ABR
ADRIANA BARCENAS ROJAS 2014 - 15
01
Living Lab
02
Public Water Closet
03
Kids Make the Future LIC
04
Disruption: A Drawing Machine
05
Heat Wave
01 Living Lab. Manhattanville, West Harlem. New York The living laboratory is an extension of the local community center and operates as a hybridized recreational-learning center of vegetation. Water is filtered through natural vegetation beds on the top-most level and circulated through a myriad of green spaces throughout the various levels of the building. A kitchen learning lab on the ground floor grows herbs seasonally under the care of young hands. The living lab on the second level is the backdrop to various classes offered to local children under the tutelage of Columbia student volunteers. At the pool level, users of all ages swim upon an undulating concrete floor proliferated by the vegetation that supports a filtration system throughout building over.
Previous Page: Interior Rendering of Living Pools. Floor is cast with undulation to create varying depths of water that can accommodate a range of ages and swimming ability. Left: Top, Pool level. Bottom, Second Level host the living lab and flexible studio space. Right: Ground floor. Plans illustrate the superstructure that supports the pools levels.
Left page: Top, Section B-B through Broadways entrance. In ascending order: working classrooms, meditative studio, & living pools. Bottom, Section A-A throug h main entrance looking towards Old Broadway. In ascending order: lockers, living lab, & vegetative filter bed in living pool. Right Page: Interior rendering of living laboratory space.
02 Public Water Closet Straus Park, Upper West Side. New York
The public restroom is composed water chambers that serve as the reservoir for water as required by the two separate sets of sink and toilet. The volume capacity of each individual chamber fluctuates in relation to its proximity to either sink or toilet. As users utilize this public amenity, the chambers gradually empty over the course of a day, week, month, etc. This process is visually transparent between both user and passerby. As patterns of typical average usage emerge, the city has the potential to calibrate the amount of water required by the structure. While the foundation of this project is mindful of conservation, it largely seeks to establish an experiential relationship between the user and their subsequent use of natural resources. Sharing the water chambers amongst the two separate ADA-compliant restrooms further demonstrates the subtractive element of infrastructural usage over time. The aim is not to admonish the user, but simply to make evident the effect of her or his presence in time
At Capacity: 2310 Gallons : 888 cycles @ Average 2.6 gallons/use Left Page: Top, Rain-water catchment chambers. Bottom, Diagram of usage per chamber Right Page: Exterior from West End Avenue
Left Page: Top, East elevation. Middle, West elevation. Bottom. Section looking west. Right Page: Rendering of exit from norther stall.
03 Kids Make the Future LIC Long Island City, New York City A financial institution is a space of currency that often presupposes the existence another primary space, the home unit. As a philanthropic venture, the institution provides a grant in conjunction with the city of New York to support a new long-term residency program for youths in the foster care/adoption circuit that are likely exit their adolescence independently. While the banking institution has an interest in mediating this transition financially, and thereafter ensuring a new constituency of bankers; this residency program itself promotes the positive development of socialization skills amongst the young residents, local volunteers, and on-site caretakers. The program is to be considered an urban extension to neighboring Residential Treatment Centers that may recommend future candidates from their current rosters. As many of these existing programs are often located in rural New York, this space provides an opportunity for residents to create an emerging network of those that complete the program and can serve as advisors to youths in similar circumstances. The transparent skin that envelopes the periphery of public spaces puts on display the social life of the project with the private rooms nested within and above, quite like a treehouse dwelling.
Left: Rendered section displays the open, public spaces of the ground & second floor levels. Private individual rooms are located on levels 3 & 4. Level 5 hosts dining, space, and social courtyards. Right: Top, Interior Rendering of social space on level 2. Bottom, Diagram for proposed structure of learning inputs.
Left: Interior rendering of social space for resident youths. Right:Top, Massing Model. Bottom, Section looking south. Ground level is defined by open space for classrooms and social congregation. Upper levels become increasingly private.
Left: Plans from Ground Level upward. Right: Structural diagram of elements.
04 Disruption: A Drawing Machine
A building is not still. As a device, the mobile is a system of balance that is subject to patterns of disruption, predominantly the movement of wind circulating about it. As drawing machine, the mobile creates a record of those movements. It translates through drawing the disruptions caused by...
Mobile translated through Grasshopper. One cycle is the completion of a line tracing along a constrained path. The line shifts as sound waves in the room are recorded. Rhino would dictate that a line seen in plan should appear as a dot, however the aggregate of lines after various cycles leave a trace in digital space.
05 Heat Wave : Residence Bronx, New York City In Collaboration with Brigitte Lucey A supergrid is superimposed upon three adjacent lots. On each lot, the grid is grounded by three orbs. These orbs collect and sort residential waste from the onsite inhabitants, as well as from the adjacent community, to produce energy. The energy created onsite both offsets the residents’ electrical usage and is transformed into thermal heat to be used for heating or cooling in the summer. From these orbs, thermal ribbons wrap throughout the supergrid and house the residential units, as well as a variety of ammenities including greenhouses, study centers, and social gathering spaces. It is a type of housing that seeks to hybridize the residential sphere with energy infrastructure.
Left: Building floor plans 4, 5, 6 show stacking water walls that are continuous on various floors, even as apartments shifts in layout depending on type. Right: Rendering of upper outdoor terrace, grid densifies to accommodate growing spaces and seating for social gathering.
Left: Taxonomy of unit types includes microunit, studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3 bedroom, and 4 bedroom apartments. Unity types are assembled from 12ft modular panels that are either opaque glass, translucent, solid, or solid “wet� wall. Right: Top, Mechanical system for composting orb. Each lot is grounded with an orb into which pneumatic tubes feed waste from the circulation cores to be processed into energy that heats/cools the radiant ribbons that hold residential units. Bottom, Cross sections through units.
Rendering of Ground Floor Plaza. Shown left, summer configuration for public pool adjacent to composting orb. Right, winter configuration for heated pool with panel infill for enclosure.
Left: Top, perspective highlighting the composting orbs on the ground floor encased by the superstructure grid. Bottom, 3-dimensional model of elevation perspective of the south facade. Right: Top, massing model of the thermal ribbons on the middle lot. Bottom, early study model of structural elements.