Portfolio 2023

Architecture is a medium to facilitate change in the world. Creating space for opportunity, understanding and community through sustainable practice is the future of humankind. Harmoniously living on this earth while giving back to the other inhabitants with whom we share this planet.

CONTENTS

BOSTON MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FOLK ART

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF ALMA KANSAS

NET+ HOUSING

AUSTRALIAN LAND COURT AND COMMUNITY CENTRE

DESIGN RESEARCH

IMPACT SKYSCRAPER COMPETITION

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM IN BOSTON

Class: Architecture Design Studio 4

Instructor: Michael Grogan

Duration: 9 weeks

BOSTON

BACKGROUND: BOSTON + FOLK ART

The United States of America is a place filled with diverse groups of people and Immigrants from around the world. Creating a blend of ideas, cultures, and perspectives, where the art is the vehicle for navigating our differences to share and communicate. The American Folk Art Museum located in Boston would be the physical manifestation to house this artistic dialogue of cultures.

Folk art is the manifestation of an individuals cultures, emotions and dreams by an unprofessional. It can be accomplished by anyone, in the comfort of their own home. The space should be perceived and viewed in an environment respectful of the one it was created in. At the same time, the opportunity for a variability for viewing opportunities of the art, and the other occupants as well. The physical molding of space echoes the desire to have diversity in order to create stability.

PRIMARY EXHIBITION FLOOR

TEMPORARY EXHIBITION FLOOR

VERTICAL EXHIBITION FLOOR

EDUCATION FLOOR

DOMESTIC

HOME

Just as Folk Art is created within anyones home in an unprofessional environment, the experience of viewing the pieces should reflect that spacial ideal. Allowing for a personal interaction with the art itself and the surrounding inhabitants of the shared space, but with this viewing experience we may perceive what we see from our viewpoint and therefore only seeing a portion of the story.

INCLUSIVITY

When coming together we understand that the diversity is what strengthens this great nation. Alternative perspectives and viewpoints are what allow for collaboration and adaptation, an idea that is put into physical practice within the cascading spaces.

Without the diversity of cultures and viewpoints within this country it could not thrive; in a similar light, this building would not stand without a mix of differing perspectives and opportunities. The variance itself creates the equilibrium.

SECTION A-A

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ALMA KANSAS

Class: Architecture Design Studio 3

Instructor: Torgeir Norheim

Duration: 10 weeks

80' 30' 10' 0' 180'

BACKGROUND: ALMA KANSAS

Alma Kansas is a small town with the population of 899 people most hard working collar workers. When schools of all ages release at 3pm parents struggle to find resources to have a safe space for children after school. The downtown consists of a single street spanning a single block, containing most things anyone could intended site has the opportunity for connecting the public park to the east, to street at the west. Being a hub for community activity and a harboring, safe, and space for children.

working blue find the consists could need. The to the front and nurturing

PROTECTED BUT RESTRICTIVE

UNPROTECTED BUT FREE

PROTECTED & ADAPTABLE

Nestling the children’s space above the public realm and street below allows for an safe, yet non-restrictive space that adapts alongside the growing inhabitants. A central storage and partition core allows for subdivision of space facilitating the appropriate activity. Variance in scale, light level, and acoustics can all be accommodated for in this way as everyone thrives in different conditions. Sunlight paints the ever changing areas with playful light as the roof cascades from one corner of the building to the other creating a vibrant, creative space for learning and growth.

SECTION A-A

PLAYING SPACE PERSPECTIVE ENCLOSURE SYSTEM

The structure of this building creates a dynamic space on the upper level where children inhabit a truss system, secured from the world below. Underneath, the lower chord is exposed to allow light to flood from all sides against the techtonic wall which contrasts the rest of the fillagree system. The architectural assemblege itself magnifies the experience of the space that it upholds.

Bottom timber chord

Tectonic limestone wall

Top timber chord & tension member

Timber Columns

NET+ AFFORDABLE & SUSTAINABLE

Class: Net + Design Studio

Instructor: Michael Gibson

Duration: 16 weeks

HOUSING

BACKGROUND: HOUSING CRISIS + KANSAS CITY

Kansas City, located in the center of America is a diverse and culturally thriving city. What is not thriving however is the housing market, as affordable housing is a myth in neighborhoods surrounding the downtown. Indian Mound is no exception, with no new homes being built in the past three decades, affordable housing is in dire need. The goal was to build a home that would be affordable to build, yet maintain and live in. Passive heating through solar gain, with passive cooling through covered openings and cross ventilation, would be the focus in order to reduce the need for mechanical assistance to create comfort in the home.

Relationships are the foundation of security; an idea that starts at the smallest scale of one on one, and amplifies and grows as the strength of these bonds are brought together. Space was shaped in order to facilitate the growth and connection between individuals and the family unit itself. The open public realm is centralized to encourage interaction. This space has direct connection to the exterior in order to bring the community in through food, culture, and friendship and vice versa; Allowing positivity to radiate out into the community, strengthening its resilience.

Careful consideration was taken into the design choices as well as materiality. A construction document set of drawings was curated in order to have this home constructed in 2022 as a master plan to assist in the resolution of the housing crisis in Kansas City. Details shown to the right are an example from the drawing set that was created.

The opportunity of a master plan was utilized so that this scheme would utilize the entirety of the site available regardless of the width. The public realm engages the rest of the site creating an extension of space from interior throughout the entirety of the exterior.

AUSTRALIAN LAND COURT AND COMMUNITY

Class: Architectural Design Studio 7

Instructor: Genevieve Baudoin

Duration: In Progress

COMMUNITY CENTER

BACKGROUND: ABORIGINAL LAND DISPUTES + LOOMA, AUSTRALIA

Looma is a community in the region known as the Kimberly located in the territory of Western Australia. Founded for the Aboriginal stock-men and their families the town has two clusters of homes with limited resources and connection. Disagreements in this region are rooted within the conflicting interest of lands rooted in spirituality and economic desires. Aboriginal groups have lived in the region for tens of thousands of years, however cattle stations have started fencing off hundreds of thousands of acres of these lands. The building typology of a magistrate court provides place and opportunity for understanding as well as conflict resolution.

Due to the remote nature of the context, in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the building, material choice is of utmost concern to source locally and re-use available materials. An existing building typology in the region is grain silos, many of those are in disrepair and a prime opportunity for salvage for reuse of their components. Additionally utilizing non-planar 3d printing sourced from the sandy soil providing a silica base for structural panels to be printed on site. When compiling these structural elements, they can be combined into inhabitable spaces that can be conditioned and thermally controlled.

PASSIVE STRATEGIES

Utilizing cladding from grain silos, a protective sun-shading shield is constructed exterior and interior spaces to be habitable and comfortable in this hostile climate. informed by passive physics such as the venturi effect and Bernoulli’s principle. capture of strong winds help to cool and ventilate the human realm provide thermal comfort in exterior public spaces while providing relief for fully enclosed

constructed to enable climate. Form is principle. Optimizing of provide opportunity for enclosed spaces.

Re-adapted grain-silo cladding

Sun Shield Substructure

3D Printed Inhabitable Pods

Abstract

The Impact The Designed Relationship Between The Built And Natural Environment Has On The Healing Process

To provide the most efficient healing environments for convalescents, patients post operation and pwd (persons with dementia) within an acute care setting, hospitals have to consider all opportunities to improve the quality of care. Stakeholders, clients, designers, employees, and patients all have diverse perspectives on what makes a healing facility successful. The current approach for the design process is undertaken with safety and efficiency being of the most importance. That being said, the need to rethink this in combination with the corresponding business model of these topologies has never been more prevalent. Too often, the human experience is stripped away, for the sake of safety and efficiency leading to a sterile, bleak interior environment that ultimately reduces the efficiency of the intended action of the programmed space: healing. By recalibrating the intentions behind a hospital and putting healing first, the natural environment can play an important role. Through facilitating an exchange between nature and the interior environment, the human experience and the quality of life increases drastically (De Bruin, 2018). From a positive jump in mental health to a reduction in stress, in turn, the physical body of patients is allowed to heal in a quicker manner. Individuals who have dementia respond well to nature, which allows them to maintain a sense of identity and pride as well as mental stability in a new unfamiliar environment. Designing purely within the mindset of a stakeholder or individual who is directly invested in the success of the institution can create a non-holistic healing process for the patients that spend time within it. This design approach aims for the optimization and reduction in time frame that patients spend inside of the hospital to recover, however when focusing inward, opportunities from the exterior and the natural environment can be missed.

Link to full paper:

https://issuu.com/simon.degrace/docs/encouraging_healing_through_a_designed_relationshi

DESIGN RESEARCH

Class: Design for Supportive Environments

Instructor: Dr. Migette Kaup

Duration: 16 weeks

REGROWTH

Competition: Impact Skyscraper Competition

Team/Role: Abigail Hutchinson - Grasshopper, Rendering

Ryan Davelaar - Diagrams, Rendering

Simon DeGrace - Unit Design, Modeling

The Pandemic Has Forever Changed The Way We Live And Work.

Offices are shifting toward a hybrid workplace, blurring the work and life balance. The tower increases the quality of life of inhabitants by creating a healthy unison of the built and natural environment while forming a buffer between the living and working environments. Seven tiered ‘neighborhoods’ form a tower that sprouts from the base of an existing office building in Seattle, Washington, representing ‘regrowth’ of the building’s vitality. The relationship between the neighborhoods and the office setting facilitates socialization that allows people to form budding relationships and supportive communities. Within each neighborhood is a bridged structure that connects the residential ‘branch’ to the main office tower creating a unique environment with plentiful amounts of daylight, waterfalls, and green space for residents and office workers.

Together, we can design a better future.