UF Architecture Undergraduate Portfolio

Collin Rohr

architecture portfolio undergraduate works - university of florida 2018-2022

00 table of contents

4 NYC Tech Hub

fall 2021 | design 7 | partner - Jeremiah Costen

Professor - Nancy clark

16 jacksonville multipurpose facility

spring 2021 | design 6 | university of florida Professor - judi shade monk

22 yoga pavilion

fall 2020 | design 5 | university of florida Professor - vernelle noel

24 door, window, stair

fall 2019 | design 3 | university of florida Professor - mark mcglothlin

28 vertical datum - tower

spring 2020 | design 4 | university of florida Professor - michael montoya

01 NYC tech hub

parter - jeremiah costen

fall 2021 - design 7 | Professor nancy clark

Site Location: 6th - 7th avenue & 32nd - 33rd street, manhattan

currently, midtown manhattan, specifically penn station and the surrounding area is ineffcient and underwhelming. with over half a million people travelling through the area because of penn station, this region has the potential to be a vibrant, productive district that could revitalize the surrounding area.

Examining the zoning of the area revealed that penn station and the surrounding area is dominated by commercial development, with some residential zoning south of 29th street.

As the area is heavily trafficked by all means of transportation, this proposal perserves that commerical identity, using urban tech as a means to revitalize the commerical aspect of the district and improve city life and sustainabilty through the creation of a large-scale hub that would act ideally act as a catalyst to spark the transformation of the district.

the essence of this proposal is to redevelop the sites by utilizing the heavy foot traffic that goes to and from penn station to expose the public to urban tech, providing public opportunities to engage in urban tech and foster innovation, while also providing private space for education and housing, company prototyping and manufcaturing, as well as commerical office space.

urban fabric and subway connectivity mapping

a traditional analysis of architecture in relation to the surrounding concept is the balance between the natural and built environment. In a sense, new yorks dominant built environment becomes the natural environment to analyze.

This mapping details the characteristics of manhattan’s urban fabric, primarily looking at a generalizing of the heights of buildings in relationship to the city districts along with their relationship to the subway lines.

rooftop park residential tower commercial/office tower product manufacturing maker space flex core education core private fabrication labs

east-west section through the through-block, education core, and residential tower looking north

Penn station carries over 500 thousands passengers on a daily basis. Because of that, the surrounding area has very heavy foot traffic. Therefore, a primary design driver for this proposal was to alleviate the pressure of that foot traffic, allowing it to flow through the block efficiently while exposing people to urban tech to spark interest in the program.

Curvilinear form

The design emphasis on the flow of people through the site determined the form and the logic to which it was developed off of. acting as a dominant, orginizational system throughout the project, the curves channel the direction of the space, opening up along 6th and broadway to recieve people in to the site.

Creating a dominantly curvilinear form allowed for a unique conversation to occur between the interior space and the exterior curves. the programmatic experience one has in the space is determined based on the conditions of the curves. spaces that require enclosure or partial enclosure as opposed to glass are wrapped and shaped by the curve, with floor plates that are separated from the curves by 5-10 feet, creating voids and light wells that establish a continuity and interconnectivity between the floors.

night-time aerial perspective

street-block interface off of 6th avenue and broadway

The interface between the block and the street particularily in relation to broadway was determined to be most important because the majority of people moving to penn station will be coming off of broadway. The result was the creation of a large social stair directly off of 6th avenue, broadway, and greenly park that is publicly accessible to pull people off of the street and in to the site. To accompany the social stair, the south-east street-block edge was lifted and connected to the central through block, allowing for the heavy foot-traffic to flow smoothly throughout the site.

inter-circulatory site diagram

street perspective - social stair & maker space

02 jacksonville multipurpose facility

Spring 2021 - design 6 | Professor judi shade monk

Site Location: downtown jacksonville, florida

Downtown Jacksonville, Florida holds great potential to be a vibrant city with appealing community spaces and facilities. The major focus of this project was to resolve many different programs that could be used by the people of jacksonville into one work of architecture. Ranging from A grocery store, to a gym, the programs included in this project are vastly different but all have one key similarity - Public access.

Translating that concept into design, the approach taken was to play off of the unified idea of program and create a space that allows for these programs to function separately and efficiently, while remaining interconnected and unified in purpose.

the cloaking form of the building was derived from a real world analogy that spoke to the pogrammatic ideas that were being followed. A table cloth cloaked over a plethora of different sized boxes and items. Without the cloak, everything felt segregated; split up because there was nothing to relate them to each other. when the items were covered with the table cloth, the objects acted and felt as one.

ground perspective - main entrance

circulation

resolving the circulation in this project involved keeping the programs open without infringing on their ability to function as a space. the floor plans shown detail how one might circulate through the space, highlighting the emphasis on a natural progression through the building. Effort was made to refrain from closing off any of the programs by a harsh threshold (closed doors, store fronts, etc.).

the progression through the plan also highlights the hierarchical relationship between the exterior and the interior. Dominating the interior spaces, the exterior cloak dictates where the floor plates start and stop, establishing the dominance of the cloak.

vertical connectivity - North/South section

an issue that was encountered during the design process was the lack of sectional implications that the form had on the building, which at first led to very mundane, pancake floors that had no sense of where they were in the building or no sense of interconnectivity.

the solution to this issue followed the same concept as the skin. by allowing areas of the skin to “fall” into the space subtracting areas of the floor plates creating voids that allow for viewing opportunities that people can establish their vertical relationship in the building and help connect the programs to each other.

form concept diagram split & shift cover cloAK subtract layer

urban street space

Something that downtown jacksonville seemed to noticeably lack was urban community space that was open to the public. This became an important driver in the design of the project as the entire purpose of this facility was to unify public programs.

The south side of the building faces towards a street that would typically be looked at and passed as it holds nothing of interest or character. Therefore, it was a great opportunity to transform the street space into a vibrant, inviting community space open to the public.

03 yoga pavilion

Fall 2020 - design 5 | Professor vernelle noel

Site Location: lake eola - orlando, florida

sivananda yoga is an ancient yoga practice that can be traced back to roughly 700 BCE. A core principle of sivananda yoga is its emphasis on connection to the sun with a routine called the 12 basic asanas and the sun salutation.

analyzing the practice of sivananda yoga revealed its linear relationship to time and exercise. implementing this idea into design meant a very structured backbone to the facility that organizes the spaces in a clear, concise manner, enabling the user to feel the space they are in and directly relate it to the stage of the yoga session they are in.

the pavilion provides a calming and isolated environment that secludes the user from outside distractions and enables them to put their sole focus on the practice.

conceptual bug model defamiliarization

Southeast - Northwest section

inidividual meditiation spaces reception/lobby

door, window, stair

Fall 2019 - design 3| Professor mark mcglothlin

Site Location: n/a

beginning to bridge conceptual architecture to practical architecture, door, window, stair sought to explore the spatial relationships of thresholds and their roles in the organization of space.

tasked with resolving a space that holds book tectonics, this was the first project that revolved around creating practical, human-scale spaces.

the initial approach to developing this project came from collaging old technological drawings pulling out primary spatial concepts from them. these concepts were then constructed into process models that began to scale the project, anchoring the project to the rough scale we would be working in, before moving into the final model, constructed at a scale of 3/8” = 1’

section oblique

conceptual model

final model photographs

structural anchor

a conceptual driver explored in this model was the idea of a book shelf that could not only continue on endlessly, but acts as the core structure for the project, anchoring into the ground with spaces that branch off of that core.

final model photographs

05 vertical datum

spring 2020 - design 4| Professor michael montoya Site Location: n/a in sharp contrast to previous projects, the vertical datum explores vertical spatial relationships, while continuing to cross the bridge from conceptual to practical.

The initial analysis for this project was made from watching the 1950 movie “orpheus”. from the movie, diagrammatic studies were created based off of the movie’s plot, overarching themes, and character elements. similar to the process of door, window, stair, spatial relationships and concepts were pulled from those diagrammatic studies, to then translate into a final model.

The final model was the main deliverable for this project, set to define and resolve spaces at the scale of a balled up fist, a thumb, and the space created by a freeform hand in relation to the model scale of 1/32” = 1’

diagrammatic studies

final model section