archSchweitzer Portfolio 2016

"Architecture is a collaboration of many sciences that are needed to be accurately molded together to create a vision and a purpose of a space. This unique collaboration consists of math, physics, chemistry, psychology, history, and art. Each individual subject is a science that co-mingles with the other. Math creates the measurements, physics applies the boundaries, chemistry contributes nature, psychology enables imagination, history prevents repetition, and art creates beauty. When each are carefully molded together, they have the potential to become a masterpiece. If the sciences collide with one another then the quality of the project will be greater."

-alex schweitzer

thesis: ammpas casa ocho quebradas rwu library addition rwu school of education space for 1 to 100 and 20 studios arsenal main imported wine bar funerary chapel lexington social center

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josephine baker house obstructions i - iv castilion de la pescaia rwu threshold creative pieces

Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts + Sciences Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Andrew Cohen Work in Progress ...

Work as of 3.2015 Expected Completion 5.2015 PROJECT STATEMENT the architecture of the cinematic experience Since its inception in 1927, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the world's most preeminent organization in regards to cinema. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will celebrate the true nature of the Academy; the past, present and future advancements in every layer of technical and artistic craft in film.

The Museum will stand as the architectural representation of what the Academy is above all, not a red-carpet celebrity obsessed materialistic representation of fame, rather the artists, technicians, and achievements made in film's history in addition to the presence the Academy has on inspiring and educating.

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Casa Ocho Quebradas Modeled by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Andrew Thurlow Designed by Alejandro Aravena, ELEMENTAL, Los Vilos, Chile, 2014 Over the course of the semester, I was tasked to model, render, and animate a pre-existing SFR (single family residence). I picked the Casa Ocho Quebradas by Alejandro Aravena from the Chilean firm ELEMENTAL. The SFR was featured in ArchDaily and GA Houses 136.

Through extensive research I was able to recreate the house to the best of my ability based on the limited drawings provided by the firm. Primarily using Autodesk Maya, the other software used to create and present the project included: Autodesk Alias Automotive, Flow, and Mudbox. Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and After Effects. Apple Final Cut Pro and Quicktime.

To view the final animation: https://youtu.be/02HQIa-yGpU

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RWU Library Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Greg Laramie As a graduate student I was in charge of the 'Special Projects' division of the Bureau - a team of graduate assistants working under the assistant dean for various projects including graphic design, website design, and my specialty -> 'Special projects' (that required my up-most discretion).

RWU School of Education - built The first project given to me was the potential renovation of the basement of the Law School to be transformed into the new offices for the School of Education. I was tasked to plan and present a fully realized scheme to the provost of the university. Once approved, my design was implemented over the summer, and I was honored by the Dean of Education at the opening ceremony in the fall.

RWU Library The second Bureau project was to create a set renderings to present to potential donors for a new multi-purpose intervention for the Mary Tefft White Cultural Center of the University Library. The design had to be a new flexible space focused around new Samsung Touch Screen Monitors. When the doors are open the space is perfect for group projects, but when the doors slide shut for lectures, the furniture and monitors are wheeled out of theatre.

RWU School of Education - built

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Space For 1 to 100 and 20 Studios Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Charles Rose Prompt Place of meditation and contemplation.

A space for introverts. Untethered Space.

A space for community gathering. A space that is both inward and outward looking. A space for artistic recreation. Alone/Together.

Transformability.

Response "So what moved me? Everything. The things themselves, the people, the air, noises, sound, colors, material presences, textures, forms too - forms I can appreciate, Forms I can decipher. Forms I find beautiful."

- Peter Zumthor Atmospheres p.17 "The room closed down on me, I expected the presence of the Creator, I saw my gray painted walls and ceiling, they contained my room, they contained me" - Allen Ginsberg, Transcription of Organ Music

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arsenal main Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Charles Rose At my final presentation for this project a critic asked me: "When did you start to think about taking apart the shipping container?"

My Response: "The very first chance I got."

Imported - the wine bar was a one week charrette for a singular programmatic response for the Generation Y using shipping containers. the singular deconstructivist response in creating a Wine Bar out of 2 shipping containers was just the beginning.

The Arsenal main - a tech growing facility just outside Boston needed a large retail response to draw in the GenY through the vernacular of shipping container. I enthusiastically took the charrette and multiplied it by scale and by program.

IMPORTED Wine Bar

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SkogskyrkogĂ…rden Funerary Chapel Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Roberto Viola Ochoa Located five miles south of Stockholm, Sweden is Skogskyrkogarden, otherwise translated to The Woodland Cemetery. Designed by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz in the early 1900s, this 40 year long design stood for one sole purpose, a cemetery can celebrate life, it can be beautiful, and this can all happen through a relationship with Nature. In 2009 an international design competition was held to build a new crematorium behind the existing crematorium due to new codes and standards.

The winning design 'a stone in the forest' designed by Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor AB is currently being built. In response to the complexity and beauty of the existing conditions and ideology, a new funerary chapel will be needed to accommodate the new crematorium due to the amount of use the existing chapels get.

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SkogskyrkogĂ…rden Funerary Chapel Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Roberto Viola Ochoa Much like the symbolism used by Asplund and Lewerentz, the entire intention of the building will be a journey, both one of consciousness and unconsciousness. The intended journey, when defined (broadly) like in Asplund's intended obelisk inscribed with "Today it is me, Tomorrow it will be you", in other words a user approaches with the intention to face a loved one's death, but there is always that lingering whisper of one's own mortality, and that is what my architecture will try to conquer: The respected farewell to a loved one should result in a sub-or-fully-conscious reminder not to fear death but embrace life.

On such a sad day, one should be reminded that they loved the person they are leaving behind because of the life they lived, and that life...is something to celebrate.

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LEXINGTON SOCIAL CENTER Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Greg Laramie The theatre was something the visitor has never seen before, or at least not in person, he might have come across this online before, but that could have been years ago. The walls were nothing what he expected. The visitor was used to theaters that are filled boxes, this was different, this had a subtle emotion to it, a space that demands your attention, then disappears once the trailers start rolling.

Bold and brilliant, the space looks like it was morphed into acoustic perfection.

Once the director was done discussing his words of film gold, the movie played. Still in awe the visitor never leaned back once, he was attentive, on the edge of his seat like he was a 10 year old kid playing video games. He knew that this night, this space, the entire experience in Lexington, was more than special, becoming the first of many nights the visitor spent there. Every time he came back, he took the same route, stopped at the same light, even drank the same drink, always entering from the back to see the same perspective he saw that first night. He understood the clarity of the space, of the frame, and the perspective all thanks to Architecture...with a hint of cinema.

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what is an obstruction...

Designed by Alex Schweitzer prof. Luis Carranza The semester long project - based on Lars von Treir's film THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS (2003) which documents his quest to challenge his friend, fellow filmmaker and mentor Jorgen Leth to recreate Leth's short film THE PERFECT HUMAN (1967).

But that would be too easy... Treir creates obstructions, or rules that define each iteration of the original film. These obstructions feverishly pushed Leth to explore challenging shooting locations, use various film techniques, ultimately allowing him to create 5 unique and original pieces of cinema.

Therefore the studio was to take a previously designed house and recreate it five times, each with 5 very unique and challenging obstructions. Here are 4 of the 5. note: The following are all creations of the hand. No CAD program was used for the making of all 5 obstructions.

josephine baker house Designed by Adolf Loose Never Built, Paris, 1928

The Josephine Baker House (JBH) is considered to be a love note of a house. Unbeknownst to Josephine Baker, and having never met her, Loos designed a house with great detail for the exotic dancer and singer. Situated on an unspecified corner block in Paris, this black and white marbled tattooed house is three story high with over 10 level changes.

Serving to an equally exotic nature, the glass swimming pool specifically designed to watch Baker swim naked was the centerpiece of the house. A house for the voyeur

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OBSTRUCTION 1 : slim fast house Designed by Alex Schweitzer prof. Luis Carranza OI: Design the skinniest occupiable space while containing the same area and program of the original house.

In order to create this new design an understanding of each space, its relationship to each other, and a complete autopsy of the JBH needed to be done prior to creation of a new house. Through that in depth exploration, the project almost narrated itself. While adhering to the original programmatic order from service, entry, grand salon, petit salon, cafe, pool hall, dining hall, and bedrooms all layered on top of each other to create this new presence with the same narration.

Adhering to the same urban Parisian corner as the original house, I felt it was important to keep to the same tattooed elevation of black and white marble stripes. When separating these spaces vertically, the complication of the glass pool needed to present itself just as boldly as in the original design which led to a multi-level lap pool projected out from the facade.

OBSTRUCTION 1I : flip flop house The POOL, a transparent liquid became a SCULPTURE, a solid uninhabitable opaque mass.

Situated on the CORNER of a busy street in Paris, the new house would be situated in the MIDDLE of a pastured field. Loos' RAUM PLAN was transformed into Corbu's FREE PLAN. Windows of a CLEAR FACADE representing the program of the building morphed into a sharp MASK that hides the rigidly square and logic of the program. Finally, the MONUMENTAL entertaining house became a DISCREET internalized house of leisure.

As for the size and height of the new building, the dimensions of the floor plan were derived from the general area of the elevation, turning the original house on its face.

Exploring the methods of models, plaster casting, and wire drawings, became the simple abstract presentation technique of only showing what the user needs to understand a project in its essence and complexity.

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OII: Drawings without paper: design the house without drawing a single line.

In addition, choose five defining characteristics of the original house then design a new house based on the polar opposite of the five characteristics.

OBSTRUCTION 1I1 : insertions into ideological circuits Designed by Alex Schweitzer prof. Luis Carranza OIII: Create a new design using only the collaged drawings of the original house. Then choose a drawing by Giovanni Batista Piranesi to use as the site context for the new design.

I chose: Veduta dell'Isola Tiberina (view of the isle of tiber) from Vedute di Roma (views of rome), 1775 The design then situated itself as a roman bath house thrusting off of this island connecting to the public, both from the land and the water. Expressive of the exquisite Italian marbles and granites that Loos used so elegantly in his project, the bath house appears to be a modern stone carving chiseled in all its excellence... the beauty of stone and wood.

OIV: Draw three perspectives, each starting with a collaged piece of the original house, then assume those drawings are all from the new design.

The perspectives suggested a submerged series of planes, which I determined were a museum, not a house.

OBSTRUCTION 1V : this and that

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CASTAGLIONE DELLA PESCIA portals in perspective Designed by Alex Schweitzer in collaboration with Andrew Kotleski Prof. Carlo achilli Portals, or planar elements that guide the public to the beach and back towards the Castel.

Raising the residential and lowering the traffic below ground allows more connections and entrances to the piazza and beach. You can seemingly enter from any direction through portals that give distinct views of the site.

The design consists of a series of smaller spaces with their own distinct functions while also open for public interpretation; a theatre, a gallery, a restaurant, a bar, commercial stores, seating, lounging, and a stage for concerts.

The rigidity of the large planar masses, or portals, are broken and brought into balance with the undulating curve of the wooden Promenade. The path is accompanied by trees behind large wooden seating to ease the travel and act as a public platform for interpretation and use.

The piazza thrives just as lively in the day as it does in the night. The movie theatre draws crowds finishing from their dinners, or walks along the beach after the sunset. The lights flowing alongside the promenade point the way towards the stage and life of the piazza.

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RWU THRESHOLD: transformation Designed by Alex Schweitzer Prof. Dan Kwaznzewski The idea of a threshold can be seen simultaneously as a transformative space.

Progressing from one environment to another, for example walking through a set of doors is literally a transformation. That experience should be unique to that individual. Separating the two major spaces with an entrance creates multiple transformations. The two major spaces are in essence two pure geometries and connecting them by transformative circulation objects in order to create multiple spatial experiences.

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CREATIVE PIECES

by Alex Schweitzer

PARIS

ROME

BARCELONA

FLORENCE

ISRAEL

LOS ANGELES

NEW YORK

TBD