Alexandru Hoffman
portfolio
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NAME : Alexandru Hoffman EDUCATION: - 2004-2011 - Universitatea de Arhitectura si Urbanism “Ion Mincu”, Bucharest - 2000-2004 - Liceul Teoretic “C.A. Rosetti”, Bucharest WORK EXPERIENCE: - 2005-2008 - Proiect Consult Arhcitecture / HILL Romania - 2008-2011 - IDZ Arhitectura - collaboration ( concept work, DTAC, DTAD, PT, 3D render)
www.idz.ro
LANGUAGE SKILLS: English - fluent French - moderate Spanish - basic romanian - mother language SOFTWARE SKILLS: - AutoCAD, 3dsMAX, Photoshop, inDesign, Illustrator, SketchUp, CorelDraw, vRay - advanced user - Rhino, Modo, EcoTect, ArhiCad Artlantis, Revit, Maxwell, Grasshopper - beginner WORK AND PEOPLE SKILLS: - creative team player - synthetic and global view - end-oriented work capacity CONFERENCES: - International ISOVER Conference 2009 - sustainable architecture and passive house design - Communication Sessions 2009 “Ion Mincu” University - passive house design - National Conference on Passive House Design 2010 / Romania - International ISOVER Conference 2010 - winners presentation - Communication Sessions 2010 “Ion Mincu” University - Sustainable Reconversion CONTACT: tel.
+40721.158.258 email. alexandruhoffman@yahoo.com
4-17............New York Sustainable Highrise ( Diploma project ) / 2011 18-31..........ISOVER Sustainable and passive design / 2010 32-39..........Brancusi inspired MINI-OPERA / 2009 40-47..........Reconversion / Cantina R2 / 2009 48-53..........EVOLO International Competition / 2010 54-59..........ELTRIX Urban Light Design Competition / 2008 60-71..........ISOVER Sustainable and passive design / 2009 72-79..........PREZENT Architecture Competition / 2009 80-91..........Concurs Manifest - Icoanei 2-8 / 2011 92-97..........Grasspit Contest 2007 98-103........IAAC Barcelona Competition / 2009 104-115......Perfect Shape for the Perfect Water - Design Competition / 2010 116-121......ISOVER Sustainable and passive design / 2008 122-131......School Research Project / 2008 132-137......School Research Project / 2009 138-143......Render work
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* New York Sustainable Highrise diploma project 2011
The site is located in southern Manhattan, New York’s most densely and diverse area in terms of its inhabitants. The south west portion of the peninsula is defined through 3 parallel axes that connect the centre with it’s most southerly point. These axes disrupt the flow of pedestrians in the east-west direction and blocks the path between the oldest part of the city (early colonist settlements in the SW) and the currently in construction promenade along the west shore. The proposition improves the pedestrian traffic and promotes walking along a pathway that connects the old part of town with the west shoreline. The proposed building is conceived around the modern requirements of architectural design and toward
the necessities of a future-responsible metropolis. The sustainability of the design is evident in the spatial concept as well as its functioning as a climate controlled environment. The 5 volumes each house a separate necessity of the city’s area, each of them also enjoying a connection to the outside through individual atriums that also behave as natural air ducts due to the difference in temperatures abobe and below the volume. Air flows through the building during the summer months independently of any electro-mechanical means.
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Site plan and skyline analysis
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Greenwitch street cross section
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Design process
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Site Plan
Office floor plan
Hotel floor plan
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Facade vertical cross section
Ground floor plan
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Construction Details
Restaurant floor plan Apartment floor plan
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Underground floor plans
Structural Concept
Street View
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14 Cross Section
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* ISOVER Sustainable and Passive Design old factory REHABILITATION in Paris 1st place @national contest 2010
The task of the competition was to reconvert an old warehouse in Pantin, a small suburb out of Paris. The warehouse is in fact an motorcycle factory and because it is located in the middle of the suburb and all the near by peopple worked at this factory, it’s become an icon for the area. So the basic idea behind the project is that we decidet to keep the exact shape of the building. We didn’t want to interfere with the building’s iconic status, but just to convert it. The main intervention is the inteligent facade sistem
witch is composed of vertical glass louvers that automaticly adjust themselfs to offer the right amout of daylight all day long. The sustainable and passive house requirements are shapeing the volume, inside and outside everywere you look. Each vollume has an atrium that provides naturall vantilation without artificial means. Energy efficient design is the core idea behind the color icon community center.
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Concept
Reconvertion approach
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Concept
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Solar and Shading analysis
SHADING STUDY EXISTING FACADE
CASE 1 : Solar study for actual building shading on south facade / date. 15 July 12:00PM RESULT : Not enough shade; south facade exposed to overheating / protection needed
SHADING STUDY FOR PROPOSED SHADING TREATMENT FACADE
CASE 2 : Solar study for proposed inteligent facade shading system on south facade / date. 15 July 12:00PM RESULT : The glass louverd solar shades are moving to bloch the sun and offer optimum overheating protection during the entire day.
The inteligent facade sistem serves two purpoces at the same time. It provides
visual confort
for the
people inside the building, by adjust-
ing the light amount that penetrates the facade, and in the same time it becomes a live moving
membrane
ter all trough the day.
The colors
that changes the volume’s characof the glass louvers do not affect the light’ color but provide calculated shade percentage. add character and
lost area around it.
Colors
identity
to the
The contrast
with the industrial background is benefic for the entire community
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Ventilation study
South Facade
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3D Cross section
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Floor Plans
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Floor Plans
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Facade vertical cross section
Acustic analysis
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* Brancusi inspired MINI-OPERA mobile amphitheatre with Brancusi inspired design prof. Tetsuo Furuichi workshop 2010 1st place - professors choice award & 1st place - students choice award Design team: Daniela Craciunoiu, Alexandru Hoffman, Vladimir Moldovanu
Professor Tetsuo Furuichi was invited to start a 3 day workshop in Bucharest, Romania in the automn of 2009. The workshop’s theme was “theatrical and temporary architecture” and it involved creating a temporary set for the opera “Tosca”, somewhere in the Bucharest urban life. The main challange was that we had to create an Brancusi inspired temoprary oprea house for an italian opera play. The site we choose is called the English passage way. It’s a narrow street that links two important traffic routs in the center of Bucharest. The passage looks like an atrium with balconies on
both sides and is perfect for such an experimental opera. Our approach to like Brancusi with the opera’s storyline was very much appreciated by the jury. Brancusi has a very clear way of putting the his masterpieces on a generous bedplate so we took a simbol for every act of the opera (3 acts in total) and we transformed it in a Brancusi style simbol. Also there si a resemblence between Brancusi’s preffered materials like gold, wood and stone and the scenography elements present in the acts. By doing so we ended up wining the best design in the workshop and the student’s award vote.
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Concept
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* Reconversion - Cantina R2 national contest proposal student work @ IDZ Arhitectura
This project is about the rehabilitation of an old building that is locared in the center of a campus like area in Bucharest. The concept was to maintain the concrete structure and apply a second skin facade that wraps around the building and offers solar protection. The skin is made out of different size perforated steel plates. The perforation pattern is a result of the solar gain
and shading analisys study. The landscaping follows the ground’s natural form. Vegetation is placed to serve as noise buffers because the site is located near a large intersection. At this project i was in charge with the area masterplan, landscaping, acoustic analisys and all the outdoor and indoor rendering and postproduction.
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site overview
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ground floor plan
Solar and shadow analisys
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north facade
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east facade
south facade
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* EVOLO International Competition NOFORM Skyscraper in Bucharest 2010 Design team: Csegzi Kamilla, Alexandru Hoffman, Vladimir Moldovanu
I belive that this project came up more like an essey. It’s about architecture and time, about how there is no fixed form for the flow of time and how everything changes in time. The site we choose is an international landmark in Bucharest. The house of people changes the fabric of the city by it’s overwhelming size and hystorical power. The relationship between the city of Bucharest and the house of people is a malfunctioning one. Understanding the project means that you
know that the house of people is a symbol of when people lost their freedome. The house acts like a tatoo on the skin of the city...remembering of decadent and hard times. The project is presented like a photo taken from a fast moving car. You can feel the speed and the direction in withc you are headed but you can not make out the real form of the skyscraper. Allthow we didn’t win the competition, EVOLO Magasine wrote an article about the project and it’s concept.
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TIME
form
forces
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IN TIME
context
information
noform
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live
time
in a fixed form
vs
form
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life
in variable times
NOFORM Skyscraper
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The competition was about urban lighting and the main challange was to make a visua signal out of a park entrance. We did this by takeing a closer look at the nicht colors of that area. We concluded that there is a lack of color in this particular area witch is dominated by concrete pavement and dark grey and brown shades. The color pixels were inserted in the pavement at the park entrance in a random pattern. The actual color pixel can be a light source or an advertising display so there is a
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multifunctional aspect to the project. Color-pixeling the walkway makes the visual statement that signals the entrance of the park and at the same time informes with the advertising pixels and creates a catwalk for the public. The jury decided to award 1st prise to this project and actually wanted to make the project in real life. There were some complications with the city hall and the project was put on hold. The project was a lot of fun and we were excited to recive such good feedbacks.
* ELTRIX Urban Light Design Competition Urban PIXEL Lighting 2008
1st place - National Competiton
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site overview
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* ISOVER Sustainable and Passive Design office buidling in Bucharest 1st place @national contest & best presentation @international contest 2009
This is an anual competiton hosted by the Isover company. The goal was to design an office buiding according to passive and sustainable standards. We coose to design a simple shape that would be efficient and easy to control. The green buffers on the facade are actually small local gardens that act like a filter for the air that enters the building. Natural ventilation si created by an atrium that acts like a vaccum pump and replaces conventional A/C. The green
roof-top is a private relaxation place for the building employees that acts like a overheating barrier for the entire floor area. The buidling is designed in detail to accomplish the sustainable energy recovery sistem, energy efficient and accoustic standards demanded by the competition brief. With this project we won 1st place in the national contest and the best presentation award at the international, 16 countries stage.
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vantilation analisys
solar and shadow analisys
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3d cross section
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south facade vertical section
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* [ PREZENT ] Architecture Contest Urban facelift solution
short listed - international contest 2008
What would be the answers to todays architecture problems in Bucharest? The contest was about identifying a problem in the urban fabric of the city and propose a solution. We choose a very interesting area because of it’s location and typology. The site is located at the east extremity of Bucharest, an urban hallway designed for car traffic not for huma enhabitants. The buildings act like walls that surround pedestrians and obstruct everything but the sky. The entire picture is very deteriorated and the lack of identity is everywhere. The project began with
spme social observation. We discovered that every window of every housing building is different and that people desire identity. By doing so, every window is different and the idea was that the project proposed a grid and every apartment’s identity to be linked to the second skin to the facade. By doing so we bombarded the booring old and grey facades with the mass identity of the people enhabiting the housing buildings. The project is just a tool that was given to people to express their identity and by doing so to solve a present problem.
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facelift concept / sustainable design
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Urban Facelift
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* Concurs Manifest - Icoanei 2-8 Reconversie / Locuinte de lux national contest 2011 Design team: Alexandru Hoffman, Bogdan Ilie, Cristian Deac
This is a manifest contest located in a protected site in the old urban fabric of Bucharest. The present building is protected by the romanian laws so we had to make use of it even though it has no architectural or contextal value. Luxury apartments is the main function that is to be proposed. After the urban fabric and the roof-tops analisys we decided that an public space located inside the volume is the best con-
textual approach to the site. Also the roof top is a very important visual aspect of the area. After extruding the roof and ofersizeing it, we designed 3/4 levels of luxury lofts overviewing the park located near the site. The ground footprint of the building is based on studys of 3 different evolution periods of the area. A 1852 urbanism plan, 1921 area masterplan and a 1938 urban fabric evolution study.
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1852
1921
1938
1852
1921
1938
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Zona studiata este o suprapunere a principiilor integraliste studiate pe baza carora a fost generata imaginea eclectiva pe care o putem vedea azi
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* GrasSp[it] Contest urban green space implementation 3rd place - natinal contest 2007
This project is telling the story of the metro stations in Bucharest and the lack of interest in green space in general. The competiton wass all about green space inserted in the areas where there was no green areas and it was needed. It all began when with the mornings spent in the metro station. The contest was a good oppurtunity to do something about this problem. “Flip the green� - was the concept of the intervention. We decided to use grass grown on the surface
of the metro station and cover as much as possible with it in the grey interior. We flipped the horisontal grass upside down. This is even more interesting with the artificial wind created by the subway trains every 10 minutes. The entire path from the surface to the 1st step you take in the train is a corelated scenography wrapped arount the flip the green concept. This was actually the first competition i’ve participated and it was a really nice start.
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scenografie traseu
Flip the Green! 94
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implementare tehnologie sustenabila
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* IAAC Barcelona Contest urban food battery international contest 2009
In 2009 the IAAC Barcelona competition desires the architects to give solutions to a sustainable city, 50 years from now. The story is that after doing some brainstorming, a idea poped out about how to grow food in the heart of the city. This is a huge logistic problem as prices for gas and transportation is actually a major part of the food price. The project was inspired by a trip to Morocco where there is a lot of sun, wind
and vertical space to build. The idea became a concept. The concept of a food battery, capable to to grow and store food and energy. Food from farms located at the lower levels of the tower and power form the wind and solar farms located at the top. The battery tower is made up from modular levels that can be assmbled at the site. A tower may contain more food levels or energy levels, depending on the city’s needs.
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Vertical Cross Section
Modular Urban Food Batery THE PROBLEM: can you imagine the cities that we live in today in 50 up to 80 years from now? By the year 2050, 80% of the Earth’s population will reside in urban areas, applying to the most conservatives estimates to curent demographic trends, the human population will increase up to 12 billion. Despite this, imagine 2050 or 2080 a non friendly enviroment, big cities, polution, massive flods and severe climate change. Cities will need a safe enviroment to produce food and store it. THE SOLUTION: Vertical modular farms / food A concept of indoor farming is not new but
baterys.
with the diversity of a modular urban farm it is a real solution to urban density and lack of fresh food.
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or more types of modules assure the needs of different areas in the city, such as food and green energy.
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* The perfect shape for the perfect water water bottle design contest international contest 2010
How do you imagine the perfect shape for the perfect water? This project poposes an interesting point of view regarding water recipients. Inspired by Brancusi pure form and round edge design, we realised that the first gesture of drinking water was that of two hands held together with the water beeing in a horizontal display.
That is what the vision of this project is going twards; the horizontal shape for water. The new shape actually proposes a new type of “ritual� for drinking water. The shape expresses the purity of the water and the simple nature of perfection. The project approaches the design of a conventional water bottle from a arhetypal point of view.
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* ISOVER Sustainable and Passive Design School in Bucharest
Honorable Mention - national contest 2007
The color pixel school was the first project for an Isover competition. The site was free to choose for the participants so we decided to propose an interesting site we studied earlyer in an academic study. After the solar and shading analisys we decided that the U shape is the most apropiate for a school type building. Raising the street volume for an easyer
acces and an interior green space for the school activitys were key aspects for the passive and sustainable standards. The colorful facade made out of vertical shaders was the visual impact a school needed and also it was a creative solution for shading interior spaces. Green roof tops add aditional green leasure spaces and also protect the building from overheating in the summer.
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CONCEPT different color pixels arranged on the facade as moving sun shaders.
Roof top garden for public leasure spaces. Volume useing it’s own shadow for sun protection.
Key words: color, pixel, interactive school
south facade
east facade
area plan
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* School Research Project special concrete structures school study 2008
This project is baesd on a Grasshopper Voronoi study. The school project was about special concrete structures and i decided to make a “floating� observation point. Based on Voronoi point se construction the facades are extruded twards an single inner point located on the observation deck inside the volume at a height of 1.75m. This extrusion generates
a very interesting view point. From the center you can see everywere around the structure but from outside the view is obstructed by the unidirectional wall created. Actually the 4 facades are made out of multiple polytopes(unidirectional cells) that converge in a single point.
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unidirectional cell concept
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sequential 3d horizontal sections
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diagonal section
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east facade
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north facade
west facade
south facade
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* School Research Project media center school study 2009
This school project was intended to be a media center / cinema museum. The site is a very strange one because of it’s location in a particular urban fabric and beacause of it’s shape. The challange was to fit the structure in the site without disturbing the contextual enviroment. Also I noticed that the existing wall included in my site could be used as a projection wall, so I decided to construct the vollume in a U shaped style directed
twards the inner projection wall. The facades are covered with perforated metal tiles that create a membrane that separates the outdoor from the indoor spaces in a friendly nondisturbing way. The facades are not transparent and not opaque... but somewhere in the middle. Different sizes of perforations in the facade walls allow different amounts of light to reach the interior spaces.
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70 % perforations 50 % perforations 30 % perforations Different amounts of licht for different interior space uses
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south facade
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north facade
cross section
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* Render work 2009-2011
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the end
contact: alexandruhoffman@yahoo.com