AJ ELLIS GRADUATE SCHOOL PORTFOLIO 2019

AJ ELLIS

austin.james.ellis1@gmail.com

719-502-7060

TABLE OF CONTENTS Design Studios

Built Works OPLONTIS ANTIQUARIUM MSU - SOA COTE Competetion Entry Fall 2018 p.4-9

LA HOMELESS HOUSING MSU - SOA Morphosis Architects Spring 2019 p.12-17

SPIRITUAL SPACE IN DEEP TIME MSU - SOA Masters Thesis Fall 2019 p.20-27

WOVEN WILLOW STORY POLE MSU - Community Design Center 2018-19 p.10-11

COFFEE TABLE MSU-SOA Fall 2019

p.18-19

CARBON FIBRE WORKSHOP Atelier Mey + MSU - SOA Fall 2019 p.28-29

Antiquarium: Ancient Connection Through Contemporary Play 5th Year - Comprehensive Studio

Location: Torre Annunziata, Italy Program: Antiquarium, offices, artifact storage, conservation labs, promenade walkway, playground - soccer space

Integration of tourists, youth, and residents

4

Panoramic views

PV Array Roof

Recycled Steel Structure

Bird Habitat

Youth Activity Organization

Torre Annunziata houses two sites of the Oplontis that are separated by vacant backlot space, which makes for an expedient tourist experience and obscures the sites that the residents have a newfound pride in. In an economy built on small service-industry businesses, Torre Annunziata is a built-up neighborhood lacking in social space and so the kids organize to play in the streets. The approach is to introduce an elevated walkway that connects the Oplonti for tourist access and organizes social spaces for the residents. To accomplish this, the Oplontis sites will be connected through this back lot where local vendors can serve from an added frontage off the street. The connection will offer soccer space in a safer and social environment, yet still independent of supervision. The promenade orients tourists to specifi c views of Torre Annunziata to inspire a meandering in its broader context and longer stay.

Ticketed Exhibit Spaces

Urban recreation through walking and play

Storm Water Mitigation

Villa A

Frescoes

Courthouse Villa B Alleyway Soccer Elementary School

1. EXISTING CONDITIONS Villa A

Unfold frescoes and statues into procession

1 2

3

Elevated Walkway

Connect through vacant corridor on site

Playscape

Shares space with the promenade

2. CATALYSTS

1

2

3

3. PROMENADE

5

Design for Integration

The major program shift from a traditional antiquarium is that this design organizes the artifact program into a playscape program into a promenade circulation pattern. It is expanding the scope of the antiquarium program greatly, but to connect the two artifact sites.

Weaving all three programs ultimately adds into the goal of extending the stay of tourists and creating this process of familiarization between tourists and residents. Integrating the play spaces into the artifact program allows for residents of Torre to be associated with these artifacts from a young age.

Antiquarium A

Program Overlap

*

Artifact Walks

Context Views

Playspaces

Open Promenade

Performace Diagram Context View

Context View

Ticket Office

6

Fresco Walk

Fresco Walk

Context View

Fresco Walk

Ticket Office

Solar Energy

Ground Source Heat Pump

Playscape

Carbon sequestration

Rubberized play surface

Stamped concrete promenade ramp

Excavation Fill

Artifact Walk

Fly-Over

Solar protection of artifacts on the interior makes for increased wall surface area for Photovoltaic Array

Artifact Walks

Opportunities lie in the alleyways and vacant land for scenic vistas to open up to the broader context of Torre Annunziata to advertise for more tourist patronage beyond the Oplontis and further into the heart of Torre.

Antiquarium B

View into Villa B

Cool down the hardscape Bioswales Variable play mounds

A Plains + Mounds 7

Villa B Social Familiarization Play Space Gathering Space

Ecological Intensive Green Roof Rubberized Lawn Bird Habitat

Bioswales Detention Pond

Open Promenade

Open Promenade

The frescoes and statues from Villa A are arranged along the procession of the promenade. This arrangement reduces museum fatigue and makes use of the processional artifacts such as the frescoes.

Villa B being an acnicent site where commerce and trade took place, the jewelrey and pottery are viewed in a traditional exhibit space that functions as a scaffolding for the promenade and play space above.

SECTION - Antiquarium B - Exhibit Space 8

Stack Ventilation is effective in the vertical light wells that can release hot air passively ventilate

Playspaces

Open Promenade

View space reveals Villa B’s second floor that will be reconstructed over time.

9

Story Pole | Weaving Willow - Graduate Material Research 2018 - 5th year

National Endowment For The Arts Grant For Buffalo Connections Project on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation Concept: An interactive installation between Dakota + Nakota people and buffalo. The steel structure mimics the diamond willow pattern that is significant for story telling. The puck design is intended to collect buffalo fur and have painted designs of stories told.

My Role: Generating prototypes of pole construction through Grasshopper and Rhino, then either milling them out of wood or 3d printed to test structure and touch experience.

1/10th Scale 3D Print

1216

Full Scale Prototype 7’-0” Tall

Welded Dynamic Joint

Full Scale Structural Prototype Bent 1” Steel Rod 5’-0” Tall

Observational Sketches 2017 - 4th year

1. Benedictine Retreat Center, Schuyler, NE, USA 2. Duomo of Santa Maria, Siena Italy

1

2

17 13

Homeless Housing + Community Center | Morphosis Architects 2019 - 5th year

Location: Venice, CA Concepts: This housing complex and community center are the new approach to integrating the homeless population with the local residents by creating semi-private space between all residents. In the public realm, the center coutyard combats the distance created

by Pacific Ave by opening up between three different paths on the ground plane.

Residential LW Units

1 BR + Work Space 2 BR + Work Space Studio Affordable and 1 BR Market Rate 2 BR 3 BR Addtl Program Lobby/Security/Mail Fitness Gym PlayUnit Stor-

SF 1000 1200 600 750 900 1200

50

qty 10 10 45 75 45 15

Total SF 10,000 12,000 27,000 56,250 40,500 18,000 1,000 5,000 5,000 200 13,250

User

Category

Homeless

Healthcare + Education

Locals

Community

Tourists

Commercial

Residents

Commercial and Services

Commercial Retail Coffee/Juice bar/Kitchen 650 Spaces

Parking

Public Community Working Gardens Public Plaza 10,000

Open Space

TOTAL SF: 403,700

9,000 5,000 124,000 10,000

To Gold’s Gym

ific

c Pa

Circulation for Public and Semi-Public Space

SF

Counseling + Healthcare for Homeless Residents 10,000 Community + Education Center 15,000 Administration + Security Offices 3,000 Co-Op Grocery + Market 10,000 Farm to Table-style Restaurant/Bar.Kitchen 15,000 Art Gallery (Sculpture Garden) 3,000

e Av DN

Bus Stop ai

M n St

Veteran’s Memorial

Venice Beach

w Vie

1418

Co

s

or

d rri

To Abbot Kinney Blvd

GROUND FLOOR

Family communities are organized in courtyards

Private

Semi-Private

Children Privacy Family Hearth

Family Community

Live-Work Units

LOADING BAY

Amenities for Residents

Gym

Courtyard

SUNSET AVE Ave Sunset

UP

Adult Privacy

Urban-Semi Public

Housing First Initiative

Lobby

Counseling + Healthcare

Barrier

LW Units

Community + Education

New User

Sculpture Garden Art Gallery Public Community Gardens

Shelter

CO-OP Market

UP

Coop Grocery Farm to Table-style Restaurant/Bar/Kitchen

Local

Coffee/ Juice Bar/ Kitchen Commercial Retail

Plaza

Brings visibilitity to

Veteran’s Memorial

Semi-Public

Scuplture Garden

CO-OP OutDoor Market

Pacific Ave

Retail

PACIFIC AVE

t Main S

Public

Introduce an intimacy

MAIN ST

Strategies for Affordable + carving out Market Rate Semi-Private space between units Services

Counseling + Healthcare for Homeless

UP

Restaurant Retail

Community and Education Center

Transparent Lobbies

Retail (below) Juice Bar

UP DN

Parking Ramp PARKING RAMP TO

Security

Lobby

THORNTON AVE

View Corridor to Ocean

15

PLAZA RENDERING

Southern Face of Units Conrete Structure Private Balconies Sculpture Garden

16

Northern Face of Units Perforated Screen Entryway Openings

Fully Integrated AF/MR unit layouts

Studio Units (x45)

1BR Units (x75)

2BR Units (x45)

3BR Units (x15)

1BR Live-Work Units (x10)

2BR Live-Work Units (x10)

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MODEL - 1/16”= 1’-0”

1 Protected Playground for Residents 2 Plaza Opening 3 Resident Central Corridors

18

1

2

3

19

Coffee Table

2019 - Furniture Project Table Top: Walnut Legs: HSS 1-1/4” Base Plate: 1/2” Plate Steel

Deep Time as a Sacred Threshold

2019 - 5th year - Masters Thesis

The sacred is one’s relationship with the unknown, how they are orienting within their unknown and generate habitable order. The world having been settled and mapped by humans has depleted our traditional sense of unknown inhabitable territory that originally gave humans meaning and unity in life and sacred architecture a purpose of claiming land ownership. This state is defined as the Anthropocene, wherein humans became an active geologic force in the earth’s timeline. The millennial generation exhibits this in experiencing the sacred in the unknown and non-religious means rather than settled architecture and crafting an individual set of values and in turn finding a community to match those values.

To parallel these shifts the architecture of sacred space provide for the acetic and hermetic spiritual experience as the communal experiences of sacred continually manifest in settled profane spaces. This can be done by building reciprocally with remote, mysterious, unique from the landscape rather than imposing meaning upon it. The new paradigm of architecture proposed is a nomadic sacred experience accentuated and orchestrated by architectural intervention- to allow one to relate to an unknown temporal space and highlight the opposing thresholds between naturally occurring fluid phenomena and the rigidity of the anthropocentric force and provide a means to understand the millennial generations relationship with the sacred.

Sacred Gatherings

Sacred Threshold

Nomadic Sacred Known

Unknown

Expansion Of Known Territory

Subcultural Communities

Individual Exploration

Temporal Threshold

Anthropocene

Profane Spaces

Nature Vistas (World Expanding) How does architecture adapt to this sacred experience?

22

Holocene

Fully mapped and comprehendable world

Pre-history realm only recognized by geologists

Performative Diagram - Using Deep Time as a Sacred Theshold

Current model

Threshold Intellectual trace

Catastrophic Force

instantly displaces matter of

In situ Making visible

yielding Landscape

Remnants

Visited, but experienced profanely

Viscerally prepare the nomad to understand

Intervention Enhanced sense of place

Dialectic Diagram - Understanding the sequence of the installations 3. The essence is placed to precede the remnant its linked to avoid this complication.

1. Splitting reality into the intellectual trace and the viseral presence of each remnant.

Anthropocene

Dawes Act

Oscillation

Mega Ripples

Redirection

Plunge Pool

Expansion

Expansion Bar

Confluence

Kolk Lakes

2. To create a space where the primary remnant exists is to obscure the experience of what is already there.

4. Each installation is to prime the experience of the of the user to properly mark the threshold of when they enter that remnant.

23

Mega Scale Water Erosion

The ice age meltdown of the cordilleran ice sheet was a global event that has a local significance, this is a catastrophic event that exists outside of human history as it even occurred before humans had crossed the land bridge.

Spokane

Camas Prairie

12,000 BC

Camas Prairie

Ice Dam

Missoula

Portland

When the ice dam broke in Idaho broke, the water rushed through Washington and created the modern day scabland features as well as pooling up in Oregon before breaking out to the ocean through ther Columbia River Exit.

The scale of this is hard to imagine as it has never happened before or after.

Hot Springs

Markle Pass Wills Creek Pass

Montana Ice Dam

Flathead reservation

Little Bitteroot Valley

Camas Prairie

Missoula

The water of Glacial Lake Missoula filled the basin and created a temporary bay or lake. The water was entering the basin faster than the south end could drain it. This 1000-foot-deep lake was a result of flooding that only lasted a year, although it is theorized that the lake could have formed hundreds of times.

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The waves to the north are largest, and the ones to the south are diminished in size, loses energy as it Mission moved south.

Valley

Glacial Lake Missoula Idaho

The ripples slowly formed underwater and then remained fossil features as the water drained.

Aerial Photo looking South from Wills Creek Pass

Duck Pond Pass

The floods carved out more than 50 cubic miles of earth from MT to the Pacific Ocean.

Big Creek Pass

The flow rate was at 500,000,000 Cubic Feet Per Second.

There was more energy released in this flooding than 650 times the eruption of Mt. St Helens.

The lake was held in by an ice dam in the Idaho Panhandle.

The lake was volumetrically larger than lakes Eerie and Ontario

N 0

Flathead River Miles

3

Four Site Thresholds Within Transect

Expansion Bar

Plunge Pool

Mega Ripples

Key

Graded Ranch Land

0

1000 2000

3000 4000

5000

6000

7000 Cow Paths

Site Transect

Highway

Entry/ Exit

Kolk Lakes

Compilation of Site Forces

Expansion Bars Plunge Pool

Wilks Gulch Road

Highway 289

Anthropocentric effects on site

Megaripples

Big Gulch Road

6 Person Parking

Highway 289

Furthest point from the roads

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1. Confluence

Visceral Site Forces

2. Expansion

3. Redirection

4. Oscillation

Crest

Erosion

Lee Side

26

Current Direction

Avalanching Downhill

Eddy Deposition Stoss Side

Trough

Site Remnants

Materiality

SECTIONAL TRANSLATIONS

Sectional Translations

Section Cuts of Material Experiments

Sink Down

TIlt

Thicken

Subtraction

Rotate

Mass

State of Flux

Misalignment

Simultaneous Erosion and Deposition

27

1D

1C 1B

1A

2D

1C -Confluence Threshold Exit

1A -Confluence Threshold Entrance

1B -Confluence Threshold Center

2A -Expansion Threshold Approach

2B -Expansion Threshold Entrance

2C -Expansion Threshold Center

3A -Redirection Threshold Approach

3B -Redirection Threshold Center

3C -Redirection Threshold Exit

4A -Oscillation Threshold Approach

4B -Oscillation Threshold Center

4C -Oscillation Threshold Exit

3E 2C North

2B

Key Drainage Paths

3D

Cow Paths

2A

Intervention sites

3C

Mega Ripple Ridges

3B

Demolished Ripples

3A

4D

4C 4A 4B

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1D -Confluence Threshold Exit

1E -Confluence Site Reveal

2D Expansion Site Reveal

3D -Plunge Pool from The Ripples Edge

3E -Redirection Site Reveal

4D -Oscillation Site Reveal

29

Carbon Fibre Workshop

2019 - Atelier Mey

This workshop was a test in material expression and form generating through algorithms employed by grasshopper. The prompt was to work with scaffoldings for cells and columns. We used algorithms to define wrap paths for the resin pregnated carbon fibres around the scaffolding and to generate a stronger form foe this scaled-down structure of a pavilion. The paths generated in Rhino only helped trace a path, but the act of wrapping the fibres over one another generated a different overall form.

AJ ELLIS | BRITTON ANDREWS | C-2

AJ ELLIS | BRITTON ANDREWS | P-10 Wrap 1

6

6

15

12

20

18

24

Wrap 2 8

2 Wrap 1

12

24

Wrap 2

Wrap 3

24

54 Wrap 4

Wrap 5

72 Wrap 6

Wrap 3 10

Wrap 4 12

Wrap 5

14

Wrap 6 16

AJ ELLIS |

austin.james.ellis1@gmail.com

|

719-502-7060

| GRADUATE PORTFOLIO 2019