Julia Medina Selected Work February 2024
Julia Medina New York, New York e: juliamedina29@gmail.com t: (347)276-9586
Education
Princeton University School of Architecture M.Arch. I 2022 Yale University Major: Architecture B.A. May 2018
Cooper Union Saturday Program in Architecture 2013-2014
Skills
Autodesk Revit and AutoCAD Rhinoceros
Grasshopper Visual Programming Python and R Progamming languages
Graphic design - typography and book design
Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
Professional Working Russian Limited Working Korean
Awards/Achievements Bauhaus Centennial Symposium Graduate Student Panel speaker Our Work, Our Party, Our Play: Jazz and the Bauhaus Yale School of Architecture, 2019 Richter Travel Fellowship, 2017 Timothy Dwight Art Exhibit Fund, 2017
Teaching
Assistant Instructor, Structural Analysis for Architecture Student Workshop Leader, Summer Robotic Architecture Workshop
Work Experience
Tiffany & Co. - Architectural Designer
January 2023 - Present Schematic design and design development of ground-up and renovation luxury retail stores in the Greater China region. Production and visualization in Rhino, AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and ProCreate.
Involvement in the construction administration process; directing local project architects and consultants, answering RFIs.
WeWork - Design Technologist, Product May 2018 - August 2019
Responsible for Building Information Modeling (BIM) documentation, tooling, and troubleshooting. Taught “Lunch and Learn” courses in advanced Revit skills.
Independent initiatives such as a dashboard which processes metrics for existing projects, including space type ratios, square footage allocations, and density. Coded in Python.
Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis Architects - Design Intern Summer 2021
Filing set and construction documentation for a renovation that uses biocomposite material hemplime.
Black Box - Technical Project Manager October 2019 - Winter 2021
Primary assistance to Professor V. Mitch McEwen for Reconstructions exhibit at Museum of Modern Art. Prototyping scale models using 3D printing, 3D scanning, drawings, and models (neoprene, bamboo, oyster shells, thermoforming). Supervised a team of undergraduatecdesigners and researchers.
Prototyping and fabrication for Rapid COVID Response - produced over 1,000 face shields for healthcare workers in New Jersey. Contributed to novel designs for disposable face masks and foldable intubation boxes.
Newman Architects - Design Intern October 2015 - May 2018
Leveraged data from Revit models by working with Dynamo for modeling and data extraction, R for data analysis, and Tableau for quick visualizations. Modeled schematic design and design development-stage projects in Revit.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects - Model Shop Intern Summer 2016
Built physical models for projects in concept design, schematic design, and design development stages (wood, clay, paper, foam).
Types of models built included topographical site, massing, and representational models using clay, laser cutters, and woodshop tools. Attended training sessions on design technology and model photography.
Tiffany & Co. Store Designer January 2023 - Present
At Tiffany, I design boutiques in the greater China region, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Under the direction of a project manager and along with one other designer, we carry projects from initial concept phases through design development, and then work with local architects in China to produce construction documents. In a normal week, I develop store layouts, review drawing sets, liaise with consultants and other stakeholders, and produce presentation materials. Like many luxury retail firms, we work at a fast pace without sacrificing attention to detail. The Greater China team designs 20-25 new projects per year while seeing the previous year’s stores through construction.
Shanghai Qiantan Taikooli Shanghai, China This project is a two-level store with a custom facade designed by MVRDV. My responsibilities for this project included early layout designs, design development, rendering revisions, and shop drawing review. As with any typical project, I worked closely with interior designers to review samples and choos finishes, project managers and contractors in China during construction administration, and leadership in the TCO New York team to review and revise the design.
Ground floor layout
This store was designed and developed over the span of about thirteen months, which is longer than usual, because of its size and importance.
Second floor layout
Hangzhou Tower Hangzhou, China This project is a 200-square meter store located in Hangzhou Tower, one of the most popular department stores in China. The store opened in December 2023.
Although the initial conceptual and zoning layouts were conceived before I joined Tiffany, I worked with feedback from leadership to develop the final plan seen above. I was also heavily involved in the lighting design of this store. I guided our consultants to implement a lighting layout that satisfied the highly specific requirements of jewelry boutique while limiting distruption to our ceiling design. The crystal facade cladding was designed by Hugh Dutton & Associés (HDA). Our TCO New York team designed the facade elevation and reviewed shop drawings from Design Development through Construction Administration.
WeWork 2015: Research and Development Intern 2017: Building Information Specialist Intern 2018 - 2019: Design Technology Lead 2019 - 2023: Design Technologist (part-time) I have worked at WeWork since 2016 in several different roles. As a Design Technology Lead, the role I performed full-time from 20182019, I designed WeWork layouts and maintained models in Revit (Building Information Modeling software). I also harvested data from models using custom Revit plugins and developed data analysis tools in the programming language Python.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects Summer 2016: Model Shop Intern
At RAMSA, I built models for projects in concept design, schematic design, and design development stages. I had the opportunity to work on models of all scales, including site models and detail models. The site massing models are made of foam.
Princeton Black Box Research Group Fall 2019 - Winter 2021: Technical Project Manager I aided Professor V. Mitch McEwen in design and prototyping for the Reconstructions exhibit at Museum of Modern Art.
Installation view of Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 27, 2021 – May 31, 2021. © 2021 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Robert Gerhardt
I aided Professor V. Mitch McEwen in design and prototyping for the Reconstructions exhibit at Museum of Modern Art. From Fall 2019 to Winter 2020, I prototyped models and drawings using CNC machines, 3D printing, robotic arms, and 3D scanning. Far left: Canvas, painted by hand and marked up using ZUND cutter. Middle and left: Full scale bamboo/felt mock-up of the model seen in the exhibit above. Mock-up built collaboratively with Victor Rivas Valencia.
An Architecture of Un-Building: Reviving Empty Office Space with a New Model for Domesticity Thesis Advisor: Michael Meredith Spring 2022 Treating domesticity as a social condition rather than an environment and capitalizing on existing structures, this project is an exercise in recycling— not only of physical materials, but of program itself. Unused office buildings are rife with opportunity for crafting spaces that support housing goals without requiring ground-up construction. The banal, generic office building has its own inherent worth: the ability to provide shelter, the resources taken to fabricate and assemble its parts, and the labor of those who built it. The thesis is set on the North Shore of Staten Island, the third-largest and least populous borough of New York City, in an existing commercial building currently up for sale. As Staten Island’s population steadily grows and diversifies, the need
for affordable housing is an urgent concern. While Staten Island is not a suburb, the site has many of the defining qualities of the suburban office structure: it is primarily accessible by car and flanked by single family homes and warehouses instead of a dense urban fabric. The existing building also poses one of the primary challenges associated with adapting office buildings into housing: an 85,000 square foot first floor, roughly shaped like a square. By applying a method of “unbuilding” to the site, subtractive formal gestures could provide natural light and ventilation to allow for comfortable occupation. The proposed result is a new urban locus: a domestic sphere that includes a mix of program, is its own energy source, and facilitates and supports a broad range of family types and lifestyles.
The project is not necessarily a prototype meant to be replicated but with specifically designed subtractions—or strategic removals—which I refer to as “voids.” The project takes a critical stance against the wasteful nature of rigidly defined program and the current stance on subtraction in the discipline. Often, the perspective on subtractive design focuses on destruction as a means of creating a spatial and ideological tabula rasa, in order to allow for superior building, the results of which can ultimately be photographed or drawn as an object. In my project, the method of subtraction is not merely a tool for building a supposedly “new” or “better” building but rather the means of transformation itself. Based on a repetitive formal system, pieces of wall, ceiling, and floor are carved away to allow for visual access to the site and shared spaces, natural cross ventilation, and indirect natural sunlight. Where needed, the voids shift and replicate to respond to specific needs of structure and program. The voids, these moments of subtraction, are not infilled with more structure, but rather remain vessels for air, light, and planting. The absences themselves make the building with its deep core inhabitable.
Advanced Studio: Princeton Co-housing Complex Critic: Anda French Fall 2020
The goal of the Princeton Co-housing Complex is to amplify and subvert the unquestioned and unspoken social hierarchies prescribed and enforced by housing as a type. With under-served workers and laborers in mind, the project is an attempt to back away from the prescriptive notions embedded in housing typology and produce flexible units which might sustain the myriad needs of individuals who live there. Each unit, with its multitude of “fronts,” two floors, and shared courtyard and balconies, is designed to facilitate varying levels of connections between units and the complex as a whole. The main repeating cluster comprises 4 units and one shared workspace, which is part of “decentralized” common house. The arrangement is meant to support co-living and co-housing which is not only cost-effective, but a place meant for long-term residence and community support for families and individuals.
Advanced Studio Critic: Fernanda Canales Fall 2021 para•city Short exercise Built upon the ruins of an urban metropolis some hundred odd years from now, the para•city is a living organism that uses existing infrastructure as a framework to meet the needs of its residents.
Traditional architectural notions of values, materiality, and program are left behind, and gone with them are the ingrained power dynamics of gender, race, and wealth. Architectural interventions are often ephemeral or ad-hoc, and residents choose to expand existing buildings upward and outward instead of building from scratch. Program is obsolete: residents of the city determine functions within a building based on what is needed. An old town hall becomes a children’s auditorium, a former hotel becomes shelter for migrants. New buildings crop up as the population grows and then shift in function as the population recedes or new industries emerge. When long-term densification is required, the para•city branches outward, occupying the existing buildings, cannibalizing some for materials, and sprouting new permanent and temporary structures. The result is a non-hierarchical network of clusters, each of which comprises diverse program and a mix of new and old infrastructure.
Vine House Short exercise Building upon the concept of dividual space in urban environments, the Vine House is an experimental housing typology wherein units and clusters of units use existing structures to grow and spread as needed through stacking and climbing.
Integrated Building Studio Critic: Stan Allen Partner: Melinda Denn Spring 2021
Princeton University Dendrology Lab Studio A proposed complex for Princeton University students which includes a drawing studio, an exhibition space, seminar rooms, a collections room, and a fabrication lab. This project is highly site specific and its structure and insulation relies primarily on mass timber and hempcrete.
Wood frame hopper window connection
Lime render .5" teak rain screen 1" x 3" wood furring slope top edge Glulam beam Hempcrete insulation LVL wood profile Self-tapping screws
Glued-in rod
Steel dowels
Drain pipe
Cast in place concrete footing
French drain Steel dowels
Steel dowels
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As a place devoted to both the study of trees and the process of building with them, the proposed dendrology lab includes exhibition space, a drawing studio, sample storage, and a propagation lab. Exposed hempcrete
1" floor finish 2" concrete slab 1" rigid foam 5-ply CLT slab
Composite shear connector
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The form of the building responds to constraints imposed by the nearby magnolia trees, such that the building footprint would not interrupt their roots.
Integrated Building Systems
Guardiola House detailing
Critic: Peter Pelsinski
Full semester project
Partners: Jasen Domanico, Julian Gonzalez, Eunice Slanwa
This class typically entails the physical construction of a full-scale structure, but due to the remote nature of the semester, we chose specifications and created detail drawings for an unbuilt project by Peter Eisenman.
Spring 2021
B-B
B-B
Concrete Retaining Wall #4 Continuous Rebar Filter Cloth
Stone floor tiles Thin-set mortar Backer board Thin-set mortar Plywood underlayment 2" wood sleepers Rigid Insulation 3/4" Exterior grade plywood Vapor barrier CLT beam
4" CLT column Plywood 2" wood sleepers Insulation 3/4" Exterior grade plywood Vapor barrier CLT beam
Copper panels Vapor barrier Plywood sheathing Insulation Cold formed steel framing Gypsum board
Retaining Wall Cap
Steel Bracket CLT beam 4" CLT column Bolts
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Sill Detail Scale: 1/2" = 1'-0"
(x2) 4" CLT column Steel base plate Anchor bolt 8.5" Concrete curb #4 Continuous rebar 5" Concrete slab-on-grade Concrete pile cap Pile Gravel
Trench Drain Slope 1/4":12"
Gravel Geotextile Filter French Drain
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Retaining Wall Detail
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Scale: 1/2" = 1'-0"
Column Detail Scale: 1/2" = 1'-0"
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Email juliamedina29@gmail.com Phone (347) 276-9586 Address 83 Barlow Ave Staten Island, NY 10308