Portfolio v.2.01
A brief resume and introduction. Architecture and design projects produced within the Pratt Undergraduate School of Architecture from Fall 2012 to Spring 2017. Work is not organized chronologically.
AEM 03.2017 | 8� x 10�
Andrew Martens Pratt Institute B.Arch ‘17 James Bowie High School ‘12
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andrewemartens@gmail.com https://issuu.com/andrewmartens 512.909.6581 29 Spencer pl. #3R Brooklyn, NY, 11216
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Model
Ghost Outfit
Ghosts don’t really need outfits, but if they did, they would need ones which are mutable, and consistently predisposed to being in flux. Nobody would want a ghost outfit as a model for a building, because buildings, among other things, are machines for capital. If a building was a ghost outfit, it might look something like this building.
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Render A & B
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Roof Plan
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Plan Cut
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Long Section / Long Elevation
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Elevation / Section - Temporal Longform
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The atmosphere is essential to a rigorous definition and contemplation of a site; not a force, but rather a medium for forces and entities that exist at a particulate scale. As the atmosphere is ever-present, so too are its affiliate passengers and their many actions, although their effects are not made known to us in equilateral measures. In the most common conception of the term, Architecture provides shelter from the elements. Frequently, this includes protection from the atmosphere through the creation of a secondary or “interior” atmosphere. The interior atmosphere is an artificial construct that is implemented in order to alter, oppose, or supplement those features of the real atmosphere which are local to it. The two atmospheres are in a constantly tense state, as the interior atmosphere responds to the forces provided by its counterpart. The atmosphere of Tampa contains a constant and proportionally large deposition of sulfur, produced by coal refineries throughout the southern United States. The column density of the sulfur combined with humid, rain-heavy climate leads to acid rain as an additional site condition. Acid rain takes a chemical force in the atmosphere and gives it a vector of some significant amplitude. Acid rain and its highly erosive properties can become a tool to alter materials such as limestone, marble, steel, and zinc. These materials are receivers that make visible the forces within the atmosphere on an architectural scale. This project attempts to illustrate the tension inherent in the relationship between interior and exterior atmospheres by exploiting the particular forces in the Tampa atmosphere to transform the ornament, form, and material qualities of an architecture, and eventually break the boundary separating the interior atmosphere from the immense force of the “real” atmosphere. The drama of this process is heightened by a program (a botanic conservatory) which places a heavy emphasis on the rigorous curation of the interior atmosphere.Like paintings, sculptures, and ancient artifacts, plants which are not native to their immediate surroundings require a degree of atmospheric privilege, a privilege which in this project is determined by the status of a material and its tendency towards transformation. These transformations happen simultaneously but at various temporal scales. These processes include patina, edge erosion, the formation of stalactites and stalagmites, the crumbling of the envelope, & the puncture of the interior atmosphere. Inevitably mechanisms which allow for the curation of interior atmospheres (i.e. mechanical systems and envelopes) will become defunct. Material relationships cease to revolve around conventions of programmatic function, and become dictated by those particulate qualities of Tampa’s atmosphere that constitute the site’s primary condition. The architecture is diluted down to its principal components, resulting in a form that is intimately related to its predecessor, but is possessed with a formal and spatial agenda which is supplied by Tampa and its concentrated sulfuric volume.
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Temporal Composite isometric
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“Affects�
Thesis Research
The specific leanings of our thesis research can be found in the Thesis Research booklet located on the issuu main page (see QR on cover). All featured drawings are there described in depth. Included here are site maps and drawing research The purpose of these drawings was to develop a formal and operational language through which we may begin to explore key concepts within the objective of the research section, which is to investigate the affect/effect of the atmosphere, and its ability to influence an architectural proposal. Drawings explore the conception and formation of boundary conditions, as well as the interralationship of particulate families, microcompositions, and reactions. * W/ Partner
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Critic(s) Ostap Rudakevych & Tulay Atak
“Pseudo-wrapper”
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Site Map - East Tampa
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02 - Reactions
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“Re-drawing”
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“Re-drawing”
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Sketch Section
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Interior Render
Columbia Boathouse
The Columbia Boathouse project is an opportunity to incorporate many different aspects of design into the project, ranging from zoning, construction, sustainability performance, program, etc. Additionally, the program deals heavily with the interweaving of space at a non-human scale (as in a boatshed) and the human scale. This proposal specifically takes a heavily voyeuristic approach to the intermingling of disparate community members and the crew-members, both of whom inhabit the site, and envisions the crew team as some sort of foreign element which is to be observed.
* W/ Partner
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Critic(s) Sal Tranchina
Interior Render
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Plan
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Short Elevation
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Circulation Diagram
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Perspective Section
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Plan
Wave Hill Academy
Wave Hill is Pratt UA’s introduction to landscape integration. The ability to create precise moves on site based on topography, tree cover, etc. becomes paramount. The program for this project is an artist’s residence. Additionally the studio critic requested a space to be operated as an aviary. In this way, the project becomes somewhat of a layer-cake of ground, intervention at a human scale, intervention at an avian scale, sky-plane.
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Critic(s) Karen Bausman
Model [plan view]
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Model Photo
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Model Photo [detail]
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“A collection of moments”
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Isometric
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Machine in Elevation
Design Machine
The Design Machine exhibits the resultant body of work which surrounded participation in the first Designing Machines that Design Advanced Studio, which explores the development of a method of machine output as an impetus for design schema. The workflow began with a series of exercises to increase literacy in computational software and hardware logic, including work with Beetle Blocks, custom .gcode and .svg editing, and drawing machine design, assembly, and output, with the endgame being a machine which produces some output that can be interpreted as holding within its qualities some potential for architectural syntactical interpretation. Specifically, my partner and my proposal was resulting from a drawing machine which affects a body of sand. Because of the nature of sand as well as the nature of toolpaths, the resulting form is referential to the toolpath, but is not its carbon copy. This as a proposal for an architecture -specifically we envision this compound as a library or archive - addresses and challenges conventions and conceptions of memory and program logic within architecture. * W/ Partner
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Critic(s) Che-Wei Wang & Duks Koschitz
Machine in Plan
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Machine Detail
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Sand Drawings Sand drawings created on the final machine. These drawings became the impetus for our design proposal, which used the material’s propensity for self-erasure as a gateway to exploring temporality as a concept within architectural form.
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Drawing on Sand (Early) This drawing was created by converting a series of coordinates generated in Beetle Blocks into a machine accessible .gcode file, which was then executed on a 3d printer, hacked to perform as a drawing machine, with a small stylus fastened onto the carriage.
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Pantograph DrawingDetail Title
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Drawing Title Generative Drawing [ink on Bristol]
This drawing was created with an iv drip filled with black ink, attached to a vinyl cutter. The linework is derived from a simple maze-building definition (which would later influence the project massively) and is exported to the vinyl cutter by converting the sequence of drawn coordinates to SVG format.
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Proposal - Detail Plan
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Proposal - Master Plan
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Master Plan - detail
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Long Section
AC Pavilion
The Pavilion is a rigorous exercise in mesh articulation through several computational functions, primarily exercised in Grasshopper. In a nutshell, the mesh is a catenary arch which has original force values that are scalar relative to the vertex in question’s proximity to the mesh’s naked edges. This is followed by a second load application which remaps the stress values on the original mesh edges pulled from Karamba, followed by a series of culling operations dictated by face-slope and proximity to a guiding line to differentiate light permeating and walkable space on the pavilion. This topolgy’s characteristics are then tested in Smartform for kick angle, slope, planarity, etc. As somewhat of an aside, parametrically dictated staircases (spiral and regular) are applied at the access points to surrounding buildings, and at the center point for the Mesh)
* W/ Partner
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Critic(s) David Mans
Short Elevation
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Mesh Diagrams this series of diagrams are how we begin to analyze hidden qualities of the composition of the mesh. From aspect ratio to structural integrity, these diagrams allow us to evaluate the quality of the shape beyond aesthetic, formal, or programmatic aspirations
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Mesh Diagrams
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Roof Plan
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Short Section
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Trail Render
Skeleton Coast Trail-Blazer
The studio prompt which led to this project asked for a building which had properties of self-generation, or autoimmunity, running with a broad underlying theory that buildings of the future will posess the autonomy and self-awareness necessary for self-repair. The project specifically proposes a trail-blazing 3d-printer which has the ability to construct a pathway across the Skeleton Coast, one of the most desolate landscapes in the world, over a very long period of time, with tons of community support and maintenance, and for no good reason.
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Critic(s) Che-Wei Wang
Site Map
All Hail The Trail The Solar Trail of the Skeleton Coast is a collaboratively generated thru-way which navigates one of the harshest landscapes on planet earth: The foreboding Skeleton Coast National Park of Namibia and Southern Angola, West Africa. The purpose of the Trail is to create a functional walking/ biking/ camel-back riding trail across a landscape which is materially and, more generally, ecologically unobtrusive, and is totally reliant on community support Angola
Namib Desert (Kaokoveld)
Namib Desert
Namib Desert
Sample Area
(Damaraland)
Atlantic Ocean
20 km 1�
100 km
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Site
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Elevations
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Machine - Exploded Isometric
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Construction Details
These Isometric drawings bring to light some of the detail which was included in the design of this machine. (One) this drawing shows the mechanism of the rotating chassis for the fresnel lenses.
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Construction DrawingDetail Title
(Three) The gear chamber for cam interaction. This mechanism, when supplied with a series of cams could potentially be the primary driver for unique toolpaths within the machine.
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Plan View
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Isometric
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Volcano Print
Digital Futures
Digital Futures is an organization within the school of architecture with several imperatives. In addition to providing in-house support for students looking to incorporate computational design tools into their workflow, DF also works heavily within the realms of fabrication and material studies. This is most strongly exhibited by the Ceramic printer constructed/designed by several other work-studies and myself. The models produced are the result of custom .gcode writing components from Grasshoppper Python (built by me) to translate digital models (built by me) into machine executable toolpaths. This same idea is evidenced in several other projects, which include a large-format 3d printer, simple PLA 3d printers, as well as an upcoming mega-scale printer * W/ co-workers
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Critic(s) Richard Sarrach
Cont.
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Toolpath Visualization
This series illustrates mesh topology and toolpath information as it is understood, both as gcode (i.e. travel paths, travel speeds, jog, etc.), as well as in the world of mesh values (i.e. vertices, faces, interior edges, naked edges, etc.)
These meshes are performative both formally, as objects generated through processes of optimization, or just computation for fun, as well as structurally. These prints were designed for large-scale printing (see photos) and as they manifest to scale, they gain a new set of qualities which removes them from their .3dm counterparts. these drawings help to bridge that gap.
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Volcano Print - Detail
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Volcano Print - Detail
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Volcano Print - Detail
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Cylinder Graveyard
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Detail
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Prints in progress [Ceramics]
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Cont
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Ceramic Test Ensemble
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Fired Ceramic Detail
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