Alistair Benckenstein portfolio 2017
Contents Amtrack Station | Austin
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Professional Work
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Stool Series Prototype | Austin
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Rogers Partners | New York
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Dabble Campus | Austin
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Matt Garcia Design | Austin
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Datum: Around the Block | Paris
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Travel Sketches | Europe
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A# Trade School | Austin
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ResumĂŠ
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Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center | Austin
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Objects 1 - 3
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Amtrak Station Design VI | Austin, TX Professor: Matt Leach
Currently outdated and underutilized, Austin’s central Amtrack station has potential as a method of mass transportation within Austin and the surrounding areas, but its unassuming appearance and secluded location makes it an unpopular destination. This new proposal presents the station as a landmark meeting place for those living in the area through its more imposing presence in the city. It draws inspiration from the existing outdoor culture of Austin, presenting a place for people to gather and enjoy the rolling hills surrounding, where food trucks and other vendors can gather and people can relax.
The main structural components are a series of insulated steel ribs that generate an amorphous geometry while boldly establishing a sense of rhythm for such a place of transit. As the train accelerates, the structural ribs give a visual pace to the process of moving. Above the public and administrative buildings sits a sloped roof cladding that transitions into a canopy of frosted sloped glazing. 5
This glazing system provides protection from the rays of the summer sun while keeping the space beneath open and bright. This canopy extends past the platform and begins to establish the station’s presence as far as the main boulevard itself. Beyond this, the park extends across to the next block, reaching toward the city beyond. 6
lower level
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upper level
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exterior cladding: board form concrete, striated drainage sheet polystyrene thermal insulation reinforced concrete wall
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hardwood flooring metal floor decking steel beam
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hardwood flooring plywood subflooring wood floor joists concrete ground slab waterproofing membrane protection board for waterproofing unreinforced concrete mudslab
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steel rib
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composite wood board acoustic insulation galvanized steel ribbed sheeting thermal insulation wood battens stainless steel sheeting
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rib construction: steel cladding thermal insulation against thermal bridging primary steel structural member thermal insulation
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The exterior wall is a vertically striated board-form concrete, further emphasizing the visual rhythm previously established by the primary structural ribs. These ribs are each made up of a single structural steel member encased on all sides in a layer of thermal insulation to prevent thermal bridging from affecting thermal comfort in the interior. This layer of insulation is then further clad in steel to maintain its clear role as a primary structural element. 12
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Serial Stools
Design Excellence Award
Prototype Professor: Igor Siddiqui Collaborators: Alex Wu The stool series investigates frameworks of mass production and mass customization through digital fabrication and parametric design. The investigation is manifested through the design and fabrication of stools that exhibit serial difference while clearly exist as part of a singular family. A stool is intrinsically a surface lifted off the floor to support a human body. Our design distinguishes the seat from the legs through pairing these processes, utilizing parametric explorations through Grasshopper. The seat is CNC-milled. The legs angle outward at varying amounts. The seat forms are all unique. The 3D printed parts (the joint and parts within the seats) are used to mediate the varying height differences caused by the changing leg angles, allowing all the leg components to be cut at the same length. Across the same stool, all legs are identical allowing them to be off the shelf and cut to the same length (to reduce errors in the process of making).
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3D Print Ends
CNC Milled 0.71” Birch Plywood
3D Print Joints
17.625” Dowel Legs Identical per stool 3/4” diameter for Stool A 5/8” diameter for Stool E, H 1/2” diameter for Stool K
3D Print Feet Identical per stool
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Dabble Campus Advanced Design | Austin, TX Professor: Kory Bieg
The project created the concept for the tech startup Dabble, a company specializing in teaching unique hobbies such as micro farming, woodworking, and jam making, The company expressed interest in expanding beyond its normally strictly online presence in an effort to accommodate activities that needed a physical facility for learning. The studio consisted of the development of an overall campus plan scheme, in this case consisting of the concept of subdividing the site in Shoal Creek and weaving these divisions among each other, generating a site organization to which program could be applied and adapted. This formal concept of weaving was then expressed in the building forms themselves, utilizing a swarming algorithm controlled through Grasshopper that generated a cloud of points that could drag lines behind them according to proximity with each other. This algorithm was applied on the building massings generated by the overall site strategy, resulting in masses implied by densely packed vines, reminiscent of the vegetation surrounding the Shoal Creek area.
Swarm density progression generating building mass 27
Swarm convergeance sample 28
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Datum: Around the Block Advanced Design (Study Abroad) | Paris, France Professors: Igor Siddiqui, John Blood, Gaelle Breton, Jean Francois Renaud Collaborators: Milena Miloradovic, Martin Pansair, Raquel Royal The project consisted of the design of a residential block in Paris’s 17th Arrondissement, dominated by a recently completed park. Since the site could just as easily have been chosen to be more park land rather than a residential development, we aimed to give back as much space as possible to the public. This resulted in the “datum� of the project: a main axis of circulation that soars above the adjacent street, spanning the length of the site. This floating bridge is available to pedestrians and allows them to stroll through the tree canopy and take advantage of spectacular views of the park from above. Secondary branches of circulation pervade the site sectionally as smaller bridges. Pockets of verdant spaces permeate the site, providing dwellers with natural relief from the density of such a program. Vegetation from the park crawls up the vertical circulation cores as well, coming into direct contact with the dwelling units themselves.
Building Masses
Cores/Circulation
Main Datum
Axonometric
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A# Vocational High School Advanced Design Professors: Cindy Black, Rick Black
An interior design studio, this project addressed the question of trade schools in the Austin area, allowing for flexibility in program. A# draws upon the musical character of Austin to inform the scope through which high school students learn the related trades of woodworking, metalworking, and acoustics. The school would present students with the opportunity to learn these trades while simultaneously gaining experience with local Austin musical instrument makers and luthiers, creating instruments of their own and thus learning kinesthetically. The school includes a shop for each of the skills it teaches: one for woodworking, another for metalworking and assembly, and one final one for finishing and acoustic testing. Organizationally, these shops are accented by their formal language, drawing the idea of bent wood forms from the construction of string instruments such as violins and guitars. These create masses within the larger space of the school that act as their own sort of “instruments� reading as district from one another while informing circulation. This formal concept of bent wood forms is further illustrated in the movable upper floor mentorship hubs which are formed out of bent plywood and serve as meeting spaces for students and local crafts people.
MECHANICAL
TOWN HALL
FACULTY
HEALTH
KITCHEN
ADMINISTRATION
GROUND FLOOR 1/8” = 1’
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LIBRARY
SECOND FLOOR 1/8” = 1’
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assembly + audio testing
woodshop
metalwork + assembly shop
mentorship hubs
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East Section
South Section
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Ladybird Johnson Wildower Center Design II Professor: Brett Greig
Design for an education and information pavilion at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. The project began with wind, solar, and precipitation analysis. The project utilizes two distinct building masses unified by one triangulated roof. This roof collects all rainfall into one point, sends it down a sloped aqueduct and into a pool on the main walking trail. This aqueduct sits on top of a low wall that peels off of the main walking trail, inviting visitors to enter the breezeway between the two buildings. Each building directs focus on a different view into the trees beyond; one horizontal (focusing on canopy) and one vertical (focusing on trunks). The main educational and technological programs are housed in the publicly-focused building and the bathrooms, staff, and storage areas are housed in the more privatelyfocused one.
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drainage
circulation
solar study
roofline
air circulation
wind
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Objects 1-3 Design V Professor: Kory Bieg An exploration of the evolution of a form through the lens of Object Oriented Ontology. The project began with a catalogue of masses randomly generated through the manipulation of simple forms in 3DS Max. Out of a catalogue of nearly 30 objects, one was chosen as the base form for the rest of the project, a series of additional forms that would respond to the first object while still maintaining their own distinct qualities.
Object 1: After being chosen as the point of departure for the next rounds of exploration, the first object was then further modified, contoured, and laser cut into a physical mass of stacked chipboard.
Object 2: A second form was then generated as a response to the first. Where the emergent form was monolithic and massive, the second form was a wireframe of bent glass, a lighter, more delicate material. This tectonic form provides a counterpoint to the stereotomic nature of the first.
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Object 3: The third form is a series of sandblasted plexiglass shells. These shells respond to the first form through their locations; each occurs along a major contour in the cavernous interior of the first form. They also follow the same construction technique of stacked layers. The shells respond to the second form based on material qualities: each shell is filled with LED lights, and near each illuminated shell, the glass wireframe densifies allowing for the glow of the shells to refract through the glass.
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Exploded View: object void creates a cavernous interior populated by illuminated shells that refract through the glass knots. These glass knots are echoed through the exploded frames that project from the edges of each opening in the exterior surface. 59
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Additional Work Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers Matt Garcia Design Study Abroad Sketches
Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers June - December 2016
Providence Bus Depot | Providence, RI
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6 month Internship at a firm in Tribeca. Work included rendering, physical model making, digital modeling in Rhino, CAD, conceptual design, schematic design, design development, client meetings, contractor meetings, and site visits.
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Buckhead Park Over GA400 | Atlanta, GA
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The New St. Pete Pier | St. Petersburg, FL 67
The Stephen Gaynor School | New York, NY 68
Matt Garcia Design July - August 2015 Internship at local residential firm MGD for a summer. Work included physical model making (2 projects), digital modeling (Sketchup, Rhino) rendered elevations, plans, sections, construction detail drawing, graphic design, participation in client and contractor meetings, along with site visits.
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Study Abroad Fall 2015 Switzerland, Italy, France, Netherlands, U.K., Spain
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