The National Public Radio (NPR) Conferencing Center is a mixed-use performance, office, and retail space located on State Street and Broadway in Albany, NY.
The overall design of the building is conceived via threedimensional vectors of the existing site with large apertures framing views into the plaza and out onto State Street and Broadway. Horizontal and vertical vectors are formed via cues of the site - the horizontal being retail and the vertical being offices and Tiny Desk Studio spaces. The lower levels encompass restaurants, a cafe, and an office supply store. Two auditoriums of different sizes, Craive lab and a CIR space are also found within these levels. Upper levels include administration, rentable office suites, and Tiny Desk Studio Spaces. The public plaza, which takes 60% of the site’s footprint, includes seating across it, an outdoor theater, and ground mimicking the building.
The NPR Conferencing Center’s ultimate goal is to blur the line between the public retail spaces and the private offices via the Tiny Desk Studio spaces. These transformative performance spaces are small scaled and intimate for an acoustic setting. Tiny Desk Studio fully reflects the office: being in a vertical vector, overall layout, and rentability. When spaces aren’t occupied, it would be available to performance groups in Albany and the Capital Region.
GROOVED CANYON
FALL 2018 | CRITIC: ANTHONY TITUS
GROOVED CANYON
PAINTING AND HOUSING
Grooved Canyon explores the painting as the main medium for the development of housing. The painting used was “Transparent in Perspective Grooved” by Paul Klee, 1921.
The housing is developed from cues within the painting: darker tones create intimacy while the lighter tones create liberty. The painting formulated a three-dimensional cube reflecting the painting. The painting was broken down into three scales, each being larger than the former. These forms were projected onto a cube, creating various levels of intensity on the object. The cube was further developed to create a housing unit for artists Richard Serra and Carsten Holler. Red, orange, and burgundy created intense, tight spaces on the ground level and became areas of rest for the two artists. Blue, yellow, and tan created open, airy spaces for place of work. Double height increased the concept of liberation. Site design reflects the ideas of intimacy and liberation with intense and planar moments. Entry into the housing is created via sharp, angular motion around the housing. The house unifies itself within the ground creating a single organism and in essence reflects the confinement and intimacy of the house.
A spatial narrative was constructed to further describe and highlight intimacy and liberation.
CUBE MODEL
THE BOUNDARY
TROY, NY | SPRING 2020
CRITIC: YAEL EREL
THE BOUNDARY
HOUSING AND LIBRARY
The Boundary is a mixed-use housing and library located near Monument Square on River Street in Troy, NY.
The building is constructed via L-shaped housing unit variants acting as positive space. These grow together, rotating and growing as it reaches ground levels. The negative space thus becomes the library, intersecting in certain locations into the housing portion. A grand staircase brings people down from River Street to the Hudson River waterfront. The library is also accessible via the River Street side of the building, bridging in from the street. The library is designed with a tall central space and a right and left wing. The right wing contains a large portion of bookshelves also being the exterior elements of shared spaces within the housing portion as well as reading spaces and an office. The left wing has a cafe and a computer room. Various housing units surround the library.
Various moments within the upper housing levels allow for viewing into the library, creating an interaction between the public and private. Every odd floor level has a communal space that connects all units. Stair cores lead the inhabitants into the waterfront. The library and housing are bound by a wooden louver boundary, increasing interior shading and controlling the growth of the rotating housing units.
RENDERING FROM STREET SIDE
CLUSTER SUBSUMPTION
BENNINGTON, VT | FALL 2019
CRITIC: EDWIN LIU
CLUSTER SUBSUMPTION
BENNINGTON MUSEUM EXTENSION
Cluster Subsumption is a museum extension for the Bennington Museum in Bennington, VT. Sculptures by Ettore Sottsaas were used to develop the building.
Time was used as a metaphor and another portion of the generative process; time emphasises Bennington’s work on the history of Vermont so time was used to guide various scaling, rotation, and replication to form an overall system. A C-Shaped parti captures various views surrounding the Bennington. The large, intersecting pieces further enhance these views throughout the extension and mimic the grandeur of the outside. The lower level contains a new entrance for the museum and brings the visitor into a mixed-use space with moveable walls to create two separate spaces; these spaces connect to the central courtyard. The original schoolhouse in the museum was transformed into an auditorium. A grand staircase leads into the second level cafe. Art galleries connect from the cafe and rotate back into the original museum. Stairs lead up into the large, cylindrical piece of the building which contain the third and fourth levels. Third level has a library and the fourth level has a tall gallery space. Ground texture and seating mimic components of the building.
Cluster Subsumption aims to amplify time and history while bringing grand views of Vermont.
RIGHT - EXTERIOR RENDER VIEW FROM MAIN STREET PARKING LOT
LUNGS OF THE CITY
SPRING 2023 | CRITIC: CALEB WHITE
LUNGS OF THE CITY
NEW YORK FASHION WEEK
Lungs of the City is a large-scale proposal that explores hidden infrastructure in New York City and brings their use to the public via New York Fashion Week.
Reyner Banham’s A Home is not a House states that architecture is useless because of mechanical systems, yet presents an interesting relationship between those systems and fabrics to produce space. New York City has four main tunnels that connect Manhattan with the other boroughs and New Jersey. The vast amount of vehicular travel calls for massive mechanical systems of air flow infrastructure to pull the exhaust-filled air out and replace it with clean air. These systems, though, are hidden within the city inside anonymous buildings, unknown to most of the pollution they are expelling to the air.
This thesis project explores these massive infrastructural moments throughout the city and unifies them via reclothing with inflatables, drapery, and shrinkwrapping, capturing and filtering the excess energy by the buildings to produce architectural moments. This is not a singular proposition - it is a City-wide event, making the unseen systems visible. Additionally, the intervention is a way to promote the NY Fashion Week with the main venue being the Holland Tunnel Ventilation Tower, bringing the public into the concealed infrastructure.
