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KELLI FRANKLIN
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INTRO: “Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form -- it may be called fleeting or eternal -- is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.” - Walter Benjamin The race through tattered notebooks in the pursuit of sketches, pictures, models, and diagrams nearly exhausted me. After gaining my breath, I realized I had just been asked to organize and make sense of everything I have learned since day one of architecture- to put together what felt like arbitrary memoirs in a book so that they may read like a narrative. Not the type of stories my mother read to me as a child, but instead similar to the poetry found in music. A subjective lyric that expresses ideas and activates multiple senses.
Walter Benjamin, a literary critic, did not believe in autobiography. He understood that memoirs were narrower and were often like pieces of unfinished writing that may be used as an aid to a more complete document in the future. This book is divided into four categories: design, photography, drawing, and precedent study. Not to confuse you in thinking that each group is disconnected from one another. Each group evokes a sense of movement. Spatial movement, movement through time, patterns of reflection, concentrated movement, motivated movement, limited movement, movement as a time sequence, movement as a response to light, and also the movement of the hand as it grasps ink to meet paper. In the same way that the projects represent movement, the portfolio represents how my preconceived ideas of architecture have broadened from a simple spatial comprehension to an extensive social and psychological response to human interaction. I too believe that this representation of myself is not a finished document. It is not limited to its bounds cover to cover. It will however, continue to be a ‘memo’, an aid, and a measure of growth throughout my life as a designer.
DESIGN.pavilion.amphitheater.
bus.prada.library.pv.ymca.habitat. shadowbox.PHOTOGRAPHY.heashots. black&white.glow.selfportrait.the back.lifesavers. DRAWING.study abroad.watercolor.fieldstudy. sketch.PRECEDENT.shoparchitects. christiandior.machado&silvetti.
There is a point at which architecture is not limited to design by function, but delivers itself as the way we as humans understand a sense of logic and define it by innate perceptions.
SPATIAL EXPLORATION:
PUSH / PULL PAVILION:
TEXTURE COLLAGE: SOLID / VOID RELATIONSHIPS:
The Pavilion project was an understanding of texture and depth within two-dimensional shapes. They were then manifested into three-dimensional volumes that later formed pavilions.
SECTION MODEL:
CENTRAL AXIS:
LIGHT APERATURES:
The amphitheater above was designed for the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood of Charlotte, NC. The project displayed how one might view a piece of architecture as a bystander in comparison to the way a person might act “on stage” as a response to both penetrable light and the space itself.
LEFT PERSPECTIVE:
REAR PERSPECTIVE:
You, Me, and the Bus design competition is a project in which Athens Transit System was seeking artistically designed bus shelters that become functional pieces of public art. The concept for this design evolves from the moving hands of a clock in addition to the occupancy of the bus stop over a 24 hour period.
RIGHT PERSPECTIVE:
SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS:
LIGHT STUDY:
REPRESENTATIONAL MODEL:
CONCEPTUAL EXPLORATION:
DIAGRAMS:
The Prada Project provoked the opportunity to observe and understand the psycholog y of shopping. As a bystander passes this building, he or she is given the presence of being indoors through a series of reflective and transmissive elements on the building’s facade.
MASSING MODEL:
MATERIAL STUDY:
FLOOR PLANS: Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
The Public Libary captures light on four layers of a building. The programmatic aspects of the library are centralized around a core. The core, or central hexagon shown in plan, is a way to integrate both the urban context of street life into a volume that serves as both a library and a place for public meetings.
REPRESENTATIONAL SKETCH:
PENETRABLE LIGHT:
INTERIOR PERSPECTIVE:
TOP: CIRCULATION DIAGRAMS
BOTTOM: MASSING STUDIES:
The Photovoltaic transportation center was designed for large trucks to approach, unload, reload, and dispense materials across Mecklenburg county. The design was driven by site analysis so that photovoltaic panels could be used as a green energy source of the building.
DAYLIGHTING MODEL:
SECTION CUT: LOWER LEVEL GYM ENTRY:
SPATIAL ANALYSIS:
LOCKER ROOM / POOL ENTRANCE:
LOBBY PERSPECTIVE:
The YMCA project combined living facilities with the extracurricular activites found at a gymnasium. The concept of this project focuses on “the ramp”. The ramp represented the way we move from the streetscape into a building as being something that is gradual rather than an abrupt door.
STREET LEVEL FACADE:
SITE MODEL:
ALTERNATIVE DUPLEX ENTRY:
DUPLEX 1: ENTRY
Habitat for Humanity requested a duplex design that responds to those disabled by wheelchairs. The design was a challenge that incorporated the regulations of ADA and the limitations of an existing budget. SECTION CUT:
LAB STUDIO & CHUCK CLOSE:
SELF PORTRAIT / ORIGINAL IMAGE:
NUTS ON THREADED ROD:
SHADOWBOX:
The Shadowbox project is a display of structure that represents both an architect and an artist while simultaneously providing personal flare. This piece combines the linear architecture used by LAB Architecture Studio with the pixelation art used by artist Chuck Close.
ASSEMBLY DETAIL:
Photography captures art and architecture as a means of portrayal and dissemination. It allows us to question whether the confines of a building rely solely on the frame presented around it.
Whitney James, also known as the 2007 Miss Mecklenburg of North Carolina, served an outstanding subject for the headshots above. These images are two of the first portrait photographs I created- using Canon 20D Digital SLR.
The images above are black and white studies. Each allowed me to explore the balance of light through a camera; how to alter light through an enlarger; and how to print successively in a darkroom environment.
Makeup artist Brittany Morrow paints faces not to express the flawlessness of a model, but to pay homage to natural glow and radiant beauty. The request of Morrow was to photograph her displaying a specific glow- the glow her work represents.
When peering through the viewfinder of a camera the view that is present is very similar to what we see out of our eyes. However, it is a challenge for a photographer to preconceive a visual and create it within the viewfinder while also being on the opposite end of the camera.
The human back is the largest posterior area of the human body and is often referred to as the largest canvas for body art. The intricate anatomy provides both structural support and flexibility for movement. The images above display both the male and female back as a way to imply nudity without displaying it.
The series of photograms above are predicated on the word “lifesaver”. As a juxtaposition to the way floataion devices keep one afloat, birth control and means of protection are proactive “lifesavers”. Students were asked to represent one word with less than five objects on glass under the light of an enlarger.
Drawing architecture is a way we as students can develop a deeper understanding of the intricacies and subleties that characterize the sequential experiences of moving through spaces.
These two sketches were also a product of the Italian excursion. To the left is a sketch of Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Tomb which is located in San Vito d’Altivole, Italy. To the right is a sketch of the Duomo di Milano, a cathedral church located in Milan, Italy.
The sketches above were drawn from the site of Saint Giorgio Maggiore looking across the Venetian waters to Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. This is the only urban area in Venice that is referenced as a piazza rather than a campo.
The candles to the left were painted in watercolor as a representation of the reverence candles upon immediate entrance to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore; found in Florence, Italy.
The sketch to the right is of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It is prominently sited on the northern side of Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy. The four-story arcade included haute couture shops along with restaurants, cafes, and bars.
The sketches above were drawn on a field study to Washington, DC. The drawing of The Capital to the right was recorded as an idea for later use. The two images on the left are of some of the exhausted students who also attended the field study.
In order to conceptualize a space that occupants will inhabit we must first gather and understand simplicities and complexities through the means of precedent studies.
The image on the left is a collage of The Porterhouse Condo by SHOP Architects. The Portorhouse Condo was a six story rennovation of a 30,000 square foot warehouse. The building, now being used for residences, glows as a result of a glass paneled facade.
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“In the wake of the war and holocaust, Dior offered not merely a new look but also a new faith.” - Richard Martin
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1948
1950
1952
1954
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The mapping of Christian Dior was simply a reflection of the way fashion compares to architecture and has the ability to capture not only what is in the present, but forms a lineage in the passage of time- while predicting the future.
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is a building that evolves into a continuous succession of stepping prismatic volumes that wrap around as they ascend and culminate in the tall central space. Each volume is associated with specific programmatic elemtns. The lowest is the auditorium, the next is the entrance and public services, followed by art education and permanent galleries. They terminate in the Grand Gallery. Each volume is distinguished from the others by a distinct and subtle combination of two different colors of brick, creating a unique pattern for each volume.
This image was a precedent study of Machado and Silvetti’s Utah Art Museum. Machado and Silvetti represent hierarchy in this museum through its changes in elevation in addition to the alternating patterns of brick covering the exterior.
"Committing yourself is a Identities,Logos,Graphics way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by identifying." -Robert Terwilliger
Workperch facilitates mirco-rental transactions between businesses with available temporary space and customers who need it. The market will be driven by users, with providers meeting demand. The logo for Workperch as well as the business was launched in 54 hours. It is still under private beta.
Skribit is a user-generated content suggestion application for blogs. Bloggers can effortlessly assemble what readers really want to hear. The logo for Skribit as well as the business was also launched in 54 hours.
"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself." - Samuel Butler