portfolio / Jonathon Koewler selected projects / academic work
Jonathon Koewler jkoewler@gsd.harvard.edu jonathon.koewler@gmail.com 773 724-0698 MLA, Harvard Graduate School of Design 2020 Candidate Cambridge, MA
B. Arch, Pratt Institute School of Architecture Class of 2018 Brooklyn, NY
_ 00 Selected Academic Projects
01
02
03
pier on the East River
land treasury for Massachusetts Bay
curating fallow along the canals of Arles
Reappropriating the National Park
04
Aggregated Inundations
05
Hacking the Los Angeles Zoning Code
Localizing Infrastructures
zoning ordinance for public space / thesis
pavement removal in North Quincy
07
Column Field boathouse for Columbia University
Back of House
06
Productive Contaminant inhabiting the wetland
Reappropriating the National Park Partner: Agata Jakubowska, equal participation in concept and production Program: public recreational park Location: South Street Seaport, New York City
Pratt Institute, Fall 16’
Size: 400,000 sqft
Critic: Dragana Zoric
National parks lend themselves to the conservation of a scape, protecting them over time. The goal of this pier is to create an intervention on the edge of Manhattan which acts as a 'found' preserve, thus reappropriating the idea of a national park. This proposal argues that space can be created with the purpose of preservation in the future. The projects adapts national park programs through a means of artificially constructed concrete forms. The forms are a juxtaposition between urban living and its relationship to nature. It is critical towards the passive, low-immersion parks of the city. The formal and material characteristics of the park are not simply mimicking nature, but adopt a Brutalist, urban feeling. The pier pushes the literal boundary of Manhattan as well as conceptual boundaries of nature and architecture. While not simply a park, or a building, or a piece of nature, the pier ends up somewhere in between all three.
massing processes
curb to cave to cliff The park attaches itself to the existing Esplanade, so that it extends the pedestrian realm further into the river. In addition to taking advantage of vacant waterfront space, it presents panoramic views of the city, river, and Brooklyn Bridge from its many levels and vistas. The intense form of the park is meant to provoke athletic, invigorating activities. The massive tectonic forms of the park resemble some geological typologies, especially ones that invite participation and exploration. The project seeks to question its analog, landing somewhere between landscape, architecture, and geology.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
site plan
final sectional models
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
follies (waypoints) (destinations) (explorations) Spread throughout the park are 'follies', simple, gestural constructions that are meant to amplify the already unique environment. These follies are meant to stand out as special moments in the park. In contrast to the unfinished concrete and greenscape, the follies are smooth and singular. They reveal the layered levels in the structure, emphasize the scale of the spaces, and give visitors places to remember and return to. In another way, they are also challenges to the occupant, asking them to explore a little further to reveal every complexity the park has to offer.
They are laid out on a grid, so that they can serve as waypoints as one explores all the terrain. While each one is 250 ft apart, traversing between them is never a straight line due to the complicated topography.
This project envisions a land trust to enable a dignified retreat for coastal communities facing inundation in the coming decades. The land trust will operate through a series of scripts to incrementally transform the urban fabric. The scripts seek to maintain the financial integrity of individual property owners, decommission the existing infrastructure, redistribute material to support wetland adaptation, and reconfigure collective settlement patterns that balance public and private land. Through these holistic scripts and incremental interventions, the land trust will define a new relationship between wetlands and occupation, normalizing retreat and resettlement as the communities actively respond to sea level rise. The land trust will re-purpose the land after retreat, and restructure how the coastline can be occupied with the new wetlands as an integral part of an operating infrastructure.
Aggregated Inundations, Land Treasury for Massachusetts Bay Group Members: Alexandra DiStefano, Sophie Elias, equal participation in concept and production Program: land treasury for coastal communities Location: Boston, Massachusetts Size: indefinite
GSD, Fall 18’
Critic: Rosalea Monacella
stakeholders and agencies in Boston Harbor
land values in East Boston and the northern suburbs, with the plots owned by MassPort in outlined in red, and protective infrastructures along the coast in black
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
analyzing the edge The project evolved as a critique of the governance and economics that led to current edge condition of Boston. Land speculation and patterns of property development built an unbalanced risk of sea level rise: the city and large stakeholders put money and infrastructure towards protecting properties with high commercial or speculative value; leaving out residential neighborhoods, especially those with lower real estate value. Large industries and government institutions have the financial resilience and ability to protect themselves in the face of sea level rise. Once such agency, MassPort, was found to have a considerably higher contribution to the causes of sea level rise, but does little to manifest protective measures for areas beyond their own resources. Residential communities have no collective action to protect themselves, paralyzing the physical transformation of the coast and forcing individuals to choose between abandonment or defense of property at high personal and financial risk. The proposed land trust structure to seeks to collectivize inundated land and protect communities financially and physically as they retreat with dignity.
plexi models describing the detailed legal stipulations and ownership structures which have built they physical coast
flooded land, growing site The trust is informed by coded-scripts (spatial and financially driven in grasshopper) which evaluate parcels of land as inundation occurs. The initial series of scripts aggregate parcels as they become uninhabitable or lose value, and forecasts the decommissioning of infrastructure. The land trust will intervene within a fluctuating site boundary over a period of decades. The index of site in this script deals with the acquisition of land. Some of the inputs include land value, infrastructural shutdown, and inundation, which create the growing site of intervention for the land trust. It also highlights areas of settlement that are maintained throughout inundation for potential future resettlement. The script was presented as an animation, with snapshots above. Just as the land trust aggregates parcels, the script actions aggregate together to form a cohesive system of ecology, operable infrastructure, and settlement. This is not a sequential phasing process, but an additive feedback loop to determine landforming process. Shown on the right, the residential parcel is used as the smallest unit of landform transformation in the process of adapting a community to sea level rise. The script seeks to make the most potential for wetland adaptation based on the land available to the trust.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
01
evaluation of site materials
04
initial parcel landformings
02
deconstruction/preparation of reuse
05
more landforming/planned densification
03
evaluation of possible landforming
06
full inundation
site data + possible landforming
community input + wetland expansion
a
c
b
d a. current land value
b. current land use map
e c. current edge of protection
These maps represent one case-study of a city-wide retreat strategy for Winthrop, a small residential community north of Boston. The land trust will help the town analyze their current resources and determine what should be abandoned at what time, and what needs to be defended. This master-plan will inform local maneuvers so that future wetlands, remaining infrastructure, and settlements operate together as coastal flooding progresses.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
d. projected edge of protection w/ land trust
e. projected land use map w/ land trust
dignified retreat Resettlement due to sea level rise will occur within densifying communities as people move from lower lying areas towards higher ground. The land trust will work with municipalities to facilitate the process of infrastructural decommissioning, planned densification, reworking of city systems, and landforming operations. Localized retreat will keep communities together over the decades of sea level rise. The land trust will not move people, but it will coordinate with the agencies who preform landforming operations, working across many physical scales, and create long-term land use plans with the communities to organize the entire process.
The City of Arles in Southern France has been constructed through a series of key infrastructures, the most impactful of those being the canals which slice through the fabric of the urban environment. Each of the canals has a unique history, and their individual qualities have manifested as distinct spatial repercussions on Arles and its surrounding landscape. However, the original purposes of the canals have faded away in recent decades. Postindustrial economies, new suburban neighborhoods, and vehicular thoroughfares have left the canals as after-thoughts. They constitute the back-of-house of Arles, essential objects in the city that people walk by everyday, never realizing their potential. This proposal operates as series of targeted interventions, to reveal the existing fallow-nature of the spaces along the canals. Each design intervention is based on a unique spatial, historical, or ecological moment, inviting connection, exploration, and occupation along the waterways. This restructuring will establish a new sense of place in the canals, and create a new center of gravity for Arles.
Back of House, Curating Fallow along the Canals of Arles Program: public exploration park
Location: Arles, France
Size: multiple sites, city-scale
GSD, Fall 19’ Critic: Anita Berrizbeitia
hidden histories in the city Each canal and its use comes from a different era of the city: transportation from industrialization, irrigation from surrounding hamlets, and diked flood control from recent climate changes. As such, each has a particular spatial condition to be emphasized. The dikes to be climbed over, and floods to be experienced, the lock to be climbed into. The series of interventions aspires to connect all of these sites through a new guide to the city.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
existing sections and photos
As Arles grew in the last century, it expanded around the canals that were once on the outskirts of the city. Empty lots and weirdly-shaped sites now line the waterways, and residents need to climb aqueducts and fences to reach them. The modifications to the sites will make some connections clear and accessible, but others will maintain a level of exploration and uncertainty that has come from decades of layered construction.
Currently, only the center of Arles, the old Roman town and the art events, are utilized in the life and economy of the city. The canals line the periphery of the city, and they are the ideal opportunity to bring attention to the neighborhoods where people actually live. Each of these calendars shows the current programming in the central city in black, and the newly added programs in color. They are spatialized as gradients in the city, and their activations outline the months around the calendar. The individual operations are choreographed with the lifecycle of the city. While they are not always at their peak activation, their collective implications become a new understanding of the history, environment, and infrastructure. These forgotten but singularly exceptional places in the city will become part of the image of Arles.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
a new guide to the city The interventions, events, and systems of maintenance are presented in a new guidebook of Arles. As both an almanac and guide, this book holds vignettes of the variety of spaces and occupations that the canal can operate year-around. Bits of history are interspersed with renderings and maps showing how one can explore this newly activated district. This book intends to help residents discover the options the canals offer, so that existing community groups can hold their own events in some of the flexible spaces. Barges, bridges, and new walkways are all open to reuse.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
revealing moments of fallow Instead of renovating the canals into one homogeneous space with no relation to Arles, the design interventions draw people into unique moments along the canals. Many of the conditions of these experiences already exist, but my amplifying them and providing moments of clarity and contrast, inhabitants can occupy and enjoy a valuable resource in their city. These moments attempt to reconcile spatial conflicts and collisions, in some cases to connect divided neighborhoods, in some cases to draw the attention of a unique space from afar. Other points along the canals operate as displays and showcases of the systems which combine to create this fallow character. Feats of engineering, ecology, and temporal occupation become a rhythm of urban life in this series of spaces.
Hacking the Los Angeles Zoning Code Partner: Ceren Arslan, equal participation in concept and production Program: zoning ordinance/civic Location: Los Angeles, California
Size: 300,000 sqft
Pratt Institute, Thesis Project
Critic: Evan Tribus + Dragana Zoric
Los Angeles is at a turning point in its urban growth. It is no longer characterized by new sprawling neighborhoods. Rather, areas like Downtown, West LA and Wilshire are turning back in on themselves and reconstituting new, denser parts of the city. By confronting the construction of high density commercial buildings and forcing an injection of non-commercial public spaces in them, Los Angeles can avoid the pitfalls of already condensed cities. This thesis consists of two parts. The first part deals solely with the zoning code, where an additional stipulation to the LAMC has been designed. It describes how public space is apportioned into private construction. Its rules seek to ensure that the spaces are not singular, closed moments surrounded by mass, but be functionally and experientially integral to how one experiences Los Angeles: outside, on display, and active. The second part is an architectural implementation of the zoning code.
components of public space The new zoning code adds a stipulation for public space in terms of a “points metric”. Every newly constructed building in highly dense parts of LA will have a “point count” based on their FAR, height, and building footprint. The larger the building, the greater the responsibility of the private developer to invest and contribute to public space. This allows the public spaces to grow as the city grows. The points are satisfied by the insertion of threatened, non-commercial public spaces, such as sports courts, mobile food vendors, theaters, plazas, and playgrounds. The points metric is based on occupational stipulations, including light, air, access, egress, and crowd management. The code seeks to quantify qualities rather than pure numbers to encompass the functional and experiential requirements for each individual public space that is added. It is flexible enough to ensure architect’s power in the city, but specific to combat the commercial trend of downsizing good architectural space.
_01_02_03_04_05_ 06_07
form-morphing The second part of the project is one possible implementation of the code in downtown LA. This site has over a dozen active construction projects by developers, and many more in stages of approval. This neighborhood was once inhabited by older 20th century buildings and large empty lots of parking. It is quickly being filled up by high-rise residential buildings as the social, economic, and transportation networks of Downtown become more desirable. In the next decade, most of the open lots will be filled and the streets will be congested. The form derives from the volumetric requirements of the new code, and then begins to deform those to accentuate the qualities of light, air, view and congregation. The volumes open like apertures on the facade to draw and receive in people and the exterior life of the city. The extreme angles cut into the private orthogonal grid of the buildings they take from. As the programmatic combinations of the code adapt to different buildings and sites, the architectural language adapts to the program compositions.
_01_02_03_04_05_ 06_07
iterative elevations - the zoning code and formal implementation
final renderings
_01_02_03_04_05_ 06_07
the ambiance of LA These high-construction neighborhoods do not have the iconic ambiance which is so exemplary of notable public space in LA: the Hills of Hollywood, the Beaches of Santa Monica, and the Sunset Boulevard. The investigated neighborhoods have only the architectural landscape to create their character. If the architecture of the city is entirely left to the developers, the experience of the busiest parts of Los Angeles will become the most unpleasant. This code can change the way zoning contributes to the public environment in the urban realm. By demanding more responsibility from those who actually build the city, a new set of principles can be incorporated into how we design in a commercial driven system. Los Angeles has the ability to implement a radical proposal that repositions how the public is delivered to the city, and operates in conjunction with privately-driven interests.
In the coming decades, the city of Quincy, Massachussetts must imbue its core systems with new values of economy, transit, and public space. This masterplan reorients Quincy’s future by considering how its infrastructures can be localized and reoriented to transform the public realm into a holistic system. The broken assemblages of stormwater management and transit infrastructure are recombined to reclaim space from the derelict parking lots and roadways. Existing local businesses and community organizations are engaged to inhabit spaces on multiple timescales. Instead of mobility, hydrology and economy being thought of as distinct systems, they will operate together within the everyday social spaces.
Localizing Infrastructures,
Pavement Removal in North Quincy
Group Members: Ariel Bi and Simón Escabi, equal participation in concept and production Program: civic spaces, transportation network Location: Quincy, MA Size: urban succession plan
GSD, Spring 19’
Critic: Jill Desimini
2019
2039
_01_02_03_04_05_06 _07
recalibrating multiple flows The city’s current emphasis on vehicular transit is a hindrance to creating interactions between the existing communities and the economic opportunities the city is pursuing. With its location along major highway and transit routes, North Quincy has emerged as a destination for those looking to relocate and save on rents. However, current trends foster a car-driven urbanism that produces both a sea of pavement and a disregard for local cultures and connections. Considering the qualities of the near-future city, this project adds a middle-scale to the mobility, hydrology and economy systems of Quincy. By redesigning the core infrastructures, attenuation is ingrained into the transit, capital, and people in the city. This proposal considers how moments of transfer and reduction can benefit the natural and social aspects of a city.
2039
_01_02_03_04_05_06 _07
2019
existing big-box mart, with transformation steps, 2019
breakin’ the pavement As the roads are reconstituted, new space is gained on reclaimed parking lots. Starting with removing some parking spots on the busy roads, a few aisles in the largest parking lots, and the most idle spots in the city, more permeability will be introduced and connected. The biggest holders of concrete and asphalt will become the new centers of gravity in Quincy. Frontage of big-box marts become public parks, community centers, and new markets next to retention ponds. These sites will allow for a middle-scale of stores and community assets. The newly unpaved sites in the center of the city become community markets and stores, sharing their sites as a new series of transit hubs. People’s daily interactions will be rendered more productive here: instead of driving alone in a car, people can purchase, interact and experience the city.
reclaimed space with civic programming, 2039
final exhibition table, with cnc model of North Quincy, and vignettes of multiple sites in the city through the lens of the succession plan
new civic spaces through succession This transformation is envisioned as a succession plan for the systems of Quincy, tested on multiple scales. The sites address residential streets, commercial lots along the main thoroughfare, and larger supermarkets and office parks. As the pavement is broken up across the city for new stormwater control, new transit will be invested in. As new transit takes root, economic and recreational opportunities aggregate. As economies settle, transit systems mutate and social opportunities respond.
_01_02_03_04_05_06 _07
catalog of transportation types in the succession plan
Productive Contaminant Program: Community Infrastructure
Location: Hudson, NY
Pratt Institute, Fall 17’ Size: 200,000 sqft, expandable
Critic: Cathryn Dwyre
This project looks to contribute to a vibrant micro-city in upstate NY, the City of Hudson. The city is currently in a state of flux: becoming an attractive location for new, innovative companies (as well as their employees), but in a city dominated by 18th and 19th Century historic fabric, which the city is intent on protecting. The proposal is a new community comprised of residences and workspaces. It inhabits the wetland just a block outside the city-center. This is facilitated not by a aggressive construction scheme, but by a heavily operable infrastructure integrated in and above the wetlands themselves. With growth in mind, Hudson is already apt to provide the social attractor, and the Hudson Valley provides the natural engagement. The community seeks to take this one step further. Not merely ‘housing on the water’ or ‘moving up-state’, the community seeks to attract and cultivate a more immediate relationship between the built environment and nature. From the meta-scale impacts of the structure itself, to technological systems, to a more direct nurturing of the wetlands, the community will invest in the nature it occupies. eidetic drawings of Hudson and the site
_01_02_03_04_05 _01 _ 02 _03 _04_06 _05 _07
infrastructure The
initial
will
include
phase
of
this
constructing
community the
support
structures, major linkage system, and life support components. Following this inception, the intent toward ecological stewardship,
community
building,
and
discrete impact with drive the growth of the infilled, occupational elements. Although some larger oversight may be present, the energy of the occupants will become the true catalyst for this system going forward.
final model
a new community In the wetland, small ‘clusters’ of space-framing structures will be constructed. These are the platform through which different scales of architecture will populate the steel members. Each cluster will be allocated particular services based on its contribution to the city: a collective that works with the blossoming cultural scene, a technology center for the savvy entrepreneurs of the city, minimal but attractive housing for the young service population that cannot afford the rents of the city. But superseding all of this is the ecological impact, which will be carefully studied as the community is occupied. From the meta-scale impacts of the structure itself, to technological systems, to a more direct nurturing of the wetlands, the community will invest in the nature it occupies.
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
final detail section (above) cluster render (left)
Located at the uppermost tip of Manhattan near Inwood Park, this boathouse is for Columbia University. This project is challenged with integrating a Community Boathouse with the existing private program. The neighboring park is meant to flow under this building, into the interstitial level below the mass of program. Holding up the mass are thousands of columns which also organize the space. The ground floor is a ‘matte level’, where sectional variation encourages soft programming. On this level, the public can enjoy the view to the water and observe and engage with the boats and the Columbia Crew team. As people filter in through the park, they are meant to experience this unique sport through the field around them.
Column Field Partner: Ceren Arslan, equal participation in concept and production Program: Columbia University/public boathouse Location: Manhattan, New York City
Pratt Institute, Spring 16’
Size: 16,000 sqft Critic: Christian Lynch
matte/ground level The enclosed program floats above the ground floor. It is meant to feel like a large, sheltering mass, protecting the boats and suggesting a perimeter to the public space below. Only a 'forest of columns' serves to organize the public level. These columns hold up the mass of the floors above, as well as provide a 'blank infrastructure' that can be used for _01_02_03_04_05_06_07
community events.
The neighboring park is meant to flow into this space, becoming a 'matte level', where sectional variation encourages soft programming. On this level, the public can enjoy the view to the water and observe and engage with the boats and the Columbia Crew team. As people filter in through the park, they are meant to experience the sport through the field around them.
security/threshold
blank infrastructure
congregation
circulation
visibility
_01_02_03_04_05_06_07
bottom upwards An exterior, public path cuts through the building. It begins on the ground floor and ramps up through the mass, with opportunities to look down on the practice rooms. At the top, it reaches another open space for soft-programming and a vista onto the water. Here, the public can look out onto the water at the rowers.