Architecture Portfolio

David Decker Portfolio

Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture

Bachelor of Architecture, 2027

Addtl. Major in Environmental and Sustainability Studies

01

Farmers | Market

Form & Morphology, Program Mapping, Biome & Climate, Materiality

02

Squirrel Hill Jazz Club

Narrative Development, Explorative Representation, Fieldwork

03

Diffraction

Design Fundamentals, Hand Drafting, Tectonic Studies

04

Related Works

Technical Drawings, Analog Drawings

Farmers | Market

Studio: Poiesis III | Second Year, Fall 2023

Coordinator: Laura Garófalo

Section Instructor: Manuel Rodriguez Ladrón de Guevara

In Collaboration with Eva Chen

Site Location: Schenley Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217

During this collaborative, 12-week project, my partner and I proposed Farmers | Market as a dynamic culinary institute for the synthesis of food production with the knowledge and technology of the community. We were first tasked with deriving a morphology based off the philosophies of chefs Dominique Crenn and Grant Achatz, in addition to a desert-biome precedent study and subsequent field drawing and model. The teachings from our chefs and from the Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico stressed the importance of a circular organization for community programs, both in their spatial layout and the overall material design.

Thus, our culinary institute developed into a radial form, where the central farming courtyard cultivates an immersive learning environment connected between the students of the culinary institute and the public. The students’ classrooms and kitchens are ordered along the east side of the site according to their daily schedule, while the public is drawn to the site from the west side first to attend community farmers markets and then invited into the student courtyard. Following the curvilinear form in plan view, glass curtain walls on the inner side of the student facilities invite public discovery while students showcase their own work in the farmers markets. Mirroring the slope of the site, the roof condition resembles the cyclical, interwoven nature of this community togetherness, while also enabling the sun and water-catching features of the courtyard.

Field Model

Structural Section and Model

Massing Model

Experiential Drawing

02 Squirrel Hill Jazz Club

Studio: Poiesis II | First Year, Spring 2023

Coordinator: Tommy CheeMou Yang

Section Instructor: Ginger Brooks Takahashi

Site Location: 2219 Murray Ave Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217

This semester-long project encompassed the exploration of forms and representation through a parti based on a program and project narrative. After electing to design a jazz club in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, I was tasked to craft a narrative about the family who would operate the club and live in the residential space above. Through several weeks of site analysis and fieldwork around the neighborhood, I illustrated a couple who grew up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh during the Jazz Age, and who returned to the city to reestablish the style in the name of free musical expression and a found family.

My design reflects the collage of building styles found in Squirrel Hill by interlocking organizational grid systems which derive the form. The result is a series of jut outs at 30 degree angles, resembling the nature of jazz as having never conformed to the normal. These crevasses draw visitors in to explore the inside, only to be welcomed into the hearth of the stage and multi-story gathering space. The unique forms enabled by the grid system allow for the merging of inside and outside, and the creation of an array of different spaces for both the public and the residents, thereby crafting a space of community empowerment through the musical and material language of jazz.

Site Model

Massing Actor Network

Section Model

03

Diffraction

Studio: Poiesis I | First Year, Fall 2022

Coordinator: Eddy Man Kim

Section Instructor: Daniel Tompkins

Site Location:

Green Bay West Shores

Green Bay, Wisconsin 54313

As the culmination of my first studio, this project practiced fundamental design and representation skills through a pavilion intervention in a chosen landscape. This pavilion had to present two separate moments of rest while staying confined in a small footprint to minimize environmental effects. Working only in hand drafting, analog drawing, and physical modeling, I had to define the structural tectonics through dimensional lumber and illustrate its human experience.

Entitled Diffraction, my pavilion carves into a sloped bank above the marshy waters of the Bay of Green Bay. Walkers on the lower trail encounter a portal that transforms their visual perception of the nature around them, while the light, sounds, and moisture still emanates in between the beams and from the closeness of the ground. Conversely, visitors on the upper trail are elevated onto the roof of the structure, gaining another new visual ground of their surrounding landscape while again being immersed amongst the feel and sounds of the tree canopies.

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Hand-Drafted Sections and Elevation

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Related Works

Materials and Assembly | Fall 2023

Professor: Gerard Damiani

Drawing I & II | Fall 2022, Spring 2023

Professor: Douglas Cooper

Concrete Masonry Wall and Foundation System

Freehand Drawings - Prismacolor Pastels, Conte Crayon, Charcoal

Freehand Perspectives