Nicolas DelCastillo
Undergraduate Portfolio
C o n t e n t s University of Florida SOA Fall 2013-Spring 2017 Door-Window-Stair
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Tower
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Ruins
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Tamedia Office Building
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Vertical Brooklyn
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Brooklyn Superblock
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Charleston
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Threshold
Vertical Datum
Kit of Parts
Structural Analysis
High Density Urban
Horizontal Intervention
Urban Fabric
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Rhythmic Undulating Tension
Swinging Structure
Door-Window-Stair Threshold
Nicolas DelCastillo Design 3 - Fall 2014 Professor Will Zajac
Door-Window-Stair is about thresholds and scale of space. It exists in the theoretical realm. The generative process began with analysis of an artifact. This artifact consisted of a video depicting two juxtaposed frames, each containing a shot of an elephant moving through an expansive but enclosed space. The rhythm of the elephants, the fields that they created as they moved, and the undulation of their moment all became drivers for the creation of a built space within which a human and elephant could coexist.
Sliding Interlude
Light/Surface Studies
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Door Window Stair Construct
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Transverse Section
Spatial Joint - Sliding
The process of generating a spatial construct involved mapping the movement of the elephants in relation to one another. These diagrams were pulled through from many iterations, resulting in the morphing of a new context of thresholds within which the elephant could exist. The the process was repeated through the use of models diagrams, and drawings, which were then brought together into a set of zones inhabitable at both the human and elephant scale (right).
Longitudinal Section
Plan
Tower
Vertical Datum
Nicolas DelCastillo
Design 4 - Spring 2015 Professor Nitin Jayaswal
This project involved fleshing out the spatial characteristics of a piece of music. Through diagramming, sketching, mapping and repeated exploration of “The Mississippi Song”, a vertical datum was generated. This datum then grew to house the components of a school of music for the folk and bluegrass traditions. The song is composed of two voices, and allowed for many interesting moments where the two singers voices overlapped. The program of the School of Music encompasses practice rooms, a large concert hall, and a smaller performance space, reminiscent of the “band-shell-in-thepark of many towns throughout the south. Tower Sections
Overlapping of all diagrammatic investigations
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Band-Shell Band-Shell (Apex) (Apex)
Concert Hall Hall Concert (Midpoint) (Midpoint)
Inspiration Inspiration
Practice Rooms Rooms Practice (Base of of Tower) Tower) (Base
Ruins
Elephant Sanctuary Nicolas DelCastillo Design 3 - Fall 2014 Professor Will Zajac
Group Drawing participants: Anastasiya Zolotukhin Melika Konjicanin
Plan of “Sound Stable”
The Elephant Sanctuary was a group project that was situated on a common site. It became about how thresholds interact in two different scales. There is a unique relationship between the scale of a human - and the way a person moves about a space - and the scale of an elephant with its specific spatial requirements. The project began by implementing a set of parts or “ruins” from Door-Window-Stair, which dealt with similar spatial issues, though lacked a common program. The “Ruins” project incorporated three interventions per site. Between the three were split specific programmatic elements, such as: rubbing wall, sound stable, shade sanctuary, floating cistern, dust bath, and trunk room.
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Detail Axonometric of “Sound Stable” and “Rubbing Wall”
Composite Drawing of the work of all group members
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“Sound Stable”
Elephant Entering the “Sound Stable”
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Tamedia Office Building Structural Analysis Nicolas DelCastillo
Structures 1 - Fall 2015 Professor Nawari Nawari Group participants: Maddy Dwyer Alex D’Haeseleer
The Tamedia office building is an expansion of an existing building in Zurich, Switzerland housing the newspaper group, Tamedia. The structure of the building is based in the woodworking skills of the Swiss and the technical prowess of Japanese carpentry. The building is created through a frame of large scale intersecting wood dowel-like beams and columns. The wood itself is treated as a high tech material, but the result is a simple and relaxed frame structure that the space is then built and designed around. For our investigation, we decided to use the same approach that Shigeru Ban took when designing the building, and laser cut each of the members at a proportionally smaller scale. The idea is to use the same building techniques and technology in order to create the same structural stability with the minimum number of timber structures.
Column Grid
Dead Load Test of Model
Lateral Load Test of Model
Diagram of Structural Connections
Vertical Brooklyn High Density Urban Nicolas DelCastillo Design 7 - Fall 2016 Professor Jason Alread Group Partner Nicholas Acosta
The New York Tower project deals with high-density programming in an urban setting. The project site is located in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). The specific site is between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges in Brooklyn. DUMBO is the up and coming tech center for New York City. The area has a mix of very young upper middle class residents and lower income residents. The neighborhood, like much of the city is grappling with gentrification, trying to manage growth in a sustainable way without forcing out the established residents. From the 1850’s through the later half of the twentyfirst century, DUMBO was an industrial manufacturing center, and even then had a tendency towards innovation. The cardboard box was invented here, and many of the oldest reinforced concrete buildings in the city were constructed here for the Gair cardboard empire.
View Down Walkway in Hotel
Site Massing, dealing with orientation to sun and waterfront
Initial Section Sketches
Laying out the towers began by breaking the programing between two unique structures. In the westernmost tower, we placed the ballroom and a restaurant. The rooms were divided sectionally like the Marseilles Block by Le Corbusier, to allow for cross ventilation. The Eastern tower is a more traditional double-loaded hotel, but with an open air atrium where circulation occurs. This encourages stack ventilation to pull colder air from beneath the plinth while cross ventilating the rooms. The atrium is canted out to be wider on the south to capture the slow breezes that move towards the east river in the summer. Elevators and stair towers will open out onto open air walkways that are held up by a metal structure. The walkways would have bridges that span to the rooms. These bridges would not only connect the auxiliary spaces of the towers, but span between the two structures, allowing a unique way to move between restaurants, pool decks, and meeting rooms.
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Overall Site Diagram
View Down Walkway in Hotel
The program of the project included one thousand hotel rooms, two restaurants, a theatre, a ballroom, pool, park, meeting rooms, and support spaces. Our initial project move dealt with how the tower(s) would connect with the site. Being immediately adjacent to the abutments of the Brooklyn Bridge, we decided to raise the level of the ground with a raised plinth, and add a park as a sort of terminus to the bridge. This would also allow us a great deal of space for the service components of the program that are necessary for supporting a large hotel. We left the space below the plinth intact so as to increase programmable outdoor space. The ground of the park would break around the towers and other places to allow light below.
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Project as viewed from Southeast
View Upwards from “Plinth”:
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Section Through Hotels
“Gair� Building and the lot that became the project site
Brooklyn Superblock Horizontal Intervention Nicolas DelCastillo Design 7 - Fall 2016 Professor Jason Alread Group Partner Nicholas Acosta
The New York Tower Superblock follows directly from the Tower project. We kept the same site in Brooklyn, but rather than adding a vertical element to the city, we instead explored horizontal expansion into the fabric of DUMBO. The project is 600,000s.f. of interior and exterior space that encompasses a Hotel, Park, Office and Retail, Gallery, Market, Theater, and Apartment components. The intervention is centered on Washington Street.
Site Plan
Process Diagrams (Plan) Iconic Image of DUMBO
Early Section
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Section of Theater and Retail
Hotel
Park/Retail
The Theater sits East of center in the project. It is an adaptive reuse of a 19th century warehouse and the adjacent building. The theater itself is lifted above the main entry level allowing retail and dinning to occur beneath. The separation allows circulation between the original exterior and the new exterior of the theater.
Gair Building / Colonnade
Theater
Apartments
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View West from Market / Colonnade towards Hotel
Final Section
Gallery
Hotel
Park / Retail
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Market / Retail
Theater
Interior of Market / Colonnade
Apartment Atrium
Apartment
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Interior of Theater
Hotel
Daylighting Simulation from Sefaira
Water Collection / Mitigation
Gair Building
Apartment
Superblock deals with an incredibly diverse set of conditions. One of the driving goals was to ensure that we could daylight as much as possible. This influenced the orientation and massing of the project and drove us to position the new buildings North-South. We also arranged the components to allow all living spaces and most public spaces to be naturally ventilated when the weather is amenable. We organized the project around the “Gair Building�, a large 19th century warehouse that had been converted into apartments. The building was among the first in the country built of reinforced concrete, and is constructed in such a way as to allow us to remove the walls and much of the floors for the first two stories. This action setup a sort of colonnaded gallery that could hold an interesting set of spaces while allowing us to organize the project.
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View south into the park entrance
View southwest from above retail spaces
View East from park toward Gair Building
There exists an 18’ difference in ground level between the Gair building and the site of the Hotel to the West. This provided an opportunity to create two “grounds”. One ground sits at the first basement level of the Gair building, and at ground level at the hotels. The other “ground” begins at the first level of the Gair building and folds upward to become storefronts and shops as it moves to the West. The spaces are revealed as you move towards the west of the project. This formed a very active set of occupiable spaces, and provides much desired intercity park space to DUMBO, while still adding destination to the city.
Charleston Urban Fabric
Nicolas DelCastillo
Design 6 - Spring 2016 Professor James Leach
Project Site, East Bay Street Charleston Market
Basket Weaving
This project is a Community Center for the Gullah/Geechee people in Charleston. The project is constructed between two existing buildings on East Bay Street, and includes the following: A Market space for the selling/teaching of sweetgrass baskets; an Atrium for ring-shouts (Gullah story telling tradition) and community gatherings; a gallery for display of Gullah art and African artifacts; and a garden area for the growing of Sweet grass for the baskets.
View into Atrium from Second Floor
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Final Perspective of the Facade
View from entrance on Bay Street
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Final Plans
Light and water had an influence on the design of the space from it’s inception. Both sunlight and rain play an important part in the culture of the Gullah people. The roof plane of the gallery is canted to the south to allow a series of east-west fins to bounce light into the gallery. This lights the artwork in way that won’t damage any potentially fragile pieces. The metal mesh of the atrium, and that of the gallery ceiling is also layered in such a way as to diffuse the light passing through it. In the atrium, this creates a dappled condition reminiscent of that under the boughs of a live oak - the traditional location of a Ring-shout.
Section, Program, and Site Sketches Section between Atrium and Gallery
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Atrium
Rain water is considered sacred to the Gullah people, and as such water that falls on the site is collected and used. Water Is collected in a cistern on the roof, and feeds sweetgrass beds to the west of the structure. This sweetgrass, which is currently endangered can be sustainably harvested and used for the workshops and baskets sold in market. Water falling on the atrium will drip through and create a misty, drippy condition in the large non-conditioned space that serves again to mimic the rain under a canopy of trees, reconnecting the users with nature.
View to Market from Atrium
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View of Gallery Interior
Gullah Gossip, Jonathan Green
Ring-Shout
Sweetgrass beds at rear of building Gullah Christmas, Diane Britton Dunham
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Architecture alone is not a social driver. It does not have a responsibility. It lacks an Ethos. At the same time, Architecture can neither be separated from its inhabitants nor its surroundings. As a designer, one should feel a responsibility to the users, to the context, and the community. Architects have a responsibility to design in a way that empowers. Too many projects are built to serve ego and vanity. That is not compelling to me. I think that the best projects add something, contain an intrinsic value. I am passionate about good design, but to me good design encompasses not only the building, but all that is impacted by it. Good design is considering light and air and energy. Good design is also thinking of the storefront next door, the community park down the street, and the history of the place you build. These are the things that drive a project. A good building is not just one that works, but one that works to improve those who encounter it. -Nicolas DelCastillo