Once a rural Alabamian town, Huntsville, Alabama became THE Space Capital of the World upon the relocation of Werner von Braun to the city. NASA expanded its research and development of its space rocket program through its Apollo missions, propelling the US as a major leader in the world’s first space race.The space race led to values and cultural mindsets such as exploration, national pride, hope for mankind, promotion of futuristic ideals, harnessing of technology, the US as a sphere of influence, monumentality, and pushing design to the limits. Families that moved to Huntsville pushed the population and urban sprawl to a new level, however each of these families had a personal connection to NASA, space exploration, and great pride for being a Hunstvillian. This point in time influenced other cultural movements such as television shows like The Jetsons, or Googie and Neo-Formalist design styles. In 2024, Huntsville finds itself in a similar situation as before, as a new space race to establish further research and launch man to Mars is upon the world. Huntsville is redefining itself as the Space Capital of the World, as it competes with other countries such as Russia, India, and Japan. The new NASA missions, named Artemis, are interlinked and tied to the Apollo missions in more ways than one, as Artemis and Apollo are twins in Greek mythology. Similar to the missions, neo-formalism is defined as wedding building forms of the past with new forms enabled by technological advances - just as the Apollo and Artemis missions are wed through similarities and technology overtime. Huntsville is linking the past and present of their space history, allowing for this project to have concepts relative to its cultural, physical and historical context: compression and release, energy and motion, the art of people moving, and discovery.
Second Floor Plan
Third Floor/Occupiable Roof Plan
GRACIA, BARCELONA COMMUNITY CENTER
Project Thesis, Spring 2023
As someone that appreciates the art of storytelling that designers are able to tell through themed entertainment architecture, I’ve always been drawn to the small details of design in this realm. One of my inspirations for why I chose to pursue architecture is Mary Blair, a pioneer in Disneyland’s architecture for being a female designer. She had a radical approach to concept art experimenting with color and using it for visual queues in the architectural realm of space making. This led me to want to include a lot of color in my project as a wayfinding and visual design technique, as it relates to things like memory, mood, and feeling of a space.
Each space was color coded on a scale of public to private, to make a collage of colors diagrammatically but also inside of the building with window and floor color accents. For example, workshop spaces are always blue, so a visitor knowing they are going to the third floor workshop space can follow the blue supergraphic from the stair and elevator all the way to the blue stained glass doors. The visitor can also see this room from the exterior as the blue seeps through shading elements.
With the inclusion of sliding doors and an organized layout, the spaces can become incredibly flexible to allow for air movement through the building and a shift of activities as the building grows. This provides the ability for visitors to circulate throughout the building with the opening of all sliding doors, while the community center can function for different programs in the future. The core and stair were strategically placed to allow for this flexibility, as they are floating in the middle of the larger part of the building.
The building has a relationship to the other plazas through every floor in balcony and exterior room conditions. The ground floor has setbacks on each entrance to allow visitors to wait to meet their group, skateboard through, or simply interact with the space as another room in each of the plazas. Balconies carved out onto every upper level are interacting both with the ground floor plazas and neighboring balconies. The balconies can be private with a closed wood louvered screen, only outside visitors seeing color on the windows seeping through the outside. However, these balconies can become public with the opening of the wooden louvered screen, as visitors can interact with the neighbors, and plaza visitors can see movement inside of the color collaged window to draw them into the building.
Elevation - Siracusa Scale: 1/8” = 1’0”
North Facade
South Facade
East Facade
West Facade
CHARLESTON MASTERPLAN + CRUISE SHIP TERMINAL
Pedestrian Experience + Resiliency through Native Ecosystems, Fall 2023
Taking inspiration from the outline of historic Charleston piers, the site builds upon them restoring the eco-historical piers and Atlantic coast. The resiliency builds throughout the site, having dense or less dense pockets of native ecosystems, as native plants contribute to the overall theme of restoring green space, managing stormwater, and presenting a pleasant space for pedestrians that will be resilient to coastal floods.
Similar themes are present in the Cruise Ship Terminal, connecting history through the Customs House, culture through Market Street, and ecosystems through the super-ramp building. For both passenger and public use, the roof brings the ground plane into the z-axis, carrying a unque experience with views of Charleston and the water. The interior of the building promotes a snake-like queue or walk through the flexible facility and public access spaces. The terminal accomplishes this through extruding the same patterns seen in the masterplan and adding screens throughout the curtain wall to lead people to the next view corridor.
Occupiable Roof Plan
Third Floor Plan
Second Floor Plan
First Floor Plan
Programmatic Diagram
Circulation Diagram
Exterior Perspective Site Programmatic Diagram
GRADUATE STUDENT HOUSING
Project Statement, Fall 2024
Fostering individuality and promoting community living through intimate alleyways, this Columbus State University Graduate Student Housing project allows for a riverwalk accessible site and sustainable structural design through the use of CLT and GLT modular bays.
Push + Pull Off Structural Grid Concept
vs. Private Site Concept
Public Facing Facade
Alley Facing Facade
Carbon Calculations for Environmental Impact Structural
5-PLY CLT PANEL
1-BEDROOM APARTMENT
1-BEDROOM APARTMENT
STUDIO APARTMENT
2-BEDROOM APARTMENT
1-BEDROOM APARTMENT
7-PLY CLT PANEL
GLULAM BEAM
GLULAM COLUMN
WOOD DESIGN COMPETITION
Design Intent, Spring 2022
Cross-laminated timber is pushed to the limits in an experiential, or ganic design at Kreher Nature Preserve in Auburn, Alabama. Func tioning as an event space, indoor classroom, office, and outdoor classroom, this is easily accessible from the visitor parking lot, directly connecting with a nearby trailhead. While structural panels of CLT are generally orthogonal in shape and design, here the CLT are biophilic designed curves. Inspired by the essence of Kreher Nature Preserve, the organic CLT forms undulate in and out of the circulation space.
The organic fins allow guests to meander in and out of the circulation space, choosing their final destination of classrooms, event space, or continuing to the trail. Upon first glance at the parking lot, visitors see through the apertures that shape a view of the lob- lolly pine forest.
Sustainability takes a top priority, as from construction to usage the project values lowering the carbon footprint and giving back to nature, especially with its location directly in the nature pre serve. Alabama forestry has an abundance of pines that are local ly sourced and made into cross-laminated structural members for this project. The CLT fins function as brise-soleils, especially on the southern sun side, to block the sun and better protect the condi tioned space from solar heating. The conditioned classroom’s roof is a non-occupiable green roof, where rainwater is able to be col lected through the permeable vegetation and rocks, then flowing down to the collection tank to power the toilets and sinks, offering visitors the educational opportunity to learn about sustainability.
Axon-
Initial Concept Axonometric Drawing
Wood Concept Model
The organic fins allow guests to meander in and out of the circulation space, choosing their final destination of classrooms, event space, or continuing to the trail. Upon first glance at the parking lot, visitors see through the apertures that shape a view of the loblolly pine forest.
Sustainability takes a top priority, as from construction to usage the project values lowering the carbon footprint and giving back to nature, especially with its location directly in the nature preserve. Alabama forestry has an abundance of pines that are locally sourced and made into cross-laminated structural members for this project. The CLT fins function as brise-soleils, especially on the southern sun side, to block the sun and better protect the conditioned space from solar heating. The conditioned classroom’s roof is a non-occupiable green roof, where rainwater is able to be collected through the permeable vegetation and rocks, then flowing down to the collection tank to power the toilets and sinks, offering visitors the educational opportunity to learn about sustainability.
FREEDOM BY DESIGN AGRIVOLTAICS
Master Planning Exercise, 2020-2021
As an executive in Auburn University’s branch of Freedom by Design under the American Institute of Architecture Students, we were partnered with Little USA, a national solar company designing sustainable infrastructure.
Tasked with designing an electric-vehicle charging campus off a busy highway in rural Alabama, our Freedom by Design team was split into research sectors for the requested programs on the site. After personally researching vertical farming facilities and farm to table restaurants, the other team members and I combined efforts to have an immense program list including event space, ample parking, overnight lodging, farmers market space, agrivoltaic farming, and “edutainment” all on a site with a protected wetland area.
During the year of design and master planning exercises, our team went through many iterations of master planning to fill the environmentally rich site to both fit all the program pieces while allowing for 24 acres of agrivoltaic farming and protected wetland areas.
At the conclusion of the academic year, our team was able to present to the client and board of directors of Little USA so that they could choose a master plan to build for this nearby rural site. I am thrilled to see this project continue to take shape over the next few years as it comes to fruition.
AI EXPLORATION
ARCH 3800, A Seminar at Play, Fsll 2024
Within the class, A Seminar at Play, our professor provided materials to explore artificial intelligence (AI) through softwares including Midjourney and MeshyAI to then blend back into traditional architectural softwares. In learning to utilize AI as a tool and a part of the ideating and conceptual process, it allowed for more fantastical creations of architecture to then edit for the purpose of this project. The beginning of the project began with a self-made collage that then was peer edited to add additional subject matter to the page. From there, the edited collage was brought into Midjourney to pull collage elements to make a “play space”. After hundreds of iterations, an image was pulled from Midjourney and edited to be made into a Rhino 3D object and mesh in MeshyAI. Finally, the object was brought into a combination of Rhino and Photoshop programs to construct the final play space.
Original Self-Made Collage
Peer Edited Collage
Midjourney Break From Collage Sampling
Midjourney Sculputural Form Sampling
Midjourney Fantastical Motif Sampling
Left: Final Edited Playspace Above: Final Rhino Mesh of Playspace
LIGHT BOX STUDY
Design Intent, Spring 2021
As a preliminary design exercise in Foundations Studio, we were tasked with studying and hand rendering a precedent image. Specifically, we were to look at the light reflections and shadows on the different materials used in the archi tectural precedent.
After being given Tadao Ando’s Koshino House, the design process was to hand render the hallway image then extract intriguing moments of light and dark through figure ground studies. Those figure grounds transformed into abstract 2-dimensional paper models. Those 2-dimensional models were made into 3-dimensional light boxes, which then led to a void and shadow study for a final light box model. The final models include more or less thickness to the volu mentric light boxes, producing moments of light and dark inside of the small spaces.
Left: Abstracted Hand Rendering and Figure Grounds Right:Corresponding 2-Dimensional Paper Models
Process Set of Three Light Study Boxes
Finalized Volumetric Light Study Boxes
DESIGN BUILD “PLACE FOR SITTING”
Design Intent, Spring 2021
In the preliminary stages of the “Place for Sitting” project, we were tasked to study famous architectural benches or chairs. I was given the Chandigarh Caned Bench designed by Pierre Jeanneret, where I researched the methods of building the bench, especially the different types of joints.
Including a finger joint, (90º joint), and types of knot tying for the woven seat, I was to build a miniature scale model of the Chandigarh bench, pictured right.
After a study of the precedent bench, I created intriguing concepts of how wood and materials could be joined together to create a place for sitting. With a group of two peers, we combined our bench joineries to design a new type of place for sitting.
After the initial design, storyboards and exact drawings were produced to fully build the final place for sitting. After a day at Auburn University’s Rural Studio, the three of us constructed the bench to full scale.
Final Group Design of “Place for Sitting”, Personal Drawings
