Extensions
Extensions Volume II, Furthering Brian Richard Wisniewski Design Portfolio University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture
“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.”
~ Bruce Lee
CONTENTS
Architectural Studies
6 StarGaze 1O Scoop 14 Define 2O Check 28 RopePark
Renderings
32 LightClub 36 UrbanMESH 42 Warsaw Music
54 Do. Think.
68 Architectural Library
84 Hand 86 International Watercolor 9O Digital Animation
Other Work
94 TAP_The Alley Project
96 Villages CDC 98 iWitness: A Photoessay 1OO Graphic Logos 1O1 Photography
It may never become crystal clear how my pursuit of architecture arose, but with every passing day, my passion for it grows; it examines the many events in my life as an autobiography. Process often appears minimally active on the surface, a series of inevitable experiences set froth on an uncharted path. I can now trace thousands of initially unrelated events and encounters to their roots, which, when folded together, add up to my
whole personal design.
The following projects are studies that visibly show me as an un-ended process; each a meaningful step to connecting more dots and constructing a clearer understanding of who I am. The ‘unfinished’ sparks my curiousity, while the challenge to discover empowers.
FOREWORD
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E In addition, this was the first full scale build, which brought construction, gravity and logistical issues, as well as physical limitations, not present in modeling.
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The Coco Cocoon on derived derive from rom a preceeding pr edin project ject of design for ones oneself’s preferences. ces. Here Here, ou our previous rev definitions of inhabitation nhab ta at began bega to be tested, focusing on meditation as the personal design criteria, ia, h however, finding aspects universal to human experience.
TA
Cocoon Freshman 2OO8 - Staci Taylor
My meditation is in Northern Michigan starring at the sky for endless hours. Serenity in a city can be hidden, if not absent. Thus the goal was to restore peace and tranquility to areas that are not generally associated with calm meditation. The connotation of “cocoon� is to enclose. The challenge was to create a form that exhibited spatial boundaries, yet needed to be stretched infinitely to encompass the endlessness of the universe. It resulted in a simple gestural shape, emphasizing verticality by directing attention upward. This way anyone walking by could easily understand how to engage the installation.
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The articulating widths suggest infiniteness in both directions. Portability and stability were two key issues that arose from full scale building.; weight required multiple people to transport it to the site and the domino-like form yielded a series of collaspes during assembly. The softness often associated with wood did not come through, so cushions forming to the back suggested a more comfortable experience.
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Everyday objects, such as a five d decade-old de ade-old de old ice cream eam am scoop scoop, have e unique, nique, but bu b essential, essential qualities a ittie we take for or r granted or ov overlook ook k today today. t d How w might i ht a container express contai xpress and translate anslate that qu quality? q ity? y? Materi Materiality eria y and conn co connections ne tions ons were main points nts of consideration, ideration with no allowance wance to use e glue; designing the connect connections ons and material to o reflect o only ly that specific o object. ct.
P O O C S
Contain Freshman 2OO7 - Staci Taylor
The scoop could be visually broken down into three distinct parts (handle, neck, and bowl). I intended to emphasize each level by physically covering chosen parts and exposing others from certain angles. This lead to intriguing divisions, like half the bowl. The release trigger was a crucial element of the scoop, which inspired elements for human engagement and reference to the arc path. This human interaction, both in access and security, could be achieved with an arc. The subtle essence of the scoop is its functional motion, which I wished the participant to actually engage in that motion and reveal the overlooked quality.
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The result was an arc that only allowed for containing if the scoop was inserted via the motion, with the scoop handle acting as the handle. The parts breakdown resurfaces in the form of layered translucency and sequenced discs. This divided the scoop in unconventional, but not in immediately noticable ways, hiding the very important trigger only visible when removed. The connections were “industrial�, like those of the scoop. Blue was associated with the cool feeling of scooping the substance.
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Essence Sophomore 2OO8 - Jen Seigel We were assigned to reuse a typical 8’x8’x40’ corrugated steel shipping container and design a home for ourselves. olo y of “h ome” me a Here the lexicology “home” and material was questioned, finding finding e xactly xact act the he right h g tte questioned, exactly term to construe the proj p oject’s dire direction becam beca ca e a n oppor op project’s direction.. IIt became an opportunity to redefine pa p arts a rts t of the t e linguistic th lingu stic linguis tic language ua to o result in a redefining of parts vis sual and spat sp anguage a guage. It llayed ayed the groundwork for visual spatial la language. ex x ra racting ess es extracting essence.
E N I F E D
Our most individual and personal space is a bedroom. On the most basic level, creatures territorialize spaces because they find refuge. Refuge, occupation, becomes sacred to living with the ability to take intimate ownership, to calling a place a home. Materially, this breakdown of the word home lead to studies of light and opacity, and the transformation from a refuge to a home both experientially and materially. It also allowed the opportunity of caulk to act as a definer of spaces and moods, not solely a sealant.
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What started out as a rectilinear volume began to disperse and offset as much as my understanding of home. These sharp forms began to find smaller niches that a single open volume might not emphasize. These niches then began to be pushed and pulled throughout the “box�, creating a second layer of intimate moments in which one could occupy. These same forms created contrasting results, private and public, solid and void; while further defining their own spaces through light transmittance and more new occupiable voids when related to others. The physical shipping container was abandoned, for the essence of home reached infinitely further than dimensions can corral.
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An airport, is a place that can become someone’s temporary home while in commute, the polar of “home’s” preferred connotation. I tried to create an intervention that allowed the traveller to find their niche, using the material studies as inspiration to implement more than the ability to occupy and sleep into a very transient, unwelcoming, and unintimate pit-stop.
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No two games ever come out the same. No one game can be predicted: “Don’t tell me how this game ends, cause we’ll just see how it goes” (3 Doors Down). Yet all have a similar structure, rythym, and intent. To take two minds of opposing direction (competetors) and find harmony can most easily work itself out with a common ground, within the pre-determined boundaries of a game. We discovered the existing structure, making on top of it while playing.
CK CHE
Collaboration + Historical Consideration Sophomore 2OO9 - Jen Seigel + Dan Pitera in collaboration with Katerina Smart
Chicago is a city built on integration- a wealth of collabortation and interwoven dependencies. Pilgrim Baptist Church was a neighborhood hub, Gospel Music’s birthplace. Only exterior walls exist after a fire.
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Hub concept in mind, we focused on the approach. ‘Shortcut’ paths were spokes that intersected the site while radiating and penetrating deeper into the community. Where they fell on the site resulted in what would ultimately be the underlying ‘structure’ of our model series. ‘Fun’ was the linking element to cohesively reprogram the site: the neighborhood needed a “playground” to both watch professionals and learn to preform themselves, while patients
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needed enjoyment to combat the dialysis’ misery, with active involvement following treatment. The concept of layered integration resurfaced, catalyzed by redefining story-telling from a verbal to a gestural means, similar to Cirque Du Soleil. Participant’s stories craft the neighborhood and following generations, why not write their own? We designed a canvas that gave expressive opportunity; minimally defined spaces, with not only one purpose.
Utilizing the only the previously established groundwork of paths as a gameboard, we began to alternate adding one piece at a time to models, neither removing nor looking back on any one move, other than the most recent, reacting to it, resembling the progression of a chess match. It was a way in which two minds could experment as one. At this point we decided that if we were having fun, playing while making, that the results would reflect our goal of a fun space. It allowed us to change scales with ease, without losing the excitement, energy, and enthusiam.
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The degree to which we played and experimented went to the smallest detail. Acting out moments, how people would really interact with an enterance made for a series of figure studies.
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With the board as our guide, the proceeding step influenced one after another. Functions began to fall into place comfortably. Circulation began to wrap in a circle, in a whirlpool of mixing approaches. Levels were as defined as the spaces of opportunity; the constantly sloping floor made it one continuous rising space. Gaps between ‘levels’ were moments of weaving, programatic and visual weaving. This space never was capped, either. The use of an open roof, just as another floor, made the spiral infinite. It became a beacon for the neighborhood. Street presence was welcoming, yet sturdy, as the church had stood for so long. Entrances were placed on both sides, with easy access through as a passageway. The steel holding up the walls became the lattice for preformances.
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ROPEP ARK Landscape Sophomore 2OO8 - Jen Seigel We were given Roosevelt velt elt lt Park Pa ark as a site, with no particular r set program, pr p og gram, other than a prairie, which ich was was tto be burned annually in an act of re rebirth. bir It became an opportunity to explore expl re e how important materiality and nd d temp tem temporality orality can be to spatial design. n.
Ro Roosevelt R Park is the large run-down and overgrown green space infront of the dilapidated Michigan Central Station on Michgan Avenue. Formerly, it wasrecreational di space sp p while travellers waited for a train. Presently, it is home to a large homeless population. po Th neighboring Corktown district on Michigan Avenue is up-and-coming, with several The T art ar r galleries and grafitti museums, bars, and resturants, such as Slow’s Barbeque and Mexican Town, across I-75. The location makes public space a great opportunity, not M far from Downtown. fa 30
Commonly correlated with thinness and easy of penetration, increasing the density of rope placement creates a new caliber of solidity, while retaining softness and permeability. These installations came to function as partitions, pavilions, seating, canvases, jungle gyms, and covers over walkways and streets based on orientation and location. The expansiveness of the space was more easily connected through the use of this s c common ommon thread.
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In a precee preceeding project project, the goal was to create w eate a cohesive esive llanguage anguag age development dev ev e ve v elopm opm mentt between be b etwe twee en neighboring ne ne eiig ighbo ori g interventions, in nter nt rven v tio ons,, w wit with th ffunctions unctions nction ons requiring requiring iring g ventilation io on n and tempe tem temperature mpe erature t con control, on ontroll in Det Detroit’s Harmonie mo Park. A common space ce established ed between tw two was chosen to further develop. It became a study of light as material.
L I G T H P A R K
Materiality + Energy Sophomore 2OO9 - Jen Seigel in collaboration with Kyle Johnson
Harmonie Park is a cultural artists district in Detroit, near German Town. It is acclaimed for its music scene, with many concerts and festivals, as well as recording studios around the Park. It sits within blocks of the YMCA, Comerica Park, Ford Field, the Detroit Athletic Club and Detroit Opera House and Music Hall, making it a great venue and entertainment hub, a quality that influened an all-seasons outdoor gathering space. Many small boutiques, bars, small resturants catering to lunch crowds, and upscale dining establishments have found homes as evening hotspots, with the local renovations of loft-residences.
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Light eventually became the foundation for our urban space, a place known for its material use; “Hey, I will meet you in the Lights.� With changing lights, the strip can adapt with the seasons, weather, and liveliness. The vertical members allow for a sense of coverage, yet openness at the same time. The ground is both intimate and functional as a shortcut.
What is to be done with a rift in a fabric in one direction that acts as a unifying one transversely, simultaneously? How can we begin to close the social gaps it creates? How do we create opposing reactions, when cohesivness is required? How do we tell a story of new life, without erasing the past? What identity can we create when we begin to intervene in an urban landscapes restitching?
M N H S E A RB
Urban Landscapes Vertical 2OO9 - Claudia Bernasconi
The Dequinder Cut is a sunken former railroad cooridor that runs northwest from the Detroit River to Hamtramack, through Eastern Market. Once overgrown and neglected, it was a homeless’ haven and grafitti artists dream, with advantageous seclusion and abundance of potentially historic canvases. Recent rigidly manicured for exercise and resident’s safety, it’s identity floats in limbo.
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In order for an increase of energy and non-transitive activity, the visibility and accessibility of the Cut is essential. To increase visibility, making a strong physical statement without creating a self-proclaimed icon was the best approach to gain attention, such as implementing a pier into the River. By connecting key points of view and current major hubs into a grid of flow ‘nodes’, the pedestrian accessibility would be highlighted. These are also several key connections including Eastern Market, the Heidelberg Project, and existing Infrastrucutre that influenced functional and aesthetic decisions, based on their locations.
39 Attentive Strategy & Focus Area
Connectivity and Concentrations of Flow
The heftiest challenge to creating a cohesive site, ite, is to deminish the gap between levels, the primary dem y factor in b both unawareness and safety. Because it is s mostly sunk, what attention is grossed is minimal. In addition sun the edges are a deterrent for people, as well as s minimal access points. The connectivity of the sight from acc rom the surrounding context is both an asset and a challenge. sur llenge. The context is abounding with non-permanent or multipotential secondary sites, for which the original use has pot been exploited in an unconventional means or possess bee key secondary functions and connotations for the city. The Gratiot Pedestrian Overpass (Top Left) was as a key insp s as an inspiration, utilizing it as inexpensive store-fronts e of high extension of Eastern Market, inhabited because traffic on Saturday mornings. o keep it The project’s scale directed me to find ways to cohesive and feasible. Cohesion began to be futhered hered by an idea of weaving, permeablity, and a play of solid/void olid/void that resulted from the light studies and transparency parency studies preformed earlier. The main focus was community mmunity center, in simplest terms, something that even en with function, began to weave the surrounding context text and neighborhoods together. A series of installations ns using a woven permeable wood would be associated with the Cut, highlighting the important historical elements, nts, yet leaving their exact program up to local interpretations. tations.
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Cultural Experience + Collaboration International Exchange 2O1O Amy Green Deines, Noah Resnick, Justyna Zdunek in collaboration with Ben Castiglione, Ania Majewska + Piotrek Luszczynski Two world’s, one goal. This project tested our conviction to a methodology, awakened a sense of companionship, and showed that no matter where someone’s origins may be, all ways of thinking bear fruit- there is no “absolute right way” to think. Trying someone else’s path makes you reflect upon your own more carefully.
WARSAW MUSIC CAMPUS
Sound can serve to connect, as well as divide people and spaces. Our Post-Industrial, former brewery site in the Wola district acted as a void between residential and corporate urban land uses. Our concept attempts to use the vibrations produced by the city as an ideal solution to unite, yet create a more separate urban space. The site rests on a harsh contextual edge of extreme scales- economic, vertical, among others. To relate to the former production history of the site with a new use, we chose to employ a developmentally phased program with an emphasis on the production of music. The site will take the form of a music campus, with four stages of creation- expose, learn, teach, and record. To achieve this, we utilized sound metaphorically as the anchors of the concept. With four separate stylistic ‘rhythms’, each placed circularly in sequential order, it culminates in the central interior plazaamphitheater in both literal and metaphorical song. Acting as transitions between pure noise (with the absence of compositional
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Teach/Learn Live
Produce Express/ Inspire Mixing of Moments and Phenomenons
Public
Private
Metaphoric
Connections Between Individual Programs
Program Locations
Means of gathering or blocking City sounds
Musically Experiential Space
Order of Process Public spaces engage individual programs
music on the exterior) and pure music, each individual focused on a certain aspect of sound, and manipulated it to create an experiential ‘gateway’, in relation to their contextual positioning and programmatic needs.
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Additionally, at the physical connections between programs each manipulate sound in a way that fades the emphasis of one building to the next, by enclosing or releasing the city’s sound with a usage of material qualities. The dorm and school focus is to teach students, who may eventually return to profess the following generation, once their own music has been recorded and exposed to the public.
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CONCERT HALL
A concert hall is both a work’s culminating and inspiring point; it is the place of resonance for music. This concert hall connects to the community as an exposition venue for all types and levels of music including street, local, and professional. It is intended as a public gathering place primarily defined by the covered and depressed plaza; the more private functions- administration, dressing, and rehearsal- are set in the ‘towers’ according to the necessary levels of privacy. The main level is programmed for the night of the show, with main access to the auditorium.
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The gradually declining form acts to ease into the site; later it composed a facade, then finally, firsthand, visual exposure to pre-concert processes. At these moments of visible music, the building still conveys its uses even in off-show times.
The Concert Hall works with the site programatically with paths connecting on the main streets towards the Recording Studio and Dormitory, with the connection between the Recording Studio a focal point physical connection at the entrance to the Ampitheater. The internal structure programmatically can be broken into three baisc areas, perform, prepare, and preside.
48 West Facade Elev
South Facade Elev
West-facing Section
South-facing Section
Preformance Back Stage Full-Time Public Access Electric/Lighting/Sound Show Only Dressing Rehearsal Venue
Circulation and Organization
Floor Relations
Section B
Main Floor
Cloakroom
-1 Floor
-2 Floor Building Mechanical
box office foyer, gathering space
concession stand
Stage Access Storage
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915 VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915 VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD
CHINA
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
K-12781 K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD CHINA VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 CHINA CHINA VITREOUSK-12781 C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD CHINA VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 CHINA CHINA
VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 CHINA CHINA VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781
CHINA K-12781 K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD CHINA VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 CHINA VITREOUSK-12781 C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD CHINA VITREOUS C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 CHINA CHINA
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915 VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS BARDON K-4915
VITREOUS CHINA C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS CHINA C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS CHINA TOILETS KELSTON K-11453
VITREOUS CHINA C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781 VITREOUS CHINA C_SINKS GILFORD K-12781
VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS VITREOUS CHINA C_URINALS K-4915 BARDON BARDON K-4915
Section A
Cloakroom prep kitchen
foyer, gathering space
Section B Section B
Office
Office
Office
Office
Section B
+2 Floor
Office
+3 Floor
Bar
Non-Strucutral Light-weight Steel Truss member
Admin Suite Copy Rehearsal
Lobby/Reception
mech. Break
Rehearsal
Office
Office
Office
Rehearsal
Rehearsal
Light-weight Steel Support for Exterior Sheathing Conference
Conference Conference
Structural Steel Column Sound Booth
Steel Sphere Circular Weld
Exec. Lounge
Powder
Mens Dressing Room
Section A
Steel Box Weld Rolled Steel Angle
.25 m
Electrical and Lighting Booth
Section A
Section A
Bolted Connection Steel Plate
Secondary Preformance
Concrete Floor
Load-Bearing Concrete Foundation Wall
Womens Dressing Room
W WC
Mezzanine Seating
+1 Floor
Powder
M WC
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Architecture is a study of people, place, interaction, and experience, as much a study of space. Poland is a perfect region to discover the essence of humanity in its most raw forms; not cutting edge Western, but by no means third-world. Simply a new world. There exist opportunities to befriend previously unfamiliar people more closely than even the best childhood companions. Vivid memories of mannerisms and events are impressed in rock-solid fashion and recur at even the most unexpected moments..
WORLD OVER 53
A city on the cusp, Warsaw, symbolizes the nation’s long-awaited emergence from three-century dormancy. It’s citizens have optimism beyond the most empowered civil rights leaders, yet compassion of sisters. By emerging ourselves in unfamiliar, we truly discover the faimilar.
DO. T HINK. . O D . K N I H T
Theory of Power + the School Vertical 2O1O - Tony Martinico With technology ever-pacing, many foundational institutions accepted as norms are falling further and further behind the lead. Banks, prisons, churches, and schools alike cannot adapt fast enough to impact the immense quantity of people they were intended or designed. Mega-banks collapse, prisons release countless un-rehabilited, and media perceptively casts international students as lightyears ahead of our brightest ones; this all while the gap determining successful and unsuccessful is drawn by yearly incomes as opposed to happiness. With access to any data ever discovered nearly limitless, available at the touch of a finger, there is no longer a need for traditional, school-based education. Therefore, is the need for a school building to house such a process necessary, and if so, what will be the architecture of that appropriate school and pedagogy?
The idea of a field is an activated, endlessly opportunistic area of concentration that dislocates individuals on a common, yet, endlessly opportunistic surface, where external hierarchies, ranks, rules and intentions suggested by the likes of Foucault are relinquished, and replaced by unintentional ones attributed to unbiased determining forces made possible only by actively engaging with/in. It is a place where thoughts and actions are folded together, influences one another simultaneously. Trying to perceive a site through non-visual cues was my first step as an outsider; discovering continual and unpredictable personal relativity, whilst navigating through an uncharted territory. By way-finding my own personal landmarks in this way I imposed my own orientation structure with unintentional disregard for the existing ones. – this is a series of mappings I did to see if I could not bridge the memory of markings to a visual one; to design a blind world sighted people must adjust to.
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Camus’ quote – “a demand for freedom (visual freedom in my case) leads to a kingdom of servitude.” I struggled to ‘fake’ total visual blindness, which caused me to realize we are all perceptively blind in some way. Our docility is affirmation of current imposed structure that; it also confirms our inner power while affirming the master’s superiority. (Universal and complete equality in humanity?) This idea of rebellion will carry through. These perceived triggers were only a small part of the small portion I perceived, and what I began to map in constructing my eidetic image. The patterns began to be folded into 3-dimensional map, and the action became the name of the area. As I progressed, my memories developed as a collage of connections and images defined by certain triggering mechanisms. Memories are fragments, and the act of folding was my way of re-perceiving them. The painted fold was a physical retracing of my perceptions. Noe says perception is assertive and by deciding to perceive we must actively engage, and by painting I was doing so. The painted fold then fragmented upon unfolding, exposing/affirming the interior (of) and highlighting what was the perception.
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I then began to literally fold all of these continually re-fragmenting perception traces together. This densification of the layers and site trigger locations connecting to other memory locations enacted the question of the fragments’ domains- “the fold or of the fold?� The depthless dimensions created once compressed began to touch on an idea alternating, or situational, dominance and subordination. I simply added another layer folding in an already fragmented school, which produced my final eidetic image, or my site.
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I then began to look at how the precedent schools were already folded or unfolded, and how they fragmented and reassembled people because the use the incorporation of digital information sharing can and will be done without place. The first was a direct folding of a school plan; which was far too individualized, but expressed an assembly component. The lessons of the school must teach is of life’s intimate social interaction with other people; this constant changing of teams and individuality without barely noticing sometimes. The second began to fold the third-dimension around the same plan, but engage with my site’s trace lines. The third removes the folded plan, and uses the gathering component solely with site trace lines.
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The current school is teaches lessons of tracing a precedent thought and adapting to pre-organized layouts and structures. It becomes a decoding of predecessors already traced steps, and easy to be lost. The blind, or discovery/research, method allows a subjectively designed path based on finding triggers based on others. Researching by doing is the act that engages us in ideas.
The individual moves at a varied or fragmented pace based on abilities, maturation, and interests, pending different intelligences- emotional, science, etc. The traditional hierarchies I mentioned earlier are dynamic and constantly shifting. These situations are nested within many others and relative only to that moment. The teacher can become the student and learn as much from the student. The ability to have discoveries or ideas validated by another human upon reassembly is extremely empowering. My school is a construct like the mind, like society. This trial-error with guidance method makes better people because they are practiced at confidence and improvisation in unfamiliar situations, and by inspiring curiosity to solve a continually shifting the puzzle of life. The funnel shapes direct assemblies from the field to the field within the school, while folding site, schema, and school into one. Overall, it is a reflection of my process- thinking and doing influencing each other at the same time. It challenges the user to interface and create meaningful associations with situations presented. We are all students of life, therefore, one can “graduate� once empowered.
Far Left: Level Plans denoting no true floor
Near Left: Site Plan + School situated in site
Above + Right: Sectional Elevations
Top Right: School following fold lines of site
LIBRARY Integrative Systems Design Vertical 2O11 - Joe Odoerfer Taking the Fountain Plaza and existing parking lot at UDM and converting it to an architectural library, while incorporating techical details including active and passive HVAC, structure, strategic planning, lighting, fire egress, ADA code, envelope, and site strategy.
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Conceptual Intent Architecture students are opaquely viewed on the UDM campus as a seperate academic breed, who prefer long hours and work only with like others, The diagonal pathways that exist in the Fountain Plaza highlight this conflicting alienation and limits the most important part of academic and architectural discourse: dialog. Architectural traffic is easily identified as the only people to use the NW-SE axis. Remaining traffic uses the NE-SW, essentailly by-passing the School of Arhcitecture. It creates incohesive campus flow. To stop the diverging perception and discourse requires converging interaction and experience. The library both formally and functionally works with ‘fusion’. Repeating formal tensions relate to moments barriers break. Open and garden gathering spaces, bridges, and glass prompt and show people speaking. An internal enterance prompts conversation early, uniting versus dividing on common ground.
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Section A
C
N
B
Section B
A
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Section C
Reading Room
Auditorium
South Atrium
South Elevation
East Elevation
Left Page Perspectives (Top Left) NE Corner (Above) East Facade (Below Left) SW Corner
DN
DN
Fan Rm N 345 SF
UP
Fan Rm N
Fan Rm N
432 SF
432 SF
Bioler Rm 200 SF DN
UP
JC 39 SF
Auditorium 2379 SF
M WC 290 SF
UP
Vest. 215 SF
DN
Reading Rm 4200 SF
W WC 400 SF
Mezz. Stacks 1800 SF Cloak 257 SF
DN
DN
UP
Bridge Stacks 1800 SF
Plan - First Floor
Plan - Second Floor Vest. 360 SF
Admin 1 176 SF
Plan - Third Floor UP
UP
DN
DN
Circ Desk 360 SF
Lobby 600 SF
Admin 2 179 SF
Study Area 600 SF DN
UP
DN DN DN
DN
Atrium (Overlooking Lounge)
Atrium (Overlooking Lounge)
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Fan Rm S 410 SF
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Reading Lounge 800 SF
Fan Rm S
Fan Rm S
410 SF
410 SF
HVAC Design
Structural Design
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Acoustical Design Ray Diagrams Building Envelope Details and Wall Section
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R E N D E RI N G
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HAND DRAWINGS
These free-hand and drafted hand illustrations were done in pencil, colored pencil, and ink. 2OO7-2OO8, Prof. Steve LaGrassa or Prof. Marie Henderson, RSM (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) Traveling abroad in Europe (2, 3, 6).
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WORLD-CLASS
The following watercolors and free-hand were done under the instruction of the world’s greatest living watercolor artist, Ludomir “Swoop” Slupeczanski, and Michal Suffczynski, Ph. D, the world’s foremost sketch artist and reknowned watercolorist, during one semester abroad at Warsaw, Poland’s Politechnic University Faculty of Architecture.
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*Enhanced via PhotoShop
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Studies in material and light property combinations of silver, rusted steel, decomposed wood, wood fibers, dark green and brown glass, and white plaster.
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The shown images are stills from 3Ds MAX digital animations, created during sophomore year. Left: The project at right was an animation of a robot preforming three different tasks. It was designed with the idea of superheros Green Lantern and Wolverine, and a projector sitting nearby. Combining everyday with extraordinary also dictated the functions: sweeping and making coffee, yet lightsaber dueling as if in Star Wars. Far Right: A simple space designed around the song “Hot Blooded� by Foreigner. It is a rock club complete with Album covered guitar chairs.
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ANIMATIONS
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OTHER WORK
TAP: The Alley Project YOUNG NATION In the Springwells neighborhood of Southwest Detroit, TAP is a community space and gallery of youth + professional grafitti, designed around learning and empowering spray-paint art. UDM students design-built renovated an old garage into an identifiable classroom/ gallery/hangout that stood as a home-base for Young Nation. When open, it adjoins to an lot designed for gathering. Master planned by Detroit Collaborative Design Center.
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For more information on the Project, visit: http://www.facebook.com/tapgallery In association with: Young Nation, UDM SOA, Detroit Collabortative Design
VILLAGES’ CDC
Villages Community Development Comm Commission was a voluntary group charette to pr propose future redesigning of the Far East S Side, in collaboration with UM and LTU. Ideas were inspired by connection to the River, c current light-rail possibilities, and re-organizat re-organization of energy nodes and urban farming plots plots, with factory re-use for mushrooms.
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Other Group Credits: Wladek Fuchs Noah Resnick Brian Hinz
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iWITNESS
A PHOTOESSAY Prof. Tony C. Martinico
Every person has a different perception of a place, based upon an interaction with some sort of experience. Of those interactions, the most powerful and meaningful incidents are the ones experienced firsthand. From a firsthand experience, the perception of others has a less and less significant impacton one being developed by the person. The knowledge gained from personal firsthand experience increases to the sensitivity to an environment, to its materials, to its culture, to its character, completing a holistic perception from all the senses. In the context of the City of Detroit, the unknowledgeable persons’ perceptive “reports” (Sontag) have ruined the perceptions of others, for both the better and worse, with the strongest corruptions deviating from the use of the visual image and camera. Foremost, existence is the only aspect of the world that photos show evidence, “what photographrecord confirms is, more modestly, simply that the subject exists.” (Sontag) It tells future observers that at a certain moment in history, something resembled what the image states.
The photographer is the only one who can experience the event, place, time, or object. Unfortunately, as soon as the camera snaps, the world has immediately been given a visual experience in the perception of only the photographer; the intimacy between the actual items has been removed. Often overlooked, the lack of multiple dimensions causes a warped truth to the reality of the City. Essentially, Detroit has not built its own, but been bestowed the wrong image, both good and bad, via photos and the perspectives from which they have been taken. The images create an either glorified fantastical (industrial growth) or condemning identity (violence, political corruption, economic downturn), rarely the true character discoverable when a person is immersed in the City, upon interaction with its people, traditions, heart, and nuances. Existence informs the reader of the City’s independent components’(Calvino) superficial physical characteristics and lacks unifying connecting elements – such as changes between points in time and place. The true evidence that should give Detroit its image is the who aspect – the intangibles and invisibles that an image cannot duplicate. These nonreplicable traits create the “aura” (Benjamin) of what is uniquely Detroit.
There are layers upon layers of depth that an image can never express, hence, allowing imaginative assumptions to run wild, repeatedly influenced by yet more interpretations from others. In person, one can control the panning, close-ups, textures, sounds, and attention to certain unique details. Otherwisethrough the narrowly subjective and non-intimate priortranslated interaction of others, the true image of Detroit, any city for that matter, will be distorted because what makes a city true is what can’t be copied with the flick of a finger. A photo can inspire probables, but can never tell truly...
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... of intents or changes...
5 ... of scents or flavors...
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3 ... of distance or depth...
... of energies or sounds...
... of people’s live or attitudes...
... of location or temperature...
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4 ... of atmospheres or textures...
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8 ... or of entire stories.
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Millenium Park, Chicago, IL 2OO8
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(Left) Country House Rural Lublin, Poland 2O1O (Right) St. Paul’s Square Venice, Italy 2O1O
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(Left) Rural Ireland 2O1O (Right) Auschwitz Oswiecim, Poland 2O1O
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(Left) Vyšehrad Cathedral Prague, Czech Rep. 2O1O (Right) Harbor Stockholm, Sweden 2O1O
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(Left) St Peter’s Square Vatican City 2O1O (Right) Delivery Truck Florence, Italy 2O1O
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(Left) Bradenburg Tor Berlin, Germany 2O1O (Right) Coliseum Rome, Italy 2O1O