Architectural Portfolio of M.A.Aguirre 2017

THE ARCHITECTURE OF M. A. AGUIRRE | 2017 DISCLAIMER: the work that follows is especially

d e ri va tive

THIS PIECE IS A SET O EVENTS IN THE CIT NETWORK OF ENCOU BEYOND PEOPLE A SONDER AND FOMID

OF DISCONNECTED TY. THIS CITY IS A UNTERS THAT GROWS AND FACILITATES DABLE ARCHITECTURE.

1. F r e s n e l C l o u d L e n s

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2. C o n c r e t e S t u d i e s

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3. P r o v i d e n c e C o m e t

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4. S u m b l i m e P a p e r c l i p

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5. B o t a n i c a l Q u a r r y

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6. T h e P e o p l e A q u a r i u m

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7. B o r d e a u x H o u s e

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8. T h e M a g e n t a D o t

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9. P e r s o n a l W o r k s

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Digital Fabrication Co-Works Labs | 2014

Material Research RISD & Preast Concrete Institute | 2016 Advanced Studio: Habitat of the Future RISD | 2015

Advanced Studio: Monstorous and Sublime RISD | 2017 Urban Design RISD | 2015

Architural Design RISD| 2015

Architectural Analysis RISD | 2015

Design/Build & Publication UltraModerne Studio | 2016 Artist Work N/A| 2012 - Present

A TBUL RE AOL F P COOR N E NL ITOS A R C H I T ET C T FT O

01

Fresnel Cloud Lens Course: Digital Textiles

Task: Create with digital fabrication methods

Spring 2015

Imagine an object that would destort reality.

Object generation is at the core of my practice, therefor I want my portfolio to begin with a demonstration of this skill. This series is the result of a digital fabrication course that asked us to find inspiration from nature and produce objects with machines. My muse became light as it bounced off, through, and around clouds. After a conversation with light I thought to produce drawings which led to the lenses. Each lens reworks a conventional sightseeing experience and brings forth an alternate perception through a digitally fabricated drawing. A change which would spark a new curiosity of how we see and how easily that could change with a filter.

Introduction

Rather than beggining with nature, we made a trip to the museum to find an object which would lauch our series.

I discovered a glass box with waves floating inside, suspended in time.

Walking around the box one would never see the same sight, it was a container for new perspectives, every angle would produce a new view. I then thought of a frame, one which would produce the same characteristic of parallax as the box does (parallax: every position offers visual inforamtion which only occurs at that one perspective). I began creating my own lenses and objects to see through. Like the waves in the box I went outside to find my own lines.

The series produced many small studies and finished with one large lens (shown above). I went from plain acrylic with lazer etched lines, to introducing fresnel sheets, and then irregular surfaced clear plastics. Each material offered a new visual experince and in the final lens, too large to not be completely immerse oneself within, all the materials were woven into five intricute layers. While experiencing it, landscapes shift, spaces transform, and reality is a collage of information, light, and form.

Architect: Light, What would you like to be?

Light: A solid.

Architect: You cannot be solid, A solid has stable particles and rigid form. You are the fastest moving thing we know and not something we can touch. How do you intend to become a solid?

Light: I am constant, a force which man has captured before. A light fixture can hold light, even a curtain break solidifies me. In color, also, is a solid form of me.

Architect: Very well, then I too will capture you and make you a solid. If that is what you wish.

Light: No, I would like something different. I would like to be a solid in motion; no longer a fixture, but alive. I want to be free and wild and solid. In the stars I am a herd, but on earth I am a taxidermied rodent. I want breath and ferocious.

Architect: You mean a liquid, you want to be a liquid?

02-Part 1

PreCast Concrete Con-Cones

Course: Material Exploration Task: Make an adaptable concrete module

Spring 2015

Imagine a walled city with no directions or scale.

The Con-Cone was a three week long group project, done in an advanced studio course called “Precast Concrete.� The assignment was to create a modular pre-cast concrete object that would be adaptable, and mass produced. Group members included me, Jae Young Jo, Tae Gon Lee, and Linfeng Ke. Our design became a fiber-glass reinforced concrete object with end connections at each edge. The module could be stacked, connected, rotated, disconnected, and when assembled could create an undulating wall for any installation use. Near completion the concrete conic wave was re-evaluated for consideration of production, structural stability, lightweight design, porous to natural air/light, cost effective, and material economy. Concones i.e. the building module of the future.

Introduction

Evolution of the ConCone: from wave to module

Axon of precast formwork for final module

Order and Operation of Discoveries: [Tae] Develops a way to mass produce units with plastic cups.

[Linfeng] Identifies wave as basic concept model.

[Marco] Proposes end-ties and multidirectional connections.

[Jae] designs formwork method Group: Reworks formwork and concrete recipe until it takes only six hours to produce a module. Introduces the traffic cone, fiberglass, and vaseline.

Group: Increase module scale to make a 1:1 installation.

Group: Speculates possible improvements to module proposal which could save on material and labor.

Jae: (both drawings: right ) develop concept renders for potential future iterations of module for real installation and production purposes.

02 part 2

PreCast Concrete Con-lines

Course: Material Exploration

Task: Make an adaptable concrete structure

Spring 2015

Imagine a stone that could come to life.

Part Two, of the Precast Concrete course was a continuation of material exploration but with a new direction and team. Meant for exhibition, this project is an experiment with concrete as a drawing project.

Born from a series of disconnected concepts by each group member, Me, Fan Wu, and Linfeng Ke. Subjects such as gravity, directionality, and performanice of a line in a drawing would be developed into a progression of animated concrete models. Each model was an exploration of drawing becoming materialized in concrete.

Our question: “What happens the moment a drawing enters the real world and becomes a built object? What forces are present in this transformation and how can we measure or predict the transition?�

From here we explored lines as concrete objects... and found a site that would allow us to turn a drawing into an very real installation.

The site, a cliff that stepped into the river, was divided into two colliding grids and a simple code drew lines that would make a dynamic situation. The lines were then realised to full scale using fabric casting methods. We sowed socks, prepared a flexible mix, and pour the concrete in the same space and direction as the drawn lines.

2down, 1right; .5down, 2rightDiagonal

3down, 0 left; .125down, 2leftVertical

Marco: Liquid that turns into stone, what would you like to be?

Liquid that turns to stone: A monument.

03

Providence Comet Course: Advanced Studio Task: Create the habitat of the future

Fall 2016

Imagine a city’s population all living in one building.

The Habitat of the Future was a course that asked students develop a futuristic model for living. Using two precedent studies we examine an overlap strategy that would giveway to some underline universal concept of housing. My first response was a combination of the Tugenghat House and the International Space Station. Not drastic enough I then turned to architectural extremes, O.M.Ungers “House Without Qualities” and Peter Eisermans “House XI.” The two projects are at the limits of the furosity of architecture which can use form to shape the character and awareness of space of it’s inhabitant. Both projects were relentless metaphors of living which led me to take a comet shape parking lot and extrude it into the sky to create a residential hot pot experiment. A tower in the city. A city in a tower.

Introduction

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Both architects having taken their drawing experiments to town, they believed in a common metaphor for housing which I would use as the basis of my own beast. Commenting on the error of the city, man’s own home had to be the model for character and morality, so much so that one had to compile all the lessons of the great teachers into one’s habitat to better their lives.

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Overlaps in the two strategies were not aparent from the start. House XI is a cluster of intersecting planes, material, and color. House Without Qualities is a Dr. Frankenstein’s monster of symmetry and order. One is lightning the other is judgmental silence. Yet both have their origins in geometry; both took the square and ripped out its organs to find an inner beuty and synonym to geometry. These newborns would be literal frameworks to extrude from and work only within the parameter of, which would eventually lead to inhabitant inconvieniences and eventually tranquility of lifestyle.

Rather than having the habitat be limited and specialized to single occupants I wanted to test the metaphor at the scale of a city. To see if a city could have a character to which follow suite, a shining star in a sky of the conservation dark past.

The first move was to select a site at the center of Providence’s skyscraper district, where a statement could not be ignored. Next was the gutting and extrusion of square to identify my boundries.

What followed was identifying the necessities and types of living spaces which would become a model for the future of architecture. Last the assignment of programs to the tower sections and constructing of a heirarchy to which cities ought

to live by. The color diagrams on the left demonstrate ratios of public, private, and an overlap of prograams as well as an organization and varity of program. The spread that follows gives more insight and information to this progamatic heirarchy and its design solution.

To test the metaphor at a second scale I wanted to see my own one to one interpretation to the prompt which could be seen in the plan of a unit. The unit below is a perfect 20ft^3 box with an program along a spiral axis. In the plane i state how one ought to order their own lifes. This goes as follows: social life, nutrition and self care, rest and contemplation, and a study with a view of the city.

LIFE

LOBBY & CIRCULATION F.1 PARKING & STORAGE F.2-5 HOSTEL & CAFETERIA F.6-7 GYM & CLASSROOMS F.9

SHARED

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TURKS HEAD BUILDING MULTI-STORY / RESIDENTIAL

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DUPLEX SHARED LIVING F.10-12 LOFT (2-STORY) UNITS F.14-17, 19-22 SINGLE PERSON LOFTS F.24-27 CLUBHOUSE & RESTAURANT F.29-32 PUBLIC VIEWING PLATFORM F.34

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GREEN FACTORY F.33 BALLROOM F. 28 POOL F.23 LIBRARY F.18 GARDEN F. 13 EVENT SPACE F.8

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RESIDENTIAL PUBLIC/PRIVATE PUBLIC NEIGHBORING BUILDINGS

The tower is a 700ft tall, 32 story giant, If built it would be the largest skyscaper in New England and could house over 300 people at once(80 in hostel, 220 in rental lofts). The Providence Comer Tower would be a jewel of the city and an exclamation point to the rest of the nation as to how a metropolis ought to be valuing programs and citizens’ their routines.

The tower would be the declation of the city of its transfomation and would mark the new direction as a model city.

A new direction, a symbol of progress in the expanding Providence.

Imagine a world made of Paper clips.

Marco: Paper clip, What would you

like to be?

Paperclip: [bends at an arch] Marco: Paprclip, why do you not respond?

Paperclip: [bends at other end] Marco: Paperclip, can you speak?

Paperclip: [bends at final arch] Marco: would you like to speak?

Paperclip: [silence] Marco: If I spoke for you what would you

life for me to say?

Paperclip: [straightens self into a line, ...bends

108 degrees at one fifth of it’s length, bends again 108 degrees at two fifths its length, and repeats at

three and four-fifths of its lengths] Marco: OK. [nods]

Introduction

04

The Sublime Paper Clip Course: Advance Studio Task: Make a project from a device

Fall 2015

For a studio called “Sublime and Monstrous,� students where asked to find a device which one could derive a project with any program and unlimited budget and time. The device had to be a mcguffin, an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot, the plot of couse being an architectural course.

My device was the paper clip. My program was a multi-building city wide hospice institution. I created an 88 paper clip alphabet and began to construct a vocabulary to which would bring drawings alive. 88 paper clips became 16 compisitions and then eleven “built� buildings/installations.

The 11 built projects in the order that follows, A library, a garden, an observatory on the side of a cliff, a dog park, lounge chairs, a sound pavillion, a wind vortex to feel one’s the last breeze, a memorial to the unattended dead, an installation of lights in the park, and a house of god for worship, goodbyes, and public use.

1' - 1/64"

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1' - 1/64"

1' - 1/64"

The city of Providence would be saturated with the hospice’s presence. The living and dying would be intertwined and an aura of awareness and interaction would formidable. The sublime paperclip is now the formidable hospice city. The city now has an unmistakable presence within, full of color, joy, and parting.

1' - 1/16"

1' - 1/8"

1' - 1/4" 1' - 1/128"

1' - 1/16" 1' - 1/128"

1' - 1/32"

The eleventh built project is the main hospice building. A social and residential hybrid, this serpant tower with the wings of a butterfly would be home to 200 patients and their loved ones.

All one can do for the dying is to become ridiculous. At least then no matter what you do you can bring some joy and comfort to those facing uncertain ends.

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Again the site was the city of Providence and the Hospice engulfed any space open in the downtown area. Parks sprang from left to right,pavillions made to envoke joy sprinkled into every crevice, It was a fitting square mile for anyone ready to meet their end.

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Imagine another world you could visit anytime.

Botanical quarry is a void. It’s three blocks and seven stories of earth gone. In the modern metropilis nature exists as the lowest of the low, an afterthought, the last layer in photoshop. Where others buried nature, I planted architecture. The botanical quarry is not an apt name, it’s there for drama, a better title would be “the submerged and the restless.” Good architecture is no longer something that can go unnoticed. Good architecture must be in the face of the viewer and shout “look at me, I am a force of nature, the product of man.” Only then may society learn lessons from architecture, once our field and our mediums act as paintings then we can stand to be philosophers and masters of light, volume, and gravity. Botanical Quarry is a lesson in the practice of in your face architecture.

Introduction

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Botanical Quarry Course: Urban Design Task: Design a piece of the city

Fall 2015

Before Botanical Quarry there was Eddy St Park.

Joggers, bikers Parking lots, roads, gerneral driver territory Locals, tourist, recreational sports Hospital workers, patients, and families Potential commercial spaces, Event spaces

Part one of an urban design course was to reinvent south-central Providence at a freeway intersection; an area the ought to connect downtown to the medical district. The assignment was to make an installation at an underpass, but I went for an entire upgrade of the site. This would include three new parks, two parking lots and a daycare for all the local blue and white collar laborers.

The masterplan also included connected the somewhat secluded area to the rest of the city.

My mission for the site was to turn the large open foot print under a highway interserection, often a dead spot for city planners, into an urban hub of recreational and practical use for the hospital and other local residents.

Hospital District Museum District

Garden Expansion High Income Housing Education CCRI

Avg. Income Housing

Low Income Housing

School Expansion

Part two of the semester brought us to a site just oppisite of Eddy Street. The area was an expansive asphalt parking lot used by the hospitals and nereby community college. Divided into large groups, we were ask to block out the masses and begin rationing out and distrubuting programs among the old parking lot.

scaled model

designed finalization

site organization

daycare parking/ resturants

residential: hostel

mall

nursing home skybridge

Next, seperated and given different sections we were off to make our own design desicions. Given the garden expansion, I took what was a hard collision between retail and garden and had them collapse into the site.

What resulted was a new hybrid of coexsistence where both were overlaped and kept seperate.

Residential also became a requirement of the site, thus I began adding a couple of additional programs to the site which I thought the area could use. This included a nursing home, a daycare, and a hostel. These programs would dangle over the void.

The garden became a botanical monstrous landscape an a true escape for anyone wanting a break from the troubles of the real world.

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The People Aquarium Course: Architectual Design Task: Design an aquarium

Spring 2015

Imagine an aqurium of people.

The People Aquarium is an aquarium of people. A place to see people movement and others wander. A site strategy where we are both the observer and the observed.

I purposefully inverting the conventional prompt of “designing an aquarium,” and doomed civillian visitors so that they may feel for the plight of the “aquariumed” fish.

Here you are to explore the same spaces, travel in aimless spiral paths only to end in a trap. In the people aquarium the vistas are people. I heighten a sense of sonder to those all around. In this project I wanted to create a wild frenzy of sonder, a project in disguise as a cross of guggenheim and your average everyday aquarium.

Introduction

Beginning with two separate starting points, my first track was material exploration. Asked to span a fabric with only cardboard and wire, my lotus block was born(left). From the lotus I would develop a rectilinear inward tension strategy, which when given a 12”x12”x2” block to deconstruct & rebuild a boat capable of floating in water. I came out from these studies with a device of tension rigid interlocking elbows that would then again be used to direct light and people.

Track two, was a drawing and photographic study of light as it traveled to bounce off water(left ).

I found the phenomenon of light passing through the rocks at our site to be fascinating and I would begin to explore tracking movement. These strategies to control light and solidify paths was again recognized in a light box. The light box would use elbows and mirrors to bounce light and create a scattered luminous effect.

Once the two tracks were completed architecture became part of the conversation. The formulas of angles, directions, tension, and elbows were all incorpoated into a new structure before becoming a soccial experiment.

In creating the final spiral form I created a collage of fish and man in the aquarium. The Poeple aqaurium was born and not only did it include spaces for mindless wonder but aslo had three research laboratories. The Public and the Scientist would be only seperated by a plane of glass, one observing the other as they both circled around the structure. In the end sealife aquariums were requied so a megawall systems were establish to reinforce the strcture and provide a mechanism for sealife to enter and leave the site at will.

Each elbow was taken by a laboratory (water contaminants and microbiology, geology, and weather patterns of the Rhode Island coast). The “L’s” were also sloped and each end pointed towards the water like a building ready to dive, or to the sky like a rocket ready to launch off into towards the universe. and anybody could experince it.

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Bordeaux House Course: Architectural Analysis Task: Find the Bordeaux House’s Device

Spring 2014

Imagine being able to be inside of a movie.

For a course called Architectural Analysis the task was to take an assigned building and develop drawings and models from the limited sources published on the project. We were asked to completly dismantel the project, at every detail, and remake over and over again to find a design methodology. My building was the Bordeaux House, an early OMA project that completly cuts, rips, and punctures the box to explore different types of viewing and living experiences. From that I then imagine reversing those roles to see if I could get take the views, look inwards, and reconstruct the building from a series of scenes.

Looking for it’s thesis, I had created a collage, a filmic sculpture, a kind of ghostly imprint of what use to be.

Introduction

The Bordeaux House had few published documents, drawings here and there, but the most exciting souce available is the hour long documentary of a maid cleaning the home. This video prompted interest in the views and punctions of each boxed levels.

Although most exciting floor was the third, each offered its own charm and viewing envolope. The third is scattered punctures shooting sights outward, the second is a 270 degree horizon view, and first is a contained frontal pocket.

Boundries were measured and the envolope of views was established. I then took to shadow drawings and a light box film series to create planes for which I would have referances to reverse the directions of view in an attempt to see if the building could take a hit and be remade.

In the end the scenes were collapsed into each other, which became a surreal viewing experience in itself.

To look out into the landscape and imagine what the landscape sees back is fairly an eye-opening insight.

The Bordeaux House was a project about breaking the box and what one could experience in said actions,.

What was interesting was what a solution or repair to the brake could be and if it would look anything like the first three stacked boxes.

The Magenta Dot’s name came about through a meeting held between a Providence community and a group of RISD students hoping to get a site for a design/build. The meeting had been held numerous times and everytime was met with a defensive and unwilling crowd. Each proposal was rejected and viewed as an outlandish invasive artsy fartsy proposal. Our team felt defeated, but we had to make one final stand to get the site. In the last meeting, like every other, the most defiant and vocal communities members came out to criticize whatever we had to pitch. This time however we threw a simple site plan with a magenta dot. The dot meant nothing other then “here.” Somehow the dot also meant Eureka. Somehow the dot also represented the future. Also the dot a symbol for past that wouldn’t be forgotten. It meant the same thing and a different thing to everyone. It made everyones opinions heard and got us the project.

Introduction

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The Magenta Dot Southlight Cultural Center Task: Design/Build & Publication

Fall 2016

Over summer a group of us students along with Ultramoderne Architects, Aaron Forrest and Yasmin Vobis, built multi-use public pavillion, community garden, and wood fence.

The project became known as Southlight and a victory of RISD ‘s community involvement.

Originally the site was an asphalt parking lot behind a community cultural center and church. THe center in desperate need for additional space sought out RISD to create a space for the neighborhood. Once the site was secured a seed of commiting the school and it’s department of arhitecture to the community project was planted and from it, sprang the multiuse, cost friendly, and economically grenerative Pavillion and garden.

Having the project be a big success, a publication was called for to memorialize the struggles, good times, and architectural details that made Southlight possible. It would be a manual and archive to the design build process and a victory sound for the image it brought the city and the pride it brought to our school .

My contribution for the publication was a chapter called “Neighborhood.” Upon my research I discovered the fabric and fragility of communities. I believe I found in the magenta dot a crucial aspect that may help others get similar projects off the ground.

Favorite Quote: “In the end, the decision is meant to be shared and there is no place for one leader, but a necessity of a community working as a network. The real task is to find a dream everyone can identify with and an identity that everyone can be included in.”

I prefer drawing to talking, Drawing is faster and leaves less room for lies

-Le Corbusier

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PERSONAL WORKS SketchBook, Collage, Printmaking, Technical

Task: Demonstrate hobbys and artistic skills

2012-Present

DRAWING

There is a lot of unspoken design decisions in this book. Although this may be a headache for some this is a proud achievement of my own, because what I have created is a representation of myself. This book is me and not merely a pretty thing. I am color, and over the top crowded aestethics and I hope you can understand this and apreciate it for what it is.

MAGUIRRE@RISD.EDU 2 C O L L E G E S T. # 0 0 1 4

THE ARCHITECTURE OF M. A. AGUIRRE | 2017

PROVIDENCE RI, 02903 +1 817.987.8706

I THANK YOU IT MEANS ALOT

Y O U R S T R U LY