EMILY NIX
Undergraduate portfolio 2016-2020 Bachelor of Design University of Florida
Dramatic Symbiosis
Critic: Michael Kuenstle Modern Dance Institute- Charleston, SC Spring 2019_8 weeks Perkins + Will Studio Competition Runner-Up 2019
Perspective of Approach from Meeting and Calhoun St. Corner
CONTEXT AND PROGRAM The driver for the project was a cultural vessel for the city of Charleston. The program was a modern dance institute at the corner of Meeting and Calhoun Street. Inspiration for the project was three-fold: the scale of the site, the scale of the building itself, all the way down to the most intimate scale, that of the facade. 1/16� Scale Model Plexiglass, Wood, Microlumber
DANCE AS FORM
The form of the building was inspired by Martha Graham’s choreography which had a basis in forceful angular movements as well as an idea of contraction and release. By studying her dances and looking at still images I began to diagram simple geometric forms. The buildings form becomes an idea of two dancers being joined at the hip. This concept was reinterpreted as two arms that stretch out and come together at the black box performance which acts as a spatial joint where public guests and dancers finally meet in one enclosed space.
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Legend
Night Journey (1947) Martha Graham Dance Company
1. Outdoor Performance Stage 2. Cafe and Gift Shop 3. Ticketing and Coat Check 4. Prop Delivery 5. Black Box Theater 6. Bathrooms 7. Dressing Rooms 8. Dance Studio 9. Classroom 10. Office Admin. 11. Dance Lobby
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First Floor Plan
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Second Floor Plan 10.
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Third Floor Plan
TRANSFORMATIVE LIGHT
This space acts as an extension of the park as well as the building itself as a place for dance. People can gather to watch dance practices, free performances, or find solace from the heat by resting under the shade in public seating spaces. 01 | Dramatic Symbiosis
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Meeting St. Section B’ Calhoun St.
Ground Floor Plan
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Perspective of Meeting and Calhoun Street Corner
FACADE AND MATERIALITY The arms of the building outstretch to the park to further engage the public and bring people in. This idea of contraction and release is experienced in a series of sequences both sectionally as well as in plan. The visitors travel through shallow, compressed spaces that eventually lead to exaggerated vertical spaces. At the scale of the facade, I was inspired by lamentation, one of Graham’s famous dances. If we viewed clothing on a dancer as showing movement, time and slight changes in form, how can the facade act in the same way?
01 | Dramatic Symbiosis
Lamentation Martha Graham 1930 (Top Right)
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The Mask
Critic: Judi Monk Design 7 Residential Tower- Financial District NYC Fall 2019_5 weeks In Collaboration with: Jonathon Haist
EDGES AND JOINTS To challenge the surrounding context of the buildings that comprise the financial district, the tower was designed to embody temperance and an idea of fragility. Constructed with exposed structure, the tower reveals itself on certain facades that expose its construction. On the North facade the building appears as a solid mass, made up of a series of limestone undulating panels that relate it to the surrounding masonry construction. 1/64� Scale Model Plexitate, Microlumber Printed Chipboard
02 | The Mask
CHALLENGING PLACE Situated in the financial district of Manhattan, the surroundings of the site had particular characteristics of power and permanence. In order to challenge these ideals of place, the tower we proposed would embody other ideals.
Perspective of Approach from Corner of William and Liberty St. Nix | 04
Mourn of Place
Critic: Judi Monk Design 7 City Block-Penn Station New York, NY Fall 2019_6 weeks In Collaboration with: Jonathon Haist
EXPERIENCE OF APPROACH
Approach Along Promenade 04 | Mourn of Place
The larger tower received the nickname the obelisk. Displacing the tower from the corner of the site, it becomes removed from the New York grid and positioned at the end of the promenade. The approach of the site from West 33rd street would create the effect of a long approach to the tower. The building acts as marker throughout the city by removing itself from the constraints of the grid.
View from Corner of 8th Av. and W. 33rd St.
Section Cut of Two Mixed Use Towers Nix | 05
The Chamber
Critic: William Zajac Design 5 Natural Area Teaching Lab Gainesville, FL Fall 2018_10 weeks
DOCUMENTING CONDITIONS When charged with measuring the Florida landscape, or more specifically the site NATL (Natural Area Teaching Lab) I was interested in studying experienced light conditions and how they can be used to connect seemingly disparate ecosystems.
The model becomes a translator between four ecosystems: wetlands, upland pine, hammock, and old field. The model takes aspects of all four and reinterprets them into a series of occupiable spaces that reveal the site in specific moments or through the tectonic language it employs.
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Site Plan Diagram
Light Wall Time-Lapse 05 | The Chamber
CAPTURING SHADOWS A main marker of place became the wall (photo series bottom) as it collected the shadow cast from the site itself. The moving leaves of the trees left their temporary traces and produced a palimpsest of sorts. The wall becomes the receiver of place or site, therefore becoming an integral part of the chambers construct. Made from a semi translucent material, the original site mapping was printed on it making it a relic of the site that it sits on. The shadows dance across the wall making the chamber a dynamic construct in an even more dynamic landscape. 1/4� Scale Model Wood, Printed Vellum, Mylar, Silicone Molds
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