Joseph Depre Graduate Architecture Portfolio

Joseph J Depre

Master of Architecture

University of Pennsylvania

JOSEPH J DEPRE

GRADUATE PORTFOLIO

Master of Architecture

University of Pennsylvania

Weitzman School of Design

Class 2023

Arthur Spayd Brooke Memorial Silver Medal Prize

Albert F. Schenck - Henry Gillette

Woodman Scholarship

E. Lewis Dales Traveling Fellowship

Newberry Scholarship

Bachelor of Fine Arts

Thesis in Visual Critical Studies

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Class 2019

Academic Merit Scholarship

John W. Kurtich Foundation

Travel Scholarship

josephjdepre.com

joseph.depre@gmail.com

+1 708.309.2554

METADATA

MEDIA TEMPLE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL

Metadata is a conceptual data center for the storage of the Metaverse, a parallel digital universe of human creation. It is a Cathedral creating a bridge between the tangible and the immaterial, the real and the hyper-real, The Simulation. The datacenter is the sole material reality of the virtual simulation. This makes the structure housing the datacenter a sacred space which requires being fortified against hostile environments and intents. As the Metaverse becomes more ubiquitous in our daily lives entire populations will abandon reality for their subjective realities manifested online. The vacuum of space found in the absence of daily interpersonal interaction will create a literal desert of the real. People will need to be lured away from the simulation through sensual experience. Metadata response to this sociological condition through programmatic intervention. Media Spectacle and the promise of luxury sensual experience are deployed as modalities of seduction. The thermal bath house in the cavernous sublevels of Metadata is heated through a thermal exchange with the data servers exploiting a cyclical economy of carbon reduction through sensual experience. Water becomes the conduit creating a fluid exchange of energy providing sensual and hypersensual experience by both cooling the Metaverse servers and heating the baths. The site is located in Queens, New York along the eastern bank of the East River. The water of this coastal site is subject to tidal fluctuation integral to offsetting the carbonfootprint of the project. The site itself is designed to respond to sea level rise as it sits within the coastal flood plain.

Top: Site Plan

Bottom: Southern Elevation

Clockwise from the Left: Material Exploration; Facade Detail; Stepped Section; Stepped Plan

Top: Chuck Model

Bottom Right: Digital Material Exploration

simulation. This makes the structure housing the datacenter a sacred space which requires being fortified against hostile environments and intents.

As the Metaverse becomes more ubiquitous in our daily lives entire populations will abandon reality for their subjective realities manifested online. The vacuum of space found in the absence of daily interpersonal interaction will create a literal desert of the real. People will need to be lured away from the simulation through sensual experience. Metadata response to the sociological condition through programmatic intervention. Media Spectacle and the promise of luxury sensual experience are deployed as modalities of seduction. The thermal baths house in the cavernous sublevels of Metadata are heated through a thermal exchange with the data servers creating cyclical economy of carbon reduction through sensual experience. Water becomes the conduit crating a fluid exchange of energy providing sensual and hyper-sensual experience by both cooling the Metaverse servers and heating the baths. The site is located in Queens, New York along the eastern bank of the East River. The water of this coastal site is subject to tidal fluctuation integral to offsetting the carbon-footprint of the project. The site itself is design to respond to sea level rise as it sits within the coastal flood plain.

MARK ZUCKERBERG (IGNORE

WALL SECTION: CENOTAPH CLADDING

FILLET WELD

FILLET WELD

TRIPLE-PANE THERMAL GLASS

TRIPLE-PANE THERMAL GLASS

SPACER ASSEMBLY

SPACER ASSEMBLY

MULLION CAP

MULLION CAP

FIN STEEL ANCHOR POINT

FIN STEEL ANCHOR POINT

BOLT CONNECTION

BOLT CONNECTION

ALUMINUM FRAME PROFILE

ALUMINUM FRAME PROFILE

PUNCHED STEEL MESH

PUNCHED STEEL MESH

Top: Facade Detail

Bottom: Facade Chunk Detail; Exploded

The datacenter is cooled through an immersive hydraulic heat exchange system. The data towers are submerged in a nonconductive mineral spirit. The water pipes of the hydraulic system exchange the heat from this solution to heat the bath water. The various pools of the bath house hold water

at different temperatures as the water cools. The water is then pumped into a shallow reflection pool around the perimeter of the building, maximizing its surface area to volume ratio, allowing for the most optimal cooling. From the reflection pool, the now cooled water falls through light wells in

the bathhouse into the datacenter to be reheated. The falling water cools the air in the warm bathhouse through evaporative cooling and creating environmental contrast in the bathhouse experience.

Top Left: Suspended Digital Panopticon

Bottom Left: Cenotaph

Top Right: Exterior Reflection Pool

Center Right: Bath House

Bottom Right: Datacomb Data Center

Situation ism

TRANSPORTATION HUB & MARKET

If it is taken from Debord that the spectacle is the image of the ruling economy, then the one that controls the spectacle controls the economy. This is not a Situationism, for there is no Situationism, there is only The Situation. The geometry of The Situation is a transformation of the mural culture of Philadelphia into volumetric form. It is a literal reflection of the colorful architectural skin of the local environment and culture. The primary programmatic concern of this transportation hub is the transformative effects of the psychogeographic experience found within the marketplace. The Situation is the spectacle endowed with purpose, a gravity-well pulling diverse groups of people into its orbit. It is a multicultural buffet of food and drink, programmed across multilevel roof gardens, providing sanctuary from the ordinary. Traffic from Market Street has been moved underground and the El Train tracks have been encapsulated to provide a tranquil street level gathering space accessible to mobile vendors. The roof market has over twenty different small vendor kiosks arranged to create an experiential meandering. The goal is to normalize the relationship between indefinite “others” in the between place of circulation. The transition between program A and program B becomes activated as the primary experience of action is akin to the playfulness of discovery found through continuous dérive.

Top: Elevation Bottom: Floor Plans

Top Left: Cross Section

Top Right: Street Perspective

Below: Transverse Section

Philadelphia PA

Metatopia

POST HUMAN SPECTACLE IN THE AGE OF SIMULATION

In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers launched the first manned fight. The Spectacle of the of a hot-air balloon flying above the King of France inspired the revolution for Democracy. For Boullee the sphere became a symbol of democratic equality. The Spectacle proved its ability to transform reality. The Enterprise Center in West Philadelphia was the home of the American Band Stand and the first television studio in the United States. It is the origin of McLuhan’s Global Village and the Spectacle that informed, inspired, and controlled the 20th century. The 21st has seen the rise of Spectacle of the internet become more important the reality. Life has become a simulation experienced virtually within personalized spheres.

Metatopia is a 21st century Utopia of individualized spherical units touching at singular tangential points. The spheres are stacked on end as individual cells create a larger whole. The mirror finish of the exterior is a monument to the self that is expressed in reflection. Each individual unit is designed to sustain life as long as possible without having to disengage from their personized simulated reality. The vertical garden built in the atrium provides all the other resources needed to sustain life at a minimal distance necessary to minimize exposure to a hostile exterior environment.

Left: Typical Plan

Top Right: Elevation

Bottom Right: Transverse Section

a Structural Glass Green House Atrium

b Egress Strairs

c 341 Single Occupancy Housing Units

d Microclimate Green House Units

e Open Air Walkway

f Elevator Core

g Opening for Evaporative Cooling Waterfall

h Atruim Entry

i Tolopia Fish Farm

k

j

Enterprise Center/American Band Stand

Structure Glass Entry Tunnel

l Septic Composting and Cockroach Farm

m Methane Capture Tank

n

Water Harvest Reservior

o Entry Walkway

Right: Typical Unit Section Perspective

Bottom: Cutaway Section Perspective

Far Left (3): Preliminary Exploration

Right : Typical Single Occupancy Unit 1/4” Scale Below: Atrium Perspective

Intermission

VISUAL STUDIES

The object is an investigation into recreating the expressive gestural formal techniques of rococo plastering through a digital model making. Modeling in virtual reality allowed us to maintain the gesture of creation through the human body. Bridging the gap from digital mechanical production to digital human production, in a sense creating a more emersed digital craftsman. This relationship between craftmanship and mechanical or industrial production has several historical echoes. The images we created are hybridization referencing these specific historical echoes the arts and crafts movement and the prints William Morris in combination with the mundane fantasies of contemporary middle-class sensibility. The geometries and materials of this physical object are derived from the pop cultural phenomenon of Star Wars, The Lord of the Ring, and Mickey Mouse’s Magic Kingdom.

Critic | Ferda Kolata Image, Object, Architecture

Utopian Space

Top:

Critic | Ferda Kolatan

Formal and Material Exploration

Bottom: Critic | Miroslava Brooks

Formal Exploration Through Collage in Plan

Top:

Critic

| Brian DeLuna

Choisy Isometric Section Drawing

Bottom:

Critic | Andrew Sanders

Baroque Topologies Explorations of the Painterly

London UK

Solar Metrics

Vibrant Matter

Solar Metrics is an introduction of a new typology in an ecological park. It is part landscape, part architecture, and part ecological intervention that transforms in synchronization with the environment over vast periods of time. The structure is designed in response to the increasingly hot and arid summers in the UK because of the ever-escalating effects of climate change.

The large massing is developed through volumetric study of the cast shadows of the towers built into the site, measured periodically during the vernal equinox. This novel formal design is created through a procedural computation using sun analysis techniques. The towers themselves work as wind catchers forcing the air to circulate over a large body of water chilled in the ground under the site. Other towers operate as solar chimneys utilizing stack effect to cycle fresh air. This creates a passively cooled environment for public utility with an open programmatic space where the public can gather protected from the summer heat. The site also provides a public pool in the shadow of its canyons.

Top Left: River Perspective

Right : Atrium Perspective

Below: Grotto Perspective

Top Left: Entry Perspective

Bottom Left : Site Plan

Right: Axion Perspective

The building consists of a series of parts using 3d printed sand that has varying thermal mass based on the directionality of the sun. The north facing side is more porous, textured, and vegetated while the south facing is more solid for thermal mass. The foundations and groundwork of the building are the most permanent therefore more materially intensive whereas the remainder

of the building can be rebuilt over time to constantly evolve with the climate and the needs of the surrounding community. The urban mass developed within the shadows cast on the site generated large canyon like volumes that are inhabited by many spatial and atmospheric conditions. The exterior canyons create pockets of shade that give people reprieve from the sun while

promoting growth of indigenous flora. The interior of the massing allows for open programmatic spaces of congregation working in various scales, from the small and intimate to larger, civic gathering spaces. The interior of the project is unified by the design of water collection pools that operate as a cooling thermal mass that invites you to engage with it.

Cappadocia

Cappadopia

MEDITATION ON AESTHETIC EROTICISM

Cappadopeia:

n.

An architectural intervention comprised of carving, and redistribution of the vibrant material found within the Cappadocian landscape. Considered an ephemeral intervention in a constant state of being throughout the geological timescale. The process of scalar manipulation and aggregation to both preserve and highlight the ecstatic experience of the ancient volcanic landscape of Central Anatolia. A mosaic crystalizing the peaks and valleys of a capricious geology. An evolution of architectural expression derived from the history of overlapping cultures within Cappadocia, with the express purpose of making is the most Dope.

adj.

Having the qualities of geophilic erotica

Clockwise from the Left: Terrace Perspective; Brick Detail; Mosaic Detail; Mosaic Brick Application Detail

Counter-Clockwise from the Top Right: Entry Perspective; Brick Detail; Mosaic Detail; Mosaic Brick Application Detail

Clockwise from the Left: Light Well (2); Mosaic Detail (1); Mosaic Detail (2); Mosaic Detail (3); Water Well Detail; Wall Detail