CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ
DESIGN WORK
STUDENT WORK
5th year, fall 2009 3rd year, spring 2008
Dutch Dialogues Studio Convention Dynamics
2nd year, fall 2006
Levee Logic
4th year, fall 2008
Inhabiting the In-Between
DUTCH DIALOGUES STUDIO
city topography
wet urbanism: the Hoffman Triangle
An exploration of sustainable water infrastructure ideas generated by the Dutch Dialogues charette
residual fabric
groundscape
contours
program analysis
This project, a collaborative design effort between myself and Joseph Keppel, is based on the urban proposals for New Orleans made by the Dutch Dialogues conference of geographers, hydrologists, and architects. The proposal imagines a new type of urbanism for the Hoffman Triangle neighborhood by strategically carving a contoured groundscape where blighted properties currently stand. The carving slows and retains storm runoff on its way to the overburdened pumping station.
site plan
To consider the implications of this urban strategy at the building scale, we selected a site on the edge of the Hoffman Triangle to propose a mixed use building containing office, residential, and retail space. The building’s mass is lifted to allow the groundscape to continue underneath the building.
storm water moving beneath building
floor 4 - residential
ground floor - commercial
concept sketches
structural void for water penetration
structural voids as light wells The mass is held up by large column voids that move water accumulated on the layered green roof down to the ground where it can be held in tanks for grey water usage in the building or released into the water network to move on towards the pump. The water that once threatened the sustainability of this neighborhood becomes the feature that invigorates it at every scales from vast urban retention pools to waterfalls through office space.
section
CONVENTION DYNAMICS
The scheme responds to the two identities of the convention hotel, which serves as both entertainment center and work place to its guests. The bar of service program separates the work bar from the leisure bar, separating their functions while providing both with efficient access to the hotel’s operations staff.
A hotel design for New Orleans that engages the complex programmatic needs of convention tourism
floor 4 - 13
floor 2
separate
shift
kink ground floor
extrude
split banquet hall lobby business bar roofscape
striations
structure
egress
hvac
water
These programatic bars respond to the site, shifting and intersecting to provide the necessary adjacencies and perimeter access. Seven foot striations break down the three bars, becoming organizational guides for space planning and structure. The dynamic roofscapes provide opportunities for grey water retention and guest recreation.
section B business bar assembly
N
LEVEE LOGIC
1”=32’
N
This project creates spaces for recreation through constructing bands according to the formal logic of the existing levees. The widths of the bands accomodate programs at various scales. The resulting landscape produces a condition of free circulation for the user to navigate.
plan
entry perspective programmed striations
40’ striations
materials 40’ 40’ materials
40’ bands dive pool lap pool
indoor workout
locker rooms
leisure pool lobby concessions administration classrooms 10’ striations
aerobic areas
10’ bands
elderly recreation
materials 10’ 10’ materials
children’s area
lecture hall
2’ striations
2’ bands
amphitheater
materials 2’2’ materials
section
INHABITING THE IN-BETWEEN
Rome has developed in layers, producing a significant vertical separation of the city’s ground plane from the river. The disconnection has encouraged major highways to develop at the river’s edge, further separating city from river. This underground bath house, recalling the public nature of the ancient baths, re-unites the streetscape to its river in both plan and section.
sectional separation
plan separation
sectional solution
plan solution
new connection
An underground bath house for Rome that re-introduces the public to the river, revealing the urban strata
plan at grade
plan below grade
view inside a pit exploded perspective: buried urbanism The highway and the bath program are underground, allowing the pedestrian life of the streets of Rome to spill out to the river’s edge through a parkscape, dipping to the level of the river in three pits. The bath program occupies the zone between the river’s wall and the highway.
Cuts in the ground and in the layers of walls offset from the river wall allow users to experience horizontal and vertical layers of the city in a truly urban way. The public nature of the street has been replicated in the historically public experience of the bath house.
section B bath progam in-between road and river
section along river
PROFESSIONAL WORK
Errol Barron/Michael Toups Architects + Trahan Architects Trahan Architects, Spring 2009 TZCO, Fall 2009 Arquitectum Tokyo 2010 Competition, spring 2010
Physical Models River Center Library Common Ground Health Clinic Giant Robot
PHYSICAL MODELS
3-D printing technology allowed us to cast plaster in complex forms to represent concrete canopies Working for Trahan Architects, I led the effort to construct this wood and plaster model to represent the design for the First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Spring. We cast the eight structural canopy pieces in molds that were digitally modeled and 3-d printed in the office. The model also features fiber oprtic lighting that runs through the base and uplights the canopies. The construction was a team effort in which I modeled and printed mold forms and cast all the canopies. I also designed the model and organized the construction of the base and context pieces.
Villa Nicos Vardinoyannis Mariana Bay, Greece Errol Barron / Michael Toups Architects
Presentation models constructed with bass wood to represent large house projects in Greece
Villa Vardinoyannis Mariana Bay, Greece Errol Barron / Michael Toups Architects
RIVER CENTER LIBRARY
focal point of downtown Baton Rouge civic corridor arts district green belt
Trahan Architects’ River Center Library occupies a critical moment in downtown Baton Rouge, LA, where the civic corridor and the main street of the arts district meet at North Blvd, a green belt that cuts through the city to the river. The architecture embraces the public nature of its site, forming a perimeter layer of circulation that allows the building to be a part of the pedestrian life of the street. The mass of the building lifts up at two corners, allowing fluid circulation beneath the building form North Blvd to Galvez Plaza and the lawn of historic state capital building beyond.
An award-winning library proposal that takes part in the life of the street through perimeter circulation
lantern in downtown Baton Rouge
North Blvd. elevation TOWN SQUARE
site plan
NEW FACILITY
GALVEZ PLAZA
ST. LOUIS ST.
ST. PHILIP ST.
NORTH BLVD.
main entrance from North Blvd. The library’s skin is a translucent screen that produces an image of absolute transparency and accessibility while protecting the building from the harsh southern sun. The building attempts to shift the roll of the library from a warehouse of knowledge to a public gathering space that serves as an interface between between different districts and users in downtown Baton Rouge.
descent into lobby from Galvez Plaza
COMMON GROUND HEALTH CLINIC
TZCO’s Common Ground Health Clinic inherits a dilapidated structure that was once an old jazz club, attracting well known blues and jazz musicians to Old Algiers on the west bank of New Orleans. The design’s essential task is to preserve the culturally significant structure while introducing elements that allow it to perform successfully as a contemporary health clinic. The design responds to this problem by adding an autonomous addition to the back of the building that meets the needs of the building’s new function. The wooden pergula establishes a dialogue between the new and the old by morphing their formal types. The new space created provides users with a rooftop oasis from the city, serving as both vegetable garden and classroom.
A clinic proposal that joins the old and the new with a pergula that morphs the two formal types
floor 1
The depth of the rooftop garden increases where the structural walls below occur. The new topography is then divided into sections of varying depths that can accomodate the varying soil depths of different vegetables. The gravel zone in the middle of the roof is comprised of multiple circular zones, creating opportunities for groups of different scales to gather and learn.
floor 2
floor 3 roof garden
roof plan
GIANT ROBOT
Designed in collaboration with Thaddeus Zarse and John Paul Pacelli, the project achieves flexibility through mechanical exterior stairs. The stacked internal galleries each exhibit a particular decade’s fashion, and the changing stair connections allow the curator to highlight particular relationships between different decades throughout the twentieth century. Constantly changing circulation opportunities allow the visitor to meander through the decades, discovering the curator’s alternative routes through history.
A vertical fashion museum concept for the Tokyo 2010 compeition featuring moving stair galleries
DESIGN BUILD
fall 2007
Wine Rack
fall 2009
Lamp
WINE RACK
Rubber balls strung on suspension cables meeting the most basic needs of holding wine bottles
LAMP
This lamp was produced in collaboration with Corey Green as an investigation of the design implications of the capacity of digital fabrication technologies to directly translate virtual geometry to real material. The lamp was designed with animation software, in which we emanated particles from a grid and effected their trajectories with a vortex force. Thinking of these particles as light particles, we 3-D printed the composition as a series of tubes and ran glowing tube through them to reproduce a moment of the animation in a composition of real light.
Designed as a digital animation, 3-D printing technology enables translation to the medium of light
HAND DRAWINGS
Italy, fall 2008
Watercolors
Italy, fall 2008
Charcoal + Graphite
Il Redentore Venice, Italy
WATER COLORS
Castel Sant Angelo Rome, Italy
Piazza Navona Rome, Italy
CHARCOAL + GRAPHITE
Ponte Roto Rome, Italy
CONTACT
christian.rodriguez21@gmail.com
504.450.6659