Core Design Portfolio by Nathan Baker

Nathan Baker

Core Design Portfolio

USF SACD

Core Design + Graphics I

Core Design + Graphics II

Core Design III

[Professor] Brandon Hicks - [GTA] Kenneth Williams - Fall 2012

Organization + Order Space + Place Space + Habitation

4 6 10

[Professor] Stanley Russell - [GTA] Hanna Leheup - Spring 2013

The Corner The Wall SoBe Art Center

16 20 26

[Professor] Michael Halflants - Fall 2013

Port City Tampa Library Sarasota Housing Charrette NYC Highline

34 40 45

Design Studies Fall 2012-Fall 2013

Cantilever Sedia Del Capitano Smart Couch

54 56 58

Organization + Order

ANTICIPATIO F

NGIN G

G O

TRAVEL

INDEPE

E R N OMAD DENT M E N

Sophronia- Traveling

Once there we each get a new house, wife, friends, family, and job. With this way of life we are guarenteed to be happy

Once you realize that you may have another chance in to order to live diﬀerently you will be part of Eutropia too. Because it will give you the chance at your life

Euthrophia- Changing

THE EDGE IS NEVER THE SAME The arrangement is set up so that new people are always welcome. The farther out you go the more space you will have. Society is encompassed within the ever changing city.

L o

Once we become exhausted of our current lives we move to a city and life that are new to each of us, until we as a citizenry decide to move to another city.

When your home is constantly changing how can you not do the same?

E R M A N E N T

S E O L K O P M S H R O N I RETURN A RETURN L

O P E

Expansion is not an option for this city it is a requirment.

I N N E R

AMES

Thoughts of Traveling, Changing, and Growing cities were my first thoughts as I entered into Core Design 1. One of our first assignments was to read selected chapters from the book “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino, and from five different cities we chose three to design textual diagrams that dealt with a main theme of the city. Moving forward we were tasked with picking a city of our own and a small object, both of which we were to abstractly explore using any type of graphic means we chose. I chose a Pocket Watch and my home town of Minneola, Florida. The final portion of this assignment was a study combining the three “Invisible Cities” and our own studies, to give us a graphic that shows something that we found or rather realized in the previous studies. My final graphic is an exploration of implied connections being drawn from how a city is laid out in a grid which we adjust to even if we have not seen it, and how a watch has many mechanisms that are all connected.

METAMORPHOSIS

L AUG H T

[TWO WEEKS]

Olinda- Growing

Abstract Study of a Pocket Watch

Abstract Study of Minneola, Florida

Abstract Study of Implied Connections

[Sketch] - Shading Sketch

Space +Place [TWO WEEKS]

Usually as students we are given a site by our professor but our next project called for us to not see a site as something that you build on top of but as sculpted earth, as something that can and should be designed as well as any intervention that may happen there. Based off of our recent trip to the cities of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina we were instructed to design and construct a site of our own. This site was to combine five spaces: Gathering, Archive, Threshold, Transition, Intimacy. Each space was to be expressed differently by manipulating the ground plane. I saw the spaces as a progression from gathering to intimacy with varying degrees of privacy. Out of all the spaces the Archive space was my most difficult but also my favorite to design. It is situated between and under the Gathering and Threshold spaces, with only a small opening in a long score mark to designate its location, someone would walk right past it, making it a space that you would either happen upon or be told about.

[Draft] - Perspective of Archive Space

[Process] - Initial Parti

[Draft] - Full Model

[Draft] - Gathering space

[Draft] - Transition space

Program for Space + Place 1 Gathering

2 Archive

3 Threshold

4 Transition

Intimacy

2 Section Perspective of Archive Space

Space + Habitation [THREE WEEKS]

Located along a sunken wall that was once used to defend the city north of it our site finds it’s home, as will a mother and her recently adopted eight-year old daughter. On the South side of the wall the terrain gently slopes to a lake and a forest off to the East. The new mother is a descendant of an eighteenth-century poet and she would like to display her ancestors work on her new property for public viewing. The program includes: an entrance, living room, mother’s room, daughter’s room, viewing tower, nature trail, and a manuscript viewing area. With the city to the North I saw it best to position the manuscript viewing area facing North because of the harmful effects of the sun and so that as citizens would be walking on the nature trail to go to the forest they would have the opportunity to view the manuscripts. The rooms for both the mother and daughter are on the South side of the intervention to allow for privacy and the best possible light. Joining their rooms is the living room which also has a view to the lake in the South.

[Draft]

[Study] Perspectives - Manuscript Viewing Area- Daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room - Living Room

[Final] - Plane with Axonometric Section Cuts

[Final] - Exploded Axonometric of Manuscript Viewing Area

The daughters room is sunken into the earth in order to give a feeling of safety and comfort, while the motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room is elevated to give a feeling of freedom and of leaving her worries behind her on the ground. The ground has five score marks running perpendicular to the wall being generated from the four pages of the manuscript. 12

Program for Space + Habitation

Observation Tower

Mother’s Room

Daughter’s Room

4 Entrance

Manuscript Viewing Area

[Detail] - Connection to Ceiling

The Corner [TWO WEEKS]

Using the same site as Space + Habitation I used the Corner as a further exploration of the daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room. Corners are usually not the destination but are just what happens to enclose a space, so what if my corner gave you a reason to be there? How would I want to inhabit a corner? I would want to nestle in and read a book and enjoy having an area the is just mine even more private than the context of the room it is in. I decided to create a bench on the South side that would have a window and a frosted skylight so that the occupant would not get baked by the sun but would have a view to the lake off to the South. On the east side I designed a glass wall that would have an opaque screen to let in diffuse light. The Corner is designed out of concrete with glass at key moments to give the bench a sense of floating, and the top of the actual corner the appearance of nothing being there because the glass and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mullions are set into the concrete.

[Study] Model - Seamless connection between floor and glass

[Study] Model - Open corner

[Process] Model - Parti

[Sketch] - Section of Bench

[Draft]

[Site] - Corner

[Draft]

[Site] - Wall

The Wall [TWO WEEKS]

Situated South of a heavy bunker like structure used as a book storage area, and a light tectonic glass structure used as a reading area, lies our new site. The site is 145â&#x20AC;&#x2122; by 9â&#x20AC;&#x2122; and we were tasked with the design challenge of creating a connection between the storage area and the reading room. I started my design process with the question: What does it feel like to inhabit a wall? It would feel tight, enclosed, and it would have exposed structure. Taking the site into consideration I decided to give the storage area an underground entrance in order to emphasize the heaviness of it, this then led me to the idea of having a very simple element come up from the storage area and wrap its way to the reading room. Dealing not only with the concept of a connection between heavy and light, my project now deals with the idea of ascension and marking a progression. Starting from the storage area each element of the wall gets slightly smaller as it eventually hovers over the ground, and ending with an exterior reading area.

[Study] Model - Heavy to Light

[Process] Model - Parti

[Final] Graphic- Plan _ wrapping from wall - ceiling- wall - floor Sections _ scale - lighting - thickness Elevations _ spacing - movement progression

SoBe Art Center [FOUR WEEKS]

Located on Lincoln Road in Miami, Florida this project fits right in among all of the different artists that would visit the South Beach Art Center. The driving force behind this proposal is the idea of a Live-Work environment. With six studio spaces, six residences, one gathering area, one patron studio space that doubles as a living area, one full time gallery, and a workshop this is the perfect location for all types of art to thrive. As seen below to the South of the site is the residence area [Blue] of South Beach and to the North is the commercial area [Red]. Lincoln Road creates a datum South Beach revolves around. Taking the overall context of South Beach I shrunk it to the size of our site and made a central datum around which everything in my project would be affected by, just like Lincoln Road everything in a way respects and follows the datum.

THIRD FLOOR

2 1

2 Residence 3

Path Patron Residence

SECOND FLOOR 4

1 3

2 Sculpture Studio

Path

Gathering Area

Residence

Patron Studio

FIRST FLOOR

5 3

Path

2 Gallery 1

Mixed Media Studio

Painting Studio

5 Sculpture Studio 6 Workshop

Port City Tampa Library [FOUR WEEKS]

The Existing Port City Tampa Library has long been over due for an upgrade, with its Solid marble exterior and Vertical columns. An upgrade that would be noticeably different including concepts such as being an Addition, Light, and Horizontal. With these ideas running through my mind I started designing an addition that was focused on being elevated above the ground plane in some way or another, and with stretching around the site as much as I could to increase someones journey through my project. Starting my addition in the back of the Existing library shows the importance of this monument of the past, elevating my addition allowed my project the possibility to gently slope back to the ground. In the final stages of my design after some advice from Eddie Jones, I moved my main circulation to the edge of my addition and made it a ramp that has access to all of the different platforms that my project called for. My addition is fairly simple in layout and design, for the sole purpose of not taking away from the detail that was put into the Existing library.

Upon further exploration through models I realized that I wanted to wrap around a courtyard where the ground plane would be manipulated in some fashion, and would create a shaded outside area where readers could take a book outside and enjoy the weather.

SECOND FLOOR 1

Path

2 Secondary Path * 3

Children Stack + Reading Area

Main Reading Area

5 Conference Room 6

Office

Restroom

*Stack Areas follow Secondary Path

5 5

FIRST FLOOR 1

Path

2 Check Out Desk 3

Restroom

Cafe

5 Cafe Sitting Area

3 1

Sarasota Housing Charrette [TWO WEEKS]

Based in Sarasota, Florida this project finds its site in what will one day soon be a very high foot traffic area, a perfect location for a two unit duplex. The basis behind a duplex is that it can be repeated from one site to the next but still holding true to the context that it is in. The program that the client wants to include: Retail spaces, four car garage, and four living units. The owners of the stores would live in the larger unit and would rent out one of the smaller units to whom they so choose. Staying true to the idea of a duplex I first cut the site in half, and proceeded to lay out the program that absolutely called to be on the ground floor and worked my way up using the varying degrees of privacy to tell me where certain programmatic elements needed to go. During the research phase of this project I came to the understanding that when living in a multifamily duplex, each family loses a sense of ownership when they all have to go through the same door to access their individual unit. So in order to give these families a sense of ownership, I gave them their own door. Each unit is made of a large stereotomic â&#x20AC;&#x153;baseâ&#x20AC;? which then has a light tectonic structure coming out of it. Each unit has their own terrace area which has views out, to the central courtyard, and to all of the other terraces.

[Sketch] - Initial Site analysis

[Sketch] - Privacy Levels [Process] - Parti

[Sketch] - Shifting [Sketch] - Circulation

FIRST FLOOR 1

Path

2 Retail Space 3

Garage

Courtyard

SECOND FLOOR 1

Owner Residence

2 Tenant Residence

THIRD FLOOR 1

2 1

Owner Residence

2 Tenant Residence

FIRST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR

THIRD FLOOR

[Sketch] - Context

NYC Highline [FOUR WEEKS]

In the hustle and bustle of New York, there was an abandoned and long forgotten railroad, but not anymore. This old railroad is being brought back to life through the green spaces located on the Highline. The Highline is the neighbor and main reason for this project, in the city that never sleeps they cherish this track of green, how will you affect and respond to it? My answer to this question was to start where I always start: with a site analysis. This site is turned 28 degrees clockwise from 90 degrees, using true North and South site lines I was able to pull out a trapezoidal shape which would help to be a driving force in my project. The next bit of information that we were given was that this project was one that would challenge us to design in section. With this bit of knowledge I decided to take the same shape that I found from the site lines and â&#x20AC;&#x153;stand it up,â&#x20AC;? creating a sort of looking down effect. Using my site lines as the basis of my section gave me the opportunity to have my entire project be based on my response to the Highline.

[Sketch] - Site Analysis

[Process] - Parti

[Final] - 1:30 Massing Model

FIRST FLOOR 1 Study Area

[ -4’ ]

SECOND FLOOR 1 Book Store +

2 Restroom

Newsstand

[ +11’ ]

THIRD FLOOR 1 Lobby

[ +24’ ]

FOURTH FLOOR [ +36’ ]

1 Children Reading

2 Check Out Desk

FIFTH FLOOR

[ +40’ ] 1 Children Stack Area

Area

1 1

2 2

SIXTH FLOOR [ +46’ ]

1 Children Study Area

SEVENTH FLOOR 1 Office

[ +54’ ]

2 Conference Room

EIGHTH FLOOR 1 Young Adult

[ +58’ ]

NINTH FLOOR 1 Young Adult

Reading Area

[ +62’ ]

Stack Area

TENTH FLOOR [ +74’ ]

1 Cafe

2 Cafe Terrace

1 1

2 1

1 1

[Process] - Form-work

Cantilever [Professor] Carlos Molnar - Materials and Methods - Spring 2013 - [TWO WEEKS] The goal of this project was to as a group design a cantilever that would be able to hold a 6”x6”x6” concrete cube 30” out and another cube 20” out, using wood, steel, and concrete. Working with Erick McGartland and Genevieve Frank we decided to have three stages to our design. Stage 1: the Concrete, the heaviest and most massive of the three materials we would use as an anchor point and a counter weight. Stage 2: Steel, the strongest of our materials we used as a connector between the concrete and the Wood. Stage 3: Wood, the most dynamic of the materials we decided to highlight the dynamic quality of this material by making 3 sets of “arms” that would create a sort of wave effect from the side. My contribution to this project included, design, production, and assembly.

[Process] - Pouring Concrete

[Process] - Poured Concrete

[Process] - Parti

Sedia del Capitano [Professor] Michaels Lemieux - Furniture Design Workshop - Summer 2013 - [TEN WEEKS] The goal for the project was to design a chair using plywood. This class was broken into three stages. Stage 1: Mock Up, we were tasked with making a mock up chair to figure out the angles of the seat and back. Stage 2: Prototype, using the angles that we got from our Mock Up we designed a Prototype to figure out what the look of our final chair would be. Stage 3: Final, the final portion of this project was to make a chair that you could find in any furniture store, with finished materials and a finished look. I wanted to design a chair that I could sit in and relax-recline in, but also be able to sit up comfortably and have a conversation, and to be able to cross my legs in. I am proud to say that all of these criteria were met in my design. My contribution to this project was the design, production, and assembly. Based on the look of my final chair I decided to name it Sedia del Capitano which is Italian for The Captianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chair.

Smart Couch [Professor] Mark Weston - Sketching in Hardware/Digital - Summer 2013 - [EIGHT WEEKS] The goal of this project was to as a group design a smart surface, a surface where something from the physical world is read by a sensor and the information is transmitted from a micro controller to make something happen in the physical world, basically a cause and effect using a micro-controller. My group consisted of Carmen Sanchelle Lee, Casey Gonzalez, and Rich Meacham. We wanted to create a uniform surface of some kind of repeated pattern and have some kind of disturbance to that pattern make a rippling effect. Originally the surface was to be vertical but everything we were thinking design wise was calling for it to be like a padded chair. That is when Mark Weston asked us the question: “How do you hang a couch?” and our response was: “ You don’t, you sit on a couch.” And from then on we started working on following where our design was leading to in the beginning, making a smart couch. My contribution to this project was the design, production, assembly, wiring, and all of the code writing and editing.

[Detail] - Button with Light Sensor

[Detail] - Light Sensors

[Detail] - Bearing housing for Axel

[Detail] - Wiring Diagram

A light sensor is wired to a bread board, which then is wired to the Arduino sensor inputs. From there the Arduino [A micro-controller that you can upload a program into] reads that a sensor is activated and then turns on the corresponding motor to pull on the string that is attached to a button and then pull on the buttons that to the left and right of the activated sensor row until it reaches the end.

[Detail] - Render of how the gears turn

[Detail] - Wiring_Motors Bread board - Arduino