W OR K S Caleb Sears
Selected Projects 2007-2012 Inside Markey Park Steel Barn Billboard Fruitbowl Mallscraper 4x4 Crossing Thesis Progress _____________ Outside Competitions Highlights Bus Stop Train Station Urban Proposal Small Projects Weekend Cabin Garden Housing Installations Snow Desert Igloo Coal In Progress Sketchbooks Printmaking Photo Archive
Inside
Markey Park Park Redesign
trying to establish a system in historic bywater
a mesh of views
creating visual access of the park via Royal, Piety, and Dauphine streets
with concern given to light, shade, context, new orleans courtyard vernacular, views, etc. A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
C
“Green” Zone
D
“Built” Zone
D
C
Group Activity Zone
D
D
Individual Activity Zone
C
C
center of block center of lot
daylight and nightlighting
primary and intermediate zones or courtyards of light and shade PIETY
shade
combine
light
day
by rotating the program along three main visual lines, a new plan is created
light
shade
night
RO YAL
Bench/Wall/Planter/Fence Details
Site directional movement
paths
places of rest
composite usage diagram
Site Model
A Park Formed By Shade
The park plays on the relationship between lights and shades of various intensities, and the activities that take place in light and shade. The physical activities are centered around sunlight and flourescent light, while leisure activities are centered around shade. The existing trees create a reversal of the traditional courtyard space- the private interior space has become the public interior space as people gather around the shade. Markey Park was named after the proprietor of Markey’s Bar, Micky Markey, who originally owned the land and gave it as a gift to the Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans. Once a lively park, it fell into disrepair after Hurricane Katrina. KNOA Studio, as a collective, designed and aquired funding for the new park. The program park is determined by five existing live oaks, which provide much needed shade to its users. The park draws from the local tradition of courtyards, and in our design for the park we split the courtyard into two types- the courtyards that exist in the day, within the park, and the courtyards that exist at night, situated on the periphery of the park for safety. As the park is used once a month by the Bywater Art Association for its art fair, a large portion of the park was left open. It is also used once a year for the Mirliton Festival, which draws people from all over New Orleans to listen to live music, see local art, and, of course dine on the humble mirliton.
Detail Model of Pavilion
A3.5 1
28’-6”
3 40’-0” A2.1
1
A2.8
A2.7
2
4 40’-0”
A2.5
40’-0” A3.5 2
A2.2 49’-6”
7
A3.5 3
49’-6” A3.5 4
above_Contextual Model right_Plan
A3.5 5
6
5
22’-0”
22’-0”
50’-0”
50’-0”
50’-0”
A2.4
A2.6
A2.3
Plan Key 1_Playground 2_Main Pavilion/Stage 3_Unleashed Dog Area 4_Information Wall 5_Bus Stop 6_Storage Closet 7_Central Open Area
Steel Barn Winery
Sketch Models
light infiltration
forklift park
vat space
barrel space
supply/ bottling space
dock
laboratory
loading dock
bottling room
longitudinal section (programs)
boxes barrelsvatscrush pad
laboratory walkway entrance
programmatic plan programmati l view inside the vat room
view inside the hallway
longitudinal section
plan
Barns are common in rural Kentucky. Their pitched corrugated roofs and worn walls easily settle into the gentle undulations of the landscape. Their roof lines sag with dips in the ground, and rise slightly with hills. They sway to one side as if constantly bracing against the wind. Barns have adapted so well to their environment that they have become non-events, blending in with the hills, trees, stone walls, and sky as we drive by in our cars. Our eyes pass over them without hesitation. When a barn is noticed, it is usually to note its decrepit nature or variation from local vernacular. “How is that barn still standing up?” or, “That barn is pink.” or, “That barn is a circle.” Flickering evaluations, forgotten as the driver searches for the next radio station. The unnoticed majority stand silent, their bellies full of cows or horses or tobacco. They are not all the same. Each barn is a singular element in a multitude of thousands, with its own differentiating qualities. Like a bottle of wine, a barn is a journal of weather conditions in one spot over x amount of years, a product of its surroundings. The Steel Barn project encompassed both a studio-required winery program and a steel competition. The design of the Steel Barn was simple- the iconic shell of the rural barn was well-suited to the linear program of a winery. Added to a dynamic axis already created by two ancient barns, the winery settled into its surroundings, only setting itself apart by its gleaming stainless steel skin.
Billboard Occupiable Signage
False Facades
Old West towns are notorious for their usage of false fronts- a large, elaborate facade was used to give the impression of a larger building behind it. That was usually not the case.
System ystem
2 X 4s INSERTED INTO WALL
False meaning is better than no meaning at all.
Blazing Saddles, 1974
a
section
elevation
a. Ad as part of landscape b. Ad as autonomous from landscape
plan early non-moving protoype
b
Some Options:
Henderson
Primitive Huts
Take the billboard down from its perch, place it on the ground, and create real estate within the billboard. Space within the mass is created by pushing and pulling, creating convex and concave areas. Duality in the program is acknowledged through the billboard having both a front and a back- what is a convex space on the “front” becomes a concave space on the “back”.
Awning
Benches and Tables
“Gold Tooth” Focusing on the empty spaces around Henderson, Billboard attempts to fill in the gaps. Voids become opportunities for commercial and social real estate. The system’s maleability allows for quick changes in program, from advertisements to bus shelters, and welcome signage to picnic spots. It is a user modified structure built from readily available materials. Billboard can be applied to dense urban and sprawling strip conditions. It’s like putting a gold tooth in a broken smile. Gaps are filled in. People are happy.
Sp ac e
Hi Yall
M as s
Stage
Pl an e
Push and Pull
The Strip
FIGURE GROUND STUDY
GATEWAY TO THE CITY
Downtown FIGURE GROUND STUDY
US 41
GR
EE
NS
TR
EE
BUILDINGS ROADS T
PROPOSED SITE
SECOND STREET
GREEN STREET
BUILDINGS ROADS PROPOSED SITE VACANT LOTS
suburban and urban sites for billboard
Gateway to the City US 41
Fruitbowl Cut+Perforate+Fold
folded plan
18.0 cm
flat plan
aluminum prototype
50.0 cm
8.0 cm
16.0 cm
45.9 cm
18.0 cm
4.0 cm
1.5 cm
6.0 cm
polycarbonate prototype
13.6 cm
28.4 cm
0.635 cm
30.0 cm
flat elevation
folded elevation
transparency
Mallscraper Mixed-Use Development
elevation study
front porches
blacksburg va
views/pixelization of form
Blacksburg’s Main Street is a mix of old and new buildings and empty spaces. Approaching from both the south and north, one drives past strip malls pushed back away from the street. As one approaches the center of the city, the storefronts are pushed closer and closer to the street and sidewalk, traffic moves slower, pedestrians cross the street. The street dips down and up, then down and up again, and the city is left behind. It is a big building trying to be a few smaller ones through pixelization of orthogonal form along the incline of the site, creating facades that respond to the immediate scale of the surrounding buildings. Just as William Black used the four-by-four grid to establish order within the colonial system of metes and bounds, the structure tries to establish regulated space along an irregular site. The project is composed of a sandwich of parallel concrete plates that mediate the slope along Main Street. The plates are supported by a field of columns in a grid spaced at twenty by twenty feet, with the façade receiving a denser line of columns spaced at ten feet. The combination of plates and columns offers a plastic space in between and above the slabs. Commercial space is inserted between the plates. Storage space occurs below the bottom plate, office and residential areas are set upon the top plate. The commercial space is defined by a series of boxes that reference the local shopping centers, acknowledging the versatile open plan along with the impermanence and temporal nature of the strip mall. To encourage public interaction and use of the sidewalk as a leisure space, the street level of the building is broken up into covered areas that serve as small front porches.
main st facade
section
main st elevation
ground floor_commercial
2nd floor_office and residential, roof terrace
public “front porch”
apartment interior
4 x4 Hillside House
living space / view towards mountains
preliminary drawing of framed view
preliminary drawing
areas of light and shadow in plan
interior perspective_living space
The house sits in a hillside. It is carved out of a cubic 4 x 4 grid system in both plan and section. The grid is defined in the basement, dissolving but still apparent in the main floor, and broken in the third floor through a twisting motion. The main floor is a tube of light. To the north lies a wide view down the hill towards slumped mountains, to the south a walled garden with a small pond. It contains all of the social spaces. The space is centered around a large winter hearth. In the warmer months the front window wall can be opened, transforming the living space into a front porch. The floor below is dark and spare. It contains a garage and serves as the cluttered dresser drawer for the house, a place to put things out of the way. All of the odds and ends go here. On top of the light tube is a village of four houses- three for living, and one for the stairs and books. The houses are clustered around a pinwheel courtyard open to the sky, focused around the hearth that springs from the lower levels. Each of the houses in the village has its own four walls and a roof. From far away the house appears as a whole icon, disintegrating as one comes closer. The roofline becomes fragmented as each house in the village asserts itself. With the pitching of the roof, the project both breaks its cubic construct and becomes part of the suburban context.
basement
first floor
second floor
section a
section b
elevations
Crossing Park Proposal
site plan
main plaza plan
existing above ground crossing
existing drainage tunnel The current crossing over Price’s Fork from residential Blacksburg to Virginia Tech’s campus is hazardous, both for pedestrians and drivers. Marked crosswalks provide little protection from four lanes of traffic. Our proposal provides a safe alternative to an otherwise dangerous daily crossing by drawing pedestrian traffic under the road through a series of tunnels. We have not only enlarged a series of tunnels already on the site; we also propose a beautification of the stream and surrounding park space, and have allocated space for a small cafe, providing the campus with an improved usage of current park space.
group members: Lauren Ricks, Mike Wendt, Caleb Sears
main tunnel plan grey blocks indicate stepping stones yellow blocks indicate reflected lighting plan
section through plaza and restaurant
section through main tunnel
A.T. Dean Road Migrant Worker Housing (In Progress)
(hypo)thesis The project aims to establishes a proposal for flexible migrant worker housing in the bluegrass region outside of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, while: a) responding to the local agrarian vernacular b) providing dignity to the condition of the migrant worker c) acknowledging the temporal and imperfect nature of building. The area around Lexington, Kentucky consists of gently rolling hills, somewhere between the wavelength of Indiana’s glacier-carved semi-flatness and the ancient Appalachian mountains, populated by horse farms and farms growing corn, tobacco, soybeans, and other crops. The softly winding roads through the area are closely bounded on both sides by endless walls of stacked limestone and black plank fences. Barns and houses populate the landscape, the larger farms possessing sprawling compounds of various shed-roofed outbuildings, pitched-roof larger barns, dome-capped silos, and continually expanding farmhouses, all at varying stages of use and decline. Most of the barns are painted matte black, at times with contrasting ventilator flaps, topped by silver corrugated metal roofs succumbing to rust. The tobacco barns in the region were built to suit one individual curing process, as “the production of the different kinds of tobacco … fluctuated with changing habits of tobacco consumption “(Hart and Mather), which led to compounds of “relict” barns. Inversely, the building exists as a series of layers that are expected to decay and be replaced, allowing the building to either continue to embrace its original function, or adapt to new program and use. In this sense the architect serves only as the initiator, designing only the originating, permanent structure (bones) and initial program (guts), fully accepting that the building will change as the inhabitants find more comfortable ways of living. Instead of building new structures as the old ones become antiquated, the bones of the building allow multiple buildings to be built around a single durable framework. New Building in the bluegrass region has a dual responsibility to the landscape- there is an obligation to become externally contextualized into the built landscape (one views the building from the road) while internally connecting to the landscape through framed views (one views the landscape from the building). By using the model of the tobacco barn as “contextual camoflauge”, and allowing the skin to be perforated by windows allowing visual connection to the landscape, the building becomes part of the local context, another silver-roofed blur as one drives by. The program of the building revolves arounds the needs of the migrant worker. It is divided into four sections- a communal area for cooking and eating (including indoor and outdoor areas for each), an indoor and outdoor bathing area (for washing organic and industrial toxins and poisons off of the body), and two types of residential areas. One row of workers’ quarters is designed for semi-permanent, four-seasons occupation by a worker and his/her family. These larger apartments are conditioned for both cold and hot weather. Another row of smaller apartments is designed for temporary occupation by a single transient worker, conditioned only for hot weather. Instead of a single pitched roof covering all of the spaces, the roofs above the residential areas are rotated perpandicular to the communal roofs. This break asserts the individual within the collective, providing each household with its own icon.
*The project is currently in progress and has recently undergone revisions- most noticeably from a ‘u’-shaped plan to a broken line
site plan
south elevation
north elevation
site sketch
permanent worker living space
wash basin
view from southeast
plan/sections
These drawings have come about as a way to try to distill the material irregularities found in these structures while exploring a larger format outside of the sketchbook. Working within the same 16” by 16” square, they can be divided into two groups. One series focuses on a manipulation of a single line that becomes repeated, often through a simple set of rotations. Through repetition, irregular moments begin to appear in an otherwise strict construct through the use of hand drawing. The second series focuses on the “weathering” of the physical elements of the buildings, and is less strict than the line set, often employing brush and ink in multiple layers. The drawings do not intend to replicate existing moments. Through abstraction, the drawings are freed from direct representation. left: black field, india ink and graphite right: light wall, india ink on denril, collage
Outside
Apertures
Agreement
highlights (new wall for media center) The system is an agreement between two different sets of rules. Moments found in the existing brick wall were allowed to show through apertures in the applied facade. I work in an orthagonal system; my collaborator works in a blob system. The moments were transfered into a computer modeling application. An orthogonal system was established first- this became the bottom layer. Another layer was established on top of the grid, where my collaborator established an organic system. The two layers were connected by a series of lofts, creating a solid out of the two conflicting planes. The solid was split up into segments for CNC fabrication and applied to the wall through a series of studs, and painted gloss white to hide the moments of connection. The wall applique becomes the background as the moments of hundred-year-old wall become the objects of value. The two systems compromise in an eroded surface, where the circle meets the square.
Collaborators: Design: James Rich, Caleb Sears Build: James Rich, Caleb Sears, Dara Solomon, Kevin Zwick
design: caleb sears, james rich build: caleb sears, james rich, dara solomon, kevin zwick
3 B
2
1
Section A
A
Site Plan 1_ green sandwich armchair 2_ bike rack 3_ grass green rug
Section B
Concrete Armchair Poured-in-Place Concrete
elevation
plan
section
elevation
Changing Bus Stop Dynamics Breaking Up The Bench
typical bench
interactive “living room� stop
bus stop The corner of Rose and Euclid Streets in Lexington is one of the busiest intersections on the University’s campus. The only objects on this corner are a small steel and plexiglas bus shelter and a newspaper box. The competition called for a new, sustainably-minded bus stop to be designed to bring attention to this highly trafficked corner. We proposed a bus stop that served not only Lextran patrons, but also students from the University and other pedestrians, creating a truly public meeting place within the programof the bus shelter. The former bus stop would be replaced with a steel frame barn construct that would provide shelter from the rain as well as shelter from the wind. The transparency of the shelter is constantly shifting, with the angled steel slats acting like Venetian blinds. A sense of community is created through dividing the standard bus stop bench into parts that create dialogue within the space. The metaphor of the casual social space is strengthened by the addition of a playful central grass rug and the use of concrete to create large easy chairs.
First Place, University of Kentucky Sustainable Bus Stop Competition Collaborators: Caleb Sears, Graham Gordon
new urban core
The structure occupies a site between Main Street and Progress Street, behind a row of restaurants and bars. The position of the lot is a crucial interstitial space between the outlying suburban areas, campus, and downtown. To this effect, the current use of the land as an open parking lot does not acknowledge its latent potential to laterally he bottom floors of the building are occupied by a parking structure and grocery store, with the top floors devoted to residential usage. The carving of pathways through the site have led to the dual orientation of the building, a unified,discernible facade and multiple interior facades. The building speaks both to the greater urban condition and also to itself. We have used the intersection of these pathways to create an urban park, an offering to the public. The mass and height of the building does not speak to the current urban condition, it instead proposes a future condition, stepping stone "b" between "a" and "c".
group members: Mickey Chapa, Moreo Rivera, Ross Ritchie, Caleb Sears
west elevation
section
plan
interior
elevation
clifton forge amtrak station
The proposal seeks to reconnect the city to the outlying Amtrak station by providing direct access from the curb of the street to the edge of the tracks through one large, open space perforated by light wells and framed views. The entrance lies at the junction of Roxbury and Ridgeway Streets, providing Clifton Forge with a new icon. The interior is one long room stretching from the streets to the track, focusing on a view of the train yard and the mountains beyond. A portion of the space has been set aside for exhibitions of local artwork and historical artifacts, as well as a lounge where locals and travellers can enjoy a drink and the landscape. Produced during a weekend charette for the Virginia Society Competition.
weekend cabin
A weekend cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains for an business owner. Located adjacent to the base of a former Civil War lookout tower, the cabin faces a small valley. The program includes a small bedroom and kitchen on the first floor. The second floor contains a study which can be used as a guest room. The ruins of the lookout tower have been utilized as an outdoor living area. Large mesh screens project the profile of the former tower’s dimensions, and at night harvest mist as a secondary water source.
site plan
plan
roof plan
elevation
garden housing
A group of four houses occupies a small square block. Each house has its own framed view of a manicured lawn surrounded by lush vegetation. Each house sits on a small mound that covers the half-underground garage, which is also used as storage. The roof is also accesible through the same stair, allowing the occupants to use the roof as an additional outdoor living space. The interior of the house is very private, the only window to the outside being a wal of glass in the main living area. Two bedrooms are located off to the side. The interior of the block is a shared communal garden, just steps away from the kitchen, where one can walk outside and pick vegetables for dinner.
interior of bedroom
Excerpts from the text: step 6. "snow drifts". hi sit relax for a second enjoy the beautiful snowscape in front of you now take a handful of snow and let it run through your fingers there are two lines in the snow these are the shallow creek and the road on the side of the road pinch the snow together to make snow drifts (small sand dunes)
snow box Sugar Box deals with introspection and human impact on the environment through the senses of touch, sight, hearing, and smell. The typology of the voting booth and the isolation of a snowy landscape are often associated with introspection and self reflection. The participant is focused on the small-scale snowscape in front of them and given a task to complete (a scene is described, but the participant is only given one small segment of that scene). The participant is also unconcerned with the impact they have made on the environment. Snow Box is a version of the sandbox, but group play is broken up and happens in a linear fashion, with one participant after another. All of the pieces can be unscrewed and broken down for transport.
Materials: headphones, tape player, 10 minute recording of crunching snow, 45 pounds of domino granulated sugar, 15 8.5x11 sheets of printer paper with individual instructions, MDF, polycarbonate, white latex paint, latex gloves, small rolling table, metal chair.
step 14. “tracks�. hi sit relax for a second enjoy the beautiful snowscape in front of you now take a handful of snow and let it run through your fingers there are two lines drawn in the snow one is a road and the other is a stream in between the stream and the road is a ford taurus that has been covered in snow the driver has walked to the bp station a couple miles down the road with your pinky make small depressions in the snow footsteps (left right left, etc) next to the road infrequent pauses looking back towards the taurus to see if the tow truck is coming
this page right top: creating the tower bottom: finding its place in the sand this page left views of finished city
desert city This piece deals with collective play as a means to study the creative processes in the making of the modern city. The sandboxes represent the tabula rasa, a metaphor for undeveloped land, and more directly a metaphor for the desert. The piece is a comment on cities of spontaneous, instantaneous, and unplanned development. The audience was given materials- two sizes of foam strips (as many pieces as needed), toothpicks, and the title of “architect�. They were told to make a building out of the strips and stake their claim to a spot along the main street, a line I made with my finger through sand. The site was a linear arrangement of three boxes filled with one thousand pounds of sand (industrial grade on the bottom and play sand on the top).
this page top and bottom: examples of fifteen non-architects making a city.
igloo Conceived for the annual Beaux Arts Ball in Lexington, Kentucky, this project was aimed at creating smaller, more intimate spaces within the cavernous venue, a derelict tobacco warehouse. The structure of the domes is simple- eight PVC tubes inserted into a wooden disk, brought to form by a string running through the ends of the tubes. The size of the space created by the dome could be changed by adjusting the tension of the string. The domes were then wrapped with strips of translucent plastic, the pattern replicating the dense web of steel trusses that ran throughout the warehouse. After fabricating the domes on the ground, they were lifted into a bay and suspended in the air. During the Ball, several lights and a projector showing old nature films were set up to illuminate the domes. The perforations in the domes’ surfaces gave the effect of apertures in a tree’s foliage, allowing only certain segments of light and video to reach the ground, and creating a sensory-rich experience.
design and build: Rebecca Schaberg, Daniel Thornberry, and Caleb Sears
mt. coal The room contains a pile of coal, architectural documents, and safety gear (white suits, teal gloves, dust masks). Allowed to examine the plans and elevations of the mound, the participants are given the task of constructing a perfect pyramid out of the pile of coal. Kneeling on the floor, the audience as a group pushes the coal into the desired shape, striving for perfection. The large chunks of coal are shaped so that it is almost impossible to construct an even corner or summit at this scale. Perfection is out of reach. The making of the mountain is opposite the practices of Kentucky's coal industry- to deconstruct the mountain and allow it to disperse by means of truck, train, and natural erosion. The land is left unarable, the streams are polluted and toxic. This toxicity is referenced by the costume worn by the audience. As the group is involved in constructing and building, the work stops only when the coal has run out and the air is filled with cough-inducing particles, and they stand back to admire their handiwork.
materials: 500 pounds of coal, 25 white asbestos suits, 25 pairs of gloves, 25 dust masks, dropcloth
Pages from 6 sketchbooks completed in the last 18 months over the course of several projects.
left : untitled, monoprint 2009 right : untitled, monoprint 2009
left : untitled, monoprint 2010 right : untitled, monoprint 2010
left : untitled, monoprint 2010 right : untitled, monoprint 2010
I look with real greediness for houses that are ‘houses of the people’ and not of architects. Le Corbusier, Precisions These images are part of a personal archive assembled as part of my graduate thesis work. The images can be distilled into five categories exploring the vernacular landscape- Landscape, Building, Landscape + Building, Material, and Ruin. The project is ongoing.
Caleb Sears 12312 Ridge Crest Drive Louisville, Ky 40243 caleb.o.sears@gmail.com 502.836.6506