DANIELLE ASPITZ WORKS IN PROGRESS | 2012-2018
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THRESHOLD EXPERIENCE The Condition Between | Penn Station, New York, NY Gary Hilderbrand Studio, Harvard GSD, 2018 PARAMETERS OF ENCOUNTER Crafting Social Environments | Googleplex, New York, NY Patrik Schumacher Studio, Harvard GSD, 2018 QUILT OF ENLIGHTENMENT From Public to Private | Public Library, San Francisco, CA Thomas Fowler Studio, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2012 CONVERGING CURRENTS Overlapping Agenda | Timber Research and Housing Complex, Redhook, NY Margarida Yin Studio, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2013 PULSE | SOCIAL SEATING STRUCTURE Encouraging Discourse | Street Furniture, San Francisco, CA Market Street Prototyping Festival 2016 CAUSTIC CHASM Immersive Threshold | Public Installation, Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto Prototyping Festival 2017 RHIZOME Assessing Future Flows | WeWork Campus, Los Angeles, CA Greg Lynn Studio, Harvard GSD, 2017 EN ROUTE TO DIVERSION Creating Permeable Boundaries | Freeway Intervention, Los Angeles, CA Doug Jackson Thesis Studio, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2015 STRIPTEASE Interactive Display | Thesis Show, San Luis Obispo, CA Doug Jackson Thesis Studio, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2015
PENN STATION - INFRASTRUCTURE
01 THRESHOLD EXPERIENCE THE CONDITION BETWEEN PENN STATION, NY, NY GARY HILDERBRAND STUDIO 2018
As vital interstices, thresholds enable the negotiation between two given encounters in the context of flows, sensory overload, and spatial challenges. A grand public plaza, New York’s largest, welcomes travelers, commuters, and residents to engage the city’s most important threshold. Transit has enabled the flows of money, people and capital in and out of the city from naval infrastructure enabling trade to rail infrastructure enabling skyscrapers. As Johnathan Mahler says in the New York Times, “cities create density, and density creates growth.” New York is torn between a nostalgic dream of preservation and a continuous cycle of reinvention - a focus on human experience vs on growth. This threshold both delineates one condition from another, as well as connects them. The new Penn Station provides the threshold experience for New York City. As the place of arrival, the station enables the condition between travel and occupation, chaos and stasis, grandeur and the everyday, past and future. Users naturally weave in and out through a permeable edge to experience this tension between the city’s past and future. Within Penn Plaza on the East a framed aperture reveals the active tracks below, and steps cascade down terraced levels to illuminate the constant flows enabled by mass-transit, the city’s largest source of access to opportunity. Within the newly carved out Farley building on the West a frame guides the view above towards the Empire State building, amongst other massive towers. As users emerge into the city, frames and filters construct this dual narrative of the city. This threshold hopes to rediscover the human dimension in a disembodied world.
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GARY HILDERBRAND STUDIO | 2018
This axon depicts duality between nostalgia and novelty. The excavation of the historic Farley Building creates a frame above to the surrounding continuous source of flows Penn Station enables.
04 | THRESHOLD EXPERIENCE
g towers, while opposing this interior plaza is an exterior one anchored with an excavation of the street plane to reveal the active tracks below, to frame the
Honey Locusts and Kentucky Coffee Trees are aligned in a dynamic sequence as burst of motion along the field condition derived from the existing tracks below.
GARY HILDERBRAND STUDIO | 2018
“Cities create density, and density creates growth.” -Johnathan Mahler New
06 | THRESHOLD EXPERIENCE
York Times
GARY HILDERBRAND STUDIO | 2018
The new hortus conclusus within the Farley Building allows for a threshold experience before entering the city. It allows users to negotiate betw
07 | THRESHOLD EXPERIENCE
ween stasis and chaos, grandeur and everyday. This public plaza, the largest within New York’s dense fabric, offers a space between flows.
GARY HILDERBRAND STUDIO | 2018
URBAN OFFICE SPACE
02 PARAMETERS OF ENCOUNTER CRAFTING SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS Googleplex, NY, NY
Through studying a series of architectural parameters - direct/indirect light, ascent/ descent, compression/expansion - the design for a new Google Campus in Manhattan emerged. A central street creates a central axis, while terraced work spaces overlook the constant flows through the expanse. Funnellike forms intersect the work spaces and enable interim program at various scales and spatial properties. The primary objective is to enable a diverse array of spaces for social interaction and exploratory drive amongst colleagues. Google currently allows workers to spend 20% of their time on side projects. The majority of the company’s innovations have developed from this clause. This new work environment is designed to facilitate maximum collisions between workers to spark productive conversations and insights as well as provide ample space to break off and develop extracurricular tasks either in isolation or within groups. One of Google’s ventures, Google X, uses a process in which they actively toggle back and forth between their prototyping lab, desk space, and meeting rooms throughout the day as they cycle through ideas. This design hopes to enable that all teams and personnel can weave in and out of various spaces like Google X to spark their stimuli.
08 | PARAMETERS OF ENCOUNTER
PATRIK SCHUMACHER STUDIO | 2018
TEAM CLUSTERS DEFINED BY SOCIAL ZONES BETWEEN OFFICE TERRACES
CROSS OFFICE
SECTION THROUGH TERRACES
SOCIAL ZONE VARIATIONS
EXPLORE | MULTI-HALL
WANDER | LIBRARY-STUDY
EMERGE | L
S-SECION DEPICTS DAILY WEAVE BETWEEN E, STREET, AND SOCIAL ZONES
LUNCH ROOM
SOCIAL ZONE OFFICE TERRACES
STREET
SUBMERGE | THINK TANK
UPLIFT | SPONTANEOUS MEETINGS
PARAMETERS: LIGHT
SLOPE
VIEW
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EXPERIENCE: INDIVIDUAL
GROUP
IN-BETWEEN
PATRIK SCHUMACHER STUDIO | 2018
PUBLIC LIBRARY
03 QUILT OF ENLIGHTENMENT JOURNEY FROM PUBLIC TO PRIVATE ACSA STEEL COMPETITION 2012-13 __HONORABLE MENTION
The library derives spaces from the nature of a quilt in which four flights of program strips are “woven” together in alternating directions simulating a dense network of knowledge. Each floor is divided into strips of space which decrease in width as one goes up to accommodate for an increase in density as the experience on each floor transitions from public to private, social gathering to personal search. The ceiling height from floor to floor also increases to heighten the progression toward the final “holy” experience as one enters the vast collection of stored information. As one rises through this progression of density, each space, through the thinning of volumes decreases in noise level, and provides an increasingly private experience. The cladding also becomes denser upon the ascend and further helps to focus the mentality as the user weaves between the dark and the light, the sealed book vaults and the frosted glass walkways. As one returns downward their newfound clarity sets in while the cladding opens up to allow in a more dappled light. The spaces widen as the environment, becomes increasingly social. Voices and movement begin to infiltrate the space and welcome the individual back in to the community where they can share and indulge in their recent enlightenment.
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THOMAS FOWLER STUDIO | 2012
M OVEM EN T AN D LI G H T T he strips o f s p a ce d e cre a s e i n w i d th to ac c o mmo d ate fo r an inc re ase in densi ty a s th e ex p e r i e n ce on e a ch f l o o r t ran si t i o n s f ro m a public to a pri va te, s oci a l g a th e r i n g to p e rso n al se arc h .
FLOOR 01 CAFE SPACE
FLOOR 04 BOOK SPACE
FLOOR 03 READING SPACE
FLOOR 02 DIGITAL LABS & PROGRAM ROOMS
FLOOR 01 CAFE SPACE
FLOOR 02 DIGITAL LABS & PROGRAM ROOMS
FLOOR 03 READING SPACE
FLOOR 04 BOOK SPACE
VO LU M E The library derives spaces from the nature of a quilt in which program strips are “woven” together in alternating directions.
The diffusion of space and intimacy was explored through width of volume, height of space, a
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CLADDING DETAIL Inspired by the Dallas Wyly Theatre - REX/OMA
8” x 6” Square HSS Powder Coated Low-e Glazing
6” x 6” Square HSS Powder Coated
Extruded Aluminum Tubes
and density of cladding - these elements were each altered per floor along the gradient from public on the ground levlel to private on the top.
THOMAS FOWLER STUDIO | 2012
PROTOTYPE - URBAN FURNITURE
04 CONVERGING CURRENTS OVERLAPPING AGENDA TIMBER RESEARCH AND HOUSING COMPLEX, REDHOOK, NY ACSA TIMBER COMPETITION 2012-13
This project aims to create two axes: a bridge from the natural parks into the heart of the city to channel bikers and city dwellers through the site and on to enjoy existing resources, and the second tying the industrial port to the residential zones expressing the possibility for world business endeavors and access to new jobs and education to the residents of Red Hook. The first axis includes a new green space and bike shop as well as a timber research and a digital fabrication gallery to present the sustainable and accessible new city resources to sporadic passersby. The timber industry draws the opposing axis of regular users, which will provide a digital fabrication lab, timber research lab, classrooms, a timber manufacturing facility, and a housing complex constructed from timber. Where the two axes meet an oculus is formed to expose the multitude of uses within the complex and the users to one another. The housing complex lies closest to the heart of the city and is raised to the fourth floor to ensure everyone with a view out to the bay. Each apartment receives cross ventilation and both southern and northern light for a comfortable living space. A strip of the green axis peeks out through the housing complex to invite the city in to learn about the new construction technology and explore the site. This multi-function complex will provide the city with new opportunities by inspiring, teaching and pushing forward the promising future of timber construction. IN COLLABORATION WITH ELIZABETH HANNA
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MARGARIDA YIN STUDIO | 2012
vertical circulation
recreation center
apartments
offices and display galleries
research lab and classro
bs ooms
bike shop
The central occulus creates an opportunity to share with users the vitality of this site as a hub o the education and research labs frame the space from above with future inquiry. Residents are
18 | CONVERGING CURRENTS
of timber research and fabrication. Offices and galleries create a public corridor on the ground level, while the industrial work is sheltered below ground, and e able to peer down and maintain a connection to the city and to this vibrant new industry within this pioneer of CLT construction.
MARGARIDA YIN STUDIO | 2012
PROTOTYPE - URBAN FURNITURE
05 PULSE INTERACTION BETWEEN STRANGERS MARKET STREET PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL 2016
Amidst the vast sea of stimuli that surrounds us, Pulse sets a stage for spontaneous social interaction. Each new encounter provides us the opportunity to interpret the world through fresh perspectives, and gain newfound personal clarity. Inspired by the curves of the human body and the steady flow of the city, the close proximity of each seat erodes at personal spheres - welcoming a new, more socially connected outlook. The seats accommodate for a range of seating, however four distinct spots are clearly defined. Each is offset and placed at a different height to give the illusion of totally separate spaces, however by closely unifying them strangers voluntarily enter one another’s personal space. Each seat’s comfort puts users in an open and vulnerable position; prime for a deep and meaningful conversation. By creating this stage for social interaction, users experience a new sense of connection to the city and its community while pedestrians can vicariously feel this sense of vitality on the streets, and also feel a hint of this social realm.
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“It is curing to see yourself through the eyes of a stranger.” - Albert Camus
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MARKET STREET PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL | 2016
P ROCE SS CNC Profiles
Smooth Surface
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Align Profiles
Apply Epoxy Fiberglass Layers and Smooth
Laminate Layer
Apply Epoxy Gelcoat and Smooth
Compress while drying
Apply Epoxy Yacht Coat Finish
Smooth surface
Transfer to Site
Apply epoxy putty to seal surface
Adhere Die-cut Rubber Footings
MARKET STREET PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL | 2016
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PULSE DANIELLE ASPITZ
PROTOTYPE - THRESHOLD
06 CAUSTIC CHASM SHARED IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE PALO ALTO PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL 2017
Glimmering in the sunlight, this installation, like a cave of wonders, draws users in. The unused public plaza is transformed into an obscure space which provokes users to explore and discover the threshold up close. As visitors meander through the piece they come into close proximity and witness a shared experience subconsciously creating a social bond and a newfound awareness of their immediate surroundings. The overall structure is based on that of a biological cellular formation. As people gather, explore, and question this organic form a dynamic rhythm is created. Reflections bounce throughout the piece and colorful shadows wash onto users as they immerse themselves within the installation allowing this physical and sensual transformation to occur as they enter into this shared public realm. IN COLLABORATION WITH AUTUMN AUSTIN
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PALO ALTO PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL | 2017
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL Each cell of the steel frame holds a corresponding vacuum-formed cellular water capsule suspended within it. As people move through, touch or sit on the piece, the vibrations of their movement trigger the water capsules creating small ripples channeling dynamic caustic patterns around the visitors. As the amount of visitors increase and decrease changing the vibrations the capsules gently bob within their frame creating endless ripples throughout the piece.
make smaller this pate is too busy
1/2� TUBE ST
VACUUM-SEA CAPSULES S WITHIN VOR
ACRYLIC PAN
EMERSON STREET
REFLECTED CEILING PLAN
FLOOR PLAN
TEEL FRAME
ALED WATER SUSPENDED RONOI CELLS
NELING
SINGLE-CELL MODULE
ELEVATION
The shadows cast by the structure and embedded dichroic film, constantly
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y shifting their color and position with the movement of the sun, were an endless fascination, especially to the kids.
PALO ALTO PROTOTYPING FESTIVAL | 2017
FUTURE INNOVATION - WEWORK
07 RHIZOME REMOVAL OF THINGS TO FREE USERS TO WANDER AND INTERSECT WITH OTHERS WE WORK CAMPUS FOR FREELANCERS
The aim of this new co-working facility, through the use of thick walls with moving belts and internal robot tracks, is to allow users new freedoms to wander between a variety of spaces as they work through diverse tasks each requiring different settings, levels of focus, and/or peer collaboration. The ability to check in personal items at the beginning of each day and to sporadically check out any items from the building allows for a new conception of working throughout the building rather than solely at one spot. The design allows for productive overlaps between spaces to inspire exploration and discovery throughout the day, and to spur new opportunities of interaction amongst peers. At any point one can call upon a robot to either request or return an item freeing users to efficiently balance diverse work assignments and exploration. Weaving in and out of walls users experience a gradient of small, middle and large volumes, naturally created by the branching pattern of the walls. Isolated work can be done in zones of quiet and collaborative groups can find either zones of interaction or zones of privacy; while some zones would be highly specified, others can be more fluid and adapt to the users needs. New collisions and productive overlaps are encouraged through the wandering between spaces and allow for cross-fertilization of ideas and expanded ways of thinking.
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GREG LYNN STUDIO | 2017
This project was explored through the medium of a stop motion film and animated drawings in order to explore the relationships between the workers, the robots and the active walls leading users through and things through and between the work/play environments of the building.
Personal and rented belongings can be delivered in bins through the walls
Each bin can
n be lowered and extracted by robots
thin tracks carry bins while full-height tracks can quickly move people between spaces as well.
Different wall sections create high and low f
frequency routes, like branches in a tree of varying thickness
THESIS MANIFESTO
08 ENROUTE TO DIVERSION SOCIAL OSMOSIS + PUBLIC SPECTACLE URBAN INTERVENTION EAST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
We crave spontaneous urban encounters yet our current city model, based on large swaths of non-space for transit, lacks the public platform needed to satisfy our social nature. This new infrastructure, based in a future where solely electric cars are allowed to traverse the streets, transforms the Los Angeles freeway network into a public space that re-connects the city with its inhabitants. Once the most vibrant part of the city, Medieval walls allowed for informal commerce that escaped city regulation. Re-imagining these stark borders as more permeable boundaries, “Enroute to Diversion” proposes a shared public platform where locals and commuters mix to create a vibrant public platform for civic vitality and more accessible paths of mobility. Hollenbeck Park, once an idyllic escape for neighbors to coalesce, was bisected by the I-5 and the I-10 in the 1960s blocking East LA from easily reaching Downtown LA. Reviving this freeway into a permeable membrane, returns the once spontaneous mediator condition roads and boundaries once held to the presently static role the network holds within the community.
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ISOLATE
INDIVIDUAL’S FREEWAY EXPERIENCE
DIVIDE
I-110 & I-10 NEAR DOWNTOWN, 2015
DISCONNECT
DEGR
REE OF SEPARATION
DISPERSE
BOTTLENECKS IN LOS ANGELES
DOUG JACKSON THESIS STUDIO | 2015
=
CURRENT CONDITION I-5, 101, & 60 NEAR DOWNTOAN LA
Cross section shows existing freeway immersed in a new public realm
5 10
101
DOWNTOWN LA
HOLLENBECK PARK
UNTAPPED POTENTIAL PIAZZA DI NAVONA PIAZZA DE SIGNORA PIAZZA DI SPAGNA SUPERKILEN RADHUSPLADSEN BLAGARDS PLADS AMAGERTORV OPERA PLACE VENDOME PIAZZA DE MICHELANGELO
DOUG JACKSON THESIS STUDIO | 2015
Layers of activity pair public space with transit-oriented uses to allow for social and voyeuristic opportunities.
MIN RADIUS PER SPEED DERIVES FORM
1150’
ARTS DISTRICT
300’
11
DRIVE-IN
50
’
REACH TO EXISTING AND PROPOSED SPACES
PAR K
AR TS
ADDRESS SURROUNDING VIEWS
LAKE
ARTS DISTRICT
DRIVE-IN
LOCAL, COMMUTER AMENITIES WITH PEDESTRIAN AND VEHICULAR ACCESS
LAK
SKATE
CAFE AND KIOSK
MULTI-USE MEDIA LAB AND CAFE
SKATE PARK EXTENTION
MULTI-USE COMMUNITY CENTER
ART GALLERY/ PUBLIC SPACE ART GALLERY AND MULTI-USE COMMUNITY CENTER
SKATE RENTAL SHOP
00
CONCRETE DIAGRID
3” STEEL DECKING
STEEL STRONGBACK 2” CONCRETE TOPPER INSULATED GLASS UNIT VERTICAL ALUMINUM SCREW SPLINE MULLION
2.5x5’ CONCRETE + STEEL PIPE DIAGRID - 100’ SPANS 1x2’ CONCRETE + STEEL PIPE DIAGRID - 30’ SPANS
32 | ENROUTE TO DIVERSION - THESIS MANIFESTO
LECTURE /PERFOR -MANCE HALL
LECTURE /PERFOR -MANCE HALL
DANCE AND MUSIC STUDIOS
DANCE AND MUSIC STUDIOS
ART STUDIOS / EXHIBITION SPACE
ART GALLERY FARMER’S MARKET
REC CENTER
02
REC CENTER
06
04
The form follows the curvature of the freeways, imagining that one day these enormous sinewy platforms will be home to a variety of future vehicles: electric cars, self-driving cars, car-share systems, etc. In the wake of these future modes of transport the vast public framework will cease to suffer from noise and pollution and can broaden its reach by reconnecting people to zones previously scarred by the once dangerous barriers. Now a mix of transit-oriented, community-initiated and pedestrian-friendly program spaces can connect commuters with locals, neighbors with one another, and social opportunities with driving. This space is geared towards chance encounters, putting activities on display and encouraging interaction to a broad realm of visitors and inhabitants.
DETAIL WITHIN AXON
DETAIL SECTION
1/24 th SECTION MODEL DUAL EXTRUSION 3D PRINT + CNC MILLED
This model depicts the diagrid structure prominent in this intervention. The orange filament represents the primary members and the yellow filament represents the secondary members. The filled-in region creates an occupiable roof terrace, for cyclists and pedestrians.
THESIS SHOW
09 STRIPTEASE TICKER TAPE INTERACTIVE DISPLAY DOUG JACKSON THESIS SHOW CAL POLY SAN LUIS OBISPO
An undulating series of hand-built, rearprojected screens engaged visitors through leap-motion hand sensors. Our 18 studio projects streamed across the continuous surface in two rows. Once selected, different hand motions allowed users to scroll through, enlarge, and interact with each thesis manifesto. The studio derived a series of screens which featured the studio’s 18 projects using rear-projection. The projects were digitally woven together to create one long strip of buttons which were streamed across the screens similar to a slow-paced ticker tape. Using ImmersaView’s curve-correcting software and large, thin sheets of polycarbonate allowed the studio to include two filleted screens for an undulating, seamless effect. Leap-Motion hand sensors allowed visitors to select individual projects as they pause to read further into the concepts and ideas researched over the course of the year-long thesis studies. Visitors could move a number of projects across the screen, scroll through images, and enlarge them using simple hand gestures. FULL STUDIO EFFORT
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DOUG JACKSON THESIS SHOW | 2015
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Striptease created both a spectacle and immersive environment allowing u
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users to engage with each of our thesis material at varying levels of depth and participation.
DOUG JACKSON THESIS SHOW | 2015