A L L I SO N FR I C K E
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE MASTER OF SCIENCE IN HISTORIC PRESERVATION
PREFACE
In my other degree—historic preservation—there is a concept called the “period of significance.” This is the time period that is most important in a site’s history and a basis in preservation policy for preservation decisions. Looking back on the work I have completed for the M Arch degree at GSAPP, the concept of a period of significance surfaces in many of my projects. To design a new housing complex in the Claremont neighborhood, it is important to know the history of that area—how have the housing needs of the community been met or not in the recent past? How has the US Embassy in the Hague, designed by Marcel Breuer, participated in the public life of that city and community since its construction? The projects included in this portfolio are based on a close reading of history and all that goes into it, including: culture, material, place, construction, tragedy, exclusion, political symbolism, memories, education, environmental degradation, and transformation. While the projects are sequenced based on critical historical moments of significance, each project depends on the richness of the entire historical timeline and current context. Ultimately, the projects individually and collectively coalesce in the knowledge that history is layered and the complexity of context is a tool for design.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DATE
11th Century
PROJECT NAME
The New Main Square
PAGE
4
1861
Resonant Library
30
1882
Good Vibrations
44
1924
Excavation / Extrusion
48
1939
Plastic Pier
54
1959
Re-Modulation
60
1966
Greenpoint Theater
70
1992
Infrastructure for Living
76
2017
Alternative R/Urbanism
90
11th Century
The New Main Square ADVANCED VI | SPRING 2020 CRITIC: Juan Herreros PROJECT COLLABORATORS: Ian Lee and Joud Al Shdaifat The village of Cañaveruelas in Cuenca, is symptomatic of the shrinking and isolated state of rural Spain. The New Main Square proposes an educational and architectural framework that taps into the importance of informal education as a strategy for repositioning Cañaveruelas. The program supports the few remaining residents of this small village and aspires to attract more residents. The network of buildings reorganizes the chaotic village plan, which has expanded haphazardly since its foundation in the 11th century. The new educational buildings wrap and inhabits existing buildings. The material selection derives from the humble materials used in the vernacular architecture: corrugated metal, terracotta roof tiles, and stone. The architectural invention translates vernacular pitched roofs and irregularly-shaped windows into elongated volumes with moderately-inclined roofs.
Regio nal Map
The new typology re-organizes the small village, creating new town squares, and re-uses existing materiality. The aim of the work is to enhance the public life of Cañaveruelas through the creation of new forms of building for new forms of education.
4
5
Diagram: Proposed Educational model
Map of Proposed Village re-organization
Map of Open Space in CaĂąaveruelas
Diagram: Existing Educational model
6 7
Analysis of Existing Vernacular Buildilngs
Diagram: Program and Plan Diagram
8 9
Ground Plan 11 10
Plan of co-living buildings
Plan of Library
Plan of Auditorium and Cafe 13 12
Diagram: Building Materials 15 14
Diagram: Interior - exterior relationships 17 16
Section of Library and Classrooms 19 18
Section of Cafe / Restaurant 21 20
Campus Entrance Perspective View
Interior Perspective view of library 23 22
Exterior Perspective of small classrooms
Exterior Perspective of Flex Buildings
24 25
Plan of Flexible Building
Axon of flexible building construction details
Facade Detailing | Spring 2020 Instructor: Kevin Schorn Project completed in collaboration with Yuchen Qiu
26
Facade Detailing | Spring 2020 Instructor: Kevin Schorn Project completed in collaboration with Yuchen Qiu
27
Plan Detail of Flexible Building Wall
Section Details of Flexible Building Wall
Facade Detailing | Spring 2020 Instructor: Kevin Schorn Project completed in collaboration with Yuchen Qiu
28
Facade Detailing | Spring 2020 Instructor: Kevin Schorn Project completed in collaboration with Yuchen Qiu
29
RESONANT LIBRARY CORE II | SPRING 2018 CRITIC: ERICA GOETZ 1861 The site for this project is a small L-shaped plot of land in Dumbo, Brooklyn, surrounded by designated historic properties like the Brooklyn Bridge and the adjacent Brooklyn City Railway Company Building (completed in 1861). In recent history, the area has become increasingly high-rent, with corporate technology companies and wealthy people buying and renovating historic properties. While material and architectural preservation are the standard method for retaining “history,” this project instead engages with context through storytelling, particularly personal and collective oral histories. A story is in one sense poetically ephemeral, but also deeply rooted in tradition and history. The Resonant Library is a recording library, archive and exhibition space that houses and retells the personal and collective histories of Dumbo.
Study Models
Through a combination of small, private spaces and collective space, the building unfolds as a series of bulbous, organ-like chamber caught in a gridded perimeter scaffold. The structure is paramount—a combination of post and beam and double-ribbed arches. The spaces of the building connect to the neighborhood through the stories told and archived within. The Resonant Library is a protector of history and community. This library subverts the narrow view in preservation that material is necessary for preservation and very literally gives people a voice to share their values and histories through oral histories.
30
31
Longitudinal Section 33 32
Second Floor Plan
Third Floor Plan
Ground Floor Plan 35 34
Render of Small Perimeter Spaces
Render of Exhibition Space
Render of Large Amphitheater
Render of Entrance Lobby 37 36
Section Oblique
1/4� Scale Partial Model 39 38
Study Model 41 40
Structural Model
Structural Model 43 42
GOOD VIBRATIONS CORE I | FALL 2017 CRITIC: CHRISTOPH a. KUMPUSCH
1882
The intersection of 14th Street and Broadway is a busy junction—the confluence of major traffic arteries, subway lines, people, and retail. The northeast corner of this intersection is an acute angle that—with 4th Avenue— forms a small triangular park. Through a study of vibration data and observation revealed that subway and heavy traffic movements produced many low frequency vibrations. Other sounds—cars honking, footsteps, conversation, bicycle bells, the clatter of skateboard wheels, emergency vehicle sirens—produced high frequency vibrations.
44
Concept Model
The project evolved from these location and sensory conditions: seeking to connect the small triangular parcel to the surrounding area and amplify, distort, reverberate, and reflect existing sounds. In this way, the installation participates in the soundscape at the intersection of 14th Street and Broadway.
45
Composite Drawing
Concept models - movement 47 46
EXCAVATION / EXTRUSION: HISTORY AND MEMORY IN PLACE AND SPACE CORE I | FALL 2017 CRITIC: CHRISTOPH a. KUMPUSCH
1924
The central thesis question of my project asks: how do we remember demolished buildings? At the intersection of E 14th Street and Avenue A, this question points to the massive demolition that occurred in the mid-1940s in Stuyvesant Town and, the demolition and influx of new populations in the East Village in recent years. The demolished buildings served as repositories for socio-cultural collective memory. The project seeks to re-house the lost buildings and associated socio-cultural significance on site, underground.
So we return to the original question: how do we remember lost buildings? In this case the lost buildings are recreated as abstracted voids, excavated in the earth they once occupied. The void provides a space to re-house memories, for current residents and visitors to reckon with the past, and as a reminder that the built environment is not fixed.
48
Concept Model - Open
Through historic map analysis, I identified key demolished buildings near the proposed subway expansion. The building footprints were overlayed and extruded, resulting in an intersection of volumes as an abstracted representation of the lost buildings. The volumes were excavated from the ground, creating a void—a space of reckoning with the past.
49
Diagrm: Plan view of Change Over Time 51 50
Concept Model 53 52
LIFE IN PLASTIC CORE I | FALL 2017 CRITIC: CHRISTOPH a. KUMPUSCH The project proposes an alternative system of plastic recycling in New York City, capitalizing on the far-reaching waterway system in the New York area. The Department of Sanitation collects approximately 10,000 tons of trash and 1,500 tons of recyclable material every day. The quantity of recyclable materials, low-profit recyclables market, and transportation energy hinders recycling efficacy.
A single recycling pier is not a solution; however, moving the plastic recycling process to the iconic and polluted waterways of New York City can act as a catalyst for increasing public awareness of the consequences of waste.
54
Concept Model - Top View
1939
The proposed recycling pier closes the energy loop associated with plastic recycling. The entire recycling process takes place on the pier—from residential collection, washing, sorting, shredding, and re-use through injection molding, extrusion, or compression processes. Each pier makes both a single recycled product, such as takeout containers, and more recycling piers. The propagated piers spread throughout the waterways of New York, growing an alternative system of plastic recycling.
55
Concept Model - Side View 57 56
Aerial View of Dispersed Piers (in yellow)
Diagrammatic Section
58 59
ReModulation ADVANCED V | FALL 2019 CRITICS: Mark Rakatansky + Kim Yao PROJECT COLLABORATOR: Gwen Stricker The studio takes Marcel Breuer’s US Embassy in The Hauge, completed in 1959, as a starting point. Through analysis of the building’s history, current social context, political symbolism, and material beauty, the project confronts what it means to intervene in a significant historical building. The project preserves the key historically and architecturally significant spaces, but more importantly considers the mundane spaces of work for which the building was constructed. The proposed hotel and museum abstracts the volume of the offices and long double-loaded corridors in the new hotel addition, located in the courtyard. The addition maintains and manipulates the corridors as spaces in-between hotel rooms. Intersection of new hotel modules produces pockets of space to create larger communal spaces in the corridor. These spaces uphold the spirit of public-ness, connection, and community embedded in the significant, preserved spaces of the Embassy building.
60
As a corollary to the studio project, I produced a rough analysis of the embodied carbon in the project. The embodied carbon in the proposed renovation and addition far outstrips that in the existing building.
Axon View
1959
61
Significance Assessment 63 62
Diagrams: Corridor + Office
Exploded Axon
64 65
Diagram: Historic Spaces
Render of Hotel Room and Corridor Render of Restaurant
Render of from Courtyard Looking to A to Addition
66 67
Embodied Carbon in Existing Building
Embodied Carbon in Proposed Addition
Footprint: Carbon and Design | Fall 2019 Instructor: David Benjamin
68
Footprint: Carbon and Design | Fall 2019 Instructor: David Benjamin
69
Greenpoint Theater Architectural Technology IV| Fall 2018 CRITICS: David Burke, Amy Harrington Silman, Ciaran Smyth, and Tom Reiner PROJECT COLLABORATORS: Ericka Song, Helena Pestana, Luiza Furia
The project emphasizes sustainability through material reuse, passive heating and cooling, material selection based on heating and cooling needs, water collection and reuse, as well as through supporting community sustainability and inclusion.
Exploded Structural Axon
The project is a renovation of a 1966 warehouse in Greenpoint, BK, to be transformed into a theater. The project is based on the tenets of sustainability: social, environment, and economy. We focus on energy, materials (including biodiversity), and community (social diversity), all of which work to support and reinforce one another. The program and MEP systems weave through the simple layout of three rectangular bars. The smallest bar, a reception area and community practice room, cantilevers over a public seating area. The southern-most bar, located within an existing structure, houses the back of house for the theater and MEP infrastructure. The main, central bar houses the main theater and black box theater. The main theater overlooks a reclaimed industrial park, an additional outdoor theater space and asset to the local community.
1966
70
71
Ground Floor Plan
Building Sections
Structural Sections
Site Plan
72 73
Concept Diagrams and Circulation Plans
Exterior Building Perspective
74 75
INFRASTRUCTURE OF HOUSING CORE 3 | FALL 2018 CRITIC: GALIA SOLONOMOFF PROJECT COLLABORATOR: Munise Aksoy Working in a fairly recently-developed block built out in the 1990s, the project began with an impulse to re-capture discarded building materials, specifically brick and terracotta, and to transform it into a benefit for residents. Our project embeds a program of ceramic production and repair in a housing complex to act as a catalyst for community-building and customization of homes.
1992
76
The system of ceramics production and repair also permeates and supports the domestic spaces. Residents can customize their homes with tiles, ceramic objects (lamps, bowls, sink bowls, etc.), even customizable facades and high-tech ceramics produced on-site. The ceramics create a connection between the homes, a strengthening of shared experience. At the same time, the units are designed as a basic unit that ought to be customized. Residents harness the flexibility of the unit and the on-site resources to fit the space to their needs.
Circulation and Infrastructure Model
The ceramic production contains several components, the most visible of which are the kilns. The process originates in collecting, sorting, and grinding down materials like decorative terracotta elements removed by building owners (under Local Law 11). The central role of the ceramics in the life of the complex informed our decision to position the work spaces centrally and embed vertical circulation cores in these spaces. The program is conceived as a catalyst, and therefore as a series of adaptable production spaces, which might be used in a more tech-integrated sense (photovoltaics, aeronautics, etc.).
77
1/8� Scale Partial Building Model
1/8� Scale Partial Building Model 79 78
Perspective Section 81 80
Ground Floor Plan
Typical Floor Plans
Below-Grade Plan 83 82
Unit Plans and Perspectives 85 84
Perspective of Ceramics Studio
Perspective in Typical Building Unit 87 86
Interior Staircase Perspective
Structural Model
88 89
Exterior Building Perspective
ALTERNATIVE R/URBANISM ADVANCED 4 | SPRING 2019 CRITIC: NAHYUN HWANG PROJECT COLLABORATOR: Ericka Song Sited at a man-made lake, the project takes inspiration from the history of the lake and particularly the recent 2017 efforts to reclaim the lake as a space of recreation. Our project poses the question “who is nature for?� by designing in a way that takes up the various lenses of neurodevelopmentally diverse and differently abled people. A new nature trail is proposed that links two underused lakes that have been damaged through pollution and neglect. The proposal capitalizes on and aids current efforts to rejuvenate the lakes. Interventions along the trail are designed based on psychological theories of environmental and sensory processing. The trail makes accessible outdoor recreation experiences typical to rural settings in an urban context, benefiting adjacent lowincome and elderly communities as well.
Site Analysis
2017
90
91
Thesis Drawing
Site Plan
92 93
Composite Drawing: Floating Pool
Composite Drawing: Sensory Smell Intervention 95 94
Composite Drawing: Prospect and Refuge Shelters
Composite Drawing: Bridge and Gathering Pier
96 97
Bridge and Smell Intervention
Concept Collages
98 99
Floating Pool and Prospect/Refuge Shelter
Model of Nature Trail
Model of Nature Trail 101 100