PORTFOLIO 2024 - Alexis Valles

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PERSONAL STATEMENT Hi, I am Lexi Valles, a recent graduate from the Huckabee College of Architecture at Texas Tech University. My passion in all areas of my life and work is to provide spaces of meaning, beauty, and community. Sacred architecture and residential dwellings, I believe, are amongst the most important buildings in our built environment because of their ability to shape us. I think these spaces require a great deal of consideration in our day. In any project, however, the visualization and representation - the storytelling - is what I am after, and I believe it is important at every scale. I am eager to learn and evolve as a designer and to collaborate across diverse project types.

CONTENT

01 1-6

IZTAPALAPA art house

02 7-14

TENGANAN health clinic

03 15-20

LUBBOCK shelter

04 21-26

MESCALERO APACHE cultural center

05 27-32

LUBBOCK therapeutic riding center

06 33-42

JEMEZ SPRINGS bathhouse

IZTAPALAPA art house

01 ARCH 3602 2021 Prompt: To reimagine Mexican vernacular housing typologies into contemporary urban expressions of Mexico’s diverse heritage, climate, and territory. Issues like migration, urban expansion, and housing policies are causing the loss of traditional typologies, and with them Mexico’s ancestral building culture.

Iztapalapa Art House synthesizes and evolves these fading typologies to drive the design of a mixed-use ecological village in Mexico City.

Concept: Residential living for local artists that hosts galleries and studios for various trades on the ground floor. Two stories above the art level is where the residents dwell. The program is nestled in the middle of the existing vegetations. Locals walking along the main street are drawn into the project by the intriguing exhibitions following the curvilinear walls of the building that leads into the interior courtyard of the art house.

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Exploded building axonometric

Building axonometric

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Unit axonometrics

Building section

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TENGANAN health clinic

02 ARCH 4601 2021 Prompt: The project is located withing the unique traditional architectural, and cultural context of the village of Tenganan in Bali, Indonesia.

The program for the project includes a multifuntional community-oriented clinic and Wantilan. Harmony with the natural environment, an important component of traditional Balinese architecture, is the focus of this small medical clinic/wellness center.

Concept: Modern Indonesian clinic that embraces and is influenced in circulation and material by the natural elements of sunlight, rain, and wind in Tenganan. Patients and staff circulate around the central courtyard which allows light into the interior as well as provides natural waiting space for the patients’ guests.

The wantilan is nestled in the northeast side of the site, allowing for access to visitors from the North and provacy from the existing buildings.

Definition: Wantilan - Balinese public pavilion (bale) used for activities involving large crowds.

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Ground floor plan

South elevation

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LUBBOCK shelter

Building section

03 ARCH 4602 2022 Prompt: To design a homeless center in Lubbock, Texas which would include temporary housing and rehabilitative spaces.

can be quite unwelcoming, cramped, crude, and undignified. The spaces in these dwellings offer both privacy, and a sense of personal space, as well as very open and transparent spaces. Each dwelling has a courtyard space for outdoor gathering and community building. They also offer garden spaces, indoor gathering or work spaces, shared kitchens, shared bathrooms, and private bedrooms with views to the interior courtyard.

Concept: 5 dwellings that house 24 people each with 2 to a room. The idea is to give a smaller number of people their own dignified home which they can share and live with others to foster community and accountability. The reality of homeless shelters

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Ground floor plan

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South elevation

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MESCALERO APACHE cultural center

04 ARCH 5600 2022 Prompt: (Collaborative Project) To design a cultural center for the Mescalero Apache tribe, being conscious of the landscape and history of the tribe.

a trip from their reservation in New Mexico to a campsite on the eastern side of El Capitan. We have chosen a site near this peak for its great historical and spiritual importance. It was tradition in the tribe to have their camps and teepees facing the east.

This was the basis for choosing the western site, so that our project would have an eastern view of the mountain. This site is also in close proximity to the El Capitan trail head as it is incorporated into our cultural center.

Concept: Our site is located on the western foothills of El Capitan Peak in the Guadalupe National Park. El Capitan Peak has been considered a sacred mountain to the Mescalero Apache tribe for the past couple hundred years. The tribe annually makes

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FORMAL strategies

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Section produced by group member : Juanita Avila

Section produced by group member : Juanita Avila

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LUBBOCK therapeutic riding center

05 ARCH 5602 2023 Prompt: To design a therapeutic riding center on the plateau of Ransom Canyon in Lubbock, Texas. This therapeutic riding center hosts horse riding and therapeutic sessions.

Concept: In this project my partner and I wanted to, from the beginning, be conscious of the scales of user from child to adult to horse. With that in mind we wanted the campus to feel organic and breathable. We wanted to stray from using sharp and tight corners where we could so we developed an s-shaped form that

would be a comfortable wayfinding key throughout the building for all users. As you first enter the site you are greeted at the welcome center that wraps around you and the parking lot as well as overlooks the canyon and lake below. It was important that every individual building in our project had access to a canyon and lake view below. The project is explorative, processional, biophilic, and community oriented as it strives to provide a safe therapeutic space for its users.

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JEMEZ SPRINGS bathhouse

06 ARCH 5603 2023 Prompt: To reimagine the popular bathhouse typology that is infused in the beautiful mountainous landscape of northern New Mexico.

These bathhouses are fed from natural hot springs heated by the Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mountains.

Concept: This project was located on a sloping site and plaza in the valley of Jemez Springs, New Mexico. This open grassy plaza is a hub to this community and the many tourists who visit the hot springs throughout the year. This bathhouse proposal is about procession and porosity. With glorious views of the mountains on

each side of the valley I wanted to split the project up into various individual buildings that would frame these views of the mountains and river running through our site. These buildings, connected by outdoor paths create a procession from the public to more private zones andpools on the northern end of the site. This project feels part of the earth in its form and materiality as it utilizes rammed earth and other local materials all of which mimics the unique experience of being in a valley with such grand mountains enveloping you above.

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Enclosed spaces

Building section through spa, locker room, and staff wing

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North building elevation

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Thank you!

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