Portfolio of Architectural Works
ALEXANDRA N. KUREK EDUCATION
80 Lafayette Ave Tamaqua, PA 18252 (570)778-9195 - ank2143@columbia.edu
Expected graduation: May 2017 Completed Summer 2015 Semester of Advanced Studio V
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Attn: Personnel/BCJ Career 8 West Market Street, Suite 1200 Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA Bachelor of Architecture
To Whom This May Concern:
Recognitions:
Pella Prize - Thesis Excellence Award Finalist Dean’s List: Fall 2012 - Spring 2015 Graduated Cum Laude
Semester Abroad Work-Study Program
PROFESSIONAL
October 28, 2015
Columbia University, New York, NY Masters of Science in Advanced Architectural Design
Riva San Vitale, Switzerland Chicago Studio, Chicago
January 2013 – May 2013 August 2013 - December 2013
The Drawing Board Inc. Annapolis, MD Architectural Intern May 2014 - June 2014 Designed the office brochure pages with Adobe InDesign Maintained computer and hard copy filing systems As-built drawings of commercial sites in AutoCAD and Revit Corrected redline drawings of construction documents Adobe
Student Representative
June 2014 - August 2015 Give Virginia Tech campus awareness about Adobe Creative Cloud Provided through workshops, social media, and product giveaway
Von Weise Associates, Chicago, IL
Chicago Studio Collaboration August 2013 - November 2013 Cooperated in a group design project based in Uptown, Chicago Assisted VWA employees on current projects Updated AutoCAD and Sketch Up Drawings Cleaned up hand drawings in Photoshop
Harry Connor Portraits, Lehighton, PA
Photography Assistant May 2013 - August 2013 Coordinated the sets directly with clients and photographers Studied photography lighting and professional techniques
SKILLS
Experience using following software applications: Adobe Suites Rhino 3D SketchUp Revit 2015 3dsMax AutoCad Experience with the following design skills: Photography Watercolors Graphic Printing Writing Variations CNC modeling Book Binding Modeling Making (Hand & Laser) Hand Drawing (Sketching & Technical)
I have read the employment information online currently available for the Wilkes-Barre office and am interested in the position as an entry level designer. With my undergraduate education at Virginia Tech, professional experience, and continued education at Columbia University, I believe I could make a valuable contribution to the office. In May 2015 I graduated with honors from Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design with my Bachelor of Architecture, before starting my Masters of Science in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia in GSAPP. This past summer I completed my first semester of study with an Advanced Arch Design Studio and a heavy load of theoretical based courses. Currently, I am taking a voluntary leave of absence from the program and am interested in an opportunity for a prolonged internship before returning to finish my final two semesters in the fall of 2016. During my undergraduate program I had the opportunity to advance my education with an architectural internship, a photography internship, a work-study program in Chicago, an abroad experience in Switzerland, and a yearlong thesis exploration resulting in my finalist position for the Pella Thesis Prize. While at Virginia Tech I had gained a close interest in the work of BCJ and attended multiple lectures including: alumni Senior Associate, Denis Schofield and Principal, Ray Calabro. Projects such as the Colorado School of Mines - Marquez Hall, Forest House, and Farrar Residence have remained vital precedents in my studies of light, form, material, and pattern. My focus of study directly relates to the pedagogical interest of designing architectural details with interest in not only form and space but also how they directly interact with the occupant. Therefore, I believe that BCJ is not only an office where I can advance my professional studies, but can also apply various concepts that I have learned in both my academic programs. With my combination of various internship positions, advanced undergraduate education, and a continuation of theoretical studies at Columbia GSAPP I am confident that I fulfill the requirements and could become a great addition to the office. While also having an exceptional opportunity to advance my knowledge of conceptual design and built architecture in a professional environment. Thank you or your consideration. I look forward to receiving your reply. Sincerely, Alexandra Kurek 80 Lafayette Ave Tamaqua, PA 18252 (570) 778- 9195 ank2143@columbia.edu
Table of Contents
Community Design Typology
One
Degrees of Interaction
Five
Riva San Vitale
Mediterranean
Uptown Market
Thirteen
Chicago Studio
Growth through Connections Newport News
Architectural Patterns I Commodity Details
Architectural Patterns II A Meditative Voyage
Sketches + Photography Europe/Mexico/New York City
Twenty One Twenty Five Thirty Three Forty Five
Community Design Typology Riva San Vitale, Switzerland Professor: Hunter Pittman Architecture III
“A neighborhood architect”
Architecture for the Masses, Arts Desk
A design exploration focused on a community based center in the heart of Riva San Vitale. The program of a library was situated within the same site as a local grocery store. A study using community based concepts and aesthetic thinking in combination to create a design more relevant to the culture of people’s lives in this area. “More than just books and banks of computers, libraries are still places where individuals gather to explore, interact, and imagine... (1) Libraries as community builders, (2) Libraries as community centers for diverse populations, (3) Libraries as centers for the arts, (4) Libraries as universities, (5) Libraries as champions of youth.
Community Centered: 23 Reasons Why Your Library Is the Most Important Place in Town, Julie Biando Edwards, Melissa S. Rauseo, & Kelley Ray Unger
One
Two
Three
Four
Degrees of Interaction
Mediterranean
Professor: Yannis Aesopos Advanced Arch Design Studio
Through focused designed implications of a built environment the architect intends to prescript the human experience in an inhabitable space. This project investigates techniques of an architectural interaction within a predetermined landscape. A series of Interactions conceptually designed with a focus on how they could provide environments for dictated tourist interaction collectively and within the landscape. My post-crisis studies focus upon the parallel relationship between the built structural environment and associated amenities. On three separate islands I introduce a concept of interface, inhabitation, and landscape, removing built aspects from each island. As there is more interaction with nature the collective experience is enhanced through joint amenities.
Five
Six
Five Star “Honeymoon Getaway� Inhabitation Interface Landscape The design transforms dry Mediterranean landscape into the five star island resort, an alternative to the typical honeymoon getaway. The enclosed space allows for no views other than the rock in which you are intruding. A privacy for the newly married couple. With a built environment interfering with the cliche views required in most hotels, I have additionally designed every other movement interface to hold the collective areas where they can enjoy the views as well as move throughout the island. The densely built environment fills the boxed spaces with every cliche luxury possible. The temporary tenant has an individualized full bathroom, kitchen, and living space. They would not have to leave their own room unless they are looking for a collective experience.
Seven
Three Star “Family Adventure” Inhabitation Interface Landscape Next you would arrive by boat to the island for the family adventure. There is a more openly built environment between the inhabitations which allows for a more collective experience within the private rooms. Therefore, maybe your neighbors become your “family” for the week. A stairwell becomes the main spine of connection between the series of stacked boxes allowing for a consistent movement between collective and singular spaces. Each inhabitation also has their own “balcony” as they are able to obtain their own personalized views from the rooms. However, their amenities start to slowly disappear. In their own rooms they will be provided with a half bathroom and sleeping quarters which they can open or close throughout the day with sliding walls. To receive their other amenities such as showers, food, etc, they would have to go to the other side of the small island to a collective space also acting as the gateway to the three star resort.
Nine
One Star “Backpacking Oasis” Inhabitation Interface Landscape The remaining island has obtained the status of a one star resort for the excitingly exhausted backpacker. They are looking for adventure; therefore, they are provided with the direct experience of interacting with nature in a series of caves along the island façade. Through the built floor within the steep terrain they are provided with a pure shelter from the winds, heat, etc. With no furniture or amenities provided they make of this space what they need. Whether it be a place to rest for the night or even to relax for a few hours from their journey. The rest of the island is where their collective amenities are provided. Their experience of collective interaction is the greatest since they will have to use the “street of showers” or can relax in the pools or on the beach where they are able to see the rest of the resort. The third island has become the only primary spot where there is any opportunity for a visual interaction between the different islands.
Eleven
Uptown Market
Uptown, Chicago
Professor: Andrew Balster Architecture IV
“And yet Allen, a native of Jamaica who lives in Roger Park, still doesn’t think of it as a bad corner, or a bad neighborhood, just a neighborhood whose problems deserve more attention.”
Watching the Good and the Bad on an Uptown Street Corner Chicago Tribune
The Uptown Market is the design result of a combined effort of three architecture students, Alexandra Kurek, Nicholas Coates and Laura Escobar, and one landscape architecture student, William Serge, through the Virginia Tech Chicago Studio and von Weise Associates. To get a better understanding of the site and neighborhood we were working with, we closely collaborated with multiple members of the Uptown community through interviews, critiques, site visits, and presentations. Our analysis aided us in gaining a stronger understanding of Chicago, Uptown, and the various transportation methods found within the area. This project specifically investigates the renovation and adaptive reuse of the former Uptown Station. In 1922, Arthur Gerber designed the Uptown Station within the design approach of classical revival. During this time the ‘El’ brought tremendous growth to Uptown through its direct connection with Downtown, and as a result The Gerber Building became a central focus point for the thriving entertainment district. Because of its placement under the tracks and ignorance of the community, the Gerber Building degraded with time. It currently lays vacant, aside from the still active Wilson Station taking up only a small portion of the overall square footage. Our intent is to bring this site back to its former glory, becoming a catalyst for growth in the Uptown neighborhood. By analyzing the site through our multidisciplinary lens, we realized the inherent opportunity within The Gerber Building and its surrounding block by creating an innovative program, The Uptown Market. The enclosed spaces are enlarged to house areas for a mixed market, restaurant, and cafe. Two vertical farm towers rise above the existing building height as well as the metro tracks to frame the site as well as provide for the Uptown Market. While the central plaza becomes the area of constant movement, which begins to connect these varying programs. The design of The Uptown Market becomes a study of establishing connections: people will have the opportunity to connect with the growing process and food, the existing Gerber Building, and the Uptown community. Through intensive analytic studies and design approach we are attempting to create a space and program that will become the beacon of growth that connects Uptown with the rest of Chicago. Thirteen
Fourteen
The Uptown Area of Chicago once stood as the “Hollywood� of the United States allowing for a boom in production of theaters, jobs, residents, and unique architectural styles. However, with the movement of the film industry to California the area slowly became a shell of what was once a vibrant neighborhood. Decaying buildings and ignored collective spaces became hotspots of crime for restless teenagers and local gangs. The Uptown Market project focuses on the removal of crime ridden spaces and become a beacon for what the neighborhood could become. Through an adaptive reuse of the existing historical Gerber Building and the addition of two vertical transparent growing towers, the architecture and the several programmatic spaces become visible to the residents as well as to passengers of the metro including tourist groups to Chicago.
Fifteen
Sixteen
The project studies a development of typologies working for one another in a cyclical procession. These various programs include a restaurant, an open market, a cafe, and a series of growing towers built under and around the metro line. The vertical farming towers are used to aid in the production of goods for the ground floor programmatic level. In addition the waste of the various other programmatic spaces are decomposed and used within the soil and nutritional system for the vertical farms. The various programs are strategically designed within their placements to attract local college students, metro passengers, local residents, and various tourists of the main boulevards. With carefully designed entrances, openings, and viewpoints the architecture and landscape lend to a project focused on the understanding and utilization of the contemporary production and selling methods.
Seventeen
Eighteen
The CTA red metro line provided a number of conceptual obstacles in obtaining both clarity of programmatic spaces as well as structural forms to house these spaces. However, by working closely within a group of students and a professional office opportunities revealed themselves to use existing and new structures and landscape to allow for occupants to understand the symbolic and physical ideas within the architecture. Through the means of computer and physical models as well as a series of intensive technical drawings, renders, and watercolors the team was able to appropriately explore multiple experiences of various occupants within the site.
Nineteen
Twenty
Growth through Connections
Newport News, Virginia
Professor: Hilary Bryon Architecture V_AIAVA Prize Competition
Connection, n. 1.a. The action of connecting or joining together 1.b. of immaterial union or joining together 2.b. Consecutiveness, continuity or coherence of ideas
Oxford English Dictionary
Through the use of a walking bridge, held by a series of columns, the idea of connection becomes more intimate with the human body. The columns’ locations are based on the previous bridge structures penetrating the ground surface only at points around the existing infrastructure. These metal supports will elevate multiple wooden and concrete spaces, and connect various programs which could include: restaurants, apartments, stores, hotels, markets, as well as other necessities for Newport News. Through this specific construction the growth can span multiple bridges and ramps as well as start to become integrated into the existing urban fabric. Connections can be found with the human and the programmatic space through the means of a slower movement by walking, as well as using this bridge to connect neighborhoods and cultures found within the Newport News City limits.
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Architectural Patterns I
Commodity Details Professor: Frank Weiner Architecture IV
Pattern, n. and adj. 1. a. Something shaped or designed to serve as a model from which a thing is to be made; a design, an outline; an original. 5. b. A sample; a part presented as an example of a larger set or group 7. A precedent; that which may be appealed or referred to as a prior example 9. b. A natural or chance arrangement of shapes or markings having a decorative or striking effect.
Oxford English Dictionary
“From a sequence of these individual patterns, whole buildings with the character of nature will form themselves within your thoughts, as easily as sentences.”
Christopher Alexander
“In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.”
Christopher Alexander
Twenty Six
With no programmatic and site requirements, the architectural patterns project focuses on architectural details and elements found within every designed space. The elements include features such as stairwells, entrances, bathrooms, elevators, lighting, doors, etc. The project shown studies a series of potential elevators through arbitrary pattern, light, and abstraction of time ridden materials. With a specific approach of unfolding the spaces into flat drawings there was enough freedom to comparatively explore light patterns and material. Through a strong use of design iteration, self critical practices, and a detail oriented focus the project was able to accomplish an architectural design represented in experimental drawing and modeling techniques. A project that has since remained a precedent for thesis explorations of pattern, drawing styles, and merging the two into unique physical “flat� models.
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Thirty
Thirty One
Thirty Two
Architectural Patterns II
A Meditative Voyage Professor: Hilary Bryon Architecture V
Consent of solitude is unknown within the confines of chaos Sought patience burdens a restless mind fixating an revolving sky controlled consistency originates attentive curiosity of escape Delicate steel disables visual interactions enlisting desired reprieve Veiled sereneness rests firmly within the discovered moments of choice The depths of marked earth bare a weighted calm within a fixed hysteria Ironic gestures of unmasked stone engage a meditative control Dense rigidity cleanses the disillusion of expanded physical perspectives While proposed filtrations of light greet exposed walls with warm relief Designed contrast evokes contemplative perceptions exposed to body Thirty feet below modest murmurs echo against concrete patterns As potent scents fill the lungs with a thin layer of stained earth Chills of rushing wind emesh the knowledgeably subtracted form As architectural tension dances to the persistent hums of movement Premeditated control evokes subtle intuitions sensationally enlightened Sixty feet below circumstantial relief battles turmoil of visual knowledge A /grave/ heartbeat contained within the depth is the release of chaos Consent of solitude is known within the extension of relief Thirty Three
Thirty Four
Through the development of material placement in fictional hallways I was able to start expanding my conceptual understanding of what could be considered an architectural pattern. Once again using a process of physical removal from a series of drawings also focused the eye on how light also interacts with space to allow for another layer of arbitrary pattern. After designing a series of iterative hallways including different materials and configurations I created my own definition of what a pattern could mean in an architectural design. A definition spanning the areas of proportion, scale, site, form, detail, and an arbitrary placement of imposed decorative elements. Pattern therefore become a method of design within a human scale and no longer the outcome of arbitrary esthetical preferences.
Thirty Five
Thirty Six
Thirty Seven
Thirty Eight
Thirty Nine
Forty
Meditation is a continuous thought or mental contemplation of varying truths and ideals. However, it is often noted that a full meditative experience is not understood with the mind, but with the experiential use of the body. My thesis studies how the architectural ideas, elements, and conditions of light, earth, sky, movement, seclusion, reprieve, reflection, and pattern can heighten the awareness of the meditative body through contemplative spatial interactions. The idea of distracting chaos has become the circumstantial site in which my project begins. A series of interconnected spaces step in ten foot increments below ground level. A design approach intended to disconnect chaotic distractions from the meditating body. Each level of the sequenced spaces interacts directly within the ideas relating to the meditative body. For instance, after a chaotic ground level, the ten feet below defines action within the mind, thirty feet below reveals mindfulness described as meditation of heart, and finally sixty feet below is a sense of clarity or the core of body. Circumstantial rooms based upon architectural ideas are patterned in order to situate experiential contemplation. A patterning of scale, proportion, material, light, and sound becomes the critical architectural tool in articulating the spatial environments. Each room is ordered along a path of moving brick or unsteady gravel based upon ideas of recalibrating body and space. High architectural contrast is proposed to support a bodily awareness of spatial exploration. For instance, an understanding of light is unknown without the knowledge of darkness. Writing sparks the start of a creative experiential space, while also acting as the tool which regulates self analysis of designs. Ekphrasis of poetic beauty enhances awareness of underlying meanings of material and design moves. While a storybook poem interacts directly with a meditative experience through the project. Text placement and physical paper portray furthermore, within the process of design, an encompassing meditative experience. No music or movies play as each line of a drawing experiences concentrated meditation. As a meditative body journeys throughout the series of architectural spaces, the intention is an awareness of these contemplative patterns.
Forty One
Forty Two
Can the ego disconnect from a physical consciousness in an architectural meditation?
The thesis exploration is focused on building within the earth to allow for a series of meditative acts at various depth levels. The actions include chaos at the ground level, to the set of initial actions, to a journey of mindfulness, and finally to a bodily meditative clarity. To further examine the impact of built spaces within the exposed earth a series of one hundred section drawings were negatively cut, watercolored, and layered horizontally to form a physical site model.
“My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing. I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space, that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity - that physical feeling and power that space can give.” James Turrell
Forty Three
Forty Four
Sketches + Photography Europe/Mexico/New York City
“It was drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.”
Oscar Niemeyer
“The kind of drawing which is taught, or supposed to be taught, in our schools, in a term or two, perhaps at the rate of an hour’s practice a week, is not drawing at all. It is the performance of a few dexterous (not always even that) evolutions on paper with a black-lead pencil; profitless alike to performer and beholder, unless as a matter of vanity, and that the smallest possible vanity.
The Element of Drawing John Ruskin
“The key to learning to draw, therefore, is to set up conditions that cause you to make a mental shift to a different mode of information processing - the slightly altered state of consciousness - that enables you to see well. In this drawing mode you will be able to draw you perceptions even though you may never have studied drawing.”
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Betty Edwards
“Drawing is the medium through which the investigation will be carried out. How the investigation is conducted is equally important to subject of the investigation, using fundamental tools to explore, study, and document fundamental architectural ideas in scale...”
Denis Schofield
Highline, NYC
Forty Six
Sapienza, Universita di Roma - Rome, Italy
S. Croce, Riva San Vitale
La Thoronette, France
Forty Seven
Forty Eight
WTC Center, NYC
Highline, NYC
Universidad Nacional Aut贸noma de M茅xico (UNAM)
Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City
Fifty