++ SELECTED WORKS anna finneran anna.finneran@gmail.com
SELECTED WORKS anna finneran anna.finneran@gmail.com
EAT | SLEEP | ART | INTERACT
LOCUS: A Mixed Use Exploration in Grand Center Site: St. Louis, MO Spring 2012 Critic: Ben Fehrmann “There is no there there” - Gertrude Stein Hotels are symbols of our increased personal mobility, and this mobility can create a sense of isolation. Chain hotels create characterless environments based on the assumption that there is something comforting in the familiarness of the generic. Each hotel receives the same treatment, monotonous corridors and banal rooms, devoid of contextual relationships and a sense of place. We travel to enjoy, to feel, and to find. Hotels can create opportunities for these experiences. The richness of urban life comes from the juxtaposition of people, activities, and spaces. These relationships are encouraged by buildings that facilitate interaction between the interior and exterior- public and private. Activities that happen in the building influence and interact with the life on the street and vice versa. This creates an opportunity for the building façade to mediate our urban existence as a social interface.
Typical Hotel Section
Active Hotel Section
Piranesi Piranesi etched spacial labrinths which referenced the ancient Romans attitude about public space and the idea of the forum. In his imagined architecture there is density and juxtaposition of spaces which strongly suggests a new model for urban activity. His spaces while, sparsly populated read as active because of the richness of the infered relationships. This collage exlpores how his idea could be applied to a public lobby.
public | private
cores | tunnel form concrete
greenspace
circulation
Ground Floor Pan
7th Floor
3rd Floor
Ground Floor
West Section
South Section
Active Systems: Radiant
Passive Systems: Double Screen
Edward Hopper
DOMO|DWELLING
St. Louis City Multi-Family Urban Infill Housing Site: St.Louis, MO Fall 2010 Critic: Don Koster
The average density of St. Louis City is 6.4 people/acre Density- what is a city without it? St. Louis city has struggled over the last 20 years to keep its urban fabric intact. The growth of the inner and outer ring suburbs has hollowed out the city’s core leaving entire city blocks vacant. So the question becomes how do repopulate a vacant 200,000 sq ft city block? You grow it. The human body regenerates one cell at a time- and it does so by dividing and repeating that cell. The block is the cell of the city- so the city block must become a microcosm for the city. In this scheme the long linear courtyard serves as a pedestrian throughway and gathering place. All of the units and commercial spaces are tubes that are oriented to main street and this interior street. This way the typical public urban activities can grow from the inside ou, and on and on.
Section Model The registration of the orange service cores helps emphasizes the relationship between individual and collective identity in an urban setting.
B O A R D W A L K URBANISM A St. Louis City Franchise Stradegy Site: St. Louis, MO Spring 2011 Critic: Alfredo Paya | Pablo Moyano
The boardwalk is an active buffer that blurs the relationship between the natural environment and the urban. De-industrialization and rapid sub-urbanization has hollowed out the city’s core leaving a threadbare urban grid that hangs over it’s oversized bones. There is an opportunity in St. Louis a chance to rethink the paradigm of the dense and frenetic 20th century city- to create a new low-denisity urbanism. This new urbanism wouldn’t necessarily based on efficiency of specifically programed space, because a city like St. Louis barely has the population necessary for the typical urban program model. Instead, urban spaces could be designed to highlight sensory expereinces. The city does not have to be a place of anonymity and efficiency, it can be personal place open to interaction. This new urban condition could be like a beach- a wide ever changing avenue that invites different kinds of activity and is always open but never vacant. 1. Reclaiming and program vacant space and returning the city to the public realm. 2. Re-Contextulize Urbanity for a new low density 3. Occupied> Vacanct Disolving the traditional figure ground model and creating a field condition of occupation.
Passive Systems & Environment Plan
St. Louis City Boardwalk Franchise Plan
F O U N D AT I O N B E S T I A R I
A museum and storage facility for the neighborhood “giants” Site: Barcelona, Spain Summer 2011 Critic: Adrian Luchini | Elena Canovas | Mariona Benedito
The Bestiari or Gigantes are 2-4 meter high Papiermâché figures that represent famous characters in Catalan history. Each neighborhood has its own set of Bestiari and during Catalan holidays and festivals the Bestiari figures are worn by people who dance through the streets. The program for the Foundation Bestiari includes a gallery space, administration space, classrooms, storage, café, event space, and a restoration studio. The gallery space was inspired by how light transforms the narrow cavernous streets of the Barri Gotic- how light and shadow create their own dance on the streets of Barcelona everyday.
Ground Floor
Gallery, Cafe, Information, Bathrooms
3rd Floor
Formal Gallery Space
2nd Floor
Administration
HOT BOX
Farmers market, urban farm, education center, and food pantry on the Chicago River Site: Chicago, Illinois Fall 2011 Critic: Paul Donnelly Team: Ailen Garcia | Sushwala Hedding | Helen Schneider
A “Russian Doll� [nested systems] approach to climate and comfort This project is an urban farm and food pantry beside the Chicago river. The program is housed within concrete boxes situated inside a larger glass enclosure that allows for seasonal extension. Shading fins of flexible photovoltaic plastic that move with the sun act both to shade the interior when desired and harness maximum solar energy. The river is a source of water for irrigation and a heat sink for the radiant cooling system. As such, the project aims to re-express the river as a life source for the urban farm. As a large, transparent enclosure, the project also aims to serve as a beacon for the Chicago Food Depository, suggesting a positive, and sustainable integration with the city.
Ventilation is primarily passive, through the operable glass enclosure and windows in the concrete programmed spaces. Even in the winter, due to the solar thermal gain, the internal boxes should be able to open to the larger enclosure for fresh tempered air. Heating and cooling is via hydronic radiant piping in the floors, walls and ceilings of the concrete boxes. Water in the radiant pipes is cooled in the summer through a piped loop in the river. Excess heat is lost to the river water and the cooled water is returned to the building. The internal boxes become a cool surface that radiates coolth to the larger enclosure. In the winter, a water source heat pump decreases heating requirements as far as possible, hot water circulates through the enclosure of the internal buildings and these hot boxes radiate heat into the glass enclosure, creating a greenhouse effect. Solar energy is both harnessed and glare mediated by the fins mentioned above.
The building is imagined in three climate zones. The inner zone is the concrete boxes that act as high thermal mass, absorbing and radiating heat into the larger glass enclosure. Radiant heating and cooling pipes are situated within the mass of these boxes, so that they mediate temperatures both inside and out into the larger enclosure.
The double-pane glass enclosure becomes a greenhouse to allow seasonal extension for the market and plantings in the winter, creating a large tempered semi-outdoor environment. Large sliding doors open to the outdoors in the summer to allow passive ventilation.
Daylighting is maximized by the angle of the fins external to the transparent glass enclosure. The glare of direct sunlight is deflected and diffused.
The building operated opv (organic photovoltaic) fins are pinned to the external structure of the glass enclosure, providing a third zone for shading and solar energy harnessing. The fins move to track the sun, allowing maximum shading and solar gain. In the winter, the fins are angled to reflect light into the glass enclosure to maximize solar heat gain.
The structural system is load-bearing concrete boxes within a steel frame structure. The gravity loads are transferred to concrete footings. As the building is situated along the river edge, pile foundations create a solid edge, tied back to bedrock beneath the buildings. This prevents lateral forces from pushing the retaining wall out into the river.
ANNA FINNERAN C O N TA C T 3438 Pestalozzi ST Saint Louis, MO 63118 cell: 001.202.329.7677 email: anna.finneran@gmail.com blog: annafinneran.blogspot.com E D U C AT I O N Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art B.A. Architecture, Minor: American Culture Studies (focus: urban studies). 2004 Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art M.A. Architecture, Abroad: Barcelona, Spain. 2012 EXP E R I E N C E Washington University in St. Louis | Teaching Assistant Worked with professors to assist in student studio project development NYCHA | VISTA(Americorp) Sustainability Consultant community/urban development, project management, grant writing, communications, publicity, “Green� publications editor, research. SOA | Design Intern drawings, models, research, zoning, concept development, master plans, space planning. Axi:Ome | Design Intern drawings, models, graphics, diagrams. REX | Design Intern Team Vakko, Team Museum Plaza, model making, digital models, renderings, diagrams, Plans, sections, product research, interior design, graphics, detail models. Shinberg.Levinas | Intern creating a material library, product research, models, graphics, coordinating suppliers, meeting with distributors, photography, organizing presentations. SKILLS AutoCad, Rhino, rendering engines (V-Ray and Maxwell), Revit, Sketch-Up, Photoshop, Illustrator, In-Design, Excel, Word, Power Point, wood shop, and basic metal shop