ALEC NAKTIN PORTFOLIO
Fall 2020 — ARCH 501 Studio Professor Danielle Willems
The proposed extension to the planned museum tackles issues of object display and visitor accessibility. Departing from traditional museum schemes in which archival and public spaces are rigorously separated, this extension instead experiments with ways of blurring the boundaries between the two. These zones are scattered across the plan and intermingled. As the forms of the public and exhibition areas coalesce and swell around the items they house on display, they push against the threshold of the more regular archives, forcing them to yield.
Materials are archived based on their proximity to public areas, and such public areas swell and grow around their particular exhibits. Strategically placed airboard allows for an incomplete viewing into these areas. The goal is not to survey archive workers, but give a refracted view of the museum’s contents unfolding before visitors.
Fall 2017 — Foundations I Studio Professor Frank de Santis
Foundations I work culminated in the creation of an architectural promenade composed of a cardboard armature, dowel system, and a repetitive assemblage of paper modules. The goal was to provide an experience of light and dark spaces to traverse. The promenade features several paths of varying atmospheric qualities that converge on a sacred space. Humans move from below, the ground, upwards and reach for the divine.
This project was an iterative process that began with early studies on how to portray space and depth with identical marks (featured left). The topography of the nearby Elkins Park also served as inspiration for the model’s base.
Promenade Experiment
t Section. 26 x 36”. Graphite on vellum.
Promenade Plan. 30 x 36”. Graphite on vellum.
Promenade Section. 26” x 36”. graphite on vellum.
Fall 2018 — Architectural Design III Studio Professor Ian Smith
This project conceptualized the addition of a bathhouse pavilion to Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park. A relationship was carefully established between the existing park structures and this pavilion, in both materiality and usage. The act of using the pavilion is carefully coded into the experience of the park so that visitors will not forget where they are.
PROPOSED 96’ x 96’ SITE
PAVILION SITE PLAN SCALE: 1”=50’
Model Photo: Front Entrance. Basswood and chipboard
Model Photo: East wall
Pavilion Elevation: East Side
Model Photo: Window facing monument
Pavilion Elevation: South Side
Model Photo: Aerial from behind
ARCH 501 — Fall 2020 Studio Professor Danielle Willems
Predating the Penn museum extension project, groups of students teamed up to conceive of ‘mixing chambers’ to display artifacts that otherwise would remain in the museum’s archive. The pavilion took on the language of a gyroid form with several interstitial layers. Hollows were carefully carved out from the solid to engage passerby and sculpt pathways into viewing areas, views of whom are refracted by the translucency of the gyroid’s tubular geometry and other layers.
Fall 2019 — Architectural Design III Studio Professor Ian Smith
The criteria of this intensive project involved designing a pair of Rowhomes for a site in South Philadelphia. The design theorized the main social spaces - kitchen, dining and living rooms - as open, connected places daylight in accordance with the optimal experience of their use. These public spaces stayed on the second floor, near entrances and exits with accessibility in mind.
6:00 p.m.
8:30 a.m.
South Street
Rodman Street
Intelligent raising and lowering of the roof and strategically placed skylights to let morning, noon, and evening light into the central spaces of both rowhomes in tune with the natural activity of the families. Morning light establishes the kitchens as places of use and preparation for the day, evening light brings a relaxing ambience to the living rooms, and both spaces receive noon light for times of recreation or breaks.