Federico Ortiz_Architecture Portfolio 2021 by Federico Ortiz Velásquez

Architecture Portfolio Federico Ortiz Velásquez 2021

Federico Ortiz Velásquez

Architect Cum Laude MSc in Architecture, TU Delft 26 September, 1992 Medellin, Colombia fedeortizv@hotmail.com +31 6 39427393 / Mahlerstraat 36, Delft, NL https://tudelft.academia.edu/FedericoOrtizVelásquez https://issuu.com/federicoortizvelasquez

Personal Statement The agency of architecture is part of a system composed of people, activities, and the environment. We, architects, are part of a society and what we conceive, design, and build, is meant to play a role within this system, a group of people, and a specific space-time context. Architecture has a relevant cultural impact in the environment, transforming the territory within the indissoluble relationship between architecture and landscape. Architecture constantly faces shortcomings in the built environment, natural and social relationships, economics, and politics. Still, I think architecture exceeds such problems. The spatial qualities can always surpass problem-oriented thinking. Throughout the following projects, I explore the spatialization of what I consider relevant concepts and approaches in architectural design. I elaborate on specific problems and contexts, their implications with space in different scales - from the urban to the interior - and the meaning of creating such built forms in the particular time society is going through.

Table of Content Nimeto Craft School

Professional Project - Institutional Under Construction 2021

Architecture of Transitional Justice

MSc Graduation Project - Institutional 2019 - 2020

Faculty of Science

Professional Project - Institutional Under Construction 2016 - 2018

Translating Patterns

Academic Project - Housing 2019

Structures of Coexistence

Academic Project - Institutional 2018 - 2019

Casa Tomada

BSc Graduation Project - Theory & Criticism 2015

Cedro Verde House

Professional Project - Housing 2015 - 2016

Nimeto Craft School Professional Project - Institutional Utrecht, the Netherlands 2021 Under Construction Junior Architect Project at Studio Maarten van Kesteren

The existing Nimeto Craft School in Utrecht, NL, requires a major transformation. Studio Maarten van Kesteren wins the competition to do such work, transforming the generic corridors and hidden classrooms into a lively workshop. The proposal consists of creating six open spaces throughout and between the two existing buildings, creating spaces for encounters, meetings, and learning, deleting the boundaries and stimulating the students. Crafts like restoration, window dressing, painting and set-building are enhanced through a diverse learning landscape.

I personally worked on the last stages of the project, where I was part of the decisionmaking on technical issues, finishes, materials and details.

Architecture of Transitional Justice MSc Graduation Project - Institutional Research & Design 2019 - 2020 Explore Lab Graduation Studio TU Delft

The recent Colombian Peace Agreement between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and FARC-EP offers the opportunity to analyze the transitional justice model, that aims to address the past violent events and the future of the victims. The lack of involvement of architecture in the postconflict dialogue on transitional justice, however, reveals the non-existent relationship and coordination between the agencies of architecture and realpolitik. To fill the gap, my research and project address the role of architecture in Colombian post-conflict environment. It studies the development of transitional justice through its spatial manifestation, whose goal is to achieve peaceful coexistence between people and reconciliation with the violent past. © Jesús Abad Colorado

Location The project focuses on Granada as a case study and the involvement of agrarian practices to confront the critical economic condition after the conflict, offering a range of symbolic and pragmatic architectural interventions which will then be the cornerstone of my design project.

The project is focused on resolving two research questions: How can architecture bridge the gap between the violent past and the promise of a peaceful future, focusing on the social and productive practices broken by conflict? and How can the productionoriented shared facilities and public spaces revive the socio-economic infrastructure of Granada?

Design operations I apply a combination of tectonic and stereotomic operations in design. The massing of the cooperative complex follows a grid of 1,2m x 1,20m creating a module that prolongs or shrinks depending on the programmatic necessity.

Programmatically, the cooperative is per se a collective institution where people work, produce and share together to reach common goals. The building, therefore, is a space where everyone has access and the public activities are strengthened, with spaces for gatherings and discussions, exhibition, manual work, administration, reflection, commerce, and education.

Construction Process © Federico Ortiz Velásquez

Faculty of Science Professional Project - Institutional Medellín, Colombia 2016 - 2018 Under Construction Architect Project at Estudio Transversal

The School of Sciences emerges as a building with a great urban and programmatic importance within the university campus. Composed of 11 floors and 53 laboratories from 4 departments biological sciences, physical sciences, earth sciences and mathematical sciences - the building responds to the demands of the dynamics of each type of laboratory, as well as the demanding technical requirements that must be met for the proper functioning of laboratories.

First Ring: The program

Second Ring: The circulation

Containing the main building program: labs, classrooms, support areas, and services.

Containing the peripheral 2.5 meters wide corridor, allowing a direct visual relationship between the inside and the outside.

Third Ring: The void

Fourth Ring: The facade

Spaces with a collective mean are placed here, namely meeting and resting rooms, study terraces with vegetation, and a peripheral void.

The skin of the building ventilates and controls the access of natural lightning.

Design concepts From an idea that we call “Science in Sight” we want all the activity of the laboratories to be visible to everyone, from the circulations. In this way, we come to the idea of compressing the laboratories in a first ring, the core of the building, and from there the other elements would be organized. A second ring is the perimeter circulation, third ring is a void, also perimetral to the building. Lastly, the fourth ring is the facade.

The Plot How do we imagine this building on campus?

The Building What can the building contribute to urban life of the campus?

The Public Space In order to solve a level difference of 3 meters in height, an inclined square is proposed.

The Design of the Square A series of large terraces are proposed that will allow the development of many acitivities © Federico Ortiz Velásquez © Juan Esteban Zapata

The facade We carried out thorough research on the facade. This, the fourth ring within the architectural concept, was a design process where several alternatives in materials and their disposition were studied, to accomplish tasks such as: allowing natural ventilation in the corridors, blocking the direct solar incursion into the laboratories , block noise coming from a nearby highway and prevent the entry of rain into the circulation

Translating Patterns Academic Project - Housing Tema, Ghana 2019 Project with Carlos Silvestre MSc 2 Global Housing Design Studio TU Delft Presenten at the seminar Housing the Urban Invisibles, TU Delft

* To be exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2020 (postponed until May 2021) in collaboration with tutor Marina Tabassum / Housing the Urban Invisibles, for project ‘Translating Patterns’

Affordable housing for low-income groups in Tema, Ghana. Developing new housing units within the original ones designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in the 1960’s. The project comes from the urgent need of increasing the density to provide enough housing units to the growing population.

Growth

We intended to face these challenges by taking in strong consideration the patterns of behaviour of the inhabitants, which basically means enhancing the courtyard as the place where life happens. In that sense, the courtyard has become the guide of the project and the main quality of the proposal.

Access

Masonery

Community

Lattices

Adaptability Private Spaces Facade Openings

Cross Ventilation Extension Frame Open Rooftop Window Frames Orientation

Communal Spaces

Water Storage

Water Collector

Structure Housing Module

Precipitation Solar Protection Ventilation Climate Response Affordability

Shared Facilities Commerce Stairs Entrance Balcony Corridor Courtyard

Cultural use of space We studied the original typology as well as the spatial qualities of the pocket spaces -or courtyards- that were left between the extensions. With these two studies, we developed a grid which rationalises the space, taking care of the scale of the open space that was specifically adequate to avoid encrochements and excess of density.

Context The Ghanian warm climate obliges the spaces to have a constant -and passivenatural ventilation while protecting the indoor from the direct sunlight. The implementation of lattices and perforated bricks tackles these issues, while the courtyards and open modules on the facades respond on a larger scale.

Spatial structure The grid of 2m x 2m is the main guideline of intervention. This comes from a thorough analysis of the existing typology and serves as the starting point. We design the new housing units based on the existence of courtyards with the right ventilation and natural lighting, having collective spaces like share kitchens and bathrooms on every floor, and free spaces for future growth.

Typical room

Bathroom

Storage

Extra room

Terrace

Structures of Coexistence Academic Project - Institutional Vienna, Austria 2018 - 2019 Project with Isabel Lee MSc 1 Complex Projects Design Studio TU Delft

* TU Delft Yearbook (Best Projects)

Religion is one of the biggest ‘reasons’ for conflict and war in the world. Leopoldstadt, Vienna, is a neighbourhood still haunted by the atrocities of the holocaust. This project aims to push the boundaries of co-existence between the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. With an intent to find the similarities whilst respecting the differences; to question Synagogue security the distinct separation between religious communities apparent in Vienna and to encourage a dialogue between them. Through the creation of five and their relation to one another, these ideas are expressed to the city.

Context From the Jewish ghetto in the 17th century to the atrocities ‘Kristallnacht’ 1938 and the holocaust, Leopoldstadt has a rich and harrowing Jewish history. Today, this memory hangs over Leopoldstadt as a landmark, never to be eradicated. From analysing the neighbourhood and its architecture, we have discovered frictions that still exist within the community. The Jewish communities ‘keep themselves to themselves’, are fairly hidden away in their own buildings and have a security system in place to ensure their safety.

Design Exercise: Religious concepts translated into architecture and space.

Concepts The concepts used come from the research of historic religious temples, spaces that keep an original and clear idea of religious architecture in these cultures, where elements are easier to identify, compared to contemporary architecture, where these concepts have been manipulated. Historic temples in the MiddleEast and Europe were studied, from their plans to their materials an details.

Solid materials, natural light, directonal views a shared path direct the experience of religious cultures. As a separated walkway from the rest of the city, it has the autonomy and the visibility from the secular, making these similarities and differences visible for everyone.

Material condition The footbridge that connects all the buildings of the system is made of two main concrete beams with iron cables in its interior. The buildings work as vertical structures that transport the weith towarts the ground. This system allows the project to have span distances of 80 meters.

Casa Tomada BSc Graduation Project - Monograph 2015 Medellín, Colombia Universidad Nacional De Colombia Project with David Cadavid

* Published by Archdaily as one of “The 12 Best Architectural Thesis in Colombia” *Finalist in the 2nd Colombian Architecture Biennale in 2016, in Theory & Critics Student Category

The interest of Casa Tomada - House Taken Over -, research that takes its name from a story by Julio Cortázar, the argentinian writer, is to study this phenomenon that proposes, from the most personal needs of man, new ways of inhabiting the spaces of the house and suggests rethinking the way in which in the past few years, specifically in Medellín, dealing with residential architecture, understanding the different appropriations that users find in the place where they live will serve to analyze the capacity of each space to be transformed. © David Cadavid

Criticism This research considers studying formal productive housing (which is made by architects, and in theory, thought) by the responsibility we have as students and as architects to propose a suitable productive housing, in relation to their community and the city. Different authors point out that today there are more numerous living architects than the dead ones, the growth of the population has meant that most of the architects that have existed are our contemporaries: this should mean a better architecture after the passage of time, which he/she has learned from his/her past mistakes and proposes better spatialities, better housing and better work spaces. © Federico Ortiz Velásquez

Context We group a series of observations about productive housing, exposed by essays that start from the architectural theory and the experience of visiting numerous cases of study we present in the different chapters as object of analysis, Ciudadela Nuevo Horizonte in Medellín, there from a same spatial configuration we can find different commercial activities in response to the needs of financing and economic sustenance. Field studies, architectural theory, philosophy, cinema and literature ... elemtents that make up this research.

The journey through the research What happens with the furniture in the productive house? How does it respond to the spatial and programmatic dynamics in the cases? The productivity, as we have seen previously, colonizes the domesticity of the house, dilutes its own residential spaces and proposes an ambiguous life. The furniture is the best that illustrates what activity takes place in each space.

By the study of furnitures inside the house, we can identify the needs of the dwellers and the uses of this elements form living and for working.

Experiments: What happens when the paradigmatic projects of the 20th century are occupied by productive housing?

Cedro Verde House Professional Project - Housing Medellín, Colombia 2015 - 2016 Built *Design Architect and Coordinator Project at Estudio Transversal

Being my first professional experience, it was a very important one since I had to apply the design methods I learned at the university in real life: from the understanding of the client’s ideas and needs, to the architectural proposal that was continually being discussed, in order to reach for better solutions, until the construction process. The client already had clear the “atmosphere” he wanted for his house, so he brought a series of images and references of what he wanted: meterials and intentions. From these ideas and the visit to the site to understand the conditions, we started with the proposal of a house of two juxtaposed levels, generating a platform on the lower volume, which increases the flat area for the use of the residents. Above, the social area is developed, while in the lower volume the private area is located.

Personal take This project was a great personal learning, both in the design part, and in the follow-up of the construction. This second part is fundamental in the training of an architect, since the supervision and self-criticism of what is designed and subsequently built is part of a continuous professional growth.

Here I had the opportunity to follow the process, from the visits to the place of intervention to understand the context, the views and the terrain, until the weekly review of progress to the installation of last materials.