AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPLEX
SEMESTER: FALL 2021
TEAM: SARA BERNHARDT
PROFESSOR: ERIC SCHONENBERGER
PRATT INSTITUTE
This project investigates strengthening the connection and interaction between the existing and new residents of Farragut Tower’s. Prioritizing the idea of interconnectivity, they developed a series of towers that grew into one another, creating multi storey interior and exterior communal spaces stitching the towers together. A gradient of public and private space is generated throughout, defining three scales of community: the overall building community, the individual tower’s vertical communities, and smaller communities on each level. The towers maintain a sense of individual communities through their expanding atriums, creating pockets of lounge space and vertical visual connections. The neighboring units’ sense of community is furthered by placing kitchen and dining areas with operable windows along the corridor, transforming the space into an extension of living space. Establishing a fourth and larger scale of community, the project addresses the needs of existing farragut residents by integrating commercial spaces and interactive site design of a playful landscape intended for a variety of recreational use.
RESPONSIBLE FOR: MASSING + DRAWINGS + DETAILS + CHUNK MODEL
HOUSTON ART MUSEUM
SEMESTER: FALL 2018
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT
PROFESSOR: GABRIEL ESQUIVEL
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
This project speaks on the idea of the L typology and its behavior as a figural joint as it interacts with the facade. The suburban facade masks the complexity of the interior spaces made up of L joints. Throughout my project the L type acts both as a figural joint and as an object. When creating these typologies, I broke up my original sectional study into forms that resembled an L-like form. I also developed new typologies from the poche of the floor plan of the Abbey House by Edwin Lutyens. The typology innately activates both plan and section. I pushed this idea further by fluctuating the scale when joining the L’s on the interior and exterior.
The facade tempts the subject to further experience the space by only revealing moments of its interior. The L’s on the interior construct dynamic spaces while the L’s on the exterior are used as ornament that relates the gallery back to the surrounding buildings on site. The figural joints in section are about creating a sequence of spaces that flow into each other. The aesthetic of the gallery as a whole relates back to its site by having an exterior that speaks the same language of architecture as its surroundings. The pitched roof and suburban facade interlaced with the figural L’s speak to the precedent of the Menil Campus. The materiality of the facade also relates back to the materials seen in a suburban home with the shingles on the roof and siding. This architectural object seeks to diguise its interior complexity with a suburban front that caps the growth of the interior massing of L’s.
TRANSPORTATION HUB
SEMESTER: SPRING 2019
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT
PROFESSOR: GABRIEL ESQUIVEL & JORIS PUTENEERS
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
The Non-Place is the fuzzy place on the edge of our perception, that is either too difficult to access or nearly completely withdrawn from us. The smoothness of these Heterotopic Non-Places like the ocean or the desert is mediated by a place of smoothing, a Liminal Place. Liminal places are in a state of becoming, between place and non-place, the past and the future. Representation, through a Hermeneutic lense, is the liminal place of interpretation, A place where the thought of the artist is interpreted or pathed onto the thought of the viewer. Liminal space forms an eddy in the stream of consciousness or experience, forming Places that are experienced for both no time at all and an eternity: Elevators, Lobbies, Hallways, Terminals, Subways, Gangways. These places are defined in anthropology as transformative places of waiting, unknowing, and thought, mediating through preemption to ritual the smooth unknown and the striated known. These can be human rituals such as TSA screenings, waiting for the subway, the dance of flight attendants, or digital rituals such as iteration, recursion and smoothing. Liminal Places are in the act of smoothing Place and Non-Place.
RESPONSIBLE FOR: DRAWINGS + HARD SURFACE MODELING
MUSEUM HISTORICAL PRESERVATION
SEMESTER: FALL 2019
TEAM: BARBARA PORTILLO
PROFESSOR: MIGUEL ROLDAN & ZANA BOSNIC BARCELONA ARCHITECTURE CENTER
This project seeks to keep the identity of the Geology Museum alive by bringing ideas of organic and natural geometry together with minereal like forms. These form were created by translating the curvilinear path one would take through the park into a physical representation that speaks the same language of minerology. It was important to keep the continuity of vertical space, so both the ground and underground are double height spaces. The verticality is reinforced by the use of two atriums so the space is still visible from the underground. This was done so the transition between the floors was not so abrupt. This mineral intervention brings natural light into the gallery, lobby, and cafe on the ground floor as well as continues to light the undeground through the atriums. It is also used in the landscape to further light and ventilate the underground. On the park side the forms are seen in the landscape so subjects can sit on or under them. As for materiality there is a wooden waffle structure for the mineral like forms. The shell of the building was kept to follow the heritage rules of Barcelona. This was done to provoke feelings of familiarity from Barcelona natives while creating an entirely new experience at the same time.
RESPONSIBLE FOR: MASSING + DRAWINGS + RENDERS
ROOF PLAN +30’
GROUD PLAN +00’
UNDERGROUND PLAN -15’
HYBRID ARTIFACT
SEMESTER: SUMMER 2021
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT
PROFESSOR: HART MARLOW
PRATT INSTITUTE
During this two week workshop we were provided with original product patents which we were required to model from scratch. Once we completed the modeling of the original patent, mine being a telephone transmitter, we then went on to create hybrids of this original product. During the workshop we also designed a “packaging” for our new product. The end product being something that looks estranged but has a sense of familiarity. The end product of these two weeks would be a model, renderings, drawings as well as a physical model. The physical model was to include 3D printing, molding and casting, and cnc routing.
WASTE-TO-ENERGY PLANT
SEMESTER: SPRING 2022
TEAM: ALISON MCBREARTY
PROFESSOR: ALEXANDRA BARKER
PRATT INSTITUTE
This project proposes a vessel-inspired building, serving a Waste-to-Energy and recycling facility, in addidtion to a gallery showroom and makers’ spaces. Located directly next to a park, it is crucial to encourage visitation from park goers by positively altering the topography to feel more welcoming. The overarching language of this project consists of a vessel shaped body with extruding “leg-like” bases and points of access. These extrusions serve as both entrances and trash drop-off and pickup, in addition to routing for conveyor belts and ventilation. The vessels inted to create a forest of verticals and only exist on their sides when required by the program. The standing vessel shape is constructed of a steel diagrad structural system, while the horizontal vessels are proposed with a steel cross-bracing arch system. The “legs” are reinforceed concrete shells for ultimate support and differentiation in materiality.
RESPONSIBLE FOR: MASSING + RENDERS + SECTION + DETAILS
SEMESTER: SPRING 2022
PROFESSOR: JOEY GIAMPIETRO
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT PRATT INSTITUTE
This course introduced students to contemporary mediums, methods and theories of how digital tools, such as Substance Designer and Stager, impact architectural representation with an emphasis on emotion, perception and experience. Digital media and narrative storytelling were the core concepts in this course. Renderings and narratives were developed in parallel, allowing for synchronized progress and mutual influence. Feelings of paranoia, disorientation and fear were the drivers for both the renderings and narrative experiences. A keen eye for detail, and curious and explorative imagination were utilized in the production and presentation of this project
SEOUL HOUSING BRIDGE
SEMESTER: SPRING 2023
TEAM: SOKAINA ASAR
PROFESSOR: JONAS COERSMEIER
PRATT INSTITUTE
In August 2022, large-scale floods hit the capital of Seoul, South Korea, primarily in the Gangnam District. It was preceded by the highest rainfall in 80 years and resulted in civilian losses and infrastructural damage. Many residents of a lower socioeconomic status were disproportionately impacted, especially those living in Banjihas, which are underground and semi-subterranean homes that exist throughout South Korea. The banjihas have become a symbol of rampant inequality, not only representing a state of poverty, but also the substantial social divide in South Korea. The city announced it will spend more than a billion dollars to build massive underground holding tanks to prevent flooding and prohibit people from living in basement apartments. Our bridge proposal engages the existing context, Nodeul Island, the waterfront, and Seoul’s population by providing an interstitial occupiable space directly on the bridge that can improve the quality of living that juxtaposes life in Banjihas.
Epithelia serves as a bridge design that includes the inverse of Banjiha housing. Instead of semi-subterranean living, the bridge flips the model by providing housing that is elevated onto the river, promoting connectivity and flow of traffic. The housing program itself forms the connective tissue between the north and south sides of the Han River, creating striations and extensions of the existing Hangang Bridge. Through Epithelia, a unique, sustainable housing option arises that has the potential to improve the city’s wellbeing after facing the consequences of climate change-induced natural disasters.
RESPONSIBLE FOR: MASSING + RENDERS + DRAWINGS + AI STUDIES
