Portfolio - Alan Watts

Page 1


WATTS

Portfolio

Select Undergraduate, Professional, and Independent Work

01

ERGO TERGO

This scheme represents a design proposal for a civic center in Adams Morgan DC. Its spatial organization and form comin order to support the diverse population of the surrounding neighborhood. The monumentality of the project works to make the building act as a beacon, emphasizing wayfinding and offering a new sense of identity to arguably the most central and lively intersection in this historic neighborhood. The scheme is designed with a set of tiered off floors and levels which cascade down to the commercial center of Adams Morgan, also the center of cultural restaurants as well as nightlife. With the civic center also acting as a library, spaces become available to both archive and showcase the history of the Adams Morgan neighborhood and the individuals who make up the

; the actual structure, made up of clear glass and strong wood joints, steps back from the first layer of the facade, made up of thin wooden rods that give the building a more natural feel and allow for light to be filtered into the building while trumpet vine grows across it. Spaces become available for individuals to experience the facade, walking between the wood and the structure. The name of the project, “Ergo Tergo,” comes as a result of the building’s unique skin, the experience inside, as well as the buildings’ work to protect the culture of the neighbor

01 ERGO TERGO

Floor 1: Lobby, Performance, and Exhibit Space
Floor 0: Archives, Stacks, and Facilities
Floor 3: Children’s Section and Terrace
Floor 2: Housing Resource and Legal Aid
Floor 5: Rooftop Cafe and Terrace
Floor 4: Teen’s Section and Conference
1/8th Model (Top Left), 1/16th Context Model (Top Right), & East Elevation (Below)
1/8th Detail Model: Facade Peeled Back to Highlight Interior Spaces

02 NEW ANGLE RVA

Spring 2024

New Angle RVA is a mixed-use collective housing community offering options for equitable housing in the central Richmond area. The variation in unit type and style stems from the site’s unique position along the border of the Fan District and Scott’s Addition in Richmond, and the overall design seeks to blur the lines between these two districts. While allowing more green space to creep north into the outskirts of the Scott’s Addition, the small business-oriented and lively culture of Scott’s Addition are pulled across Broad street through the urban redesign of the surrounding blocks. Pedestrians are drawn into a public performance space within the project through the conversion of a nearby parking lot into a connecting green space.

Opposite to the public courtyard and amphitheater is the private courtyard for residents only, surrounded by structures that begin to step down to the scale of the homes on the south side of the site in the Fan. Cutshaw avenue adjacent to the project would be converted to a more pedestrian-friendly and walkable space, with access to the mixed-use and small business spaces on the ground level. Green space stretches through the site with organic paths that allow for residents to navigate through a central natural area, following a pattern that contrasts the sharp and orthogonal design language of the structures themselves.

CLEVELANDSTREET

CUTSHAWAVENUE

Aerial View

02 NEW ANGLE RVA

CLEVELAND STREET

CUTSHAW

Mid-Sized

02 NEW ANGLE RVA

Restaurant (Kitchen & Dining Room Shown)

Public Ampitheater & Performance Space

Bridge Passthrough & Single-Occupant Units Above

Indoor/Outdoor & Double-Occupant

Public Ampitheater & Performance Space

Central Stairwell & Circulation
Mixed-Use & Storefronts Walkway
The Fan District

Indoor/Outdoor Performance Space Double-Occupant Units Above

Quiet Courtyard Family-Style Units & Shared Resident Space

Pedestrian-Friendly

Walkway Across Cutshaw Ave.

Longitudinal Section (Above) | Cross Section (Below)

Proposed Public Green Space Scott’s Addition
Private

02 NEW ANGLE RVA

Model: View of Private Inner Courtyard

Public Ampitheater Render (Above) and Inner Courtyard Render (Below)

03 VERTICAL ROOTS

Professor: Schaeffer Somers

Fall 2023

Vertical Roots is a refugee community center for the Charlottesville New Roots Program located on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. The building program provides the resources necessary for refugees to be able to create a new life for themselves through the incorportation of small business incubation spaces. Market spaces open to the public on the ground floor, within the existing rennovated structure, giving refugees direct access to customers and to “go live.”

Floor Plans

Floor 1: Open Market for Small Businesses; Mezzanine Above
Floor 2: Kitchen & Terrace above Existing Structure
Floor 3: Dining Space & Lounge
Floor 4: Grand Gathering Space
Floor 5: Balcony Spaces & Terrace
Floor 6: Business Incubation
Floor 7: Exhibit Space
Floor 8: Rooftop Terrace, Cafe, & Play Area

Street-View Concept and Exploded Massing Diagram

PROGRAM

Entertainment

Restaurant

Commercial

Education

Proposed

03 VERTICAL ROOTS

Aerial View and Rooftop Vignette

Gathering Space and Terrace Incubation Spaces

Kitchen, Dining, Lounge, and Rooftop

Existing Building: Market and Mezzanine

Perspectives: Public Market (Top Left) & Mall-Level Terrace (Top Right)

Longitudinal Section (Below)

Exhibit Space Cafe and Rooftop

04 CASCADE HOUSE

Spring 2024

Cascade House designs an intersection between two different lifestyles of people—a writer and a swimmer—creating both independent and share living spaces. The design plays with the lightness and heaviness of different intersecting planes as they lift above the water below, as well as maintaining an emphasis on joints and gaps as a motif throughout the project, which create both visibility and privacy depending on the side of the house you are viewing the site from.

Water is directed into the site to the right after being collected from the roof and pouring down the “waterfall walls,” and on the left side, a vertical garden wall on each site creates a shared vertical garden alley between properties. Collected water both feeds the plants grown on site to be used in the kitchen for cooking, and it gathers in the lap pool and beneath the house, which is sitting on a raised podium above the water level. The completely orthogonal house is also a live intersection through the ways in which the spaces’ of the roommates interact. While they each have their own personal spaces, the circulation brings them together in shared living areas.

Plan Cuts: Floor One (Below) and Floor Two (Above)
Living Room
Kitchen
Gym
Lap Pool Bath
Double Height
Study & Bedroom 1
Bedroom 2
Water-Sensory Space

North View (Front)

East View

West View

South View (Back)

Elevations and Axon View

Softwares: Rhino, Enscape, Adobe Photoshop, & Rendair

The two above renders of Cascade House were created using text and image to render software, including additional parameters programming lighting, geometry, and style reference as a part of independent research on using AI software in post production, inspiration and ideation, and other stages of workflow in architecture, presented to Quinn Evans architects’ Richmond Office. The base images pictured below were built through a 3D Rhino Model and Enscape renders with additional photoshop work and post-production editing.

RENDERING WITH AI: CASCADE HOUSE

PETRICHOR IRON 05

Professor: Schaeffer Somers

Fall 2023

Petrichor Iron is a project unified by the ribbon-like iron structure, inspired by organic forms of architectural landscape art, which spans from the north hill to the south bank of the Rivanna River. Foragers who inhabit the space are able to follow the path of the iron as they embark upon the foraging process. Pools on the south shore and in the middle of the river, surrounded by additive islands, allow for the preservation and the cultivation of watercress, a foragable specie native to the area. The structure avoids the removal of native black walnut trees and offers views of the forest above the canopy and the river.

Documentation Collages: Riverbeds & Flora

COLLAGE 1 - SITE PATHWAY: Flora and Foliage
Site

Longitudinal Section

Cross Section: South Pavilion and Material Study

South Bank Food Preparation, Dining, and Storage
Rivanna River and Central Structure
Surveying, Cultivating, and Access
North Bank
Overlook in the Trees

05 PETRICHOR IRON

Sprial Ramp Provides Access to River and Watercress Pools Below

Cross Section of Central Structure over the Rivanna

Project Perspectives | View from Central Structure, South Bank, and Northern Hillside

Perspective Concept: Central Structure Above Rivanna

Sketching in Vicenza & the Veneto

Professors: Ines Martin Robles and Luis Pancorbo Crespo Summer 2023

This project stems from a summer studio based out of Vicenza, Italy with an emphasis on hand-drawing and drafting skills The final book included over 60 final sketches

Veneto Region

07 APPENDIX: PROFESSIONAL WORK

Selected Graphic Work from Internship with Quinn Evans Architects -- Summer 2024

Newark Library Project Renders

Fox Elementary -- Intern Design Diagram

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