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The goal of FOR-SITE’s education program is to enrich the learning experience of graduate-level art students affiliated with our educational partners. The FOR-SITE Foundation fulfills this goal by providing learning opportunities that extend beyond the parameters of traditional academic curricula.

Through this program, FOR-SITE provides educators with the space and resources to create a course or seminar focused on their interests for a small group of graduate-level students. The Foundation makes available the Nevada City residency site and provides funding that covers project expenses, including supplies, guest lecturers, subsistence, travel, and other resources that the educator identifies as central to the seminar. Students are in residence for no less than two three-day sessions during an academic term.

The Foundation initiated the program in 2003 with on-site pilot projects and since then, the program has continued to gain momentum and complexity. Participants have included such distinguished faculty as landscape architect Walter Hood (University of California, Berkeley), artist Donald Fortescue (California College of the Arts), and designer Amy Franceschini (San Francisco Art Institute). Among the visiting guest lecturers and artists are historian and archaeologist Hank Meals, writer William Fox, and artist Ursula von Rydingsvard.

The Foundation recently entered into a formal, multi-year partnership with California College of the Arts. By coordinating efforts, both organizations hope to maximize the value to students of this field-based program, and focus on collaborative curriculum development.

None.

Ted Purves, Chair and Associate Professor
Graduate Program in Fine Arts, California College of the Arts
Fall 2009 Graduate Course

The Map and the View: working on and from the land
An exploration of how one responds to a particular place; how one speaks of that response and the place itself when no longer there; and the methods used to describe a place to those who will never see it.
View the entire project profile.

Nathan Lynch, Chair and Assistant Professor of Ceramics
Graduate Fine Arts, California College of the Arts
FINAR604 GE, Spring 2009

This interdisciplinary, field-based seminar focused on earthworks, land use and ecological interventions. Students took several trips to the residency site to camp, study, experiment and explore.
View the entire project profile.


Nathan Lynch, Chair and Advisor
Ceramics Department, California College of the Arts
CERAM370, Spring 2008

This interdisciplinary, field-based course focused on earthworks, land use, and ecological interventions. Guest artist Ursula von Rydingsvard worked with the students in March.
View the entire project profile.


Associate Professor Donald Fortescue
Department of Wood/Furniture, California College of the Arts
FURNT300-01, Fall 2007

This graduate-level course focused on the Northern California landscape as a site and source for art and design work.
View the entire project profile.


Oblio Jenkins, Lecturer
Department of Architecture, California College of the Arts
Advanced Design Studio, Fall 2007-Spring 2008

Site-Specific Design/Build
This two-semester project connected students to nature and place in the context of a full exploration of the architectural design process.
View the entire project profile.


Professor Walter Hood
Department of Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
LD Arch 254, Spring 2007 Graduate Course

Topics in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design
Walter Hood's students design the perfect artist's studio. By interviewing two prominent Bay Area artists, John Zurier and Mildred Howard, his students gained firsthand knowledge of what a working artist needs in order to create, and then translated these guidelines into working design models, using the FOR-SITE residency site as a context.
View the entire project profile.


Sandra Kelch, Lecturer
Department of Design and Industry, San Francisco State University
DAI 805, Graduate Seminar in Information Design, Spring 2007


This five-week "real-world" project afforded students the opportunity to research and design way-finding systems (maps and signage) for the FOR-SITE Foundation. The research phase involved gathering information about the physical land and brief history of Nevada City, meeting and interviewing the Director of FOR-SITE, and visiting the site itself.
View the entire project profile.


Amy Franceschini
Media Theory and Practice, San Francisco Art Institute
Fall 2004

The Trails Forever project took place within a Media Theory and Practice course offered at San Francisco Art Institute. Instructor Amy Franceschini used this project to examine the use of wireless technologies as non-intrusive interpretation systems.
View the entire project profile.


Professor Walter Hood
Department of Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
LA 203, Fall 2003 (Graduate Course)

Shaping the Public Realm: Landscape Architecture And Environmental Planning
What happens if we take the approach of Smithsons Nonsite? What does it mean to be confronted with the absence of the Site? Does the Nonsite free us from the Site to focus on specificity or a limited concept as we move towards designing at the site context? Or to focus on that which is meaningful and beneficial, understanding all of its sides? Can the Nonsite facilitate a different way into the site, forcing us to develop a procedure that is more active, subjectively and objectively. These are a few of the questions to ask as we critique and work within the context of the Nonsite.
View the entire project profile.


Professors Lisa Findley + Bruce Tomb
Department of Architecture, California College of the Arts
Studio One, Fall 2003

Grounding Architecture
This studio introduced students to tectonics in architecture through an investigation of site and ground. The focus was on the understanding of particularities that site lends to architecture, and to learn to think about buildings in the landscape. The poetic potential of tectonic response was investigated through the lens of the site, and through the understanding the students brought forward from previous studios. The studio included field trips to sites, lectures, reading and writing in addition to making.
View the entire project profile.


Professor Donald Fortescue
Department of Wood/Furniture, California College of the Arts
Spring 2003

In mid-March 2003, I along with three other faculty and fifteen students from the Wood/Furniture Program at the California College of the Arts trekked to FOR-SITEs Artist Residency in Nevada City, California for three days of exploration, learning and creativity.
View the entire project profile.

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