University of Oregon School of Architecture and Environment
Master in Architecture I | Eugene, OR | June 2022 - present
Middlebury College
Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude | Middlebury, VT | February 2015 - February 2019 | Major: Environmental Studies with a focus in Religion and Philosophy
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Integrated Study Abroad | Madrid, Spain | September 2016 - June 2017 | Environmental Studies
University of Oregon School of Architecture and Environment
Graduate Teaching Assistant | Eugene, OR | March 2024 – Present
Assist Professor Howard Davis in the teaching of ARCH 430/530: Architectural Contexts. Lead discussion sections and grade student work.
University of Oregon School of Architecture and Environment
Graduate Teaching Fellow | Eugene, OR | September 2023 - present
Assist Professor Tom Hahn in the teaching of ARCH 470/570: Building Construction. Lead the teaching of lab sections, grade student work.
University of Oregon Institute for Health in the Built Environment Research Assistant | Eugene, OR | December 2022 - September 2023
Under supervision of Dr. Mark Fretz. Complete comparative analysis of light frame and MPP window systems, accounting and detail drawings. Research reuse potential of NHERI-10 mass timber shake table test structure, focusing mainly on practical material challenges and LCA.
Carpenter, Independent Turners Falls, MA | September 2021 - May 2022
BIO
I believe architecture has the potential to address the design challenges of social and climate crises. Having a background in the arts and in construction, I am as interested in creating beautiful designs as I am in how materials, details, and craft can take projects from concept to building. My background in Environmental Studies and Philosophy inform my design process and the ideas and values my projects represent. Those ideas stem primarily from ecological and Buddhist thought: phenomonological ideas of impermanence and the interdependence of place, culture, ecosystems, built systems, and the individual. Ecological and Buddhist analytic frameworks have influenced my interpretation of the world, and I am interested in applying this framework to architectural theory and design practice. I strive to balance aesthic and contextual design sensitivity with technical performance aspects of design, and am patricularly drawn to passive strategies and natural material intelligence. I engage largescale civic projects, affordable and co-housing typologies, as well as communityengaged design build, with the same interest in their potential to inform a socially and environmentally sustainable way of life.
VOLUNTEER
Renovation work, incl. drywalling, window, door and cabinet install, flooring, tiling, siding.
Tide Water Builders
Carpenter | Sedro Woolley, WA | March 2021 - August 2021
Various new builds and renovations. Wide range of duties including: demolition, framing, trim, tiling, flooring, siding, concrete work, fencing, cabinet installation, door and window installation.
Darby Custom Building
Carpenter | Choteau, MT | April 2020 - January 2021
Work with crew on the construction of a straw bale house, primary duties framing, siding, roofing.
Bruton Design Intensive
Participant | Eugene, Oregon | Two-week intensive, August 2023
With a group of students led by Malu Borja of Al Borde Arquitectos and John Folan of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, design and build a pavilion to raise awareness of local housing issues.
Escuela Los Algarrobos
Teacher | Canoa, Ecuador | January 2018 - March 2018
Prepare lessons and teach Environmental Science and Art classes to students grades 3, 4 and 7.
SKILLS
AWARDS
Design
Revit | Rhino | Grasshopper | Adobe Suite | Climate Studio | Hand Sketching
Language
Fluent in Spanish, conversational in Portuguese.
U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Competition
2nd Place, Education Division | Adaptive reuse project | University of Oregon | Winter term 2023
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON URBAN FARM RIVERSIDE EXPANSION
University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment ARCH 584: Project, full-studio collaboration
Instructors: Mary Polites and Ignacio Lopez Buson 5 weeks | Summer 2024
The Fuller Studio is a landscape architecture and architecture hybrid involving the masterplanning of an urban farm expansion on the University of Oregon campus. The site, located by the Willamette River and part of the Fuller Land Lab, serves as a hub for community, education, restoration, food production, and research. Significant portions of the studio involved communications and co-design with stakeholder groups including community leaders, educators, students, and researchers. The result is a series of support structures that use sliding panels, providing enough flexibility to accommodate the needs of these various groups, able to evolve
and grow in response to user needs and engagement with the project. The studio was organized in teams of two: my team’s work, shown here, tackled the educational component. I was mainly responsible for the plan development, digital modelling of the structures, and visualizations. All work shown is my own, my partner’s, or both, with the exception of the masterplan below, which is the collaborative product of the full 14-person studio (including instructors).
Engaging University stakeholders in design charettes was a crucial part of the group’s design process. Creating a design game in which participants used model components and a site plan to define and locate their visions of the project ensured that all input be valued equally and allowed the group to adapt the design in response to feedback. These sessions were carefully recorded and incorporated into the final proposal.
Users are meant to engage with the project on a construction level as well. The choice of natural, userfriendly building materials allows learning through doing, and expands on the university’s design-build ambitions. By placing construction agency into the hands of the users, the project is able to grow into itself through use, adapting and expanding in response to user wants and needs.
USE CONDITIONS
Educational programming is able to respond to various use conditions throughout the week and academic year. The spaces provide maximum value by adapting to social, educational, and event uses. Through appropriate material use, the structures are able to adapt to seasonal conditions through passive strategies like thermal mass and cross-ventilation.
CLASSROOM STRUCTURE: SEASONAL FLEXIBILITY
Sliding polycarbonate panels can adapt spaces to seasonal conditions and user needs.
Shaped by the site, the learning pavilions are closed towards the back and open to the front, highlighting views of the river while minimizing distractions from the railroad, which flanks the site to the South.
PORTLAND MERCADO MIXED-USE AFFORDABLE HOUSING
University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment ARCH 584: Project
Instructor: Howard Davis
9 weeks | Spring 2024
The Portland Mercado is a mixeduse affordable housing project built on the site of the original Portland Mercado, tragically destroyed in a fire in 2024. The project restores the original market function, as well as the food trucks, with additional programming informed by community stakeholders. With its commerical ground floor and residential upper floors, the project aims to foster community through shared, permeable, and flexible spaces. The aim of this approach is to create maximum transparency and practical connection between residential and public life and the growing, processing, and consumption of food.
SITE USE | PARTI
SITE AXONOMETRIC
Benjamin R. Michel
COMMUNITY GARDENS
The quieter “back yard” of the project includes a summer kitchen, extensive gardens, and basketball court. Food trucks, a restaurant, and the market frame the active public square. The visual connection between these elements lends transparency to the food production and processing of goods for sale at the market.
Reduced-cost commercial space for renters approaches an economically resilient, soverign establishment that sources, produces, and sells its goods in the same place its residents live.
Each unit has ready access to private outdoor space through sheltered, South-facing outdoor rooms. Ample shared outdoor space, in addition to common rooms and facilities, encourages the formation of community. Offices for economic and business advising, and a leasable commercial or event space, occupy the Southwest building on FL1.
Providing flexible unit types accommodates a range of rental budgets. This flexibility and variety encourages intergenerational co-living through units’ ability to expand and contract based on family size and situation. The ability of the intermediate “flex space” to convert from living space to workshop or commercial space supports the economic agency and resiliency of residents. Growing areas and commercial spaces on the ground floor enhance the connection between living and working, producing and processing, which further supports residents economically.
2BR + WORKSHOP: flexible workshop/ commercial space attached to unit; 1050 sqft
4BR: more spatious flat for large families, potential rent-to-own; 1,800 sqft
2BR + STUDIO: connected studio for relatives/extended family space attached to unit; 1,050 sqft
Benjamin R. Michel
In plan and section, the project emphasizes the importance of connection and transparency. Outdoor spaces between units create a staggered pattern that improves social connectivity and access to daylight in units, all of which receive light on four sides.
Benjamin R. Michel | Portfolio
SUNFLOWER 46 ADAPTIVE REUSE
University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment ARCH 584: Team Project
Instructor: Ihab Elzeyadi 10 weeks | Fall 2023
This studio addresses the destruction of Ukraine’s educational infrastructure in the Russian invasion, broadly envisioning reconstruction of the country’s educational infrastructure through the case of School 46 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which was partially destroyed by targeted Russian bombings. Our project seeks a low-carbon, low-cost model applicable to the many schools damaged in the war, externally retrofitting the surviving wings of the school with a hanging facade, reconstructing the destroyed South wing with local biogenic materials, and memorializing the event in the East entry connecting to the atium library. Our team presented this project at the Solar Decathlon competition at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, winning second place in the educational buildings division.
Gymnasium
THE FRAME ATHENAEUM
University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment ARCH 683: Project
Instructors: Michael Zaretsky and Steven Duff
Materials: Mass timber, channel glass, steel, concrete 10 weeks | Fall 2023
The Frame Athenaeum is a multipurpose building that caps Portland’s North Park Blocks. The building site is at a critical urban juncture--a node of transition from the park blocks to the larger Portland green loop. The frame library orients itself towards the park, serving those stopping along the way by providing a place to rest,
SOUTH ELEVATION
EAST ELEVATION
wall sections
HOUSE IN THE HILL ELDERLY HOME
University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment ARCH 584: Project
This project, done in collaboration with my peer Dawnielle Castledine, is a submission to Buildner’s Elderly Housing competition in Leira, Portugal. The project, which houses 40 residential units, a small chapel, community gardens, library, and a dining area, is meant to foster community through a variety of common spaces and connection to nature through views and immediate access to outdoor space through a series of courtyards defined by residential clusters. In the diagram below, red arrows represent primary entrances and circulation routes. Green arrows represent connection of common spaces to the larger site.
5.nurse
6.salon
7.library
Benjamin R. Michel
Standard Double Standard Single Accessible Double Accessible Single Deluxe Single
THE NEGOTIATION TABLE
Project: Bruton Design Intensive
Instructors: Malu Borja and John Folan
Eugene, Oregon
2 Weeks | Summer, 2023
The Bruton Design Intensive is a two-week design build workshop, in 2023 centered around the creation of a space for negotiating housing issues, bringing awareness to them through a design informed by local stakeholders. Through reused, modular and stackable seating, the space lends itself to multiple uses: rest, contemplation, conversation. The pavilion offers shelter and enclosure while maintaining a sense of lightness and transparency.
Benjamin R. Michel
STRAW BALE HOUSE
took part in some of
and detailing
LOT 4 HOUSE
Tide Water Builders, LLC
Bellingham, Washington Spring, 2019
Carpentry work pictured here was done for Tide Water Builders. Accent walls are irregularly stained salvaged wood. I was asked to compose the wood in a way that looked random yet balanced. Exterior siding and window installation was done with crew and independently.
Straw bale house built with Darby Custom Building on this Straw bale house. Most of the wood used is salvaged. I
the design
decisions, and in the construction. The bottom floor of the house is plastered bales while the upper part is wood framing.
Darby Custom Building, LLC
Choteau, MT Fall and Winter 2018
SURFBOARD SHAPING
Surfboard shaping has been an outlet for me to explore the intersection between design, craft, and performance. The process is relatively sensitive and detailoriented, requiring care and preparation. A surfboard’s geometry influences how it interacts with the surface of the water, posing an engaging design challenge. I shaped the board on the right with my sister for her birthday. I’ve designed and shaped this and two other surfboards using boardCAD, and enjoy using them whenever I get the chance.
Top left: Rendering of main house in a rammed earth compound I designed to build in Todos Santos, MX.
2019-2022
Bottom left: Sketch of Corbusier’s Ozenfant Studio for Graduate Design Process course, Summer 2022.
Right: Renderings of abstract building designs for first part of Graduate Studio, Summer 2022.
