Alex Hamady Portfolio Excerpts + Thesis Boards

Alexander Hamady

Gloop a place for kids

LOCATION: Chattanooga, TN

PROJECT TYPE: School

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 85,000

PROFESSOR: Mark Blumberg

TERM: Fall 2019

This project, located in downtown Chattanooga, was an experiment in the idea of what a school should be. It is designed to cultivate a sense of exploration and creativity within the students who attend the school. Circular classrooms begin to break down the notion of front and back, encouraging participation and engagement from every student. The design represents a deconstruction of mainstream, clinical school design that locks children in a prison-like setting for a large portion of their childhood. This structure defines the idea of school as a unique experience unlike any other activity and does so via the use of abnormal shapes and forms that make mandatory school attendance something to look forward to. Put simply, this was designed to be a place for kids.

Alexander Hamady

Sightlines created between levels by staggering classrooms

Kindergarten/ 1st Grade 2nd/ 3rd Grade 4th/ 5th Grade

Classrooms are not directly on top of one another, but rather staggered in order a variation of interstitial space.

Alexander Hamady

Form steps back from the street to accomodate student dropoff entrance on Cherry St.

Public Space outside of guest entrance on Georgia Avenue

Looking up the lightwell from the Cherry St. level

Sight-lines between floor levels encourages connectivity between different classes.

Large curtain wall window provides additional natural light for the three classroom levels

Children are not confined to desks

Lightwell acts as the centerpiece of the communal space surrounded by classrooms

Study nooks are located at each landing of the stair

Gymnasium is illuminated with lighwells and large amorphous windows

Space between gymnasium and library gives students to opportunity to occupy the lightwell

Library window overlooks historic Dome Building

Lightwells for gymnasium become colorful pillars that define smaller spaces on the rooftop playground

an experiment in modularity Tube Library

LOCATION: Brooklyn, New York

PROJECT TYPE: Public Library

PROFESSOR: Zhan Chen

TERM: Spring 2020

This project is a library located in downtown Brooklyn, New York. It is a conceptual experiment that explores the use of modules to create complex void spaces and dynamic relationships between larger programmatic volumes. The tube modules also allow for a network of paths that end in various private spaces or “nooks”. Each nook is unique in its location and therefore has different views and, as a result, relationships to the other occupiable volumes. The apertures along the tubes allow occupants to catch glimpses of people moving through them, surrounding them with the life of the structure, like blood cells moving through veins.

Sections of the large programmatic tubes are extruded to create the necessary programmatic elements

Sectional shift of the tube walls allow for new apertures and sight lines

Type 1a Type 1b

Type 2a Type 2b

Type 3a

Type 3b

Type 4a Type 4b

Additional walls and operative shifts of the small tubes make room for private nook spaces

Auditorium space is defined by a large tube at ground level submerged into the ground and expanded from the center point to reveal seating

Ground level is an open plaza that allows free access through the site with modular seating to serve the public

Library main entrance facing the street

Grand large tube entrance

Cafe area on lowest level of library

Information desk at top of grand stairway

Faculty office area with communal space defined by shift in large tube

Computer room shift allows for seating and desks for the computers while leaving a path to the side for circulation through the space

One of several external terraces offering views into the various programmatic volumes

Primary book stacks space with stair seating

The activity in the smaller tubes can be seen when looking through the void space

Section perspective shows off unique variety of relationships between programmatic volumes

Communal spaces exist in the portion of the tube that was shifted over while the new space created by the shift makes rooms for bookshelves

External Terrace surrounded by small tubes with glimpses back onto the street

Small tube windows frame views into void space

Teen area with lounge space defined by large tube shift

Communal spaces exist in the portion of the tube that was shifted over while the new space created by the shift makes rooms for bookshelves

Children’s space is scaled down for youth and made fun with a variety of heights and nooks

Nearly every level of the library is visible when looking up or down through the void space

Section perspective displays complexity of void space throughout the project

Gallery space near the upper levels of the library allow occupants to have greater views of the city as well as sight lines back into the void space

At the upper levels, the tube begin to frame larger views of the surrounding Brooklyn structures

The top level gives occupants the opportunity to see the activity of the library in contrast with the activity of the city that surrounds it.

The uppermost terraces offer a release from the density of tubes and open views of the Brooklyn skyline

Glimpses of people moving through the tubes give the structure life

A glimpse of the city and terrace activity can be seen through the small tube aperture

Views out of tubes also help to orient the occupants. In this case, the occupant can see a path up to the next level without having to turn the corner.

reading nook with a unique view of the city

Study a Thing and Draw It

an exercise in finding the details

LOCATION: Auburn, AL

PROJECT TYPE: Hand Rendering

MATERIALS: brown butcher paper, charcoal, Arches 140# hot-press, Prismacolor colored pencils

SIZE: 8’ x 5’6”, 22” x 30”

PROFESSORS: Margaret Fletcher and Rusty Smith

TERM: Spring 2018

The first material required for this project was a deceased insect. In this case, the insect was a bumblebee. The goal of the assignment was to study the bumblebee and depict it in various mediums. This project’s purpose was to improve one’s ability to study a thing. To begin, the bee was drawn two ways in charcoal: a line drawing and realistic drawing. The pieces were created on large sheets of butcher paper that measured eight feet in length. After this study, half of the bee was rendered completely in color with Prismacolor colored pencils, while the other half was drafted purely with graphite on a full sheet of Arches 140# hot-press.

Working on the floor was necessary in order to manage the massive scale of the charcoal drawing.

The first line drawing offered an initial understanding of the basic shapes and textures of the insect.

The second drawing attempted to capture the finer details of the insect.

The final product is a hyper-detailed portrayal of the insect on one side and a study of its form via drafted lines on the other.

Nooks and Crannies

A study and documentation of small spaces around the world

Top row: Tiber Island, Rome Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome Tivoli, Italy

Middle row: Tennessee Aquarium, Chattanooga Park Guell, Barcelona Prague, Czech Republic

Bottom row: Catacombs, Paris Prague, Czech Republic Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli

From left to right

Classification: Cranny

Type: Artificial

Location: Casa Milà Roof, Barcelona, Spain

Traditional forms of storytelling are communicated via written or verbal language, but storytelling through architecture opens the gate for a new level of complex narratives. These stories can go past the one or two dimensionalities seen in typical communication and bring storytelling into a three-dimensional form of language. Architecture makes room for every story to be a choose-your-own-adventure. The architectural story has infinite possibilities based on a combination of a structure’s age, time of day/year, weather, materiality, form, and so on. All these factors combined can allow the architect to string together an intricate narrative that allows for a variety of experiences. Despite this, it is not the designer who determines the full breadth of stories that a structure can tell. The ultimate randomizer to the change of story is the unique perspective and semi-unpredictable nature of each person who inhabits the structure. Each person pursues a different route, notices different details, and moves at different paces making the seemingly infinite array of story variation a reality. Despite all this possibility, it is rare for architecture to reward curiosity. Many structures of today abandon this diverse idea of storytelling in place of those that are akin to a book with a beautiful cover but filled with blank pages. That is not to say there are no successes in the development of this sort of architectural storytelling. Nearly all examples, however, range from spiritual to full on religious in nature. Just like a good book engages the reader and forms a connection with them, the built environment can generate interest and instill a sense of mystery and discovery into those who occupy it. storytelling is a medium that has the power to incite personal connections between people and their surroundings.

Study 1: What is a story?

What is a story? A story, at its core, is a collection of individual moments, thoughts and feelings, that when brought together form a completed being; a thing that can immerse participants and allow them to travel beyond their immediate reality. A story, by its very nature, requires engagement to be to be experienced and understood.

What is the story worth telling?

Those who prospered and found great wealth in th Magic City were quick to abandon it, leaving behind a scarred landscape riddled with industrial remnants. The area surrounding McLendon Park is occupied by those people who were left behind after the departure of industry from Birmingham. These people fueled the industry that shot Birmingham into existence, but are now left to exist in a city littered with artifacts of another time, representing a past they never owned. This project aims to tell a story about reclamation of the industrial language and re-purposing it to serve the community.

Study 2: Learning a Language

All stories are told through some type of language. Architecture is no different. In order to tell a story about the reclamation of an industrial past, you must learn the formal language of Birmingham’s industry. This language is seen scattered around the city and most preserved in the now inoperative Sloss Furnaces. If you perceive each form as but a single letter that works with another to produce a word and another to make a paragraph and another to create a chapter then you begin to understand the inter-connective ability that form has to tell a story.

wherein ones eyes may travel through the scene and piece together a narrative in any order and with varying degrees of interpretation.

What is the story worth telling?

The moment where one is at their deepest point of immersion in a story is often at point such as the climax, plot twist, big reveal, or moment of clarity. All the words before these moments exist to set them up. These moments exist also in the built environment and are equally capable of immersing an occupant into a story. Even these forms that are devoid of life and existed solely for a utilitarian purpose are capable of conveying powerful and complex thoughts and emotions.

A collage illustrating how a collection of individual moments and singular ideas can come together and form a complete world or landscape

Study #4: Application

With a thorough understanding of industrial language comes the opportunity to manipulate and re-purpose that language in a way that communicates the intended story. The program that will support this story is public campus that includes a workforce development school, a public park area, and a local market. These programs all work to generate wealth and foster a greater sense of community for the area.

Limestone! Coal! Iron! These are the resources that once flowed rich in the Valley of Jones. The unstoppable forces of Mother Nature worked slowly and tirelessly for millions of years so that mankind could one day discover the wealth she accumulated. The Red Mountain reached toward the sky as it pulled these anthropic riches from deep within the earth. Twas not long before the valley was ringing with the unnatural sounds of machine and man as they wrestle against the inherently stubborn nature of the matter they so violently ripped from the earth.

Screaming serpents, formed by plates of metal, coursed along their tracks through the heart of the city, carrying precious cargo to and from all ends of the country. Although it was in their mission to connect and distribute, by doing so they inadvertently severed links and divided the landscapes that they tore through.

The once unbreakable beast of industry, who had propelled the city to greatness, fled with tail tucked timidly between wounded legs, abandoning its lair of flame and smoke. The valley, scarred by the forces of man and riddled with the remnants of another time, will reclaim what it once owned. Just as the roaring furnaces once shaped the stubborn metals found rich in the valley, those left in the city bear the responsibility of molding Birmingham into something new. Indeed the remnants of our past shall become the tools with which we use to construct our future. From the ashes of a once sturdy industrial giant, personified in the image of Vulcan, a new, gentler creature, forged from empathy, can rise in its place.