FOLIO
aidan evans
Overview
Aidan Evans Architecture Student
Passionate, enthusiastic, and proactive undergraduate architecture student seeking an exciting role equipped with a background in design thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration who is goal oriented, time organized, and attentive to detail.
Fluid with Microsoft Office, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and RhinoCAD.
Education
Bachelor of Architecture Studies (In Progress) Completed First Year in April 2024
McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University
Sudbury, ON
Awards
Blaine and Lise Nicholls Design-Build Fund September 2024
McEwen School of Architecture Portfolio Design Award September 2023
Laurentian University Academic Excellence 2023-Present
Experiences
Rona Plus May 2024 - August 2024
Garden Center Associate
Kingston, ON
Lowes Canada June 2021 - August 2023
Customer Service Cashier
Kingston, ON
Sauna Retreat Rippling Waters
Gallery & Residence The Untamed Gallery
Teaching Lodge Furniture Elders’ Chair
Design Build Installation Ad Astra
Sauna Retreat Rippling Waters
Lake Laurentian Conservation Area
Designed to engage with water through architecturally capturing the natural animation of wind-generated reflections and movements of rainfall for a sensory experience of relaxation, visual appeal, and contemplation.
During the ritual of sauna, water is a fundamental element in the process of cleansing through the exposure to extreme temperatures of hot steam to cool-down plunges. This ‘stress’ to the body activates mental clarity and increases positive mood, where the mesmerizing dance of light caustics and water acoustics enhance mindfulness with a direct connection to the natural elements of the site.
The site of the sauna offers the best engagement with the movements of water through its openness, brightness, seclusion, forested shelter, accessibility, orientation to daylighting and views.
The water caustic effect was inspired by reflections on the canopy of a pine tree on-site, developing through multiple iterations into the architectural expression of the sauna roof.
Weather-based phenomena in architecture enhances the human need for a perception of change and connection to nature, increasing alertness/concentration and decreasing fatigue/stress, maintaining a constantly stimulated condition.
By bringing caustic phenomena indoors, it can effectively draw attention to sustainable practices while maintaining shelter through passive strategies and create a reconnection with nature to improve the well being of occupants.
The roof “canopy” resembles the crest and trough of the gentle undulations of water and is stained white to highlight the water caustics which overhangs to reflect light deep into space. The space reveals the view through the form of the canopy from compression to expansion.
The journey begins from the trail on the land, through the forest and riparian zone, entering a pavilion which introduces water through a rainfall pool that circulates into the interior gathering space and continues out onto the lake with the floating sauna.
Gallery
& Residence
The Untamed Gallery
Beatty Street Brownfield Site
Aims to architecturally harmonize nature and industry through expressions of materiality and dynamic form, highlighting a sense of place, site renewal, and a contemplative experience immersed in nature, despite the initial perception of a barren site.
The gallery comprises of two masses consisting of a public gallery and private artist residence studio.
The curving accent walls follow the topography and align along the prominent public access to the site, gesturing a sequenced circulation along a path of views that highlight the harmony of industrial and natural elements throughout the site.
The wall’s materiality is an expression of textures which speak to nature’s ability to harmonize with industrial elements through untamed vegetation
The water feature aims to renew the natural ecology and
The project explored the themes withing Tom Thomson’s landscape paintings as inspiration behind the design.
Teaching Lodge Furniture
Elders’ Chair
Laurentian University Campus Founders Square
Representatives of the Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre shared insights on traditional Anishinaabe precedents and encouraged the development of unique benches to reside in the Teaching Lodge crafted by each studio group, requesting to made of eastern white cedar
Applying knowledge of wood properties and inspiration from Indigenous lashing techniques, the design build project began with a collaborative charrette, which developed into construction drawings then built in the MSoA fabrication workshop.
The design form follows a language of symmetry, delicate roundness, and structured angles, utilizing only glued joinery and biodegradable cord-line weaving which creates a loom-like appearance.
The trapezoid arm rest frames consist of hand-crafted angled miter bridle joinery. The carved dowels and pins bind the chair together using circular through mortises and tenons which support the backrest and provide ends for the weaving.
Design Build Installation
Ad Astra
Bell Park Boardwalk on Ramsey Lake
Inspired by decaying leafs, this group collaboration sought to architecturally express the observation of stars through a telescopic form wrapped in the perforated materiality of kerf-cut wood cladding.
Consisting of approximately 9,000 cuts in the wood cladding, sunlight peaks through the perforations representing stars during the day, while the form invites contemplation through framing one’s attention toward the sky the during the night.
The design symbolizes cycles of decay in nature from the stars to the brittle wood itself.
The intimate scale of the shelter was based on two offset circles that formed interior and exterior benches to provide a wind barrier from the north and respond to the range of direct winter sunlight from the south.
See process video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyjnlDSvjLY&ab_channel=AidanEvans
Wood Joinery
Saw Horse
Duo Project
A timber and Japanese joinery based project designed with a partner that focused on only hand craft tools such as chisels and pull saws with the goal of meeting set dimensional guidelines and began with a digital layout translated into a full scale build.
The details consist of blind tenons on the top, and through tenons on the cross-tie and feet, which are all pinned together through square wedges. The feet also were also carved out to provide for surface area for structural stability.
Graphic Composition Quality of Space
McEwen School of Architecture after the Apocalypse
“A meteor impact stripped Earth into a moonscape, slowing down the cycles of day and night into the length of seasons followed by a mysterious gas residue radiating throughout the atmosphere, where remnants of humanity scavenge to survive and ominous life reclaim the ruins of a desolate world.”
The overall graphic approach is digital collage and vector illustration which aims to reveal the narrative through a continuous colour gradient and aligned drawings which progresses from top to bottom. As a graphic convention, the section divides the poster and blends into the ground as the viewer metaphorically transitions into the ground.
This project developed workflow strategies from RhinoCAD 3D models to Adobe Illustrator to Adobe InDesign while focusing on file management.
Each image speak to certain term which highlights a specific expression of the quality of space.
UNRELATED:
Below is an elevation drawing which explored expressing curvilinear forms in 2D illustration using gradients, line-weights, and scale figures, which influenced the eventual poster composition.
Verging
Drawing Imagination
Lucid Insanity
Storyboard of Spaces
Inspired by the surrealism movement, the following pieces seek to express the mundane, repetitive nature of the daily routine, where reality starts to blend with our dreams.
1. Good Morning 2. Tub 3. Breakfast 4. Foyer 5. Neighbours
6. Bus Stop 7. Rush Hour 8. Cubicals
9. Clocking Out
UNRELATED:
Below is a drawing which explores how colour highlights relations between objects to develop an interpretive composition.
Case Study
Rothko Chapel
Exploded Axonometric
The drawing was the culmination of a case study project which focused on accurately depicting the details of a contemporary sacred space while highlighting the significance of spiritual contemplation through the mediums of painting and sculpture
The intention behind the work is to focus on the physical architectural components of the structure which contribute to a tranquil and inviting experience for all religions, detailing the plan, material construction, and lighting conditions.
The use of the purple colour expresses how the relationship between the Rothko’s canvases, occupants, and the Broken Obelisk in the reflective pond harmonize with each other within the space.
UNRELATED:
Below is a drawing of a stereotomic mass in section with trace overlay
Till There Was You - The Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ImYUKWU2c&ab_channel=AidanEvans