LEILA FILALI MERCER
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Bachelors of Arts in Architecture
leila filali mercer
My name is Leila Filali Mercer and I will be graduating Spring 2024 with a B.A. in Architecture. I have found myself most interested in the theoretical side of architecture, as well as model-making and collage as a form of representation. It is my dream to move abroad and immerse myself in another culture. Among other passions of mine, I enjoy reading, studying languages, traveling, and practicing music.
education Associates of Arts - Central Piedmont
experience June 2023 - July 2023
Said Berrada Architects, Rabat, Morocco - Assisted architectural designer with
Community College
design iterations of car showroom
Bachelors of Arts in Architecture
- Used AutoCad to make residential
- University of North Carolina
construction drawings
at Charlotte
- Designed display case in Rhino
skills Rhino Illustrator Photoshop InDesign Grasshopper Woodworking Metalworking
languages English
native
Arabic(Darija) conversational French
conversational
Spanish
conversational
hobbies
contact
Collage making
+1 (910) 232 8927
Cooking
leila.mercer.2@gmail.com
Ceramics
lmercer6@uncc.edu
Traveling
01
02
Derive
Appalachia
Adaptive reuse year 2
drafting year 1
03
Firestat
Adapt reus year
3
tion #45
tive se r2
04
05
Modularity
Loitering
Pavilion year 3
Community center year 3
01
DERIVE
Adaptive Reuse | Spring 2023
Done in collaboration with Eli Hockett This project serves as an addition to pre-existing ruins of a parsonage on a site where there is another adaptive reuse project that transformed a church into spaces for art. Our design focuses on the idea of composing views and cheorographing moments through a continuous parasitic entity imposed on the site. Each node is connected by a dim lit staircase that snakes around the cobblestone walls of the parish. These tubes compress before it releases into the open space of an art gallery. Each gallery sits at a different height and has a large aperture, framing views and also frames a view of the art goer for spectators below. A process of watching and being watched. Underground and only accessed by one entrance, the bar provides another life to this structure. Although the entrance protrudes outwards, 3 skylights give a visual connection from below to above and above to below.
Gallery architecture traditionally seeks to imbue its art with an air of objectivity, either through linking it to the history of western antiquity, or through its placement within blank white boxes, which try to display art outside of history, society, and the power which patroned it. The traditional gallery seeks legitimacy through a connection to western traditions, or through the displaying of art as something “primordial”, “essential”, and “transcendent”.
[ lobby & gallery 1 ]
[ bar ]
[ galleries 2 & 3 ]
02
APPALACHIA
Earthen Formation | Spring 2022
With the task of creating an earthen structure located off of a remote path somewhere along the appalachian trail, this formation acts as a partial dam and facilitates human circulation and occupation. It is distinctly a man-made structure that bleeds into a natural form. It is left open-ended as to what it is for and why it is there. This project was designed and executed only in the 2 dimensional plane by way of a three view method that creates a perspective drawing of the design from the lines and the points that make up the line.
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FIRESTATION #45 Firehouse | Spring 2023
With this project, I wanted to experiment with the idea of weaving rectolinear forms into the curvature of a landscape. The ground plane experiences a push and pull and breaks as a form protrudes through. Functionality and efficiency are top priorities for firestations. I stacked three rectolinear forms, changed their orientations, and overlapped them vertically. The buildings divided the program into community, apparatus bay, and private firefighters quarters. The community center is below ground level and opens up to a pit that is oriented on the corner of the intersection. An exterior stairway integrated into the landscape begins at the sidewalk, fluctuating with the inflections of the ground leads up past the apparatus bay to the porch of the firefighters quarters. The bay fits 3 trucks and sits at ground level to optimize efficiency. The firefighters quarters are above that with poles and a spiral staircase for quick drop in.
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MODULARITY Pavilion | Fall 2023
This project is one of opposities, light and heavy, compression and release, open and close. The module I began with is a truncated pyramid structure opened up to form an aperture at the top to allow light to funnel in. These began in a grid which I condensed causing these forms to overlap and plow into each other. Where these walls met each other on the interior, they stop, creating a open space on the inside where a shallow pond starts on the exterior and extends through. The sky lights shoot out in different directions and ways as to capture light during different times of day and times of year. This module is also inverted and lodged into the site creating craters that people can occupy.
05
Loitering as Resistance The port is analogous to how the current hyper-capitalist and eurocentric system targets communities of color through subjecting them to the material consequences of hyper-consumerism while reserving the benefits for the white and wealthy. In this case, west Oakland is sacrificed for the prosperity of San Francisco. This is done in many ways including using highway infrastructure, port infrastructure, waste dumping, etc. which has resulted in worse air quality, toxins in the water, and increased health deficits. In the case of the port, miles of space in Oakland is home to port waste and trashed shipping containers, the shores of west Oakland are almost entirely blocked by the port and there are plans to expand while residents of west Oakland suffer from asthma at a rate 88% higher than the national average largely due to the pollution. For the WOCF, I don’t presume to know what the community needs and what it may need tomorrow or in a decade so what I’ve decided to give them is autonomy. Existing and taking up space has become an act of resistance in an increasingly hostile climate that demands productivity and infinite growth. This community is not to blame for their suffering, it was manufactured by the interests of the powerful and distributed to communities of color nationwide. A step to achieving liberation is autonomy of space and autonomy of self. Here, the space created is open to their interpretation and use, whatever it may be, and if that is daring to exist outside of the cycle of production and consumption, that too is their prerogative.
steel plate welded to leg, bolted to beam
11 in
6 ft
6 ft
41 ft
4 ft
2 ft
catwalk attachment to leg
107 ft
rod attachment to beam 2 ft
3 ft
25 ft
6 in
6.5 ft
1 ft feet detail
1.5 ft
1 ft
W section attachment to rod
titanium panel cladding
steel framing structure
spanning W beams
pick ups
loitering laws have been used to reduce the amount of marginalized and unwanted people welcome in the public sphere as ‘crime reduction’ How can black bodies reclaim their right to exist in public space?
Power is achieved through numbers, to give a historically oppressed and historically revolutionary people space to join together, this will develop a collective political conscious. Oakland has a long history of resistance, this legacy will continue on despite the weaponization of modern technology
Through the suppression of black bodies congregating, the system prevents collective action against it thus maintatining the structure of power
addressing the condition placed on architecture to generate profit and protect private property, this building serves no disctinct purpose besides the autonomy it grants to the community
loitering is being in a way that fails to actively participate in capitalism human existence is now only valued when it serves capital architecture is only valued when it it serves as a profit generating, ultra productive machine
loitering as a revolutionary weapon to give room to exist unconditionally makes room for resistance against a system that withholds that right
commodification of space leaves no room those not participating
we may no longer exist in public or private space without having a purpose or spending money how we choose to exist only becomes loitering when it is policed by someone else
spaces
small
medium
large