Discipline: ASU Architecture Journal 07 by The Design School at Arizona State University

“ I see the task of architeture as the defense of the authenticity of the human experience. ” -Juhani Pallasma This year’s issue of Discipline prompts the reader to reflect on the ongoing paradigm shifts in the world today and consider architecture’s responsibility in addressing the social, political, environmental, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals within the greater context of a community. As we continue to develop a new understanding of our inherent interconnectedness and how it has changed, we encourage a moment of collective reflection in order to deepen our mission as designers of the built environment. Architecture must be engaged and responsive to the changing needs of our local and global community while reflecting an ability to be flexible and resilient to adverse changes to facilitate more connected lives as a society. We must design with an awareness of architecture’s true purpose, which is to provide spaces that strengthen our connections as human beings.

Letter from the Editor It is with great pleasure to present the seventh issue of Discipline, a student-run digital and print journal associated with the ASU Architecture Program. At its core, this publication aims to empower students, faculty, and professionals alike by providing a platform to showcase their works and share their ideas and theories with the community. Our driving force is to foster an active and evolving discourse among designers that can extend beyond the reaches of our school. With hundreds of print copies distributed and thousands of reads online across more than 100 countries, we are proud of the scale of the publication’s impact. We have invited our audience to consider their agency as designers, commit to research and reengagement within the practice, pivot into the empowering role of thought leaders, and reflect upon the canonical narratives regarding architecture pedagogy. This year’s theme connections acts as a direct continuation of Discipline’s efforts to engage its readers in a relevant and promptly conversation regarding the role of the architect in our current global climate. As we continue to confront the fundamental collective shift in our interconnectedness, we must collaborate and find solutions that integrate this newfound knowledge to bring about a change that embraces the core of architecture, which is human centered. Within the pages of this publication, faculty and second through sixth year students voice their architectural intentions and explore the future of their profession. The breadth and diversity of the work is a reflection of the wide net that the theme casts, ultimately providing the reader with a chance to ruminate on how a sense of connectivity can be cultivated within architecture. It has been an extremely rewarding experience to have served as an editor for Discipline throughout my undergraduate career and I am honored to have had the privilege of curating this year’s issue, which will hopefully leave a lasting impact. I’d like to express my sincerest gratitude to my dedicated team of editors, comprised of five exceptional students, who I’ve had the honor of collaborating with to make this issue a success. Thank you to my predecessors Cathleen Kebert, Brittany Bailey, Hector Díaz, and Nasrynn Chowdhury for leading the way and cultivating an inspiring ethos within the publication. Thank you to Marc Neveu, Phillip Horton, and Michelle Fehler for your mentorship, unabated support, and lasting wisdom that you have shared with the team. I am confident that Discipline will continue to evolve and represent the pulse of the school with great fervor under your guidance. I encourage all of our readers to become inspired by the ideas exhibited in this issue and lean into unconventional ways of thinking, creating, and being. Let us explore new ways to connect more deeply as human beings so that together we can cultivate a more inclusive and harmonious future. Editor, Meriel Vogliotti

Letter from the Committee This issue comes out after just over a year of isolation and disconnection. With this time to reflect, we have all watched the field and education of architecture transform from a physical to a virtual platform. And that metamorphosis has inspired questions around the human scale and perspective. Architectural writer and professor, Leonard R. Bachman defines the architect’s work as the interaction of two frames of thought: physical design as sublime immediacy and strategic design as intelligent foresight. Practice entails building a network of physical, environmental, political, and social connections. Being away from the land, stuck on a computer and facing a blaring blue light, we realize the impact of connection. So, as these crises push us farther away physically, we must ask ourselves how we can reground and reunite. This journal was organized to see each other’s work and hear our community’s voice. By creating a platform to listen and learn about our shared interests, we can connect a very diverse school of architecture to student, faculty and professional perspectives in and outside the realm of architecture. Collaborating with the Discipline team to put together the images, projects and dialogues within this journal has been extremely inspiring and we encourage the readers to reflect on how their work and experience connects to the varied facets of our lives. The Discipline Team,

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Brennan Richards Dellan Raish Erin Bascom Ananth Udupa Ashley Ontiveros

Table of Contents

essays A Letter to the ASU Design Community Time to Connect The Construction of Mystery and Suspense Maybe Yes. Maybe No.

Design Justice Initiative

Marc Neveu

Yasmine Kattan

Elena Rocchi

connections Alisa Hernandez

Erin Bascom

Going Beyond Spatial Connection

Alexandra Shott

Connections

Oriana Gil Perez

Ashley Ontiveros

Homemade Obsolete Architectures

A Parallel Connection to My Space

interviews Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl Joy

with Meriel Vogliotti

Karín Santiago

with Ashley Ontiveros

Nenwe Geeso

with Brennan Richards

Michelle Fehler

Dongwoo Jason Yeom

Paul Coseo

with Erin Bascom

with Dellan Raish with Ananth Udupa

projects 70

Dellan Raish

Alternative Desert City 2070

Chaoqun Lin

The Eden Fantasy

Brennan Richards

Ronjting Jin

Erin Bascom

Alisa Hernandez

César López Rodriguez

Smirti Jain

100

Ananth Udupa

Exhibitions on Erasure

104

Meriel Vogliotti

MoCA Adaptive Reuse

108

Udit Shah

112

Oriana Gil Perez

114

Ashley Ontiveros

116

Orange Build

118

Alexandra Shott

120

Erin Bascom

126

Yara Kamali & Andrew Synacek

130

Chaoqun Lin

134

Junjie Wu

138

Alisa Hernandez

141

Acknowledgments

Lucille Halsell Conservatory Expansion Healing Apartment The Regenerative Confluence of Water Transversality, Masking and Rajismo MoCA: Exploring Community Identity Let’s Take a Walk

International Space Station Design Built Mutli-Use Market The Graft and Host Connecting to the Profession The Architect as a Civil Practicioner MoCA Tucson: Engaging the Wall Traverse Innovative Agricultural Systems Future Apartment Frontier Flux

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

essays 7

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Design Justice Initiative The Design Justice Initiative was created by students Oriana Gil Perez, Rayven Canon, Élé Paul, and Cynthia Nyirinkwaya with contributions by TDS students leader, and assisted by alumna Olivia Raisanen A Letter to the ASU Design School Community

A Statement from a diverse group of students, alumni and members of The Design School Design Justice Initiative committee to the administration of The Design School at Arizona State University: We demand that The Design School at ASU declare a position of anti-racism and actively decolonize design education curriculum and pedagogy, ensuring radical transformation within institutionalized academia. Current cultural and political climates and events—including the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—have brought attention to the systemic racism of our society. The Design School at ASU acknowledged and addressed these events in their June 8th letter to The Design School community. Over the past three years, they have committed to transformation through the ReDesign process, however, these actions have not been enough. The Design School at ASU must commit to an inclusive process in order to address each of the action items listed in this letter. Our design education must no longer perpetuate inherently racist structures of knowledge. We are requesting that faculty, administration, and staff co-create a timeline with students to accomplish the following actions. We request that The Design School at ASU commits to the timeline of actions, in order for the antiracist work to be carried out, even in the event of changing leadership. There should be no meetings where decisions regarding courses of action in regards to this letter are made without student representatives present. A confidential anonymous survey was conducted prior to the release of this action letter to collect students’ feedback and ensure all students’ voices were represented in this letter. Representatives from the different design disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, graphic design, and industrial design, joined their voices to ensure the letter was inclusive of all The Design School at ASU’s student bodies. We, The Design School at ASU students, request the Arizona State University Design School to recognize their obligation to institutionalize anti-racism and acknowledge that design education curricuWlum and pedagogy are not neutral. We request that the The Design School at ASU begins to address this with the actions listed on the following pages. We emphasize the importance of a response from The Design School at Arizona State University to commit to the actions listed. We look forward to continuing the conversation that we are prompting through the issue of this letter, and we request The Design School administration to schedule a college-wide meeting with all faculty, staff, administration, and students to begin this process. We request that The Design School issue a time-based strategy to address each of the items listed above. The co-creation of a process to redesign our design education to be anti-racist, pedagogically, curricularly, and culturally, is vital for The Design School at ASU to uphold equitable standards of education.

Rayven Canon: For the Fall 2020 semester, the Wellness and Support Committee addressed action item #13 which established a stated review culture that is constructive, inclusive, and dynamic. The review culture at The Design School at ASU has often been unproductive and a negative experience for students. The goal of addressing this action item was to establish a stated review culture that is productive and celebratory of student work, with conversations to be focused on constructive critique of student projects, to create a network for students in the professional world and to begin to understand the concept of storytelling. The Wellness and Support Committee began by having open honest conversation amongst the students and faculty expressing why they felt the traditional dynamic of how reviews are outdated and unproductive to the student’s growth as designers. We continue the conversation by addressing how we as a whole can move forward in a positive manner to cultivate an environment for students to experiment and showcase themselves freely in a positive constructive space. Over the semester, we constructed a Review Culture document capturing our ideas on how we, TDS at ASU, can begin to move forward in expanding the minds of these brilliant designers while providing them a platform.

With Oriana and Rayven graduating this Spring, the initiative will continue under the leadership of Jamis Guy, Julia Lopez, and Brennan Richards.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Essay

The education system is one of those roots that supports systemic racism, and consciously or unconsciously, we have supported it as well. At some point in our education, we have been affected by some kind of injustice or see how our privilege helped us while it did not help others. And we did nothing to change it. The problem is that most have stayed quiet, and in order to fight this tree and its many roots which support discrimination and injustice, it requires all of us. In 2020, along with other movements and initiatives around the country, many students, faculty, and staff united their voices to fight against systemic racism at the educational level. At ASU, the Design Justice Initiative, a student-led initiative, joined efforts with students, faculty, staff, and alumni, despite their roles and fields, working together as equals for this common belief. It has been one year since we began this initiative, and we have achieved, at some scale, some of our demands. And we are still standing strong as the first time we meet to address the letter demands. We will continue to work hard until we achieve the change we are looking for in our education. Perfection is relative. What we can do to improve the lives of others iswhat I call perfection. We leave behind a movement, we leave a cause, a group of people that needed to hear from us to work together. In our school there are many people with great intentions, strong voices, and creative ideas to address these issues. But we remain divided, working as independent groups. Once we all understand that we are all working towards the same goals, we can achieve these changes quicker. Whether or not you agree with this initiative, remember that someone’s race/ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and socioeconomic status, are not reasons for mistreating others. When our hearts are strong, there is not space for hate. What is your fight, and what will you do about it?

Design Justice Initiative

Oriana Gil Perez:

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Ref lections from 2020-2021 School Year Committee leaders Oriana Gil Perez and Rayven Cannon Progress on Objecives from the Letter

Restructure all courses at The Design School to include Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), Women, LatinX, and LGBTQ+ voices. This item includes requiring all syllabi to be reviewed for inclusion of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices and representation. Additionally, any course that is focused in the traditionally accepted canon of academic design history and theory must teach the history of how the design canon was constructed, explain who does and does not benefit from it, and critique the ideas of the canon which are often inherently exclusive, especially due to the majority of voices that have contributed to the canon being privileged, white, and male.

Hire Black faculty, staff, and administration. Hire more indigenoues faculty, staff, and administration. The Design School at ASU has expressed difficulty in recruiting BIPOC faculty, staff, and administration. However, there is also evidence that the Design School should be paying those they hire, especially Teacher Aids, visiting instructors, and faculty, more. We acknowledge that this is not a requirement by state policy, but we request that the Design School at ASU adapts a policy that creates transparency for compensation of all who are employed by the college.

Proactively cultivate a strong network of Black professionals alumni and students. This should be a school-established network, to ensure that this effort is not dependent on student organization availability and resources.

Conduct outreach, recruitment, and engagement with marginalized and underrepresented communities. The student population at The Design School at ASU should be representative of a diverse, global population with representation of the local Arizona population as well. Courses that foster equitable collaboration and outreach with local populations should be offered. Any outreach, recruitment, and engagement should be equitable, being careful not to exploit communities and people for their time, knowledge, and experiences.

Develop a strategy for department chairs to implement anti-racist efforts with their faculty. This strategy should include a time-based plan of implementation of each of the listed 14 items. There should be an opportunity for co-creation of this plan with students. There should be accountability within full-time and tenured faculty evolution to include relevant content into their teaching. Additionally, there should be transparency of the annual review, fostering conversation to constructively develop a culture of constructive critique and reflection that includes student voices.

Mandate Diversity and Inclusion training for all faculty, staff, and students to ensure respectful interactions with all members of The Design School community, including international, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ members. Each member of The Design School at ASU must be given DEI training to identify their existing unconscious biases and be given information on how to be conscious and sensitive of their treatment of others and potential impacts. It has been made apparent through student survey comments and conversations that there have been a number of negative student experiences in regards to improper conduct and communication by faculty, staff, and other students that have included racial, cultural, and gender insensitivity. Several issues have been brought to the attention of faculty and/or staff by students which have not, to their knowledge, been addressed. A conscious effort must be made to foster an inclusive, safe environment for all students, faculty, and staff following accountability measures, remedial action, and providing support.

Faculty and staff must accommodate cultural differences in their classrooms. Ensure that all staff, faculty, and students are sensitive and accepting of global cultural differences in their classrooms and within their pedagogical teaching methods, as ASU is recognized as a global institution.

Inclusion of BIPOC guest speakers in The Design School courses and in the roster of invited speakers. We would like to acknowledge that the The Design School at ASU list of invited speakers in recent years has been diverse, and we would like to continue to hear from a diverse set of people, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices.

Recognize financial privilege and address all additional costs associated with being a student in The Design School at ASU. Tuition is not the only expense for students during their education at The Design School; student expenses also include cost of living, studio travel, materials, and miscellaneous studio expenses. The college must recognize that not all students are financially privileged. To offset financial burden for students, additional costs within The Design School, such as laser cutting and materials for model building, should be addressed. Required use of expensive materials should be minimized. Additionally, the school should create a space for unwanted and donated materials to be housed for student use.

Financial accountability, transparency, and support: We demand financial transparency regarding our Design School fees outside of tuition. We demand that all funds expected to be used by students be provided for use by them. This includes all studio fees, and any additional fees that are incurred by students of The Design School. Allocate funds towards free laser cutting, 3D printing, printing, and collaborative spaces for students and student organizations to work and promote student cultural activities, diversity, professional growth, and community engagement.

Establish a stated review culture that is constructive, inclusive and dynamic. The review culture at The Design School at ASU has often been unproductive and a negative experience for students. Establish a stated review culture that is productive and celebratory of student work, with conversations to be focused on constructive critique of student projects.. Additionally, there have been a variety of inappropriate comments made by reviewers at The Design School at ASU towards students. The stated review culture must be sent out to all reviewers prior to any and all student reviews, and there must be zero tolerance for inappropriate comments. Additionally, every review panel should have a balance of gender identity, racial, and ethnic backgrounds.

Establish a stated studio culture that fosters an equitable environment and prioritizes wellness. Currently, the studio culture at The Design School at ASU perpetuates unhealthy discipline and professional expectations of poor work-life balance, overworking, and compromising health for excessive time spent on studio projects. This expectation is unhealthy and inequitable, especially for students who have to work while in school. The Design School at ASU should support students in working to maintain mental health.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Provide a required course for all Design School students that establishes frameworks and training to identify, understand, and be given the tools to equitably implement change through design within the racial context of the United States. This course should cover topics such as redlining, exploitation of BIPOC communities in capitalist endeavors, gentrification of neighborhoods and related implications, and how architecture and design has been complicit in institutionalized, systemic racism.

Essay

Design Justice Initiative

Promote past and current designers who represent and/or promote diversity in the field. Currently, students of The Design School are only provided references to look at the work of well-known designers who most commonly do not represent diversity. The Design School library, history courses, and studio case studies should recognize and promote the work of a diverse population of designers

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Marc Neveu Time to Connect

Over the past fourteen months, all of the times have been affected, but some more than others. It would be easy to describe the past year plus as hallucinatory time, but I think it is more complex. It has been exactly four-hundred days since we went to remote teaching. Each day has been separated by exactly twenty-four hours. The sun has set each day, and rose again the next. Our story time has not been affected. Discourse and reading time, however, have been. Many of my days are now organized around 30- and 60-minute zoom meetings and with a select group of people. I am often alone in my office. I rarely interact with anyone other than my family in any unstructured way. Prior to the pandemic, I would see people in the hall, get a cup of coffee, go to lunch, linger after a meeting with a colleague or student. These unplanned encounters affect how we understand the discourse and reading time of our lives. I would go so far as to say, these sorts of serendipitous meetings make the story of our lives all the more rich.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Essay

mberto Eco, building on the work of Paul Ricoeur, named three variations of time found in fiction: story time, discourse time, and reading time. Story time is the amount of time that takes place in a story. Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, for example, takes eighty days of story time (actually eighty-one for Phileas Fogg as he travelled eastward). This can also be referred to as the plot. Discourse time, also known as narrative time, is the time needed to tell the story of those eighty days in the balloon. Reading time is simply how long it takes one to read the text. Dialogue may align discourse and reading times, but the three times are rarely synchronized. This lack of correspondence implies that the author may indeed employ various temporal tactics that serve to make the act of writing and reading more than the simple transmission and reception of events. Each of the times may be paced differently and for various effects. Foreshadowing plays with discourse time and reading time by giving the reader a hint of what they will soon read. Story time may take less than discourse time and, in effect, stretch out our experience of time. Remember Proust’s madeleine. The relation between story time and discourse time often affects our reading time. Description, tone, number of words, and pacing can affect this. Reading the machine-gun-like staccato of a hardboiled novel by Mickey Spillane has a different pace than, for example, the dull droning on of a Don DeLillo novel. An author may offer an abundance of detail or a mass of particulars that are less a representational device than a strategy for slowing down or speeding up the reader. Eco refers to this as hallucinatory time and the work of Robbe-Grillet may be seen as an example. He also mentions circumnavigational time in which the author adjusts points of view in both time and space. Here, time can be varied through detail, complexity of reference, or a variety of paths. The work of Calvino and Borges offers such an approach. Typically, an author employs a combination of these strategies.

Marc Neveu

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

I am by nature an extreme introvert. I am content to work alone and it is a struggle to be too social. Still, what this past year has taught me is the importance of connecting with others outside of a scheduled call. I am hopeful that when we are on campus again in the fall, these unintentional meetings will again resume. It is time to connect.

Yasmine Kattan The Construction of Mystery and Suspense: The Case of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Yasmine Kattan

While in search of locations, I entered and exited buildings, passing under structures that restrict individuals from seeing who is coming in or out. I reinterpreted Hitchcock’s courtyard by using spaces as a corridor, a staircase, a hallway, and a facade. While editing the footage, I noticed the connections between what happened in my different movies’ space, or between myself and Hithcock’s main character, Jeffrey. In re-coding the sequences, I did not always follow the movie’s script or the main character as I noitced what was happening around me. For example, Hitchcock’s movie’s mysterious and suspenseful scenes were shot at night, while my movies were shot during the day for safety reasons. It was precisely the re-adaptation of the original sequence to new contexts that showed something new: the reinterpretation of what the concept of Rear Window on courtyards is when transferred at the scale of a campus. This showed the significance of cameras as tools which architects can use in addition to discovering mystery and suspense while designing projects. By scripting lives as a program, architecture can better connect to people.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

he connection between architecture and film is an exciting world to understand and be part of. This is why my Barrett thesis this semester is about observing how architecture creates mystery and suspense. The investigation used Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) as the case study analyzed to re-scripting two of its sequences as short movies. The goal was to test the spatial construction of mystery and observe the feeling of suspense in architecture. So, I investigated two kinds of spaces for the shooting; spaces of architectural significance on campus, such as the secret garden, the bridge at The Design School, and Tempe Town Hall and the private domestic space of my apartment. The research revealed many connections existing between architecture and movies. The discourse around film can identify in the ways in wich buildings are mysterious, and how architects, like film directors, construct buildings as scripts.

Essay

Elena Rocchi Maybe Yes. Maybe No.

As a child, I spent many of my summer afternoons in Tuscany, at my aunt’s home, observing the sunlight filtered through the wooden shutters. At a specific time, a thin beam of light would enter the room and envelop grains of dust spreading the light in every direction. Those moments triggered something, a kind of memory, the unconscious experiencing windows as connections. For a long time, I wondered who had invented those artifacts that filtered the outside, that looked down the street where I learned to ride a bicycle, that mediated the observed and separated me from it. In that room, I was happy because I could feel something Gaston Bachelard put into words: “When the refuge is safe enough, the tempest is good.” During my training as an architect, that understanding turned into a rational category that applies to the built environment: windows connect the reality of rooms to the ineffable of social life as they happen in the continuity of space as suspensions. There, we meet with the transcendent and observe the other side of the world’s surface. Before those summers, windows to me were objects I would open and close without realizing it. Since then, I cannot imagine the world without dramaturgy of my life.

windows

as they orchestrate the

They are, for me, the deepest and most mysterious architectural object invented by our natural need for connection — maybe yes, maybe not. Figure 1. Archivo Drexler, N 716.63, p 81, Interior perspective of living room, looking south. Pencil, wood veneer, cut-out color reproduction (Paul Klee, Bunte Mahlzeit 1928), and illustration board photographs. (76.2 x 101.6 cm)

1 COOPER, David, Heidegger on Nature, Environmental Values, Vol. 14, No. 3, Nature and Continental Philosophy (August 2005). ² This is one of three collages for the Resor House Mies van der Rohe produced in 1939. ³ Colomina, Beatriz, “Battle Lines: E 1027,” 1, The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice, by Francesca Hughes MIT Press, (1998): p 6 ⁴ Cohen, Jean-Louis, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Taylor & Francis, 1996. p 93.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

One of my favorite window was never built, only represented by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the collage No 716.63 he made in 1939 for the Resor House. ² This window is just a collage with a masterful poetic structure — a cosmogony of three physical-chromatic elements placed in the foreground, middle, and background that captures viewers inside. A brown settle, an enlarged color image of Klee’s Gay Repast (1928), and a photograph of a landscape in black and white are framed by an almost invisible pencil line as the large window’s fixtures and one pillar | | . What I love of this represented window is a fact: when I look at it, I never perceive that light pencil that organizes the three elements in the vertical plane of vision and regenerates them as an internal horizon, as “a boundary, an enclosure, an architecture.” That light pencil is precisely invisible as windows, as ‘the essential is often invisible to the eye.”

Essay

I like to imagine them arriving on the facades chasing doors, bringing a breath of air into the homes of the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations at a time when hygiene was an urgency; I see them during their first encounter with Roman architecture, with the glass and this materiality we know as transparency turning them from being practical objects into categories related to virtual perception; and I often read about the day they were born again as metaphors for paintings — Alberti’s windows open onto the world. To me, from painting to Microsoft, all windows have one thing in common: they are places of multidimensional contact of the “quantifiable” of measures and materials with the “non-quantifiable” of sensations and imagination. ¹

I keep looking at the dust in the light filtered by the shutters. In those moments of twilight, I halfclose my eyes to adjust their frame’s size. And I speculate that, in using their eyes like windows, first humans trained a capacity for abstracting reality using some skeleton structures Rudolph Arnheim called ‘representative concepts.’ I speculate that at one point, those humans that dwelt in caves kept coming together, built walls, and felt the necessity to open windows, following that same internal motion of those who made the rock paintings of Chauvet 30,000 years ago.

Elena Rocchi

Have you ever wondered who invented windows? Maybe no one, as it is still unclear.

And I speculate that they probably did it together, pushing a little deeper that scratch they initially made in search of a clearer area on which to engrave a three-dimensional quality of life as images.

I like to think that no one but together we invented windows to connect nature, houses, and ourselves “into a higher unity,” precisely as Mies did in the collage No 716.63.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

I might be wrong. Maybe Yes. Maybe No.

connections

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alisa Hernandez Homemade

his video responds to the Homemade Everyday Documentary Assignment assigned by Renata Hejduk during her course, APH 515: Current Issues and Topics. The assignment asked for deep reflection: a representation of a site visit in our day in life. At that time, a documentary, Homemade premiered on Netflix — a series of short films filmed by directors worldwide as a way to capture the similar conditions a pandemic world had to offer. All the content was later curated into series by the producers — Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain. They describe the intention behind the series deeply tied to “adversity, and how we are all from different countries, cultures, and circumstances, but for a very unique moment of humanity, we’re all sharing very similar circumstances in different contexts.” Taking this into deep reflection, I decided to be authentic to my context, San Luis, AZ, a border town in the Southwest region of Arizona. Immediately after the pandemic began, I returned to my hometown for a shortlived stay of two weeks, or so I thought... I began a journey of reflection and self-growth, acknowledging the unique moment in history I was witnessing and recording it. It was a time when I connected more deeply with my family, my friends, and myself. I realized this was happening due to an understanding and place of vulnerability; the world became one. In understanding that we are human, a mutual tie between ourselves was created, and a deep sense of appreciation of life was instilled. Loss offers reflection; it was a time of loss, loss of space, interaction, freedom, yet it was a time of gain in time, reflection, and appreciation. This is why, as stated in the video, “I choose not to judge the time that the virus has given us, but to thank it.” Even though we are very much still living in a pandemic world, I believe 2020 offered conditions and situations for growth. “As they say, you never know what happens until the moment has passed. This judge of our destiny and being has currently given us a lot to think and reflect on. It has opened our eyes...” It offered a deeper understanding and connection to the world and what it means to be human. Perhaps we will never truly understand the entirety of the change this pandemic condition has brought. The pandemic gifted me the best, new perspective and eyes.

“

Hello, my name is Alisa Giselle Hernandez Llamas, or as my classmates call me, Alisa, I am 23 years old, and right now you are probably wondering why I wrote this in Spanish? Well, it’s because I tend to articulate and analyze things better this way. Actually, that’s how I talk to myself when I’m alone, I have noticed it more recently with the reality that I live with today, my head is allowed to wander in time and become its place of constant habitance where before only it was visited. I am currently living in a world where a virus has dictated how we live our lives. The year 2020 has not been easy for anyone, people stay away from each other and lock up like animals in shelters, afraid of taking a wrong step, breathing at a wrong quo, and contracting the malice. Every step in the outside world is like a game of checkers, you hit the enemy and fall - which for some people is forever. The cruel dictator of our lives doesn’t even have a face, so it will never be accountable. Although sometimes I feel like we judged it too quickly? As they say, you never know what happens until the moment has passed. This judge of our destiny and being has currently given us a lot to think and ref lect. It has opened our eyes, it teaches us about the type of humans we have been, and wants the sacrifice we make today serve as a teaching. This is why I choose not to judge the time that the virus has given us, but to thank it. In this time we have been aware, compassionate, and united in this common battle. We have learned to take time slower, to let ourselves enjoy simple things like a cup of coffee in the morning since this time we don’t buy it in a rush to get somewhere, but because it’s the slow start of a new day. A warm toast to new eyes. Thank you.

”

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Alisa Hernandez

Connections

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Erin Bascom Obsolete Architectures

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Erin Bascom

These photographs of the ASU Tempe campus combine many of the themes present this semester including the appropriation of architecture, the abundance of unused or unusable public space, found and new functions of domestic space (and old/lost functions of public space), the manipulation of abandoned campus to be seen as beautiful and stoic, and the surveillance of these environments. In the way that digital photography had profound impact on the discipline, the pandemic has condensed many of our physical spaces to a mere screen we learn to interact digitally with our abandonded architectures perserving the memory of pre-pandemic living.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

s a result of the pandemic, many of our public architectures have become obsolete, including our academic institutions. As our domestic spaces have been adapted to absorb the programs previously fulfilled by public spaces, I am particularly intrigued by the relevance of place in memory and how our environments contribute to or detract from quality of life. As an architect, this exercise offers a unique intersection between photography and architecture that comes at a particularly impactful time. The photos are to remind the viewer of the beauty of these architectures while the nearly abandoned state of the campus is a hollowing reminder of the state the pandemic has left our public spaces and social interactions.

Connections

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

Connections

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

Connections

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alexandra Shott Going Beyond Spatial Connection

he aspects of our lives which connect us and allow us to expand our perspectives, such as art, music, and culture, have been experienced at a minimum over the last year. Connection comes in many forms, but the ability to unite over something that brings us joy is a crucial part of the human experience. I personally have been thinking a lot about how architecture has the ability to connect us not only physically, but socially, culturally, and even politically. One of the questions I have asked myself lately is, “How can architects use their work to approach the forming of connections between individuals that goes beyond the spatial realm?” Considering the many elements of an architect’s practice, one might ask themself where there are opportunities to connect people in more unexpected ways. Architects go through a complete journey in their practice, beginning with research and ending with the meticulous creation of a structure that will become a semi-permanent piece of our built environment. At the center of an architect’s work is the design process, an enigmatic concept which any designer can relate to. While each individual crafts their own design process over time, it is ultimately what

connects all architects and designers together. The concept of the design process is often difficult for a non-designer to conceptualize. A lack of general understanding from the public about what an architect does, as well as a lack of consideration by the architect to actively and transparently make communities aware of the design’s intentions, can have the opposite effect of facilitating connection in social, economic,or political environments. This is particularly true in the case of more vulnerable, low-income communities. Some architectural practices have leveraged the design process to facilitate connections with members of the communities they serve. Often referred to as co-creation, these practitioners invite members of the community to take part in the design process. This type of approach is often exhibited in areas of vulnerability and minority communities. Similar to how connections between people rely on a sense of trust or ability to relate to one another, the practice of co-creation allows everyone involved to connect over shared values and goals for the future of their community. Through activism and advocacy woven into this process, even economic or

Connections

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

The importance of architects and architecture being able to facilitate connection is increasingly important and relevant today. Though we have, in life altering ways, lost our connection with one another in physical space over the last year, those connections will be rebuilt. Connection builds understanding, tolerance, and appreciation. It allows us to come together and share the things that bring us joy. Ideation and creation also allow us to form shared bonds with one another. The importance of connection can be looked at by architects not only to bring people together, but to also reframe current approaches and move toward equitable and meaningful practices.

Alexandra Shott

have faced challenges with assimilating to my assigned context in the past, specifically in predominantly male spaces with jobs or internships I have had. The point being is that most people struggle with forming connections within their environment, and architects can and do have the potential to facilitate healthy connections to the built environment. They have real potential to be a vehicle for connecting people even in ways unexpected.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

political connection can be made. This can be said for the designing of projects that seek to establish environmental regeneration, or address issues of gender within a community. Co-creation can also contribute to people of the community developing a profound sense of appreciation and stewardship for the work, with the potential to connect people socially and politically. Practices I have been inspired by such as Department of Places and Kounkuey Design Initiative, as well as practitioners like Liz Ogbu, have established co-creation as an architectural approach that can connect individuals well beyond the physical connection of a building.

Oriana Gil Perez Connections

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Oriana Gil Perez

Connections

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Ashley Ontiveros A Parallel Connection to My Space

The place where I always bought my coffee. Now, I go to my kitchen to make my lattes, black coffees, and grilled sadnwiches.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Connections

My room became a parallel to the places that once inhabited precious memories and secrets. Very soon my space adopted the forms of these places that kept me connected to The Design School, which was the place most alive with architecture for me.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

The place where I went to admire the models of the ancestors to the architecture program. The smell of books and graphics drew me to preserve my own collection of books.

Ashley Ontiveros

The place I went to make all of my copies. Architecture came alive on my paper and across printed works that I did. Now, a single printer copies my design just like last year.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Connections

The studio where my desk was a place where I designed and drew and revised. Even late at night, studio lit up. My desk adopted one aspect to connect me to the light of architecture.

The Design School. A parallel connection to my space.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Ashley Ontiveros

interviews

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl-Joy a conversation with Erin Bascom

Rick Joy is the founder and principal of Studio Rick Joy. Originally from Maine, he studied music and was a classical percussionist and rock/blues drummer until the age of 28 when he moved to Tucson to study Architecture. Now, he is considered an important contributor to the ongoing global discourse on conceptual and sustainable architecture. HIs work expresses innovation and exactitude in modernism and reflects a unique sense of place. Rick has won numerous awards and serves as a visiting professor at several prestigious universities. Claudia Kappl Joy is the partner of Rick Joy and has been a collaborator to the SRJ team for over 13 years. In 2013, Rick and Cluadia co-founded the lighting design consultancy studio, CLL - Concept Lighting Lab, LLC, in which she is creative and managing director, leading all projects - responsible through implementation - having done so on several award-winning projects. Cluadia has lived and worked in Austria, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and since 2007, has called Tucson home. Claudia’s fascination with the ephemeral quality of light and its essential role when creating moving atmospheric space is at the base of her design approach and interest.

To go back to Zaha Hadid and other architects that take more of a global approach to architecture, why have you personally been drawn to more of a regional approach, and do you think that is in any way superior to the global approach? R: Well, I don’t think of anything as superior, but I do think that I personally resonate more with being up close and personal with place and if we ever get commissioned to do an Olympic

swimming pool in France, you know okay that could be a standalone object building that’s globally oriented.

We touched on indigenous culture and the historic mistreatment of these populations, I think that’s a really relevant conversation given the current social climate and happenings of the past year. Do you think it is the role of the architect to look critically at our practice and how we can make reconciliations? R: I do support the current movements towards a more equal society on all levels but I don’t want to get into telling people how to make reconciliations because it’s too complex and sensitive of a subject to just take a simple stance. E: I believe to take a stance on the matter, instead of disregarding it, is maybe how we start making progress in some of these areas. As a country, we’ve been recognizing this the past year. Do you have any thoughts on that?

R: I think the point is to keep your eyes open at all times and try to find poignant connections that mean something, and so in our work, for example, we did this hacienda in Taos, New Mexico about a mile from the Taos pueblo and we made it out of earth in a modern way. So, there’s lots of different ways to be sustainable and also not just give money to charities but to think of ways to help and be creative on all levels in education.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

“Every building, every project you do is grounded in context and place and that’s how it connects to the environment, as well as the building cultural place.”

R: I mean I generally like to connect things in a way with nature and emotion and atmosphere. I think building culture plays to people, the families, the environment and the actual culture. All can connect and we have to try to do that as well.

Interview

R: Well, I definitely believe in a very localized cultural relationship and building culture and people. I also appreciate people who view the planet as the local like Zaha Hadid but I’m just more drawn to the actual real place we’re building in. With Amangiri we were very

Claudia Cappl: Every building, every project you do is grounded in context and place and that’s how it connects to the environment, as well as the building cultural place.

Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl Joy

E: Yes, What strikes me about your work is how your buildings connect with local culture and place in a way that is stronger than other architects. It seems to guide your work, this connection, no?

intentional and instead of building a place that appropriates the imagery and cultural relics of the indigenous Navajo, we refocused the endeavor on resonating with the landscape and the place with an acknowledgement of its history and culture. That in itself is a way to reprogram culture and society. It may seem subtle but in the architectural landscape it creates a wave. It also has to do with looks a little bit, but it also has to do with caring a lot about how people might feel or live in the place. When you go to Princeton it’s an academic Gothic campus and they have recreated historical Gothic ‘stuff’ so when we got our transit hall project there, we tried to resonate with that campus Gothic. But we did it in our own way, in a new way - the columns are all stacked very much like the cathedral city and we just let the height and the reach guide the mantra for shaping.

Rick Joy: Never thought about that before, did you?

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom: How do our buildings connect with each other, connect with their environments, connect with us, and connect us to each other?

E: I agree, education is important. I think one of the best things we can do is make sure we’re involving multiple perspectives in these conversations and holding space in our work and discipline.

R: It’s a tricky thing to just create a big charity kind of thing and make new houses and everything and also make it sustainable and fully encompassing. It’s not easy emotionally and spiritually for any of us to receive something like that, so it just takes time.

Continuing with Rick’s thoughts on connection to place, context, nature and regionalism, can you discuss the role of lighting design within that including the locality of light and connection. C: It plays a big role dependent on which environment you are working in. So in our studio we approach lighting holistically meaning when we look at what the day lighting does, what the environmental conditions are, and then we respond to it with the electric lighting to balance lighting needs. And that condition changes anywhere and everywhere. If you’re in a northern or very southern latitude where the sun is mobilizing beyond the horizon or is very low in the atmosphere, we have a

very different condition for lower intensities of daylight, whereas if you were on the equator that’s reversed, the sun is very high above us and it has huge implications on the building, the envelopes, the fenestrations and how that is then expressed in the facades and in the in the living conditions or the lifestyle concept and then how that makes its way into opportunities of lighting is very much dependent on how you live on the land to not just culturally but topology wise.

What do you believe in regards to the honesty of lighting design in connection to our contexts? For example, the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale used lighting strategies to mimic Nordic lighting qualities, and so I think that’s something really powerful, but obviously it is kind of a replication of that experience but in Venice. Do you think we should be more honest with our lighting strategies and try to connect us to the place that we’re in or is there a place to create these false atmospheres?

“

Perhaps the most authentic thing that lighting does is it allows you to transcend something that is present. ”

C: If it is about authenticity, then you take an artificial environment like Vegas and every aspect of it is artificially introduced, but then, in itself, it is a fantastical authenticity of man made environments, and it is incredibly convincing. So, is that more fake just because it happens to be a strong concept followed through very, very, well? I wouldn’t want to judge it but I’m saying it’s very authentic to what Vegas wants to be. Whereas, if you go to experience a simulated environment in a Japanese tea ceremony it will be a very authentic environment so all have their appeal and truthfulness. R: I think lighting has a very unique opportunity to really be very personal. C: We all have a very subjective way of seeing and reading light. It connects to memory and connects to our emotions. And, in this very personal way the same light conditioning may

bring about very different feelings for different people. Perhaps the most powerful thing that lighting does is it allows you to transcend something that is present. It’s very powerful in storytelling, in creating and connecting you to your emotions and transcending the very present into something else. That creates connections on different levels that might not be manifest as architecture is very much in a place at a time. R: With the Nordic Pavilion, he (Sverre Fehn) asked to come to Venice and build something that represents Nordic lands right? And so, he chose to bring the light and I think some other country might make a Roman Chapel mini one or something that’s fake but this was bringing the emotional life experience from the Nordic lands from the north, which is a pretty profound experience. I think it’s brilliant and I wish I did it. E: It’s an incredible project, and I think the ability, like you said, of that project to connect us with something that isn’t there and the capacity of lighting design to connect us with us to transcend the things that aren’t inherently architectural is the most profound.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview Amangiri Resort and Spa in Utah by SRJ Image by Joe Fletcher via SRJ

Nordic Pavilion in Venice by Sverre Fehn Image by Åke E:son Lindman via Archdaily

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl Joy

R: I overheard people saying, “Wow! I need to go to Finland, I need to go to Norway and Sweden to see that light.” And it’s a brilliant

project you included and nailed it with your answer- it’s emotion and memory recollection. I could still feel it.

Here, we are recognizing the most significant thing about architecture is its ability to connect us with those emotions and memories. Have the events of the past year changed your outlook on design work? For example, many of our public buildings have become obsolete as our domestic spaces have had to adapt to absorb new programmatic functions. What lasting impacts do you foresee this having on design of public space and domestic space and will that impact your own work and how you think about designing spaces? C: You look at urban planning historically, and you look at how different urban planning is let’s say, for instance in Ancient Greek lifestyle and layouts you have huge public classes and amenities that are public and then the actual residences are very small and compact houses. Public environment is huge, obviously, because the quarters were so small that you would go out into public space to live, work, engage and then you go to the smaller spaces, mostly for sleeping. In American context, you have the inverse. Everything is private and homes are generally rather large with alI amenities part of the home - it’s individualized and the public realm is really reduced. So, then, to take the conversation on how we really need to take care of creating better home environments. For example, open floor plans are not conducive to many people living and working in the same space at all times because there’s so much interference and to look into qualitative space so where there’s a direct correlation with the increase in wellness of creating quality living and working environments. Will it really have a huge impact on how the (public/private) context is designed in American culture? That’s a whole other conversation on how our cities are designed. I don’t know if the pandemic really will have such a huge impact in a short amount of time. I think the impact, mostly, is in improving qualitative parameters of the areas we spend a lot of time like a home or office environment and also the way we structure our daily routines.

make it their own. So people can dine outside and I see this kind of poetic sort of response all around. In terms of my own projects, I think I will be forever designing zoom stages- a place to do the Zoom call sitting down and standing up but i’m finding this real strong urge to just get back to the workplace. I’m not predicting a gigantic change, except for how we are going to reuse some of the buildings that are not going to be used again. Twitter and Google are saying they’re just gonna close their big offices to let people work from home.

R: I do have a lot of mixed thoughts about all this because I grew up in a time when the flu made a big problem for everybody, right? And years later it’s kind of gone - you can get a shot and then go on. I don’t see the pandemic lasting to such a degree that it’s going to change our built environment very much. Now urbanly, I do see it and I see it in Tucson quite a lot because restaurants needed to really open and they’re starting to and what the city worked out is that they could take over the parking spaces in front of their restaurant and put a fence around it and

C: I might want to add to that conversation, there is some really interesting data being made available from the data connections and research departments about the workspace environment specifically and what they found out, is really interesting because in the beginning, when there was a lot of stakeholders and working from home and working remotely, there were a lot of conversations around running a business like is it is it worth to keep the offices or let go of the office and restructure and let everyone work from home. It turns

“ I think the impact, mostly, is in imporiving qualitative parameters of the areas where we spend a lot of time, like a home or office environment, and also the way we structure our daily routines. ” E: Claudia discussed how there will not be a unified global response to the pandemic and, like we said, architecture is a slow moving field, the process of building is very slow and often permanent and so the areas of adaptation and temporary architecture have probably seen the most focused efforts to respond to the pandemic. Maybe there will be a bigger focus domestically on these outdoor public spaces that are more prominent around the world because they have added such value during these times.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

R: Well, just in addition, in a different line of thought it is curious to see how you know my entire experience in architecture has been very social and my real love of going to the office with 35 people and have them all here and I just can’t wait to get there because they’re so switched on. Then seeing my son, Ethan in third year (architecture) at the University of Arizona sitting in a room by himself makes me wonder how that psychology is going to impact the way we think as architects. Can you imagine this happening before Zoom? It’d be a nightmare to figure out how to work so we’re really lucky that this one happened in this time to certain extent, and you know I’m always trying to find positives but i’d be curious to see how a whole generation of young architects working from home, how architecture might just change a little bit.

Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl Joy

Le Cabanon in Turks and Caicos by SRJ and CLL Image by Joe Fletcher via SRJ

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

out that different generations seek different experiences. The younger generations are extremely interested in the culture of working together collaboratively so they would really, really opt for working in an office environment, rather than working remotely and having the flexibility to manage your own home. Whereas, the generation of my age and older is very interested in the flexibility of managing your time and then connecting remotely. I think that’s that’s very, very interesting because it shows us how varied the demographics might be. Businesses with 75 plus employees said that they believe they will never go back to full office employment at 100% but they think it will be probably somewhere 75%.

Karín Santiago a conversation with Meriel Vogliotti

Karín Santiago is one of the Founding Principals of Lightvox Studio, an innovative practice centered on the principles of delight, function, and sustainability. An experiment in crafting a firm out of the desire to provide a high-level of thinking, design sophistication, and sustainability to a broader client base. She studied architecture and Environmental Design at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and relocated to Arizona to pursue a Master of Architecture degree from Arizona State University. Karín completed studies abroad in Frankfurt, Germany and returned to Arizona where she lives and works. Her background is diverse with professional experience that ranges from small residential projects to large and very complex fusion facilities for institutions and universities. Karín’s perspective as a designer/architect can be best described as having a deep sense of respect for the site, local culture, and context. She is actively involved in community work and champions sustainable strategies and projects for all her work intending to generate value for all her clients and people everywhere. She currently leads a team of talented professionals at Lightvox Studio and is an instructor at The Design School’s Architecture and Interior Architecture programs.

building, but where are you in the city? What kind of people do you want to invite into the space? We constantly try to provide spaces that are going to be for everybody, not just the obvious intended user. We should never design with a tabula rasa because we can continue to maintain and reuse some of the elements that are already there, which helps us stay more connected and grounded in history. It’s like there are certain threads of memory that we want to have so as to not start from zero to maintain a level of continuity which, to us, translates into connectivity in the general sense of things being a continuum and not a complete disruption.

Our built environment serves as a connection to the past as we continue to carry the trace of humanity forward. Can you elaborate on the importance of connection in architecture? Architecture is about human beings. It’s not really about the buildings, it is about the people that that are using the space. We’re always interested in not just the immediate intended user but also the greater set of users. So, in that we consider the relationship to Nature and the city and how these aspects of context help us mitigate issues. For example, we’ve worked

“ Architecture is about human beings. It’s not really about the buildings, it is about the people that are using the space. ”

in quite a few places where blighted building exist, so we consider how to make those buildings be part of a positive chain of lifting up certain areas of the city, which translates into safer communities. We’ve seen that in some of the projects that we’ve done, whereby transforming certain spaces and giving them a use, we are able to further connect everybody, not just the users of that space, but rather everybody who’s around so they too can enjoy the benefits of these public spaces. I think it’s important that buildings try to generate a condition that is good for the vast majority of people that it can address.

How do you go about establishing these kinds of connections in your project? Such as the connection to daylight, nature, materials, and the community? Everything follows people. Your need for daylight is irrelevant if you don’t consider the user experience. We are always thinking of how our buildings relate to daylight, function, and then at some level, its social

responsibility. So, we break it into those three categories to try and be successful, but they are all still very much grounded in the enjoyment of the user. You must think about how the material elements of a building

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

“ We should never design with a tabula rasa because we can continue to maintain and reuse some of the elements that are already there, which helps us stay more connected and grounded in history. ”

Karín Santiago

Karín Santiago: That’s a great way to start an interview because we can start to think about buildings through their ability to connect us, and that’s one of the really good ways to engage with the city. Often, its hard within the practice to focus on one single aspect of what you’re doing. With us, for example, we tend to do a lot of work that is a continuation of something, often a pre-existing building that we’re renovating. So, we’re constantly thinking about connection as a way to inspire us to do the work. There are many programmatic components, but buildings always have a fixed location, they are always situated on something. Even with something as simple as retail architecture, connecting with the community becomes very important because the success of those projects comes in understanding that community as well as engaging with their own culture so that the brand can belong there and find meaning. It doesn’t seem like it’s the obvious way to think of connectivity, but I think it’s one of the smart things that architects can try and do. Not just being aware of the immediate vicinity of your

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Meriel Vogliotti: The theme for this issue serves as an effort to spark a conversation around the ability of the built environment to foster connections. My first question for you is how do our buildings connect with each other, connect with their environment, (whether it be physical, social, technological, cultural, political, etc.) and in turn connect us to each other?

are being consumed by the user and I think that’s what we tend to do. Our buildings are connected to Nature regardless, through lighting for example, or the surrounding site and landscape. But the core of our desire is to place the users in a situation where they get to take the benefit of that. So it’s usually not so much about the exterior appearance of our building against the daylight, it is much more about the user experience. I’ve become more aware that, as architects we have a lot of mechanisms that can bring inclusion or exclusion which are available to us. At a very simple level it is where we decide

to put a fence. Is it to keep people out or is it to keep people in? What are we doing with these devices and how are we thinking about them? What is it that they translate into? So, we are constantly trying to filter these things. Like, you know, is it really that bad that skateboarders come to our buildings and want to use them? I don’t necessarily have this idea that there’s a preciousness in an object like that. I think we reap benefits from the most amount of people being able to use these spaces rather than excluding them. I think we can relax about certain things because the more that we can put different groups together, that translates into a better experience for everybody.

How can we find ways to connect with each other and embrace our interpersonal / cross cultural differences in the practice of design?

“ we also try to draw from that

to create these spaces where people can be together and interact in different types of social moments that are less programmed. ” These are super big questions and yet I always think that the simple answers are the ones that have proved to be true. You know, we can write a whole dissertation about cross cultural differences, but the reality is that at the end of the day we are human beings, and our interactions are facilitated very much like humans. We should become more aware of that as we design and think about every single device in a building as an opportunity to not just default to what has always been done before, but instead make more of an effort to make things visible and open to the public whenever possible. I think owners tend to discount the idea of creating outdoor spaces that are inviting to users outside of your demographic because of the safety concern

that can be drawn from having people hang out in your in your building. We see that a lot in some of our public buildings, like university or campus buildings. But we try to be very efficient with many of our planning moves, not just because it factors into being functional, but because it’s for the main purpose of developing really good quality open spaces wherever we can. So, there is a play of how efficient we can be, where we have to design small offices or classrooms for a reason , but we also try to draw from that to create these spaces where people can be together and interact in different types of social moments that are less programmed. And it can be simple, like tiny spaces or bigger spaces. It doesn’t really matter. It is finding room in a stair so that you can hang out on the landing, you know, it doesn’t really have a rule, it’s more of a way of thinking. Because it’s in the moments of rest or moments where we’re sort of distracted or daydreaming, if you will, that are really good moments for us to learn. So, we think about that when we’re doing buildings for campuses.

It’s the micro spaces that lead to those seemingly insignificant moments throughout the day that are actually really fundamental and I think that’s what we’ve missed so much about existing in public spaces this past year. Nobody misses being in the classroom necessarily, I think what we miss is that moment where you’ve bumped into your friend at Charlie’s and you just had a really good fiveminute chat, you know that’s where we really make those connections. Those are the things that we remember.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview House on Marion by Lightvox Studio Image via Lightvox Studio

The Marylin by Lightvox Studio Image via Lightvox Studio

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Karín Santiago

Have the events of the past year changed your outlook on urban design and your work at Lightvox? For example, many of our public buildings have become obsolete as domestics spaces have adapted to absorb new programmatic functions. What lasting impacts do you foresee this having on the design of public and domestic spaces? Ben, my partner, and I are of the mindset that really the only constant is change. Our job involves being constantly on the lookout for these changes so we can continue to adapt, and I think that the pandemic is sort of like a super highlighter on some of these issues. But even before then, resilience has always been a very high priority for buildings, in terms of flexibility and reuse, meaning that they need to become much more adaptable. We need to really be thinking about flexibility within our building so that we’re not demoing and rebuilding constantly. We need to start lending buildings a lot more flexibility which is a hard thing to do because buildings are by Nature hard locked in sort of Pentacles. This is an opportunity to rethink how we use older buildings, and to me this is very exciting. I think our sustainability goals can start to be met when we realize that we need less of these formal spaces that deplete our cities resources and instead create more informal public spaces that are flexible. We’re already seeing a greater urgency for change at a government level about things like climate change and many things that I personally am very concerned about and that we think about in our work, so we’re constantly thinking about these inevitable changes. So, it doesn’t really affect how we practice but obviously, the concerns are different when

designing for a pandemic. But we can take the example of schools. Before the 1950’s, we had schools that were way better equipped to handle pandemics and then we began to go down this path where schools became more closed in with less windows until they became bunkers that we have realized are not that great at dealing with viruses and things that are floating in the air, so we were much better off having the windows. We knew that in the 1920s when we built with the flu pandemic, but we have this amnesia that happens when we fall asleep at the wheel. So, the thing is that we need to be more empowered to drive those ideas to clients. I think as architects we need to be more on a mission to get things done while being less prone to just acquiescing to the norm. We really need to take this as an opportunity to say, you know, we’ve been right in some ways all along about this and we need to continue to push and experiment how we to make our public spaces better.

“ I think our sustainability goals can start to be met when we realize that we need less of these formal spaces that deplete our cities resources and instead create more informal public spaces that are f lexible. ”

Do you hold the belief that architects have a strong social responsibility? I think we have a lot of power relative to the conversation. I don’t agree or accept the notion that we’re subject to these forces because there’s a lot that we can still do and we need to take that responsibility with a lot more Gusto, if you will. For example, we just had a very drastic change in our government. We went from four years of over protecting our assets and that led to changes in terms of regulations for climate change. There is a very sharp line has been drawn and, you know, I think the current

administration is trying to induce all of those things so they’re a little emboldened. I think that that is true all the way down to everybody and the world should feel a little bit that way. And the reason why I say this is because we’re now finally over that hump where people thought that nobody’s ever going to buy an electric car. for example. So, these things have been slowly pushing, and we’re going to get there. So, I think the prime right now is right for us to feel that that responsibility and to start to act on it.

The global issues have many moving parts so it’s important to focus on what you can do to contribute to a future with real progress. What I don’t accept is that you can’t do anything about it, right? That’s a completely poor attitude. If you’re if you’re in a position where you have anything to do with the built environment, you can at least pick one

thing to do better every time. It doesn’t have to be everything, you don’t have to address everything at once, but you should always make it a point to tackle at least one thing that you think could be better.

We do very poorly for women in general as a society. Women typically have two full time jobs, and that’s really the reason why women end up leaving. The job of caregiver and on top of that being an architect, which happens to be a super difficult profession in terms of just the intellectual horsepower that it requires. You’re constantly thinking, and it requires silence as well as the ability to focus and zone in. So, we put women in a very difficult position across society, but for architects it’s even more heightened. And it gets to a point where many women say “well, maybe I’m just better off not even trying.” And I know that very well, I know that for myself! I remember when I became pregnant in a big firm, it was basically like having The Scarlet Letter in your forehead, its the kiss of death. You’re no longer going to be in the profession. I think that’s unacceptable. It took me starting

I think that it is great that we are having the conversation, but it requires people really taking it on because there’s too many people not willing to because its iffy. There’s almost too much of this “I don’t want to upset anyone” and you know, I kind of feel the opposite. I want people to be a little upset about these things, let’s light a fire about it and see if we can get stuff done.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

my own practice to be able to find a way to deal with that and that was my way to handle it. Other people have different approaches and that’s perfectly fine, but because of my personal experience, I have a very different sense of urgency on the issue. I want to make sure that women who work with us feel as if they have a sense of balance in their career. But generally, we do not see childcare and paid leave as a priority like that. They are a lot of issues compounded that we need to be very truthful about because the fact is that this affects women disproportionately and it has to be corrected. And the United States historically has not been there, so I also I think it’s a cultural thing as well. When you look at the overall arc of how this issue has progress here, some people see feminism as kind of an evil word. I do not see it like that, and I think we all need to become feminists and start to advocate for women because part of the reason why women are not at the upper tiers in the field is not necessarily the fault of one firm. This is a much bigger cultural problem and I think the industry can do a lot more to address it.

Karín Santiago

I came of age, grew up, and went to school at a time when architecture was super heavily male dominated and yet in school when I was doing my undergrad, we were pretty much 50/50, and sometimes even more women than men. But that thing where women kind of fall away from the position of being in the profession is very true. And in my own experience, I always sort of laugh when I see a headline in some article saying ‘why are women leaving the profession’, like you seriously have to ask this? This is not a question. Everybody knows exactly why and this is not just within architecture.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

I wanted to touch on the Women in Architecture Exhibition that you’ve been invited to participate in. You are a strong presence in regard to gender equality in design, do you think you could speak on your experiences with these events and more generally how gender inequality has presented itself throughout your academic and professional career?

Nenwe Geeso a conversation with Ashley Ontiveros

Nenwe Geeso is a current fifth year graduate student, nurturing the roots to her architectural studies. As a former undergraduate student, she understands the roots to design fundamentals, and is now a teaching assistant for ALA 226, where she brings together her knowledge and experience to connect with students. Sprouting into the field of architecture, she is preparing to begin her internship at Orcutt | Winslow located in Phoenix. Through her design work, she tries to find ways to bridge her passion for architecture with her Assyrian culture, f lourishing new opportunities to explore.

evokes an emotion. Already a connection is built between us and the building. ”

You mention there is an unspoken connection that happens with buildings, then why do you think connection is important in architecture? Tying this my current passion for plants, seeds can’t grow into beautiful plants without water, good soil, sun, and pollination; the same cycle happens with architecture because connection is as vital to architecture. It’s like this ongoing cycle. Without connections, architecture cannot grow. If we don’t feel connected to a building or one that isn’t being utilized, then

the building is likely to be destroyed. If the building isn’t connected to the site around it, it isn’t working. Essentially, all of architecture thrives through connection. The same can be thought of human connection with architecture because if you aren’t emotionally attached to a building-design, that building won’t be utilized or existent to its full potential.

Is there a project of yours that holds a significant connection to you personally? I believe it was my first semester fourth year in my undergraduate studies; we were assigned to study concrete or precast concrete. Our project statement was open for us to decide whatever we wanted to design at any site in the world. It was completely up to us. The only constraint was to utilize pre-cast concrete. So, I decided with my teammate, Alexandra Patrick, to work on a project where I got to bring in my cultural background, which is Assyrian. I chose to design a community center in Iraq, designed specifically for Assyrians. I never thought I would be able to design something so close to me or something that meant so much. I am probably the only Assyrian in my class, perhaps in the entire Design School. There aren’t many of us around, and I just happened to have this opportunity to connect with my identity through this project. So, my partner and I picked a site in Iraq, a city where many Assyrians used to live. With previous

“ Culture is a part of you, who you are, and there’s no reason to deny that; it only makes for better design. ” persecutions and genocides, close to the time when ISIS had attacked many Assyrian villages in the middle east, this city had lost many of its Assyrian citizens. While doing research for the project, we learned how much had happened with this community of people in the Middle East: they were one of the first civilizations in that area within the country, but they had been almost wiped out and now dispersed throughout the world. I feel like I’m constantly bringing it up- being an Assyrian. Sometimes, I think my classmates and those around me have probably heard my story about a thousand times, but we have been put

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

“ Walking into a building already

their environment since they allow the site to influence their design. As for the technological, political, cultural connection to buildings, these concepts share the idea of a problem. Buildings are the solutions to these problems in fact. Walking into a building already evokes an emotion; already a connection is built between us and the building. It’s like there is this unspoken language when you walk into a space because the moment you walk into a space that is bright and green and spaced, you already feel your mood change; you are happy; you want to be in that building; you want to spend time there. These bright and well-designed buildings spaces allow us to connect to each other because those spaces provoke emotions of wanting to be there and gather with others to be in that space.

Nenwe Geeso

Nenwe Geeso: I believe buildings, like humans, learn from each other. They connect with each other throughout history: each building learns from the past and instantly forms a other wordly connection. There is a lot to learn from one building, either from the technology that is used or the different use of materials; the next buidling will also carry on and improve from the others. The connection is from building to building. Buildings are a major part of our surroundings; they connect to

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Ashley Ontiveros: I’m excited to hear your response, so I want to start with the question how do buildings connect with each other, connect with their enviroment (physically, socially, techonologically, culturally, politically, etc), connect with us, and connect us to each other?

SITE ANALYSIS

ERBIL, IRAQ

ASSYRIAN CULTURE ISLAMIC CULTURE KURDISH CULTURE

CITADEL

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Excitement. Especially when I’m first given a project statement or the problem we are to solve, I just get butterflies in my stomach. I’m not sure if that is from nerves or excitement. Once I do start, I’m constantly asking myself questions : “should I be doing this, should I be doing that? What is this idea going to provoke? How are others going to feel about the site and kind of space I am to create?” Let me think back a little, at the time I was designing the Community Center for Assyrians, although I was excited to be designing something like this, sometimes I had moments of fear of not being able to produce the right thing.

I would think “am I doing this correctly; is this going to benefit the way I want it to. If I were to present this to people in my community, what would they think?” It was these moments of question that I think a lot of us go through. Something that I’ve learned and continue to learn is that you kind of have to consider those, but you can’t let the those thoughts hold you back. Unless you get that initial idea out and trail it, you will be able to move forward and create better iterations, or improve on it. I truly believe if we didn’t have deadlines, we could continue designing forever; that’s why we need them.

One last question- this is more abstract. When you think of architecture, what is the first vivid image of word that comes to mind? I don’t want to sound cliche because the whole journal is based on this idea, but for me, connection is the one word that comes to mind. When I think architecture, I think connection. I would also say solution. I have always had a passion for teaching, and growing up, I would always find myself going in circles

about my career choice: to become a teacher? a lawyer? or an engineer? I ended up studying architeecture, which I believe I am able to combine all of those desires. Architecture is a place where I can merge all of those qualities in my life as one complete connection.

Nenwe Geeso

While designing, what goes through your mind? What emotions flow through you from your hand to pencil or from mind to mouse?

Interview

being Assyrian. Therefore, this project made me reflect on finding ways to constantly bring up and connect with my work, but I think architecture has only been a way for me to be a stronger advocate and bring an awareness about Assyrian identity and culture.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

in a position where there are people who try to erase us from history. I remember I sat through one of my classes in 10th grade, and my AP World History teacher mentioned that Assyrians no longer existed while we were briefly mentioned in the one paragraph of the entire textbook. I had to raise my hand, signaling that here I existed,

Michelle Fehler a conversation with Brennan Richards

Michelle is a Biomimicry Professional and a Visual Communication Designer who is passionate about connecting Nature’s strategies to design. Her goal is to enable designers to tap into this vast database of inspiration in order to find innovative and creative solutions. Her research focuses on defining a life-centered design thinking methodology that allows the infusion of biomimicry thinking into the traditional human-centered design process. She is looking at various tools and processes that make the biomimetic approach more accessible to designers.

I completely agree, the odd thing I’ve found is that the pandemic has stopped us from connecting and communicating with other people, but it has also forced a lot of people to reconnect with nature. I couldn’t see my friends, but I could go sit in my backyard. The pandemic has forced a lot of people to come back to nature, because there are things that we can still do, like hiking and going for walks. I remember when the pandemic started I was in California, and I had never seen any of my neighbors before, but everyone was sitting in their front lawn with their families. I feel that it’s been very unique in that a lot of people have been forced to sort of isolate from each other, but returned to nature, so I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Yes, the idea of freedom gardens came up, where people are planting their own food. This is something that we can do to ensure our food supply. This is very restorative and it’s a great

way to tap into your surroundings. People could try to have a basil plant in a pot and by just watering it every day, allows us to connect with.

Organisms communicate and connect in millions of different ways, what are some of the most fascinating methods of communication that can be seen in nature? So there’s all kinds of different senses, and even more senses than we have as humans. As humans, we have our hearing, we have our sight, we have touch, we have taste, we have smell, and there are some organisms that also leverage those senses, but they have also other senses. For example, there are seabirds that have a magnetic capacity to tap into the earth’s magnetic field so they always know how and where to migrate to. Also, for example, water striders work with vibrations, elephants as well use vibrations to communicate the location of others, to communicate danger, and to communicate resources. If they find a watering hole they can let their peers know that there is something there, and to come to join them. There’s a lot of different senses that

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

from home depending on what people’s needs are. Some people like to be active outdoors, so hiking, running, biking, and kayaking are great ways to relieve stress. Watching documentaries, tapping into the resources that we find online, YouTube videos, BBC, PBS, all have really great documentaries that talk about the natural world. There are a lot of different ways to connect with nature from home, and I think the most important part is to keep in mind that we don’t have to go on a long hike in order to connect with nature, it’s possible to just open up the window and take five minutes to look at a tree, see what is happening outside, or watch the flowers come up now and watch the bees go from one flower to another. It can be a very simple gap in your day to connect with nature from home.

“ There’s a lot of different sense that we might not have tapped into as a species yet. ” we might not have tapped into as a species yet. Our human eyes are limited in what kind of color wavelengths we can see, but other species tap into the UV colors. Our vision only recognizes 0.0035 percent of the full electromagnetic spectrum, other species can tap into way more, to see each other and to communicate with each other.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Michelle Fehler: There is a lot of change that has happened, especially during the pandemic, in terms of how we communicate with each other, what we do, and how we live our lives. Hopefully, people have found ways to find moments to sit in their homes and look outside and perhaps watch the birds that they might normally not see. There are a lot of really great tools on how to connect with nature: The Biomimicry Institute at the beginning of the pandemic put out a set of prompts that people can tap into on how to make it fun to go outside, there are different activities that they prompt, looking for a specific color outside or looking for specific shapes or looking for specific connections between species outside. Some of them are drawing, some are photography, some of them are just writing observations, so there’s a lot of different methods of connecting with nature

Michelle Fehler

Brennan Richards: There’s been a huge shift in the past year in terms of how we communicate and connect with other people, and one of the most important aspects of biomimicry is reconnecting to and observing nature. How can people continue to connect with and observe nature from the safety of their own homes?

I was reading about the mantis shrimp, that has sixteen different color cones, while humans have just three. It’s interesting to think of the color spectrums that exist which our minds can’t understand because we can only interpret color through the way that we see color. It is super interesting, and there are images out there that are taken of flowers that illustrate how the flower looks to a bee. They are so beautiful and stunning because it’s new to us, but if you go outside and you look at what kind of wildflowers are coming up right now, you can look at the colors and you can kind of predict which pollinator will be the one to pollinate the flowers. There are certain pollinators that like to have the magentas, like hummingbirds love magentas, and then the bees that might be drawn to orange, yellows, and reds, and then there is the white color, which attracts the night

pollinators like bats and beetles. We could be tapping into those nuances on what it means to see a color, because nature doesn’t just put out randomness, nature has a specific goal and is very exact in how it does what it does because it’s expensive to do anything in nature. There’s always a reason for what is happening in nature.

“ There’s always a reason for what is happening in nature. ”

Are there any biomimetic methods of communication that we use now as humans that we might not be aware of?

“

We are nature, some of our behavior comes from being part of nature, so in a way, everything we do in order to not soil the surroundings and nourish the surroundings is biomimetic. ” We are nature, some of our behavior comes from being part of nature, so in a way everything we do in order to not soil the surrounding and nourish the surroundings is biomimetic.

Michael J. Cohen defined 54 natural senses in his research we as humans have, but are not aware of all the time. If you think about it, the sense of gravity, the sense of direction, sense of pressure, there were several of them that I find very interesting that we all tap into but not consciously. There might be some explorations that we could look into, and how especially architecture can tap into those senses specifically, allowing us to experience them in a more conscious way. We can feel them, but we do it unconsciously right now.

I definitely feel that awareness because when we meet some people we have this intuition about them, but you can’t say exactly what you’re going off of. I think the process of us as a species starting to understand those senses might improve our lives, because we could have a more full understanding of how we interpret the world. I think one way we could practice this already without the research is to take away our main sense which is vision. If you take away the vision, and you walk around the world blind, you depend on many other senses to guide you. There’s an exercise that we do in biomimicry where we have people pair up, and it is with somebody that you trust, but you have a blindfolded person, and the other person guides that person through nature from one plant to another. It allows us to experience

nature in a different way, and so you could actually for the first time really touch plants and experience them completely differently than from if your vision was engaged. I think those experiences are always very fun, there’s a lot of giggling and laughing going on when we do that. It’s very fun to experience those senses that are not trained anymore, our ancestors needed to tap into those senses way more than we do, because we chose to take vision and hearing as the main senses.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview Michelle Fehler

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Photography by Craig P Burrows. Photographer isolates the UV spectrum to show an abstracted speculation of how f lowers may be highlighted to bees using the UV spectrum available to human eyes.

Dongwoo Jason Yeom a conversation with Dellan Raish

Dongwoo (Jason) Yeom is a researcher and educator who has a strong interest in human-building integration, highperformance building, and sustainable building design. He has conducted multiple experimental research on sustainable design, building performance analysis, indoor environment quality (IEQ), and human-building integration. At ASU, he is conducting multidisciplinary research, which investigates the relationship between the indoor environment, human physiological responses, and occupant’s productivity as well as the methodology to use human physiological signals as an indoor environment control factor. Based on his works, Dr. Yeom has published multiple papers in prestigious journals, including Building and Environment, Energy and Buildings, and Indoor and Built environment. Yeom received his Ph.D., MS, and BS from the Department of Architecture at Ajou University in Korea and conducted his postdoctoral research at California State Polytechnic University Pomona and the University of Southern California. Prior to joining ASU, he has worked as an assistant professor of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. He is an active member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Airconditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE), Building Technology Educator’s Society (BTES), and Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA).

In a sort of conventional approach, the connection between human and building, there was not a significantly intimate connection. In the building engineering perspective when you think about the thermal and visual comfort, we have a control. For example, we had a control you can turn on the AC you can turn on the heater or you can turn on the light, so that you can kind of create an optimal environment for you. I cannot really call it as a connection it’s something like a function. In these days, because of all the technologies

like IoT (Internet of Things), sensors and smartphones, we start to have some sort of intimate relationship between human and building. Very simple example is that you walk into your office and it recognizes you, turns on the lights and turns on the radio. If you have one of those smart sensors system like Alexa or Google home etc, then you just walk in and ‘Hey Alexa, do something’. There we actually start to make some relationship and connection with the building which then works in favor of what we’re doing in that building. It will provide a better resting environment for the bathroom, a living room, a personalized environment for the optimal work. I think that becomes more and more important, these days that’s how the building creates a connection with humans.

“Based on the research, people spend

almost 90% of their time in indoor environments...it becomes more and more important how we control and provide those optimal environments.”

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Jason Yeom: Considering my expertise related to my research, I would like to answer in the perspective of connections between buildings and human. In an old fashioned way we use the building as a shelter to have protection but it’s not just about the physical form. These days it becomes more and more important about the protection against climate. It becomes a place where we work and live. Based on the research, people these days spend almost 90% of their time in the indoor environments so that becomes more and more important how to control and provide those optimal environments.

Interview

Dellan Raish: How do our buildings connect with each other, connect with their environments, connect with us, and connect us to each other?

If you ask 100 faculty members you’ll probably get 100 different opinions about that one. In my case I think that’s what makes architecture and building special. I can interpret connection as a relationship, then architecture and building can be a tool to generate and increase the relationship between people. The physical form of the building can also create a relationship between the artificial form. The building is something man made versus nature, so that relationship can be generated and developed through this architecture, especially when we think about the human.

The relationship between human and building... conventionally a very long time ago humans started living in the caves just to get some safety and protection against nature and predators. That’s evolved into the current form of architecture. We’re also looking for some other meaning in the architecture so it evolved in that we’ve been taking that pathway. It just becomes more and more important. It’s not just about the shelter anymore it became a workspace, it became a place to be connected with someone else, or it became a place to explore something new.

Dongwoo Jason Yeom

What is the importance of connection and architecture?

Although I experienced a lot of different East Asian cultures, then in Michigan, which is very different from the west coast and Arizona. The core of my interest, I can say that it was within thermal comfort. Based on the culture, based on the geological location, based on the technology or the accessible materials. The materials that I was able to use in Korea will be

very different from the things that I can get in Michigan, Arizona, California. Although I had the same interest in thermal comfort, the approach was limited based on those accessible materials or the cultural differences. For example, in Korea 99% of our heating system in the home is a radiant floor. Absolutely zero basements.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Could you speak on any cultural differences relating to connection and architecture? How has your experiences globally changed the way you think about the building user relationship?

In the end, the goal is the same. We want to be in a thermally comfortable environment in any building. The way we approach is based on the materials, based on your how you were educated, how you are grown. That can create all kinds of diversity.

So for me, it was very interesting to come from those cultures and then adapt those knowledge and experiences into teaching at ASU. It is an interesting exchange of knowledge and experience.

What were your findings when connecting the building and user through technology? Was there differences in occupant productivity in a workplace setting? Again, a conventional approach in architectural engineering is where they calculate and try to predict and provide optimum indoor lighting environment and thermal environment. The rule of thumb was, let’s say you put one hundred people in the wind one room and then, if 80% of that people say this is comfortable, then you can say you guarantee that that room is well managed, well controlled. It could be visual or it could be thermal. That was a conventional approach, but we all know that everybody has a different comfortable range. I don’t know about you, but in my case, I prefer a little colder environment. My parents, especially my mother, always complained that ‘your room is just way too cold’ and then in early summer, she said, ‘this is perfect weather’ but I was already sweating inside the home, so I had to turn on the AC when she tried to turn it off. Everybody feels differently thermally, visual comfort is the same thing. So how do we, in these days, evolve this technology when each individual’s opinions are getting more and more attention. The recent theme is how we can provide personalized environments, how we can provide optimal environments for each individual instead of being complacent with 80% approval.

“The recent theme is how we can provide personalized environments, how we can provide optimal environments for each individual instead of being complacent with 80% approval.” My research was focusing on collecting all those the physiological signals like your skin temperature, your heart rate, your gender differences, your body mass, body type etc. Everyone’s body works in different ways so collecting those signals to try and predict how, lets say, your forehead skin temperature is x then, if your heart rate is y, you will feel cold, slightly chilly, or comfortable. Based on that information, we can actually customize the thermal or the visual environment to connect to the user. You may think that if your room is normally comfortable, then you may feel that it would be the ideal temperature for my maximum productivity. Actually, the results showed that when you feel comfortable, that doesn’t guarantee your maximum productivity. The result was improved productivity when you feel slightly cold, slightly chilly. The testers score was actually the best meaning that you’re probably more alert, more stimulated.

What about visual comfort? Were there any results on the indoor lighting environment? About the visual comfort, it is a known fact that when it is a brighter environment in general, human’s productivity is higher than a dark environment. However, when we talk about that brightness, some people prefer an ambient bright. Some people prefer dark room where they have only one super bright desk lamp. That

can enable users to be laser focused. So there was a lot of personal preferences and bias. Based on those findings, then trying to collect those personal differences, recreate, and predict future data in the effort to maximize your productivity or physical performance.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview Yeom, Dongwoo & Choi, Joon-Ho. (2017). Study of data-driven thermal sensation prediction model as a function of local body skin temperatures in a built environment.

Yeom, Dongwoo & delogu, Franco. (2019). Thermal preferences and cognitive performance estimation via user’s physiological responses.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Dongwoo Jason Yeom

Paul Coseo a conversation with Ananth Udupa

Dr. Coseo is an Assistant Professor, Sustainability Scientist, and Licensed Landscape Architect at Arizona State University s (ASU) The Design School. He is an optimistic designer and researcher with a love of urban landscapes and weather. Growing up in metro Detroit, he witnessed how social forces drive not only the development of great public spaces but also urban decline that leads to extreme environmental inequity. At ASU, he examines the intersection of urban climate and design through 1) ecological, 2) climate justice, and 3) social learning lenses. His background in meteorology, landscape architecture, and urban planning allows him to not only focus on the drivers of extreme temperatures in cities (i.e. driven by the built environment and global climate change), but more importantly on the strategies to create more thermally comfortable and equitable cities. Paul argues for pushing past the term mitigation or strategies to simply reduce temperature extremes to a new concept of Urban Climate Design that advocates more holistically designing better and more moderate urban climates for cities. Urban Climate Design moves past simply being less bad and moves toward improving a city s thermal environment, quality of life, health, and equity of thermal outcomes. Thus, Urban Climate Design involves issues of justice through equitable, inclusive, and accessible social learning design and research processes. His research areas extend from the analysis of social and ecological drivers of extreme temperatures to design processes that address those drivers to monitoring of implemented strategies.

landscapes or other environments. I think there’s a movement towards recognizing the fact that we can design those relationships, we can design those connections, as part of the work that we do in more meaningful ways. We can co-create the built environment with people, from housing to communities to cities. The access to the critical information that we need is really through those relationships.

I completely agree with that, and also I feel research into urban climates is a specific topic that acts on these grander topics of inclusion. Could you speak more on the application of your research on urban heat island and heat vulnerability? I’ve learned a lot of my lessons through being part of this larger conversation around extreme heat and how extreme heat affects people. Much of the work probably, since the 1960s around urban heat island and understanding how heat affects cities has been around remote sensing and instrumentation taking surface temperatures air temperatures and now increasingly means raising temperatures Less work has been done on people’s personal thermal comfort and how that ranges within our communities. For instance, people who have to use public transportation or don’t have access to air conditioning, in many cases, are also the people who cannot afford quality housing with insulation and HVAC. So, they are exposed to high air temperatures, particularly in the desert and have to spend their time, if they don’t have a car, walking. That accumulation of heat is a real challenge, and we have, as researchers, access to information, air temperature, surface

“ The contextual nature of a problem is really critical and known as why you do community work in terms of design and planning. ”

temperature, mean radiant temperature, and we also have public health records that we can look at in terms of county-level and statelevel data, going down to the zip code. So, I am seeing a need in the urban climate research community to do more community-based, experiential documentation more thoroughly. There’s a project that was created a few years ago, which is still going on today, called Nature’s Cooling System. One of the key partners was the Nature Conservancy along with ASU and some other nonprofits. But, they came together to work in three different neighborhoods in Edison Eastlake, in Mesa Care, and then a neighborhood in South Phoenix to do some of the hard community work with meetings, organizing, and building around problem identification and solutions. Coming from the outside, we might think that tree planting is the best solution but you might need something else specific to the participating communities. What that project showed is that there was a diversity in both the identified problems of heat and the experience of thermal comfort in those neighborhoods as people move throughout their daily experience.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

“ I see the work we do as designers as less about creating, especially from an education and research perspective, and more towards a co-creating process with the community. ”

Paul Coseo

Paul Coseo: My background is in meteorology, landscape architecture, and urban planning. And so, I’m certainly influenced by all of those professions and the experiences that I’ve had within them. I see the work we do as designers as less about creating, especially from an education and research perspective, and more towards a co-creating process with the community, where it creates a leveling field with a horizontal power structure putting community members on equal footing in terms of their expertise with designers. One key skill designers need is to be able to have the ability to build relationships. Like I was just in a meeting just before that came on here. Those relationships then allow you access to the critical information you need as the designer to help then use some of the skills that you, you have maybe a bit overemphasized in the past, spatial skills, constructing buildings or

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Ananth Udupa: The principal question around this year’s issue is the methods to which we interact with each other and understanding the intricacies of community, but also the approach towards design. So, what is the importance of connection and architecture and also the relevance of interdisciplinary collaboration design for you?

And then that the solutions were different, the strategies to cool the neighborhood were necessarily different and you know that wouldn’t be a big surprise for people who do community development or planning. The contextual nature of a problem is critical and known as why you do community work in terms of design and planning. With heat, it’s maybe less acknowledged and it’s becoming more

and especially because heat is very subjective. We all have different thermal sensitivity, in terms of our physiology and psychology even. So there are real complexities that we’re just starting to learn about. And then people live experiences so different so all those things come together to require that work that’s more community embedded as part of how we designed cooler neighborhoods.

A lot of what you just spoke on ties into your service-based design projects in academia. You had done some work in Detroit with a service-learning studio with the University of Michigan and I had read the journal article which was published regarding it. So, I was wondering if you could talk about that studio and also what came out of it. Yes, that project was very influential in defining what I do here at ASU. At the time, I was in my Ph.D. as a doctoral student and was lucky enough to be a part of a cohort of doctorate students that were part of a fellowship, and one of the things we had to do for the fellowship was a community service activity. Some of the other cohorts before us had done international types of service and we felt pretty strongly that our backyard was often ignored, and that there were environmental justice issues that people at the University of Michigan didn’t even know about. They might know about someplace in Africa, but they don’t know what was happening in Detroit. We felt pretty strongly that that was wrong; the people needed to know about their place and their role in that place. So, we worked with my advisor, Larissa Larson, who headed up a class and we created a new class that took a year, I think, to create the class called sustainable neighborhoods. Dr. Larson led the class and then she had five Ph.D. students that were sort of the TAs. We helped construct the class; it was eight weeks at the University of Michigan to do prep work. We had an application process, so 70 students applied, and we took 25, making sure it was a diverse team of students. We had weekly classes from January through March before spring break, and then we went to and stayed in Detroit for two weeks in May. And we were partnered with a local nonprofit, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, which was working with Dr. Larson for a long while. So, we were privileged enough to be able to go into that into the Community called Del Rey, which has the most polluted air in terms of air pollution and is the most polluted zip code in Michigan and help that community. We set up two workshops; we had stations within the Community Center and since we were there for about two weeks, we went through and

documented how many vacant lots were there, how many homes that were abandoned that and were still standing and they didn’t have any mapping of any of that. Mapping is kind of a critical piece of a lot of this work because things are just not documented in communities and especially this community was low income and marginalized so they didn’t have a lot of resources. And so, we were able to come in and provide those resources and the students were able to then learn about sustainable neighborhoods in a grounded approach. What you’ll see in that article is how their conceptions of sustainability changed once the students were taught by community members. When they went and participated in those conversations, they realized that the biggest sustainability issue wasn’t air pollution or lack of trees, but rather the trash pickup, the lighting of the street. In that neighborhood, the drug crisis hit that neighborhood so hard that neighbors resorted to sometimes burning down their neighbors’ abandoned houses because the city wouldn’t take them down and they were drug dens. So, there were a lot of pragmatic lessons that the students learned as a part of that. And I think that’s why I teach the way that I do because I understand that it’s really important to learn these theories, but it’s also important to ground them in an experience of a community The product of that studio was certainly the students learning and grounding their perspectives on sustainability because of this project. But the other piece was for the community. In service-learning models, there should be a reciprocal outcome. So, for the students, it was that and for the community, it was really that they had documentation of their neighborhood and a relative plan that was developed with the process for the new bridge

on trust, reciprocity, and accountability for what we’re doing and how we work. ”

I would like to pivot to discuss your work in Hawaii as well. Especially the research and community outreach with indigenous knowledge systems and water systems. What was the project about? For me, I’m a constant learner. I see myself more in this role now than I did before explicitly because of my work in Hawaii and that sort of continues and the work that I’ll describe in a second. It is sort of a coincidence that we started to work in Hawaii. Some partners were interested at ASU and we got matched with some grants and had some studios that went over. To the partnering nonprofit’s credit, they had a very strong understanding of how community work should be done and with an approach of listening. For me, we were outsiders in terms of Hawaii, but it also made me realize that we’re almost always outsiders in the work we do as architects and designers. Being always that learner on that person that needs to be educated in terms of how the neighborhood works and so going to Hawaii. That was emphasized by our community partner, who said that you certainly can ask questions, but this is really for you to listen. So, we went on a

listening tour in and around Honolulu and it was amazing. It was the first time that I had been in a space where the western approaches to design and understanding and language were not predominant. The Hawaiian language and concepts were at the forefront of the way that they work, and what I learned is that it was, at least since 1975, when that development occurred, the reemergence of Hawaiian culture and language and concepts and the integration of that into how people work in Hawaii was very influential in my journey toward how I’m learning and how I work. I want to learn from that and start to work in that space here at ASU. One thing I have learned, as well, that, as a white guy, the way I can kind of translate that to Arizona is to use my you know white power privilege to make

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interview

The translation to Phoenix would be that you can drive down some of these streets and some of these extremely hot neighborhoods and see that there are no trees: it’s no “aha” moment when you know it’s hot. But, the work that we’re trying to do here is combining all the different measures of heat and really show that this is a public health problem and people are dying and people are suffering and also they’re spending more money. So even just documenting that hopefully makes decision-makers pay attention and certainly morally, they should, because these are dangerous neighborhoods in many cases for heat. I’ve also learned when you’re working with communities as well, it’s a delicate balance that we as academics and people at the university have to be held accountable by the community as well so that we’re not doing things that are extractive. That’s why there’s a focus on trust, reciprocity, and accountability for what we’re doing and how we work. I think we always need to be reflective of our work and what kind of potential harm we could potentially have as part of the process.

Paul Coseo

“ That’s why there’s a focus

lesson I take away from that experience is that the important work that we do as academics is not only to teach our students and show them different kinds of community process ways but then also provide the key resource for the community to embed and have a better quality of life, to understand issues like heat or air pollution.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

that was coming in that was going to cost 2 billion dollars. We were in partnership with an environmental group called Community Benefits Agreement who said that if we were going to use public funds to invest in a neighborhood, in this case investing in the infrastructure of a bridge, the community that’s burdened by that bridge, which already has a lot of air pollution problems, should benefit as well. So the contract is between the community coalition that comes around that gets developed and the bridge, in this case, the state of Michigan or the federal government, that was building the bridge to take a portion of the cost of the bridge and invest in community infrastructure. Which could mean jobs, air pollution controls for the trucks, or new trees. So, we came up with a relatively simple plan that documented what a community wanted, so that they could use that then as their “ask” from the State in terms of the community benefits agreement. And these community benefit agreements have been done in other parts of the country, but the outcome was to provide the neighborhood with the necessary documentation they need for their ask. That’s a

space for that type of work here by others, by our indigenous architects, designers, and members of the community. So, that’s what I’ve started to do in the work that we’re doing with the City of Tempe. Elevating the necessity to do that is something that I can do now. I certainly can’t do the work but I can be an ally in that work; that’s what I’ve learned, you know, particularly working in Hawaii. We’ve been there since 2016 and we’re still working there. We’re part of a NOAH grant and we’re working with the Manoa Heritage Center, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and in a partnership with some other folks that are based there. And we have been working with a Teachers professional development grant for K through 12 on environmental issues in the watershed and thinking about STEM. The University of Hawaii in Manoa has developed a new type of stem that adds in social science and sense of

place to that and this is part of the foundation of the program they do these “learning journeys” where all of us are both teachers and learners and so that role can go back and forth, and we don’t have to have a hierarchical sort of system that we’re always learning. So, we’ve been on a learning journey and then trying to bring that back and that concept of a learning journey work, we might be into trying to integrate that into our work with the city of Tempe on heat. So you can see sort of the cross-pollination between all these different projects and how it always seems messy and unintentional and in many cases that is right. I think whatever we’re doing sticks with us and they’re always tapping me on the shoulder and saying “you remember you did that right?”, and then the things that maybe aren’t as important, just fall away over time.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

I love this question because I continually think about this and I, when we went online on March 16 of last year, I said to my class that this is going to disrupt and change our relationships. I didn’t realize how long it would be, I had maybe a sense it wouldn’t be the two weeks as he would have told us it was going to be, but it’s interesting as I’ve had projects that have gone on where I’ve never met the person in real life, just through Zoom. I think there are going to be things that we keep from this moment. I’ve had some faculty say to me when we’ve had conversations about this that there is an intimacy to Zoom that’s different than meeting in person. And maybe it’s because you’re in my house and kind of coming into my space, as I’m coming into your space which is different than how we normally teach where we go into a common space. I think we’re going to have, I think, a new mode that we’re more comfortable with; we’re all forced to do it. And, so it won’t be so strange to just jump online to be with someone and that it is more normalized and that everyone had to do it. Even the oldest Professor had to figure it out, and so, there’s

that sort of change as part of it. Particularly for design, it is place-based, and we do, you know, want to visit and be in the place and understand the place and you can’t get the same understanding if you’re remote. We’ve been trying to do this for different projects and you just have to because of the situation we’re in. But sometimes, I’ll go to the site for them and I’ll give a virtual field trip where I’ll go and have a 360-degree camera and show and talk about what I’m experiencing. It doesn’t replace the experience of a place and so that’s something that I think needs to stay. There’s a whole sensory experience that you have: it’s the temperature, the radiation, the sound, the smells. All of that is critical and certainly, we can visually see a place but there’s the rest of it that falls away if you can’t be there in person. And that goes for being in person together, where you’re able to kind of talk through things in real-time in a real place. I went to a site with a student yesterday who’s doing a project on one of the traffic islands or one of the immediate islands in or boulevard islands in Mill Ave as part of her project and she had as part of it, some stormwater coming in from a street and we went there, and realized we couldn’t do that because the slope was wrong So, you can maybe get that from a detailed survey but you can quickly get it when you’re out there at the site and experience that place.

Paul Coseo

I think we’re going to have, I think, a new mode that we’re more comfortable with; we’re all forced to do it. ”

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

“

Interview

Thank you so much for your time and words. It’s very inspiring also to see how rooted in policy and community your work is. Rooting the practice and education in place within the community is a very powerful and optimistic tool. I have one last question for you. Connection has become somewhat of a hot topic because of the various global crises and moving virtual. How has being online changed your work, specifically with the various communities you collaborate with?

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

projects 69

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Dellan Raish Alternative Desert City 2070

he studio is primarily tasked with the proposal for 5,000 units in 2070 within the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. Using ancillary programs to support the housing (office, industry, transport, entertainment, public space, infrastructure), the project created a gateway to DT Phoenix in hopes of activating the space and introducing density. Connections between Downtown Phoenix are prioritized in various forms of infrastructure. The ground level is restricted to pedestrian access, removing asphalt to mimimize urban heat island effect. Upper levels of proposed infrastructure holds autonomous transport vehicles and railway systems for public use.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Dellan Raish

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Dellan Raish

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Chaoqun Lin The Eden Fantasy

The new Notre Dame aims to mark a different way of praying. Instead of speaking with the unreachable God found in a classic church, prayers and visitors are now strolling in the dreamlike f lower fields and having a spiritual conversation with God. They no longer feel monotonous and boring, but feel real baptism and relief.

The fire destroyed the cathedrals central spire and two-thirds of its roof, as well as parts of its vaulted interior. The construction of the cathedral is considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe. However, traditional gothic churches lie in cultural and historical contexts. They look remote and heavily in parallel to our daily life. The characteristics of a Gothic-style church are largely in congruence with the ideology that the more breathtaking a church is, the better it reflects the majesty of God. In order to liberate visitor’s perception and imagination, the New Notre Dame Cathedral has abandoned conventional forms as conceiving the absolutely serious structures and the embellished spatial design. At the same time, it captures the Old Church’s semiotical language in order to continue the symbolically manifested cosmological and theological concepts, with essential structural elements serving simultaneously as abstract design

Wandering within the space, users get a clear idea of direction and become curious in order to go further into the higher floor to explore more of the church. By creating friendly spatial scales during the renovation and inserted a series of structures such as a walkway, corridor, small squares, and transitional yard to link with the indoor church and outside landscape to produce continuous, three-dimensional landscape experiences. The open design expands the field of vision, provides natural light all day, the indoor church as a second façade and offers views to the whole Paris. As a building in the landscape, the boundary between the outdoor and indoor spaces is blurred. This integrated design extends exhibiting space into natural settings, inviting visitors to appreciate the beauty of gardens in the natural. The Eden fantasy defines the New Notre Dame as a seamless, unlimited connection between home and garden - feeling peace. The design hopes to provide a new focus on self-awareness as architects, as well as extend the boundaries of architecture. Hereby extending the invitation for people to visit but also to discuss and contemplate architecture in general. This tectonic process will translate the scarcity of means into a particularly reductive quality of its architecture, turning it into a profound and sincere expression of a distinct architectural culture to re-bridge the relationship between people and the new church. Finally, this place’s unique energy is needed to be marshaled to restore to it an even more powerful presence, a wider resonance, transfiguring, amplifying, and exalting it into something else. The stakes regarding the future of this monument are unique. For Notre-Dame and its island must once again incarnate the beating heart of a city that has become a vast metropolis.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

pieces. The New Norte Dame analyzes the different semiology and visual communication models, and captures the components of the Gothic elements, structures, and organization of the cathedral’s architectural form, and adopts the signs system’s logical structure within the cathedral in a new combination. The new design offers an illusion of immateriality by the open space at the top of the new church and Gothic architecture unit with the flowering facade. The greening wall is at once monolithic and imbued with fluidity due to the spatial hierarchy. The form and construction of the New Church is intended to echo lightweight provisional structures,

Chaoqun Lin

otre-Dame, the heart of Paris, the treasure of the Île de la Cité, has just suffered the most trying moments in its long history. Across all lands and cultures of the world, the fire leaves us speechless, touching the hearts and arresting everyone’s gaze. It reminds us all how much architecture, as indeed every artifact is a fragile thing. Notre-Dame is now the tragic proof that preserving our rich built heritage, the tangible traces of the great heights of craftsmanship that have been achieved, wherever they may be, is indispensable. This incandescent wound also reveals the emotional dimension carried by architecture and how its universal cultural value, its unique symbolic force, and its mythical dimension nourish the arts, literature, and every individual’s own. In the aftermath of the blaze that destroyed the roof of Paris’ iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral, The new design has envisioned a replacement “The Eden Fantasy” imagined a scene where architects from all over the world worked together to design this dreamlike building—the Garden of Eden, on top of the incomplete church. However, the authentic Garden of Eden was not created by architects but by people. Building co-creation. People spontaneously move in this building, creating a place spirit, giving up many desires, and returning to the ordinary. Under this kind of spirit’s catalytic action, the building blooms like a garden, possessing endless vitality. The mutual catalysis of architecture and people finally reproduces the Garden of Eden on earth.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Chaoqun Lin

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Brennan Richards Lucille Halsell Conservatory Expansion

he Lucille Halsell Conservatory is situated within the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Designed by Emilio Ambasz, the 90,000 sqft conservatory was envisioned as a series of secular temples embedded in a dream landscape. He achieved this vision through five geometrically simple volumes, housing a seasonal exhibit, fern grotto, tropical room, desert room, and palm collection. The concrete volumes were built at ground level, and then had dirt placed around them to give their sunken appearance. Atop each collection is a glass roof, supported by aluminum space frames. The expansion connects to the existing courtyard, opening into two circular volumes, the first matching the diameter of the adjacent fern grotto, and the second being closer in size to the existing palm house. Plants like the amazon water lily, raflesias, bromeliads, and orchids sit inside and around two large pools. A long ramp with a 1:20 slope provides access to the upper level; situated on the outer wall, mirroring the geometry of the pools, is a deep bench for sitting and observing the space. The roof is a contemporary combination of the other forms on the site, sitting atop a space for quiet reflection.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Brennan Richards

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Brennan Richards

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Brennan Richards

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Ronjting Jin Healing Garden

An Edible Education places the child at the center of their learning and uses food to engage all aspects of the child’s education. Through growing, processing, cooking, eating, studying, talking, and thinking about food, students develop skills, knowledge, and behaviors that enrich their academic and

The modular raised bed for the community roof garden and mass-timber structure system are part of this project. The modular raised reds are prefabricated with a variety of widths and depths which allows for easy installment onsite and allows every individual to have their designated gardening area. This roof garden gives residents access to fresh and healthy food and creates social activities while directly connecting to the Farmer’s market on the ground floor. A green space over the roof helps the project save a lot of energy and absorb the greenhouse gases in the urban area. Also, this project encompasses many spaces under the roof garden supported by the mass-timber structure to install an inter-circulating system inside the building. Following the same goal, a large water tank, rainwater harvesting techniques, a domestic water treatment system, and an irrigation system are integrated into the building system. The project uses mass timber as the primary material for the structural system and wood for the finishing material to reduce the carbon emissions during the manufacture and construction. This green building is pursuing Net-Zero and integrating a new system of rainwater harvesting, solar panel system, and geothermal system to reduce energy and water consumption. Two wood-framing outdoor staircases connecting to the third floor provide people different dynamic experiences walking inside the civil architecture. Its design means to be a passive strategy for people to use the staircase instead of the elevator.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

The idea behind a healing garden is to create civil architecture in downtown Phoenix as a gathering space to restore the broken relationships among people, nature, and architecture. In this generation, people have lost their connections with nature and our ecosystem; there is a sense of city loneliness in crowded urban areas. These factors lead people to a less peaceful urban life and gradually lose the joyful experience of an interactive civil lifestyle. Under this situation, the ultimate solution is to find internal peace for the resident’s well-being and to do so, this project started with a simple urban public space. By providing a safe and joyful physical place, people would gradually open their mental world to the community. Only then will the sorrow, fatigue, brokenness be finally healed in this place. There are mainly three types of disconnection in this generation, which are on the stakes for everyone: Fixing the natural connection with the ecosystem, a community garden, botanic greenhouse, and The Edible Schoolyard Project are placed inside this project. Fixing the interpersonal connection with the community through a conventional theatre, a recreation center, and mix-use public spaces which are designed to bring people together. And fianlly to fix the dynamic connection with architecture, a joyful circulation system, and a sustainable structure system which are fully developed. The main intention of the space is to be healing and restore the relationship among residents and bring people back to nature in order to understand the ecosystem as well as preserve the environment. Users can gather and enjoy their civil lives in this common public space under the urban fabric.

non-academic lives, bolster their growth as individuals and in relationships, and cultivate meaningful engagement with their health, the health of their communities, and the health of the planet. A theatre is a place combining many emotions and stories. It is where ‘everything’ is happening and shared experiences happen at a specific moment. This unique interaction enhances the feeling of social belonging and personal well-being. The theatre can help people understand internal peace by speculating the story on the stage and watching other’s lives like theirs, being watched by others. The project combines The Edible Classroom, kitchen, and theatre to perform as a welcoming space and encourage the community to rebuild the connection and to gather for a collective shared experience.

Rongting Jin

his project is located at Roosevelt Row in Phoenix Downtown. The existing site is now used as a parking field and occasionally holds special events, such as Farmer’s Market during the weekend and the artistic event collaborating with Roosevelt Row.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Rongting Jin

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Erin Bascom The Regenerative Conf luence of Water

community-based methodology of healing is developed to enable the regenerative co-development of the Salt River watershed. Urban development has generally been the result of proximity to a major water source. Ancient cultures honored water for its multiplicity of values and utilized it in uncompromising ways. As a result of Western development practice, water systems have been stripped of their natural dynamic rhythms for order, consistency, and control in our increasingly demanding modern systems. What remains are the physical and historical fragments of the Salt River. In the 1800s when settlers arrived in the Salt River valley, they named the developing Arizona territory “Phoenix” as a symbolic gesture out of recognition of the development’s emergence from the ashes of the Hohokam farming tribe. Development strategies associated with colonization and the industrialization of the 1800’s produced new infrastructure to control rivers and lakes to overcome the fluid, irregular, and sometimes damaging patterns of natural water systems. These practices permanently altered the natural water systems of central Arizona. In recognition of the value brought to the Phoenix Metropolitan area by the Salt River, efforts must be focused on its regeneration. Before we can heal the river; however, we must first heal our relationship with the river and with each other. What once served as cultural, spiritual and physical anchor for the indigenous peoples who originally inhabited this land, may once again be re-established as an integral part of daily life. The intent of this study is to develop a new ecocultural design model of development for the Salt River watershed and surrounding areas

with renewed respect for the land in modern society. It includes both conceptual and practical community guides to facilitate and catalyze a new community-driven typology of planning prepared for rapid community change and climate challenges. This study includes the review of prominent existing projects, both regionally and globally, with expertise in the areas of urban development, culture and place keeping/making, ecology and water management. This study aims to exhibit the diverse components of urbanism and its effects on the Salt River corridor, surrounding urban ecosystems and climate. This thesis argues for simultaneous and codependent cultural and ecological growth and healing, and its necessity for sustainable urban development. Lastly, an urban revitalization framework is manifested in a community-oriented handbook based on key findings to produce a unified vision executed by watershed community co-design of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Salt River traverses eight counties across forty miles. While this river hardly resembles what was once the cradle for development in the Sonoran Desert, it may still hold the key to our future. This is a call to action to consider our history, our present, and your role in our trajectory. The healing process begins with the recognition of multiple value systems. To appropriately acknowledge and incorporate this multiplicity into the regenerative road map, knowledge exchange will become co-knowledge exchange, engagement will become co-engagement, followed by cocreation, co-implementation, and finally, coopportunity. Furthermore, river timelines will be referenced as plural to similarly acknowledge their multiplicity.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alisa Hernandez Transversality, Masking and Rajismo in the National Museum of Anthropology

n the park of Chapultepec, in the City of Mexico, MX, lies El Museo Nacional de Antropología (The National Museum of Anthropology). The museum was designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and houses great historical pieces from pre-colonial to more modern times. All of which hold a deep cultural significance to the people of Mexico. Of the hundreds of preserved artifacts, the spatial hierarchy in the museum is drawn towards the great umbrella in the middle of the building, the central pond, and the great Mexica (Aztec) Calendar. When people visit the museum, they are traveling the space in a counter clockwise direction, similar to the calendar, during which they move transversely from the interior of the exhibition spaces, to the inside of the patio, back into the space, and to the exterior thresholds. The museum

does this in a way that is shielded from the external eye, it is masked within the enclosure of the “serpent walls,” acting as a “Mexican Mask” to the external world. The museum’s interspatial qualities follow the transversal space encoded in the calendar, which is subtly disguised under the “Mexican Mask” the building wears, shielding and protecting this encoded trait from the external eye. It is within the interplay of these metaphors where interconnected spatial relationships began to naturally derive from the original project then translated and applied into the unapparent but critical necessities of the project. Resulting in a project that is reflective of the transversal notions of its calendar, vulnerable and resilient to the external “rajas”scars, and masked in beauty.

Alisa Hernandez

Figure 2. Exploded axonometric

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Project

Figure 1. Compound Perspective Render

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

César López-Rodriguez MoCA Tucson: Exploring Community Identity through Art

It is important to rethink the way in which we think about public space. I believe that through a combination of these programs, we can bring a larger number of visitors and maintain a steady stream of funding. This would reduce the need for them to rely solely on grants from state and local governments to fund basic needs while fostering a relationship with a private sector of the community. The goal for this project was to propose something that was drastically different from what MoCA had been used to in their current location without requiring to expand their current staff. I want to give MoCA the opportunity to grow and become a pillar inside this strong and inclusive community.

Ultimately, I think that architecture in the coming year/decades will have to change. As we continue to move closer and closer to a more digital age, we need to find spaces and moments in which we can break free from the mundanity of day-to-day life. Spaces that can turn MoCA into a true third space, one that people visit as a means to escape the routine but struggle to leave. These spaces include a small clinic, a multi-generational daycare, where the kids and elderly of the community can find a place to play and learn from another, and a small bi-lingual library with a coffee shop where students can work and interact. My vision for MOCA is one that focuses on paying homage to some of the forgotten traditions left from the historic barrios that make up Tucson to bring spaces that in addition to the galleries and services found in MOCA can also bring a special character to the community.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

The conception of the idea began by exploring some of the unique elements that make up the architecture that we often find in the American southwest. This idea of having very boxy and massive volumes of program made up entirely of masonry, adobe or any other clay like material with a few but thoughtfully placed openings can convey a very “monumental” experience inside of them. This type of architecture is special because it is heavily driven by the hands who make it. It is fitting that an art museum in a place like Tucson Arizona would celebrate this forgotten tradition.

One of the most important parts of the project is the main gallery. This idea was grounded in two different qualities. The softness of light and the “hard shell” surrounding it. I wanted to convey the idea of walking below a cloud. I think the softness and blooming quality of light, in an art museum should serve as blank canvas for art to sit on. To accomplish this, I chose to create a tessellation pattern based on the field of view one would need to appreciate art from different distances. And create structure from wire and fabric that could hide all the “behind the scenes” action that can draw away from the art. For the shell, I chose to use a material very reminiscing of the southwest, in the form of roofing tile. The traditional and emblematic material that gives many houses their unmistaken cookie cutter look, and also a material widely found in Tucson’s terracotta clay pit. Many, if not most, of Tucson’s homes and buildings were built with clay found in that pit no more than a couple miles away. To adopt this, I proposed a structural skin system that would allow these to be held away from the building and allow the light and breeze to filter in when the weather allows for it, but mitigate the harsh light found in the desert.

César López-Rodriguez

he idea for this project originated from a simple but key element. “Creating a space around MOCA, one in which connections can be forged around a single goal of improving the community”. I think now more than ever, it is important to think about the people who make up the community and have a unique sensibility that can be tailored in ways that can improve their lives. With this idea in mind the vision for MOCA is one that focuses on connecting often overlooked groups of people to services that might not be as easily accessible otherwise. I believe that as architects, and architects in the making, our goals should always be driven by the community, as a means to create architecture that can develop and change over time. “Iconic” architecture that can help develop tourism and the local economy while also providing a social benefit to its residents, as to not displace them over time.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

César López-Rodriguez

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Smriti Jain Let’s Take a Walk

nspired by the meditative feeling that already exists on the site, the project contains a series of sensory experiences highlighted through light, shadow, water, reflections, sound, and smell that helps people connect and understand the journey of Puerto Rico. Since this was an adaptive reuse project, we not only adapted the existing buildings, but also the natural elements. One such element is the existing flood plain which helped us divide the site into patches of water and greenery. Historically, the site was a wetland which justified us in giving the site back to nature and reintroducing the wetland. The existing buildings were strategically stripped leaving their structures intact to either blend them into the areas containing water, or to let nature take them over allowing them to blend with the greenery. Additionally, all new structures are pulled two feet above ground to allow the wetland to be unobstructed. This project is an interweaving and connecting of old ruins with new bamboo structures to create a meditative pathway full of sensory experiences.

go on a walk with my friends every night without fail, no matter what is going in our lives – a 30 min walk – daily. It helps us stay connected to each other, with nature, the city, and with ourselves. This was the inspiration when we started working on the project – Let go on a walk in Puerto Rico. The project was inspired by many elements but most importantly focused on one: connections. There are five senses we humans use to connect with everything around us – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch and these were used to create a pathway with a series of sensory experiences. In a way, architecture is not so different from humans. Every building tells a different story, has a life span, changes with time, makes connections, and has a journey of its own. The approach was to take inspiration from our lives and apply it to the project. The site is in Puerto Rico which has had its share of ups and downs and struggles and healings that made it the unique and beautiful place that it is right now. The site was a part of a wetland before people illegally acquired it and turned the beautiful place into chaos. This was followed by several hurricanes because of which people abandoned it and left behind a place full of ruins. This is not much different from any of our life’s journey. We come into this world innocent

At some point, we may face huge struggles and feel as if it is the end. Yet we can not deny the fact that it is through these struggles which we grow and turn it into the beautiful unique selves that we become – none of us are perfect but we are beautiful. The same thing happened with Puerto Rico. Just as time heals us, nature took over in Puerto Rico, healed it with time, and eventually turned it into the beautiful place it is now. The streets are not perfect, the sidewalks are cracked with weeds sprouting several feet in front of the soil, buildings have a worn, aged look to them. In general, Puerto Rico today has a very beautiful grungy feel. It is the connections Puerto Rico has with nature, with those ruins, with the people embracing its imperfections, that make the place so amazing. This was our ultimate inspiration for the project. We kept everything that was on the site intact with minor stripping and additions here and there to blend everything and the result was a pathway – a walk that you can take to understand the place. It speaks to you with its play of light and shadow. Through the bamboo structures, the reflection of light on water and its patterns on walls, the smell of the moist soil, the sound of moving water, the touch of an old ruined wall with creepers. This is no different from the walk I take with my friends – this is where they told me where they are from, how they ended up here, what is the scar on the forehead from – little things that help us connect. Because at last humans and architecture both are lost without these connections.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Smriti Jain

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Ananth Udupa Exhibitions on Erasure

“

2345. The river is my sister-I am its daughter. It is my hands when I drink from it, My own eye when I am weeping And my desire when I ache like a yucca bell In the night. The riversays, Open your mouth to me, And I will make you more. Because even a river can be lonely, Even a river will die of thirst. I am both-the river and its vessel. It maps me alluvium. A net of moon-colored fish. I’ve f lashed through it like copper wire. A cottonwood root swelling with drink, I tremble every leaf in libe, every bean to gold, Jingle the willow in the same song the river sings. I am it and its mud I am the body kneeling at the river’s edge Letting it drink from me.

”

Natalie Diaz, exhibitions from the American Water Museum

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

“ Memory is redundant: it repeats sighs so that the city can begin to exist. ”

Diaz works to understand this complex set of relations by walking the reader through a space and populating the stanzas with what the urban Native sees. As the title of the poem insinuates, the poem largely describes the relationship between the Native experience and water, first to describe the origin - “green energy” - and later to detail the lack of autonomy - “tengo sed” 2. These images are interwoven throughout this metaphorical walk through the museum, alongside motifs and dioramas of stories rejected by the media like the Flint Water Crisis. The close reading of the excerpt illustrates the erasure and power in defining the Native object as a museum artifact. Walter Benjamin

toyed with the ideas of reproducibility, which follow a parallel vein to the content of this poetry, specifically in understanding the “aura” or original purpose of the work of art. In his text, “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” 3 , He posits that the “unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value” 4 . In this, the Native object originated its autonomy and authenticity in its ritual. As he defines the pivotal factor to be authenticity, the Native object is “jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object,” which is what occurred through the conquest and continued inhuman treatment of the Native peoples by the “American Museum” 5 . The place of the artifact in a museum takes an object created for cultural authority and identity and places it into a museum, reinventing it as a work of art made for reproduction through the context of technology and media. What is important to extract from this close reading is that Diaz introduces a deconstructive lens, showing the never fulfilled desire of erasure and control by the American city. The urban Native is forever the oppressed, in a cycle with the American city desiring erasure. There are also parallel cycles of oppression alongside the Native, but the Native is found at the bottom each time, erased and forgotten, to where “We’ve been crying out the past 600 years --”6 . Benjamin labels the movement from defining the original work of art to a work of reproduction as a shift from ritual to politics. The artifact or work of art describes a certain

101

Ananth Udupa

atalie Diaz’s postcolonial love poem, “exhibitions from the American Water Museum” 1 discusses the erasure of the Native identity by systemic mechanisms of colonial and post-colonial definition, meaning, the death of the physical body in colonial onquest but also the infatuation with the Native artifact and metaphorical death in contemporaneity. Creating different visual motifs, the reader follows Diaz with descriptions of various “exhibits,” detailing how the Native person interacts with the various frozen artifacts of their own culture and social practices of entering a museum space. These interactions and collisions between erasing forces and “erased” objects will be analyzed in closer detail and implemented into the design of an urban residential architecture project in the city of Phoenix.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Project

-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

motif - magics, service, community. But, the ideas of reproduction emerge as products of capitalism and politics, which will be explored further in the next section. Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, many urban “meccas” in the US began to develop expansive highway systems which would cut down the travel distance to get from point A to point B, and also allow for suburbanization. The city of Phoenix was no different, with the expansion of the Interstate 10 and the Route 51. Resultantly, many ethnic communities were displaced in order to create a more expansive urban city. Multiple middle class LatinX and African American communities, including the Golden gate Barrios and Okemah community, were forced to move out starting in the second half of the 20th century)7. The erasure of these communities emulates the erasure mentioned in the ark of the urban Native detailed in Diaz’s poetry. The highway construction project “discover[ed] them with city. Crumble[ed] them with city. Erase[d] them into cities named for their bones” 8 . We see the definition and cleansing of the “new Native” in the 20th cent. city of Phoenix, just like that of colonial America 9..

Natalie Diaz, “exhibitions of the American Water Museum,” Postcolonial Love Poems. (Minnessota: Graywolf Press, 2020) 2 Ibid., 63, 65 3 Walter Benjamin. “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Finland: Aalto University, 1935) 4 Ibid., 220 5 Ibid,. 218, Diaz 67 6 Natalie Diaz. “Exhibitions”. 65 7 Burt Barraza. “ 101 Highway construction.” AZCentral. 8 Natalie Diaz. “Exhibitions”. 64 9 Ibid., 10 AZDot. “Phoenix Freeway Park” 2010 1

The narrative ark of the erasure is silence. The city rejected the cries of the minority but accepted that of the majority. During the reconstruction of the highways, one plot of the 1-10 was to run through a white, suburban residential community. But, because of their protests to their culture and heritage, the Papago Freeway Tunnel Park was created; the highway was constructed to go underground and have a park on the top level. The tunnel “represented a successful culmination of a state, city, and federal partnership forged by the challenge of a concerned public,” according to 1990 Federal Highway Administrator, Thomas Willet 10. The voice of the majority, the oppressing was heard so loudly, it became a stamp of pride. But, the many ethnic peoples, who had to evacuate and were not even given the opportunity to speak for their land and heritage. Inspired by Diaz’s poetry describing the interaction of the two opposing yet cyclical forces, what would the collision of the erased and erasing look like? Figure 3 is a simple montage with the theoretical inspirations for a low-rise residential project and the site plan, showing the road intersections, 8th Ave and N Roosevelt St. (nearly five miles south of the Papago Freeway Tunnel Park), and basic roof plan for the building.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Ananth Udupa

103

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Meriel Vogliotti MoCA Adaptive Reuse

The Museum of Contemporary Art is a vibrant hub of culture and ideas that advocates for inclusion, unconventional ways of being, and diversity in community. The many unconventional spaces found throughout the building’s new architecture provide the necessary opportunities for dialogue and creative interaction between individuals of different backgrounds within the city of Tucson. This new vision aligns with the museums core mission to inspire new ways of thinking through the cultivation, exhibition and interpretation of contemporary art and has the potential to provide new perspectives and help bridge the gap between the making of art the public. It is the ideas that come from the making of art and the community that bring life to the space and the city.

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

The building’s exterior aims to communicate transparency and openness to the city of Tucson in several ways. The garage doors, which open fully, can serve as an invitation for the public to engage with the works and ideas housed inside. The building gently meets the sidewalk with long steps to provide pedestrians with an opportunity to rest and interact with the space while a raised platform at the entrance acts as a stage to host events for the museum or for spontaneous performances by local artists. Past the garage doors is the main gallery space, which features a track

ceiling grid that allows for an increased level of flexibility in scale for all types of exhibitions. An ecological gallery adapts a third of the fire station garage to serve as a sculpture garden and as a permanent exhibition of Tucson’s desert flora. This is an intermediate space between interior and exterior that affords visitors with new ways of experiencing art and Nature. A suspended walkway above the ecological gallery connects the space to the Artist in Residence and café area on the third floor. Here, the living and studio spaces of artists coexist with the community to spur dialogue and to foster empathy between artists and audiences.

105

Meriel Vogliotti

oCA Tucson has been continuously breaking down the mold of the rigid art institution since it was established in 1997 by a group of artists. The museum looks to cultivate connection and innovation in the local community by providing a welcoming and inviting space for visitors to not only learn about the changing world we live in, but to also be active participants in its change. This adaptive reuse proposal of Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art aims to preserve the buildings historical past as a fire station while proposing an adaptive design that can better respond to the changing needs of the museum’s programs and rotating galleries. This project considers the institutions role and significance within the local community as a locus of creation and explores how its architecture can further cultivate its vibrant and diverse maker culture.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Meriel Vogliotti

107

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Udit Shah International Space Station

KIBO

TRANQUILITY HARMONY

COLUMBUS

DESTINY

UNITY

QUEST

ZARYA

ZVEZDA

“ I like to be connected with people, and so I just like the fact that we’re always going to find each other in the middle (of the space station). ” - Cady Coleman, NASA Austronaut

During lunch and dinner, astronauts sit together and share their cultures and experiences over food. Although connecting with each other is important when living isolated, astronauts appreciate disconnecting for some personal time. Each astronaut is provided with a closet sized personal quarter, which is sound insulated, where they can unwind. What effect do the new technologies and structural dynamics have on the architecture of a space station? The theory of structure for a space habitat is different from the structures on earth. There are no downward forces that act on these structures, but shear and centrifugal forces can lead to the destruction of the station. The traditional ways of construction become antiquated as there are newer materials and external forces to consider. Understanding how humans connect to each other and back to the planet is important to create a better living condition and to humanize space. This thesis questions, how can we create a habitable, comfortable space by humanizing it through the various connections we have to earth and each other?

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

Understanding how humans connect to each other and to the planet is important to create better-living conditions and humanize space. Ervin Strauss in his article on “The Upright Posture” talks about the human body being built as a reaction to Earth’s gravity. Our skeleton system acts like columns to support our body to be upright, to oppose the forces of gravity. Nevertheless, it is interesting to examine how the human body responds to the absence of it. The body adopts the form of a fetal posture and is unable to be upright for a long time without the force of gravity. How could a space station be designed to address the psychological stressors? Design in space can be challenging as it has to address not only the physiological but also the psychological stressors. The most important stressor is loneliness on board the space station.

109

Udit Shah

umans have evolved as a species due to our connection to Earth and each other, and our architecture has evolved alongside to aid us. Nonetheless, as explorers, we are currently inhabiting space disconnecting with Earth. The question is what form would architecture take when this connection to the earth and its context is broken? Space (in astronomical terms) is a context that has been studied extensively as we have inhabited space stations since the 1970’s. These space stations are located in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) where microgravity, radiation, variable temperatures, limited pressurized volume, and hard vacuum are considerations that affect the comfort of the inhabitants. The current model of living on a space station has been dubbed as “Spam In A Can’’, as it is built only for survival and not to thrive. In order for the architecture to aid us in this expedition, it should be replaced with a “Quality of life” model which is designed for thriving. So, what role does the context of space have in creating a new architectural typology for comfort? Living in a microgravity condition where there is no up or down, there is no “ground” surface. Thus, if poorly designed, a space station could be disorienting for the inhabitants. Orientation within this non-cartesian system, where points of reference such as the sky are absent requires acclimatization. Astronauts orient themselves with respect to the color-coded surfaces that define the “walls”, “floor” and “ceiling” and through hours spent inside the simulators. Microgravity, being a new environment has its drawbacks, but once understood well, it can provide interesting spatial configurations such as an efficient and economic way to occupy the volume where no surface is left un-utilized. How can architecture create a space through studying human physiology? To improve physiological well-being, architecture will need to focus on making tasks such as Cooking, Sleeping, and Hygiene activities easier to perform in space. Sleeping cycles in space can be challenging as astronauts observe 16 sunrises each day. To avoid the disruption of their circadian rhythm a 24-hour clock is followed. Sleeping as an action can also be difficult as they require to be strapped into their sleeping bags which restricts any movements and is uncomfortable.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Udit Shah

111

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Oriana Gil Perez Design Build Multi-Use Market in Venezuela

rchitectural education prioritizes the rewards and recognition of other architects, rather than of serving as a catalyst for social change. Design education empowers students to become independent thinkers. I believe architecture and design have the power to create significant community-led change in underdeveloped countries. This study addresses the discrepancy between what an architect thinks the user needs and what the user really needs. The hypothesis is that local community members can help designers develop empathetic design proposals that address the community’s needs by understanding how to design for someone with a different reality than their own. Build agency through design. The use of community participation leverages design education to empower independent design thinkers and makers and creates a symbiotic relationship between the designers and the members of the community.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Oriana Gil Perez

113

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Ashley Ontiveros The Graft and Host

.H. Walkway was a project like no other. Within the context of a pandemic, it brought me back to connect with architecture and, at the same time, helped me understand the network that happens between architecture within the social, political, environmental, and economic contexts. I was assigned to design a place for study onto an existing ASU building: The Farmer Education Building. So, I called this project S.H. Walkway as a mirror of the acronyms for H.B. Farmer Education Building. At first, I didn’t understand how this project would help me see the connection between architecture and the various contexts in which it embedded itself. It wasn’t easy to start seeing all of these connections that I had to make for this project without relating to it myself. I could only become more deeply connected to the Farmer Education building before I could make any other connection. I started thinking to myself how a floating idea had to become grounded into the reality of an existing ASU building. There was a physical connection that I had to build from here to there. The fact that the site, the people, and the environment were already chosen for me intensified the need to bridge architecture to another. I wasn’t sure yet how to go about this bridge, so I visited the site.

It had been a long time since I last visited the ASU campus. As soon as I stepped in front of the Farmer Education Building, memories and emotions spilled left and right. I realized that there was already an unspoken connection I had forgotten: this was where all of the connections started. My overall experience while designing this project is a connection itself that happened subconsciously. I had met different obstacles, trying to shape my design to the contexts of the social environment and others. I constantly reminded myself that my space reflected the students already moving through the Farmer Building. I needed to keep these relationships in mind throughout the project because the design couldn’t sit alone. It had to connect with the Farmer Education Building in more than one way. I started sketching one idea after another on my tracing pad. Each iteration had a close mark to the last one, and it kept happening, sketch after sketch. Each time my heart pounded louder because I felt drawing one connection closer to the next. Then, I realized that my final decision for a design would encompass the whole nature of a connection. My project had to embody connection. How so?

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project I created connections through the design process, not only logically and emotionally, but also socially and physically. There was no singular or uniform way to draw all of these connections. This illumination of thoughts and connections was best seen at night when ideas shone brighter. It varied, and I found it beautiful to keep the connections as free as architecture formed in every context. Conceptually, I was working with a connection greater than myself through the work. It was complicated and exhilarating to see how one

115

Ashley Ontiveros

red thread didn’t stop from the start until the final result. I understood that architecture is a complex series of connections, personally and within every context possible. The red thread continues to loop around one pin and intersects another. Architecture is the social context; architecture becomes the implicit language in the political; architecture builds from the environment and unites with it. The Graft assignment shaped a new mindset for me, making me think of one point to another and the next. It was an interconnectedness that I finally saw, and as messy as my thoughts may seem, it meant I had learned something new. Architecture embedded itself in all of these contexts, but it was a design that sought it as the bigger picture.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

In trying to embed an architecture to the social context of students who brought a space of study come alive, the political orientation to maintain a place with that purpose, and the environment being an enclosed yet free space, my project had to bring all of this together into one project. It would be a walkway to experiment this journey of making connections and realize that there was already a connection existent. The S.H. Walkway became a glass structure with irregular shapes throuhghout that act as viewing lenses. As it is a place for study it was created to make many connections. It just happens that these connections couldn’t be seen through the same lens.

Orange Build Connecting with the Profession

range Build is a design build studio with the intention of creating an exceptional, multiscaled, learning experience for students, and a stronger academic-professional connection with local architects and The Design School. It is a studio where students, professors and professionals in the industry collaborate on a project and see it through to its construction. This semester, us students worked together to develop working construction drawings and multiple scale models for an outdoor classroom in preparation for its construction on ASU’s Polytechnic Campus. Additionally, we worked together in groups to develop designs for a second outdoor classroom to be built in ASU’s Downtown Campus during the following school year.

comprehend the complexities of a building more fully. As we developed the project from a flat abstraction to real materialized space, the structures potential complications revealed themselves, which was a chance to learn and adapt the design. We learned about project constraints by conducting case studies of the Serpentine Pavilions throughout the years and by developing our own schematic designs. We also attended countless meetings with the entire Orange Build team, comprised of designers, builders, engineers, and other professionals in the field. Many students had the opportunity to interview these professionals and learn about the many obstacles and nuances that a project goes through from start to finish.

Orange Build was created to provide a real learning experience that reflects the reality of the industry for graduate and undergraduate students at The Design School. We learned by observing and documenting the work that professionals did on site and behind the scenes. The professionals involved throughout the process walked us through every step and aspect of the project which we then documented each week for reflection. We learned by building scale models together. By building the models in The Design School woodshop, we learned the importance of the fabrication process, and while drawings may illustrate and define a project, constructing a model actualizes a space and allows one to

Professors Catherine Spellman and Felipe Mesa made the timely decision to shift the focus of the studio and engage in projects that consider the reality of post-pandemic architecture. “With the risk of coronavirus transmission being lower outdoors than inside, some professors are finding ASU’s beautiful outdoor spaces a great option.” This studio prompted the discussion of architecture’s ability to be adaptable and resilient in order to respond successfully to changes in the world. As designers of urban spaces, we must be mindful of the fact that architecture is the stage for social life, and it must be responsive to a world changing at a fast pace.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Orange Build

117

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alexandra Shott The Architect as a Civic Practitioner

Some architectural practices have leveraged the design process to facilitate connections with members of the communities they serve. Often referred to as co-creation, these practitioners invite members of the community to take part in the design process. This type of approach is often exhibited in areas of vulnerability and minority communities. Similar to how connections between people rely on a sense of trust or ability to relate to one another, the practice of co-creation allows everyone involved to connect over shared values and goals for the future of their community. Through activism and advocacy woven into this process, even economic or

Not only does this practice use architecture to connect people in a manner beyond the physical, it can also contribute to increasingly equitable development by architects. There is an immense need for mechanisms in architecture which not only connect people in various ways, but that take into consideration and address larger societal issues. New, or altered approaches to architectural practice is something that I continue to advocate for and investigate how I can incorporate into my design process. Like many individuals, I have faced challenges with assimilating to my assigned context in the past, specifically in predominantly male spaces with jobs or internships I have had. The point being is that most people struggle with forming connections within their environment, and architects can and do have the potential to facilitate healthy connections to the built environment. They have real potential to be a vehicle for connecting people even in ways unexpected. The importance of architects and architecture being able to facilitate connection is increasingly important and relevant today. Though we have, in life altering ways, lost our connection with one another in physical space over the last year, those connections will be rebuilt. Connection builds understanding, tolerance, and appreciation. It allows us to come together and share the things that bring us joy. Ideation and creation also allow us to form shared bonds with one another. The importance of connection can be looked at by architects not only to bring people together, but to also reframe current approaches and move toward equitable and meaningful practices.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

Architects go through a complete journey in their practice, beginning with research and ending with the meticulous creation of a structure that will become a semi-permanent piece of our built environment. At the center of an architect’s work is the design process, an enigmatic concept which any designer can relate to. While each individual crafts their own design process over time, it is ultimately what connects all architects and designers together. The concept of the design process is often hard for a non-designer to conceptualize. A lack of general understanding from the public about what an architect does, as well as a lack of consideration by the architect to actively and transparently make communities aware of the design’s intentions, can have the opposite effect of facilitating connection in social, economic, or political environments. This is particularly true in the case of more vulnerable, low-income communities.

119

Alexandra Shott

he aspects of our lives which connect us and allow us to expand our perspectives, like art, music, and culture have been experienced at a minimum over the last year. Connection comes in many forms, but the ability to unite over something that brings us joy is a crucial part of the human experience. I personally have been thinking a lot about how architecture has the ability to connect us not only physically, but socially, culturally, and even politically. One of the questions I have asked myself lately is, “How can architects use their work to approach the forming of connections between individuals that goes beyond the spatial realm?” Considering the many elements of an architect’s practice, one might ask themselves where there are opportunities to connect people in more unexpected ways.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom MoCA Tucson: Engaging the Wall

he wall has a rich tradition in Arizona, and specifically Tucson. The new MOCA Tucson will engage the wall, the question of the wall and all of its inherent tensions and juxtapositions as a means of pushing boundaries and abandoning the notion of neutral planes. The new MOCA exists as a Village Behind A Wall. This wall, which folds in and around the site to frame the programmatic needs of MOCA, also folds into the site to allow for non-ticked public amenity. The notion of a wall as a barrier or obstruction crumbles as pockets of public program are interwoven. Each space is organized to emit different atmospheric conditions which will allow artists and curators to enrich collections. Scenario based design produces an intimacy of scale which invokes textured sun-bathed walls, interior/exterior movement, enclosure and exposure, daily and seasonal change and the cumulative resultant atmosphere as it activates the Wall.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

121

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

123

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Erin Bascom

125

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Yara Kamali & Andrew Synacek Traverse

he main focus of this studio was on concrete. It was funded by TPAC, a precast concrete company located in Phoenix, Arizona. We were able to visit the local job site to learn about the process of making pre-cast concrete elements such as panels, beams, and platforms. We dove into learning about precast concrete technologies and experimented with the material itself by casting concrete blocks. Afterwards, we moved into applying the knowledge that challenged us to only use pre-cast elements in design. For this project, the task in hand was to design a pre-cast concrete research and innovation center. Along with concrete mixing, casting, and experimentation spaces, the program of the project was to contain metal cutting soldering spaces, a 3D printing lab, a laser cutting lab with CNC routers, fabric cutting/ sewing spaces, and multi-purpose studio spaces. Located on ASU’s Tempe campus, the site is home to a warehouse that houses wood, textile, jewelry, and metal fabrication spaces. Shared by both the art and design school, the site sits conveniently accessible to both - just west of the design school and northwest of the art building. The existing u-shaped warehouse contains a shared courtyard in its center, full of valuable space for outdoor operation and activities. Given that the type of project regarded innovation and research, we chose to challenge ourselves by pushing the boundaries of what could be designed with concrete. Traverse Design Lab aims to bring together multiple design disciplines into one program. By challenging the normality of the architecture of educational spaces, the design originated from ridding of the walls that seclude students from the outside and vice versa. The forest-like columns aid in achieving the effect of a semiprivate space, protecting the glass boxes from sunlight, and supporting a portion of the structure. The platforms in the design are continuously elevating at slight shifts, drawing students with different craftsmanship into the spaces where connectivity may intersect.

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project 127

Yara Kamali & Andrew Synacek

Another network of square eight-inch concrete beams connect to the columns to support platforms. At the ground level, the existing courtyard serves as outdoor concrete mixing, casting, and experimentation space. The rest of the programmatic area floating the air as they are scattered throughout the forest of columns at various levels. The slightly contrasting levels create a multitude of mezzanine spaces. Each piece of program above ground level is contained by two rectangular concrete slabs on top and bottom with glazing all around. In conjunction with an elevator, a continuous ramp spirals up through the project providing primary circulation to programmatic areas.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

We gained inspiration from the random grid of trees involved in natural forests. A grid of square eight-inch concrete columns rise from the empty courtyard ground and into the air at more than double the height of the warehouse.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Yara Kamali & Andrew Synacek

129

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Chaoqun Lin The Innovative Agriculture Systems Based on Indens

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

cycle, and keeps locusts in solitary phase to maintain locust populations. Since preventing all outbreaks and upsurges is not possible, this level of prevention would require teams to find and treat virtually all small gregarious populations present them as the first outbreaks from following widespread rains. It might also be tempting to treat large areas of locusts that are at less than a band or swarm density to prevent attacks. Such treatments would not be economically or environmentally sound, nor would they add significantly to the total number of locusts controlled. As a part of landscape shaping, it is important to protect the habitats and biotopes of these natural enemies. For example, forestation, which combined with late-growing crops such as soybeans, alfalfa, and fruit trees, are efficient measures. With the habitats and biotopes being set up, a resilient eco-systerm could be created. Wasp larvae, mites, spiders and birds that control outbreaks of up to 90% through predation on larvae and developing locusts. Converting lowland areas into fishpond and shrimp farming is another sustainable way to control locust outbreaks, while bonfire in the dark and burning crops have also been used to eliminate the locust pest. This innovative irrigation system aims to build a resilient foodscape in east Africa, not only to try and reduce the impact from locust, but also by creating a model for other developing country to ensure the food security. The new agricultural system based on the indenes wisdom half-moon crop land, with further remodification could reduce the evaporation of runoff and also increase the utilization rate of water resources by intercepting the lower reaches of the Tukana River. This cooperates with Kenya’s climate smart agriculture policy to effectively improve food security and improve local nutrition problems. With the method of half-moon unit, water pan, sandbar irrigation ditch can effectively increase the soil’s nitrogen content, land’s greening rate, and water resources utilization rate. At the source, it can inhibit the production of eggs in this place and divert the possibility of locust colonies.

131

Chaoqun Lin

n 2020, massive locust outbreaks threatened the terrestrial environments and crop production in around 100 countries, where Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya are the most affected. The locust invasion has left farmers in resource-poor countries to count crop losses but struggles with emerging environmental and health problems. In February 2020, Kenya’s local media reported that a swarm covering 2,400 sq km (930 sq miles) was recorded in the north, the largest on record. The locust invasion swept over farms in rural Kenya and causing the loss of pastures, vegetation, and livestock. Due to the locusts, The swarms have been the worst seen in Kenya for over 70 years. Extensive agriculture leads to insufficient surface vegetation coverage, while the instability of monsoon and rainfall is caused by the abnormal climate of El Niño, which hurts Kenya’s agriculture resilience. The design focus is on the months when locusts are prone to outbreaks. First, plant leguminous and melon crops that locusts don’t like to eat, such as soybean, rape, and watermelon, which could help prevent locust outbreaks and obtain food diversity for local people. And sow crops with high nitrogen content. Second, planting at intervals between the fields prevents weeds from occupying the nutrients of the crops. Third, the half-moon-shaped pit is made into a natural biogas digester and the biological fertilizer is returned to the field. The design improves the soil’s richness, forestation, micro-climate, and bio-diversity, which comes while the land’s richness has improved. These practices are conducive to increasing the land’s nitrogen content and the greening rate, which are factors that inhibit locusts. Desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) have been called the most devastating pest. Swarms form when locusts’ numbers increase, and they become crowded. This causes a switch from a relatively harmless solitarious phase to a gregarious phase. In this phase, the insects can multiply 20-fold in three months and reach densities of 80 million per square kilometer. The design focuses on locust’s full life cycle, dampens the locusts’ swarming

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Chaoqun Lin

133

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Junjie Wu Future Apartment

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

135

Junjie Wu

Adding a kinetic energy collection system in the public space can use residents’ activities to generate electricity, achieving the purpose of building energy saving and emission reduction. At the same time, the shape of the building is rotated to enhance the flow of wind in the building and take away the heat and air exchange in the building. Solar glass is also a new technology that can collect solar energy irradiated on the glass and convert it into electrical energy to achieve the purpose of energy saving and emission reduction.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

oday, when fossil fuels are consumed in large quantities, greenhouse gases are emitted, and the global temperature continues to rise. This project is a reflection of future building energy conservation and emission reduction. After exploring the mature applications of wind and solar energy in buildings, I applied the kinetic energy collection system to high-rise buildings. In the future high-rise residential buildings, the public activity space will be a place with more residents’ activities.

Project

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Junjie Wu

137

Project

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alisa Hernandez Frontier Flux

he divisive nature of the border between the US and Mexico has had a heavy influential impact on the spatial perception and participation of current borderland residents in the region of San Luis, Arizona, U.S.A. and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, MX. In working directly with the bi-national residents of San Luis, this study focuses on the exploration of regional border conditions, urban sprawl, and the close analysis of the borderlander’s cognitive view of the frontier. The research’s aim is to design an architecture that blurs/ erases/overflows the boundaries beyond spatial conditions of the physical barrier and make apparent the existing flux condition of the wall. The intent of this study is to dive deeper into the notions of spatial perception, spatial cognition, and the physical disruption an architecture of division can have on the spatial interpretation of space. And as long as humans have lived, we have used our sense of spatial cognition to travel between spaces

and develop a judgement towards them. This cognitive sense even happens with animals, when traversing through spaces daily, they develop a judgement informed by the general conditions of the space and environment. Now, when contemplating how many times an individual transverses different spaces and sites in the sequence of a day, they are unconsciously using their spatial cognitive abilities and developed perception of the space and time. This happens especially when an individual is familiar with the space they habit, visit, or simply pass by, their spatial cognitive abilities become accustomed and indifferent to the space and routine. Their perception of the spatial sequence and judgement of space becomes in a sense blurred. However, what happens when this journey between spaces is paused, halted, and interrupted? Does one contemplate the space or simply consider it a part of their migration through space?

butterfly fall migration

66. circulation

5 5.

pilgrimage and missions

44.

Cocopah tribe

3 3. 1. 1

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Project

As a Mexican-American native of the borderland region between San Luis, Arizona, United States, and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico, I plan on capturing the perceptions of the land scarred by this divide, and introducing, “San Luis: A Frontier of Flux.” A journey in which I would like to present the lives of the people residing along the partition line by mapping the constant movement between the borderland region, studying their spatial cognitive development and adaptation towards the physical barrier. Allowing for the envisioning on how to blur, flux, and erase the borderline with a proposal as a foundation for the future growth of the cities in a more harmonious and inclusive environment.

139

flora and fauna

river and canals

22.

elevations

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

77.

much the contrary. When crossing the border to and from whichever respective country, the individual more often than not is paused by wait times lasting up to several hours. This pause in their journey is perceived as both precedent and natural. The individual’s spatial perception of the barrier has become such an integrated part of their daily life that the border is no longer a frontier but a blurred frontier. The region is in a constant state of physical and cognitive flux.

Alisa Hernandez

This project observes the unique journey and spatial cognitive development of individuals whose spatial perception has been defined by a physical barrier to the natural flow of their everyday life. This condition occurs in spaces where the spatial journey of the individual has been halted, disrupted and paused by a physical condition external to their control, it is a condition that cannot be avoided, in avoiding it the natural flow is stopped and impeded. This unique condition happens more notably in borderland regions, especially with bi-national borderland commuters who have a need, motive and connection to both nations. The United States and Mexican border has been identified as the border with the most crossings world-wide. The amount of daily crossings in the border between San Ysidro, California, United States and Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, alone, are estimated at 75,000 crossings. The crossings are for motives of family, work, commerce, consumerism, medical, travel, leisure, etc., creating a clear tie and dependence on the other country for daily living. Based on the constant flux of people between these two countries, one would assume that the flow of people is seamless and natural, however, this assumption is very

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Acknowledgements

This issue of Discipline would not have been possible without the support of many people. We would like to express our gratitude to Marc Neveu, who offered guidance and encouragement throughout the semester. We would like to thank interviewees, Rick Joy, Claudia Kappl Joy, Karín Santiago, Nenwe Geeso, Michelle Fehler, Paul Coseo, and Donwoo Jason Yeom, who generously took time out of their schedules to engage in a discussion about connection within architecture.

141

In addition, we would like to thank Interim Director Phil Horton, Clinical Assistant Professor Michelle Fehler, and Dean Steven Tepper for continuously supporting the efforts of Discipline.

DISCIPLINE SPRING 2021

Thank you to every student and faculty member who contributed to the publication and for sharing their ideas on connectivity and the future of our profession.

Discipline: ASU Architecture Journal 07

Articles inside

Acknowledgments

Junjie Wu

Erin Bascom

Yara Kamali & Andrew Synacek

Alexandra Shott

Orange Build

Ashley Ontiveros

Oriana Gil Perez

Meriel Vogliotti

Udit Shah

Ananth Udupa

Smirti Jain

César López Rodriguez

Erin Bascom

Ronjting Jin

with Dellan Raish Dongwoo Jason Yeom

Chaoqun Lin

with Ananth Udupa Paul Coseo

Dellan Raish

with Brennan Richards Michelle Fehler

with Erin Bascom Rick Joy & Claudia Kappl Joy

with Ashley Ontiveros Nenwe Geeso

with Meriel Vogliotti Karín Santiago

Going Beyond Spatial Connection Alexandra Shott

Homemade Alisa Hernandez

Maybe Yes. Maybe No. Elena Rocchi

A Parallel Connection to My Space Ashley Ontiveros

The Construction of Mystery and Suspense Yasmine Kattan

Time to Connect Marc Neveu