Mark VanDyke Photography
Regional Character Exemplified
Entrance Road to Botany Bay Heritage Plantation & Wildlife Management Area
Charleston County, Lowcountry South Carolina
Accessed via South Carolina Highway 174
Date taken: April 07, 2013
This is a built environment, as strange as that might sound given how wild this place appears. Botany Bay Road is and was a place shaped and created by people to facilitate some human purpose. The road was cut and is maintained; the primary trees were planted in rows when this was a plantation property. However, the experience of this particular road is far different than a modern highway or even the secondary paved roads that are traveled to reach this particular location. I've been studying and working within the built environment for over a decade now, and currently am working towards a terminal degree in Planning, Design, and the Built Environment at Clemson University. Much talk revolves around the loss of regional character in architecture and built environments in general.
To some degree, if this was what people really wanted, this is what we would see more of. It could be said that as unique and fantastic as this extremely short stretch of road is to travel, it is plenty enough, and returning to the smoother asphalt with modern safety paints, reflectors, drainage crowns, uniform and orderly signs, street lamps, insect (mosquito and otherwise) controls, and so forth is more realistic for everyday life and desires. Put in another way, Botany Bay is a magnet for photographers and tourists alike, but they wouldn't necessarily want to live here or think of their loved ones traveling this road daily to and from life's many chores. The standardization of many built environments that many call for as being the fault of market forces or lazy built environment professionals is really just the result of overall desires for safer, cleaner, more efficient services. And for the business entities, the standardization and generalization of prefabrication and/or modularization drives reduced risk and increased profits. Thus, the market seems poised to go the route of standardization with our built environment as both sides realize real benefits. Certainly, craft and character have to lose to some degree in this model. It makes you wonder what we could do as designers, builders, planners, and real estate folks if the market truly did reject the current model and instead called for more developments and built environments in general that provided alternate and arguably richer experiences for those who passed through and lived within them. Obviously this is not applicable to every situation; but it remains that Botany Bay Road is a built environment of sorts, and we're capable of envisioning and creating more like it--the question is largely one of desire.
This like so many of my photographs is a direct result of Dave Allen--both learning of the location and of the gear necessary to deliver the product you see. Much appreciation to him and his wife, Jennifer for letting me tag along on a trip down to this location several years ago. I'm finally returning to many of these places and doing so with a relatively greater photographic knowledge base and some relatively better gear. However, the roots are back in those initial scouting trips and the folks who facilitated them.
Regional Character Exemplified
Entrance Road to Botany Bay Heritage Plantation & Wildlife Management Area
Charleston County, Lowcountry South Carolina
Accessed via South Carolina Highway 174
Date taken: April 07, 2013
This is a built environment, as strange as that might sound given how wild this place appears. Botany Bay Road is and was a place shaped and created by people to facilitate some human purpose. The road was cut and is maintained; the primary trees were planted in rows when this was a plantation property. However, the experience of this particular road is far different than a modern highway or even the secondary paved roads that are traveled to reach this particular location. I've been studying and working within the built environment for over a decade now, and currently am working towards a terminal degree in Planning, Design, and the Built Environment at Clemson University. Much talk revolves around the loss of regional character in architecture and built environments in general.
To some degree, if this was what people really wanted, this is what we would see more of. It could be said that as unique and fantastic as this extremely short stretch of road is to travel, it is plenty enough, and returning to the smoother asphalt with modern safety paints, reflectors, drainage crowns, uniform and orderly signs, street lamps, insect (mosquito and otherwise) controls, and so forth is more realistic for everyday life and desires. Put in another way, Botany Bay is a magnet for photographers and tourists alike, but they wouldn't necessarily want to live here or think of their loved ones traveling this road daily to and from life's many chores. The standardization of many built environments that many call for as being the fault of market forces or lazy built environment professionals is really just the result of overall desires for safer, cleaner, more efficient services. And for the business entities, the standardization and generalization of prefabrication and/or modularization drives reduced risk and increased profits. Thus, the market seems poised to go the route of standardization with our built environment as both sides realize real benefits. Certainly, craft and character have to lose to some degree in this model. It makes you wonder what we could do as designers, builders, planners, and real estate folks if the market truly did reject the current model and instead called for more developments and built environments in general that provided alternate and arguably richer experiences for those who passed through and lived within them. Obviously this is not applicable to every situation; but it remains that Botany Bay Road is a built environment of sorts, and we're capable of envisioning and creating more like it--the question is largely one of desire.
This like so many of my photographs is a direct result of Dave Allen--both learning of the location and of the gear necessary to deliver the product you see. Much appreciation to him and his wife, Jennifer for letting me tag along on a trip down to this location several years ago. I'm finally returning to many of these places and doing so with a relatively greater photographic knowledge base and some relatively better gear. However, the roots are back in those initial scouting trips and the folks who facilitated them.