ERIN PELLEGRINO Selected Works
Erin Pellegrino is currently a Masters of Architecture II Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Described by her professors as a “maker and a thinker with a strong emotive dimension to her work”, Erin Pellegrino is interested in the human qualities of architecture. Previously, she graduated from Cornell University’s Bachelor of Architecture in 2014 where her design excellence was recognized with the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal for her thesis on architecture and perfume. Recently she was awarded a Design Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects, New England for the Alpine Shelter project in Slovenia. She was also awarded the Paul M. Heffernan Travel Fellowship, to travel and build the project shelter in the Julian Alps. She has participated in lectures at IUAV in Venice, Italy, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, UVA in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska. The project MiniCity Detroit was awarded first prize in Redesigning Detroit, a competition for the redesign of a vacant city block in Detroit, Michigan. This was a result of a collaboration with Davide Marchetti, a Roman architect and visiting critic at Cornell University’s Cornell in Rome program. In spring 2013, she was nominated to represent Cornell University’s Bachelor of Architecture program for the AIANYS student work competition. She has also been awarded both the Seipp Prize and York Prize, also from Cornell University. Erin has worked for a range of firms and institutions, as an intern at FXFOWLE, a Studio Coach at NuVu Studio in Cambridge, as a Teaching Associate at Cornell University, and as a shop assistant at both the Cornell University and Harvard University fabrication shops. In the summer of 2011, Erin traveled to South Africa as a part of a Design + Build team to construct an early education crèche in Johannesburg. Other projects include a collaboration with Jake Rudin on a renovation of a Richard Meier home in Ithaca, NY, which was awarded a Historic Ithaca Preservation Award as well as construction of a Ceremonial Japanese Tea House in Danby, NY.
ALPINE SHELTER SKUTA
Project Type: Design/Build Collaboration with OFIS Arhitekti, Frederick Kim and Katie MacDonald Summer 2015 The bivak is an object that represents a basic human necessity, a shelter. It is a symbol of refuge. The outer form and choice of materials were chosen to respond to the extreme mountain conditions, and also provide views to the greater landscape. Its position within the wilderness requires respect for natural resources, so the foundations are as minimal as possible as the object is temporary in nature. The design of the interior dictates modesty, totally subordinate to the function of the shelter. It provides shelter and accommodation for up to eight mountaineers. The project developed from a design studio led by OFIS partners Rok Oman and Spela Videcnik at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In fall 2014, a studio of thirteen students tackled the challenges of designing an innovative yet practical shelter to meet the needs of the harsh alpine climate. Inspired by the vernacular architecture of Slovenia with its rich and diverse architectural heritage, the chosen project was designed by by Frederick Kim, Katie MacDonald, and Erin Pellegrino. Informed by traditional alpine architecture, building elements, materials, structure and form, the designers worked closely with local engineer Milan Sorc, local contractor Boťtjan Perme, and the project’s sponsors: Rieder, AKT II, and SD Freeapproved. The design consists of three modules, in part to allow for transport and also to programmatically divide the space The first module is designated for entry, storage and preparation of a modest dinner. The second module allows for both sleeping and socializing, with beds that face each other for communal eating and gathering.. The last is module is dedicated to sleeping, and from both sides of the shelter, one can experience the panoramic views of both Skuta, the valley, and the city of Ljubljana.
Project Type: Competition, First Prize Collaboration with Davide Marchetti Architetto Spring 2013 Using the surrounding urban fabric as the generator for a new vision of the city, MiniCity Detroit utilizes the historic and present urban conditions to materialize a concept that directly responds to the site. Bringing the existing physical form and history into the plan, the conditions set by the site provide a framework for renewal. At the pedestrian level a new urban space is formed; conceived of as the extension of Woodward Avenue, providing a space for transition as well as an active urban core. Both above and below, an elevated platform for public events such as fairs, outdoor markets, music concerts and festivals is introduced to the proposal. The design pulls the existing urban grid into the site to generate the driving axes of the scheme, allowing for a merging of both the historic city and its potential as a new addition to the woodward avenue corridor. The high-rise extrudes from this framework in an industrial red brick-style, inserted as a new architectural addition to the Detroit skyline.
Project Type: Academic - Thesis Awarded the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal Advisors: Mark Cruvellier and Mark Morris Fall 2013 “[Architecture] is fundamentally confronted with questions of human existence in space and time; it expresses and relates man’s being in the world.” - Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin How can space illustrate the un-seeable? How can it engage our senses? This thesis project was an attempt to orchestrate the architecture of the invisible, one that is sensed primarily by the nose rather than the eyes. Taking advantage of an abandoned railway tunnel, the work focuses on the mediation of human perception and the earth’s richness of botanicals and essences. Both public and private, the intervention moves from city to garden through a Parisian perfume academy. The scheme consists of several distinct moments along the linear rail track: the entry, the botanical cells, the bar and distillation area, the studios and scent rooms, the master’s studio and finally the exit/emergence into the Parc Montsouris. The composition is a processional experience to understand the interplay of space and scent. A large sectional model, made of cedar, was a useful tool in presenting the invisible qualities of the project, while still maintaining a traditional representation of an architectural scheme. The drawings were developed using various hand and digital techniques to convey atmosphere, sectional qualities, and challenge typical perception in a two-dimensional format. The representation of the project was aimed at uncovering the invisible qualities of our senses, and bridge a disconnect between space and the experience of the body within it. The project was given the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal in May of 2014, which is awarded for exceptional merit in architectural design.
THE ENTRY
THE UNDERGROUND BAR
Here is where city and garden merge. Upon entering the site through a large trellis, the visitor is guided through a structure that supports greenhouse cells. This is where many of the products for distillation are grown throughout the year.
Here is where human and nature collide. Now totally underground, the bar begins the spatial zone of distillation. Here, both the oils and the body is prepared for perfume. The bar continues along the axis of the garden, and serves as a crucial point in user-interface. Alcohol is an integral part in the perfuming process, as it becomes a vehicle for dilution for the oils. It is also simultaneously preparing the skin by momentarily dilating and then sealing the scent within the skin’s pores. In moderate amounts, alcohol can cause blood vessel dilation which improves circulation. This is why people report feeling warmer while they are drinking. Improved circulation means that the rate at which your body’s natural frequency interacts with perfume is increased, thus increasing your natural chemistry and ability to interact with the oils in perfume.
THE STUDIOS
THE MASTER’S ORGAN
Eight studios occupy the tracks in the uncovered area within the park. This portion of the old track is put back into use, as the studios are rearrangeable. Branching off from this, new tracks have been added to serve as turnoffs into the north wall. Within the wall are eight scent rooms and their corresponding libraries, the studios serve as a regulator to the libraries, and the shelves of perfumes correspond to the furniture and openings within the glass studio. This allows the studio to function as a space of learning as well as a place of study. The scent rooms are derived from the composition of the eight categories of fragrances. Their forms constructed from the timing and anatomy of the different scents, their properties, and characteristics. Above the scent rooms sits an atomizer. This lamp-post sized apparatus disperses the scents from the studio and scent rooms below, and is featured above each of the different rooms. A fragrant vapor is emitted into the park at times controlled by the students and the master.
Here is where the Master is placed, serving as a gatekeeper and composer. His organ is situated at the entry to the exit tunnel, where he has the ability to control the scents that are released through the main atomizer. This atomizer also serves as the main apparatus around which the exit circulation occurs. Its introduction into the park is both a marker and a folly, finally punctuating the grand inner-workings of the world below. It is here where the main idea of the architecture is finally revealed to the world above.
PITCH
Design Miami Finalist
Project Type: Competition Collaboration with Mikhail Grinwald, Katie MacDonald, & Jake Rudin; Engineering: AKT II Miami, Florida May 2015 Welcoming all to Design Miami, Pitch takes the vinyl tent as a provocation, not to reconsider the canopy as an overhead shelter, but to rethink the ground—to pitch the tent upsidedown as a landscape. Visitors enter and exit the fair over, under, and through a geometric landscape that is both familiar and unexpected: structurally and materially similar to the existing tents, yet habitable and spatial in new ways. Sloped surfaces provide shaded seating for events and leisure, framing a courtyard and reorienting the entrance toward the Botanic Garden, Convention Center and the ocean. The interior surfaces of the pavilion are covered in low-resilience polyurethane ‘memory’ foam, which provides a safe and comfortable surface for play and relaxation. During the week of the show, the constant deformation of the foam is gradually imprinted on its surface and becomes a record of the event. In addition to the two existing Design Miami tents, the underside of the large slope is used as a partially enclosed public exhibition space. This ‘third tent’ will feature work from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and will extend the fair-going experience to all visitors. Pitch is a play on the materiality and geometry of the tents as its immediate context, but also as widely recognizable features of Design Miami. At the conclusion of the fair, the pavilion will be recycled; the steel and aluminum will be processed at local facilities and the PVC membrane will be cut and manufactured into Design-Miami branded umbrellas, as a final iteration of the tent particularly well-suited to Miami’s beach culture. Pitch is a mediating interface—a vibrant public platform for Design Miami. Like a landscape, Pitch is illusory. From one view, it seems to extend out from the tents. From another, it is an excavation. The Design Miami logo is similarly animated as an anamorphic projection, coming into and out of alignment as visitors approach and enter the pavilion. After circulating through the exhibitions, fair-goers exit the tent into a small oasis and join passersby on the slopes. This new terrain is a destination against the flat ocean horizon so familiar to Miami—a space of gathering and exploration.
POCKET CRECHE
Project Type: Academic Professor Andrea Simitch Team: Luis Corzo, Wei-Yen Hsieh and Shuping Liu Spring 2011
The goal of Pocket Crèche was to create a structure that would exist as a unique learning experience that the children in the community could call their own, and that the building would play an integral part in the learning process. The building is comprised of four main systems, each based off of their own module. Each function independently and purposefully to allow for ease of construction. The first system is the roof, which mainly acts as a water collection plane. Its purpose is also to direct light into the classrooms and office via skylights. These skylights provide for ambient lighting in summer, as well as direct lighting in winter. The second system is the structural framing system made of Unistrut. It is a kit-of-parts construction, which is readily available, easily constructed, and structurally sound. This allows for complete customization of structure, as well as the possibility for Pocket Crèche to exist not only on its own, but also as a precedent that can be easily adapted and employed elsewhere. The third system is the exterior barrier, a large living garden fence. The fourth system exists within the classrooms, as a series of built-in furniture walls that divide the classrooms and respond to the program housed within.Each classroom receives twenty cubbies and coat hooks, as well as furniture that allows for ample storage and interactive use by both student and teacher. The furniture allows for imaginative play, reading nooks, arts and crafts and most importantly an ability for every student to be engaged in the classroom, with a space of their own.
SCHOOLHOUSE SOUTH AFRICA Project Type: Design+Build Cornell University Sustainable Design Structural Systems, Spring 2012 The school is a product of a two year process orchestrated by Cornell University Sustainable Design, an interdisciplinary student-led organization at Cornell University. Students, with the help of academic advisors and industry professionals, executed the project through a semester of research, a semester of design development integrated into the Bachelor of Architecture comprehensive design studio curriculum, and three months of construction. Students collaborated with local partners in construction and education to refine the design. Over thirty student volunteers traveled to South Africa to construct the school alongside local laborers from the surrounding neighborhood, Cosmo City. Strong emphasis is placed on sustainable passive sustainable technologies to decrease cost and energy dependency. Conscientious decisions in resiliency are found in all dimensions of the project: the architectural design, construction methods, material production and purchasing, included facilities, project financing and day-to-day operations. A year after construction, the ECD center was still not connected to the grid. The teachers, however, were not worried: they explained that these passive technologies create a bright, warm, and efficacious school without the use of electricity. This project was completed with generous support from Cornell University, in partnership with Education Africa, Play-With-A-Purpose, Basil Read Developments, and the City of Johannesburg.
SCHOOLMILL
Project Type: Academic Professor Todd Saunders with Mark Cruvellier and Nikole Bouchard Fall 2013 In Kvamsøy, a small town located in Balestrand, Norway, Norodd Baug runs a workshop for art and architecture students to travel to Norway for a short period, and learn about woodworking. This intervention adopts Norodd’s program, and locates itself on the periphery of the town at two elevations. The first is situated in the forest, where students can learn how to fell and mill the wood for their projects. More importantly, to work with wood and understand--through hands-on projects-the intracacies of the material. The structure itself is a way to occupy a wooden joint, and aims to engage the students in both how it is built and consumed. Here, the students can meet , learn , build , stack and burn the wood they work with. This stems from the already existing ritual Norodd engages in with his students: the morning campfire to plan out the day. The second part exists on the fjord, close to the homes where the students stay during their time in Norway. Adopting another frame that sits on the coast, a series of floating saunas on the water, that can exist separately or combine into a swimming pavilion. This is meant as a way to give back to the community for their hospitality, as well as a place for the students to relax and, once again, inhabit the joint.
COFFEE TABLE Collaboration with Jake Rudin
am71@cornell.edu
WORK SURFACE Advisor: Bob Bertoia
EAMES RESTORATION Restoring neglected icons
ASSOCIATION VOL. 6 Project Type: Publication Design Assocation, Editor-in-Chief Academic Year 2013-14 I served as Editor-in-Cheif and head of branding and publication design for Association Vol. 6. I designed and managed the production of 7000 copies of Cornell University’s student-run publication.
Project Type: Custom Branding Re: Designs Designed and manufactured the logo, business card, and marketing material for Re: Designs.
Packaging funded by Deborah Terhune of Development Consulting cc
Schoolhouse South Africa
SCHOOLHOUSE SOUTH AFRICA Project Type: Design Build / Volunteer CUSD: Schoolhouse South Africa Summer 2011 Marketing and branding for a school in Johannesburg, South Africa. I designed and assembled 200 custom press kits for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Design+Build project of Schoolhouse South Africa.
Collaboration with Katie MacDonald Kirkland Gallery Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2015 Fossa Olfactoria manifests smell as both an olfactory and tactile experience. While scent is oft unexplored or completely omitted from serious discussions of architecture, scent and odor shape experience, occupancy, and comfort in powerful ways. This installation brings the viewer into the epicenter of olfactory experience - the spatial cavity where the olfactory bulb is located playing on notions of scale, phenomena, and bodily experience. An immersive, fleshy fabric membrane obscures an undulating massing of one thousand balloons. The balloons act as both sculptors of space and vessels of scent. Each balloon contains a drop of lavender oil which is released into the air as the balloons deflate, producing a pulsing wall that diffuses scent gradually.
FOSSA OLFACTORIA Artist/Designer, Spring 2015
HABITATION IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS Harvard GSD, Spring 2015
EDUCAT ION
DESIGN PRACTICE
H A R VA RD UNI V ER SIT Y Graduate School of Design | Cambridge, MA | August 2014 - Present Master of Architecture II Candidate ‘16 CORNEL L UNI V ER SIT Y College of Architecture, Art, & Planning | Ithaca, NY | August 2009 - May 2014 Bachelor of Architecture; Concentration in Architectural Theory Dean’s List, Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal Winner AWA RDS A I A NE W ENGL A ND DE SIGN HONOR AWA RD Boston, Massachusetts. October 2015 PAUL M. HEFFERN A N IN TERN ATION A L TR AV EL FELLOW Traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia to complete construction documents on alpine shelter developed in Spela Videcnik and Rok Oman’s Architecture in Extreme Environments Studio, January 2015 RE-DE SIGNING DE TROIT: IN TERN ATION A L DE SIGN COMPE TITION First Prize, Collaboration with Davide Marchetti Architectto, Spring 2013 CH A RL E S GOODW IN S A NDS MEMORI A L MEDA L Awarded to a bachelors thesis for work of exceptional merit in architectural design, Spring 2014 DE SIGN MI A MI Finalist. ‘Pitch’ Short Listed for Final Pavilion Design, Spring 2015 A RCHIT IZER A+ AWA RDS Popular Vote, Student Design/Build Category, Armidillio Creche, Spring 2013. YORK PRIZE Second Prize, Cornell University, March 2010
DAV IDE M A RCHE T TI A RCHITE T TO, Rome, Italy Freelance Designer and Collaborator Rome, Italy | May 2013 - Present OFIS A RHITEK TI Ljubljana, Slovenia Designer January 2015 - April 2016 M A X X I MUSEUM OF T HE 21S T CEN T URY A R T S, Rome Italy MAXXI ARCHITETTURA Publication Team Member Ithaca, New York | May 2010 - August 2014 RE:DE SIGNS Ithaca, New York Principal May 2010 - August 2014 F X FOW L E A RCHIT ECT S New York, New York Intern May 2013 - August 2013 CORNEL L UNI V ER SIT Y SUS TA IN A BL E DE SIGN Johannesburg, South Afr ica May 2010 - August 2010 Design/Build Team Leader, Business Development and Marketing Team Member ACA DEMIC E X PERIENCE A MERICA N SCHOOL OF BOMBAY Mumbai, India Visiting Faculty March 2016 BOS TON A RCHIT ECT UR A L COL L EGE Boston, M A . Invited Critic Architectural Design Option Studio, September 2015 Architectural Design Core Studio, December 2015 Architectural Design Option Studio, November 2015
ASSOCIATE AIA, 2014 - Present NCARB INTERN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM , Intern, 2011 - Present
W EN T WOR TH INSIT U TE OF TECHNOLOGY Boston, M A . Invited Critic Architectural Design Option Studio, September 2015 Architectural Design Core Studio, December 2015 Architectural Design Option Studio, January 2015 Architectural Design Option Studio, March 2015
CAD: CODE: CRAFT:
H A R VA RD GR A DUATE SCHOOL OF DE SIGN Cambr idge, M A . Teaching Associate August 2014 - Present
QUA L IFICAT IONS
SK IL L S
PRESENT: RENDER: OTHER:
Autocad, Rhinoceros, Sketchup, Solidworks Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS CNC Milling, Lasercutting, Casting, Woodworking, Metalworking, Objet, Polyjet, ABS, Zcorp 3D Printing, Hand-Drafting InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Photography, Final Cut Pro Film Editing, Stop Motion Animation V-Ray, Physical Modelling and Photography First Aid Certified, CPR Certified, Women’s Self Defense Certified
NUVU STUDIO , Cambr idge, M A . Studio Instructor CORNEL L UNI V ER SIT Y Ithaca, N Y. Invited Critic Architectural Design I, December 2014 Architectural Design II, May 2014
I thank you for taking the time to review my work.
All works contained within this portfolio are the exclusive intellectual property of Erin Pellegrino and/or the rightful authors, and are protected under the United States and International Copyright laws. Please do not reproduce without the expressed written consent of Erin Pellegrino.