Selected Works

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

08

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.

9

Architectural Elements

10

Austin Lightle

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

11

Loading Docks

Distribution Conveyors

12

Austin Lightle

Collaborative Design

Design Studio Tower

Fitting Room

13

Phygital

Monochrome

14

Austin Lightle

Digital Back of House

2D-3D

Fitting Room

15

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

016

Austin Lightle

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

017

Top View

018

Austin Lightle

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

019

Base Image

020

Austin Lightle

Alpha Image

Albedo Map

Classroom Play-scape

Branching Classroom Struc-

Polluted School

021

Plastiglomerate Bar Structure

022

Austin Lightle

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

023

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

024

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

025

Small Auditorium

Lobby

Classrooms

Program Plans

026

Austin Lightle

Large Auditorium

Cafe

Roof Top

Library

Classrooms

Ourdoor Performance

Orchestra Rooms

Office Space

Office Space

Program Axons

Resolute Amalgamation

027

Outer Shell

028

Austin Lightle

A shell covers the site, collecting pollutants and creating a new ecology on the interior.

Massing Axonometric

Resolute Amalgamation

029

Ground Level Plan

Section

030

Austin Lightle

West Elevation

Interior Lobby

Resolute Amalgamation

031

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

32

Austin Lightle

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

33

Swatch Patterns

34

Austin Lightle

OB_CESSION

35

Physical Scene

36

Austin Lightle

OB_CESSION

37

Scene 1

38

Austin Lightle

Scene 2

OB_CESSION

39

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

40

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.

41

App Design

Fologram

42

Austin Lightle

Board Connections

Steam Bending

Curved Notion

43

44

Austin Lightle

Curved Notion

45

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

46

Austin Lightle

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.

47

48

Austin Lightle

.5” Steel Square Section

.5” Plywood Faces

Puzzle Drawers

.125” Plate Steel

Perceptual Detail

49

Perceptual Detail

50

Austin Lightle

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

51

52

Austin Lightle

Perceptual Detail

53

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

54

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.

55

FRP Pannels Aluminum Pannels

Glazzing

Carbon Fiber

Exterior Identifications

56

Austin Lightle

Secondary Structure Primary Building Structure

Exo-Skeleton Strcture

Structural System

Design Development

57

Glazzing Exo-Strcture FRP Pannel

Walkway On Pannel Connection Interior Cladding Interior Secondary T Frame Structure Insulated Aluminum Pannel

Small Chunk

58

Austin Lightle

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

59

Green System

60

Austin Lightle

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

61

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

62

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

63

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.

64

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.

65

Frankfurt Kitchen

66

Austin Lightle

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

67

House Parts to New House

68

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

69

Objects to City

70

Austin Lightle

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

71

Lieb Table

72

Austin Lightle

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

73

74

Austin Lightle

General Conditions

75

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

76

Austin Lightle

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.

77

Level Two

78

Austin Lightle

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

79

Atrium Stair

Entry Pavilion

80

Austin Lightle

Reception Desk

Entry Pavilion

Pelli Clarke & Partners

81

NS Section

82

Austin Lightle

EW Section

Pelli Clarke & Partners

83

Main Entrance

Main Entrance

84

Austin Lightle

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

85

AUSTIN LIGHTLE

Thank You Austin.j.lightle@gmail.com 740-708-7013

87

CONTACT INFORMATION

Austin.j.lightle@gmail.com 740-708-7013