MLA students record Washington D.C.’s original boundary markers; photos appear in new issue of Virginia Tech Research magazine

Inspired by “line walking,” a common practice in the field of archaeology, Laurel McSherry, program director, master of landscape architecture (MLA), led 21 enthusiastic students on an expedition to the nation’s capital to create temporal recordings of the city from eight geographically separate vantage points.

Equipped with maps, phones, compasses, and cameras, they located Washington, D.C.’s original boundary markers (placed between 1791 and 1792, making them the oldest federal monuments on record) at mile-points along the city’s 40-mile perimeter. Then, synchronizing their watches, the students in the eight different locations photographed the District of Columbia from these inscribed stone markers at the exact same time.

This student project is highlighted in “Beauty and quiet revealed at the boundaries of a major city,” which appears in the just published Summer 2009 issue of Virginia Tech Research magazine.

Posted September 3, 2009