Ryan Al-Schamma
Associate AIA
My name is Ryan Al-Schamma, I’m a recent graduate of the University of Oregon’s B.Arch program (Grad 2020), and have just completed my first year in the profession.. During working hours I focus on Federal urban planning and architecture projects around the country, but during my free time I love road and mountain biking (hit me up, I’m looking for riding buddies), cooking, and installation design. For this installment of Message From, I’m going to be writing about a recent installation I completed with a small team, called Stay ON the Grass.
Stay ON the Grass was birthed from a medical article I read last winter that pointed out the decline in mental health for individuals in dense urban areas during the novel COVID-19 pandemic, versus individuals in more rural areas. On separate occasions phoning friends in larger cities than Eugene, I learned about the universal frustration over the lack of green space, and feelings of depression and isolation due to the inaccessibility to usable green space, and thus the lack of opportunities to just EXIST outside comfortably. In the face of a global pandemic, the urban design and architecture that is supposed to serve us proved to be futile, and even hostile towards those in dense urban areas, and it was costing many their mental well-being.
Stay ON the Grass (SOTG) gave me and my team the chance to respond to this need for more usable green space in dense urban areas, opening up a discussion about our current state of urban design and planning which seems to prioritize building austere and uncomfortable paved hardscape instead of usable and calming landscape.
The concept and form of the installation is derived from the highly instagrammed chalk bubbles outlined in grassy parks in bustling cities in the US such as San Francisco, San Antonio, and New York. The six-foot chalk bubbles separated by six foot aisles act as recreational social distancing bubbles. SOTG is intended to take the place of these bubbles in heavily paved urban areas where grass isn’t easily accessible. The dish of grass and wood rocks and sways when being used due to its concave form, while matching the ideal curvature of our human anatomy when laying in it–a living urban hammock, if you will.
This has been such an enriching experience, and I’m thankful I can think about these things as an architect. While I’m uncertain what the next part of this great adventure will look like, the one thing that I have been steadfast in throughout this process is that we need to design urban settings better. We have taken the easy road so far in relying predominantly on paving to fill the non-essential spaces between structures, so much so that it is engrained in the DNA of how we design; how we think about in-between spaces. Like Frankenstein’s monster, our own creations - the infrastructure and spaces that we use daily - are going to be the things that kill us. That is, if we don’t change the DNA of our designs to incorporate nature in a more interactive and meaningful way.
Imagine any paved plaza, courtyard, or large urban gathering space–sure, Kezey Square here in downtown Eugene. Now imagine it covered in grass. A comfortable oasis. While I would love to see a million rocking grass pods strewn across cities everywhere, wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t need a raised patch of grass to fix our problems, but rather designed spaces to be comfortable and accommodating to begin with?
Stay ON the Grass will be displayed at the 5th Street Market extension, in front of the Gordon Hotel, until October 13. You’re welcome to leave feedback on the installation here https://forms.gle/uGoQJ2kzLdrfSLf49, or can reach me at by email. More importantly, I hope this keeps the discussion about the DNA of design active and available, because we have so much to work on together. I am looking forward to hearing from my colleagues and potential partners in tackling our issues of sustainability and resilience.
How are you changing the DNA of design?
