ERIC.PHAM
BERKLEE SCHOOL OF MUSIC
P.01 University Campus Hub
This project focuses on resolving longspan programs in the typology of a tower, reconciling a university program within an urban context
This project investigates the idea of a vertical campus in which university programs and functions are fit into a tower rather than horizontally as a response to a rapidly urbanizing city. The project is tasked to design a campus hub for the Berklee College of Music, a private university centered on music education in Boston.
As such, the building is require to facilate two large performance halls along with a range of programs neccesary for the school all within a tight site boundary.
This design seeks to redfine the private functions of the program into spaces that could meaningfully interact with the urban public. It does so by leveraging the schedule of performances in order to reconfigure the performance spaces into public circulation, drawing visitors in during the day, while hosting events at night.
The building leverages the secluded programs of a music school to organize a heirarchy of spaces through solid and void massings
The building alternates between the two to create projecting views inward into the theaters and outwards towards the city.
The logic extends upwards to larger spaces near the top of the tower.
CONCEPT
The building uses solid and void strategies to create a porous architecture that draws the public through the voids and up into the various programs of the building. The black box for example is meant to transform into a public atrium space when not in use and thus is connected to a public staircase that leads up to the rest of the tower.
The fourth floor centralizes research labs with lounges at the ends overlooking the communal spaces of the third floor.
The fifth floor holds the scene shop underneath the main performance hall with a hydralic lift connecting the shop to the stage. Additionally, two rehersal rooms flank the ends of the shop.
The sixth floor reveals the main performance hall with the green room to the side and the costume shop and dressing rooms located behind the seats
The ground floor includes the public lobbies along with the black box that opens to the public when not in use.
The second floor connects the blackbox with a grand staircase when it is not in use, creating a singular circulation from the street
The third floor surrounds the blackbox with production studios capping the ends with communal lounges
The main performance hall consists of a 1300 seat theater that leverages the angled site in order to create an amphitheater-like space.
The theater reuses the strategy of alternating solid and void in order to allocate seating while hosting the neccesary private programs that goes into running a theater.
A central core of escalators connects the entire theater to the floor belows as well as to the music school programs in the upper half of the tower.
Main Performance Hall
Outdoor Terrace
Full Model
BELL HOOKS ARTIST RESIDENCY
Housing & Artist Residency
This project focuses on designing and resolving an irregular site, reworking a traditional type of American housing into something new for the future of a local community.
Situated in Dorchester, Massachusetts, this projects reconceptualizes the triple-decker typology typical in the New England region into a creative artist residency that adopts the ideology of educator and social critic, Bell Hooks, in order to foster community engagement between artist and residences.
This project frames this relationship through interpretations of flatness. If the internet has flatten access to media and culture, what does it mean to hold an artistic practice? If flatness means to bring onto the same level, could we imagine this operation applied to the domestic and the institutional; To housing and the artist residency. Different readings of flatness in plan, roof, and facade thereby act as devices to examine how we interact with the two, and how they interact with one another.
FOLDING PLANS
The project reference the Maison Gauthier by Atlier Barda as a prescedent to understand seperating institutional and domestic programs. The Maison Gauthier is a house divided into two: the living quarters and a ceramic studio. The house demarcates the two in such a way that relates both together without compromising their individual spatial identities. Like two sides of the same paper, it is almost as if the plan folded onto itself.
Could we then consider this operation as a way to mediate two distinct programs: the artist residency, and the single family residence? The result when applied to the triple-decker creates an interesting condition in which the exterior bay windows become an interior element when the plan folds onto itself. What was once windows that project views outwards, transforms into interior openings that draw viewers inwards. This condition is then explored to circulate audiences from the instiutional sides into common programs shared among the residences
Site Axon (Right)
Maison Gauthier’s Plan
Maison Gauthier’s Plan unfolded
Triple-Decker plan folded
PLANS
The plan folds around the triangular site with each fold switching between domestic programs and institutional programs. The ground floor consists of two gallery spaces, and a series of lounges and offices. The second floor consists of the main studio space along with kitchen, dining, and living areas. The third floor consists of entirely private program of bedrooms and bathrooms.
Level 01 - Open Gallery & Private Residential Rooms
Level 02 - Communal Space & Private Living Rooms and Kitchens
Level 03 - Private Sleeping Quarters
Detail shot of the roof
Back entrance
Detail shot of the facade
TEXAS WETLAND RESEARCH CENTER
ARCH 4556DESIGN STUDIO III
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON
PROFESSOR:
OSWALD JENEWEIN
FALL 2022
Large-scale infrastructural institution in Texas
This project focuses on researching and designing a system that addresses larger broader scale infrastructural problems
With the increasing demand for water, combined with the inevitability of urban sprawl, New communities are being formed within Texas, often without a public water infrastructure system. The question becomes: How do we create architecture that addresses the current issues pertaining to water, while taking the natural landscape and the future climate crisis into account.
This project proposes a research center that would be deployed among future major reservoirs locations in order to conserve, store, analyze and redistribute water to surrounding communities.
Each center will be developed in conjunction with a constructed wetland in order to midigate the dangers of building within a flood zone as well as create a system of water collection and filtration that functions during the rainy season, and stores water during drought seasons. By re-imaging how we interact with water, we can create a housing solution that becomes integrated with the landscape rather than obstruct or destroy it.
SITE CONTEXT
Over the next few decades, municipal water demand in Texas is expected to become 40% of Texas’ annual water demand, becoming the fastest growing category of water usage. Meanwhile, the location of the public water supply in Texas is concentrated among the three major cities that form the Texas Triangle, leaving the interior rural regions with few water supply stations far in between.
On the Right is the proposed site map for this project. According to the Brazos River Authrority, this will be the site of a future resevoir that supply water to the outskirts of rural Houston. The project proposes the addition of a constucted wetland to go along with the resevoir in order to create a system of water conservation, using the George W. Shannon Wetlands project by the Tarrent Regional Water District as a prescedent.
THE COMMUNITY
Locations of Future Resevoirs / Proposed Sites (Above)
Site Diagram (Above) Site
ARCHITECTURE
This projects looks into the Kengo Kuma’s project: “Nest we grow” as a way to concieve a method of organizing a self sustaining unit. From there, the project combines this method with the stilt house typology in order to create a new rural identity for a Texas architecture. One that is adapted specifically to water. Each unit was designed as a single part to a larger whole.
As such, the screen that envolopes the building is designed to connect to one another to form a unified mass. The collected rainwater is either used for gardening by a unit or will pass down along an aquaduct that leads back to a filtration station in order to be filtered and stored for future use.
NINE SQUARE GREENHOUSE
Community Garden
PERSONAL PROJECT SUMMER 2024
This project focuses on designing and engineering the technical components that goes into creating a space that facilitate the neccesary functions of a community garden.
The structure act as both a space to foster an active community garden, but also as a space for congregation with a built-in cafe that manifest the community’s effort into a shared space for meeting and eating.
Rather than imposing a man-made logic into the interior, the layout follows a more free form expression tailored to the natural environment. In that sense the structure acts more like a momentary glimpse onto the wild landscape that sits beneath it.
Section (above)
Plan (above)
SAN PIETRO RETREAT
Pilgrimage Center in Tuscania
PERSONAL PROJECT SUMMER 2024
This project focuses on designing a vision for a temporary architecture, working with a historical context
Set within the compounds of the San Pietro Church in Tuscania, the site acts as an important destination for the catholic event known as “Jubilee”. Occuring every 25 years, millions of pilgrims travel to various sites around Italy within the year, celebrating spiritual renewal and forgiveness. The project proposes an extension to the church of San Pietro that would house incoming pilgrims, with a communal space that fosters spiritual reflection.
The projects deals with themes of history vs. contemporary, and permanent vs. temporary. The buildings themselves are designed to house pilgrims during the year, transition into an artist residency, and then ultimately dismantled until the event occurs again. With this, the project is designed to interfere with the existing context as minimally as possible, instead generating new spaces within the compound.
Reception
2. Meditation Space 3. Restrooms 4. Shop 5. Bedrooms
6. Laundry
Key:
1. Kitchen
2. Dining Hall
3. Restrooms
4. Meditation Spaces
5. Bedrooms
INTERIORS
The massing of the new buildings comprise of gables mirroring the the basilica form of the Romanesque church. Puncturing each massing are skylights that merge and highlight the private rooms where pilgrims will reside. The skylights provide a connection towards the sky above, creating an immersive meditative space for pilgrims to reflect upon.during their prolonged stay.
FACADE
The facade of the building is made out of cork panels designed and arranged to resemble the stone masonary of the historic church. Additionally, the facade is meant to be dismantled to be recycled, reinterpreting the image of history into the contemporary notion of returning built materials to the earth. The facade contributes towards goals of sustainability while leveraging the temporary nature of the historic event.
Rendered in Cinema4D (Below)
Rendered in Cinema4D (Above)
CIVIC MAT
Community Center in Chinatown
This project focuses on understanding an irregular site to design for a specific community.
Chinatown within Boston has a rich history of developing independently from the city. Historically, the neighborhood has leverage the power of protesting to fight against encroaching forces and develop a strong identity and community. With this in mind, the Civic Mat proposes the typology of the mat building to further engage with this act, seeking to understand the process of civic engagement and become a crucial tool for the neighborhood to protect themselves.
The project conceptually centers itself around the idea of the “room” employing three different strategies to create space. First, to “make a room”, constructing a safe space for organization. Second, to “make room for” envisioning an open inclusive public plaza for demonstration. Finally, a “room for making”, creating spaces that project foward, crafting a vision for the future of Chinatown. Each approach is assigned to a level of the building, determining their programmatic functions.
The projects maps out the history of Chinatown, diagraming key events, and arranging them based on ideas of the spectacle and the ordinary. In doing so, the projects examines the civic process as a whole in order to inform the functions of the building.
Plan -01: Banquet Hall along with logistical programs and a small auditorium
Plan 00: Public Plaza
FACADE
The building consists of a series of clt panels that extend from the walls of each room in order to create an interconnected web of structure that turn the collection of rooms into a singular rigid object.
MAIN LEVEL
The main level serves to hold spaces for local community organizations of the Boston Chinatown. The organization of the plan consists of a series of rooms connected around a central circular hallway that connects thems all. Some of the key programs include, office space, classrooms, a library, and a recreation center
