ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO 1 - J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program
December 2024
Instructor: Leticia Pardo Email: lpardor@iu.edu
Type: Academic-Individual
Duration: 2 Months
A house and studio for Sheila Hicks, an American artist known for her innovative and experimental weaving and sculptural textile art that incorporates distinctive colors, natural materials, and personal narratives.
The main concept is about connecting the two main spaces horizonyally and connecting level in each spaces vertically in both functional and ornamental respectively in the space and form
Object oriented form and functional space. WARP AND WEFT
Main Idea
The core concept focuses on a seamless horizontal connection between the house and studio while establishing vertical continuity within each space. This interplay integrates functionality and ornamentation, mirroring the essence of weaving.
Main Idea
The core concept focuses on a seamless horizontal connection between the house and studio while establishing vertical continuity within each space. This interplay integrates functionality and ornamentation, mirroring the essence of weaving.
1 - Basement
- Main Circulation
Floors 5 - Studio Roof
Basement Plan
02 Baloch children's house
Final
Design
June 2021
Instructor: Ali Javedani
Type: Academic-Individual
Duration: 2 Semester
“Baloch Children’s House” is a warm and welcoming place where activities aimed at children›s education and healthcare can be carried out in a rural environment. Allowing children to develop properly is essential in order to build a better future. Today, 40,000 Baloch children in Iran suffer from a lack of education and growth retardation resulting from nutritional difficulties caused by poverty. Education and adequate diet, mean facilitating the psychological and physical development necessary to develop all of the fundamental abilities to participate in social life
Current Situation
The rural Baloch community has always lived in the most difficult conditions and the government has not taken any appropriate measures to increase their welfare, despite the fact that most of the mineral resources such as gold and copper are extracted from these areas. Most of the problems there are directed at children, they suffer from a lack of education and growth retardation resulting from nutritional difficulties caused by poverty. Education and adequate diet, mean facilitating the psychological and physical development necessary to develop all of the fundamental abilities to participate in social life. In this situation, NGOs usually take action to build schools and welfare centers like this, but there are limitations in this case that have made these organizations stop doing this.
Limitations in the case of Construction & Current Solutions
Main aims
The main aims of the project are resolving Education, Recreation and Healthcare needs. Education and Recreation are the most important requirements for children. Moreover, in cases where they are at risk, it should be possible to offer healthcare to facilitate monitoring and care. Therefore children’s medical examinations will be carried out in this center as well.
The roads are not suitable for heavy vehicles
There is no electricity supply
Transfer pre-fabricated building by skycrane
Kapar (Traditional Accommodation)
Be Integrated
Modular Design
Considering the transportation limits
Be Constructible in every focused area
being easily built with sustainable technologies
Project Particular Requirements
Maitainable
Make use of natural and/ or recycled materials
Multi- Functional Plans
According to the different needs that the project must respond to, the plan and the details of the walls should be designed in such a way that it gives multi-functionality to the building, and on the other hand, corridors between the spaces have been considered to provide natural ventilation for every spaces. These corridors can add space to the building if needed.
Education
Social and Healthcare
Social Health care
Natural Ventilation
Horizontal rows(prevent heating of the yard using Baluch patterns)
wooden roof frame (keeping palm tree mats and natural ventilation)
Interior movable walls
Wooden column and connection details
The
Wooden floors Foundation
Wooden floor beams
Wooden floor beams
External and internal fixed walls
Wooden ceiling beams
The inner layer of the roof
Straw Mat Wood
Baloch Fabric Concrete
Rammed Earth
Transportation
One of the main problems and limitations of the plan is the method of transporting the parts. Due to the quality of the roads in the region, the only way to transport the parts is to use a pickup truck, and for this purpose, all the parts are designed in such a way that it is possible to move them by a pickup truck.
Natural Ventilation and Light
Modular Packaging
One of the main problems and limitations of the plan is the method of transporting the parts. Due to the quality of the roads in the region, the only way to transport the parts is to use a pickup truck, and for this purpose, all the parts are designed in such a way that it is possible to move them by a pickup truck.
The construction method of the side walls that are exposed to sandstorms in this area and have small openings is rammed earth. We can see the construction method and steps and implementation details in the diagrams below.
Portability Structure
In this project, the ability to move and open and close the details of the structure is one of the main features, since it is not possible to use LSF structures due to heating the building, the solution is to use wood, but since this structure, It has to be opened and closed, the need for a detailed design was felt to cause minimal damage to the texture of the wood so that it can be used repeatedly.
Vertical rod as reinforcement
Concrete foundation with ledge for forms
Plywood form faced with tempered Rammed earth wall
Turnbuckle
03 Boushehr Stadium
Design Studio V
June 2020
Instructor: Shirin Azhdehfar
Type: Academic-Group Work
Teammate: Negar Yaghoubpour
Position: Responsible for all tasks
Duration: 1 Semester
Due to the spread of the coronavirus, the semester continued until the middle of the summer and we decided to design a voluntary project in this studio with the consultation of our professor. Later, the concept of this project was developed. In this project, the goal was to design a stadium with the approach of creating a favorable urban space along the Persian Gulf coast. The main focus of the project was on the football stadium and the rest of the functions were developed on the site. In this stadium, the form follows its function as much as possible to be a userfriendly space. Also, its scale was an essential factor in the urban space, which was tried to be placed in the best part of the coastal city of Bushehr, which has hot and humid weather.
Main Ideas
The diagram below was designed to form the main scheme of the stadium and its master plan. Thus, the best connection between different locations of the complex could be made.
After establishing the physical program, different locations were placed on the site considering their essential connections. Then, the stadium and the site were developed.
Design Process
The Stadium form was inspired by the form waves and boats of Bousher›s sea and the softness of the site stadium exterior combinations unified the complex.
Continuity of sight and flow in the forms to unify the site and the stadium
Form and Facade Description
In addition to static and resistance, it was tried to design a harmonious and suitable complex for Bushehr. In the stadium, the roof structure is separated from the platform structure. The exterior structure consists of 100 metal columns and the roof structure ware supported by the outer shell columns. The final roof covering is formed by ETFE panels in the form of a ship and the elements form are inspired by the cultural motif of Bushehr Shenashir(Mashrabiya).
Simple stadium seats
Shrinking the base for entrance
Oval split of seating area
Roof fabric shade
Exterior extrusion
Final touches
Shenashir
Special Section for the Disabled and Companions
Third-Floor Entrance
Exterior Shell
Trusses Connection
Roof Panels Connection
According to the FIFA world standard for football fields, it is better for the stadium and football field to rotate 15 degrees north to the west so that the sunlight on the field is optimal for players and spectators.
First-Floor Platforms VIP Rooms and TV studios
Third Floor
15 °
04 Residential Tower
Design Studio V
August 2020
Instructor: Shirin Azhdehfar
Type: Academic-Individual
Duration: 1 Semester
In this studio, the issue was the design of a residential skyscraper in the center of Tehran. In this project, it has been tried to design a twin tower based on the climatic conditions of Tehran. Besides, the concept of sustainable buildings that have the least impact on heating the city of Tehran and at the same time benefit from a beautiful shape has been considered. Responsive architectural solutions and the use of thermal sensors have been utilized in the design process, and it has also been tried to design a high-rise considering the architectural context of Tehran.
These twin towers are designed on a base that contains services for residents and citizens, such as shops, clubs, swimming pools, restaurants, and public urban space.
Construction Zone and Main Uses
Design Process
Building Base Extrusion
Building Base Extrusion
Extruding Two Cubes
Voids for Light Optimization
Shrinking for Light Optimization
Bridges and Shared Spaces
Final Touches
Residential Area
In these towers, different residential units are designed in different sizes, most of which have access to common terraces that strengthen the sense of neighborhood in this high-rise building. The terraces are designed in such a way that the air circulation happens at a higher quality, also smart curtains are designed in front of the terraces that control the light and air and prevent the reflection of sunlight and the heating of the city.
The concept of the base form is to have a visual beauty from the view of the upper floors of the tower, which evokes the famous arch of Iranian architecture.
05 Metal Batwing
Minimal Surface Practice
December 2019
Type: Voluntary Personal-Group Work
Teammates: Negar Yaghoubpour, Mahshid Amani, Sina Rezaeifar, Samar Yazdanfar
Position: Responsible for all tasks
Duration: Two Months
In mathematics, a minimal surface is a surface that locally minimizes its area. This is equivalent to having a mean curvature of zero. Minimal surfaces can be defined in several equivalent ways in R3.
The design of this project is basically a Batwing Minimal surface.
The Batwing is a type of triply periodic minimal surface that was discovered by Alan Schoen.
Evolution of a Schoen Batwing Minimal surface ,which can be trigonometrically approximated by a short equation: cos(x) sin(y) + cos(y) sin(z) + cos(z) sin(x) = 0
Form-Finding by Grasshopper & Kangaroo
First, a mesh plate with the logic of batwing minimal surface was modeled in the form of a sharp corner. Then, supportive lines and effective points were extracted from the initial mesh, and after that by the kangaroo plug-in and the extracted data, the tensile shell was created. In the end, the surface was manipulated to conform to the fabrication.
Subdivision by Grasshopper & Ivy
At this stage, the shell was subdivided by the utilization of the Ivy plug-in and the developed algorithm. These created pieces could be fabricated by the use of the folding method with bendable and shatterproof material.
Subdivision Step 1
Subdivision Step 2
Final Surface (ready for subdivision)
Fabrication
After extraction of the two-dimensional pieces from the shell, it was decided to utilize iron material for making the segments.Firstly, 2D plans were presented for using iron laser cut. Secondly, a method called Bridge-Building was utilized in the joint points. In the final step with the use of argon welding, the point was assembled.
Final Result
After the assemblage, it was observed that the work was done with surprisingly high accuracy, the word surprise is used because this project was our first practice (experiment) of working with iron metal and laser-cut, which were strikingly precise.
Encoded Stereotomy was a four weeks workshop focused on designing freeform funicular shell structures based on Thrust Network Analysis (TNA) and digitally generating the tessellated vault with digital fabrication methods by using 5 axis CNC hot wire cutting machine.
01. Group Alternatives
The workshop was attended by 38 students and graduates from various universities, participants were divided into groups of 6 to 8 and were asked to first draw their ideas for a compression only vault individually, and then in consultation with team members, an idea was selected and developed in each group. After two working days, all the designs were reviewed by the directors, and finally, after examining the strengths and weaknesses of each, one of the designs was selected for construction on a one-to-one scale.
02. Concept Development
One of the ideas put forward by the participants consisted of arches that had crossed each other at different heights.
This idea was chosen as the final design for construction due the innovative form of the each compared to other ideas put forward by the participants and also to similar projects made in the field of compression-only structures.
Another advantage of this form over other ideas was the low surface area of the material intended to cover a wide span. The complexity of the form was also visually appealing to the participants.
The main challenge in developing the selective idea was to maintain the horizontal and vertical proportion of the vault spans. For this reason, many Alternatives were modeled to obtain the desired form in Rhino Vault software.
03. CAD Process
After adjusting the proportions of the selected form, the relevant analyzes for generating a vertical vault were performed with high accuracy in rhino vault, Next, the mesh curvature was evaluated to make the hot wire CNC foam cutter capable of cutting the voussoirs. The obtained mesh by Rhino Vault was not completely planar, Therefore, in the first step, the deviation of the mesh panels from the planar state was reduced to the minimum without causing any tangible deformation in the vault form; and after that the ruled surfaces which are perpendicular to the original rhino vault mesh were split by two parallel planes, and the six obtained faces were prepared for cutting.
Curvature Analysis
Generation of The Voussoirs
In order to prevent sliding failure and guarantee structural stability, the main load bearing faces of neighboring voussoirs need to be perpendicular to the force flow. Therefore, the interface surfaces should be normal to the thrust sur face at any point.
Outline structure
Form diagram
Mesh Isometric View
Force diagram
Planarized Mesh
At this point, all the modeled voussoirs were ready to be cut, so for the cutting the parts by hot wire CNC foam cutter, the G-codes for the arranged voussoirs were generated by «Solid Works» and all the pieces were cut in about five days.
In order to avoid loss of materials and to increase the cutting speed, it was attempted to arrange the designed vault voussoirs in 10 * 100 * 100 cm3 polystyrene sheets by use of Rhino-Nest. The cutting tool of the machine is moved according to the g-code instructions through a toolpath, cutting away material to leave only the finished work piece. G-code is a language in which people tell computerized machine tools how to make something. The «how» is defined by g-code instructions provided to a machine controller (industrial computer) that tells the motors where to move, how fast to move, and what path to follow. The G-codes of this project were generated with 3D modeling software called «Solid Works» and the machine process was simulated in «Solid Cam».
05. Construction
After finishing the cutting process, the students began to assemble the pieces using polyurethane foam, the process of assembling the vault was completed within a week, after which the cement coating was applied on the final vault.
Assembling Arrangement
07 Practice and Artwork
Re-Echo Project
Since 2017
Type: Personal Work
Re-Echo
In a part of his famous book (The Arcades Project), Walter Benjamin writes: "Making the waste recyclable is a sign of empowering a been thrown away without being fulfilled. In the Re-ECHO project, it is supposed to present a different scenario from the official ones things which have once been thrown away. Based on "The Arcades Project" by Walter Benjamin, we can say perceiving the phenomena we don't think of items as "objects" or "materials", but considering their more general definition, "things".
The first steps and sparks of this project were formed and happened in an atelier during the second term of studying architecture as
Industrial salvaged parts
2018
Industrial salvaged parts
2019
GERD Stand Lamp
SICK LET NO.2 stand lamp
silent sound, giving value to the things which are considered worthless and most importantly, discovering the promises which have ones related to the things which are thrown away. In this project, we follow a critical approach to fathom everyday-life by voicing the phenomena differently, which today has been diminished due to ideologic perception, is the main goal of this project. It's notable to say that
as a project for "introduction to design", under the supervision of Dr.Ali Javedani in 2017.
