BEATRIZ SUAREZ USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Selected Works | 2018-2020
03
11
SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER
THE 9 NEIGHBORS
Highrise Timber Tower | 2020
Affordable Housing Development | 2018
CONTENTS
01
https://bea-suarez.myportfolio.com
19
23
31
URBAN PICNIC
DIPTYCH / DUPLEX
SKETCHES
BY FRANSZ, JOHNSON, ROMERO, & SUAREZ Designs for a Post-Pandemic World | 2020
Addition to the Storer House | 2020
Study Abroad Program in Barcelona | 2019
02
MASS TIMBER TOWER
PARTI DIAGRAMS (left to right): Massing diagram; Program distribution; Outdoor spaces
USC SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER Year: 2020 Site: 4320 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles Studio Instructor: Charles Lagreco Area: 32,000 sf
The USC Social Justice Center is a CLT mass timber tower proposal in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. The park and surrounding area of Leimert Village have a very rich cultural and historical legacy in L.A. This USC-owned building will provide social justice research, services, and community engagement programs to the area, and will help activate the community in conjunction with the new metro stop adjacent to the site. This metro stop is currently under construction and is part of the new metro line which will connect LAX airport to Downtown L.A. The massing strategy of the building divides it into 3 segments, which continue the line of the commercial storefront along Crenshaw Blvd, relate to the scale of the surrounding 2-3 story buildings, while also providing enough office space within the tower to accomodate all the program. The massing also creates outdoor spaces at different levels throughout the building. One does not have to go up or down more than 1 level to access an outdoor spaces.
03
SELECTED WORKS
SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER
04
SITE ANALYSIS
05
SELECTED WORKS
EXPLODED ISOMETRIC SHOWING CIRCULATION, TYPICAL FLOORS, AND EXTERIOR SPACES
SECTION AND TYPICAL PLANS
The building is largely oriented towards the south, facing Vision Theatre, Leimert Park, the new Metro stop, and Destination Crenshaw, a 1.3-milelong open air museum currently under construction. This is the prime orientation for this site, which is located at a unique bend where the Jeffersonian grid of L.A. meets the foot of Baldwin Hills. The orientation and placement of the building on the site also creates a connection between the major thoroughfare and commercial activities of Crenshaw Blvd with the parking space adjacent to the site, where many spontaneous community activities musical performances, community bike rides, Junteenth celebrations, and more - take place.
SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER
06
A curtain wall system is used for the facade of the building. Fritted glass was selected as a way to reduce glare inside the workspaces and help control light and heat gain, in addition to providing an opportunity to inscribe a distinct sense of identity on the building facade. The pattern of the frit is derived from Adinkra symbols of Justice and the Sankofa bird, present in Leimert Park. The Sankofa bird, which is depicted looking back, is particularly important to the community - it symbolizes learning from the past while moving towards the future. An abstracted version of this symbol is included in the curtain wall facade. Four different types of panels are developed with varying levels of frit. (Above) Adinkra symbols in the plaza. Sahra Sulaiman/Streetsblog LA
(Above) Adinkra symbols for Justice and the Sankofa bird used for base frit patterns. (Right) 4 panel types with different degrees of frit.
07
SELECTED WORKS
ASSEMBLY AND SYSTEMS ISOMETRIC
SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER
08
EGRESS AND STRUCTURAL DRAWINGS
09
SELECTED WORKS
MASS TIMBER TOWER SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTER
10
affordable housing development
THE 9 NEIGHBORS Year: 2018 Site: 5802 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles Studio Instructor: Mary Casper Units: 50
DIAGRAMS: (left) Form and materiality; (right) circulation creating split condition between towers
The 9 Neighbors is about drawing out residents and encouraging a sense of neighborhood by using the mat typology to create a micro-urban condition, with various levels of locality. The ground floor is open to the wider community and includes a cafe, classrooms, offices, and art gallery. The top floor houses shared amenity space for residents, including a communal kitchen, library, and game room. Meanwhile, living units are aggregated throughout the 2nd to 5th floors, adhering to the boundaries of the grid to create discrete ziggurat-like forms. These towers vary sectionally with the use of half-floor heights, and are tied together by vertical circulation, creating a split condition. Diagonal cuts are introduced to the massing to explore materiality; where a cut happens, the face is changed to channel glass. This formal operation further hyper-individualizes private living spaces.
11
SELECTED WORKS
THE 9 NEIGHBORS
12
SITE AXONOMETRIC
13
SELECTED WORKS
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
SECTION A-A
SECTION B-B
THE 9 NEIGHBORS
14
EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
FLOOR PLANS
15
SELECTED WORKS
INTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
UNIT PLANS
THE 9 NEIGHBORS
16
17
SELECTED WORKS
affordable housing development Presentation Model at 1'-0" = 1/16": (top) West elevation; (left) South view approach from freeway ramp; (middle); Circulation and materiality details on North elevation, (right) Top view.
THE 9 NEIGHBORS
18
NONARCHITECTURE COMPETITION
PRESENTATION | FRANSZ
URBAN PICNIC FOR A POSTPANDEMIC WORLD Year: 2020 Competition: HEALING Alternative Designs for a Quarantine City Host: NonArchitecture Magazine Collaborators: Adrianna Fransz Chaila Johnson Tatiana Romero Beatriz Suarez
19
SELECTED WORKS
This project was a finalist for the competition ‘HEALING: Alternative Designs for a Quarantine City’ for Non Architecture magazine. The team consisted of four students from the USC School of Architecture: Adrianna Fransz, Chaila Johnson, Tatiana Romero, and Beatriz Suarez. Urban Picnic for a Post-Pandemic World takes advantage of the unused urban infrastructure in Los Angeles. Sidewalks, streets, and parking lots are reactivated in order to capitalize on the lack of cars on the streets. This enhances the pedestrian experience of the urban fabric, transforming L.A. from an automobile city to a playful and lively streetscape.
URBAN PICNIC
20
Currently and in the future, restaurants will struggle with a lack of seating space due to social distancing requirements. As a solution, this project proposes “street furniture” that moves the dining experience outside and into partially enclosed modules. The restaurant modules are customizable, offering dining and takeout modalities that follow safety guidelines, while the parklets have buffer spaces to keep users apart. This kit-of-parts model allows for the mass production of pieces in a more affordable way, making these modules best for small and large businesses alike. The flexibility of these dining and parklet modules allow them to be easily added to any part of the urban landscape.
TECHNICAL DRAWING | ROMERO AND SUAREZ
21
SELECTED WORKS
NONARCHITECTURE COMPETITION The system of modules is deployed along three selected sites in the heart of Downtown L.A. and the Arts’ District. Each of these locations offer a wide variety of restaurant options, and with continued widespread use of street modules, the identity of the L.A. streetscape will be transformed. Urban Picnic is not only a solution but an opportunity to design an L.A. for the people.
FUNCTIONAL DRAWING | FRANSZ AND JOHNSON
URBAN PICNIC
22
Proposed Addition the Storer House
PLAN - LEVEL 2
L1
DIPTYCH / DUPLEX L3
Year: 2020 Site: 8161 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles Studio Instructor: Alfie Koetter Area: 3,000 sf
This project is an addition to the Storer House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's L.A. Mayan revival houses that lend themselves well to film and fiction. Various methods of representation are used to engage and create space, casting it in the world of games and film. My position regarding the diptych relationship in this project was to push how different my addition could be formally while still being able to consider the new and original house a diptych pair. Siting was used to mitigate the differences created in the formal transformation, implying continuity in elevation. In plan, the house takes on an almost traditional unfolded reading with the intersecting bedroom area becoming its hinge and expressing qualities of both the old and new. A second mirror plane was established as way to produce a third set of spaces within the massive monolithic addition. These new spaces are drawn in black in an effort to consider and read the addition as domestic space and as dungeon simultaneously.
23
SELECTED WORKS
diptych duplex
24
FORM-GENERATION DIAGRAMS
SECTIONS
25
SELECTED WORKS
FOAM MODEL MATERIALITY EXERCISE
SITE MODEL
diptych duplex
26
27
SELECTED WORKS
The dungeon plans are drawn to be a playable board following the 5'x5' grid of the Dungeons and Dragons game. In addition to the playability aspect, the dungeon plan was a unique way to explore representational techniques and engage with the poche - this generated new spaces that translated back to the architectural plans.
diptych duplex
28
CONCEPT ART PERSPECTIVE
29
SELECTED WORKS
diptych duplex 30
Proposed Addition the Storer House
SKETCHES Selections from the 2019 USC School of Architecture Study Abroad Program in Barcelona
31
SELECTED WORKS
HAND-SKETCHES
32
https://bea-suarez.myportfolio.com