SELECTED WORKS ABDULLAH ALSAHAFI * An interior view of a project model
Contact Info: Abdullah Alsahafi aams-1413@hotmail.com (407)600-1161
EDUCATION Master of Architecture, 2012-14 (Transferred) Drury University Hammons School of Architecture Bachelor of Science in Architecture, 2016 University of Michigan
EXPERIENCE BRPH Spring Break Extern March 2016 As an extern, I had the opportunity to meet professionals from a wide variety of fields. That included structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers as well as architects, interior designers, cost estimators, and specifications specialists. In addition, I sat down on board meetings and client conference calls. This experience gave me a glimpse of all the steps a project goes through from start to end.
MOS Architects + Taubman College Workshop Participant. "Practice Sessions, No.1 : A House & an Object" Worked with practitioners Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample. The workshop helped me understand the many possibilities of architectural design that are beyond the studio culture. I also had the chance to collaborate with graduate students who had higher skills and design knowledge. Being a three-day workshop, I learned how to quickly complete a project by managing time wisely and cooperate with team members. The Ozark Food Harvest Volunteer Summer 2013 Learned how to sort, verify validity, and pack donated food items. I also gained valuable insights on working as member of small and large groups. This experience taught me that even an hour of volunteering could have a great impact on so many people's lives.
SKILLS Representation: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator. Drafting: AutoCAD. 3D Modeling: Rhinoceros 5. Physical Model Making.
AWARDS Dean's List - Drury University: Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014
ART GALLERY 1.0
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The building is a galler y housing a painting by the American expressionist Richard Diebenkorn. The design follows the same simplicity found in the painting by using only rectangular planar surfaces. Visitors enter the galler y and follow a ramp that takes them around the building. On their way up, they encounter a large window looking onto the back of the painting, making them curious to see the other side of it. Therefore, they continue on walking up the ramp and come back down from the other side to finally see the painting.
ART GALLERY 2.0
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This project starts where the previous one stopped. However, this galler y houses seven paintings. The main idea of the building is a series of ramps that take visitors from the ground floor all the way to the top floor. Each ramp has two platforms that look directly onto a painting hung from the ceiling. The journey of going up the ramps is analogous to circulating around the work of Richard Diebenkorn. The paintings are organized in a chronological order ; revealing to the visitors the progression and the increasing simplicity that the painter's work had gone through.
Habitable objects 0
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THE CONCEPTUAL. This phase started by wrapping random found objects with paper. Wrapping the objects is a step in hiding their initial qualities and introducing new ones. Next, the object were agglomerated into different clusters to create interior habitable spaces. Some of the resultant forms transformed from a floor into a cur ved wall and finally a ceiling. Some forms created cave-like spaces while others became obser vation platforms. In some cases, the habitable space happened in the void between two or more objects.
THE ARCHITECTURAL. The goal here was to take the conceptual ideas learned from wrapping the found objects and turn them into a “real� building with a diverse program. The program included an Olympic-size swimming pool for a YMCA facility, a train station, and thirty transitional housing units for homeless families. The design divided the site into three strips. The right one was for the train station, the middle for the swimming pool, and the left for the housing units. The housing units are made using irregular forms that resemble the wrapped objects. This was an attempt to avoid using the standard mass housing typology, a giant rectangle with an infinite number of units that offer no privacy or a sense of individuality.
THE ARCHITECTURAL. Each housing unit occupies an entire floor. The family can directly interact with the exterior skin of the building. Each family has a unique floor plan that none of the other families has. Again, this project is about individuality. It is a stand against the one-size-fits-all kind of approach.
EXTREME SPORTS CENTER 1.0 The site is located on a steep hill. The design utilizes this fact by cutting three paths leading to the building. Although each one comes from a different elevation point, they all meet at the same level. The design also attempts to fit within the site from one side, while showing a drastic change in height on the other.
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Site plan
entrance + s k at i n g pat h
The program of the building is a sport facility containing a climbing space as well as skating paths that double as entrances.
EXTREME SPORTS CENTER 2.0 This is the second attempt at designing the Extreme Sports Center. The building this time consists of two shells, an interior and exterior. The interior houses most of the program and ser vice spaces, while the exterior shell functions as a climbing wall. The wall wraps around the building and continues all the way to the roof ; giving users more climbing surface than a regular vertical wall.
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The left image shows the moment where the climbing wall reaches and wraps around the roof. The top image on this page partially shows the interior shell and its windows that go multiple floors. The lower image gives a site-plan view of the building.
Breaking the container PART 1. The assignment was to design an artifact consisting of an object and a container. Although the rule was to fit the object entirely inside the container, my approach was to break the one element that makes a box; i.e., its corner. The design also attempts to make the narrow container feel spacious by using forced perspective. The form of the artifact starts small at one end and grows bigger as it reaches the end. 10
PART 2. This part of the project consisted of making a series of drawings that not only tried to explain the artifact but also further the design. The top drawing shows how the object breaks the glass sides of the container. Only the parts that touch the object get broken, ever ything else remains intact.
Forced perspective This project continued on exploring the idea of forced perspective. How design could manipulate the way people perceive space. The building is a cultural center placed inside a church that was burned down, except for its exterior walls. The challenge was to fit a large building inside a small one. The projects uses techniques like repetition, light, color, and edge blurring to turn a small space into a large one.
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entrance
gallery no art. just light-colored walls!
All these images are un-Photoshoped. The lighting effects were created by spray painting sheets of tracing paper and directing light onto them. As light passed through the colored sheets, different colors lit the space. For some image, LED lights were used. The cover image is one of these photos.
Floor plans and section show the cultural center inserted into the shell of the old church. The first two floors play on the ideas of forced perspective and colored light. The top floor allow visitors the opportunity to enjoy natural light coming from new skylights and large existing windows.