in real time. As part of a group, I assessed foliage health using a near-infrared sensor and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) analysis, designed the monitor’s physical form, and created the project graphics. 

To learn more about the project and see a click here. To follow a tutorial of how to use a near infrared sensor to determine foliage health, click here.


with Henry Fienstein, Johnathan Clementi & Ben Aiken

LANDSCAPE ROOMS: REPRESENTING 10 NEW ENGLAND ECOLOGIES

Stevens-Coolidge Place - The Trustees of Reservations, North Andover, MA
Mikyoung Kim Design
2019- 2021
Landscape Rooms reimagines an early 20th-century estate landscape as a dynamic place for ecological education and immersive seasonal experience. The project introduces a series of contemporary “ecology rooms”—garden spaces designed to interpret and showcase the diverse ecologies of New England. These new garden rooms complement and extend the site’s historic formal gardens, offering visitors a layered experience that merges cultural heritage with ecological awareness.

Located on the site of a former farm, the Stevens-Coolidge House and Gardens carries a rich agricultural and horticultural legacy. In collaboration with The Trustees of Reservations, we developed a phased master plan to expand and diversify the botanic collections while preserving the estate’s historical integrity. Each new room has its own distinct identity and function—ranging from a vibrant native meadow supporting pollinators, to a perennial garden that emphasizes texture and seasonal change, to a cut flower garden that invites sensory interaction. Together, these gardens create a rhythm of discovery as visitors move through the site, deepening their connection to both place and landscape process.

with Yufan Gao.

 Photos by Robert Benson, courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design.

BUILDING PLAY, TOGETHER

Kisoro, Uganda
Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children

2020 - 2021
The Ineza Children’s Centre is a non-profit that  provides education and health services for local youth, with a focus on young girls. GDIRC was brought on after the original playground design exceeded the donor’s budget. With no local precedent for playgrounds and limited construction expertise, the project required close collaboration with the school principal and Foundation director. Together, we developed a cost-effective solution that met the school’s needs. The initial wooden playhouse—featuring a slide, fire pole, bridge, and ladder—was reimagined in steel and concrete to reduce costs and align with local building practices.

The project began at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a challenge to remotely identify materials and construction techniques that would ensure safety while also providing an engaging and challenging play environment for the students. To see more of my work with GDIRC, click here.


Photos courtesy of GDIRC.
INTEGRATING WATER & LAND SYSTEMS

Texas Medical Center Helix Park - 
Houston, Texas
Mikyoung Kim Design
2019- 2021
Located within the Brays Bayou floodplain, the Texas Medical Center’s research campus is situated in an area highly vulnerable to flooding. In response, the landscape is designed not just to withstand water—but to embrace it. A continous sequence of gardens weaves through the campus, functioning both as a vibrant public realm and as a performative landscape that accommodate water during major storms. The design elevates the gardens approximately five feet above the base flood elevation, allowing them to manage runoff from a 200-year storm while maintaining accessibility and visual continuity with the surrounding campus. Realizing the project required careful grading and coordinating the water feature functionality.


with Conner Cunningham & Jess Hamilton.

 Photos: Robert Benson & Luis Ayala, courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design.

CONTACT

LUPANDINA.MARIYA@GMAIL.COM

COPYRIGHT – MARIYA LUPANDINA, 2025