University of Pennsylvania
Spring 2022
BIO INFORMATION
INVOLVEMENT
Philadephia, Pennsylvania Houston, Texas
College of Architecture Honors January 2018 - 2021
Phone : (432) - 934 - 1735 (mobile)
College Mentorship Program September 2017 - 2021
Email : Cward99@upenn.edu (school) Courtney.ward1@me.com (personal)
RECOGNITIONS College of Architecture Honors January 2019-Current Deans List Spring 2019 - Current Deans Choice Award ICU Competition 2019 SuckerPUNCH “Ornament as Crime” July 2019 London Rico Exhibit “Drawing Attention” August 2019 - December 2019 Dillon Kyle Exhibit Fall 2019 Venice Biennale Summer 2020 - Postponed Wright Gallery Summer Exhibit Summer 2018, Summer 2019 Axiom Publication “Diagrammatic” 2018-2019 “Ornament as Crime” 2019-2020 “Converging Intersticities” 2019-2020 AIA Dallas “Ken Roberts Competition” Finalist
EDUCATION Texas A&M University College Station, Texas Bachelors of Environmental Design Minor in Architectural Fabrication Minor in Art and Architectural History 2017 - 2021 GPA 3.8 University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design Philadephia, Pennsylvania Masters of Architecture August 2021 - Current GPA 4.0 Barcelona Architecture Center Barcelona, Spain 2019 GPA 4.0
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B.U.I.L.D Fall 2017 A.I.A.S Member : 2017 - Current Marketing Director 2018 - 2021 Student Studio Representative Program September 2017- 2021 WOMXN x EQUITY x DESIGN Member 2020 - 2021 Communication Officer 2020
EXPERIENCE T8 Projects College Station, Texas May 2019 - August 2021 Architectural Intern VG Studios Houston, Texas May 2020 - Current Architectural Intern Camp Architecture College Station, Texas Summer 2019-2021 Architecture Instructor Teaching Assistant Texas A&M University Spring 2020 Advanced Product Design
SKILLS Software: Modeling Zbrush, Maya, Revit, Rhino, Blender, Houdini, AutoCAD Software: Visualization Adobe Suite, Keyshot, Maxwell, Octane, Vray Fabrication Carpentry, Laser Cutting, Working Plexiglass, 3DPrinting
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . .001 Hybrid Artifacts . . . . . . . . . . .002 New Normal . . . . . . . . . . .003 Tree Hugger . . . . . . . . . . .004 Ornament as Crime . . . . . . . . . . .005 Inhabiting Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . .006 Urban Trace . . . . . . . . . . .007 Image of the City . . . . . . . . . . .008 Abarent Grounds . . . . . . . . . . .009 Converging Interstices . . . . . . . . . . .010 Hypersection .02 . . . . . . . . . . .011 Hew_Material Study . . . . . . . . . . .012 Graphic Explorations
All work within this portfolio is not autonomous within my education but a stream of consciousness guiding my next endeavor. Each project is my unpresuming contribution to the perpetual pursuit of the architectural discipline. All work is my own, aided with the continuous support, mentorship, and guidance of my professors, peers, and friends. -Court
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2021_sep - dec
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GRADUATE STUDIO
HYBRID ARTIFACTS
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This project is an exploration and critique of the neoclassic regime Professor: imposed by the museum industry and the implication of such on the agency of the Danielle Willems
DANIELLE WILLEMS
artifact. The self-proclaimed aim of the museum is to “fully emerge the visitor into the art” in the sense of creating a surrounding that immerses the visitor into the time period and the aesthetic of the art being displayed.
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In order to give the agency back to the object, one must take a nonanthropocentric view of the objects within the container itself. Each rendering its own qualities and agency alone, coming together to form a holistic collection.
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Site Render Choisy
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Second Floor Plan
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This
project
understands
the
objects
characterized in terms of their raw geometrical quality. To achieve this the geometry and geological location will combine to create a new container that represents the agency of the objects themselves. This is developed in the formal qualities of things such as the interior pouch, the textures of the walls, and the projected textures within the space. Additionally, the connection to the Fairmount waterworks informs the seams created to separate the spaces
Vignettes
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This project understands the objects characterized in terms of their raw geometrical quality. To achieve this the geometry and geological location will combine to create a new container that represents the agency of the objects themselves. This is developed in the formal qualities of things such as the interior pouch, the textures of the walls, and the projected textures within the space. Additionally, the connection to the Fairmount waterworks informs the seams created to separate the spaces Interior Renders
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Section Chunk
Section
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JAN 5-10 2022
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GRADUATE COMPETITION
NEW NORMAL
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SchenK-Woodman In reaction to the unexpected extension of Covid-19, the design creates a Competition 2022 perminate communal eatery for patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 and Fresh Air: covid display mild symptoms. This is not a dangerous zone – but a healthy positive urban Eatery experiment for human recovery physically and emotionally from both Covid and the
TEAM 13
TEAM Dongni Li, DongJoo Jo
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deep feeling of isolation. A system—including a separated kitchen, conveyer belts (with robotic arms) and eatery structures—was designed to safely accommodate the arrivals and dine-in of the users, as well as creating space for hanging out and reestablishing social experiences. Users can get not only food, but also necessary items for their recovery such as medicine and other goods. The structures and system are easy to build, as well as expanding and shrinking flexibly in response to the changing Covid situation. With the use of robotic arms, conveyer belts, the project can become a catalyst for the neighborhood and beyond in a safe way.
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Top View Axonometric & Section
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Plan Callout
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2020_jan - may
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PROFESSIONAL WORK
TREE HUGGER
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VG STUDIOS As there is no specified site, the design can be set within any hypothetical Tiny Home site of any size, in either a city or countryside location anywhere in the world. Competition Begins to propose an off-grid modular structure that would accommodate a
VG STUDIOS
Architectural hypothetical young professional couple (which will be used as an example of family Intern size). The structure’s total floor area does not exceed 25m, and operates in a cyclical
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plan that wraps around a tree, that can be adapted to the biome of the placement of the structure. Begins to rethink spatial organization and incorporate unique aesthetics, new technologies, and innovative materials that will make the micro home an entirely new form of architecture.
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Site Render Exploded Structure Anaylsis
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Site Anaylsis
Plan
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Night Render
Section
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2018_jan - may
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
ORNAMENT AS CRIME
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TEXAS A&M ARCHITECTURE
Professor: This project speculates on a prison in the post-singularity era. The Gabriel EsQuivel & prison is occupied by individuals who have committed cyber-crimes who Joris Putteneers are exposed to a customized VR simulation as punishment to fit their crime.
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Team: Anna CooK, Francisco Anaya, Luis Rubio, Ben Hergert
This process would simulate time and therefore expedite prison sentences while still carrying out the intended correction. In creating this new prison typology, we are reinterpreting Foucault’s anthropocentric basis to fit the conditions of a post-singularity and post-anthropocentric society where the effects reach both human and AI while redefining the rehabilitation process to achieve proper reintegration into society. The punishment acts as rehabilitation in a new application of neuroplasticity in which the minds of the inmates are rewired to break the connections of criminal behavior and instead reinforce “proper” avenues of thought. This is completed through the VR simulation where PTSD is prevented by forcing the prisoners to confront these traumas.
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Plan Side View
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Each model will be tethered to the city and thus acts as both a panopticon and a reflection of crime rates within the city. The aesthetic agency operates as an interpretation of ornament through VR generation. In this manner, the influx of crime data gathered from the city generates further ornamentation. These concepts are represented through the form of a narrative collage in which the progression through the experience of the prison is displayed in a digital reinterpretation of the collage. The collaged images become something else—a new form that is neither representative of nor derivative of the original architecture that seeks to further dilute reality. This model is based in cities and can be implemented in multiple locations throughout the world as needed. This produces a program that blurs the lines between reality and simulation through strategies of manipulation of time and space in an effort to change societal perceptions of the purpose of prisons. This progresses past Foucault’s analysis of prisoner treatment and separation from society by providing a solution in the form of a post-heterotopic existence: an in-between space that acts as a way to not only alter an individual criminal, but as a way to re-purpose the influence of the prison on society.
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Physical Model
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2019_ july SUMMER RESEARCH INTERNSHIP
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INHABITING ABSTRACTION T8 Projects London Rico Gallery "Drawing Attention"
T8 PROJECTS
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Contribution: Design, Research, Drawing
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This project is critical of housing that segregates people based on economic or identity profile. Instead, the project advocates for designs that increase density and privilege collectivity, challenging dominant suburban models based on detached single family houses on subdivided lots which are socially and ecologically destructive. There is a need to redefine how we live, the formation of new subjectivities and communities. As an experiment in the design process, and unique vantage point to evaluate the work, the project is captured in a capriccio scenographic drawing. As the fiveweek design investigation ends, the studio environment simulates a scaled model of contemporary domestic life. With the drawing, each desk is an individual component that embodies a residential plot. Displaying the organization and relationship of the component to their respective adjacent areas. Establishing a part-to-whole relationship in order to highlight the modern reality of the interaction of neighborhood communities in an urban context. This begins to challenge the recognized community setting and reconsider ways in which shared space and community outreach can be expressed.
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2020_jan - may
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
UBRAN TRACE
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TEXAS A&M ARCHITECTURE
Professor: Centered in the inner harbor of downtown Baltimore, Maryland is Urban Ko Aitani Trace, a multi-use commercial and hotel icon within the harbor. The use of a
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Contribution: Design, Structure, Research, Drawings,
complex interior truss system influences the solid and void of the facade. This solid and void is negotiated between aluminum paneling, mesh privacy walls, and glass windows outlooking the harbor. This structure serves as a connection between the disenfranchised Baltimore neighborhoods and the wealthy inner harbor inhabitants. Offering a cultural space to connect the communities. The program serves as the first two floors being a cultural center and restaurant and the next two floors serving as a boutique hotel, finally the top floor serving as a banquet space for the community. This program aims to bring economic development to the site in order to revitalize the city through tourism and amenities. The trace of the facade offers a three-dimensional translation of the existing conditions of the city that begins to contort to the program of the interior.
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Exterior Render From Water South Elevation
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The structure of our building consists of a system of trusses that are located throughout the program that are connected to various anchor points as well as concrete cores that are connected through to each floor. Due to our location of our sight and the amount of strength that our material would need to be, our main structural material would be stainless steel.
Baltimore Site Plan
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Structural Detail Section
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West Elevation
BonesBones ModelModel
North and South Elevations
Framing Plans Fourth Floor Framing and Floor Plans
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West Elevation
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Fourth Floor Plans
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2020_jan - may
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
IMAGE OF THE CITY
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TEXAS A&M ARCHITECTURE
Our project began by exploring curiosities within the urban scale of Professor: Tyrene Calvesbert downtown district of the town Bryan, Texas in related to signifiers, or icons, and
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Team: Angela Alissa Keele, Andrew Atwood Contribution: Design, Research, Drawings
image-making. These endeavors led to the research question: How & by whom is the image of the city manufactured & disseminated? The research identified within the City of Bryan crucial actors whose agendas play the largest role in image-making. Official documentation provided by the city illustrates agendas that target Texas University students and that prioritize an aesthetic agenda defined as “historic” The project aims to provide a space for programs within the city that are not typically promoted as part of the Bryan image. The project allows for differing activities to occur simultaneously, or between night and day within the same space, such as a concert and a protest. The project operates in a reversal of the current urban condition, continuously growing and absorbing the signifier of the city, providing a more diverse optical experience, where new user-manufactured images exist in a constant state of ephemeral.
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Section inturpretation Axonometric Southwest Orientaiton
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The culmination of our research led us to develop a series of strategies, which involve creating a network of existing signifiers and facade relations. The facades and textures of the urban space inform the elevation by affecting the optical experience of the space. Walls and other forms of enclosure within our project maintain transparency through a mesh material, affecting points of view and framing of the city. Our strategies further speculate on how social distancing and urban actors influence the overall urban scenario. Our research deals exclusively with the Downtown Bryan Association’s definition of “downtown”, including only the businesses they deem as “culturally vibrant” or “historically significant”. These businesses and their respective signifiers operate in an ephemeral state, often determined by the Downtown Bryan Association’s Event Cycle. Our proposed program focuses on activities relating to rejected images that the city does not currently accommodate, such as a freespeech space for protests and a nude beach. Signifiers and Textures
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Downtown Bryan Event Analysis
Layers of Strategies
SIgnifiers from Downtown Bryan
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Zoning Regulations
City Collage Study
Outlawed Color Pallet
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"Theses programs do not remain constant within our proposal but can adapt to the image of the user" Throughout our research, we reveal the tensions depict the city as an interface, showing the various means of interaction & dissemination with images. The agents of manufacturing lead to a thickness of the image, which we have identified as being neither static, nor linear. In the current condition the City manufactures and disseminates the image to the public - Our project proposes a reversal of roles in image making wherein the user now controls the manufacturing of the image. Signs have been revoked of their status as tools of power, and a public forum emerges that accommodates rejected, undesirable images. Public agendas & desires are collected via image data that are now disseminated to the city to be used as a new metric of city making. The project is an assemblage of elements from the taxonomy of signifiers imposed within a grid structure, connected by a network of circulation.
Event Spaces: Concert Area, Garden
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2021_jan - may
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
ABARRENT GROUND
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TEXAS A&M ARCHITECTURE
Professor: Our project aims to dissolve the notion that humans and their artifacts are Barry WarK impervious and ontologically above all other objects. We are focusing on exploring
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Team: Ryan GarZa, Stephanie ShupaK, Christian Vitullo, Sam GarZa
the ground as a hyper object that fosters a coexistence of ecosystems containing both human and non-human entities. Following the Deleuzian criticism of the crystallization of time, the ground is a formal network of synthesized and natural processes occurring on various scales, which cannot be comprehended within the anthropocentric timeline. Within the context of the city, the ground is constantly being altered to accommodate the Anthropocene through subways, electrical grids, water pipes and other forms of infrastructure, this projects challenge this notion by exposing the ground and how it is an ever-changing hyperobject. This aberrant movement is facilitated by an assembly of parts, forcing an interaction with the hyperobject, setting the foundation for the coexistence between non-human and human entities inhabiting the same spaces.
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Exit of Space Chunk Model
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Confronting the notion of the ephemerality of the ground, the formal network of synthesized and natural processes occurring provokes a shift from a preconceived, anthropocentric control of nature The divisions of spaces into the ground can be read as both parts and as an archive of natural and cultural manipulations upon the world, shown as our building interacts with the city above and the ground below Through the intervention of these natural forces, control over the artifact becomes relinquished, permitting nature to take over while also denying the modernist notion of separation between nature and architecture. These external forces act upon our object and create various articulations along the surface that promote nonhuman propagation. These natural articulations start to allude to the notion of the humble artifact and ancientness characterized by posture and territoriality. Vignettes
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Exterior View
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2019_nov - dec
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
CONVERGING INTERSTICES
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BARCELONA ARCHITECTURE CENTER
PROFESSOR: This project uses the old Roman city as the foundation to create a Museum PASQUEL BENICHO and passageway to Ciutadella Park. The overlay of the historical context with CABUTI today’s buildings and roads created a diverse network of convergences. We defined
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these overlaps as interstitial spaces and explored the concept in terms of both
TEAM: ANDREW what it meant to occupy interstices, or small intervening spaces, and traditional ATWOOD architecture interstitial spaces in both plan and section. CONTRIBUTION: DESIGN, RESEARCH, DRAWINGS
With these overlaps, we created a library of unfamiliar geometry. We then selected specific components that would best lend themselves to the programmatic requirements according to the project brief. Once assembled, primitive operations were used to manipulate the masses in order to better serve their assigned function and for the integration with the existing building on site. The existing building is not simply torn down, but partly preserved, as it is still a protected building, and further promotes the relationship between the two components.
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Form Finding Taxonomy Entrance Passage
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First Floor Plan
Section
The integration of the two elements serves to create a striking juxtaposition between the two time periods being displayed. The interstitial spaces visible on the faces of the new geometry allow the user to visually experience the historical context, while the interstitial spaces found between levels on the interior provide the user with a palpable experience. The materiality of the new massing intends to tangibly distinguish the new from the old while creating a cohesive whole. The museum has three gallery spaces, capable of housing permanent and temporary exhibitions, along with the capacity for administrative, classroom, and workshop spaces, a library, and a cafe. It also establishes a new entrance to the park, which derives its form from a Roman building once existing in that position on the site.
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Exploded Axonometric
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2020_jan - may
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PROJECT MANAGER
HYPERSECTION .02
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VENICE BIENNALE
The hypersection is a concept coined by Nicolo Casas that explores Professor: Niccolo Casas & the ideas of the intersection of different geometries and the interstitial Gabriel EsQuivel spaces between those working together autonomously to maintain individual
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In collaboration with 9 talented undergraduate students Contribution: Teaching Assistant, Design, Research, All images shown
characteristic while influencing the whole. This project is an exploration and continuation of that research done in collaboration with Gabriel Esquivel and his students from Texas A&M University. The project speculates on the planar projection through space and the relationship to canonical drawing styles. As well as the fabrication process and experimentations of the use of AR, robotic constructions, the use of folding modular parts.
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Object Study Spacial Experience Proposal
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Hypersection Iterations
“From a design point of view the term ‘hypersection’ refers to that of intersection in Euclidean geometry: a “point, line, or curve common to two or more objects” Through hypersection, the “unexperienced” volume forces the modules to be segmental; meaning that each part, while complex and independent of each other, contributes to the spatial cohesiveness of the whole . These twodimensional planes begin to interact not only within their own distinctive nature but also through the collaboration produced through the interpolation of the two projections that are realized through the three-dimensional intersection.
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Spacial Experience Proposals
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2017_nov - dec
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO
HEW_MATERIAL STUDY
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TEXAS A&M ARCHITECTURE
Within this project I began to explore the notion of materiality and its Professor: Weiling He relationship to light as well as the use of modular parts in order to make a difficult
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whole. As the project began we were instructed to create a light sculpture that Foster, TeXas consisted of opaque materials. In order to further the exploration of materiality, I Media EXhibit 2018 chose to fabricate my sculpture out of plastic Christmas ordainments. Each of these ordainments comes together to form a part to whole relationship, where each of the parts is rotated in different directions in order to give variation. The rotation of these parts is regulated in relationship to one another based off of the distances given by the Fibonacci ratio. The use of the pink light was used in order to give the project a soft appearance against the harsh plastic.
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Rendering Physical Model, Scale : Eric Ward
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2018-2020
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MARKETING DIRECTOR
GRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS
AIAS MARKETING
American Institute of Architecture Students Texas A&m Chapter
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Within a series of posters designed for the Texas A&M America Institute of Architectural Students, the use of various graphic design techniques were used in order to raise interest in different activities. The use of patterns and experimentations were used to create varying affects within each poster.
PORTFOLIO REVIEW
IT’S TIME FOR A
WEDNESDAY FEBURARY 19, 2019 7 PM ROOM 207 ARC C
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS
SOFTWARE SUNDAYS
IT’S TIME FOR A
RHINO LANGFORD C ROOM 207 OCTOBER 14, 4 PM - 6PM
PLEASE DOWNLOAD RHINO PRIOR TO THE MEETING BRING YOUR LAPTOP, CHARGER, AND MOUSE
COFFEE BREAK WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2018 @ 7:30 AM LANGFORD A, SECOND FLOOR
MUGS WILL BE FOR SALE, 5$ FOR MEMBERS AND 10$ FOR NON-MEMBERS SPONSORED BY TAMU ITS SPONSORED BY TAMU ITS
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