chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
process: a series of actions taken to achieve a particular end progress: to move forward or onward in space or time
As a student of both Architecture and Philosophy, my approach to design is one heavy with inter-disciplinary analysis, and I believe it is the process of observing, analyzing, and critiquing human behavior, sociology, and culture, that leads to the design of progressive space-space that will challenge how we choose to live. In designing, I study traditional and accepted ways of inhabiting space and challenge or distort them to invoke change in lifestyle. In effort to combat suburbia and design inclusively for all inhabitants, I also engage my designs beyond the confines of the building, reaching to the urban environment to provide space and urban engagement that will benefit all residents of a city and breach the insular confines of a narcissistic building. Graphically, I make great effort to explore a variety of representational techniques. Transitioning between different media, one is constantly re-working and gaining new perspective on the design problem at hand, a process analogous to the critical thinking necessary for innovative and visionary design, and ultimately, for progress.
chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
_typical perpendicular relationship of buildings to street
_study of pedestrian movement and proposed parallel and enveloping relationship.
Exploring the notion of the verb to demonstrate on the level of museum--as it functions to demonstrate an exhibit--and architecture--as buildings function to demonstrate space--the Chevy Chase Building Museum is a metaphysical study in the act of demonstration: a building about building. Located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, amidst a slew of suburban sprawl and high-end strip-malls, the museum’s site lies between a mock neo-classical department store and a strip of luxury retail. Since this region contains more mannequins than it does pedestrians, the museum is an urban intervention to engage the street, create public space, and sponsor pedestrian usage and traffic in the area. group|independent academic|professional digital modeling|digital rendering|drafting|handdrawing|photography|physical modeling|water-color
While most neighboring buildings have entrances directly perpendicular to the street and sidewalk, the museum’s entrance parallels the street and envelopes the sidewalk into its lobby space. A perforated skin peels away from the front of the otherwise-rectangular gallery space, creating an interior sidewalk and, in an effort to demonstrate, enabling visitors to walk through and experience the building’s innards.
loc_chevy chase, md prof_hooman koliji studio_iii sem_fa09
chevy chase building museum
5
an interactive and inhabitable skin
_�interior street�/atrium space is created as the skin wraps around the rectangular building.
_
s t u d i e s in a) incorporating the street into the building b) using the building’s skin to facilitate such an enveloping. _the main functions of the building extend to the first floor, while the ground level services the urban environment with a coffee shop, book store, access to a basement-level restaurant, and the atrium space.
_messages can be projected onto the skin, announcing new exhibits, movie listings, and lectures.
_the skin’s multi-surface form is created from a combination of the site’s path lines and the section of the theater.
_detail of skin perforation and image projection.
7
_in its efforts to demonstrate, the museum houses traditional galleries in addition to the atrium space, which serves as a permanent, inhabitable exhibit demonstrating the tectonics of the space.
_patrons can view the atrium space from inside the other galleries, which serve as viewing platforms for the varying heights of this permanent exhibit. visitors can also walk through or climb the stairs within the space.
3
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
chevy chase building museum
9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
_the historic retaining wall is left in place as a divide between the public theater/cafe (exposed on the edges) and the private studio space (secured within the walls).
This semester studio in the United Kingdom focused on urban revitalization in the city of Richmond, North Yorkshire, with an emphasis on expanding public amenities and pedestrian traffic beyond the small city center.
group|independent academic|professional digital modeling|digital rendering|drafting|handdrawing|photography|physical modeling|water-color
The Richmond Dance Centre occupies a corner-lot containing an abandoned retaining wall and a covered passageway shared with the neighboring building, both of which are saved and incorporated into the new design. Here, the typical black-box notion of a theater is broken, as the auditorium is placed on the exposed corner of the site, with some of its elements punching through to the exterior. The upper-floor backstage space extends conceptually to the outdoor lobby space below, connecting both as a launch zone for the events that proceed them--the actual stage event and the public “event� of the lobby cafe. The building itself acts as a threshold, mediating between the urban, public exterior and its intimate, theatrical interior. The centre brings performance to the public, extending itself onto the urban landscape and making the visitor both spectator and spectacle.
_wooden slates front of glass the happenings theater to the at night.
in expose of the public
_the divide between back and main stage extends through the facade to the street.
_catwalks above the main stage punch through the facade of the theater space.
_tiered seating of the theater is reflected on the facade.
loc_richmond, uk prof_karl dupuy studio_iv sem_sp10
richmond dance centre
11
_the two “stages” of the theater and cafe lie along the longitudinal section, sponsored by their respective “staging” areas: the actual stage and lobby.
_two large studio spaces exist in the inward section of the building, providing class space for local residents and a rehearsal area for performers.
_stairs transition between public and private stages as audience members look onto the public performance of the cafe in their ascent to the theater.
13
threshold _the divide between back and main stage extends outward to the street, in its display on the facade, and downward into the lobby, creating a staging area in both the literal backstage and in the entry lobby, with both areas prepping public (cafe) and private (main stage) performers for their routines.
chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
This study is an exercise in the act of dwelling; to devise a space in which an architect can both live and work, while also exploring the divide between inside and outside space. The site is a narrow, one-hundred-foot-long plot of sloping land whose remaining characteristics are left ambiguous. The design uses three elements: a system of exterior walls and overhangs, a series of connected ramps, stairs, and hallways, and a rectangular prism of living and working space.
group|independent academic|professional digital modeling|digital rendering|drafting|handdrawing|photography|physical modeling|water-color
The ramp system spans the entire length of the site, entering and then exiting the interior live/work space and subsequently connecting both inside and outside. The wall system too encloses and spans the entire site, becoming a set of stone stairs on the hilly terrain paralleling the ramp and enveloping the living box with a pergola-like structure. The varying forms of the wall heighten the ambiguity between inside and outside, creating enclosure on the exterior. Contrastingly, the live/work rectangular space is made of glass, bringing the outside to the inside through vista and lighting.
_enveloping wall
_circulation ramp
_living box
loc_unknown prof_hooman koliji studio_iii sem_fa09
inside|outside dwelling
chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
spatial interlock
Located on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC, live|work Artist Housing is an exploration of the relationships between living and working spaces and an effort to create a place in which designers can live and work together in a collective housing environment. The design explores the interlocking and complementary relationship of living and working on multiple scales. At the unit scale, individual apartments are designed so that a private living zone interlocks with the public studio zone. The studio zone extends upward to the front of the living space, as a small consulting office for each tenant proceeds the living quarters. Likewise, the living zone extends downward into the studio space, with the artist’s bedroom located behind the main workroom. group|independent academic|professional digital modeling|digital rendering|drafting|handdrawing|photography|physical modeling|water-color
At the scale of the entire complex, studio spaces project into a large atrium space connecting all units to each other and to the ground floor below. A community is created within the building by making each floor of units akin to its own residential street. On the urban scale, the street interlocks with the building, as the ground floor houses a cafe, library, and laundromat to further sponsor an interior city for its tenants.
loc_washington, dc prof_hooman koliji studio_iii sem_fa09
live|work artist housing
11
_at the scale of the building, living units interlock with the shared community space in the same way living/studio zones interlock at the scale of the apartment.
_each unit includes a living floor, with office, kitchen, and dining; and a working floor, with studio space and bed.
_each studio space extends into the atrium via a porch, interlocking private residence with public to provide a forum in which artists can engage in both community and collaboration.
12 _since the live/work complex houses artists and designers, the ground floor program provides space for residents to meet, collaborate, and host exhibitions and community events, inviting the public to share in the ‘work’ of the building.
_”streets” are created via open hallways that connect the units. inside, these halls are exposed to the atrium space; outside, they look onto the “backyard” of the building.
_shared space on the ground floor is open to balconies of the units above-an interpretation of the historic front porchin effort to sponsor a similar sense of neighborhood and community within the apartment complex.
chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
During a six-week summer architectural study in Paris, France, as well as a student-initiated, semester-study in the United Kingdom, courses were taken in Visual Analysis, French Urbanism and Landscape, and the History of British Architecture. Within these courses, students were tasked with analyzing form and space through the exploration of several diagramming and representational techniques using a variety of two-dimensional media. group|independent academic|professional digital modeling|digital rendering|drafting|handdrawing|photography|physical modeling|water-color
My goal through these studies was to explore as many types of drawing and representation styles as possible, including watercolor, pen, pencil, colored pencil, and section perspective techniques to dual-document a space. Also included is a construction analysis drawing from an intensive precedent study of the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
loc_france|the uk prof_karl du puy course_visual analysis sem_su09|sp10
sketching abroad
chevy chase building museum
demonstrating performing inhabiting collaborating representing
3 9 15 17 23
richmond dance centre inside|outside dwelling
live|work artist housing sketching abroad
process: a series of actions taken to achieve a particular end progress: to move forward or onward in space or time