TABLE OF CONTENTS COLUMBIA COMMUNITY BOATHOUSE PRATT GALLERY FOR DWELLING THE LANTERN ELASTIC FANTASTIQUE A NARRATIVE OF JOINTS AAC TEXTILE BLOCK SYSTEMS reBRANDING
Sebastiรกn Medina Selected Works
COLUMBIA COMMUNITY BOATHOUSE Bronx, NY Critic: Richard Sarrach
Columbia University has decided to upgrade and modernize its boathouse facility on the Harlem River adjacent to Baker Field sports complex and Inwood Hill Park. The Community Boathouse will extend Columbia’s commitment to innovative and sustainable design. The University wants to continue to grow its neighborhood outreach innitiatives. As part of this plan, the new boathouse facility will incorporate rowing education and training programs for inter-city youth in tandem with its varsity collegiate rowing program. The outreach program is “dedicated to the belief that the sport of rowing provides unique abilities to promote personal and community growth through teamwork, discipline, and physical fitness.”
Perspective from Harlem River
Boat Shed from second floor balcony.
Detailed Assembly Model - Scale: 1/2” = 1’-0” Basswood and Museum Board
1 GROUND FLOOR PLAN
Leisure + Necessity Final Analysis involved understanding the program components and developing a massing strategy that takes into account the importance of shed choreography. The boathouse proposal also includes a classroom, video room, and training spaces as part of the outreach program with a multi-purpose room for public events. The use of a long ramp as a delayed method of circulation allows the lenghty space to be used as a gallery or “timeline� displaying the history and awards of the Columbia rowing team and at the same time it creates awareness to the community about the technicality and overall nature of the sport. Along with providing limited parking for cars and boat trailers, the design of the outdoor spaces surrounding the building provide a public observation area of the rowing training.
Longitudinal Section through Multipurpose Room, Lobby, and Boat Shed.
View of Boathouse from Inwood Hill Park
2
SECOND FLOOR PLAN
Cross Section through Multipurpose Room and Gymnasium.
THE MODERN MACHINE Boathouse Model (Museum Board) - Scale: 1/8” = 1’-0”
If we look back at earlier civilizations and the earliest manifestations of technological advancements, we can begin to argue that human society as we know it has become extremely prosperous and advanced thanks to the invention of the “machine”. The “machine” was initially invented to save time, but we can also come to the conclusion that mankind has developed it so much, to the point that in today’s society, a “machine” not only serves the necessary purpose for which it was created, but it has also seamlessly adapted itself into an object for human leisure, or time wasting. Today, the machine allows continuous oscillation through the boundary of necessity and leisure, and this occurs in such a harmonic way that we do not even notice the difference between the two. If we take the phone as an example, we can agree that it is one of the best machines developed by man, yet it no longer serves the sole purpose of facilitating communication. We can take this even further and argue that the machine’s modern purpose is to seamlessly blend necessity and leisure. If we continue to understand the machine and this seamless connection, it can be concluded that today’s society demands that necessity and leisure co-exist in every new design.
Columbia Community Boathouse glowing at night.
PRATT GALLERY FOR DWELLING Brooklyn, NY Critic: Frederick Biehle
This project proposes a mid-rise graduate housing community of 55 two bedroom apartments for Pratt Institute. The Design of the dormitory was performed with the involvement of consulting engineers in the disciplines of facade, structure, and MEP. In addition to the articulation of the living space arrangement and shared communal spaces, this project implements the idea of the Studio and the Art Gallery as a way to create a collaborative and social environment where the students are able to “make“ and “showcase” their work and ideas to the public. The location for the project is a 15,000 s.f. infill site in Brooklyn between Grand and Steuben avenues, adjacent to the Pratt campus. The project required engagement in design issues at the scale of the individual dwelling unit, the assembled building, and the shared perimeter block. The final design performs not just as a formal and tectonic invention but as a critical investigation of social culture
Balcony Perspective
Building Skin System The location of the site and its proximity to manufacturiing facilities and the Brooklyn Navy Yard inspired a very rough skin system. A perforated skin composed primarily of corten steel panels gently blends with the adjacent brick and industrial buildings. The combination of steel, glass and brushed aluminum brings a modern feeling to the interior and provides proper privacy to the housing units while at the same time allowing for natural light and passive ventilation to penetrate through if desired. Facade Detail Model Scale: 1/2� = 1’-0� Basswood, Foam Core, Museum Board, Acrylic
East Elevation
A DWELLING FOR THE ARTS The Pratt Gallery for Dwelling is an experiment in new ways of designing and living in a communal space. It challenges the lifestyle of students in the age of globalization and social media. It supposes new ways of living and interacting with their neighbors. Thus the building provides public spaces that would encourage students to go out and meet or engage in conversations about similar interests either in person or virtually. The Gallery for Dwelling represents the art institution in Clinton Hill and engages with the local community. The internal life in the dorm is connected to the experience of the studio and the urban setting. Thus the new building is a place for connection between students, Pratt Institute, and people who visit and live in the area. Lacking of major cultural activities, the building provides public galleries and event spaces where the students and faculty can exhibit their work to the larger public. There, the design work of the university combines with the lifestyle of Brooklyn. The purpose of this academic building is to provide its inhabitants with a complete life of learning and leisure.
Gallery for Dwelling at Night
THE LANTERN KINDERGARTEN
Staten Island, NY Critic: Erika Hinrichs
Educating young children is one of the most important responsibilities of any community. The kindergarten represents a critical point in a child’s transition into society. The Froebel system was the conceptual basis of this project: Systematized learning through the development of a series of educational tools that look and feel like games but within each lies a lesson, or work. These lessons link together pedagogically and geometrically becoming a curriculum, progressing from the plastic and physical, towards the abstract and representational. The location of the site is a neighborhood in the St. George section of Staten Island. The site is a sloped 75’ x 157’ parcel with a change in grade of over 30’ from front to back.
Perspective from Administration Floor
Learning Through Play Extracting out the single classroom and play-space as the smallest incremental modules for learning and playing, the challenge was to consider a variety of conceptual and design strategies at a scale where the body is paramount.
The classroom/play-space module was developed from a 20’ x 20’ x 20’ cubic mass at 1/4” scale. Through a series of “cuts” and “re-utilizations” of the cut material, a classroom and a play-space emerged. Each cut was programatically defined as follows: Inside / Outside = Learning and Playing Entry, Passage, Movement = Circulation Connections and Joints = Structure
The final product was required to be understood as a reversible sequence that could return it to its “original mass”, from whole-to-part and part-to-whole.
Classroom basswood model - Scale: 1/4” = 1’-0”
SECTION A-A
Playground basswood model - Scale: 1/4” = 1’-0”
SECTION A-A
Organizational Systems
Multiple possibilities were tested based on the conceptual strategies developed for the single modular unit as well as the conclusions of the site analysis in locating the 5 classroom modules as a final assembly.
It was necessary to return to the actual site for the kindergarten to study how the classroom and play-space module could be multiplied and then interconnected together and to the site landscape.
The remaining programmatic elements were looked for in the spaces in-between the modules or by enlarging, reducing or alternating elements from the original classroom / play-space modules.
2 SECOND FLOOR PLAN
Kindergarten basswood model. Scale: 1/16” = 1’-0”
SECTION A-A
The Inside Street The sloped nature of the site allows for access into The Lantern from two different levels. This makes possible the use of the lower level of the building for community events when school is not in session. The implementation of a long hallway connecting the community accessible program (Seating Area, Cafeteria, Music Hall and Restrooms) and a massive atrium running through the spine of the building, make the building receptive to sunlight, street lights, and outside weather conditions which create the feeling of an inside street at the core of the building. The Inside street extends to the second floor through a long ramp facilitating adult supervision of activities going on in each module and at the same time providing acess for the children to their own little inside street and network of bridges, tunnels, and ladders.
Inside Street from Carrol Place entrance
INSIDE STREET
THE LANTERN The design proposal not only provides an educational facility for chilldren in or around the proximity of the St. George neighborhood, but also a place for gathering and community hosted events. The design itself takes maximum advantage of the sloped site and its layered history, and the implementation of program, accessible after school hours, brings a whole new dinamic to the area and provides a beacon for the community as an iconic destination. The design is simple but dynamic. Depending on the time of day, one of the building’s highlight’s is its grand atrium. At night, the glazed skin diffuses the light that comes from inside and transforms the building into an immense lantern. During the day, the glass veil allows light to penetrate inside and illuminate the Inside Street, also creating a play of varying shadows. The idea of the lantern is not only used as a literal descriptioon of the design, but it is also a metaphor where the children become the actual light to be housed and protected. They are the bright minds of the future and it is our responsibility as architects to shape their world so that they can grow as innovators and future leaders. The lantern creates the ideal educational environment where children can learn, play, and feel safe all at the same time.
lan·tern:
A transparent or translucent, case for enclosing a light and protecting it from the wind, rain, etc.
Street perspective of The Lantern from Carroll Place.
ELASTIC FANTASTIQUE Chicago, IL Critic: Richard Sarrach
This is an exploration of the excess in architecture as it relates to the idea of “copying”. The studio experimented with 3D printing technologies and different modes of graphic representation to convey a final idea. A thorough analysis of a symbolic Baroque church was the driver for the project and established a language that translated into a parametric representation. The emergent language and the original idea of “copying” determined the type of program to be contained as well as the location. The site is an empty lot located in downtown Chicago, adjacent to the Chicago River. A major highway runs over the site creating an axis for replication. As one of the largest US cities for manufacturing, and with its history as a city of spectacle; This project proposes manufacturing with new additive and subtractive technologies as a World’s Fair event in Chicago creating a spectacle with the potential of bringing manufacturuning back to the United States. NL R
D RE HO
ES AK
SITE
CHICAGO
RIVER S LAKE SHORE DR
CHICAGO HARBOR
Aerial Perspective
Lobby and Perspective of De
elayed Procession
Public Circulation Joint
THE SPECTACLE OF MANUFACTURING AND PROTOTYPING Chicago is the ideal location for the first version of the Elastic Fantastique. Not only it is one of the largest cities in the United States for Manufacturing but it was also one of the first cities to start testing new materials and methods of construction through the skyscraper. In the same way, the Elastic Fantstique is intended to test the potential of new materials through mass-replication and full scale prototyping using additive and subtractive process technologies such as 3D printing or CNC. The idea of the skin being able to be tested, dismantled and reconfigured, and tested again creates a direct relationship to Chicago in the 1800s which underwent a constant process of reconstruction after the Great Chicago Fire and then again through multiple redevelopment stages. Highly regarded as a city of spectacle Chicago presents the ideal scenario for the Elastic Fantastique to transmit its message. In the same way that the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair was intended to communicate a message to the world that the United States was not so far behind in the space race, this facility has the purpose of exposing manufacturing to the public using cutting edge technologies and massive protorypes as a way to send a positive message that maufacturing is coming back to America.
A NARRATIVE OF JOINTS Tectonic Volumes Critic: Marc Schaut Wood Word Joints: Establishes language as an operative mode of construction. Exploration of the generative potential of active language resulting in a material manifestation of the qualitative study of linguistic relationships and juxtapositions. A Volume of Jointed Tales: Examines the tectonic and volumetric alliances established within the solid space of the cube as an operative joint system. A ritual of transformation re-configures the internal solid/void relationships into a temporal and spacial exploration of material. Out of Joint Space: Transcends the abstract volume, introducing the mutability of space as a volumetric operation. The reconfigured cube space is then occupied with programmatic intensity. The final project culminates in a simple dwelling of activity, density, time, and ritual.
Out of Joint Space: Interior condition
Basswood joint cubes: 3” x 3” 3”
Hand Drawing: 18” x 24” Pencil on Vellum
This project is an exploration of Japanese joinery combined with words to create volumes - word joints. Through a series of 2D and 3D volumetric studies, hybrid joint volumes were created that embody the essence of those investigations. The new combinations demonstrated an overall strategy for assembly that was unique and contingent upon the application of the word and joint; collaged.
Volume of Jointed Tales The word combinations expanded into sentences that allowed new meaning to transcend initial definitions within a larger context. As the word combinations were re-understood, they had a direct effect on their associated joint assemblies. The result reconciled and extended the spatial contents of the hybrid joints beyond the boundary of the cube to define an evolved spatial territory.
Hand Drawings: 18� x 24� Pencil on Vellum
Volume of Jointed Tales: 9” x 9” x 9” Basswood Cube
Out of Joint Space
Bodies of light and water fill the Volume. The occupation dislocates the narrative to interiority. The Solid state aerates.
DETAIL Wood Word Joint (crosswords) Axially Gradually Rhythmically
Shearing Penetrating Layering
SITE
Volume of Jointed Tales
Combine Choreograph Delay PROGRAM
Out of Joint Space
Public Social 6-12 Bodies
Intersection Workspace
Fluid Bathing 1-4 Bodies
Rhythm Swimming
Private Resting 1-2 Bodies
Pause Meditation
Private Pause
Public Intersection
IN AND OUT OF JOINT
Sentences were developed into a proposition that synthesized the ethos of the word-joint sentences into a narrative that describes an environment. Constructs defined a sequence informed by concept statements and organize a set of spaces that captures an event. The spirit of the narrative aims towards a higher calling; an architectural ideal.
“Architecture is an art because it is interested not only in the original need of shelter but also in putting together spaces and materials in a meaningful manner. This occurs through formal and actual joints. The joint, that is the fertile detail, is the place where both the construction and the construing of architecture takes place.� -Marco Frascari, The Tell-the-Tale Detail
Fluid Rhythm
Final Basswood Model: 18” x 18” x 9”
AAC TEXTILE
BLOCK SYSTEMS AERATED CONCRETE FACADE
Phoenix, Arizona
Critic: Lawrence Blough + Ezra Ardolino
This project investigates the form finding potentials of Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) and the structural and technical possibilities of the material to develop innovative masonry screen wall systems. The process involved designing assemblies using varying unit shapes that could potentially be fabricated by a 6-axis robotic milling process. A generic office building in the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, acted as the foil to produce and test new over-cladding strategies to alter the environmental, aesthetic and programmatic performance of the existing structure. The goal of the research was to combine state of the art robotic technology with traditional masonry techniques to create practicable strategies for 21st century stone carving.
GENERATIVE STUDIES - Block Morphology and Surface Organization Practice The investigation for the project began by developing a series of block prototypes and surface analyses that would express a variety of patterns and conditions. The design of the system was primarily constrained by the size of the block module (8” x 8” x 24”) which dictated the size or type of appertures, and the thickness of the wall in order to keep its structural potential. For this case, a top-down approach was used in order to determine the overall pattern of the wall first and then the challenge was to break it up into a series of blocks that would meet the module requirements creating the desired arched condition for the appertures and the proper corbelling sectional condition.
First Stage of Entropy
Brading Pattern 01
Brading Pattern 02
Bubble Pattern 01
Bubble Pattern 02
Second Stage of Entropy
Pattern and Structural Grid
Third Stage of Entropy
Surface Manipulation
Aggregation / Stacking Method
Force Vectors
Textile Block Module
Potential Openings Based on Block Size
Interior Lobby Condition
Interior Office Condition
PARAMETRIC AAC TEXTILE BLOCK FACADE
Building enclosure systems that produce geometrically complex and intricate surfaces are practicable when approached through a component logic that exploits the unique qualities of a given material system. Within a limited set of parameters, working with the economies of both digital and conventional fabrication techniques, the research explores an assembly logic that is expressive, customizable and cost effective guided by the specific properties of Autoclaved Aerated Concrete. The provocation for the studio work was ultimately to walk the line between economy and constructability on the one hand, and excess and formal invention on the other.
Perspective showing corner condition and overall pattern in context
RE
BRAND THINK DEFINE
facebook Critic: David Mans
The project is framed around the concept of branding. Beginning with the rebranding of a contemporary web or digital product based company, the goal was to develop a graphic branding strategy built around a single new concept, word, or idea, and develop a campaign about it through the selection of fonts, color, layout and logo redesign. After developing a consistent branding strategy, the project focuses on high precision 3D modeling and rendering to communicate the new company’s identity through an actual product. The new product then becomes the center point of the final stage of the project, an exhibition for its sale and marketing.
reBrand The Portal to YOUR World Facebook is currently one of the most successful social media companies in the world. Although it is successfully growing, it hasn’t yet taken the big step into coming up with their own product.
PREVIOUS LOGO
NEW LOGO
YOUR OWN PERSONALIZED WORLD THROUGH FACEBOOK
Being a company that promotes social networking , sharing media, connecting to friends, and exploring new interests, one would expect the company’s logo to represent either of these things but it currently does not. The branding strategy focuses on bringing out those essences which make facebook the successful company that it is today by introducing a new company message, a clearer logo, a warmer color palette, and a product that is extremely social and customizable.
NEW COLOR PALETTE
reThink 1.
2.
3.
PRODUCT GENERATOR
4.
NEW FACEBOOK TABLET
KEYBOARD AND REAR SCREEN
reDefine SOCIAL INTERFACE
The new Facebook marketing kiosk is made up of a series of hexagonal panels that can be easily removed, and replaced for the modular components. This allows for the kiosk to be re-arranged in an infinite amount of ways creating different ways people circulate through the space as well as how they interact with the product and with one another. This carries forward the new Facebook emphasis on high customization and personalization. The Modules also promote social interaction by making the visitors face one another while interacting with the products.
SOUTH ELEVATION
ENTRANCE
PRODUCT DISPLAY
PRODUCT INTERFACE
SOCIAL SEATING
WEST ELEVATION
EAST ELEVATION
RE
BRAND THINK DEFINE
facebook The new facePAD by facebook is designed to make social networking more efficient and enjoyable. Very different than a regular tablet, the facePAD is derived from the geometry of a handheld device and equiped with many features that make it unique and versatile when compared to similar products. - A fingerprint reader, allows the user to log in taking personalization to a whole new level while maintaining security. The fingerprint reader also allows other users to scan their fingerprints and this will automatically add this person to the facePAD user’s circle of friends on facebook. - With front and rear facing cameras, one-on-one digital conversations can be adjusted to different scenarios. - The facePAD also includes a secondary screen in its core, which can be used for conference calling and a more social experience with friends. - An internally stored keyboard make messaging, emailing, word processing and overall networking much more efficient and comfortable. Equiped with a high resolution LED screen and state-of-the-art built-in speakers, the facePAD allows you to enjoy videos, music, photos and whaterver you and your friends decide to share, at an extremely high resolution.
SOFTWARE Rhinoceros 5.0 Grasshopper Adobe Photoshop CS6 Adobe Illustrator CS6 Adobe InDesign CS6 Autodesk AutoCAD Architecture Autodesk Revit Maxwell Studio Vray Render Weaverbird Paneling Tools
Sebastiรกn Medina
sebastian.medina1@gmail.com