TO M BLISKA
portfolio | university of virginia school of architecture
TOM BLISKA EDUCATION
www.tombliska.com | thomasbliska@gmail.com 32 university circle #303 charlottesville va 22903 http://issuu.com/tombliska/docs/portfolio
2013 - CURRENT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA School of Architecture Charlottesville, VA
Master of Architecture Candidate, Expected 2016 3.9 Cumulative GPA 2008 - 2012 WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, MA
Bachelor of Arts in Art History + Studio Art 3.5 Cumulative GPA
HONORS AWARDS
2014 - CURRENT WILLIAM R. KENAN FELLOW University of Virginia
The Kenan Fellowship is a merit-based research fellowship equal to the cost of tuition plus a living stipend that allows graduate students to study the Academical Village as a lens through which contemporary issues in the built environment can be brought into focus 2011 ROBERT G. WILMERS, JR. TRAVELING FELLOW Williams College
Studied the production of hybrid religious spaces through the overlap of Christian and Islamic architectures in Andalusia
RESEARCH TEACHING
CURRENT DESIGN DRIVEN MANUFACTURING
Research Assistant | Jeana Ripple Work featured in Recombinant Workscape symposium 11.7.2014
Designed and fabricated charred bamboo panel prototypes as part of the ongoing Design Driven Manufacturing initiative at the School of Architecture LESSONS OF THE LAWN
Teaching Assistant: ARCH 1010
Lead discussion sections for Peter Waldman’s architecture survey course SPRING 2014 SYSTEM NOTATION
Intention + Improvisation symposium 4.18.2014 Collaboration with Jeana Ripple
A speculation on a set of graphic standards indicating structural performance, spatial variability, and relationship with the site, using the original design for the Eames House as a case study
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
JAN 2015 UTILE ARCHITECTURE + PLANNING Boston, MA | 1 Week Externship
Created digital model iterations and graphic primers for the Living with Water competition for resiliency in Boston’s Fort Point Chanel JAN 2014 EHDD ARCHITECTURE
San Francisco, CA | 1 Week Externship
Documented SFMoma construction progress, rendered interior material options, and designed office exhibition SEP 2012 - JUN 2013 STUDIO 101 DESIGNS
San Rafael, CA | Junior Designer
Created digital models, drafted construction documents and updated the materials library for a residential architecture firm
SKILLS
PHYSICAL model building | hand drafting | woodworking | welding | photography CAD autocad | revit | sketchup | rhino | grasshopper | karamba GRAPHIC adobe cs6 | maxwell | v-ray
SELECTED WORKS STUDIO
plate tectonics
prismatic kitchen
infrasection
RESEARCH system notation
transmission cartography
PERSONAL ecoshade
drawing the invisible
PLATE TECTONICS
FALL 2014 | RESEARCH STUDIO I ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CENTER | YOSEMITE, CA STUDIO CRITIC: EDWARD FORD This studio began with the provocation that a joint system could drive the formal and programmatic relationships of a design. Using the same kit of parts, I created twin systems of double-pinned frames and cable-reinforced lamella shells that could respond to both topographic and spanning considerations. The inherent variability within the systems allowed each deployment to create tectonic condensations of Yosemite’s environment, drawing from the multiplicity of experiences and natural processes bounded by the valley. 0
1
2
3
4 discrete
overlapping
elevation plan
PRISMATIC KITCHEN
CULINARY INSTITUTE AS PUBLIC THEATER SPRING 2014 | FOUNDATION STUDIO II CULINARY INSTITUTE | MONTREAL, QC STUDIO CRITIC: PETER WALDMAN This culinary institute interprets the act of cooking as a performance bounded by two walls: an urban facade that internalizes the city, and a systems wall that externalizes the processes and experiments of cooking. I engaged with the ruelles vertes [green alleys] of the city to explore circulation systems that slip, jog, and parallel each other, bringing customers around, above, and within the spectacle of cooking.
internalize city
externalize kitchen
apprentice counters
systems wall
mediating void
INFRASECTION
FALL 2013 | FOUNDATION STUDIO I CITY CENTER | CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA STUDIO CRITIC: ESTHER LORENZ This proposal catalyzes the void between University of Virginia’s campus and Charlottesville’s historical downtown through exploring infrastructural and programmatic adjacencies. A new pedestrian spine is layered over the railroad intersection, and performs a series of geometric operations on the volumes it punctures, varied by programmatic type.
sloping screed water barrier concrete slab 4” decking 24” I beam
OWSJ
W 9x8 columns
station / auditorium / nightclub cafe / daycare
market gymnasium
media
gallery
studios
floor area (sf) FLOOR AREA
SYSTEM NOTATION
SPRING 2014 | INTENTION + IMPROVISATION SYMPOSIUM STRUCTURAL VARIANTS | EAMES HOUSE COLLABORATION WITH JEANA RIPPLE
double height EulerTRUSS truss DOUBLE HEIGHT EULER
variable EulerTRUSS truss VARIABLE EULER
intersecting prattTRUSSES trusses INTERSECTING PRATT
w
v
optimized
0
1
2
3
4
optimized
structural panels (sf) STRUCTURAL PANELS
originalBRIDGE truss scheme ORIGINAL HOUSE
sectional overlap (sf) SECTIONAL OVERLAP
ocean VIEW view (sf) OCEAN
southern shade (sf) SOUTHERN SHADE
0 1 2 3 4 optimized OPTIMIZED y z Intersecting Pratt Trussx v w displacemnt (% of original) DISPLACEMENT UNDER LOAD
joints (#) JOINTS
linearELEMENTS elements (#) LINEAR
steel members (f) STEEL MEMBERS
Original Bridge House
Intersecting Pratt Truss
Original Bridge House
Double Height Euler Truss
Variable Euler Truss
DOUBLE HEIGHT EULER TRUSS Variable Euler Truss
y
x
Double Height Euler Truss
VARIABLE EULER TRUSS z
Original Bridge House
Intersecting Pratt Truss
INTERSECTING PRATT TRUSSES Original Bridge House
Intersecting Pratt Truss
Variable Euler Truss
Double Height Euler Truss
ORIGINAL BRIDGE HOUSE
Double Height Euler Truss
Variable Euler Truss
TRANSMISSION CARTOGRAPHY SPRING 2015 FORTHCOMING PUBLICATION | LUNCH DESIGN RESEARCH JOURNAL
First, acoustics. Standing underneath the parallel sets of transmission towers you can hear the unrelenting humming. The jumbled buzz of electricity, of connectivity, of a hundred thousand normative appliances teething at power. On a humid day the vibrations pulse through your skeleton, foregrounding normally invisible flows, crackling with no discernible rhythm. Second, vision. The lines cut through the landscape, the 200 foot right-of-way flattens fields, fells trees, laughs at topography. The new horizon appears abruptly, awakening a counterpoint to the sleepily curving Virginia roads. The towers register against the new vanishing point, gaining strength in numbers, marching lockstep. Third, space. The first exploration off the road, the tentative trespass out of the public sphere into an autonomous incision. This is not terrain vague, it is terrain spécifique ordered to absurdity. It is the infrastructural sublime, territory inhabited vicariously through consumption. The cut is violent, selfish, but it is also didactic, creating purely topographical transects. Environmental processes, ground covers, and landforms are collapsed into one framed view. The character of the land is rendered in a highly vulnerable way, naked and punctured. The artifacts are placeless infrastructural objects, but in their actions they reveal site specificity. This site is representative of hundreds of miles of high voltage transmission lines in Virginia that mediate between areas of energy production and consumption, minimizing energy lost to resistance. The higher the voltage, the lower the loss. Better to bundle, consolidate and make a single clear cut. At first, this territory and its tethered inhabitants seems radically divorced from residents of the rural Virginia landscape. But there are insurgencies, pockets of action that speak to an infiltration of the cut’s hard boundaries. Circles of parked cars create nomadic settlements, access roads poke obstinately out from under tree cover. When the lines make the leap over ponds and reservoirs, new edge conditions form. When they parallel fields, farmers immediately capitalize on the potential for extra storage space. How little could be done to transition this terrain into the public realm? To augment this already hybrid territory with new programmable surfaces that encourage occupation, leisure, spectacle, event? Our working dimensions are 200’ by X. Our first interventions must be distributed and democratic: an essay in patchwork reoccupation, sub-urban in scale, super-urban in complexity and connectivity, negotiating both the economic demands of city infrastructure and the spatial obligations to surrounding communities. Start at the edge and follow the lines…
NOW
+10
+25
+50
ECOSHADE
SPRING 2014 | 8 WEEK DESIGN | 1 WEEK BUILD PROFESSOR: JOHN QUALE COLLABORATORS: ERIC DER + MOHAMED ISMAIL
DRAWING THE INVISIBLE SUMMER 2014 | VISUALIZATION ELECTIVE REPRESENTATION | VICENZA, ITALY INSTRUCTOR: CHARLIE MENEFEE
mediation | querini stampalia
easy pieces | canova gipsoteca
multiplicity | colosseo flow + response | treviso
relativity | stockholm public library
trompe-l’oeil | teatro olimpico
THANK YOU
www.tombliska.com