Tola Oniyangi ’20 MArch Columbia GSAPP

Design for the Human Experience, Data at the Human Scale

Tola Oniyangi Master of Architecture Master of Science in Urban Planning

May 2020

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation tolaoniyangi.com ~ tolaoniyangi@gmail.com ~ 413-362-4373

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Can data-derived synthetic stories describing the lives of a place’s inhabitants from their own perspective generate empathy for them?

Computational Design, Prototyping, Data Visualization

10 How can we limit the volume of waste that reaches the landfill & generate employment opportunities for women?

Architectural Design, Research

16 Can we streamline the importing urban spatial data into a generative

design pipeline? Can we estimate pedestrian activity using available data?

Computational Design

Understanding the human experience and creating solutions on a human level are at the core of all my interests. Design thinking has been an integral part of my approach to user experience design, architectural design, computational design, and data visualization.

Ultimately, my design approach consists of using tools of analysis to understand existing needs, and using the tools of design to create human-centered solutions that make inclusive spaces.

18 Are decentralized production and distribution models the system of the future?

Architectural Design, Research

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Which New Yorkers have access to its Citi Bike network? Is access equitable?

Data Analysis

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What happens when the design process is guided by research into potential users of the space?

Architectural Design, Data Visualization & Analysis

50 Can a machine learning model be trained to predict urban sprawl?

Machine Learning

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Can architecture generate a more tangible relationship between people and water?

Design

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How can we study the relationship between precolonial Africa and the world by looking at its people’s journeys?

Data Visualization, Research

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How can a space’s configuration respond to the passage of time?

Architectural Design

64 How do Airbnb’s active users talk about neighborhoods?

Data Visualization

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Can light and the absence of it, as well as directionality of planes create distinct spaces?

Design

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Can we automate a space that hovers between states of exposure and enclosure?

Computational (Generative) Design

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How does a site existing in the space of tension between two cities mediate between them?

Architectural Design

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What makes a neighborhood tick for its college student population?

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How can a housing development maintain traces of existing social, urban and environmental site conditions?

Data Visualization, Branding

Architectural Design

Can data-derived synthetic stories describing the lives of a place’s inhabitants from their own perspective generate empathy for them?

Beyond the Blue Dot is a web-based visualization tool for exploring the city at the human scale. It finds the personal stories embedded in largescale urban data and describes urban locations through these stories. To do so, it distills urban quantitative data into synthetic narratives about an area’s residents and workers. With this platform, I am proposing a humanistic counterpoint to the current dominant paradigm of top-down modernist urban analysis and research that pervades through urban planning and design. This project proposes a novel approach to crafting narratives from existing placebased data, such as census data. It stems from the idea that empathy can arise from “walking a mile in a person’s shoes.”

The title, Beyond the Blue Dot, is a play on the ubiquitous blue dot that represents people in Google Maps. Rather than abstracting individuals as blue dots, this project gives them a voice. It engages with locations through the people that either live or work in these locations. By doing so, this platform explicitly recognizes the humanity of these individuals. Secondarily, the blue dot also references the shared universal quality of the project with the Pale Blue Dot, an iconic image of the earth from space.

The project cares about the everyday lives of these populations with particular regards to their experiences, both personal and urban. As the

This project’s target audience is urban planning and design professionals concerned with the impacts of their designs, policy decisions and recommendations on people. These can be urban planners, designers, architects, transportation planners, or urban policy consultants and computational designers. As these professionals routinely make policy decisions and recommendations, it is important that they have a way to understand the experiences of the people they potentially affect.

project is looking at small-scale urban networks through the lens of peoples’ experiences, the urban metrics explored in this project are defined by a halfmile radius around a location. This constitutes a 10-minute walking distance, slightly more than the typical 5-minute walking distance which research suggests that people are willing to walk rather than drive.

Fall 2019/Spring 2020 Urban Planning Capstone Project Advisor: Anthony Vanky Reader: Violet Whitney Client: Sidewalk Labs

4 COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN, PROTOTYPING, DATA VISUALIZATION

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The platform builds empathy for the people who live and work in the places being studied by describing places through the experiences of their inhabitants. The two subjects described by the narratives are worker and resident population groups. Residents refer to those who live in an area, while workers refer to those who work in an area. Both groups are characterized using readily available large-scale data published by the US Census Bureau and other data sources.

The minimum viable product was developed for this project with a study location in New York City’s Lower East Side as the test site. Only the data collection, processing and text generation elements were built for residential populations. This same process can be repeated to generate workers’ data and include more comprehensive data, including travel information. As the current working prototype a minimum viable product, it functions as a proof-of-concept. Future iterations will build on the existing narrative generation while improving upon storytelling and visualization.

It consists of two distinct features: a mapping visualization, where users interactively select the study location, and a text generation interface where users create subject profiles for the narratives. Both of these components work in tandem to display and update narratives that reflect a given study area.

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By combining elements of creative storytelling with traditional quantitative data, it provides an avenue for poetism in the urban research process. It fills a void in understanding the people who inhabit a location by describing them through stories from their own perspectives. This project subverts the general paradigm of location-centered data analysis by asking the following human-centered questions: Who lives here? Who works here?

What do their lives look like?

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How can we limit the volume of waste that reaches the landfill & generate employment opportunities for women?

Wastespace’s mission is to build a community hub for sustainability and

As plastics move through the building, they go through a number of changes: 1. Plastic waste is collected, shredded and stored in the waste collection space.

2. This shredded plastic is then processed through extrusion, injection or compression molding to create new plastic products.

3. Reprocessed plastic products are sold in the store, and can also be displayed in exhibitions.

gender equity in Vieques, Puerto Rico, through infrastructure innovation and entrepreneurship. By reconfiguring current modes of waste collection and recycling, this project disrupts the island’s waste-stream and extracts those materials suitable for reprocessing to produce value-added goods.

Today such source materials ended up in the landfill, which is rapidly nearing its maximum capacity and poses a threat to Vieques’ sustainability and environmental health.

Wastespace will provide access to tools and equipment for reprocessing collected recycled materials to marketable products ranging from tiles to furniture to clipboards. Training to build and operate the tools, and produce marketable products will be integral to wastespace.

Reintroducing these reprocessed waste materials into the market provides an important opportunity to rethink the island’s economy and empower female residents. Programming will be geared towards providing classes and workshops oriented toward women, who have systematically been absent from roles within the existing labor force, and who are interested in skill-sharing and entrepreneurial initiatives.

Spring 2019 In collaboration with Rebecca Book Advanced IV: New Paradigms for a Resilient Vieques Professors: Richard Plunz & Douglas Woodward; Associate Professor: Ubaldo Escalante.

10 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, RESEARCH

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mixed-use commercial residential open space civic

The project is located on a site close to many popular places in downtown Isabel Segunda. As a result of its location, it can be easily integrated into daily patterns of movement and activity.

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Wastespace is made of inexpensive materials that are readily avvailable on Vieques, and can be constructed on the island.

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MEDIAN INCOME, MALE:

(75%)

labor force participation

�17,101

(48%) (9%)

unemployment

MEDIAN INCOME, FEMALE:

�15,255

(21%)

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% OF POPULATION (>16 YEARS OLD)

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male population female population

WASTESPACE EVENTS

(Source: American Community Survey, 2017) JUNIO 2020

TODAY

LUNES

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7p Ladies Night

MARTES

MIÉRCOLES 29

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4p Farmer’s Market

JUEVES

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VIERNES

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5:30p Business Club

SÁBADO 1 JUNIO 9a Admin meeting

DOMINGO

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10:30a Writer’s Group

12p Mom + Me: craft class

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1p Lunch + Learn: 5:30p Business Club social media marketing

7p Ladies Night

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4p Farmer’s Market

7p Ladies Night

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12p Mom + Me: craft class

7p First Friday: artwork showcase

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Adjustable screens form partition walls along the building’s edge. They can be stored internally during storms.

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12p Mom + Me: craft class

5:30p Business Club

Open source, inexpensive, and easy to build plastic processing machines developed by Precious Plastics

The outdoor space serves as a vital connection between the programs, as adjustable screens serve as partition walls that can generate spaces to function as exhibition, workshop, or daycare spaces.

Waste collection and pre-processing occurs in a modular, replicable space. While it is just one part of the central Wastespace, it exists as a standalone hub in barrios: 1.

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7p Ladies Night

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2.

12p Mom + Me: craft class

5:30p Business Club 1p Lunch + Learn: finance and negotiating

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The building’s exterior exhibits various levels of openness through adjustable partition walls - it can function as a play area, exhibition, community or workshop space

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28 12p Mom + Me: craft class

with limited access to waste collection resources, whose residents have limited access to cars, and that are difficult to reach.

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ADJUSTABLE SCREENS

The workshop is easily accessible from the waste collection space and has a direct view of the daycare.

Wastespace’s interior finishes, wherever possible, are fabricated here

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Can we streamline the importing urban spatial data into a generative design pipeline? Can we estimate pedestrian activity using available data?

As a computational design summer associate on the Sidewalk Labs’ Generative Design team, I was primarily concerned with two tasks. Exploring ways of expanding the existing use cases for the generative design tool for

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urban prototyping, and streamlining the process of including spatial data into this tool. The initial research was focused on establishing potential users and use cases for the generative design tool, and the spatial data needed for this.

The complicated process of importing spatial data limited the scope of its application in the generative design tool’s objective functions. The inclusion of standardized data in the tool’s spatial analyses also provided the opportunity to improve their accuracy. As a result, the process of importing spatial data’s replicability and availability of data were important factors in narrowing down this research.​​​​​​​ The ingestion of spatial data into the pipeline was streamlined through

Estimating building populations

a series of automated processes. A disaggregation of the resident and workforce population datasets from larger census geographies into buildings was also used to estimate pedestrian activity at the street level. This process was conducted using a test site, but validated through replication in other cities and over a larger area.

This process could be integrated into the existing generative design workflow to generate building-level population, workforce and land use among other data as well as a ‘buzz metric’, which visualizes pedestrian activity.

Summer 2020 Professional Work for Sidewalk Labs Generative Design Team

16 COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN

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Are decentralized production and distribution models the system of the future?

This project is concerned primarily with the future of the distribution industry given changes in both technology and societal attitudes.

Transportation accounted for 29% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Trucks produced a staggering 82% of these emissions, and trucking shows no sign of slowing down just yet. The annual average daily truck traffic nationwide is expected to rise by almost double (up by 98% to 1694 trucks) from 2012 to 2045.

The negative environmental impacts of trucking as an industry and the general increase in environmental consciousness have contributed to the rise of third-party systems of consignment and ethical consumption, especially in the apparel industry. There is also an increase in the popularity of alternative fuel vehicles and rise of alternative means of distribution, such as independent contractors acting as last-mile couriers. Even though truck traffic is projected to continue increasing, as is the demand for apparel and other types of goods, these other factors controlling demand and supply paint a more nuanced picture.

It attempts to address this complicated future scenario by proposing a system of production and distribution that is intimately linked to consumer habits, and the supply chain is brought closer to consumers. As the project deals directly with the apparel industry, the prototype is an adaptable production space for the design, production, sale and distribution of apparel.

Fall 2019 Advanced V: Everything must Scale Professor: Michael Bell; Associate Professor: Sunghoon Lee

18 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, RESEARCH

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The project proposes a production model wherein forecasting of product demand works in tandem with the more traditional system of consumers ordering products in order to paint a full picture of demand for production planning purposes. This circular system works with edge computing to monitor real-time production information as well as machine learning to generate statistical forecasting. The result of this is a production network that is responsive to both consumers and real-time production and distribution capacity.

In addition the production model described above, this project proposes a hyperlocalized distribution model where factories can be rapidly deployed to meet consumer demand, both real and forecasted. Delivery contractors would be able to transport goods to consumers within this locality and efficiencies of production and distribution would negate a need for massive factories and overproduction.

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The interior spaces play on the ideas of openness, light, solidity and relationship between programs.

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This building is the site for performing all the essential tasks related to the distribution, marketing and production of apparel. As such, the building's plan logic follows the relationship between programs. Continuing on this idea of connecting the programs, they are separated by a movable partitioning system which can be adapted to create varying degrees of separation.

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he programs, including sewing, fabric storage, design, photography, showroom and loading & unloading, are all interconnected and function as parts of the whole system. Were the needs of the system to change, disassembly and/or reassembly would be possible.

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The building's solid wood panels are broken up in the rear by the wood framing and solar panels for the distribution area.

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Which New Yorkers have access to its Citi Bike network? Is access equitable?

Direct access

This report evaluates the access of New York City residents to the Citi Bike network, as of May 2017, based on metrics of walkability and distance traveled using the subway. This study does not seek to answer questions about Citi Bike’s users, but rather to probe whether Citi Bike’s locations reproduce, exacerbate, or break from existing spatial patterns of inequity.

By asking who has access to Citi Bike and what level of access is afforded to different groups of people, this study seeks to analyze Citi Bike’s relationship to people and the spaces they inhabit.

An overview of the existing Citi Bike network revealed that the 615 Citi Bike stations located in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens were heavily

Indirect access via subway

concentrated in one general area. The large range of walking distances from Citi Bike stations to subway stations indicates that the level of access from Citi Bike stations is not uniform across New York City, and the fact that some Citi Bike stations had no subway stations close to them in the service area supports this notion. When the subway was factored in, however, accessibility to the Citi Bike network increased. The service area of Citi Bike stations contained part or all all of each subway line. 39% of subway stations were within the Citi Bike service area, while a much increased 89% of New York City’s subway stations were accessible from those Citi Bike stations.

Spring 2017 In collaboration with Joan Zhang Introduction to Geographic Information Systems Professor: Leah Meisterlin

No access

An overview of the existing Citi Bike network revealed that the 615 Citi Bike stations located in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens were heavily concentrated in one general area. There was also a large range of walking distances from Citi Bike stations to subway stations when one was available close by.

32 DATA ANALYSIS

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When the subway was factored in, however, accessibility to the Citi Bike network increased. The service area of Citi Bike stations contained part or all all of each subway line. 39% of subway stations were within the Citi Bike service area, while a much increased 89% of New York City’s subway stations were accessible from those Citi Bike stations.

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NYC demographics compared to that of the Citi Bike network's immediate service area

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Citi Bike is not accessible equally across age and race. Minority populations are less likely to have access to Citi Bike than white populations. Younger populations are also more likely to have access, but this is on par with New York City’s relatively young population.

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NYC demographics compared to that of areas with access to Citi Bike via subway

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NYC demographics compared to that of areas with no access to Citi Bike

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What happens when the design process is guided by research into potential users of the space?

At face value, this project is simply the design of a library in Dumbo, Brooklyn. However, it is primarily concerned with both generating an understanding of who the users of this library could be and exploring how research into the project’s immediate context could influence the design process.

To this end, the project starts off with contextualizing this library and its site within the Brooklyn and Manhattan public library systems. Within this frame, access is used as a main determinant of anticipated users of the library.

Assuming that the library serves people in its immediate vicinity, access is defined in terms of walking distances along pedestrian routes. This zone of access is delineated using a successive quarter-mile (approximately 5 minute) walking distance from the site, up to one mile (approximately 20 minute).

Conclusions about the library’s possible user demographics were drawn from analyzing the population that lived within these boundaries, and this became integral to the design process.

Spring 2018 Core II Professor: Gordon Kipping Additional representation done in Architectural Drawing and Representation II. Professor: Dan Taeyoung

The project’s concept of extending open space from Dumbo’s waterfront emerged from investigating the site’s context and possible users. The branding strategy and experiential components of the project were also drawn from this analysis.

The project's concept and form are easily expressed through promotional material that serve as branding for the library. By framing this library as both open to all and accessible by all, the branding attempts to reach out to a wider segment of the population through the development of a strong identity. In deference to its unique position in between technology, design and tourism, the library also features rooms that are programmable by patrons and therefore gives them control of their experience.

42 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, DATA VISUALIZATION & ANALYSIS

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A series of demographic questions guide this analysis. Questions of accessibility through transportation options, character of the neighborhood, wealth, and commute time of residents within this twenty minute walking distance.

The library is located in an area with a distinct character as it is highly residential, but also has a large concentration of tech companies and educational institutions. While it is about a 10 minute walk from the nearest subway stations, it is directly accessible by bus, cycling and ferry. As such, it is safe to assume that most of the users of the library would be residents, students and workers in the immediate area. As this area is also rather touristy, its important for the project to be accessible to both frequent users and a casual, transient population.

With this in mind, the project attempts to be open and accessible to all segments of the population, including

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Population with Highest Level of Access to Library

Analysis of its surrounding area illustrated that the library’s anticipated users would mostly be wealthy residents, tourists and a transient tech worker population. Additionally, it emerged that there are quite a few open spaces and parks within the area, and the site itself is right next to two parks.

As such, the project’s overarching concept of extending open space from Dumbo’s waterfront emerged from this investigation.

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Within this general design concept of openness, the library project formally expresses the idea that tactility can influence people's perception of a place and consequently, its approachability. The library responds to its user demographics through programs specific to Dumbo’s transient tech and tourist population as well as its more permanent student population.

The library design developed through a series of massing and sectional models exploring both tectonics and the relationship between the exterior structural grid and interior form. During this process, it became clear that the rigid grid had to be juxtaposed with a more organic, malleable form. Sectional study models were also used to explore program through the relationship between them in both plan and section.

Structurally, the library is a combination of a transparent external grid and a translucent inner volume.

Intermediary moments allow people to walk over platforms in the exterior columns, reconciling this inside/ outside dichotomy. The ground plane is deliberately open to connect the site to its immediate surroundings.

Doing so in combination with transparency opens the library up to both patrons and passersby alike.

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Can a machine learning model be trained to predict urban sprawl?

In this project, a Python model was fed satellite imagery of three cities in multiple years in order to predict future trends in urbanization. Once it learned to identify both built and unbuilt areas of said cities, it could then categorize them and forecast their trajectories over time. The project looks at three dissimilar cities: Cairo, Dubai and Wuhan. The application of the same model on these cities is deliberate, as it provides more of a testing ground for the hypothesis.

Essentially, the training model is fed a baseline image from the year 2000.

The images from 2005, 2010 and 2015 are then compared to the prior image in the series beginning in 2000. Then the model extrapolates future changes or lack thereof in urbanization based on historical patterns. As the actual images from the corresponding years are available, it is possible to validate the results and accurately predict the growth or shrinkage trends for the year 2000.

Fall 2016 In collaboration with Marwah Garib, Vrinda Sharma and Kun Qian Data Mining the City Professor: Danil Nagy

50 MACHINE LEARNING

The images are manually processed into monochrome figure-ground images, from which data samples are collected to train the machine. When brought into Python, the images are mapped to their corresponding years and then re-sampled to generate uniform images at a smaller size. The images are then broken down into 32 x 32 pixels and mapped to an array from which uniform square pixels are cropped to act as the samples. This is done from the baseline images (year 0 to 4), and used by the model to classify areas as either urban or non-urban. The cropped pixels are then scaled up, the images are reconstructed and this data is fed back into the model for more training. Using historical trends in the imagery, these cropped pixels are then used to predict sprawl in the corresponding year by identifying individual pixels as either becoming urbanized or remaining as urban or non-urban or becoming urbanization was predicted.

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Can architecture generate a more tangible relationship between people and water?

The hydro-habitat is a pier that treats water as both a living resource and a landscape. It emerges from the understanding that New York City’s East River is highly polluted, but efforts to combat this pollution must be accompanied by education efforts. Additionally, The Paris Agreement’s declaration that people need to be educated about climate change adds to the conceptual framework. To do so, it reexamines the existing relationship of Manhattan’s eastern edge to the river bordering it and breaks down the separation between land and water.

The separation between land and water is broken down as the project dips into the water, and in certain areas, allows water to flow through it. Visible from land, the hydro-habitat has an air of monumentality that is supported by its existence as a structure that is immersed but is not fully part of the water. The hydro-habitat consists of three main cores: social, educational and experiential. Exhibition spaces about water and pollution guide visitors from the entrance further into the more experiential and social areas of the project.

As one moves into the hydro-habitat, these educational and transitional spaces break into a pool fully immersed in the East River. The walls of this pool filter the East River and create a moment where people can swim, dip their toes in, or just marvel at the East River. A series of contours lead out from the project onto the river and further break down divisions between the two, as it becomes possible to be on the river and experience the river around you.

It consists of three main cores: social, educational and experiential.

This pool’s walls filter water directly from the river, and along with a series of contours that lead out from the project, open it up to the water. The hydrohabitat is both pragmatic in its function of filtering water and ambitious in the way it aims to generate a sense of wonder about water. Essentially, it generates a more personal and bi-directional relationship to water through education and experience. The hydro-habitat is inclusive, public and open to all.

Fall 2017 Core I Professor: Tei Carpenter

52 DESIGN

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The pier is located on the site of multiple Combined Sewer Overflows into the East River. As such, it is ideally located to carry out its primary function of cleaning the water. In addition to this, it contains educational spaces about pollution and water that transform into a pool fully immersed in the river. It literally teaches about the river, and then becomes one with the river.

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The project extends East River Park’s pedestrian access points to the East River through a series of spherical spaces that draw people into the river while educating people about the water, pollution and climate change. It produces a new relationship of New Yorkers to the East River by increasing access to the river and generating a condition in which people can directly engage with the East River and be inside of it.

This approach to the river softens the elevated park’s hard edge condition into a more permeable habitat.

At these points of existing pedestrian access, gradual contours integrate the project with the island of Manhattan.

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Formally, the hydro-habitat is a series of spheres that float through buoyancy provided by the air within the walls. A shell holding air encloses most of the structure, while one that filters water (and expands and contracts based on the level of water in it) encloses the pool embedded within the structure. The filtered water also supplies drinking and potable water for the pier. Sensors embedded in veins on the shells’ exterior glow different colors based on air and water quality, while the veins provide additional structure.

The walls of the pier would be constructed using ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene), which is a sustainable alternative to glass. It is a transparent plastic that is resilient, self cleaning, a good insulator, and a lot cheaper to install than glass. ETFE resists pollutants, is long lasting (can maintain its transparency for up to twenty years), and is a low-cost, durable method of construction. A silver frit would be applied to the material to reduce transparency in relevant places. Air bubbles would fill up spaces between ETFE films, and membranes made of steel cables would hold up the structure. The walls of the pool would be constructed using a filter, chemicals and ultraviolet tubes. Water passes through a filter made of woven cloth to filter out dirt and debris, then chlorine, sodium and phosphoric acid to kill germs, and finally ultraviolet tubes for further disinfection. Steel cables would also provide some structure to these permeable materials.

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How can we study the relationship between precolonial Africa and the world by looking at its people’s journeys?

This ethnographic mapping project explores how (West) Africans interacted with the world from an African perspective using data gleaned from autobiographical and biographical accounts. Numbering 154 pages, the book presents the journeys undertaken by four men from what is now northern Nigeria on three scales. It presents an overall view of travel, zooms into specific journeys and trajectories, and finally, zooms into principal points along this journey. The final layer incorporates the personal experiences of the subjects by including direct quotes describing their journeys and destinations.

The project looked at who these individuals were and traced their life stories through maps as much as was possible. In addition to tracing out their life trajectories as documented in the books by/about these men, there is a

Adem Mahamma

reproduction of the accounts of their lives in each of the places lived and/

Koukaoua

or visited. Inclusion of the time frame for these peoples’ existence in these

Nicholas Said Kouka

different places adds further context to their lives.

Undergraduate work Fall 2015 Independent Research Supervised by Ralph Ghoche

El Hadj Ahmed El-Fellati Kano

El Hadj Mohammed ben Adam Mourna

Adem Mahamma

Koukaoua

Nicholas Said Kouka

El Hadj Ahmed El-Fellati Kano

El Hadj Mohammed ben Adam Mourna

!! !

0

58 DATA VISUALIZATION, RESEARCH

40 Miles

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The project maps out both local and global narratives with excerpts of the original text, as well as the stage of their lives in which they embarked on these journeys.

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How can a space’s configuration respond to the passage of time?

This project is concerned with the fact that both the volume of people and activity levels on a specific corner change during the course of the day.

With that baseline understanding, the project responds to the changes that occur on this corner by proposing a dynamic structure that transforms to fulfill the needs of users at different times.

The project assumes that at quiet, social and busy times of the day, passersby and visitors to this intervention on a street corner would require different uses of the space. Thus at quiet times, the platforms would form enclosed spaces suitable for isolation and rest. At social times, the platforms would intersect to form conjoined space suitable for group configurations.

Finally, at busy times, the intervention would expand to create a combination of open and closed spaces appropriate for both groups and individuals.

Fall 2017 Core I Professor: Tei Carpenter

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How do Airbnb’s active users talk about neighborhoods?

This data analysis and visualization project explores the ways in which neighborhood identities are expressed by Airbnb hosts and guests. These two user groups exist on the same platform, yet speak about the neighborhoods they host and stay in quite differently.

To examine the nuances between both users’ language, the project visualizes Airbnb text data mined from guest reviews and host listings in New York City. Interactive mapping of the words most frequently used across both groups paints a picture of neighborhood perceptions, and word associations based on categories further explore the nuances of language used.

Spring 2017 In collaboration with Rachael Dottle, Eric Wong, Clara Dykstra, and Andreea Seusan Data Visualization for Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities Professor: Juan Saldarriaga

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Can light and the absence of it, as well as directionality of planes create distinct spaces?

Moving through this subway station is like going through a maze and discovering unexpected spaces. The formal language of folding planes and peeling away layers generates apertures for light and movement. The ground plane transforms to become the roof and then the wall. Modulation of this system creates some narrow and bright spaces, and some wide and dark spaces.

The dark spaces begin from ground level and lead into the bright spaces close to the subway. The minimalist shape above-ground hints at what is to come, while the intervention below ground is a series of folded planes with varying complexity. Only through the bright spaces can you proceed to the subway platforms.

Fall 2017 Core I Professor: Tei Carpenter

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Approaching the subway station at street level is a dramatically different experience than being in the subway station below-ground.

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Can we automate a space that hovers between states of exposure and enclosure?

The generative model produces a space consisting of solid volumes and

The model is optimized to minimize obstructions through a manually generated path, which is the final input parameter.

The model is evaluated based on adherence to these rules.

open voids, which mediates between degrees of openness and enclosure.

A static set of points generates the basic structure, while a dynamic input cycles through various configurations of solids and voids within a supporting structure.

The tension between generating this continuous structure and carving out a section presented some challenges. One trade-off was that the use of a static frame, while limiting to the model’s possible forms, inhibited variance.

A design solution that sufficiently integrated complexity and continuity was found through a series of tests using different parameter values and experimenting in multiple generations of the model.

Spring 2019 Generative Design Professor: Danil Nagy

The optimized design features an approximated, rather than a full convergence of performance metrics - yet, it is a representation of the design goals and the evolution of their outcomes.

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How does a site existing in the space of tension between two cities mediate between them?

This project is set in a fictional universe where two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, exist in the same space only physically. Residents of either city routinely unsee, unhear and unsmell the other city through an active process of registering the other and then glossing over it. This means that though a Besz and Ul Qoman building can exist beside each other, a resident of one city will only acknowledge a single building. The crosshatch condition, where an area exists between both cities, is the only space where mixing occurs.

Copula Hall is the exception to the rule. It is the only building that belongs to both Beszel and Ul Qoma, and houses both cities’ governments.

This project is about Copula Hall’s urban condition. This project’s approach of anchoring the city to this site is a consequence of Copula Hall’s existence in both cities. Monumentality through its form, openness through its park-like urban condition, and integration through public social spaces and private administrative spaces extend Copula Hall to the city.

Alternate conditions of separation and integration through distinct volumes acknowledge the tense relationship between both cities. Two volumes are total Besz, two are total Qoman, and one volume is crosshatched.

For motorists, the border crossing amplifies the tension of the moment by creating a moment wherein pinch points hold the checkpoints. This moment acknowledges the gravity of the border crossing.

By alternating the volumes and creating a shared open space, the site is never totally Qoman or Besz. As a result, the project breaks down the rigid separation between the two cities.A lower level, accessibly by all volumes, contains shared functions such as the archive. This is the only interior space from which all volumes can be accessed.

Externally, distinct wall textures delineate Besz, Qoman and crosshatch conditions. These textures are granular enough that they blend into each other from afar - thus, they are only distinguishable in close quarters.

Internally, unique configuration and details for each city highlight differences.

This strategy of delineating difference through details maintains a level of familiarity attained by citizens of both cities.

Spring 2020 Advanced VI: Copula Hall Professors: Stephen Cassell & Annie Barrett

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The pedestrian border crossing in the same space as that for motorists.

This moment features a physical change of space, as travelers enter through one city and exit through an alternate door into the other city.

The ground floor houses programs related to the border as well as social spaces, including a gallery and cafe, in the crosshatch building.

The project sits atop a hill, and a convergence towards the site is reflected through the landscape.

In the lower level, the space directly below the mobile gateway is kept open as a register of the moment above.

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Beszel

Ul Qoma

Crosshatch

Wall Patterns

Driving through the gateway is a seminal moment in this project.

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What makes a neighborhood tick for its college student population?

This video mapping project analyzes how suitable Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue between Tillary and Fulton streets is for an ideal college neighborhood. It uses a checklist of important qualities prospective students look for in their future neighborhoods to communicate the vibe of this neighborhood. Essentially, it distills the prospective college experience into the neighborhood’s spatial character by measuring the prevalence of quintessential contributors to this experience. A static map summarizes the availability of different amenities and businesses in the area in relation to the proximity to the different colleges around.

It is tailored to prospective college students through a fun graphic sensibility, lighthearted questions and a peppy musical score. Data used includes field work and information from various city and national agencies.

Undergraduate work Fall 2015 In collaboration with Joud Al Shdaifat and Kamay Jin Datascapes and the Informal City Professor: Leah Meisterlin

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How can a housing development maintain traces of existing social, urban and environmental site conditions?

This housing project explores ways to extend the current social and historic fabric, evident in the existing housing stock in the Bronx site, to a new housing development. It integrates the existing townhouse typology, building materiality, and urban scale within a new tower and townhouse typology.

Conditions of interstitial spaces, expressions of light and greenery through facade details, interior courtyards, and stripping of windows and roofs in some cases feature in the intersections between existing and proposed buildings.

Some current residents’ retrofitting of the existing housing to serve both housing and commercial purposes, such as daycares, is respected in the proposed housing block where office and communal work spaces are a prominent feature.

For this housing development, the first floor includes townhouses with a mixture of both housing units facing the street, and commercial co-working

Views of interstitial lobby and exterior spaces

spaces available to residents of this development facing the interior courtyard.

A number of existing townhouses are stripped entirely of their interiors and feature vegetation and landscaping intermingling with paths towards the development’s interior. The tower, newly introduced, intersects with these stripped out buildings and create a new moment where office lobby and social spaces become one. Finally, the new townhouses are attached to this confluence of tower and bare townhouses and feature community amenities such as daycare and bike storage in addition to housing units. The second floor features more co-working spaces, housing units with interior courtyards, and a more integrated confluence of the three distinct housing types. From the third floor, the tower contains only duplex and triplex apartments.

This interaction between old and new site conditions generates ad ynamic housing block that interfaces with questions of preservation, minimalism and materiality.

Fall 2018 In collaboration with Sara Al-Mutlaq Core III: Housing Professor: Gabriela Etchegeray

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The relationship between old and new facades is visible in both the rendering and the sectional model

In the existing facade, floor plates are pulled back from the preserved brick walls, and glass walls or railings are added in to generate light and air while maintaining the character of the existing housing stock.

In the new facades, there are moments where brick wall is punched through and/or floor plates are pulled back to allow light and air and enable a dynamic relationship between facade, structure and space.

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EXISTING TOWNHOUSE The existing townhouses are converted into triplex three and four-bedroom apartments with co-working spaces accessible from both inside the units and the exterior courtyard on the first floor. The shear walls and existing facades are kept intact while interior courtyards and double height spaces are added. This typology maximizes the space available in existing townhouses while bringing more shared spaces and greenery into and around the houses.

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NEW TOWNHOUSE The new townhouses contain communal and commercial spaces on the ground floor, and duplex apartments with interior courtyards from the second floor. It also features co-working spaces that are accessible from outside the units, and balconies overlooking verandas. Both old and new townhouses' interior courtyards and double height spaces are reminiscent of the open space and greenery that feature within the development.

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TOWER The tower, the only completely new typology in this development, goes up to seven floors. It contains communal spaces on the lower floors and duplex apartments on the upper floors. It features perforations of the brick wall and interstitial spaces where exterior and interior are blended together, as well as an excavated lobby space containing bare walls from existing buildings.

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