Undergraduate Portfolio - Selected Works

KIRA COLLINS Undergraduate Architecture Portfolio UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA SELECTED PROJECTS

KIRA COLLINS Undergraduate Architecture Portfolio UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA SELECTED PROJECTS

CONTENTS

ABOUT Resume Preface

PLACE (Place)land: The Plains Institute Rome: Study Abroad Sketches, Drawings, & Workshop Museo Delle Macchine Vault: Community Center JOURNEY Transit Terminal

PICTURE Movie Wall Photographer’s Studio

OBJECT Order: The Grid

1 3

7 21 23 25 29

F 2017 - S 2018 S 2017 S 2017 S 2017 F 2016

35 F 2015

43 S 2015 49 F 2014

53 F 2013

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Kira Collins

250 Zuni River Circle SW | Los Lunas, NM 87031 (214) 460-2150 kiracollins18@gmail.com Portfolio: http://issuu.com/k_collins/docs

Education 08/2013 - 05/2018

Bachelor of Architecure, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

Summa Cum Laude Minor in History 3.98 Grade Point Average

Work Experience Intern, TAP Architecture

05/2016 - 08/2016 05/2017 - 08/2017 08/2015 - 05/2018

Student Assistant, Bruce Goff Committee

Helped to organize lectures and workshops by visiting Goff fellows, assisted with publicity, archiving, research, and documentation.

Assisted with community-based research and placemaking projects. Helped with research, documentation, and grant writing.

Teaching Assistant, Professor Deborah Richards

02/2018 - 05/2018

Honors Campus Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement

Spring 2018

Awarded to the top senior in each Division of the College of Architecture

Honor Society in Architecture and Allied Arts

The National Honor Society for History

Award for best 2nd year Portfolio

Honors classes and independent research are required to earn latin honors

Earned with 4.0 semester GPA

Earned with 3.5 or better semester GPA

Member, Tau Sigma Delta

Spring 2018 Spring 2018

Member, Phi Alpha Theta

Recipient of the the 2015 TAP Prize

Spring 2015

Member, The University of Oklahoma Honors College

08/2013 - 05/2018

President’s Honor Roll

Spring 2014 - Spring 2018 Fall 2013

Dean’s Honor Roll

National Merit Scholar

2013

Organizations/Activities 08/2013 - Present 09/2014 - 08/2016

Member, American Institute of Architecture Students Member, Architecture Virtuosi

Community volunteering

Participant, OU EcoLatrine build at the Kessler Atmospheric and Ecological Field Station

09/2013 - 04/2014

Study Abroad Spring 2017

Rome: College of Architecture

A semester in Rome, including studio classes and Italian Language and Culture class.

Winter intersession class, held in Berlin and Munich

German Health, Culture And Design

12/2015 - 01/2016

Skills Rhinoceros 5 AutoCAD

Revit SketchUp

Adobe Photoshop CC Adobe InDesign CC

Adobe Illustrator CC Flamingo Renderer

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Preface

This portfolio is my attempt to distill four and a half years of architecture school into a unified document that demonstrates the best of what I’ve learned. My portfolio is a story about ideas, about methods, about research, and about form, space, and order. It is the result of my attempts to take the demands of my professors embodied in their assignments and syllabi and create design work from them. Therefore this portfolio is the product of two forces: the pedagogy and influence of my professors and the curricula of my school, and the unique personal processes and solutions I have developed in response to the problems they have presented to me.

The themes span professors, sites, and chronologies, but I think they provide a useful tool for the reader to orient themselves to the intent and point of development of the work. You could organize the information in many other ways, and the themes are only an aspect of the larger scope of each project. Nevertheless, it is my hope that the reader will use them as a bridge to move beyond one vantage point, and use the material to consider and critique the projects from other angles. There is nothing more exciting, and helpful, for me than to have others point out what I never saw before.

Again, this portfolio is simultaneously the prodI have chosen to present my work in a sequence uct of my wrestling with the discipline of Archithat is both chronological and narrative. The tecture and the larger discipline of Design, and four themes have emerged as my interpreta- at the same time is deeply indebted to those tion of the trajectory of the academic work I who have taught me. It is the result of the efhave done. The projects fall into four divisions: forts of my professors, the constant help of my place, journey, picture, and object. Place covers studiomates, and copious amounts of black tea. my most recent work, and seeks to understand Thank you to you all, I hope these projects reand represent the most: physicality, image, flect back a tiny amount of your care and effort. experience, and history. Journey presents a narrative focus on movement and experience.

Picture covers work precedent to journey, and has a narrative focus on image and perspective.

Object covers my first and fundamental design exercises, and narrates the genesis of my conscious attempts at design. I believe that excellent writing is crucial to the communication of design intent, therefore each project begins with a written explanation.

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Philosophy

Architecture is:

Good Architecture is:

Storytelling.

Storytelling is history.

Our history is our future.

Honest it is about who we are Honorable it comes from integrity Hopeful it looks for a better future

Who we are.

Where we came from.

Where we are going.

Words are innocent.

Forms are innocent.

Using them creates the language of inspiration, seduction, danger, sadness, anger, hope.

Everyone speaks.

Architects form.

Architects listen to those words, small, large, few, many, explicit, confused And retells the story as it could be.

In drawings. In words. In pictures.

The specialty of design is to look at what is, and look past to what was, and then to speak of the future.

A little garden for walking, and immensity for dreaming...some flowers on the earth and all the stars in the heavens.

Victor Hugo 4

Place

Place has many different definitions. All of them insist that place requires meaning. Space can be empty. Place must be formed, must be particular, and must be distinct. Architectural place is always defined with reference to the human, or to the divine. We mold or alter its material properties, name and imagine it, experience and embed it in memory. Place exists in many dimensions simultaneously. It carries a fixedness, and an exclusivity: this place not that place, this place in time, this place in the story.

Yet, place transcends its own temporality. It is this complexity that elevates dealing with place above all other sections in this portfolio, and all concerns as a designer. Place is simultaneously intersectional and single. It draws its vital nature from history itself, above object, above a single image, above one experience. Its richness overwhelms. It is in placemaking that the architect reaches past his or her self to touch infinity.

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(Place)land: The Plains Institute In Progress

Professor Andres Cavieres Location Norman, Oklahoma

The project seeks to create a home for the Plains Institute at the University of Oklahoma on the south Research Campus. The Institute encompasses the Archaeology Survey, Geology Survey, Biology Survey, Climate Survey, and Water Survey, and hopes to facilitate new heights of ecological research by enabling cross pollination between surveys. It is proposed to put the five surveys together on about thirty acres of land stretching from the center of the research campus to the creek.

project proposes to recover the value of the land at the same time as the Institute seeks to recover the value of interdisciplinary research. The core proposes to bring together unmet needs both practical and academic in a built construct.

While the surveys each function autonomously, they share several core research and educational necessities that are not being met by their current facilities, including the storage and organization of many kinds of specimens and research, an inclusive and accessible method of archiving, and an easy and productive enviEach survey exists as its own discipline, each ronment for both the formal and informal exgenerates focused knowledge specific to a nar- change of ideas. row scientific definition, and each has been very successful at this task. Bridging these cloister The schematic design came about as a back and walls in interdisciplinary action, however, or forth between programmatic development and the understanding of relationships between model experimentation. Program needs were pieces of data in the surveys, is difficult. As Dr. translated into patterns and studied in the Kelly, the Director of the Plains Institute put it, context of the masterplan, then extrapolated “going outside the walls is going into the waste- into three dimensional models both in volume land.� The project acts in this framework as a and plane. Then a series of precedent sectional new interdisciplinary hub and as a backbone studies were performed on successful scientifof support, sensitivity, and communication for ic interdisciplinary institutes, and then applied the surveys to knit into, turning the wasteland to the continuing formal development.The surinto a placeland. veys become arranged linearly stretching from the creek to the middle of development. The It is fitting programmatically that the Institute core becomes a spine which links the nerves find an anchor on the Research Campus, but it of this system together in a protected, flexible is also fitting poetically. A wasteland can be de- shell folded into the earth. The delicate storage fined as a country lost for want of occupiers or areas become subsumed into the safe dark earth use. The site on the research campus has been in the lowest level. Over that is laid the archival vacant and overlooked for some time; this interface spaces which link researchers to 7

Semester 9 - 10

Metaphorical Depiction and Existing Campus Images

researchers and their research. The most accessible and superficial level is casual nodes of connection and information sharing such as the more public zones and the cafĂŠ.

Three main levels of hierarchy govern the lines of the ordering grid: the prime axis is from the center of the campus to the river on the other side. The secondary axis runs perpendicularly to the prime axis between a proposed mental health institute on the north and on the south toward the university’s latest investment in full scale meteorological testing, called the NEST, as well as a proposed STEM school. Axis on the tertiary level thread the Plains Institute to the Research Surveys it serves.

The survey system as a whole is pieced together by an occilating plaza and bands of landscaping.

The prime axis is anchored around a water channel, an existing stormwater drain line unconvered and brought to light. The landscape rises from the south to crest at the backbone of the Plains Institute, then sifts down through the order of the grid to reach out to the individual ecological surveys and beyond to the north. From the west it begins with the area of heightened activity in the center of the campus to fall very gradually toward the treeline, and then turning to a wooded area returning to nature, to the creek.

Fall 2017 - Spring 2018

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^ 2D and 3D paper abstract pattern and topographical site explorations

^ Research Campus master site plan showing organization around “ribbons� and placement of Plains Institute and Research Surveys

> Plans. Top down: Second Level, Ground Level, Basement Level v Plains Institute and Research Surveys overall site plan. From left to right (west to east) Archaeology Survey, Geology Survey, Biology Survey, Climate Survey, Water Survey. The Plains Institute is the bottom (south) spine.

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Semester 9 - 10

Fall 2017 - Spring 2018

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Public Entrance Looking Southeast

Looking South along Secondary Axis toward NEST

Interior of Library Core Looking South

Corridor outside Classrooms Looking East

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Semester 10

^ Sections, Top Down: Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, Section A

Section Model of Public Entrance and Offices

Spring 2018

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01 First Semester: Planar Pattern Making: an initial exercise in physical, planar topographical manipulation

02 First Semester: Physical Model Pattern Making: an exercise in three-dimensional formal development incorporationg materiality The schematic design came about as a back and forth between programmatic development and model experimentation.

Program needs were translated into patterns and studied in the context of the masterplan, then extrapolated into three dimensional models both in volume and plane. Then a series of precedent sectional studies were performed on successful scientific interdisciplinary institutes.

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Semester 9

1. Set into slope

2. Interior development

3. Terrace development

4. Terrace articulation

5. Formal articulation

6. Extension footprint

7. Formal articulation

8. Formal development

03 First Semester: Massing Exploration of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects - Neurosciences Institute

1. Initial excavation

2. Development of walls

3. Development of ruins

4. Perimeter walls

5. Further excavation

6. Volume cuts

7. Further excavation

8. Further excavation

03 First Semester: Massing Exploration of Nieto Sobejano - Madinat Al-Zahra Museum

1. Cut into slope

2. Elevations folded over

3. Development of upper

4. Interior division erosion

5. Extension of floor plates

6. Overhang pushed out

7. Cut into skin

8. Profile articulation

03 First Semester: Massing Exploration of OAB - Barcelona Botanical Institute

Fall 2017

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^ Massing Iteration 01 Long Section 01 Short Section 01 Site Iteration 01

^ Primary Entrance Northeast Arial

^ Massing Iteration 02 Long Section 02 Short Section 02 Site Iteration 02

^ Primary Court West Arial

^ Massing Iteration 03 Long Section 03 Short Section 03 Site Iteration 03

^ Massing Iteration 04 Long Section 04 Short Section 04 Site Iteration 04

Exploded Axonometric

04 First Semester: Final Model Combinations, Perspectives, and Physical Model

Previous precedent and topographical experimentation was then applied to further sectional development in digital and physical models. These were then recombined to form a framework for futher schematic development in the second semester, based upon the growth and development of this inital structure.

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Semester 9

Fall 2017

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While the first semester focused on group development of the master plan and abstracted explorations of topography, representation, and program, the second semester of development focused on bringing the project to schematic design through sketches, drawings, physical models, and digital modelling explorations.

This process included a continual back and forth between modes of representation and levels of

detail, while remaining focused on the clear and incremental use of plan and section to document changes over time. Over the course of fourteen weeks, the project progressed through increasing layers of programmatic, technical, spatial, and contextual refinement to reach a design structured around layers of walls, levels, earth, and light.

> Selection of Plan and Section Iterations (Ground Level Only). Top Down: 05A Ititial rough plans. Beginning stages of program placement and development.

05B Condensation. Forty percent reduction of square footage to meet program requirements and enable a more efficient use of space.

05C Development between levels and Sections. Programmatic “wings� developed to high degree, final orchestration of central elements still to be accomplsihed.

06 Exploded Axonometric showing early programmatic zones and vertical circulation concept

ARCHIVE OUTREACH / COMMON SPACE RECEPTION PRAIRIE INSTITUTE OFFICE RESEARCH / READING CIRCULATION CORE

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Semester 10

05A

05B

05C

Spring 2018

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07 Section Sketches. Left to Right: Archaeology, Geology, NEST, Biology, Climate.

08 Archaeology Section Massing Iteration Study

08 Geology Section Massing Iteration Study

08 NEST Section Massing Iteration Study

08 Biology Section Massing Iteration Study

08 Climate Section Massing Iteration Study

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Semester 10

09 Model Images (Corresponds to plan 05B)

10 Development Sketches

Spring 2018

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Rome

Professor Anthony Cricchio Scott Schlimgen Claudia Cremasco

There is no city in the world like Rome. It is like a dream, which the western world has tried to recreate or forget for two thousand years. In many ways it seems like a city fallen asleep, which stirs but seems unable to wake to a postmodern world. Or perhaps the city that has seen republics, emperors, kings, and popes rise and die, and where every street corner is someone’s monument, does not open her gilded eyes on one small student too weightless to ring the bells of history. Still, Rome is beautiful, and the rhythm of the city breathing is captivating. The Piazza delle Cinque Scole children in the morning, the street pizza at noon, the ruins in the sharp afternoon sunlight, the da capo arias at Teatro dell’Opera in the evening, the Pantheon in the moonlight at midnight, all work to pull the human soul into the life of the city. Non esiste una città del mondo come Roma.

My time in Rome was in the spring semester of my fourth year. The program is longstanding in the Division of Architecture at OU, and a partnership with Academic Initiatives Abroad (AIA) in Rome. My studio course was taught by Professor Anthony Cricchio of OU, my lecture course by Professor Scott Schlimgen of AIA, and my Italian language and culture course by Professor Claudia Cremasco of AIA. I lived in the Trastevere neighborhood, and our studio space was in the historical Jewish Ghetto.

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Semester 8

Location Rome Orvieto Florence Tivoli Venice Verona Milan Pompeii

Spring 2017

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Analysis Drawings: Parco Della Musica and the Capitoline Museum

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Semester 8

Location Rome, Italy

Process Drawings: Wall Workshop and Competition A team project with Paolo Burattini (Roma Tre),

Location Rome, Italy Won first place from faculty jury

Nolan Christensen (Iowa State University), and Peter Fonkert (Iowa State University)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Spring 2017

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Museo Delle Machine

Professor Anthony Cricchio

A team project with Kevin Dobbs, Erika

Location Rome, Italy

Omae, and Jacob Stinson

The design for a museum of machines addresses a dense historical infrastructure, deteriorating site, and build potential, by creating a unique green neighborhood, renewing traffic and commerce at the ancient port, and creating a new industrial steel building that imagines the material in a digital future of information, adjustment, and resiliency.

Rome is a city of layers of infrastructure that over time has built people out of natural public space. The project addresses the needs of the city by creating a swath of public green space drawing people to the site, in order to create a new landmark and a pause for the inhabitants.

The site near the old port gates has become

CORE STRUCTURE

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ASSEMBLY 1

forgotten over time. The park creates an approach to the museum marked with machines to remind visitors of the past use, Porta Portese is remade as an important transit stop for the city, and the museum revives the port as a site of industry and technological advancement.

The museum is a teaching building designed to house old technology and showcase new purposes. Its volumes are assembled around the values of the site, and it pushes what a building can be by cloaking itself in a new system of movable, interchangeable, programmable, energy producing steel panels. In so doing, it continues Rome’s history of reinterpretation and restructuring and takes it toward the future.

ASSEMBLY 2

Semester 8

ASSEMBLY 3

Spring 2017

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The formal organization of the museum is an irregular grid molded around the existing structures, intersected by a volume angled toward Porta Portese. In addition to providing the hierarchy of the building, this mass creates the spine along which major circulations run.

Visitors enter through the existing archway into the inner court of the building, then proceed along the major park axis through the main entry under the volume. Moving to the left on ground level takes you past the cloakroom, bathrooms, auditorium, and classroom. At the end of the axis on the north side of the building is the office and research space and the preservation room, which is glazed on the street façade so passersby can see the work

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being done.

Rising upstairs into the volume lets you enter the gallery space, which you circle through and move south, to the other end of the volume.

Stairs from this end let you down into the Armory, which houses temporary exhibitions.

Under the south end of the volume is tucked the cafĂŠ and gift shop, accessible to the public. The basement under the building contains storage and the large mechanical room, along with the truck loading dock. A specialized elevator runs through the center of the building, intersecting the storage room, entry hall, preservation room, volume, and galleries, making visible the movement of people and machines.

Semester 8

Spring 2017

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Vault: Norman and Moore Community Center

Professors Michael Hรถffner Daniel Butko Anthony Cricchio Location Norman, Oklahoma

A vault is an arched structure forming a roof or ceiling, it is also a room or compartment for the safekeeping of valuables. The Moore-Norman Community Center is a direct response to both the extreme natural forces at work here and the people who choose to live in this community. It accomplishes the first in the pragmatic sense of being a shelter. It is raised above floods and reinforced against hail, winds, and debris.

It accomplishes the second by supporting and protecting the response of the residents to their environment, surviving to show a building aging here by respecting the power of the weather, and becoming a workshop and gallery for visitors and community members to create and save something that communicates their experience.

The Center works to bring people together at a place which showcases both the promise and the threat of their environment. Nothing teaches an appreciation for the natural world like being in it. Perhaps even more importantly, in an increasingly digital age where we physically and intellectually live in ever restricting bubbles, the Center offers a tangible opportunity to see

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who our neighbors really are, and what they really look like and really think, as we face future uncertainties.

First, I wanted a building that would respond to nature at work here. I wanted to create a building that time would mark, but not destroy, and that would display the progression of natural processes. Mainly this comes out in material choice. The building becomes very solid, with thick concrete walls to resist high winds and debris, raised above the flood line. The accent material becomes metal which can stain the concrete as it ages.

Second, I wanted a building that would communicate that this community is special. Moore residents tend to get mocked for living in such a dangerous place but I wanted a building that would show who really lives there. From that came programmatic choices, to have workshop, classroom, and lecture spaces, and then have the work produced displayed in the gallery. The idea is over time the building becomes a reliquary of sorts for the community.

Semester 7

South Perspective

Perspective Hybrid Drawing

Fall 2016

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Semester 7

3 2 1

CLASSROOM

CONFERENCE

RECEPTION

C

B GALLERY

A

5'

10'

30'

SCALE 1/16" = 1'

60'

FIRST FLOOR

3 2 1

AUDITORIUM

MECHANICAL

C

B WORKSHOP

A

5'

10'

30' 60'

SCALE 1/16" = 1'

GROUND FLOOR

Fall 2016

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Journey

A journey, in its simplest definition as a noun, is a trip from one location to another. As a verb, it is much the same; to journey is to travel from point A to point B. However, the word is full of connotations beyond this simple definition.

When we journey somewhere, it is not a boring, regular commute. It is an experience, rich and sensory, pleaseant or unpleaseant. It introduces a sense of adventure, and cues a narrative.

Journey does not simply hold movement, it also holds the ground covered and the measures of time. Context is vital to the understanding of a journey. The landscape of our trip changes and develops, and we also change and develop as we traverse the path on which the journey takes us.

At the end, of course, there is a destination. To journey is not merely to wander. It is a charged connection between meaningful places, and therefore holds much interest as a term to describe architectural experience.

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Transit Terminal

Professors Jay Yowell Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi

A partner project with Erika Omae

Location Norman, Oklahoma

Our project’s form and development derived from two main conceptual areas: the properties of the existing site, and a conceptual approach to circulation. The site is an existing parking lot next to a beautiful, but underused and under 35

maintained park and pond. The program for this project was to redesign the current, almost nonexistant bus stop on the Oklahoma Norman Campus into a transit hub serving buses, bicycles, and pedestrians.

Semester 5

The circulation needed to accomplish a number of things, including a redesign of the current tangled mess. We wanted to try and craft the approach, entry, and exit as a bigger process, that the building would slowly unfold to you as you moved from various starting points. At the same time we tried to distinguish the different circulation types (bus, car, bike, pedestrian) so that they would no longer conflict, but weave together as they progress towards and through the building.

of hierarchy, and is oriented along the most beautiful axis in the park, opening up to allow people to disperse off the path into the landscape. This volume is the central point through which all paths converge, and completes the translation of a traveler from the man-made to the natural and vice versa.

We chose concrete to give a sense of weight and permanence. The steel was chosen to explore skeleton and delicacy, and to contrast with the volumetric mass, both within and extending The main formal structure is a rectangular con- outside the shell. The lighter steel rods wrap the crete shell positioned on the major axis of the building and penetrate the concrete to mediate site, cut down the middle to introduce light and the connection with the outside and define andefine spaces of rest and spaces of movement. cillary, subordinate volumes of space (the food Another volume collides with the main struc- truck pavilion, the bus pavilion). ture where all the paths meet, providing a sense Fall 2015

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37

Semester 5

Plan 3/16” = 1’

Fall 2015

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Site Plan

1/16” = 1’

Perspective Rendering

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Semester 5

Structure Hybrid Drawing

Interior Rendering

Fall 2015

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Picture

A picture is a visual representation of a particular piece of reality, typically in two dimensions. Often, we use the term today to refer to the product of photography, but a slightly older usage applies it to painting and movies-�motion pictures.� A picture is something tied to media and time. Whether a picture is good or bad often refers to the level of skill with which the subject is captured in its media, whether paint, paper, film, or digital bits and bytes. We also make judgements about pictures based on their message, which derives from the subject and how it is portrayed. Ultimately, a picture is a window into the mind of the photographer, painter, or filmmaker. It is an attempt to capture a moment or sequence of value, and therefore our pictures are portraits of what we prize.

We often use picture to describe the ideal embodiment of a particular quality. Finally, picture can also be used as a verb, to refer to an act of imagination. When we picture something we return to somewhere in our minds or move into the realm of fantasy. Every act of architectural making involves picture.

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Movie Wall

Professors Anthony Cricchio Deborah Richards Location Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The movie wall is a project for an outdoor movie theater on a vacant lot in Oklahoma City. The project attempts to create a cinematic experience to recall natural and artificial precedents.

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Conceptually, the members of the wall represent a progression of form of the wall. The main substance of the wall is an organic form, molded to fit the program, and to convey the suggestion of motion and life. The curvature of this layer

Semester 4

gives rise to the spacing of the mechanical, geometric structure bounding the side facing the street, a kind of exoskeleton which serves as an intermediary between the organic form and the street, and describes the organic form without replicating its visually soft nature. This takes the shape of a grid, a stable, static form intended to contrast with the organic while providing points of reference between the two. This grid is supported by and connected to the wall by arms stretching from the major intersections of the grid back into the organic form, and concluding on the reverse side as literal points of reference to the street side of the wall for those on the

theater side of the wall. The grid is carved into the theater side as reference to the street side of the wall for those on the theater side of the wall.

The grid recessed into the planar surface of the theater faรงade also serves as an organizational tool for the programmatic elements on the theater side, and the planar nature maintains the necessary flat surface for the screen. It is also intended to be a reiteration for those moving through the wall from theater to street, with the grid in an excavated form, hidden from the street, progressing to the organic solid, which in turn progresses to the full wireframe grid at the public side.

Spring 2015

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Pen Diagram

Shell Diagram

The wall is based on two precedent objects, one mechanical and one natural. The mechanical precedent is a Lamy fountain pen. In its essence, the pen is a writing utensil, a means for making marks on paper. Hierarchically the most important part of the pen is the nib, where ink, pen, and paper come together to form a mark on paper. The hand, interestingly, is moved back from this point, the contact points at one-quarter and three-quarters up the pen. Moving the pressure point back allows for a more delicate grip and better range of pressure, leading to variable line weights. The pen has a linear organization, again to allow for a narrow and precise grip by the hand. As a physical object, the pen addresses issues of interaction with ink, its interaction with the human hand, and its interactions with the paper. The main contribution of the pen precedent to the wall is the idea of traces, which is manifested by the narrative process

by which the wall formed.

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The natural precedent is a garden snail (Cornu Aspersum) shell. It is a protective dwelling for the snail when it is under threat or hibernating.

The shell is secreted by the snail from the center protoconch out, the whorls getting larger as the shell grows around an axis in a logarithmic spiral. The semitransparent shell’s growth is marked by varices. The shell’s structure is thus chiefly expressed by these three aspects: its central axis, logarithmic spiral, and growth in stages. Architecturally, then, the shell may be described as radially organized and ordered on a vertical axis. At the human scale, these shells are very fragile and easily crushed, yet they serve as protection for the snail for all of its life.

The main contribution of the shell precedent to the wall is the idea of interaction between an organic form and its exoskeleton.

Semester 4

Process Diagram

Spring 2015

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Base Model Soft interior form gives rise to hard outer exoskeleton.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Iteration 1 Interior form is modiied to reeect programmatic uses.

Exoskeleton is modiied for a more organic form; structure density reeects stru the curvature of the soft form.

Iteration 2 Soft form is adjusted for a more organic movement, curvature is ne-tuned.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Final Exploded Axonometric

Iteration 3 Exoskeleton structure becomes recessed on the rear of the model. As one moves through the wall from the back to the front, the stages of life of the wall progress.

Process Axonometric

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Semester 4

Spring 2015

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Photographer’s Studio

Professors Anthony Cricchio Geoff Parker Location Post-Apocalyptic California

Primary inspiration came from two precedents.

First, the photographs of Eadward Muybridge, Oscar Rejlander, and Annie Leibovitz. Second, Peter Eisenman’s House I. The site was developed first, as a conceptual ruin of Eisenman’s house. The studio itself was based on the photographers. The wall was an added constraint.

Two concepts developed from the photographers. The first is chiaroscuro. The older photographers working in film were forced to emphasize this quality, but even the modern artist, Annie Leibovitz, deliberately chose contrast.

Thus the building began as a rectangular volume just pulled away from the wall, to play with the light from above.

As the form condensed to align to Eisenman’s grid, the second aspect of the photographer’s work, particularly Muybridge’s, began to take effect. Muybridge used photography for documentation. He is famous for his series of images of moving animals and people. I began to think of the building as a camera in and of itself, a device to capture and illumine the human life within. With the building conceived as a camera, it aligned to a singular direction, facing north. The fenestration became apertures, centered on each units. The spatial planes were pulled away from the structure, to emphasize the unit. The linearly organized volume became a series to embody the progression of human activity within, like Muybridge’s photographs.

Leibovitz Inspired Photographs

Muybridge Inspired Photographs

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Semester 3

Fall 2014

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Object

An object is any thing which can be seen or touched, especially that which is inanimate.

Elementary design exercises produce a series of objects, particularly well named because they do not easily fit other categorization. As a noun, object has a secondary meaning, that of purpose. In this sense object is fundamental to design, and foundational design projects aim to teach the development of such purpose. Therefore object is both the product, and process, of design. They may seem simple, but in reality are full of meaning. In the words of Mies, “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.�

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Order: The Grid

Professors Thomas J. Cline Jr. Geoff Parker Dr. Eren Erdener TA: Ping Lu

The grid is one of the fundamental ways we can order objects in space, and as such, it is nearly infinite in possible form and manipulation. The projects in this section are the result of investigating the grid in both two and three-dimensional space.

They are exercises in positive/negative, spatial tension, structure, and tectonics. As well as investigating an ordering device, these projects explore the four elements which describe space: point, line, plane, and volume.

Grid Study

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Semester 1

Volume Studies

Gallery Installation Rendering: All Groups

Fall 2013

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Thank You

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Kira Collins 250 Zuni River Circle SW | Los Lunas, NM 87031 (214) 460-2150 kiracollins18@gmail.com