ARCHITECTURAL PORTFOLIO
KOFI AKAKPO
KOFI AKAKPO|Resume CONTACT 38 Craigie Street, Somerville MA, 02143 T: 614.589.0998 E: kakakpo@gsd.harvard.edu www.kofiakakpo.com
EDUCATION 08.2017-PRESENT GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Master of Architecture 1 (Professional Degree) 08.2014-05.2017 THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Major: Architecture Degree: BSc. Architecture (Honors, Honors with Research Distinction). 08.2004- 05.2008 KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY Major: Architecture Having been born in Ghana and now living in the US, i have come to the realization that people are more similar than different. My ambition is to use design as a tool to connect people, to create opportunities for people to have shared human experiences that resist the current growing rise of nationalism.
SKILLS AutoCAD Rhino Sketchup Adobe Suite Revit Microsoft Office Suite
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WORK EXPERIENCE
LANGUAGES
06.2013-08.2017 SEARS HOLDINGS Sales Consultant-Home Appliances I was responsible for helping members find the right appliance for their needs, explaining the various features and benefits of several different models. I also offered them various financing options as a means to pay for purchases.
∙∙ Twi (fluent) ∙∙ Ga (fluent) ∙∙ French (intermediate)
05.2010-Present SELF-EMPLOYED Freelance Designer I offer my services online to various clients as a freelance designer and visualizer on various projects. I have worked on several project designs and renderings with architects as well as product designers from all over the world.
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01.2009-04.2010 CONSTRUCTS LLC Junior Designer I was responsible for 3D modeling and visualizing of a lot of projects going out of the studio. It was my responsibility to ensure that the clients were able to appreciate the design concept and understand what the final product would look like. 08.2008-01.2009 CITY MODE ASSOCIATES Architectural Intern I took on various responsibilities including site supervision, drafting and design visualization. I was tasked with designing a gate house for a gated community and to supervise the project all through to the construction phase.
HOBBIES/INTERESTS Basketball Soccer Reading Writing
REFERENCES Beth Blostein Undergraduate Chair, Knowlton Sch. of Arch. T: 614.292.7442 E: blostein.3@osu.edu Jaqueline Gargus Associate Professor, Knowlton Sch. of Arch. T: 614.292.9850 E: gargus.1@osu.edu Doug Graf Professor, Knowlton Sch. of Architecture T: 614.292.0769 E: graf.3@osu.edu
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FEATURED PROJECTS Regular Studio MOVIE STUDIO ......................................................................................... 5 HIDDEN ROOM......................................................................................... 8 TECHIMAN MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL.......................................................... 12
Research Studio NEW WORLDS, OLD ORDERS..................................................................18 ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPISM (AND THE PROBLEM OF THE VAST)................. 24
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Movie Studio
The movie studio project tasked students with developing a structural system that could accommodate the program of a movie studio on Boston Harbor. My design proposed the creation of a ‘hanging campus’ that created a public set of programmatic spaces that sat on the ground and responded to the alignment of the ocean and a more private set of programmatic spaces suspended from a space frame that responded to the grid of the city. By suspending a large part of the program, it creates a porosity that permits easy access for pedestrians to the boardwalk. By overstructuring the structural frame, future expansion can be accommodated by hanging new volumes or replacing volumes with larger units.
DATE: SPRING, 2018 INSTITUTION: HARVARD GSD INSTRUCTORS: TOM DE PAOR
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boardwalk
deck animal pen cafe fabrication shop
day care Parking
Model Photo
electrical lighting
main storage
reception
w/c
X
medium sound stage
X
large sound stage
Model Photo Lower Level Plan
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medium sound stage
medium sound stage dining area
production suite make up
X
production suite
production suite
w/c
small sound stage
X
Model Photo
production suite
Plan at 35’
small sound stage
Model Photo
X
X
make up
w/c
make up
Plan at 55’
Model Photo
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Hidden Room
The hidden room project brief required the creation of five distinctive spaces that were experienced by the visitor as four. In this proposal, the overall form was imagined as an oversized sculpture one encounters in a field. The five wedge shapes, all of which are never seen on approach facilitate the illusion. On entering, the visitor can look up and see a lit space above or below them depending on access. A series of stairs leads them to a space which is geometrically and experiencially similar but is in reality different. A look back through the window shows them what they think is the space they just came from reinforcing the illusion.
DATE: FALL, 2017 INSTITUTION: HARVARD GSD INSTRUCTORS: CAMERON WU
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Lower Level Plan
Mid Level Plan
Section B-B
Section A-A
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Top Level Plan
Hidden Room Level Plan
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Section D-D
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Model Photo
Model Photo
Model Photo
Model Photo
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Site Section
Techiman Municipal Hospital
An urban study project for the design of a hospital for the city of Techiman, in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana. The project attempts to capture two main elements of the city: the cultural embrace of community and communal living, and the colorfulness of the city. The huge canopy also recognizes the constant search for shade in a city where the average temperature is about 75 degrees and acts as a uniting element between separate units.
DATE: SPRING, 2008 INSTITUTION: KNUST COURSE NO: ARC 458: DESIGN OF SPECIALIZED BUILDINGS INSTRUCTOR: CHARLES ESSEL ACADEMIC YEAR: THIRD
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Techiman Location...
Techiman Market
An ancient town in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana, Techiman is the legendary birthplace of the Akan people and the center of the ancient Bono Kingdom which was rich in gold and had strong trading links with the ancient Kingdoms of Timbuktu and Egypt. Techiman is at the center of major crossroads with an important marketing center. It is the capital of the Techiman Municipal District with a current land area of about 432 square miles.
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The project creates gathering spaces within courtyards for the entire community.
The project recognizes the constant search for shade in the city in the form of the canopy. Shade invites people to gather. The canopy is also a uniting element between different pavilions that captures the colorfulness of the city and is conspicuous from all around the city inviting people to come and gather.
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1. community playground 2. swimming pond 3. visitor parking 4. outpatient and administration 5. wards
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6. staff parking 7. emergency unit 8. waiting area/amphitheater
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Outpatient Waiting Area
Project Overview
Outpatient/Admin Building
Main Courtyard Space
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Emergency Unit Courtyard
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Site Render
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New Worlds, Old Ideas
DATE: SPRING, 2017 INSTITUTION: OSU INSTRUCTORS: SANDHYA KOCHAR AND DOW KIMBRELL ACADEMIC YEAR: FOURTH COLLABORATORS: AUSTIN GORDON, SAMI SAMAWI
Our project creates new architectural worlds through the employment of a generative technique utilizing the visual language of architecture. The project begins with three samples “seeds” deployed within the generative machine. These samples have been selected based upon their strength of influence within the field at large. While some are more literal, some are diagrammatic, representing vectors of research, design processes and methods within architecture. These initial samples are then modified through what we call “filters”: architectural precedents chosen for their latent affinities with the initial seeds. Resonances and affinities between the seeds and the filters are analyzed, and that analysis guides the development of the subsequent architectural worlds produced. The technique relies heavily on the architect’s interpretation of the precedents to guide KOFI AKAKPO|PORTFOLIO
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the outcomes of the translation through the filters. Traditional readings, mis-readings, and new takes are all valid in the expression of the technique and its outcomes. The worlds created are of varied complexities assuming different characteristics as they influence, contaminate and borrow from each other.
The Jeffersonian Dispenser The Jeffersonian Dispenser employs the predominant existing urban layout, the grid, as a tool to distribute new complex worlds into old disused urban spaces. Distributing modernist urbanism opportunistically, it is an infill machine. A collective of conquerors, it is in constant search for new lands to occupy.
Cloud City Cloud City is a world of aerial dwellers located just above the troposphere. It is the home of scientists and astronomers studying and exploring space.
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Drill City Drill City is located in a mine shaft. Its citizens are those whose desire is to mine the earth in search of precious minerals.
Aqua City Aqua City is a collection of 1909 Theorems within a marine environment, a home for explorers of the sea.
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New Tokyo New Tokyo imagines a propagation of Isozaki’s Clusters in the Air over the existing urban condition of the Jeffersonian Grid. Its people are those who desire to be removed from the gridded reality laid by the Jeffersonian Dispenser.
Machine World Machine World takes an alternative look at a dumpsite of old mechanical parts as a site for possible architectural intervention. As the mechanical gives way to the digital, its inhabitants are skilled at making use of old systems that have been discarded by others.
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Canyon City Canyon City dwells within the Grand Canyon and juxtaposes the relentless verticality of 1909 with the undulating nature of the natural terrain. It is the world of explorers and adventure junkies.
Oblique City Oblique City examines what happens when the Oblique Function is interrupted by Mies’ Brick Country House, presenting a tension between two systems. It is the home of the Capitalists who are interested in expansion of territory, both vertically and horizontally.
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No-Stop City No-Stop City explores the seminal architectural project in the vertical as well as horizontal. It is a world where everything happens at the nodes and is home to the Nomads, a group of wanderers in constant search for new experiences.
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Architectural Landscapism
An experimental studio project that explores how architecture at a certain scale becomes landscape and how its effects manifest in the physical. It imagines a future where the anthropocene has become so integrated with nature it has become nature. Architecture therefore has to facilitate the existence of all organisms on earth. The project was developed as a critique of the prevailing tendency in architecture for absolutism and the total rejection of all that came before.
(and The Problem of the Vast) DATE: SPRING, 2016 INSTITUTION: OSU COURSE NO: ARCH 3420: ARCH DESIGN 4 INSTRUCTOR: STEPHEN TURK ACADEMIC YEAR: THIRD
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1909 Theorem and Fondazione Prada
1909 Theorem and Zeebrugge Hybrid
Hybrid Axon: 1909 Theorem and Prada
Hybrid Axon: 1909 Theorem and Zeebrugge
Log Scale Transformation: Prada
Log Scale Transformation: Zeebrugge
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Core sections reveal opportunities for habitation. KOFI AKAKPO|PORTFOLIO
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The Arctic Biome
The Harbor
Downtown
The Ocean Biome
The Desert Biome
The Lake
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Eden 3.0 is the third iteration of an attempt to create Nirvana, a perfect world where everyone lives at peace with each other and all social problems are non-existent. 3.0 attempts to fix the problems of two previous attempts by implementing one simple rule: the rejection of absolutism. The city satiates the needs AND desires of its inhabitants. There are rigid shapes and more fluid ones. Variety may be the spice that saves us all.
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KOFIAKAKPO.COM|FIFIAKAKPO@GMAIL.COM|614.589.0998