Adrian La Tona Selected Works by Adrian La Tona

Adrian La Tona Selected Works

Adrian La Tona: Selected Works

Contents: Manifestations: East Quadrangle 1 Sweet Water Cafe

Fictions: Urban ReAssemblage

University of Detroit Mercy Architecture Library

Museum of Unconditional Surrender

Pro Arte

Fragments: Knots & Voids

The work in this portfolio represents a series of inquisitions into what architecture may be. The questions range from organizational, to formal, to constructional however, none are considered fully complete. Instead the work is thought of as a set of explorations; a set of ever evolving conversations to which new solutions are constantly a rising. I appreciate your time and thank you in advance. Adrian La Tona

East Quadrangle Completed with Integrated Design Solutions

The East Quadrangle is one of the largest residency dorms on University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campus, housing over 800 students as well as dining and classroom facilities. The entire building contains approximately 300,000 sqft of space. The Integrated Design Solutions team was charged with a full renovation of the existing building, includin g the student rooms, classrooms, exterior shell and mechanical upgrades. By collaborating with the dormitory design experts Hanberry Eveans Wright Valtas, the project was completed in just over a year for about $90 million. My role on this project was crucial to the time line, overall quality and client satisfaction. My responsibilities included: field measuring and verification, all rendering and client visualization, documentation of the existing building shell and repair as well as construction documentation for three elevators, loading dock additions, exterior stairs and ramps. All of these efforts demanded rigourous coordination with multiple architectural, mechanical, civil and structural teams to deliver an accurate product that preforms well beyond client expectations.

Spacial Designations green public residential

Sweet Water Cafe at the UMMA Completed with Integrated Design Solutions

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Existing Foot Traffic

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Anticipated Foot Traffic

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This cafe was to be located in the award winning University of Michigan Museum of Art, designed by Allied Works Architects and Integrated Design Solutions. The client operated several other cafes in Ann Arbor and was interested in re-developing their brand identity while maintaining their strong link to the area. The museum is sited at the end of a major pedestrian route and, despite housing a major collection of art, does not receive much student foot traffic. It was the intent of the current art director to bring in a local food service company to lure students into the museum on their way to and from class. Although compact, the design had to address a myriad of issues arising from demands of both the client and art director including where the students gather, how merchandise is displayed as well as how various site lines are handled. Our initial response included four distinct schemes that approached the design of this cafĂŠ as a piece of fine furniture rather than architecture. Space for merchandise was carved out of the counter, displaying the items as if they were works of art. The typical mirror that lined the back of the Sweet Water cafĂŠ counter was replaced by large sheets of backlit frosted glass which would glow like a lantern, attracting students and marking the cafĂŠ as a destination on the quadrangle. The materiality of the options presented ranged from stone to wood, both relating to existing site conditions, and used in an intimate manner in response to the museums lack of human scale. Over the next three weeks, through a rigorous series of meetings with the client and the design director, we were able to establish trajectories that the design would proceed under. The final design infuses an elegant frosted glass wall with a wood and metal counter that contains an area for merchandise as well as mitigates the complex traffic patterns of the site. This project was completed under the direction of Chuck Lewis, my role included design, presentation materials as well as meeting with clients.

University of Michigan Museum of Art

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Design Evolution

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Final Client Review

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Urban reAssemblage AR 210 Professor Resnick Building Type: Urban Redevelopment Location: Detroit, Michigan Size: 9 acres

Historic Tigers Stadium was to be re-used in a meaningful way while adding to the identity of the surrounding neighborhood. I decided to place a museum of the 20th century on the site, becoming an observer of the fabric that sparked the industrial city and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s consequences. The museum explored the notion that architecture is linked to the social, economical and cultural events that give rise to its construction. Views extending to existing landmarks in Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban context came to be the core of the design while phasing was used for its implementation. As landmarks are lost, the corresponding view becomes recorded on the site through the construction of a folly. This folly is constructed of dismantled stadium parts establishing a sense of connection to the original relic and is covered in a new skin. This skin, made of acrylic panels with imbedded LEDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, becomes a didactic screen that is able to play memories recorded throughout the century. The exhibition areas of the follies respond to various levels of the city: a fragmented street level, the framed event view, and finally a horizon view which is open to view the entire city. Consequently, the museum becomes a complex system of shifting events locked in flux, tacitly linked to the city which shaped the past onehundred years.

University of Detroit Mercy Architecture Library AR 422 Professor Odoerfer Building Type: Library Location: Detroit, Michigan Size: 20,000 sqft.

The intent of the integrated design studio is to explore the tectonic aspects of architecture. In this studio, students are required to size structural members, duct work and follow all aspects of the international building code. Our program was an architectural library and auditorium located next to the existing university library and central plaza. My solution addressed an inactive wall that currently faces the plaza, thus reducing the flow of people. By conceiving the new library as a faรงade, I was able to create an anchor point along the north side of the plaza. The light quality, both natural and artificial, was studied and led to a system of fenestrations which allowed the spaces to be lit by diffuse light with minimal glare. Carefully planned arrival points create a sense of place, enticing one to explore. Mechanical, structural and lighting systems are handled as sculptural elements that are revealed as one peregrinates through the building, while maximizing natural light.

The Museum of Unconditional Surrender AR 210 Professor Martinico Building Type: Museum Location: Detroit, Michigan Size: 40,000 sqft.

The focus of this project resided on a fundamental question: “how are people oriented in space?”. Using digital photography and acrylic resin to give form to space, it was discovered that we not only change space, but create it through our own interactions with others and through building form. Studying photographs of individuals in motion resulted in the recognition that we also exist in spaces temporarily. These spaces have four dimensions, three dimensions of space and one of time. The resulting building has wide corridors that weave together, some straight, some curved and some amorphous. The corridors are designed with the notion of fast and slow time as well as in conjunction with the sun. Requiring constant interaction on the part of the individual, the building becomes a mental “construction” of the world around them. By curving corridors slightly, destinations are no longer in view, rather the building constantly unfolds as one progresses, thus entering slow time. Reference spaces, used for large exhibits, become a means of navigation and negotiation between the individual and the city. The end result is a building that seems almost haunting. It requires the user, as an organizational element, to surrender to their own memory as a method of creating space as well as place.

Pro Arte AR 240 Professor Fuchs Building Type: Apartments for Artists Location: Volterra,Italy Size: 30,000 sqft.

The initial design problem for this project dealt with fitting a building of 30,000 sqft. on a site of only 7,000 sqft. The mode of thinking began with the needs of the artists and their role in the context of Volterra, Italy. From here the potential massing of the building was studied through models and sketches searching for an appropriate sense of scale as well as porosity. The large program allowed a nearby street to be bridged and the building to engage an existing Etruscan wall, opening it to the public. The conclusion of these explorations yielded a separation of the program. This allowed a public street through the site to facilitate tourists to explore studio spaces as well as pulling in natural light. Apartments stretch across the floor plates of the buildings and are comprised of interlocking mezzanine volumes and a double height volumes, allowing varying qualities of sunlight to flow in. Multiple studio spaces, aligned with sun patterns, provide the artist with a choice of conditions to work.

Knots & Voids

“It has long been my contention that light does not reveal the presence of objects, but the other way around: objects reveal the presence of light.” -Lebbeus Woods “Knots and Voids” has been a long term study into the presence of space not as a by product of form, but as the driver of form. The projects showcased here are meant to question our typical notion of space by giving shape and color to the unseen. When one thinks of a knot in its simplest form, it is a continuous strand that is entwined in a somewhat random order. The beauty of a knot is that you cannot pull one segment without effecting the entire knot. This distinguishes the knot from a weaving, where the order of the weaving and the discontinuity of the strands provide a more isolated framework. What spaces does this process yield? Furthermore, what is the shape of space itself? Wine bottles, presumed to have no single designer, serve as the vessel for this question. By utilizing plaster, one can preserve the memory of the space of a wine bottle, and through light, one can give it volume, dimension and ghost like qualities.