Mary Beth Robbins | Portfolio Spring 2022 by marybethrobbins

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MARY BETH ROBBINS, ASSOCIATE AIA www.marybethrobbins.com marybeth1798@gmail.com 302.242.5396 Instagram | mary.beth.robbins LinkedIn | mary-beth-robbins Growing up on my family’s small farm in rural Delaware, agriculture was ingrained into my daily life. I helped sell produce many summers at our roadside stand and showed animals at the state fair. My father, a lifelong farmer, always was an inspiration to me. He has one of the most brilliant minds when it comes to care and precision. I believe it was his passion for thinking critically and creative problemsolving that inspired me to study architecture. I wanted a career that would allow me to channel innovation. Studying architecture has opened my perception in terms of design, critique, and viewing the world. I had the opportunity to work on projects of various scales and disciplines, including art installations, high-rises, and now pursuing my master’s degree in Landscape Architecture. I appreciate the diversity of where design can take place - from a regional scale down to a doorknob. I love the challenges design presents, not only solving problems but something that is beautifully executed. Overall, I am a passionate, hardworking individual who is always looking to challenge myself and beautify the world, one design at a time.

RESUME

EXPERIENCE StudioJAED | Bear, Delaware Architecture, Engineering, and Facilities Solutions Firm Architecture Intern | 2019 - 2022 Delaware State Parks | Dover, Delaware Office of Design and Development Landscape Architecture Intern | Summer 2021

INVOLVEMENT SKILLS Adobe Creative Cloud: Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, AfterEffects 3-D Design: Revit, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketch-Up 3-D Rendering: V-Ray, Enscape, Blender ArcGIS Digital Photography Microsoft Office Suite Hand Drafting Hand Sketching

Graduate Student Senate Campus-wide council representing the graduate student body at the University of Tennessee 2021 – 2022 Landscape Architecture Departmental Senator Equity and Diversity Committee Member Student Environmental Initiatives Committee AKA the Green Fee Committee at University of Tennessee, Knoxville 2021 – 2022 Student Committee Member American Society of Landscape Architects Student Chapter at the University of Tennessee 2019 – 2022 Member Dean’s Student Advisory Council Council representing the Student Body of College of Architecture and Design 2016 – 2022 Student Representative Alpha Rho Chi | Theodorus Chapter Professional Fraternity for Architecture and the Allied Arts 2020 – 2021 Worthy Architect (President) 2019 National Convention Secretary 2018 – 2019 Worthy Scribe (Secretary)

CONTENTS

RE-ESTABLISHING THE AESTHETIC OF ACCESS

ANTHROPO[GENIC]

REGENERATED LEISURE

ELEVATED EDUCATION

DIGITAL RECIPROCITY

AUTOMATED MILK MANAGER FOR ROUTINE COWS

RE-ESTABLISHING THE AESTHETIC OF ACCESS Knoxville, Tennessee | Fall 2021 Tennessee River Studio Group Members: Erika Guenther, Nora Jacobs And Kelsey Jones Knoxville, the first major city on the 652-mile stretch of the Tennessee River, has a number of access points on the river’s edge. When we think of the term “access point”, we think of this moment when a person would be exchanging from land to river. Oftentimes “access point” also refers to the adjacent site of where this moment happens.These sites are more than just “points” of access, but rather hubs of exchange and connection, usually connecting to greenways and providing some sort of greenspace. Though we find that these sites are failing, often by the lack of users going to the site for various reasons relating to safety, inclusivity, and engagement. Through this, we aim to challenge the connotation of access as more than a point or a moment, but faceted into 3 categories - access as network, access as perspective, and access as place. For our study, we focused on the communities of Knoxville and how this system connects these communities to the Tennessee River.

ANTHROPO[GENIC] Knoxville, Tennessee | Spring 2021 The word anthropogenic is defined by the USGS as “environmental change caused or influenced by people.” This definition uses “change” as a neutral term, yet the word anthropogenic is often used negatively about effects caused by human interaction within the environment. Looking at the etymology of Anthropogenic – “anthro—” refers to humanity, and “—genic” refers to generation and creation (think Genesis). This could suggest a different way to reframe what has become an almost universally negative concept. We need to reconsider how we intervene in our global systems, while also giving more responsibility for how we stress the environment as opposed to the word “change”, which could imply that the effects caused by our actions are not necessarily our “problem”. My goal for this project is to tell the story of anthropogenic progression in ways that are surprising, unexpected, and engaging. The most dramatic part of the design is the continuous pedestrian paths that dip, elevate, and sprawl along the site, with the intention to connect the fragmented parts of the existing site, engage interaction into the surrounding neighborhoods, and potentially create a new greenway system for First Creek. These interactive walkways act as a book binder composing the story of old and new, or, good and bad human interventions. The idea of elevating the walkway is to instil a brief moment of separating ourselves from the site just long enough to understand it, to then be re-emerged. All this together is meant to cultivate a specific dialogue between the power of the Anthropocene and how we perceive landscapes.

16 RIPARIAN BUFFER

RIPARIAN FOREST

RIPARIAN PATH

ELEVATED WALKWAY EXCHANGE

NATIVE FLOWER GARDEN

OPEN RECREATIONAL SPACE

TRELLIS COVERED PATH SUNKEN GARDENS

COMMUNITY FARM

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REGENERATED LEISURE Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah | Fall 2020 Partner: Rachel Albee REGENERATIVE LEISURE is a landscape architecture studio project that focuses on creating a temporal and ever-changing experience of trail skiing at the Alta Ski Resort in the Little Cottonwood Canyon, outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Expert skiers are attracted to the “un-touched” conditions that exist in the Canyon, but the area presents high-risk areas for avalanches. REGENERATIVE LEISURE takes vegetation and maintenance practices to create expert trails while breaking up the dangerous paths of avalanches. This project considers the ecology of the mountain, integrating thriving tree species - the Quaking Aspen, the Engelmann Spruce, and the Utah Juniper, as well as modern agricultural practices like pivotal irrigation systems, to create a rotational ski lift system that plants and maintains the mountain’s ecology and engages skiers in a new experience season to season.

ELEVATED EDUCATION Montréal, Québec, Canada | Fall 2019 Integrations Studio | Partner: Michelle Blackwell Elevated Education is the idea that education can be elevated...literally, as well as figuratively. Using the sky as “elevation”, the teaching world can be greatly improved upon, or elevated, if the space around them encourages discovery, learning and joy. Biophilia is the love of life and nature itself, in its climate, environment and inhabitants. The intention of this studio is to promote biophilia in educational institutions within cold climates. Given the site of an existing school, all aspects of integration are expressed via accessibility, LCA, natural daylighting and more. Cold climates generally suggested to be unwelcoming and harsh, especially in locations where snow can pile up to over 3 meters each year. Snow is a great part of biophilia, which can attest to many different factors: the sky, the sun, the wind, rain, trees, grass, animals and humans alike. For this particular project, many intentions were considered. Firstly, biophilia; second, sociability; thirdly, perception. These three factors were crucial to producing an effective design that connects the existing school to the proposed addition that was designed in this project.

NORTH COURTYARD CAFETERIA

GYMNASIUM

CENTRAL COURTYARD LIBRARY

CLASSROOM

PRESCHOOL COURTYARD

PRESCHOOL CLASSROOM

ADMIN SUITE

EXISTING SCHOOL

FLOOR PLAN

Metal Finish Roof Roof Rafters Plyood Sheathing Metal Roof Decking

Truss System

Gypsum Board Vapor Barrier Spray Foam Insulation

Direct LED Luminaire

Structural Steel I-Beam Column Air Barrier Wood Sheathing

EXISTING SITE CONDITIONS 90

Softscape

Hardscape

Street

Highway

Contextual Buildin

1” = 30’

Air Gap Brick Ties

Existing School

Brick Veneer

For this project to be truly imagined, the project was considered under the five senses and the perspective of the child as well as teacher. This school needed to be seen, touched, smelled, heard and tasted in every room to completely understand it. Most importantly, the school needed education at its forefront- that meant understanding what a teacher requires and how they achieve the necessary requirements to teach children. However, the students there also make an impact. This school houses pre-school and elementary school children who see the world differently than teachers and designers. There was careful consideration of safety and guarding those who go to the school and use the facilities within the building.

Steel Channel Window Header

Gym Window

Window Sill

Exterior CMU Block Wood Finish Floor Floor Decking Concrete Floor Base Gravel

CMU Block Foundation Wall Floor Supports Foundation Footing

0 2" 4" 8"

1.5'

Drainage

September: 7 AM

September: 12 PM

September: 4 PM

September Wind

February: 7 AM

February: 12 PM

February: 4 PM

February Wind

This project was submitted to the AIA COTE Top 10 competition for students. This competition awards to the best projects designed for environmental performance based on a series of measures. A few of those measures include: Design for Integration, Design for Community, Design for Discovery, and Design for Change. Design for Integration: Integrating education is not the only component for this school, but also community, perception and biophilia. Community supports education by providing friendliness and enthusiasm to children. Using perception, schools are able to teach in different methods, whether children are listeners, readers, doers or thinkers. Lastly, biophilia is a strategy in which nature is the ultimate teacher: through climate and weather, through plants and animals, and through the natural cycle of the seasons.

Design for Community: The level of a child’s eye is a critical view to understand and investigate. Along with that, there are teachers, nurses, administrators, cooks and other adults who make the school work to the best of its abilities. All of these people need opportunities to make a difference not only in the educational field, but also to give back to the earth. Almost everyone already moves to and from the school on food, but to further that notion, the school’s expansion includes a large, open entrance that welcomes all those who enter inside.

Design for Discovery: This school provides learning for 31 preschool and 165 school children. But this is only a single moment in time. The people flowing through the building will fluctuate, and this school will most likely do the same. The expected amount of growth for this school and its addition is at least 150 students. It is important to value the experience in the building beyond all other aspects, because a school is one of the most valuable buildings of the future.

Design for Change: The original school was first built in 1902, then required two additions: in 1922 and 1960. Change is not foreign to the teachers that work in the building as well as the families that send their children there. It expects a revision if it is meant to remain resilient. This time, these additions bring more than just a code update and some classrooms. It encourages the outdoors as a beautiful and proactive place where plants, like kids, can grow.

DIGITAL RECIPROCITY Knoxville, Tennessee | Spring 2019 Fellowship Seminar Project DIGITAL RECIPROCITY, a seminar lead by University of Tennessee’s 2018-2019 Architecture Fellow Nate Imai, focused on responsive architecture in terms of temperature, humidity, and air. The 84-square-foot Mobile “T House” reads live data and sensors placed at each corner to display lights in an array of colors between Blue and Red. The color the house glows tells the difference between the interior and exterior conditions. This built project explored many skills and design techniques by taking inspiration from Japanese Tea Houses to modern digital fabrication. This project was on display at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum in May 2019 and is now on display in the gardens of the College of Architecture + Design. My fellow classmates who participated in the seminar: Nicole Capps Roni Feghaly Christopher Rubio Jessica Shremshock Zachary Standley Akshata Dusa Tyler Forsberg Diana Kraczkowska Mary Beth Robbins Anastasiya Skvarniuk Izabela Szumniak

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN

AUTOMATED MILK MANAGER FOR ROUTINE COWS Forest Park, Georgia | Spring 2019 Studio: Farm to Table This project challenges the current operations of dairy farms. As farming increasingly becomes a more difficult profession, farmers are looking towards automation to save time in their daily operation. My approach was to design in a way that appealed to the natural behaviors of the cows, by playing with lights, contrast, scratchers, etc. The cows are also equipped with RFID tags that collect data, and help keep track of milk production, consumption, and movement. This data not only helps the farmer keep track of his herd, but the data is used on a constant updating twitter feed, adding a direct connection to the consumer. The farm is set up to be a profit/benefit system to those who play in part: the farmer, the distributor, the consumer, and most importantly, the cow.

Collaging helps to discover truth, relations, and information about a certain subject. In order to understand the daily process of producing milk, I started to compare the cow to the machine. The first machine to producing milk is obviously the cow - the udder as the main mechanism. In order to produce milk, the cow must be fed to produce energy, and must regularly calf. The milk is then pulled from the udders to holding tanks, then goes through a series of processes like pasteurization and homogenization before bottling and being shipped to the store. Collaging also helps layout the workings for my design, as in what triggers “Bovine Behavior”, the different functionalities in “Routine Milking”, and using technology as a “Automated Manager” for this new farm.

In the section perspective, you are able to see the different “tiers” or roaming spaces for the cows. Each tier has rows of automatic-filling food and water troughs, an outdoor pasture, automated manure clean-up, and brush scratchers. Each cow is RFID chipped to control eating times, movement, milk production, and “reward” system. The slanted “core” connecting the levels features a lift that will host pipage that serves to food, water, and waste. The ramp that circulates around the core are for ease of movement for the cows when it is time to milk. The majority of the milking cows live on the second and third levels. The fourth level hosts sick or separated cows (cows who may be treated with antibiotics for a certain time) and the calf huts are on the top level. Located on the first level is the automated rotary “rotating” milker, and processing machinery to pasteurize and bottle milk. The aim of this project is to have the entire milk cycle exist in one location, and pushing boundaries to elevate this experience.

CONSUM CONSUMPTION

TROUGHS CO COVERED WITH SENSORS TRACK AMOU AMOUNT OF FOOD + WATER CONSUMED

PROCESS

ON-FARM PASTURIZATION, BOTTLING + DISTRIBUTION

REWARD

SCRATCHERS RELAX COWS HAPPY COWS = MORE MILK PRODUCTION

MILKING

50-HEAD ROTARY MILKER EASE OF FLOW

FEED

BLENDED FOR HEALTH + PRODUCTION OF HERD DELIVERED BY ELEVATOR

Mary Beth Robbins Portfolio February 2022 www.marybethrobbins.com