Architecture Portfolio
Antonio Castillo
ABOUT
I believe in the relevance of the physical world, especially in the context of the digital and remote 21st century. Academic works act as speculative spatial narratives that critically explore relevant contemporary spatial conditions. Professional work showcases my process of learning to work in the physical world through architectural practice.
Photo Credit: Brycelaine P.
MIND THE GAP
Class: Arch 303
Term: Spring 2024
Site: Wallingford, Seattle, WA
Partner: Steinar Goheen
2024 Idaho Forestry Products Commission Wood Design Student Competition Honorable Mention
To aid in decommodifying housing in an overpriced historic neighborhood, this project explores the non-ownership model of a community land trust for four formerly privately held properties in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. Modular cross laminated timber rowhouses in the gaps between the individual historic houses create one unified, communal complex. This allows for densification and decommodification to respect the existing context , and proposes a replicable model for the many similar historic detached homes in the neighborhood by investigating often ignored spaces.
The complex is capped with a community center housing a space for the Historic Wallingford Organization, and a movie theater that brings back film in this community, which was lost with the demolition of the historic Guild Theater in 2023.
Note: All work shown is produced by me, unless noted
1910’s
Wallingford develops as a streetcar suburb of single family homes. Residents work nearby in Seattle or stay in Wallingford for industrial work on the shores of Lake Union.
1960’s
The completion of I-5 and Highway 99 connects Seattle to outer suburbs, making proximity to the city less necessary for work and perpetuating the single family home as a form.
Photo Credit: Lawton Gowey Streetcar
Photo Credit: Wallyhood.org
2022
Now
Wallingford enters the national register as a historic district, upholding the houses as historical objects, yet in actuality the neighborhood has become financially unlivable for many. How can the need for new kinds of housing contend with a single family home neighborhood resistant to change? Consider the unused liminal spaces among the existing.
1906 craftsman house on site
Gap between houses on site
Rowhouse units are assembled off site out of 12’ wide cross laminated timber panels
Units are outfitted with mobile walls and prefabricated utility walls 2
12’x48’ rowhouse modules are delivered to site on flatbed truck
5
Panelized Historic Wallingford Center links the complex and Meridian Park
4
Rowhouse modules are stacked in the gaps between existing houses
6
Communal spaces connect new and existing buildings, unifying the complex
1st Floor
2nd Floor
Communal Spaces
Rowhouse Unit
A linear communal space connects the existing houses and new rowhouses. A communal kitchen, dining area, and living area line this space. This acts as the entry to the complex and provides access to all unit types.
Upper floors of the rowhouses hold flexible studio units. Movable shelf wall systems can create different arrangements for different types of inhabitants. Existing houses have more typical unit types.
Foam Schematic Study Models - Studying New Flexible Collective Housing Forms on Site
Longhouse made of modular rowhouses
Extruding free structure from old foundation
Final model made with Steinar Goheen
Foam Schematic Study Models - Studying Adapting New Forms to Existing Forms on Site
Fitting new rowhouses throughout the site
Rowhouses as rhythmic infills in gaps
1/8” : 1’ Hand Cut Basswood Model
ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO AIR
Class: Arch 301
Term: Fall 2023
Site: Pullman, WA
Featured in Eunoia Volume 5 (WSU School of Design and Construction Magazine)
In a digital neoliberal world, market logics have invaded all of life, turning it into a series of fleeting entrepreneurial pursuits. Control is no longer embodied by permanent walls and enclosures dictating distinct spaces. It has now become fluid, adapting to and hijacking different spaces. All pursuits and desires have become ephemeral and disconnected from the physical world.
This project proposes the transformation of the old Pullman City Hall. It has become a ghost of its old self, with fleeting functions flowing through its spaces, mirroring the half abandoned Downtown Pullman. It turns this building into a separate world rooted in physical spaces of joy. It addresses these porous conditions by filtering out the outside world, and instead allows for the growth of absurd physical joys flowing like air into and throughout a carcass of the civil society.
The carcass building of the dead civil society is an enclosure, designed to control through barriers.
The carcass is gutted, creating an empty shell. Filters are added, controlling what flows in and out.
The enclosure is now porous, unending flows seep through the now ineffective molds of discipline. A separate world of unproductive joy and community forms in the filtered shell of civil society. 1 3 2 4
A lattice of columns and beams, which allow for an otherwise open volume, form booths around the existing bay windows
Occupant use of spray booth filtration space creates layers of creative expression built up over time, which separates and filters the ghastly outside from the lively inside 1 2 3
Glass barriers are inserted within the structure, while air intakes and exhausts are installed in the exterior wall, creating a filtered layer between inside and outside
HOUSE OF THE BURNOUT
Class: Arch 303
Term: Spring 2024
Site: Anywhere / Nowhere
Modern living and working conditions have made physical location and conditions irrelevant. The digital makes every person, idea, or action accessible and possible anywhere at any time. With the advent of remote work, the boundaries between labor and rest in the physical plane have broken down. There is no place to escape from the overstimulating digital onslaught of labor and pursuits, leading to the creation of a new subject: the burnout .
House of The Burnout is a critique of these conditions, playing them out to their greatest extents while creating a residence for the burnout to escape to. Life is contained in a single small housing unit, which can be placed anywhere. Here, the burnout can live a life of bare essentials, working remotely, and never interacting with the outer physical world.
The plan is tightly organized around a solid utilitarian core, where all necessary living functions are contained. Work can even be done from the bed here. The rest of life floats in a void-like periphery, where it is kept separate from the productive realm and allowed to have no real aims. Windows play the role of mediating the relationship of this container, and thus the burnout, to the outer world.
A: Slow Window
A fixed window looking north at a wall 6 ft away. The only indication of movement is in how the shadow of a shade wall slowly moves across the wall.
B: Moving Window
A ribbon window low to the ground restricts the perception of fast paced movement in the outside world to the shuffling of feet approaching the unit.
C: Peephole Picture Window
Views of the complex and overstimulating outer world are restricted to small peephole views, which must be approached and actively engaged to view through.
D: Core Skylight
In contrast to the rest of the dark unit, the utilitarian core is filled with light, highlighting it as the primary focus, while still restricting exterior views.
Study models exploring the coreperiphery relationship
Interior
Interior Above
Central Core Core in Interior
1/4”
: 1’ Hand Cut Basswood Model
Bed exhibited as if lived in
BED OF 4,214 NAILS
Class: Arch 401
Term: Fall 2024
Site: The Intersection of The Physical and The Virtual
In an extreme act of boredom, 4,214 nails were hammered into a board of plywood over the course of 26 hours, spread throughout 4 sleepless nights. The process of craft and the experience of the object were made to be boring. Here, boredom is not something to be solved, but rather is embraced in an act of refusal against the overstimulating 24/7 culture brought about by the digital. The entire world is available instantly, at any time from the comfort of the bed, via the internet. One’s entire physical existence can take place here, devaluing the physical world and the boredom that comes with it. As they lay still across the tips of sharp nails, one takes comfort in the uncomfortable condition of boredom without digital stimulus, affirming the physical world and embodiment .
Craft is not about a fine finished product, but rather about the personal experience of working in the physical plane. Embodied experience is important and relevant.
A 48” long charcoal drawing of the hammer used was created and shown with the bed. 150 fleeting screenshots were projected on the drawing intersecting the overstimulating digital world with embodied reality, as with the bed.
Front Back
ADMIRAL ADDITION
Firm: Analogous Architecture
Principal Architect: Christopher Phillips
Term: Summer Internship 2024
Site: West Seattle, Seattle, WA
A second story addition and renovation of a 1940s house in West Seattle, which is currently in construction. Designed by principal architect Christopher Phillips. I created marketing renderings and drawings, as well as created and designed detail drawings for the front porch, porch railing, porch stair, main floor wood screen, and floating stair. All drawings shown produced by me. Through this process, I learned how to tell the story of a project through the small details of a drawing or rendering, and how to think through the process of putting together an element of a building when detailing.
Wood Screen Plan
Tread
