“Images, by denying obedience to the boundaries of historic memory, become memory, not to be remember, but to be remembered.”
Education
Louisiana Tech University, Bachelors of science in Architecture
• Expected to graduate in May, 2026
• 3.9 GPA
• Academic Honors: School of Architecture Scholarship
Present - May, 2026
Contact
Phillip Stephens
Phone: (318) 535-7787
Email: Stephensphillip010@gmail.com
School: prs027@email.latech.edu
Homeschooled, High School Diploma
• 3.9 GPA
LMTA Regional Piano Rally
• 1st place 2021
• 2nd place 2019
Experience
September, 2018 - May, 2022
September, 2018 - May, 2022
Louisiana Tech University, AIAS Vice President
• Volunteered to organize and put on events
• Recruited first years into the organization
• Aided the president in communication and organization
Hobbies
• Reading
• Hiking
• Guitar and Piano
• Drawing
Skills
• Rhino 8
• Illustrator
• Photoshop
• InDesign
• AutoCad
• Revit
Table of Contents
De Menil Cultural Center
Liminal Space
Joinery Pavilion
Knoll Center of Furniture
Personal Work pg. 3
9 pg. 19
13 pg. 25 pg. 29 pg. 36
De Menil Cultural Center
3rd year
The De Menil Cultural Center is the primary focal point to the current De Menil Campus. The current bookstore, cafe, and other exhibition spaces such as the Drawing institute and the Cy Twombly Gallery are scattered around the main collection building. This proposal seeks to unify these programs and more, while also providing more exhibition space, a park, and an auditorium.
The current De Menil takes a vernacular approach, blending into the neighbourhood around it. This proposal takes the opposite approach, becoming a monument to art as well as the artists who have gone before us. The building elevates the exhibition spaces above the ground floor, forcing guests to rise up to meet the art, and creating a sense of isolation while viewing the collections.
The awe-inspiring moments are felt most in the three atrium spaces experienced at the beginning, middle, and end of the exhibtion. However, you can often get peeks and glimpses of the sky above throughout the gallery space.
Houston, De Menil Collection Arts center
Exterior renderings
Structural diagram
First floor plan
Second floor plan
Top to bottom:
Section BB, Section AA
South Elevation
THE SPINE
1st year
Abstract explorative model
This project was about connection, structure, and skin. We were tasked with creating a sculpture in the round with 4 other teammates. Each person bought 2 models, which were then dumped into a collective pool. From this pool we each assembled a sculpture in the round.
We then connected each sculpture using some set of materials. Our team envisioned the sculptures as points on a spine, with ”nerves” coming throughout each sculpture as the connection.
Every “nerve” connects back to the spine. These points then become events on a timeline - stops on a trainline. The spine is a traversable connection.
Model photos
Final sculpture
Harmony
2nd year Theater of Craft, South campus of LA Tech Ruston LA
Harmony brings disparate elements together to create something cohesive. Every element is important to the identity of the whole.
Today, replaceable and cheaply made objects are incentivized by profit. To truly craft an object, necessary or not, is rare. Crafting as an art is an important to keep alive for the sake of crafting itself, as well as for the artisans. In this Theater, crafting will be enjoyed as a performance art just as music and dancing are.
This project is located on the vertex between a mid-sized pond, a small patch of woods, and rolling cow pastures. The three craftsman who have shows have permanent workshops on the edges of the pond away from the main theater. These workshops have detachable floors that float into the main theater via the pond, and become the stage on which the crafts shows happen. This project envisions the theater as the harmony not only between the craftsmen, but also between the pond, woods, and pastures. The pond is brought underneath the theater, the pastures overtop, and the ”woods” become structural and bind them together.
Section AA
Site plan
Parti diagram
Floor plan
Model photos
Liminal Space
2nd year
Slam Poetry Cafe, Virtual Reality Research Center
Ruston, LA
The primary focus of this project is exploring how the transition between spaces serves to bridge the conflict that results from a shared environment.
The programs of this proposal are a Slam Poetry Cafe, and a Virtual Reality Research Center. This proposal envisions the transition between them as the transition between light and dark. The VR Research Center requires a dark space, so the Cafe exists on the second floor of the building to capture more natural light.
The Liminal Space exists at the center of the building and takes the form of a hallway with stairs at either end where you can access both programs. There is a small stage formed by angles in the floor which allows the slam poetry to happen. There are digital screens all along the floor, walls, and ceiling which allow the VR Center to display art in collaboration with the slam poetry, creating a wholly unique experience.
Formal explorations
Cafe and Bar
Liminal space
A
Section
Section B
Japanese Tea House
2nd year Pavilion, Hale Hall, LA Tech campus, Ruston, LA
This project was about creating a pavilion for our Architecture studio space. There is an unused exterior corner of the building that provides an opportunity for a pavilion to be a respite and to re-program the space.
To start the project, I researched different joinery techniques, and chose to represent the Kanawa Tsugi Joint. It is Japanese, and used primarily to join large beams together to span lengths longer than one beam alone could span. The two beams are made so that they pull on each other, and then a pin in the center binds the two together very tightly.
I then studied the Hiroshima chair, by Naoto Fukusawa, for its traditional joinery techniques. This chair, along with the Kanawa Tsugi joint, became the basis for the Tea House.
The Tea House is laid out in three sections; the preparatory room, the Tea Ceremony room, and the rest room. Just as the central pin in the Kanawa Tsugi joint holds everything together, the Tea Ceremony becomes the center of the pavilion and holds the experience together. The form of the Tea House is very traditional, using the same materials, construction, and form of a Japanese tea house.
North elevation
Naoto Fukasawa
Floor plan
Sections: CC, DD, EE
Axonametric
The Knoll Center for Furniture
2nd year
School of Furniture, Museum of Furniture
Shreveport, LA
Fine furniture design has long been a fascination among architects. Combine these sensibilities with a unique site and a budding social district in Shreveport, and you have the Knoll Center for Furniture.
There are two programs; a school of furniture design and a museum of furniture. The process of learning about furniture design must be closely linked with learning the history of furniture for it to be successful. To entwine these processes, the two programs were sliced and combined into one tower.
The overlapping programs create moments where museum-goers get a glimpse of the process of furniture fabrication, and students can have access to the exhibits from a different view point, thereby enhancing both processes.
To unite these seperate programs into one cohesive building, and to shade and disguise the form of the building, a channeled glass screen is wrapped around the east, south, and west faces. The north face looks away from the street and out onto the water of the red river, and so it is left as clear glass panels.
Ground floor plan
First floor plan
Second floor plan
Section AA
Section BB
Section CC
Sectional model, final model
Facade study, done in collaboration with 3 other classmates, Macy Mclean, Kyle Kieronski, and Emily Deshotel
