TYLER AKINS ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INSATIABLE SEARCH 2. WESCOTT STUDIO 3. GREEN CANOPY 4. BLOOM 5. SQUARE-CIRCLE
INSATIABLE SEARCH LOCATION: North Pacific PROGRAM: Create a sustainable floating community that will clean the Pacific Gyre. FOCUS: Use fractals to create a realistic architectural design for the Evolo Skyscraper Competition.
INSATIABLE SEARCH IN COLLABORATION WITH: Sergio Sanabria, Jennifer Karbula (Student Leader), Tomas Castillo, Caitlyn Steele, Nathan West, Alexandra Kizer, Royce D. Gates III, Abbigail Dickerson, Addison Foran, Branden Piks, Ryan Halverson, Nickas Antoniou, Phil Willse + Jennifer Churchia.
“Insatiable Search for the soul by means of the delicate glimmerins or reflections the sould has left in others- at first the faint trace of a smile or a word; towards the last, the varied and glowing splendors of intelligence, imagination and goodness.” - Jorge Luis Borges “The Approach to Al-Mu’Taism” Industry in the world has caused multiple problems in many different ways. One of those ways is the expanse of waste found in the Northern Pacific; the Pacific Gyre. This is an area in the center of the Pacific Ocean in which plastic waste is collected due to the water becoming static. Pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris are trapped in a slowly turning cyclone thousands of miles wide. This plastic harms the plants and animals in this area, causing dire need for this ocean ecosystem. Our proposed sea community would be placed on top of this to remove plastic waste and recycle it into oil and other products. Another problem caused by industry is the rising sea levels around the world. Global warming is causing Polar icecaps to melt, causing vast amount of water to be dispersed throughout the oceans around Earth. These rising sea levels devestate small Islands and lands found below sea level. Islands such as Micronesi, the Marshall Islands, Palau and others are already seeing this devestation, losing landmass already due to these rising level. Sea communities could be a giant help for this issue, creating a place for refugees to live with the oppurtunity to expand due to the fractal nature of the design. This allows the community to grow and expand to infinity.
WESCOTT STUDIO LOCATION: Wescott House PROGRAM: Design a meditation hut to teach students and be placed on the Wescott House site. FOCUS: Design based on detail. Starting from creating blocks to creating a joint and working up towards a full scale building.
FROEBEL BLOCKS IN COLLABORATION WITH: Reed Gerber + Michael Hoffman
The first step in the Wescott House design studio was to work to learn the basics of hows Frank Lloyd Wright would design his houses. Frank Lloyd Wright used the spatial relationships and mathematical constructs of the Froebel blocks to lay out floor plans and shape the houses we know today. We were tasked to create gift set 3, a set of eight 1”x 1” cubes which were made to a 1/1000” tolerance. Alongside the cubes we made a box that fit the cubes perfectly, with four sides finger-jointed and a slideable lid.
Once our blocks were made, we arranged them in patterns and designs based on prompted words and emotions. We were meant to create the image of the words, which was difficult with our limited amount of blocks. In the end we were also tasked to find images in nature and arrange our blocks in ways reminiscent of the patterns and constructs found in nature. This was the first step in learning how Frank Lloyd Wright went about designing and creating his buildings based on nature.
MALLET + JOINT The second step in the Wescott House design studio was to work with the detail of a house, starting with a joint inspired from nature. Before we created the joint, we first designed and carved out a mallet to use to make our final joint. My mallet was made out of walnut and pine, with the head created using a piece of pine sandwiched between two pieces of Walnut. I carved and sanded the handle to fit my palm and worked the angle of the to fit my swing. After it was carved it was laquered and waxed to seal it.
Two joints were designed: one for the beam and column connection and one for the column to ground connection. My joint was inspired by the image of bark flowing together below, with the different strands of bark flowing in and out. I took that idea and made the joints flow in and out of one another, sandwiching together in a way that is executable by simple means and is elegant in its presentation. The joints themselves were made with precision, needing only the use of hammer and force to keep them together.
INDIVIDUAL TEA HOUSE The third step in the Wescott House design studio was to use the ideas and skills we learned previously to design a tea house to be placed on the Wescott house site in conjunction with Peter Bohlin’s center. We chose the site as our group and decided on the space directly behind the center Peter Bohlin designed. By placing the tea house there we accented the secondary axis created by the center and placed our tea house within nature, creating a sense of seclusion and serenity away from the street.
My design focused on the idea of being able to open up to the nature around it, or close off entirely to teach a group of students. I focused on the different qualities of light with the two stories of windows: one completely transparent and one semitransparent that opened for ventilation. The doors open towards the Wescott house, the center, and the solar house to accent the different views from the tea house. I designed a large porch to encourage teaching within and without, breaking the barrier of inside and outside.
GROUP TEA HOUSE IN COLLABORATION WITH: Reed Gerber + Michael Hoffman
The final step in the Wescott House design studio was to combine the individual models we created to develop a single design which we proposed to Peter Bohlin at Wescott House in Springfield, Ohio. Our three individual proposals had a sense of path ending up in a final arrival. This became the central idea of our design, developing a path and sequence for the people interacting with our tea house to follow and arrive in the hut itself.
The path around our interior is suspended from the heavier structure in the central area of our hut by metal rods. The exterior of our building is one wrap made of 2x4 boards, with openings and breaks to focus on views and letting in sunlight to the interior. We also had a large door that opened outwards towards the center, creating an extension of space and a blending between exterior and interior space. The horizonatality and deep cantilevers relate back to the Wescott House and the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.
GREEN CANOPY LOCATION: Miami University Campus PROGRAM: Design a sustainable sculpture to be displayed on the Miami University Campus. FOCUS: Researching and using sustainability to educate people on campus. This design was a bus stop to focus on transportation sustainability.
GREEN CANOPY IN COLLABORATION WITH: Ian Bennett, Caitlyn Steele, Xiaoyi Peng
We approached the design using skills we were currently learning and developing for the Bloom installation; Rhino and Grasshopper. Using grasshopper we used scripting to create the arching shell, and mapped a voronoi pattern onto the lofted shell. We scripted the voronoi pattern and arches into pipes and brought it into Rhino. From Rhino we cleaned up the mismatching pipe connections and split the shell in half to create openings on each end. This led to the renderings and visual aesthetics seen in the final design of our bust stop, a Green Canopy of recycled framing and a recycled plastic shell.
We approached the design using skills we were currently learning and developing for the Bloom installation; Rhino and Grasshopper. Using grasshopper we used scripting to create the arching shell, and mapped a voronoi pattern onto the lofted shell. We scripted the voronoi pattern and arches into pipes and brought it into Rhino. From Rhino we cleaned up the mismatching pipe connections and split the shell in half to create openings on each end. This led to the renderings and visual aesthetics seen in the final design of our bust stop, a Green Canopy of recycled framing and a recycled plastic shell.
BLOOM LOCATION: Miami University Campus PROGRAM: Design and create a kinetic sculpture visualizing sustainability across five campuses. FOCUS: Researching and using sustainability to educate people across multiple campuses through kinetic sculpture.
SQUARE-CIRCLE LOCATION: Canary Wharf, London PROGRAM: Create a multipurpose building for a graphic design firm focusing on sustainability. FOCUS: Designing based on sustainability tactics and green standards in the UK.
SQUARE-CIRCLE IN COLLABORATION WITH: Ashley Kay
The form of this building design was based on maintaining views of the London skyline across the River Thames. Each floor plate rotates from the main level to create bridging between the seprate structures and open air atriums. To maximize efficiency, this building utilizes several sustainable features. In addition to our sustainable features list, solar chimneys surround the central core towers that increase natural ventilation between levels, green roofing on the balconies and the roof level increase water collection, and a CHP system all support the overall sustainablility of the design.
SUSTAINABLE FEATURES Photovoltaic Glass Surfaces:
Glass pieces are made of Dye Sensitised Solar Cells, which use the properties of colour to create an electrical current generated from both direct and diffused daylight. The electricity can be used to power all the employees electonics, including a phone, tablet or laptop.
Stacked Natural Ventilation:
Numerous atriums on every floor allow for air flow and pressure differences to passively cool and ventilate this building design.
Greywater Collection System:
Greywater is collected in a basin beneath the building and reused for toilet flush and fire protection.
Double Skin Facade + Heat Storing Floor Plates: Heat is collected in the floor plates and saved to be used passively as needed.