2020 2022
M.Arch II
AUSTIN LIGHTLE Austin Lightle is an architectural designer currently residing in Los Angeles, California. He has a Masters degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The Ohio State University with a Research Distinction and Honors. He has both professional and academic working experience.
SELECTED WORKS
AUSTIN LIGHTLE CONTACT INFORMATION
Austin.j.lightle@gmail.com 740-708-7013
BIOGRAPHY
Austin Lightle is an architectural designer currently residing in Los Angeles, California. Born in rural Ohio, he had little interest in design and more interest in construction. He went to college at The Ohio State University to study architecture with the goal of entering the field focused more on construction and details. During his time at Ohio State, he began to understand architecture as something other than a building. He became interested in other mediums at Ohio State and wished to further explore the future of architecture through a technological scope. After graduating from The Ohio State University he spent a year working as a designer at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in New Haven, Connecticut. He is currently pursuing a Masters degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The Ohio State University with a Research Distinction and Honors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
008 FITTING ROOM Fashioning the Phygital
016 POLLUTED SCHOOL Computational Morphology
024 RESOLUTE AMALGAMATION Generative Morphology
032 OB_CESSION Phygital Materiality
040 CURVED NOTION Steam Odyssey
048 PERCEPTUAL DETAIL Details, Details
054 Design Development Design Documentation
064 GENERAL CONDITIONS Double Standards
PROFESSIONAL WORK
076 PELLI CLARKE & PARTNERS Corporate headqaurters & Academic Building
008
FITTING ROOM
Contemporary architecture exist in two phases, a digital origin and physical production. The digital double of the physical production is typically turned into a digital waste that no longer serves a purpose. Architecture is constantly in flux, there is a need for architecture to be constantly changing and adapting to meet the current demands of its function. Seven architectural elements were designed, each having its own set of unique spatial qualities. The elements are not designed for a specific program or function, allowing them to be adapted and configured accordingly. An interface was developed that exist
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Austin Lightle
FASHIONING THE PHYGITAL Yuchen Huang
2021 Critic Peter Testa
in three equal parts; architectural elements, phygital material library, spatial arrangement. The first part of the interface allows you to create new materials that come from digital doubles of real materials or from new found phygital materials. The elements can then be customized with the new materials to add a new spatial quality to them. The last part of the interface allows you to the arrange the elements in a spaces and assign them specific programs, in this case a fashion factory. The interface not only allows for the designer to construct the space, but also for the inhabitants of the space to further customize their environment based on their own design preferences.
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Architectural Elements
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Influences by Perry Kulper’s article The Naming Problem, the elements are designed based on spatial quality and not program.
Elements Interface
The interfaces allows you to view all of the elements and the spatial qualities that they provide.
Fitting Room
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Loading Docks
Distribution Conveyors
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Collaborative Design
Design Studio Tower
Fitting Room
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Phygital
Monochrome
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Digital Back of House
2D-3D
Fitting Room
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016
POLLUTED SCHOOL
The studio focused on the idea of changing the classroom and the school in light of the recent pandemic. We began by reimagining nature and its allure. The project was designed in incremental steps following the Ray and Charles Eames Power of Ten Method. My project began by analyzing trees and their branching systems. The idea of the branch became an organizing structure for my project, allowing things to happen sectionally in between the branching pieces. For my school, I wanted to create an open environment that allowed the students freedom. I wanted to break the traditional structure of a classroom by removing the
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COMPUTATIONAL MORPHOLOGIES 2020 Critic Florencia Pita
walls and bringing artificial nature into the space to create diversity. Instead of separating the spaces with walls, I separated the spaces by sectional changes by raising and lowering the floors. The raised floor spaces allowed for space to flow into one another, while also keeping the classrooms connected to the outdoors. Being situated so close to the LA river, I wanted to utilize the plastic waste and aggregates as a new building material. I used the waste to create a plastiglomerate that formed the branching structure. An algae-polythene hybrid material was used to form roof-scapes. I allowed the natural marsh to flow up the center of the site, creating a raised pathway system from the branching structure that connected all of the school components.
Polluted School
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Top View
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The natural ecology of river flows through the middle of the school. Lifting the program up on a new ground plane.
Classroom Separation
The classrooms separate form one another, opening up the sides to have more of a connection to the exterior.
Polluted School
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Base Image
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Alpha Image
Albedo Map
Classroom Play-scape
Branching Classroom Struc-
Polluted School
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Plastiglomerate Bar Structure
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Plastiglomerates bars intersect the space. Mezzanines are formed to give the students alternate areas to sit and learn. The algaepolythene roof allows light to be filtered into the space.
The roof structure does not uniformly cover the space below. At times, floors slip between the roof-scape and creates mezzanine spaces that bridge the interior and exterior of the classroom.
Mezzanine Play Space
Polluted School
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024
RESOLUTE AMALGAMATION Mountains are hoarders, they are constantly collecting vegetation, precipitation, animals, fungus, aggregates, waste, etc. They are objects of multiple scales, resolutions, and layers. A singular mountain appears to be of a low resolution, like that of a primitive triangle with low fidelity. As you zoom out or in, the resolution and layers change. A mountain range appears at a high resolution of peaks and valleys with objects layering on and round them, such as clouds and vegetation. If you zoom into the surface of a mountain, the surface resolution becomes clearer and less indexical with numerous characteristics. What appeared as a low fidelity now appears as high fidelity, an amalgamation
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Austin Lightle
GENERATIVE MORPHOLOGIES
2021
Critic Damjan Jovanovic
of resolutions, layers, and scales. While the mountain shape barely changes over time, its surface definition and articulation are constantly changing. Nature in my project serves as both the subject and the object. Nature, specifically mountains, became something to analyze and decipher. Using precise software, the imprecision of nature becomes recreated formally. In this case, nature is converted into a physical form as an object. Nature becomes part of the project as a literal element and a diagrammatic element. If real nature serves as a subject for the form, then the form becomes the created object of artificial nature.
Polluted School
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Small Auditorium
Lobby
Classrooms
Program Plans
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Large Auditorium
Cafe
Roof Top
Library
Classrooms
Ourdoor Performance
Orchestra Rooms
Office Space
Office Space
Program Axons
Resolute Amalgamation
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Outer Shell
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A shell covers the site, collecting pollutants and creating a new ecology on the interior.
Massing Axonometric
Resolute Amalgamation
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Ground Level Plan
Section
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West Elevation
Interior Lobby
Resolute Amalgamation
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032
OB_CESSION
In light of Covid-19, the fashion industry has begun to branch out into a digital environments. Since the fashion industry is tangible, it relies on environments to be physically constructed in order to display their ideology. The construction of these scenes often come with excessive waste. This project addresses the current obsession of excessiveness of the fashion industry by allowing for the environment and the clothing to exist both digitally and
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PHYGITAL MATERIALITY Kait Cartmell Khanh Linh Thai Cole Masuno Chenjia Ren
2021 Critic Peter Testa
physically. An imply studio spaces with stop motion cameras allow for real people and real clothes to be converted into a digital doubles. The excessiveness of the environment can now exist through the use of digital assets. This new environment is both a collage of the present and the past through the use of the digital and the physical. The digital double allows for the expansion of the physical, the garments can have new
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Swatch Patterns
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OB_CESSION
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Physical Scene
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OB_CESSION
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Scene 1
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Scene 2
OB_CESSION
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040
CURVED NOTION
Curved Notion is a project that seeks to expand upon the ideas of fabrication. A form was generated using an attractor curve in a grasshopper script. The form was scaled an rationalize in order to be constructed. In comparison to other fabrication methods, this project did not seek perfect realization of a digital model. Perhaps the biggest problem with parametricism is its reliance on perfection and little intolerance. Relying on most of the construction to be done
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Austin Lightle
STEAM ODYSSEY Qihang Fan Jingyuan Wu Yu Cheng Huang
2021 Critic Soomeen Hahm
by robots at a high cost. Using Microsoft Hololens, we did not seek perfection, but rather revolution of the construction process. Using off the shell materials, a the parametric form was produced by using only hand methods. The notion of the complex being impossible to construct can be challenged not by seeking perfection, but seeking the way in which the form is constructed.
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App Design
Fologram
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Board Connections
Steam Bending
Curved Notion
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Curved Notion
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046
PERCEPTUAL DETAIL Inspired by House III designed by Peter Eisenman, the cabinet uses separation of structure and surface as a stimulant for activity. It becomes unclear what is structure and was is detailed design. The separation of structure and surface allows for the surface to further engage with the structure, for the surface to move in between the structure. Perceptual Detail is a cabinet that seeks engagement. The essence of the detail does not lie in its own appearance, but the
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DETAILS, DETAILS
Chenjia Ren
SPRING 2022
Critic Dwayne Oyler
potential to impact the users perception. The detail is both a visual stimulant and physical experience. The cabinet plays with the intersection of voids and volumes to create its functionality. The puzzling nature of the cabinet uses the detail of the wood and metal as a communication for engagement. The cabinet has four hidden drawers, each one requiring a degree of interaction with other pieces to open the drawers.
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.5” Steel Square Section
.5” Plywood Faces
Puzzle Drawers
.125” Plate Steel
Perceptual Detail
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Perceptual Detail
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The cabinet uses the void of the structure as a background and foil, as conscious stimulant for the activity of the owner. The void space in the cabinets enacts engagement, allowing the user to discover.
Perceptual Detail
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Perceptual Detail
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054
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT The project is a musical school located at the north-west corner of Exposition park. The building consist of a series of stack floor plates supported by two concrete cores. Enclosed glass volumes intersect both interior and the exterior. The exterior is a shell that covers the interior floors with a high level of surface articulation. The outer shell has additional layers of FRP panels and carbon fiber woven structure. A typical steel beam and concrete structural system is used as the primary structure to support the floor plates. Two large concrete cores provide the vertical structure and the floors are supported by steel trusses and
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Austin Lightle
Design Development Kaitlyn Cartmell / Qihang Fan Katherine Gessing / Yuze Han Chenjia Ren / Khanh Linh Thai Kangzin Wu / Qiaochu Yang Jure Zibret
Fall 2021 Critic Herwig Baumgartner Zach Burns
frames that tie back into the cores. Since the exterior shell is separate from the interior space, is treated with its own structural system that ties back into the floor plates and concrete cores. The shell is clad both on the interior and the exterior, created a five floor poche space. The shell is supported by an exo-skeleton system that has a secondary T frame system that is connected by nodes spanning every five feet. The entire exterior is clad in identical five foot triangulated insulated aluminum panels, allowing for the complexity of the facade to be constructed in an efficient manner.
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FRP Pannels Aluminum Pannels
Glazzing
Carbon Fiber
Exterior Identifications
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Secondary Structure Primary Building Structure
Exo-Skeleton Strcture
Structural System
Design Development
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Glazzing Exo-Strcture FRP Pannel
Walkway On Pannel Connection Interior Cladding Interior Secondary T Frame Structure Insulated Aluminum Pannel
Small Chunk
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Secondary T Frame
18” Hollow Steel Primary Structure Node Conection To Primary Mullion on T Frame Welded Node Connection Insulated Aluminum Panel W/ Snap Connection
Secondary T Frame
Secondary T Frame Interior Panel Cladding
2D Facade Detail
Design Development
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Green System
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Pinned Connection to Flat Metal Support Flat Metal Support Walk Way
Secondary T Frame Node Connection to Primary
Metal Support Conection to Node
18” HSS Primary Structure
FRP Panel
Secondary T Frame Node Connection to Primary 18” HSS Primary Structure
Irrigation Line Node Connection to Primary
Walk Way Pinned Connection to Flat Metal Support Drip System Soil Felt Lining FRP Pannels Pinned Connection to Flat Metal Bar
18” HSS Primary Structure
Design Development
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3/8” Double Glazing
Mullion
T Section Secondary Structure
Back Face Mullion With Click Conection
Node conection with plate attachment for T Sections
18” HSS Primary Strcture
Exploded Facade System
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Austin Lightle
Weatherseel Silicone 3/8” Double Glazing Spacer and Setting Block
2” Insulated Aluminum Panel with Snap Conection Mullion
Secondary T Frame Back Face Mullion With Click Conection
2” Insulated Aluminum Panel with Snap Conection Mullion Snap Connection Secondary T Frame Back Face Mullion With Click Conection
Weatherseel Silicone 3/8” Double Glazing
Spacer and Silicone Seel
Spacer and Setting Block
Mullion Types
Design Development
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064
GENERAL CONDITIONS General conditions examines the role of scale, context, and naming of architecture. The extracted objects from the Lieb House, Frankfurt Kitchen, and Winton Guest House are used to define a new action rather than function. A series of acts remove architecture from its “standard” context and given new action through digital scenarios. The materials are examined on a physical and digital scale simultaneously. New value is given to the pieces by interpreting new potentials offered through digital platforms. A new platform, BAM, was used to extract geometry from the Lieb House, Frankfurt Kitchen, and the Winton Guest House.
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Austin Lightle
DS 5000 DOUBLE STANDARDS Donwon Choi
SPRING 2022
Critic Devyn Weiser
BAM allows you to rename the geometry with general attributes and a sub level of values. You can then randomly extract a set numbers of pieces bases on the attributes and values to create new geometry to be interpreted digitally or upcycled physically as a way of extending the life of architecture. The project is carried out in four acts; Furnishings to Furnishings, House Parts to New House, Object to City, and House to Furnishing. As the acts progress, the examination of the objects shifts from physical to digital, allowing the focus to shift from the physical object to the digital double as a new way of creating.
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Frankfurt Kitchen
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Furnishings to Furnishings
The scale, material, and geometry remained the same as the original Frankfurt Kitchen. New physical pieces of furnishings were created at a 1:1 scale. The new physical pieces were examined for their spatial attributes and performance qualities, and were assigned a function as a new piece of furnishing.
General Conditions
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House Parts to New House
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Austin Lightle
A further examination of 1:1 scale, the possibilities of using the digital counterparts were explored. The extracted geometry has the opportunity to become nameless, materialess, and functionless. This allows for another reading of the house parts in a digital environment for new future physical pieces.
Lieb House
General Conditions
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Objects to City
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Working in contrary to naming heavy platforms like BIM, BAM objects exist physically before they exist digitally. The digital model and the physical pieces can be upcycled simultaneously. Assets were examined for new functions ranging from 1:1 scale, up to 100:1 scale to form new urban environments. The same geometry existing on a new spectrum ranging from the digital to the physical based on the potential for the spatial performance.
New Frankfurt House
General Conditions
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Lieb Table
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House to Furnishing
The use of context through digital assets allowed for multiple readings of the same BAM geometry. The geometry functioned using the same material but at a new digital scale. The Lieb house assets created a new table that can simultaneously perform for 1:1 or 10:1 scale objects.
General Conditions
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General Conditions
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076
PELLI CLARKE & PARTNERS At Pelli Clarke and Partners I worked on numerous projects ranging from Cultural, Education, Headquarters, and Mixed Use. Project scale ranged from low-rise, mid-rise, high-rise, and skyscrapers. The projects are all currently under non-disclosure agreements and are located in Europe, North America, and Asia. I primarily worked on a new corporate headquarters for a Fortune 500 company in Europe. I worked on the project throughout schematic design and design development. The project is scheduled for construction and was set to be the largest net-zero office building in all of Europe. The second project I worked on was the
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PROFESSIONAL WORK
June 2019 July 2022
Principal William Butler
exterior design of a art school and museum for a historic university in the United States. My worked consisted of landscape design within the schools guidelines as well as new finished, shading, and tectonics for the exterior. Aside from these projects, I worked on four design competitions. The first competition was an academic building in the United States. The second was a high-rise office building in the United States. The third was two connected office and residential towers in the United states. The fourth competition was the design of a residential tower, office tower, mixed use tower, two hotels, and the site landscape.
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Level Two
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Corporate headquarters for a Fortune 500 company. I worked initially on the floor plan layouts with proper security and fire safety clearance. I then designed the entry pavilion, reception desk, and the center atrium stair. (All renders shown are my own)
Level Three
Pelli Clarke & Partners
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Atrium Stair
Entry Pavilion
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Reception Desk
Entry Pavilion
Pelli Clarke & Partners
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NS Section
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EW Section
Pelli Clarke & Partners
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Main Entrance
Main Entrance
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Art school and gallery for a prestigious university. I designed the exterior facades, shading, and landscape within the campus guidelines. (All renders shows are my own)
Rear Landscape and Entrance
Exterior Landscape
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AUSTIN LIGHTLE
Thank You Austin.j.lightle@gmail.com 740-708-7013
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Austin.j.lightle@gmail.com 740-708-7013