ELIZABETH WILKIN
portfolio
TABLE OF CONTENTS explore, discover, play
a residential community
fourth year | fall 2020 location | chicago, il instructor | chip von weise
view, learn, gather
a community education center
fourth year | spring 2021 location | old tafo, ghana instructor | nathan king
process, reflect, traverse
a room + garden
third year | fall 2019 location | blacksburg, va instructor | patrick doan
light, frame, movement
a visitors center
third year | spring 2020 location | smithfield, va instructor | patrick doan
see, make, sleep
an artist’s dwelling
second year | spring 2018 location | cape town, south africa instructor | sharóne tomer
additional works
a study of ceramics a design-build shed an architectural seed a building analytique
Located at the western terminus of the Bloomingdale (606) Trail in Chicago, this affordable residential community sits at the intersection of three neighborhoods experiencing rapid gentrification. Through the introduction of senior and children’s wellness centers, a neighborhood community center, and 240 dwelling units, the project adresses the strong need for public and community interaction at the intersection of urban recreation and neighborhood. The site is activated as a destination for community and urban play by redefining building as an extension of landscape through terracing and manipulation of ground.
residential residential lobby senior wellness children’s wellness community center retail parking
a collaborative project with tony lin
explore, discover, play
a residential community
n ridgeway elevation
Most forms of play experienced in the built environment are prescriptive, telling users how they are to interact with their surroundings. This project utilizes the site as a means to move beyond preconceived notions of both play and ground, seeking to clarify a deeper and more inherent relationship between the two ideas. Unprogrammed public green spaces, a series of circulatory connectors, and vibrant public spaces allow for more freedom of experience. Play begins to transcend age by creating a site experience rooted in exploration and discovery, capitalizing on curiosity as an inherent part of human nature. Through the shifting of the ground, the user’s attention is drawn to the seemingly mundane, and they are urged to rediscover their environment with a new perspective.
N
n ridgeway section
A
CONCEPTUAL SECTIONS A
B
77 6 5 4 3 2 explorative sections
11
B
Opportunities for connection within the community are created through a series of shared roof terraces located on each residential floor, linked by exterior staircases. These connected rooftops allow residents to interact between floors, transforming the rooftops into an activated residential ground. Detailing at moments where the building transitions from ground to wall and wall to ground are minimized to further articulate the reading of the building as an extension of the landscape. Visual connectedness between the public and residential grounds lends itself to a communal experience that maintains privacy for the residents of the buildings.
view, learn, gather
a community education center
N
a collaborative project with gabby ritter & jenna heenan
This community education center serves students and residents in Old Tafo, Ghana, by providing a series of science and computer lab spaces, reading and research spaces, a new post office, and a new public plaza. The role of visibility in creating a community oriented learning environment is emphasized throughout this project, particularly through varying levels of transparency between the education spaces and the central circulatory axis. Through viewing and engaging with the building, occupants participate in learning within their community.
The tectonic expression of the roof assembly allows the users to understand how the building was constructed. The layered roof system, which utilizes regional building techniques, is visible along the entirety of the interior circulation axis. Passive strategies employed to address the warm climate and inconsistent power supply of the town can be understood as one moves through the center. Programmatic transparency between spaces allows for visibility of education. Large classroom spaces are lined by bookshelf walls, where visibility increases as people remove books and engage in learning. The multi-purpose education space in the middle of the three stepped volumes has halfheight bookshelf walls, while small unprogrammed seating spaces are left visible on either side.
Four distinct wall types make up the building, each allowing for different levels of visibility correlating to the function of the space it bounds. Frames of varying heights in the exterior walls allow for each student to view the outdoors. Screened fencing allows for privacy for children playing outside, while columns define less enclosed spaces. Bookshelf walls provide the greatest level of interaction within the building.
process, reflect, traverse
a room + garden
The room and garden explores the juxtaposition of the built and natural environments and their moments of intersection. The meandering metal wall acts as a mediator and guided path between the room and the garden, the built and the natural. A forest of stacked stone columns serves as a means to articulate the sloping nature of the existing landscape. The simple concrete room stands in contrast as a space to withdraw from the bustling site situated at the corner of two busy roads. The creation and occupation of the in-between of the built and natural environments is articulated through tension and compression created in materials and spaces throughout.
light, frame, movement
a visitors center
This proposed visitor center works to resolve the increased needs of St. Luke’s Historic Church in Smithfield, Virginia. The program includes the addition of an exhibition space, a research and archvice space, and a special space, as well as increasing administrative and guest relations support. As the museum and archive spaces call for a sensitvity to light, the design studies light and frame as guides to movement.
In contrast to the structural brick of the church, the visitor center creates pockets of dappled light through a brick screen that highlights circulation within the buildings. The frame and screen elements celebrate every puncture in the building envelope as a performance and celebration of light.
0
“Whatever is made of light casts a shadow. Our work is of shadow; it belongs to the light.” - Louis Kahn, The Room, the Street, and Human Agreement
Precast frames pull users through the buildings to a centralized outdoor space which redirects them to the church in the northeast. The curved building houses all the public programs and allows for a slower speed of movement while the orthogonal building allows for a faster pace for administrative, special event, and support spaces.
see, make, sleep
an artist’s dwelling
An artist’s dwelling studies the act of making as an iterative practice from conception to completion. Upon entering, one must physically separate themselves from outside distractions and preconceived notions by embarking on a procession centered around the making and studying of art through different mediums. By minimizing the living space, emphasis is placed on the dwelling as a place for making, with rooms of varying privacy encouraging the maker to look both outward and inward for inspiration. As one ascends the central stair core, carved out volumes from the mass highling the inherent relationships between the making and displaying of art. The viewing of the making process is elevated to art itself as guests travel past all of the maker spaces to the gallery space on the top floor.
form, respond, contain
a study of ceramics
This study examines how objects receive and respond to one another and the hand to create a cohesive whole from a series of parts. Through additive and subtractive elements as well as form, each piece accepts either element or body.
work, play, store
a design-build shed
This 100 square foot shed was completed for a Habitat for Humanity home in Goshen, VT as part of the Mountain Design Assembly program by a team of twelve students and three design professionals in an intensive eight-day design-build. The bottom floor provides a work bench while the two story shed provices a space for children to play in site of the parents. The vertical shed features a trellis that provides roof access to the horizontal home as well as boot washing station near the entrance of the home.
line, material, tension
an architectural seed
A material study in the spirit of the Room + Garden project, the architectural seed is a sixteen-inch cube that focuses on the creation of a visual path. By pulling apart and emphasizing the separation of material, the eye is drawn around the study by a line created through the space between. The study challenges the role of the metal, demanding it act as both a structural element or, depending on the orientation of the cube, a component held in space by the weight of the Rockite.Regardless of the face it rests on, the cube never touches the surface below it with more than three legs. The architectural seed was ultimately planted to gain understanding about how materials weather in relation to one another.
light, value, contrast
a building analytique
a watercolor study of the north carolina museum of art