Donovan Hernandez 2023 Syracuse Architecture

Rural Futurism

2022 ACADEMIC Prof. Tim Stenson

Rural Futurism is a project focused on fostering community away from the urban center, with a focus on landscape and construction of site.

The site in Schenectady, NY exists in a flood plain caused by the dam located just downstream on the Mohawk River. As an ecological preservation and education center, an emphasis is placed on spatial experience from multiple perspectives. The center features various program from living space to classrooms, all creating an immersive experience to educate and involve guests in the history of the area. Visitors are trained in ecological restoration in an effort to return the site to its pre-flood conditions.

The sequence, moving from the road through the site to an oasis with a view, is intended to serve as inspiration for those involved in the rehabilitation of the flood area.

Common Sq.

2022 ACADEMIC Prof. Seok Min Yeo

Common Sq. is a project that reinvigorates a once desolate concrete lot into a welcoming agora in downtown Syracuse, New York.

As a studio project designed during the pandemic, considerations of the future of community in a post pandemic world were paramount in this investigation. The design is a synthesis of tectonic experiment and material-space definition, culminating in a tiered structure that creates accessible and appealing public space.

Covering Covered Covers

2021 ACADEMIC Oana Stanescu Something Fantastic

This experience was orchestrated by Dean Michael Speaks with Oana Stanescu and Berlin-based firm Something Fantastic.

The workshop made a case for “covers,” a typical practice in fine art, inspired recreations of existing popular works. Embracing a contextual approach, covers were viewed as essential aspects of culture and art history. Rather than replace and destroy, why not add and create?

The cover: the Sky House by Kiyonori Kikutake,, designed using principles of Metabolism, with a focus on operability and multifunctional space.

Sky House, Kiyonori Kikutake, 1958 Scale 1:100 Size: 55 sqm

Sky House, Kiyonori Kikutake, 1958 Scale 1:100 Size: 55 sqm

Sky House Cover, HERNANDEZ + RIEMER 2021 Scale 1:100 Size: 90 sqm

Situated on the same site, the plan was expanded as an experiment with Metabolism, applied to shared living.

Sky House Cover, HERNANDEZ + RIEMER 2021

Scale 1:100

Size: 90 sqm

House, Kiyonori Kikutake, 1958 1:100 sqm

Sky House Cover, HERNANDEZ + RIEMER 2021 Scale 1:100

Size: 90 sqm

The Ridge House

2021 ACADEMIC Prof. Daekwon Park

The Ridge House project is a tiny house set on a hang gliding launch in the Finger Lakes region in New York, west of Syracuse.

This team project was a technical exercise with extensive research, iterative design, and a mock design development phase at manageable scale. Considerations were made for context, affordability, comfort, and tiny living among others. An emphasis was placed on practicality, with time dedicated to designing realistic details and wall sections.

Back on Our Feet

2022 ACADEMIC Prof. Bing Bu

Mixed use project sited in Westlake, Los Angeles, California. An exploration into hybrid mat-housing paired with and inspired by Parisian block housing guided the project. Site contains a large homeless population but a work-stay program can address this by empowering and providing the opportunity to help revive Westlake while also providing a place to call home for those who need it the most. Infrastructure for community gardening initiatives can make it possible for the people to have access to good clean food while also playing an important part in producing it. Intended to grow and adapt over time, the main structure of Back On Our Feet is two large concrete slab floors that sandwich concrete bearing walls within the individual apartment units. Featuring a unique emphasis on two-story living spaces, the living arrangement encourages a “mixed” mixed-use program distribution, with live and work apartments in shared space as well as varying unit sizes from 400 to 1300 sq foot.

East Village

2023 ACADEMIC Profs. Ivi Diamantopolu & Rami Abou-Khalil

As a part of context research for a studio project, this image was a synthesis of individual findings composited into a single “super-image” developed in a series of workshops with Audrey Haliman. Composition, lighting, materiality, and entourage were all intentionally considered in the curation of a hyperrealist image that narrates specific architectural moments and qualities of the East Village historic district. Most importantly, the image narrates the juxtaposition of historically signifcant places, those that are officially landmarked and those that are not, and ultimately suffer visually as a result of that. Among various tectonic, some of the most important obseved aspects in clude the highly visible hsitory of tenement housing in the village and unique conditisn that this produces at the street level.

The Converse

2021 ACADEMIC Prof. Seok Min Yeo

The Converse is a 200,000 sq ft. multi-use live, work, and service project intended to serve as gallery and residential artist space. The project is divided into two parts, a library with main lobby below and larger structure that houses two galleries, a cafe, auditorium, five two-level living units, large common space with fabrication lab that surrounds a central atrium with a hydroponic green wall. The building gets increasingly more private as it ascends vertically, with public and communal areas centered around the atrium. ry with main lobby below and larger

The Converse

2021 ACADEMIC Prof. Seok Min Yeo

Sited in downtown Syracuse, New York there were considerations of context, accessibility, and program. The final design was the result of many explorations with tectonics, living unit aggregation, and multifunctional program.

Professionial

PROFESSIONAL TCA ARCHITECTS

As an intern with TCA Architects in Annapolis, Maryland for the last couple years I had the opportunity to participate in a significant number of aspects of the architectural practice, specifically in the educational sector. My contributions and experience ranged from Revit drawing to punch listing to providing graphic services in the form of renderings and graphic design.

JESSUP, MD

A wayfinding design scheme created for HS #13 project in Howard County, MD (under construction).

BALTIMORE, MD

A rendering of an interior renovation for a high school cafeteria and a photo of the renovation underway.

ANNAPOLIS, MD

A graphics project, designing and compiling a Firm Overview, of the firms resume and projects.