2022 Selected Works by Penny Unni

PENNY UNN I

SELECTED

2023

WORKS

Penny Unni is a Canadian architect based in Ithaca NY, currently working on various competitions and collaborating with the research platform Burop. Her research interests lie at the conjunction of water infrastructures, myth-making and ritual practices, speculative fictions, and climate change; specifically, the impact of architecture and infrastructure on climate upon the communal shift in meanings tied to objects. Penny is a graduate of the McGill University School of Architecture with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies with Distinction from the University of Waterloo and four years of professional experiences in architecture and design offices in Europe and North America.

Well, Wall?

Soil Cycles

Lovesong of Yolks

Wadi Salib After Ruin

in-Tension-al Ornament

Hundred Meter City

Vivifica

Astrocyte

The Loop

After the Floods

selected works: academic

Well, Wall? The Leslie Spit, Toronto

Water cannot be the enemy of architecture, if the architecture itself is made for water. Spring 2020 4B Design Studio Andrew Levitt as advisor University of Waterloo Comprehensive Project Selected for Waterloo Projects Exhibition

The Leslie Spit is an artificial island in Toronto, made from rubble of demolished infrastructure and architecture. After a study of the sanctity of Lake Ontario waters, the site conditions, some thoughts on life cycle, and archaeology, the site and project are conceived as a process derivative of its place. Waterbuildings like ancient stepwells are both infrastructure and monument to water. They fold the concept of the site into the concept of the architecture; a stepwell transforms the ground but can only be truly “completed” until it rains. In a similar way, the site and architecture of this project - a tall gabion structure made of the site rubble - is conceived as a process, and embodies the stepwell forms and functions: a continuous descent, a guiding wall that retains earth and conceals buildings, and a stepped landscape for water filtration and circulation. The ability of the wall and the landscape to manage water on the site is not only to provide services and systems for human activities and program, but to improve the quality of the lake’s shoreline and water quality. The main architectural element is the wall of gabion material, which exposes the rubble underbelly of the man-made site and allows the visitor to inhabit an architecture derivate of its place. The wall becomes a repository of the site’s own history elevating one’s understanding of the site’s history that is slowly being erased by nature as the artificial materials that constitute the ground are eroding. The wall in plan and section has a relationship with each building. Each programmatic space is separated by courtyards that connect buildings, allowing passage from either side of the wall, such that nature is not experienced in detached intimacy; the buildings are interlocked with the natural. exploded site axonometric

The approach to the water’s edge can be orchestrated and ritualistic as this long ramp slowly delivers visitors and water from the crest of the hill and from city ordinance to the shore and total immersion. It is a wall to guide, retain, shelter, divide, support, persist.

20m

170m

DEFINING THE WALLS

a retaining wall

SITE ORIENTATION

a shading structure

a building in its own right

a outer shell/ support

a rainscreen cladding

a free-standing wall

The project responds to the existing terrain rather than alters it. The wall is oriented 15 degrees west of South for optimal sun conditions: direct eastern light for artist’s residence and direct western light into outdoor program. The wall protects from the prevailing southern winds and specific openings in the wall allow wind to flow freely and the nature of the gabion is ventilating. The stepped landscape is oriented to address the shoreline and the on-shore, off-shore and alongshore currents, steps are formed by gabion baskets that function to stabilize the shoreline and prevent erosion.

Wind protection

Wind concentration

Wind deflection

maintenance room

bike storage

staff + office

cafe + kitchen

artist's studios

6. 3.

water maintenance room

garbage/ recycling

10. shared studio space

18. lower sauna vestibule + WC

staff office + changeroom

11. private artist's courtyard

19. lower sauna

cafe kitchen

12. shared living space

20. upper sauna

cafe dining space

13. private residence + courtyard

21. solar sauna

studio courtyard

14. uninsulated changeroom

22. raised pavilion

storage + archive

15. insulated changeroom

23. vestibule to dock

utilities room

16. indoor showers

24. floating dock

studio + outdoor gallery

17. outdoor showers + courtyard

10.

11.

20.

artist's residence

12.

washrooms + showers

sauna (2 levels)

15. 16.

17.

21.

19. 18.

13.

oculus vestibule + bird pavilion

24. 22.

14. 23.

artist's studios + residence

east-west site section facing north

the brick maker

the brick destroyer

remnants of Toronto’s built history

EXPOSE THE RUBBLE UNDERBELLY the brick dumper

product of demolition the (new) brick layer

exposing the rubble underbelly

landscape of memory

The symbolic context of the wall reflects the general narrative of the site. Its sublime aesthetic reinforces the conventional ontological divide between wilderness and city, nature and human. One visits to marvel at how nature always heals the scars of industrialization; the biotic communities on the Spit are left to flourish; one can imagine that once the rubble erodes and is covered by grass, the socio-historical origins of the artificial landscape will be forgotten. The site is a landscape of memory, a product of demolition that still has recognizable remnants of Toronto’s built history. This wall is to expose the rubble underbelly of the site, to take the terrain and make it eternal, so we must immerse ourselves in the core of the landscape, to elevate our understanding of the site materiality. Aligned to the project’s life-cycle concepts, when the buildings no longer serve their programmatic uses they will be recycled while the wall persists as a ruin as seen in post-apocalyptic Toronto.

A B C D E F A. Free-standing < 2m in height with 1:2 deptht0-height ratio. Cell walls provide shear resistance.

G H B. Column-supported wall as retaining wall with compacted backfill. Geotextile below gabions. C. Recessed cell size to 1/3 of depth for seating niche. Cedar planks fastened to cage with galvanized staples.

E. Serves + piping runs through boxout in gabion so if settlement occurs it will not load the services. Wall can support lighting, shower fixtures etc.

D. Portal supported by galvanized I-beam with plate. Lintel ends 10cm before wall so gabion conceals structure. F. Window opening in wall is supported by galvanized I-beam lintel and plate. Assembly supported by HSS posts. G. HSS posts support beams with bolted U- shaped bracket and joist hangers.

H. Wall carries sloped gutter system within top 1m 3 of wall.

east-west site section

roof pitch allows quick snow melt

solar water heater

gabion wall protects from harsh southerly winds from interior spaces and courtyards

2.9 m

solar sauna vents warm air into dry sauna space

7.4 m

6m window at sauna vestibule for indirect solar gain

2.9 m

5.7 m

heat storing masonry wall and floor

passive ventilation exhausted at operable window on north side

short vegetation behind building for views

radiant heating slab

passive design strategies: winter in the sauna

roof structure protects building from direct sun heat gain

direct summer sun blocked by gabion wall width

ventilation between building enclosure and roof structure

PV array on roof

operable window facing south allows SW winds to ventilate

radiant cooling slab

5.1 m

3.1m

1.5m

uninterrupted spaces for cross ventilation

3.5m

seat at bottom of gabion window opening serves as light shelf

passive ventilation exhausted at operable window on north side

tall vegetation behind building and at courtyards

passive design strategies: summer in the cafe

Prefiltration Sock Detail

SITE WATER MANAGEMENT mesh drain cover

rainwater diffuser plate bio-film sand course sand gravel outflow pipe

5. 7.

ove

rflo

2. 1. catchment

2. prefiltration

3. 6.

3. conveyance 4. storage 5. sterilization 6. distribution

2% slope

9. 10.

7. greywater collection 8. greywater filtration 9. greywater conveyance 10. overflow

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System Input/ Output

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Carbon Intake/ Release

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Carbon Sequestration

Dry ing

Cedar Sel-Cut

System Transfer

Gr ad ing

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selected works: academic

Gr az in g a an M

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Fall 2020

ar hite Ced

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M1 Design Studio Tilleri ng

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Chip W ood

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Excavation

Thi r 1st C e da

This project L attempts to synchronize building and land with agriculture OI practices through the experimental practice of agriculture and andSforestry agroforestry, which rejects ecologically unsustainable means and methods. Both building and landscape are imagined as infrastructures comprising a larger feedback system, continuously changing, evolving, and dissipating to accommodate program, species and unprecedented dynamics. Agroforestry Carbon C new Sequestration ret urn s

Herd Feed

G Ha y

Extracted Topsoi l to

in g

Litt

Mo win g

C Spruce

Dry ing

Done in collaboration with four other students, the research I focused on was Nutrient Cycling of carbon sequestration in building materials and their relationship to soil. The diagrams and excerpts are products of the final project submission Ffollowing elling Soil C-crops Soil C-trees that I was solely responsible for. t lear-Cu

Energy

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Cedar Sel-Cut

System Transfer System Transfer Carbon Sequestration Carbon Sequestration Carbon Intake/Release Carbon Intake/ Release System Input/Output System Input/ Output

Gr ad ing

er Re sidue d ecomposes

Mixing

Removed Material

Soil

m L oa

d me Ram rth Ea

g t in in ng Jo lani P

Herd Feed

Our understanding of building and landscape can be conceived as manifold processes occurring at multiple spatial and temporal scales: synchrony of material cycles and systems. The project’s inquiry into synchrony explores wo rm Fo possible feedback loops between soil, agriculture and timber during stages Comp action in the building’s and landscape’s lives. Various local and industrial material g R system such that by-products of the processes contribute to trees this feedback C deposition C in process can be reused and/or contribute to other processes; different processes In su lati g on can be coupled and serve multiple r n i complex functions; and the building as both be Dry um lL g a n i l noun and verb has a reciprocal relationship to the landscape. Time is largely a B n Reduced si o men Surface i Ce cyclical nature of soil D the driver of these terrestrial processes such that the da Runoff r2 nd as complex system. and the dissolution of building material can be designed Th C Litter Fall Reduced Wind Erosion

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McGill University

Rosetta Elkin, Salmaan Craig and Kiel Moe as instructors

Diss

Gr az in

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R BE M TI

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To synchronize building and land with agriculture and forestry practices through the experimental practice of architecture and agroforestry.

C ed

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Price, Quebec

Energy

nt vel Gra

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Soil Cycles

MATERIAL PRACTICES

Wood

PROJECT TIMELINE

Straw Insulation

Rammed Earth

SYSTEMS BOUNDARIES

MATERIAL PROCESSES

MANUAL ON CARE

EEN

HO US E

The pages on the right were the result of a term-long interest in the ethics of care. While the building and its relationships to site were being developed, I introduced and saw through an appendix in the final manual that focused on the care of the building totaling eleven topics essential to the maintenance of the building during its lifetime. A few notable sections of this appendix are featured here.

Lower large span for ceramics classes, brick forming and storage, access through ramp.

Long Span spaces for gathering, meeting, monthly community meals.

KIL

CO UR TYA

RD Exposed storage for rainwater collection, brick and material storage.

Step Seating is aligned for kiln and creates town hall meeting spaces.

Greenhouse vents heated air through rammed earth small space into large, open space.

The Lovesong of Yolks Arch 531

Penny Unni

selected works: academic

Lovesong of Yolks

Traversing the curious landscapes and architectural circumstances of my dreams. Fall 2020 ARCH 531 Alberto Perez Gomez as instructor University of McGill

Over the span of two months I developed a long-form speculative poetic fiction related to and inspired by the 1499 Italian manuscript Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, authorship attributed to Francesco Colonna. For the entire poem, please visit: https://issuu.com/pennyunni/docs/lovesong_of_yolks_formatted_issuu Human nature, as explained by Aristophanes in a speech given in Plato’s Symposium, is a story of a single egg from which two souls emerge. Too powerful for their own good, Zeus severs their natural form in twain, cursing each to long for their matching half: the etiological myth of soulmates. Standing over two lovers lying together, Hephaestus with his mending tools in hand, asks if it is the humans’ desire to be welded together into something that is naturally whole again, so they would share one life, be one being, die a single death, as one soul emerged from two. Hephaestus’ offer does little for lovers who cannot lie together. In the time of technology, the place where souls unite is reinvented; it happens in our dreams and through the medium of the wonder-producing, longdistance love-enabling modern daidala: the cellphone. Those whose souls unite only digitally have meditated on the role of technology in love; have pondered the identity of the ultimate coder; have sought to define the phenomenology of their cellphone screen; have questioned the perpetuity of twin-flames unable to burn in the same room; have stood one morning marveling at a single egg bearing two yolks and have traversed the curious landscapes and architectural circumstances of their dreams in the veritable strife for love. Publication Cover

Love’s office is barren and steel. And perpetually ablaze. That box in which I reside is filled with all our things, Stilled with ordinary, small, vulgar things: My bed, my hair, Brimming box Paper yellowing,

your writings, rings. with memories, plastic echoing.

With Spiritus Storage: InterWith which I

Mundi in my net of Things. paste upon

My heart and A box to behold When you left, you

one:

fill my soul. your absence; slashed a you-sized

gorge. Left me bereft with a yolk-shaped hole, Now I stopple the sockets of sickled-out eyes, With souvenirs and cache

the Box

to forge me a-whole.

to find you online.

Time

Hypnos arrives at my untended bed. There will be just enough time before the pull of his black. Is realized at my sides with an oneiric agenda. I put my phone to charge before I wish you goodnight, A sweet text in the dark before I surrender. 7

to find you and

Time

There will be just enough time ‘til Lethe drowns my somnolent head, For my phone to slip between pillow and bed, To say the things that must be said. There will be just enough time for my heavy hands, and listless eyes To search for you in the blue-light And let fall the brightness.

to remind you

Time

Of all the ways I

love

you,

And that all day

I have loved you.

There will be time, Love’s office is burning,

so I dream to reveal: barren and steel.

Beneath my head, my phone unshuts its jowls. And as its electric mouth and heart fall apart, the night foreordains. I fall in place, I fall asleep, I fall more in love

with you and fall into

two:

Falling

dream.

I respawn slow in this fogged-in domain. Blinking through the binary of waking and dreaming.

Through the darkness, some shape I am feeling. It cautiously incarnates, the deeper I fall, Cautiously obfuscates, beyond you, it all.

Glitching awake while I shudder asleep. Sleeping to remember how we always recover. A sleep of love produces no monsters but lovers.

I respawn slow in this domain. And this is that reverie Of soaring and searching Through my digital construction and what I found there.

God sends me up to the ultimate storage. And I load slow into this beta paradise. And when I flicker awake in this fiery room, an immaterial furrow Marks my steps and leaves lines of code like cones of ice. Is it the Cloud above that line? Digital heaven, or cloud nine? Here, our twin-flames stir to light. If I should I hear the whispers of a white resonant hum, Or see reflective LEDs of glitching simulacrum, it shall be you. A luring pixel folder it shall be you. A terabyte of memories in it, it shall be you. The manner of utterance it shall be you. The filleting of a square into a circle it shall be you. Primordial whole of a yellow so real it shall be you. The breaking of an endless wheel of living and dying By the opening of the round it shall be you. A flint so generous it shall be you. A flame so eternal it shall be you. I enter the password and I am elated. From the zeroes and ones, your form emerges, Though glitching, flitting, simulated.

My yolk, it shall be you.

seven:

the Cloud

When I wake When I wake from my dream, paradise is but numbers. Conscious we quantify our love, monetize, equate. 35

The effusivity of my flame is yours to relate, Yours to take and make particulate. Yours to divide, cleave, separate. And what parts us awake are time zones and division; The conductivity of our fires, a wireless rate.

from my dream I remember the door, and strange phantasms of clouds and lights. Of burning rooms that empty by morn. Of souls on shelves and yolk to unite. Now it comes to me, a halfformed thought. My dream muddled and prosaic with the venom of life. When I wake I forget where my soul went at night,

I forget the flames of love and strife. I forget the boat, the wings, the lake. I forget the feeling of wholeness entirely And the wonder that was ours before we were awake.

selected works: academic

Wadi Salib After Ruin Haifa, Israel

The subversion of a historically-charged abandoned neighborhood Winter 2021 M2 Global Design Studio with Zoe Goodman Howard Davies as instructor McGill University Finalist in CBDX Borderlands

The few buildings that constitute Wadi Salib are illustrative of Haifa’s entire urban history. It is one of the last remaining physical reminders of a pre-Israeli Haifa. Most of its buildings from the 18th century were single family homes of the upperclass land-owning Arabs. Now left in ruins, this cluster of buildings is a palimpsest, where the Ottoman architectural heritage is the last of the city’s erased past. The ruins also stand as a symbol of a tangible urban trauma. As the homes to many communities, each house represents both sites of exile and sites of origin. The memory of a single house is shared by hundreds of individuals, therefore political categories of ownership are extraneous to our current understanding of the site; it is a public landscape. Our challenge is now between two contradictory desires of destruction and reuse; to destroy is to seek a tabula rasa for new beginnings, which is to continue to erase history, and to reuse is to create a new urban order or spatial narrative. The third, as we pursued, is to subvert the site by repurposing the ruins such that houses become shared voids open to the sky for public or green space, and the liminal spaces between buildings become solid mass as potential for new affordable housing. Within the destroyed structures, ad-hoc artists studios and galleries are sites to activate the ruins. Connecting the volumes of new and historic architectures is a liwan, a central hall element of the Arab vernacular acting as a public armature to draw visitors from the street into the building. site axonometric

nolli plan of Haifa in 1948

nolli plan of Haifa in 2021

HISTORICAL FORM

The map of pre-1948 Haifa shows this dense city fabric that the Wadi Salib ruins are representative of and how they have been replaced by modern buildings and highways. Fifty years of construction has led to a loss of density, porosity and connectivity. The complete erasure of the older neighborhoods both disrupts the urban continuum and isolates the few originally Arab neighborhoods left. projected 1948 map onto existing ruins

mashrabiya

insertion of new massing and liwan

liwan

Different buildings are also at differing stages of ruin, as some are still relatively intact, while others are largely deteriorated. Given this, specific ruins are stabilized and partially restored while others remain open and are preserved in their ruined state. Program and use is specific to the degrees of restoration, rehabilitation, preservation and new massing.

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upper level building plan

exterior public space

artist studio interior

liwan axonometric

4.8 m

2m 3.

unit plan and isometric

selected works: academic

in-Tension-al Ornament Cambridge, Canada

Exploring the “double order” of materiality. Fall 2018 3B Metal Studio With Heather Friedel Delnaz Yekrangian as instructor University of Waterloo Featured in Term Exhibition

Muquarnas and Patkânés are a traditional architectural ornament of Islamic and Persian architecture, of small modular forms composed radially. They serve to transition between the vertical face of a wall to the interior of a dome surface with compositional unity. As volumetric and capable of creating shell structures, Muquarnas can be both embellishment and an architectonic element. The forms can be self-supporting as each tier and niche rests atop the course below it, vaulting upwards and correlating with a sacred geometry that is projected in plan. In this installation, the dome form is preserved but the understanding that the Muquarna is largely decorative is questioned by reinterpreting the ‘building blocks’ of the Muquarnas into modular forms using thin metal pipes. Similar to the Muquarnas, the module is scalable, beautiful as an individual unit and can be oriented and aggregated in different ways to achieve new patterns. Our unit is built in tensegrity to utilize metal in a unique and interesting way and to create a seemingly light and delicate structure that floats and projects outwards in a similar fashion to the stalactites of the domes. The use of pipes also questions Muquarnas as a solely decorative element as it functions as both structure and ornament. Watch the installation time-lapse! https://vimeo.com/365635655

figure within the sculpture

CREATING VOLUME

The units are radially arrayed in courses held in tension by the surrounding units. The courses vault upwards and correlate with a symmetrical circular geometry projected in plan. The aggregation of the courses creates volumes and implied spatial configurations that morph as one’s perspective changes. A patterned infill of thread mimics the ornamental quality of Muquarnas, obscuring visual and spatial densities. The implied surface of the infill plays with transparency of the overall structure and suggests a sense of enclosure. The other components are hot-rolled steel pipe, cork and stainless steel wire rope.

Bimaristan of Nur al-Din

70”

90”

selected works: professional

Hundred Meter City Drammen, Norway

Transforming the block and redefining a civic symbol. Winter 2019 Invited Competition employed by Powerhouse Company Johanne Borthnes as supervisor Overall Performance Rating: Excellent

Drammen is a port and river city in eastern Norway with 150,000 inhabitants. Centrally located in the city and rising above its 3-story townhouse fabric is Vestre Viken Hospital Trust, a 100 meter concrete tower built in the 1960s. It has been the main architectural presence in the hospital complex that has existed since the late 1800s. It a characteristic part of the cityscape a heavy gray block serving as a recognizable icon seen from every angle of the city, but to its inhabitants it represents a dark symbol as a center for substance abuse. The building’s program needs to change and for the city to develop its identity but not lose its characteristic structure we proposed to transform the 100 meter block from something unfavorable to a celebrated space filled with high quality housing and community spaces. This two month competition was a study in the reuse and re-purposing of abandoned buildings to create a renewed presence in a city. I was solely responsible for all the initial studies of the building and site. I worked from original plans and sections of the tower to build a 3D model and using GIS software and surveys modeled the site. With consultation from a civil engineer, I studied the extent to which the building could be changed to open its facade and allow for balconies, windows and public spaces. I did the entirety of the facade studies followed by weeks of plans + sectional drawings under the guidance of my supervisor. Once the design was confirmed, I oversaw the render team to complete all the final images and produced diagrams and orthographics for the competition submission. images courtesy of PHC

EXISTING CONDITIONS

The hospital today has a large helipad green space connected to the Lekeparken adjacent to the river. The south-facing facade of the hospital has a constant visual relationship with the river and the ports that serve as access points into the city. The hospital block is twenty-six meters wide and contains an underpass through the perpendicular street below the block for access through and into the hospital. The surrounding buildings are smaller support spaces built more recently that will be removed.

north-south site section

hospital in proposed site plan

north-south building section

THE NEW VOLUME

The first step in addressing the block was the creation of a new podium at ground level to house community spaces and connected the riverside park up the hill and into the building ground level. The views towards the hill and the river were prioritized.

the existing block

Opening up the facade from introverted and heavy to light and inviting was the next step. I conducted facade and structural studies for a compatible strategy that worked with the plans, fit into the existing structural grid and was a visually engaging elevation.

stripped to verticals

2/3 of facade removed

The new plan used the existing structural grid and fits apartment units of varying sizes and treatment of facade: balcony / loggia / juliet. Two new atriums emerge between the cores. These become vertical public corridors with lounge, gym and activity spaces.

extrusions on N + S sides

typical floor plan + ground floor plan

A Via Celio Vibenna

Piazza del Coloss eo

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Piazza al Celi o

Piazza di San Gregor io

Clivo

di Sc

auro

selected works: academic

Vivifica Celio Hill, Rome

A new institution where modern Architecture, ancient Archaeology and the process of Anastylosis will come together. Fall 2019 4A Design Studio with Annika Babra Lorenzo Pignatti as instructor University of Waterloo Rome Program Exhibited in That’s Amore Via Cla

The Celio Hill has remained remarkably unaltered for the last few centuries, a rare condition for Roman real estate. One can assume that buried within its depths is a palimpsest of archaeological remains layered between ancient footprints and echoes and it bestows a subterranean potential upon on this place. This invokes questions of “what was here before?”, “what has been concealed by time and dirt” and “what was left to ruin?” and consequently how can we reignite the memory of such elements?

udi a

The main site component is an elevated path to make eternal the ruins of the Aqueduct Claudius. Beyond hints of this structure along Via San Gregorio no foreign contemporary form should be visible from the existing and ancient vistas from the Colosseum and Palatine Hill and will be submerged towards these sides of the site. Instead we extend or reintroduce public spaces of various scales and programs to confront and engage the existing archaeological zones and monuments. These piazzas embody the theatre typology and use the panoramas of Rome as its set backdrops and circular seating to frame the spaces. The Piazza del Colosseo provides landscaped steps to connect the Colosseum to the site and the Piazza di San Gregorio programmatically restores the street as a commercially active market space. The new Piazza del Celio created is the central public space on our site and represents the planned free space. It is internal to our site, protected from the activity of the road and heavy perimeter circulation and connects the Piazza del Colosseo and the Piazza di San Gregorio with a straight axis. The tram station orients itself to the axis mundi of the Tempio of Claudius from its west gate and uses the existing hill to ascend to the level of the gardens. site plan

Archaeological Underlay

Main Axis

Connecting Armature

Tourists vs. Locals

Buildings

Topography

Aqueduct

Roman Theatre

Roman Temple

Memory + Presence

Public Stage

Axis Mundi

east-west short section

Architecture_ Archaeology_ Anastylosis. 44

Ground Plan

-1 Level Plan

A NEW DATUM LINE

aqueduct

The Aqueduct as an elevated pedestrian path is the reintroduction of an ancient element in a modern context. It keeps a datum through the site, marking the topography of the hills and marks the contrast between an arcadian landscape and a contemporary building. It reignites the memory of an ancient armature and empowers infrastructure as the dominant, permanent domain. In the hierarchy of site elements and balance between landscape and built form, the stone structure prevails and like its predecessor Aqueduct Claudius, its mass is exposed to bear the effects of time. To the exterior, the Aqueduct assumes its classic typological identity but its hidden interior structure extends down into the earth. Rather than to carry water, its function is now to house multiple levels and layers of circulation: a tram-line passing through the city, a path connecting the ends of the site and the levels of the building.

north-south long section

East Entry

Station to Underground

Theatre Seating

Courtyard

north- south long section

selected works: professional

Astrocyte 8 Design Exchange, Toronto

How architecture can live, hear, breathe and interact with humans. Fall 2017 Design Exchange EDIT employed by Philip Beesley Architects Inc. Joey Jacobson as supervisor Overall Performance Rating: Outstanding

In October 2017, Philip Beesley Architects Inc. designed and fabricated Astrocyte for Design Exchange’s Exhibition for Design, Innovation and Technology (EDIT) at the Unilever factory in Toronto. The sculpture is an empathetic soundscape at an architectural scale that responds to viewer’s movements with patterns of light, vibration and multichannel sound. As an architectural intern, my role for Astrocyte was to design and lead the fabrication process for kinetic mechanisms in the sculpture, as well as play a key role in the building and installation processes. During following months of my term at PBAI, I continued my research and development of kinetic mechanisms, notably the Moth and the Lash. I contributed elements of this research to the Living Architecture Systems Group (LASG). I also led a design charette to explore materials properties and their applications to the dresses and collections of couture designer, Iris Van Herpen.

images courtesy of PBAI/ LASG

THE MOTH

As another additive and interactive element of the sculpture, the moth was conceptualized as the effect produced from the buzzing of moth wings: soft, fragile, quivering. The timing of their vibration was programmed to align with the sound choreography. The kinetic mechanism is a miniature DC motor, a plastic mount, arms and clips, a circuit board into which a 4P modular jack cable connects, laser-cut mylar fronds.

THE LASH

This was developed from an existing prototype in which shape memory wire is actuated to force movement. Its kinetic form curls inwards into itself. I created prototypes and configured its array potentials. I collaborated with an engineer on the team to conduct research into optimal movement by testing spring dynamism. It is assembled with SMA, silicon tubing, plastic mounts, fishing lure and rings, compression springs, and a jack plate connected to a 4P modular jack cable.

images courtesy of PHC

selected works: professional

The Loop Chengdu, China

Winter 2019 Invited Competition employed by Powerhouse Company Niels Baljet as supervisor Overall Performance Rating: Excellent Received IAI Gold Award 2020

In the competition phase of this project, I was responsible for the initial form conception, modeling and visualization of the scheme of the Loop as a reception hall and exhibition space for a larger masterplan south of Chengdu. The project has recently been completed as of December 2020 and received several awards. Once the development is completed, the building is to be repurposed into a school gymnasium with a track in the center.

building plan

section through exhibition space

section through reception hall

east elevation

images courtesy of PHC

2035

mat

trix of hyperreal documentation

selected works: academic

After 10 the Floods Kerala, India

Developing a speculative future narrative for a crisis-stricken landscape. Fall 2021 M2 Design Studio Theodora Vardouli as advisor McGill University RCA Arthur Erickson Travel Prize RAIC Student Medal

In August of 2018, the flood of a century swept the South Indian state of Kerala. Very little was natural about this natural disaster; its cause was heavy rainfall due to local and global anthropogenic effects and the opening of 35 big dams. What powers these gigantic infrastructures are not only chimeric notions of technological progress and domination over the landscape, but also mythic storylines embedded in local culture. This project studies the dam as an architectural object at the confluence of mythology and technology as mythic stories have been a tool to legitimize their construction, despite the ecological impact, displacement of millions and intensification of flooding. To tease out critical tensions surrounding the dams and to retrieve possibilities of agency, I have written a speculative near-future narrative where through hyperreal evidence the projection of Kerala’s present condition and current exploitation of resources will stage the critical issues of its landscapes to present their long-term consequences. Because a rich corpus of myths writes the history of Kerala, Indic myths are used as a storytelling tool. The myth of Purasha’s sacrifice, a giant body from whose parts emerges the universe explains that there is no separation between humans and nature if all originate from the same cosmic entity. This ecotheological response loses ground to the influx of market economy into India with the commodification of nature. The underlying narrative of all myths was that man has a karmic duty to sustain the cosmic order, and when disturbed the gods intervene as incarnations. Now in the age of the Anthropocene, who sustains the moral and cosmic order? Will there only be chaos?

1895

1954

1960

John Pennycuik builds first dam Mullaperiyar; now belongs to the local pantheon of gods.

Newly independent India builds infrastructure and public work during nation building. Nehru endorses dams.

In Kerala’s search for identity, dams become a marketing tool in capitalizing off its own culture and symbols

The British Era

Nation-Building

Hydel Regime

Energy Identity State

1890 - 1947

1947 - 1965

1966 - 1985

1986 - 2018

Map of Myths along Periyar River

1965 Climate concerns clean hydel energy and other large-scale technocratic approaches become the norm internationally

1996

2018

Constitutional amendment to give locals the rights to decide about use of natural resources in their areas but incidentally water and dams are for “public good”

KSEB operating on energy surplus allows the construction of private dams with no environmental clearance

Hyperreal Document Matrix (previous page) A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P

Newspaper headline from 2019 Judicial Probe into dams 2021 Instagram post by anti-dam 2030 UN Climate Conference 2035 KSEB Policy Amendment 2032 Minister’s Assembly 2034 Scheme diagram of dams 2036 Instagram post of ‘water bomb’ News broadcast of mandate 2040 India’s NDC 2050 Travel magazine cover 2045 Legislative Assembly 2055 India’s Constitution amendment Newspaper headline from 2065 Tourist postcards 2062 Business magazine 2045

2030

The Dam as Temple Highlands of the Western Ghats The government must disabuse the notion of “water bombs” and return the dam to a positive light in the public eye that still painfully remembers the role the dam played in the 2018 floods. India’s first prime minister Nehru said that “dams are the modern temple of India” referencing a time when gigantic infrastructural works were symbols of progress and modernity and beloved by all. If Kerala’s new dams capitalized on the temple identity and were sanctified with a shrine then they would be holy and therefore irremovable, protecting the investment from the anti-dam movement and divinely protecting the dam from ever breaching. Now a holy place sanctified by mythic story and association, the dam becomes a religious place of pilgrimage as a site of encounter with the divine. Engineers and temple architects collaborated to design this new typology in the hills. They reoriented the dams according to ancient temple principles of 2 core elements: the sanctum sanctorum and the pyramidal vimana roof structure. They reconfigured the architectural and programmatic parts of a hydroelectric dam to resemble a temple. As is tradition for temples to house all treasure and gold within the sanctum sanctorum, the most valuable currency in Kerala is energy, and so below the sanctum sanctorum lay the dam powerhouse.

2060

The Dam as Bulwark Urban Plateau From climate projections and the predictions of notable shamans, global rainfall was predicted to reach an all-time high, and people feared the next big flood. As climate mania heightened to overwhelming public insecurity, the Kerala government and land-owning stakeholders made protective measures to safeguard their habitats. They sought to protect the myth of God’s Own Country such that paradise must be walled, so important localities like government assemblies, airports, wealthy temples, major banks were the selected buildings to be sheltered by bulwarks. The wall appears as a continuous bulwark enclosing the chosen building but functioned as a dam where it intersected the river by moving water through the walls in a system of engineered siphons. The respective dam of each enclosure powered the city artifacts within, and the electricity produced was distributed to the rest of the city grid through power transmission lines on vimana towers. As in the past, the builder of the dam was revered for saving the inhabitants within and the builder now belongs to the local pantheon of gods. Thus far the anthropogenic effects of the dam construction included sand mining, deforestation, soil- instability, water desalination, destruction of habitats but the dam had yet to ever directly impact the cities or urban fabrics before.

2035

2100

The Dam Underwater Coastal Plain The once in 500-year flood event occurred just before 2100 CE and sea levels had risen by 6 feet. Because of the smaller flood events that had been occurring every monsoon for the previous eighty years, civilians had time to prepare and perfect their responses when the mythic deluge arrived. Unnaturalness was then Kerala’s conceivable future as architects designed artificial islands to manifest the origin myth of a generated landform. A cutter dredger and a large platoon with the waste concrete of the sunken city deposited a 12m thick layer of the material within a fortified cofferdam seawall in the miniature outline of Kerala. After the flood, an exodus of climate refugees left the coastal plain in constructed fish boats, borrowed from the ancient practice of houseboats but scaled up to hold entire villages and powered entirely by solar panels with a floating forest among the fleet. The wealthy landowning caste have long since abandoned the state leaving the poorest locals to adapt to the flooded regions. They built parasitic vernacular housing above the dam-asbulwark walls that now form islands in the Arabian Sea. As years passed, it seemed less likely that the floodwaters would recede so dredged earth material was packed against the sides of the walls to create agricultural lands. The cultural tie to the water’s edge was regenerated and bathing ghats were formed with steps down to the water. The underwater marvel that is the rest of Kerala became an international tourist destination, cashing in on the sobriquet of being the Atlantis of India.

Thank You!