PA R A S K E V I S T A S I architect engineer
Land of Dancing Water location: Oakville MO quarry WUSTL: Degree Project SP 2014 instructor: Philip Holden
Longitudinal Elevation
Dance school
Located along the banks of a large quarry lake in South St. Louis, the land of dancing water is a complex of water-based performing arts, with main programmatic elements: an open-air amphitheatre, a diving centre and a dance/drama school. Due to its intense topographical character and exposed layers of rock, the site challenges the relationship between landscape and architecture in terms of ground negotiation. Pathways cutting the land, provide several accesses to the complex, while progressing into structures that unfold the land. These landscrapers cantilever out beyond the rock, exposing their indoor activities, while offering generous views of the site. Water becomes an integral part of the intervention, filling several cuts, before it forms the main theatrical stage.
*Vray for Rhino, Photoshop
Amphitheatre
dance/drama studios
reception foyer-park amphitheater
lecture hall water stage
diving center
X-ray Section Perspective
Landscrapers WUSTL: Design Thinking FL 2013 instructor: Elena Canovas
Ground is the area where landscape and architecture negotiate their relationship. Whereas in modern architecture ground is a disregarded field and structure flies over it, as like it escapes gravity, groundscapes treat the ground plane as an active, fluctuating field trying to reintroduce the relationship between envelope and ground or space and land. When architecture and topography merge together, they can create form.
Landscrapers unfold the land and strategically activate conditions such as spatial coherence, surface unity, continuous circulation and intense surface topology. And when land unfolds, water laying under the rocks, explodes and ascends to the surface in order to shape the aesthetics of landscape and breathe life into structure. Water is inherent to the land - its presence generates spatial effects when it drops its shadow or when it becomes a mirror of surroundings.
ARCH
... levitates
... skyscraping
... half-hidden
... emerging from the ground
... camouflaged
LAND
... autonomous
... flattened
... sculpted
... unfolds
... becomes the skin of architecture
Ground negotiation is the key element for both landscape and architecture. Depending on which way we choose to manipulate the ground, various spatial conditions are activated. Ground manipulation cannot only be restricted in a flattened, inactive terrain, but it can also expand on topographic variations that intensify the landform.
Arch
on a
Architecture can exist with the sky, however it cannot exist without ground.
“NEW� Ground
Q: How can architecture be perceived as landscape through the transformation of ground?
labyrinth
fluidity of matter
Coastal Mitigation location: Oakville MO quarry WUSTL: technology + tectonic SP 2014 instructor: Jason Butz
compression loads diagram
tension loads diagram
concrete walls
land mass compression
under
rebars under tension
Selma Riverfront Hotel location: Selma, AL, USA WUSTL: design project_1st semester_2012 supervisor: Christine Yogiaman
The project explores an altered domestic condition through proposing a hotel in the city of Selma. Located along the Alabama River, Selma confronts both deindustrialization and the diminished agricultural economy. As much as it is an unlikely place to connect to a network of hotel chains, the project speculates on the type of travel economy that would bind the city of Selma to the particular identity of its land. its main concept is the folding that expands on the landscape and creates different qualities of space. There is the idea of embededness and an edge condition that is compact and evolves from an enclosed space to a public space, from an infinity pool to a free pathway that leads to the private villas.
conceptual models
advertising the travel economy (photoshoped air-magazine covers)
1
4 4
4
3
4
2
4
4 1. lobby 2.
dining hall
3.
pool services
4.
hotel rooms (villas)
4
4
4
Balloon Frame House location: New England city WUSTL: design studio FL 2013 instructor: Peter Stempel
A B C
Ground Floor Plan
Section C
Section A
Section B
South Elevation
North Elevation
Physical Model’s views
Fake Estate Lot location: St.Louis, MO WUSTL: design studio FL 2013 instructor: Peter Stempel
Progressive transformation of the shape of the site’s adjacent building with the constraint of a closed linkage, where links keep the same length.
MLK Bridge Re-inhabited location: MLK Bridge, STL Mississipi River WUSTL: design studio FL 2013 instructor: Peter Stempel
Measured drawings
Skin System WUSTL: technology + tectonic SP 2014 instructor: Jason Butz
3D print
section a
daylight control
section b
movement diagram
Prickly goldenfleece
Formal precedent: prickly goldenfleece Tectonic precedents: bicycle chain, washers
WUSTL: digital representations_2012 supervisors: Jason Butz, Lavender Tessmer
grasshopper definition
formal precedent
Formal precedent: prickly goldenfleece Tectonic precedents: bicycle chain, wash
grasshopper definition
washers
full model
Formal precedent: prickly goldenfleece tectonic precedent Tectonic precedents: bicycle chain, washers grasshopper definit
3D print
rhino model
Exploring materials and virtual grasshopper definition fabrications
rhino model
This project refers to the development of a detailed spatial system based on the combination of a formal and tectonic precedent. The formal precedent is the prickly goldenfleece, which will be later emulated by the tectonic precedent: the washers. Both precedents were strategically selected, in order to be optimally combined. Part of the prickly goldenfleece was selected to be primarily developed as a rhino model, since it offered richness and variety in details. A smaller part of it was selected for the grasshopper definition, where through a process of growing, variation was achieved in both u and v axis. During the process of fabrication washers and bicycle chains gave the inspiration of creating a row of rings that would vary in size and shape in order to remind the organic form of the formal precedent. Prickly’s endings created the idea of using wires to connect all rings together. The final model illustrates the idea of a floating creature.
1st layer of wires
1st layer of wires
plan
separators
2nd layer of wires
2nd layer of wires
separators
2nd layer of wires
1st layer of wires
separators
washers
full model
washers
full model
full model
washers
elevation
prickly goldenfleece paraskevi stasi
Digital Representations | Fall 2012
assembly diagram
plan
Part of the prickly goldenfleece was selected for the rhino model as it offered richness and variety in details. A smaller part of it was selected for the grasshopper definition, where through a process of growing, variation was achieved in both u and v axis. During the process of fabrication washers and bicycle chains gave the inspiration of creating a row of rings that would vary in size and shape in order
elev
prickly goldenflee
paraskevi s