Miguel Castaneda Selected Architecture and Design Work
2014 M.Arch Candidate
Miguel Castaneda University of Florida School of Architecture B . Arch Design 2014
Miguelcastaneda91@gmail.com 954.274.3896
City Block Emergent Ecologies Urban Tailor Riparian Joint
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16 Hybrid Landscapes Mixed Genotypes Vertical Datum Light Rim
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26 Modified Surfaces Contested Spaces Stereotomics Systematic Composite
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32 Mnemonic Metropolis Student Involvement
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Context : Chelsea, NYC
Current location of high density housing, mostly social public housing.
Current location of open public space, mostly green area for sports activities.
Current location of learning facilities, mostly small studios or specialized schools.
Current location of work facilities, mostly commercial.
Current Manhattan Block Typology
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Residential Tower
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Office Tower
Tower/Base No Porosity at Street Level
Commercial/Retail Block
Tower/Base No Horizontal Communication
Proposal
Vertical/Horizontal Typology Vertical Flow in Various Planes / Allows for the Flow of the City into the Block
City Block
Future Block of Manhattan
The city of the future is one of an intricate dance, where today’s problems becomes tomorrows theatrical ensemble for addressing culture, economics, demographics, and sociospatial accessibilities. Rather than adding more to the congestion of the block, the proposal aims to create an orderly whole from the already distinctive parts of the city. The individual components symbiotically react within the block creating a self-(socio) sustained environment. As a result, the composition of these parts also promote creation of a 24/7 mix of activities within the block. Within the established and dominant fabric of Manhattan, lays the opportunity to promote new ways of living in urban density that address current problems: Creation of work through mixedzoning to address unemployment, creation of high intensity common spaces to address sociospatial
inequalities, creation of varied housing types that accommodate specifics demographics address lack of varied housing, creation of micro-neighborhoods to address marginal community interaction, creation of public infrastructure within the block to address transportation, and creation of fully-immerse university facility to address multi-use education space.
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Housing Units : High Density 2 : 2 :1 Communal
Conceptual Elements Private
Student 250 - 300 s.q.
Affordable 300 - 400 s.q
Market-Rate 350 - 700 s.q.
Common Spaces : Bathroom Kitchen Living
Common Spaces : Cafeteria Living
Common Spaces : Living
Main Attractors : Housing Work
Matrix of Nodes : University Retail Museum
Programmatic Shell
Unit Zones
32-27
UNITS/ FLOOR
Proposed Unit Plan
Conceptual Composition
27-20
UNITS/ FLOOR
23-12
UNITS/ FLOOR
Conceptual Composition
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Floor : 20
Horizontal Flow Elevated Avenue
Horizontal Flow Elevated Avenue
Porosity of the Block
Floor : 15
Continuity of the City
Porosity of the Block Continuity of the City
Floor : 5
Public Space
Vertical Housing
Elevated Avenue / Work
Programmatic Nodes
Shell
Screen Ribbon
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3
2
4
9 7 6
5
1 2 3 4 5 6
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5
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Auditorium / Mixed-use Space Library Residential Lobby Student Common Classrooms Retail
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7 Retail / Entertainment 8 Museum Space 9 Welcome Center / Gallery
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Public Space : City Flow through Block
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Site The site is anchored at the terminus of Charleston’s main horizontal axial corridor, Broad street, which in part serves as a datum for a few of the cities monumental landmarks.
Skeletal Study
Volumetric Clustering: Redistributing Context
Porosity
Fragmentation of Massing
Emergent Ecologies Rising Tides
The question of tidal inundation of the land and water joint in Charleston, led to architectural methods of inhabiting the future land and water ecologies. This revealed that forecasted water level rise on the hard edge condition would be vulnerable to extreme levels of flooding if tidal fluctuations were to surpass the maximum threshold of the edge. The proposed program for the site became about creating a facility to advance and research inhabiting methods of inundation for when future tidal fluctuations surpass the threshold of the current hard edge. The facility would not only anticipate the tidal fluctuation, but also work in parallel with the inundation, allowing for control flooding. This would be approached through a process of volumetric redistribution in which would accentuate the balance between dry and wet land through the process of manipulating the existing land/water edge. This manipulation would be
in the form of creating an , reminiscent of the historic wharfs that once existed in the area. These architectural components would allow for porosity of the tidal flux and work as a catalyst for micro-ecology development within the pores. The new created joint, would then allow for the program to be injected in the form of the research facility. The facility would be of amphibious qualities: flexible to the hydrology of the site. The site also would become programmatically active through the exchange of land and water ecology. The existing landmarks would serve as programmatic anchors of the site, overall becoming the tissue of livable land and water ecologies. Here, the landmarks would also become research zones of future methods of inhabiting tidal inundation areas. The site and facility could then allow for sea level rise to be viewed through an opportunistic lens of experimentation of land base and water base forms of occupation. Ultimately, the new ecological infrastructure would integrate into the current historic urban landscape, becoming a hybrid performative ecology of historic and future fabrics.
Enclosure
Site: Future Rising Tides
Site: Future Rising Tides
Perspective Mapping
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Architectural Tissue of Livable Land and Water Ecologies
1 2 3 4 5
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Cafe/Lounge Outdoor Ecology Research Main Lobby Indoor Ecology Research Outdoor Gathering
6 7 8 9
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Atrium Lecture Hall Lecture Seating Lecture Space
1 2 3 4 5
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Cafe/Lounge Outdoor Ecology Research Indoor Ecology Research Lecture Hall Atrium Lecture Seating
6 :: Lecture Space
Material Exploration Rethinking Manhattan Housing Tower Architecture of Porosity and Enclosure
Charleston’s Institute of Emergent Ecologies
Interior Programmatic Space
Endo-structural Skin
Exo-skeletal Structural System
Structural Systems
Charleston’s Institute of Emergent Ecologies
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Urban Tailor Restitching the Urban Fabric
Beyond the ruination and exploitation of Detroit’s shattered urban network , lays an opportunity to link together the spliced vectors of the ruins and the modernity of the surrounding context. Within the spliced fabric, the quality of ruins gave rise to the diagrammatic spatial construct which envelops the theory of overlapping and blending networks. These networks collide with each other to create a physical reaction which develops inhabitable nodes of revitalization within the ruin context of Park ave. The result of the collided networks was a programmatic link of the existing torn urban network.
Existing Ruinscape Network of Detroit
Diagrammatic Spatial Construct of the Ruinscape Network
Sectional Progression of Interstitial Space within Ruin Fabric: Translating . Enveloping. Redirecting
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Riparian joint exploration is the spatially explicit study of lake Newnan and its wetlands as it interacts with the terrestrial, and human landscapes of the peripheral ecosystem. The spatial study is also intended to determine the effects of pattern on ecosystem processes across temporal and spatial scales. The Intervention addresses the various zones of the land / water joint of the Hydric, Mesic, and Xeric at the service of the pavilion architecture.
Riparian Joint Exploring the Land/Water Joint
Xeric
Mesic
Hydric
Hydric, Mesic and Xeric Spatial Progression
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Landscape Flow: Welcome Center
The hybrid landscape is the exploration of the spatial exchange between field and surface, the built and unbuilt landscapes. The emergence of structure through this relationship also focuses on the idea of density versus structure : the accumulation of the two dimensional field of landscape, to the by-product of three dimensional emergence of surface as structure. The result is a vertical and horizontal free flow of landscape within structure.
Site Plan
Free-Flow Landscapes Contained by Directional Constructed Planes
Hybrid Landscapes The Spatial Exchange of the Built and Unbuilt
Landscape Flow: Boat House
Landscape Flow
Welcome Center
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Mixed Genotypes Rethinking Manhattan’s Vertical Living
Within the proposed vertical living contains a reflection on the nature of its differences: a collective assemblage of rotating volumes enunciates the directionalities of the city. Situated at the crossroads of Broadway and Columbus, the project seeks to create a moment of pedestrian wayfinding, experienced at the street level and in reactionary moments throughout the “Empire Residency,” showcasing to its occupants a theater of images of the city, complex of mixed city genotypes, constantly changing. Through geometrization of the site, a system of apertures, translucency and anthropomorphic skins, the vertical systems integrate to create an alternative method of experience at the human and city scale. The inventing of the inhabitable wall creates an architecture of cinematic relationships of the object and the subject. From the exterior, the residents are put in a visual duality with the city and the bystanders in reference to themselves.
Site Analysis
Opportunity for Pedestrian Wayfinding
Site at the Crossroads of Broadway and Columbus
Geometrization of Massing within Site Fabric
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Reactionary Moment: Theater of Images of the City, Complex of Mixed City Genotypes Creating Cinematic Relationships of the Object and the Subject
Private
Public Anthropomorphic Skin
Translucent Shell Composite Tectonics
Assemblage of Rotating Volumes
Porosity of Spatial Circulation is Dictated Through the Muscularity of the Vertical Living Structure.
Collective Assemblage of Rotating Volumes
Early Conceptual Mass Model: Geometrization of Site
Reactionary Moment: Alternative Method of Experience
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Nodes
Vertical
Horizontal
Stationary
Vertical Datum
Spatial Theatrics of Vertical Experience The Exploration of creating Spatial theatrics of vertical experiences led to the construction a vertical datum system that serves as a base for multi-spatial nodes that contribute to the development of the whole. As a composition of these elements, the whole is modified to be at the service of a larger contextual matrix that grafts to other complementary systems. The systems allows for the vertical datum to shift, catalyzing interstitial space. It is in these cavities that the multi-spatial nodes intervene through spatial and haptic permeability. The circulation between the nodes shift in response to the datum creating a stitch that permeates through a continuous spacial itinerary.
Vertical Construction at the Service of a Larger Contextual Matrix
Vertical
Horizontal
Spatial Theatrics
Vertical Construction at the Service of a Larger Contextual Matrix
Stationary
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Light Distribution Pattern
Plan
Section
Light Rim Volume Through Light
“Light Rim” is an experiment of creating volume through the manipulation of light, solid and alternating visual density. The intention is to create a seamless “floating” luminare-rim that creates a volume of light in the void of its shell, flooding the room with light. The luminare is also an exploration of porosity in a lamp system that is able to better illuminates its surrounding. The context is crucial to the design of the lamp in that it draws from the future-modern style that emphasizes light seamlessly being integrated into objects
Elevation
Composite Tectonics
LED Light Strip*
Light Source : Watts : Size:
Translucent Strip
Reflective Rim
Light Shell
LED tape light 23.5w 5 ft of LED tape
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Weaving of Planar and Spatial Constructs
Redirect
Submerge
Modified Surfaces Manipulation of the One Dimensional Plane
Exploration at the one dimensional level of the desert allows for freedom of formal restrictions. This leads to the process of alternative planar modifications to create space that is interconnected between the two and three dimensional fields. The relationship is carried through weaving planar and spatial components that combine to create place in a desert fabric. The tectonic system create anchors that peal the surface to reveal the space contained. In result, the structure becomes a bodified system that contain, redirect, submerge, and reveal new dimensions in the existing fabric that progress linearly at the service of the architecture.
Contain
2-D
3-D
2-D
Reveal of the Space Contained
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Contested Space
Fluctuating Light Zone: Blend of Light Effects that Bend, Penetrate, Wash and Diffuse in the Contested Space.
Contested Spaces Space Between Architecture and the User
If the architecture with its living components form a single formal unit, controlled by geometrical principles of design, then what governs the outdoor spaces elsewhere? And what of the structure that no longer functions as intended? This digital exploration attempts to experiment with the extension of the architecture to form structures that are developed into outdoor spaces, governable by the organic growth rather than the geometrical approaches of design. This extension is developed in the root of the “contested space�: the space between the architecture and the user, an extension of the structure which is in limbo between architecture and nature. The digital exploration that allows for antagonistic relationships to react to one another, creating a spatial
fill in the contested space. The two forces displacing each other are inversely related and, therefore, work both as attractors and repellents. The main rippling overhead is attracted to the gravitational pull of the ribboned pavilion. This pavilion allows for containment and exploration of the rippled structure by the user, while simultaneously reacting negatively away from it through formal gestures. The result of the exploration resulted in an emergent tertiary system. This system was embodied as a fluctuating light zone. The combination of the two initial interventions created a blend of light effects that bend, penetrate, wash and diffuse in the contested space. This system, unlike the initial two, fluctuates , morphing and adapting dynamically to the adjacent surfaces.
Ribbon Pavilion
Rippling Overhead
The Two Systems Displacing Each-Other are Inversely Related and, Therefore, Work Both as Attractors and Repellents.
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The action of making a constructed system follows a process of concealing and revealing contained space. This contained space is the output of various scalar differences, juxtaposed of elements to create a whole from the parts. Initially rooted as similar parts, individual components begin to modify to be at the service of the stereotomic composition that allows for variety of spatial moments.
Levels of Concealing and Revealing
Stereotomics
Poetics of Making and Revealing
Modified Components
The systematic application of the point, line, and plane creates composites that allow for possibilities of varying spatial and tectonic relationships. As a composite system, it allows for the constructed space to become a cohesive spatial narrative that is able to communicate with a larger context that is accessible to a larger contextual matrix of spatial narratives.
Systematic Composite Point, Line, Plane
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“Memory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other can work; it is the thread on which the beads of man are strung…” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The relationship between space, time and memory has been an explored issue in the metropolis of the past present and future. “Memory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other can work; the cement, the bitumen, the matrix in which the other faculties are embedded; or it is the thread on which the beads of man are strung…”1. When juxtaposed to the methods of experiencing the metropolis, memory then becomes the binding agent that holds together past and present visuospatial experiences, existing in both, and therefore catalyzing new intangible methods of mapping the mnemonic metropolis. Much like Debord’s “Theory of the Derive”, methods of mappings mnemonic spaces are best suited for the urban intensities of the metropolis. When referring to his theory of method in spatial experiences (Derive), Debord proposes that “wandering in open country is naturally depressing, and the interventions of chance are poorer there than anywhere else”2. In truth, the unurban context diminishes the rich center of possibilities and meanings that industrially transformed cities contain and, therefore, inhibit the development of mnemonic spaces and cognitive spatial mapping of the experience. However, in an attempt to further pursue the dis-
cussion of recollected mnemonic spaces one must test Debord’s method of the Derive through the lens of the experience that holds true in past and present and exist in both. If the Derive could be defined as a “technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances… [involving] playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psycho-geographical effects”2, then the argument is that this method addresses the spatial and visual experiences separately, but simultaneously, and holds only true in the present; a recollection of a derive dismantles the method of experience in which a derive proposes: the complete immersion of the present and total liberation of any past intuitions, i.e., to allow the flaneur to drop “their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”2. The outcome of the derive, therefore, become non-methodical, similar to the fragments of memory of classic notions of journey or stroll. The method of the Derive then ultimately fails to hold a future present and bridge the visual and spatial experiences. In contrast, the mapping the mnemonic spaces, focused in the metropolis, allows for a visuospatial map to become an exploration in which
Mnemonic Metropolis Mapping the Unseen City
Memory Urban-naut: Space, Time, and Memory Digital Construct
one reconstructs spaces from fragmented memory collected through what Baddeley and Hitch refer to as the “The VisuoSpatial Sketch Pad”3. Through the idea of the visuopatial sketch pad, the method of mapping mnemonic spaces becomes the outcome of the person’s ability to process and interpret visual information in reference to spatial juxtapositions. To achieve this functionality, Baddeley and Hitch developed a memory model that allowed for the understanding and process of spatial and visual information. With this, they proposed that distinctions in spatial and visual cognitive collection are bridged through the ability of utilizing the visual and spatial cache as a uniprocces of memory output 3 . In addition, temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information create an ability to hold spatial recording in memory and allow for planning of spatial movements. In result, this method also infers the creation of kinesthetic information that overlay onto physical space, allowing for the creation of new methods of movement in the metropolis that are concluded from visuospatial-memory, rather than, physical mappings. The visuospatial-memory mapping creates mnemonic spaces that, rather than being an active intellectual exercise as proposed by the détournement (the result of a derive), is reconstructed past in
the present from fragmented visuospatial-memory that is the result of “remembrance through irrational responses of sensory memory fragments”4. As when Domer refers to Proust’s writings: “It did not come from intellectualizing or thinking deeply or from any conscious thought process ..rather, the unpredictable response to sense perception, like the sudden unexplainable twitch of a leg muscle, that triggered the powerful surges of memory and broke into Proust’s consciousness”. These irrational and unpredictable reconstructions of visuospatial-memory are the daughters of the mnemonic metropolis; analyzing and applying it as a method of cognitive spatial mapping, informs people of metropolitan qualities that serve as nexus for the stitching of visuospatial-memory. Stitching of visuospatial-memory allows then for links between the cognitive and the physical. Crang and Travlou propose that “the [physical] landscape becomes a juxtaposition of asynchronous moments where space forms a container for different eras producing a depthless world where time as process is erased”5. The creation of the mnemonic metropolis in a cognitive landscape is then materialized to the physical landscape in what Crang and Travlou refer to as “juxtastructures”. “Juxtastruc-
1 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and James Elliott Cabot. “MEMORY.” In The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 12 (Natural History of Intellect and Other Papers). Fireside ed. Boston and New York: Fireside Edition, 1909. 90-110. 2 Debord, Guy . “Theory of the Derive.” Bureau of Public Secrets - situationist texts and translations. http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm (accessed September 17, 2013).
tures” become the intuitive internal compass driven by stitched visuospatial-memory of a previous experience. The ideas of cognitive juxtapositions, through the visuospatial relationships of built structures in the metropolis, is the birth of the mnemonic metropolis, in which people are kinesthetically informed bilaterally between physical relationships and visuospatial-memories. The two, Mnemonic structures and visuospatial-memories are then composed in overlayed mapping of the metropolis, in which unlike the Derive, time and space take on non-relative roles in the movement of the city; the past memories becomes available to, and the same as, the experience of the present.
3 Baddeley, Alan and Hitch, Graham. “Working memory: In The Psychology of Learning and Motivation” Academic Press (1974): 47-89. 4 Domer, Dennis “Building memory: an apologia for the senses.”Structurist, Issue 37/38 (1998): 26-33 5 Crang Mike, Travlou Penny “The city and topologies of memory” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, volume 19(2001): 161 – 177
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Student Involvement Leadership and Graphic Design
As a Student, I’m happy to have served multiple years as the lead director in Architrave, University of Florida’s School of Architecture student run publication, social chair for AIAS, and as a graphics chair for the School of Architecture Ambassador Program. As Creative Editor (2012-2014), Marketing Director, and Event Coordinator (2011-2012) of Architrave, I have been given me the opportunity to lead the concept and content development, production and design of the publication, as well as, design and organize school wide exhibitions for Architrave. As AIAS Social Chair ( 2011-2013) I have enjoyed leading the team in handling social events with firms at a national scale and school-wide functions such as Beaux-arts Ball. I also represent my school as the graphics chair in my college’s ambassador program, promoting student/ faculty interaction through graphic promotion of
events. More importantly, my opportunities have allowed me to pursue design in various scopes that extend past studio; taking me to places that have enriched my ability to understand design as a tool of communication that go beyond points, lines, and planes.
All Graphics Were Designed by: Miguel Castaneda
“Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.� - Bruce Mau 36