Masters Thesis: The Residue - Seattle, Washington

Advisor: Elena Manferdini
2015 Runner-Up Best Thesis

    Residue: a trace produced via a process. One way of understanding architecture is via its residues. Renaissance had poché . Modernism had a clear order of materials, geometry, and lines. Contemporary buildings have internal volumes such as void, inhabitable space and circulation with a connection to the facade; these surface geometries show interior space conditions vis-à-vis the building section. Peeling away this geometry from the facade produces a new residue: one that has a low fidelity between the surface and interior. This blurring between surface geometry and interior conditions is a critique on the status of building program in contemporary architecture. When designed spaces avoid one intended use, the lines blur between working, meeting, and relaxing. The facade is a means to address this current phenomena of buildings in flux.


Center for Science - Rome, Italy

Advisor: Andrew Zago   

    The following project is a proposal for an urban development and science center in the North district of Rome. Situated across from Zaha Hadid's MAXXI Museum - the brief called for the development of approximately 500 housing units and a 27, 000 square meter science center. The urban development was created from folding a set of  bars along a series of predefined axes relating the science center to the surrounding neighborhoods. Simultaneous to this urban idea, a series of formal studies were conducted to develop the massing for the project. Building on the idea of folding, a block was selected from the Nolli Map of Rome and contorted as a response to the MAXXI across the street. 

Mute Form

Advisor: Marcelo Spina
Partner: Dylan Krueger

   This class dealt with exploring pre-cast concrete systems and graphics - where the graphic quality of the image could be used to help disrupt and dissolve the techtonic of pre-cast panels. We started by taking an image of the Whitney Museum in New York  and disrupting it via Processing and other image manipulation software.

World Health Organization - Geneva, Switzerland

 Advisor: Elena Manferdini

    The following project was following the guidelines for the 2014 World Health Organization Competition. The brief called for an expansion of the facilities by an additional 25,000 square meters. The current building on the site was designed by Jean Tschumi, measuring roughly the same dimensions as the expansion.

    The project’s aim is to challenge the envelope through the use of the graphic to inform and misinform, to bring clarity and disparity, to align and misalign via the super-graphic and super-real textures applied to the envelope. The super-graphic belongs to the conditions introduced by my new WHO building – hence being artificial and not belonging to the environment. The roof datum and the interior environment that the new WHO building introduces belong to the realm of the super-graphic (the roof and interior graphics can be seen in the photographs of the models below). The artificiality is affirmed by being generated entirely through digital techniques. To contrast the super-graphic, the super-real belongs to the world of the exterior – connecting the building to the environment and having a “dirty” sensibility. To affirm this, the super-real samples a series of photographs that begin to weave together to make the texture. To maintain a dialogue between the graphic and the real, the same repetitive square pattern is used. This repetition of geometry is also drawing a link to the existing Jean Tschumi building that has a very systematic and regular patterning – something Zaera Polo discusses in the Politics of the Envelope as having egalitarian attributes. It is through this dichotomy of real versus artificial that the use of image begins to depict the responsibility of the World Health Organization – to help purify the exterior environment as the pattern passes through the building into a sterile environment. The super-graphic is also stripped of color, becoming greyscale upon entry to the building  – further reinforcing this idea of purification. 

 

El Cariso Park Sculpture - Sylmar, California

Artist: Stephen Glassman
Engineer: Matthew Melnyk

   Stephen Glassman is a LA-based artist and sculptor engaged in the creation of large-scale public art works that cross the territories of art, architecture, landscape, and engineering. Dedicated to communities and the environment, Glassman has completed projects for numerous public agencies including the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, West Hollywood, San Diego, Seattle and New York City. El Carios Park, just north of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, has undergone a major revitalization including a commission for Stephen Glassman to create a public sculpture. Through consultation with the engineer Matthew Melnyk, I was asked to help produce construction drawings to bring the artist's vision into reality. 

Rethinking Cerdà - Barcelona, Spain

Advisor: Peter Zellner
Partner: Meldia Hacobian

    This project was concerned with creating apartments in an area of Barcelona adjacent to the Besos River, an area where the Cerdà grid had not extended out to. The project brief gave the option of extending the existing grid out or refusing to follow the old system entirely. Instead of going with either of those systems, we chose to develop a hybrid. Through analysis of different configurations based on GFA and FAR, we found the most efficient system was a Cerdà Block aggregated into smaller units. This produced a large central courtyard and small sub-courtyards in each of the blocks. 

    To further develop the massing strategy, we took the existing Cerdà grid and overlapped it on itself introducing a grid shift. Our two overlapping grids formed our initial  building concept - resembling a figure 8. Taking into account surrounding site conditions, the mass begins to react to its surroundings (ie. dipping under freeway, lifting over River, etc).  

 

US Embassy Design Development - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Advisors: Herwig Baumgartner, Scott Uriu, Matthew Melnyk
Partners: Benjamin Vanmuysen, Noni Pittenger, Elliott Freeman, Alison Rust

    Design development for this Embassy in Rio De Janeiro involved taking the initial ideas and creating a structural system that supported this enormous cantilever mass. Then subsequently from there the skin was panelized, HVAC Systems were introduced, and ADA and Egress was developed. 


Research Station - Antartica

Advisor: Matthew Melnyk
Partner: Begum Baysun

    This project begins to use software and tools to push the ideas of mobile structures. The brief called for a research station in the Antarctic to house several researchers. By turning to the aeronautics industry, composite material technology that has been developed was to be integrated into the design of this research station. Much like the fuselage of the modern aircraft such as the Airbus A380 or Boeing 787 Dreamliner - the research station is designed to be formed in rings that are later assembled together. 

    To develop the structure and find the idealized form, Grasshopper was used in conjunction with Karamba to subject the structure to gravitational loads and observe its deformation. Based on the results of these stress tests, the form was creased and the depths of the fuselage rings were increased to enhance the structures stability. 

 

 

US Embassy - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Advisor: Herwig Baumgartner
Partner: Elliott Freeman

    This project challenges the idea of an Embassy and its arrangement. The brief called for a 125, 000 square foot US embassy on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. It not only would have to serve  the bureaucratic affairs of the embassy, but act as a center for public events and culture. It had to have art gallery space and also an auditorium to seat a large audience. 

    To drive the design aesthetic, we were encouraged to explore part to whole relationships - where autonomous objects begin to interact with each other. As the notion of an embassy deals with security, a division had to be established between public and private space. The central object in the project was how this was managed - having the auditorium and gallery spaces being placed there. The surrounding three buildings were then where office spaces and private areas resided.

 

Pixel House - Silverlake, California

Advisor: Margaret Griffin

    This project for a single family home began with taking one of M.C. Escher's tessellations and deconstructing it to the point of making a logic system for a house. The tessellation was first pixelated to a point of losing clarity and then that system was interpreted 3 times: the floor system, the roof system, and finally the building envelope.