A Way of Thinking
C o r e y
G i b b o n s
Portfolio | Selected Work
“This study argues for a shift of orientation in architectural theory and practice, from what the building is to what it does, defining the first by means of the second. Broadly speaking, there are two ways designers and critics tend to view buildings: (1) as objects that result from design and construction techniques, and (2) as objects that represent various practices and ideas. Although these accounts seem to explain fully the building’s origin and destination, technological and aesthetic styles of thought reduce architecture to our concepts and experiences of it. Other and essential aspects of buildings come into view if one supposes that the actuality of the building consists largely in its acts, its performances.” – David Leatherbarrow, Architecture Oriented Otherwise
WORK Landscape Immersion: A Series of Interventions
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Performing in the Park: A Performance Theater
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Moving Through Time: A Museum for Performance Art
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Tremont Street Dwellings: A Housing Community
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Including The Excluded: A Music Performance Center
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UNbuilt Architecture: The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio
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Photography: Norway
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Landscape Immersion: A Series of Interventions Prof. Ingrid Strong
Fall 2014
Graduate Studio
Location: Aurland, Norway Project Brief: Select a site in Norway after our ten-day trip and design. Design Intent: Located along the edge of the NÌrøyfjord, the intent of this project is to provide a new and more intimate understanding of a portion of the vast landscape of Norway. This intimate understanding also serves to highlight the elements that make inhabitation possible in such dramatic and extreme terrain. It allows for an immersion into the landscape to explore its human-scale features and qualities. This immersion is made manifest through four distinct interventions each accentuating a different element of the landscape to reveal it in a new way.
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Intervention 1: Water
Styvi Farm & Museum
Old Postal Road
Intervention 3: Ground
Intervention 2: Waterfall
Intervention 4: Trees
SITE PLAN 0 50’ 100’ 200’
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400’
PROCESS
Exploring various landscape conditions and how to reveal the landscape in new ways
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Intervention 1 - Model 1/8” = 1’-0”
Intervention 2 - Model 1/8” = 1’-0”
Intervention 3 - Model 1/8” = 1’-0” 4
Intervention 4 - Model 1/8” = 1’-0”
Intervention 1 Perspective (36”x48”)
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Section A-A
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A
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Plan
Intervention 2 Perspective (36”x48”)
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Section A-A
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A
Plan
A
A
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Structural Plan
Intervention 3 Perspective (36”x48”)
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Section A-A
Section B-B
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B
B
A
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Plan
Intervention 4 Perspective (36”x48”)
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Section A-A
Section B-B
B
B
A
A
A
A
B
B
Plan
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Structural Plan
Performing in the Park: A Performance Theater Prof. Gabriella Ruoff
Spring 2014
Comprehensive Studio
Location: Berlin, Germany Project Brief: Design a flexible theater suited for a variety of performances. Design Intent: Located on the edge of a park, the theater seeks to embrace this park and engage the public. Amphitheater seating faces the theater’s glazed facade to provide a place for the public to enjoy the performances inside and allow the audience inside to enjoy the park as a theatrical back-drop. Therefore, both the park and performance can be enjoyed simultaneously, inside and outside.
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Exterior perspective approaching theater
PROCESS
Discovering how to best fit a building into this site through sketches and physical models
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Site Plan
Longitudinal Section-Perspective
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1'-9" top of parapet elev. = 175.50'
2cm drop ceiling track 2cm wood ceiling cladding
15'-0"
7'-2 1/2"
8cm concrete cover 5cm limestone cladding 5cm air gap 18cm rigid insulation 25cm poured concrete structure 1cm waterproofing (2 - 5mm layers) 11cm gravel layer 25cm rigid insulation 2mm vapor barrier
GHPQ ARQUITECTURA
Facade Construction: From interior to exterior, the facade (shown left) is composed of a concrete bearing wall, rigid insulation, air space, and limestone cladding, along with punched openings of transparent glass. 550 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 p:781-856-8894 f:781-856-8800
D
Stair Construction: The stairs (shown below) are made of prefabricated concrete with rubber tread tracks inserted. The top and bottom of the stair is connected to the floor slab with a connecting bolt.
0'-6"
Hingham Design / Business Park 16cm x 8cm window frame 5cm concrete support 5cm double glazed window
1cm rubber tread track Steel angle 6cm polished screed 2cm tread insulation
20'-0" 12'-5"
6cm polished screed 2cm tread insulation
1'-11"
Prefab concrete stair
Top of Stair Detail 25cm poured concrete flat slab B
1cm rubber tread track
0'-10"
1'-11"
top of level 1 conc. elev. = 148.00'
13'-6"
25cm poured concrete floor Rubber separator Connecting bolt
PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT
top of level 2 conc. elev. = 160.50'
C
top of level -1 conc. elev. = 134.50'
18'-0"
12'-0"
Prefab concrete stair
NO
top of level -2 conc. elev. = 122.50'
b.o. footing elev. = 119.00'
Facade Detail Section
6mm vapor barrier
1'-2"
3'-6"
Connecting bolt
Date Job Number Drawn
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DATE 06.13.2014 100.00.0000 Corey Gibbons
Checked
Tom Lesko
Approved
Tom Lesko
Title A
Wall Section
25cm poured concrete foundation 5cm drain pipe
ISSUE
Sheet Information
6cm polished screed 2cm tread insulation 2mm rubber layer
50cm poured concrete floor
Bottom of Stair Detail
Sheet
Construction: The theater roof and exterior wall (facing the park) are both double facades that form a continuous air space around the theater. The roof, from interior to exterior, is composed of oak wood, plywood, structural steel web joists (supported on one end by a concrete bearing wall and a steel web column on the other), insulated metal panels, and opaque glass. The exterior wall, from interior to exterior, is composed of transparent glass, steel web columns, rotating metal louvers (acting as a sunscreen), housing containers for the louvers, transparent glass, and small louvers that permit the passage of air from outside to inside at the top and bottom of the wall.
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Theater Roof & Facade Detail
Moving Through Time: A Museum for Performance Art Prof. Marc Neveu
Summer 2013
Site/Landscape Studio
Location: Lincoln, MA Project Brief: Design a museum for performance art at the deCordova Sculpture Park, focusing not on the building’s function but its performance. Design Intent: Seeking to decrease the site’s isolated nature, the building connects two distant sides of the park. The building provides a new means of moving across the site through various paces and features an inhabitable roof that is meant to provide orientation.
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Exterior perspective from roof
PROCESS
Exploring how to merge building and land through physical models
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Final Model 1/8” = 1’-0”
Unfolded Longitudinal Section
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Lateral Section
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Building Construction: The building is supported by a steel structural system and concrete bearing walls (which also supports the elevators) that rest on concrete foundations. The exterior wall sections (shown left) show the exterior cor-ten steel panels supported by steel members and concrete bearing walls. The interior walls and ceiling are finished with venetian plaster, the floor is polished concrete, and the inhabitable roof is ipe wood. Stair Construction: The stairs (shown below) are composed of ipe wood planks that are attached to hollow steel tubes with steel angles. These tubes rest on the surface of the earth and are supported by concrete footings (below ground). The wood planks are supported at the center of their spans and cantilever on either side to create a floating effect and lightness in meeting the ground.
Exterior Wall Detail Sections
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Longitudinal Stair Detail
Tremont Street Dwellings: A Housing Community Prof. Manuel Delgado
Summer 2014
Community Studio
Location: Boston, MA Partner: Brendan Galinauskas Project Brief: Select a plot of land and decide the function and design of a building(s) and spaces that support the goals of the studio’s master plan. Design Intent: Across the street from the Boston Police Department, my partner and I designed a housing community to address Boston’s lack of housing and create new connections across Tremont St. The building I specifically designed provides the apartments with shared exterior spaces to encourage interaction and engender a sense of community.
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Exterior perspective in sculpture garden
PROCESS
Studying urban impact through drawing in plan and perspective
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Site Plan
Longitudinal Section
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Level 3
Level 2
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Interior perspective of typical apartment
Including The Excluded: A Music Performance Center Prof. Troy Peters
Fall 2012
Third-Year Studio
Location: Boston, MA Project Brief: Design a music performance center in the Seaport District adjacent to the Boston’s Children’s Museum and along the Harborwalk. Design: Given the contradictory nature of the performance and building - one is sporadic, the other permanent - the design implements an inhabitable roof to slope people up and create views of the waterfront site. Therefore, the building is no longer solely inhabited when a performance occurs, rather, it is inhabited, inside and out, during day and night.
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View from Harborwalk
PROCESS
Exploration, discovery, and development through diagrams, sketches, and physical models
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Site Plan
Unfolded Section
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View from Seaport Boulevard
View inside theater
43 View from roof (Sleeper St. entry)
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Final Model 1/16” = 1’-0”
The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio: The Site Prof. Weldon Pries
Fall 2014
UNbuilt Architecture
UNbuilt Architecture: In the academic course UNbuilt Architecture, I researched and studied John Hejduk’s theoretical project, The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio. From this research, I compiled writing about Hejduk and this particular project along with my own interpretations of the project through several graphic representations. The goal was to develop your own personal understanding of the project and understand how the project expresses the architect’s world view. Thirteen Watchtowers: This hypothetical project is set in Venice, Italy. Here, thirteen nearly-identical watchtowers stand in a row within a campo where thirteen men (chosen by the city) live in each tower in solitude watching over the city until their imminent deaths. I discovered that the project conveys Hejduk’s “Architecture of Pessimism.” Drawing Intent: This drawing is a site plan that conveys how the project relates to its selected site by illustrating the simultaneous similarities and differences between the project and the city of Venice. It expresses the isolation and dark and mysterious atmosphere of Venice while showing how the project could exist in the city. It also generates tension and a feeling of the uncanny - two elements present in much of Hejduk’s work.
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Site Plan (36”x48”)
The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio: The Design Prof. Weldon Pries
Fall 2014
UNbuilt Architecture
Drawing Intent: This drawing focuses on the design of the architecture itself. Therefore, the drawing is a section through a single watchtower to highlight both the design and how the occupants’ lives were vertically dispersed inside. The drawing shows the furniture and other elements that are part of living inside a tower. The interior features the only color while the exterior is blurred and colorless to emphasize the tower’s importance. The elevations of Venetian buildings in the background accentuate the tower’s height and prominence.
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Watchtower Section (24”x36”)
The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio: The Vision Prof. Weldon Pries
Fall 2014
UNbuilt Architecture
Drawing Intent: This drawing conveys the vision or heart of the project. In his project, Hejduk seems to be expressing a bleak outlook on the world. The world he created seems to be teeming with tension, anxiety, and dread caused by the inevitable passing of time. Therefore, the drawing captures the various ways that the project marks time. This perspective collapses time into a single moment by showing the stone slabs added to the ww each year (as part of a ritual) at various opacities to represent their gradual accumulation over time. It also shows the movement of the wooden table (another ritual) in front of the towers and shadows from different times of the day all at once to capture change over time. The drawing illustrates that the thirteen towers act as the static datum around which time persistently expresses itself and, consequently, induces fear in those living in and around them.
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Watchtowers Perspective (36”x48”)
Photography: Norway Fall 2014 Photographs: After a 10-day trip across Norway - from Oslo to Hedmark to Lillehammer to Rondane National Park to Bergen - here’s just some of what I saw.
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Wentworth Institute of Technology: _Master of Architecture ‘15 _Bachelor of Science in Architecture ’14 Email: gibbonsc1@wit.edu Phone: 339-832-3202
“It’s architecture, not medicine. You can take a break and no one will die.” - Guy Horton