“In Quotes”
Leonard B. Willeke Portfolio Competition 2017
Taubman College of Architecture University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI, USA
/// “In Quotes”
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“In Quotes� is a collection of dystopias, artifacts, and practices that draws attention to the unconventional and the oppositional with the intention to provoke thoughtful reinterpretation. By methods of drawing, making, documenting, and repeating, framing just about anything in quotes calls the ordinary into question, begging us to ask more. With this attitude towards investigation, the following projects hover somewhere between critical and whimsical, ironic and platonic, satirical and material - all at once.
/// “In Quotes”
“Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias, “Dystopias,
Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts, Artifacts,
& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &
Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices” Practices”
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
X1 //// DYSTOPIAS I. Cabin Fever II. Element Caricature III. Cheap Suit
X2 //// ARTIFACTS IV. stackFORM V. castVOID VI. Rockite & Beyond
X3 //// PRACTICES VII. Studio Bootleg
// STNETNOC //
// DYSTOPIAS // // ARTIFACTS // // PRACTICES //
CABIN FEVER THE ARCHITECTURE OF RETREAT; MATERIAL/F ORM DECEPTION Undergraduate Studio 2 Mireille Roddier Winter 2017
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/ DYSTOPIAS
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P ROJ E C T B R IE F: Design a space of retreat conducive to reading, writing, reflection, and isolation.
In the reimaginination of the Unabomber’s cabin, architecture and site perform a series of role reversals through material and formal maneuvers. In these oscillations, foreground and background are continually in flux, creating an experience of layered deception. Driven by the Unabomber’s already extreme attitudes towards isolation, Cabin Fever projects an even more excessive notion of retreat onto the iconic architecture of the log cabin. Through contradictions of convention, iconicity, and representation, the architecture that manifests begins to challenge the idea of retreat [from the city] and what it means to be alone.
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/ DYSTOPIAS
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“To leave the map behind is a uniquely urban fantasy”
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+Mark Wigley, “Cabin Fever”, Perspecta, vol. 30 (1999)
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+Series of iterative scratchwork
/ DYSTOPIAS
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Inherently, architecture and site assume the roles of foreground and background, respectively. However, for those who wish not to be seen or found, a reversal of this condition could begin to act in their favor.
+[ABOVE] The iconic cabin in series +[RIGHT] Foreground/background shifts
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/ DYSTOPIAS
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+[TOP] Jogged transoblique section reveals the cabin’s role as a decoy in service to the unabomber’s bunker beneath. +[LEFT] Inverted relief transverse section unveils the threshold moment of entry as reality that disobeys the implications of the pitched roof. +[ABOVE] Subterranean bunker plan studies the programmatics of paranoia.
The architecture of isolation culminates in the Unabomber’s pink bunker, the retreat disguised by retreat. The organization of the room continues to play notions of paranoia and solitude using color to both contradict impressions of the Unabomber and also begin to speculate an even more twisted mind that inhabits the space.
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ELEMENT CARICATURE E A R T H WO R KS M A N E U V E R S OF E X AG G E R AT I O N & E X T R A P O L AT I O N Undergraduate Studio 2 Mireille Roddier Winter 2017
// DYSTOPIAS
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P ROJ E C T B R IE F: LIFTED PATH SECTION Design a library in the contradictory site conSCALE 1/16” = 1’
ditions of the Ann Arbor Island Branch park.
Framed to us as a “natural landscape” the site, in reality, is a product of direct human intervention disguised as a park. In denial of the site’s misread natural integrity, the project looks to reveal and exploit the existing evidence of intervention and further deploy them to produce the idealistic experience of the nature walk. Treating the path as the only “natural” element of the site, a sequence of elemental framing maneuvers take place to produce exaggerated moments of nature. The library architecture that results is one of juxtaposition, mimicry, and contradiction that questions what we deem artificial and natural.
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+Site material swatches
// DYSTOPIAS
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+Site sketches and recorded observations
In massing collage, the library hovers somewhere between present and absent on the site. Representational abstraction suggests an absence in which the architecture is part of the page rather than the image, while simultaneously asserting itself through color.
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// DYSTOPIAS
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A
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+Topographic site conditions +[A] Retaining Wall/Path section +[B] Valley Library section +[C] Lifted Path section
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// DYSTOPIAS
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+[VALLEY LIBRARY SECTION] The library mimics the form of the northside hill creating a valley that surrounds the path.
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// DYSTOPIAS
+[RETAINING WALL SECTION] The path takes on the role of a retaining wall that first juxtaposes the two water heights across the dam, and swings out over the river to create the experience of the water frame.
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+[LIFTED PATH SECTION] The site maneuvers to frame the body[path] by air; occupying the canopy, an emergent release from the valley.
CHEAP SUIT I N T E R V E N T I O N A L H I JAC K I N G ; T H E C R O O K E D L AW Y E R ’ S LO O P H O L E Undergraduate Studio 2 Mireille Roddier Winter 2017
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/// DYSTOPIAS
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P ROJ E C T B R IE F: Design a single-occupancy study space inside the University of Michigan Law Library.
To acknowledge the cultural context of the library and the installation scale of architecture, Cheap Suit operates within the narrative of the Crooked Lawyer, a student of the law with intentions to exploit it from within the system. Formally, the project frames a dialogue between the existing pseudo-Gothic style of the library and postmodern aesthetics of the intervention. The architecture that manifests is a space in the existing library, both for and of the crooked lawyer, obnoxiously imposed on the existing architecture - the cheap suit worn by the crooked lawyer. Simultaneously, a space for the character to inhabit and also the architectural embodiment of the exploitative, loopholed corruption of the law. Through method and representation, Cheap Suit is driven as a project by the same mentality as the crooked lawyer, sneakily hijacking architectural representation for its own gain.
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+[HOST CONDITIONS] Longitude and perspective
/// DYSTOPIAS
+Spatial reality of the Crooked Lawyer intervention disguised in model
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/// DYSTOPIAS
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DISGUISED ELEVATION
SCALE 1/4” = 1’
+[TOP] Disguised elevation [w/ “typos”] +[RIGHT] SW isometric [“Cheesy Billboard”] +[LEFT] Spatial reality revealed in model
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The narrative of the crooked lawyer continues to play out in the logic of its representation. The intervention hides itself in the rules of orthographic drawing, seemingly compliant “on paper� despite the few flaws in its disguise. The architecture loopholes the drawing, just as the crooked lawyer loopholes the practice of law. The realities of the model and isometric reveal the corrupt practice of the drawing[lawyer].
// SAIPOTSYD //
// DYSTOPIAS // // ARTIFACTS // // PRACTICES //
stackFORM EXCAVATION THEN RELOCATION; STACKING ALONG THE GRAIN Undergraduate Studio 1 Peter Halquist Fall 2016
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/ ARTIFACTS
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P ROJ E C T B R IE F: Develop an understanding of solid/void relationships by means of stacking.
Bound by the parameter of vertical stacking with planar materials, stackFORM develops its own attitudes towards the material by introducing the notion of subtraction. Form-finding occurs through a removal of material from a standard whole. The notion of subtraction then turns into excavation, relocating the material elsewhere on the object. The form that manifests acts as a medium in which solid and void communicate across in a language of displacement that vaguely remembers its previous space.
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/ ARTIFACTS
+[LEFT] Iterative poche operations +[RIGHT] Stacking along the grain
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/ ARTIFACTS
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+[ROWS 1-3] 6” sections +[ROW 4] 8” sections +[ROW 5] 4” sections
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castVOID CO NVERSATIONS BETW EEN FO R M & SURFACE Undergraduate Studio 1 Peter Halquist Fall 2016
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P ROJ E C T B R IE F: As a follow-up to stackFORM, formalize the
void of the stack model through formwork and Rockite cast concrete.
Intrigued by material qualities of the Rockite, castVOID operates within the same formal language as its predecessor, now using the medium of concrete to stage a dialogue between form and surface. Two and three dimensional loyalties to the grid allow moments of conversation to occur across faces, around edges, and at corners. On their own, surface and form each embody logics that are rather straightforward. It is the key moments of exchange and intersection that allow more complex relationships to hover between the 2D and 3D languages. The model does not lend itself to an particular orientation, in order to encourage its reading “in-the-round�, to follow and trace these conversations. Neither the model or drawings can operate on their own, rather it takes an understanding of each side of the conversation separately to decipher the dialogue.
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// ARTIFACTS
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+[RIGHT] Linear elevations reveal orthographic alignments of form and surface; line transitions into edge, and back again. The drawings begin to disregard depth and create linear continuity only present in the orthographic.
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+[LEFT] X-axis sections +[MID] Y-axis sections +[RIGHT] Z-axis sections
// ARTIFACTS
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+[LEFT] Study model casts +[TOP] Final formwork mold before pour [polystyrene, masking tape, hot glue] +[RIGHT] Hot glue drip-detail [no-leak seams]
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+Formfinding axon
+Formwork planning
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+[AXON] Surface realities
Through the act of explosion, the axon pushes the implied form of the surface etching into reality.
// ARTIFACTS
+Shadow investigations
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ROCKITE® & BEYOND VAC U U M F O R M I N G ; R O C K I T E CAST I N G Independent Project Fall 2016
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ROCKITE® CEMENT
F O R M CAST IN G [VACUUM FORMING + ROCKITE CASTING]
2 parts Rockite 1 part H20 *Mix aggressively *Carefully pour into mold *Vibrate mold [removes air bubbles] *Let cure approx. 2-3hrs *Extract from mold
VACUUM FORMING
1 sheet polystyrene [16”x16”] *Heat polystyrene *Seal sheet onto vacuum bed *Evacuate desired volume of air *Kill heat *Let harden approx. 30 secs
+Vacuum-formed polystyrene mold
+Surface-color
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Driven by the question, “How can I make cement behave like it’s not supposed to?” Experiments with many ratios, formwork materials and processes led me to heat forming polystyrene over curved planes. By just slightly tugging on the material with the vacuum chamber, the resulting mold produces a gentle “dunes” and sharp rifts that the concrete is able to smoothly cast into. This series of casts tests the surface conditions of concrete along with how form can take on properties of its mold.
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+Revelations of surface-form
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Harsh single-source lighting reveals some of the surface conditions of the concrete that may get lost in full lighting; taking pressure off the color and looking more closely at form.
/// ARTIFACTS
+[LEFT] Rockite cast in pastel pink coat
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// STCAFITRA //
// DYSTOPIAS // // ARTIFACTS // // PRACTICES //
VII
STUDIO BOOTLEG A N O UT R AGEO US COLLECTIVE OF A R C HIT ECT UR E STUDENTS A crew of six bootlegging individuals from Taubman College 2016-
/// PRACTICES
TH E E SS E N T IA LS:
+[Red vinyl on studio-object] +Personal investigation of the everyday
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Born from the laundry list of outrageous studio “what-ifs” concocted over frequent coffee breaks, Studio Bootleg is clinically obsessed with the collisions of architecture, art, design, social commentary, and beautiful junk. What began as a series of hypothetical projects under the umbrella theme of “bootlegging” or, unconventional practice, has evolved into a whimsical attitude towards design driven by a constant consumption and regurgitation of culture as we see fit. The Essentials is an on-going project that documents frequently encountered objects in order to learn more about their visual and habitual roles in the blur that is life in studio.
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³ /’bōōt,leg/ adj: the opposite of legit. [Courtesy of Urban Dictionary]
// SECITCARP //
“In Quotes”
Is dedicated to the optimistic futures of Studio Bootleg.
/// “In Quotes”
THANK YOU THANK YOU Thank you thank you
+[THANK YOU] fonts used +[“In Quotes”] Bootleg portfolio object