01: A Permeable Market
02: A Circuit of Discrete Qualities
03: Found Potential in the Mundane
04: An Archive of Mycology
05: Living Mezzanines
06: The Deconstruction of Celebrity
07: A Walk Through the City
08: Summer 2023 Internship 01-02 03-05 06-07 08-10 11-13 14-15 16-20 21-23
Course: Architectural Design I
Institution: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Design Studio 03, Fall 2018
Professor: James Shields
Collaborators: Marlee Barnes, Mikki Peden, and Bowen Zhu
Accolades: Super Jury Nomina�on
Project Brief: Design a public market for the Riverwest community in Milwaukee.
vThis project began with an analysis of the environmental and social forces ac�ng upon the site, upon determining that Locust Street is a main artery, leading over the Milwaukee River into the city proper, with an excess of noise, traffic, and motor collisions. The aim of this project is therefore, to develop a public market whose tectonic and formal strategies both shelter occupants from the hazardous condi�ons of Locust Street while allowing the permeability of light, air, and community ac�vity. The transforma�on of brick for this project is to envelop an outdoor courtyard market within a perforated garden wall which transi�ons into opaque market walls. These moves allow for a sense of security that doesn’t compromise the connec�on to the surrounding environment and natural sunlight. Visual affordances such as these showcase the promise of an architectural process informed by human behavior. The second half of this project was a collabora�ve effort where students grouped up and detailed a mockup por�on of the project emphasizing its masonry construc�on.
Ground Level with Vendor Stalls
Upper Level with Instruc�onal Kitchen
Although the Public Market is physically sheltered from the hazerdous street, the garden wall perforations invite the public in.
Course: Stairs Stands and Ziggurats
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago; Graduate Design Studio 01 , Fall 2021
Professor: Sarah Blankenbaker
Accolades: Super Jury Nomina�on, Alumni Choice Award
Project Brief: Explore the closed and exterior in opposi�on to the open and interior.
1. In response to the endlessly expansive and undifferen�ated quali�es of the open and interior “no-stop-city”, this project is composed of bounded “ parts-to-a-whole” whose open air and processional nature suggests a closed and exterior alterna�ve to those quali�es explored by Archizoom. 2. The paradox of the “no-stop-city” lies within its pairing of open and interior (The collision of the containing planes of the floor and ceiling with an ever expanding growth toward the horizon). Which is to say it produces a homogeneous experience that is replicated to infinity, a single point of reference which is shared by everyone at every moment. 3. The produc�on of this pairing suggests a different reality wherein the paradox produced (the closed and exterior) is instead a connected series of heterogeneous experiences dependent upon (rather than indifferent to) one’s posi�on within a Circuit of Discrete Quali�es. 4. These quali�es of difference (moments of connec�on, diversion, anarchy, and scale) are all products of similar parts deconstructed from a norma�ve whole, then reassembled into a novel one.
2).fragmentation 1).beginningwhole
2).program 3).recomposition
ElevationCC-Scale3/32":1'-ArmandE.Gamboa
From conception to execution, this project is the continuation of a simple parti diagram to produce complexity.
Parti-ArmandE.Gamboa
A Outward Lower to Inward Upper
Plan@15'0"-Scale3/32":1'-ArmandE.Gamboa
VerticalPlacement
B Inward Lower to Outward Upper
E Outward Ziggurat
F Outward Sea�ng
Difference:ArmandE.Gamboa
Plan@45'0"-Scale3/32":1'-ArmandE.Gamboa
ConnectingZiggurats
C Inward Lower to Inward Upper
D Inward Sea�ng to Outward Ziggurat
G Inward Sea�ng to Inward Ziggurat Stair Connections-Seating to Ziggurat
Course: Architecture is Everywhere
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago; Graduate Design Studio 02 , Spring 2022
Professor: Sarah Dunn
Project Brief: Design using self-similar found objects.
Armed with small scale model figures, this project is focused on the study of the human body in architectural space. This design exercise was modeled a�er Sou Fujimoto’s installa�on at the Chicago Architecture Binennial, the project brief emphasizes an understanding of scale, propor�on, image, and formalism through itera�on. In this scenario the poten�al for rolls of washi tape to produce architectural moments is explored through their rela�ve size and posi�on to one another. Connec�ve surfaces act as circula�on and frames of view are created through the overlapping of rolls. This scenario is then situated within a living space as a proposi�on for how arrangement might suggest a granular spectrum of scale that informs how we perceive a cluster of objects as inert items or ac�vated architecture. Alterna�ve found objects studied but not included in the final drawing set include: foam earplugs, plas�c sauce storage containers, bite size candy bars, and oblong pasta cylinders.
What appears innocuous at one scale is realized as architecture at another.
Course: Architecture is Everywhere
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago; Graduate Design Studio 02 , Spring 2022
Professor: Sarah Dunn
Accolades: Year End Show Nomina�on
Project Brief: Design using self-similar found objects.
This project, a special collec�on archive for materials related to mycology, is an expression of two system of book storage, one private and one public, and the circulatory network which acts as the interface between them. The public system is a series of filleted volumes which rotate ver�cally about the building, within the flat ver�cal walls of these volumes bookcases are embedded. The more norma�ve slab system in which these volumes are enclosed comprise the private collec�on of the archive, which is populated by a grid of circular column/bookcases which in several places is carved away to house office and administra�ve space. Exis�ng within the boundary between the public bookcase walls and the private collec�ons is a network of staircases which connect the two as well as provide moments of intrusion into them, crea�ng space for reading and gathering.
Formal Explorations (Above)
Process (Opposite)
1) Formal Manipula�ons
2) Spa�al Manipula�ons
3) Site Manipula�ons
Course: Three-in-one and One-for-All
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago; Graduate Design Studio 03 , Fall 2022
Professor: Penelope Dean and Grant Gibson
Project Brief: Design Three Households on a Typical Chicago Lot.
In this proposal, standard three flat trays are condensed and split across levels, situated under a sloping landscape of stone and connected to a collec�ve network of “living” mezzanines; pla�orms for gathering and growing which penetrate the building envelope and are arrayed beside a quadruple height void in order to produce an atrium like collec�ve living room. The three split-level units span the length of the project from the individual and park facing front to the collec�ve and south facing rear. This organiza�on is achieved through a curved dividing wall that bisects each floor into narrow and broad halves of private housing; this wall goes on to inform the boundaries at which the mezzanine pla�orms open to the exterior. The living mezzanines, and the void which connects them, signify the moment of heightened collec�vity in the project: a shared zone of circula�on, living spaces, and vistas overlooking the landscape of na�ve plants and tall grasses which surrounds the project, such as milkweed, thistle, and hyssop. The overall effect of this organiza�on suggests life as a spectrum oscilla�ng between, insular and enclosed spaces of sleeping, cooking, and bathing toward the front, sequencing into an alterna�ve series of collec�ve, recep�ve, and open experiences at the rear which engage with a landscape that provides for the displaced na�ve animal and plant species of the region.
Course: (Un)Making the Museum
Institution: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Elec�ve Studio 01 , Fall 2019
Professor: Mo Zell
Project Brief: Design a viewing device.
Rather than focus on the purely physical aspect of viewing, this project engages with the social dimensions of visibility, focusing on the cult of celebrity. In frac�ons of a second upon seeing someone for the first �me we draw upon the vast wealth of our experiences so that we can create an image of their character in our mind. This preemp�ve judgment helps us categorize others into a preordained schema, in but a moment we know whether we believe someone is trustworthy or not. This phenomena of viewing is observable regarding the cult of celebrity whereby they are viewed less as corporeal people and more as images to transfer our own thoughts upon. This viewing device draws on that insight to engage in equal dialogue with the user and those who view them. It is a manifesta�on of the acclaim and reverence we place upon those in posi�ons of power and with high exposure in media. By wearing this device one contends with equal levels of magnifying and obscuring visibility, viewed but not seen.
Created in observa�on of the rela�onship that exists between celebri�es and their audiences. This device draws focus on the wearer, situa�ng them as the focal point of observa�on, the true object worthy of praise. This piece explores the preceding rela�onships through the literal applica�on of historic iconographies. As it stands our current culture lavishes such adora�on on the celebrity that the dis�nc�ons between regality and celebrity seem negligible. This piece borrows the language of the crown to make literal the royal status of the celebrity.
Another observa�on of celebrity culture is found in the verve with which the general public clamors over celebri�es—with violent enthusiasm—be that physically in public appearances, or remotely through the display and reverence of branded merchandise. This piece makes worship literal by enveloping the user in a halo, a longstanding symbol of heavenly light or divine favor commonplace in artwork from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Renaissance.
A final observa�on of celebrity is the delicacy with which those in posi�ons of fame must compose themselves as they con�nue to reap the favor of their posi�on, the direct transla�on for this last point is to suspend from the head a veil, long known as a symbol of obedience and modesty, the veil affirms the marriage of celebri�es to their cra�.
It is the aggrega�on of three separate acts of symbolic reference which enables this piece to transform the user into a direct of vision of what visibility means in our contemporary era. A tenuous balancing act of intense scru�ny, privilege, sacrifice, and superficiality.
Course: Open House
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago; Graduate Design Studio 04 , Spring 2023
Professor: Barbara Materia and Spencer McNeil
Accolades: Year End Show Nomina�on
Project Brief: Design an athle�c club as an infrastructure for the contemporary city, and a catalyst for different users and urban exchange.
Inspired by condi�ons of transparency and the minimal threshold between exterior and interior present within the Apple Store at Michigan Avenue this project seeks to replicate that experience ver�cally in a tower as a series of levels connected and interrupted by a network of ramps and plazas which act as a con�nua�on of the sidewalk condi�on and an extension of the public realm. The tower is spa�ally organized around a series of five uninterrupted cores whose use varies depending on the programma�c needs of each individual level. The paths of tangency between these cores act as a genera�ve grid for the placement of the ramp network and the par��on of interior-condi�oned space from exterior uncondi�oned space which is delineated solely by a layer of glazing. The exterior uncondi�oned space is then free to be shaped by manipula�ons of subtrac�on and addi�on in order to produce moments of visual exchange across levels.
Dissa�sfied with the growing trend of urban projects to produce “ci�es within a building” (the effect of which offers li�le more than an experience of exclusivity that dissipates rather than strengthens the fabric of the urban community), this project instead posits that the ambi�on of the athle�c club (among all other urban projects) is not to create isolated ci�es, but rather to earnestly engage with, connect to, and augment the exis�ng city.
The arrangement of the cores acts as a generative grid… which informs the geometry and organization of the project.
Ground Level
Hostel Level
Dining and Venue Level
Veiled behind layers of transparency… the athletic club presents itself as an opportunity to expand the cities’ streets and plazas.
Firm: HOK CHICAGO
The internship period spent at HOK encompassed a comprehensive series of formal and material studies for an ongoing civic buildings renova�on and welcome center addi�on. In collabora�on with the Chicago office’s design team a thorough presenta�on set was developed which examined the welcome center’s skylights and approach, including conceptual and analy�cal diagrams, sec�ons, eleva�ons, renderings and hand sketches. The final packet explored several design expression op�ons for the skylights and surrounding historic walls, as well as documenta�on of exis�ng condi�ons and proposed changes to the historic character of the building.
…the terrace skylights are aligned with exis�ng strata of the site, working simultaneously to bridge the layers below, on, and above the ground level.
The internship period focused on presenting a clear narrative with branching design options…
… These design ideas were explored through iterations of renderings and diagrams…
…which were supplemented by analytic drawings where applicable.