Collin Garnett - Design Portfolio

part to whole:

selected works - 2023

J. Collin Garnett

Above: embedded playscapes can be found throughout the site, repeating the project’s colorful motifs

Opposite: exploded axon of terra cotta facade system construction

LEVEL UP: A POST-INDUSTRIAL PLAYSCAPE 0

Fall 2022 Systems Studio, Ann Arbor, MI critics

curriculum

Ellie Abrons + Meredith Miller collaborators

Pilar O’Hara + Katie Shipman

Level Up responds to an immediate need in Ann Arbor, Michigan to bolster affordable housing for families. This need led the team to design larger units, keeping a family size of 3 to 6 people in mind when designing the project. Level Up began with an idea for non-traditional housing aggregation, pulling ideas from more radical cooperative housing models and modifying them to fit the more family-friendly use case of the “cluster”. The cluster is the central idea for our housing proposal; three single-family apartment units per floor arrayed around a common living space established a model for shared living space that enables thresholds of privacy that are essential for families, especially those with smaller children. This shared space, dubbed the “mudroom”, allows the three units that open onto it a sort of extended living and playing area.

7. wood panel cladding

8. vertical slat railing

9. xps rigid insulation

10.horizontal track system

11.inner frame

12.glazing unit

13.exterior frame

1.terracotta cladding

2. painted exterior frame

3. xps rigid insulation

4. vertical track system

5. inner frame

6. glazing unit

Above: terra cotta panels give unique character to facades while serving as site wayfinding devices

Opposite: layers of privacy diagrams that illustrate ‘cluster’ plan concept and building scale aggregation

Level Up’s attitude toward the cluster repeats in a logical progression of scale from units to building to site. In plan, two clusters aggregate to form one building. Four buildings are placed across the site, allowing nested collectivities of shared spaces both between clusters and between buildings. Community public programs are weaved into the site, dotting the interstitial bridging thoroughfares on each of the four buildings, simultaneously drawing people in for the program while being lifted up and even delineating the most efficient path of circulation through the site.

the materiality of the building creates unique and playful facades through the use of color + texture

Opposite: hybrid elevation/ wall section of terra cotta rainscreen facade

coping

tpo membrane

polyiso insulation

vapor barrier

clt roof beam (beyond)

coping

glazing (punched window)

polyiso insulation

line of glulam column (beyond)

exterior wood window frame (rainscreen system)

interior window frame (millwork)

clt floor system

clt wall system

2” rigid insulation

terra cotta cladding (rainscreen system)

glazing (punched window)

brake metal portal

glazing (storefront)

concrete slab

concrete footing

Longitudinal Building Section. Progression of spaces cut by the section from left to right correspond to the Vignettes above.

Community Mudroom Kitchen/ Living Space

Private Bedrooms

View of entry portal upon arrival at 2000 S. Industrial Boulevard, with playscapes visible beyond.

Above: views of newly built, participatory single family homes Opposite: axon of incremental neighborhood development

SOCIAL FUTURES: A SEED

FOR [RE]VITALIZATION

Spring 2022 Propositions Studio, Inkster, MI critics Sharon Haar collaborators Abdallah Kamhawi

curriculum

Social Futures is a three-part proposal for a participatory process of housing development. The project aims to assist the City of Inkster in resettling Afghan refugees in a blighted community in southeast Michigan. This is achieved via the implementation of incremental solutions that both revitalize the extant fabric and develop a sense of ownership within the community. The proposal first builds a network of support services centered around the renovation of local motels which act as a hospitable landing pad for new residents of the area. This is expanded via an educational Hub that provided human resources needed and often lacking for people who have been dislocated. The third and final portion of the project focuses on the actual housing development process, including novel methods for construction and ownership.

renderings of interventions from each sequential revitalization phase

Opposite: full project timeline, with callouts of each urban scale development

Above: project assembly booklet and physical model elements

Opposite: exploded composite axon of overlaid building systems

Exploded Axon

The design principles guiding this project, namely incrementality and prefabricated methodologies, are meant to be adaptable; the design typology for this Home can evolve over time and reflect different nuances in extant fabric and aesthetic sensibilities. While our immediate efforts were focused on the community of Inkster, Michigan, we hope that this project forms a lasting resource for any community seeking resources to build, repair, and maintain their Homes.

access.

entry.

Above + Opposite: Shaping the space surrounding the building influences public engagement with the envelope and consequently the interior programs. Lessons learned from Stockholm Public Library were remapped to the urban fabric of Ann Arbor. street.

AADL x E.LIBERTY:

SCENES FROM THE DISTRICT LIBRARY

Fall 2021 Institutions Studio, Ann Arbor, MI critics Julia McMorrough collaborators Independent

curriculum

Project

This project reimagines the contexts and roles in which institutional buildings can operate. The project dissects this role within the urban fabric of a mid-sized American city.

The way in which the Library engages with its civic contexts is perhaps the most pressing question regarding its own function within communities. This institution has historically transformed its traditional programmatic considerations in response to considerations for the future, as can be seen in such examples as the Seattle Public Library. Today, we see alternative programming inhabiting the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL); technology lending programs, art lending programs, community meeting rooms, hallways being used as makeshift galleries, and educational makerspaces conducting seminars.

3.

2. 1.

Even with its forward thinking interior program, AADL remains a monolith from a bygone era, surrounded by pavement and embedded in an inactive urban corridor. Despite being sandwiched between a major pedestrian corridor on E. Liberty Street, a massive bike lane development on E. William Street, and a transit hub and bus station immediately to the west, the superblock remains unactivated. The current library doesn’t ask the passing cyclist to pull off and stop for a spell, it doesn’t beckon to the window shoppers on E. Liberty, and it doesn’t pay respect to the myriad buses passing its doorstep every hour.

Scenes From the District Library radically reimagines Ann Arbor’s latent institutions, taking forward thinking programs and combining them with increased access and engagement with site. Further, it takes the next step in the evolution of these alternative programs, asking: what are possible future roles for this institution to play in the ever expanding civic realm?

Above: rendering of learning stair connection for more traditional programming Opposite: vertical relationship between plus programming (laundromat) and the public plaza above

fully fabricated exhalation machine

Opposite: concrete deformation + patterning test panel

ROBOTIC EXHALATION: EXPLORATIONS IN CONCRETE RHEOLOGY

curriculum

2022-2023 Independent Research Initiative critics Zach Cohen (Advisor) collaborators Elliot Smithberger (Co-Principal Investigator)

Robotic Exhalation is an interdisciplinary exploration at the intersection of robotics, sculpture, and building science. Using machine-assisted fabrication, open-source documentation, and computational design the team will explore the aesthetic affordances of concrete rheology, ultimately creating a facade mockup that will serve as a sculptural exterior cladding prototype for building construction applications.

The exhalation of compressed air via a custom-built machine produces unique patterns in still-curing concrete, achieving a distinct and easily replicable surface texture. Reusable molds, efficient material usage, and readily adaptable tools all come together for a low-cost, minimally wasteful means for sculpting one of the world’s most ubiquitous materials.

x 12” Exhaled Panel [2]

5-3/4” 2x4 [4]

x 5” Carriage Bolt (Truss) [5]

x 3” Carriage Bolt (Panel) [6]

Plywood Cover [7]

Above: model of proposed research exhibition, fully built and installed February 2023

Opposite: photographs of rheology test panels in both slurry and cured states

Each panel created through this unique process is slightly unique, even if it follows the same patterning process. This oftenindeterminate means of production has interesting implications regarding artistic intent and the generation of architectural form, centering the resultant object of this exploration as an expression of process-based thinking and material science. This work builds on our fascination with said expression of form, but perhaps even more importantly it may serve as a foundation for future exploration and development in terms of digital authorship, fabrication processes, and methods for sustainable practice + material systems.

Work is currently being funded by Taubman College’s Architecture Student Research Grant and the ArtsEngine AiiR Grant.

choisy plan of Elevate’s interlocking systems Opposite: site plan of urban plaza embedded in a retail superblock

ELEVATE: CONSUMER CULTURE SUBVERSION

curriculum Spring 2017 Vertical Studio, Athens, Greece critics John Peponis collaborators Christina DeLurgio + Timothy Peterson

Elevate rethinks typical retail conventions, providing an architecture of scale while still delivering intimate experiences. The project delivers a transformative prototype within the contexts of consumer culture.

Even prior to a worldwide pandemic giving rise to increasingly limited face-to-face interaction, the age of e-commerce ushered in an era of unparalleled convenience that wreaked havoc upon retailers who long depended primarily upon brick and mortar point of sales. Elevate provides an antithesis to this phenomenon: a new approach to physical retail that not only rivals the luxuries afforded by digital outlets, but also challenges traditional department store typologies in such a way that supplies the urban context with a spectacle, a place to see and be seen.

AGIOU KONSTANTINOU

PLATIA OMONIAS

Above: axon + plan of Elevate’s discrete organizing systems Opposite: renderings envisioning the activated public plaza and streetscape

VERANZEROU X PATISION

Ideation for Elevate began on an urban land plot, previously occupied by the derelict shell of an abandoned department store in Athens, Greece. Bordered on multiple sides by pedestrian traffic, Elevate minimizes its footprint on the ground level and provides an urban plaza for public usage. Initial studies examined how retail space could coexist with the plaza. The team chose to highlight qualities of brick and mortar shopping that were deemed irreplaceable by a digital experience. At the same time, factors that were undesirable or cumbersome to physical shopping were refined or eliminated. With this in mind, a three-part structure emerged, comprised of Display, Creation, and Storage.

CHRISTINA DELURGIO, COLLIN GARNETT,

Above + Opposite: Models of Elevate’s public + private relationships