ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO SAMI SAMAWI UNDERGRADUATE WORKS 2013-2016
CURRICULUM VITAE - SAMI SAMAWI Spending my childhood and young adult life between Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S, I never felt a real attachment to a specific time or place, rather i see myself as a citizen of the world. I have always been and always will be in the search of a universal aesthetic, not tied to a culture or a people, but to nature and this world.
Contact details 9D2 Limestone House, D.I.F.C Dubai, U.A.E, P.O. Box: 283174 Mob: +971 56 951 1183 E-Mail: samawisami2@gmail.com
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE Knowlton School of Architecture, The Ohio State University. (2013 - 2017) Bachelor of Science in Architecture, Honors with Research Distinction. Class of Spring 2017. Cumulative GPA: 3.396 Major GPA: 3.563
Awards:
Lycée Français International de Dubaï. (2011 - 2013) French Scientific Baccalaureate with math specialization. Mention Trés Bien (High Honours)
Extracurricular:
-Gui competition - honorable mention -IMI/OSU masonry competition finalist -Student book club award for honors studio
-Varsity Basketball Team -Class President Grade 11
Lycée Français Charles-de-Gaulle a Damas (2001 - 2011)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE IMMO Prestige Holdings/ ATKINS Dubai, U.A.E (Summer 2017 - present day) Liaison between IMMO and ATKINS on the design of a 350 meter high rise residential building. Tasks included participating in all meetings between the client IMMO and the design and engineering firm Atkins. Participated also with the interior design and layout of the condominiums in close relation with GAJ the Interior Design firm.
Additional experience: -ID tech summer camp for video game design at Stanford University. Autodesk Maya and character concept. -One month of humanitarian work in the country of Bhutan through the Swiss Red Cross. Familiarized myself with a different culture and different way of living, a real eye opener. -Studio Assistant to artist Safwan Dahoul in Dubai. Mr. Dahoul is one of the most prominent painters in the Middle East.
Atelier Hapsitus, Urban Art and Architecture practice, Beirut, Lebanon Internship summers of 2014 and 2015: Working with a small team of designers and architects was a great initiation into the world of design. As the team was small and dynamic I found myself being involved in all aspects of the design process including rendering, model making, drafting, site visits, and sculpture production. 2
-My parents own Ayyam Gallery an art gallery in Dubai and Lebanon, I helped using InDesign to produce many invitation cards and brochures for exhibitions while I was attending College. -Extensive cultural travel. i.e. Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Art Dubai, Europe study abroad with The Ohio State University etc...
2001
1995
Geneva, Switzerland -Ages 0-6 -Preschool
2011
Damascus, Syria -Ages 6-16 -Middle school and junior high
2013
Dubai, U.A.E -Ages 16-18 -High school
2017 Columbus,Ohio, U.S.A -Ages 18-22 -University
SKILLS Digital
Physical
Auto-cad
Laser Cutting
Rhinoceros
3D Printing
Grasshopper
CNC routers
T-Splines
Wood Shop
Auto-desk Maya
Sketching
Adobe illustrator
Painting
Adobe Photoshop
Photography
Adobe InDesign Revit
REFERENCES
HOBBIES
Andrew Cruse, A.I.A:
Travel Guitar Arts
Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University TEL: +1 614-292-2963 E-MAIL: cruse.40@osu.edu
Basketball Golf Photography
Sandhya Kochar: Senior Lecturer, The Ohio State University TEL: +1 614-292-7513 E-MAIL: kochar.1@osu.edu
LANGUAGES Nadim Karam: Founder, Atelier Hapsitus TEL: +961 3 284 298 E-MAIL: nadimkaram@hapsitus.com
French - fluent - native English - fluent Arabic - fluent
“ And what is it to work with love? Is it to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. ” - Khalil Gibran 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPISM
OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
6-15
16-21
Spring 2015
4
2
Fall 2015
3
WEXNER A Fall
22
3
ART GALLERY 2015
2-29
4
MUSICAL FOLLIES
5
NEW WORLDS, OLD IDEAS
Fall 2016
Spring 2016
30-35
36-43
5
1
ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPISM
An experimental studio project that explores how architecture at a certain scale becomes landscape and how its effects manifest in the physical. It imagines a future where the anthropocene has become so integrated with nature it has become nature. Architecture therefore has to facilitate the existence of all organisms on earth. The project was developed as a critique of the prevailing tendency in architecture for absolutism and the total rejection of all that came before. The project employed a series of formal experiments that explored how architectural landscapism could be made manifest in the age of the antropocene
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7
Transformational Diagram
Hybrid Axonometric
National Art Museum of China - OMA
8
Logarithmic Scale Transformation
Transformational Diagram
Hybrid Axonometric
Logarithmic Scale Transformation
Taipei Performing Arts Center - OMA
9
Vignettes
Orthographic Projection
Cavalier Projection
Orthographic Projection
Cavalier Projection
10
1 mile
11
10 m 1 mile
1 mile
Core Plan
Core Section
Core Oblique Section
Core Oblique Section
12
miles
13
14
15
2
OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
The Obama Presidential Library is situated in Wolf Point Chicago, a point of confluence of the Chicago River. Its location makes it visible from various angles unlike its neighbors. The concept here is to create a strong contrast between the library and it’s immediate neighbors or any Chicago building, creating a sort of emblem that embodies Obama’s progressive agenda. There are 3 main programs to the building: a hotel, an administrative office and the Obama Presidential Library and Museum. The hotel and offices followed a very typical Chicago skyscraper architecture and the museum and library spaces contrasted them with an exuberant form that follows the circulation pattern of the museum. The archives is fully digital and situated on the periphery of the form like a wall of screens playing clips of Obama’s presidency.
16
17
Form disrupting conventional buildings
Archives situated along the permiter of the form
Form generated by main system of circulation
Main gallery spaces piercing through the form like slots
Cross-Section
18
Model Photographs
Section Oblique
19
Top View Main Entrance
Plan at Lower Level
20
Plan at Gallery and Archives
Main Space Renders
21
3
WEXNER ART GALLERY
This project of a museum housing the Wexner Art Collection is situated in proximity to the Columbus Art Museum creating a small art hub in E. Broad Street. This proposal uses the secondary program spaces (school, admin and artist residence spaces) as a brise-soleil to block any direct sunlight from coming into the gallery space. It also proposes a roof structure made into strips of highly reflective steel that are offseted. The offset will allow direct sunlight to bounce off of the strips and make it’s way into the gallery space as ambient light. The corner lobby serves as a passageway to all spaces and is oriented towards main traffic flow making itself highly apparent.
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23
South and west facade as brise-soleil
Form follows function
Section through gallery sunlight into ambient light
Corner entrance as space organizer
Third floor plan
Gallery Space
Artist Studios
Lobby Area
Admin. Office
24
Ground Floor Plan A
c
15
14
4
11
10
12
13 16
B
B
3
1
18
18 18
2
c
A
Second Floor Plan
1. Lobby 2. Ticket desk 3. Museum shop 4. Cafe 5. Admin. Assistants 6. Director’s office 7. Curator’s office 8. Education offices 9. Conference room 10. Installation staff area 11. Conservator’s area 12. Web-master/it 13. Crafting, framing area 14. Staff workshop 15. Loading dock 16. Loading storage 17. Auditorium 18. Classrooms 19. Adult edu. teaching studio 20. Children’s workshop 21. Artist apartments 22. Artist studios 23. Teaching studio
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19
19
20
25
Section A
Section B
South Facade
West Facade
26
Lobby space
Gallery space
27
Model Photographs
Section Render
28
29
4
MUSICAL FOLLIES GUI competition: honorable mention
This project of a music hall is unique in that it is situated in a park. The main goal of this proposal is to create a smooth transition from the park to the music hall. The formal exuberance of the auditorium spaces are formal manifestations of the 3 different auditorium typologies (Vineyard Terrace, Megaphone and Shoebox). The entirety of the music hall is situated under a large plinth, and it’s ground is a continuation of the park’s ground, as though the music hall is a natural phenomenon present in the park. The plinth establishes a neutral datum against which one can encounter and read the exuberant forms of the music halls, similar to follies in an English landscape.
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31
Site Plan
3 auditoriums with formal qualities of auditorium typologies
Megaphone 3 auditorium typologies with different acoustic properties and seat arrangements
Exuberance of auditorium spaces are a reference to follies in English gardens
32
Vineyard
Shoebox
Geometry arrayed around center void
Casual park meanderers can just walk through the building and end up on the
33
Plan view:
3’ under plinth
Section
34
Exterior Render
Model Photographs
35
5
NEW WORLDS, OLD IDEAS Additional credits: Kofi Akakpo, Austin Gordon
This project creates new architectural worlds through the employment of a generative technique utilizing the visual language of architecture. The project begins with three samples “seeds” deployed within the generative machine. These samples have been selected based upon their strength of influence within the field at large. While some are more literal, some are diagrammatic, representing vectors of research, design processes and methods within architecture. These initial samples are then modified through what we call “filters”: architectural precedents chosen for their latent affinities with the initial seeds. Resonances and affinities between the seeds and the filters are analyzed, and that analysis guides the development of the subsequent architectural worlds produced. The technique relies heavily on the architect’s interpretation of the precedents to guide the outcomes of the translation through the filters. Traditional readings, mis-readings, and new takes are all valid in the expression of the technique and its outcomes. The worlds created are of varied complexities assuming different characteristics as they influence, contaminate and borrow from each other. 36
37
CLOUD CITY: Cloud City is a world of aerial dwellers located just above the troposphere. It is the home of scientists and astronomers studying and exploring space.
CANYON CITY: Canyon City dwells within the Grand Canyon and juxtaposes the relentless verticality of 1909 with the undulating nature of the natural terrain. It is the world of explorers and adventure junkies.
38
OBLIQUE CITY: Oblique City examines what happens when the Oblique Function is interrupted by Mies’ Brick Country House, presenting a tension between two systems. It is the home of the capitalists who are interested in expansion of territory, both vertically and horizontally.
MACHINE WORLD: Machine World takes an alternative look at a dump-site of old mechanical parts as a site for possible architectural intervention. As the mechanical gives way to the digital, its inhabitants are skilled at making use of old systems that have been discarded by others. 39
DRILL CITY: Drill City is located in a mine shaft. Its citizens are those whose desire is to mine the earth in search of precious minerals.
NO-STOP CITY: No-Stop City explores the seminal architectural project in the vertical as well as horizontal. It is a world where everything happens at the nodes and is home to the Nomads, a group of wanderers in constant search for new experiences. 40
NEW TOKYO: New Tokyo imagines a propagation of Isozaki’s Clusters in the Air over the existing urban condition of the Jeffersonian Grid. Its people are those who desire to be removed from the gridded reality laid by the Jeffersonian Dispenser.
THE JEFFERSONIAN DISPENSER The Jeffersonian Dispenser employs the predominant existing urban layout, the grid, as a tool to distribute new complex worlds into old disused urban spaces. Distributing modernist urbanism opportunistically, it is an infill machine. A collective of conquerors, it is in constant search for new lands to occupy. 41
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ADDITIONAL WORKS SKETCHES From series entitled Self-Organization Pen and Pencil on Paper
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ADDITIONAL WORKS PHOTOGRAPHY
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Sami Samawi l Architecture Portfolio l samawisami2@gmail.com l +971 56 951 1183