Eliza Williamson Design Portfolio

Eliza Williamson

E: erwil102@syr.edu T: 646 596 1603 A: 285 Avenue C, Apt MH New York, NY 10009

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table of contents 4

Low and Behold

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Three Fingers

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Hide and Seek

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Crafting the Ruination of Lloyd’s

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...Ruin Drawing

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...Matterllwyd

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Other Representation

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Low Rise Turned High-rise A Prospective Collage to warn

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Low and Behold

challenging elitist housing redevelopments in NYC

Low and Behold proposes a new urban housing scheme for the redevelopment of the Domino Sugar Factory Site. Our thesis emerges as a response to Shop’s proposal by activating a counter argument.

We do not like the height of the buildings in their proposed scheme, both in their stature and in the shadows they cast on the Williamsburg Neighborhood. The proposed set of building plans create an urban wall, limiting waterfront accessibility from the public.

This is not to say that our project only exists through the negation of Shop’s proposal. Rather our approach has been informed by concerns realized through our research and the realities of urban housing development. The perpetuation of disparity.

The combination of the identified urban needs and responses to environmental concerns drove us to create an elevated mat building proposal that aims to be used as a site of activity, of diversity, of inclusion, not claimed by a designated group of individuals. The building encourages movement through and around with a system of ramps that carry visitors through the building, up, and around. By designing for flexible program and versatile needs and interests, our project entertains a multiplicity of meaning.

Project created in collaboration with Matthew Alpert.

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PUBLIC AUDITORIUM EXTENDED RAMP AS FERRY PIER

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AMPITHEATER WITH PUBLIC RESTROOMS

SYSTEM OF SCAFFOLDING

STRUCTURE BRIDGES OVER KENT AVENUE

ENTRY STEPS WITH PLATFORMS FOR VENDORS

SL EN

Longitudinal Section Perspective Drawing by Eliza Williamson

LOW RAMP EXTENDS AS NTRANCE TO BUILDING

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REDLINING PERSISTS YO UA RE

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FOURTH GRADE “HAZARDOUS” THIRD GRADE “DECLINING” SECOND GRADE “STILL DESIRABLE”

BROOKLYN 1938 REDLINING MAP LAYERED OVER MODERN DAY BROOKLYN STREET MAP

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Brooklyn Redlining Diagrams Drawings by Eliza Williamson

REDLINING PERSISTS SITE LOCATED ON BORDER OF FOURTH GRADE ZONE, A HISTORICALLY INDUSTRIAL AREA.

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A NOTICEABLE CORRELATION BETWEEN DENSITY CBIKE ROUTES AND SUBWAYS

YO UA RE

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TRANSIT HUB SPROUTING FROM WATERFRONT INTO FOURTH GRADE ZONE TO DELIVER SERVICE TO OUTER BROOKLYN

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FOURTH GRADE “HAZARDOUS” THIRD GRADE “DECLINING” SECOND GRADE “STILL DESIRABLE” BIKE ROUTES SUBWAY BROOKLYN 1938 REDLINING MAP LAYERED OVER MODERN DAY BROOKLYN STREET MAP

THE LOCATION OF CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE WITHIN PREDOMINANTLY FOURTH GRADE ZONE,THERE EXISTS MULTIPLE PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECTS AND SCHOOLS, INLAND FROM THE WATERFRONT.

PERCENTAGES OF LAND COVERAGE PER ZONE

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YO UA RE

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LACK OF ACCESS TO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND HOSPITALS ON WATERFRONT SITE REVEALS CORRELATION BETWEEN 20TH CENTURY ZONING AND PERSISTANCE OF ECONOMIC SEGRAGATION BY LACK OF ACCESS TO CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE.

FOURTH GRADE “HAZARDOUS” THIRD GRADE “DECLINING” SECOND GRADE “STILL DESIRABLE” BIKE ROUTES SUBWAY HOSPITALS HOSPITALS PUBLIC HOUSING

42%

32%

24%

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SHOP PROPOSAL SITE ANALYSIS

AREAS OF INTEREST ARTIFICIAL GRADE ON WATERFRONT; HOW TO DEAL WITH FLOODPLANE/ RIVER ACCESS

566’ 435’

560’ 530’ 435’

466’ 435’

460’

100’

40’ 70’

GRAND STREET

SOUTH 1ST

SOUTH 2ND

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SOUTH 3RD

SOUTH 4TH

SOUTH 5TH

BROAD WAY

320’ 190’

170’

EXISTING AND NEW; HOW TO D WITH REALITY OF HEIGHT DIFF

DEAL FERENCE

Domino Sugar Factory Redevelopment Diagrams

INCLUSIONARY HOUSING EXPLAINED

WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE THOUGHTS ON TRAFFRIC, HEIGHT, NOISE, SIGHT

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AX M

Y OR ST AX M

X MA RY STO ) 33 FAR 7 (3.

X MA RY STO ) 23 FAR 7 (3.

HOW TO PUT A LARGE MATTE BUILDING IN THE CONTEXT

HOW TO PUNCTURE THE BUILDING +20-25% FLOOR AREA AFFORDABLE

HOW TO OCCUPY THE GROUND FLOOR

3.7 FAR

4.7 FAR

R6 LAND PARCEL R8 LAND PARCEL

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Sectional Perspective Drawing by Eliza Williamson

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KE

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Axonometric Diagrams Drawings by Eliza Williamson

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IN

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Sectional Perspectives Drawing by Eliza Williamson

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E AV

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E AV

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Scattered Study Models

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1:32 Scale Model

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Full Sectional View 1:32 Scale Model

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Three Fingers This project examines the relationship brought about by the separate existence of Kirk and Onondaga Park in Syracuse, NY. In situation, the parks exist on opposite spectrum physically, socially, and economically, only to be linked together by a green belt that runs through them. The intention for the project comes from a desire to connect these situations by bringing people together to a collective space where various needs within the community are programmatically active, such as health, exercise, and childcare.

This project does not preference one park to the other, one person to the other. Rather this new space affords inclusion with formal moves to reach out, and bring in.

The site within the park is a sunken, amphitheater space. This sunken space inspires the want to occupy, to fill, and to flood. The project is initiated by the action of carving three canals out of the site, to bring the water of Onondaga Lake in. The space in between and around the canals is driven by human movement about the site, by interactions with outdoor space, pavilions, indoor shelters, and water that are encouraged but not defined. Program does exist, however, the space is not predefined and in that way rigid to a singular meaning, rather, open to plurality brought about by human interaction and choice.

The project is controlled in its overall axial organization, but is not constrained. The project creates points of intensity for architecture to house human interaction. There is not one stressed center to which the project revolves, rather nodes to which the project pulsates.

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TO

TO

K

I ON RK ON PA DA RK GA

Site Scheme

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HYDROPONICS AND GREENWALL DAYCARE CENTER

4’ 8’

12’

16’

20’ 24’

28’ 32’

COURTS ON THE WATER

BATHHOUSE

SWIM CANAL

SUN DECK

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OFF

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8 8

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7

OFF

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Initial Site Strategy Collage

Site Axonometric

D B

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TRANSVERSE SECTION 1/16”=1’

A

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Site Axonometric

YEAR 1 WILLOWS

CLASSROOM

YEAR 2 WILLOWS

YEAR 3 WILLOWS

ACTIVITY SHELTER AND STORAGE

GREENHOUSE

LABS

EXHIBITION

LAB GARDEN

SITE PLAN HYBRID AXONOMETRIC SCALE: 1"=50'

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SITE PLAN HYBRID AXONOMETRIC SCALE: 1/16”=1’

Hide and Seek a Park within the willows

With a requirement for half of the site to be used for the growth and harvesting of the Willow Tree, the willow is fundamental to the design of the landscape. The willow informs the organization of the site in that the site must be suitable for the variables posed by harvesting. The harvesting process is accomplished by the plowing of land with one tractor, and the collection of the plowed product in another truck. The interaction between these machines is formally interesting. The tractor plows and reaches an arm over to act as the harnesser, the catalyst to the willow trees transition from natural to tangible, as a biofuel source. The willow is not permanent. It occupies space, but leaves that space open after harvest. This brings opportunity for interaction between the willows and programmatic buildings, structures, etc. Where at times the willow will define space, other times the willows are implicative of absence and leave undefined, but potential space. What does impermanence mean to architecture, a practice that is so understood through stability and endurance?

The willow is to be grown solely within the bands. Plots within these bands are allocated for the greenhouse, labs, classroom, and exhibition spaces. The Willow Trees surround the vicinity of these buildings, and their existence is respected. The willows move out of the way for the naturally occurring trees on site, but mostly they are L=left alone to grow. In the sense that the willows act as a border, the design of the site must be treated as to alleviate the border system, and bring about an interconnected park. Borders exist all throughout the Onondaga region, especially in the urban center of Syracuse. The elevated Interstate 81 cuts a divide between East and West Syracuse, between the University and 15th Ward, respectively.

The willows contain the program of the site, in strips that act as a disguise to the buildings within. The simplicity in the form and design of the architecture comes from the need for these buildings to integrate into the willows and hide. It is when the willows are mowed that these buildings and the ways in which they hide within the willows are revealed. Similarly, there exit spaces within the willows that are essentially rooms dictated by frame. To this regard, plants and the willows are encouraged to grow and roam through these buildings. Time is of the essence to this project, for, it enacts different formal relationships between the strips.

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Preliminary Diagrams and Collages

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BORDER

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Crafting the Ruination of Lloyd’s Does ruin imply negation? Can ruin be productive?

Phase 1: 1:50 Foam-core Model to demonstrate craft of Lloyd’s Building, crafted by six team members.

The craft of the model parallels the systemization of the building itself.

Lloyd’s is created in such a way that the building can be added onto and vice versa. The notion of a building that adapts, and can adapt afforded by its systemization, is the main impetus for the model. The model is a reduction of Lloyd’s to highlight the contrast between its exterior complexities and interior simplicities. The gridded floor-plates, created in an assembly line manner, are light and tectonic. The stairs, elevators, and mechanical equipment, a unit we called the outlets and plugs, are dense and organized, and pose as a testament to the adaptability of the building.

Phase 2: A0 drawing of imagined ruined state of building depicted through model.

The Spectrum of Consumption fixates on the grid of the floor-plates, and imagines A history in which once these floor-plates acted as organizer, but time tells that the grid has slowly become a shell of itself. In that way, the vertical structure organizes a spectrum of the grid. On the bottom, the building eats at itself in order to grow above, it is a quarry. As the building grows, the middle levels organize the chaos of the ground condition to resemble a factory that very much works within the grid. Old parts are used and re-purposed for the input of the old and the output of the new. Finally, as the building continues, a new system of scaffolding is introduced to posit the potentials for a new system withing the grid.

Phase 3: A0 drawing of imagined resettlement of ruin depicted in model and ruin drawing with 1:50 portioned model to further investigate rehabitation.

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1:50 Model Photos and Process Film Stills

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Ruin Drawing Created by Jonathan Pang, Hanneke van Deursen, and Eliza Williamson

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Resettlement of Ruin: Matterllywd

Speculation on growth and accumulation of the Lloyd’s Building in a future neo-capitalist London This reoccupation of Lloyd’s explores the states of cancerous growth that bring about a building that functions in conflict, between high and low, outside and inside, heaven and hell. As a difficult whole, it operates as a hyper-exaggerated condition of antithesis.

The structure manifests the conditions of that past that pressure such growth and meditates on the effects of commodity and capital accumulation for London’s built future. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, this project posits an imagined world that is drastic, even an absurdest commentary on capital, but ultimately it is a foreseeable future.

Resettlement of Ruin: Model Zooming into a dense zone withing the structures aggregation, this model explores the circulation and connection between accumulated parts. This model, in reference to the drawing can be seen as a mountain of circulation that rests on a landscape of other accumulated parts that have been compacted in a way to depict the compression that results from constant aggregation on top of what is existing. A metaphor can be drawn from the image of cars or garbage being compacted within a chute. The model can be seen as a case study of learning by doing, as a testament to what beings to happen to prefabricated, systematized parts in the Lloyd’s building after the building implodes on itself. New forms are tested, created, reworked, nuancing previous functions for interesting interventions.

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Materllwyd exists, in itself, as a total spectrum between low and high, below and above, terrestrial and celestial, heaven and hell.

The difficulty is in cohesion, Materllwyd operates in conflict, operating as a hyper exaggerated condition of antithesis.

Schematic Collage

...above, the atmosphere, above the sidewalks and configurations of roads of concrete and bedrock that extrude down below tube lines, below sewers, below gravesites.

To be protected, to be elevated, to be elite, to be fortified.

HEAVEN

CONSTRUCTION

ABOVE

PURGATORY

STAGNATION

INTERSTITIAL

Desire to grow is a product of the fear of what lies beneath us.

If Materllwyd rejects the ground and the external world, how does it operate by any other dynamic than isolation.

It is as if to say the effort of building, in a cancerous aggregation, allows for a dream in progression, thus in sight.

The moment that aggregation is put to holt, the spectacle of accumulation falter.

Building as a defense mechanism.

ORIGINAL ROUTES ALTERED ROUTES

HELL

DESTRUCTION

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BELOW

Plans of Lower and Upper Floors

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1:50 Fragment Model Photographed atop pages of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

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E: erwil102@syr.edu T: 646 596 1603 A: 285 Avenue C, Apt MH New York, NY 10009