MICHAEL NELSON
SELECTED WORKS
Michael Nelson 865.771.6925
m.robertnelson@gmail.com michaelrobertnelson.com
CONTENTS Architecture 02 10 18 24 32
Sacred Procession Rural Indian Housing Donald Judd Archive LEAP Collaborative Constructing San Carlo Installations
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SACRED PROCESSION Knoxville, Tennessee Professor David Fox
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The railroad helped establish Knoxville, Tennessee. It brought commerce, diversity, and innovation. The railroad was the organizing factor, but has been usurped by the interstate. These two giants of transportation coexist in a single spot in downtown Knoxville. The project is sited at the intersection of abandoned rail tracks and the interstate overpass. The stillness of the vacant lot is magnified by the ever quick traffic. The hum of the interstate is a calming white noise. The passing cars are the only sign of movement.
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The project addresses the relationship between procession and sacred space. The project is divided into seven gardens and one chapel. Each garden is designed to represent one the seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, eucharist, reconciliation, matrimony, holy orders, last rights. The user enters either from the gravel pathway that is connected to the main urban development or filters through one of the gardens. Each garden is designed to remove one from the context. This is accomplished by a few techniques: reflecting the sound of the interstate to act as white noise, sinking the user into the earth to remove horizontal visibility, supplying tree canopy cover, and through the concrete walls dividing the gardens. Between each set of walls exists a ramp that allows the user to climb and view the entirety of the project. At the end of the path lies the open air chapel. 06
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RURAL INDIAN HOUSING Vaghnagar, India Professor Mark Dekay + Professor Sharad Sheth
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Vaghnagar is a small, farming village on the west coast of India. Although these remote villages in India hold true to their traditions, village life is changing. The following project is a collaborative effort to address and design housing for an evolving rural India. We worked with a design school based in Ahmedabad that acted as outside reviewers and consultants for the course, and that educated us on Indian culture. Although this specific prototype is developed for Vaghnagar, the project is imagined in a way that it could be applied to other parts of India. The village is a fairly dense collection of homes and walled in courtyards surrounded by farmland. The site is located at the center of the existing village. A masterplan was developed followed by the housing units. The housing unit is to be repeated throughout the masterplan, but the unit is flexible in layout and orientation. The construction and design follows the historical precedent of typical Indian construction and traditions.
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The housing unit is composed of a series of masonry vaults that make up the main living space and the bedrooms. The vault was chosen because of the limited availability of wood and steel reinforcement. This allows the units to make the necessary spans with limited reinforcement. Incremental building was a driver for the design. Because each unit will be built by the occupant, the unit has the ability to scale and rotate depending on necessity or siting. The floor plan is based on the Indian building tradition, Vastu Shastra. The main principles place the puja, a prayer space, to the north, and the center of the house is kept open. These building traditions are based upon Indian culture as well as daily rituals performed in the home.
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LEAP COLLABORATIVE HEADQUARTERS Knoxville, Tennessee Professor Hansjรถrg Gรถritz + Professor Stanley Rabun
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LEAP Collaborative is a fictional design firm focused on landscape, engineering, architecture, and planning. The project focuses on the founding principles of LEAP: sustainability, urban responsibilty, and innovation. The office and tenant space is located in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The project responds to the density and scale of this specific part of the downtown. Emphasis was placed upon holding the block while adjusting to the relatively high scale of this part of downtown. As an urban gesture, the project limits the built footprint to half of the site. The remaining portion is giving back to the city as public green space.
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The tenant and restaurant space is located on the street edge. This allows for a continuation of the current fabric of the area, while holding the street corner. Above the bar of tenant space is located the administrative wing of the LEAP Collaborative. The tower contains all design offices, collaborative spaces, and service spaces. The LEAP Collaborative project reached a rating of LEED Platinum. Sustainable design was a priority in the LEAP corporation. 28
The project is in situ concrete construction with prefabricated concrete panels making up the facades. The three concrete cores supply the majority of the vertical structure, allowing for an open floor plan in each floor. Each floor acts as an overhang providing shading for the floor below. This shading alone, reducing the required cooling by thirty percent.
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DONALD JUDD ARCHIVE Marfa, Texas Professor Hansjรถrg Gรถritz
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The desert town of Marfa lies in west Texas. It was formed by the military post along the railway. Donald Judd, an early minimalist sculptor purchased the army barracks to the south of the city center. Here, he placed his work. Along with the work in the barracks was his 1000 meter long concrete sculpture. The archive was to contain Judd’s writings, personal artifacts, and small scale work. Along with expressing the worth of Judd’s work, the project creates place and lays claim to an area. In the expanse of the desert, one must mark and define a place. The project is rooted to the earth, expressing its permanence. From the surface the project only has two visible forms, the cube of the main archive and the far-reaching walls.
The long, outstretched adobe/concrete walls act to pull people to the archive. The user enters down into the library by ramp. The narrow, shelved circulation leads to the main archive. The archive is dark, only lit by the constellation-like holes in the roof and their reflection is the perimeter water. The soft hum of the slow flowing water contrasts the desert and sets the user in a new context. The user filters through the archive, guided by single partitions, to view the three pieces exemplifying Judd’s life and work. The sunken courtyard connected to the archive acts as the transition back to the context of the desert. The reflecting pool and shade still reference a new context. The ramp to the surface exits the user back to the desert. 20
The project is divided into three programs: a library to store Judd’s writings and other relevant literary works, a large group gathering area, and the archive of the most valued pieces in the collection. The archive mimics a cenotaph in its form and lighting qualities. It is slow to reveal its scale. It is a place of silence and respect.
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CONSTRUCTING SAN CARLO Rome, Italy Professor Francesco Bedeschi
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ROCON INSTALLATION Knoxville, Tennessee Professor Greg Spaw
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RoCoN: rotational molded concrete. The installation was based on the fabrication technique of rotational molding and the idea of floating a typically dense and heavy material. Rotational molding, also known as rotomolding, rotocasting, or spin casting, is a molding process for creating many kinds of hollow items, typically plastic. A hollow mold is filled with a liquid material and slowly rotated (usually around two perpendicular axes) causing the material to disperse across the interior area of the mold walls. This creates a uniform thickness of material throughout the mold. 36
The object’s pattern comes from the Cairo pattern. It was chosen because of its quality of tessellation. We began with the mold process, modeling in Rhino. Using the CNC mill we created a mold out of MDF. To create a smooth finish on the concrete it was necessary to have a plastic mold. Thin, plastic sheets were then thermoformed over the MDF mold. Concrete tests were preformed to find the greatest strength possible. This was necessary because of the extreme thinness, 1/32�, of the object walls.
The final objects were produced in our aluminium framed, self-design rotational molding machine. Each object being an individual. Materialization of our work showed flaws, but also brought about questions and unexpected solutions during the process. What was happening during the process was as important as what we were physically creating. This allowed the project to progress free of preconceived notions, becoming the true materialization of experimentation.
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Michael Nelson 865.771.6925
m.robertnelson@gmail.com michaelrobertnelson.com