Alon Shahar - Part 1 Architecture Portfolio

Alon Shahar - Part 1 Portfolio CV and Select work

Alon Shahar

Contact 07402052705 alonshahar12@gmail.com

About me

I am a materials-driven architectural designer with a passion for ethical and thoughtful architecture. My journey began with ceramics and expanded to include timber, metal, and thread. Studying Architecture at the University of Edinburgh, I learned to synthesise materiality with client-driven design, appreciating the fusion of functionality and aesthetics. Collaborating with diverse teams throughout my education, I honed my skills of problem-solving and gained insights from various perspectives. Designing at the human scale, I find fulfilment in creating furniture and spaces that recognise human proportion and local context. During my final year project, I discovered my architectural voice, embracing honest and sustainable material use alongside traditional methods of construction. Thriving in fast-paced environments, I leverage a range of media, including model making, sketching, drawing, and software, to bring architectural ideas to life. Motivated by a genuine passion for architecture, my goal is to create functional and visually compelling environments. Committed to ongoing growth in a professional setting, I aspire to make a meaningful impact on the built environment.

Education

Architecture BA (Hons) - University of Edinburgh, 2020 - 2023. Grade: 1st Class Honours.

A - Levels - JFS, 2016 - 2018.

A* Mathematics

A Further Mathematics

A* Modern Hebrew

A Biology

B Chemistry

Work experience

Guest reviewer of second year Architecture Design course (AD: ANY PLACE), University of Edinburgh, 2023.

Student Representative Year 3 Architecture University of Edinburgh, 2022.

Young wood-fire artist in residence, Guldagergaard, Denmark, 2021.

Quarter finalist, The Great Pottery Throwdown, Stoke-onTrent, UK — August 2020 - September 2020. Competing in a televised pottery competition with challenges ranging from throwing tableware to sculpting large water features all under intense time pressures and specific brief requirements.

Baker/prep chef, karma bread, London, uk — june 2020july 2020.

Head chef/baker, Waitaki braids lodge, kurow, New zealand — Jan 2019 - Mar 2019.

Skills

Digital skills : AutoCAD, Illustrator, InDesign Model Fabrication

Knowledge of sustainable design practices

Excellent teamwork and collaboration skills

Attention to detail and ability to solve complex problems

References

Rachael Hallett Scott - Rachael.Hallett@ed.ac.uk

Contents

- An Architecture of Gleaning

- The Line

- A Theatre of Human Movement

- Ceramics

An Architecture of GleaningUrban homestead + Garlic Tower

University of Edinburgh - Y3S2

Date - Jan - May 2023

Project Type - Academic

(Individual)

Location - Leith, Scotland.

Link to Full Portfolio

The act of gleaning has been lost with the separation of city and field. Understanding where our food comes from is a fundamental truth that we seem to have forgotten, this has lead to excessive food waste on one hand and severe food insecurity on the other.

This project aims to reconnect us with the land.

The new architecture is one which acknowledges the extra, it is one which celebrates waste and glut and excess, it is an architecture of bagginess, one which facilitates moments of simplicity, and care of one another. This architecture is found in the spaces in between, in overlooked nooks, ones which need to be rediscovered within our society.

The project is built of two proposals located in Leith, Edinburgh. The first, a Garlic curing tower and the second, the Urban Homestead.

One of three 1:25 study models, Main oven burning on site.

An initial investigation into the timber industry, including milling and historical uses in Scotland.

Using the Scottish Black house as a lens to explore the complete ‘nose to tail’ use of a Scot’s pine tree. Uses ranging from structural to aesthetic to medicinal were researched.

And through an instinctive return to my com-

forts of clay, I was able to replicate the grain patterns of sawn timber, using a Japanese technique of repeatedly layering coloured clay slabs, called nerikomi. Out of the clay blocks three totemic objects were carved; a quaich a Scottish symbol of friendship, a spoon a symbol of love, and a jar for storing pine sap whose sweet smell when burned is believed to ward off evil. The ob-

jects were fired pressed against oak and pine chips, as a memory of the burning used to restore energy to the sun on the winter solstice.

An interesting observation of the similarities of shrinkages of clay and timber from the raw material to its final from. Which will later prove a crucial consideration in the crafting of the clay models.

Scot’s pine explored through Scottish blackhouse.

A 1:1 telephone bench which synthesises multiple key themes of the project; binding of weaker elements to create something stronger, timber joinery, human scale, and grain patterns

Our project begins in Leith Links, where the reclaiming of one of Edinburgh’s many hidden common lands by the Earth in Common community, has led to an aggregation of allotment plots defined by a hedge, bound together with thin threads and wire.

And after a frustrating and unsuccessful attempt to find garlic at the supermarket, a tower was erected.

The south facing tower warms with the sun, naturally drawing air up and through the hung garlic, aiding in the curing of the spicy bulbs, while a shelf of glut breaks the impenetrable boundary and presents a giving hand.

The 1:20 model constructed of a single piece of Oak, allowed for both a investigation of the detailing of joints and an appreciation of the value of timber as a natural resource.

The project continues to explore a derelict stone mews building in the heart of Leith, surrounded by odd courtyards, mechanic garages and residential tenement blocks. With an initial cleaning of the site, and a removal of the surrounding urban overgrowth, new growth is allowed to take root.

Three brick ovens are placed within the existing stone walls;

A main oven servicing the bakery, restaurant and as a fireplace in the residential living space. A communal oven used when needed by members of the community and acting as the kitchen for the residential space on the top floor. And a third cast iron stove keeping the gardener’s office and residence warm, whilst also heating the wall adjacent to the greenhouse.

The ovens sculpted the negative space formed between them and the existing walls. Forming warm pockets explored in a series of 1:25 models.

The Three Ovens

Binding weaker elements together to build something stronger. This idea underlines both the tectonic and social aspirations of the project.

This tectonic strategy was explored through 1:2 joint studies, furniture construction, and research into thatch as a cladding system.

And socially, the project brief aims to bring weaker members of the community together in a warm supportive space.

The bakery ovens provide a glut of food but also of glut of welcoming warmth. The gardens produce the ingredients for the restaurant and bakery and also allow for a training of disadvantaged members of the community up in trades and professions. In return for the work, a shared residence is provided on the top floor.

1:25 Partially hidden, a place to collect a spare loaf or to simply take a breath

The use of thatch in the project has been chosen for its biogenic properties, its aesthetic appeal and its ability to act as a further layer of thermal insulation.

However, after researching into the material I found that thatch’s minimum required pitch is 45°, and unfortunately the existing gable ends of the mews building have a pitch of 36°. And so instead of altering the existing stone gables a modular thatching system was developed, consisting of a thin prefabricated galvanised metal sheet, the thatch material (can be any locally sourced straw material) in our case, wheat straw, and larch dowels.

These modular units can be assembled on the ground, reducing the risk of traditional installation at height. It also enables a tighter compacting of the straw to increase thermal efficiency and water repulsion. In addition the fabrication of modules on site means any locally sourced thatch can be used, ranging from bracken root to reeds. Once the thatch reaches the end of its life cycle the metal panels can be disassembled and reattached, and the discarded thatch can be used as compost.

A further advantage of the modular system is that it reduces the need of specialist trade, making thatching applications more widespread and accessible.

Woven collage exploring various weekly investigations.

Dowels secure the thatch to the galvanised sheet

Highly compacted wheat straw thatch

Prefabricated galvanised steel modular unit.

Architecture of Gleaning

A thin glimmer of brass seen from afar. A clasped hand feeling the warmth captured and released, leading you along the thread, around and up.

The Line

University of Edinburgh - Y2S2

Date - Jan - Apr 2022

Project Type - Academic

(Individual)

Location - Paris, France.

This project starts at the southern intersect of a 8 track railway bridge and the Boulevard Périphérique, the official border of The City of Paris. Throughout history the site has been defined by a line, first as a defence wall, then as promenade for the rich, and today as a dual carriage way. This project seeks to rebuild a new meaning for the line, to inhabit it. Expanding outside the site and wrapping around the city the project uses the scarred landscape of the city, left behind by the motorway, to imagine a new solution for housing within the city.

The line is explored throughout the scales of the project, at the building scale the apartments aggregate along the line, and at the human scale, the line is designed to hold all functions of living, becoming a integral piece of furniture within the apartment.

Final Installation

Unlike other architectural forms, a residential apartment must accommodate the most basic human functions such as sleeping, eating and bathing. The arrangement of these spaces becomes key in the design of the apartment.

The arrangement of my model apartment relies on two principals. The first is a persons daily schedule with each volume along the space accommodating a different stage in a persons day.

The design is also inspired by the relationship of two characters a carer and caree. The two characters are forced to share intimate moments of their lives with one another and so to maximise the surface of interaction between the two apartments I elongated a normal apartment plan and mirrored it with its neighbour. Creating visual connection between the two flats.

1:50 Initial apartment model

The two sets of floor plans come as a pair to form a modular unit. These units can be stacked, mirrored, rotated and slid along one another, insuring the circulation cores are lined up, to create a wide possibility of arrangements and an infinite continuation of the building.

Hypothetically the plans can be arranged in a way to provide more different living arrangements depending on the needs of the area, for example a higher proportion of family style dwellings can be inserted or more compact studio apartments can be tightly configured along the line.

Exploring the interior of the apartments through perspective drawing and a 1:20 model.

The city of Paris has grown through centuries from an agricultural settlement to a pre-industrial city surrounded by defensive walls, and has evolved to something which is more familiar today, a metropolis of steel and glass. What is the next step in a cities life cycle. With our rapidly growing global population and our insatiable need for material possessions our current trajectory is unsustainable. However, could these issues be resolved in a digital realm.

Could a virtual city become the next step of a city’s evolution, a virtual city would be able to provide all aspects of human life without the need for a physical footprint. Logging into your apartment instead of turning a physical key. Your mind would be connected to the city whilst your body would be monitored and taken care of in a remote location requiring less space and less resources to sustain itself.

Throughout this project I have been at odds with the structural aspects of my design, having large spans which rely on heavy cores to support the structure, whilst in my mind I wished to create a thin line which is suspended in the air and is free from physical forces. A line which is able to provide all the needs of living. Many of the futuristic, constructivist precedents I explored this semester were unable to be realised due to the lack of material technologies, perhaps a virtual design is not yet attainable with our current digital technologies but might become a reality in the future.

A Theatre of Human Movement

University of Edinburgh - Y3S2

Date - Sep - Dec 2022

Project Type - Academic

(Group - All work shown is of author)

Location - Edinburgh, Scotland.

The brief began with the abandoned Scottish Widows HQ building, located on the outskirts of the city of Edinburgh. Built in the 1970’s the concrete and bronze-tinted glass building now sits lifeless and offers a unique opportunity to re-engage with the city. Upon first visit the vastness of the floorplates in combination with the monotonous materiality led to feelings of disorientation and discomfort.

The proposal aims to breathe life back into the space by carefully nestelling lightweight fragments of a theatre within the buildings solid structure. Taking the human body and its movement as a guide to explore each component of a theatre; The Grand Entrance, The Stage, and Backstage, and attributing each to a different zone in the body; The Feet, The Torso, and The Head respectivly. This sequence and fragmentation allowed a movement of the occupant from the physical and sensory to a knowing and overseeing, guided ‘behind the curtain’ of a performance space.

1:20 Model - Torso/Stage

The project began with multiple studies of human movement and the senses. Inspired by the work of Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus, the human form was abstracted in order to understand its movements in space, whilst the senses aided in the understanding of dis/orientation and comfort.

The forms generated from the studies were then explored through architecture, the movement of a hand evolved into a folding chair, where the knuckles became the pivots and the ratio between each phalanx was kept.

Folding Chair

Hand Movement study

Body Movement study

The entrance sequence attempts to bring a sensory awareness to ones feet. Through subtle sensory expirences (sound of footsteps, walking in shallow water)and through a ritual process of stepping up and stepping out of ones shoes(현관 - hyun-gwan).

1:20 Model - Foot/Grand Entrance

“The dancer has his ear in his toe”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

The traverse stage is inspird by shaddow theaters and aims at distoring and abstracting the human from through projection and segmented views. The audience is encoraged to wonder and become part of the performace.

1:20 Model - Torso/Stage

The Backstage evolved into a observation platform offering glimpses of the stage, and of the city. Stemming from the idea that sight is directly linked to knowledge and that by this point the occupant has a understanding of how things work within the theatre,due to wondering through it .

1:20 Model - Head/BackStage

1. Steriopsis Mask (hammered metal)

2. Axonometric of Views

3. Steriopsis Collage

1.

2.

3.

1:400 Axonometric of Theatre Fragments

1:200 Sections Through Theatre Fragments (Top to Bottom - Backstage, Stage, and Entrance)

A series of pit fired ceramic vessels, inspired by seed pods collected from trees during my travels in Israel. The forms follow organic lines, and explore contrasts between a rough protective exterior and a polished hidden interior.