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reconnecting the urban web thesis on infrastructural integration Location Chicago, IL Date Sp. 2015 Professors Tricia Stuth James Rose Valerie Friedmann
In order to overcome these obstacles, there were three urban conditions that needed to coalesce effectively. The urban infrastructural layers on this site stretched out in a linear and discreet method, obstructing healthy urban connections. The solution to this ailment was to integrate three urban and infrastructural divisions in masterplanning: transportation, ecology, and public space. The final level of investigation was through architectural morphology diagramming and hybridization. By merging certain morphologies, multiple infrastructural needs could be met with single architectural or urban projects. An example of one of these hybrid projects is a stormwater runoff wetland with pedestrian trails underneath a major roadway and architectural passages connecting this new public space with the community.
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7.5 Miles
Beginning as a study in the urban consequences of cities hosting the Olympic Games, this thesis project became more about the study of a specific place based on it’s failed Olympic proposal. By critically analyzing the proposal, it became clear that there were many urban and architectural failures of this neighborhood that the proposal not only failed to alleviate, but actively reinforced.
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chicago
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prairie shores - existing
4 400
800
1,600
2,400
douglas - urban barriers
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prairie shores - proposed
Feet 3,200
02
beardsley community farm design/build/evaluate: urban farm in city park Location Knoxville, TN Date Fa. 2014 Professor Jennifer Akerman Position Student Collaborators Hunter Byrnes, Kenna Cajka, Angie Claeys, Cayce Davis, Bailey Green, Jake Heaton, Geneva Hill, Gina Raanti, Jerry Sullivan, Hunter Todd, Jared Wilkins As part of the Design, Build, Evaluate program, this project for the City of Knoxville is intended to be designed and built by students. The first semester, from which this is a product of, consisted of concept design, schematic design, and design development. By the end of the semester, a preliminary set of construction documents and a LEED analysis booklet was created. This project is understood to be more than a service building, it is expressly designed to create a community place and to help Beardsley more effectively engage the residents of this neighborhood. Built as a teaching tool, the shelter will educate farm visitors and volunteers about sustainable farming/design principles. In support of this, the design heightens sustainable strategies such that they become elegant and essential features of the place.
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02
beardsley community farm design/build/evaluate: urban farm in city park Location Knoxville, TN Date Su. 2015 - Sp. 2016 Professors Jennifer Akerman Bob French Position Faculty/Project Leader Additional Leader Bailey Green Additional Collaborators 22 students A continuation of the design/build project from Fall 2014, there were a few courses that focused on the construction process of the education center. Beginning in the summer of 2015, students pushed forward with design detailing and began design of custom elements for fabrication. Once the site was prepared, they layed the foundation and constructed the structural masonry wall. Simultaneously, the instructors and research assistants engaged in design development, wall assembly investigation, detailing, and construction administration. A new class in Fall 2015 began or continued development of custom elements such as doors, casework, and site fencing/rainscreen. Throughout the entire 2015/2016 schoolyear, the instructors and research assistants fabricated many essential architectural elements and interior builtins, sometimes continuing the effort of the students’ custom fabrications of the fall 2015 semester.
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03
18th street arts center public arts complex Location Santa Monica, CA Date Sp. 2014 Professors Lawrence Scarpa of Brooks + Scarpa Brandon Pace of Sanders Pace Collaborator Ryan Stechmann
Conceived of as a continuous series of connected public spaces, this project weaves a journey throughout the complex allowing the viewer to see art pieces and art-making in process. The entry plaza links the various activity spaces together. It extends downward into the main gallery space one level below grade, creates a new entry for the existing Highways performance theater, and travels upward through a series of complex alternating live/work studios and a rooftop performance space. At the culmination of the journey is a multi-functional theater and garden that takes advantage of expansive views of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and downtown Los Angeles to the east. Along the path to the roof space is a series of live/work studios that open up to the visitor, providing a more intimate opportunity for experiencing active gallery spaces. The entire site becomes one large public space full of different galleries and event locations, providing the most exposure of art to the visiting public.
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04
analog/digital fabrications compositions using both analog and digital means Dates [A] Fa. 2013 [B] Fa. 2014 Professors [A] Matt Culver [B] Keith Kaseman Collaborators [B] Ryan Stechmann & [B] Jessica Porter
Small-scale design creates a dialog between concept and detail. These projects explore various methods of production and fabrication. Project [A] is an analog fabrication using woodworking and metalworking tools. Inspired by mid-century designers, this TV stand celebrates minimalism, clarity of materials, and formal expression. Made from one board of hickory using manual lamination techniques, this furniture project really helped me value the ability to use material in unique ways, as well as the attention to detail required for such a functional and tactile object. Project [B] is about the design process transitioning back and forth from digital and analog resources. Starting with a small pre-selected object, the intention was to transcribe the form and manipulate it digitally, then fabricate it into an analog object and manipulate it manually, rebuilt it digitally and finally fabricate a final object using digital fabrication resources such as a water-jet cutter and CNC mill. This design, like the previous, celebrates material dialog, light, chroma, and contrasting forms.
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[A]
[B]
05
ut botanical gardens visitor’s center Location Knoxville, TN Date Sp. 2013 Professor James Rose As an entry point for the University of Tennessee Botanical Gardens, this visitor’s center is meant to be more of a space-definer and circulationdirector than a building. Housing office staff, classrooms and an indoor conservatory for seed and plant propagation, the indoor spaces were pulled in a linear manner towards the back of the site to better communicate with the existing educational buildings and divert public traffic towards the gardens to the south. The large outdoor gateway creates a grand entry as well as provides protected outdoor space for the seasonal weekly farmers market, as well as other large-scale events. Using the design as a pre-emptive destination for a not-yet-existing quad, the sculptural ampitheater building doubles as an underground lecturehall, creating a focal point to the oversized and undefined greenspace that does not yet exist. The butterfly roof of the main building collects water while also framing an expanding view to the garden, and the northern circulation hallway allows every indoor space to have that same view south. The building acts as a sculptural axial terminus as well as a low-profile service shed, helping to create a new identity to an often-forgotten area of campus.
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05
ut botanical gardens teaching pavilion Location Knoxville, TN Date Sp. 2013 Professor James Rose Collaborators Jack Wimsatt
This project was intended to be a design/build oppotunity investigating the incorporation of a new teaching pavilion with the existing context of the UT Gardens. The geology of East Tennessee initiated the idea of upward movement of the earth to provide a space for people to occupy and to learn about the gardens. We called this terrain integration, which utilizes a visual and conceptual connection between the architecture and the landscape. The teaching pavilion uses the field of the terrain to create the form of the pavilion. The visual connection between the pavilion and the ground through the form of the roof mimics the pragmatics and beauty of the area’s foothills. The concept of the hill not only provides us with a solution to figure and ground but also allows us to use the hill to divert and control the site’s water problems, using that water to help the surrounding plant life. High Ground is the integration of building with landscape, poetics with pragmatics, and plant life with human occupancy.
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06
urban ďŹ eld mixed-use live/work public space Location Knoxville, TN Date Fa. 2012 Professor Matt Hall Situated on a gateway lot to a historic urban area thriving with nightlife, this project celebrates public space in an area where none exists. Instead of following standard protocol of aligning with the street edge, these mixed-use live/work buildings were pulled away from the street, creating a forecourt plaza programmed intentionally for public gatherings to support the cultural anchor: a community theater. In lieu of buildings to define ‘standard’ edges, landscaping created a soft edge to define an outdoor room in both the front public and back private spaces. As the units combined retail/ workshop spaces with their residential counterparts above, there was a need for balancing public and private spaces; making the site vibrant and complex while allowing private moments for the entrepeneurs who resided there permanently. The placement of the buildings themselves create a shared private garden behind them while defining a shared public plaza in front. The materiality also supports this complex public/private dialog. Wood slats not only formally define the private areas above, but they also provide visual distortion for privacy, shading, and noise protection from the neighboring highway, just as the landscaping does.
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