Portfolio 2022

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Contact info

Mail: flopirami@gmail.com

Phone: +595981178770

Web: https://bit.ly/3LFz0SC

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Florencia Ramirez Gonzalez is an architect based in Asuncion, Paraguay, South America.

Her ultimate goal is to investigate new materials and computational tools, so she can apply them for improving construction systems in Paraguay with low-cost, efficient technologies.

She has participated in the foundation of a computational design community in her country and assisted participants in a parametric design study group, she wants is to strengthen this commu nity by making meaningful connections with other universities.

TENSEGRITY

THESIS PROJECT

Year: 2021, Thesis project

Project achievements: Publication in Young Researchers Paraguay and Chile

University: National University of Asuncion

Location: Asuncion, Paraguay

Tutors: MSc. Elena Vazquez (emv10@psu.edu)

Msc. Juan Cristaldo (juan.cristaldo@arq.una.py)

The Historical Center of Asuncion is where the case study is located: The Ayfra building. The Center has suffered abandonment gradually, to day we have more than a hundred empty buildings.

There are buildings that are not fit for the climate context of Asuncion, which is hot and hu mid: subtropical. In the 80s the international style was utilized for new projects such as the Ayfra building.

The Ayfra is a building is made of curtain gold glasses, concrete, and metal, without doubt, an icon in the skyline of the capital. Today this building’s energy consumption due to the sun and heat expo sure leads to an unsustainable future for its lifespan.

The environmental impact is now a priority worldwide and in this investigation the issue of thermal performance is analyzed to make a proposal of retro fitting the facade of the Ayfra building to adapt to our climate, social and environmental aspects to expand its use and create a more comfortable space for work.

Propuesta

For the proposal tensegrity structures were cho sen given their light-weighted feature covering the facade having an equilibrium with daylight and sun protection.

Proceso de diseño/ Tensegridad

To develop the double-skin facade, accord ing to the data outcome of simulations with digital tools such as Grasshopper, Kangaroo, Ladybug, and DIVA. To fabricate each module we survey the local digital fab rication capacity in the Metropolitan Area of Asuncion.

To make the survey , three classmates joined the tour for visiting metallurgic industries that operates with digital fabrication tools, this rel evated data would help us determinate the lo cal capacity of the metropolitan area of Asuncion.

La Propuesta

Proceso de diseño/ Tensegridad Propuesta

La

Proceso de diseño/ Tensegridad

Diagrama de

EVALUACIÓN OPTIMIZACIÓN RESULTADO

Design process

Design Criteria

1

Solar path. The northern-south facade is receiving a vertical incidence and the east-west horizontal.

HOW THE ALGORITHM WORKS

Simplex Module*

2 Protection type according to the northern-south facades.

The need of a horizontal element to cover the solar incidence on this facades.

3 Protection type according to the eastern-west facades.

The need of a vertical element to cover the solar incidence on this facades.

STRUCTURE

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

Year: 2022, Photo Exhibition

Project in execution

Location: San Bernardino, Paraguay

Role: Design concept, 3D printing and execution

In collaboration with professionals: Arch. Mauricio Villalba

Arch. Claudio Coronel

Environmental awareness is necessary for our community, there are incessant forest fires and our fauna is affected. To make a statement a local photogra pher wanted to make an exhibition of how human con tamination is affecting native animals and their habitats.

With this premise, the exhibition must be mate rialized in a pavilion that demonstrated respect for nature, the golden proportion found in organic elements makes the spiral in the base and goes upward connecting delau nay triangles. The concept was to combine traditional ma terials with 3D printing technologies to represent aware ness for our present and consciously look into the future.

The materialization went through distributed printing processes, bamboo struts prepared with strict curation one by one. It is crucial for us to test these tech niques in a pavilion, this kind of project made us acknowl edge how innovative technologies work for future de signs that could be used for a different scale or element.

The design process took a month, while the documentation and fabrication of the nodes took another month. The duration of curating the bam boo was two days, the assembly of the base was held in two days, the pavilion changed its location, final ly being set in the research center for its collabora tion with the photographer and their researchers.

OKARA AYURVEDIC COMPLEX

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

Year: 2021, Ayurveda complex, medical clinics

Location: Nueva Colombia, Paraguay

Role: Design concept, project develompent.

In collaboration with professionals: Arch. Luca Meza

Arch. Alejandra Mikelj

The clients, two paraguayan doctors re turning from Germany, wanted to offer an expe rience of retreat in connection with nature and themselves in a rural area near the lake Ypacarai. The result: an Ayurvedic complex with cliniques, flexible spaces for yoga classes or conferences, cabins and a spa.

The design was inspired in the Ayurveda phi losophy, giving an atmosphere that transmitted peace ful scenes and calmness. To accomplish this the de sign focused on creating identity for each function.

The cabins’ concept was making a content inside a container which was made of bamboo struc ture. The container gave privacy to each cabin but permeable to still have a connection with the exterior.

The cliniques were projected as a sunk en rammed earth labyrinth which has a cen tral plaza for outdoors activities. The height was key to avoid blocking the views of the complex.

Local materials played an important role, mimetizing with is surroundings, since the rammed earth would be utilized from the site, the bamboo would be constructed with native communities nearby.

The goal is to finish the documentation by the next month and start constructing by April.

TAVA

URBAN INTERVENTION

COMPETITION WINNER PROJECT

Year: 2022, (Winner project) Urban intervention in execution.

Role: Design concept, 3D Modeling with Rhino/Grasshopper. Location: Ñemby, Paraguay

In collaboration with professionals: Exponencial S.A. MSc. Arch Juan Cristaldo, Arch. Silvia Arevalos, Arch. Mauricio Villalba, Arch. Luca Meza, and others.

“Being the bridge so that each project reach es its maximum potential through design and creativity.”

Tava Pyaha which means in guarani “to weave the city” pretends to be a catalyzer element for the city of Ñemby.

The site was chosen for its strategic met ropolitan location, at an environmental and road level. We detected 3 main elements: the guasu stream, the hill and former quarry Ñemby and the vial system.

In this sense, the proposal establish es a public space on a local scale that in turn acts as a portal made with parametric design princi pals that would stand 24/7 on a metropolitan scale.

We understand and recognize the impor tance of the capital city, but we have a deep com mitment to bring high quality design, reflection and participation to the periphery, to less central areas.

From these notions we seek to artic ulate the tactical and the strategic: we refer to the tactical as a method that we use in order to achieve a strategic objective on a territorial scale. For this reason we propose to connect metropoli tan elements: the square, the hill and the stream.

This project won the award and now it is on execution, the next task is to paint the streets and fabricate the pavilion.

CMYK URBAN INTERVENTION

COMPETITION WINNER PROJECT

Year: 2020, Concluded.

Location: Parque Caballero, Paraguay

Role: Design concept, project development and execution

In collaboration with professionals: Arch. Lia Lopez

Arch. Samantha Pinilla and Arch. Luca Meza

Calle-cultura is a self-organized competition whose main objective is to improve the neighborhood with small-scale interventions. The premise was to propose less than 126eur in any place of the street Juan de Salazar.

Juan de Salazar is a street that is full of commercial that reinforces the identity of this axis, therefore CMYK’s proposal was about con necting this street all along with a bike lane. At the final point of the bike lane, the Park Caballe ro is situated, where we picked to do an intervention. It consisted in letting the community speak up by us ing the park as a canvas, painting with letter stencils.

Later, with the support of other organiza tions together we could make a more analyzed diag nosis of the park issues and how to move forward as an urban strategic plan working with the government.

In addition, the park has a very rich his torical feature, so with a QR code, anyone could en gage with the story. Now the park is the place for a handful of activities and it is improving daily.

The project created a good impact in the community, a group “Amigos del Parque Ca ballero” was created to preserve the parks value.

PARQUE PARQUECABALLERO CABALLERO

ACUPUNCTURE

SOCIAL HOUSING ACADEMIC PROJECT

Year: 2017, 4° Academic year

Project achievements: First place recognition in class University: National University of Asuncion Location: Tacumbu, Asuncion, Paraguay

Professor: Carlos Jimenez (estarq@estarq.com.py)

On the skirts of the former quarry “Tacum bu”, which was utilized for building the roads that led to the expansion of the city of Asuncion back in 1950 and now has become a lagoon because of its over-exploita tion, there are settlements occupying this site with a curious way of disposition, making passages connect ing the lookout to the streets these places are a sort of public/private spaces without legal definition. There is also an occupation in illegal zones, that tend to flood.

The project implantation was chosen in empty lots that could merge punctually, creating an acupuncture intervention, into the settlements and relocate families that are in the territory of risk. The passages are consid ered, which is why it was amplified by keeping the essence and making them wider to be well-defined public spaces. The buildings are three-story-tall, since its a social hous ing unit, the budget is limited, this choice was made because considering an additional floor pressurized stairs are mandatory which will considerably elevate the cost, for inclusive housing, the ground and the first floor have ramps and elevators. The density of the pop ulation is also considered, which is adequate for the site.

The topology elected is an adaptation from the “culata jovai” which was a very used dis position for our climate before the colonization.

Three criteria were prioritized for this project: -Save the Nature and biodiversity -Social equality -Per ceive the landscape and take advantage of the best views.

ENVIRONMENTAL CRITERIA

Culata jovai is a typology which was adop ted in native houses from the precolombus era in the region of the Guarani tribe.

This type of house was well adapted to the climate hot and humid from Paraguay. Natural ventilation and comfort can be achieved.

BUILDING CRITERIA

This brings together people to refugee from the climate conditions and social interaction is a consecuence.

Amplify existing passages. Nature first. Preserve the Tacumbu Lagoon. Generate vibrant public spaces.

SEQUENTIAL STRUCTURES

This workshop was dedicated on exploring the design of experimental wood en structures using the potential of robotic manufacturing in digital simulation environments. The generative design of material configurations, the combinatorial capacities from discrete elements and their possible sequential aggregations to project a larger spatial structure were be investigated. The ex ercises were developed within specifically digital instances, we used programming of trajectories for the simulation of movements of a robotic arm within the environment of Rhinoceros, Grasshopper and Kuka PRC.

TENSEGRITY CODE

Focused on the understanding of tensegrity tissues as a system of physical laws and relation ships, bio-informed strategies, based on the morphological language that allows the spatial configura tion of these structures. With support in digital design and through generative algorithms, the workshop tries to emphasize the pros and cons of the analog-digital duality, making the most of each one. Par ticipants will be able to recreate tensegrity cell systems where they will be able to digitally model and simulate, understand their behavior and move on to an instance of physical construction of the tissues.

FABLAB CIDi

The internship at the Fab Lab CIDi consisted in a 3-month training of digital fabrica tion tools and apply it in a final project, my project was a parametric seat (the image above is the la ser file). Technologies: 3D printing, laser cutting, router cutting, 3D scanning and electronics.

In collaboration with Martin Gomez (Chile)

DIGITAL FUTURES 2021- WORKSHOP

DIGITAL FUTURES 2020- WORKSHOP