Contents
barrio
Producing pockets of Puerto Rico in the Bronx.
Rhinoceros & Adobe Illustrator, Wood & laser-cut model
Fall 2022 in collaboration with Isa Restrepo under direction of Prof. Marcos Parga
Just as vernacular Puerto Rican casitas spring up throughout the gardens of Melrose, the Bronx, barrio creates flexible spaces for this particular type of gathering and cultural expression. In these shared spaces, neighborhood residents are seen sharing food, dancing, and any other facets of what may preserve the idea of home from hundreds of miles away. It’s an act of taking back parts of the city and revitalizing them to make the city feel more like home.
Throughout Puerto Rican communities of New York City are brightly painted small wooden houses surrounded by communal gardens, lovingly dubbed casitas, ("little houses"). The name invokes a simple, single-floor typology often seen in the Puerto Rican countryside that were constructed by displaced Puerto Ricans in the early 20th century after they were forced off their farmland by American sugar companies following the takeover of the island. Casitas are an integral component to the sense of solidarity in Puerto Rican communities - their large verandas accomodate community events such as dance lessons, music performances, or communal meals incorporating crops from the surrounding gardens. They are a space for Puerto Ricans to connect with their roots, pass down tradition, and rebuild community.
The first casita, la Casita Rincón Criollo, was established in the 1970s in Melrose by José Manuel “Chema” Soto. Soto, along with a few neighbors, had grown tired of trash-filled vacant lots that he passed regularly going about his day in the neighborhood, and one day began cleaning the lot. The space was reconstructed and relocated several times (due to local government reclaiming the lots) from scrap lumber and other found objects. Today, it is an important stronghold and casitas have sprung up in Puerto Rican neighborhoods all over the city such as the Lower East Side, East Harlem, and the South Bronx. Casitas have also been established in other cities in the US with growing Puerto Rican populations, such as Detroit and Syracuse.
JULIA BOLUKH / ISABELA RESTREPO
Research collages
projects within barrio
. projects within barrio casita constructionspace negotiation the unit/land price remains fixed for residents looking to live within the complex. directorslow-income
constructionspace negotiation the unit/land price remains fixed for residents looking to live within the complex.
DIAGRAMS
tier 1 support each other through taking turns taking care of the kids in the complex. employment oppotunities in hosting dance and cooking classes for adults and children. They negotiate the spatial distribution of different units
tier 1 support each other through taking turns taking care of the kids in the complex. employment oppotunities in hosting dance and cooking classes for adults and children.
They negotiate the spatial distribution of different units
tier 2
the surrounding context programs interact with the casitas in a mutually beneficial way.
tier 2
the casita and schools provide food and activities to each other. the “lowline” connects casitas to the rest of the bronx.
the surrounding context programs interact with the casitas in a mutually beneficial way. the casita and schools provide food and activities to each other. the “lowline” connects casitas to the rest of the bronx.
Early diagrams envisioning the social role of the casita
Our project roots itself in the communal gathering space of the casita, and creates housing units around the casita space. In placing the project in Melrose is an intent to permanently claim an abandoned lot for a community whose experience and safe spaces in the United States are often shaped by displacement rather than assimilation.
Wooden model describing overall form.
A system of casita spaces are established throughout a primary 30ft&^3 grid. Standardized units on a secondary 10ft^3 grid become the building blocks for endless permutations of space distribution with the agency of those inhabiting.
The middle floor of each vertical 10ft^3 grid is reserved for negotation between the inhabitants of the top and bottom floor. This negotiable space allows the space to adapt with the changes that might occur within a household, such as a child moving away for college or the moving in of relatives immigrating from abroad, and encourages interaction between people who might have otherwise remained strangers.
Wooden model expressing casita and residential spaces, as well as the relationship between the primary concrete grid and the ephemeral wooden structures within.
The permanence of the primary 30ft^3 grid is expressed with a dominating concrete materiality and the ephemeral moving parts allow for informal adjustment of space with lighter cross laminated timber panels. The framework not only evokes a need to fill, but also creates a lighter spatial language sensitive to the surrounding context.
JULIA BOLUKH / ISABELA RESTREPO
Center for the American 02
Traveling exhibitions featuring American quilters wrap around a sacred quiltmaking space in Seneca Falls, New York, the Birthplace of Women’s Rights.
Rhinoceros, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, V-Ray, Enscape
Interior Perspective
American Quilt
Spring 2024 in collaboration with Sarah Cawley under direction of Prof. Terrence Goode
Hand-sketched parti diagram
Our design for a proposed Center of the American Quilt, a museum that would house traveling and permanent exhibitions of quilts, a community quilting space and lecture rooms, as well as back-of-house quilt archives and offices for curators, chooses to prioritize the visibility of the process of quilting itself, designing a space where exhibition space wrapped around a glass box inhabited by quilters. This enables a visitor to experience seminal quilts while understanding the labor and community (often, of women) required to produce a quilt. We additionally wanted to use the building's envelope to root the project in its surroundings, using glass to allow views to the nearby Weslayan Chapel - the site of the first women's rights convention, as well as the Women's Hall of Fame, which occupies the historic Seneca Knitting Mill, one of the only businesses that permitted the employment of women and immigrants.
Fall Street (upper) level plan
Water Street (lower) level plan
Gallery
Offices
Quilt Storage
Bathrooms
Loading Dock
Egress Stair Cores
Workshop
Quilting Room
Quilt Archive
Lecture Room
Quilt Conservation
Retail
(If Needed) SC.6 _PROGRAM
Visitors enter the museum through an entrance on the museum's northwest corner, and move east dto circle around the glassenclosed community quilting space, allowing them to observe a quilter's process and positioning it as a sacred space within the project.
Visitors continue through the exhibits, connected by ramps to accomodate the site's natural slope down to the lower floor, where they observe the museum's back-of-house. Quilt archives, workshops, and conservation spaces are enclosed for the visitor to observe - the processes themselves are artifacts to be displayed.
Lighting was of paramount importance as this project primarily exhibits fiber work, which is more susceptible to damage done by UV rays that are let in with natural lighting. Still, in some spaces such as the community quilting spaces, we needed to find a way to let in some natural light without letting in damaging UV rays. For this reason, the envelope is conceived of on a spectrum from opaque to transparent: where views to the outside are important, completely transparent glass is used; where natural light absolutely could not enter, CLT panels are used; and where natural light needed to be let in while blocking as much UV rays as possible, UV-resistant ETFE is used.
Schematic transversal section through quilting space
Program diagram
Egress diagram
Egress path
Steel trusses, floor plate, and columns for “box”
CLT wall panels
CLT floor panels
Concrete foundation and retaining wall
8” x 8” Glulam Columns
6” x 18” Glulam beams
Apart from the project's concrete foundation and retaining wall, the primary structural system for the galleries is composed of crosslaminated timber, to call back to the structures where quilts were traditionally made - wood-framed homes.
SC.6 _STRUCTURE
The project features a twelve-foot structural grid. Groups of 4 8 inch Glulam columns frame themselves around ducts to allow for an organized airflow. The columns are intricately joined to glulam beams to support a copper roof. The quilting spaces and back-of-house spaces, to keep with the "glowing glass box" parti, use a steel structure and uses an fritted ETFE roof to allow light in without risking UV damage.
SC.6 _BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEM
Diagram depicting structural grid of project
Diagram depicting ducts to ensure airflow
SC.6 _BUILDING
As previously stated, the choice to incorporate ETFE was driven by the purpose of the space - a quilt-centric space - as well as the need to control UV light. The twelve-foot ETFE pillows invoke a finished quilt, especially one containing a thick batting. Fritting aids in the blocking of UV rays, such that the quilts are safe to be exhibited.
Glulam joint close-up
Model depicting envelope at north facade
Fall 2021 • solo • under direction of Prof. Seok Min Yeo
290 E Onondaga Street shouldn’t try to compete with the existing ego battle of church and state, but rather weave it. Fall 2021 solo under direction of Prof.
SeokMin Yeo
religious space government space
Weave It is a community center located on the former site of a Christopher Columbus statue (denoted by the circle in the above diagram) in downtown Syracuse. In initial site analysis, I observed that the site was caught between a cathedral and its several supporting spaces on the west, and a courthouse as well as other government spaces and projects to the east.
This, along with the cathedral and the courthouse towering over the site, made the site charged, establishing two opposing axes of church and state. It invoked a need to use a design strategy and incorporate program that could bring the two sides together rather than create a third structure to compete with it. With the site's length, I thought a sport like curling, which I had gotten to learn was a lot of fun and was easy to pick up, and would fit in well with the city's climate would be a good fit. I imagined users that I would imagine walking through the project; a bride, a priest, a judge, and a curling athlete to further inform the project.
Site analysis diagram and collages of envisioned users
As can be guessed from its name, Weave It incorporates the gesture of weavingan integral component of my creative heritage, as I spent three years weaving in my high school's studios - to propose a way of gathering that allows people from opposing backgrounds (or directions, in this case), to interact and become stronger together. This is seen in the planes that weave over top the community spaces, rendering it highly visible from above and reiterating its aim as a project. The project incorporates a market, community hall with several smaller rooms to hold smaller scale events such as catechism, and a bus stop for easy access.
Ground floor plan
Right: top: model and diagram showing internal spatial division and corresponding programs. Bottom: cardboard model and diagram showing "weaving" gesture.
Schematic section looking toward cathedral
Schematic section looking toward courthouse
Perspective vignette of amphitheater/curling space
The project's woven roof is also experienced at ground level, creating unique lighting opportunities in the amphitheater and curling space, making it a one-of-a-kind venue for Syracuse inhabitants to experience.
Perspective section through amphitheater/ curling space
finding the pocket: 04
How does the act of dancing fundamentally transform a space?
Video installation created with Adobe Premiere Pro, mirror
Video installation on exhibition in Syracuse, New York
Video collage that was projected on mirror
london
Fall 2024 solo under direction of Prof. Oksana Kazmina
On the north shore of the Thames River directly east of London Bridge, there's a relatively unassuming office building with a balcony protruding from one of its upper floors. Walk up the stairs to the balcony and you'll notice that it offers an uninterrupted view of the landmarks south of the river – the Shard, London Bridge Hospital, and Hay’s Galleria, among others. For much of the work week, the space is sparsely used, apart from the occasional office worker opting to take a phone call outside.
However, after the workday, the balcony comes alive with music. Dancers in London know this balcony as the dance community's free studio space. As the story goes, after the owners of the building noticed the frequency with which dancers were practicing at the building, they negotiated with the dancers to allow them to occupy the space after the workday was over.
Dance studio space in London is both limited and expensive, so space that is publicly accessible like this balcony has become an integral part of the London dancer’s lifestyle. Looking at the balcony, one might understand why. The pavement is flat and smooth, perfect to execute turns on. The windows are reflective -someone wanting to practice can observe themselves like they would in any dance studio. These reflective windows are relieved, so the brick extending from the balcony surface acts as a phone stand for a dancer to film themselves for a social media video. The balcony allows the dancer to dance with iconic London landmarks as their backdrop, a far more photographable scenery than any ordinary studio wall.
The act of dancing has transformed the balcony. It is no longer just an unused balcony—it is a recognizable place for dancers to hone their craft. The architectural qualities of the space—not only the smooth pavement and reflective windows, but also its location in an easily accessible part of central London, yet slightly off the highly trafficked Thames Path such that dancers are shielded from unwanted visitors, and its photogenic views toward the river—facilitate the act of dancing, especially in an age where most are discovering dance by way of social media.
This installation is the first iteration of an ongoing project that will document public spaces that are taken over by local dancers. The videos projected were all filmed by dancers on the outdoor balcony of Saint Magnus House in central London, a corporate building on the north side of the Thames River adjacent to London Bridge. They are projected on a mirror such that it reflects on the wall across from it, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in the spatial phenomenon that is a guerrilla dance space.
Still picture of video installation
Houston Hobby West 05
Sketching
and woven collage
I was incredibly grateful to join Corgan's Houston Aviation team for two summers in 2023 and 2024. My highlight of my time as an intern was when I had been asked to propose a terrazzo design for the hammerhead-shaped expansion of William P. Hobby Airport's West Concourse. In particular, I was asked to propose a design that was able to smoothly transition from the existing construction's repetitive orthogonal pattern into something more artistic. To do so, I called upon my longtime training as a weaver to create a woven collage using a map of Buffalo Bayou, Houston's principal river, and traced over the collage to line up with the original pattern.
Initial studies
West Concourse
Final sketched design presented at Interiors review
Woven collage
Sunday Posters
Place-based design through the medium of a poster.
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign; hand-collage
Top: St. Petersburg, FL ; Dali Museum
Bottom: Silverstone, Great Britain; McLaren chrome livery
Detroit: the
ongoing solo personal work
In 2022, I began following motorsport, beginning with Formula 1 and later exploring IndyCar and NASCAR. In doing so, I developed an appreciation for the many locations that each series travels to, and began expressing it through a unique outlet of my own: compiling fashion looks responding to the location of a race and documenting them with digitally collaged posters. Inspirations range from national colors, favorite musicians, traditional art, and on-track lore, among others. The exercise was born out of my unfamiliarity with Adobe Photoshop but has taught me far more than how to use a program. It is a way of researching a place and figuring out how to respond to a element of a culture in a visual manner - an important skill to possess when working in architecture. The project's 2023 edition won an Honorable Mention at Corgan's office-wide On My Own Time art competition.
birthplace of techno Top: Mexico, exploring papercraft and weaving Bottom: Brazil, a visual tribute to Jovem Dionsio
Top: Monza, Italy; wearing diadora, an Italian sportwear brand Bottom: Netherlands; the color orange, and the tulip
and contents
fonts used:
Inandan by Uncurated Studio
Nyght Serif by Maksym Kobuzan
Owners Text by Jeremy Mickel
Work pictured on covers
page is "Houston, 2023" by Julia Lucas Bolukh, produced under guidance of Valeria Rachel Herrera in spring 2024.