Portfolio

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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


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