Phase 5. Welcome to the Neighborhood

Although this project is highly idealistic, the concepts and ecological logic are

I no longer agree with the argument that the suburbs cannot be improved without destroying suburban identity. Privacy, community, and status are not mutually exclusive to ecologically with a slight change in priority. The solutions here are truly exciting.

A Theatre for Two

Constance Vale’s 212 Studio Washington University in St. Louis Spring 2020, Hybrid

This project is a theatre for a commercial district in Saint Louis, Missouri. Conceptually, this project is about dichotomies within architecture. I worked to play with and push the condition of two separate entities throughout this process —light and shadow, solid and transparent, old and new. I was aiming for a relationship somewhere between a harmony and a contrast.

Phase 1. Light & Shadow

Phase 1 was a study of light and shadow. We took historical architecture drawings, translated them into paper models, photographed them and their shadows, then morphed that into a new form and model.

I decided to create two forms: a wrapping encasement, and an internal mass. Their differences in form, shape, and role contrast one another, but they also complicate each other. When together, the shell covers and encases the mass. With the mass removed, the shell is left with an imprint and lofty interior conditions.

Phase 2. Material Studies

Reference Images

Opaque Models

Transparent Models Interactions with Light

transformation. We were tasked to translate photos of real materials into similar representations using studio materials. Each material had an opaque and transparent translation.

All materials used were recycled from trash cans around the school.

Phase 3. Form Studies

For the form studies of Phase 3, I looked at form through wrapping similar to my

Phase 4. Modeling

As we shifted to representational forms, I wanted to encase one structure within another formally unrelated one. I was aiming to create both a harmony and a contrast.

Casting Shadows

Growing up in Saint Louis, I was very familiar with this site before this studio. Delmar aspires to be a bubbling commercial district with shops, music venues, and restaurants. Despite this, the street is monotonous and uninspiring. While my design is obviously unique, the building really breaks past the plot and the street’s uniformity by the shadows it casts. Shadow forms are intentionally abrasive and uncompromising. Theatre itself is a spectacle, and I wanted to project that quality across all of

Center Stage

Circulation is centered around the main stage. Staff and guest amenity spaces buffer the amphitheater from Delmar. All performance-focused spaces are nested underneath and around the curvature of the seating ring. This allows for privacy as well as entrances at stage left, right, and center.

Section

Because the two forms are so different from each other, they highlight each other’s unique qualities. The shell is akin to The Process in Supergiant’s Transistor; the interior mass calls back to performances from ancient times. The dichotomy between the ancient and the contemporary, the light and the shadow, the shell and the mass, exist in both harmony and contrast.

Constrained Housing

Ryan Abendroth’s 311 Studio Washington University in St. Louis Fall 2021, Online

Starting with a conceptual study of a two-part joint mechanism and ending with a full two-family housing setup on a notably skinny plot of land, this housing studio was all about interlocking pieces.

The biggest challenge involved the site: how do you create privacy when you have another house on your same plot of land? And how do you screen privacy on a tightly packed residential street?

Couplers in Movement

Slowing at a gradual angle

From Joints to Houses

As I shifted from conceptual to representational, I was thinking about how I would inhabit those joint diagrams. I used that thinking to create space in three dimensions while adhering to the diagram’s geometric constraints.

Turning right at a constant speed

Accelerating straight ahead

Train Couplers

Old steam engines fastened to one another using a pin-and-link type joint to keep train cars hitched together. This traversed varying angles, speeds, and changes in elevation. I became excited by diagrams of static instances of the joints and how they varied between situations.

Slowing straight ahead

Combining Conditions

Final Product: The Two-Family Home

A central wall divides the two houses. It opens on the ground level to connect the two house’s green spaces. spaces on the second are visually screened from the neighbors by the wall.

Final Product: The Two-Family Home

The splits, densities, and geometries of the joint diagrams became the architecture’s way of creating screens and controlled environments in a tight neighborhood with very little privacy.

Mother & Child Clinic

Dusica Stankovic’s 312 Studio Washington University in St. Louis Spring 2021, Hybrid

This studio was an in-depth exploration into designing healthcare environments. We were tasked to create a dual-clinic for both mothers and their children situated in North St. Louis.

Healthcare architecture is interesting because of how important the return are —even at the margins. In healthcare architecture, the measurable outcome in whether a design is effective isn’t subjective or arbitrary: it is measured in patient health outcomes. A clinic with yield marginally better outcomes, and in this context, that is huge. So given that, my goal in this studio was to work with my professor to design a clinic that would (hopefully) function well in actuality.

Roots

Root systems were my original inspiration for how this clinic would come together. When viewing them in plan, The voids created between roots formed interesting patterns and networks.

Research & Initial Clinic Design

Design strategies used in this project come from recent evidence-based design publications. I’ve broken this down to two main strategies.

First Bubble Iteration

the waiting room to their exam rooms. Although shared functions are placed between the two clinics, the largest issue with this iteration was that there wasn’t a central core for staff.

Strategy A. Framing Patient Circulation

Research shows clinics that use nurse stations as a way to frame patient circulation yield better outcomes, because care is streamlined and patients are more comfortable navigating the space.

Final Bubble Iteration

Exam Room Design

Based on found research, the exam room’s design prioritizes modes of information sharing with the assumption of fully digital records. It also advocates for patient privacy and family involvement.

Formalizing the Clinic

Building off the bubble diagrams from earlier, I began to give form to each space indicated. I shifted my secondary functions (ultrasound, ECG, etc.) to spaces within the pods rather than a designated rear area. This improved way-

Final Iteration

constraints, the pod system became much more central to the clinic layout. Patient circulation is extremely streamlined — all spaces where patients would go to on their own are within sight of a nurse station.

Tiny-Space Exhibition

Bruce Lindsey’s 112 Studio Spring 2019 constrained living through designing a structure for someone to live in for one week within a gallery space.

Working within the 9’ cube we were given, my goal was to make living in this space feel as natural as possible. A green wall and a water feature screen privacy for the bed. A lofted area makes use of the space’s verticality. This became a study of our usage of space and our requirements for comfort.