John Hilla 27 Charlton Place, Monroe, NY 10950 jhilla@design.upenn.edu 845.781.0276 Education
Professional Experience
2018 University of Pennsylvania School of Design M.Architecture
2017 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Architectural Design Design Intern New York, NY
2014 Syracuse University Engineering Management M.Science 2012 Syracuse University Mechanical Engineering B.Science
Awards & Publication 2018 Pressing Matters 6 University of Pennsylvania 2017 Student Award Finalist AIA Pennsylvania
2011-2014 U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center Lead Energy Engineer Syracuse, NY 2011 Corning Global Energy Management Energy Assessment Intern Corning, NY 2010 National Basketball Association Facilities & Administration Construction Management Intern New York, NY
2017 Summer Intern Fellowship Award National Building Museum
Teaching Experience
2016 Best Student Design-Build Projects ArchDaily
2018 University of Pennsylvania Teaching Assistant Design Studio Instructed by Kutan Ayata
2015-2018 PennDesign Scholarship University of Pennsylvania
2015-2018 University of Pennsylvania 2014 Outstanding Graduate Student Award Teaching Assistant Structures I & II Syracuse University Instructed by Richard Farley 2014 Legacy Award: Academic Engagement 2014 Indian Institute of Technology GN Mary Ann Shaw Center for Service Lead Instructor Energy Efficiency Workshop 2013-2014 IAC Grant Recipient Directed by Suresh Santanam U.S. Department of Energy
Sant’Andrea al Quirinale Design Team: John Hilla Instructor: Ferda Kolatan Hybridization, as a strategy for design, can be used critically to discover and establish new conditions of autonomy within an object. By combining and curating architectural features together with qualities that are more easily associated with ‘everyday’ objects, we arrive at a new entity that collapses into a singular, yet manifold construction. Neither subject dominates, as new relationships are created at the intersection between the two. The process of hybridization in this project began at the architectural end of the spectrum through a study of characteristics found specifically in plan drawings of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. These elements were then recombined to create a new plan with formal characteristics that are both unique and reminiscent of its combined parts. Digital tools were then used to make a jump into 3D space, and It is here that considerations were made to bring in qualities that estrange the resultant from the architectural references. Specific attention was given to the joining of these components to further promote the hybridization of all present features. The final piece is full of contradictions and ambiguities among its own internal relationships.
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Plan Motif Study The heavy black poche commonly used in the plan drawings for Sant’Andrea al Quirinale helps highlight the strategies for figuration utilized by Bernini. Specific features found in these drawings are extracted and recombined into individual motifs that create a new understanding of these design elements outside of the architectural plan.
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Hybrid Plan Drawing The motifs generated from the church plan are further combined to create unique figure-ground relationships that only maintain architectural qualities through the inherent references to the figuration of Bernini. There is a tension that is created here between newly formed qualities and those that belong to the architectural ancestor.
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Digital Generation To develop a tangible object from the hybrid plan drawing, advanced digital techniques were applied in three dimensions. During this process, specific attention was given to the joining of components and the generation of seams and creases that further estrange the resultant from the original architectural references.
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Model Fabrication The fabrication of this model focused specifically on achieving tangible qualities that have associations with everyday objects. A base form was printed as a dense solid mass, the weight of which adds to its tangible nature. The model was then gilded with a copper leaf and coated with polyurethane to get a bright metallic exterior.
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Effect Machine Design Team: John Hilla, Yi-Hsuan Hua, Morgynn Wiley Studio Critic: Simon Kim Factory buildings quickly became an iconic typology during the industrial revolution. The emergence of the aesthetic qualities that characterize these structures is deeply rooted in the values of the industrial economy they were born from. The visual conditions of their reality have been popularized by the German photography duo of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who worked to highlight and classify various formal features of these objects in a way that transcends the very subject of each photograph. Through this process, they created different species of industrial ‘creatures’ that are productive in their industrial use and effective in their aesthetic existence. The following project looks at a model-scale analogy to the work done by the Bechers, by exploring the design potential of a fog machine. These small devices have both aesthetic and environmental effects that are nearly identical to the very facilities that they are undoubtedly produced in. A fog machine is explicitly designed for the creation of an atmospheric effect, through the production of fog, while little design considerations are made on their behalf outside of this agenda. The study herein addresses these issues at this scale as a springboard for a larger project on industrial buildings.
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Machine Object Qualities The variety of mechanical pieces that are required for the production of fog presents a unique challenge to the partto-whole relationships that need to be considered. Each component requires independent design interventions that must be linked by functional pipes and wires in order to create a successful composition of parts.
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Evaporator and Nozzle Glycol is stored in a copper tank at the bottom of the machine and is pumped to the evaporator, which can be seen in the bottom image above. The vapor that is produced in this component both exits the nozzle in clouds of fog, and also is recirculated through the copper tubing where is condenses back to the liquid glycol state.
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The Hunger Design Team: John Hilla, Yi-Hsuan Hua, Morgynn Wiley Studio Critic: Simon Kim The Hunger is a venerated black box given agency to consume plastic waste material for the production of biodegradable architecture. A black box is traditionally thought of as a mysterious object that is removed from perception in order to focus on fundamental inputs from which elements emerge. This phenomenon is paralleled by Timothy Morton’s metaphor for the withdrawal of objects, wherein an octopus disappears from human knowledge into a cloud of black ink. The unapproachable scale and shroud-like exterior of a hyperboloid cooling tower has similar affects to the black ink of the octopus. This however, is limited by duration as the ink will slowly dissipate in the water. In the same fashion, an architectural black box made of biodegradable material will slowly lose its mysterious nature. The bio-aging of our character begins when collected plastic material is infused with a liquid fungus that colonizes and digests plastics through mycelium growth. Just as fungi are decomposers of organic material in their own natural ecosystems, our black box consumes the waste from local manufacturing facilities and produces mycelium brick architecture as a reinterpretation of industrial building typologies.
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Homunculus Character Unlike a traditional model, which operates at a reduced scale, this homunculus object acts an autonomous prototype that refuses to abstract tangible qualities, such as materiality. This particular character is performative, as it circulates flammable fluids that are ignited below to transform the surface over time.
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Mycelium Bricks Several species of fungi can mature from mycelium networks that are capable of colonizing plastic waste materials. These organisms can be grown in a mold to form dense bricks, the structural and biodegradable nature of which exists on a spectrum that can be tested and manipulated through various methods of processing.
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Tower Section Drawing A hyperboloid cooling tower contains both strong iconic features that are associate with an industrial economy and formal qualities that hide interior processes. The section drawing of this building is intended to extend beyond traditional architectural representation to cover atmospheric effects, production activity, and a sense of time.
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Laboratory Pod Detail For the purpose of research on biodegradable architecture and the growth of mycelium on plastic material, the interior of the tower contains several laboratory pods that are plugged into the structure of the exterior wall. These spaces exist at the interface between human occupancy and the spatial needs of nonhuman agents.
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Wall Section Diagram Over time, the mycelium bricks on the exterior envelope will deteriorate and expose the structural skeleton of the wall. The high humidity and warms temperatures that characterize the interior of the tower, however, are ideal for the growth of fungi. While the exterior is breaking down, the interior growth will recolonize bare surfaces.
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Call-Out Details This series of drawings shows the bio-aging of the bricks and subsequent exposure of the structural skeleton at the top (1A, 2A, 3A) and bottom (1B, 2B, 3B) of the cooling tower wall. Additionally, the atmosphere control system piping (4A), second floor slab connection (4B), and foundation construction (4C) are depicted above.
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Canal Street Rock Climbing Design Team: John Hilla, Yisha Li Studio Critic: Kutan Ayata There is an inherent tension that is introduced by the infusion of a natural outdoor activity into the immensely artificial environment of New York City, and it was this consideration that guided the design of a rock climbing gym at the west end of Canal Street. Our proposal is first experienced from the surrounding urban environment as an amassment of columns that pinch, expand, and collide as they rise. These discrete units combine to create merged areas above and below an intermediate forest of outdoor climbing and bouldering surfaces that are continuous up to the edges of the building. There, a hard boundary creates flat walls that become more appropriate for the windows that allow light to penetrate the large open areas within. Upward movement on the interior is facilitated by tubes that are set within the columns. From the ground floor, these tubes exist only as structural elements, but in the basement below they are sliced open to reveal the colorful contoured surfaces that allow vertical climbers to ascend the full height of the columns and pierce through the roof of the building. Each tube maintains a unique identity through the specific patterning on their surfaces that come with individualized climbing experiences and difficulties.
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Contoured Surface Panels Concrete can be formed into a contoured climbing surface using a layered system of formwork. The above image is a study on how different layered patterns can be used to create a diverse field of extrusions and impressions on a climbing wall. The colors that are used on these panels identify different climbing path and difficulties.
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Climbing Hold Study The scale of the patterns that are used to create the contoured climbing surfaces is chosen to create unique moments that are ideal for a variety of climbing grips. The image above demonstrates the nature of these patterns that has the versatility to create both the crimp and pinch type rock climbing grips shown.
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Comprehensive Section A rock climbing gym is an inherently comprehensive program, as depicted in the building section above. Vertical climbing surfaces are wrapped on the interior of structural columns. From the ground floor, these surfaces are experienced only as structural elements, but in the basement below they are sliced open for climbers to enter.
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Floor Plan Series The above drawing series shows plan drawings for the (2A) second floor bouldering spaces, (3A) first floor exercise areas, and (3A) basement climbing spaces. The diagram that is included at the top left (1A) shows how the patterns that are used for the creation of climbing surfaces are projected onto the walls in different zones.
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Exterior Building Model The printed model above specifically expresses the full form of the building and focuses on the figuration of the four-sided building facade. Exterior climbing surfaces are shown with the climbing hold patterns projected onto gray concrete surfaces. These areas are sandwiched between the continuous volumes that hold the two floors.
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West Side Highway Elevation This view from the West Side Highway in New York shows the complex nature of the exterior climbing surfaces. As one ascends to the top of the building, the climbing holds quickly transition into vertical strips that prevent the climber from moving upward. Similarly, the vertical windows are projects of the pattern on a purely flat surface.
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Exterior Climbing Courtyard The surfaces on the exterior of the building are characterized as a field, or forest of contoured concrete columns. The various layers therein are expressed by increasingly darker shades of gray. These walls, which are designed specifically for bouldering, are accessed from courtyards spaces that area isolated from public access.
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Interior Climbing Tubes The vertical climbing on the interior of the gym is facilitated by tall the tubes, or chimneys that extend beyond the full height of the building. These walls are made distinct from those on the exterior through layering of plastic climbing holds which add a variety of bright colors to indicate different paths and climbing difficulties.
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