Merrick Castillo - Habitats Framed - University of Pennsylvania by Merrick_Castillo

HABITATS FRAMED Selected Works

Merrick Ethan Castillo

2021

Selected design works of Merrick Ethan Castillo, produced from 2018 to 2021

Selected Works

Suspended Environments - 04-17 Food Science Research Center

Exposures Awash - 08-33 Tillage and Brine Laboratories

Worlds, Encased - 34-46 Housing Extension and Garden

Ground, Intertwined - 46-55 Bio-Diverse Farm

Cracked Lines - 56-65 Ceramic Market and Manufacturing

SUSPENDED ENVIRONMENTS Food Science Research Center Critic : Nate Hume - Collaboration with Hanqing Yao Published on Suckerpunch Daily Selected for Pressing Matters 9

Suspended Environments explores the role of nature in the city; questioning precedents such as The High-Line and Ford Foundation on their treatment towards landscape as a single layer. This project creates suspended volumetric nature visitors can inhabit. Landscapes and liners create parks that push their way through the building forming gardens for the public and poche for growing and freezing food. The park embeds itself into the building using walls as liners encased by soil, which allows people to see moments of natural and mechanical environments as they are pulled into new hyper-conditions. As the landscape moves through the building it allows for programmatic space to emerge, the program is freeze dried food, where the food is grown within the landscape and frozen throughout. The frozen reality of the machine contrasts the light airy environment of the park and as they mix they produce new natures. The plant life within the park overgrows, yet in moments creates profiles along the materials. Mimicking geometry from the machines, creating a new form of landscape. As people move down Delancey street the elevation reveals a large billboard where there is a slippage of synthetic material layers and different depths of the landscape can be seen. The materials slippage create inhabitable space for both human and plant life. Once visitors enter the lobby, glimpses of landscape are suspended above them. As they move towards the park they are pushed into a tray where trees are growing around them and they are placed in a completely new world.

101 Norfolk Street, New York, NY

The soil pushes its way over different materials, from ceramic tiles, to terra-cotta shingles allowing for overgrowth to take place.

Suspended Environments on 101 Norfolk Street Suspended Environments, rethinks the relationship between the natural and man-made, creating a new typology for the city profile and how environments are interacted with in the city.

These spaces are made from a build-up of materials that move over each other, and are covered with soil and plants.

Embedded Park Space, Freeze Dryer Machine Space The park embeds itself into the building using walls as liners encased by soil which allows people to see moments of natural and mechanical environments as they are pulled into new hyper-conditions.

Suspended Environments Diagrams Suspended Environments explores the role of nature in the city; questioning precedents such as The High-Line and Ford Foundation on their treatment towards landscape as a single layer.

View into Lobby Towards Suspended Landscapes Once people enter the lobby, glimpses of landscape are suspended above them. As they move towards the park they are pushed into a tray where trees are growing around them and they are placed in a completely new world.

Entry Elevation Towards Norfolk Street People are in constant contact with the landscape. As they approach the building, they see blurred figures of nature, as the landscape cantilevers over the airspace of the neighboring building.

Billboard Elevation Towards Delancey Street As people move down Delancey Street the elevation reveals a large billboard where there is a slippage of synthetic material layers and different depths of the landscape can be seen.

Plans Through Freeze Drying Space and Park Space As the landscape moves through the building it allows for programmatic space to emerge, the program is freeze dried food, where the food is grown within the landscape and frozen throughout.

View from Office into Parks and Gardens On the park level and through the building there is a collapse of space as windows look on to each other and reveal different parts of the program, the landscape shrouds these views and creates different conditions depending on your location.

Section Through Garden and Park The soil wraps around edges, creating the effect of continuous earth and plant-life, rather than a singular green wall. These layers are exaggerated at the building scale, where the ground floor functions as the lobby, the middle of the building for the park and freezing food and the top for the private offices.

Suspended Garden for Growing Food The frozen reality of the machine contrasts the light airy environment of the park and as they mix they produce new natures. The plant life within the park overgrows, yet in moments creates profiles along the materials.

Section Through Embedded Tray and Lobby The park pushes itself over the existing site, by extending into the neighboring areas, allowing the landscape to merge back into the city.

Shrouded Views from Office into Park As they move towards the park they are pushed into a tray where trees are growing around them and they are placed in a completely new world.

EXPOSURES AWASH Tillage and Brine Laboratories Critic : Jason Payne - Caroline Morgan Collaboration with Hanqing Yao Selected for Pressing Matters 10

Exposures Awash explores concepts from Gerhard Richter Landscape paintings, Where he re-imagines landscapes using blurring, which creates a flickering between the subject and the medium. This flickering reshapes the environments into hyper realities, where saturation, exposure, and resolution create a new understanding of landscape. Using Vaughn Oliver’s Shoegaze album covers as a visual lens, we transformed existing Owens Lake satellite images into new unfamiliar realities. By superimposing logics from Gehard Richter and Vaughan Oliver onto Owens Lake, we established a form of double exposure or flickering between landscape and eco-infrastructure creating new synthetic ecologies. The proposal, explores an overlaying of ideas and logics from flow diagrams including delamination across the tillage grid, defined natures, and perimeter networks, these form a new typology on Owens Lake. The satellite image views reveals this typology as a super long perimeter eco-infrastructure, which can only be experienced in the marco scale of a satellite image. The relationship between footprint and landscape is explored when the site is zoned into smaller vignettes, these small moments reveal how footprint and landscape become new elements of the Owens Lake ecology. Multitudes of realities are blurred as scale shifts between the micro scale of a sprinkler line and the extensive perimeter of the polygon. The shift between resolution and view blurs the relationship between infrastructure and landscape, flickering the focus between geography and the synthetic. The hyper reality of the landscape is able to reshape Owens Lake through a Shoegaze lens, creating a flickering between natural and unnatural. Where landscape, infrastructure and machines become new non-static species within the ecology of Owens Lake. Polygon T3-NE - T3-SE, Owens Lake, California

The proposal, explores an overlaying of ideas and logics, including delamination of tillage, defined natures, and perimeter networks.

Polygon T3-NE and T3-NE, Owens Lake The satellite image is first presented in black and white as a way examining geography, tectonics and fluid natures.

The satellite view reveals the typology as a super long perimeter eco-infrastructure, which can only be experienced in the marco scale of a satellite image.

Vignettes of Site Conditions The relationship between footprint and landscape is explored when the site is zoned into smaller vignettes, these small moments reveal how footprint and landscape become new elements of the Owens lake ecology.

Polygon T3-SE Edge Conditions The scaling down of the color space of the greater Owens Lake exaggerates and concentrates the existing unique natures into a single polygon. The next images flicker between close up and distant views, describing the new form of hyper reality.

Satellite Image, Owens Lake 2020 The hyper reality of the landscape is able to reshape Owens Lake through a Shoegaze lens, creating a flickering between natural and unnatural. Where landscape, infrastructure and machines become new non-static species within the ecology of Owens Lake.

Programmatic Footprints and Landscapes The shift between resolution and view blurs the relationship between infrastructure and landscape, flickering the focus between geography and the synthetic.

This flickering reshapes the environments into hyper realities, where saturation, exposure, and resolution create a new understanding of landscape.

Vignettes of Shoegaze Site Conditions By superimposing logics from Gehard Richter and Vaughan Oliver onto Owens Lake, we established a form of double exposure or flickering between landscape and eco-infrastructure creating new synthetic ecologies.

Plan of Machine and Lab Spaces The project redefines non-static site features with euclidean geometry, as a way of introducing new logics into the site.

Minard Flows on Site Analytical Minard maps play an important role in representing non- static flows, the Minard maps diagram how the flow of brine merges with footprints and the adjacent polygons.

Programmatic Axonometric of Research Center The program of these footprints is a Bacm research center, where the landscape is rezoned into smaller polygons for environmental experiments, focusing on tillage and flooding.

The axonometric cutaway and plan describes the scale of these inner workings in relation to the larger Owens Lake.

Vignettes of Program and Landscape The roofscapes of these footprints allow for viewing of the micro polygons by researchers and the public. Visitors exist in between machine support systems and the synthetic landscape, constantly in view of both.

Close View of Site Conditions As we move between micro and macro we reorient the aerial imagery back to the elevation. Where at afar the footprint merges into the atmosphere of Owens Lake, however in the close view the machine life support is revealed.

Distant View of Site Conditions Multitudes of realities are blurred as scale shifts between the micro scale of a sprinkler line and the extensive perimeter of the polygon.

Close View of Tillage and Brine The landscape takes on new hyper realities and conditions, where color overflows and creates unique atmospheres within the polygon.

Shoegaze Conditions on the Site This flickering reshapes the environments into hyper realities, where saturation, exposure, and resolution create a new understanding of landscape.

WORLDS, ENCASED Housing Extension on UPS Warehouse Critic : Gisela Baurmann Published on NAH_Remote Selected for Pressing Matters 9

Worlds, Encased explores housing units encased within an urban envelope, allowing people to navigate private landscape and garden spaces as well as urban infrastructure; all existing on top of a historic UPS warehouse. The units cluster and misfit together, allowing opportunities for new spaces to emerge within these joints, public gardens inhabit these spaces. Gardens spread through the housing units connecting public to private and allowing opportunities for private residences to merge with the scale of the city, blending scales and program throughout the space. The urban envelope forms public landings for people to occupy, for events to be held and as a new gathering space for the city. This connects back to the existing city grid and provides views over the street. The units and the envelope are connected through reveals which merge in and out of private and public and materiality which blends the two; creating a precise relationship between a single studio apartment and a large public infrastructure. Each unit explores different scales and needs of users, from studio to two bedroom apartments. Each unit allows for circulation between, allowing users to interact, hallways are embedded with garden spaces as well which serve as public gardens between apartments. The scale shift in gardens from apartment to public shifts outward to the urban envelope. Where the inside of the roof-scape is a huge public garden space for the city to occupy. These shifting scales allow users and visitors to explore different experiences all within one complex system. These scales shift with the form, the exterior volume understood from the street is a radically different experience than what the user has inside the apartments. The units become more intimate and human scale where the exterior responds to the city scale.

522 Greenwich Street, New York, NY

The urban envelope forms public landings for people to occupy, for events to be held, and as a new gathering space for the city.

Cluster of Unit Types The units cluster and misfit together, allowing opportunities for new spaces to emerge within these joints, public gardens and landscapes inhabit these spaces.

Apartment Unit Types Each Unit explores different scales and needs of users, from studio to two bedroom apartments. Users can have garden units which incorporate private gardens and green spaces into their homes.

Plan of Units Within Urban Envelope The units fit and misfit together allowing for circulation between apartments as well as garden rooms for the public.

Apartment Unit Cluster Gardens spread through the housing units connecting public to private and allowing opportunities for private residences to merge with the scale of the city. Blending scales and program throughout the space.

Exterior cladding allows for plant life to grow on the units.

Vignettes of Unit Cluster Details of the moments within the units, show how people and plant life inhabit the spaces. These spaces shift in materials depending on the conditions.

Urban Landing Encasing Units The scale of spaces constantly shifts, from studio apartments, to public gardens outwards to the urban landing. The inside of the roof-scape is huge public garden space for the city to occupy.

These shifting scales allow users and visitors to explore different experiences all within one complex system.

Urban Landing Vignettes Each space takes on different materials, allowing for plants to grow and gardens to form for public use. These spaces blend with the apartment units.

View of Facade and Landing The units and the envelope are connected through reveals which merge in and out of private and public spaces; creating a precise relationship between a single studio apartment and a large public infrastructure.

View of Public Urban Landing Worlds, Encased explores housing units encased within an urban envelope, allowing people to navigate private garden spaces as well as urban infrastructure; all existing on top of a historic UPS warehouse.

GROUND, INTERTWINED One Farm for One Thousand Farms Critic : Winka Dubbeldam - Richard Garber Collaboration with Hanqing Yao Selected for Pressing Matters 10

Our selected area occupies the river’s edge pushing into the inner land. We built a connection to the river and to the grid of the land, first, by creating this network that bridges the river and the farmland within our site and further injecting this network in two directions into the surrounding: vertically it goes deep into the ground, and horizontally it extends all the way into the existing farmland grid. Within our site, we created a new typology of inverted terrace farming that introduce water into our constructed wetland seasonally, creating one farm for a thousand. By doing this, two results can be achieved: 1 is the flooding can be mitigated for the inner land by the effect of the wetland collecting water, 2. The water is purified through our wetland and injected into the inner land through the network. The other noticeable element of our design is the soil. We purpose a high-biodiverse crop farming represented here in hatches which according to research, can significantly revitalize the soil, and the soil redistributed underground will lead to the soil revitalization in the whole area. The project deals closely with the relationship between the top of the earth and beneath the soil. No longer treating this line as a datum but a transition between programs and spaces. The well pushes deep but is still exposed to the farm above, allowing crops and AI to travel beneath the soil and not jut exist purely above. This design works closely with the surrounding to produce not just a new architecture but an entirely reformed ground.

Kaskaskia, Illinois

Our selected area occupies the river’s edge pushing into the inner land. We built a connection to the river and to the grid of the land.

Underground Chiosy, Vertical Wells The vertical connection is revealed in this choisy drawing, while the network expands into the surrounding farmland, it also folds deep into the earth allowing for distribution not just at the surface level of the site.

Site Intervention, Bio Diverse Farm We ask ourself: what is human, what is non human, what role do people play in such assemblage and most importantly what role do other non-human play in such a network combing farming, people, soil, nature and etc

Wetlands and Nature The water is purified through our wetland and injected into the inner land through the network. The other noticeable element of our design is the soil.

Site, Farmlands Grids We purpose a high biodiverse crop farming represented here in hatches which according to research, can significantly revitalize the soil, and the soil redistributed underground will lead to the soil revitalization in the whole area.

AI Hub, Grain Storage The mentioned network is tied into a raised earth that converges all the networks which allows for the distribution, connection, and collection of all the actants within the system.

Vertical Section, Water Filtration Inverted stepping creates wells, connecting the above and below ground, allowing water to be collected(+) from the river into the underground system

Section Drawing of Proposed Wells The layering of earth, water, ecologies, humans, and above/belowground networks intertwine together and become a typology that inhabits the complex system of the Mississippi river.

Well Prototype Model Prototype of concrete well, poured out of concrete, measuring 3 feet in size. Shows stepping and geometry of well proposal.

CRACKED LINES Ceramic Manufacturing Center Critic : Brian De Luna Selected for Pressing Matters 8

Cracked Lines explores the idea of objects and figure ground blending together to create ambiguity between infrastructure and public market space. The form of the project exaggerates the overlapping infrastructure of the site into a new building mass and market for Manayunk. The secondary program is a ceramic manufacturing site, the program shifts between historic and current industry, producing products for the city. The program uses the ground and building as a way to manufacture, this allows the viewer to explore multiple places and memories while visiting the site. This project specifically explores the idea of brick manufacturing as a non-human space. This program occupies the in-between spaces around the public areas, making the program not a singular typology. Humans are asked to occupy an extended market that bleeds into the city and breaks in from the site, transporting the market into the large urban area. Public space can be accessed on the ground level where visitors occupy the ground and space above the manufacturing level. The manufacturing is revealed for people to see and understand the program, making the industrial process publicly accessible. Visitors can purchase products made directly in the factory spaces within the market, allowing the program to produce for the local area and visitors. Market space is mixed with public space, where people can access different elements of the program, learning about the process. The drawings within the project start to explore how texture and material can shift between ground, figure and the urban surrounding. Making the interjection of this project into the site truly embedded within its site and the site’s history. The material blends with the site, but pushes the urban context and builds on the surrounding history.

Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA

The form of the project exaggerates the overlapping infrastructure of the site into a new building mass and market for Manayunk.

Figure Ground Memories

Figure and Material Studies

Figure Ground Memories

Elements of the final massing and material condition studies. Theses materials overlap dense lines to create shifting facade conditions.

Figure Ground Mapping Figure ground map describing the geometric approach to materials and profiles along the site massing. The map shifts between line and solid which informed the shifts between massing and ground.

Axonometric Cutaway People occupy an extended market that bleeds into the city and breaks in from the site, transporting the market into the larger urban area.

The manufacturing is revealed for people to see and understand the program, making the industrial process publicly accessible.

Vignettes of Program Public space can be accessed on the ground level where visitors occupy the ground and space above the manufacturing level.

Elevation of Market Space Public market space is mixed with machine space, where people can access different elements of the program, learning about the manufacturing process.

The material blends with the site, but pushes the urban context and builds on the surrounding history.

Views Towards Public Space The program uses the ground and building as a way to manufacture, this allows the visitors to explore multiple places and memories while visiting the site.

Views Towards Circulation Circulation flows out from the market, allowing people to connect to the adjacent sites, and flow back into the urban environment.

Merrick Ethan Castillo 2021