M.ARCH GRADUATE PORTFOLIO Matthew Eric Salazar (EID mes3898) B.S. Architecture - Georgia Tech
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INITIAL VENTURES
Common First Year Studio - Fall 2007 Instructor - Mike Glazer
Coming into the first year of any design school, constructive representations of space, form, and ideas are the highest pedagogical priority. Though I wlecomed the chance to draw things in a literal manner, I found myself entranced by the challenge of ephemeral and qualitative representations.
Literal Representation
The hand is the main tool by which any architect physically designs. Therefore, I though it fitting as a model to study representation. The first form, literal, dealt with the drawing of measured forms. I established the skeleton as the system of structure and used this as a starting point for each drawing.
Ephemeral Representation
In contrast to literal representation, ephermal representation attempts to represent qualities not literal in nature. For the hand study, I chose to look at stress and pressure, two qualities that are easily understood but more difficult to represent. Assuming various hand positions, I drew the greatest pressures and stresses as the darkest areas.
Quantitative Space
The phenomenology of spaces differs greatly from that of objects and requires a different understanding of representation. With perspective sketching, a unique opportunity is afforded to devise literal representations of spaces that are quantitative, but still difficult to portray completely literally.
Qualitative Space
When the literal properties of an item are extended into a spacial representation, they take on a more qualitative approach with representation. The best such example is light which can be represented as literally as possible or with unique qualities derived from its nuances.
PRODUCT STUDY
Design Computing - Fall 2010 Instructor - Timothy Purdy
As an extension of studying the forms and properties of objects, one of my classes afforded me the opportunity to perform a detailed product study. This was an exercise in earlier learned methods of representation in a digital design environment.
Original Product
Top View
Top
Top
Back
Back View
Back
My fascination with photography led to select a camera as my product to study, a product often used to make representations but rarely afforded the opportunity to be on the other end. Measured drawings provided a basis for later shading and coloration in more and more realistic representations.
Product Redesign
Color Variation 2
Back View
Once the initial product had been fully examined, the next step was a redesign. Taking what I had learned from interacting with the original object and my own experiences with a camera, I imagined a camera existing solely as a handle-lens combination, from which a thin LCD screen unrolls neatly.
Color Variation 2
SKILES COURTYARD CUBE
Sophomore Studio - Fall 2008 Instructor - Danny England Skile Classroom Building, Atlanta
Sklies, a central classroom building at Georgia Tech, consists of a large couryard surrounded by wings of classroom spaces. we were prompted to make a design intervention in the couryard bounded by a preset cube of abstract dimensions. This cube would serve as both a rest area and a thoroughfare.
Circulation Studies
Student Circulation
Faculty/Staff Circulation
The courtyard of Skiles is a heavily trafficed, but not heavily used, area. I wanted my intervention to serve functions as a rest area and a method of circulation. The first step was thus to study the actual physical circulation inside the couryard, based on paths taken and final destinations. I did this using three disparate populations - faculty, students, and cyclists.
Cyclist Circulation
All three user groups tend to concentrate their circulation along a major north-south route bordered by a retaining wall and a grove of planted trees. The retaining wall’s importance could be used as a foundation for a design, in regards to both layout and structure. The grove’s relationship to the wall could also be used as another boundary.
Spacial Hierarchy
Gathering Space Hierarchy
Public Level
Wtih ideas of circulation in place, the next step was to design around a hierarchy of movement and gathering, based on population sizes. By locating my design along the major paths, I could better suit the method to work at three different levels - public, private, and personal. Each space in the design would target one level only.
Private Level
The public level would be located directly off of a main route of circulation and be fairly visible. The private and personal levels would require deeper penetration into the structure, with the personal level having the privacy afforded to only one individual.
Personal Level
Final Drawings
Ground Floor Plan
Section
The final design generated was a compromise between the hierarchies of gathering spaces and the coninuity of existing circulation. A central staircase that was split allowed both penetration and bypassage of the entire structure. If a user wished to enter the design, they would encounter progressively more private and shaded areas of rest.
Final Model
Because the courtyard of skiels is dominated by brick and concrete, I wanted my design to have a very tectonic material selection. My model attempts to represent my choice of concrete as the main material by takeing a straightforward, massing approach. THe lighting choice helps establish the privacy of the deeper spaces.
UNAIRCONDITIONED CHARRETTE Junior Studio - Fall 2009 Instruction - Jeffrey Collins St. Maarten, France
The whole of our Junior Studio was an investigation into the manipulation of environmental elements. As a starting point, we were given a one-week long charrette to design a house using environmentally functional design to circumvent the usage of traditional air conditioning. For this proejct, I decided to stick with what I was familiar with - the Caribbean.
Breeze Manipulation
Daytime
Nighttime
With a location set at my favorite Caribbean island of Saint Maarten, I chose the process of sea breezes as my generative environmental concept. During the day, the warm air on the land rises up any hills or mountains, drawing in cooler ocean air. At night, this process is reversed, with the warmer air retreating back out to sea.
Locating the house on a slope was the first step in taking advantage of the eb and flow of air temperments. At a smaller scale, the sectional arrangement of rooms and ceiling slabs would channel warm and cool air to certain areas at certain times. This could be controlled even more directly at the smallest scale with operable louvers.
Floor Plans
Back Entry
Kitchen
Bathroom
Kitchen
Bathroom Bedroom Living Area Closet
Front Entry
Outdoor Patio
First Floor
The layout, like that of many Caribbean homes, is meant to be simple and open. The living areas lie a lower elevation, trapping cooler air in the day. The kitchen and bedroom are higher up, though, and stay consistently warmer than the rest of the house. A large, windowed front allows great views of the sea.
Second Floor
UNAIRCONDITIONED COMMUNITY CENTER Junior Studio - Fall 2009 Instructor - Jeffrey Collins Esfahan, Iran
In addition to the unconditioned charrette, we were also asked to design a vernacular community center for the specific environmental regions of a region of our choosing. Taking the choice of Esfahan in Central Iran, I focused mainly on the badgir and its cooling abilities for large courtyards and spaces.
Generative Vernacular
Warm Exhaust
Sinking Cool Air
Prevailing Wind Direction
Warm Air Well
Badgir Plan Typologies
Cooled Basement
Underground Cooling Reservoir
Basic Badgir Cooling System
Typical Badgir Construction
The badgir, or “wind tower�, is an ancient structure common in the aird parts of Iran. It serves the simple function of capturing prevailing winds and causing cooler breezes to sink down a shaft, while the safe shaft can also serve as an exhaust for warm air. Many designs exist for badgirs depending on the prevailing winds and the height of the tower.
Spacial Layout
Street View
Interior View 1
Floor Plan
For the community center, I wanted the badgir to be the central point of a large courtyard surrounded by shops and rest areas. By coupling the badgir with a public fountain of water, the breezes into the courtyard could be cooled even greater. On the street, the center would have a grand entrance and many areas of rest for pedestrians.
Interior View 2
Sections
Transverse Section 1
Longitudinal Section
The badgir’s dominance and control of the central courtyard is most visible in longitudinal sections. Once the cool breezes have sunk down the shaft of the badgir, they precipitate throughout the courtyard and the various spaces that adjoin it.
Sections
Transverse Section 2
Street Section
The relationship of the structure to the community is best understood in the transverse sections, which show the massing that much of the center has contrasting with the tenuous separation from the major thoroughfares in the area.
CAMP IN THE CITY
Junior Studio - Fall 2009 Instructor - Jeffrey Collins 17th Street & Northside Drive - Atlanta
With the ideas of unairconditioned dwellings and environmental manipulation in place, we were instructed to develop a camp for children that utilized any available environmental resources to minimize site footprint and energy costs. For my design, I decided to focues mainly on windshed patterns and natural water runoff on the site.
Site Strategy
Spring Windshed
Summer Windshed
Autumn Windshed
Winter Windshed
Site Water Runoff
The site is unusually heavily forested considering its proximity to the city. These trees act as natural wind catchers creating areas of calm versus areas of turbulence. Using wind rose data for Atlanta, I was able to construct a diagram that showed patterns of windshed over each season, allowing me to see corridors where wind manipulation would work best.
The site also had fairly rugged elevation changes that cause a fairly regular and measurable drainage to happen almost entirely on-site. This afforded an opportunity to use water runoff as part of my design. When I mapped the drainage routes, I found that this too formed corridors where such systems could hapeen more efficiently.
Site Layout
Distant Site Context
Nearby Site Context
Site Map
Site Section
With the two systems of manipulation mapped - wind and water - laying out the buildings was a logical process of hierarchies of which programmatic concerns had the most need for natural conditioning or greywater collection. The design of the individual buildings was then an iterations of attempting to best control the elements on respective site locations.
The cabins, where campers would be spending their nights, would need to be kept cool in the daytime, so they were located at the windward side of the site, to the northwest. The bathrooms needed to take advantage of the site runoff, so they had to be located at the end of the major site drainage paths.
Gathering Spaces
Main Hall Plan
Main Hall Section
Classroom Plan
Classroom Section
The large, central meeting hall needed to be large and well-lit, so I used the ideas of of wind-controlling louvers from my previous assignments to allow light to penentrate an otherwise heavy wall. The large, central access hall is louvered to allow cross breezes the enter the large spaces. The classroom, by contrast, neede to be dark collected only greywater.
Other Structures
Watchtower Plan
Bathrooms Plan
Bathrooms Section
Every other structure needed to be designed specifically for its program and site location. The bathrooms, placed at the end of the site drainage, act as an anchor of the site’s layout with a massive, greywater collection cistern. At the opposite anchor, a tall watchtower serves as a starting point to collection and a sightseeing area for campers.
Watchtower Sections
Cabin Design
Cabin Elevation
Special focus was given in designing the cabins as they are generally the focus of a camp experience. The cabins are built into a central infrastructure of overhead water channels located above paths. The roof of the cabin and all other structures are sloped to channel rain collection better.
Cabin Design
Cabin Model Exterior
Cabin Plan
Cabin sections
While the cabin was originally a single structure, a central airflow channel eventually became a canyon for collection between two twined cabins. This channel is lined with operable louvers, while a windward-facing slab wall helps channel the breeze into the narrow corridor.
Cabin Model Interior
Cabin Details
Column Detail
Detail Location Axonometric
Foundation Detail
Mullion Detail
After a final site plan and general building designs were completed, further detailed construction drawings were performed on the cabin. Because it was a mainly wooden structure, the foundations needed careful attention, as did any mullions. The louver system used an embedded washer system to rotate freely on columns.
Cabin Details
Parapet Detail
Drainage Detail
Even more attention had to be given to the details of the roof, whose role in collecting greywater could not be compromised. A long parapet on one side of the cabin allowed a great enlargement in gathering ability for the roof. At the central channel, a drip had to be designed to make the transition to the channel.
GEORGIA TECH CLASSROOM BUILDING
Junoir - Spring 2010 Instructor - Frances Hsu Partner - Christine Ruffo Georgia Tech Campus - Atlanta
The last semester of junior studio gave us the chance to work in pairs on a semester-long design of a classroom building on Georgia Tech campus. With virtually all parameters except program and site now under our direct guidance, this project became the first comprehensive expression of my own personal architectural goals and ideologies.
Iterative Modeling
I wanted to start this design more abstractly than I previously had with other designs. Creating a set of various volumes with random openings, me and my partner arranged them in various ways on the site footprint and made note of the ones we found most interesting for the existing conditions.
Schematic Generation
This model play eventually formalized into a definitive schema that relate volumes of space and program to a modulus of open versus closed wall panels. By adding a central atrium, this increased the number of possibly iterations even more. It was through this process that we first started to address each iteration as a possible floor plan.
Program Hierarchy
We next further formalized the schema with preset, favorable program locations based on circulation and visibility. Through this, we were able to develop a basic floor plan that created a dynamic flow between hierarchies of program divided according to user. This essentially divided the building into definable volumes of program.
Facade Manipulation
Generalities of program were not enough, though, so we played upon the modulus of open versus closed walls even further, transforming it instead into an operation of individual window openess. By conducting a detailed lighting study on each major iteration, we could match certain configurations with certain programs we wanted to implement.
Plans
The building’s site has a large corner condition in the northeast that is generallly unseen in a dense campus. We decided to take advantage of this and make it the main entrance to the building for freshman who tended to come from that direction. The ground floor was thus large, auditorium-style classrooms and cafe for gathering.
Plans
The upper floors were delegate to the upperclassmen and the teachers. The first floor, accessible from further west up the street, plays home to a large studio and several gallery spaces. The second floor, by contrast, consists mainly of small offices and conference rooms, privately located for the benefit of faculty and staff.
Elevations
The front elevation presents a patchwork of open and closed panels, reflecting the great diversity of programmatic uses that lies within. The two main entries and a rooftop terrace accentuate the front, while the side tends to seek greater privacy and thus is less open on the whole.
Sections
In section, the atrium’s fuction of allowing the facade’s system to expand is evident. Indeed, the atrium serves as both a lightwell and a circulation column within the building. A more detailed section reveals the paneled construction of the facade manipulation visible all over the building.
Final Model
The model for the building presented several challenges in regards to the paneling system. eventually, we reconciled on keeping the model simple and straightforward, with only slightly more detail than a massing model.
Renderings
In addition to the physical model, we were continuously updating an iterative digital modeling process. The final model allowed use to produce several renders affording understanding of the systems in the building that are just not possible with only two-dimensional drawings and diagrams.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Olympus C-755 Ultra Zoom 4 Megapixels, Maual Settins
In addition to architecture, photography has always been a passion in my life. Though I admittedly do not have the quality of camera i would like to have, these shortcomings have actually cause me to focus my photography more on composition and postprocessing. My passion has also led me to be the current President of Georgia Tech Photography Club.
Composition
,Something about my thoughts on composition.
Contrast
,Something about my thoughts on contrast.
Color
,Something about my thoughts on color.
Creativity
,Something about my thoughts on creativity.