Jack Ferguson
Degree: BLArch
Expected Graduation Date: Spring 2023
2022-2023 Scholarship
A. Brian Mostue Memorial Scholarship in Landscape Architecture
I Am Originally From Eugene, OR
WHY I CAME TO THE UO AND HOW I CHOSE MY MAJOR
I chose the UO because I felt at home being here. I grew up around the UO so I was always connected to it. I really enjoy the College of Design because of how close you get to your peers and faculty as you move forward in the program. The courses are enjoyable in how they are structured and really push you to be mindful and creative instead of simply memorizing things on paper for a test. A much better and more enjoyable learning experience for me.
I learned about the major in my late sophomore year. I had dabbled in the work that is landscape architecture without knowing that the field or degree existed. I had done several projects of pond building, patios, pavilions, etc., mostly for friends and family. My family recommended that I look into Landscape Architecture at the UO and that is how I came to discover the program. Upon learning of it, I applied as fast as possible and have been doing it ever since.
UNIQUE QUALITIES I BRING TO MY STUDIES
I have a multitude of experiences that help me with this field of work. I have done many projects that relate to the profession that give me great real life experience that influence my studies in the program. I’ve also worrked for Willamalane Parks & Rec and the Northwest Youth Corps, which have given me experience with understanding the environment and how we relate to it. It has also helped me underrstand how workers view landscape architecture. Knowing how a maintenance worker views the parks that are design by LA professionals has really played heavily in my designs throughout the program.
MY INFLUENTIAL PROFESSORS
Jeff Krueger was a very influential professor at my time at the UO. I learned a lot from him about how to balance my lavish design ideas with restraints, conflicts, and realities of the world that my design will affect. He challenged me more and more to go beyond my comfort level to go deeper into my designs, to look at them at a new angle that might offer some new insight. Overall just a amazing studio experience with him as a professor. I really enjoyed the amount of time he had me design in the field, not just at a desk and looking at a computer, but at the place that you are going to change, it truly changes your design perspective.
MY EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
I do occassional volunteer work for the McKenzie River Trust (MRT) and Food for Lane County. These organizations are important to me because they care for and better the community. MRT for years has been doing amazing work to restore lands that have seen generations of misuse and degradation to bring it back to the natural systems they once had. My favorite work from MRT is their new project focused on salmon habitat restoration up the McKenzie river. Food for Lane County’s work is vital and becoming more needed in our community. So many struggle to keep up with the amounts of food they need. Particularly with the recent fires here, the number of people needing this aide has exploded. Food for Lane County is a good example for how we should always be helping each other, especially in these hard days that will only get worse with climate change.
MY GREATEST LEARNING EXPERIENCE AT UO
My greatest learning experience would be my studio class in Spring of 2022, on the “Antis Oaks Project.” It was very different from previous studios and this one was my absolute favorite one. I felt personally invested in the work we were doing. I knew that the work was not just being graded but would actually be used to develop, create, and improve the place we were designing. We were making a difference with our work. I loved it also because we spent so much time outside on the site developing our ideas and plans. It felt like an outdoor school. Our midterm was outside in the field where we would give our testers tours of the site just as a real landscpae architect would do.
AFTER GRADUATION
I have two paths I am considering post graduation. I would love to go into large scale campus/city planning and design. I love creating unique places for the public that bring an array of functions to the surrounding area while being very aesthetically pleasing to its community. I am also very interested in fire remediation and prevention planning/design. As forests are becoming a greater and greater concern the need to design places and communities to be able to survive fires will increase. Such as the communities and homes that burned in the Holiday fire, so many homes were lost. We need to design in consideration that fire will only increase given overall humans have not worked with the forest/environment well. Because of this, the threat of large scale fires is higher than it naturally would be, so I would hope to participate in design of the environment so we can return it to safer more natural states where fires are more natural, similar to how indigenous people treated the land, while maintaining basic human needs such as the lumber industry.
YOUR GIFT
This award is helping me to afford the classes that are going to provide the tools for my toolkit that I will need to succeed in this profession when I graduate. I believe a lot in self teaching and learning from experience. But there is so much through the College of Design that I know I will need and will be so beneficial to my future.
Thank you!