Colton Stevenson
jcoltonstevenson@gmail.com
(318) 426-4393
During my years studying architecture at Louisiana Tech University, I have developed a clearer understanding of architecture which has influenced every project from its process to aesthetics. My design process has evolved to incorporate an active dialogue between physical modeling, computer modeling, and sketching. This has led to a strong ability to imagine, interpret, and develop architectural space, place, and detail across a variety of media and techniques. Through investigating my thoughts, philosophy, and general approach, I have developed an interest in the envelope and its effects on both the exterior and interior of buildings. Architecture is a collective experience derived through a responsive envelope of form, tactility, and light. The buildings envelope is the primary means of modulation; defining key interior spatial boundaries within and around program while establishing the exterior formal boundaries of the architecture. This boundary becomes a crucial part to the building’s overall performance: focusing on form and tectonics, a sustainable climate, the program’s needs, and the inhabitant’s experience. Therefore, the envelope belongs to the exterior and interior. The envelope is a surface: that shelters and preserves interior conditions while simultaneously expressing and external aesthetic intent; that stitches the building’s interior spaces and its exterior environment together; that blurs the boundary between the interior and exterior, while admitting views and establishing a simultaneous connection outside-in and inside-out.
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[Wun-der-kam-mer] deals with the memory and idea, container and contained; and thus engages the architecural notions such as concept, space, form, interior/exterior, envelope, and techtonics. It reveals my architectural philosphy physically, which illuminates, through its design and engagement, my philosophy of architectural process and product.
[Extrusion] a center for astronomy Astronomy is a natural science based upon the human curiosity about what is in the universe, and the desire for knowledge beyond ourselves. To facilitate this process of discovery and learning, the Astronomy Center is located in Big Bend National Park, where the coal-black skies are some of the darkest in the United States. The Park’s skies attract both amateur and professional astronomers, providing the opportunity to view a myriad of stars with the naked eye. As astronomy becomes more popular among people across the United States, the Astronomy Center offers a place to explore the sky for undiscovered celestial objects, while also learning more about the those already discovered. As people enter Big Bend, they are introduced to an unusual ecosystem; the desert. Located in the middle of this desert is the Astronomy Center. When seen from the only road into the park, the unusual form of the Center peaks the curiosity, establishing a need to discover what it is. As the visitor approaches closer, they discover a man-made crater, with the building seen as a cantilevered mass floating above. Descending into the crater and entry plaza, they are drawn into the long, narrow building, which ultimately directs their view upward like a telescope.
Location Diagram
Curiosity
Process Diagram 5
Discovery
Learning
Perspective Section
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Exploded Axonometric 7
The Astronomy Center is held up by a cantilevering trussed armature that extrudes from an embedded concrete foundation wall. The floor plate system is supported by the trusses but does not engage the walls, enhancing the experience that everything inside is suspended from the trusses. Programmatically, the trusses serve as a distinguishing boundary between astronomers and their desire to discover, and the public’s desire to learn about the discoveries. One side of the structure intersects the lower building, splitting the spaces used for discovering and teaching/ learning. A educational atmosphere is created, with separate program areas for professional astronomers and inexperienced amateurs/ students. The professionals are provided with a variety of different spaces which lead to discovery, such as labs and an observatory. This knowledge is then communicated to the public through a classroom, public exhibit area, and planetarium.
Interior Public Space 8
Concrete Pad
Perforated Steel Panels
Skin Structure
Tube Steel Truss
Cast Steel Connection
Spider Mullion
Glazing
Decking
End Cap
Custom Round Collar
Ceiling
Exploded Detail Section 9
View From South
View From West 10
[Monsanto] hydrology research center Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company delivering products which support farming around the world. They focus on using current technologies to protect farmers’ yield and supporting growing efficiency while reducing costs. Access, amount, availability, and cleanliness of water are some of the most important challenges facing world agriculture today. The Monsanto Hydrology Research Center provides Monsanto a facility to educate the youth and public on these pressing water issues. Simultaneously, laboratories for experts in research, policy, and implementation focus on issues of water purification and growing more with less water.
Site Plan
Site Sections 13
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01[ B e r m s ] water filtering berms that filter rainwater and facilitate circulation onto and around the site.
02 [Bioswales] located at the low end of the site to capture the sites run off water and filter used research water.
03 [ P o n d s ] placed at the ends of berms to capture water and become learning tools while entering the site.
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Procession Ramp
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Public Entry
Southeast Corner 16
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Floor Plans 1..................... Public Lobby 2. .......................Auditorium 3.......Administrative Offices 4.............Conference Room 5...............................Library 6................................Atrium 7.................Security Offices 8........................Mechanical
Level 1
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Level 2
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Level 3
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Level 4 9............. Plant Prep Space 10...........................Storage
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Floor Plans
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1........................ Lab Space 2. ...................Open Offices 3....Public Research Gallery 4.............Cafe/Event Space 5..............................Kitchen 6........................Mechanical 7....................Outdoor Deck 8...........Indoor Greenhouse
Section B
Section A
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Building/Site Diagrams
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The Monsanto Hydrology Research Center hovers over a landscape of ponds and berms which filter rainwater and facilitate circulation into and around the site. Internally, the center is organized around a central void which acts as a boundary that physically separates the public and the researchers, while connecting them visually. The void is defined by a stainless steel form, which contains cells of numerous types of contaminated water for research purposes. This wall folds and slips to provide security and frame views of research within an outside.
Public Lobby
Atrium Detailed Wall Section
View of Atrium 22
The building’s southeast corner was constructed into a 1/4” scale physical model to help aid the development and understanding of the building’s envelope tectonics and structure.
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Detailed Wall Section
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[Habitat Nidus] a sky scraper for the future In response to rising sea levels, we must start thinking about alternative and speculative scenarios when the world as we know it begins to flood. Thus, this project provides a network of habitats for living off of land and inhabiting the oceans. There are two different types of habitats: one for living and one for producing food, water, and energy. These are all generated via pods that are sent and collected by the living habitats. When the habitats receive the pods they are sent up through vertical structure and then dropped off onto a conveyor system that circulates the habitat for the inhabitants to receive the goods. Once the pods have been emptied they are sent back to the production habitats and the process repeats itself. The living habitats are 1150 meter tall skyscrapers that are wrapped in a web-like steel structure. Wrapped Inside the structure is program for living that looks over large city like areas that become the community interaction spaces. Traveling from habitat to habitat is an easy process with marinas located on two sides of the base.
01Structure
Core
Cable Support
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Concept Model
02 Program
Primary
Secondary
Public
Private
03 Circulation
Inhabitants
Pods
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The habitats move along an underwater system that is placed across the world using stick charts. Stick charts were made and used to navigate thousands of miles across the oceans. The charts represented major ocean swell patterns and the way islands disrupted those patterns, which were typically determined by sensing disruptions in ocean swells by islands during sea navigations. The habitats are constantly moving along this system. Stationary habitats are also located at major nodes of intersection producing energy, food, and water, which is then distributed by the underwater tentacular system that supports the pods.
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Pod Process
Section
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[535 Mission] micro-housing This project addresses the homeless situation of San Francisco and provides housing for upcoming professional one or two person households. This mixed-use development provides affordable housing for upcoming professionals, while also providing the homeless with transitional housing. The professional program and transitional homeless program are wrapped around a central core that helps with the transition of getting the homeless off the streets and into the professional units. The idea around wrapping the units around this central core is that the homeless can see the professionals, and also the offces spaces every third floor, to provide motivation to improve themselves during the transition.
Site Plan
Process Diagrams
Site and Existing Parking Garage
Every Two Floors Raised to Allow Ventilation Into the Building 33
Program placed on Site and Seperated Into Professionals and Homeless
Connections from Parking Garage and Transit Center Creating Roof Terace
Pushed and Seperated for Transitional Program
Louvered Sunscreen System Added for Filtering Light and Shade
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Relationship between Homeless and the Professionals
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View of Cafe and Lobby Space
Homeless in the beginning of the program. These units are completely seperated from the professional units.
Unit Levels
Second Level
First Level
Upcoming Professional units.
Homeless in the transition stage. These units house the homeless who are in the transition stage, and are working on the intermediate levels. They are physically seperated but connected visually.
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Perspective Section
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[ L A Te c h ] c e n t e r f o r p h o t o g r a p h i c s t u d i e s Due to Louisiana Tech’s rising population of photography students, a center needs to be dedicated specifically to the photography department and photography education. The photography center must combine educational needs with public access to give identity to the photography department while enhancing the campus’s pedestrian routes, nodes, and green spaces. When taking pictures out in the landscape, a tripod is used to stabilize the camera. This precarious condition is the design’s investigative concept. For the photography center, the new quad area and first floor roof are reconfigured as a fractured, unlevel lawn.The main building form, loosely cloaked in a perforated skin,hovers above on three dynamic support legs. The building is thus designed to invoke a hooded camera teetering above; stability in an uneven landscape.
Loosely cloaked stainless steel perforated skin
Main building form of program blocks
Structural concrete column support legs
Concept Investigation Model 41
Working Study Model
Presentation Model
Exploded Axon
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North Elevation
Fourth Level
East Elevation
Third Level
South Elevation
Second Level
First Level
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West Elevation
Cross Section
Longitudinal Section 44
[Gowanus ] remediation and interpretive center
Sewage System
Residential Traffic
Site
Community Traffic
Canal
Located in Brooklyn, New York, the Gowanus Canal is a 1.5 mile long man-made waterway extending northward from the Gowanus Bay. The canal was created in the late 1860’s as an industrial waterway for barged materials. In the following decades, surrounding land was used for a wide range of industrial activities and heavy manufacturing; including tanneries, paint, ink, soap, cement companies, and gas works. the Gowanus Canal pollution is caused mainly by two things: the former gas plants, manufacturing areas, and utility sites that line the bank, and New York City’s combined sewage overflow system - designed to collect storm runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater in the same pipe.
Overflow Sewage System
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A 236 pg. publication was produced by the class with the intention to celebrate the beginning through the implementation of an iterative framework that interlaces research and design.
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The remediation requires involvement from the community and investment from researchers by stitching together two major components - the land and the water remediation. Remediation starts with the transition from the canal and the community by providing a sponge park to alleviate runofff from the city’s polluted hardscape while filtering the polluted canal.
01 Phytoextraction
When plants absorb high density heavy metals in soil through their roots and store them in parts of the plant.
02 Rhizofiltration
The use of hydroponically cultivated plant roots to remediate the contaminated water. Plants trap contaminants in harvestable plant biomass.
03 Phytodegregation Plants break down
organic contaminates through metabolic processes. Smaller pollutant particles can then be used as metabolites by the plant and stored in the plants tissues.
04 Phytovolatilization Site Plan
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Plants take up contaminants from the soil and release them as volatile form into the atmosphere through transpiration. This works as plants grow and absorb water.
Remediation Sponge Park 50
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Level 01
Section A 51
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Level 02
Section B 52
Roof Articulation
Wall Languages
Structure
Program
Site
Surrounding Context
Exploded Axon 53
The public and private program are established into two seperate stitches that engage with the water’s edge in different ways. The public accessed interpretive center aknowledges the remediation by the publics access to the sponge park and theatre and gallery spaces. The private stitch engages with the public by its green roof access and louver orientation. Private Section 54
Fixed louvers allow for a variety of conditions viewing inside and outside of the building, while simultaneously controlling light into each space. The louvers are positioned depending on the program inside of the buildings. They allow views in and out of public spaces, but control views in and out of the more private spaces. 55
Segment 3 The top most segment varies with louvers positioned differently in response to the orientation of the facade to control and filter light. Segment 2 The middle segment of louvers control the inhabitants experience by allowing views across to the other building and sponge park while simultaneously filtering light.
Segment 1 The lower segment is positioned for the exterior and people’s veiws into each different space of the buildings; allowing views into public spaces, and blocking views into private spaces.
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