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Thousand Islands Boat Restoration Facility Jamaica Bay Wildlife Experience The Three Reminders (a+b) Hidden Realities
Prerit Gupta
Professional Work (S,M,L,XL) Your Stuff is Here, Where are You?
Concrete Object The object operates as a three-dimensional collage, appropriating found objects and defamiliarizing them into a hybrid aggregate.
PORTFOLIO
Fall 2020
Education Syracuse University, School of Architecture | Syracuse, NY Bachelor of Architecture | 2020
GPA 3.71 | magna cum laude | Dean’s List Renée Crown University Honors Affiliations - School of Architecture Peer Advisor MENAT Student Ambassador Thesis (in collaboration with Nashwah Ahmed) Hidden Realities: The Politics of Aesthetics | 2019-20
The Bartlett, UCL | London, UK Summer Foundation in Architecture | 2014
Experience David Cunningham Architecture Planning New York City, NY Design Consultant | December 2020-Present
Designed a graphic language and produced drawings and diagrams to best represent an affordable housing project in Brooklyn, NY.
Elizabeth Kamell | Syracuse, NY Design Consultant | August 2020-Present
Co-designed and produced an architectural construction set for a summer cabin in Sodus, NY. Assisted in the specification of materials and other building products. Constructed digital models and presentation drawings for client meetings.
School of Architecture | Syracuse, NY Designer | July 2020-Present CityScripts
Designed a dynamic and accessible website to demonstrate the intersection between policy and design. Researched imagery to expand upon the role of politics in the design and experience of the built environment.
Architectural Intern | August 2019-May 2020 OddpLots | Elizabeth Kamell
Collaboratively designed a series of 2,500 sf case study micro- constructions on several vacant lots in Syracuse, NY. Conducted site research, produced diagrams, and presentation drawings.
Teaching Assistant | June 2019-August 2019 SPORTS | Gregory Corso & Molly Hunker
Assisted in the programming of an intro architecture design studio course. Co-organized and instructed design and representation assignments, digital and analog technique tutorials, and conducted desk crits and reviews.
Selldorf Architects | New York City, NY Architectural Intern September 2018-December 2018
Assisted multiple design teams with several ongoing projects and competition entries of varying project scale. Produced presentation drawings, physical models, digital models, and final submission renderings.
HOK | Dubai, United Arab Emirates Architectural Intern | June 2018-August 2018
Provided creative and technical support in the research and design efforts of several urban scale projects. Prepared project drawings, diagrams, and presentations for clients and competition entries.
Freeline Engineering Consultants Dubai, United Arab Emirates Architectural Intern | May 2017-July 2017
Developed floor plans for a multi-family residential building in Dubai. Designed the company’s digital portfolio and mock-ups for the firm’s website.
Skills Digital Illustrator, Indesign, Rhino, Photoshop, V-ray; Autocad, Keyshot, Revit, Photogrammetry; After Effects, Diva, Grasshopper, Maya, Sketch-Up
Manual/Fabrication Casting, CNC Milling, Foam Cutting, Drafting, Laser Cutting, Painting, Woodworking, 3D Printing
Honors Citation for Excellence in Thesis Design School of Architecture | 2020
Awarded for the project titled ‘Hidden Realities: The Politics of Aesthetics’ by a jury of faculty and guest critics to recognize best final projects among graduate and undergraduate students.
Source Academic Year Grant School of Architecture | 2019
Awarded $10,000 to support scholarly thesis research and creative inquiry towards the discipline in recognition of scope and originality for the project titled ‘Hidden Realities: The Politics of Aesthetics’.
King + King Leadership by Design Prize School of Architecture | 2019
Finalist; Recognized for excellence in the Fourth Year Comprehensive Studio.
Exhibition Feature Antique Boat Museum, Clayton NY | 2019
Work featured in the dodge gallery - design drawings of an ice shanty and analytical drawings of a wooden boat.
International Trustee Scholarship Syracuse University | 2015-2020
Full-ride scholarship awarded for academic excellence, quality of portfolio, extracurricular involvement, and overall citizenship and character.
01 Thousand Islands Boat Restoration Facility The project’s ambition is to celebrate the forgotten arts of antique boat making and restoration by inviting the public into the facility. Through a highly tectonic and mechanized language, the typically rigid and masked process of boat making and restoring is made theatrical. The project is composed of three distinct programmatic volumes. The residential tower serves as a point of entry into the elaborate public sequence through a wooden tube which spans across the second volume containing boat workshops, culminating into a sculptural special exhibition volume where a suspended, deconstructed boat witnessed in the intersection of air, light, and water offers a unique perspective on antique boat restoration. By excavating parts of the site, the rigidity of the typical process is broken, allowing the public to engage with programs often considered to be private - adding a sense of dynamism and transparency to the whole process. A sculptural staircase in the entry volume leads to a cafe bleeding into a promenade where an animated scene involving the movement of boats is observed. Repetitious concrete fins operating as a spatial, structural, and constructional element articulate the central volume. The space of the boat workshop is interrupted by a series of steel frame volumes containing public programs (lecture room, library, and exhibition). The steel frame volumes are supported by the concrete fins. These volumes have their own material and constructional logic and feature specialized mechanisms and machinery to facilitate public and private engagement across the two levels. Unique lighting conditions within each volume aids the public program. Additionally, passive strategies such as solar panels, wind turbines, mechanical louvers, and cross-ventilation are integrated in the design, making the entire facility operate as sustainably and efficiently as a machine.
COURSE
Fourth Year Comprehensive Studio Spring 2019
COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
SCOPE
Boat Restoration Facility
LOCATION
Clayton, NY
ADVISOR
Elizabeth Kamell
AWARDS
Finalist, King and King Leadership by Design Prize
PARTI: Three Distinct Programmatic Volumes The project is broken down into a linear aggregation of distinct volumes, each operating at the scale of the neighborhood.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
spine
Analytical Drawing of a 12ft Dinghy Parts and sequence of construction techniques involved in antique wooden boat making.
enclosure
structure
program and mechanics
COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
Kit of Parts Drawing the conceptual, structural, and constructional logic of the antique boat restoration facility through an explosion of parts.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
Organizational and Conceptual Strategies Iterations exploring different ideas of using circulation as a strategy for creating a unique encounter between the public and private programs.
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COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
Relationship between Framing and Enclosure Developing structural systems that reinforce conceptual ideas. Designing the structural relationship between the concrete fins and steel frames to achieve larger spans and enclosure systems.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
triple insulating glazing with powder-coated aluminium fixing strips rheinzink-prePatina facade cladding
hardwood finish floor aluminium sill vacuum-packed insulation 2 layers 5/8� fire-shield gypsum board proform quick setting compound
steel bar steel arm pivot plate glass transmission rod coupler handle box
glass lens floor construction
floor covering, terrazo 10mm screed separating layer 1mm plastic sheet impact sound insulation reinforced concrete topping
Residential Tower: Material and Performance Strategies Developing material assemblies and connection details to incorporate passive strategies for a performative envelope.
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COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
library book drop classroom boat delivery retractable stair for boat exhibit systems
Specialized Mechanisms in the Boat Workshops Specialized mechanisms and machinery facilitate public and private engagement; while passive strategies allow each module to operate sustainably and efficiently.
YEAR
Spring 2019
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COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
Longitudinal Section The residential tower serves as a point of entry into the public sequence through a wooden tube which spans across the second volume containing boat workshops, culminating into an exhibition volume.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
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COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
Transverse Section through a Large Boat Workshop The concrete fin serves as the main structural members of the workshop and supports a steel frame volume housing one of the facility’s public program.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
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COLLABORATOR
Sachio Badham
Section through the Classroom and a Small Boat Workshop By excavating the site, the rigidity of the typical boat restoration process is broken, creating transparency and allowing the public to engage with private programs.
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02 Jamaica Bay Wildlife Experience This project addresses the issues of climate change, sea-level rise, and diurnal tidal flooding in Broad Channel, NY. Bound by the Crossbay Boulevard and the Subway Line, this urban site functions as an ecologically diverse tidal wetland. The complex tidal wetland landscape on-site is composed of several bands of varying endangered ecologies. However, this area is a high flood risk zone and was completely destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. This proposed extension to the existing Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in the northern half of Broad Channel elevates a submerging ‘backyard marsh’ to a zone for ecological exploration, by means of a highly experiential discovery trail. We were interested in preserving the ecology as well as offering a new way of experiencing this complex landscape. The design process started off as an abstract formal exploration, where we used certain procedural techniques to generate form and explore the relationships of solid/ void, volumes and surfaces, shape logic and materiality in our studies. A series of experiments simulating flooding and sea-level rise scenarios then allowed for assessing these formal characteristics in relation to the movement of water. Through this iterative process, it was determined that the “scooped” form is ideal for catching, retaining, and directing water. The project explores architecture using this formal language. A series of follies, positioned along the trail, aim to connect, protect, and celebrate these diverse ecologies by offering a space for visitors and wildlife to coexist. The follies are thought of as modules, which are re-oriented based on-site conditions and deployed as objects with micro-environments in the field. Furthermore, the temporality and the historical perception of follies as ruins is captured and exaggerated through materiality. The follies become indexical of the changing landscape over time. Two major programmatic nodes – a boating center and a research facility – anchored along the trail, provide alternative methods to further explore the wetland during flooding and complement the program of the existing wildlife refuge.
COURSE
Fourth Year NYC Studio Fall 2018
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
SCOPE
Urban, Landscape, Building
LOCATION
Broad Channel, NY
ADVISORS
Angie Co Lizzie Hodges
Mapping Ecological Zones Designing two trails that traverse various ecologies.
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YEAR
Fall 2018
high marsh
northeastern old field
low marsh
maritime shrubland
reed marsh
hardwood forest
Tidal Marsh Ecologies Cataloging endangered ecological zones on site.
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
Taxonomy: Lineage of Forms Formal iterative studies exploring shape logic, solid/void, volume/surface relationships.
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YEAR
Fall 2018
Water Performance of Form Simulation of form in rainfall and sea level rise scenarios; Developing formal characteristics for water performance.
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COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
low marsh folly high marsh folly east pond folly
Follies Weathering follies as ruins; Repositioning the object to retain and sustain critical ecosystems.
YEAR
Fall 2018
Boating Center Ground floor plan of boating center in a backyard marsh highlighting the transition from street to pier.
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COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
Boating Sequence Reconfiguring spaces for summer and winter use; Ambiguity of the ground plane and water management strategies.
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03a The Three Reminders A Survey of Italian Architecture
Hand-sketches done on site analyzing formal and spatial qualities of canonical projects in Italy Clockwise: L’esprit Nouveau; Santa Maria del Miracoli; Brion Cemetery; Villa Gamberaia.
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Villa Rotonda; Villa Gamberaia Alignments, Geometry, Proportions, Spatial Volume and Facade Analysis; Hybrid drawing analyzing formal, volumetric, organizational and perspectival relationships.
03b The Three Reminders Palazzo x Cultural Center This project is a composite that hybridizes formal features and characteristics from the palazzo typology across multiple Italian cities to generate Corbusier’s three reminders i.e. plan, surface, and volume. The project employs digital modeling techniques of ‘Extrusion’ and ‘Boolean Difference’ using the ‘Plan as the Generator’ and taps into emerging aesthetic sensibilities to produce mass from lines, dynamic vertical surfaces from ordered historical facades, and buildings from abstract formal studies. The driving concept behind the project is building as a threshold between the piazza and the riverside. The articulation of the rooms and facade trace back to the classical order which is broken by a pulsating rhythm of stereotomic and tectonic construction systems. The resulting mass is then conceptually thought to be inherited from another author with the primary concern of acting as modifiers of space. A tectonic intervention in the form of scaffolding is introduced to this project to guide movement and introduce a hierarchy of programs. This specialized space for vertical circulation attaches itself to the building to serve as an extension of the facade while being sensitive to the existing facade. This new space creates a dialogue with the existing by removing the experience outside the building to lead to specific routes of horizontal circulation that move through each floor plate and loop back to the scaffolding. The tectonic element continues into the building as directional columns and walkways, carving and penetrating through space. The building with the intervention becomes an exhibit - an object to be studied from a distant standpoint.
COURSE
Third Year Studio Florence Study Abroad Spring 2018
COLLABORATOR
Daniel Raphael
SCOPE
20,000 sf Cultural Center
LOCATION
Firenze, Italia
ADVISOR
Kyle Miller
Plan, Surface, Volume A process of form generation, surface articulation, and tectonic intervention to generate Corbusier’s three reminders.
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YEAR
Spring 2018
Ground Floor Plan + Transverse Sections Hybridizing formal features and characteristics from the palazzo typology to generate a cultural center that functions as a threshold between the piazza and the riverside.
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COLLABORATOR
Daniel Raphael
Surface Articulation and Material + Tectonic Strategy Dynamic vertical surfaces generated from ordered historical facades.
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YEAR
Spring 2018
Courtyard + Scaffolding Perspective The tectonic intervention guides movement and introduces a hierarchy of programs by creating a dialogue between the new and the existing.
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COLLABORATOR
Daniel Raphael
Special Gallery + Riverside Balcony Perspective The tectonic element continues into the building as directional columns and walkways, carving and penetrating through space.
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04 Hidden Realities: The Politics of Aesthetics This thesis uses pre-existing local phenomena to construct a near-future scenario where political systems are exploited to demonstrate the politics of aesthetics and their ability to alter a context and its existing socioeconomic infrastructure. By imposing unfamiliar forms and systems, familiar aesthetics are recast to redistribute the sensible and create a new reality out of underlying social, economic, and cultural power structures. As a result, form, composition, and aesthetics can begin to operate politically to uncover hidden realities and project alternative futures. Characterized by a unique system of governance emerging from a conflicting political agenda of autocratic neoliberalism, the city of Dubai offers a lens to demonstrate the politics of aesthetics and their ability to alter a context and its existing infrastructure. In Dubai, the agendas of autocratic neoliberalism extend far beyond politics, encroaching upon the responsibilities of architecture and urban planning by reordering the city into an aggregate of discrete zones - the zone of exception, the zone of labor, and the zone of excess, visibly separated by seams of landscape and infrastructure. In a near-future reality, the inconsistent social, economic, and cultural power structures across these zones are exploited to purge zones of exception of the violence and lawlessness associated with their current enclave form. Zones of exception migrate to the city and collide with the existing culture of material excess creating an opportunity for zones of labor to be included in the global image of the city. The collision of these hidden phenomena redirects material and labor flows to impose a new unfamiliar, highly political form which subverts familiar aesthetics to alter perceptions which redistribute the sensible, creating a plausible near-future reality where form, composition, and aesthetics operate politically to instigate change.
COURSE
Undergraduate Thesis Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
WEBSITE
www.hidden-realities.com; https://issuu.com/ preritgupta/docs/ hiddenrealities
ADVISORS
Daniele Profeta Kyle Miller Gregory Corso
AWARDS
Citation for Excellence in Thesis Design; Source Academic Year Grant
The New Image of the City Building as a defamiliarizing aggregate in the skyline negotiating between familiar representations of the zone and the global image of the city.
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YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
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Zone of Excess
Zone of Exception
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COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
free-trade zones
s
Reconstructed Satellite Image of Dubai (Fake) Reconfiguring and aggregating parts of the city by analyzing local phenomena and using parafictional modes.
network of mistreatment
Zone of Labor
YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Flow of Labor and Excess Proliferation of abandoned construction materials and discarded personal effects in the city.
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COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
Challenging the “Global” Image of Dubai Explorations in form contradicting the “global” neoliberal vertical icon.
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YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
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COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
A Near-Future Reality Taking over an incomplete, abandoned building in the city.
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YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Jurisdictions of the Zone
Economies
Juris
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
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mapping jurisdictional changes in the city
sdictions
Jurisdiction of the Zone The ground as a zone of transparent and overlapping political jurisdictions.
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YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Functions of the Zone
Personal Effects
Flows
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
Functions of the Zone Staging encounters between the public and the operations of the zone; Material experiments in aggregation with designed material seams using abandoned construction waste.
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YEAR
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Networks of the Zone
Informa
Exchange
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed
Networks of the Zone Transparency in information and communication calibrates the local context with the zone’s global network.
work in progress
ation
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05 Professional Work
Schematic Design of a Summer Cabin in Sodus, NY: Plan and Section Co-designed and produced an architectural construction set for a summer cabin in Sodus, NY. The private and communal spaces of the cabin are separated in two distinct volumes, perched atop a steep incline.
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ELIZABETH KAMELL ARCHITECTS
August 2020- Present 2020
COLLABORATORS
Elizabeth Kamell Nashwah Ahmed
Schematic Design:Work in Progress
Process and Perspectives The process involved designing the most cost efficient cabin with the smallest footprint. A series of thresholds from the street to the Great Sodus Bay frame views of the bay and the woods.
S
ODDPLOTS
Fall 2019- Summer 2020
OddpLots: a series of microconstructions on small, leftover parcels in Syracuse, NY Co-designed and produced drawings for a series of adaptable, cost-efficient micro-constructions on several vacant lots in Syracuse, NY. OddPlots seeks to construct a long term, sustainable agenda, and community initiative for economic development in the city.
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COLLABORATORS
Elizabeth Kamell
fourth floor loft plan third floor loft plan second floor apartment plan
ground floor plan (cafe)
Plot 4 : Ground (Retail) + Residential Units The building comprises of a main volume and a core connected to each other by a hinge containing the service program.
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SELLDORF ARCHITECTS
Fall 2018
Floor Plan Models of a Luxury Townhouse in NYC+ Rendering for a Cultural Center Competition Entry in New Delhi, India Digitally modeled floor plans for model making (laser cutting, CNC milling, and assembling) and scenes for rendering.
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COLLABORATORS
Various Project Teams
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DEP Combined Sewer Overflow Facility in Gowanus , NYC This wastewater retention facility intercepts and stores combined sewage during wet weather events and blurs boundaries between an industrial typology and public space by embedding itself in the local culture of Gowanus. Produced and updated drawings, diagrams, and renderings for design approvals.
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HOK
Summer 2018
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educational district residential neighborhood mixed-use neighborhood it district and mall
Illustrated IRBID Development Master Plan Prepared presentation drawings using Autocad, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign for an urban planning project in Irbid, Jordan.
COLLABORATORS
Various Project Teams
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diagrams illustrating landscaping and circulation strategies impact of topography on massing
Master Plan for a resort town in Oman Analyzed topographical conditions of the site to reveal their impact on the scheme. Produced presentation diagrams of the master plan.
XL
06 Your Stuff is Here, Where are You? Animation Your stuff is here, where are you is a sequence, it is a spatial experience. The project addresses the subjects and objects remaining in a scene, in a fleeting moment, when the human is no longer present. The absence of human presence is of essence. We explore these domains using precisely curated camera movements through a series of 3D scanned and digitally constructed in the form of domesticated spaces, deliberately domesticated spaces. The animation deliberately reveals the lived in conditions associated within this space -- the organization we hold so dear, the spaces we intimately occupy, the spaces that know our routine and see our monotony. They control our presence while revealing in curious ways. By the placement of our things, by the change in position, by a wet hand-print, or a recently impressioned chair, our presence is revealed and extended. These objects are markers of ourselves. These rooms are casts of our choices. They are static impressions of our movements. The disconnect is we are not there. In fact, the spaces are there, contrasting the placement of where they are. This research project invites a tension between commodified environments and our lived-in, intimate, but devoid-of-human spaces. Such a sterile contrast cements on the reciprocal ability of these spatial conditions to be delinear variations of each other. It tests the potential of new architectural representation tools by bringing the physical in the digital and creating a dialogue between 3D and 2D space. Your stuff is here, where are you?
COURSE
Professional Elective Photogrammetry: Digital and Analogue Media Spring 2019
COLLABORATOR
Nashwah Ahmed Eliza Williamson
ADVISOR
Daniele Profeta
SOFTWARE
Adobe After Effects Agisoft Photogrammetry Arnold Render Maya
Physical and Digital 3D and 2D Projecting a physical 3D object (Peg-human) on a digitally augmented environment comprising of 3D scanned spaces and stock 3D models to produce the aesthetic effect of estrangement.
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YEAR
Spring 2019
scene1: kitchen
cut
scene2: bedroom
cu
ut
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COLLABORATORS
Nashwah Ahmed Eliza Williamson
scene3: laundry room
3D Scanned and Digitally Constructed Environments: Animation Storyboard Scene1: The Kitchen A used kitchen surrounded by sterile unused, store bought kitchens. This is the entry into the world where these stages, these sets exist, negotiating between the intimate and the banal. The camera pans left diagonally past the Peg-Human camouflaging in the scene,pans left of the lived in kitchen, and begins to be shaken by the set falling in on itself, the right wall falling and meriting movement on the next scene. Scene2: The Bedroom Crumpled, enjoyed bed surrounded by stacks of mattresses piled high. The scene is in a dark dingy basement. The camera pans down from the top and explores the bed, rotates, and backs out of the scene, only to be confronted by its warped reflection. Scene3: The Laundry Room In the laundry room, controlled by a maze of racks with clothing right off the shelf. The camera explores the space through the hangers and enters a box where the Peg-Human sits.
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Santa Monica Pier Re-imagined The flatness of the existing Santa Monica Pier is challenged as a 3D graphic landscape articulated by a designed terrain, strategically positioned objects and programmatic nodes.
PRERIT GUPTA
pgupt101@syr.edu