Portfolio 2024 - "Some of Me"

Hi, I’m Eike.

In this portfolio you’ll find recapitulations of a few selected works documenting my experiences in and out of architecture.

I center my work around the connection between architecture’s participants and their environment, their builders and craftspeople, and their contextual community. At its core, the design of our built environment is less about form than it is about meaning, and I think that these connections are the key to creating meaning. An architecture that embodies these values may become more cared-for than one that doesn’t. This idea has been influenced by Wharton Esherick, Peter Zumthor, and more recently Anne Holtrop, who are each exemplars of these values.

My career has encompassed roles as BIM expert, parametrics instructor, design-builder, furniture craftsman, render wizard, model builder, and most importantly mentor. In all cases, I’ve applied creativity, pragmaticism, and empathy, and found these to be the key skills that enable all others. I can attribute these foundations to three early mentors, James Doerfler, my collegiate capstone advisor, Bill Christensen, my boss in the fabrication lab, and David Wing, under whom I interned in Philadelphia. I try to pass on their lessons daily. Eike

May 2021July 2023

Curriculum Vitae

Marmol-Radziner, Los Angeles, USA - Job Captain

Served as primary point of contact with client, consultants, and GC on residential renovation/addition residence for UHNW client.

Led design production and documentation of project using Revit and Lumion, from conceptual design through contract administration.

Mentored team of junior staff and interns.

Improved BIM workflows by creating utilitarian automations and parametric models in Revit/Dynamo.

Project List:

T.L. Residence (Los Angeles, USA)

Ludo Restaurant (Santa Monica, USA)

Sept 2020April 2021

Feb. 2018Sept. 2020

Sabbatical, Death Valley, USA - Ceramics & Renovation

Renovated 1920’s farmhouse, harvested wild clay, built a kiln, & fired ceramics.

Project List:

China Ranch Farmhouse Renovation (Death Valley, USA) Wild Clay Ceramics (Death Valley, USA)

Woods Bagot, New York, USA - Designer

Led documentation and coordination of 20,000+sf luxury penthouse interiors as AOR for “The XI” mixed-use highrise in New York City designed by Bjarke Ingels & Pierre Yovanovitch

Designed “The Matteo” 35,000sf residential NYC highrise.

Primary facade BIM coordinator and designer for 1 Journal Square, 800,000+sf mixed-use tower in New Jersey.

Created parametric design solutions, including facade bricklaying algorithm and ceiling panelization.

Conducted zoning and planning studies for development projects throughout NYC.

Project List:

JFK Terminal 4 Proposal (New York City, USA)

“The Matteo” Highrise (New York City, USA)

“The XI” Mixed-Use Towers (New York City, USA)

“1 Journal Square” Mixed-Use Tower (Jersey City, USA)

Jan. 2018Feb. 2018

Partners & Spade, New York, USA - Freelance Furniture Designer

Designed bespoke furniture and created interior renderings for P&S’s rebranding of Allbirds.

Project List:

Allbirds (SoHo, New York City, USA)

Zimmerman Workshop/Ottra, New York, USA - Junior Architect, Furniture Craftsman

Created renderings and contract documents for apartment renovations in NYC, <$1mil.

Prototyped and launched “Ottra” furniture line using CNC and traditional woodworking techniques.

Exhibited “Ottra” line at ICFF and AD Design Show ‘16

Project List:

76th St Interior renovation (New York City, USA)

Chelsea Loft renovation (New York City, USA)

Brooklyn Heights Interior renovation (NYC, USA) Ottra furniture line

Gensler, New York, USA - Job Captain, Design Technology Specialist

Contributed to documentation of workplace interiors for Deloitte offices in the Northeastern USA.

Assisted teaching 8-week parametric design workshop.

Served as point-of-reference for my studio regarding software and parametric design.

Project List:

Deloitte Boston Office (Boston, USA)

Deloitte NYC Office (New York City, USA)

Perkins + Will, Atlanta, USA - Architect 1, Digital Technologies Leader

Promoted from summer intern to full-time entry-level Architect 1, later Digial Technologies Leader.

Contributed to multiple phases of architectural work across multiple market sectors, from competition-level conceptual design proposals for international commercial and mixed-use developments, to construction documentation for Fortune 500 corporate clients such as BMW.

Constructed maquettes and mock-ups utilizing rapid prototyping and traditional fabrication.

Served as a point-of-reference for the office regarding software use and troubleshooting. Created introductory course for 3D Printing shared office-wide.

July 2016Nov. 2017

Sept. 2015June 2016

June 2014Sept 2015

2010-2012

2012

2013

2012-2013

2014

Curriculum Vitae (continued)

Project List:

BSU Life Sciences Building (Bowie, USA)

Topkapi Mixed-Use Tower (Topkapi, TUR)

Tuzla Mixed-Use Lowrise (Tuzla, TUR)

Jurmala Resort (Jurmala, LVA)

Bridgestone Office Tower (Nashville, USA)

Atlanta Dairies Retail Complex (Atlanta, USA)

Atlanta Dairies Interactive (Atlanta, USA)

BMW Central Office (Greenville, USA)

B.Arch ‘14. GPA: 3.5; Philadelphia University (now, Jefferson University), Philadelphia, USA.

Teaching Assistant - CABE Fabrication Lab. Instructed students in modelmaking and fabrication techniques.

Renovation Laborer - Michael Karp

Renovated historical estates including Skylands.

Co-Founder/Editor - “Spacework” & the CABE Press, the College’s publishing body for student work.

Design-build Intern - Greensaw Design. Designed, built, and installed furniture and interiors.

Capstone project archived.

Education & Professional Workshops

Building Science Fundamentals with Dr. J. Lstiburek, 2018, participant

Philadelphia University (now, Jefferson University)

Bachelor of Architecture 2014, GPA: 3.5

CIEE Barcelona

Architectural Studies (semester abroad), 2013

Exhibitions, Awards, & Honors

Professional:

“Travail Libre” by Nicholas Morris at the Grande Galerie of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble (2023), “Common Detail” exhibited, a collaboration with Nicholas Morris International Contemporary Furniture Fair (2016), “Ottra” exhibited Architectural Digest Design Show (2016), “Ottra” exhibited Gettysburg Station Re-dedication (2006), “Lincoln” exhibited

Academic (2009-14):

Pushpin Gallery, group exhibition, 5 pieces selected for exhibition

See Gallery, group exhibition, “Library in Charcoal” exhibited CABE Archive, 3 projects selected to archive Faculty Drawing award, 3rd Prize

Comcast “Home of the Future” Competition, Honorable Mention

Faculty Scholarship, 2009 - 2014

ALD Honors Fraternity, Founding Member

Emerging Leaders Program, Participant

Software Competencies & Skills

Revit

Autodesk Certified Professional

Dynamo Ideate Tools

Rhino Grasshopper

Sketchup

3DS Max

AutoCAD

Vray

Lumion

Enscape

Adobe Suite

Photoshop InDesign Illustrator

Excel PowerBI

Languages

English, native

BIM Management, Automation, Integration, and Training Contract Administration

Inspection & Field Revision Coordination with consultants, GC, sub-trades

Detailing, Weatherproofing, & Technical Review

Parametric Modeling

Sketching

Diagrammatic Narrative

Digital Rendering

Modelmaking & Full-scale Mockups

Mentoring

German, spoken in household - CEFR B1-B2

Dutch, CEFR A2-B1

Spanish, CEFR A1-A2

Biography

I’m an experienced project leader, problem-solver, mentor, and craftsman with ten years’ professional experience in architectural design, construction, and furniture production throughout the United States. My life as a craftsman began at four years old when I was given a sharpened set of chisels in my dad’s cabinet shop and set to work, culminating much later in a Bachelor of Architecture from Philadelphia University in 2014. Professionally, I have been a design-builder, a furniture prototypist, and a specialist in digital technologies focusing on parametricism and BIM automation. Personally, I find joy in creating ceramic wares from natural and wild materials, motorcycle touring, and mentoring. My name is Frisian in origin, but I was born and raised near rural Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States.

Los Angeles, Calif. USA; 2021-23 Single-family residence; renovation; 3 stories, 4,650sf built, 22,000sf site

Santa Monica, Calif. USA; 2022-23 Restaurant; historically-designated renovation; 2 stories, 5,000sf built, 5,000sf site

New York City, New York USA; 2018-2020 Mixed-use Highrise; new construction; 5 stories, 22,000sf built

New York City, New York USA; 2017-18 Residential Highrise; new construction; 16 stories, 35,000sf built

Greenville, South Carolina, USA; 2014-16 Office; new construction; 3 stories, 60,000sf built

Los Angeles, California USA; 2014 Residential Highrise; academic work 15 stories; xx,xxxsf built, xxx,xxxsf site

Selected writings, and works in wood, ceramics, and mixed-media.

1. T. L. Residence

2. Ludo

3. “One Highline” Floors 29-33 Penthouses

4. “The Matteo”

5. BMW Central Office

6. Capstone: Los Angeles Mediatower

7. Essays, and Things I’ve Made

T. L. Residence

Location:

Los Angeles, Calif., USA

Typology:

Single-Family Residence; Renovation

Size: 3 stories; 4,650sf

Architects:

Marmol-Radziner

Principal: Nicole Starr

Project Captain: Eike Maas

Project Captain: Eike Maas

Junior Staff: Miles Haas, Tess Stilman, Reggie Collier, Marshall Gault

Interiors:

Marmol-Radziner

Landscape: Kimura Bonsai

Construction: Marmol-Radziner

I served as project captain from conceptual design through contract administration on this renovation of a 1961 California Modern house. The client’s education in the art of bonsai is reflected throughout the 4,600 square foot building and 21,000 square foot lot, integrating details from traditional Japanese architecture. Consideration was given to the relationships between indoor spaces and their lush exterior counterparts, taking advantage of the friendly climate of Los Angeles and the open structural layout of the original house. Unique features of the design include an elevated interior courtyard with gravel floor and moon door, a pool with bouldered walls, and a music studio excavated into the hillside underpinning the house’s existing foundations. The house’s existing structure was retained and reinforced where needed; all interior finishes and layout were renovated.

Opposite: Entry garden featuring pool and moon door. Rendered image (detail). Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas with Reginald Collier.

1.2

Site Plan of the residence. Revit. Eike Maas.

The residence as seen from the street, under construction. Photograph. Dexter Cohen

1.4

1.5

1.6

Previous: Entry garden featuring pool and moon door. Rendered image. Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas with Reginald Collier. Above: Hand sketch of pool concept. Eike Maas

Construction of pool underway with boulders and natural stone finishes. Photograph. Dexter Cohen

1.8

1.10

Previous: Rendering of living room overlooking garden. Revit, Lumion. John Katada. Above: Floor plan excerpt of primary living areas. Revit. Eike Maas

Section detail of door header and pitched roof in living room. Revit. Eike Maas

1.13

Previous: Rendering of courtyard adjacent to primary bedroom. Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas with Marshall Gault. Above: Elevation drawing of moon door and latticework in primary bedroom, looking toward courtyard.

Primary Bedroom moon door. Rendered image. Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas with Marshall Gault.

Diagrammatic Axon and Head/Sill details of Primary Bedroom moon door. Revit. Eike Maas

Construction of moon door progresses, as seen from the courtyard. Photograph. Dexter Cohen.

1.18

1.19

Opposite: Rendering of studio space with acoustical fabric walls and walnut acoustical paneling, end-grain wood floors with tatami mats. Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas.

Above: Construction of the studio reveals coordinated systems and acoustical detailing.

1.21

GARDEN STAIR

TOMMY LEE RESIDENCE MAY

MARMOL RADZINER

Previous: Rendering of back yard cantilevered deck and railing. Revit, Lumion. Eike Maas. Opposite Top: hand sketch of back yard concept. Eike Maas. Opposite Bottom and Above: Construction on back yard. Photograph. Dexter Cohen. Following: Rendering of 2nd floor lounge with fabric draped ceiling and Japanese-inspired details. Revit, Lumion. Marshall Gault and John Katada.

Project Data

Description: Design-Build renovation of a luxury single-family hillside residence with swimming pool and recording studio.

Place & Time: Los Angeles, California USA; 2020-ongoing

Project Scale: 1 structure, 2 stories; 4,650sf built over 22,000sf site

Budget: appx $11,000,000

Architecture: Marmol-Radziner

Interiors: Marmol-Radziner

Landscape: Kimura Bonsai

Surveying: Hennon Surveying and Mapping

Geotechnical Engineering: C Y Geotechnical Engineering

Civil Engineering: CW Howe Partners

Structural Engineering: CW Howe Partners

Acoustical Consulting:Russ Berger Design Group

M/E/P Design: Marmol-Radziner

General Contractor: Marmol-Radziner

Location:

Santa Monica, Calif., USA

Typology:

Restaurant/bar; Renovation

Size:

3 structures; 2 stories; 5,000sf

Architecture:

Marmol-Radziner

Principal:

Nicole Starr

Project Captain:

Eike Maas

Junior Staff: Tess Stilman

Interiors:

Marmol-Radziner

I spent a few weeks on this project as design was getting underway, first helping to guide the design detailing with respect to the existing historical details we needed to respect, and then to help render/visualize and detail the project’s interiors.

Constraints on the space included limitations to how much we could modify the existing shell and exterior of the building due to its historical designation, very low existing ceiling heights that could not be changed, and acoustical and mechanical needs required by the restaurant environment. Additionally, I mentored junior architect Tess Stilman, who succeeded me in coordinating the project when the T.L. Residence required my full attention.

The project features several bespoke finishes.

Opposite: Central courtyard space. Rhino/Lumion. Eike Maas with Tess Stilman.

2.2

The lounge room in the bar with acoustical plaster ceiling, brass-framed mirrored pilasters and entablature inspired by Jean Michel Frank, parquet walnut floors, and glass panels by Lalique.

2.3

2.4

2.5

Dining Room interior with existing plastered fireplace, parquet floor, skylights, and acoustical plaster wave ceilng with gilver-leaf applique

2.6

“Wine Room” interior, with fumed oak parquet, stained anigre casework and coffering, beaded textile wall covering, and custom climate controlled bottle storage.

2.7

2.8

Project Data

Description: Design-Build renovation of an historically-designated restaurant into a new restaurant and bar, featuring three independent structures and two courtyards.

Place & Time: Santa Monica, California USA; 2021-ongoing

Project Scale: 3 structures, 2 stories; 4,650sf built over 5,000sf site

Budget: appx $5,500,000

Architecture: Marmol-Radziner

Interiors: Marmol-Radziner

Landscape: Marmol-Radziner

Structural Engineering: GMS

Acoustical Consulting: Syska Hennessy Group

Lighting Consulting: Oculus

M/E/P Design: ASDF

General Contractor: Marmol-Radziner

3.1

3.

“One Highline”, formerly, “The XI”

Penthouse Floors 29-33

Location:

New York City, New York., USA

Typology: Mixed-use Highrise Campus

Size:

3 structures; 33 stories; 280,000sf

Architectural

Design: BIG - Bjarke Ingles Group

Exec Architect: Woods Bagot

Principal: Jim Hickerson

Project Captain: Eike Maas

Interiors:

Pierre Yovanovitch

I served as the executive architect’s Project Captain from design development through construction administration on the five west-tower penthouse floors of The XI, now known as One Highline, designed by renowned interiors firm Pierre Yovanovitch (PY). Challenges presented by this project included a building shell that twisted from floor to floor, building systems coordinated to allow for flexible tenant improvements in stacking units, and coordinating lifesafety requirements and code compliance with PY’s design sensibility.

The 33rd floor, the highest penthouse floor on the project with its largest unit at 5,000sf, featured a swimming pool, wrap-around terraces, curved walls with seamless, integrated paneled doors, and a fireplace with curving hearth.

Opposite: The project, with the West Tower at left. Rendering by others.

3.2

Construction topping-out and unitized glazing being installed on the lower floors at The XI. Photograph. Eike Maas. Opposite: Marble finishes with carefullycoordinated seaming in penthouse. Rendering by others.

3.3

3.4

Detail of floor plan of Level 29 - South Penthouse. Revit. Eike Maas

33rd floor penthouse terrace and infinity-edge pool. Rendering by others.

3.7

3.8

Above and Opposite: Pool installation - sectioned steel plates were hoisted by crane and maneuvered between the concrete structure. Photograph. Eike Maas Following: Curving interior walls, flush full-height glass doors by Vitrocsa, and travertine-clad structure. Rendering by others.

3.9

3.10

3.11

3.12

Project Data

Description: New construction of five penthouse floor interiors in new luxury mixed-use highrise.

Place & Time: New York City, New York USA; 2016-ongoing

Project Scale: 1 of 3 structures, 5 of 33 floors; 25,000sf of 908,250sf built over 36,000sf site

Budget: undisclosed, estimated $1billion+

Developer: HFZ Capital Group

Design Architect (Core & Shell):

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group

Executive Architect (Core & Shell + Interiors):

Woods Bagot

Interiors: Pierre Yovanovitch, Gabellini Sheppard

Structural Engineering: WSP

Facade Consulting: GMS

M/E/P Engineering: Cosentini

General Contractor: OMNIbuild

4.1

323 East 79th St “The Matteo” 4.

Location: New York City, New York., USA

Typology: Residential Highrise

Size: 17 stories; 35,045sf

Architect: Woods Bagot

Principal: Matt Stephenson

Designer: Eike Maas

Interiors: Woods Bagot

I served as Designer from conceptual design through design development on this skinny high-rise tower in New York City. Responsibilities included zoning analysis, planning, rendering and design documentation and presentation to clients, facade design and detailing, and systems coordination.

The biggest challenge for this project came from the dimensions of the zoning envelope, only 27 feet wide and 170 feet high, which created formal restrictions that required intricate structural coordination to resolve. A further constraint given by the client was a mere 1’-1” facade depth allowance for a unitized window wall with masonry.

All of these constraints were satisfied to create 15 residential units over 17 stories and 2 sub-stories.

Photograph of built project. Photograph by Michael Young.

4.2

Massing study in context. Illustrator. Eike Maas

4.3

Top to bottom: Schematic plans - sub-cellar, cellar, ground floor (level 1 of ‘maisonette’ unit), 2nd floor (level 2 of ‘maisonette’ unit). Revit, Illustrator. Eike Maas

Top to bottom: Schematic plans - typical floor, penthouse terrace floor, penthouse upper floor, roof. Revit, Illustrator. Eike Maas.

Previous:

Iterative facade studies. Rhino, Vray. Eike Maas.

This page: Interior fenestration studies.

Rhino, Vray. Eike Maas

Photographic detail of built facade. Photograph by Michael Young.

4.10

Above: Hand sketch of conceptual facade detailing. Opposite: The facade was built as a window wall with overhanging slab-edge cover. The brick is thin brick bonded to cement board substrate in front of an insulated steel-framed cavity wall. Windows are unitized into the system. Photograph by Michael Young.

Construction underway. Photograph by Michael Young

Construction completed. Photograph by Michael Young.

Project Data

Description: New Construction of luxury residential skinny high-rise on urban infill lot.

Place & Time: New York City, USA; 2018-2022

Project Scale: 17 stories; 35,045sf built over 2,800sf site

Budget: undisclosed

Developer: Boomerang Development Group

Architecture: Woods Bagot

Interiors: Woods Bagot

Structural Engineering: WSP

M/E/P Design: Cosentini

General Contractor: Sunlight Construction AA

5.1

Location:

BMW Site Operations Center 5.

Greenville, South Carolina, USA

Typology:

Office Core & Shell, Interior

Size: 3 stories; 65,000sf

Architect: Perkins + Will

Principal:

Don Reynolds

Design Director: Bruce McEvoy

Sr. Architect:

Stephen Barefield

Jr. Architects:

Andrew Newman

Eike Maas

Interiors: Perkins + Will

This office for BMW’s US headquarters in South Carolina sought to marry BMW’s stark European styling with vernacular materials of South Carolina. I joined this project during schematic design, building models with rapid prototyping techniques, creating visualizations with Revit, Rhino, 3DS Max, and Adobe, and participating in design reviews with our client.

I continued working on the project into construction documentation, working in Revit to model and detail the building until we issued our bid set to the client. The building’s construction is primarily heavy steel with aluminum composite panel facade and butt-glazed curtain wall. Aluminum aileron’s form a breeze soleil on the building’s southern facade. Southern yellow pine provides a warm accent to the facade.

Opposite: Photograph of Office entryway as-built. Eike Maas. Following: Model of building created with laser cutter, CNC router. Photograph. Eike Maas, David Friend.

5.2

5.3

5.4

Previous: Wall sections and details from bid documents. Eike Maas and Stephen Barefield. Above: Photograph of northern facade and entry to building, as-built.

5.7

Project Data

Description: New Construction of office building for BMW in partnership with the South Carolina Port Authority.

Place & Time: Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA; 2014-16

Project Scale: 1 structure; 65,000sf built

Budget: undisclosed

Architecture: Perkins + Will

Interiors: Perkins + Will

Landscape: Perkins + Will

Civil Engineering: Seamon Whiteside

Structural Engineering: Uzun + Case

M/E/P Engineering: Integral Group Engineering

General Contractor: Hogan Construction

Capstone: Los Angeles Mediatower 6.

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Typology: Residential High-rise (academic)

Size: 14 stories; 225,750sf

Advisor: James Doerfler

Studio: Design 10, “Capstone”; 2014

My Bachelor of Architecture studies culminated in this capstone project, sited in Los Angeles, which seeks to reimagine the typical horizontal spatial progression of the city as a mutable, modular tower. The tower’s spatial sequence incorporates public and semipublic spaces throughout the floors of the building, providing easy access to varied social experiences. Media pods anchor each of the terraced areas with re-programmable functionality ready to adapt to current needs. Three spaceframe cores form the structure of the building and allow for ample air movement and sunlight to penetrate interior circulation. The facade of the building is a steel diagrid serving as an exoskeletal framework to stiffen the structure. The building is wrapped in an operable mesh shade.

Axonometric overhead rendering of the Mediatower. Rhino, V-ray, Photoshop. Eike Maas

6.2

Concept diagrams. The horizontal experience of the neighborhood turned vertical. Massing studies and formfinding. Illustrator. Eike Maas

Programmatic function of the media pods can be changed to suit needs, supplanting the need for separate buildings to suit. Residential interior and exterior space and media pods fit into a modular steel framework. Illustrator. Eike Maas

6.5

Pod interior, assuming the role of entertainment venue on this particular occasion. Rendering. Rhino, Vray. Eike Maas

Spatial Sequence

a. Public retail and plaza at ground level

b. Semi-public terrace amenities at base and crown

c. Communal terraces and pods are distributed throughout

d. Residential infill massing completes the spatial sequence.

Above: Diagrams depicting the spatial sequence of the building. Illustrator. Eike Maas. Opposite: Plan diagram of the lower terrace floor. Rhino, Illustrator. Eike Maas

Program Sequence

a. Plinth: ground-level retail and garden terrace

b. Vertical: circulation cores and MEP risers

c. Horizontal: floor plates and partitions

d. Roof/Skin/Pods: roof pool and garden terrace, active shade skin, media pods

Construction of the building’s programmed spaces. Rhino. Eike Maas

Structure Sequence

Construction of the building’s structure. Rhino. Eike Maas.

1. Vertical spaceframe, truss “hanger”, terrace pilotis

2. Horizontal steel frame for floor plates

3. Diagrid exoskeleton and steel pod structures

4. Shade skin subframe and mesh

Above: Diagrammatic Section-perspective of the building. Rhino, Vray, Photoshop. Eike Maas. Opposite: Conceptual rendering of the building at night. Rhino, Photoshop. Eike Maas.

Rendering of the lower terrace. A pixellated abstraction applied to the color-bonderized aluminum panel ceiling imitates the open sky. Rolling ‘hills’ formed into the terrace structure are populated with native California wildflowers and grasses. The open mesh of the vertical cores allows air to flow through the building. Revit, Vray. Eike Maas

Project Data

Description: Bachelor of Architecture capstone project, a mixed-use modular high-rise in Los Angeles California

Place & Time: Los Angeles, California USA; 2014

Project Scale: 1 structure; 14 stories; 225,750sf built over 18,125sf site

Advisor: James Doerfler

7.

Essays, and Things I’ve Made

The following pages represent work that is extracurricular to architecture, but whose meditations have shaped my perspective on life and the profession.

a. “Memory of a Fire”

Essay and photographs recounting my time in Death Valley working with wild clay. 2020-2021.

b. Ceramics

Ceramic works from 2021-2023.

c. Furniture - “Memory from

a Barn”

Essay and photographs of Furniture, primarily in wood, from 2014-2018.

d. “Common Detail”

Collaboration with Nicholas Morris; a critique of the role and esteem of the craftsperson in contemporary construction. 2023.

e. “Form”

Essay on architectural form and meaning. 2017.

Opposite: Foraged, processed wild clay from Death Valley, palm frond shoot for texturing, and hand tools. Photograph.

7.a.1

“Memory of a Fire” a.

I rented a motorcycle in June of 2019 while I was visiting Los Angeles, and I rode it out to one of the hilltops overlooking the Mojave desert. Looking out, I saw an entire world I’d never been aware of, and I was struck for the first time with the incredible sense that the Earth was so much more than I’d known.

By Eike Maas

written

December 2023

photographs

June 2019April 2021

In the Mojave, the bones of our planet are laid bare. Archaean rock formations sail over dried earth, all naked without the foliated veil of the Eastern states. I remember, when I returned to the desert a year later to live there, hearing the wings of a bird taking flight. It was so quiet without the rustling of leaves or traffic, or the entomological hum of the forest. At night, the desert is still and blue, and glitters with warm flakes of gypsum. It looks like winter and feels like an oven.

The hottest place is Death Valley, which is centered upon the invisible terminus of a river called the Amargosa. At the southern tip of the Valley is a town called Shoshone, official population: thirty-four. Twelve miles south of Shoshone is the hot spring of Tecopa, and a few miles past that is China Ranch, an oasis which became my home.

It was there, hiking the badlands of the western Mojave, that I began my relationship with earthen ceramics.

China Ranch comprises eighteen-hundred-or-so date palms arranged neatly along the western bank of Willow Creek, a trickle of freshwater that perennially feeds the nearby Amargosa. The wet influence of the creek extends

Top: Along the Angeles Crest

Middle: Heading into Death Valley

Bottom: Orchards at China Ranch

All photographs by Eike Maas

7.a.2

7.a.3

outward only far enough for a hedge of mesquite to line its sides, except where human intervention has expanded its reach for irrigation; in those areas there is some alfalfa, leftover from the 1920’s, which turns to sand within feet of the end of a drip line. The rest of the area around the ranch appears to be dust, a hundred miles of it in every direction, and after settling into life on the ranch, I found myself being drawn to it.

There was an area to the east of the creek which had been named the badlands where the dust had eroded into a web of crevasses a few hundred feet deep, and access to the bottom of that maze was easy from the date orchard. The owner of the ranch escorted a few other residents of the ranch and myself into the badlands at night, a few days after I’d moved in. We followed a coyote trail, a smoothed rut of semi-polished dust a foot wide, up the side of a hill maybe seventy feet high, and looked out into the network of overscaled rivulets and up at the sky. There were two peaks farther out in the badlands, hard-walled buttes a hundred feet taller than the highest surrounding hills, and the passageways we traversed along the bottom of the badlands went on beyond them and beyond sight. The badlands were the first place I’d been in the Mojave with dimensions defined by anything other than the horizon, and their invisible ends made them feel larger, or heavier, than any of the endless flatnesses that appeared everywhere else. The mystery of what might be out there expanded the scale of the badlands and gave them something indescribable that comes close to being called a personality.

I began probing the badlands, at first with escorted guidance, then by following rumors from the old hands on the ranch, and finally established enough

of a relationship with the place to go alone without predestination. There were coyotes who lived there, specifically under a palm tree that had sprung up next to a tiny puddle fed from underground. Once, there were two hundred or more crows, who all landed together on a hillside in one enormous, flapping luff. There was a place that looked like moondust, formed by gypsum sand a few feet deep atop the harder dolomite scrabble that had been pulverized into the badlands’ regular topography. I climbed to the top of the dune and jumped off of it, landing twenty feet below in the powder, and sliding all the way to the bottom.

About three miles out from Willow Creek, a cave had eroded into one of the sheer walls of the gorges. It was a small cave, maybe fifty feet tall at its highest point, maybe a hundred feet deep, with a Pantheonic oculus at its apex. At the entrance to the cave was a mound of smooth, hard earth laying in dried clumps several feet high. It was uncharacteristically red amongst the buff sand that defined everything else. I picked up a manageable piece of the red earth, and it was heavy, hard, dense, and fractalized as I handled it into smaller and smaller pieces the same shape as the mother I had held. This was the first place I found clay in the Mojave.

I gathered earth from the cave entrance and three other promising deposits farther out in the gorge by pulling a utility cart two-and-a-half miles across the challenging surface of the badlands until it wouldn’t move any farther, then carrying four fivegallon buckets and a shovel the rest of the way out and back. I processed the earth with water from the creek and some old pillow cases used to filter out larger particles, and hung twenty-five pounds of oversaturated

The badlands at China Ranch, where erosion reveals layers of gypsum, caliche, and iron-rich sediments deposited during the formation of Lake Manley, some 120,000 years ago. Photograph. Eike Maas.

7.a.5

The cave where I found some of the richest seams of clay in the badlands. Eroded mounds of dry clay tower over me in this image. Photograph. Eike Maas.

7.a.7

A

All photographs by Eike Maas.

Top: Four different sources of wild clay harvested in the badlands ready to be processed.

Bottom: Processed clay in its seive bag, along with some hand tools and texturing implements.

dried palm frond shoot can be seen to the right of the bag.

Top: Iron rich red clay and kaolinitic gray clay are marbled together to create this effect.

Middle: The texture of a palm frond is captured in this clay wad.

Bottom: The first iteration of the kiln, later refined to burn near 2000°F.

All photographs by Eike Maas.

mud to dry for several days in the sun. By the fourth day, the mud had become workable, and I removed a solid lump from the hanging sack, now cut to fifteen or twenty pounds, and moved it to a plastic bag for storage.

Over the following weeks, I collected two pieces of thick, rusted sheet steel from a scrapyard next to a collapsed gypsum mine from the 1920’s, a palette of K-23 specialty fire bricks that a hardware store in a remote desert town in Nevada inexplicably had sitting around, and a refractory shelf and thermocouple from an online ceramic supplier. There was a boneyard of cleared underbrush, all mesquite, willow, and cottonwood, near the ranch owner’s home, which I cut and split into usable firewood, transported by hand cart half-a-mile down the gravel road to the place where I built my kiln. And lastly, I found a high-speed fan and an extension cord, which enabled me to inundate the fire with oxygen.

With the clay I made pinch pots without utilitarian intention, marbleized slabs showing off the variety of clay colors I’d gathered, tiles textured with the bizarre patterns of young palm frond shoots and the regulated cadence of mature ones, and little objets d’art formed after human features: a teacup with an ear for a handle, and a candlestick formed in the negative space of a grasping hand. There was a lovely small community out there on the ranch, close-knit, authentic, adventurous, and interesting, but I missed people. The summer during which I’d arrived had already become winter, and time was moving quickly.

I fired the kiln once with a green glass bottle, which would slump around 1400 degrees Fahrenheit,

as a makeshift pyrometer, and the glass liquidated into droplets that I found in the ash. It wasn’t an indication per se that the kiln would be hot enough for ceramic wares, but it did indicate that it might be possible. There had been flames shooting out of gaps in the brick around the circumference of the kiln, so I rebuilt it into a more hermetic form, added an intake damper to control how much cold, oxygenated air was entering the kiln, and added an entrypoint for the thermocouple, which read 1990 Fahrenheit on the next firing.

In the meantime, I had been working on renovating portions of a farmhouse built next to the orchards in the 1920’s. My girlfriend, Camille, had moved from Brooklyn to the ranch for a few months and had made fast friends with the local crew. I spent afternoons climbing 30-foot palms with a machete tied around my waist and a bucket of pollinated cotton swabs. It was the early-spring ritual of symbiotic fertilization. The days were becoming longer and the nights were no longer cold. Soon it was time to leave the ranch, bound for Los Angeles. I scheduled my departure for April 28th, 2021.

On April 21st, I was awoken by a person frantically knocking on my door. A fire had broken out where some guests were camping near Willow Creek’s spring, halfa-mile from my home, just north of the orchard. By the time I had phoned for help, I could already see an orange glow over the treetops. The fire was bound to the west and north by the narrow gravel road that wound through the orchard, to the south by a natural waist in the narrow greenbelt along willow creek, and to the east by the empty expanse of the badlands. It was fought throughout the night by a company of volunteers.

7.a.11

The next morning, a breeze carried embers from the four acres that had burnt overnight across the orchard road. Nine of us worked a fifty-foot-wide clearing to the north of the orchard, clearing brush and debris by hand to create a firebreak. Within an hour an intense wall of flame had swept through the entire oasis north of the firebreak, reducing some thirty-five acres of pristine desert oasis to ash. The desert is no place to waste time in sorrow. Rehabilitation began immediately, and I followed through on my plans to make for the coast. A week later I was in Los Angeles, a ripple in spacetime away from China Ranch.

A year passed before I took up ceramics again. On a Saturday morning, I’d hiked Goat Peak in the Santa Monica mountains. The little shrubs that blanket those hills are a distortion to someone like me, used to the high canopy of old-growth eastern forests, and a peak less than 2,000 feet high seems to soar thousands of feet higher above the chaparral. It was a reminder of the little dolomitic hills and gullies in the desert, which seemed so much more imposing against an infinite horizon. Before long, I was producing ceramics again. I learned about the mineralogy of clay bodies and glazes, the geology to source the raw materials that produce color, sheen, and crystalline effects. I became obsessed with the products of atmospheric kiln firings, where the interaction of earth and heat are transmuted into grotesque and beautiful textures. Sodium carbonate becomes plasma in the intense environment of the kiln, glazing every surface it touches, tearing molecular oxygen free of its mineral bonds to produce glassy silicates shaded orange, gray, brown, and black. Ashes melt in crackling green rivulets along the surface of the vessels. The conditions approached those that formed the porous basalts and elephantine dolomites

of the desert billions of years ago on a powerful primordial Earth; replicated at my own fingertips. Dainty objects made from the obliterative forces of extreme heat are an indication of the banality of humanity’s absurd power. The ancient dust of the earth that surrounds China Ranch and the ash from its fire become materials of creation.

I found a man named Steve Davis, a lifelong potter in Santa Ana, California, who had invented a kiln he called the Kazegama - ‘Wind Kiln’ - an atmospheric ash kiln powered by propane and electricity. He fired the kiln at Bombay Beach, a derelict village along the eastern shore of California’s Salton Sea at the edge of the Mojave desert. In June of 2023, I made a collection of pieces using the clay I had harvested at China Ranch, and traveled to Bombay Beach during a summer heat wave. The results of that firing encapsulate my memories of the desert.

The Mojave is the desert, and the desert is the earth. The place now called Death Valley was once a freshwater lake, before that a saltwater sea. Fossilized aquatic flora erode into dry powder. The entire history of the earth exists in the dust that blows around the Mojave. It buries into every crevice of everything you own, into your closed eyes and past your covered nose, into places inside of you that are beyond physical and will linger long after you’re gone.

7.a.13

Burnt and contorted trunks of mesquite trees are surrounded by ash in the aftermath of the Willow Creek fire at China Ranch. Photograph. Eike Maas

7.a.15

A “nanban”-style bonsai tray made with clay slip from China Ranch and blown ash. Fired in reduction to cone 10, the tray has warped in the intense kiln environment.

“Ranch Tray”

2023.

Stoneware with mineral inclusions, wild clay slip, kiln ash glaze.

265mm x 25mm

7.b.1

By Eike Maas

Ceramics b.

photographs and work

June 2022September 2023

“The trans-personal nature of craftwork is expressed, directly and immediately, in sensation: the body is participation. To feel is first of all to be aware of something or someone not ourselves.”

Octavio

Paz, “Use and Contemplation”, 1974

Opposite: ceramic wares in an open pitfire at Dockweiler Beach, Los Angeles, California, USA. Photograph by Eike Maas.

The orange glow of this tea bowl’s surface is caused by iron oxide flashing in the gas kiln’s flame.

Crackled green glass forms on the unglazed surface of this platter as calcium-rich ash blown into the kiln fuses with silica in the clay body.

The pitted, gray-orange surfaces of these teacups follow the pattern of gas flames and sooty carbon burnoff in the kiln environment.

A blue-gray sheen forms over a brown surface as sodium and iron fuse into microcrystalline structures in the glaze surface. Seashells used to separate the bottle from the kiln floor leave scars of calcium carbonate.

Rapid cooling caused high levels of iron oxide and magnesium from the glaze and kiln atmosphere to wrinkle as they fused into this metallic surface.

A wild-clay slip high in calcium and iron give this deformed bottle its yellow-green color. Glassy rivulets formed where ash high in naturally-occuring fluxes was blown into the kiln and fused with the slip.

7.b.13

This pot has the same slip applied as the deformed bottle on the previous page. Due to its shape and its location in the kiln, it avoided many of the effects of the blown ash.

A teapot with a calcium-rich wild clay slip applied over an iron-rich slip. The two slips have bled into each other, revealing red, orange, yellow, green, brown, gray, and black colors.

Furniture - “Memory from a Barn” c.

By Eike Maas

written March 2024

photographs and work

May 2014August 2019

On a Saturday morning, sometime in 2000, I was nine years old, visiting family in Germany, and spending the day with my cousins in our Opa’s barn. The four of us were an industrious bunch who didn’t get to see each other very often, quite energetic and unaware of consequences, and so within seconds we had established the day’s schedule. The conversation went something like this:

Sebastian (who was ten): Look, I can climb up on that pile [of pallets]!

Jann-Dieter (Sebastian’s twelve-year-old brother, wearing his soccer uniform): Not if I do it before you, little fatty.

Me: Don’t call him fat, you idiot!

Martin (who was also twelve): You’re both idiots, and both fat.

Stephan, Martin’s brother, who was already thirteen, told us all to shut-up and pulled an electric drill out of his backpack.

Lifting a glass jar of screws off of Opa’s work bench, Stephan informed us that we would build a tower with the pallets. Stephan being the oldest, and biggest, and therefore the most politically influential out of the four of us, had decided our agenda, and thus we set to work.

Martin grabbed a handsaw and gave Sebastian and myself each a hammer, a nearly-useless tool when building with

Opposite: Sanding an interstitial layer of veneer of a compound-curved, faired, bent plywood chaise.

screws. Within a few hours, a three-level tower was built. We collected lunch from Oma, and all shakily clambered onto the tower. It remained upright under the weight of our five squirming selves, and we glowed in collective triumph.

Having accomplished our first goal with several hours still left in the day, and feeling mischievously empowered and insatiably active, Stephan next decided we would build a potato cannon out of a capped length of pvc pipe and Opa’s air compressor. Stephan drilled a hole into the pipe’s cap, I collected potatoes from the back of a wagon, someone charged the air compressor, and the parts soon came together into a magnificent implement, full of noise and power. We spent the second half of the day gunning potatoes our tower until a deflected spud broke a dangling lightbulb. Neither the sound of hammering and drilling, nor the foomp-pop of the potato artillery had attracted any negative attention from our parents, but the sound of breaking glass, and the pause in cannonfire as we pointed fingers at each other, must have been a sign for concern. The barn door swung open, and Oma and all three of our dads surveyed our afternoon’s work.

Taking down the tower wasn’t really as sad of an event as one might expect; in fact, as far as punishments went, it was amongst the mildest I’d ever received. The thing had served its purpose, and none of us had enough ego to need a monument. Also, disassembling the uppermost pallets meant one last climb to the top. As the evening came about, the barn was returned to its prior state: air compressor empty, tools back on their hooks, pallets once again a haphazard pile, and potato

residue removed from all impact sites. The lightbulb was still dangling, broken, but it would be replaced. All that was left was a sense of accomplishment. Stephan, Martin, Jann-Dieter, and Sebastian all went home, and I feel promptly, deeply asleep.

Now, some twenty-something years later and a decade into a career in architecture, I find myself still trying to capture that playful afternoon as I design buildings - real buildings with budgets and egress paths and bars of reinforcing steel. There is a trope in this profession that more constraints produce better designs. I can understand the intent of this statement, but really, what a precarious idea! So often, this is interpreted to mean that constraint equates with efficiency, which is for so many an ultimate ideal. But, I remember that shaky tower, planned and held together with little more than boyish ingenuity, and the ideal of efficiency seems lonely and incomplete.

I think that the efficiency obsession comes from that century-old ethos of the Modern movement, misinterpreted to a fault as mechanically rigorous and pure. It’s an interpretation where every designed element requires a logical pedigree to have merit. Ironically, even the Post-Modern movement was unable to shake that need for pedigree and pomp, and here we are decades later still bound to it.

I’d like to posit, instead, that merit may stem from the joy of the creator as well. As evidence, I submit the idea that the Barcelona Pavilion and any child’s blanket fort ever are equally worthy of our affections. The Pavilion is hardly more than a blanket

fort made of marble, after all - maybe the reason for its timelessness. To balance constraint, we must equally apply improvisation. The prerogative of early exloration in creativity is the essential foundation to a later successful reconciliation with the constraints of reality. We liberate design in the beginning, to deliberate its merits toward an end.

Putting this ideal into architectural practice means creating freely and with pleasure, exploring materials without preconception, exploring spaces without a notion of what makes it good or bad. To maintain creativity requires us to keep open the naive perspective of youth, ready to absorb without criticism. I take a piece of wood, for example, and play with it at all of its limits: saturated, bent, thinned, and stretched. In the practice of architecture, this means placemaking without quantitative constraint - being free to capture program in emergent forms and spaces, or to finish surfaces in unconventional means.

I can think of Wharton Esherick’s home near Philadelphia and J.B. Blunk’s north of San Francisco, the Refugi de Sant Benet near Barcelona, and undoubtedly countless more vernacular structures throughout the world as prime examples of this process played out in architectural form. In all cases, the entire structure seems to be built as a gesamtkunstwerk of personal details sculpted and ornamented exactly to reflect the builder’s inner self. The story goes that as Esherick’s mason laid out perfectly straight block walls along his stringline, Esherick himself would walk behind, kicking the blocks into a subtle curve more to

his liking. That mason is memorialized in a coathook near the home’s entrance, which Esherick carved with his visage. In places like this, the universality of Modern detailing is completely rejected and replaced with hyper-specificity. Yet, even as a visitor to these places the effect is welcoming, personal, and warm, despite its belonging to someone else. I think it’s possible that the convivial spirits of the builders of these places are captured and promulgated in those details, the end result being the feeling of a warm greeting upon entering their home. The inefficiencies of these places give them their character, to stunning effect. This freeness is difficult to retain in the practice’s contemporary climate of fast deadlines, tight profit margins, and practically anonymous clientele, but it isn’t impossible. Gehry’s Guggenheim is an example, albeit somewhat surfacial, of free play at glamorous, glitzy, grandiose scale.

It seems that the constraints on the practice of architecture these days are ever increasing in their quantity and complexity. The case for immediate rationality is easy to concede to. I would argue, though, that the case for free play is therefore more important and necessary than ever. Architecture needs the perspective of a child with a pile of pallets and some friends in a barn somewhere on a Sunday afternoon.

The unpredictable, promiscuous effects engendered by any building make it the instrument par excellence of improvisation.

-Jeffrey Kipnis, A Question of Qualities, 2013

Furniture prototyped for Ottra, in NYC. Design by Ottra. The unique geometry and intricate joinery was achieved by employing CNC routers, traditional machinery and jigs, and hand-carving.

Process photos and final result of compound-curved, faired, bent plywood chaise. The finished chaise measured 5/8” thick and weighs less than 25 lbs including its steel base. It supports upwards of 400lbs.

By Eike Maas

“Common Detail” d.

with Nicholas Morris written February 2023March 2024

photographs and work

Feb 2023 7.d.1

Common detail is the first sculptural investigation into the concept of a constructive culture produced as a collaboration between myself and artist Nicholas Morris, based in Grenoble, France. The sculpture captures an artist’s misinterpretation of architectural drawings, where industrial components optimized for profitability and efficiency are supplanted by crafted details emergent from the artist’s relationship with material and technique. The thesis of the piece, and of the larger concept of constructive culture, is that the value of craftsmanship can be seen as an equal and opposing force to the value of mass production in the contemporary paradigm of construction. Craftsmanship is given this value by its adoption as a cultural more; the more widespread its influence, the greater its strength.

From that thesis arises an insight into contemporary construction practices: that construction practices and the broader culture in which they occur are reciprocally bound, and any deterioration in one exacerbates a deterioration in the other. Statistics from the UN, UNICEF, the WHO, and countless other reputable international organizations provide quantitative factual evidence that plastic waste and pollution, atmospheric carbon, income inequality, and poverty are all on the rise across the globe. At the same time, investment from major financial institutions into real estate have expanded significantly, consolidating trillions of dollars worth of housing - a vital need - into the control of a relatively small number of people. Besides the quantitative data, we also believe that places have just gotten uglier, and cities and homes have become less pleasant to be in. If construction and culture are tied together the way we posit, and the data suggest

Opposite: Photograph of “Common Detail”, a collaborative work with sculptor Nicholas Morris. Western Fir-Larch, Aluminum, Plaster, Steel. 100cm x 100cm x 100cm. 2023.

Opposite and Above: Architectural details indicating contemporary status quo hardware and construction. Rhino. Eike Maas.

that cultures are becoming dirtier, poorer, and, we feel, uglier, then our insight becomes a critique. Contemporary construction practices are becoming dirtier, poorer, and uglier too. We believe that these undesirable outcomes stem directly from the primary motivation of the real estate market: unregulated profit maximization. From here, we launch our campaign to reverse course.

If profit is the core of the problem, then profit must be the starting point of our rebuttal. Profitability, to the modern developer, is a function of rapid production, broad marketability, and low labor and material cost. Maximizing production speed, market valuation, and revenue, and minimizing the hard costs of construction are quantifiable variables in a very simple equation that describes profit. With such simple arithmetic, the qualitative values of these factors are lost. All of the goals of this equation are most readily achieved by seeking modularity and uniformity in design, specifying materials that industry is already tooled to mass produce, and reducing the need for experienced and skilled labor. At the building scale, end up with buildings that seem unremarkable, materials that rely on petroleum processes, and shoddy craftsmanship. At a broader scale, we devalue skillful tradespeople, sustainable material investment, and the bond between home and occupant. These are clearly the same problems we discussed earlier, which lead to a dirtier, poorer, and uglier world. To correct the problems in our construction industry, we must obviously reframe our definition of profit, factoring qualitative variables into our equation and giving them value.

Opposite: Detail showing cast aluminum hands replacing structural steel brackets, and hand-picked wood replacing builder-grade lumber. Photograph. Nicholas Morris

“Common Detail” in situ for the exhibition “Travail Libre” at the Grande Galerie of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble, Grenoble, France. 2023.

By Eike Maas

written July 2017March 2024

“It is often proclaimed that there exists an urban form resulting from politically determined planning, but in reality one suspects that the urban, in fact, does not have a form.”

-Manuel Delgado, El Animal Publico, 1999.

There is a place that we each have filled with memories of atmospheres and the moods of past experiences. We sometimes peek into the nostalgia of these memories for their opiate effect and permit ourselves a daydream. The sense of an environment fills our mind. The memories come cinematically detailed and other times viscerally blurred, but their effect is powerful and their importance is clear as we are relieved of reality for a moment. The remembered snippets of laughter, the smells and tastes of a long meal, the way someone caught your eye - these things have meaning to us. I often wonder if I can design anything as important.

As I compile an incomplete list of things and places that I remember meaningfully, I’m struck by their diversity in respect to time, place, size, feel, emotion. I think of a lumpy, brown teddy bear; then, the hospital room where my mother recovered from cancer; a hat and a sailboat; and the Sagrada Familia.

The teddy bear was a joyful necessity in my youngest years; the hospital room held a great sense of love; the hat and sailboat are from a memory that is mostly relaxed and sometimes thrilling; and the Sagrada Familia has a sense of awe. I parse the environments of these memories, and I realize that architecture is created with great detail but acts on us in esoteric ways. We often find that the heirlooms of our affection begin to degrade, sometimes even before their obsolescence; but, in memory we find the opposite, that they repose over time. When we remember a difficult time that ended well, we forget the uneasiness and uncertainty before the resolution; and, in remembering times that ended poorly, we rationalize their outcomes and find ways to euphemize their emotional effects.

The way that we truly define places is not by quantitative measures, but rather by the soft and effervescent effects that linger in us long after we’ve moved on. A place’s gestalt comprises not edges and nodes, but rather the unseen provocations that manifest those physicalities, and recursively, the unseen atmospheres produced by those manifestations. It makes sense, then that we refer to architecture as ‘space’ - that which has no matter - and as ‘place’ - space we endow with dimensionless importance. Architecture is not ultimately about giving shape to our life, but rather about giving it meaning.