CHARLIE
Design Portfolio
MLA, CCNY Spitzer
School of Architecture
History
Design Research Proposals
The Trails at Londonderry Cultural Center
Vaccinium corymbosum
Post-Zoo(logic)
The Regenerative Fire Code
Coney Island Surf Tank
Planting Design
Soho Rooftop
Brooklyn Library Garden
Construction Documents
CAD Samples
Bonus Coverage
Sketch Models
Found Objects Pottery Wheel
I found my way to landscape architecture in the Green Mountains of Vermont while designing and building a network of multi-use trails on the property of an old, run-down bed and breakfast. I took on this project as a way to break free of my career in startup tech sales with almost no knowledge of what trail building actually required, but a deep love for the outdoors and route-finding. While learning on the fly, I ‘surveyed’ the plot of land, researched techniques for design and construction, revealed the remnants of long grown-over trails and other clues to the site history, graded new connections and paths for others to experience the beautiful space, and found a deep connection to the work of uncovering place.
Amongst the ruins of a leather tannery, where bits of hides and acids and effluents were dumped for decades; along the banks of the Bronx River, once prone to seasonal flooding and now dammed and damned by the flooding of sewage pipes cascading into (Water), grows a blueberry bush, Vaccinium corymbosum. This plant grows near to two of it’s own kind, but is one of only a handful left in the urban forest strip.
This shrub grew from a seed transplanted by a bird no more three miles from where the berry was eaten. The berry grew in a garden, swelling from the base of a wilting flower that succeeded in its life’s goal of seducing a bee into it’s urnshaped depth, joining the great genetic swap of thousands of flowers that the bee visited that day. The gardener noticed beauty in the flowers but was more enticed by the potential of ripe fruits, only to be outcompeted by the bird.
A spray-painted sign, “HONEY - FRESH BERRIES – APPLE CIDER” had achieved its goal in seducing the gardener two and a half hours after they left their Bronxville home. The sumptuous blueberries cradled in plastic pints reminded the gardener of their childhood, of searching for berries in the woods behind an uncle’s cabin. The gardener sheepishly asked the farmer why their blueberries had died each of the two times that they had planted them before.
Studio Proposal
Post-Zoo(logic) is a proposal for the Bronx Zoo to reestablish and rehabilitate native forest habitat by turning the zoo’s Wild Asia Monorail into the Native Bronx River MonoTrail, building on the posts of existing infrastructure to carve out accessibility for both humans and wildlife to one of the largest green spaces in New York City. Specifically, the model seeks to introduce a shift in the way that we classify spaces to address the segmentation of access for animals, humans, and plants. It doesn’t advocate for declassification and chaos, but a shift in scale from species to ecosystems. This new model promotes wildlife agency and the restitching of flora and fauna into a cohesive ecosystem while the zoomed out classifications
leave room for blurry borders, overlapping territory, and interstitial space.
The centerpiece of the Post(Zoo)logic proposal is the monotrail, built on the posts of the existing monorail to limit further ecological damage to the site. This elevated path increases visitor agency moving around and experiencing the exhibit, while restricting their to ability to cause unwanted disturbance. Human visitors to the exhibit are not allowed to enter the nature reserve but can view the site from the monotrail. Meanwhile, wildlife and plant communities are granted freedom of movement to pass underneath or in some cases, above, the monotrail deck.
Studio Proposal
The Regenerative Fire Code is a direct alternative to the sprawling wildlandurban interface that has rapidly expanded into the California foothills. The managed, geometric and patchy landscape that will exist as a result of the code will greatly lower carbon emissions from giant fires, provide safety to the inhabitants of the area, both human and non-human, and will support biodiversity levels unseen in the region in decades.
The Coney Island Stormwater Plan, consisting of the Dune Wall, Surf Tank, and connected Back Dune Release Channel, aims to provide a more accurate accounting of alternatives to managed retreat. This storm water retention and discharge proposals presents coastal protection infrastructure at an outlandish scale, but it is what would be needed, no less, to allow all Coney Islanders to stay in place.
All drawings on this spread were prepared for and with Garden 26 Landscape Design in the spring and summer of 2021 and are shared with their permission. These drawings were each at least partially created by me, however many show the work of other individuals as well.
Bonus Coverage to Post-Zoo(logic)
Chipboard Topography, Acrylic Flows
What direction does the
What direction
What
Ceiling Fan Removed light fixture and rewired fan Sawed off existing bracket and attached new brackets from wall mount. Custom cut pottery bat system to fit commercial bats Attached top of side table as the wheel and speaker frame as the base Saddled side table to base to support catch basin and attached to Croc attached to pull cord as pedal Cut aluminum roasting pan to shape and secured as splatter guard Centered and attached custom bat system Side Table Wall Bracket Speaker Bonus Coverage and Ethosthe wheel spin. direction do I pull. or push. or press. or lift. direction are the fan and table and speaker going now relative to then. What direction does the bowl go. What directions could I possibly give.
I have long been a tinkerer and collector of odd objects that I hope to someday fix or or use in the construction of something else. This pottery wheel, minus the bat, was built exclusively out of parts that I had found on the street. The assemblage of components coming together to form a new object intended to help form other new objects.
In this way I keep collecting histories, experiences, skills, knowledge, and peripheral glimpses of the swirling unknown. My goal, through my practice, is to mold from these parts new ways of seeing the past and practical approaches to design, not for an unattainable future, but for a future that will someday become a part of our history.