FOCUS Architectural Portfolio

EMMA GRACE CONNELLY

ARCHITECTURAL PORTFOLIO

FOCUS

Design Statement

There are many ways to tell a story. You could go the traditional route - pen and ink or words spoken over a fire, equipped with rising action and plot. Maybe it’s through a song or in the way someone makes their coffee, two scoops of sugar and a long pour of cream, just how their mom makes it. Everybody has a story, yes, but the difference is in how we tell it.

I see every design as a story. Brick and mortar are far from words, but how they’re laid - why they’re laid - is different. A structure is erected to fill a void, resurrected to serve a new purpose, a new reason. We spend so much money, time, and effort - but for what?

My passion lies in the details behind each reason. I design to answer society’s call, to place another ring in history’s tree.

Every person has a story; mine is to design spaces that support each and every one, to put the focus on those we design for.

Table of Contents

1

Focus

9

Luminescence

13

Reflections

17

Reaching New Heights

20

Sliding Spaces

25

Brick by Brick

27

Clemson University Planning and Design

30

Writing Experience

FOCUS

Designed in collaboration with Abigayle Hatcher, this coworking office in the Chelsea District of New York City aims to unlock the potential inside the diverse range of residents in local public housing by providing various creative opportunities and spaces.

Mass Design Development

Massing Iterations

Final Massing

2

The goal of this project was to provide a space to unlock the Chelsea residents’ potential while catering to the neurodivergent community. This starts from the entrance with a non-stimulating facade and lobby that calms the guest upon entry.

FOCUS

Emma Grace Connelly & Abigayle Hatcher

Ground Plan

E l e v a t i o n

S o u t h

E l e v a t i o n

27th Street

N o r t h North Elevation

South Elevation

N

Ground Floor Plan 10 th Ave

3

W e s Elevation t E l e v a t i o n West

We dedicated an entire floor to helping neurodivergent persons focus. This is achieved by lowering the ceiling, selecting materials that do not contribute to noise amplification, and dimming the lights. This floor also features both portable and permanent sensory walls that ground the user.

Wall Section 0’

2.5’

Focus Floor Wall Section Upper Atrium Wall Section

Wall Section

E a sElevation t E l e v a t i o n East

4

Watercolor and Embroidery on Fabric - Concepts Conceptual Watercolor Conceptual on Paper - Lobby

Conceptual on Paper and Fabric - Lobby

5

Inspired by our sensory walls in the design, our Sensory Renders become a grounding tool that communicates the building’s atmosphere through the layering of color, paper, and embroidery.

Sensory Rendering - West Facade

Sensory Rendering - Lobby

Sensory Rendering - Focus Floor

6

Close-up of West Facade Details

Close-up of Southeast Entrance

Using balsa wood and contact paper, our facade model communicates the tiling pattern and corten steel accents on the building’s exterior.

Facade Model

7

Southeast Entrance through Cityscape Northwest Angle through Cityscape

Cityscape Massing Model

The cityscape massing model communicates how the structure’s form relates to the buildings around it and the highline.

8

Luminescence This civic center in Cayce, SC guides guests through space with the use of light. As art has revitalized this community, this path through the center represents the future itself.

9

VCU Institute of Contemporary Art

Massing

Above are my explorations of congregation, circulation, orthogonal lines, and contours of my precedent, the VCU institute of contemporary art, and my massing.

10

11

6) Restrooms 7) Janitorial 8) Stroller/Coat Area 9) Art Shop 10) Cafe 11) Studios 12) Classrooms 13) Gallery

2 2

4

2

12

13 2

Section Perspective - Lobby

Section Perspective - Gallery

11

10 2

2

1

2

5

4

2

2 8

4 12

7

1 9 4

3

0’ 10’

20’

6

2

13

Cou

2

1

30’

First Floor Plan on Site

Second Floor Plan

11

Lobby Rendering

Exterior Rendering

Courtyard Rendering

Gallery Rendering 12

Reflections This field house at the Snow Center in Clemson, South Carolina caters to students using the lake area while becoming a reflection of the natural beauty around it.

13

Floor and Patio Plan

14

Model Photo

Axon Drawing

15

The goal for this project was to create a space that catered to the many amenities offered by the Snow Center for Clemson students, like watersports, activity rentals, and general universal space.

Lawn Rendering

Lake View Rendering

Patio Rendering

16

Reaching New Heights This project is all about reaching new levels, both in knowledge of architectural tools and the structure itself. My partner, Shamitha Nandi, and I learned how to work with topography and technology like 3D printers and laser cutters in this exercise specifically geared to build fundamental modeling skills.

17

Model Photo

Exploded Axonometric

Rendering 18

Section

Plan

Section 19

Sliding Spaces Sliding Spaces focused on taking a project from inspiration to final design through a series of methods: orthographic projection, breaking down core values, and presenting the main idea in a new way. My inspiration, a vegetable steamer, led to the creation of an exterior courtyard that stimulates the mind, especially neurodivergent students.

20

Orthographic Drawing Emma Grace Connelly Section 7

0

1

3

6 Orthographic Drawing

21

This concept analysis drawing breaks down the vegetable steamer into its core function, serving as a bridge between water and steam.

Concept Analysis Drawing

22

Movement Analysis

23

01 3 Motion Diagram

0’

25’

50’

75’

6

9

Plan Rendering

24

Brick by Brick This analysis of Sikes Hall on Clemson University’s campus served as the perfect launchpad from which to learn the fundamentals of architecture, including both design concepts and different methods of representation.

25

Model Photo

Elevation Drawing

Experiential Drawing

26

Clemson University Planning and Design I had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects during the Summer of 2023 at Clemson University Planning and Design.

27

These drawings were completed in AutoCAD for the Poole Hall ADA renovation in Clemson’s agriculture campus. The updates include the addition of a rain shelter and two ramps, one through the courtyard and one leading to the hall’s door.

28

These viewcaptures are taken from some preliminary design models I worked on in SketchUp for new Douthit Hills privacy enclosures.

Douthit B Option 1

Douthit E Options

29

Writing Experience Excerpt: The Land of Milk and Honey: A Timeless Ideal It’s impossible to comprehend the entirety of human history. There’s limitless data and facts about every civilization across the globe – their architecture, culture, rise and fall – but especially their religion. Despite their differences in location and beliefs, nearly every religion on the globe has some form of common ground, whether it’s the impact of a savior’s blood or certain paths that lead a disciple to another realm. In the context of the 2021 Venice Architectural Biennale, Israel’s Pavilion Land. Milk. Honey. and Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp exhibit a connection that straddles centuries through an ideal held by both Judaism and Christianity.

30

Writing Experience Excerpt: Stick Figures Sometimes it felt as though these ghosts of the past still clung to him, twin vultures of smoke and shadow sitting on his shoulders. Two years after the crash he somehow survived. Two years during which he’d forgotten the sound of his mother’s voice and the crinkle of his father’s eyes when he smiled. Two years of moving forward when all he wanted to do was sink into the ground beside them, together again at long last. ...

And he certainly wasn’t afraid of the woods, even as it swallowed him whole with towering pines and the reeking stench of life. As with every night of the summer, the trees were singing. Katydids screeched from their hiding places amongst the tall grass surrounding the path, fighting for harmony with the crickets. Deer tracks marred the red clay in meandering paths. In the canopy overhead, whippoorwills cried out as if searching for something in the failing light, beautiful notes dripping with loneliness. Dusk fell over it all, lulling half the world to sleep but rousing the rest.

31

Writing Experience Excerpt: Safe The woods are still yet full. Crowded with the kind of silence that rides the coattails of summer, the liveliness of the past months a faded decrescendo. A shadow of what once was, tucked away in the depths of the towering pines.

Quill walks among them, a stranger in the presence of giants. Though August has long passed, the trail is an overgrown riot heavy with the scent of decay. Queen Anne’s lace has fallen away into brown stalks, surrounded by faded greenery. Brown pine straw muffles his steps on the familiar path he’s walked countless tiems with friends in boyhood, a few girls under the cover of night.

He can’t help but realize that everything has changed but the trees, the trees They stay the same. Stagnant; growing but never changing, never moving. Rooted in tradition, snapshots of time trapped within their spiral cores. The pines wave in the wind as if beckoning him inside, and like all the times before, Quill obliges. Not for the creek or blackberries of late June but for a standard sweep.

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EMMA GRACE CONNELLY emmacon5@icloud.com (803) 944 - 5857 www.linkedin.com/in/emma-grace-connelly-653153267