2018-2019 Undergrad Portfolio

Portfolio 2018 David Rabkin

Content Chinatown Park Pavillion 03 Childrens Book Museum 13 Peter Zumthor, Kunsthaus 25 Berklee Music School 35 Axis Dance Studio 45 Sketches 60 Studio 7 Omitted *See Mark Pasnik*

Chinatown Park Pavillion

06-2017

Boston’s Chinatown is a hub of mixed cultures and experiences. The Chinatown park currently features a large gate which makes direct visual connection to one of Boston’s major train stations; South Station. The park truly takes advantage of Boston’s culture and urban environment.

Nestled between many circulatory hot spots along the MBTA lines as well as its position along a major road. One of Boston’s major urban planning renovations, the Big Dig, symbolically makes an appearance in the park in the form of a large vent clad in a large work of art featured in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

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The form of this pavilion was created by studying trends of densities in the site.

Representing densities of populations of people in the park through a language of folding patterns and textures lead to the lantern like form. Its flexible nature was studied in different forms of compressions. The final design features an array of these large lanterns that run vertically up and down polls through the lanterns different forms of compression. Each form has its own unique function and is controlled by users of the pavilion to fit the users needs.

Depending on the necessity for shade, wind protection, or lighting at night the lanterns can be moved through their different forms of compression not only changing the individual lanterns but the array as a whole. Small pools are dug into the base of each pole as if to look like a resting spot for each lantern to land on as it touches the ground. It is used however for drainage and water collection on the site. The pools drain slow enough to leave puddles for children to play in. The seating on the site is movable and made to mimic these forms in a smoother egg like form.

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Childrens Book Museum

08-2017

Following the china town park pavilion project, the next project of the summer semester was to design a Children’s Book Library to be constructed in the empty lot adjacent to the china town park pavilion project. The language used in the design of the china park pavilion project was to be integrated into the design of the library.

The lantern like forms used in the design of the pavilion needed to be adapted to fit the scale of a large building. The scale shift warranted the progression of these lanterns to become spaces which people inhabited rather than forms people congregated around. These large objects seemed to float through the building as they were suspended in different forms of compression to fit different programs. As some objects seem to levitate between floors others were forced to break through common barriers and restrictions so their presence was felt throughout the building.

The façade taken from the folding pattern of the lantern is clad over the building.

There’s somewhat of a push and pull that happens where the large objects meet the façade. The façade stops while the interior of these objects is exposed to the outside world giving hints of what is hidden within the jewel box.

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In its most compressed form the lantern of the pavilion allows for a space that people can interact with in a more intimate way. Making this space a theater in the round allowed for a more connected relationship with the reader and the audience. A space for people to become enveloped in a story where background and foreground all become part of the same experience.

This space contacts the edge of the building envelope and as a reaction to this the faรงade stops and there is a clear view from china town into the reading room. One of the main draws of the space is put on display so that the residence of Chinatown can watch their children learn to love education.

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The temporary gallery space is a space for children’s works from the museum to be displayed and circulated over time. This space is the object that is seen as an almost perfect sphere.

The gallery space is used in terms of its layers.

One can enter on the top or bottom and circulate along the perimeter. The glass display cases line the secondary layer and while on the circulating ramp one can really see all the individual works up close. The core however is open completely. It can be used for large pieces or hanging pieces and also a way for people to experience the gallery as a whole rather that in its individual pieces.

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Supporting program for the museum is placed in rectangular objects that can be understood on a smaller scale and seem to hover between floor rather than grown and exceed the constraints of the floor plates like the lantern like counter parts. These spaces are used for office and cafĂŠ on the basement and coat room, bathroom, and storage on the elevated floors.

These objects are slightly raised off the ground with somewhat hidden ramps so all spaces are easily accessible.

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The elevator is the largest object within the museum. Its stretches to each floor and has a presence on the roof that breaks the faรงade used to house the mechanics. Although it cannot be read in its entirety throughout the entire building it is meant to be experienced in its form of movement very similarly to the movement involved in the compression and stretching seen in the pavilion design.

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Peter Zumthor, Kunsthaus

07-2017

Peter Zumthor’s Kunsthaus can be described as a jewel box for the city of Bregenz. The museum was sited on the southeastern bank of lake Constance in the old part of the city. it was built in 1997 and stands out from the surrounding context of the cities old and abandoned buildings. The unique façade of this building features 712 angled frosted glass panels. They are held on the outside of the buildings envelope by a thing crossed steel scaffolding structure.

The glazed and foggy appearance of the glass is meant to play off the similar foggy reflectiveness of the lake and take that language and transfer it into a shading system for the museum. The light that passes through these panels must penetrate two layers before it reaches the gallery space.

By that time the lights movement has been slowed to the point that its more of a soft glow than a harsh beam of light.

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Vertical circulation to each gallery space runs along the perimeter of the museum. Its enclosed by large concrete walls. Despite this heaviness the staircase is still read on the exterior of the building. When the lights on the interior of the building are brighter than the light outside the staircase is framed in a soft glow looking almost like a soft ribbon running along the building envelope.

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The structure of the museum relies on three large bearing walls that run the full height of the building into the foundation. Their separation allows for circulation around them from the staircase into the gallery spaces as well as small apertures for other programing. There is a secondary structure used for the buildings faรงade which holds the glazed glass panels on the exterior of the building. The thing steel scaffolding connects to the building envelope at the floors as well as runs into the buildings foundation below the ground level.

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The entrance to the museum on the ground floor is articulated by a thin rectangular vestibule that punches its way through the faรงade into the exterior courtyard. This entrance leads you into the lobby space which takes up the majority of the first floor. As visitors move up in elevation there are only public gallery spaces where as in the basement is where most of the storage and a small theater is housed. The offices and the rest of the museums program is housed in a separate building in the courtyard. This separation is meant to completely immerse the visitors in the art, the jewels in the box.

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Berklee School of Music

11--2017

Berklee school of music is one of the more unique colleges found in Boston. Without a campus student of Berklee gather in any spaces they can find around the city, specifically in Back Bay and up and down two major commercial areas being Newbury and Boylston street. As students of a music school they bring their talent to all the spaces they interact with. The purpose of a new Berklee school building is to give the students a space they can call their own. One that is unique and showcases their talent in a similar manner they are already used to while tackling problems in the design of spaces necessary for musical education.

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The design of the new Berklee school of music building is meant to allow students and visitors alike to experience performance throughout the entire building with the use of visual connections seen through diagonals depicting the sequence of education and music.

The design features a large dynamic wall which is used for vertical circulation throughout the building. As one travels up the wall they can see into spaces such as practice and ensemble rooms as well as many free formed performance spaces both exterior and interior. At the panicle of the wall is a large lounge to be used as a performance space which opens up to an outdoor space where people can perform and can be heard from the street level. With the heavy mass of the wall it is able to dampen some of the noise from the mass pike which runs parallel to the site which rests in the center of Berklee’s very ambiguous campus. The design would finally ground and define a clear Berklee campus within Boston as a center of musical performance and education.

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Axis Dance Studio

04--2018

Axis Dance Company prides itseld on its commitment to its three pillars which are, Artistry, Engagment, and Advocacy. As the nations most acclaimed ensamble of both disabled and non-disabled performers they require a dance studio befiting such a reputation. For this project I, along with a small team of students studied what it meant to be a dancer at any copacity and the best way to design a space for these dancers to practice, learn, and perform. Our Axis Dance Studio features multiple practice rooms, and a performance space, as well as offices, rooms for physical theropy, and multiple public gathering spaces.

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Our concept for the Axis Dance Studio was to contrast performance and practice spaces making the performance space feel as though it is a heavy space pushed into the ground and the performance spaces, by contrast, are light and almost weightless allowing the shadows of practicing dancers to be seen from the street edge.

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To understand and visualize connections occuring throughout our design I would sketch details and work through them with our team. Our ramps are suspended through the use of tension cablesconnecting to trusses within our building. These tension cable connections were adopted from Renzo Piano’s Visitors Center at the ISG in Boston.

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Sketches

01-2019

I find that one of the best tools used to represent design ideas throughout the entire architectural process is through sketching.

It is a fast way to project ideas onto paper and relaying ideas to partners and clients alike. Throughout my architectural career, both in and out of school, I have tried to hone these skills and use them as a representation tool for all projects I work on.

This section showcases a series of sample sketches I have done in Studio 8 this current semester

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