Frixos Petrou Portfolio 2017

FRIXOS PETROU PORTFOLIO 2017

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FRIXOS PETROU RIBA Part 1 Architecture Nationality: Cyprus (EU) / U.S.A. DOB: 11/9/1994 Address: Kleious 8, Dali, Lefkosia, 2548 Phone (EU): +357 96339702 Phone (UK): +44 (0) 7749 788129 Email: frixos_petrou@yahoo.com Skype: griswood136 (Frixos Petrou) Profile: I am an open minded, driven, creative individual highly interested in architecture, politics and their intersections. During my time in Edinburgh as a student, and through professional experience with offices driving architectural research forward, I have engaged with architecture in a variety of contexts: as poetic narrative, as a form of knowledge, as built form.

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PORTFOLIO

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TABLE

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CONTENTS

NAVIGATION GUIDE CV

ACADEMIC PROJECTS 06 08 13 21

HOME BREW AGORA DEVIANT HABITATS FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES 32 33

2A+P/A INTERNSHIP STUDIO MIESSEN INTERNSHIP

PERSONAL PROJECTS 34 35 36 37 38

MORPHEUS PONOS VESTA DIGITAL NOMADS VARIOUS

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ACADEMIC NAVIGATION

/ PERSONAL GUIDE | YEAR

/ X

PROFESSIONAL | SEM X

PROJECT CONTEXT The context of the project relative to the environment in which it was completed (either academic, personal, or professional), with relative information (office names, academic course names or competition titles)

PROJECT TITLE The course or extra-curricular activity under which the work displayed on the page was completed.

CHRONOLOGICAL CONTEXT The year and academic semester in which the work shown on the page was completed, in reference to my 4-year MA architecture degree.

PAGE NUMBER

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SKILLS: >>>ADVANCED

AWARDS/FEATURES: Adobe Photoshop Adobe InDesign Adobe Illustrator AutoCAD (2D) Rhinoceros (2D/3D) +V-ray Workshop/model-making

>>>INTERMEDIATE

SketchUp Pro +V-ray/SU Podium/Maxwell

>>>BASIC

Processing Grasshopper

EDUCATION: 2013 - 2017

MA (Hons), (RIBA Part 1), ESALA, University of Edinburgh | First Class Honours

2007 - 2013

The English School, Nicosia, Cyprus

PROFESSIONAL / RELATED EXPERIENCE: 2016

Internship at Studio Miessen in Berlin (August-December)

2016

Internship at 2A+P/A in Rome (March-July)

2015 - (ongoing)

Freelance graphic design work

2011-2013

Co-editor/graphic designer for high-school student magazine Skapoula

2017

University of Edinburgh’s MA Architecture Prize for Best Performing Student

2017

RIBA Bronze Medal nomination (jury pending)

2016

Non-architecture: MAKING; Open competition, honorable mention

2016

Non-architecture: SLEEPING; Open competition, honorable mention

2016

GIANY: COCOON; Open competition, finalist

2015

KJ SEDA: Award for Best Second Year Project; ESALA winner

2015

Drawings featured on Koozarch.com / A Visionary Platform for Architecture

2011 - (ongoing)

Various published articles (as author/ co-author) in local journals Entropia and student magazine Skapoula

OTHERS: 2014 - (ongoing) 2013 - 2015

Guitarist for Poison Ivies Bassist for Faceofanother

LANGUAGES: >>>Greek (native) >>>English (native) >>>French (proficient) >>>Italian (basic)

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ACADEMIC | HOME BREW |

PERSONAL YEAR 2

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PROFESSIONAL | SEM 1

HOME BREW Brief: We were asked to design a 25-unit residential building, and our assigned site was Cowan’s Close. Issues of access, light, materiality and spatial quality of individual apartments were balanced alongside proposing experimental living conditions.

Response: My proposal drew from the site’s industrial history as a brewery; it suggested that this industrial component should be revitalised as a means of creating a strong community.

The proposed housing would also function as a workplace for brewers, with living and working functions playfully overlapping and coexisting, even within individual apartments themselves. The brewing process was instrumental in organising the building according to how beer is produced: the roof was used to harvest hops, beginning a downward process making use of massive structural tuns, culminating in fermentation vats in the basement and a pub on the first floor. The home-as-workplace is not a new idea, as feminists have criticised unpaid domestic labor done by women; this project is also a reflection on how the home can be celebrated as a workplace, rather than not acknowledged as one. The individual units were compact, offering a space for privacy for the inhabitants, and the building also provided generous communal spaces: kitchens, laundry, living areas. A new way of living, sharing in the work and the off-work activities, with opportunities for privacy when necessary, is put forward through the design.

Plans illustrating living/working functions together

Key section

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HOME BREW The relationship between living and working is demonstrated through the axonometric that demonstrates how this is resolved. Access to the tuns and access to the apartments is separated, and the language chosen to express each is distinct: one is domestic and the other is industrial.

Brewing/living axonometric

Exterior image

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ACADEMIC AGORA |

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PERSONAL YEAR 2

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PROFESSIONAL SEM 2

AGORA Brief: Using Rhinoceros functions we developed two siteless recipes as tools to guide the design later on. After a field trip to Madrid and brief site analysis exercises we combined the two in order to begin designing an architectural proposal for a public library.

Response: My initial, siteless, spatial investigations were focused on the element of using frames to define the space, and using the technique of carving or sculpting to define the forms. A combination of the two would be employed in order to produce a library that aspired to be a hub for the local community, setting itself against the profit driven urban fabric and providing the public with meeting spaces, a collection of books and individual reading rooms looking into small walled gardens. The central space was the ground floor debating halls, with two voids above it, up to the roof. A series of stairs and larger steps provide intermediate meeting spaces between the book stacks and the large halls which are left empty in order to house whatever functions the locals require.

Spatial recipe explorations (left: frames; right: carved/sculpted space)

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AGORA The derive through Madrid was an important exercise. It allowed for the crafting of a subjective, personal understanding of the site which would later influence my design.

I chose to represent the drawings through a series of two unconventional maps and a collage that accompanied them in order to demonstrate my experience of Madrid psychogeographic contours and atmospheric unities.

Preliminary report on the psychogeographical contours of Madrid: derive maps

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AGORA The final drawings for the project operate on two levels: that of the flat line drawing and that of the playful image. The serene line drawings were chosen as a tool in order to display the monumentality of the proposal, how it is a monument to public knowledge and how its scale asserts it as a civic building that beckons to the citizens and the local community.

Axonometric drawings (top: reading room detail; bottom: site axonometric)

Ground floor plan

Sections

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AGORA The project was resolved to a level of relative detail, particularly concerning certain spaces. The reading space was considered of high importance and as such designed in greater detail, detailed in a very simple yet elegant manner.

The key section was an opportunity to explain the building’s logic of three distinct areas: entrance and service core, book stacks and meeting places, and reading booths looking onto walled gardens.

Reading room plan & section details

Model development, long section

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AGORA The images produced for the project playfully contrast the more serious line drawings. By using digital collage techniques, the project establishes itself as a mix-match of various references from films, paintings and books. The images attempt to show how the project could be appropriated by the local community, how it opens itself up to different uses, and how it allows for various functions to take place within it.

Views: reading room, debate hall, entrance.

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ACADEMIC | DEVIANT HABITATS

PERSONAL | YEAR

| 3

PROFESSIONAL | SEM 1

DEVIANT HABITATS Brief: We selected graffiti as a hedonistic activity to study in central Edinburgh. We were asked to draw maps and to craft interactive models, and to then propose a design project that could engage and possible change the conditions we discovered.

Response: Deviant Habitats is a project dealing with urban conditions of surveillance and concealment, prompted by an analysis of graffiti activity.

Our endeavour was to create parasitic architecture that could allow activities which require hiding to flourish.

We carried out various experiments of deployable architectures, by choosing two sites and relating them to the Adam House studio as a base of operations, and then drawing these experiments.

Through these drawings we identified possible anchor points for our architecture to make use of.

We then developed a system of anchoring and constructing flexible architectures, based on our initial tensile model of Edinburgh. This was then translated into a partial one to one installation within the studio space, using the studio furniture and fittings and modified versions of our anchors in order to prototype the project’s reality.

The project asks: how far could this go? What can be contaminated?

Group credit: Laura Moreno & Guillermo Fernandez Processing software mapping of data on graffiti in central Edinburgh

Grasshopper modelling of central Edinburgh as a gravitational field of graffiti

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DEVIANT HABITATS At the beginning of the semester we constructed a tensile model of our findings in central Edinburgh.

This was conceived as a series of push/pull factors, based on the drawings we made that were simulations of the city according to laws of physics.

We then created a projection device that attached itself to the studio furniture and allowed drawings and videos to be projected onto the model itself, so that Adam House could function as a base of operations for our deployable architectures.

Axonometrics of projection device, construction and placement on site (Adam House studio)

Axonometric of tensile model of Edinburgh & projection device

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DEVIANT HABITATS During the semester we conducted various tests with deployable architecture. The first involved garbage bags sown into spider-like shapes, using the city’s vents in order to inflate themselves and define a space. By redrawing this we discovered how certain parts of the city could be appropriated in order for parasitic architectures to flourish.

By repurposing our tensile model, we began experimenting with meshes and fabric structures that could anchor themselves to the city’s walls.

Using grasshopper to conduct gravitational simulations of fabrics according to a precise mapping of anchor points on a chosen site we were able to produce a set of drawings explaining how different pieces of fabric had to be cut and connected, and also set up.

Deployable garbage bag device; Robertson’s Close

Grasshopper modelling of anchor points, mesh pieces kit

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DEVIANT HABITATS The anchor points in the space behind Adam House were an important part of our investigation.

By creating a highly detailed set of drawings in plan, section and elevation, we were able to determine how parasitic architectures could anchor themselves to the surrounding walls.

Using digital software carried out simulations of this that allowed us to resolve the project in terms of materiality as well, choosing a safety net as a ‘floor’ and a tensile cloth as a ‘ceiling,’ while using a similar material for the hammock pods.

Plan of anchor points around Adam House as a field

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DEVIANT HABITATS Throughout the project there was a dialogue between physical modelling and drawing. For the final proposal we were able to create a scenario in which the structure was deployed in various stages - one of them shown in the physical model, while the rest were drawn in plan and section.

Deployment site behind Adam House; physical model

Deployment section

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DEVIANT HABITATS The drawings of Adam House and its surroundings were instrumental to the success of the project, as they displayed the relationship between Adam House as a base of operations and the courtyard behind it as a testing ground for deploying deviant habitats across the city.

By repurposing elements of our original model we were able to resolve the project down to the connection detail, linking back to the survey drawings of anchor points that we had conducted.

Deployment plan behind Adam House & relationship to studio

Deployment section & projections

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DEVIANT HABITATS For the final submission and exhibition of our work we crafted a 1:1 prototype of the proposal in Adam House. Safety net functioned as the floor, while white fabric made the ceiling and hammock; we appropriated the studio’s lights to demonstrate the possibility for projections. More importantly, we anchored the structure to the studio’s furniture and walls using modified versions of the devices that we proposed to use in the public realm.

However, while the prototype was built, the project also played on the level of scenario based architecture, as we speculated on how this could be deployed but also what effects it could have on the city, again through using the courtyard behind Adam House as a testing ground.

1:1 Prototype in Adam House

Deployment scenario

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DEVIANT HABITATS The project finished with a return to the urban scale we studied at the beginning of the semester, bringing back to it a proposal for influencing and potentially changing the initial findings.

The project asks “what could be contaminated?� by proposing a scenario in which central Edinburgh is taken over by parasitic architecture that enables activities that require hiding to flourish. This would then lead on to habitats of unmonitored activities that could form a network in the city.

Edinburgh contamination scenario, aerial

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ACADEMIC | PERSONAL FOUR CHARACTERS | YEAR

| 4

PROFESSIONAL | SEM 2

FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Brief: We were asked to study Newtongrange as an industrial landscape of coal. Our group was particularly interested in certain parts of the site we identified as totems, which we drew and modelled in order to begin an investigation that would reveal our tectonic agenda.

Response: The project begins with the identification of four totems within the disused mine and the adjacent village: the undercroft, the stack, the gantry and the brick housing. Their presence and loaded symbolisms are so powerful that they resonate throughout the site.

Through drawing and crafting exercises these are abstracted, deterritorialised, and ultimately elaborated into four characters that embody a deep albeit unusual contextual understanding of Newtongrange as an apparatus, as a manufactured (and outdated) landscape of coal, moving forward and proposing an architectural performance for the town’s public realm.

Four small library/archives are dispersed on site, providing spaces for documents, records and books to be kept and perused as well as creating points of reference for the everyday life in the village.

Newtongrange as a series of totemic characters; analogous drawing

The project is grounded in Newtongrange but it belongs to another world; the conflict between reality and the imagined aspires to set the stage for unexpected and exciting situations.

Group credit: Sean Rees, Michael McBride, Jonathan Kim

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE After identifying the totems we embarked on a series of investigations, individually, but in a constellation (rather than strict group work), to test how these totems could drive an architectural proposal.

I was interested in how the totems could be deployed in various scenarios and what effect this would have on the life of Newtongrange Newtongrange as field; the characters as agents of disruption in the public and domestic realms

Totems in the studio/site

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Through developing a set of drawings examining Newtongrange’s housing typologies and how these could be disrupted, I created a model which served as the base for further explorations. At one point within the semester the models me and my groupmates had crafted started become more in quantity but also more sophisticated. This allowed for digital experimentation in terms of form and assemblage, as an architectural proposal began to take shape.

An autonomous set of drawings exploring a disrupted domesticity of Newtongrange

The studio models drawn and 3d-modelled begin to take on a character of their own

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE For the purpose of this investigation we did not study Newtongrange as a traditional landscape.

These drawings came a few months after the beginning of the semester but display a latent understanding that was there from the beginning: we understood Newtongrange as a manufactured landscape, a landscape of English brick on Scottish ground.

The brick was then repurposed, reappropriated, and put to use in order to set the stage for totemic promenades through the site, creating four characters which settle in the public realm of Newtongrange.

Newtongrange as a manufactured landscape of brick

Brick grounds for totemic promenades

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Each character has a set of cast members, which are identical in all four proposals. What differs is the assemblage, the connections and how each cast member is deployed in a specific context.

The project asserts that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and uses a syntax developed from the study of Newtongrange’s totems in order to propose an exciting architecture for the town’s public realm.

Returning to our original analogous drawing allowed us to display our individual projects’ intentions and how they operate in parallel.

New characters take the stage of Newtongrange; analogous drawing

The new characters: site plan

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BB’

CC’

AA’

FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE This was the prototype character developed.

Using this small building as a testing grounds, materialities, connections and hierarchies were established, which proved very useful in the design of the other three characters that followed.

Understanding how the material systems work together and overlap was a critical part of the project, and the plan, section and elevation drawings, drawn at 1:100 originally, were the first step in resolving this.

A character for the East of Welfare Park; ground floor plan

A character for the East of Welfare Park; elevation and section

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Following on from the prototype character, a comprehensive set of drawings was produced for each of the four. This included all plans, at least two elevations and at least three sections, to demonstrate how each character did things differently.

The stillness achieved through elegant line drawings is in playful contrast with the project’s almost ironic ambitions towards the village of Newtongrange.

A character for the primary school; first floor & roof plan

A character for the primary school; elevation & section

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100mm insulation

blackened steel panel facade finish, attached with steel brackets

4mm steel sheet cover held up by steel brackets

60mm insulation 250x180mm I-beam steel structure

suspended ceiling system

20mm precast pigmented concrete door

5mm linoleum floor finish 100mm insulation 150mm concrete foundation wall

150mm gravel hard core 15mm door handle supported by 4mm folded steel sheet

drainage pebbles

100mm gravel

150mm precast concrete

100mm pre cast concrete skirting

flashing

50mm precast concrete panels

120mm insulation corten steel panel

100mm engineered soil, separation fabric, drainage, capillary fabric, root barrier, primary barrier

FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE

200mm insulation 200mm precast concrete slab

When the initial material connections and hierarchies were established, the building was then resolved in much greater detail. Taking on board the research of how Newtongrange as a manufactured landscape could inform tectonics, a set of details was developed, detailing the characters and their connections.

337.5mm structural brick masonry

20mm oak panel fixed to brick wall 30mm oak shelves, milled

50mm oak desk, milled 30mm oak interior finish 30mm treated oak exterior finish

15mm light oak floor planks p 50mm insulation 120mm concrete slab

cavity above brick vaults

The characters in suspended animation; exploded axonometrics

operable double glazing

These details were drawn both in section and in elevation, testing not only the technological feasibility of the design, but also putting these technological concerns to use in the aesthetic resolution of the project.

Detailing the character of steel & brick

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150mm precast concrete slab

100mm insulation, vapour barrier

30mm gravel, bituminous roof seal

100mm precas

flashing

fixed double glazing

70x340mm precast concrete brise soleil unit supported by steel brackets

FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Throughout the project the axonometric projections was a very useful drawing tool. It was strategically deployed to suggest a certain detachment from the site, in a manner similar perhaps to some of Peter Eisenman’s work.

polished concrete floor finish 100mm insulation 120mm precast concrete

150mm precast concrete column (structural)

50mm precast concrete sill

A character for the village green; axonometric

A character for the primary school; axonometric

The axonometric drawings display a certain autonomy of the project from the physical site of Newtongrange, suggesting that the four characters have been brought to life as they appear for many more reasons than to do with the site context from a physical point of view. The metaphysical aspects of the site played a much stronger role in shaping the architecture proposed here.

Detailing the character of concrete

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE When the detailing of the project was complete, a set of images was produced in order to represent certain small details. These were also a reflection on the production of architectural image in general, as they are not very generous in terms of what is given away. They are small glimpses of the project, suggestions of what could be, rather than shiny presentation images. They feed into the drawings and the drawings feed into them the project in fact does not need the images, but rather uses collage as a technique to draw the eye and to point it towards the extensive set of drawings that was produced.

Views; reading booth, ground transitions, staff entrance

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FOUR CHARACTERS FOR NEWTONGRANGE Finally, at the end of the project we were asked to set up an exhibition in Adam House. The whole studio worked on this, building stands, negotiating spaces, establishing common codes of hanging our drawings. This came from a series of previous tests, one in Adam House and one in Matthew Gallery, where we had the opportunity to exhibit work-in-progress in order to be able to approach the final exhibition with more confidence.

The exhibition, alongside a drawing of it, displays our studio’s understandings of Newtongrange as apparatus and as driving force for tectonic agendas.

Photographs of the exhibition set up in Adam House

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ACADEMIC | PERSONAL | 2A+P/A INTERNSHIP | YEAR 3 Via Crisanzio

Foresteria CNR

Nuovo Mercato

Nuova Copertura Mercato

Spazi Espositivi

Sale riunioni e Area Convegni CNR

Settore Degustazione

Accesso principale CNR

Settore Degustazione

Sale riunioni e Area Convegni CNR

Auditorium

Nuova Copertura Mercato

Nuovo Mercato

PROFESSIONAL | SEM 2

Scuola di Cucina

INTERNSHIP: 2A+P/A 2A+P/A follows from a long tradition of radical Italian design. During my time there we worked on a seres of speculative projects, mostly for architectural competitions.

I was introduced to various references of architecture previously unknown to me, and the studio had a large library of books which we often perused and used as inspiration for the projects.

During my time at 2A+P/A I greatly developed my software and representation skills as the office pays close attention to quality drawings since the proposals for competitions were often unconventional (to say the least), the drawings were very important in displaying the clarity and coherence of the concept, but also its feasibility.

Competitions drawings from projects at 2A+P/A, highlighting individual contribution to the studio.

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ACADEMIC | PERSONAL STUDIO MIESSEN INTERNSHIP |

| PROFESSIONAL YEAR 4 | SEM 1

INTERNSHIP: STUDIO MIESSEN During my time at Studio Miessen in Belrin I had the opportunity to work with a studio engaged mainly in the spatial production of cultural institutions. We worked on various exhibitions, from concept to construction, research projects, an office remodelling and a competition.

The studio paid great attention to the detailing of a project and there was always a critical approach to whatever project we were dealing with. I learned alot from my time there, particularly on how to conceptualise and move forward with designing projects operating both on a theoretical and a practical construction level.

Through the studio’s particular approach to critical spatial practice I also had the opportunity to learn about various theorists in the architectural discipline (and other related fields).

Competitions & exhibition concept drawings from Studio Miessen, highlighting individual contribution to the studio.

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ACADEMIC MORPHEUS

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PERSONAL YEAR 3

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PROFESSIONAL SEM 2

MORPHEUS [Awarded honorable mention] Non-architecture competition: Sleeping Brief: The competition requested from participants to propose innovative solutions for the architecture of hotels, with a very open brief.

Completed with Sofia Nikolaidou, Dussaucy, Matteo Novarino

Emeline

Response: Our project was inspired by Superstudio’s Supersurface, and we proposed an ambiguous scenario which could be understood as either utopic or dystopic. There is no more concept of real life; the hotel room or pod of the future provides the single inhabitant with everything he or she needs to sustain biological life - the pods pave the way for a life spent sleeping, a life of dreaming, where everything is possible.

“Outside” view

“Inside” view

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ACADEMIC PONOS |

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PERSONAL YEAR 4

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PROFESSIONAL SEM 1

PONOS [Awarded honorable mention] Non-architecture competition: Making Brief: The competition requested from participants to propose innovative solutions for the architecture of working spaces, with a very open brief.

Completed with Sofia Nikolaidou, Dussaucy, Matteo Novarino

Emeline

Response: Our project considered the current widespread use of “black box” labour technologies, from apps to entire factories, where it is unclear how the end product comes to being.

By taking this logic to its extreme, we proposed an obscure monumental building, linked to a brand that provides customers with whatever they need: anything and everything. The project’s aim was to expose and criticise the precarious labour conditions of late capitalism.

A factory of black box labour.

Ponos advertisement.

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ACADEMIC VESTA |

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PERSONAL YEAR 4

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PROFESSIONAL SEM 1

VESTA [Finalist project] Non-architecture competition: Making Brief: The competition requested from participants to propose innovative solutions for the architecture of working spaces, with a very open brief.

Completed with Sofia Nikolaidou, Dussaucy, Matteo Novarino

Emeline

Response: Our project was a self-referential exercise, analysing the conditions under which it was produced. The work of many young creatives today does not happen in what is considered a typical working space; the same was true for us: our bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, even spaces we pass through for very short periods, like trains or buses, become our very own factories. This is the landscape of precarious labour for many designers.

Factory conceptual plan.

Work spaces illustrations.

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ACADEMIC | DIGITAL NOMADS

PERSONAL | YEAR

| 4

PROFESSIONAL | SEM 1

DIGITAL NOMADS Fentress Global Challenge Competition Brief: The competition requested from participants to envision the airport of the future, choosing from a list of 50 existing airports and how they might be developed in the years to come.

Completed with Sofia Nikolaidou Response: Our proposal considered that mobility is becoming an increasing factor and how young people live and work. We proposed that the airport of the future is a hub for young professionals that are constantly on the move. By taking LAX airport in Los Angeles, we speculated on a development which would construct new temporary living spaces connected to the terminals, alongside short-term work spaces.

Top: strategic development plan; Bottom: internal and external views.

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ACADEMIC VARIOUS |

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PERSONAL YEAR 1-4

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PROFESSIONAL SEM X

MISCELLANEOUS A selection of posters, drawings, collages, and zines undertaken with various friends.

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