portfolio
1
2
2 INFOGRAMA
3 URBAN STUDIES
HYBROPARK
MANDALA PAVILION
1 5
4
6 CITY OF LONDON
7 BREGENZ HOTEL
BREGENZ HOTEL
LIMON CITY
5
8
3
MANDALA PAVILION SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA
4
Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. Wayne Dyer In Design Studio IX a challenge was presented, how to encapture the esence of silence and nothingness in a Pavilion. The context was the noisy and stressy Costa Rican capital, San Jose. The inmediate context were two blocks at the beginning of the main entrance to the city. My approach was the Mandala concept,.The word Mandala (pronunciation mon- dah- lah) means “circle”. A Mandala represents wholeness, a cosmic diagram reminding us of our relation to infinity, extending beyond and within our bodies and minds. Mandalas are circular designs symbolizing the notion that life is never ending. Mandalas are used for meditation purposes allowing the individual meditating to become one with the universe. There are not many who are able to achieve this state of mind from just studying a mandala. The proyect started with playfull walkways in a urban and park context near the main Train Station of San Jose’s East side. There is a bridge that joins the two parts of the Pavilion. The main space is a simetrical hexagon built out of concrete. The form is totally closed, just small openings at the end of the spickes allow light inside of the space. The walkway through the Mandala Pavilion is circular and from above to an underground pool and lighting system that inspires the pedestrians and users to connect with their inner selves and nature. This space was conceived principally through light models and inspired in the Luminarium (Architects of Air, 2015)
5
SABANILLA, COSTA RICA
HYBROPARK
6
Hybropark is a design solution to the habitational problem that takes place in Sabanilla city, Costa Rica. The increasing development of educational centers have displaced the original families in order for them to rent and sell their houses to students and single workers. Therefore, this project intends to mix families and students in a proactive and fun way. The apartments increase in size in relation to the height difference of the terraine. Also, the building adapts to the outer environment: privately at its inner core and publicly with urban space (a park, gym and grocery store) for the neighboors and outer environment. As seen in the plan view, the appartments increase in size from left to right. The first one ist thought for single workers . The second one s are living environments for a small family or a couple of students. The appartments on the middle of the building are enriched with sharing environments , for example: a lounge or an extra kitchen. These spaces are designed especifically to bring back the original families and to let the share their lives and everzday life woth students and workers.
7
San Pedro city has developped in the last 10 years potencially, and the urban and architectural solutions to this situation are minimal. Infograma was my approach to this problem in Design Studio X, and received a good evaluation. The context of the project is a corner of very transited roads in the core of San Pedro’s City. This was the main reason why Infograma allows the pedestrians to walk through the project and into the Park on the next block. Infograma states fot a communication and business building. Based on scarse foundations, the main structure is its enclousure. A metal-based structure distributes the building’s weight. The rooftop of every side is lifted by tensors on the circulation blocks. The main building has an inner garden on top of which walkways connect the other sides of the building. The main learning about this project was to dare myself to think of an alternative solution as the established ones. Conceptually , Infograma was light-weighted conceived and in result, according to the programatic order and structural solution, it is a reality.
8
INFOGRAMA SAN PEDRO, COSTA RICA
9
10
URBAN STUDIES HEREDIA, COSTA RICA
11
12
The investigation was developed in three stages: the analysis of urban imageries in Puerto Limรณn and its influence on urban space perception, by using mental maps and inquests. The second stage relates the cultural manifestations and tourism to understand the existing social-spatial relationships and their potential, by active observation and documentary work. In a third stage, the imagery and the daily use of the space are encountered and spatial implications are searched to manage and design the cultural scenery in which inhabitants and tourist will encounter each other. In this way, it is intended to design a plan for intercultural experience, cultural management and spatial scenery to reenforce relationships between cultural exposers and the design of a conceptual project with these alternative cultural sceneries and to transmit the information obtained to improve the social-spatial relationship between users and urban space in Puerto Limรณn.
LIMON CITY
The problem of cultural segregation has brought low government investment, which generates a cycle of urban space disuse and deterioration, . This cycle does not allow the inhabitants to appertain and the visitants, national and international, to be attracted to the city.
PUERTO LIMON, COSTA RICA
In the city of Puerto Limรณn, because of its history and segregated cultural development in relation to the rest of Costa Rica, a negative dominant imagery is identified, which influences the construction and experience of urban space. This imagery, increased by media, produces a unilateral speech that negates the vulyutadiversity of cultural manifestations in this Caribbean city.
13
14
My experience was to be part of the group that designed the fixed furniture: benches, bed, night tables, furniture divider balconies and textiles. The idea of our design was to use the same logic of the whole structure of the hotel, which was to share the pieces of wood between the two bedrooms, so that the furniture were whole pieces between spaces.
ANDELSBUCH, AUSTRIA
Under the direction of the Austrian architects Andreas Mohr and Carmen Rist, a 1:10 scale model was used to explain the assembly of the hotel, in pieces of wood of 5x20x400cm. The space’s layout was two bedrooms, each bedroom had a social area at the entrance, an access, bathroom, bedroom and a balcony overlooking the Austrian mountains. The weft of the walls was solid or discontinuous, allowing visual and ventilation, as well as entering rooms, toilets and balconies. Discontinuous walls were available in semi-private areas and solid walls gave more privacy to bedrooms. Like the walls, the furniture: the bed, the bedside tables, the outside benches and the balcony were made of wood.
HOTEL BREGENZ
In the summer of 2015, a Summer School was held for the first time at the University of Liechtenstein. This was called Arts & Crafts Workshop 2015: Hands on in Scale 1: 1 and was aimed at the need for design to get back to its roots: artistic projection and craftsmanship. The course brought together 15 students from different countries: China, Canada, the United States, Ireland, Colombia, and Costa Rica, of which I was the representative.
15
According to the brief given by the Space syntax methodology course, we investigated the Riverside of the City of London. It started with questioning why does the Riverside Walk lack vibrancy? A broader development of the analysis took place in three scales (macro, meso and micro) to enclose urban space’s complexity. First, on a macro scale of study: What are the potentials of the Riverside to be integrated into London’s wider network of pedestrian movement? The methodological approach to this was based on Depthmap and QGIS software’s workshop: segment analysis (integration and choice) and data visualization (station’s yearly population for example). Also, the maps on segment analysis needed to be normalized, and therefore every member tried the procedures learned in the workshops by their own. The configuration of the Riverside and its lanes form a dysfunctional ladder structure, and this segregates the Riverside from the highly integrated streets. These findings of the macro scale, led to the meso scale that answered to the question: what is the performance of Upper and Lower Thames Street and its pathways to the Riverside in terms of pedestrian vibrancy? In order to analyze the Upper and Lower Thames Street, evidence based methodologies such as gate counting (pedestrian and vehicular) and visibility graph was completed. As a third stage of the analysis, the micro scale continues with the study of how can the Old Billingsgate Market and its surrounding area serve as attractors on and to the Riverside? For this scale, mainlynapshots and visibility
16
CITY OF LONDON
RIVERSIDE EAST , LONDON UK
graph analysis were the methodology applied to study the behaviour of the areas users. This behaviour and its relation to the meso scale analysis showed how specific buildings and their historical value were the key to improve this scale’s urban performance. In terms of how it was developed, personally I would reflect in a more legible way of representing the activities showed in the snapshots. As well as more photos and observations of their relation. The first challenge would be to strengthen Tower Hill as the main entry to the Riverside. This could be realized while creating a wider vibrant activity route. The second strategy would be to increase the permeability north wise, by taking advantage of the Old Billingsgate Market and by later opening the arcades. Also, the lane between this building and the Custom House would recover the pedestrian vibrancy criteria and create an historical attractor and connection Street-Riverside. On a meso scale, the barrier of the side element of the ladder, the Upper and Lower Thames Street. The achievement of this strategy would be likely by creating green public space opposing the Old Billingsgate Market and connecting to the pedestrian street from Monument and Bank (See figure 1). Also, by opening the first floor of the Nomura Building, in this way increasing visibility. On the macro level, the idea would be to create links to the pedestrian network discovered. How? With signage and greenery between the street and the lanes, which could be improved to different alternatives urban connections.
Normalized Integration Global (RN)
Space Syntax Color Range
17 Low
High
Visibilitity Graph Analysis (before intervention)
Visibilitity Graph Analysis ( after intervention)
A BEAM OF L
WHITECHAPEL GALL The way humans walk through space is influenced by many factors: the distance between one point and another, visibility fields, the way finding between those and the spatial arrangement, to mention some. Most of these factors have been discussed by Space Syntax in extension. Therefore, analysis and representations methods of those themes are updated. Others, more abstract, like time and lighting are less popular and their study has been more exploratory. This paper aims to contribute with the knowledge generated around the last theme: daylight and its relation to space and people. The Whitechapel Gallery in Aldgate, London serves as an example of a building with natural lighting and multiple exhibition spaces. The building is configured in three floors: the basement, the ground floor with the two main galleries and complementary services such as the bookstore, cloakroom and the cafÊ. The first floor unfolds 6 other galleries. The spaces with openings in the ceiling that enable natural lighting into the building are galleries two, five, six, seven and eight. The first one, Gallery 2, will be used as the setting for daylight study in relation to people’s behaviour in space. The galleries with natural lighting, especially Gallery 2, in the Visual Analysis Graph do not show any incidence of the effect
18
LIGHT
LERY, LONDON UK of daylight in the space. Therefore, instead of Ecotect, which is no longer accessible, the ceiling openings will be built in 3D and analyzed Autodesk Revit 2016. This software will visualize daylight according to the buildings real position and the hour of analysis was on the 1 of December 2017 at 11:00am. The space is organized with four main internal columns that diffuse the visual spaces in the form of a cross, with higher visibility in the center. The corners seem to have less visibility. But when compared with the daylight analysis image, one sees the real experience of walking through that space and how, in (c) the visitors are attracted to the spaces where the beams of light are. In this way, one can observe how the analysis of multilayered special analysis, as proposed by Stravroulaki and Peponis enriches the Space Syntax visibility graphics. In conclusion, based on the observations made on the visit, people seem to move in a different way in the galleries with natural lighting. Also, they seem to stay longer in spaces with light than in the ones where there is no lighting. Due to the economy of this assignment, methodologies such as gate counting or snapshots could not be made. Therefore, the observations are count as empirical but the software analysis comparison are evidence of the need of a different representation method for daylight studies in space and their relation to visitors. Moreover, the representations of these relationships in Space Syntax have been dimensional, and technology nowadays allows architects to project in a tridimensional way and therefore draw a more accurate image of reality for its analysis.
19
20