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DESIGN PORTFOLIO
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CALTECH CENTER FOR THE SPACE SCIENCES Academic Master’s Thesis
The Caltech Center for the Space Sciences seeks to address the desperate need that faces science education today. At an early age, students start falling away from any interest in the sciences and engineering, perceiving these disciplines to be boring and irrelevant to life. To battle these perceptions, a spirit of wonder and exploration needs to be fostered in students as they learn about foundational principles. Seeking to break the existing paradigm, the Caltech Center brings students in direct contact with the professional practice of science, giving them exposure to what science can be employed to accomplish as well as providing them opportunities to work on projects themselves.
In focusing on the Space Sciences, Caltech provides a unique opportunity as a site and institution, with its strong connections to JPL and NASA. Containing such a strong campus fabric, Caltech’s design language is employed to inform the massing of the Science Center. Important solar and lunar trajectories further affect the massing, drawing a relationship with the building’s form and its ideological purpose.
While the purpose of bringing science education and professional research / development together is paramount, it does lead to difficult problems in meshing conflicting needs. Students need to see science in practice and scientists need enough control to focus and complete their research and tech development. To meet these needs, the program is separated into these two major elements: research space and education space. To organize the plan, the programmatic elements are placed together in vertical and horizontal bands according to their purpose. The layering of these bands in plan and section creates opportunities for an interactive separation, allowing both groups to achieve their goals.
Horizontal Banding
Vertical Banding
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As new students enter the center, they proceed to the second floor on the east side of the building, in which two lecture / theater rooms are located. Students then progress across the building, passing through the Lab Gallery. The layering of the programmatic bands in this gallery creates a pancake section, where students move between two layers of labs. Large windows open to the labs below, giving the students a visual connection to see the science and engineering research being performed. Overhead, a catwalk provides access to the labs on the third floor, creating opportunities for audio connection between students and scientists in their passing. Students move from this gallery to a display space in which JPL and the occupants of the center’s labs can display their latest research, space exploration technology, and mission plans. Project classrooms reside at the end of this journey, allowing students to now work on science projects of their own.
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2nd Floor Plan
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3rd Floor Plan
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1- Research Labs 2- Break Out Lounge 3- Open Office Space 4- Think Tank 5- Display Space 6- Project Classrooms 7- Lab Viewing Gallery 8- Lecture / Theater Room 9- Students Lounge
Sliding Bands
With the development of the plan, the programmatic bands accentuate their existence by sliding past one another and causing shifts in the mass. Residual planes act as heralds to the existence of the movement among the bands. Window walls allow great visual connection for the campus to see the research being performed in the center. Geometric areas of solid and void louvers shade these walls, fashioning a vertical system of shifting bands.
Residual Movement
LAHSA: LOS ANGELES HIGH SCHOOL OF THE Academic Project
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Concept Diagrams
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Located on the campus of Cal State LA, the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts is a charter school focused on training students in the visual and performing arts. Situated on a point of large elevation change in the midst of a campus thoroughfare, the school acts as part of the landscape, thus connecting the lower and upper regions of the campus. The school becomes both a physical and institutional conduit through which students can progress to their desired destination.
2nd Floor Plan
1- Studio 2- Standard Classroom 3- Lounge 4- Theater 5- Administration 6- Student Lounge 7- 2nd Floor Lounge 8- Theater Balcony
Light wells penetrate the building throughout the plan, bringing natural light into the studios, classrooms, and corridors. These star wells create opportunities for visual interaction between the interior and exterior, provide break out rooms for both staff and students, and act as display cases for student work and inspirational pieces.
LOS ANGELES FILM MUSEUM Academic Project
Located on the corner of First and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, the LA Film Museum seeks to capitalize on the important role of Broadway and its movie palaces in the history of film in Los Angeles. Just as films create new realities and stories for us to experience, so the museum seeks to create new visual realities of its existence through the movement of its structures. As shifts are made in both plan and section, the site changes, creating endless stories of its visual composition. In these stories, the public is not simply the observer or bystander, but takes part in the creation. The performer is now the passer-by, and the stage, the city.
TRANSFORMING REALITIES
Realities of the Day
Each shift and transformation of structure causes light to be released, reflected, and realized in new ways. The moving of whole pavilions or even a single panel causes light to escape and be scattered on the ground, rest upon nearby buildings, or be mingled with other lights. Each person has a part in this creation, telling a new story, crafting a new reality.
Realities of the Night
Atmosphere of Light
LINYI RETAIL DISTRICT Professional Project (Images Courtesy of 5+Design)
Linyi is an up-and-coming city in the province of Shandong, China, with a rich 2,400-year history. The retail district is placed along a developing green belt, adjacent to a planned war museum in honor of the city’s history in military strategy. A city park anchors the project on the green belt, acting as an important organizational feature for the required program. A living mall acts as a conduit for the green belt, transferring physical and visual circulation into the park. The park is split into two levels, ground level and a sunken garden which connects the east and west plots of the project underneath BaYi Road. A series of pavilions or “tree houses,” are scattered along the park allowing for restaurants and cafes in the space. These pavilions also help bridge the section from the ground level park to the sunken garden, connecting to the ForSale-Retail program that rings the lower space.
Concept Diagram
MASTER PLAN
Site Plan
1st Floor Plan
The Master plan program consists of six main elements: Mall Retail / For-Sale-Retail, a City Park, an Icon Office Tower, Food and Beverage, Entertainment, and Service Apartment Towers. The park and living mall create two sets of axis that the project is organized around; an orthographic axis and an axis shifted 15 degrees off of it. The Mall uses this organization to move away from the standard layout, in which some tenants are able to face into the premier atrium space while others face into mall circulation. The shifting axis creates elongated atriums in which all tenants are able to face into the premier spaces of the mall. The Icon Office Tower physically connects to the mall providing Class A office space. Mall Concept Diagram
2nd Floor Plan
4th Floor Plan
5th Floor Plan
JONATHAN RICHERT 3711 Baldwin St. #907 Los Angeles, CA 90031 (530) 233-0654 jonathan.e.richert@gmail.com