Andrea Melendez Architecture Portfolio

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PORT ST. JOE AS A HISTORICAL RELIC Centering Civic: Bridging the Divide in a Small Southern Town

ANDREA MELENDEZ

The panhandle city of Port St. Joe is split down the middle by vacant remnants of its industrial past; but far more than misaligned streets and vacant parcels, the schism between North Port St. Joe and the main city to the South represents a lasting divide between the black and white sides of town. Since Hurricane Michael in 2018, Port St. Joe has been operating without a proper City Hall and its municipal structures including fire and police are undersized and in poor repair. This studio, in collaboration with the city and supported by the Jesse Ball Dupont Fund, will propose a new municipal complex on newly acquired property along the Apalachicola Northern Railroad between North and South Port St. Joe; attempting to project an equitable and resilient future while reckoning with its highly problematic social and ecological past.

From above, Port St. Joe is two cities. The Southern city aligns

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with highway 98, parallel to the highway and perpendicular to the Gulf of Mexico. North Port St. Joe is organized on the cardinal directions seemingly irrespective of the highway and coast. The schism between the two halves of town is all that remains of a formerly active train depot, deep water port, the St. Joe Paper Company, and other industrial buildings. The industrial center to this city has long-since moved away. In its place lies remnants: abandoned tracks, scattered buildings, overgrown lots.

The design of the proposed City Hall is sensitive to its surrounding historical context of former Paper Mill, the town’s light house, existing natural landscape, and the urban morphology of varying street grids. It aims to unite and serve as a node in the overall civic network of the town.

Port St. Joe: Civic Center Design Proposal

ANDREA MELENDEZ

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

2015-2018

CONTENTS

__________________________________________________ 1. penn boulevard pg.4 2. guake’te arts pg.10 3. dia: yards pg.14 4. horizon & temperature pg.20 5. vertical datum pg.22 6. conch bus shell-ter pg.26

“Architecture is about creating an experience, celebrating community, & striving to make the intangible turn reality.”

-Andrea Melendez

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P E N N B O U L E V A R D

PENN BOULEVARD DESIGN 7 [FALL 2018] CHELSEA DISTRICT, NYC ACADEMIC IN COLLABORATION WITH BRUNO FERRINI PROFESSOR: NANCY CLARK Due to the PAU Proposal, the new Penn Station is to take over former Madison Square Garden. Our site design proposal addresses high pedestrian traffic for our area of 33rd and 34th street with 7th and 8th avenue at the intersection between Hudson Yards Special District and Penn 2023 Sites. We have adopted a boulevard initiative on 34th within our site.

Connecting to the highline will be our proposed Penn Boulevard that would stitch the urban fabric of our building proposals, serving as a connective tissue towards the east river. This will increase walkability and foster more flowable circulation with bike paths. An initiative to introduce bike paths on 34th street will be integrated onto our site proposal, along with existing ones that can set the standard to be projected in further connecting the east river to Hudson river. We propose to make 33rd street a pedestrian only path creating an interwoven grid to reinforce a desire to be here and participate in this unique experience in the urban context that can help alleviate pedestrian traffic from Penn station.

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P E N N B O U L E V A R D

A rhythmic experience along the Boulevard will exist in unique moments nested into the urban context with through blocks and elevated public levels. These porous half thru blocks serve as thresholds, setting up a rhythm on our site to be further continued creating a cross grain of spaces along 34th avenue. The buildings’ design shears as if to raise the urban street creating pocket levels of habitable spaces on every site building, constantly overlooking the boulevard.

We propose to activate the street level and ease congestion by accepting this influx of people from Penn station onto ground level commercial programs and public spaces with an inviting glass urban façade.

The same glass materiality fosters a relationship alike to the PAU Proposal. We intend to create visual porosity by designing the towers on opposite ends to foster that connection to Penn Station. Alike to the Hudson Yards mixed use, these towers will have commercial ground levels with an above office program, with residential on the west side of our site.

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P E N N B O U L E V A R D

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G U A K E’ T E A R T S

GUAKE’TE ARTS DESIGN 6 [SPRING 2018] SANTURCE, PUERTO RICO ACADEMIC PROFESSOR: MARTHA KOHEN The abandoned building located in Santurce, Puerto Rico is a pocket of opportunity situated in the center of an art district datum along avenida Juan Ponce de Leon, becoming the binding joint within this relationship. As a repurpose initiative, “Guake’te Arts” youth and community center offers artists to showcase their work ranging from elaborate sculptures and detailed paintings while engaging the local community in celebrating the vibrancy of the cultural district of Santurce. It offers youth art workshops as a platform to channel and incentivize the value of the arts in the upcoming generations.

The design aims to seek a harmonious relationship between the existing colonial building and contemporary attitude of new annexes, while still paying respect to the current mature character of the building. The ambition to transform this concrete desert ground into an inviting hotspot, welcomes the reuse of different sections of the parking lot area introduced with an overhead shaded condition creating a gathering space for community events like fairs and local farmers market. The captivating, undulating façade, draws people in with its movement. The extensive overhead mimics the façade’s form that unifies these two in harmony. Gravel street is exchanged for the implementation of green spaces including an outside, external amphitheater and garden.

context facade axo

program analysis

circulation

greenscape

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As a sustainable strategy, rainwater drains into the columns of the canopy and is released into a retention pond where lily pads grow and is available for the public to enjoy. The use of porous asphalt material for the parking area targets storm-water management in promoting infiltration and improving water quality. Guake’te Arts is a motor for animating the cultural strip in Santurce. glass pores

skin

G U A K E’ T E A R T S

canopy structure

façade

column support shading condition

colonial building

foundation

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DIA: YARDS D I A Y A R D S

DESIGN 7 [FALL 2018] CHELSEA DISTRICT, NYC ACADEMIC IN COLLABORATION WITH BRUNO FERRINI PROFESSOR: NANCY CLARK Located to the north of Hudson Yards, NY, our proposed DIA: Yards becomes a cultural node that displays and welcomes large scale installation of contemporary art worldwide. These large gallery exhibition spaces border the edges of the central atrium creating seamless circulation. The atrium creates a vertical condition and visual connection between all the floor exhibitions. The vertical porosity is exemplified as the space transitions through the glass entrance, atrium, and out towards a large skylight on the top floor, allowing for natural illumination. The habitable exterior space allows for a framed view of the Hudson River, along with the Hudson Yards and High Line. DIA: Yards is also jointed with a residential tower a top that plays a role in a mixed-use development.

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D I A Y A R D S

The programmatic driver for DIA: Yards arose from the analysis of cultural pieces within the surrounding Hudson Yards district. We propose to connect the district of Chelsea with the southern portion of Hell’s Kitchen through the celebration of the arts. The High Line would serve as an urban driver that connects the Whitney Museum of American Art at the southern tip of the high line to our DIA Yards on the northern tip. The Program makes use of double height ceilings to accommodate the quintessential artwork of DIA: Beacon.

The perforated skin on the facades also allows for controlled lighting as well as creating a continuously dynamic and transformative surface which can also be used to exhibit digital works of art.

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D I A Y A R D S

light relief study model

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H O R I Z O N & T E M P E R A T U R E

HORIZON & TEMPERATURE DESIGN 5 [FALL 2017] JUNIPER SPRINGS, FLORIDA ACADEMIC PROFESSOR: NINA HOFER Landscape analysis beginning with the study of air as a spatial condition sparked a further investigation of relationships between ground and sky, light, verticality, and horizontal elements of the landscape. In my final analysis, the ground shears at different elevations and certain moments on the site, prompting for a built intervention that can be nested within it. Thus, the shearing landscape strategy promotes the exploration of shifting horizons as well as varying temperatures among the three interventions.

The natural spring embodies an existing spatial characteristic that proposes dimensions of verticality through vegetation and its reflection on water as a continuing verticality beneath the spring. It further hints the rich spatial composition of water as it holds varying volumes, and extends through a landscape, and at times, moves below the ground, at level, and above it. It carves it’s surrounding context. The relation of the manmade construct to the natural landscape in terms of ground and sky as a preliminary basis set the foundation for further poetic discussions of additional elements.

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V E R T I C A L D A T U M

VERTICAL DATUM DESIGN 4 [SPRING 2017] TOWER, GREEK MYTHOLOGY ACADEMIC PROFESSOR: CHARLIE HAILEY The narrative of the falling angel unfolds as the glycerin melts, prompting an analysis in dimension of verticality and edge. Vertical Datum project encompasses the Greek mythology of Icarus, the falling angel. The development of the tower marks movement of air and the melting of glycerin wings.

A diagrammatic analysis marks the trajectory of large-scale Icarus. The narrative unfolds into the tower as Icarus falls and begins to frame 3 spaces: to investigate the architectural relation of body to space. The positioning of the body’s feet, arms, torso, and wings creates the relationship between these spaces. These moments are nested within the tower and begin to question orientation and scale of the wings.

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V E R T I C A L

The poetic idea of the heaviness of the wings forms the overhead conditions in the spaces created. What can hold such heaviness of this mass? The exposed structure of the wings begins to serve as the analysis of the construction of an armature in the tower. Therefore, it allows a translation of a wing’s rib envelope as an architectural backbone that create spaces for Icarus.

A material study of glycerin allows for the questioning of the translucency nature of it, while having a sense of mass and occupation. Glycerin is the core binding agent that holds the armature. A human researcher of Icarus allows for the small-scale opportunity to exist within the edges of the tower.

D A T U M

Glycerin material study

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C O N C H B U S S H E L L T E R

27 CONCH BUS SHELL-TER DESIGN 6 [SPRING 2018] UF CAMPUS ACADEMIC PROFESSOR: LEE-SU HUANG Drawing inspiration from the nature of conch shells, the bus shell-ter mimics its protective layering form. The conch has natural integrated rhythmic ribs that repeat on its surface. This spine is displayed as the armature that withholds the body of the bus stop. The repetitive design on shells is shown on the exterior skin with the circular patches also resembling cells, as a smaller scale unit. These glass pores provide the opportunity to let light seep into the space while protecting from rain, or overexposure of the sun. The Conch bus shell-ter is situated on Museum road, right off the intersection with 13th street.

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C O N C H B U S S H E L L T E R Light studies were a primary focus in the design of this bus stop reacting as a moment of pause and inquiry. The relationship between armature and skin was investigated as the structure folds and embodies a curve, Light and shadow coexist in the indication of the porosity of space that seeps through minor scaled punctures through the skin. Changes in time of day deepen the capacity of these light shadows to expand and contract. Thus, these light pores become poetic markings on ground.

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H O R I Z O N H O U S E

HORIZON HOUSE DESIGN 8 [SPRING 2019] HOGTOWN CREEK, GAINESVILLE ACADEMIC PROFESSOR: MARTIN GUNDERSEN The programmatic spaces in my house interacted with sky and ground. My gathering space carves the ground while my studio space, elevated on stilts, frames the sky. The conceptual idea of horizon is reflected by detailed slits of space that is repeated throughout my design also serving as a visual connectivity. The gathering space holds a thicker overhead, that nests the interior spaces within, than the studio space. The datum that connects the two is ground based, yet it could be said that the overheads could be the datum between the thick versus delicate nature of each. Arguably, these structures also mark the ground as they begin to cover and claim a territory beneath them. The stilts mark the ground line as they signify a vertical gesture that reflects beneath the horizontal ground datum. Horizon house is located in Hogtown Creek near the water.

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