PORTFOLIO / WORK

JONATHAN LARSEN PARKER

PORTFOLIO/WORK

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PORTFOLIO/WORK 2005-2012

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04-15 MOMENTARY IMAGES 16-23 GLASS STUDIO 24-31 PHOTOGRAPHY 32-35 RECYCLING CENTER 36-45 LIBRARY FOR DONALD JUDD 46-49 DRAWINGS 50-57 LAKESIDE RETREAT 58-65 ITERATIVE CITY 66-67 PAINTINGS 71-75 SANCTUARY OF SILENCE 76-81 BENCH 82-87 PRACTICE

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MOMENTARY IMAGES

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cinema and setting: single screen theater degree project, 2010 washington university in st. louis Chouteau’s Landing is largely abandoned and approaching the state of a ruin, what Walter Benjamin described as “history made present in the setting”. As the buildings move further from their original utilitarian purposes, they become more readily aesthetic, not unlike a film set, and are experienced as such by anyone wandering underneath the railroad tracks, around the run-down, chipped, buildings and over the cracked pavement and overgrown weeds.

A film presents momentary images, simultaneously freezing and perpetuating a point in time. A film set, understood to belong to some period in time, is nevertheless experienced in the present, actively engaging our senses in an immediate tactile experience.

Situated on an empty lot adjacent to the abandoned Crunden Martin Complex, the cinema sits in contrast to the surrounding warehouses and raised railways.

As opposed to the heavily detailed, aging, imperfect surfaces of the existing buildings, the cinema’s walls are mute, white, scaleless. The North facade, clad in layers of white-painted metal mesh, glass and stairs, continues the sense of veiled function, an obscure aesthetic object. The remaining program is hidden within the context, inserted into the adjacent warehouse, slipped underneath the ground, peeking out in moments where its presence is selectively revealed.

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The disposition of the theater’s architecture toward the industrial neighborhood borders on fetishism, a tacit acknowledgment of the value in shoddily maintained urban environments. Because of its current condition, Chouteau’s Landing is no longer programmed to serve any function other than that of an aesthetic set piece.

It is a field within which the theater can activate or highlight certain elements toward an explicit purpose.

It follows that if the theater is successful, the neighborhood would be pushed toward redevelopement and gentrification. In this sense the theater is preemptive, establishing/validating the aesthetic quality of the neighborhood’s current condition prior to its becoming subject to less sensitive economic interests.

As for cinema’s potential to affect the perception of a place, it is a tool as well as an end in itself. It has the capacity to linger in our minds and alter our experience of otherwise unremarkable events or places. We construct and reconstruct narratives, always refining our visual senses with the arresting impact of film. The theater situates itself within the neighborhood and initiates an appreciation of St. Louis’ great spaces.

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existing warehouse

slice/entry new cinema (box)

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site model with theater box visible in white (chipboard, basswood, watercolor and pencil)

underground screening rooms

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entrance lobby theater (700 seats) projection booth installation space movie screen (40’ x 20’) perforated screen

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ground plan, 27” x 40”, ink and pencil on paper

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perspective showing east and north faรงades; the white-painted metal mesh appears somewhat opaque in the daytime

west elevation, 27� x 40�, ink and pencil on paper

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The section illustrates the way in which new program is inserted within and adjacent to the existing warehouse.

A slice – sheathed in stainless steel to increase light and provide a crisp counterpart to the worn surfaces of the warehouse – serves as the primary entrance. The lobby is a two story space with the original brick parti-wall standing opposite concessions and ticket sales. Before entering the actual theater space, one has to pass through the old wall, a final compression before the cavernous release of the theater. Within the warehouse, a stair (also clad in stainless steel) connects the six floors physically and visually. A small library is directly connected to the archives, a repository of information and obsolete media spanning above the theater.

entrance lobby theater (700 seats) projection booth installation space movie screen (40’ x 20’) perforated screen gallery library archive offices (3) conference room bar/lounge steel-wrapped stair

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section through theater and warehouse, 40” x 19.5”, ink and pencil on paper

Cinema begins with projected light on shadow. The image, narrative and quality of a film are carved from the dark room of the theater. In its relationship to its industrial neighbors, the project illuminates and obscures. It is a crack, or shadow, within a momumental setting and a source of illumination easily distinguished from its surroundings. Just as film cannot be light or shadow alone, so the theater is a dichotomy of light and darkness, constriction and release, movement and stasis. As one exits the theater, they are presented with the industrial neighborhood as viewed through the lingering effects of a cinematic experience.

clockwise from left: perspective of ‘slice’ showing overhead bridges, model photo of ‘slice’, model photo of west plaza

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view of north façade at night (top), view of theater interior – a large dark box (bottom)

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GLASS STUDIO

reflection, refraction: gallery & studio undergraduate studio, 2007 georgia institute of technology professor stuart romm The building attempts to evoke the properties of glass – reflection, transparency, refraction – by way of formal arrangements and material relationships. The dialogue between part and whole, the datums around which parts reflect and shift inform the impression of the building as a concrete representation of glass’ material qualities.

The building is composed of four sections, articulated and subdivided to suggest programmatic and visual relationships. The primary volume is split along two datums in plan and section. Some elements reflect across these axes, while some are distorted or obstructed all together. The dimensions conform closely to those of the adjacent buildings, though the relatively monolithic quality of the facades acts as a counterpoint to the hodgepodge of suburban psuedo-structures.

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(from top) entrance, classroom exteriors, courtyard passage, library reading area (charcoal and graphite on bristol)

model photographs illustrating formal subdivisions, symmetry and imbalance (basswood, chipboard, plexiglas)

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entrance lobby gallery library classrooms (4) artist residence

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Self Portrait (print from 35mm film, 6� x 6�)

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Here and Nowhere print from continuous 35mm film strip A continuous exposure of a truck on a small street in Baltimore. The street appears abstract – streaked across the film – while the truck is a discernable image that lends scale, function and movement. A rotating camera lens allowed for continuous exposure while advancing the 35mm film. The clean white breaks indicate a pause in the film advancement, flooding the slot-shaped aperture with light as a result of resetting the hand before each rotation.

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Two Cranes prints from 120mm film, 8” x 8” each At the beginning of construction for a new building in midtown Baltimore, the crane is suddenly the tallest structure in the area. The building is not yet visible, still limited to foundations and sitework, while the crane reaches and twists into the sky. Two images present a single crane in a kind of dance – warped and soft like old photographs of children playing.

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Home contact print from spiced 35mm film, approx. 1.5� x 14�

Composed of a cut and collaged 35mm film strip, a living room and backyard are presented as a continuous procession from an enclosed private space to an erratic exterior environment.

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RECYCLING CENTER

education and water retention three-week charette, 2006 georgia institute of technology professor Charles Rudolph This brief project, on a site in northern Atlanta, began with a drawing exercise to represent the conditions of what seems to be extra, leftover land behind parking lots and an old manufacturing warehouse. The program is simple: a classroom and meeting area with facilities and earthwork/water-retention to demonstrate fundamentals of environmentally responsible architecture.

A large retention area fans out to the left of the main building, collecting grey-water and providing a terraced land form for use when not flooded.

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plan and sections (pencil on white drawing paper)

views of site with focus (top to bottom) toward context, sight lines and topography (6�x6�each, graphite & colored pencil)

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LIBRARY FOR DONALD JUDD

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library and study center graduate studio, 2009 washington university in st. louis professors Adam Yarinsky and Peter MacKeith Located across from Judd’s home and studio at 101 Spring St. in New York City, the project is a reproduction of his full library in Marfa, Texas. Following a close reading of Donald Judd’s methodology and work, including visits to 101 Spring and Dia Beacon, the issue of ‘wholeness’ became primary. The building attempts to be noncompositional such that the individual parts are difficult to distinguish from the whole. Whereas the structural and spatial dimensions are derived directly from those of 101 Spring, the wholeness is subverted in select moments of human interaction – books on a shelf, railings, a small awning projected by the main door.

After entering the building, the visitor would first move up the primary stair to the front of the gallery volume and turn, walking past a piece of artwork placed near a large white wall. Light seeps through the translucent façade, filling the rightward view with consistent illumination. Around the corner, in relative darkness, the spines of books are barely visible within the thickness of the wall, while the view over a nearby desk allows one to grasp the volume of the space beyond. Within the library, light falls downward from an opening in the ceiling and books surround the visitor. Once a book has been chosen, the visitor would move back toward the gallery volume to read in the light.

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GALLERY LEVELS (REPEATIN G SERI ES)

OPEN TO SKY

OPEN TO STREET

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L I B RA RY

G A L L ERY

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L I BR ARY

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GAL L E RY

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(top) view of the main stairwell repeated through five levels, (bottom) typical gallery level plan

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(clockwise from left) view of exterior in rain; site plan with 101 Spring; view of 101 Spring reflected in building faรงade

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longitudinal section through gallery space and library, artwork and furniture placed along the vertical wall

light study model photographs (top), section through gallery space and stair (left), faรงade detail (right)

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The section and plan remain somewhat constant – a series similar to Judd’s stacked sculptures. Floors two through four repreat exactly with the exception of firestair and corresponding skylight, which must alternate due to a three flight-per-floor dimensioning. The ground floor (above, bottom) and the fifth are irregular, as one must address the street and one must address the sky.

The ‘cut’ in the stair wall on the ground floor reveals the stair and the movement of occupants to those on the sidewalk. On the fifth floor (above, top), the wall becomes a railing, allowing for greater penetration of the long skylight into what would serve as a classroom and meeting space.

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model photographs (left); progress elevation drawing (top right); progress sketches (bottom right)

elevation of east faรงade, the fire stair tucked against the right side is open-air

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DRAWINGS

(clockwise from top) Augustus; Acropolis; Paestum; Florence (pencil on paper, drawn while studying in Greece and Italy)

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drawings completed while on the island of Utรถ, Finland (2H pencil on A4 paper)

(left) door, (top right) bath, (bottom right) roof

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LAKESIDE RETREAT

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sanctuary for artists and poets undergraduate studio, 2006 georgia institute of technology professor Charles Rudolph Located on the shore of Lake Oconee, Georgia, the project consists of eight residences, a communal studio, library and dining spaces. The public would visit periodically to tour the studios and view works completed by the artists in residence.

The residences are tucked into the ground, below the public procession, and have direct access to the shore.

A sunken court receives the march of the residence buildings with elevated walkways and the heavy, repetitive structure of the library and studio building. The library and studio extend toward a small island, spaces broken and pulled forward by a rhythm of structure and light. Ultimately, the rhythm of the library is protracted in the form of a lone structural form, framing a small dock on the northern corner of the island.

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early drawings of concept: rhythmic objects set against a thick, atmospheric landscape (pencil and charcoal on mylar)

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residences studio space and gallery library dining area courtyard/lower studio entrance mainland dock island dock

plan (pencil and ink on mylar)

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model photographs of structural form projected into the lake (top) and library stair (bottom)

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The elevation illustrates the contrasting rhythms of the residences and the main building. The residences – spaces for sleeping and leisure – are open to the shore, interlocked and have a low profile. The library and studio building has a dominant structure and cuts perpendicular to the topography, cleaving the forest and driving toward the lake. The physical realization of knowledge and work – library/studio – is anthropocentric, while the spaces for living are treated deferentially.

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elevation from the lake showing residences on the right and main complex on the left (pencil on mylar)

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ITERATIVE CITY

study for a city of 10000 graduate studio, 2008 (with Bryn Wears & Dale Schilke) washington university in st. louis professors Dennis Crompton and Heather Woofter This theoretical project is generated from careful studies of proposals by groups from the 60s and 70s (Archigram, the Metabolists, Constantine’s New Babylon, etc). The challenge, in todays fractured, technologically frenetic society, is to imagine the structure by which a city can be proposed from scratch for 10000 people on a limited amount of land. This dictates a certain density, but more importantly it offers an opportunity to rethink the formal and spatial rigidity usually applied to largescale urban proposals.

The city, in our description of it, is a physical manifestation of patterns of grouping and inhabitation, both social and instinctual. This starting point, as opposed to a graphic plan, stresses the more ambiguous qualities of images and moments in the forming of a city’s identity.

A high degree of indeterminacy is the goal, but concepts of identity can inform the few rules used to guide the city in one direction or another. We therefore experimented with generative frameworks; psuedo-spatial models; images of select moments; and narratives, in text, to describe the eventual experiences of individual inhabitants.

The image above is one of a group of models, constructed using lasercut plexiglas, translucent vellum, printed images and wood. The overlay of images, which can be shifted and modified in the model, begins to describe proximities, experiences and collage – a chaotic yet somewhat ordered imagining of a place.

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Early studies worked within the objective limits of the project – population, physical size and density. The diagram to the right illustrates a simple set of rules intended to structure the developement of the city. In this case, the constraints are abstract and deal primarily with proximities.

Later, as the vertical quality of the city was considered, we constructed models to explore connections and relationships between distinct layers. Above: homes, walkways and plazas cluster on top of a stadium. Infrastructure breaks and weaves between masses of program.

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a city arranged in vertical layers (model in basswood, MDF and plexiglas)

(top) sketches of possible plan arrangements, (bottom) diagram of aggregate growth

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A large model, installed in the review space, explored the vertical growth of the city in phases. Beginning with core functions installed near the ground, the city expands as it moves upward. The model consists of clustered boxes hung by piano wire from a perforated board. A light, placed directly above the boxes, casts a shadow to express the total growth of the city in twodimensions.

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vague images of moments in the city – paths, alleys, homes and rooms

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PAINTINGS

Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, GA ; Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy (watercolor, 9” x 10” each)

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SANCTUARY OF SILENCE

retreat on a remote island graduate studio, 2009 helsinki university of technology professor Jouni Kaipia Located on the island of Utรถ, Finland, the complex is comprised primarily of twelve short-term residences, a small library, a meditation room, a sauna and a nondenominational chapel. The individual spaces are composed to behave atmospherically with the powerful landscape, appropriate to their use. The chapel is a wooden box surrounded by freestanding concrete. Narrow slits allow views in four directions as one moves around the exterior. The sauna is tucked away, hidden along a steep shoreline of rocks and small trees. The meditation room is a simple box, pressed against a hill with a glass wall facing the rocks. The private rooms, which open to the eastern horizon, are set apart, grouped informally amongst vacant ditches and tunnels formerly used for military training.

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private entrance lobby meditation room chapel library dining hall offices director’s residence

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final plan

early site plan and sketch showing relationship of spaces to the surrounding landscape

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view of chapel interior, glu-lam boards joined by a welded steel plates support the roof; aerial view of model (chipboard)

detail section of main chapel wall, floor and roof; key plan (top right) shows geometry of roof structure

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BENCH

series of six benches design-build, 2009 (with Brian Watzin & Jon Ammond) helsinki university of technology professor Jouni Kaipia Concurrent with the studio project, six benches were built on the island of UtÜ using lumber delivered directly by ferry. The benches are designed according to the limitations of available construction methods – crosscut 2x4 and 2x6 pine, table-saw, miter-saw and cordless drills – and the desire to accentuate the breathtaking horizon visible on all sides of the small island. The seat is abnormally long (226 cm), as flat as possible and rested upon two box-like supports. The supports are stacked 2x4s reminiscent of the cabins and storage shacks peppered throughout the island.Seen among the undulating rocks and hewn pathways, the benches gesture with the horizon and invite passersby to stop and sit for a while.

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view of “sunset bench� facing a foggy western horizon (top); view of shed where the benches were constructed (bottom)

2000 ft 500 m

location of benches throughout the island (top); early sketch of bench dimensions (bottom)

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PRACTICE

EXTERIO R - S O U T H E A S T C O R N E R

R&Co

06/15/2012

EXTERIO R - S O U T H W E S T C O R N E R

R&Co

06/15/2012

EXTERIO R - E A S T PAT I O

R&Co pennsylvania barn addition – visualization and façade design (read & company architects, 2012)

06/15/2012

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northwest triangle housing proposal location: york, pennsylvania read & company architects (2012) project team: fritz read, jonathan parker The Northwest Triangle in York is a vacant site divided by railroads adjacent to an abandoned paint factory.

The proposal works within the segmented geometry of the site by grouping low courtyard houses with mid-rise apartment buildings. The houses consist of prefabricated modular units placed within variable boundary walls and courtyards of different lengths.

This allows the houses to fill the irregular site and claim excess space within the enclosed, private courtyards.

The taller of the two mid-rise buildings inverts the house diagram: apartment units surround an irregular void that weaves vertically through the central corridor.

A cantilevered exterior platform is located halfway up the building, overlooking the old factory.

Involvement: schematic design, all drawings and visual representation.

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16’

16’

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YORK, PA

Read & C

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dormitory common space renovation location: johns hopkins university, baltimore, maryland read & company architects (2011-2012) project team: fritz read, ron masotta, jonathan parker $1,960,000 10,000 sqft Involvement: construction documents, casework and ceiling details, furniture and material specifications, submittal review, construction contract administration, visualization (rhino, vray).

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plan perspective of basement (top left), casework detail (top right), custom metal mesh ceiling detail (bottom)

perspective of study lounge (top), perspective of theater (middle), plan of casework and glass partition (bottom)

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EDUCATION Washington University in St. Louis (F 08 – SP 10)

Master of Architecture, Honors

Semester Abroad, Helsinki University of Technology (SP 09) Georgia Institute of Technology (F 04 – SP 08)

Bachelor of Science in Architecture, Highest Honors

Summer Abroad, Art and Architecture Program in Greece and Italy (SU 07) Additional courses at Johns Hopkins University and Maryland Institute College of Art (SU 03, SU 06, SP 11) EXPERIENCE Read & Company Architects, Inc. (F 10 – present)

All phases of design – including construction documents and contract

administration – on a range of residential and university projects.

www.readco.biz Teaching Assistant for Case Studies in 20th Century Architecture (Washington University, F 09)

Professor: Elysse Newman

Taught a weekly seminar class of 15 students and graded papers.

Assistant to Art Cohen, art dealer (SU 10)

Catalogued paintings and sculptures, primarily 17th - 19th century work.

EXTRACURRICULAR Aspect, initiated a publication of writings and interviews (Washington University, SP 10)

Advisor: Peter MacKeith

Marketing, graphic design and interviews with visiting lecturers and critics.

SKILLS Proficient: AutoCAD, Rhino, VRay, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, SketchUp, Microsoft Office Intermediate: ArcGIS, laser cutting equipment ACCOLADES Deans List all semesters at Georgia Institute of Technology Nominee, Hugh Ferris Award for Architectural Drawing (Washington University, SP 10) 3rd Place, Futurebank Competition Studio (Georgia Tech, F 07) National Society of Collegiate Scholars

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TEL 410 804-4258

EMAIL jlarsenparker@gmail.com

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