Tom Soldiviero Portfolio

Tom Soldiviero

Selected Works

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Contents

Table of Contents

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01 | Terrain Vague: Philadelphia Granary Urban Practice Studio, Fall 2014

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02 | Walls to Inspire, Rooms to Honor, Gardens to Understand World War One Memorial Competition, Summer 2015

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03 | Interview: Andrew Balster Executive Director, ARCHEWORKS, Fall 2014

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04 | Architectural Visualization: Storytelling Landscape Rendering, Fall 2014

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05 | Antarctic Border-Crossing Station ACSA Steel Competition, Spring 2014

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06 | Computational Tectonics Fall 2015

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07 | Historic Congressional Cemetery Comprehensive Building Design Studio, Spring 2014

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08 | Travel Sketches Study Abroad, Rome, Spring 2014

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09 | Detroit Culinary Center Cardinal O’Boyle Foreign Studies Competition, Fall 2013

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Philadelphia Granary

Terrain Vague: Philadelphia Granary

Term Fall 2014 Team Julie Kim, Eric Jenkins, Mark Mcinturf ( instructors), Matthew Foley, Brian Gongaware, Brendan Murphy, Kathleen Crowley, Elizabeth Bezilla, Pia Berdan, Sanaz Rahimlabafzadeh Project Partner Matthew Foley Award 1st Place, Arts Club of Washington Student Architecture Competition

The Philadelphia Granary was once a vital urban agricultural repository, providing the city adequate storage solutions for grains. New distribution methods led to the abandonment of the facility in the 1950s. This proposal seeks to re-establish the warehouse as a museum of industrial art and reaffirm its connection to the established art district in the area. The granary contains seventy-eight elevated square silos as well as a loading dock beneath. With little need for human inhabitation, the building lacks sufficient vertical circulation, resulting in large islands of unreachable program within the building, particularly areas above and within the silos. How can vertical circulation be provided for a building that was never intended to require such a thing?

As a solution, an independent circulation core is built on the edge of the site and connects to the granary through bridges on each floor.

The approach to circulation paths is simplified: visitors accent and descend in the removed core, while penetrating and moving through galleries within the existing structure.

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Philadelphia Granary

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Philadelphia Granary

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Philadelphia Granary

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Philadelphia Granary

Carving of Silos Rather than treating the silos as unusable program, the seventy-eight containers are considered as a solid mass, allowing voids to be carved out for various types of galleries. Light wells pierce through to the roof of the museum, letting natural light to flood into gallery spaces. Study models clarified ideas about path, space, and light within the silos.

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Philadelphia Granary

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World War I Memorial Competition

World War I Memorial Competition

Term Summer 2015 Team Adam Schroth, Julie Ju-Youn Kim, Paul Matelic

“As pines keep the shape of the wind even when the wind has fled and is no longer there, So walls guard the shape of man even when man has fled and is no longer there.�

George Seferis The spirit of this proposal lies in the intertwined ideas of light and shadow, presence and absence.

With 116,516 punctures, a textured wall to inspire rises from the ground defining a threshold. The wall is simultaneously present because of its scale but also absent with the perforations to represent the lives lost in World War I. The wall connects in the ground, rests on the ground, soars above the ground. Carved fields in the park create gardens to understand. Articulations of the edges shape figurative rooms to honor. We offer a rich and dynamic memorial park with spaces both for reflection and for recreation. The conceptual idea of the gradient overlay provides a continuous topology of diverse experiences. This proposal articulates the inflection in contours and edges to support seating, lounging or standing to achieve the sense of intimacy in scale attractive to a couple of people as well as hundreds in a crowd. An array of LED light markers stitches their way within the benches. Whispers from the war emerge within the illuminated gardens. Our memorial park considers nuance and variety in the texture and scale of elements within a single surface of the wall, within the gardens, in the rooms.

Walls to Inspire. Rooms to Honor.

Gardens to Understand.

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World War I Memorial Competition

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Rooms to Honor

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World War I Memorial Competition

Walls to Inspire

Gardens to Understand

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World War I Memorial Competition

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INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW BALSTER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARCHEWORKS February 27, 2015

Tom Soldiviero (TS): You’ve been active in Chicago for several years. You led Virginia Tech’s Chicago Studio and recently you accepted the Executive Director of ARCHEWORKS. Can you begin by discussing Chicago Studio?

Andrew Balster (AB): Chicago Studio worked as a form of a satellite campus, but was never really marketed as such. It really became a virtual campus for Virginia Tech. It started as just architecture then evolved into a multidisciplinary collaboration of architects, interior designers, and landscape architects.

The students are hosted with all different firms.

They basically got a desk and contacts within the firm. If students have specific interests in research that the leadership or practice itself was interested in, we were able to help with that. It was off billable hours. They were able to work directly with the students as well. That really built the momentum and credibility of the program and we worked closely with the mayor’s office for some time.

What we were doing was embracing the city as a local laboratory better than the local universities in Chicago. We also really focused on trying to fully embrace the current practice. I didn’t necessarily think everything was perfect, but it was an exciting fusion of academia and practice that’s going to advance the built environment.

Chicago Studio gained credibility and was working almost as its own operative office, working on actual projects and had the freedom of academia. Yet it has the calibration of practice.

That fusion is really explosive.

TS: Does ARCHEWORKS strictly focuses on Chicagobased projects?

AB: Correct. And we always will.

TS: What’s the benefit to studying the local?

AB: This is something that I feel really strong

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Balster Interview

about. Within a globalized world there’s an assumption that everything has to be global and that everything has to go to India, Asia or Africa.

Do we have to be looking at every other issue and trying to solve these big global problems?

Because the fact of the matter is the very essence of globalization requires us to look at cities. It’s not always the form of the generic or the generic economy.

If you look at the majority of the Asian studies and European studies, many of them focus on their own “local.” In America there’s a tendency to view the domestic as banal. Something in Singapore is more exciting than the west end of Chicago. Taking a deep dive into a single context is much more successful than trying to take on every single issue and solve every single problem.

I find it difficult to overlook what’s right in front of me than think about what is happening in a country I’ve never been to.

TS: The school itself is not accredited. What is your stance on the accreditation process?

AB: There’s a necessity as a licensed professional to have certain competencies. I get the intention.

However, there is room to look critically at the accreditation process. NAAB is its own animal, and actually its own financial, selfreferential and self-serving machine. I think the accreditation structure and procedure are absolute parasites to the profession. The current system we have is more about sustaining a business of the accreditation process than it is about turning out architects that inspire society.

In many cases we’re producing architects as laborers and were not producing architects as creators. There’s a real issue with that. That’s why you see the kind of work that’s happening in the States.

I believe we should put more pressure on the licensing process and also NCARB. They operate now by infusing the profession with so much technical detail. I have students that are getting

a B.Arch and have never taken a theory or philosophy course. They know nothing about it. You ask them who Kahn is and they’re like, “Who? What?” There’s a trade-off, and it’s a real loss to architectural education overall. That’s not to say you need to go to school longer. I just think that what we’re teaching needs to adapt.

Why is history only taught through the lens of architecture? Do we need an entire year on historical architecture? Meanwhile, were not talking about anything relevant to contemporary society or developing countries or developing markets. The lack of reading and writing is terrible. The last writing course the majority of students took was in high school. You have students write essays and it’s absolutely awful.

Right now we live in a collegiate model that is completely unsustainable and approaching a tipping point. That’s why you’re seeing with all the start-up schools. There are so many nonaccredited, experience-based programs out there that are a fraction of the price and offer you so much more. The only thing they don’t offer you a stamp. The more our world is advancing, the less the stamp will matter. I don’t think it’s going to have any relevance in twenty years.

TS: What is your vision for ARCHEWORKS? AB: My vision is aligned with the very foundations of ARCHEWORKS. Since the beginning, it has really tried to sustain and advance the impact of the work that we do and, therefore, draw in more and more students and gain credibility within the city and with various organizations. With ARCHEWORKS, we can do things that are actually physical. We can actually do design-build programs that are outside of architecture, yet use architectural thinking.

Our main program is a certificate program with people from all different disciplines. We need to step outside and talk with the architecture professionals, economists, doctors, or a group of kids to get a different perspective. The design

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approach is balanced by the actual community rather than a hypothetical community.

TS: You received your master’s degree at Edinburgh.

Can you talk about the differences in American and European approaches to education?

AB: I was completely fascinated when I first started my undergrad just by what was coming out of the UK schools. I went for a one year degree and post-grad degree and fell in love with the school. I left my undergrad at the top of my class and when I went to the University of Edinburgh I was super average. There were people around me that were far more talented. I knew that was the right environment to be in.

What was great about it was everything wasn’t laid out. I never really knew what kind of course I was going to do or what I was a part of at that time. It was one big studio with a lot of different college credits. It was never clear that this unit is this class or this unit is that class. It wasn’t until I looked at my transcript that I realized I had taken thirty classes; it felt like just one. You do everything as a studio. You get to know people a lot better and dive deep into the material.

I would say that teaching now at TU Delft in the Netherlands, the high intensity is more powerful and the work is just amazing. They are all about rigor. Socially, the design world there is so much stronger that it pushes kids out who are highly competitive. They’re humble, but they just don’t stop working. Yet, they definitely enjoy life.

They’re so much more focused. They don’t expect anything. They’re appreciative of everything.

The schools in Europe can adapt much quicker to contemporary society.

I understand the point of tenure in American schools, but I’m against it, in principle. I don’t believe anybody should ever have a fixed post.

It’s ridiculous. In Europe you have so many more adjuncts coming in and instructors that practice.

There’s a really strong balance. Even after

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Balster Interview

teaching for five years and practicing for ten, my professors at Edinburgh, if I had to go present in front of them, they’re the only people that would scare the hell out of me. Just intellectually. They can break everything down. When you talked about local and global, they have a stand on the global, but they’re very much proud of their culture. It’s not like America trying to tack on, thinking Europe is amazing or trying to study India or China as something bizarre. We’ve got a desire to be more interesting than we are. It’s that attitude that’s keeping us from being interesting.

America is an incredible place to study. There are Europeans leaving Rotterdam to come to Chicago for three months out of the year and paying a lot of money to do it.

TS: I want to switch over to another topic before we run out of time. In your opinion, what is the state of the discipline today, separate from school?

AB: After the recession, fees were cut in half and it was really cut throat between firms. We’re still living in that kind of environment where everything is being done faster and cheaper.

There’s a lot of pressure.

In the mid 80’s, when industrial designers started seeing that products were going to be designed and manufactured in China, they started getting into strategy and branding. They started realizing that their thinking on problem-solving was as valuable as the execution of a start-to-finish product. I think that architecture has also done the same thing. There’s a common joke by a colleague of mine, who’s an industrial designer, that the problem with architecture is that the end result is always a building. With industrial designers it can be a syringe, or it can be a new brand or an app. It doesn’t have to be a thing.

When it comes to urbanism, I think that’s where we’re progressing a lot in the field. When it comes to buildings, we became sort of technicians, not craftsman, of building systems and BIM. With less work out there, architects are trying to figure out smarter techniques in terms of product

delivery. There is also a reconsideration of what a project is. A project isn’t always building; it can actually be a strategy. From strategy to execution, that’s what we’re the experts on.

This expanded notion of architecture is where the really good practices are leading. You find a lot of firms that specialize in healthcare or higher education are doing just fine. However, their staff looks pretty depleted because it’s not all that inspiring work. The old boys club has the old guys on the top and the workers underneath.

That is starting to fail; it’s retiring with them.

Right now all the mid size offices are getting wiped out. There’s boutique at ten to twenty, which is all you need for an office, then you have AECOM, which is just eating up the entire world.

The boutique firms are continuing to do cleaver work. Eventually, they’ll be less and less that can work for all these Gensler’s and AECOM’s. Plus, what you work on is never going to be really innovative, no matter how many times they use the word “innovative” in their website.

All of a sudden, many students will be prepared for really average firms. The smarter students will reach out to the institutions that are not under the domain of any American registration boards. They will start going to European or Asian schools that are more advanced on so many levels. If that happens, a huge disparity is going to come about. Schools, NAAB and NCARB will have to respond. I think that will ultimately happen in fifteen years. It’s the result of the regulation that is draining creativity and value for both the student and their investor, the parent, as well as the institution. Any time there is more pressure put on a credential, that’s when schools are failing students.

TS: Just as architects can make transitions into other professions, are there any other professions that can contribute to the betterment of the architecture community?

AB: It’s a very good question that I don’t have the answer for because in some way maybe it’s not about architecture. I think we’re trying to do too much with the term “architecture office.”

Although interesting things are happening, and they’ve been happening for years, I’m not convinced that it yields better buildings. Yet it opens up what the practice can do and opens new markets and new areas of focus.

I don’t think it’s just the importation of disciplines into architecture. Money is going to rule. Ultimately NCARB and NAAB will see enrollment drop because they’re trying to fasttrack the degree. You’ll see American students coming out of school with advanced-track degrees will find that top firms won’t be as interested.

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Architectural Illustration

Storytelling: Architectural Illustration Term Fall 2014 Advisor Fernando Iribarren

“While truthfulness has it value, the same can be said for fantasy. The children’s story is well suited to counteract the resignation and incapacitation that often accompanies trauma, since its fantastical plots aim to summon the imaginative potential of the reader’s captive mental state.

Contributors…encourage us to cycle between conscious and unconscious states, work-life and dream-time, desire and disappointment, material reality and history because to do so is essential to an enhanced experience of the physical environment.”

Jeffrey Inaba, Storytelling, Volume 20 As a way to playfully reimagine a children’s tale, a pair of renderings illustrate my interpretations of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen based on memory. This quick exercise was meant to understand how individuals illustrate unique landscapes in their minds from listening to tales.

I made my imaginary landscape real, using the rendering as a medium to display what I had interpreted from the text.

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Excerpt from The Selfish Giant

By Oscar Wilde at 2014 Serpentine Pavilion | Smiljan Radic

“...‘What are you doing here?’ he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

‘My own garden is my own garden,’ said the Giant; ‘any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.’ So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a noticeboard.

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. He was a very selfish Giant...”

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Architectural Illustration

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Excerpt from The Boy Hidden in a Fish

By David Hockney at 2010 Venice Biennale | Smiljan Radic

“...Next day he went to the lake, called the fish to him and said, ‘I suffered you to live, now tell me where to hide myself so that the king’s daughter may not see me.’ The fish thought for a while, and at last cried, ‘I have it, I will shut you up in my stomach.’

He swallowed him, and went down to the bottom of the lake...”

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Architectural Illustration

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erhaps the river will carry me to little Kay," said she; and then she grew less sad. She rose, and looked for many hours at the beautiful green banks. Presently she sailed by a large cherry-orchard, where was a little cottage with curious red and blue windows; it was thatched, and before it two wooden soldiers stood sentry, and presented arms when anyone went past...

Excerpt from The Snow Queen, By Hans Christian Andersen

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Architectural Illustration

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erda called to them, for she thought they were alive; but they, of course, did not answer. She came close to them, for the stream drifted the boat quite near the land.

Gerda called still louder, and an old woman then came out of the cottage, leaning upon a crooked stick. She had a large broad-brimmed hat on, painted with the most splendid flowers... ...’Poor little child!’ said the old woman.

“How did you get upon the large rapid river, to be driven about so in the wide world!” And then the old woman went into the water, caught hold of the boat with her crooked stick, drew it to the bank, and lifted little Gerda out...

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Architectural Illustration

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Antarctica Border-Crossing Station

Antarctica Border -Crossing Station Term Spring 2014 Team Jorge Cornet + Adam Schroth Advisor David Dewane Award 3rd Place, ACSA Steel Design Student Competition

“After the race to South Pole had ended in December of 1911, Henry Shackleton, a polar explorer from Britain, had embarked on a voyage that would cross the continent of Antarctica from sea to sea. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no loss of human life.”

As we reflect on Shackleton’s heroic journey, and the transforming landscape of Antarctica, we seek to engage the role of a border crossing station as a point enabling contact amongst people + place.

However, the lines of the map are not drawn as stiff here, as there are several territorial claims on the continent. In close proximity to where Shackleton’s vessel was beset is the intersection of disputed territorial claims recognized by the UK, Chile, and Argentina with access to research stations nearby, becoming ever more prominent as the impacts of global warming grow more pressing. This is the context in which we have decided to work, in-between water + ice, light + dark, and bound by Place and Time.

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Antarctic Border-Crossing Station

Exterior Shell

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Reinterpretation + retracing of Shackleton’s Endurance

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Antarctica Border-Crossing Station

Threshold Establishing a plane at the intersection of water, air, + ice.

Amplify Creating a level of visibility for incoming ships, while celebrating light + passage to the Atlantic.

Plunge Concealing large scale buoyancy chambers, generating osmotic power + engaging the dark water of the Atlantic.

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Antarctica Border-Crossing Station

Customs Hall, Gazing into the Atlantic + Upwards The steel structure offers expansive views and largely dematerializes into the landscape of the Atlantic.

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Computational Tectonics

Computational Tectonics

Term Fall 2015

This project studied how the line can do much more than define ground and plane. Rules for this exploration were developed to assist in the generation of drawings. The rules are as followed: 1. Primary curves are drawn in space.

2. Resultant lines radiate tangential from the original curves.

3. I can control the density and length of resultant lines.

Conclusions from this exercise are as followed: 1. Lines that overlap can create thicker lines.

2. Lines can create patterns, like tartan grids.

3. Lines that intertwine can create masses and volumes.

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Computational Tectonics

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Comprehensive Building Design Studio

Aedificium Memoriarum: Building of Memories Term Spring 2014 Team Maria Benanti + Brendan Roche Advisor Julie Ju-Youn Kim Award 2nd Place Honor of Merit

The Aedeficium Memoriarum is a multipurpose building for Washington, D.C.’s Historic Congressional Cemetery which houses a gallery, cafÊ, lecture hall, observation tower, as well as conservation laboratories for the restoration of the site’s aging headstones in need of repair.

The project manipulates the notion of portal, allowing contained and framed views to assist in the grieving process. Upon entry, views towards the cemetery are blocked. This is intentional. As visitors move from room to room, balance between light and dark, compression and expansion, and sight and sound are in constant flux. An infinite circulation loop suggests an open-ended approach to experiencing these spaces, rather than a prescribed and fixed route.

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Perception of Grief

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Comprehensive Building Design Studio

Reality(s) of Grief

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01. Courtyard, February 02 02. Tower, February 05 03. Corridor, February 06 04. Stairs, February 08 05. Tower, February 08 06. Approach, February 08 07. Tower, March 03 08. Lecture, March 12 09. Corridor, March 12 10. Gathering, March 22

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11. Lecture, March 22 12. Courtyard, March 18 13. Bridge, March 18 14. Courtyard, March 18 15. Approach, March 22 16. Tower, March 22 17. Approach, March 22 18. Ceremony, March 22 19. Courtyard, March 22 20. Bridge, March 22 21. Courtyard, March 22 22. Courtyard, April 24

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23. Topography, April 27 24. Tower, April 30 25. Gathering, April 30 26. Approach, April 30 27. Entry, April 30 28. Ceremony, April 30

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01 A View Outward

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02 Containment of Views

Comprehensive Building Design Studio

03 Program Arrangement

04 Revealing Views Through Circulation

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A Garden With a Framed View Courtyards are framed with intention, yet open-ended for visitors to experience as they wish. This courtyard blocks views towards the cemetery, yet still has portals slightly above human eye height.

The distance between contained and infinite views is inches away.

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Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy

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Travel Sketches

Study Abroad Travel Sketches

Term Spring 2013 Cities Visited Rome, Como, Florence, Positano, Sorrento, Vincenza, Venice, Verona, London, Paris, Prague, Vienna, Vals

My time spent abroad primarily focused on learning how to use hand drawing as a tool for analysis. Studies of proportion, scale, rhythm, light, and context allowed me to critically visualize and understand the underlying principles of architecture through sketching.

The following sketches and notes are examples of a mix of analytical and perspectival drawings conducted while traveling through Italy.

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La Fontana di Trevi, Rome, Italy

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Travel Sketches

Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy

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Port, Sorrento, Italy

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Travel Sketches

Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

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Villa Guilia, Rome, Italy

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Travel Sketches

Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

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Detroit Culinary Center

Detroit Culinary Center Term Fall 2013 Advisor Julie Ju-Youn Kim Award 1st Place Studio Finalist + Competition Finalist

The genesis of this project began through in-depth analysis of Detroit’s urban condition.

After extensive conversation and debate, key issues, such as Detroit’s lack of sufficient grocery stores within its downtown district, were flushed out and explored further. This project looks to Detroit’s vast, mostly unoccupied residential blocks as a generator for culinary change. An ambitious group of urban farmers have claimed these open plots, cultivating the land to grow fresh produce. Yet, lack of a formal market area close to downtown prohibits the larger farming community from selling a majority of their crop to those in need.

The Detroit Culinary Center provides urban farmers this formal market space. Located at the ground level, guests can meander through the market’s generous open plan. Movable display cases allows for endless configurations for vendors to display their produce during market hours. Above, a culinary incubator provides those interested in the culinary profession a kitchen to test dishes, which can be purchased by guests.

The single dining hall surrounds the kitchens, providing guests with a variety of seating options.

The essence of the project is best understood in section: below, farmers sell fresh and seasonal produce, while directly above, chefs transform these raw ingredients into delectable meals.

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