2023 Portfolio

Table of Contents

Streamline

How can the built environment impact human behavior through zoning?

How do we design lifelong communities for aging in place?

How can architecture improve social equity?

How can the built environment impact human behavior through zoning?

How does the built environment impact our psyche?

How can urban planing and design work together to promote wellness?

How can the urban environment encourage walkability and combat climate issues?

Streamline

IC Bench Proposal

Streamline - “to design or provide a form that presents very little resistance to a flow of air or water, increasing speed and ease of movement.”

This studio tasked students to develop bench proposals for an existing campus building. Each group presented a final bench design to be built next semester.

The current existing space is rather open with existing benches and furniture for students to rest between classes. At the same time, students use this space to transition to their next class.

Our team’s proposal occupies the middle of the space and opts to keep the existing benches along the exterior: optimizing moments of rest, studying, and student interaction.

The bench’s main concept was to exist without disrupting the space’s circulation as many students would rush through the space between class changes. Instead, it would respond to the existing circulation and offer little resistance to the natural flow of traffic.

The main focus of the design was to create zones and encourage different types of social interaction within the space: group and individual.

Its organic form plays with subtractions to prevent the bench from feeling overwhelmingly heavy and static. These subtractions would also allow for clear lines of sight across the room.

The bench juxtaposed metal and wood and encompassed a skeleton framework: the true heart of the bench. The structure was designed by rolling metal tubing and welding the tubing together. Then, tabs were welded onto the “skeleton” in order to later connect the wooden elements. Before the wooden components were added, the panels were connected to the framework to hide the framework. After that, the wooden tables and end grain seats were screwed onto the tabs, and then the perforated metal pieces were screwed below the seats. The transparency of the perforated metal allowed for a glimpse of what was going on inside the bench without explicitly showing how the sausage gets made.

As a final detail, the bench’s steel was capped with wood to soften the form and prevent people from hurting themselves. Each wooden end-grain seat was designed to be modular in order to make it easier to assemble. Each seat would be glued up and then shaped by the CNC machine to create a smooth seat that nearly hugs you as you sit. Then, the seats would be connected back together and have a bowtie connection for appeal. This bench will be presented to the faculty next semester along with the other group benches. One will be selected to be built in the IC.

* This project was a collaborative project with Lizzie Turac, Linna Xia, and Alex Zheng. Each member contributed to all parts of the project. Lizzie Turac focused mostly on the seat, wood design, and perforated steel, Linna Xia on the structure and steel, and Alex Zheng on the form and detailed assembly drawings.

How can the built environment impact our actions and behaviors?

Can a bench design creates zones for different social interaction within a previously open space?

Senior Studio - Collaboration with Linna Xia and Alex Zheng* Chris Simon

Combining Prototypes from Each Team Member

Midterm Physical Model

- Lizzie Turac

Exploded Model Diagram - Linna Xia

Section of Model Assembly - Alex Zheng

Circulation Diagram - Linna Xia

Plan and Elevations - Lizzie Turac

Modeled Bench - Lizzie Turac

Perspective Views in IC - Lizzie Turac

Panel Connection to Structure Detail - Alex Zheng

Average Material for Endgrain Seats - Lizzie Turac

Frame and seat connection -Alex Zheng

All Aboard for Aging in Place

Healthcare Design of the Future

Team - Lizzie Turac, Emily Mosbaugh, Aleksandra Jelenkovic, Paige Towler, Matt Warrington Senior Elective Yousef Bushehri

How can the evidence-based design improve public health and promote aging in place? How can we design for light rail stops that accommodate the needs of the elderly, allowing them to stay in their homes longer and maintain autonomy?

The class offered students an interdisciplinary opportunity for evidence-based design. This semester, the class focused on aging adults and how the built environment could prevent them from aging in place. This proposal looked at transit systems and how they could be designed to encourage accessibility and safety for the aging population.

The final proposal is a guideline for stations for the new light rail which will be constructed on Atlanta’s Beltline by 2050. The decisions were minimal as to only make intentional choices to encourage autonomy for aging adults.

The group looked at different personas: a person who uses a wheelchair, someone visually impaired, and someone diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. The group was curious about how these personas navigate transit and how could guidelines be put into place to ease the journey. If the journey continues to be difficult adults would find themselves relocating or avoiding public transportation in general. Ultimately, they would be unable to age in place unless they wanted to sacrifice their autonomy. This project’s proposal combats that dilemma by addressing mobility, safety, and wayfinding within transit stations. The beltline’s light rail will provide connections to various healthcare facilities, so it is important that the aging population utilize these means of transportation. Overall, it would improve the quality of life for older adults.

This design proposal would start a movement to design for lifelong communities because what benefits the older generations benefits all generations: universal design.

The proposal could also act as a model for all future transit stations as it’s much easier to begin planning with these guidelines in mind than to work backward. That being said, the guidelines are minimal and can be implemented into existing transit.

Moving forward, there is a need to look further than the station when proposing solutions. Interventions must begin at the space between the home and the station. They must also be continued into the train car itself.

Station Design and Renders - Lizzie Turac

Wayfinding

• Color coded trains & paths

• Clear and contrasting signage

User Experience

• smooth ramps & level platforms

• spakers with unique tones for arriving/departing trains, and when bollards move

Physical

• non-slip surfaces & retractable bollards

• wider sidewalks & right of ways for pedestrians

User arrives at the train station

Paul is overwhelmed by the signs, number of people and winding hallways

Include something specific about issues with buying a ticket

Has difficulty using problem-solving skills and focusing attention on wayfinding

wait for train

User takes longer than normal to arrive to train station due to accessibility issues around the city

User uses elevator to navigate the station, feeling anxious and unsafe

User struggles to purchase a ticket due to the height of the ticket booth

User has a hard time knowing when the train is coming and which train to taket

User asks for help from other train-riders but struggles to communicate

exit at correct stop

Once user finds the correct train and enters, they struggle to know which stop is theirs due to a lack of signage

User arrives at the train station

User struggles to navigate the station and is frustrated with the lack of contrasting signage

User takes more time than normal to buy a ticket at the ticket booth

User waits for train to arrive and worries about boarding

User has trouble boarding the train, as there is an uneven grade change and needs assistance

After boarding, the wheelchair user has trouble getting out of wheelchair into a seat

User is anxious thinking about how to exit and needs assistance to get back into wheelchair

User has trouble leaving train with grade change and navigating out of the station

User has a hard time knowing which train is theirs, again due to unclear signage at the station

User has trouble boarding correct training and gaging where grade change occurs between train and platform

Once user finds the correct train and enters, they struggle to know which stop is theirs due to a lack of signage

Eventually gets off at correct stop based on carefully observing surroundings and navigates way out of station

Signage

arriving at station

navigate station identify and

board

MCI

Journeymapping Personas - Aleksandra Jelenkovic

Graphs - Paige Towler and Matt Warrington

West Arcades

The West Arcades are a proposal for a mixed-use affordable housing development on a currently empty, overgrown site in Atlanta’s West End, a neighborhood that has seen dramatic socioeconomic and racial demographic shifts over the past 100 years. It was a predominantly white neighborhood until the white flight in the 1960s. This proposal aims to provide more opportunities for the community.

The West Arcades includes single and family units as well as a family support center inspired by Georgia’s Head Start program. For context, 37.2% of the children in the West End fall below the poverty line and the new proposal’s program would provide education and leadership to the children, their families, and the community.

The public portion of the project will provide the neighborhood with communal spaces to cultivate new skills. It will feature a teaching kitchen, a rooftop garden, a flex space, and a kid’s maker space.

This new program brings the site back full-circle to the most recent building to occupy the site, the Peeples Street School, which was demolished in the 80s.

Mixed-Use Affordable Housing Junior Studio Ryan Roark

From a plan view, the project’s form is an uneven horseshoe shape, intended to define the north end of the site as an enclosed community centered around the library.

From a sectional perspective, the project’s form plays with the pre-existing topography. It changes by a half-level at various parts of the project. As a result, the building appears to cascade down the slope. The curves of the barrel vaults reinforce the cascading movement and pay tribute to the vaults on the existing library.

The project consists of two wings: the residential and the public. The public space is located in the Northern wing which is aligned with the library. This encourages individuals that use the library to enter the public space and vice versa.

The public wing focuses on spaces for children in the neighborhood, but in doing so it lacks communal space for residents to interact with one another. Therefore, pocket communal spaces are designed within the residential wing.

The residential wing is composed of modular single and multifamily units. Each unit is aimed to provide affordable housing to the neighborhood.

How can architecture improve social equity? How can can a new built environment coexisit with an exisiting environment?

Experimenting with Modular Units

Precedent Study - Treehouse Coliving Apartments

The representative model abstracts public and private spaces. Public = translucent & Private = opaque

Timeline of West End Neighborhood

The

Hammonds

Wren’s Nest is built.

The Southern Terraco�a Works is founded, influencing popular building materials in the area.

Peeples Street School opens.

Invented

Federal troops at nearby McPherson Barracks and the crea�on of a black college (today Clark Atlanta University) causes a black middle class popula�on to flourish.

West End finds its rail and road infrastructure to be strategic for the Confederacy and sees ba�le in the form of the Ba�le of Ezra Church.

Atlanta annexes West End as a district ward and begins suburbaniza�on. A large number of single family residences appear, while Gordon and Lee streets see an increase in commercial buildings and churches.

Private homes were of modest size and price. The inven�on of the automobile helps further drive the growth of West End as a suburb.

Historic Preservation Documents of West End found in Georgia Tech Archives

in Chicago, Balloon Frame housing spreads across the South.

St. Anthony’s Church

Romanesque Revival

town of White Hall (now West End) emerges around Whitehall Tavern, which serves as the central hub of town by providing not only food, drink, and rest but also postal services and mee�ng space.

House is built.

Revival Style becomes popular.

A

West

Peeples

Hammonds House becomes a museum.

Gordon

West End Library completed.

Westside

Mall development and improved transportaion infrastructure fail to prevent white residents of West End from moving elsewhere as black Americans move back into the West End community. streets

West End finds itself the epicenter of a larger scandal facing Atlanta. Houses skyrocket in value a�er they are falsely declared rehabbed.

The BeltLine brings in new development in and around West End. Old warehouses converted into the Lee + White mul�-use complex and Mall West End sees repeated a�empts for conversion into another mul�-use complex. Exis�ng residents feel priced out as home values rose 49% from 2013 to 2017.

Trail, an extension of the BeltLine, opens.

St. renamed Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard.

End Mall and MARTA sta�on open.

Church and Joseph E. Brown High School are completed.

Street School shuts down.

bustling business district, Gordon and Lee streets house businesses such as Sears and Piggly Wiggly.

Site Plan - Oak St and Peeples St off of Abernathy Road

1 - Lobby and Cafe 2 - Communal Recreational Space & Technology 3 - Bathrooms 4 - Flex Communal Space 5 - Flex Communal Space 6 - Learning Kitchen 7 - Residental Communal Recreational Space 8 - Study Space 9 - Educational Space 10 - Bathroom 11 - Maker Space 12 - Roof-Top Garden 13 - Children Daycare 14- Residental Communal Space

Plan View of Roof Materials - Glass and Corrugated Metal

Axon of West Arcades + Relation to Exisiting Library

Roof Materiality

1 - Lobby and Cafe

2 - Communal Recreational Space & Technology

3 - Bathrooms

4 - Flex Communal Space

5 - Flex Communal Space

6 - Learning Kitchen

Plan 1

Plan 2

8 - Study Space

9 - Educational Space

10 - Bathroom

11 - Maker Space

12 - Roof-Top Garden

13 - Children Daycare

14- Residental Communal Space Plan 3

Two Bedroom - A A

Lofts

Two Bedroom - B

B Lofts

The Part and The Whole

How can the built environment impact human behavior? Can a flexible, movable partion wall encourage different social interactions by creating new zones within a studio space?

Studio Partion Wall Junior Studio Judge Leblanc

Studio spaces lack division: the kitchen is in the bedroom, and the bedroom is in the living room. This partition proposal is intended to create flexible zones within a studio space. The partition proposal separates the living space from the bedroom space without completely closing off one zone from the next. In fact, the partition is designed kinetically and can close seamlessly into itself. This way the space can either be open and continuous, partially closed or perhaps completely shut off when hosting guests. Once fully extended, the partition becomes a makeshift wall but still has a threshold opening into each space. Yet if needed to optimize complete isolation into the next zone mirrors can be pulled from within the partition to cut off the threshold as well. While this would close the space, the mirrors would reflect light allowing the space to still feel open despite being shut off.

The Whole - Stationary Partion Wall Component The Part - Kinetic Partion Wall Component

The Art of Subtraction

Asia Society Museum Junior Studio

Jude Leblanc

How does the built environment impact our psyche?

Can filtered natural light and continuous views to the outside evoke a sense of awe?

The proposal for the Asia Society Atlanta museum hosts different artists through its rotating galleries and holds a permanent exhibit: Shigeko Kubota’s Liquid Reality. Most of the design intentions from her exhibit were implemented in the museum design. Her existing exhibit successfully creates a sense of awe by playing with light. Her work pays homage to Duchampians ideals while connecting to technology, light, and referring to Japanese spiritual relations to nature and landscape. The museum proposal also intends to appeal to the psyche by playing with light. It also connects to the exterior landscape. It does this through light, framed views, and pocket gardens.

The form of the museum was shaped through subtractions to the original parti. Each floor’s form was created by subtractions which added onto the previous floor’s subtractions.

These subtractions were done intentionally in order to create the connection to the exterior. In plan these connections are seen through pocket gardens and the main atrium space. In the section the connections are made through light wells and skylights. The interesting light elements become just as an important piece of art as any of the works housed there. In contrast, the exhibit spaces are minimal which allows the art to be focal. The final defining characteristic of the project is seen in its connected views. These views are cut across the entire building through intersecting axis.

Overall, these choices were done in order to provide a dynamic experience for those inhabiting the space.

Photos taken from trip to MOMA of Shigeko Kubota - her work inspired the light studies and was chosen as the permanent exhibit for this design proposal

Study Model Photos

Connection to Exterior Through Pocket Gardens

Connection to Exterior Through Light

Connection to Exterior Through Views

Diagram of Subtraction to Create Each Floor’s Form

Axon of Site and Floors Exploded in Context

Cafe/ Restaurant Exhibit Spaces Library Storage Bathrooms Theater Admin

Site Plan of Museum

Third Floor

Third Floor - Connected Views

Second Floor

Third Floor - Connected Views

Third Floor - Connected Views

Ground Floor

Interior Atrium

Section of Courtyard, Reflecting Pool, and Main Stair

Exterior View of Reflecting Pool and Exterior Exhibit

Refuge on the River

How can an intersection of urban planning and architecture improve wellness? How can Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City be utilized in architecture?

Wellness Retreat - Adapative Reuse Sophomore Studio Michelle Rinehart

This proposal is a wellness retreat in Sweetwater Creek State Park. The wellness center embraces the existing ruins and welcomes them into its design .The design aims to create a mini city on the river to allow its visitors to feel like they’re truly escaping their mundane but stressful routines. The design’s intent is to create continuous connections between the landscape, ruins, and river. It further develops this idea by navigating people through its path of circulation. This path allows visitors to look out at the natural surroundings as well as a peek at what’s to come in the journey around the wellness center. It divides the wellness center into three zones: pools, accommodations, and spaces for meditation. Just like water, the program flows in a repeating cycle. All of these characteristics were intended to provide peace of mind to the users.

As mentioned, there was a desire for this wellness center to serve as a mini city on the river. So, the project referenced Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City to ensure that there were key elements included in the design. For instance, the ruins and the large corten steel covering the ruins acted as a landmark. The covering was intended to both protect the ruins as well as the people below. The corten steel was chosen because it would naturally weather over time. The rust would allow it to compliment the wear of the ruins and appeal to the natural presence of the surrounding state park.

Photo of Site - Sweetwater Creek

Accommodation Creek Ruins 61

Landscape

Rising Above the Roots

How can the urban environment encourage walkability and combat climate issues?

Mar Vista Neighborhood Intervention Design Discovery Virtual - Summer 2021

Ian Morey

This project looked at the Marvista, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, to address its problems with mobility. The streets are annotated with large ficus tree trees. Fortunately, these trees provide a lot of shade, a vital element with the rising temperatures. However, the large roots of the trees have penetrated through the sidewalks making the sidewalks unwalkable. The trees could be removed and the sidewalks repaved, however with the rising water risk of flooding in the area and massive tree roots are very necessary. They would prevent the ground from completely eroding away in one swoop. The community would also lose shade. The proposal intends to retain the existing trees, and bring back accessibility for everyone within the community. The solution is an elevated walkway which is rested above the sidewalks and embraces the existing trees. These walkway systems would be designed to allow water drainage, and create a uniform loop that connects the neighborhood to each other.

Ficcus Tree Roots

Compiled Elements of Walkway

Journey of an physically impaired elderly adult + their carepartner walking through the neighborhood