MArch I
ANDREY YAKOVLEV
BA Architectural Studies, University of Toronto
The role of life is to insert some indeterminacy into matter Henri Bergson
ENGAGE DECONSTRUCT REMOVE BALANCE PERMEATE ENHANCE TRANSLATE SENSE REVEAL TOUCH DISCOVER IMAGINE UNBIND ENACT VENTURE RETURN WALK CONTEMPLATE SLUR
This book is a compendium of my creative work from the last few years. My interests are very diverse, encompassing and often weaving together architecture, installations, furniture design, painting, music—all pervaded by my passion for architectural theory and philosophy. I have engaged with equal fascination in studio projects simulating real demands of architectural practice, in critical and imaginative reflection and research at the far reaches of architectural discourse, and in close sensory investigation and production of a variety of physical objects and contexts. I actively seek to further my understanding and practical skill in architecture, and I hope that this portfolio will convey the intimacy, breadth, and critical sensibility of my ongoing creative journey.
1988
2005
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2008
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Architecture
Installation
Clothing
Architecture
ENGAGE University of Toronto
DECONSTRUCT University of Toronto
REMOVE University of Toronto
BALANCE Columbia University
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46
50
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Architecture
Installation
Representation
Publication
PERMEATE University of Toronto
ENHANCE University of Toronto
ACADEMIC WORK
TRANSLATE SENSE University of Toronto
University of Toronto
2009
2010
2011
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58
60
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Installation
Article
Poster
Photography
Furniture
Poster
REVEAL TOUCH Personal
Shift magazine
DISCOVER IMAGINE BAASS
Personal
RETURN WALK BAASS
Toronto Society of Architects
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Sketches
Mixed media
Built project
Painting
Architecture
UNBIND ENACT Personal
Personal
VENTURE Personal
INDEPENDENT WORK
CONTEMPLATE SLUR Guggenheim Foundation
suckerPUNCH
COMPETITION WORK
ACADEMIC WORK
Community park and city street are two very different public realms that often come into contact, yet rarely develop a dialogue. Such was the initial site condition of my design for a public pool and community centre to join the amenities of Ramsden Park in the historical Rosedale neighborhood of Toronto. The community centre serves as the locus of engagement between Ramsden Park and the adjacent Yonge Street—Toronto’s major artery. The central element of the design is the passageway that is carved through the core of the building to connect the two realms, as well as to open up the building’s mass towards the vast public space of the park.
ENGAGE ARC314 - Architectural Design III University of Toronto, Spring 2009 Instructor: Scott Sorli
ACADEMIC WORK
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
ENGAGE 3
Remaining Ravine Filled in as parkland Built over Castle Frank Brook Site
Ramsden Park is part of an old ravine system that permeates Toronto, though much of this natural topography has been destroyed through development. The community centre taps into this ancestry of the site by burying the public pool deep underground, like the old brook was once buried under Ramsden Park.
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◄ Pedestrian Traffic Study The proposed path additions revitalize the south-eastern corner of the park by connecting it fluidly with the busy Yonge Street.
Site model ►
1:200 Plotted by the ARC314 class 4
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
ENGAGE 5
Formerly beyond the margins of Ramsden Park, the site is brought into its geographical and social milieux through several physical and sensory manipulations:
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The geometry of the building and passageway is intimately linked to the position of other public amenities within Ramsden Park.
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Pears Avenue, which once framed the park, has now been buried to allow freedom of movement across it.
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The passageway’s dimensions increase until it culminates in the limitless space of the park, naturally drawing people from one realm into the other.
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ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
ENGAGE 7
Massing model 1 Hand-crafted
A primitive passageway is tested. In the study below, light travels through the core of the building.
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Massing model 2 Hand-crafted
The passageway’s geometry is informed by the site strategy and interior program. The act of carving is emphasized through the contrast between skin and mass.
Final Model
Hand-crafted at 1:200 The passageway becomes a window into the interior program of the building.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
ENGAGE 9
All programs are organized around one large public space that cuts through all floors and spans virtually the entire length and width of the building.
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Upper Basement
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Lower Basement
Floor plans
Hand-drafted at 1:200
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Lower Basement
Upper Basement
Ground Floor
1. Mechanical room 2. Staff changeroom 3. Storage 4. Public changeroom 5. Pool
6. Drop-off / Pick-up 7. Parking lot 8. Spectator seats 1
9. Staff Lounge 10. Office 11. Reception 12. Lobby 13. Public Bathroom 14. Spectator seats 2 15. Café
2nd Floor 16. Terrace 17. Restaurant 18. Cinema 1 19. Cinema 2 20. Cinema 3
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2nd Floor
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Ground Floor
Longitudinal section ►
Hand-drafted at 1:200
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ENGAGE 11
Structural Model Hand-crafted at 1:100 The deep primary beams are designed to carry the weight of interior spaces, allowing them to be suspended over large areas without vertical supports.
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The passageway allows natural light to â–ş fill the interior. In turn, the cinemas and spectator seating hover high above the surface of the pool, giving the space a feeling of weightlessness.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
ENGAGE 13
Night perspective ►
Created in Illustrator and Photoshop Breaking up the building’s skin creates new opportunities for engagement and communication between the exterior and interior spaces.
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Interior perspective Hand-drawn
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ENGAGE 15
Social conventions and systems are commonly mistaken for mere forms or instruments of the human condition. I contend that they are also complex self-sustaining, self-replicating mechanisms and apparati that we must subject to constant deconstruction and intervention in order to understand and control them. The following semester-long project embodied this philosophy through a series of installations and investigations into the nature of memory, violence, architecture, and academia, seeking to develop an understanding and a critique of their roles in our society. The project culminated in a multimedia installation and performance in the main lecture hall of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, which attempted to deconstruct lecture itself. General theory and the final installation were developed collectively by the group. Other installations and all images were done by me unless noted otherwise.
DECONSTRUCT ARC313 - Architectural Design II University of Toronto, Fall 2008 Instructor: Marcin Kedzior Group: Andrey Yakovlev, Mehrdad Khanpour, Felix Kamerson
Photograph by Marcin Kedzior â–ş
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DECONSTRUCT 17
STAGE 1:
OPERATE
We began with a critique of Toronto’s new street furniture, which was designed to be sterile and unchanging in the face of the city’s vibrant street culture.
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Imitating the 1830 romantic ruin-like depiction of ► John Sloane’s Bank of England, I rendered the new bus stop as an aged, run-down, vandalized object that it would become one day.
► Surfaces that are open to violence ► allow rich accumulation of cultural and personal memory - a process that is too often dismissed as uncivilized.
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While studying the history of our Architecture faculty building as a Dental College, we discovered that both architecture and medicine use violence to achieve a state of greater health, whether physical, social, or cultural.
In this “X-ray,” I subjected a representative section of the building to a series of “medical” operations.
The three stages systemically attack the building’s body: (A) its vertical structure, (B) the horizontality of its occupation, and (C) its relationship to the space and things outside of it.
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DECONSTRUCT 19
STAGE 2:
UPTURN The open nature of the project allowed us a slew of artistic experiments and digressions, as well as literary research of such revolutionary thinkers as Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Victor Hugo.
One of Mikhail Bakhtin’s central concepts is the ► carnival—the subversion of established social hierarchies through the triumph of violence and the lower bodily stratum, which inevitably brings about rebirth and affirmation. In my reflection on this concept, bodily (de)composition and torque become the central logic.
Architecture tools are put to medical use in this studio sink installation, questioning how similar or interchangeable architecture and dentistry may become, when pushed.
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Pin-up of group members’ individual work. 20
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DECONSTRUCT 21
STAGE 3:
LIBERATE For the final installation, we designed and built an LED system in the main lecture hall of the Architecture faculty. Lights were attached to the backs of twenty chairs, all connected to a central switchboard.
The installation was conceived and executed together by the group. All diagrams were created by me.
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In the dark, individual LED’s were turned on and off at random through the switchboard, illuminating one student at a time and allowing them to present from the card or to speak on a topic of their choosing. Soon, more than one light were being turned on at the same time, which led individuals to compete for attention, enter conversation, or behave erratically.
We split our verbal presentation into parts ► and handed them out on cards to the audience, subverting the students’ role as mere spectators and ours as lecturers.
Light served as the initiator of a multivocal educational process that proved to be denser and more engaging than the conventional monocentric nature of lecture and academia.
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The performance was captured on DV tape, from which I extracted this audiovisual transcript.
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DECONSTRUCT 23
Clothing as we know it and use it represents only a fraction of the clothing condition, which is greatly limited by the social and physical forms that manifest it. To breach these limits, clothing must be liberated from the human body itself. In this one-month research project, I set out to map human knowledge of clothing through a theoretical investigation of its typology and an intimate study of an old pair of jeans, thus striving for an understanding of clothing at the crossroads of cosmology and phenomenon.
REMOVE ARC321 - Architectural Representation II University of Toronto, Fall 2008 Instructor: Kristina Ljubanovic
I began the project with several formal experiments on my chosen piece of clothing. This helped get a sense of the limitations and potential of clothing and fabric as such.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
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All clothing is used through conscious or unconscious understanding of typology. People know how to wear a shirt or a pair of pants because common experience and knowledge of their own body tells them how such types ought to be occupied and operated within. A piece of clothing is not only a combination of sleeves, seems, and other elements, but also a type that has been derived through a long evolution of the clothing industry, function, fashion, and propriety. As such, it also consists of the way it is constructed and destructed, put on and taken off, worn and not worn; the way the body operates in it and outside of it; the way it operates when it is and is not occupied by a body; the way it is seen and seen from; the way it is felt and the way other things are felt during its use and in its presence. Conventional use of clothing is thus concerned with macrotypology—a hybrid system of social constructs and performative microtypes (which can be thought of as the building blocks of clothing). However, macrotypes are rigid and do not allow the full capacity of use that is offered by the lower tiers of clothing typology, stripped of social construct.
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In this experiment, I challenged the functional rigidity of clothing by appropriating the same pair of jeans to several conventional clothing types: apron, vest, scarf, jacket, and straightjacket.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
REMOVE 27
Microtypology deals with the physical composition and operation of a piece of clothing. While in a direct relationship with social form, microtypes are themselves not social; nor are they mere physical “stuff” of clothing. Instead, microtypology can be thought of as the potentiality field where distinct foci of form and performance emerge, which are then recruited and weaved by social form to create macrotypes. There are four formal foci (microtypes): line, surface, sleeve, and pocket. Each of these types is about to take on one or more microtypological functions, which are: enclosure, housing, direction, fixation, and compartmentalization.
Surface 1 encloses the chest; formed by pelvic sleeve
Sleeve 1 directs the arm; formed by leg sleeve
Pocket 1 houses the arm; formed by leg sleeve
line
Surface 2 encloses the waste; formed by leg sleeve
sleeve
Sleeve 2 fixates the arm; formed by Surface 1 and Pocket 1 pocket
Yet despite the rigidity of microtypal configurations dictated by social form, a fundamental weakness threatens their integrity—the dependence of all social form upon the human condition. The human body is the final frontier that defines the form and use of clothing. Once it is dismounted from the body, clothing ceases to be a rigid system of microtypes. It becomes flexible and even fluid, defined by the possibility of an unlimited number of transformations of any one type into another. This state of infinite possibility is the ultimate clothing condition. Hence the paradox: how do we make use of the full breadth of the clothing condition when it is precisely our presence and activity that limits clothing’s potential? Architecture is the solution.
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Sleeve 3 fixates the torso; formed by Pocket 1 and Surface 2
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With new function, original microtypes are able to morph into a complex combination of sleeves, pockets, and surfaces, as they do in this pants-turned-straight-jacket.
At the architectural scale, the human body becomes simultaneously present and removed, allowing a freedom of molding and operating within surfaces that are neither edifice, nor clothing.
Final model
Hand-crafted at 1/8
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REMOVE 29
Bodies of water have always been locked in a dynamic biological relationship with people; their edges—contested territories, scenes of perpetual balancing among the actors of a vast homeostatic system. Whereas industrialization has numbed humanity’s sensibility to the river, today’s retreat of industry from the water’s edge threatens to reduce this relationship to purely visual mediation. My waterfront pavilion for the Grand Street Park in Brooklyn challenges this artificial boundary between people and the river, bringing the two parties back into an immediate and balanced relationship. Tidal shift is used as the dominant variable condition, as it controls the amount of light reaching parts of the building, the level of privacy, and the availability of views. These secondary factors, in turn, condition the human promenade and use of the building.
BALANCE Introduction to Architecture Columbia University, Summer 2008 Instructor: Beth Weinstein
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BALANCE 31
Shaefer Landing, Brooklyn
Pier 11, Manhattan
The river naturally resists rigid mobility and interaction, which is a reality I tried to capture in these maps of my water taxi trip from Manhattan to my Brooklyn site.
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Grand Street Park
Manhattan Schaefer Landing
Pier 11 Brooklyn
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Despite its beautiful vistas of Manhattan at the water’s edge, Grand Street Park has a highly reserved relationship to the East River and its behavior. In my project, I tried to breach this boundary between the social space of the park and the wilderness of the river, envisioning a system in which the two conditions would coexist.
In this early investigation, tidal shift is ► able to change the function of spaces and the availability of paths through the park at any given time of day. ANDREY YAKOVLEV ACADEMIC WORK
BALANCE 33
The final product evolved as a pavilion that is both a continuation of the park and a space directly influenced by the tidal shift.
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The curved form of the building allows a natural promenade from the site’s existing primary path towards the auditorium.
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I made a series of investigations into the ► behavior of water with changing slope and edge conditions of surfaces, which informed the roof design of the pavilion.
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During high tide, parts of the structure gradually become submerged until the water flows over the apex. The roof’s varying edge conditions manipulate the flow of the water, creating different waterfall effects.
Sectional model ► Hand-crafted at 1/4
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The constantly shifting level of submersion allows a variety of program for the pavilion throughout the day, but also conditions that program. For instance, tidal shift may decide whether the auditorium would be used for an informal talk, a specialized lecture, or a movie screening.
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Thus, as the lighting conditions of the pavilion no longer follow the sun cycle, its visitors become part of a new homeostatic system that lets them engage previously unexplored realities of their environment.
Elevations
Rendered in 3ds Max
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► Interior views
Rendered in 3ds Max
Final model
Built in 3ds Max
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A small triangular site in Toronto’s west end protrudes like a wedge into a busy intersection on a sharp border between the commercial corridor of Dundas Street and a residential neighborhood. Despite its strategic location, however, the site passively blends into this dull psychological wall. I decided to use the full potential of this unique intermediate space by designing a music studio and community centre that allows mutual permeation of the two contrasting conditions. Commissioned by a Toronto musician, this studio merges diverse programs such as spaces for writing and recording music, residential spaces for travelling musicians, a record store, and an outdoor performance venue. The building effectively bridges the public and private realms of the site through its programmatic arrangement, form, and materiality. At the end of the semester, my project was documented as one of the best in the studio.
PERMEATE ARC213 - Architectural Design I University of Toronto, Spring 2008 Instructor: Drew Sinclair
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PERMEATE 39
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private/residential Visual communication between the building and the pedestrian is central to my site strategy, as view paths are cast from the major corners of the intersection to become interior program guides, as well as windows into those programs.
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Massing studies
Hand-crafted
Negative volume study Drawn in pen
â–ş The new strategy joins the commercial and residential zones of the site by gradually morphing one program into the other. In turn, the outside is allowed to reach the most private inside spaces, establishing even greater reciprocity across the site.
Early massing model â–ş Hand-crafted
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PERMEATE 41
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Ground Floor Plan
Hand-drafted at 1:100
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The visual pathways were realized in the final design through the transparency of the surfaces along them. The interior becomes permeated by the outside space, light, and views.
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Ground Floor 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
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Lobby Staff Bathroom Office Studio 1 Sound Booth 1 Studio 2 / Stage Sound Booth 2 Parking lot 1 Parking lot 2
2nd Floor 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
Record store Public Bathroom Musician lounge Apartment 1 Apartment 2 Apartment 3
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2nd Floor Plan, Elevations, Sections Hand-drafted at 1:100
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The interior programmatic transition is reflected in the facade: as spaces grow less public, the distance between the horizontal supports decreases until the facade loses all transparency.
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PERMEATE 43
Final site and building model Hand-crafted at 1:100
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Night perspective
Drawn in pencil and charcoal The studio allows musicians to not only live and work, but also play. On such occasions, the building becomes the cultural centre of the neighborhood.
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The act of ascending or descending a staircase is, more often than not, a mundane and purely utilitarian experience—especially so for the secluded north staircase of the architecture faculty building at the University of Toronto. This critical installation enhanced such experience by rendering it tangible and audibly measurable, thus making each interaction with the staircase an opportunity for reflection. The installation was designed and constructed together by the group. All images were made by me.
ENHANCE ARC213 - Architectural Design I University of Toronto, Spring 2008 Instructor: Drew Sinclair Group: Andrey Yakovlev, Mehrdad Khanpour
A layer of steps of a gentler slope was constructed and placed onto the existing flight of stairs, creating a series of increasing air chambers between the two.
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ENHANCE 47
The impact of each step upon the new staircase resonated within the air chambers, clearly announcing the direction of travel through increasing or decreasing pitch.
Plywood allowed the new staircase to be functional and durable, while its lightness and firm texture allowed powerful reverberation within the chambers.
â–ş In this first iteration of our staircase, ascent â–ş is registered by an increase in pitch, whereas descent results in its decrease. However, the air chamber method offers limitless possibilities for variation and musical improvisation, which I still hope to pursue one day. 48
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ENHANCE 49
My project became the next stage in the â–ş process of abstraction begun by Juan Gris in Landscape at Ceret. It reconstituted the fragmented subject as a new object and landscape that is itself open to abstraction.
I have always been fascinated by the relationship between abstract art and architecture. Because of its departure from realist logics, such art suggests a slew of unprecedented spatial and formal relationships that are neither representational, nor intuitive. My task in this project was to build upon this effect by translating two-dimensional shapes and patterns of an abstract painting into a spatial object.
TRANSLATE ARC221 - Architectural Representation I University of Toronto, Fall 2007 Instructor: Sarah Iwata
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This little book is a visual essay that explores the importance of sensory experience in Tadao Ando’s Awaji Water Temple and Beatrix Farrand’s Dumbarton Oaks park. Using photographic experiences of Ando’s temple from various architecture periodicals, I collaged cut-outs of the lotus pond in order to reassemble its deconstructed surface. The final collage evolved through a series of photocopies, simulating the deterioration of sense memory over time. In turn, the inside of the book uses splashes of color to underline its strategic use in both projects. My visual essay was one of the few presented in the Outside In exhibition at our faculty building that featured best work completed for the ARC335 class.
SENSE ARC335 - Landscape History & Theory I University of Toronto, Fall 2008 Instructor: Ina Elias
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INDEPENDENT WORK
The meanings and functions of the objects around us, though they form the matrix for our daily lives, often remain outside of our conscious perception. This light installation intended to foreground the passage of such meanings by revealing them momentarily to our consciousness. Inspired by the concurrent design studio (see DECONSTRUCT), my friend and I went on a rogue photoshoot in the basement of our architecture faculty building. We unscrewed all light bulbs and lamps and then used a spotlight to illuminate specific features of the interior, thereby revealing and isolating their functions. Scene setup and spotlight operation were done by me. Photographs were taken by Felix Kamerson.
REVEAL â–ş
Installation Personal, Fall 2008 Group: Andrey Yakovlev, Felix Kamerson
The effect of the fluorescent lamp is caricatured by the projector, revealing the fixture as a source of light.
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The projector reveals the staircase’s function as a connecting element between two disjointed platforms.
The frame is isolated from the corridor beyond and revealed as a transitional element between spaces.
► ANDREY YAKOVLEV INDEPENDENT WORK
REVEAL 57
The original article was published in issue 4.2 of Shift magazine, January 2010. Shift is a student-run publication of the Bachelor of Arts Architectural Studies Society - the official undergraduate Architecture student union at the University of Toronto.
DO NOT
TOUCH Article Shift magazine, January 2010
ACTIVATING THE TACTILE SENSE The horizon of sensory perception is as great as the controversy that surrounds its classification. A conventional and often clichéd simplification of this range is the “five senses” first systematized by Aristotle: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. However, this grouping appears almost arbitrary when the individual complexity and difference of these senses are examined. The apparent unity of everyday perception makes it difficult to approach each sense individually. As the result, a person may often lose track of when and how a particular sense is activated and when it may atrophy from systematic disuse. In order to allow any sense to be activated, certain conditions must exist in a space. The sense of touch is unique to the “five” because of one important condition it demands - immediacy. Tactile perception occurs through direct interaction between bodies and the presence of a medium physically disrupts that connection. By contrast, the senses of sight, hearing, and smell require a medium in order to perceive an object: sight relies on light in order to apprehend form, color, and texture; hearing relies on waves of matter in order to appre-
hend sounds; and smell relies on odor, which is separate from the object that releases it. Taste, in turn, is just as immediate as touch because it relies on physical interaction with the thing tasted. Primary distinctions between the two lie in their respective ways of reading a substance and in their relative complexity: taste identifies only certain chemical properties, such as sweetness or sourness, while touch perceives a range of physical attributes, such as form and temperature of the object and even pain caused by interacting with it. This multivalent constitution of the tactile sense causes scientists to refer to it as the “somatic senses,” since the word “touch” is far too limited to span the variety of modalities it stands for.
sibilities we have inherited through our cities all conceive of a distant human subject—an observer. On the other hand, a recent work of landscape architecture like the Wave Deck of the Toronto waterfront does not negotiate positions of monuments or force a medium between person and landscape; instead, it is a surface that invites the activation of any number of senses, including touch. Contemporary architects have already begun to lift the taboo and address the atrophy of tactile perception. In the end, once the “do not touch” sign is removed, the tactile sense begins to reach back towards its unobstructed natural potential.
The complexity of tactile perception may render its activation particularly rewarding for an architect; yet, touch is severely understated in the design of most architectural spaces. At times, it is sabotaged through social norms and direct prohibition, as in a museum. In part, such norms stem from sincere concerns for hygiene and for prevention of damage. However, the neglect of touch has far deeper roots in propriety—a social hygiene. The immediate, personal nature of touch has been known to cultures through experience and intuition for millennia and has been distrusted throughout its history. After all, touch assumes the overcoming not only of physical distance, but also of social and psychological barriers between bodies. Propriety, in turn, depends on the unchallenged integrity of such barriers. The resultant taboos placed on tactile communication adversely affected people’s interaction with their own environments. In architecture and landscape architecture, the void left by the sense of touch led to superfluous use of the others—especially the sense of sight. The Greek temple, the Gothic cathedral, the English garden, the modernist villa, and the majority of other architectural types and senANDREY YAKOVLEV INDEPENDENT WORK
TOUCH 59
Perspectives—photography competition and exhibition organized by the Bachelor of Arts Architectural Studies Society—invited students to think creatively about architecture, urban infrastructure, cities, and their inhabitants. I created this poster as Marketing Director of BAASS, attempting to capture the spirit of discovery and social sensibility that we sought to inspire in our fellow students. BAASS is the official undergraduate architecture student union at the University of Toronto.
DISCOVER Poster Bachelor of Arts Architectural Studies Society, Fall 2009
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DISCOVER 61
Photography appeals to me as the contemporary manifestation of the art of memory—a faculty that helps us situate ourselves in the ephemeral world of experience and imagination, as well as the base from which we venture into that world.
IMAGINE Photography Personal, 2007–Present
View north on Ca’ Pesaro Venice, Italy
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IMAGINE 63
London, England
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Kleinburg, Canada
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IMAGINE 65
New Pantheon
Cloud Gate, Chicago, United States
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“To every god” Rome, Italy
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IMAGINE 67
Paris, France
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IMAGINE 69
Most of my sketches emerge from a relaxed drawing process that often originates in difficult and tense situations—not as a mechanism of escape, I believe, but rather of some inner unfolding. From the start, the sketches are freed from preconceived form and instead begin as automatic drawing—a series of involuntary lines and shapes on the paper surface. I then develop representational form as it suggests itself through the initial automatic stage.
UNBIND Sketches Personal, 2007–Present
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UNBIND 71
This experimental map registers texture, aging, and vandalism along a strip that separates a major commercial-municipal zone with an alternative artist neighborhood near the University of Toronto campus. My goal was to keep the method of representation true to the conditions represented, thereby suggesting a conflation of the two semiotic extremes. To this end, I used dust, markers, staples, nails, glue, tape, and a knife to do violence to the surface of a whitewashed plywood board. This map was created in parallel to my Fall 2008 design studio (see DECONSTRUCT).
ENACT Mixed media Personal, Fall 2008
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ENACT 73
This deck is the first architectural project that I have personally taken through all the stages of creation - concept, design, professional drawings, building permit, material selection, construction (together with my dad), and building inspections. The project is an addition to my parents’ suburban house, which gave me an opportunity to address a number of real architectural problems, as well as to experiment with their functional and aesthetic solutions.
VENTURE Built project Personal, Summer 2010
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While designing the deck, I was ever-conscious of its suburban context—notorious for its bland, lifeless architecture. I was determined to make this project a refreshing intervention into this atmosphere, which I achieved through three major design decisions:
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I tailored the deck’s form to the shape of the house through a series of extrusions and shifts. The resultant “parasitic” addition looks as if it has grown from the very walls of the building.
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I made the two-foot drop seamless ► by letting the architecture of the deck itself double as a staircase.
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Drawn in Illustrator I designed a modular privacy screen that breaks down progressively along the deck’s perimeter, in order to open up the space to the back yard, yet still shield it from unwanted views.
SIZE = 2”x8”
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Plan ►
► JOISTS
24’ DECK LENGTH
2 x (2x8x16)
11’8” JOIST SPAN
(SPACING = 16”)
The bench ceases to be mere furniture and becomes part of the gradient of privacy.
BEAM
SIZE = 2”x8”
JOISTS
(SPACING = 16”) SIZE = 2”x6”
BEAM 2”x6”
SUPPORT POST 4”x4”
Main deck section Drawn in Illustrator
► 6’
5’5” PIER SPACING
11’5” DECK WIDTH
WOOD DECKING W/ 1/4” GAPS
EXISTING FLOOR STURECTURE
5’4” PIER SPACING
A
JOIST ADDITION 2” x 4” JOIST ADDITION 2” x 4” DOUBLE 2” x 8” LEDGER
JOIST 2” x 8”
DOUBLE 2” x 8” BEAM
POST 4” x 4” FDN WALL 2” GRADE
6”
CONCRETE FOOTING 8” DIAMETER
4”
4’
8”
ANDREY YAKOVLEV INDEPENDENT WORK
VENTURE 77
1. Foundation
2. Frame
3. Decking
4. Privacy screen and bench
ANDREY YAKOVLEV INDEPENDENT WORK
VENTURE 79
COMPETITION WORK
The task of this competition was to build a creative and functioning chair out of reclaimed materials. Rather than using things that were already destined for reuse, I went to a local forest, which, over the years, had become an impromptu landfill for various household and industrial waste. I brought home from the forest an old car seat frame, which I treated with rust removal products and wrapped with some old drapery, awakening the frame’s long-forgotten function that otherwise would have lain dormant for decades more.
RETURN Furniture Bachelor of Arts Architectural Studies Society RECLINE competition, March 2009
The final product is a simple, elegant, and unique â–ş piece of furniture with peculiar structure that lets it rock comfortably, as well as detailing that allows purely mechanical attachment of the fabric.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
RETURN 83
This is my finalist entry to the 2010 “Walkable Cities� Poster Competition by the Toronto Society of Architects. The goal of the competition was to develop an effective poster that promoted pedestrian-centered urban design. My poster is a play on the prejudice inherent in our cities’ tiered traffic light system. Here, pedestrian travel replaces the automobile as the primary method of transportation.
WALK
Toronto Society of Architects Walkable Cities competition, April 2010
ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
WALK 85
Re: Contemplating the Void competition called for an imaginative reflection on the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York. In my entry, I attempted to capture the irrational, meditative side of thought itself, which resulted in the mysterious and somber atmosphere of the painting.
CONTEMPLATE Guggenheim Foundation, New York RE: Contemplating the Void competition, May 2010
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Genesis 11:5-6
Tower ►
18”x24” acrylic on canvas ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
CONTEMPLATE 87
Brooklyn’s East River State Park is a landscape littered with ruins of its old industrial function as commercial dock and train terminal connecting the Williamsburg neighborhood with the rest of New York. My entry to the Williamsburg Performance Venue competition replaces the industrial rigidity of the bygone era with the eccentric spirit of the new Williamsburg, transforming the park into a space of slurred sounds, forms, and boundaries.
SLUR suckerPUNCH, New York Williamsburg Performance Venue competition, August 2010
slur tr.v. slurred, slur路ring, slurs
to glide over a series of notes smoothly without a break, as in legato performance.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
SLUR 89
dodgeball court vender kiosks food tent
visistor centre cafe bar bathroom ticket booth
secondary stage
secondary standing area food tent bar tent bathroom ticket booth
main stage
main standing area
In a great act of slurring, this radical site strategy sweeps away the site’s industrial remnants and engages the East River head-on, entangling land and water. 90
Plans and longitudinal section
Drawn in Illustrator
►
S
section
roof plan
From the site strategy emerged four major foci of program, unified by a fluid language of lines and waves and by a series of powerful vistas.
Secondary stage perspective ► Drawn in pen
floor plan
NORTH
NO
RT H
6T
H
ST
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NO
RT H
7T
H
ST
RE
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NO
RT H
8T
H
ST
RE
U N E AV T ST
N
H
RE
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9T
K
RT H
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NO
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Final venue complex ►
NO
RT H
10
TH
ST
Built in 3ds MAX
RE
ET
T EA
ST
RIV
ER
8"
53
6'-
93
92
5.2
28
53 8
06
3.
8"
16
81
5'm
ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
SLUR 91
m
92
In the end, the slurring of the landscape reaches its highest intensity when the people themselves engage the new forms and boundaries of the site. The venue complex sets the stage for this disintegration of boundaries between spaces and between people.
ANDREY YAKOVLEV COMPETITION WORK
SLUR 93
On the cover: The Gathering (detail) 18”x24” acrylic on canvas June 2010