SOCIAL BEINGS 04 04

This student housing project is located on the hillside of Cal Poly’s campus, adjacent to the apartments I lived in up until our evacuation due to the pandemic. The only difference, however, is that this housing is geared towards the school’s graduate-level students. After gathering research on the subject, I found that older students prefer to live off-campus due to lack of freedom and privacy. This design responds to this issue by placing individual units further from the noisy undergraduate housing and nestling them into the hillside looking onto the nearby creek.

The design layout of each unit came together after multiple iterations of experimentation using three main driviers: the transition from public to private, circulation, and daylighting. Smaller shared courtyard spaces dispersed on each floor serve as opporunities to get to know your neighbor.

The most unique aspects of this site, after visiting in-person, were the ladybugs in the grasslands near the Brizzolara Creek and the creek itself. Therefore, views toward the creek were essential because not only does it encourage students to interact with nature, but it adds a constant soothing stream of sound to juxtapose stressful academic lives. Program within the community center shifts from public to private as user’s go up in levels, establishing a balance of work and play. The building itself is also nestled into the landscape so as to blend in with the natural topography of the site and have a secondary use as a literal acoustic barrier to diminish the noise of nearby undergraduates.

KITCHEN-TOCOMPOST allows food scraps to be swept through to decompose outside.

BUILT-IN FEATURES to create functional wall poches and a more “earthen” feel.

EXAGGERATED “WET WALL” shared between toilet, sink, shower, and washing machine, for efficiency.

Handle With Care

Studio White. Fall 2022-present.

The current capitalist model of infinite economic growth and expansion, specifically through the lens of material extraction for new construction, is at odds with earth’s natural rate of regenerating its resources. Drawing from ethics of care and stewardship, this thesis proposes a ‘caring’ architecture that outgrows and moves beyond current modes of sustainability. It asks questions not only about energy efficiency and site conditions, but others such as where do our materials come from, what is the well-being of workers who will come in contact with said materials, and how will the building be repaired or dismantled in the future? In other words, how can we reimagine processes of extraction, construction, repair, and deconstruction that contribute to a ‘caring’ architecture— one in which we care for the well-being of our buildings and each other?

To tackle these questions, we must expand our notion of what it means to ‘care,’ both as receivers and givers of care. Each one of us has had experience taking care of someone (or something) and being taken care of; care is therefore inherently accessible, engaging, and empathetic. The recent pandemic revealed a society in a “deficit of care,” with an urgent need to reorient it to the front and center of our lives.

Expanding on theories of reparative design + feminist care ethics, this project hopes to reimagine what it means to interact with a building as a work-in-progress. This idea of a ‘caring’ architecture summons the introspection of not only what the building can do for you, but what you can do for the building. By reassessing our relationship to buildings, specifically the material makeup and repair of them, we can reframe our structures as living beings in need of care rather than objects, encouraging imaginations of non-extractive processes that reawaken care for one another.

Professional Work

Throughout my time working at various firms, most recently Brockitecture (Ryan Brockett Architect Inc.), I’ve been able to gain a wide range of experience— drafting technical drawings in AutoCAD and Rhino, reviewing construction documents, establishing a workflow for rendered and collage-style perspective views using Sketchup, Enscape, and Photoshop, and creating more diagrammatic marketing graphics with Illustrator. Beyond the computer, I’ve done multiple on-site surveying, participated in client and team meetings (in-person + on Zoom), picked up prints, dropped off permits, and helped with architectural photography and photoshoot setup.

These experiences have allowed me to dip my toes into a little bit of everything when it comes to working at a small design firm. I’ve enjoyed my work so far, and the transition from the first year on Zoom to finally working in person in San Luis Obispo/Atascadero has made it that much better.

Other Works

The first work is a floor lamp constructed of pine wood + kelp for the annual Vellum furniture competition. Luminaria ( luminaire [light fixture] + laminaria [genus of native seaweed]) is an attempt to reimagine and repurpose two types of kelp found on the beaches of Morro Bay, bull kelp and giant kelp. The type of lamp was chosen to amplify the green translucent qualities of the kelp, mimicking stained glass. While glass is made up of an often extractive material dredged from the ocean (sand), kelp can be harvested sustainably and be used in the same way. The elongated legs and height of the structure echo the feeling of swimming through a kelp forest in the dark depths of the sea.

The watercolors are taken from a Zoom class taught during the pandemic on Architectural Representations through Watercolor. In the class, I developed techniques of brushstrokes, shading, and blending, experimenting with different painting styles. I hope to continue learning more about watercolor as a medium, especially when combined with digital collage.

The last work is taken from a summer project done in collaboration with three other fellow students, examining what sustainability truly means in architecture. After doing independent research and interviewing multiple professors with environmental backgrounds, we created the Greenwashing Checklist — a printable document for students and upcoming architects alike to identify greenwashing in buildings, materials, companies, etc.

Greenwashing Checklist. FRMRLY. Summer 2020. (available for digital viewing on www.issuu.com/jessicavanni)