selected works michelle ashurov
2019
contents
a queer assemblage
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4
house 1
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blomĂŠ
16
small city school
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core
22
the net
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the weave
27
foot[age]
28
illustrations
30
cv relevant experience
education
Ryerson University 09 2018 - 12 2018 Graduate Assistant 09 2016 - 12 2016 ASC102, instructed by Jurij Leshchyshyn (2016) and Ivan Martinovic (2018). Preparing course materials, attending coordination meetings, marking essays, tests and graphic submissions, performing invigilation duties, and corresponding with students by appointment or email.
Ryerson University Master of Architecture Thesis: A Queer Assemblage
Ryerson University 11 2017 - 01 2018 Designer for FEAS GRADtalk In collaboration with Nahal Rahnamaei. Designer and fabricator of installation, ‘Pleasure Pop!’, for ‘Engineering Wellness’ (part of Ryerson University’s first annual Mental Health & Wellness Conference), an event for the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science’s GRADtalk series. The Stop’s Night Market 04 2017 - 06 2017 Cart Designer *04 2016 - 06 2016 Member of team selected to design and fabricate 04 2014 - 06 2014 a food and drink vending cart for the 2017, 2016, and 2014 Night Market event. *Design Fabrication Zone tenure Ryerson University 01 2017 - 04 2017 Research Assistant Research under Jurij Leshchyshyn, compiling data on two subject areas: (a) Design Review Panels throughout Ontario, and (b) identifying semantic shift in the term ‘architect’ and ‘architecture.’ 325 Magazine 04 2014 - 01 2016 Creative Director, Head of Graphics, Photographer Member of student team that produces Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science’s annual publication. [R]ed[U]x Lab 12 2015 Designer for Design Offsite Festival Member of team of students for the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University. Bata Shoe Museum 11 2014 - 05 2015 Designer for Storefront Installation Member of interdisciplinary team consisting of four Interior Design students and four Architectural Science students from Ryerson University. Designed and fabricated a window installation for the Museum’s 20th anniversary. *Design Fabrication Zone tenure American Institute of Architecture Students 09 2014 - 04 2015 Peer Mentor Mentored students of the Bachelor of Architectural Science program at Ryerson University. Organized regular meetings to provide feedback, critique, and monitor progress.
09 2016 - 05 2019
Ryerson University 09 2012 - 06 2016 Bachelor of Architectural Science
awards Architectural Research Centers Consortium’s King Student Medal
10 2019
Ryerson University’s Dean’s List for the 2015/16 academic year
06 2016
exhibitions & conferences
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The Next 20 Years: How Architecture and Design Could Shape Our City Toronto Society of Architects x Doors Open Toronto
05 2019
Pleasure Pop! Installation for Engineering Wellness (first event of Mental Health & Wellness Conference), Ryerson University
01 2018
Night Market The Stop
06 2017 06 2016 06 2014
Foot[age] Bata Shoe Museum
05 2015 - 06 2017
Design Offsite Festival
12 2015 - 01 2016
skills AutoCAD Adobe Acrobat Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop Microsoft Excel Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Word
Revit Rhinoceros Sketchup
647-286-9690 mi.ashurov@gmail.com
09 2017 - 04 2019
illustrator, photoshop, revit, rhino
thesis, click on title for full PDF link
a queer assemblage The tradition and reproduction of heteronormativity is evident in all aspects of social life, extending to nationality, culture, law, commerce, medicine, intimacy, leisure, and beyond. Speculations at the intersection of queer space and architecture began in the 1980s, focusing on a resistance to the hegemony of heterosexuality. Here, queerness is explored within the realm of architecture by recounting and marking up history through a queer lens, starting with a design series of a common furniture type, the chair, and ending with the design of a house, a building of familiarity to the architect, making it the perfect typology to be a captive of manifestoes. Beatriz Colomina posited that the 20th century house is exhibitionistic in character, designed for publication, to photograph well, but it was also concerned with new forms of display, transparency, exposure constructed and simultaneously infiltrated by the media. The 21st century house inherits such a relationship to media, but must reconcile its expansive forms and forces. 4
from top to bottom, left to right a queer assemblage cover facing page: queered chairs: bubble chair isometric
How do bodies and objects, or traces of life, gather in houses? In attempts to strip the house from its title of a machine for living and its goal of productivity (or reproductivity), of labour — since when did living become interchangeable with work (doing xxx for a living)? — a queer assemblage of the house is proposed. Imbued with references and responses to the research it follows, the house is used as a vehicle to interrogate how architectural space can support a queer occupation, unveiling the ugly undersides of architecture complicit in queer subjugation.
The design of the house begins with a rule or scenario: what if instead of entering homes saddle chair isometric through living rooms, dining halls, offices, even bedrooms (studio apartments), hybrids spank chair isometric — rooms that are flaunted more publicly when we physically move through space — we are continued on confronted with what are and have been following page considered to be the depths of a home — the closets, the washrooms or water closets, the laundry rooms, the kitchens? What emerges to the foreground are spaces that historically and presently are associated with the occupation of: women, servants, and other marginalized groups; and anonymous, shameful acts or something behind-the-scenes. This move is much in line with projections of space in the media: hoarders, closet tours and makeovers, hair dyeing tutorials, bath product hauls, skincare routines,
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queer
split chair isometric
continued on next spread
assemblage a thesis by Michelle Ashurov
queered elements: wall as closets and closets as door and corridor, closets are typically neighboring each other without any relation to each other, doors typically have the only job of allowing bodies to pass through walls, and walls are shared by rooms so why can closets not be shared? wall as cabinets and doors as tiles, a void within walls that can be accessed through a disruption of the wall’s surface, and a multiplication of hinged doors that tile the plane wall as door and door in door, a wall is composed of two scales of door, for regular humans and for giants (or for spirits or aliens), and references Herz-Jesu-Kirche by Allmann Sattler Wappner (2000)
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door as negotiator, a door hinged to service the closure of one room at a time out of two, and references Door 11, Rue Larrey by Marcel Duchamp (1927) door as [pseudo-] negotiator, a door hinged at its centre to service the closure of two rooms at a time out of four, flipping the relations of rooms
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wall as door and display, the aperture of the wall rotates at a point somewhere in the middle like a revolving door, so expansive that when it’s perpendicular to its original plane, it becomes a wall of its own, and references Storefront for Art and Architecture by Vito Acconci and Steven Holl (1993)
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queered elements continued, from top to bottom: wall and aperture as scalable object and signifier of space, the three nesting walls form a corner that faces an outside, and can signify a spatial ordering logic, and references Todoroki Residence by Hiromi Fujii (1976) stair as wall and corridor, a run of stairs that are cut into to delineate a path or a corridor (contingent on the width of the stair), and references an early external stair typology that serviced residences in Venice wall and ceiling as room and bench, the solid form rises and wraps around space to form a room, creasing to provide a platform for sitting, and references Brasserie by Diller + Scofidio (1999)
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columns as corridor, a series of slender columns spaced about a door’s width apart suggest a corridor without separating space into two disconnected volumes wall as barrier versus ceiling and column as boundary, the wall depicts one a separation of space through forming a barrier, while the roofed structure depicts another separation of space through forming a boundary, something can be occupied as well (Montiel, 2018) wall as fluid corridor 2, a repetition of wall planes with shifting apertures that accommodate a a path to traverse space, and provide a ‘phenomenal transparency’ facing page: curb alert, rendering of top left corner of house (see plan on following spread)
lingerie try-ons, food recipes, mukbangs, laundry hacks, 24 hour live streams. No inch of the home is left undisturbed or unrepresented in the internet of things when access to the internet is nearly ubiquitous. Through its provision as an open forum for practically anything, what was deemed personal and furtive is not so much in this growing ease of online publicity, shifting expectations of what domestic life is composed of. The house exemplifies an aversion to binaries, of inside or outside, of something that is or is not, of here and there. The house is a site of display, using all housed objects in the construction of the home. Objects become explicit, less buried — signs, symbols, tools, details, decors, habits. A monstrosity of sprawling display cabinets that flaunt all things contained, the house blurs privacy and publicity, serving and served, through material means that intersectionally interrogate cultural constructions that inextricably marginalize, and burden some bodies but not others. It is an imposition of traditional domestic hierarchies through the overlay of other hierarchies in order to neutralize drastically uneven distributions of power.
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layers of inflection, from top to bottom: mediation between ground and sky border that support a mobility in occupation
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entries and exits that form the house as a porous structure architectural precint of the house, ground and fence facing page: plan, 1:100
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from top to bottom: framed objects and bodies, interior elevation section a, 1:100 section b, 1:100 facing page: things through the courtyard, rendering through the courtyard with swinging walls in open position
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02 - 04 2016
illustrator, photoshop, revit
isometrics of all rooms
The inspiration for the unorthodox configuration of this home stems from the filmic philosophies of Gaspar NoĂŠ. His films, which capture the spectrum of events of life, provide viewers with an intimate lens to the human body and mind. The central circulation space becomes the platform for the spectator, while the spaces surrounding become tools in seeing acts of life unfold, with not a single corridor to be seen. While still maintaining perimeters of programmed space in a traditional binary walled condition of here and there, the flow of space was disturbed through a lack of doors and a strategic configuration of rooms and apertures that maximized sight lines from room to room.
house 1, or house noĂŠ
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Surfaces that met with the exterior were arranged through patterns of solid and transparent, enveloping four projecting corner volumes to the house, which in tandem ensured
the interiors were always facing inwards, even when an individual looked outwardly, to the world outside, to an implied public realm. Although transparent segments in exterior walls existed, they point towards other transparent segments in other rooms that share no sight lines through the formal interior of the house. Simultaneously, occupation of the house is severed from a physical publicity but is forced into an arcane intimacy. Normalized room types of the single detached house exist but their relations to one another are tampered with, blurring normalization and gendered notions through raw connectivity. Occupation of the house demands an absence of shyness and anxieties surrounding the aesthetic body, causing a deviation from the details of routine domesticity.
from top to bottom: sectional isometrics at four intervals view through the garden, rendering from one bedroom to the other
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b
from left to right, top to bottom plan, 1:100 section b, 1:100 facing page: view through the centre, rendering looking into bedrooms and office space view through the library, rendering looking from living room into kitchen section a, 1:100
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12 2015
autocad, fritzing, grasshopper, rhinoceros
blomĂŠ from top to bottom, left to right: exploded isometric: plywood boards with apertures cut into where computer fans are located LED strips placement, with point where LED pins hang vertically white organza lining strips with tulle in between dark fabric concealing rectilinear rigid walls of room wood stud walls forming a room of a U layout
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facing page: fritzing sketch for prototype fabrication of fringe fringe installation of fringe adruino circuit with computer fans and motion sensors prototype installation at 325 church street
We have exploited and savaged the environment for our own selfishness and ease of lifestyle in the treatment of something finite as infinite. To express the ways our movements as humans cause a reaction on our fragile landscapes and environments, a fragile white form hovers mere meters from the ground, with fabric undulating like waves. Strips of translucent, airy, white fabric and porous netting stand perfectly still and static, only fluttering from the movement of visitors who walk past ultrasonic sensors that in turn activate fans nestled into this soft carving of space. The sensors also activate LEDs which brighten and pulsate, like stars and lightening illuminating the skies. Carving out space, creating caverns from cloud like fabric, reverses the ways we perceive and move through space; how and where we understand boundaries. Do you duck beneath the fabric and walk slowly or pace quickly through it? This is a comment on how we perceive our environment – do we barrel through, claiming what is our space from the fragile boundaries and layers, or do we respect it, trying to preserve its natural qualities? The BlomÊ prototype was featured in the 2016 DesignTO festival located at 325 Church Street (formerly known as Toronto Design Offsite).
team: catalina ardila-bernal, sarah lipsit, dana salama, jamie tong
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02 - 04 2016
illustrator, photoshop, revit, rhinoceros
team: sarah lipsit
small city school The original Davisville Junior Public School located in midtown Toronto was designed in 1962 by the Toronto Board of Education’s in-house architect, Peter Etherington. The architecture exemplified innovation and rejected conventional school design through the introduction of mid-century modernism, featuring a series of interconnected pavilions, or ‘houses’, each nestled under distinct parabolic roof structures. The project called for proposals to determine the fate of the school and potential ways to repair or use its original parts while accommodating a growing student and faculty population. The intention of the original design was retained in an operation deemed a ‘roofectomy’, conceived in critical reply to the typical facadectomy found in many conservation treatments in Toronto, and around the world. Where a facadectomy divorces an old existing facade, integrating a new building that does not reflect original parts or ideas behind the facade, a roofectomy in the case of the Davisville Junior School celebrates four feats of structural ingenuity by extracting its iconography to form a configuration that exemplifies an updated ethos of school design.
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This design intervention reorganizes the pavilions’ original linear placement into a pinwheel formation, a configuration that allows for expansion and contraction, connecting the pavilions to one another to form a new spatial hierarchy. This new arrangement exposes an external reading of all four faces of the roof structures, unlike the original school’s which featured solely a front and back. Radial growth denotes movement, changes, and addition; organized centrifugally with an atrium at its central point, this reformation creates vistas for engagement and a square that breathes. e5d8d0 e0d6ac aebc9f
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from left to right: isometric of roofectomy conservation treatment, from original design to new proposal exploded isometric of proposal
Dutch architect Herman Hertzeberger expressed that the should be like a small city, with vistas and variances in levels of seclusion, activity, and size of places. The building should provide as many conditions as possible for the those not yet of age to explore the life of a city and how to occupy it.
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from top to bottom: plan of ground level, 1:400 site plan, 1:1000
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from top to bottom, left to right: isometric of brick screen pattern variations used in facades elevation of brick screen pattern variations in class, rendering looking out from classroom on ground level in study. rendering of library centrefold, rendering of atrium facing page: section a, 1:400 section b, 1:400 section c, 1:400
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02 - 04 2015
core
autocad, illustrator, photoshop, revit, rhinoceros
team: sara duffin
from top to bottom, left to right: isometric of massing plan of ground level, 1:400 plan of third level, 1:400 plan of fourth level, 1:400
b
The contemporary library requires a mandatory shift from tradition, from when space was designed for the housing of books and other forms of traditional media. Access to information takes place through other mediums, primarily in thin air, and no interactive display or smart board will sway the general population to visit the 21st century library. Within Core, book stacks are arranged at the centre of the building, with its own internal circulation. Layering of program prioritizes the core of the building as a quiet atrium with a reading room found at its base, and a concrete wall envelopes the stack’s perimeter with integrated shelving to which the rest of the building’s structure ties back to. From the centre outwards, program is arranged by sound and activity levels, where the most vibrant spaces are found closest to busy Dundas Street West.
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facing page: exterior detail of physical model at 1:20 interior detail of physical model at 1:20 section a, 1:400 background: physical model at 1:20
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a b
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from top to bottom:
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detail section, curtain wall to slab, 1:20 a b c d
e f -
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g h
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double pane glazing with butyl edge seal aluminum frame steel angle white ash hardwood flooring polyethylene film sleepers snap cap pressure plate curtain wall spandrel panel: double glazed with reflective coating on interior pane semi-rigid insulation metal spandrel panel hidden track lighting fixture concrete beam
detail plan, composite wood fin to vertical mullion, 1:20: i j
k l m n o
composite wood fin double pane glazing with butyl edge seal steel clamp with T insert in vertical frame extended aluminum frame steel channel curtain wall vent insertions operable window
facing page:
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detail section b, west wall, 1:75
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02 - 04 2016
team: sarah lipsit, nahal rahnamaei
02 - 04 2017
The Net draws attention to human’s dependency on oceans and fisheries for food sustainability and as a source of both economical drivers and survival. Global aquatic agriculture production exists all over the world and defines and empowers communities to take charge of their resources, allowing them to access healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity and strengthens health. However, our relationship with the oceans is a delicate balance, and many of the world’s fisheries have already collapsed; there is an urgent need to work at all levels to drive commercial fisheries towards sustainable methods and improved marine management
practices. The design for the Net speaks directly to the Stop’s philosophy of distributing good food to everyone, endorsing equality and diversity amongst communities. The derived form idealizes the cart as a net, with an open grid-like structure made of interlocking modular PVC pipe components. Signage, business cards, and lighting orbs (a reference to fish roe), along with all food items, accessories, and other decor are caught in the Net.
the net & the weave from top to bottom, left to right: the net at night pvc and jig created for drill press use interlocking pvc design with metal thread and bolt ridding of any markings with rotary sander
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team: nahal rahnamaei
The Net served as a cart for the The Stop’s annual Night Market event in 2016.
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Following the disassembly of The Net, we were confronted with a vast quantity of unrecyclable PVC pipe parts. The Weave was conceived in line with The Stop’s philosophy, with a goal of material reuse, particularly food waste found in our homes, and our own waste from the previous year’s cart structure. The weave idealizes the cart’s form to represent the dining table. a precinct of congregation and community, wrapped in tablecloth fabricated of waste. Beyond a few new 2x4’s and some acrylic signage, single-use plastic bags and chip bags were used once more, woven into a series of vertically oriented recycled PVC pipes which can be seen through the translucent segments of the facade. Chip bags with shiny metallic interiors were turned inside out, glimmering at night through reflection. The Weave served as a cart for The Stop’s annual Night Market event in 2017.
from top to bottom, left to right: pvc from 2016 decorating the weave new and recycled signage the weave at night
11 2014 - 05 2015
team: naveed khan, sarah lipsit, victoria mininni, shane morris, sally pollock, katelyn runnals, filip tisler
foot[age]
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In commemoration of the Bata Shoe Museum’s 20th anniversary, the design team created an ethereal window installation reminiscent of shoes in motion. Located at the busy corner of St. George Street and Bloor Street West, it was crucial to the team that the installation could transform visually. The final product flaunts a very different identity from day to night. Final shoe formations were derived from shoe typologies provided by the Museum’s historian, and expressed through MDF extrusions backed to pocketed acrylic panels backlit with LEDs. Published in Azure Magazine, Canadian Architect, the Toronto Star, and the Ryersonian.
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facing page: top row: fabrication bottom row: posts from instagram captioned with #batashoemuseum background: completed installation, taken by remi carreiro diagrammatic plan of wall
illustrator, photoshop
illustrations from top to bottom, left to right: untitled, 09 2019 series of wallpapers to accompany a reading of italo calvino’s invisible cities, 10, 2016 facing page: single cover for twigg’s chamomile, 04 2018 untitled, 07 2019 untitled, 09 2018
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