Connor T. Brown
Contents
01 | Urban (Re)Renewal
a social justice center benefiting an underserved neighborhood
02 | Van Cortlandt Branch Library
a small branch library in a residential neighborhood
03 | Blacksburg Lens
a space for viewing the park and event space
04 | Projected Domesticity
a multifamily housing project focused on building community
05 | Painting Towards Architecture
a painting and sculpture gallery in a constructed landscape
06 | Low Rise Competition
a collection of residential rooms in Los Angeles
07 | Dining in the Urban Competition
a series of dining and cooking nodes along a path
08 | Shack-A-Thon
a simple shack for Habitat for Humanity’s Shack-A-Thon
09 | Undergraduate Thesis - Refitting Suburbia
a new plan for the American suburbs
Urban (Re)Renewal
Roanoke, VA Fall 2020 | Fourth Year (Integrative Design) The Social Justice Center faces towards the community it serves. Small pods house a retail space, archive and workshop, and community room and their scale references the houses of the neighborhood. These pods are fully glazed and are arranged around a central garden making the spaces inside appear as part of the outdoors. The garden acts as a front lawn for the community and becomes both the center stage of activity in the building and a backdrop for the program inside. Additionally it references the creek and community garden located in close proximity to the site. The pods reach out to the community and invite visitors into the garden. They are connected through a solid circulation core, that houses the building’s service spaces and accessory program.
Left | central courtyard welcomes visitors into the building
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Top Left | glass “pods” surround central garden, providing views across Top Right | building creates triangle of civic program in neighborhood
Garden Great Room Workshop
Top Left | building turns back to factory across street, facing community Top Right | light glass “pods” contrast more solid core
T.O. Roof 27’ - 0”
Roof 25’ - 6”
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1. Concrete footing 2. Footing drain 3. Drainage mat 4. Insulation 5. 6” concrete slab 6. Air duct 7. Floor panel pedestal 8. 1/4” steel plate 9. Wood finish floor 10. Metal grille 11. Silicon sealant 12. Gravel 13. 1” insulated glass 14. 8” steel column 15. Glulam beam 16. Steel girder 17. Wood finish 18. Steel joist 19. Metal Decking 20. 2” concrete floor slab 21. Steel angle 22. Wood blocking 23. Gutter 24. Flashing 25. Rigid insulation 26. Steel channel 27. Metal grate 28. Roof membrane 29. Ballast
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1. Wood finish floor 2. Metal grille 3. 1” insulated glass 4. Structural silicon sealant 5. Aluminum mullion 6. Steel reinforement 7. Two layers, 5/8” gysum board 8. Insulation
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1. Wood finish floor 2. Metal grille 3. 1” insulated glass 4. Structural silicon sealant 5. Aluminum mullion 6. Steel reinforement 7. Two layers, 5/8” gysum board 8. Insulation
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Top | mechanical system plan Middle | life safety and egress Bottom | plan detail where glass pod meets the core
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Cortlandt
Library
Van Cortlandt Branch Library
Bronx, NY Spring 2020 | Third Year
Through studying the movement of patrons and how each would use the space and what their needs are, this small branch library seeks to be accessible to all members of the community and foster interaction between them. As a result of this, the entire library becomes circulation space that can be occupied in different ways based on the groups they serve; adult space is a long ramp with stacks and seating, teens with collaborative and comfortable seating, and kids with shallow stairs and short seating. The building is one large room with differing levels providing privacy and delineating boundaries between spaces.
Left | planter grid reflects interior stacks and acts as community garden
Above | circulation paths for user groups Left | intersecting circulation paths define boundaries of spaces
Gladys
Age: 78
Kyle & Mom
Time of Day: 11:00am
Time of Day: 10:00am
Reason for going to Library: browsing and reading children's books, play with other kids, Mom needs a new novel
Reason for going to Library: check e-mail, browse cookbooks, socialize
5'-2"
Age: 6 Physical Appearance: short legs
Physical Appearance: limited mobility, uses walker
Likes: cooking, chatting, her grandchildren
Likes: superheros, coloring, soccer
Other: lived in the Bronx her whole life, regular patron of the Van Cortlandt Branch Library
Other: Mom needs to keep a close eye on him because he tends to get in trouble
3'-8"
Matthew
Age: 14 Physical Appearance: teen, shy, awkward Time of Day: 3:30pm Reason for going to Library: College & Career meeting, homework after school Likes: baseball, science
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Other: needs place to go after school until parents can pick him up
Top | initial studies of patrons and their needs Above | circulation becomes kids and adults reading rooms
Blacksburg Lens
Blacksburg, VA Fall 2019 | Third Year
Located at the Heritage Park, this project began with the creation of a scope to view the park in an interesting and unexpected way. The design of the scope then led to the design of a building for viewing the mountainous landscape. The idea behind this project being, isolated views of the sky, ground, and a juxtaposition of both. As one moves into each of the three volumes they are presented with each view, respectively, through a series of mirrors.
Left | three loosely aggregated volumes clad in charred wood
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mirrors reflect views of sky and ground and digital projection juxtaposes views of sky, ground and landscape ahead
Above | steel frame wall assembly clad in charred wood Left | volume interactions at various approaches
Projected Domesticity
Blackbsurg, VA Spring 2019 | Second Year
This project is inspired by the film Rear Window. Through a study of the film setting and the ideas of voyeurism in the film, this project sought to blur the lines between public and private. The use of diffused glass on the front of each wedge shape and transparent glass on the sides, privacy is maintained while revealing and obscuring the inside of each unit. The trapezoidal wedge shape is representative of the public to private transition of typical apartments, with very small public facades that open into a large private space. The use of the wedges in this project aim to manipulate this by shearing the volumes past each other.
Left | shadows on facade at night reveal and obscure activity inside
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Above | interior courtyard is transparent to allow views across Top Left | unique unit composed of interlocking wedges Bottom Left | stills from short film depicting obscurity on building facade
Painting Towards Architecture
Fall 2018 | Second Year
Derived from Marcel Barbeau’s Frais Soleil d’Avril, this project began by interpreting the painting as a landscape. The painting seemed to imply sharp cliffs with lots of depth, when read as a landscape. The project continued with the design of a painting and sculpture gallery, for the artist’s work. The form of the building is directly affected by the landscape and the volumes inside are reminiscent of the way the landscape appeared to be dug out. These volumes shape the interior of the building and provide space for paintings. The courtyard and pathway around the building implies that the building was broken off of the landscape and the shallow stairs in front provide space for sculptures as well as create a flow down into the rest of the landscape.
Left | acrylic on canvas painted rendering
Top | Frais Soliel d’Avril by Marcel Barbeau, 1995 Middle | landscape derived from painting reads as marble quarry Bottom | painted plan, volumes are reminiscent of marble blocks
Low Rise Competition
Los Angeles, CA Winter 2020-21 | 2 Month Competition In Collaboration with Tim Cox Instead of designing complete apartments or homes, we begin with the individual room. Each unit is a string of discrete rooms, with the intention of providing a flexible domestic space which has no predetermined usage and can be adapted to a variety of relationships, living arrangements, and passions. The exterior expression matches the vernacular of shallow roofs and off center entrances in the neighborhood. The center courtyard features a community garden, two exterior patio ‘rooms,’ and a lawn. A communal kitchen is located on the public-facing corner of the lot, which provides a space for residents to cook for themselves or each other while interfacing with the larger community. This space is intended to be flexible with respect to profit and ownership, allowing for adaptation and response to community needs.
Left | materials and shallow sloped roof fit into neighborhood context
Top | simple rooms allow for varying functions Bottom | site with rooms, garden, and communal kitchen at corner
Dining in the Urban Competition
Skopje, Macedonia Summer 2020 | 10 Day Competition In Collaboration with Gates Breeden
This project is focused on levels of privacy in both dining and cooking in a public setting. The use of an undulating landscape creates these levels of privacy allowing views across varying spaces. Topography is generated from the existing paver grid, creating different scaled spaces. The vegetation surrounding both dining and cooking modules are herbs and vegetables to be used in the kitchens. Planting density ranges throughout the landscape and contributes to gradation from public to private. The fluctuating landscape is penetrated by two walkways which invite visitors to take part in the relationship between the surrounding park contours and the multiplicity of dining usages. These passages divide the three sections of the park that differ in privacy, the area closest to the street being the most public space, meant for gathering of large groups, to the most private in the back corner of the site, meant for one or two people.
Left | small dining node nestles into topography and plantings
Top Left | dining and cooking nodes of varying scales Top Right | walkways penetrate undulating landscape
Shack-A-Thon
Blacksburg, VA Spring 2019 | Second Year Team | Alex Munro, Kevin Long, Eliot Davis, Ivy Smith Habitat for Humanity’s Shack-A-Thon is a week long fundraiser for the organization, where teams design and build a shack to be lived in for a week. The shack had to be roughly 8’x8’x8’ and have a pitched roof for drainage. This project, inspired by Kengo Kuma’s Meme Meadows Experimental House and Steven Holl’s Nelson Atkins Museum, uses corrugated plastic sheets on wood frame construction to reveal the structure beneath. Lights are added to the walls to further emphasize this at night. The open front with the cantilever is welcoming, and the counter makes visitors want to stop by.
Above | framing with cantilever pitched roof to protect from rain Left | corrugated plastic reveals structure beneath
Undergraduate Thesis
Refitting Suburbia Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 | Fifth Year Advisor: Aki Ishida Suburbia today has proven to be a wasteful model of living, growing since the start of their mass production in the 1950’s, creating an automobile reliance, and encouraging mass consumption through individualized dwellings. Historically the suburbs have been seen as a “lost cause” and new developments emerged to remediate these issues. Communities like Seaside, Florida and Radburn, New Jersey addressed these issues by building entirely new neighborhoods with a focus on walkability and sense of community. This thesis aims to retrofit the existing suburban home, as well as construct new interventions in neighborhoods to increase the density of dwellings while incorporating commercial and communal space within walking distance of the home. This includes grocery markets, pharmacies, child-care services, laundry facilities and coworking spaces. How can these services and ideals be incorporated into the existing suburban landscape, to avoid additional resource waste and further sprawl, rather than proposing an entirely new model of living. What architectural elements and ideas can be extracted from single family suburban homes, typically overlooked as having architectural merit, and be elevated to create more dynamic spaces to improve residents’ quality of life.
Left | study of existing suburb with new interventions
hypothetical new suburban realities
Above | thesis exhibition using projection mapped models Top Left + Middle | stills from projected video Bottom | setup for exhibition using Touch Designer software