Architecture Design Lab Appalachian Research Center
2-9
Third year
Quinquela Martin Art School
10-15
Second year
Coastal Oregon Natatorium
16-19
Second year
Place of Wonder
20-22
Third year
Container for Water
23-24
Second year
Competitions Tectonic Washroom
25-29
Third Year Competition, Citation Award
Sinking Creek Mountain Shelter
30-33
Second Year Competition, Runner Up
Allegheny Avenue Community Housing
34-35
2013 BLTa Student Sketch Competition
Design, Photography & Drawing Art Gallery
38
First year
Aluminium Box
39
First year
Corner Assemblies
40-41
First year
Cincinnati
42
Second year
Charlotte
43
First year
Light and Shadow
44
First year
1
Appalachian Research Center
Marshall, NC is a town nestled in a mountain valley adjacent to the French Broad River. The site acts as a focal point to the surrounding mountains, making its roof and topography a crucial aspect of its design. The Appalachian Research Center seeks to compliment the veins of movement through a mountain’s valleys by creating valleys that guide people though the building and landscape. The primary valley connects the public and private buildings. Both buildings have a perpendicular valley cutting across them to allow for movement through and habitation of the roof.
Site 3
5’ 1’
5’ 1’
The larger private building is made up of three programmatic levels. The bottommost layer is tucked underground, and is the Geology lab, River lab, and fieldwork areas. The middle floor holds the entryway and offices, and the top level juts out of the roof to hold six individual apartments. The separate public building is made up of art exhibition space and a rooftop garden. The organization of space is derived from the need for privacy. The lab spaces are situated underground for silence during research. The apartments require distance, vertical or horizontal, from the train tracks while maintaining views of the river just beyond. And work areas need distance from public. The form is kept relatively low to the ground to maintain the Main Street building’s views of the river.
Program & Plan 4
The roof shifts up and down, growing higher as one travels away from the center valley. The roof is a landscape of its own, revealing and concealing views and light. Light travels deep into a series of spaces below the roof through light wells. Joints in the roof line dissolve and separate, allowing light to connect the building. The building material is dark precast concrete triangular panels that bring a sense of solidarity and weight to the building. The panels fold over the building form acting as roof, wall, and ground; all of which are supported by cast in place structural concrete walls. Entrances are formed from the exterior surface peeling away, allowing one to slip into the building.
Roof & Material 7
Reflected Ceiling Plan 8
Structural logic is obtained from structural walls holding up girders, which then support beams and roof and floor slabs. Exposed concrete structure spans the roof of the lab spaces, while a lighter wooden structure, tucked into the thickness of the ceiling and floor, supports the upper apartments.
Structure 9
Quinquela Martin Art School
La Boca is a colorful, old port neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The site sits adjacent to the town’s cultural hub, the Caminito; a pedestrian walk where artists and craftsman exhibit their work, and dancers tango in the street. As an extension to the existing Museum Quinquela Martin, the art school serves as a studio space and temporary lodging for visiting art students. The first floor holds the studio along with the public art gallery, library, and entry for the second floor cafÊ. Student housing is provided on the first and second floor, while two permanent professors enjoy the most privacy on the third floor.
Site & Program 11
The architecture is a dance between forms, a reflection of the bright La Boca context, and an exploration of intertwining constructs which generate an interior courtyard and exterior patios. The curved structure provides a dynamic enclosure that guides the visitor to move, see, and understand the space. There is a sense that the building is bending and flowing around you, while framing views such as the pre-existing mural at the main entry.
Form 12
5’ 1’
The school has walls of reflective glass, allowing it to pick up colors from its context. However, its roof provides color of its own from different colored metal panels. The interior features wooden ceilings and curved walls to draw the eye upwards. Gypsum encased steel columns, steel beams, and metal deck provide the primary structure, while curved beams support the curving walls. 5’ 1’
Material & Structure 14
5’ 1’
Coastal Oregon Natatorium
The natatorium is an aquatic center for swim training and competition located along the coast of Oregon. It holds a dive pool, lap pool, and two hot tubs. The model on the left page is a material study for a translucent faรงade that fans out to provide a covered entry and interior stadium seating. The idea of translucency is translated into the final design where glulam beams are read as solid from a side view, but open from a front view.
Program & Faรงade 17
5’
10’
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Room Key 1 Storage 2 Women’s Locker Room 3 Men’s Locker Room 4 Gym 5 Offices 6 Hot Tubs 7 Dive Pool 8 Elevator 1 9 Elevator 2
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5’
10’
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Room Key 1 Lap Pool 2 Women’s Bathroom 3 Men’s Bathroom 4 Concession Stand 5 Dive Pool 6 Elevator 1 7 Elevator 2
Fluid glulam beams wrap around the front faรงade and extend across the translucent roof like waves, expressing the structure and directing the movement of the inhabitants within. A central entry and transitional space provides access to the pools and views of the coastline.
Roof Form 19
This is a place of reflection for hikers of the Appalachian Mountain trails. It is designed to amplify one’s experience of nature by sight, sound, and touch. Wind howls, light passes, water drips, and plants sit in the metal pipes creating the space. Upon entering the structure one can step back to the darkness, into the mountain, to ponder and understand the structural nature of their environment.
Place of Wonder
Initial exploration looked into how the same pipe could be repeated and transformed to create walls and roof. The pipe became a sculptural and structural element that is stacked, joined, welded and leaned. Pipes bleed out and disappear back into the ground, over time becoming engulfed by the landscape. The metal pipes rust, plants take over roof pipes, vines creep up the side walls, and bird nests and spider webs make their home in the pipes. The initial bright and shiny bulbous form fades away as part of the landscape, not just an object in it, allowing the architecture to transform over time.
1’
5’
Exploring Form 21
Environment 22
Container for Water
The Container for Water is a floating retreat for the inhabitant that not only sits in water but collects it for its own pond. The perforated surface creates a nest like enclosure, which acts as an opening for water during the occasional wave. The radiating, rectangular modules create a curvilinear shape that filters light and frames a view.
Modular Surface 25
Tectonic Washroom 3rd Year Competition Citation Award w/ Forrest Bibeau & Megan Gileza
The tectonic washroom is located along Virginia Tech’s public Duck Pond path. Plates of the restroom shift and rotate into the earth as if being compelled by gravity, the essential element for the passive building systems. On the exterior, wooden sections foreshadow and align with interior components organized around a central concrete wet wall.
Gravity 27
A combination of water and antifreeze is pumped through a closed horizontal thermal loop, heating the concrete wet wall, and preventing water in the pipes from freezing. Runoff is collected by the gutter and directed into the wet wall where it is filtered through plants and stored to supply sinks and urinal. Grey water and overflow filtered water is recaptured to supply garden spigot. Black water is removed, and the system is supplemented by running water when necessary. Compost from four toilets and compost receptacles is collected at a single location providing accessible fertilizer.
Passive Systems 28
Sinking Creek Mountain Shelter 2nd Year Competition Runner Up
31
The Sinking Creek Mountain Shelter provides a place for gathering, rest and reflection for up to twelve Appalachian Trail hikers. The architecture is shaped by and utilizes the mountain’s views of the rising and setting sun, fresh air, and abundance of local wood and stone. The façade is continually altered by the inhabitants who use and replace the firewood, in effect becoming an interactive sculpture revealing who has arrived and departed.
Enclosure 32
Philadelphia’s Allegheny Avenue Community Housing facility starts at the façade, comprised of a double skin. Effective environmentally, for shading sun light and heat, the outer skin acts metaphorically as a physical shedding of skin in order for one to start a new life. The outer layer is slipping away, like a molting snake, to reveal an ordered interior system of concrete structure. Public functions are held on the main level, where the focal point is a dining area with a large atrium that opens up to outdoor gathering space. The top two floors hold housing units that step back relative to the sloping roof, angled to optimize southern sunlight for solar panels. A green house is tucked below it supporting occupant well-being. The architecture is meeting the street corner in order to welcome one passing by; welcoming their curiosity, and their hope for a better life.
Allegheny Avenue Community Housing 2013 BLTa Sketch Competition
20’ 10’
Organization 35
Design, Photography & Drawing
37
The art gallery is organized around two primary axis of movement. A longer angled hallway is highlighted by a clear glass roof. This hallway leads to a contrastingly heavy and private gallery space. A secondary axis, emphasized by a frosted glass roof, is the atrium, which opens up to an exterior sculpture garden. The building form is two golden rectangles comprised of two axes that play with lines of sight by widening from the entrance to the point of termination.
Art Gallery 38
One piece of aluminum is folded to create a box with a triangular indention. The triangle cut outs create a hidden space and viewing windows that allow the eye to explore the reflection of light in the interior and exterior spaces.
Aluminium Box 39
These multimedia drawings describe a series of corners and their form, joints and assembly. Each corner is made up of three planes, each with a central cut out crucial to the working of the joint.
Corner Assemblies 40
These images investigate dynamic facades and interior spaces. They exhibit architectural moves of shifting, bending, and repeating; all of which create drama and intrigue.
Cincinnati, OH 42
Images to the left explore how buildings interact with their environment, like the sun or a lamp post. The image above demonstrates building materials complementing each other through color and thickness.
Charlotte, NC 43
Explorative charcoal studies about capturing contrast.
Light & Shadow 44