Architectural portfolio_Omar Alhaddad

EDUCATION

O mar a bdullah a lhaddad

Architectural Designer

omar.a.alhaddad@gmail.com

+966 562706382 omarch.weebly.com

Master’s degree in architecture design from SCI-Arc SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE

2017 Los Angeles, CA

Bachelor’s degree in architecture design from KING ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY

2011 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

EXPERIENCE

Architect & site engineer in ZUHAIR FAYEZ PARTNERSHIP CONSULTANTS

2012 - 2013 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Architect - Internship in AL-HEJAZ GARDENS EST

2009 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Architect & Site Engineer - Internship in KAU VICE-PRESIDENT FOR PROJECTS

2009 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

It was a great opportunity for me to do my masters in SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) in Los Angeles, CA. It’s a school that was rated among the top 10 schools of architecture in the United States. In 2017, it ranked as the 4th in design, the 3rd in Computer Applications and the 2nd as the most program admired by Deans and Chairs. It specializes in exploring and inventing new methods of design in contemporary architecture, by using the latest technology in the architectural field. SCI-Arc has a group of some of the most well known architects in the world, as instructors and directors, like Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Eric Moss and Wolf Prix.

In SCI-Arc, I had a chance to join the competition of designing Barack Obama’s Presidential Center in Chicago, IL. Also, I was nominated for Frank Gehry Prize for the best thesis in 2017.

I worked for Zuhair Fayez Partnership Consultants, contracted with KAU, as architectural consultant and site engineer. I was in charge of about 8 Projects, educational and residential, in different construction phases. The building of Deanship of Graduate Studies, The Faculty of Economics and Administration, The Female Campus in KAU, The English Language Institute Building, The VIP Booth of KAU Stadium, Wadi Jeddah Company building and some of the classrooms buildings.

I’m an expert in architectural softwares such as Rhino 3D, Autodesk Revit Architecture, Grasshopper-algorithmic modeling and environmental analysis, Autodesk Maya, Zbrush, 3D-Coat, Keyshot and others of digital modeling softwares.

ARCHITECTURE

— Robin Evans

Translation is a process that transfers information directionally. Also, translation is a way to present things from different perspective. The process of conveying information is a technique, and every technique has its own logic that effects the result. Drawings are sensitive to translation techniques and diversity in technique can bring new types of drawings with completely new sense.

The technique becomes itself the product of imagination that animated to affect and to various ends every time the technique is changed.

“To translate is to convey”

Rhino - Illustrator - Freehand - Keyshot - Autocad - Makerbot - Netfabb - ZPrint

I tested that with construction working drawings in order to create a redefinition of their 2D logic.

I used 5 different translations techniques to misinterpret the details drawings. Each operation has its own logic, and that unique logic was the driver in the process of re-misinterpreting them to elevate them from 2D to 3D logic.

Inventing the drawing instead of inventing the thing drawn was a purpose to see how the differentiation in drawing techniques can effect the 3D outcome of them.

B&W Geometrical Drawing

A refined sketch of the details was translated into a black and white geometrical drawing; and that created a new sense of the construction manual. The translation result has the potential to create a mass with 3D spatial logic.

Diagram of transforming the 1st translation into spatial 3D model

The

Fast Handwork Sketch

A fast hand operation repeated 10 times and manipulated digitally, then converted into spaces that is presented as sectional layers.

Diagram of transforming the 2nd translation into spatial 3D model

2D logic into 3D

5”x5”x5”

Hand built

Acrylic 1/8”

3

Translation

Low resolution sketch that misinter preted the details drawing into a pixelated image, then converted into a frame object with a 3D spatial field.

Diagram of transforming the 3rd translation into spatial 3D model

The

4 th Translation

Blurred translation was also a way to misread the details. The color grada tion in the result was the driver to get to a 3D gradual spatial object by using the differentiation in colors as a differentiation in heights.

The

Figures Interlock

Figures interlock was a result of a misinterpretation process that consid ered the density of the patterns in the original drawing to shape and define the figures. Each figure is elevated to a 3d in a way that makes there juxtaposition creates a spatial field in between of them.

Diagram of transforming the 5th translation into spatial 3D model

The

The first translation result in my thesis has an interesting potential to work as a building. It’s able to contain a program of offices project and its irregular form has potentiality to create new type of business offices environment. After considering the right scale, the 1st translation can be developed to become a business park and contains many companies like, software companies for example. All the spaces in the building is available for everyone of the staff. In term of advanced technology in the world of business the need of offices is not like before. The changing in technology affect the way we behave and that affect the architecture we need.

Rhino - Grasshopper - Freehand - Keyshot - Netfabb - ZPrint

Applying the 1st translation into

This project examines a new criteria in business parks integration methods.

-This business park designed to contain high technology companies.

-In this building there are no signed offices. It’s a building where any one is free to work any where depending on the task type.

-Each member of the staff is able to do his work on tablets or any type of mobile devises.

-The building parts were developed to produce different types of areas. Some areas have room for one person and others for group of two; some are public and some are private.

All the spaces and the architectural elements in the building came from articulating the B&W Geometrical drawing that resulted from the first translation in the thesis.

Building shape

Detail scale

The scale of this drawings on paper is 1”= 4 What’s going to happen when 1”= 4’ ???

Types of

All the spaces in the building is available for everyone of the staff. In term of advanced technology in the world of business the need of offices is not like before. The changing in technology affect the way we behave and that affect the architecture we need.

In this building there are no signed offices. It’s a building where any one is free to work any where depending on the task type.

Each member of the staff is able to do his work on tablets or any type of mobile devises.

The building parts were developed to produce different types of areas. Some areas have room for one person and others for group of two; some are public and some are private.

From pattern to architecture

The construction details instead of represent parts of a building on papers they became themselves parts of a building.

In this building there’s no signed offices. It’s a building where any one is free to work any where depending on the type of work. I developed some parts of the building to show different types of areas. Some have room for one person and others for group of two, some are public and some are private.

One of the single most influential archetypes from modern construction to massively affect the image of an american city, the “Chicago frame” came to incarnate the physical implications of the grid in architecture.

The project aims to test the overarching limits of the frame against its most demanding adversary: the unruly mass. The confrontation suggests that in the dichotomy and incongruity of the brief encounter, the unforeseen result can reveal new promises for architectural undercurrents. Weirdly recast onto spherical mass, the grid becomes fuzzier… its organizing effects strangely disappearing under the shade and shadow of a black incoherent mass.

b arack O bama p residen T ial c en T er

Cultural Center. Chicago, IL

Rhino - Grasshopper - Illustrator - Vray - Netfabb - ZPrint - Hand work - Laser cut

This project is for the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) of approximately 100,000 SQ.FT. that includes the Presidential Library and Museum. The Barack Obama Foundation will be responsible for all aspects of the design and construction of the OPC, including raising the entirety of the funds needed for construction of the project. The OPC will include a library holding the Presidential archives, a museum focusing on the Obama Presidency and issues of our time, and space for programs and initiatives that advance the Foundation’s public mission. In May 2015, the Foundation announced plans to build the OPC on the South Side of Chicago on one of two potential sites: Jackson Park or Washington Park. This project will challenge fixed aesthetic notions of beauty and legibility in architecture, using indeterminacy and defamiliarization to speculate on the generation of withdrawn, irritant and engaging architectural images. The studio will explore a historically prevalent and currently significant opposition between volume and structure.

Location Project Script

The other potential site is located in Jackson Park along Stony Island Avenue, part of the Woodlawn neighborhood. The site would be bordered by Stony Island Avenue on the west, Cornell Avenue on the east, 60th Street on the north, and 63rd Street on the South. The Woodlawn neighborhood also has the potential for an economic boom. The presidential center could catalyze this development and support a range of opportunities, including commercial investment and new educational facilities along Stony Island Avenue and 63rd Street.

that contain different programmatic function such as auditorium. Different frame distributions happen on each floor, however not obviously tied to structural hierarchy. The building is enclosed in a darkly tinted glass that gives a stronger reading to the form and dissimulates the frame creating a fuzzy effect.

The approach to the project started with a strong primitive mass, specifically an inverted / stepped stack. In this way the mass would not appear so heavy as it met the ground. The approach to the frame was to use multiple scales and densities of frame relative to each of the stacks or floors. The frame was designed somewhat independently of the overall mass.

The superposition of the multiple frame clusters over the inverted mass gives autonomy to both systems rather than a synthesis. The independence of the frame allows the elements to slip (vertically) and slide (horizontally) through the mass.

As we moved from the formal exercise to the project, the proportioning and positioning the primitive became more precise relative to the program. The building has five floors, organized with a generally open plan and figures dispersed on each floor

north south east

west

— Aldo Rossi

This project shifts its attention away from the study of housing in an urban setting - which it has done in the past - towards the study of the relationship of architecture to urbanism and, more specifically, of the architectural artifact as urbanism. The project is for a very large mixed use complex in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.

The project explores urbanism through the examination and development of single buildings that, owing to their size, form, or urban impact, become themselves, urbanism.

“Urban studies never attribute significant importance to research dealing with singular urban artifacts”

Housing Project. Los Angeles, CA

Rhino - Revit - Illustrator - Photoshop - Keyshot

Every time an object is built it establishes a relationship with its ground – regardless of the intent of the architect. A building might negate the context or embrace the local conditions. Irrespective of either scenario, the figure/ground question remains unavoidable. The ways a building engages with the ground transcends design, and is highly influenced by social, economic, and political factors.

Downtown Los Angeles is an example of a city where many urban functions have moved indoors. Private developments have become the home of shops, parking structures, institutions, and organizations. Simultaneously, mixed-use developments have grown larger and more efficient. As a consequence of this process, buildings have become introspective and self-sufficient – fueled by economic factors that naturally produce mute, impenetrable box-shaped plinths hosting these functions. Los Angeles is often construed as being a pedestrian un-friendly city; while we like to think that nobody walks in LA, these built environments

continue to form public spaces to ignite human interaction. It is through these public avenues that people have close encounters with buildings.

3. The powers at play in these developments are a combination of public (City of Los Angeles) and private interests (various developers), both necessary in order to ensure the short and long term feasibility of such an urban development.

In particular, Blossom Plaza is located on the west side of the Metro line and it counts 237 apt (including 53 affordable units) plus 18,500 square feet of neighborhood serving retail space, 392 parking spots and a pedestrian plaza connecting the Chinatown Gold Line station to Broadway. College station is a 5.7-acre parcel located on the east side of the Metro line and is comprised of 770 residential units, commercial spaces.

This site is ideal to test the political potentials of the figural plinth for three reasons:

1. This specific location is part of a larger plan for improvement promoted by the city of Los Angeles, and represents a catalyst for on-going financial investments and architectural explorations.

2. The topography of these two adjacent lots presents multiple heights that need to be negotiated along with various nodes of public (Gold Line Metro station) and private transportation (College, Broadway and Spring).

The project is challenging the outdated notion of the private, generic and enclosed podium - inventing a new breed of figural plinths acting as mechanisms for integration and openness between public and private programs.

This liberated ground will become a political space for encounter and exchange.

The project is challenging the outdated notion of the private, generic and enclosed podium - inventing a new breed of figural plinths acting as mechanisms for integration and openness between public and private programs. This liberated ground will become a political space for encounter and exchange.

In this project, the idea of the veiled or shrouded volume gave a character to the building and it is intended to simultaneously have clear formal definition, while conveying a more ephemeral sense of its formal status. This model built on this idea of ghostly characteristics, with a specific interest in moving beyond the seductive nature of the image toward a more physical and tectonic outcome.

The project focused on using multi-layed surface effects aimed at the subtle perception of deeply embedded elements. The idea here is to use these surface ideas in tandem with real 3-dimensionality in order to blur (literally and figuratively) the distance between reality and perceived reality.

Gallery Project. Los Angeles, CA

Rhino - Grasshopper - Photography - Illustrator - Photoshop - Keyshot - Premiere pro

Also,on using textured and 3-dimensional transparent materials and lighting effects to produce obscured readings. This is an idea tied directly to material experimentation (with, for example, glass blocks at the building scale) and physical modeling techniques (at the representational scale).

pieces. This latent energy and how I could translate that into a physical form without relying on material allowed us to divert from the physical notion of the springs and spirals, and move towards a more primitive rectilinear form.

semi-transparent screen, would present an opportunity to further distort and blur the understanding relationship between the facade and interior mass, while creating a contrast of materials compared to the interior form.

In researching several different images that try to encapsulate the concept of the “Ghostly” studio, I started to explore the characteristics and materiality of springs, spirals and objects like slinkies, to understand the principles of movement, transparency vs opacity, reflectivity within the material and the idea of a chaotic-cluster. I soon realized that these objects, when doubled and looped back into itself, created an expressive language found within the latent energy of the form, which created a ghostly effect of doubling and blurring of the object, as well as an aura that surrounded the intertwined

Using those initial images, I developed my primitive form, molded it based on the twisting techniques and characteristics of the physical form of the spring without relying on the literalness of it. I explored the latent energy and characteristics of a spring/spiral and how I could translate that into a form, while keeping the lines and figure of the primitive still recognizable. This is shown within the interior object using additive and subtractive elements within the interior and exterior, highlighting the interaction between the overlapping pieces and confusing the lines of the building by hinting at real continuities vs. suggested continuities. This was especially amplified by creating the facade which would present different ghostly effects projected into the interior mass, creating objects and lines that are suggested to be mass-like, but are only a product of the exterior and interior relationship.

After developing the form and attempting to highlight the characteristics of my research, I realized that the exploration of materials would bring up a set of characteristics that could have a life of their own. The use of stacked glass to create a

Iterations to explore the characteristic of the model

In this project, I analyze the geometry of an architectural plan that displays qualities of tessellation. The plan was chosen is from the project of Marie-Joseph Peyre’s Building to House the Academies (1756). The plan of these project provided the “sites” for my tessellation studies. The plan of the project was abstracted into flat tile patterns, and then manipulated the readings of those patterns through the application of shade to the tiles.

I choose a piece of the plan that is representative of the geometrical structure of the project, and through diagrams I analyzed the construction of the geometry and pattern of the piece in the portion of the building that I have identified.

Residential Project. Los Angeles, CA

F undamen T al a rchi T ec T ure - V illa

Rhino - Revit - Illustrator - Keyshot

Primary Figure

Secondary Figure

north east south west

The concept represents the evolution in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The mass of the pavilion consists of circles that show dynamic design that express rising of the development. The circle shape shows that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in the center of the world.

In Saudi Arabia there are 4 kinds of environments desert, coastal, mountain, and valley. The pavilion consists of 4 floors. Every single floor of them presents a different kind of the environments.

Saudi Arabia Pavilion. Jeddah, SA

The concept represents the evolution in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The mass of the pavilion consists of circles that show dynamic design that express rising of the development. The circle shape shows that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in the center of the world.

In Saudi Arabia there are 4 kinds of environments desert, coastal, mountain, and valley. The pavilion consists of 4 floors. Every single floor of them presents a different kind of the environments.

The concept of the design of this cultural center has come from the musical note of the national anthem of Saudi Arabia. The paper of the note shapes the building and it’s rolled up spirally based on the golden ratio. The outer wall has voids that create the melody of the national anthem of Saudi Arabia.

This building consists of 4 sections. Theater, library, museum, and gallery.

Cultural Center Project. Jeddah, SA

The concept of the design of this cultural center has come from the musical note of the national anthem of Saudi Arabia. The paper of the note shapes the building and it’s rolled up spirally based on the golden ratio. The outer wall has voids that create the melody of the national anthem of Saudi Arabia.

This building consists of 4 sections. Theater, library, museum, and gallery.

Ground floor

Top view

b usiness p ark

This business park contains 7 commercial buildings and a commercial area all surrounded by green area. The design has 5 main axes that represent the lines in the economic graph of supply and demand. And 7 triangles arranged in order to keep the lines of supply and demand in the best economic situation. The lines are the main paths and the triangles are the buildings.

Office Project. Jeddah, SA

CONSTRUCTION

This project focuses on construction systems-building technology,-the use of materials and system integration. The course includes a review of basic construction methods, analysis of building codes including occupancy and life-safety issues, the design of structural and mechanical systems. Studio project from the previous semester is developed, focusing on the detailed design of a zone of the building in terms of the resolution of its structural system and building envelope using three-dimensional modeling as well as drafting.

Presidential Center - DD

d esign d e V el O pmen T

Rhino - Grasshopper - Illustrator - Keyshot

Architectural documentation (CD) set encompasses a comprehensive set of sequential drawings in the order of their occurrence during the construction process and involves the preparation of drawings and specifications that dictate and convey the detailed requirements of the building project. CD sets serves as the basic reference for future modifications or for facility management and comes in handy while managing possible future change orders.

VISUAL STUDIES

This work investigate the lineage of ready-mades (objet trouve) as a body of research that originated in the art world and has permeated to architecture. Indeed, instead of investigating architecture’s earlier forays into historical familiarity, the 80’, I’ve done onto contemporary notions of familiar figures and their versatile maneuvers of digital geometries.

Both the found form and the geometries of extruded plastic filaments give the object a ‘new familiarity’, the novelty of the color palette and the material texture act as digital readymades.

Digital Design Study

m edium F igure

Zbrush - Keyshot - After effects

This work covered issues of contemporary representation techniques by prioritizing the development of volume rich interiors. Volume has been explored in relation to complex digital form and developed between physical and virtual space. I focused on the architectural topics of gesture, projection, and volumetric layering to create interiors larger than their exteriors. A concept of fullness was explored through a designed contamination between three dimensional drawing, flat modeling and virtual reality. Precision and abstraction were used to produce multiple effects between actual and perceptual interiors and exteriors of an object. I worked to engage techniques and concepts of zero gravity three dimensional drawing in VR environments, digital modeling, and digital/physical fabrication. The modeling work underscores the design and development of volume to expand our comprehension of spatial multiplicity.

VR figures family

Model of VR figures set

Intersection of the VR objects with the interior space

PHOTOGRAPHY

Follow

Sinking

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

Ray and Maria Stata Center, Cambridge, MA

Peaky blinder

Saint Anthonys Church, Cambridge, MA

Diagonal

The Broad, Los Angeles, CA

The Strip st, Las Vegas, NV

Collage

The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV

Framed dark

Contrast

Debris and a forgotten soul

Malibu, CA

Malibu, CA

Wild texture

TRANSLATION FROM DRAWING TO MODEL , APPLYING

THE THESIS INTO PROJECT , BARACK OBAMA PRESIDEN -

TIAL CENTER , RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX , GHOSTLY , FUN -

DAMENTAL ARCHITECTURE - VILLA , JEDDAH EXPO 2025,

CULTURAL CENTER , BUSINESS PARK , DESIGN DEVELOP -

MENT , CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS , MEDIUM FIG -

URE , ONE TWO PUNCH , FOLLOW ME , SINKING , PEAKY

BLINDER , DIAGONAL , INSIDE , THROUGH , COLLAGE ,

FRAMED DARK , CONTRAST , WINDOWS , ARMFUL , GOTH -

IC , DEBRIS AND A FORGOTTEN SOUL , WILD TEXTURE