Portfolio 2020| Mitchell J. Lawrence | BS 2020 | Taubman College | University of Michigan

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S O C I A L ECOLOGIES

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“ C a n w e e m b ra c e a n e t h o s o f s u s ta i n a b i l i t y t h a t i s n o t s o l e l y a b o u t t h e a p p ro p r i a te c a re o f t h e w o r l d’s re s o u rc e s , b u t i s a l s o a b o u t t h e c re a t i o n o f m e a n i n g - t h e m a k i n g o f l i v e s t h a t w e f e e l a re w o r t h l i v i n g .� -bell hooks


FLOW CENTER

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VERTICAL CAMPUS

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GRADATING IDENTITY

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META/MORPHO/SIS

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CAMPUS OF THE FUTURE

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REDOING FRIDA

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CONSUMPTION

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DEAR ARCHITECTURE

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METABOLICS

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KEIJI DESIGN

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TERRAN ENCLAVE

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FLOW CENTER UG2 | W 2019 C r i t i c : L i z G a l ve z


In order to reconcile the division between public and private rowing communities, as well as built/natural relationships, FLOWHAUS introduces new adjacencies between various species and communities inhabiting the site. The program of the facility accommodates a balance between the existing private rowing community on the site, and the currently-neighboring public boating community on the East side of the river. Public boat rental, a public swimming pool, a cafÊ, and educational spaces invite the public to connect with the site and the process of river filtration, while private boat storage, locker rooms, workout rooms, and coach’s offices offer space to sustain the existing rowing clubs.


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A series of pools in the courtyard bring in polluted river water, and by the means of native species and human participation, cleanse the water to ensure a better environment for both wildlife and boaters. Wetland plants filter the water through their root systems before passing the water to the swimming pool, where it is further cleansed by U.V. light. It is then fed into an algae pool, which serves to filter out pollutants and provide nutrients for wildlife. The rowing pool’s users help to raise dissolved oxygen levels. Finally, the water is filtered by native freshwater mussels, and then fed back into the river, improving the overall health of the site.


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一 VERTICAL CAMPUS

A RC H 2 0 2 | W 2 0 1 7 C r i t i c : Daw n G i l p i n


This close examination of Morphosis’ 41 Cooper Square reveals the building’s use of the central atrium, grand stairs, and skip-stop elevators to produce a vertically contained campus space. The study includes examination through vertical section, axonometric, and perspective views. Drawing upon this examination of 41 Cooper Square, the copper model studies the formal qualities of the architecture as well as the conversation between interior and surface.


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二 G R A D AT I N G IDENTITY UG1 | F 2019 C r i t i c : Me l i s s a H a r r i s


Located on an urban infill site on the boundary of the University of Michigan’s campus and city property, this proposal for a community design center reinterprets the inherited binary of “city and university”; students are also citizens, and residents also engage the University. The building becomes an interface for moving along this binary. A mixed-use program includes “public” spaces of the city [red], such as an art supply store, day care, and office space, as well as traditionally private University spaces like lecture halls, classrooms, and library facilities [blue]. The ramping circulatory system moves users through the membrane of book shelves into their own respective spaces, while the dynamic shuffle of books allows for new apertures that provide light and view into the daily lives of those traditionally segregated behind a brick wall. This aspires to facilitate interactions across groups and disciplines, while accommodating the reality that most users exist on both sides of the spectrum.


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三 META/ MORPHO/ SIS

UG1 | F 2018 C r i t i c : Me l i s s a H a r r i s

Painting by Giorgio Morandi


The ambiguous borders found in Morandi’s paintings suggest a force that bends space and time, translating through spatial and temporal metamorphosis. Such phenomena form these objects, collapsing three forms into one with three branches. As each mass evolves, interiors ripple into new spatial possibilities. Herein is a proposal that each iteration can be made of the same physical fabric, but also be reshaped into simultaneously independent yet convergent forms. Through a shift in material and formal language, from the stacked and carved to the solid and poured, further variations raise supplementary interests in the relationship of organic and geometric Metabolist forms.


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ĺ›› CAMPUS OF THE FUTURE

XX | F 2017 Initiative for Inclusive Design Model Collaborators: Leah Hong, Ellis Wills-Begley, Courtney Klee Poster Research: Celeste Adams Team Members: Aimee Wolf, Mieko Preston, Jake Gondek, Antonela Sallaku, Brenna Thompson, Rachel Wittenberg, + Michelle Bonin.


Produced collaboratively in response to a study of the University of Michigan’s campus, this project strives to promote equitable spatial experiences as a standard of design. The project illuminates the various scales of physical space that impact the individual and the collective through architectural barriers. The proposal includes speculative designs from the scale of the campus to the classroom that may serve as precedents in rethinking the structure of our educational environment.


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P A T H S T r a v e l AbleBodied Person

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Person in a Wheelchair

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T O

E D

The Journey to Opp

T i m e :

1:45 MIN 6:30 MIN

Educational buildings such as the University of Michigan's Art + Architecture Building are designed in ways that limit the navigation of people with disabilities. Buildings like these limit the opportunities available for people with disablilites, despite being defined as "accessible,� and segregate people with disabilites from the paths and spaces of able-bodied people.

5:30 min

4:45 min

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University of Michigan Art + Architecture

Common Barriers to Education: Limited Automatic Doors / Limited Ele


U C A T I O N

portunity

In this trial, the person in an electric wheelchair had to travel more than double the distance to reach the same learning space.

1:45 min 6:30 min 36

1:00 min

n 00 min

e Building

evators / Narrow Passageways / Limited Routes

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REDOING FRIDA Work Session No. 8 | W 2019 D i re c to r : A n d ré s Ja q u e Office for Political Innovation A c t 1 : M y s e l f, K a y Wr i g h t , Q i n g y a n g X i e Act 2: Jordan Laurila, Ana Tang, Liam Li, Ibiayi Briggs A c t 3 : A d i t h i Ve l l i m a n a , S a ra A l s a w a f y, Na n C a o A c t 4 : Y i x i n M i a o, L y s e Me s s m e r, Ye Wa n g

Photograph: Maya Ballester


This “archi-political design experiment” consisted of performing the themes of Frida Kahlo’s “Self Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States” (1932) [above] and “Henry Ford Hospital” (1932), each based in Kahlo’s time in Detroit. Through research, writing, design, and performance, the project explored “the way buildings, institutions, resources, borders, gender, sex, blood, oil, bodies, territory, earth, bones, data, industries, finances, toxicity comes together to produce and accommodate life” both in Frida’s era and today (Jaque 2019). Involvement in Act 1: Atmosphere included research, co-writing, designing and constructing props, editing Audio recordings, and performing the final piece.


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CONSUMPTION A RC H 4 0 9 | W 2 0 1 9 C r i t i c : Me l i s s a H a r r i s


Through a daily ritual of freehand drawing over the course of a semester, this study investigated material cultures and habits of disposal. Subject matter included a series of garbage bins and their contents, constantly evolving through the metabolism of human existence.


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DEAR ARCHITECTURE XX | W 2019 I n d e p e n d e n t Pro j e c t

I n c o l l a b o ra t i o n w i t h C l a re C o b u r n J a m i e J o h n s o n , Na t s u m e O n o, L e a h Ho n g , K a y Wr i g h t , a n d R a c h e l S ko f


Dear Architecture is a student-run project intended as a platform to amplify student voices in pursuit of creating a more equitable educational environment. This collection of peer-reviewed letters aims to clarify and problematize the collective pressures students face daily in our education. The project manifested as a physical installation in the Taubman College Commons in February 2019. Through seven letters, Dear Architecture addressed topics including student schedules, health + wellbeing, economic challenges, and other institutional barriers to education. Since the publishing of the letters, the conversation started has helped push college administration to adjust class schedules, add support resources like a wellness room and documentation photo-booth, and institute the Taubman Student Council.


On Class Time + Time Management

Dear Architecture Educators, Please be careful to respect the time of students. Too often it is assumed that students are able to stay anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour and a half past the end of scheduled class time. In establishing such expectations, you make our already exclusive education increasingly inequitable. When you feel that you can make this demand, your peers likely do too. By assuming we have more time to give than allotted, you undermine our agency as students and adults. When we voice that we are stressed, not doing well, or a struggling, we are typically greeted with the standard response of “manage your time better”. This fails to recognize that our time in this setting is first and foremost managed by the faculty and staff of the college. Our daily schedules are already dictated by the prescribed courses each semester. This system has consistently failed to accommodate our human needs, which are a prerequisite to successful learning. When faculty take additional time out of our day, it pushes those of us that are already on the brink of collapse unhealthily close to our breaking point. I would be lying if I said that I have had perfect attendance during my time here; the realities of my schedule have often pushed me beyond my limits. So, when considering student attendance, please keep in mind the realities of the course schedules we are dealing with. The current class schedule for third year undergraduates holds us in the building from 9 am to 6 pm most days of the week. Important university resources like University Health Services are limited to normal business hours, rendering them inaccessible to us. We are often unable to get the support we need, or even seeking the institutionally required doctor’s note that would legitimize the time needed to heal. To expect us to sacrifice 10 minutes following class time simply because we have no other mandated courses immediately after predicates that we have no other obligations whatsoever. To accommodate such demands, are we to ignore our hours of coursework and projects? Should we only enroll in architecture courses? Are we all privileged enough to not need to maintain employment to afford our tuition? We’re hearing that we don’t need those 10 minutes to shower, or clean, or do laundry, or to know that it is okay to breathe for the first time in four months. While students often experience unreasonable expectations, my peers and I have also had numerous experiences where faculty have not arrived to class on time (and in some cases, at all) without prior notice. When so little flexibility is offered in our schedules, it is frustrating when faculty don’t hold themselves to the same standards to which they hold us. I understand that attendance is crucial to successful learning, but so is the instructional time that we have been promised. It is crucial that instructors take this more seriously, and that administration ensure that faculty schedules allow

them to arrive to courses as promptly as students are expected to.

We acknowledge that the magnitude of course content often exceeds the restrictions of the university-dictated educational structure. Despite the luxury of 4-hour studio sessions and relatively low student-to-faculty ratios, the needs of our courses sometime don’t fit neatly into the our existing required schedule. Therefore, rather than continuing to lecture into a fifth hour should the planned instruction not fit into a class period, perhaps arrange an optional meeting time outside of class. In treating such instances as office hours, you would allow everyone the flexibility necessary to take time for basic needs and would provide a much needed break before returning to course material. When we are investing our entire livelihood in the pursuit of this education, even just 10 minutes matter. We want to be a part of a college that doesn’t systematically limit the ability of students to succeed. We ask that you recognize that the way our courses are scheduled is often unreasonable and provides a barrier to success and wellbeing for many already. We ask that you stop claiming more time from student schedules while suggesting that we are the ones that need to manage our time better. We request that you respect the scheduled windows for courses to create a more

equitable educational environment for everyone. We’re lectured on how the discipline of architecture needs to be reshaped daily. Your lectures challenge the notion that architects should expect themselves to do overtime work without pay; in the same course, you demand overtime from us. It starts with you.

DEAR 01 ARCH ITECTURE Letters on our Education

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com dear_architecture

On Class Time + Time Management

“We are typically greeted with the standard response of ‘manage your time better’. This fails to recognize that our time is first and foremost managed by the college.”

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Along with considering students’ established schedules, we also wish for you to respect your own time. While we appreciate the passion that is most often behind this additional instructional time, be it in class or on a review, such practices normalize the unfortunate notion that architects must work unreasonable overtime without pay. We want to achieve success, but in a discipline that appropriately compensates us for our contributions. Suggesting that both students and instructors should work beyond our allowed schedules in pursuit of an impossible end point undermines such efforts.

Sincerely, Mitchell Lawrence


deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

dear_architecture

dear_architecture

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

dear_architecture

Letters on our https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/resources/ Education

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

Figure 02: Harvard GSD Support Services on Mental Health

dear_architecture

Letters on our Education

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

dear_architecture

Letters on our Education

Letters on our Education

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

dear_architecture

Letters on our Education

On Transparency and Student Resources

On the Inequity of the Pre - Arch Program

On Beyond Just Architecture

On Student Health + Wellbeing

“I...would like more transparency regarding where our tuition money is going, specifically, monetary allocation for student resources.”

“I have come to realize a strong lack of transparency regarding the benefits of freshman admittance to the program.”

DEAR 07 ARCH ITECTURE DEAR 06 ARCH ITECTURE DEAR 05 ARCH ITECTURE DEAR 04 ARCH ITECTURE DEAR 03 ARCH ITECTURE DEAR 02 ARCH ITECTURE

Figure 01: www.gsd.harvard.edu/resources/

On Studio Work Culture

On Schedule Restrictions

deararchitecture.tcaup@gmail.com

“We should use the unique qualities of Taubman to our advantages, and the University of Michigan’s vast array of knowledge is an exceptional one to start with.”

“We ask for the help of Taubman College to preserve our health, so that we may achieve these goals.”

“When we voice that we are stressed, it would greatly benefit our mental and physical well-being if you would first consider that we do not admit that lightly.”

“If architecture school has taught me anything it’s how to think differently about the world we live in and to be critical of it.”

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Letters on our Education


å…« M E TA B O L I C S XX | S 2018 I n d e p e n d e n t Pro j e c t


Tokyo is a city of continual renewal from destruction. Tokyo is home to 37,832,892+ moving parts. Tokyo is a place where centuries of tradition inform the creative practice of living and evolving.


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KEIJI DESIGN XX | S 2018 K e i j i A s h i z awa D e s i g n


While working in the Keiji Ashizawa Design office, responsibilities included iterative physical and digital model making, rendering, and gallery layout development + installation of “Architect Meets Karimoku,� an exhibition in Design Koishikawa of furniture designed by Torafu Architects, Norm Architects, and Keiji Ashizawa Design. Deliverables produced were used by the office in design development, client presentations, and competition entries for international brands including Tissot and Mini. Site visit and documentation additionally informed the development of 3D models and gallery layout design. The following projects were developed by the Keiji Ashizawa Design team. Images courtesy of Keiji Ashizawa Desgn.


1800

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A3 SIZE FRAME

Photograph: Masaki Ogawa 57


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Photograph: Masaki Ogawa


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抹茶

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団子


TERRAN ENCLAVE UG3 | F 2019 C r i t i c : Da n i e l Ja co b s I n c o l l a b o ra t i o n w i t h C l a re C o b u r n a n d P h i l l i p A l l o re


Terran Enclave proposes a transdisciplinary institution that works against the climate crisis by valuing and creating diverse ways of knowledge production. It seeks to enable a new way of life that promotes closer working relationships across disciplines and across species. This takes the form of overlapping residencies, ranging from one to three years, bringing together artists and scientists to retreat from the pace of modern life, re-orient to the terrestrial, do their work, and share with their own communities upon return. Terran Enclave allies itself with pigeons, pollinators, and community organizers to inoculate nascent ways of being into the world through information/seed broadcasting.


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The project is sited on an inherited parking and storage lot used by the Chicago Transit Authority. Asphalt covering the site is crushed and fills the gabion walls used in each greenhouse for passive heat retention. The earth excavated for the subterranean labs and server farm is used to erect the rammed earth walls. Each wing of the building is designed using standardized commercial greenhouse parts, making it possible to assemble most of the building from reclaimed steel frames, significantly lowering the embodied material emissions. Further, these material systems assemble modularly, allowing for more efficient maintenance of the complex.


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T H A N K

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WILLEKE PORTFOLIO COMPETITION V . I V | 3 . 3 0 . 2 0 2 0


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