Works
SP09 FA08 SU08
SP08 FA07
FA06
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Dallas Arts Hotel Hotel Room MobileART Sports Arena Katrina Housing Las Colinas Hotel Urban Housing Systems House Ecopolis Fire Station Galveston Residence Industrial Design Behavioral Setting Photography
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Dallas Arts Hotel
Dallas Arts District Hotel Design Competition duration: 6 weeks team: Dakota Dunai professor: Craig Babe sponsors: Nunzio De Santis Eddie Abeyta
SP09
With a site surrounded by an all-star cast of architects including Rem Koolhaas/REX, Norman Foster, I.M. Pei, and SOM, expectations were not to be taken lightly, and therefore context was a crucial point of departure for the design. In order to generate the form of the building, views from and through the site were heavily analyzed and preserved, as well as main pedestrian and vehicular traffic through and around the site. The driving force behind the development of the programmatical planning and detailing of the form was the idea of the site being the hub for the Arts District and a source of energy and liveliness that contributes to the surrounding theatres and symphony halls. The ground level is primarily reserved for public use, and therefore allows the building to become more of a public destination in itself that simply a hotel and residence. Restaurants line the main pedestrian routes and help to energize the urban-like streetscape through the site, drawing people from downtown Dallas into the Arts District. The facade of the building is intended to provide a dynamic and artistic element to the composition, allowing for the guests and residents to inhabit a more expressive space that strongly signifies the Arts District. The overall project allows for a more user-oriented program that directly adds to the public appeal of the Arts District, and completes a host of exceptional architecture that embodies a love of the arts and establishes a prominent focal point in the Dallas area.
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dallas performance center
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meyerson symphony center
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wyly theatre
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nasher sculpture center 6 5
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winspear opera house
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woodall rogers park
greenery pedestrian vehicular framed views
Site Analysis
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Program
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1 feature restaurant one 2 finishing kitchen 3 storage 4 front desk / reception 5 lobby / atrium 6 living room 7 feature bar 8 drop-off 9 art gallery 10 condo entrance 11 feature restaurant two 12 bistro 13 garage entrance 14 security 15 dock 16 sculpture garden
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3 level one
1 executive lounge 2 executive balcony 3 prefunction one 4 conference room 5 prefunction two 6 grand hall 7 kitchen 8 banquet storage 9 av storage 10 storage 11 employee lounge 12 locker room 13 laundry
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1 hotel office 2 suite 3 pool level garden 4 pool deck 5 pool 6 destination spa 7 fitness and track
1 deluxe suite 2 suite
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1 mid-level garden 2 suite
1 rooftop garden 2 presidential suite
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level two: conference
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2 2 level three: recreation
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2 2 typical level four through six
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2 2 level seven
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2 level sixteen
Floor Plans
Hotel Room
The W Hotel Design Warm-Up duration: 2 weeks team: individual professor: Craig Babe
SP09
The W Hotel Group prides itself on blending style and comfort in their hotel guestrooms, and nothing less is expected for a prospective room in the arts district of downtown Dallas. A sleek, streamlined interior is combined with top quality amenities to generate maximum synthesis between stylish looks and the ultimate in guest comfort. All fixed furniture is integrated seamlessly with the undulating wall panels, as if the room itself is one piece of art. Delicate indirect lighting is used in the seams to allow for multiple settings of lighting and to further inspire and accommodate the creativity and individuality of the guests. As a main focus of the design, the dividing wall between the bedroom and bathroom glides around to afford unobstructed views of downtown from the bathroom, giving the ability to lounge in the jacuzzi tub while watching the glowing lights of the city.
Adjoining Unit Plan
Sections
MobileART
Rebargroup Artist in Residence duration: 1 week team: Briana Morrison Cory Arcak professors: John Bela, Blaine Merker
SP09
As a part of the Artist in Residence program, we joined up with San Francisco urban artists Rebargroup to perform a series of public interventions, all put together in under a week. In response to the departure of a few notable art galleries on campus, and to raise the level of awareness of the creativity of the student body, our intervention was to create a space to encourage and showcase such creativity. Meant to be a more permanent addition to the A&M campus, the gallery allows for anyone to put their mark on the university, or to experience others work first hand. The reception of the gallery was far beyond all expectations, and plans are being made to allow the gallery to pass to the supervision of various students and for future use of the gallery to be preserved and encouraged around campus.
Sports Arena HKS Sports duration: 4 weeks team: Rosalva Gonzalez Christina Wengler professor: Marcel Erminy
FA08
Envisioned as more than just an arena, this mixed-sports venue doubles as a city park with its grassy expanses and rooftop sports fields. The main concepts of the project included creating a way to host both amateur and professional sports at the same time, by having all the exterior space devoted to the park and allowing them to permeate the arena, which dually supports the concept of preserving the existing field and site features by spiraling them up to the roof. In doing so, the form of the building is generated from the vertical spiraling movement of the main ramps, which draw their form in part from studies on ball trajectories and spinning motions. Interior circulation continues the notions from the exterior with the seating levels spiraling up from the court level. This allows for a seemingly continuous loop throughout the levels, as well as allowing for the concessions and restrooms to be placed under the seating level above, preserving an unobstructed view of the arena from anywhere in the concourse levels. From this, fans are able to visit the concession stands without missing any of the game. In order to further simplify the concourse spaces for spectators, all supporting spaces are sunk to court level below the first concourse seating, further allowing for a more uncluttered and unobstructed experience for all fans. The longspan structure is comprised of four 5m x 5m space column and truss configurations, allowing for full support of the green roof while still retaining full circulation through the columns. A structural skin of 1/2m diameter cross bracing emphasizes the spinning motion of the circulation and exterior ramps, which are supported by tree columns on a 15m radial grid. In order to minimize any non-greenspace surfaces, the 2000 space parking lot is set below grade, with light wells and glass elevators.
Concept
Exploded View
Deck Plans
Section
Katrina Housing New Orleans Intervention duration: 1 week team: individual professor: individual
Covering a one block site in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, this mixeduse housing development brings new life to an utterly devastated locale. Intended to be a base model for future relief projects, various mixed elements, such as a shopping center and apartment building were incorporated to both generate income and maximize the space of the site. Originally the site held 8 homes, and with this proposal, that number triples, in addition to the shopping center and expansive greenspace interconnecting all programmatic elements. SU08
Subdivision
Concept
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Landscape
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Retail
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Efficiency
Las Colinas Hotel Design Development duration: 1 week team: individual professor: Carlos Reimers
SP08
Located in a suburb of Dallas, this 5-star hotel emulates the metropolitan skyline, acting as an urban focal point in a pre-designed suburban mixed-use development. The public portion of the program, totaling nearly as much as the hotel portion, is used to generate a connection between towers, as well as to the connecting site. The boardwalk of the adjacent lake permeates into the site in the form of a skyway, with an enclosed level for shops and a open upper level for pedestrian use. The skyway serves as the main interconnection between all programmatic elements, from the hotel to the water-side restaurants and shopping. Generated at the epicenter of the buildings is a green plaza for public and/ or hotel recreational events. The goal of the entire project was to create a interconnected multi-use series of buildings and spaces for use by both the adjacent developments as well as hotel guests, solely relying on pedestrian traffic and therefore eliminating any vehicular need. The use of green spaces is continued up through the hotel towers, providing a more private experience for hotel guests. A critical notion of the design is to carefully integrate green and urban elements together, generating the positive essences of both urban and suburban environments.
Process
Retail
Parking
Hotel
Boardwalk
Urban Housing
AISC Student Design Competition duration: 5 weeks team: individual professor: Carlos Reimers
SP08
The initial concept of this mixed-use project, located in downtown Montreal, was to accentuate the merger of Avenue du President Kennedy with Boulevard de Maisonneuve, the two streets that form the long facades of the site. This directionality provided a strong footing to work in the context of the site, while also informing the development of the building. To achieve this, the directionalities of the roads acted as the primary axes of the building, alluding to the intersection at the northeastern end of the site. The second conceptual formulation, which was particularly for deriving the massing, came as a solution to the height of the building, generated by the large program and small site. By “pulling� the building apart at its intersection, a sense of permeability is created, and therefore breaking up the mass. In doing so, it was further possible to generate a vertical link to the metro station connection below the site. In order to provide more space for living and to provide views, the design for the housing units is multi-leveled with the lowest floor acting as either work space (for the live-work units), solely living space, or a mixture of living and sleeping. The intermediary floor, halfway between each main level, is the entry area, where the use is varied. Finally, the top-most floor is primarily for sleeping, with some units containing living space as well. This stacking of spaces generates both a dynamic circulation inside a unit as well as an entire hallway level for mechanical equipment and service, located every other floor in between unit entry floors. Due to the location of the metro station below the site, a significant portion of the structure of the building had to be restricted to the northwest length of the site. In response to the two distinct directions of the building, the form was allowed to cantilever out over the land above the metro, and the remaining grounded structure ties in below to the metro. The exterior trussing allows for a columnless interior with beams at every node, and transfers the load from the cantilever down to the structure of the metro station.
Process
Structure
Metro
Large Retail
Small Retail
Office
Restaurant
Recreation
Housing
Ground Floor
DN
Floor Plans
Section
Live-work
1 Bedroom
2 Bedroom
3 Bedroom
Systems House Study Model duration: 1 week team: individual professor: Charles Culp
Originally envisioned for a simple study model, this studio/residence is not much more than an over-developed basic idea, derived from some thoughts on a “modern� integration with nature, where the structure weaves in and around the trees, both horizontally and vertically. Some research was done on stilt villages in areas such as Cambodia and Vietnam.
SP08
Floor Plan
Section
Ecopolis
EUROPAN Competition duration: 10 weeks team: Anthony Legamaro Ivan Trevizo professor: Juan-Carlos Tappan
FA07
Spanning a 20 hectare port site in Barcelona, Spain, this ecological urban development is a tribute to its sites past as a quarry at the foot of Montjuic, a significant landmark of Catalunya. The design, formulated from the tectonics of glacial forms with a quarry-like linear directionality, aids to the eco-friendliness of such a massive project with its expansive green roofs and sustainable techniques and technologies. The program encompasses a wide range of uses, from 10,000 protected housing units to multiple business offices, all of which are carefully located to maximize their interaction and interoperability with the site as a whole. With the site’s location at one of the two main entranceways into Barcelona, it was essential for the project to be an iconic image and gateway for the city. The first step in achieving this was to create interaction with the site, allowing the highway to engage through the connection with Montjuic. Due to such a massive and varied program, much of the design was focused on the “negative� space, creating significant interactive exterior green spaces, blurring the distinction between programmatic elements, as well as generating multiple areas for recreation. The housing spaces were based on the historical eixiample blocks in Barcelona, where each unit has views to both the outside areas and to the buildings private courtyard. This connection allows for further play between interior and exterior space, with each unit having at least one private green space permeating into the interior.
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Site Analysis
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Cultural
Hotel
Housing
Commercial
Pedestrian
Green Space
Retail
Vehicular
Site Section
Fire Station
College Station Fire Dept. duration: 4 weeks team: individual professor: Ray Holliday
Hypothetically located in College Station, Texas, this 15,000 square foot fire station sits on the corner of a main road and a residential cut-through, standing out amongst an array of shops, restaurants, and a city park. The design was meant to meld traditional and contemporary styles with the use of industrial materials. Intended as the focal point of the design, the tower both accentuates the corner of the site as well as acts as a tie to the iconic bell towers on many fire stations of old.
FA06
Floor Plan
Galveston Residence Kit of Parts duration: 4 weeks team: individual professor: Ray Holliday
Designed as a costal getaway in Galveston, TX, this 4,200 square foot home incorporates natural views and lighting, indoor/outdoor circulation, and simple materials to create a serene yet intriguing setting. The main objective in the design was to seamlessly assimilate a series of vertical planes, which guide the form of the building by both framing the views of the bay and providing a significant amount of the structure.
FA06
Floor Plan
Industrial Design Kitchen Island duration: 4 weeks team: individual professor: Rodney Hill
Form meets function in this curving kitchen island by not only providing ample space for food preparation, but also with its slotted leg braces, capable of holding shelving at adjustable heights for quick and easy storage. The design provides simple yet articulate detailing while more importantly generating a highly functional centerpiece in the kitchen.
SP06
Behavioral Setting Lake Coulter Residence duration: 5 weeks team: individual professor: Rodney Hill
Perched on top of a hill overlooking Carter Lake in Rock Prairie, Texas, this home was designed with strict accordance to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since one of the assumed inhabitants was permanently confined to a wheelchair, the form of the house inspired simply by movement, both to attempt to alleviate some of the psychological factors of such a disability and to help generate a more accessible circulation. The home takes into consideration the lush forest, moderately sloping landscape, and views of the lake by providing a very blurred division between interior and exterior towards the rear facade.
SP06
Floor Plan
Photography
Study Abroad | ENDS 311 | Personal
SP06-SP09
State of Architecture Essay
As we progress into this new century, and as I progress deeper into the world of an architecture student, it seems that the everyday voice speaking on architecture and design is quite rarely one of a qualified nature. We now live in a world where the common man, who most certainly deems himself a capable authority on “good” design, speaks of “good” design as if he were, indeed, a designer, praising such practitioners as home builders and contractors as the true “geniuses” and “creative minds” of our time. While both such professions are far from unqualified for what they do, they are both a far cry from having the innate sense of design both as the means and the end. It is a shame on those who have spend countless hours studying the intricacies of design and years of grueling investigation into the art known as architecture. To compare the home builder to the architect in terms of design is to compare the school nurse to the diagnostician, the on-line stock trader to the Wall Street executive, the burger-flipper to the five-star chef. But what of those who attempt such a comparison? Where do their qualifications lie? While the home builder and engineer are most certainly qualified to build and construct, how does such a common man or housewife gain such experience as to accurately judge true design? Does the person fond of fast food and TV dinners have the palate to appreciate the cuisine of a five-star chef? Does he who has never taken a math or science class have the capacity to discuss the laws of quantum physics? Rare is the occasion that such people exist, and I dare say it to be impossible that such an event happen to a multitude in a single century. I find it rather interesting to see such behavior limited to places in the world where the availability of resources are quite limited... and then the US. Meanwhile, other parts of the world celebrate the architect as the sole authority on the built environment. In such places, it is unheard of to think a layman the creative equivalent to an artist. Why not here?
Part of such ignorance must be a product of the negligence towards architects today. In most other places, upon the completion of a project, no matter how big or small, the architect is the focus of much praise and recognition, regardless of their stature. Here, the average person knows not a single practicing architects name (save, perhaps, a local office). When a project is finished, the only places giving any recognition whatsoever to the achievements of the architect is the very publications run by their colleagues. As far as major news publications are concerned, the architect deserves little more than the occasional side-page write-up. To ever hear much of an architect in a major headline of his project is simply unprecedented. Where along the way did this loss of culture occur? Abroad, while they may not know much of design, the public respects it and those capable of creating it. Much as they do with food and art, they take the time to ponder it, study it, ask about it. Much as one expands their palate for finer cuisine, they expand their horizons to, even moderately, graze the vast concepts composed in the world of design. Such people are qualifying themselves to discuss architecture and design. And while this does indeed occur here, it is on such a lesser scale and therefore nearly intangible in many reaches of life. This undoubtedly raises the question as to how to raise the level of culture and “design awareness� here, amongst such a public who is quite unwilling to open their minds to a broader universe? Because if such a miracle could be performed, it is awe inspiring to ponder the level beauty that could be achieved in so many different ways. Such a responsibility rests on the shoulders of architects and designers, as it is us and only us who can mend the social, political, and ultimately, architectural rifts between design professions and the very public to whom we design for.
Resume Sloan Springer 903-918-5858 sloan@sloanspringer.com http://www.sloanspringer.com Education Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY — Master of Architecture, 2011 Texas A&M University, College Station, TX — Bachelor of Environmental Design, 2009 Experience Study Abroad, Barcelona, Spain — Fall 2007 Studied a semester in Barcelona, Spain working in a studio on a EUROPAN competition under the tutelage of architect Juan Carlos Sanchez-Tappan of the Studio of Architecture and Research. Photographer, The Battalion — Fall 2006 Staff photographer for the Texas A&M University newspaper, with published work from Texas A&M athletic events and student activities. Draftsman, Johnson & Pace, Inc. — June 2006 - July 2006 Worked in the Architectural department developing working drawings for various commercial projects, primarily including, but not limited to, metal warehouse-type buildings. Draftsman, Jim Fisher, Builder — May 2003 - May 2005 Aided in various construction jobs and primary drafting for residential projects.
Publications and Participation Texas Architect Magazine — September/October 2009 Dallas Arts District Boutique Hotel Design Competition -BEST IN SHOW-$1000 PRIZE WINNER-Dallas Arts Hotel HKS Hospitality studio competition for a boutique hotel and condominiums in the Dallas Arts District. Sponsored by Nunzio DeSantis, FAIA, and Eddie Abeyata, AIA “New’d” — Spring 2009 Texas A&M College of Architecture publication of exceptional student work. DesignBoom “Sound Innovation” Competition — Fall 2008 -ThirdEAR Innovations in bluetooth headset design. DesignBoom “Green Earth” Competition — Fall 2008 Graphic design illustrating environmental protection and coexistence with nature in a greener world. AISC “Living STEEL” Design Competition — Spring 2008 -Urban Housing Student competition for innovative steel design sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction. Europan 9: Urbanity of Housing Competition — Fall 2007 -Ecopolis Designing high density housing and mixed-use while balancing urbanity within nature. Offices Held Treasurer- American Institute of Architecture Students — Fall 2006 - Summer 2007 Proficiency -ArchiCAD :HIGH -AutoCAD :MID -Revit :MID -SketchUp :HIGH -Artlantis :HIGH -Photoshop :MID -Illustrator :MID -InDesign :MID -Dreamweaver :MID -Flash :LOW
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