Austin Richards Portfolio 2023

SELECTED WORKS

austin henry richards

PROFILE

Austin Henry Richards ahrichards.arch@gmail.com +1 (760) 271-0269 austinhenryrichards.com Designer working within the domains of architecture and urbanism. Currently open to opportunities in learning with and working for an architectural practice. He is seeking full-time roles in Los Angeles.

EDUCATION Bachelor of Architecture (BArch), Magna Cum Laude 2016 - 2021 California Polytechnic University Pomona International Studies 2019 - 2020 California State University Firenze - Florence, IT WORK Designer/Job Captain 2021 - 2022 Chet Architecture - Los Feliz, California Architectural Intern 2019 Chet Architecture - Los Feliz, California HONORS + AWARDS l’Académie d’Architecture Architect-in-Residence, Living Together: Housing the Collective 2022 - 2023 Cité Internationale des Arts - Paris, FR Cavin Family Traveling Fellowship, 2nd Prize 2022 Cavin Family Travel Fellowship Precast Concrete Institute Studio, 3rd Prize 2020 California Polytechnic University Pomona Dept. Architecture / PCI West 6 Projects Selected as Exemplary and Exhibited at Interim Exhibitons 2016 - 2021 California Polytechnic University Pomona Dept. Architecture SKILLS AutoCAD 5 Enscape 2 Illustrator 5 InDesign 5 Microsoft Off. 5 Grasshopper 3

Photoshop Revit SketchUp Rhino VRay Lumion

5 2 3 5 4 2

+ Research + Client Communication + Photography + Consultant Coordination + Modeling + Pre Design + Marketing + Schematic Design + Project Management + Design Development + Permitting + Construction Documentation austin henry richards

SELECTED WORKS

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM Public Library, Housing, and SRO Renovation Public/Residential MUCHAS CASITAS Mixed-use Housing Residential TOWER OBLIQUE Tsunami Evacuation Tower Public/Cultural COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO Community Center Public/Cultural PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT Residential Renovation Residential | chet architecture A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS Single-Family Residence Residential | chet architecture all of the work in this document belongs to austin henry richards unless noted otherwise

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

architecture as infrastructural bookshelf, conceptual drawing

4

public library, housing, and sro renovation

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM Public Library, Housing, and SRO Renovation in Skid Row, CA, USA Cal Poly Pomona Senior Thesis Project Studio Instructor: Sarah Lorenzen Everyone deserves access to public collective space as well as personal space to call home. Skid Row is a hostile and striated urban condition, defined by walls, blank facades, and fences. The little public space available, the streets and the sidewalks are utilized by the individuals who compose Skid Row’s close-knit community. The project is a mixed-use public library and affordable housing complex, integrated onto a site with an existing single-room-occupancy housing building. The project serves as a public living room for the community, extending the street and sidewalk into the building and connecting to the adjacent park.

Conceptually, the project is a shelf on the scale of the city. Its architectural form the max envelope of the site with a carved-out central atrium and a series of loggias that pierce the exterior envelope with vegetated spaces. Loggias occur on various floors, bringing the park into the interior and blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, natural and built. A diverse set of programs and constituencies are accommodated and intermixed on each ‘shelf,’ namely a public library, an existing single-room-occupancy hotel, and public housing. Assembled in one building, the architecture dissolves distinct separations between public and private and proposes the role of architecture as infrastructure. Each housing unit is a microcosm of the larger architectural whole, porous and flexible, and is designed to maximize the freedom of use for residents. The shelf and the voids generate spatial porosity and flexibility, where inside is outside, private is public, and collective spaces arise. Heterogeneous activities and constituencies are intermixed in loose, open, and flexible spaces where individuals come together in a specific locale to define a public. A Public Living Room is an architectural project that defines a new type of public building, infrastructure that serves the diverse demands of the community as both individuals and a collective while serving as a model for the future development of Los Angeles.

site plan

atrium and loggias, axonometrics

public library, housing, and sro renovation

5

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

in the park / in the atrium, collages

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public library, housing, and sro renovation

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

ground floor plan is an urban public space, integrating street and park life

public library, housing, and sro renovation

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A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

plan +3

plan +2

plan +1

transverse section

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public library, housing, and sro renovation

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

plan +7

plan +5

plan +4

cross section

public library, housing, and sro renovation

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A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

unit axonometric / interior collage

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public library, housing, and sro renovation

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

live one’s own life, potential still lifes

public library, housing, and sro renovation

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A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

view from 6th street, collage

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public library, housing, and sro renovation

A PUBLIC LIVING ROOM

detailed section / detailed facade

public library, housing, and sro renovation

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MUCHAS CASITAS

screenshot, axonometric

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mixed-use residential

MUCHAS CASITAS

MUCHAS CASITAS Mixed-Use Residential in West Hollywood, CA, USA Studio Instructor: Nadim Itani

physical model

Muchas Casitas is located on a site in West Hollywood off of Santa Monica Boulevard, at an intersection between the high-traffic transit area and the sea of suburban development. Proposed is a mixed-use project with commercial space, a collective plinth, and an array of housing unit types. As the project sits at the intersection of two different scales of density, the project addresses these site conditions in its form, a plinth to activate the street and ‘casitas’ to recall the domesticity of the adjacent suburbs. Thus, the project’s concept is a field of casitas scattered atop a plinth. Its form is conceived as one volumetric whole where spaces, apertures, courtyards, and other openings are carved. Sculpted from the plinth mass are commercial spaces, collective spaces, private units, and both outdoor ‘front’ and ‘back’ yards. Atop the plinth, the field of casitas continues the volumetric formal conceptions of space with carved apertures, and courtyards to provide light deep into each unit. The space in between the field of casitas is a collective outdoor space for both the residents and the public. This field also organizes a balanced composition of outdoor elements: the planters, outdoor patios, courtyards, and circulation. Relationships between stereotomic and tectonic are reflected in the project’s conceptualization and subsequent materiality, with the plinth as a concrete podium and the casitas wood-framed with white fiber cement cladding. Typologically, this wood framing atop a concrete podium is a construction vernacular of the mixed-use buildings in Los Angeles. Yet, the buildings that use this construction technique rarely retain the domesticity of their single-family dwelling predecessors. Muchas Casitas retains the best of both worlds, providing both density and a sense of domesticity. The result is high density which appears as low density.

mixed-use residential

15

MUCHAS CASITAS

ground plan

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north elevation

west elevation

section b / unit diagram

section a / indoor-outdoor diagram

mixed-use residential

MUCHAS CASITAS

plan +3

plan +2

plan +1

mixed-use residential

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MUCHAS CASITAS

1

Nichiha Miraia Fiber-Cement Panel

2

Nichiha Paneling Clipping System

3

Dens Glass

4

Waterproofing

5

3/4” Plywood

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Insulation

7

Top of

+51’ -

Start of

+41’ -

1 10

Gypsum Board

8 2x6 Wood 9

Blocking

10

Glass Railing

11

Stainless Steel Railing Boot

12

Stainless Steel

3 5

6

32

Third L

+26’ -

13

Flashing

14

Stainless Steel Bolt

33

15

2x12 Wood Beam

16

Joist Hanger

17

Rip Stick

18

Wood Decking

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Bison Leveling Pedestal

20

Drainage Sytem

21

Concrete Primary Drain Gate

23

Overflow Drain

24

Glass

25

C.R. Lawrence Aluminum Mullion

26

Nichiha Spacer

27

Nichiha Fastener

28

Control Joint

29

Planter

+37’ -

8

31

30

22

Fourth

29

21 34

Second

+15’ -

Street L 0’ -

36 35

30

Succulents

31

Air Duct

32

Cabinetry

33

CMU

34

Steel Channel

35

Concrete Column

36

Column Cap

Commercia

-10’ -

Residential

-20’ -

section detail

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mixed-use residential

MUCHAS CASITAS

Roof

- 0”

f Pitch

- 0”

Level

- 3”

Level

- 3”

Level

- 0”

Level 0”

al Parking

- 0”

l Parking

- 0”

7 6

17

9

4

18 19

22 20 23

27 26

6 5 3

ALIGN

4 10

9

11

8

14

28

1 8

13

7

14

12

6

27

15

5

26

16

3

21

ALIGN

9 25

4

24

1

7

2

elevation detail / section details

mixed-use residential

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TOWER OBLIQUE

plans, stair volumes, and their origins, composite drawing

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tsunami evacuation tower

TOWER OBLIQUE

TOWER OBLIQUE Tsunami Evacution Tower in San Diego, California In collaboration with Noah Mora and Jessica O’Brien Studio Instructor: Axel Schmitzberger Tower Oblique is a flexible structural framework generated through experimentations with orthographic architectural projections to explore the potential of precast concrete. The tower is located a block from the waterfront in San Diego, deep within an inundation zone where a tsunami can potentially do severe damage. The tower is positioned directly along the main evacuation route, and social hub of the peninsula, Mission Boulevard. Lifted above the site, the tower allows water and debris to flow through the lower levels of the project while sheltering inhabitants above. The intention is a tower that would be as effective as possible in aiding people in the event of a tsunami while generating an iconography based on circulation and flexibility.

Oblique geometric and field condition studies guide an aesthetic and logic for the project that is repeatable and efficient for the utilization of precast concrete. The tower’s systems are exemplified in the four main stair volumes which repeat throughout the building. Each floor has two stair volumes and is composed of multiple elements: an interior precast concrete volume, a precast concrete staircase, and an outer and inner façade which is visible from outside and within the tower. The organization of systematic volumes throughout the tower ensures that every repeatable component is utilized either as an object that is tactile or as a façade component that defines its iconography. All components are modularized precast elements to ensure convenience in manufacturing, transportation, and construction. The tower’s perceived complex configuration is constructed with ease by its systematic design which acknowledges and utilizes the intricacies of precast concrete construction. field conditions

tsunami evacuation tower

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TOWER OBLIQUE

project and site section

22

tsunami evacuation tower

TOWER OBLIQUE

site plan

landscape plan

interior axonometric vignettes

tsunami evacuation tower

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TOWER OBLIQUE

kit-of-parts, assembly diagram

24

tsunami evacuation tower

TOWER OBLIQUE

kit-of-parts, assembly diagram

tsunami evacuation tower

25

COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO

view from azaela park, collage

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community center

COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO

COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO Community Center in Brookings, OR, USA Cavin Family Travel Fellowship, 4-Day Competition, 2nd Place

site plan

The site is a bluff just above the Chetco River overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Brookings, Oregon. Just adjacent to Azalea Park and botanical garden, it features a rocky, rural landscape covered with douglas firs.

The primary intention is to make a communal archipelago, both within and a part of the landscape. The buildings function as a collection of community services. Responding to local design, the buildings follow architect Bernard Maybeck’s tenants of design in which the natural landscape is preserved with minimal building footprint, layered greenspaces, distance between buildings, and separation of vehicular and pedestrian paths. Tectonically the buildings respond to the architectural vernacular of the indigenous Chetco sweat lodges, with heavy timberframed walls and roofs which embed themselves within foundations of local stone set in the earth. These foundations sustain the buildings, storing energy and water collected from the solar panels and runoff on the roofs. They also lift the buildings from the site, allowing the soil to continue to absorb rainwater, insects or small animals to pass, and the ecosystem to thrive. The post and beam timber construction allows for a free facade, in which sliding glass panels open the interior spaces up to the expansive site. Akin to the local community, the communal archipelago is a loose collective, where each island is recognized as an integral individual part within the whole of the local community. brookings coastal landscape

community center

27

COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO

archipelago plan / sections

28

community center

COMMUNAL ARCHIPELAGO

supporting foundations axonometric / village axonometric

interior collage

community center

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PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT

the pacific family resort promenade, conceptual collage | chet architecture

30

residential renovation

PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT

PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT Residential Renovation in Ventura, CA, USA Chet Architecture Located on a shared sea wall on the Southern California coast, just north of Ventura, is the Pacific Family Resort. The lot is long and linear, a conical shape expanding towards the ocean. Onsite exists two structures, of different periods and styles, unified through the materiality and color of their siding as well as a series of curved walls. The primary objectives of the project are to increase the connection of the building to its site, towards each structure, and to create a comfortable living environment for all family members to come and go as they please - akin to the experience of a resort. These objectives are achieved through the renovation of the deck, living spaces, their thresholds, the addition of bedrooms and millwork, and the connectivity of the side-yard promenade.

Pacific Family Resort was designed during my time as a Designer at Chet Architecture. I acted as the Job Captain on this project, working directly with clients and consultants, and producing aspects from design to documentation. The project concluded with a permit set, in which I produced the required documentation for the local jurisdictions.

site | chet architecture / MLS

ground and site plan | chet architecture

residential renovation

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PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT

entry, collage | chet architecture

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residential renovation

PACIFIC FAMILY RESORT

plan 0 | chet architecture

plan +1 | chet architecture

residential renovation

33

A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

in the courtyard, collage | chet architecture

34

single-family residence

A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS Single-Family Residence in Ventura, CA, USA Chet Architecture The site is a rocky beach on the Southern California coast, just north of Ventura. The House is a weekend home for a family to get away from the big city and be immersed in the natural beauty of the coast, the surf, the landscape, and the California sun. The clients desire to be open to the site environmentally, socially, and spatially. Conceptually, the project is an archetypical courtyard house yet open towards the ocean.

Sited on the rocks, the project is conceived as a shell, porous and solid in particular areas, as if it were sculpted by the ocean itself. Its materiality goes against this, with a vernacular cedar cladding akin to that of Sea Ranch. The form of the courtyard house creates a feeling of interconnectedness for the family, as all spaces connect to the central garden, and its porosity a connection with the natural landscape. The ocean-front portion of the living level is one contiguous kitchen, living, and dining space with sliding glass panels on either side to open up completely or as desired to the courtyard and Pacific. Bedrooms are designed with flexibility in mind, for the family to utilize spaces as needs change through time.

site plan

A Courtyard House on the Rocks was designed during my time as a Designer at Chet Architecture. I acted as the Job Captain on the project, working directly with clients and consultants, and producing aspects from design to documentation. The project concluded with a permit set, in which I produced the required documentation for the local jurisdictions.

open to the coast, concept collage | chet architecture

single-family residence

conceptual diagram | chet architecture

35

A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

in the kitchen / on the second floor, collages | chet architecture

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single-family residence

A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

plan +1 | chet architecture

single-family residence

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A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

from the beach, collage | chet architecture

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single-family residence

A COURTYARD HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

longitudinal section | chet architecture

single-family residence

39

SELECTED WORKS

Austin Henry Richards ahrichards.arch@gmail.com +1 (760) 271-0269

austin henry richards