Carlos Romo - Metropolis Future100

Carlos Romo Master of Architecture

Texas A&M University

CONTENTS WORKS

1 ART FOR ARCHITECTURE OR ARCHITECTURE FOR ART

2 ART SCHOOL

3 FIRE STATION 6

4 SCHOOL OF INNOVATION

5 BREATHABLE WALL

ART FOR ARCHITECTURE OR ARCHITECTURE FOR ART

CARLOS ROMO

FALL 2022 - ARCH 605-AHMED ALI

Art and Architecture are often intertwined. It is said that architecture itself is a form of art, but what is the role of architecture in art or art in architecture? The relationship between art and architecture is sort of like asking the question of what came first the chicken or the egg? If architecture is catagorized as an art then would it not be obvious to say that architecture follows art? That art in term becomes the guidance to good architecture? Donald Judd is an Artist/Architect who tries to bridge the gap between art and architecture.

The idea that art can in term result in good architecture is not always true. Though architecture can be viewed as art, good art does not always yield good architecture. The fact is an art piece with good spacial qualities is not something that can be scaled up to create good architecture. Donald Judd, an artist, who has made hundreds of three dimensional art pieces understood that art and architecture had a connection. The spacial and superficial qualities of art could be explored in architecture just as much as in art. That the art in architecture lies in the creation of space

and attention to detail. Through the research of Donald Judd’s ideals and views of art and architecture he believed in permanence. The idea that art and architecture are bound by the connection of the space they create. This exhibit hall in Dallas is designed to house the permanent works of Donald Judd’s Specific Objects. Through the experience of material investigation in creating an untitled work we begin to answer the question of art and architecture. The discovery of a concept that came from recreating one of Donald Judd’s specific objects starts to unfold.

The process of understanding Donald Judd began from investigating his Untitled works. Untitled 1963 was one of Judd’s first specific objects to incorporate color. Judd believed in the truth of material. That meant embracing any and all imperfections and understanding what a material wants to be not what it can be forced to

become. Most art critics would like to lump Judd into minimalist art, however, Judd himself despised those who would classify him as a minimalist. Through recreation of his work it is easy to understand why. To refine and create work that was so well put together yet so fragile is anything but minimalist. Through my

material investigation of Untitled 1963 it was easy to dissern that this object had no real spacial qualities. Instead it was rich in superficial textures and embraced its material qualities. Upon further disection it almost seemed as though these superficial material qualities were created by a simple extrusion of a profile.

PROFILE INVESTIGATION

WHAT IS AN EXTRUSION?

AN EXTRUSION IN SIMPLE TERMS IS A FORM OR SHAPE THAT IS CREATED BY TAKING A 2 DIMENSIONAL PROFILE AND PULLING/PUSHING IT ALONG A LINE OR PATH IN ORDER TO CREATE A 3 DIMENSIONAL OBJECT. THE PATH IN WHICH THE PROFILE FOLLOWS CAN BE IN ANY DIRECTION NOT JUST STRAIGHT. IN THIS EXAMPLE THE PATH OF THE

SPRING 2021 - ARCH 406-MARCEL ERMINY

18 x 18 x 36 signifies the size, in meters, and shape of every mass in the city. 18 X 18 X 36 is not a “plot” where to design, it is the form. Given a rectangular prism three projects must be designed that can be oriented in 3 ways; tall, wide, deep. Each of the 3 projects must be a different condition than the last. Meaning you must design one tall, one wide, and one deep. After all 3 are completed one must be chosen to be further developed. The buildings are subjugated to 2 different building conditions. They can be built in a corner or in the middle of a city block. This is

important because that decsion tells you whether you will have 1 or 2 facades to design that will interact with the city. Buildings can build beyond the 18 or 36 meter height constraint, but they must have a 6 meter setback on the leading edge of the building exposed to the sidewalks. This was a rule implimented in order to keep the integrity of the 18 meter or 36 meter height limits along the visible facades. The project I chose to further develop was the art school. The school was meant to have classrooms, administrative offices, studio spaces, cafe, and gallery space for students to

display work. Inspired by the works of Steven Holl the art school uses channeled glass to allow for the most amount of natural light to permeate into the studios and gallery spaces. The obscurity of the frosted affects of the channeled glass serve as a symbolic metaphor for the ambiguity of the meaning of art.where you can design, it is the form.

After choosing the building type, typology, and location, the organization of building program is key for the building to function properly. Since the building was to be a wide inbetween a symmetrical idealogy seemed to take over how the core elements and usable space were to be oriented. In this case the core supporting elements were placed as bookends within the form and bridged together by the usable space inbetween.

UNDERSTANDING SITE CONTRAINTS

18X18X36 is not a lot size, but a form. A rectangular prism that can be oriented in a tall direction, deep direction, and wide direction. This exercise was to envision the many possible city block configurations and constraints that could be expected when choosing the location on site.

TC - Tall Corner

TB - Tall Between

DC - Deep Corner

DB - Deep Between

WC - Wide Corner

WB - Wide Between

FIRE STATION 6

CARLOS ROMO + GUADALUPE ALVAREZ

FALL 2020-ARCH 405-MARCEL ERMINY

Located on the outskirts of the growing Texas A&M Rellis campus, the need for a new fire station in the area lingers over the town. As populaion steadily rises in the area with the school plans on having at least 25,000 students by 2025 the need for a new fire station seems inevitable. To reduce the response times the city of Bryan is seeking to build a new fire station in this location. As my partner and I developed the design we planned to build a fire station with a hybrid program that could also tailor to the needs of the community. Being a fire station comes with its own design

challenges and adding a community center only makes the integration more difficult. While working on achieving an equilibrium between the two programs interactions there was also the task of developing a large undeveloped site. However, the site and the building should not be seen as two distinctly different projects, as they should tie together and compliment one another. They should interact with eachother to further strengthen the meaning of the project as a whole. That is why much of the site layout is taylored to the community and the fire fighters needs. My partner and I

heavily focused on the design concept of splitting the programs and stacking them. This lead to the distinct look of a single story community center facing the campus, but a multistory fire station facing the major highway. In this project I focused heavily on the layout/massing, renderings, post production drawings, and detailing. The overall program consisted of fire station program such as apparatus bays, gymnasium, kitchen, bedrooms etc. While the community center focused on more activity rooms, conference rooms, lobby spaces, offices, etc

WALL SECTION DETAIL

The gym is a multistory space; however, the complexity of its design arises when you note that half of the height of the gym is considered underground. Therefore, a large retaining wall is needed at the base of the gym in order to support the lateral loads of the dirt. The tension rod truss between the two columns helps to reinforce the lateral bracing for loads that the wall might face above ground, such as wind loads. The column pedestal design was integral to tie back the loads to the load bearing foundation.

SCHOOL OF INNOVATION

SPRING 2020 - ARCH 305 - PRIYA JAIN

This project is all about adaptive reuse. There are many older buildings all across Texas A&M and as the population begins to grow the need for new and improved buildings begin to weigh on many smaller outdated ones across campus. Originally known as the HEEP Laboratory this was a school for dairy. Today it is unoperational, but opens its doors to graduates and professors alike who have no office space withinin the buildings that houses their major. The university decided to build an entirely new building dedicated to this major across campus and reused the same

name “HEEP”. The older building soon earned the nickname “old HEEP” or “HEEP of garbage” since most students wanted it to be demolished or redone. Our goal aims to reuse the current structrual components of the building and comform it to the new programs that are required. This building is no longer the school for dairy, but instead a school of innovation that will provide school based programs and spaces for startup businesses, such as maker spaces, print shops, classrooms, auditoriums, offices, etc. The original school was composed of classrooms, labs, and offices

that have never been retrofitted to comply with current and modern coursework. In this project I focused heavily on redesigning the exterior facade and program layout. I produced most of the post production drawings, such as structural diagrams, floorplans, elevations, circulation drawings, and renderings.

SECTION 1

EAST ELEVATION SECTION 2

LEVEL 4

-Offices

-Meeting Rooms

-Computer Lab

-Break Room

-Maker Space

-Terrace

LEVEL 3

-Offices

-Seminar Rooms

-Computer Labs

-Clasrooms

-Maker Space

-Terrace

-Library

LEVEL 2

-Offices

-Classrooms

-Computer Labs

-Print Shop

-Conference Rooms

-Terrace

-Library

LEVEL 1

-Offices

-Auditorium

-Event Space

-Coffee Shop

-Loading Dock

-Lobby

BREATHABLE WALL

FALL 2017 - ENDS 105 - BORHANI

The idea behind this project was to create a module that could be tessalated in order to create a wall that would induce the production of water and provide cooling. The desserts in the UAE are considered some of the hottest dryest locations on earth. So the need for a wall that could both create water and provide evaporative cooling in such a dry location is in exceptionally high demand. The modules we designed were to be used in temporary structures where buildings could be built and taken apart in a matter of days. The use of no mortar was imperative, so the

creation of an interlocking joint was the most efficient way to design the module. With a trapizoidal based form the module could create both arched and curved walls. The building designed was a small lab that would do minor field work. The use of the modules as an arched wall as opposed to a curved one was done in part to mimic that of sand dunes. Kat designed the basic principle of the rigid trapazoidal form of the module while I was tasked with the interlocking mechanism. This studio focused heavily on diagraming and explaining your design as if someone was

passing by a poster and had to understand your building without any communication, except for your diagrams. In order to do that a series of well articulated diagrams, that we all contributed to, had to be made to explain how the modules worked individually, collectively, and the building as a whole. Since I designed the interlocking mechanism the diagrams for those were created by me along with some of the other drawings like the exploded axon that showed the different parts of the building and how they came together.

INTERLOCKING SYSTEM -

INTERLOCKING SYSTEM - ARCHED WALL