Lansing Community College

Documenting a Nine-Block Campus at Both Urban and Pedestrian Scales

Landscape architecture, aerial photography, and supporting drone motion for Wade Trim at Lansing Community College in Lansing, Michigan

Wade Trim commissioned 517 Visuals to document landscape architecture and urban-design improvements across Lansing Community College’s nine-block downtown campus in Lansing, Michigan.

The assignment required one concise image library to explain the project at two very different scales. Aerial views established the campus within the downtown grid, while ground-level photographs showed how planting, plazas, public art, entrances, and student movement shaped the pedestrian experience.

The final engagement combined ten photographs with one edited drone hyperlapse, giving Wade Trim both a campus-wide overview and a closer record of the public spaces experienced on foot.

Strategic Snapshot
Client: Wade Trim
Project: Lansing Community College Campus Enhancements
Location: Lansing, Michigan
Project Type: Higher education landscape architecture and urban design
Engagement: Ground-level photography, aerial photography, and drone hyperlapse
Primary Uses: Landscape architecture portfolio, website, and project marketing
Final Deliverables: Ten final photographs and one edited drone hyperlapse

Project Context

Wade Trim’s planning and landscape architecture work at Lansing Community College unfolded over seven years.

The project addressed a lack of unifying design features across the downtown campus through coordinated improvements to streetscapes, building entrances, plazas, the pedestrian mall, lighting, hardscape, accessibility, planting, and public art.

A campus-wide planting program added seasonal variety, strengthened outdoor spaces, and supported stormwater goals across the nine-block site. Wade Trim scheduled the photography for an active fall term so the landscape, public spaces, and campus use could be documented together.

The photographic challenge was to show those distributed improvements as one connected campus project rather than a collection of isolated landscape details.

Planning for Fall Color and Campus Activity

Wade Trim identified fall color, active student use, and campus-wide context as priorities before production.

The firm supplied a map of target locations for the photography and hyperlapse. Lansing Community College coordinated parking and rooftop access, while weather remained an important consideration for both aerial work and the seasonal character of the landscape.

Production was structured in two parts. The aerial round established the nine-block campus, pedestrian mall, plazas, academic buildings, and surrounding downtown context. The ground-level round concentrated on Wade Trim’s priority spaces, including entrances, planting, public art, gathering areas, and locations where student activity could clarify scale.

This division allowed the final set to move from campus structure into the experience of individual public spaces without asking one type of image to carry both responsibilities.

Ground and Aerial Coverage

Ground-level views focused on planting, paving, public art, entrances, gathering areas, and student movement. Fall conditions made the relationship between deciduous color, evergreen structure, and hardscape more legible.

Student activity was included selectively, giving scale to the spaces without distracting from the landscape architecture.

Aerial views established the broader nine-block structure, showing how the pedestrian mall, streetscapes, plazas, academic buildings, and surrounding downtown grid connected.

Together, the two perspectives gave Wade Trim a sequence that could introduce the project at campus scale and then move into the planting, materials, circulation, and public spaces experienced at ground level.

Campus Hyperlapse

The edited drone hyperlapse moves through Lansing Community College’s downtown campus, compressing student activity while showing the relationship between the pedestrian mall, public spaces, and surrounding buildings.

The motion asset supported the same spatial story as the still photographs. Rather than functioning as a separate promotional piece, it provided a concise view of movement and connection across the campus.

Final Selection and Use

Wade Trim’s team reviewed the proof gallery together and selected ten final images representing the project at both campus and pedestrian scales.

The completed set included aerial context, ground-level views, landscape detail, public art, circulation, and student activity. Together with the edited hyperlapse, the final deliverables gave Wade Trim a concise project library for landscape architecture portfolio use and broader project marketing.

The photographs remain in active use on Wade Trim’s Lansing Community College project page, where they illustrate the campus-wide landscape architecture improvements, pedestrian spaces, planting, public art, and urban-design framework documented during the engagement.

Unlike a building-centered assignment, this engagement required the image set to explain landscape architecture, public realm, circulation, and campus identity as one connected system across multiple city blocks.

The assignment demonstrates how a distributed landscape project can be documented as one connected system while preserving the distinct roles of aerial context, pedestrian experience, seasonal planting, and campus activity.

Final Image Gallery

The gallery below includes the ten final photographs of Lansing Community College’s downtown campus enhancements in Lansing, Michigan.

This project is part of 517 Visuals’ broader work documenting educational campuses and architecture across Michigan.

Explore additional architectural photography case studies or view our broader architectural photography gallery.

Photography and motion by 517 Visuals. Copyright remains with 517 Visuals. Usage rights are defined through written licensing.