architectural portfolio, spring 2025
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academics, experience, involvement, and honors
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a contextual regurgitation
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an EXTEND center
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DEMYSTIFYING CONTROLLED STABLE DIFFUSION
UCARE student research
madrid, liencres, and barcelona, spain
* all work is my own, unless captioned otherwise
audreycherek@gmail.com (402) 213-0166 www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-cherek
university of nebraska lincoln bachelors of science in design, anticipated graduation may 2026 minoring in business administration; gpa: 3.98/4.00 colegio oficial de arquitectos de cantabria modelmaking in the digital age certificate, june 2023 millard north high school international baccalaureate diploma, may 2022
UCARE student research revealing domestic biases of controlled stable diffusion, august 2024 - present omaha conservatory of music admin assistant, stage technician, assistant teacher, august 2019 - august 2024
american institute of architecture students national ethics committee member, october 2024 - present chapter secretary, may 2024 - present FORUM: crossroads conference, january 2025 second-year representative, august 2023 - may 2024 national organization of minority architecture students member, august 2024 - present unl college of architecture advising department peer mentor, ambassador, student blogger, july 2024 - present the gallery published member, april 2024 - present campus orchestra member, january 2023 - present cello choir member, september 2023 - present symphony orchestra member, august 2022 - may 2024
college of architecture class of 1968 scholarship darrell d. rippeteau scholarship for architecture and business management david distinguished scholarship
BWBR competition finalist, december 2024 aided in the spring 2024 NAAB accreditation of UNL’s m.arch degree featured in the gallery’s spring 2024 student work publication deans list fall 2022, spring 2023, fall 2023, spring 2024, fall 2024
SOFTWARE
rhinoceros 7
lumion 12.5
adobe creative suite revit sketchup microsoft office suite autocad comfy ui
watercolor painting hand sketching casting cnc milling metalworking spanish (elementary proficiency)
garment tailoring cooking and food photography
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
SPRING 2024 (9 WEEKS)
INSTRUCTOR: ZAC PORTER
PARTNER: FLETCHER KUPER
FEATURED IN THE GALLERY’S SPRING 2024 STUDENT WORK PUBLICATION
As a response to the lack of fine dining in lincoln’s taxpayer blocks, this emerging rusty intestine eats away at the physical landscape to provide patrons with niches for reflective consumption restricted by a cage of aluminum mullions and frosted glass in order to pay homage to the site’s roots while exploring new forms.
southeast axonometric
The frosted glass and interior illumination draws diners through the protruding front door, after which they are encouraged to circumambulate around the inner kitchen void and explore the niches of the intestine-like dining corridor while searching for a table. The dining corridor extends below the ground plane, as seen
and carves away the existing site in order to allow for new growth underneath the steel and glass floor grate layers. Draping wire “veins” bring clusters of warm light bulbs to each individual table, allowing concentrated reflection of light off of the rusted corten steel interior walls.
dining room (render made in collaboration with fletcher kuper)
south section perspective
The winding intestine-like dining corridor originates at the entrance, or “mouth”, of the structure and culminates at the stomach-like kitchen in the open “heart” of the structure. On the exterior, planter beds bleed out from the greenhouse through the frosted glass and mullion “cage” outward to allow for growth of different types of crops and vegetation, as well as smaller winding corten steel worms emerging throughout the hardscape as benches and additional planters.
rigid insulation
“veined” wire light clusters
corten steel furniture arrangements steel walking grate underground low-light vegetation aluminum mullions exterior corten steel
Detail section physical model built of chipboard and square basswood dowels at a 1/2”=1’ scale to show position and connection between the dining room (left), greenhouse (central), and exterior planter beds (right).
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
FALL 2024 (8 WEEKS)
INSTRUCTOR: DAVID NEWTON
BWBR COMPETITION FINALIST
In order to provide a space for advanced cognition research in conjunction with public exhibition and learning space facilitated by resident artists, this EXTEND center interlocks the movement of its inhabitants to provide moments of various levels of interaction, observation, veneration, and isolation.
programming parti diagram
In order to fully integrate the cognitive research spaces with the creative art spaces, a complete encapsulation of each volume must occur in order to fully experience what it is like to perform the intended action under the observation of another party. This relationship is furthered by the need for the researchers to directly interact with the artists to obtain a greater level of understanding of what cognitive events occur during various creative activities and how those cognitive events affect our proprioception and perception of those
events. These relationships are then fostered in the intertwining of the cognitive research labs with the art studios and around the angled courtyards to allow for different levels of physical connection between the user groups and to encourage observation of the other program on an equal, more personal, level. Within the labs, an emerging view of the winding west pathway below allows for a more candid observation of patron’s natural activity as they begin to understand their level of observation.
sketch studies analyzing apertures on the western and southern facades
west elevation
By cladding the facade in large, uniquely glazed terracotta tiles, patrons are able to discover how their perception of their own reflection (distorted by the roughly glazed tiles) affects their awareness of proprioceptive actions, which then may affect their conscious movement. Similarly,
movement of patrons on the interior is visible, but contorted, through panels of translucent channel glass which provide an additional opportunity to observe how perception of human movement affects one’s awareness of their own existence and position within a building.
The massing moves executed and described below bring additional light and opportunities for meaningful interaction into the structure to facilitate the exchange between user groups while simultaneously visually expanding the form onto the surrounding buildings to encourage outward knowledge communication. These intentions were first explored as a more angular expansion
outwards (seen as the plaster and acrylic massing model to the right) but after studying how an angled facade interacted with centennial mall, the form was modified and the diagonal “slicing” was internalized as a circulation courtyard (seen in the south section perspective, lower right) in order to respect the importance of the surrounding monumental buildings.
sequential massing diagram
plaster and acrylic resin massing model created to study roof height, east facade angle and transparency, and interlocking programming
UCARE STUDENT RESEARCH
FALL 2024 (16 WEEKS)
ADVISOR: BRIAN KELLY
This exploration into generative image creation and modification models (more specifically, Comfy UI) aims to decrease the fear-mongering around the potential effects artificial intelligence has on the integrity of authorship in the design field, while simultaneously revealing the biases that these softwares were trained (whether intentionally or unintentionally) to hold and replicate.
denoise value of 0.2
denoise value of 0.4
denoise value of 0.6
denoise value of 0.8
This test, through the variety in representational styles produced (plan and section, elevation, and perspective), exhibits the extent to which this Comfy UI model understands the concepts of a house. Despite the denoising value set at 0.62, the level of clarity and readability between all three outputs analyzed differed, possibly due to the frequency of training that the model received in each representational method. Beyond these differences, all three outputs analyzed contain strong notions of roof lines, indicating that a house’s identity is most recognizable through the pitch and orientation of its roof.
Through exploring Comfy UI’s ability to selectively modify materiality within architectural floor plans, I discovered its affinity for domestic architecture reminiscent of modern American apartment complexes. This apparent bias is most likely a result of the frequency and type of training material this specific generative model was fed by. Despite devolving into both a
scale and program dissimilar to the initial input image, Comfy UI seemed to successfully integrate a wood materiality within the plan as soon as a denoising value of 0.6, but was not uniform nor detailed until a denoising value of nearly 0.9, indicating a need for complete independence before being able to produce an output that closely resembles the prompt.
CATALONIA, SPAIN
SUMMER 2023 (3 WEEKS)
INSTRUCTOR: BRIAN KELLY
Over the span of three weeks, we landed and briefly toured in Madrid, spent a week model making at the Atelier La Juntana workshop in Liencres, and concluded by studying and sketching Barcelona and its neighboring cities.
For the majority of the time at the workshop, we focused on casting different materials in the form of an original wood master piece, as seen to the left, created through sanding, sawing, and charring of a wood block. From this master piece, we created a silicone mold in which we casted all but the bronze directly in. This exercise directly sparked my interest in fabrication through casting, which is evident in my subsequent studio models.
In order to cast bronze, we first had to create a wax cast of our master piece and affix appendages, as seen to the right, onto it to allow for later molten bronze penetration. We then surrounded the wax model in plaster of paris to employ the lost wax casting technique in order to finally melt it out, which left a perfect imprint of our master piece. Finally, we then cast the molten bronze within the plaster of paris model and sanded it down to achieve a reflective finish.
