transfigurations ishita sharma : ideas 2003 - 2011
curriculum vitae
education
Louisiana State University / Graduated Salutatorian, Summa Cum Magna / May 2008 Bachelors of Architecture (professional ) with minors in English and Architectural History
work experience Intern Architect / Corgan Associates / Dallas, TX / 2008 - present The Sixth Floor Museum Store + Cafe at Dealey Plaza - Adaptive reuse interior finish-out, exterior signage for new store and cafe facilities at the site of JFK’s assassination - Involved in brainstorming, conceptualization, renderings, schematic design to construction administration - Project featured amongst Architect magazine’s ‘2010 Design for the Decade, Civil Buildings’ awardees Dallas Fort-Worth Airport Terminal Development Project - Participated in $2 Billion interior renovation, overhaul, spatial and circulatory reconfiguration of DFW Terminals A, B, C & E - Worked on visualizations, schematic design, design development and construction documents for Terminals A,B,C. using BIM Dallas International School : established and developed design concept for firm’s entry in design competition Stream Realty Richardson Data Center : involved in all project phases from the ground up using BIM Miami International Airport Rental Car Facility : construction administration and coordination Intern Architect / Tipton Associates / Baton Rouge, LA / 2008 Assisted with various drawing phases of design and prepared renderings and graphic presentations for clients LSU Office of Community Design & Development / Baton Rouge, LA / 2006 - 2008 Worked on construction team in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward building two shotguns in post Katrina rebuilding efforts Helped provide design services to lagging child care facilities in three New Orleans Parishes as part of grant work Staff Writer / Photographer / Columns Magazine / Dallas, TX / 2009 - present Working with editorial board to generate content and thematic ideas, responsible for two feature articles per issue Voice Columnist / The Dallas Morning News / 2010 - present Responsible for a six-weekly column on self determined themes including art, architecture, socio-cultural issues and science
honors + awards
HOGI Traveling Fellow to Japan - researched cultural hybridization in Tokyo, Dallas Center for Architecture / 2010 AIA Traveling Fellow - studied sinking cities in Europe, American Institute of Architects Louisiana Chapter / 2007 AIA Henry Adams Certicate of Merit, LSU College of Art and Design / 2008 Designer of the Year, LSU School of Architecture / 2007 Percy E. Roberts Jr. Memorial Merit Scholarship, LSU School of Architecture / 2007 International Student Non Resident Honor Award, LSU / 2005 - 2008
skillset
Software : Revit, AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, Microsoft Office, Sketchup, Indigo, Rhino, Maya Art : Professional photography, graphic design, acrylic, oil & watercolor painting, digital media, collage, hand drawing, clay & plaster sculpture, model building, with experience in laser cutting, basic woodworking & welding Writing : Editing, essaying, journalism, creative writing, poetry
publications + exhibitions
Delta Literary Journal / Baton Rouge, LA / Vol. 49, 2006 / Vol. 50, 2008 Ctrl + Alt + Del : Detroit in the Age of Obsolescence / 2008 Contexture, The LSU School of Architecture Student Journal / Vol.1-6 / 2006 - 2008 Legacy Magazine, Baton Rouge, LA / Issues 3, 4 / 2007 On My Own Time / Dallas, TX / 2009 / 2010 Landscapes, 500X Gallery / Dallas, TX / 2009 Say Cheese! This is architecture, LSU College of Art + Design / Baton Rouge, LA / 2007 Fatehpur Sikri : On the Raiments of the Arcane, LSU College of Art + Design / Baton Rouge, LA / 2006
intent I aspire to bring my technical and critical skills, experience and curiosity to holistically driven design. In an increasingly global world, I look to architecture to accommodate a community, its culture, its perception of both itself and its place in the world, into built realities. process Driven by a hunger for the larger picture, which becomes borderline Faustian at times, I nourish my self-assigned role of a critical engager in the world. My architectural explorations reflect an ever-evolving understanding of value and meaning drawn from “life’s rich pageant.� Transcending traditional architectural bounds, I reach beyond the pure space of steel and concrete to that of images and perception, verse and prose, galaxies and universes, cognition and consciousness, meditation and healing, people and their cities - learning from, and exploiting the paradigmatic shifts to inform my architectural tools and processes.
ishita sharma : ideas 2003 - 201
ISHITA SHARMA phone / + (1) 225.288.3379 email / studio@studioish.net web / www.studioish.net
introduction
In dedicating years to the study of architecture, I have left no stone unturned in striving towards perfection. Ironically, in the midst of this journey, I am still questioning and attempting to decipher for myself the meaning of architecture - its legitimacies, nuances and cross-disciplinary reaches; and am coming to discard the very notion of perfection. The lack of a singular perfect solution does not stir the old restlessness, and I relish the legitimacy of multiple solutions that exploit the plurality of my allied talents. The works contained in this portfolio are not perfect solutions, but they are the carefully articulated results of tireless struggles to gain understanding, and each piece is a mirrored self portrait of who I have become in these years.
Say Cheese! This is Architecture! : photo exhibition On the Raiments of the Arcane : independent research project/exhibition Ise Shinto Shrines : academic precedent study Inhabiting the Global Anonymous : traveling fellowship Dallas Fort-Worth Airport : professional work at Corgan Assoc. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza : professional work at Corgan Assoc. [un] Veiling the Statler Hilton : professional design competition Louisiana State Capitol Park Visitor Center : academic work Detroit, the Architecture of Obsolescence : academic thesis CeSRON - Center for Self Reflection, Otherness and Narcissism : academic thesis
contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
mugshots
Say Cheese! This is Architecture!
student exhibition : LSU School of Architecture Architecture is an art of making- a process of translating an intangible idea into tactile form and space. Here, more than the end result it is the progression towards it that defines the subject- the effort, the thinking and rethinking, the resulting mental (and often physical) mayhem and an unending struggle are what architecture really is for those who practice it, rather than the one singular
final product that stands alone with no traces of the processes that shaped it. Therefore: “This is architecture, indeed” or “C’est architecture en effect.” This photo exhibition embraced that beautiful banality, celebrating the agonizing collaborative process, attempting to get real behind the gloss, both professional and academic. And, no, these pictures weren’t photoshopped.
details of purdah walkways, the queens’ palace complex and the king’s palaces
On the Raiments of the Arcane
Fatehpur Sikri, India This independent research project studied how socio-cultural connotations dictated architectural forms in the medieval Indian capital of Fatehpur Sikri built by the Indian emperor Akbar. After extensive research and documentation the findings were compiled in the form of laser etched drawings on wooden panels along with photographic
prints to illustrate arguments. A photo exhibition thus introduced Mughal architecture, eliciting reflections of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism and Akbar’s self founded religion, Din-i-ilahi. Forms, spaces, details, and people of the city in its time were scrutinized depicting the socio-cultural institutions that merged into Fatehpur’s architectural iconography.
40 meters tall, the Buland Darwaza built in 1602 marks the entry to Fatehpur
On the raiments of the arcane emerge facets of olden Mughal ways. The city of victory at Sikri, carved entirely in red sandstone stands testament to the intricacy of building capabilities, commissioned by Akbar, perhaps the most beloved of Mughal rulers to be the seat of his capital. It was under his rule that scattered Mughal territories coalesced into a singular dynasty.
The dry corbelled beam and column construction at Fatehpur is a beautiful play on old wood construction techniquesprevalent in the region, gracefuly balancing brutal solidity with lace-like finesse in a stereotomic dance. The separation of the sexes led to balconies and jharokhas, axial corridors for the queens to privately move about in the complex, seen only by their emperor.
Interior of the Jama Masjid (Mosque) holding the remains of saint Salim Chisti
Believers travel the world to have their wishes granted by a dead saint buried within the marble walls of the dargah mosque. These intricately carved walls are perhaps the finest examples of marble carvings in the subcontinent. Though abandoned centuries ago by its creators, the city still breathes within those who continue to haunt its gates.
looking out at the village of Sikri from the palace gate
diagram of structural forces
Ise Shinto Shrines
Ise Prefecture, Japan model of the Geku, outer shrine
Tracing the roots of sustainable architecture through the ages, this precedent study sought to understand the sacred Ise Shinto Shrine complex in the Mei Prefecture of Japan. The shrines were studied from a cultural, historical, artisan and architectural point of view. The nature of continual renewal through rebuilding every 20 years and the
use of oppositional forces in spatial planning were explored. The model was constructed using Japanese joinery (Shinmeizukuri) unique to the actual shrines. The drawings strove to elicit the subtle solid-void relationships Ise embodies.
details of dry wood joinery
eastward shift of exploding metropoli
global megalopoli [population > 10 million people]
Asia is leading the urban shift from W to E. Tokyo was the first city to cross the 10 million mark. With a population of 36.6 million and the highest GDP of all (before the fatal earthquake of 2011), Tokyo is the largest and 3rd most global city in the world. It is so big, in fact that it merits its own typology, a city of cities- one true megalopolis.
Metropolitan anonymity in a globalized megalopolis - what in a city’s DNA establishes its locality?
We are at a global inflection point. For the first time the majority of the world’s population is urban and half of its largest cities are Asian. Urbanization translates into globalization, cities across the world resemble eachother more than their national rural counterparts. Advances in communication and transportation have created a rich, unprecedented
mixing of cultures throughout the world. Globalization is about integration. The architecture of cultural absorption is not clean-old is punctuated by new and vice-versa in a haphazard blend of urban nostalgia. Global metropoli find common ground in this space of flux, and one immediate role of architects is to mediate negotiations within similar cultural juxtapositions.
Inhabiting the Global Anonymous
Tokyo, Japan remnants of a Shinto shrine in Roppongi
During my fellowship to Tokyo, I studied urban and architectural nuances established in 5 evolving neighborhoods resulting from ongoing globalization of Japanese culture. The investigation understood the megalopolis not just as built form, but as an evolving culture that inhabits built form embedded in urban context.
Tokyo’s urban fabric was considered as a fluid organism into which culturally foreign forms and functions are assimilated, defying its original nature, while eliciting first-hand, the impacts of global assimilation on the un-documented, happenstance living city often lost to its flashier metropolitan counterparts.
reflections of foreign-ness in youth culture finding respite in the street - privacy ironically found in large public spaces in a city forced to inhabit small intimate spaces in the mundane
although the old structures and proportions remain, the re-ordered space of street here accommodates a hybrid culture, juxtaposing salarymen, youth, aged alike in a re-imagined space for anonymous escape
Dallas Fort-Worth Airport
Dallas, Texas DFW Terminal A - concourse level space plan detail (Corgan)
The $2 billion overhaul at DFW Airport Terminal Development Program (done in Revit) includes reorganizing spatial, functional and infrastructural updates to Terminals A,B,C and E. As part of a large collaborative team I worked with Corgan’s Aviation studio on the DFW Concept, Concessions, and Enabling phase teams on Schematic Design and
Design Development. My role included the reconfiguration of baggage flow, ticketing, gate queing, holdrooms and concessions layouts for terminals A and C. I also contributed visualizations for pedestrian bridges at terminal entries, and worked on construction documents for demolition and enabling phases of the project kick off at Terminal A.
DFW Terminal A concourse level functional space planning (Corgan Aviation)
terminal entry rendering (Corgan Aviation)
hand drawn interior studies
The Sixth Floor Museum Store + Cafe
Dallas, Texas 3d models of preliminary options * Featured winner in Architect Magazine’s Civic Design for the Decade - 2010 * Finalist in running for the Retailer Excellence Award, New York - 2011
Work began on the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in the guise of a small interior project. Working on it with the project team however, taught me there is no such thing as a small project. The rich complexity of this 3000sf project involving interventions in Dallas’ historic West End called for my involvement from the get-go until the very
opening day. The project called for rebranding and establishing the Museum’s identity in the open plaza through the addition of a Store + Cafe at the corner of Elm and Houston. The site sensitive nature of the Museum relating to JFK’s assassination provided a rich contextual framework to ground the project in.
the Museum in context (Corgan)
Our project team considered the Sixth Floor Museum in its broader context, and analyzed its critical location and connections as intrinsically embedded in Dealey Plaza and the West End. This led to the recognition of this site specific institution’s museum campus.
flow, nodes and adjacencies in the Museum Campus (Corgan)
Urban relationships, adjacencies, historic moments and points in the city’s fabric were carefully analyzed. The solutions herein were crafted respecting both the original fabric of the building and the emotional weight carried by the site of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
preliminary studies for Museum corner sign before and after
Distinctively modern in its form, the sign sets itself architecturally apart from the historic building it attaches to. It exposes the building’s beautiful brickwork and quoining details. The contemporary font, color and materials employed in signage establish a refreshed identity.
8� cut letters
mapping sight lines from the Xs marked on Dealey Plaza
metallic grey, powder coated steel steel armature
designing and diagramming the modern graphic sign while respecting Landmark Commission stipulations
The Museum Store + Cafe sign was designed to address visibility of the corner from key experiential points along the winding slope of Elm Street. The sign captures the corner via rotation, tying its geometric origins to different sight and desire lines.
images of sign installed in place (Corgan)
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PLAN KEY 1 - Entry 2 - Cash Wrap 3 - Museum Store 4 - Museum Cafe 5 - Cafe Service 6 - Cafe Support 7 - Store Workroom 8 - 501 Elm Lobby
cafe : process rendering (Corgan)
store : process rendering (Corgan)
[un] Veiling the Statler Hilton
Dallas, Texas concept collage : a nostalgic cinematic introspective
This public competition put on by the AIA asked for a neglected local landmark, the once majestic Statler Hilton to be veiled using temporary artwork for aesthetic reasons. However, upon careful deliberation this entry opted to approach the issue from its roots, questioning the very premise of the competition. Our proposal
employed temporary exhibitions to revitalize the space and structure. The themes chosen would metaphorically illustrate the best of the hotel’s 56 years shared with the Dallas community, and its own potential that lies dormant within. collaboration : Ishita Sharma + Preston Kissman
back projections onto film coated glass facade
concept collage : a nostalgic cinematic introspective
uplighting on the building facade
The Statler facade becomes a screen onto which films are back projected at night. Projecters connected inside transpose movies and images onto film, creating a constructed life - animating the facade as seen from the street and park and thereby transforming the adjacent urban garden into a silent outdoor theater. Films and images compiled
from Dallas’ collective memory (public and private archives) showcase the style and glamour of its growing years, while integrating the experiences of its citizens. Crowds experience their city’s past and present by transformation of the sidewalk into a gallery walk, and engaging with one of America’s most endangered local landmarks.
LA State Capitol Park Visitor Center
Baton Rouge, Louisiana concept collage : memory of the LA wetlands
proposed gazebos to capture key views
The LA Visitor Center is designed to inform and encourage explorations of the site, the city and the state. Because one must experience a place to truly undestand it, the building recreates a journey of discovery through a landscape where one must travel and experience the given to extract
knowledge. Louisiana is embedded in an aqueous landscape with fast disappearing wetlands. Sunk into the ground, surrounded by water, the Center alludes to the fragile deltal landscape created by the Mississippi and attempts to make the visitor aware of the sinking coastline.
site plan
site context
The subterranean structure exploits views out to nearby attractions that spawned its configuration. A grid of trees acts as a reference, broken from within by event spaces occuring along gridlines generated by site context. Above, gazebos frame view, encouraging directed exploration.
floorplan from working drawing set
south elevation
adjacencies
Adjacencies include the Louisiana State Capitol, the Pentagon Barracks, the Library, the LA State Museum and the iconic Mississippi Bridge which is the lifeline of Baton Rouge. The new building exploits these adjacencies and harnesses views through the visitor’s journey.
longitudinal section
LEED certified with 31 points
The building provides for on site solar power generation directly connected to the grid, a rainwater harvesting system used for plumbing, irrigation while forming the wetland exhibit. Further, being below grade naturally insulates and shades the building, supplemented by the shade of planted trees.
longitudinal section for working drawing set
materials and methods
view of exterior subterranean exhibit space with temporary displays
changing light in exhibit areas
View of Louisiana Wetland exhibit - an interactive space for experiential displays
the abandoned GM factory chosen site for CeSRON
figure-ground of Detroit, 2008 a shrinking city
Detroit today in rapid post-industrial decline, provides a radically different dystopic landscape from its yesteryear with a third of its population below the poverty line and more than 60,000 vacant lots. The city provided an eerie trail traced in the exploration of various facets of obsolescence in a collaborative studio thesis wherein my work delved into the obsolescence of self reflection in today’s society with the Center for Self Reflection, Otherness and Narcissism (CeSRON).
The Architecture of Obsolescenc
Detroit, Michigan “Obsolescence is the canvas on which we sketch and give meaning to our present. It structures our very self� - Intro, ctrl+alt+del :Detroit in the Age of Obsolescence
We live in an age where the illusion of pure erasure seems cleanly possible. What is deemed obsolete often remains tangible, surfacing inconveniently in our physicalities and psyches. This project address ed cultural obsolescnce in the the ghost of Detroit.
figments of image-ination : self reflection, otherness, narcissism
Socrates wrote that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. In our era of “me-generations,” self-reflection is obsolete. The focus on Self has a blind-spot; the spot from which the self can critically consider itself. We are reduced to mere images and lost in the reflections of our images; images which are fabricated and constructed for and by us. “Facing oneself” or acknowledging shortcomings and failures is so uncomfortable that the alternative has become the standard. We are content to live in denial of reality, often veiling our discomfort with narcissism and self-indulgence. We are a society that promotes self-esteem and
self-importance, encouraging expression of opinions no matter how grossly ignorant or misinformed. There is no room for self-doubt or evaluation of the consequences of our collective actions. In the words of Julia Kristeva, we are strangers to ourselves, our own doubles, our own Other. The proposed Center for Self Reflection, Otherness and Narcissism is an attempt to create a venue, a spot for the discourse of the other of the other, of the self. It is meant to be a “think-tank,” an educational, interactive socio-cultural facility. At the same time, in its form and location, the structure itself is a machine for glimpses of our fragmented being.
CeSRON : center for self reflection, otherness and narcissism
The reform of consciousness lies solely in the awakening of the world from its dream about itself. -Karl Marx
ctrl + alt + del : Detroit in the age of Obsolescence : Detroit, MI
Now seared by Rosa Parks Boulevard, a forgotten intersection is a silent marker of violent race riots of 1967. This is the proposed site for CeSROn, attempting to adress the racial undertones the city of Detroit struggles with.
“The I is always in the field of the other.” -Jacques Lacan “History is like Janus; it has two faces. Whether it looks at the past or the present, it sees the same things.” -Maxime du Camp
whites protest black property rights
cornered on Clairmount St.
site history
blvd.
atkinson st.
12th st/ rosa parks
The city of Detroit battles poverty, crime and abandonment, all of which may be traced back to the racial divide prevalent in the city from its glory days. Never comfortable with the idea of the black outsider (no matter how free or lawfully equal), the city saw a massive exodus or white flight shortly after the 12th street riots of 1967. Although before the riot the city had been predominantly white, by 1970, that is, only three years after the riot, Detroit had become a black city. The site of the riots, at the crossing of 12th Street and Clairmount Street, is today part of a residential neighborhood. Locating CESRON at this junction is appropriate as it alludes to another level of cultural reflection and raising old and new concerns in Detroit’s deteriorating community. The six day long riot that occurred on this site was an expression of rebellion where a race fought for itself. Beneath the violence and the outcry against injustice lies a strange layer of narcissism—necessary for a creature to possess in order to value its own preservation. Thus narcissism may be read here as a vital, positive trait inherently necessary for the propagation of life.
clairmount st
Riots, 12th St. and Clairmount St.
Site of riots today
self - I - Other - other
labyrinthine search for self- collision, fragmentation, distortion of the image
L A B Y R I N
T H
S A N S
L A W
skin deep, superficial understanding of the ‘I’- self analysis confined to the surface “Superficiality is the new depth.” -Rem Koolhaas
site aerial
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5 1- Auditorium 2- Lobby
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3- Seminar Room
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4- Studios
1- Training workshop
5- Library front desk
2- Seminar Room
6- Library stacks 7- Study area 8- Terrace
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3- Public workspace 4- Temporary exhibits 5- Permanent exhibits 6- Library stacks 7- Lecture room 8- Terrace
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LEVEL 3
LEVEL 2
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1- Entry 2- Sculpture gardens
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3- Hall of fame/ gallery
1- Patio/ light well
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2- Residential suite 3- Lounge/ lobby 4- Translation/ publishing 5- Office 6- Film archives 7- Print archives
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wireframe skeleton + transverse sections
interior walkthrough
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view through exhibit area
elevation studies
entry on ground level
CeSRON at night
Thoughts in Time and out of Season
studioish.net, online journal A platform for sharing my creative energy, my online journal or website allows me to continue exploring and contributing to the discussion on art, architecture, photography, social conditions, poetry and allied fields. I seek to stir dialogue and critical thought through my periodic essays, and illuminate through selected works, the beauty of
the human spirit and the world we inhabit. Always in pursuit of understanding the bigger picture, the small snippets of thought often mirror a much larger issue in the background. I welcome thoughts and critiques, please feel free to voice any and all emotion at studioish.net.