PORTFOLIO
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2017-2021
Sophia Hernandez
SELECTED WORKS
MANHATTAN PROJECT
4
MAPPING MANHATTAN
12
ORLANDO LIBRARY
14
BALLOON LAUNCH
20
GAINESVILLE ART GALLERY
22
FLORIDA SPRINGS PROJECT
28
VERTICAL DATUM
30
ARCHIVE OF MEMORY
32
INTERVENTION UPON RUINS
33
S T E P AND FOLD HOUSING AND URBAN FARMING COMPLEX IN MANHATTAN, NEW YORK In this urban farm and housing project, the concept of vertical movement and horizontal transition was taken and explicated into two tactics: stepping and folding. Terraces, ramps, depressions, and bridges were rigorously employed to provide a vertically diverse public environment for the city as well as the residents of our project. Each of these spatial operations which act as connections between commercial and private spaces, and housing classes, are integrated with urban farm and green space. The site has five main buildings which consist of two towers, two housing bars, and a smaller cafe that holds the street corner of Amsterdam avenue and west 61. Located adjacent to Lincoln Center, the 10 acre, 3 city block site is currently home to the New Amsterdam Public Housing complex. Step and Fold intends to breathe new life into the area with both its greenery as well as it’s robust array of public and community spaces. The project brief was to both to match the surrounding residential density (20 residents per acre) as well as to provide housing for three different tiers of housing classes: affordable, subsidized, and market rate. Within the project, 400 of the 2100 residents will have subsidized housing, which is located in the horizontal bars and part of the West Tower. The rest of the Western tower is allocated to affordable housing, which will be available to 800 residents. Lastly, the East tower, which has larger apartments that can accommodate families, has both market rate as well as affordable, and will be home to the last 960 residents. IN COLLABORATION WITH ALLISON THIEL
4/5 MANHATTAN PROJECT
COMMERCIAL PLAN
6/7 MANHATTAN PROJECT
RESIDENTIAL PLAN
As to dampen the typical abruptness towers have when meeting the street level, the two towers transition on and in to the ground with a sloping bar of housing that folds up into the tower as well as terracing that completes this transition to the ground. While the terracing and housing bar provide physical vertical transition, the facades and forms of the towers provide this connection visually. The action of the housing bar folding up and into the west tower is repeated on a lesser scale with the café as well as the secondary bar In the site is a large depression that slopes up to street level on the westward end. The depression is composed of two axis of movement. The first funnels visitors from eastward Lincoln center and the second runs from north to south. The north to south component of the depression includes commercial spaces as well as access to the towers as it runs underneath them.
VIEW OF DEPRESSION UNDER WEST TOWER
All of the buildings, excluding the corner café, are built up on terraces and also have commercial space embedded. While the main programmatic element for these terraces is urban farming ,these terracing methods in conjunction with the sectional sloping of the buildings will culminate in a larger landscape of stepping forms and folding space. Strategic cutouts in the towers both provide more private green spaces to residents as well as visual anchorage to the façade elements such as the screen for plant growing and the sky bridge that provides lateral access to both towers. The taller portions of each tower have much more dramatic carved spaces as to create larger greenhouses available to all residents. Opportunities for urban farm are provided within the tower cutouts and terrace treads, but spaces that have been specifically set a side for this program are the sky bridge, and the greenhouse that is connected with the detached bar of housing.
VIEW FROM AMSTERDAM AVE
VIEW FROM WEST 64TH STREET
8/9 MANHATTAN PROJECT
10/ 11 MANHATTAN PROJECT
VIEW FROM LINCOLN CENTER
SECTION STUDIES OF MANHATTAN The sections consider how broader characteristics of the city might impact an area studied up close. A common thread throughout the sections is the toning of public space as opposed to private. Private spaces such as housing are singled out in yellow, while public areas of commerce, which can be seen as extensions of the street, remain white. We brought in surrounding buildings to the section that contribute to the identity of the area, as with the height of new york, a location’s characteristics reach beyond its defined urban block and street. To further identify the streets studied, the accompanying collages work to include both present and past lives of the space. The ground plane of manhattan is the access point for transportation below and housing/offices above. Because it acts as a common ground, the spaces of commerce start to dissolve the identity of buildings as masses to move around but rather transition urban mass as something to possibly move under.
12/13
MAPPING MANHATTAN
WEST 129TH ST: PUBLIC HOUSING
112TH ST: MASS VS. VOID
EAST 23RD ST: NEEDLE VS. GLOBE SHELL & GREEN
WEST 77TH ST: COMMERCE AS EXTENTION OF THE STREET
CANAL ST: CULTURAL COMPRESSION
MULTI-FUNCTIONAL COMBINING THE INCREASINGLY ANTIQUATED LIBRARY WITH THE FUNCTIONS OF THE MODERN CULTURAL CENTER ON THE EDGE OF ORLANDOS CENTRAL BUISINESS DISTRICT. This projects site is located on the outer edge the central business district of downtown Orlando Florida. The main concept is the communication between two angled masses that split to form an internal boulevard which diagonally cuts through the site and forces visual perspective. This boulevard aims to re-navigate the traditional movement of the street corner to Lake Eola. The focus of the project is how its gesture in both plan, and section can rethink typical pedestrian movement to lake Eola while studying how program can autonomously exist in separate volumes communicating and transitioning across an atrium at key points in the building. The gestural concepts of the project inform the exterior to link both visual and physical movement to the surrounding context.
14/15 ORLANDO PUBLIC LIBRARY
SOUTH EAST ENTRANCE
NORTH WEST ENTRANCE
EXTERIOR PUBLIC SPACES/ATRIUMS
BUILDING MASSINGS AND MAJOR VOLUMES
LEVEL 2 (AUDTITORIUM AND PRE FUNCTION SPACE)
LEVEL 3, 3.5, AND ROOF GARDEN LEVEL
EAST ELEVATION
LEVEL 4, 4.5, AND TOWE
ORLANDO PUBLIC LIBRARY
ER LEVEL 1
16/17
TOWER LEVEL 2
The sectional values of the ramping floors inform the north elevation as the slabs protrude out through the channel glass facade. The elevation gestures both inward movement and outward reaching, as the front volume rises and opens towards lake eola, and the back volume rises towards the taller heights of Orlando’s business district. The two swoop inward to draw focus to the internal activities the building provides.
NORTH ELEVATION
INTERNAL BOULEVARD + ATRIUM
18/19
WALKOVER TO AUDITORIUM
ATRIUM WALKOVER
ORLANDO PUBLIC LIBRARY
The two volumes split by the diagonal atrium act autonomously to one another in their vertical and sectional values such as the back volumes minitower and auditorium section, and the front volumes ramping library. This vertical autonomy however is broken by key moments of lateral connection over the atrium such as the library transition at the east end of the building, and the atrium walkover from the pre function space to the auditorium.
BALLOON LAUNCH AT PAYNE’S PRAIRIE, FLORIDA This project’s site is Payne’s Prairie, a wetland in central Florida where an average of four ft of water can be expected to fluctuate with any storm or wet season. The sites frequent flooding is embraced by lifting all programmatic spaces so that water can infiltrate under the 16,000 sq. ft roof. Connected by a boardwalk system, all of the spaces are either suspended or lifted as to replicate the open and levitated feeling of being in a hot air balloon. The conceptual site plan drawing shows how water can move in and under the roof and lifted planes.
20/21
BALLOON LAUNCH
22/23 BALLOON LAUNCH
The roof of the project is structured by two large beams which span the length of the roof and turn down into wide piers at the eastern end of the project. The roof is held up by eight columns which sink down through the constructed ground. The structural weight or bearing on the eastern side of the project in conjunction with the lifted circulation allows for the roof to appear and rest lighter towards the southwestern direction of the balloon launch.
SUSPENSION ART GALLERY, GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA This project is located in downtown Gainesville, adjacent to the Hippodrome Theatre. This project aims to provide a new way of displaying art works. With lofted catwalks, and ramping spaces, the opportunity is provided to suspend art from the ceiling both to give a more dynamic context to each work, as well as to create a visual boundary for the lofted spaces.
24/25 GAINESVILLE ART GALLERY
26/27 GAINESVILLE ART GALLERY
POSITIVE MASS NEGATIVE VOID This conceptual scroll is a composition of water vessels, drawings of air, and diagrams. In it I aimed to redefine masses and voids and find different ways to bridge them, be that with architectural elements or diagrammatically. The idea of bridging between masses and voids occurs at several scales. The entire composition connects two ends of a broken diagrammatic study of the aquifer.
INTERVENTION AT THE FLORIDA SPRINGS
In this intervention, I wanted to utilize natural phenomena as architectural elements. With the tree foliage that embraces the springs as the roof or overhead condition, and falling water as walls, one experiences the springs embodied within architecture. Entering the structure, the light coming through the foliage overhead projects onto the floor, contrasting with light casting orthogonally through the vertical screen on the wall. This emphasizes the verticality of the tree line behind. The comparison of natural edge with the manmade is repeated throughout this project.
FLORIDA SPRINGS PROJECT
LONGING FOR THE AQUIFER
28/29
VERTICAL DATUM
30/31 VERTICAL DATUM
ACHIVE OF MEMORY
32
ARCHIVE OF MEMORY, WHERE HORIZON AND SKY MEET
CONCEPTUAL INTERVENTION UPON VENETIAN RUINS
33 INTERVENTION UPON RUINS