Portfolio Matt Gilbert
Performing Arts Plaza
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Champaign Community Center
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Transition from Utopia
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Suburban Integration
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Re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building
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Drawings and Sketches
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Performing Arts Plaza ARCH 374: Architectural Design and the City Prof. Matthew Niermann Winner, Edward C. Earl Prize, May 2010
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Project: Performing Arts Center at Lakeshore Park
John Hancock Building
Lake Michigan
Water Tower Place
Museum of Contemporary Art
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The Water Tower
Michigan Avenue
Northwestern University Law and Medical School
Location: 800 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
Placing a performing arts center on the site of Lakeshore Park has many implications. The site is a space for recreation for the neighborhood and lies on an axis connecting homes to the north with workplaces to the south. It also lies on a cultural axis connecting Michigan Avenue, the Water Tower, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Lake Michigan. The site is the place where local users and visitors converge. Placing a performing arts center on this site opens up new possibilities for interaction with the performing arts taking place acting as a common thread linking diverse groups of people.
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The building is a part of the landscape, not merely an object within it. The center of the building is pushed down into the ground to preserve the neighborhood’s sense of openness. A series of steps, terraces and green roofs turn most of the building’s surface into useful space. It is essential that the arts be visible and accessible to draw people in. The building is perforated to allow views between performance and rehearsal spaces and the outside. Offering glimpses of interior activity engages the passerby and creates a sense of curiosity and anticipation for performances.
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View from Lake Shore Drive
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Main Level Plan
North Facade
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View of central plaza
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Lower Level Plan
South Facade
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East-West Section
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Concert Hall Section Model
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Champaign Community Center ARCH 475: Architectural Design and Development Prof. Art Kaha Winner, Edward C. Earl Prize, December 2010
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Project: Community Center for Downtown Champaign
A community center needs to be well integrated into its context yet stand out enough to be a focal point in the neighborhood. It must feel accessible and have an element of transparency. Sited one block south of West Side Park, the building responds to it through a plaza at the corner of State and Clark. This plaza works as an extension of the park and as an extension of the building, allowing events in the multipurpose hall and cafe to spill outdoors.
First Floor Plan
The building is divided into three volumes based on function and divided by axes of circulation. The smaller volumes to the south and east surround the central multi-purpose hall, disguising its size and maintaining a scale that relates to the surrounding buildings. The facade louver systems provide shading from direct sunlight while acting as a skin over the building that filters between the activities taking place inside and the life of the street outside.
Location: 210 West Clark Street, Champaign, Illinois
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University Avenue
State Street
Second Floor Plan
Randolph Street
Clark Street
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South Elevation
North Elevation
East-West Section
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East Elevation
West Elevation
North-South Section
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Transition from Utopia ARCH 373: Architectural Design and the Landscape Prof. Stewart Hicks Fall 2009 Partner project with Liz Kivel
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Part One: Diagramming Cities
This project studies past visions of utopian cities of the future, in this case, New Babylon by Constant Nieuwenhuys. My partner and I were assigned to diagram New Babylon compared to a current built city and later designing a space or structure that could transition between them. We compared New Babylon with Chicago, noting the similarities and differences between New Babylon’s modular, above-ground development and Chicago’s ground-level spreading across the landscape.
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Part Two: Space of Transition
Our transition mechanism explores the relationship between New Babylon and the ground, something Constant dealt with infrequently in his numerous drawings. We worked primarily from the perspective of a resident of New Babylon traveling to the remnants of a ground-level city for the first time. The twisting and faceted forms of the tunnel blurs the distinction between the forms of New Babylon and the forms of the existing ground-level building with which it merges. Our design challenges the user’s perceptions of what is ground and what is not, what is New Babylon and what is not.
Changing horizon lines alter perceptions of city versus ground.
Folding floor planes blur the distinction between the forms of the two cities. Creases in the floor become new pathways between levels.
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Narrowing tunnel limits field of view.
More regular stairs create a consistent pace. Turns prohibit knowledge of the path.
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Part Two: Space of Transition
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Suburban Integration ARCH 373: Architectural Design and the Landscape Prof. Stewart Hicks Fall 2009 Partner project with Liz Kivel
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Fourth floor plan
Lobby level (second floor) plan
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Suburban decentralization
Merging programs
Suburban development is characterized by a separation of uses. The geographical separation of related functions reinforces the necessity of the automobile and limits personal interaction. We chose to examine the suburban hotel or motel, a building type ususally cut off from its local context. Merging outlying programs with a hotel creates a new typology in the suburban environment, allowing the usually solitary hotel to become an active part of the community. Incorporating spaces that are shared by neighborhood residents and guests opens up new possibilities for interaction between visitors and locals, and among the neighborhood residents themselves.
New interactions
The site chosen in downtown Urbana, Illinois requires the reurbanization of a once dense area invaded by a suburban typology - an enclosed shopping mall. Replacing a block of its vast parking lot with a mixed-use structure restores the density the area once had and re-energizes the declining Lincoln Square Mall. The indiviual hotel rooms are positioned to overlook the shared spaces within the building, which act as a transition between the room and the neighborhood beyond. The setbacks of the balconies afford privacy to each room while allowing its occupant to glimpse the activities taking place in the space below.
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Re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building ARCH 374: Architectural Design and the City Prof. Matthew Niermann Spring 2010
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Project: Mixed-use Urban Development (re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building)
This project called for the creation of a mixeduse apartment and retail building that could replace Champaign’s historic Metropolitan Building, destroyed in a fire during its conversion to such a mixed-use building. Our studio worked with the developer who owns the site to solve his unique problem of creating a twenty-first century landmark while honoring the nineteenth century one it replaces. At the intersection of three major streets, the prominent site has historically been focal point of downtown Champaign.
The plan of the building takes into account its location at the southern point of a future park. Pulling the facades back from the street leaves room for a large plaza that becomes an extension of the park, as well as a space for the audiences of performances in the building’s multi-purpose space. The angle of the north wall of the building roughly follows the angle at which Main Street reaches the intersection, transitioning between the urban walls of Main Street and Church Street.
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Neil Street
Neil Street
Park Avenue
Church Street
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Church Street
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Location: 221 N. Neil St. Champaign, IL
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Drawings and Sketches
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ARCH 271, Fall 2008 - Prof. Allison Warren
Temple Hoyne Buell Hall addition design Ink, graphite, and collage elements on vellum
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Frederick C. Robie House - Frank Lloyd Wright Ink, Prismacolor marker, and colored pencil on vellum
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ARCH 272, Spring 2009 - Prof. Lawrence Hamlin
Precedent Study: Stuttgart Airport, von Gerkan Marg und Partner Elevation: Ink on vellum
Sketches, graphite on sketch paper
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Precedent Study: Stuttgart Airport, von Gerkan Marg und Partner Section: Ink on vellum
Adams Street, Chicago, colored pencil on sketch paper