Pratap Ghimire- Design Portfolio

BENNINGTON YOUTH CENTER 4-11

CONTENTS

HYBRID LIBRARY 12-19

A POET’S REVERIE 20-25

SAGE STREET MILL RENOVATION 26-29

SCULPTURAL PROJECTS 30-37

CERAMIC WORK 38-41

WOODEN TECTONIC CHAIR 42-45

BENNINGTON YOUTH CENTER

SENIOR WORK

Advisor: Donald Sherefkin

How can architecture be used as a tool to provide for the needs of a community? In trying to develop and foster a sense of community among the youth of (North) Bennington town and Bennington College students, my project proposes a Youth Center in North Bennington at the intersection of Depot St. and Lake Paran Road. The project was developed in conversation with the local youth and the college students based on their needs over the period of a semester. The Center provides dedicated spaces for mentoring programs, creating and exhibiting art, studying, hanging out, sporting, and recreating to encourage a constructive and creative environment after school.

The site of the youth center is located next to a baseball field, which was being underutilized in the town. My project not only activates the space but also introduces renewed dynamism within the town.

House typology

Summer Westerlies

Nearby defunct traintracks

Nearby abandoned warehouse

Pedestrian Pathway

The dedicated programming for the Youth Center comes from the DREAM program which runs in Bennington in collaboration with Bennington College. Most of the programming in the facility falls under the categories of Competent Readers, Problem Solvers, Artists and Creators, and Healthy Bodies and Minds, for which dedicated spaces are denoted below.

The youth center provides dedicated spaces to the youth to bond and connect with one another. The design allows flexibility and potential to combine activities to allow for an imaginative way of experiencing architecture.

Problem Solvers

Artists and Creators

Public/ Semi Public

Outdoor Recreations

Compenent Readers Healthy Bodies/Minds

The hill is incorporated within the design of the Center as a natural slope has been designed to lead towards a rooftop garden above the administrative space. The skatepark blends in with the hill. The waterpark adds plenty of excitement to the lives of the youth and children while referencing the nearby Lake Paran. The indoor basketball court penetrates and merges into the hill. The coverage of the Basketball court by a grid structure comes through the influence of the nearby train track and the 3 window apertures come from the analysis of a nearby defunct storage warehouse.

Interior rendering of the office View of the garden rooftop inbetween two volumes

Interior view of the gallery space

Interior view of the basketball court

HYBRID LIBRARY

Class- Type/Prototype

Advisor:

Farhad Mirza

Type/Prototype is a study of mixture of housing and library typologies, in conjunction with a community center. In trying to understand our unique and intimate experiences with architecture, the project focuses on the production of forms that are placed in close proximity to one another. With a notion that libraries are an essential part of life of communities, the design brings about a calm and peaceful meditative space for the community to gather and spend time reading. In doing so, my design to conveys a sense of being integrated within the suburban fabric of Bennington.

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

SECOND FLOOR PLAN

The project developed to emphasize the openness of the form, by hiding the curved forms from the outside so as to present a sense of mystery and surprise once on the courtyard. Bridges were added to serve a functional purpose of movement between the volumes considering the climate and weather conditions of Vermont. They also serve another purpose— they evolve the project’s central space towards an indoor-outdoor condition of a shared courtyard on the site.

The hybrid spaces are designed to expand the possibilities of interaction with a visiting researcher by placing this space in close proximity to the apartments. The dynamic between forms emerges through the curvilinear relationship of lines with a grid produced on the site.

Concept Diagram

ProspectStreet

College Road

A POET’S REVERIE

Class- Reveries

THE LUNATIC

Surely, my friend, insane am I Such is my plight. I visualize sound. I hear the visible. And fragrance I taste. And the ethereal is palpable to me. Those things I touch-Whose existence the world denies, Of whose shape the world is unaware. I see a flower in the stone-when wavelet-softened pebbles, On the water’s edge, In the moonlight, While the enchantress of heaven, Is smiling unto me. They exfoliating, mollifying, Glistening and palpitating, Rise before my eyes, Like tongueless things insane, Like flowers, A variety of moonbirds, I commune with them as they do with me, In such a language, friend, As is never written, nor ever printed, nor ever spoken, Unintelligible, ineffable all. Their language laps the moonlit Ganges shore, Ripple by ripple, Surely, my friend, am I insane, Such is my plight..

-Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Advisors: Donald Sherefkin, Farhad Mirza

Using a selected text as inspiration, the project imagined a solitary retreat for poets, writers, and dreamers. All design decisions, including form and structure, would be determined by the chosen text and its interpretation. I understood that poetry and architecture share qualities of structure, rhythm, repetition, meaning, and imagination. I chose the poem ‘The Lunatic’ by Laxmi Prasad Devkota, a Nepalese poet. The poet writes from the perspective of an outcast, a lunatic, in a rational society where he alone visualizes the sound and hears the visible. The primary challenge was interpreting the poem and visualizing it to produce one coherent architectural structure. Ultimately, the project embodies the poem.

Plan

Sections

Isometric views

View looking into the reverie

A post-modern sense of individuality inspires the design of the retreat, which subverts conventional notions of retreats. The reverie combines, contrasts, and merges curves and straight lines, as the retreat demanded to represent various dualities and elements presented within itself.

Exterior view of the reverie

Light and dark, open and intimate spaces, as well as waves and flat surfaces, represent the elements of ambivalence of the poem. By opening up and guiding the poet to the working space, the reverie emphasizes the visual as well as a sensory experience.

SAGE STREET MILL RENOVATION

Internship: Sage Street Mill, Vermont

Instructor: Blake Goble

At Sage Street Mill, a warehouse was underutilized and underused as unorganized storage space. The project focused on planning and designing new dedicated spaces that can now be rented to generate income. Primarily, my work was in planning and designing the new spaces, field measurements, keeping inventory of underused furniture, and thinking of creative ways to utilize them. I was tasked with schematic plan development of repurposing old Barn doors to be used as new doors for the new spaces. Additionally, I also designed new plans and elevations for the building process.

4'-0" 4'-0"

3'-8"

Door 1 repurposing schematic plan

9'-0" 13'-2 1 2 " 16'-1 1 2 "

4'-0" 8'-0"

4'-0" 4'-0"

8'-0" 3'-8" Unit 1

Door 2 repurposing schematic plan

4'-0" 9'-0" 9'-0" 8'-2"

Unit 2

Elevation of renovation

FRUIT TRANSFORMATION

Class- Technical Drawing

Advisor: Farhad Mirza

What is the process of transformation and change? This project explores the process of change and metamorphosis and visualizes it in the form of a technical drawing. The following is a set of 18 drawings that transform a section of a grapefruit into the exterior of a starfruit.

VASE FOR A VESSEL

Class- Technical Drawing

Advisor: Farhad Mirza

What does it mean to envelop and enclose something to protect it? The project designs a small paper packaging for a glass bottle. The primary concept of the container revolves around the extruded hexagonal shape and twisting it to achieve a mysterious and sensual approach to the design. The container encloses a paper cushion that wraps around the bottle to safeguard it. The container can be disassembled into 3 separate units.

Netting Diagram- Top Half Netting Diagram- Connecting Half

Fig: Exterior Vase Axonometric Section

Netting Diagram- Bottom Half

Netting Diagram- Bottom Half

Interior Cushion inside Exterior Vase Exploded Axonometric

Interior Cushion inside Exterior Vase Exploded Axonometric

PARAMETRIC DESIGN

Self-initiated Project

This project explores apertures, openings, and form in a cube through a Voronoi-3D parametric design. Blocks of 3D Voronoi pattern extracted from a 2D study of the same have been culled with a throughful and intentional parametric. A 3D piece was printed for a physical study.

UNCONVENTIONAL SPACES

Instructors: John Umphlett, Dakota Pace

Work: HDPE Ironing welding, LDPE sculpting, heat gun fabrication

What is the process of transformation and change? How does the body interact with a membrane and a boundary? What lies beyond and within? The installation of a 20*20*20 feet cube was an exploration of the body within the liminal space created by the inflatable. Performances could be held inside the installation. The fully inflated, the fully deflated and the evolving process of one to the other were all integral parts of the research. The installation allowed us to reevaluate our relationship with plastic, being more conscious of its usage and thinking of ways to minimize its usage for sustainable future.

CERAMIC WORK

My ceramic work focuses on the subjective and intuitive abstraction of the natural, primarily articulated through the production of organic forms which are layered with found textures. In the process, memories of felt surfaces, seen visuals, and senses experienced are in constant conversation with the imaginative.

Instructors: Barry Bartlett, Anina Major

Work: Handbuilding, Wheel throwing, Slip-casting, ceramic 3D printing, Mould-making

Skyscraper, Porcelain Slip Cast, glazed

Skyscraper, Bisqueware

The imagination of one (artificial or natural) setting onto another (artificial or natural) setting in a different context (architectural and sculptural) and scale (microscopic or astronomical) is the primary motivation for the production of these ceramic pieces. This process generates ceramic pieces that are indeterminate (in time), yet something concrete and existing in the real world. I frequently start my architecture explorations in clay.

In my 3D printed ceramic work, I explore the themes of change and movement through twists, folds, and color, essentially freezing the piece in its raw moment of change. While some of them work as vases, which can be parts of interior decors, many of them are sculptural in nature.

Exploration of organic forms within primitive geometric shapes using Grasshopper Collaboration with Sandy Curth

Collaboration with Sandy Curth

ceramic vessel forms; self project

Black Granite: Interior View, Porcelain; self project

WOODEN TECTONIC CHAIR

Class- The Chair: Form to Function

Advisors: Jon Isherwood, John Umphlett, Dakota Pace

Size: 21”W * 30”D *40”H

Assembly process: Pieces were cut through a CNC machine and a table saw. Four dowel joints were placed on the bottom half of the chair to align the pieces. Arm rests and back support were added at the end. Only wood glue was used to hold the pieces.

With the understanding that chairs are some of the most essential parts of how indoor architecture is experienced and lived in, my chair design takes its inspiration from the Poet’s Reverie project. The waves, the apertures, the sensual curves, and the delicate approach to the form are reminiscent of the Reverie design. Nonetheless, the form and function of the chair are expressed through a simple concept, one which explores the question of can a whole be divided yet united in its expression. What kind of additional element might be used in the unification of such a structure? Each of the slats curves provides the most optimal support to the lumbar of the human body. An armrest wraps around the entire tectonic expression.

Back view Side view

Corrugated cardboard model at 1/2 scale