Portfolio
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Se le c t e d W o rk s | S y ra c u s e Un iv e rs it y
08.2021
TOTA HUNTER
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resume
Tota Hunter E // tota.hunter@gmail.com P // 832.948.5802
Education
Experience
2016-2021 Bachelor of Architecture Syracuse University SoArchitecture
Syracuse University Architecture / Remote
Business Minor Martin J. Whitman SoManagement
Led and taught a group of first year representation students in order to help students improve their digital drawing skills. Responsible for grading the work of entire class, which included 46 students in various time zones.
Renée Crown Honors Program SU Abroad London, England Balkans Region Florence, Italy
Spring 2019 Summer 2019 Fall 2019
Awards
Summer 2021
Teaching Assistant
Gensler / Houston, TX
Summer 2019
Intern
Partook in the design, research and post production process of a pro-bono intern project, that aimed to provide a campus for a bridge program for foster youth. Created renderings and a campaign book for a local church renovation project.
CSPE Architetti , Florence, IT
Fall 2019
Intern
Magnum Cum Laude
Assisted in creating a series of diagrams for a hospital project in China in order to aid in the proposal of the project.
Dean’s List
Architecture Scholarship Full tuition, Merit-based
PBK Architects / Houston, TX
Honor’s Grant Recipient Thesis Research Funding
Summer 2014
Intern
Shadowed experienced architects in the different phases of developing projects. Organized physical and digital files pertaining to public school related design projects.
King+King Design Competition Honorable Mention
Freedom By Design / Syracuse, NY Director
Skills Digital Rhino Illustrator Photoshop InDesign Vray/Enscape AutoCAD Revit
Provided overall structure for the program and was the mediator between team, faculty, and administrators.
Fabrication Wood Working Hand Drafting Ceramics Drawing Laser Cutter Foam Cutter
Language English
2016-19
Kazakh
Russian
Project Manager
Oversight of final stage of construction on the historic Westminster Church ramp, and beginning design of ramps for store entrance in the historic town of Cazenovia,NY.
Involvements Freedom By Design (FBD)
Success Saturday Tutoring
American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS)
Student Peer Advisor
Architecture Student Organization (ASO)
date | Fall 2021
location | Syracuse
course | Thesis
Bent Matter Woodshop | Rhino 7 | Vray | Illustrator | Photoshop | Website
As humans continue to construct and shape the built environment, there is inadequate concern of understanding and addressing the issues at hand. The power of commodities to transform the built environment is accelerating. Systems of production have evolved with efficiency and profit in mind, resulting in the creation of processes that heavily rely on the exhaustion of our natural resources. Although the implications of such processes are oversimplified and abstracted, the underlying issues of environmental degradation, overconsumption and the resulting social inequities remain to be true. This thesis aims to politicize wood and its commodification within the building industry by examining the implications of design decisions and current supply chains. The sourcing of timber products has deep set environmental and social ramifications in the grand scheme of things. Through the integration of architectural and political ecology, this thesis aims to homogenize the interests and goals of both fields to address underlying issues in the age where human activity has detrimental ramification on the climate and the environment.
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advisors | B. Eversole, J. Larsen, J.F. Bedard, R. Hubeli
SU SoA
forestry machinery
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world trade of forest products
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prototypes
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formal variations of chair
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physical production of final form
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construction method of physical production
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date | Spring 2020
location | Ireland
course | ARC 409
Light Bath w/Patrick de Gracia
Rhino 6 | Vray | Illustrator | Photoshop
Lighthouse as Bath is a series of concrete walls that erect from the ground and agglomerate into monolithic structures. These concrete volumes reside on the cliff’s surface, their vertical nature enabling them to blend with the striations of the rock. Between these walls are containments of water hovering above the ground, embedded into the earth, excavated within the cliff, and submerged inside the ocean. The sequence of these pools as the user descends from land to sea is symbolic of a reversion to nature. What initiates as an individual experience of change, the user is exposed to more collective means of cleansing as they navigate through the project. Conditions for bathing, although singular in function sharing the same space, then transitions into pools that force users to inhabit the same body of water. Eventually, the concrete walls of the project dematerialize into the cliff’s face and reveal the ocean resting beneath it. Concrete no longer contains the water, platforms that extend into the sea gesture at the expansive quality of the final pool. The user is free to wander within the ocean as the lighthouse serves as a beacon for their return.
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professor | Richard Rosa
SU SoA
interior perspectives
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section + elevation
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section perspectives + plans
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interior perspectives
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date | Summer 2019
location | Yugoslavia
course | ARC 500
Void w/Julia V. Ocejo Illustrator | Photoshop | InDesign
The course aims to investigate three typologies in which architecture was employed as infrastructure. The research targets the former Yugoslavia, particularly New Belgrade, Serbia; Seaside resorts along the Adriatic Coast; Tange’s Master plan in Skopje, Macedonia. Through the employment of forensics, analysis, journalism and physical documentation, students needed to develop a methodology to separate and examine the built environment. A void is a territory that is constantly being engaged and disengaged by the individual. It can be understood as all of the potential space that is occupied by an individual and can be seen in varying scales of operation. Voids are the transitional spaces from one activity to another, a territory where actions play out. They are not merely empty spaces but rather undefined zones without clear functions where any form of action can happen. They are the free spaces for human expression and therefore they allow the individual to shape and reshape these territories.
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professor | Mitesh Dixit
SU SoA
index of spatial voids
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index of diagrammatic voids
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spreads of void catalog
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spreads of void catalog
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date | Summer 2019
location | Houston, TX
course | Internship
Re imagining w/Gensler Interns Rhino 6 | Lumion | Photoshop | InDesign
The pro-bono project aimed to deliver support, safety, and stability of an inclusive community that is dedicated to partnering with former foster youth in building fulfilling, and meaningful futures in the Houston community. In collaboration with nineteen other summer interns, roles often shifted and overlapped. The delegated, primary roles were taking part in the design process of the residential aspect of the project; modeling and synchronizing the Rhino and Revit model of the residence building; and taking on leadership of the post-production team for the final render output of twenty images using Photoshop. The final production was a compilation of a comprehensive book that encompassed all the worked done by the interns through out the summer.
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project manager | Aaron Bisch
Gensler
site setting diagram
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render perspectives
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date | Spring 2018
location | Cazenovia, NY
course | ARC 208
Hybrid Rhino 5 | AutoCAD | Illustrator
The project incorporates a mixed use program that includes a restaurant, learning facilities for cooking and an outdoor program encompassing several different types of ecosystems. The program encourages a farm to table approach to food, providing the user a direct relationship to the food they consume. Given its isolated context in the small, historic town of Cazenovia, the project aims to create hybridized spaces within its site. The hybrid spaces allow for interaction within the multitude of programs laid out over the site. Thy hybrid moments present themselves in the form of combination of materials, architectural elements, spaces and programs. As the occupant moves from on space to another, there is an opportunity to redefine conventional spaces. By combining programs and spaces, what is created is a blurred threshold that does not identify or conform with either program. That allows for people to experience spaces as a continuous journey rather than a series of isolated spaces.
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professor | Molly Hunker
SU SoA
hybrid diagrams
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interior perspectives
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collective plan
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site sections
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date | Fall 2018
location | NYC, NY
course | ARC 307
Modular Rhino 5 | V-ray | Illustrator | Photoshop
The project will address the current affordable housing crisis in New York City by questioning the cycle of demolition in urban growth, instead of seeking to promote a model of development which allows landlord to increase the rental capacity of their property without raising rend or displacing current residents. Particularly, what might a city look like if we could build up? The design intention attempts to modularize the living space to allow for future growth. By providing a single 3m x 3m unit at its smallest scale, the single unit can be combined and recombined to create any arrangement of living spaces at larger scales. The setting provides itself with the opportunity to connect with its context by standing on two public program foot prints at the ground level and gradually becomes more of a private space for its dwellers.
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professor | Ryan Ball
SU SoA
diagrammatic axon of connections
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programmatic hybrids
Protection
Enhancement
Modification
Stairs x Mutualistic
Toilet x Commensalistic
Wall x Commensalistic
Corridors x Parasitic
Balcony x Parasitic
Erasure
Window x Parasitic
Form
Use
Technology
Floor x Commensalistic
Roof x Commensalistic
Window x Parasitic
Ramp x Parasitic
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Facade x Commensalistic
Roof x Mutualistic
structure perspectives
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physical model in site
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date | Fall 2018
location | NYC, NY
course | ARC 307
Connectivity Rhino 5 | V-ray | Illustrator | Photoshop
The project will seek to extract a new tectonic logic through the development of context and program into a habitable structure. The mixed used program is intended to provide studio and gallery facilities. Classrooms will offer spaces for after-school art programs and other arts-related outreach. Supporting educational ambitions, a library is included on the list of functions. In aggregate, this program offers a civic arts opportunity for the exchange of ideas and production of creative work. The design project intends to provide inhabitable spaces that function separately but are still connected through their relation with one another. A visual connection is established between parallel studio on the other. Although, largely an inward looking structure. the community plaza welcomes the surrounding community to step into the space and engage with the building.
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professor | Ryan Ball
SU SoA
tectonic deconstruction diagrams
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perspectives
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date | Spring 2019
location | London, UK
course | ARC 407
Condenser w/Dylan Crean, Maria Gutierrez, Kalani Mah, Sophia Xing, Phang Lim Rhino 5 | Illustrator | Photoshop The project is located on the green belt of London, which is a zone that prevents further growth of sprawl; prevents neighboring towns from merging into one another. Out goal was to create a space that has not been inhabited before, in a form that condenses a city into a singular building. By using OMA’s unbuilt projects from the 1980s as precedents, this project hopes to discover the relationship between the domestic and the collective where both entities create a tension zone where interaction happens. We defined the “collective” as a social space that is accessible to people and entities that are shared or motivated by at least one common issue or interest. Various programs can be seen there such as a theater, a club, a park, and transportation center. On the other side, the domestic is solely a house where it is familiar space that relates to the running of a home, a space surrounding a person which they regard as psychologically theirs. These two elements create a tension zone which is an opportunity for the users to interact with one another through acknowledgment of physical presence.
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professor | Davide Sacconi, Jad Semaan
SU SoA
interior program perspectives
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section + ground plan
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date | Fall 2016
location | Syracuse, NY
course | ARC 107
Sequence Hand Drawing | Graphite Pencil
The series of images explore the spacial sequence of Crouse College on the Syracuse University campus. The study intends to exhibit the natural progression through the building, stopping at key moments that characterize the building.
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professor | Terrance Goode
SU SoA
Thank you.
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