REEM ABI SAMRA
otherworldly
otherworldly (adj)
a body of work that explores other realities oth·er·world·ly | \ ͵ə-thər-ʹwərl(d)-lē · devoted to preparing for a world to come · devoted to intellectual or imaginative pursuits
My work engages with the hyperreal, fusing absurdity with hints of familiarity through both representation and content. These architectural trompe d’oeils will have you challenging aspects of our world that are too commonplace to question, norms that seem too established to defy. What if sheep were to roam the skyscrapers of New York, and our waste were directly fed back into the grid as an energy source? What if our homes were designed to share more, and waste less? What if we could connect the underground and the sky through the passage of light? What if our structures were so light that they could almost float, while still offering flexible and hyperactive spaces? How can we re-imagine the humble door-handle? The following projects explore each of the above questions while actively considering the roles of nature and monuments in our cities. How does our architecture begin to commemorate the achievements, the struggles, and the hopes of the 21st century? In effect, I am devoted to re-imagining coexistences that break down boundaries among people, natures, animals, and machines. My work envisions a world that no longer distinguishes the natural and the artificial, and generates compelling narratives that draw you into other worlds.
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back-of-house
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reticence
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co-living village
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kaleidoscopic voids
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hyperactive monument
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street seats
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hybrid ecosystem
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a postulation of urban pastures & synthetic natures
a threshold of hesitation and temptation of the uncanny
a shared housing model for transient & local new yorkers
a marketplace that encapsulates light as a monument
a socially interactive and ever-so-flexible scaffold
a public seating installation that celebrates sustainability
a transportation hub, bird sanctuary and wetland lab
otherworldly
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
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hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
back-of-house
a postulation of urban pastures & synthetic natures ARCH 602 | critic: nate hume new york, spring 2021 project partner: lauren hanson Our driving vision was to create a composite architecture that interplays between natural and artificial. Inspired by a collection of contemporary visual art, we sought to draw the public’s attention into a playful and welcoming environment that functions as a waste treatment facility and community sheep farm, two natural elements that we believe have been kept hidden from the experience of urban dwellers. The goal was to showcase “back-of-house” programs in a captivating way - emphasizing their functions in sustaining life while elevating their aesthetic to contribute to New York’s identity. Formally, the project introduces a new typology into the Lower East Side’s language, where buildings spill and drip onto one another, or hover within the voids created between buildings. Materially, seeing as color and texture are two important elements in nature and architecture, we chose to explore terracotta and metal since they can be greatly customized to capture the spunk of the Lower East Side. The envelope was investigated as a space that can become inhabited by either by people, animals, water, or vegetation. The exploration of pasture as architecture, and the unconventional programmatic combinations and spatial relationships, hope to bring a new language to architecture and to reconsider the roles of buildings and nature in cities. Curious New Yorkers could meander into the synthetic atmospheric pastures, and leave with an understanding of what is fueling our lives.
back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
After graphically interpreting a series of Kahn castle drawings, we extracted exciting figural opportunities that could be translated into spatial and formal sequences.
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hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
The drawings influenced a massing strategy of assembling larger chunks that would still read cohesively. The notion of melting or dripping onto the surrounding buildings became a driving concept.
back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
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hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
unrolled section through entire building depicting elevated synthetic pastures back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
wall section detail of stuffed envelope main sidewalk entrance 10
hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
We designed a tile composed of custom patterned terra cotta with inlaid metal sheets that embrace the phenomenon of oxidation over time and allow the building to drip onto itself and its surroundings.
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hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
custom terra cotta tile profiles digital material studies weathering studies
back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: nate hume
building “guts”: machines, vegetation, animals
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hyperrealism • urban pasture • synthetic natures
rooftop pasture
back-of-house
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penndesign • team project • critic: karel klein
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surrealism • artificial intelligence • spatial lines
reticence
a threshold of hesitation and temptation of the uncanny ARCH 602 | critic: karel klein los angeles, fall 2021 project partner: ana celdran While generating images through Artificial Intelligence, we were drawn by the beauty of the mechanical, as well as its tendency to interact with natural elements and transform over time. We imagined how a functional door handle could act as a living organism, with skin drooping and melting on its corroded surfaces – this exploration expanded our definition of the surrealist term “convulsive beauty”. Our door handle, or “Widget in Distention”, emphasizes a moment of hesitation between the impulse to operate the mechanism and the fear of approaching it. The door handle became our entrance into a series of spaces where we envisioned how lines could be transformed into spatial experiences, where lines thicken to become walls and disappear to become visual discrepancies. Poetry and surrealist theory were the backbone of the project, as we explored storytelling to accompany and motivate our spatial decisions. We used wordplay to associate our initial study of the organ (body) to the organ (instrument) while still investigating the notion of a living mechanism – first on the object level, and then the architectural. Two main spatial experiences were explored: a stoa, where one moves through a series of meditative experiences, and an atrium, where one ends their journey in a space basking with lights, lines, and delicate ornaments. These spaces ideally act as part of a larger “dissonant organ”, a machine that resonates with the surrounding city and immerses you into a meditative and convulsive experience where over time, one can achieve reticence.
reticence
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penndesign • team project • critic: karel klein
duality: both sides of the “Widget in Distention” 20
surrealism • artificial intelligence • spatial lines
The project began with an investigation of the uncanny through the reimagination of the door handle. The handle, or “Widget in Distention”, oversaturates the threshold between two spaces, creating a hyperactive instance of fear, hesitation, and temptation of the uncanny.
reticence
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penndesign • team project • critic: karel klein
Using StyleGAN, we generated compelling images of threshold conditions, particularly doors and building entrances, to further explore the surrealist aesthetic and the uncanny threshold condition.
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surrealism • artificial intelligence • spatial lines
modeled column fragment reticence
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penndesign • team project • critic: karel klein
a. atrium oblique 24
b. stoa oblique
surrealism • artificial intelligence • spatial lines
a.
b.
conceptual floor plan
unrolled section of stoa & atrium chunks The two main spaces, the stoa and the atrium, were extracted from a conceptual plan that was derived by overlaying AI and site information.
reticence
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LIGHT SHOWERS Rays of light showering through To exist in a space where all I can see Is intangible I extend my arm, trying to reach Lines that reveal themselves The farther I look, the more the lines Blend into thickness I cannot decipher What I perceive versus what exists The deeper I go, the more “Everything that is solid melts into air” The more I find myself caught in between A series of dreams colliding into A split of a second Layers of lines and light Condensed and defining Spaces that alter My entire journey Which has led to this moment Of respite, of silence A semblance of peace Within a chaotic, overindulgence Of sensory experiences I find the noise to bring me An unintelligibly calm calamity, A meditative trance induced by The over saturation of thin lines That guide me towards Reticence.
penndesign • individual project • critic: jonas coersmeier
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collaborative living • adaptive reuse • rethinking housing
co-living village
a shared housing model for transient & local new yorkers ARCH 601 | jonas coersmeier brooklyn, fall 2020
CO-LIVING VILLAGE aims to provide housing to the transient residents of New York (such as incoming entrepreneurs and students) while planning for a sustainable growth and maintenance plan for the NYCHA building from which it stems. The complex provides cost-effective cohabitation houses for 10-12 residents per house, with various lease terms for these communities. The houses not only allow spaces for collaboration, learning, and meeting others, but also generate funds to continuously maintain the existing NYCHA complex below. In a sense, the power dynamic has shifted between gentrified and gentrifying agent, since the transient residents are indirectly investing in NYCHA’s sustainable future. The 9-5PM work model is no longer consistent with our modern world especially after the recent pandemic, and living in a dense city has often resulted in a heightened sense of loneliness and anxiety. Those living at the complex will have various opportunities to run into others, work remotely, and organize events within the commons. The cohabitation model thus aims to adapt to and drive forth a new urban lifestyle and housing typology in response to the digitalization of work. Ideally, this model aims to expand beyond the context of NYC where inhabitants would be able to live in different cities around the world, expecting the same types of amenities and experiences provided here.
co-living village
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penndesign • individual project • critic: jonas coersmeier
housing
housing
public commons
housing
daycare
below: small retail classrooms work spaces
c. new-build: cohabitation typical floor plan
1 BR 2 BR
the old and the new: 15th floor plan 1:500
1 BR
3 BR
2 BR
patio 1 BR
studio
studio
patio 3 BR
building long light well 2 BR 1 BR
patio
conference room
2 BR
1 BR
studio
2 BR
2 BR
laundry
b. modified existing building typical floor plan the old and the new: extended existing unit plan 1:500
a. existing NYCHA building typical floor plan Vertical continuity through circulation cores, in addition to opening up light shafts as well as widening the communal corridors, was essential to this project to ensure that current and new residents cross paths and effortlessly build community in this new “vertical neighborhood”.
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collaborative living • adaptive reuse • rethinking housing
c.
b.
a. west elevation of adaptive reuse building
co-living village
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penndesign • individual project • critic: jonas coersmeier
apartments private | sleeping cells communal | work & lounge communal | living & dining
cohabitation house 2
cohabitation house 1
housing
housing
public commons
housing
apartments
apartments private | sleeping cells communal | work & lounge communal | living & dining
apartments private | sleeping cells
below: small retail classrooms work spaces
daycare
cohabitation house 2
private | sleeping cells communal | work & lounge
cohabitation house 1
communal | living & lounge dining work & communal | living & dining
cohabitation house 1 (left) communal work & lounge floor cohabitation house 2 (right) entrance and communal living & dining floor the old and the new: 15th floor plan 1:500
cohabitation house 2 cohabitation house 2
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cohabitation house 1 cohabitation house 1
collaborative living • adaptive reuse • rethinking housing
apartments private | sleeping cells communal | work & lounge communal | living & dining
cohabitation house 2
cohabitation house 1
housing
housing
public commons
housing
apartments below: small retail classrooms work spaces
daycare
private | sleeping cells communal | work & lounge communal | living & dining
apartments cohabitation house 2
private | sleeping cells
cohabitation house 1
communal | work & lounge communal | living & dining
non-cohabitation apartments (left) access to vertical circulation cohabitation house 2 (right) sleeping cells the old and the new: 15th floor plan 1:500
cohabitation house 2
co-living village
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penndesign • individual project • critic: jonas coersmeier
façade material studies
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collaborative living • adaptive reuse • rethinking housing
chunk model co-living village
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penndesign • individual project • critic: jonas coersmeier
cluster section - multiple co-houses and apartments 36
collaborative living • adaptive reuse • rethinking housing
cluster section - individual co-house co-living village
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penndesign • individual project • critic: brian deluna
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light as monument • voids • mysterious wonder
kaleidoscopic voids
a marketplace that encapsulates light as a monument ARCH 502 | critic: brian deluna philadelphia, spring 2020
Philadelphia’s urban identity has been in constant flux, especially with the explosion and implosion of various industrial movements. Remnants of an industrial past remain around Philadelphia and within Callowhill, yet what is most prominent are the voids that have been left. Façades of vacant warehouses are now a canvas for artistic expression. Vents for underground subway lines act as skylights, bringing natural light into the earth. Voids have offered the city a different perspective on what is considered beautiful, unique, worthwhile. While much effort has been placed on revitalizing Callowhill, most empty lots are still widely unkept and vastly disregarded. Callowhill now acts as a parking-lot district to its neighboring Chinatown and Center City. The case study I’ve chosen was Etienne Boullée’s Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, where he designed a massive monument that strategically manipulates light to create effects of night and day. Boullée wanted to envelope Newton with his discoveries and passion for the cosmos. Boullée uses the poché, or void, as a light capsule to dramatize the interior effects. My project seeks to mirror that sense of mystique and wonder, creating a massive structure that infuses interior spaces with natural light. It aims to praise the monumentality of necessary infrastructures as experiential and engaging playgrounds of curiosity and mystery through thoughtful design.
kaleidoscopic voids
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penndesign • individual project • critic: brian deluna
After mapping commercial, residential and industrial zones in Philadelphia, I extracted figures and volumes that played with the tension between flatness and depth.
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light as monument • voids • mysterious wonder
form and texture study models kaleidoscopic voids
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penndesign • individual project • critic: brian deluna
“I wanted to give Newton that immortal resting place, the Heavens.” Etienne Boullée, To Newton Etienne Boullée Cenotaph case study drawings 44
light as monument • voids • mysterious wonder
map of exploded figures and volumes kaleidoscopic voids
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penndesign • individual project • critic: brian deluna
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light as monument • voids • mysterious wonder
north-south elevation displaying an altering sense of depth
kaleidoscopic voids
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penndesign • individual project • critic: eduardo calvo rega
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hyperactivity • flexibility • monumentality
hyperactive monument
a socially interactive and ever-so-flexible scaffold ARCH 501 | eduardo calvo rega philadelphia, fall 2019
The MEGASTRUCTURE represents the ultimate release from the sociotechnological hindrances of the past, embodying utopian and futuristic visions for alternate modes of reality. Borrowing from Cedric Price in his description of the Fun Palace, the megastructure is a “socially interactive machine”. I have defined the megastructure as a monumental system within which hyperactivity occurs. Based on a derived or imposed grid, it delicately balances its powerful presence on the site while still conforming to certain contextual constraints. In this case, the Hyperactive Monument attaches itself onto the existing Penn Museum, infusing the site with activity. This project re-envisions the Penn Museum as a sequential experience of human development and everyday life, breaking down the cultural and temporal hierarchies that were previously imposed in the spatial organization of the exhibition spaces. The Penn Museum will be renamed as a “Museum on the Everyday Ordinary”, and exhibition spaces will extend themselves into the attached megastructure. In addition, the museum itself will become an artifact within the Hyperactive Monument. The Hyperactive Monument is thus designed as a scaffolding system comprised of various datums within which constant performance and activity occurs, offering flexible spaces to exhibit, perform, educate, research, gather, and play.
hyperactive monument
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penndesign • individual project • critic: eduardo calvo rega
VILLE SPATIALLE | Yona Friedman, 1959-60
CONTINUOUS MONUMENT | Superstudio, 1969
NEW BABYLON | 1959-74. Constant Nieuwenhuys
These selected studies unpacked various notable "megastructures" to define them by their core structural and ideological principles. Despite its name alluding to massiveness, I defined the megastructure as characterized by transformation, flexibility and activity rather than by size.
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hyperactivity • flexibility • monumentality
REFERENCE 01 - GRID
REFERENCE 02 - DATUM
SHELL
VOXLS
CORE
STRCUTURE
SERVICES
PARTITIONS
INTANGIBLE PARTITIONS
Within a team of two students, we derived a "kit of parts" from the selected megastructures and used it as a toolkit to design our individual projects.
hyperactive monument
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penndesign • individual project • critic: eduardo calvo rega
b.
a.
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hyperactivity • flexibility • monumentality
section a
section b hyperactive monument
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penndesign • individual project • critic: eduardo calvo rega
pennmusem façade on display as an artifact
pennmusem façade on display as an artifact
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hyperactivity • flexibility • monumentality
choisy depicting the relationship between the museum & the monument
hyperactive monument
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parsons • team project • critics: huy bui and carlos gomez de llarena
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design build • temporary installation • public space
street seats
a public seating installation that celebrates sustainability PSCE 3020 | huy bui and carlos gomez de llarena new york, spring 2017 class-wide project As a team of product design, environmental studies, business and architecture students, we designed the public seating area on the corner of 13th street and 5th avenue in NYC to not only maximize seating but to also raise awareness on climate change. We used bamboo, a sustainable and versatile material, to celebrate its strength and length as a construction material that is not commonly used in our urban context. We installed solar panels to power lighting fixtures that turned on automatically at night, and worked with community gardens to liven the structure with greenery. The project was in collaboration with the Department of Transportation’s Street Seats program, so we were tasked with developing construction drawings to be stamped by engineers and to comply with code requirements for temporary installations. After 6 months of offering the community a seating and gathering space, we de-installed the structure, distributing the plants to local residents and recylcing the wood for future student projects. Due to its impact on the community and its sustainable design, the project won the 2018 Core77 Design Education Initiative Award. Team members: Katelin Collier, Javier Contreras, Russell Conway, Shaya Gansburg, Finn Harries, Charlotte Hoefer, Seung Chae Kang, Pranati Kotriwala, Phil Liu, Naiky Paradis, Michael Phillips, Maha Sivakumar, Alyson Thompson, Jeana Chesnik, Gabrijela Korac.
street seats
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parsons • team project • critics: huy bui and carlos gomez de llarena
in-house fabrication process ; photo credits: finn harries 62
design build • temporary installation • public space
day 2 after installation ; photo credits: finn harries
street seats
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parsons • team project • critics: huy bui and carlos gomez de llarena
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design build • temporary installation • public space
street seats
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parsons • team project • critics: huy bui and carlos gomez de llarena
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design build • temporary installation • public space
street seats
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parsons • individual project • critic: carlo enzo
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biomimicry • green infrastructure • coexistence
hybrid ecosystem
a transportation hub, bird sanctuary and wetland lab PUAD 4010 | carlo enzo new york, fall 2017
The driving force of this project was derived from the great juxtaposition between the urban environment and natural landscape in Marble Hill and Inwood Hill Park. Pulling inspiration from New York’s location in the midst of the Atlantic Flyway, as well as from the fact that the city is home to more than 480 different bird species, the project acts as a transportation hub, research facility, and sanctuary. It is a lively hybrid ecosystem that integrates human life, plant life, animal life, and infrastructure as one. The project includes vendor spaces, a reading room, an ecology laboratory with classroom spaces, a nature center for the nearby park, and most importantly, constructed wetlands that expand from the last salt marsh in the city, Muscota Marsh, that wrap around and inside the building. The design was inspired by some of the smartest architects in nature: birds. By examining the logic behind bird nests, I used biomimicry to emulate the functional aspects of nests’ partitions and apertures. The design was also highly influenced by the nearby hills and their synergy with the water and urban landscape. This project inspired a year-long thesis for my secondary degree in Urban Studies named, “Inwood Hill Park and the Future of Green in the City”, where I traced the history of northern Manhattan / southern Bronx, particularly the evolution of its wetlands and their ecosystem services to the city.
hybrid ecosystem
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parsons • individual project • critic: carlo enzo
alive
topographic
silence, stillness
planar
natural light
unknown boundaries
ease of access
vegetated
NATURE
biodiversity fresh
‘impractical’
HYBRID ECOSYSTEM
time slows down
rushed
URBAN
noise & chaos
demographic diversity
fluid natural voids, caves, spatial conditions
high tech
controlled
rigid structures highly populated
ecological analysis of inwood hill park development of a “hybrid ecosystem” 72
biomimicry • green infrastructure • coexistence
partition
weave
cavity
avenue
In parallel to studying the natural and anthropogenic histories of Marble Hill, I intimately studied various species of birds’ nests and the logic they followed for entrance, passageways, protection, and aesthetics.
hybrid ecosystem
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parsons • individual project • critic: carlo enzo
port of arrival port of arrival
port of arrival botanical garden vendor & cafe spaces
playground
elevated park meditative reading room
topographic path
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biomimicry • green infrastructure • coexistence
bird access human access
research/learning center
constructed wetland
existing salt marsh
bird and human access diagram transportation hub section hybrid ecosystem
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parsons • individual project • critic: carlo enzo
wetland reserve and boardwalk
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biomimicry • green infrastructure • coexistence
aerial view of transportation hub
hybrid ecosystem
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“A model is by definition that in which nothing has to be changed, that which works perfectly; whereas reality, as we see clearly, does not work and constantly falls to pieces; so we must force it, more or less roughly, to assume the form of the model.” ― Italo Calvino, Mr Palomar
otherworldly
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REEM ABI SAMRA
otherworldly