VIOLETA SMART DESIGN PORTFOLIO [2018 - 2021]
MANY VILLAGES, VILLAGES, SOMETIMES PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN PROGRAM | 2020
Los Angeles lives with a legacy of segregation, injustice, and inequality. “Many villages, sometimes” presents a housing project for the people of Los Angeles that attempts to addresses this legacy by heavily investing in all members of its community, especially in those who are most vulnerable to institutional injustices. This midrise work-live housing project creates hubs of activity and interlude – which I call villages – at the intersection of its varied programs and housing typologies to bring different demographics together and create a meaningful sense of community, participation, and inclusion. “Many Villages, Sometimes” presents a project with a complex set of communities and programs that find interactions and relationships through an architecture that both expresses their individuality and diversity while promoting the inclusion, healing, and reconciliation of its people. RECOGNITION // Blythe and Thom Mayne Morphosis Best Design Award, 2020 and LA AIA Domum Scholarship, 2020 PUBLICATION // Architect Magazine Studio Prize, Nov-Dec 2020 EXHIBITION // 2X8, Los Angeles, 2020
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01.01_STREET VIEW Street View from Main Street and 9 th Street, Downtown Los Angeles. 01
01.02_LONGITUDINAL SECTION Character-like volumes create permeability and house high activity spac
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ces like retail, micro unit housing, and hotels. 02
MORPHOSIS BEST DESIGN AWARD | PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | 2020
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01.03_LONGITUDINAL SECTION Housing units and community spaces coexist in this monolithic section.
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01.04_ELEVATION Different programs and housing typologies find interactions and relationships through an architecture that expresses their diversity while reading as a cohesive whole. 04
MORPHOSIS BEST DESIGN AWARD | PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | 2020
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01.05_GROUND FLOOR, TYPICAL HOUSING PLAN, AND ROOF PLAN 05
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01.06_CROSS SECTION. 06
MORPHOSIS BEST DESIGN AWARD | PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | 2020
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01.07_VILLAGE COMPONENTS Villages exist at the intersections of programs to create a meaningful sense of community, participation, and inclusion. 01.08_VILLAGE PERSPECTIVES Axonometric views of Villages One and Five and perspective view of Village Five (top to bottom).
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MORPHOSIS BEST DESIGN AWARD | PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | 2020
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01.09_CROSS SECTION Cutting through Village Two, multi-family and micro-housing units, and retail spaces. 01.10_PROCESS OBJECT DRAWINGS Analytical drawings exploring how character-like volumes can preserve their individuality while conveing a cohesive whole. 01.11_PROCESS OBJECT PLA and basswood formal study.
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MORPHOSIS BEST DESIGN AWARD | PROF. STEPHEN PHILLIPS | 2020
01.12_WALL SECTION AND ELEVATION A perforated panel wall system is operated by hydraulic actuators, allowing for occasional direct sunlight and ventilation. 01.13_CHUNK MODEL Formal and textural explorations, 1/16” PLA and basswood model.
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ANTS AND AGENTS PROF. UMUT TOKER | CAL POLY SLO | 2019
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02.03_SITE AND GROUND FLOOR PLANS
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Ants and Agents explores the formal and programmatic qualities that can help create new ideas by facilitating information flows between people. The in betweens, areas for rest or pause, and circulation spaces of this Immersive Computing Research Center maximize impromptu interactions by stitching together areas for collaboration and concentrated work. This research center is also equipped with agents – testing and prototyping pods that live withing the tower of the building and depart to the site periodically to share new findings with the public and incorporate their feedback. These spontaneous events seek to encourage innovation and facilitate the exchange of ideas between researchers and other members of the San Francisco community. RECOGNITION // Best of Show Honorable Mention, 2019
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BEST OF SHOW HONORABLE MENTION | PROF. UMUT TOKER | 2019
02.04_PHYSICAL MODEL 1/16” scale acrylic and basswood model on styrofoam CNC site. 02.05_PHYSICAL MODEL DETAIL PLA agents on styrofoam site. 02.06_STUDY MODELS 1/32” scale carboard and paper study models.
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BEST OF SHOW HONORABLE MENTION | PROF. UMUT TOKER | 2019
02.07_LONGITUDINAL SECTION Cutting through creative cloud, VR and AR testing labs, concentrated work pods, and agents. 02.08_AGENT DIAGRAM Agents depart perdiodically to the site to share new findings and listen to the public’s input, generating events.
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Today, Agent H2 departs to test a new version of virtual lettuce!
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Look! H2 left. An excuse to enjoy the view and a little bit of quiet! Yes.
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BEST OF SHOW HONORABLE MENTION | PROF. UMUT TOKER | 2019
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02.09_WALL SECTION AND ELEVATION 19
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02.10_INTERIOR PERSPECTIVES 20
OBSERVING IN PROF. THOMAS FOWLER | CAL POLY SLO | 2018
Observing In strives to help the visitors of this Maker’s Space fight “numbness”—the state of feeling disconnected from reality or one’s work. The entrance sequence and interior circulation of Observing In makes the user slow down, contemplate, and look inwards. This procession transitions the visitor into a more present, energized, and liberated state of mind before beginning the process of making. RECOGNITION // Fairy Tales Competition, 2018
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03.01_PERSPECTIVES 21
04.02_ AERIAL VIEW
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DAYDREAMING PROF. UMUT TOKER | CAL POLY SLO | 2019
Daydreaming, a virtual reality research center, explores how ambiguous programmatic spaces can disrupt and disfigure but simultaneously reconfigure one’s individual reality. This project was a six-week-long exercise that informed the conceptual development of Ants and Agents. RECOGNITION // Launchpad Competition Nominee, 2019
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04.01_PERSPECTIVES Featuring entrance sequence.
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04.02_PHYSICAL MODEL 1/16” scale PLA and basswood model on styrofoam CNC site.
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LAUNCHPAD COMPETITION NOMINEE | PROF. UMUT TOKER | 2019
04.03_LONGITUDINAL SECTION Cutting through lobby, installation spaces, VR testing labs, and collaborative and focus work areas.
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04.04_COLLAGE STUDY MODEL 1/32” study model prototype exploring form and materiality.
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04.05_PROCESS COLLAGES Analog collages exploring form and site design.
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LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE SENIOR THESIS | PROF. DOUG JACKSON | CAL POLY SLO | 2021
Architecture has woven conditions of precarity into the built environment through the formalization of spaces that privilege commonality (and conformity), and by structuring and limiting the performances a place may hold. Landscapes of Resistance presents a housing and urban parks project for the people of Los Angeles that struggles against these conditions by incentivizing a plurality of idiosyncratic performances in public space — performances that correspond to people’s unique identities and desires. It does so, by creating moments where the freedoms and informalities that we understand as being associated with domestic space are stitched into the fabric of public space. Programmatic rearrangements and domestic affordances create a quasi-domestic spatiality of public space that reframes its sphere of acceptable performances. This new kind of urban fabric seeks to seep into its context and foster environments that do not reinforce conditions of precarity, but instead, participate in the expression, growth, and healing of its community.
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05.01_SITE PLAN Located in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. 05.02_PERSPECTIVE Moments in a quasi-domestic public space. 05.03_NEIGHBORHOOD AXONOMETRIC Liberated performances in neighborhood. 28
SENIOR THESIS | PROF. DOUG JACKSON | CAL POLY SLO | 2021
05.04_DETAIL CHUNK Study of assemblies for liberated performances 05.05_NEIGHBORHOOD SECTION Section through celebration neighborhood. Cutting through housing, community amenities, and market.
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05.06_PERSPECTIVES Stories in the day of a neighborhood’s residents 05.07
05.07_NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN Negotiations for spaces of ownership 32
SENIOR THESIS | PROF. DOUG JACKSON | CAL POLY SLO | 2021
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VIOLETA SMART vismart@calpoly.com (805) 235 4067