THE CONTEXTUAL UNLIKELY- Andrea Baena _ Portfolio

THE CONTEXTUAL UNLIKELY _ ANDREA BAENA

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The Contextual Unlikely. An early exploration of design inspired in relevant contextual challenges, yet experimenting into unlikely paths. The work departs from a structured and logical base, interlacing with an instinct-based design sensibility. Meaning is always at the center of aesthetics: simple elegance that communicates. Pushing towards the exploration of the architect as a creator of dynamic systems that are in constant interaction with a broad collection of contextual networks.

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Contents

Design 9 23 39 47 49 51

FM_ Fuzzy Monolith WH_ Woven House PL_ Public Library UG_ Urban Glitch PP_ Paralelo Plaza CM_ CAN Masterplan

Experiment 55 57 59 61

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MT_ Media Transformation WB_ Woven Bamboo VS_Virtual Space LO_Letter Object

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Design

To conceive or fashion in the mind. Invent.

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Axonometric

FM. 2015 DS 1120 Studio project Partner Sophia NK SCI-Arc Core II Fall Studio Location: Chicago, Il Typology: Museum Instructors: Darin Johnston, Marcelo Spina, Devin Weiser and Russell Thomsen

Process Diagram

Fuzzy Monolith. Obama Presidential Library presents itself both as a monolith and as a fragmented negative open frame. It reveals itself in the shade of the near coherent mass. The library acts as a transition, between dense city landscape and an open park. A strong icon that could be seen as a barrier or as blending into the cityscape. The project offers a paradox; a Presidential Library that expresses power and portrays transparency.

Our aim is to conciliate between a monumental impenetrable monolith and a porous public environment. Visitors enter the building and ascend through the architectural stair, experiencing compression and then release as they arrive into a porous open public space at the top. The third floor acts as a semi-dense transition where the auditorium, gift shop and inside-out cafe are located. The fourth floor is the most porous space with the open gallery highly articulated in the borders, with a dispersion of blocks that represent fragments of the monolith. The private space (storage and offices) is enclosed and solid, holding the building together and compressing the public entrance ascension.

We are studying a design cycle that consists of transitions between context, image, geometry, program, and realism. The first shift from the city scape image into the dug-out shades within the mass, is achieved through the dissolution of the monolith. The agitation moves into the mass and into the interior to resolve program.

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North elevation

South Elevation

West Elevation

East Elevation

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Building and cityscape

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East view

South-east view

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Building in context

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MUSEUM PERMANENT & TEMPORARY GALLERIES

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Level 4 - Public Museum Galleries

Diagonal Section

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Level 3 - Public 1 Auditorium 2 Conference Room PUBLIC 31 AUDITORIUM Education Classroom TRAINING ROOM 423 CONFFERENCE/ Museum Gift Shop EDUCATION CLASSROOM/ MULTIPURPOSE 54 MUSEUM Cafe GIFT SHOP 5 CAFE

Longitudinal Section

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7 Public 1 Entry & Lobby 2 Orientation Theatre

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Research Rooms and Archival Support 3 Research Orientation Conf Space 4 Textual Research Room 5 Textual Processing Room 6 Nontextual Research Room 7 Nontextual Suite 8 Archival Staff Offices

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LevelFacility 1- Entrance & Private Support Spaces Dock 1-2 9 LoadingPublic Entry 10 Receiving Room 3-8 11 Staff Lounge Research Rooms Manager’s Office 9-1212 FacilityFacility Support Spaces 13-19 Museum Support Space Museum Support Space 13 Registrar’s and Museum Staff Office 14 Exhibit Support Staff Office 15 Exhibit Production Shop 16 Paint Shop 17 Clean Room

Transversal Section

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Apertures

Entrance

Interior agitation

Compress and release

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Model on site

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Woven ribbons

WH. 2015 Individual project SCI-Arc Core I Spring Studio DS 1101 Location: Sylverlake, CA Typology: Residential Instructors: Emmett Zeiffman, Margaret Griffin, Ming Fung, Ben Smith

Detail model

Woven House. This project challenges the static state of residential designs. The house is a dynamic compositional network of pieces, interlaced into an uneven topography. The project pursues design based on a network structure that will interconnect the changing parts, as opposed to the design of a perpetual singular object.

The house is composed of a dispersed yet interconnected network of parts. The design seeks to achieve a three-dimensional interconnection and weave while maintaining orthogonal grid plans onto which organize space. The network of pieces that compose the house emerged from a three-dimensional wireframe derived from a pattern of interlaced L’s, from which diagrammatic ribbons were created. The massing design was developed from this diagram, in order to maintain a weaved sensation in the spaces.

To enhance the reading of the house as a network, the façade is covered with layers of wires that come from the contours of the entire depth of the house. The apertures also reinforce the illusion of depth as they are derived from volumes that lie behind.

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Diagrams - Underlying Ribbons

Ribbons from interlaced L's wireframe

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Family of forms - wireframe to volume

Solid/Void Plan Diagrams

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Site Plan

Process model

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Roof Plan

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Section

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Plan level 0.5

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Elevation

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PLan level 0

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Process design- geometric study

PL. 2014 Individual project SCI-Arc Core I Fall Studio DS 1100 Location: Los Angeles, CA Typology: Library Instructors: Constance Vale, Andrew Zago, Ana Niemark, Emmett Zeifman

Unfolded facade

Public Library. Located in East Los Angeles, the public library offers a variety of spaces to read, study, events and meetings.

The buildings rests on an edge and a corner, in order to create tension between building and ground and open up a plaza underneath the building. The design is meant to create a unique experience of transition between solid and void. When approaching the building one experiences the building as a mass floating above. However once one has entered the building there is an inversion between solid and void. One now feels in a void space with another was floating above.

The library bookshelves are located in the nucleus of the building. This area feels solid since it is filled with bookshelves that create a labyrinth. The depth of the space is perceived as being smaller that it really is, once one walks between the shelves, one will find that there are more shelves at the end of the space.

The formal concept of the building is derived from a study of three-dimensional forms that combine pure shapes such as the cube, the octahedron and the pyramid, in order to create familiar yet misleading forms. The facade was designed as a continuous pattern wrapped around the building, bended in unexpected places to create false edges.

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Plan Level 2 / Longitudinal Section

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Plan Level 1 / Transversal Section

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Access plaza

Interior library space

Figure composition- Color Render

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Folded Grid on Elevation

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View of bridge

UG. 2015 Individual project X|Atelier Workshop Location: Los Angeles, CA Typology: Public Space, Bridge

View from capture

Urban Glitch. A glitch in the cityscape to remediate an older glitch in the urban system. This pedestrian bridge was a part of the un-finished second level pedestrian network developed by the Los Angeles major in 1885. This network proved unsuccessful due to the fact that it pretended to separate the pedestrians from the rest of the city, by renegating them to a second level. Such urbanism that gives priority to cars has become obsolete in the modern world.

This project seeks to weave the city together once again, connecting the second level pedestrian bridge to the actual street with an organic, almost parasite-like, intervention. It was developed in

Instructor: Erick Carcamo

a one-week workshop, using maya. The design concept consists of a mass and a organic frame that merge together, adhering to the bridge and the ground.

Render of Bridge

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Plan of plaza

PP. 2013 Design Team CMD Ingenieros Location: Bogotรก, Colombia Typology: Office Complex Client: Alianza Paralelo

Render of Main Plaza

Conceot design

Paralelo Plaza. Design of the landscape, common areas and public areas of a business complex in Bogota, creating a work environment that is attractive, modern, social and green.

The Central Plaza of the business center as a fifth facade, continuum in harmony with buildings' facade.

Inspired in Mondrian's paintings. The layout is organized and easy to understand, but at the same time dynamic and full of surprises. The daily work routine becomes a changing experience, with many alternatives of circuits that lead to diverse spaces. Generate emotions at night with innovative lights marking circuits and highlighting spaces. Indirect illumination makes elements seem to be floating and reflecting surfaces enhance illusions.

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Water plaza

CM. 2013 Design Team CMD Ingenieros, Contexto Urbano & SOM Location: Bogotรก, Colombia Typology: Government Complex Competition for Bogota City Council

Market Plaza

Gate plaza

CAN Master Plan. The master plan for the National Administrative Center in Bogota was developed as a proposal for a public contest in which the team obtained second place. The CDM design team developed a landscape proposal to complement the master plan created by Contexto Urbano and SOM. Landscape plays an essential role as an integrating framework within the mixed-use complex, which includes government, residential, education and cultural buildings. The three pillars of the design are: identity, connectivity and comprehension. Generate a fluid identity that will unify the CAN Complex, with shapes and elements that lead the way through the open space in an intuitive way. Diverse spaces and plazas with different personalities, that yet feel connected.

Gates that mark important points and accesses, and act as frames for outstanding views.

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Experiment

An innovative act or procedure. To try something new, especially in order to gain experience.

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Plastic object

MT. 2014 SCI-Arc Fall Visual Studies VS 4100 Instructors: Mathew Au and Emmett Zeifman

Deformed scan of model

Media transformation. This project consisted on the exploration of transformations between virtual media and diverse physical mediums. As a way to transgress from exactitude into inexactitude, where shape deforms and develops into something else that was not exactly planned out.

The exact line drawings represent the elevations and the axonometric views of the original object that was derived from projections of an orthogonal box into rotated planes and projected back to the center to create a less regular object. This object was then carved out to create the object shown in the image of the left, which was taken into the first physical medium, plastic with sharp edges and high precision, attempting to replicate the virtual volume.

This object was then brought back into the virtual world through the scanner; different ways of deformation were explored. These deformations were made in a controlled way such that one could track them back into the original grid.

The object then became a mold to cast a new less exact object made out of foam. The material process lead to a transformed form that could not be controlled with precision. This final object was then cut into sections to explore the interior porosities and transformations.

Axonometric original virtual shape

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Spider web logic for structure

WB. 2014 SCI-Arc Fall Applied Studies AS 3100 Instructor: Pavel Getov

Hanging model logic - projected web structure

Woven Bamboo. Weaved “braid” made of bamboo with intrinsic structural properties.

Create new structural configuration making the best out of bamboo’s flexibility to weave itself.

Design structure that derives from a spider web’s logic.

Innovation comes from breaking paradigms, such as combining two concepts that seem to be contradictory; this project reinvents the possibility for unique modern buildings with a natural element used in vernacular architecture.

In order to convert the tensile forces characteristic of a spider web into a structural bamboo cupula-like structure with compressive forces, the hanging model method was applied. The hanging dome geometry with the spider web configuration is mirrored on the xy plane to become a structural cupula.

The spider web logic for structure starts with two anchor points as center of the structure. Once the center has been established the other anchor points are defined. The radius threads are created from the center on to the frames of the web. A woven spiral that starts in the center and ends in the outer edge gives the final touch of the structure.

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Virtual web - depth

VS. 2015 SCI-Arc Spring Environmental Studies AS 3121 Instructor: Ilaria Mazzolini

Virtual space - volume

Virtual Spaces. This project explores the use of glare, brightness and contrast to create virtual volumes that interact with light. The objective is to generate a strong contrast between the black surfaces and the light that penetrates through the thin apertures in the panel. The installation is located within a cubicle with a west-facing window, such controlled environment provides possibility of enclosure without neglecting direct sunlight. Inspired by architectural spaces with strong sensations of depth, the contrasting light apertures replicate the basic geometry of such spaces. With the use of mirrors, it is possible to enhance and recreate glare. The reflections produced on the mirror surfaces interact with the geometry on the panel to transform the initial perspective and generate viritual volumes.

The installation combines diverse strategies dealing with glare, brightness and contrast, which were studied in the precedents. Zumthor in the Church of Light and Ando in the Bruder Klaus Church frame natural light to generate heavy contrast. Gehry experiments with glossy materials and changing sunlight angles to achieve movement. Munro and Bailey achieve a second reading of an already existing space, through the use of imposed artificial lighting systems.

The light installation uses glare-generating strategies as a way to extend existent space within the black box, creating virtual volumes. The viewer will experience multiple readings of space and depth that appear to extend beyond the confines of the box.The final affect overcomes tectonics, dematerializing the space and creating a light-generated spatial illusion.

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Letter from alphabet

LO. 2015 SCI-Arc Spring Visual Studies VS 4101 Instructors: Ana Neimark and Mathew Au

Model object

Letter Object. Inspired in the letters from the alphabet and the logic behind their form, an object was created. This excercise consisted on an exploration of controlled moves using an automated program to generate multiple options. The renders were created throught the use of vectors, that once again followed certain logic and consistency. Visual effects such as movement, depth, color and light were thus created by the slight distortion of logic.

The merging of two different objects, in this case letters, creates a duplicit object that offers dual readings. Dual readings translated from 3d to 2d drawings that become more subtle and abstract as they dissolve the substance into a collection of points suggesting both original letters "o" and "e".

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