An Academic Portfolio by Clifford DeKraker Champion
GSAPP M.Arch, FA’15: Core I Curriculum – Professor Tei Carpenter: (studio) Agency– Agency. “The East River Canal” / GSAPP M.Arch, SP’16: Core II Curriculum – Professor Stella Betts: (studio) LevenBetts. “The Fulton Library” / GSAPP M.Arch, FA’16: Core III Curriculum – Professor Hilary Sample: (studio) MOS. “Åpen Blokker” x Alexis Oppenheimer (partner) /// GSAPP M.Arch, SP’17: Advanced IV Curriculum – Professor Dong-Ping Wong: (studio) fka Family. “Hudson Steam” / GSAPP M.Arch, FA’17: Advanced V Curriculum – Professor Tatiana von Preussen, Jessica Reynolds, Catherine Pease: (studio) vPPR. “The MET Blocks” / GSAPP M.Arch, SP’18: Advanced V Curriculum – Professor Kersten Geers, Andrea Zanderigo: (studio) KGDVS / “The Anonymous Club”
Selected Works September 2015 - May 2018
cdkc
An Academic & Professional Portfolio by Clifford DeKraker Champion Selected Works from September 2015 - May 2018
Empathetic Architecture is a practice requiring vigilant attention; constant acknowledgement of the people who will use a given space. | While architecture cannot solve problems, it can begin to address them through program, efficiency, and most importantly - beauty. The ineffable, the haptic, and the confluence of thoughtful moments in and out of a building result in lasting impact and sustained enjoyment for its users. | Architecture, like the people creating and using it, is never perfect. Blind adherence to design “principles” and notions of purity block the potential for spontaneity, generative error, and learning. | Architecture is not innate, it is not sacred, and it is certainly not owned by a selectfew individuals with unmoving frowns and somber, monochrome wardrobes. Let’s trust intuition, research, interpersonal anecdote, context, each other, and others. We must!
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WORK Index of Works
Index of Works
pp. 01–12 547 Fulton Library Date: May 2016 Type: Academic Project Program: Public Library Professor: Stella Betts (LEVENBETTS) Planted in the center of the Fulton Mall in Brooklyn, this library creates a triptych of spaces that provide a gradient of activity and privacy for library-goers.
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pp. 36–45
pp. 46–53
Klart Hjem
The Swiss Institute
Core I, II & III - Advanced IV, V & VI
Date: May, 2016 Type: Academic Project Program: Residential Professor: Joseph Brennan (Moment)
Date: June, 2016 Type: Professional Project Program: Exhibition Team: Christian Wassmann, & Joana Bem-Haja (Studio Christian Wassmann)
Drawing upon the grain and scale of Beijing’s courtyard houses, Klart Hjem envisions a translucent, softly lit housing solution for the country’s capital.
An invited competition entry for the Swiss Institute’s new exhibition space in NYC. This scheme reenvisions an old bank as a spacious gallery and rooftop.
pp. 26–35
Åpen Blokker
Mikimoto Möbius Date: June, 2016 Type: Professional Project Program: Exhibition Team: Christian Wassmann, & Joana Bem-Haja (Studio Christian Wassmann)
Located in the Bronx across from a college, this housing block reestablishes a pedestrian scale in a primarily industrial neighborhood.
This exhibition for the famed Japanese Jeweler Mikimoto traveled from New York, to Las Vegas, Tokyo, and back again to showcase vintage pieces.
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Date: Semptember, 2016 Type: Academic Project Program: Residential Professor: Hilary Sample (MOS) Partner: Alexis Oppenheimer
Index of Works
pp. 13–25
pp. 54–71 The MET Blocks Date: January 2017 Type: Academic Project Program: Residential Professor: Tatiana von Preussan, Catherine Pease, Jessica Reynolds (vPPR) An artist residency program to resolve the MET’s impending financial issues by combining social, economic, and public means of providing housing.
547 Fulton Library Time & Location: Spring 2016, GSAPP Academic Project: Professor Stella Betts, LEVENBETTS
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547 FULTON LIBRARY
547 Fulton Library
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Core II / SP’16: Stella Betts
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547 Fulton Library
547 Fulton Library
Southern Elevation
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Core II / FA’16: Stella Betts
Eastern Elevation
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THE FULTON LIBRARY is located in one of Brooklyn’s fastest-growing quarters, this library stands on a busy pedestrian crossing known as the Fulton Mall. As the NYPL system has grown, it has had to rapidly adapt to the way that people consume media and literature - particularly books.
Mall. Each of the three spaces uses a systemized facade in different ways to create three distinct ambiences necessary for a library. Towards the crossing, the library’s biggest volume accomodates larger gatherings and events. A grand stadium-style reading area has views over the mall and the neighboring Dimes Savings Bank.
This building divides its site into three, and is offset from its neighboring building to provide a pedestrian alleyway, hidden from the traffic and noise of the Fulton
Behind this primary volume is a more subdued, café-style study and work space. Brimming with tables, natural daylight, and strong espresso - this space caters to
device-bound milennial users who are accustomed to working with a certain degree of chaos in the background. On the quietest corner of the site is a volume dedicated entirely to solitary focus and quiet. Acoustic paneling and brick on the lower floors help to create the sensation of being tucked away in a secret reading nook. The connective atrium boasts ample daylight, tropical plantings, and a stairway that descends into the reading stacks.
547 Fulton Library
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Core II / FA’16: Stella Betts
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3F Plan
1F Plan
547 Fulton Library
547 Fulton Library
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Core II / SP’16: Stella Betts
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547 Fulton Library
547 Fulton Library
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Core II / SP’16: Stella Betts
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547 Fulton Library
Åpen Blokker Time & Location: Fall 2016, GSAPP Academic Project: Professor Hilary Sample, MOS
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ÅPEN BLOKKER
Åpen Blokker
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Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
Unit Model - Folding, Paper Sections
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Ă…pen Blokker
Åpen Blokker 1F Plan - Building A
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1F Plan - Building B
Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
1F Plan - Building C
Åpen Blokker 18
ÅPEN BLOKKER
that exist in neighborhoods with a smaller architectural grain. By adopting these precepts, one can allow long-time residents to leverage the influx of newcomers to elevate their neighborhood and economic standing rather than being overtaken by it.
While the term gentrification is difficult in and of itself to define, its adverse effects are much more easily identified: Displacement, increased living costs, the closing down of long-time neighborhood businesses and establishments, and This three block site is thus more. divided into three seperate neighborhood typologies that We believe these outcomes are naturally occur in the city. Block caused by impermeable social, A is modeled after a city square economic, racial, and political or plaza, and is the most social barriers that begin to form and renegotiate themselves throughout and open building within the development. It houses a series the process of gentrification. As of micro-units with individual described by Jane Jacobs in her terraces. Block B is modeled off book The Life and Death of Great of a courtyard typology where American Cities, large scale, solid, apartments surround a commonly single-use buildings contribute to shared interior yard that is also the creation of these barriers by used by the commercial spaces killing the diverse relationships
on the first floor. Block C is the most spacious of the three and also the least active. This building’s plot was already home to two existing buildings which were converted into a retirement community and artist studios. A continguous vista pierces through all three lots, allowing for visual and physical porosity between the development. The geometries within all buildings echo the scale and proportions of New York’s famed tenement row houses, with columns, terraces, and brick planes sized at 18’ of width. All of the elements of New York’s most famous and successful “accidental urbanism” can be found within the porous perimeters of this new addition to the South Bronx.
Åpen Blokker
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Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
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Ă…pen Blokker
Åpen Blokker
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Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
Unit Model - Folding, Paper Sections
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Ă…pen Blokker
Åpen Blokker
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Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
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Ă…pen Blokker
Åpen Blokker 22 Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
Unit Model - 1:1 Masking Tape Apartment Plan Mockup Installation
Ă…pen Blokker 23 turn the page for the completed 1 - 1 unit mockup
Åpen Blokker 24 Core III / FA’16: Hilary Sample
Unit Model - 1:1 Masking Tape Apartment Plan Mockup *THIS IS NOT PHOTOSHOPPED
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Ă…pen Blokker
Mikimoto Mรถbius Time & Location: Summer 2016, NYC Professional Project: Christian Wassmann, & Joana Bem-Haja, Studio Christian Wassmann
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MIKIMOTO Mร BIUS
Mikimoto Möbius
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
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Mikimoto Mรถbius
Mikimoto Möbius
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
Mikimoto Möbius 31
MIKIMOTO MÖBIUS Designing an exhibition for renown pearl jeweler Mikimoto generated an investigation of timeless geometries that could capture the essence of the pearl. Our search brought us to the Möbius ribbon, a perfect partner for the beauty of Mikimoto’s designs – a marriage of two complementary yet equally ineffable symbols. Visitors are drawn into the Möbius’s interior by a gentle arc that spans overhead, and are
enveloped by an assembly of images curated by publishing group Assouline. A miniature reading room is illuminated by our studio’s Dodecahedron Chandelier, which hangs directly above a hard copy of Assouline and Mikimoto’s collaborative monograph The Pearl Necklace. Items from Mikimoto’s heritage archives are displayed on metal pedestals and feature items such as vintage pearl cultivation tools and Marilyn Monroe’s very own Mikimoto Pearl Strand.
A series of plywood formwork was created to help mould layers of foam and wood into a möbius strip. By 3D scanning a wooden model of the desired geometry, data points were adjusted to help create the cut files for the fabricator and wood shop. Text, images and photographs endlessly loop into one another, blurring the distinction between beginning and end – an experience fit for a jewel that continues to defy the tests of time and change.
Mikimoto MĂśbius
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
Sketch models & design meetings
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Mikimoto Mรถbius
Mikimoto Möbius
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
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Mikimoto Mรถbius
Klart Hjem Time & Location: Spring 2017, GSAPP Academic Project: Professors Joseph Brennan, Moment Architecture
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KLART HJEM
Klart Hjem
Klart Hjem
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Ultra Real / SP’17: Joseph Brennan
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Klart Hjem
Klart Hjem
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Ultra Real / SP’17: Joseph Brennan
Klart Hjem Bedroom
Kitchen
Living Room
Second Bedroom
KLART HJEM
fields and dictated the way that China’s major cities were planned. Common spaces, courtyards, and China’s major cities have undereven the well-known “hutongs” of gone history’s largest era of human Northern China were predicated As one of the oldest civilizations migration; urbanizing a population on these ancient systems. Klart on earth, China’s city fabric and larger than that of the United States urban planning have their roots in Hjem is an architecture that seeks in a matter of decades. To ease the to interpret these arrangements ancient agricultural practices that pressures created by such massive organized private dwellings around in a contemporary way, drawing movements of people, the governfrom the transparency that density a commonly shared central field. ment has encouraged the creation and neighborly closeness would Often arranged in a grid of nine, of high-rise apartment towers to provide and translating that into a the middle plot was dedicated increase density and reduce the distinct material palette, subdued to food security and welfare for area needed to accomodate this families that suffered losses during vernacular forms, and a central swell. While these efforts should be the harvest. This concentric spatial courtyard. lauded as one of the world’s most organization extended beyond the impressive urban-political maneuvers, there have been downsides to the loss of China’s ancientcity fabric and grain.
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Courtyard
Bathroom
Klart Hjem
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Ultra Real / SP’17: Joseph Brennan
Perspective Section
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Klart Hjem
Klart Hjem
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Ultra Real / SP’17: Joseph Brennan
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Klart Hjem
The Swiss Institute Time & Location: Summer 2016, NYC Professional Project: Christian Wassmann, & Joana Bem-Haja, Studio Christian Wassmann
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THE SWISS INSTITUTE
The Swiss Institute
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
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The Swiss Institute
31'-5"
The Swiss Institute Exhibition space/ Office 1500 sqft
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A
Toilet M
Toilet F 51'-0"
13'-4" 2ND FLOOR
Professional / SU’16: SCW
12'-0"
30'-5"
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Exhibition space/ Office 1100 sqft
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Storage 170 sqft
12'-2"
Atrium Bookstore 400 sqft
6'-0"
12'-2"
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38'-5" 64'-6"
13'-4" 1ST FLOOR
FLOOR PLAN AN
The Swiss Institute 51
30'-4"
68'-4"
ELEVATION
THE SWISS INSTITUTE is a government-funded program that brings the work of Swiss artists to audiences in New York City and beyond. Formerly located in SoHo, the Swiss Institute hosted an invitation-only competition to imagine a new gallery space and rooftop garden in a former bank building in St. Mark’s place. The preliminary concept for the gallery involved gutting the bank and creating a condensed bookstore
and circulation space in the front of the building - flanked by a spiral staircase and circular merchandise display. Upon entering the building, two partition walls would narrow views and light inside the gallery, creating an illusion of perfect symmetry.
The spiral staircase’s winding form punctures the roof, creating a sloped access point for visitors to reach the rooftop garden and outdoor gallery.
In addition to drawings for the initial concepts a series of miniature, hand-sized acrylic Large walls were erected just two models were created and packaged feet below ceiling level to allow for the client to take back to daylight in, and for increased wall Switzerland for deliberation. The space for exhibitions. The basement model featured components that level of the bank was cleared of its slid open and stacked together to original vaults for increased office allow views in plan, section, and space, storage, and bathrooms. elevation.
SWISS INSTITUTE, 130 SE
FLOOR PLAN AND SECTION, 06.13.16, STUDIO CH
The Swiss Institute
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Professional / SU’16: SCW
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The Swiss Institute
The MET Blocks Time & Location: Fall 2017, GSAPP Academic Project: Professors Tatiana Von Preussen, Catherine Pease, & Jessica Reynolds, vPPR
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THE MET BLOCKS
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
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The MET Blocks
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
The MET Blocks 59
THE MET BLOCKS The Metropolitan Museum of Art is faced with an imminent financial crisis. In 2016, PWC’s audit revealed a multi-million dollar operations defecit that resulted in the compelte overhaul of the company’s current policies and internal structure. But is this crisis really so dire in the grand scheme of the Met’s institutional wallet? With an endowment larger than the annual GDP of the Maldives, the Met has some serious financial resources, but has yet to tap into
one of its most lucrative reserves: real estate. Almost a quarter of a mile in length, the Met is exactly the same footprint as the four city blocks directly across from it, except that it’s surrounded by the bucolic pathways of Central Park. The Met Blocks envisions a rooftop affordable housing scheme for young artists that would generate profit from the sale of artworks created there. A single curatorial board would invite young, promising artists to live in these studio spaces through a commisionleasing scheme.
Young artist would produce work, garner an improved reputation by being in the program, and then sell their pieces through the Met’s new rooftop galleries - earning the Met a new stream of revenue through commission. Each of the housing schemes vary in size, workspace, and amenities. Because of the lighting conditions of the galleries below, immense caution was taken to ensure that the skylights were routed between living space appropriately.
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
nyc utilities 5%
membership 9%
gifts, grants, & funds 38% admissions 13% endowment support 31%
Museum Operation Costs, 2016 total: $315.2 million
the met breuer 4% education & libraries 5% utilities & interest 5% curatorial 31% special exhib. 7%
membership & dev. 7% maintenance 14% guardianship 14% administration 13%
Museum Assets, 2016 total: $3.82 billion
other -.05% cash -.05% investments sold -.05% retail inventories 1% accounts receivable 1%
Museum Costs vs. Revenue, 2016 difference: $5.5 million - ($8.3 million total defecit)
The five million dollar difference between the museum’s revenue and operating costs seems nominal in light of the whole, however the $8.3 million defecit for the museum sparked a financial overhaul. A temporary hiring freeze was implemented in addition to several other measures that will take place in 2017 to alleviate the defecit by 2018. Among these efforts is a voluntary retirement plan, and laying off unproductive staff.
Museum Assets, vs. Revenue, vs. Operation Costs 2016 totals: $3.82 billion, $309.7 million, & $315.2 million
The total revenue and operation costs of the museum in 2016 only occupy 16% of its total assets, a number that is further dwarfed by a defecit that is only .002% of the museum’s total holdings. The MET’s $3.8 billion dollar assets are also dominated primarily by its investment portfolio which suffered a $247.5 million dollar loss thanks to the poor management of its financial team - 2016 was known for its bullish market conditions.
Museum Assets vs. Endowment Support, 2016 total: $3.82 billion
split interest arrangments 1%
contributions receivable 6%
fixed assets 8%
investments 82%
The MET Blocks
other 1% nyc guardianship 3%
The assets of the Museum are dominated by its investment portfolio which occupies 82% of its $3.82 billion dollar holdings. Fixed assets are the second largest category, and account for land, building improvements, leasehold improvements, and machinery. A mere .02% of these holdings are siphoned off annually as part of the museum’s revenue stream but do not exceed the amount of money from donations and grants.
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Museum Revenue, 2016 total: $309.7 million
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
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The MET Blocks
The MET Blocks 1F Plan - Jen’s Apartment
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
3F Plan - Jen’s Apartment
The MET Blocks Age: 27 Hometown: Southport, CT Previous City: Seattle,WA Marital Status: Snagged a Boyfriend Primary Medium: Anything Edible. Yearly Income: $37,000 Yearly Rent Expenses: $16,800 Average Commission Price: $3,300 Why did you decide to join the Met Blocks?: The Met Blocks offered a unique opportunity to be closer to many of the artists that I already collaborate with for my business. The fact that the Met wanted to expand their horizons by considering me an artist was intriguing enough for me to explore their different housing options. How would you describe yourself?: A food-obsessed nerd. I loved playing with food as a child and I guess I never had to grow up. How would you describe your work?: I see food as a medium for getting people to think about consumption, fantasy, beauty - the whole nine yards. So often eating is a deeply unconscious act, and I work to get people to engage with their meal using all of their senses simultaneously.
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Jen Monroe: Artist in Residence
The MET Blocks
Apartment Model - 1:50 Section Model
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
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The MET Blocks
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
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The MET Blocks
The MET Blocks
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Advanced V / FA’16: vPPR
Southern-Facing Perspective Section
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The MET Blocks