Selected Works

Akei Toy Museum

Cal Poly Pomona, Winter 05 | Alex Pang

City of Gardens Apartment Homes

Cal Poly Pomona, Winter + Spring 06 | Dennis McFadden

Joshua Tree Center For Sustainable Energy

Cal Poly Pomona, Spring 05 | Pablo La Roche

CASA II

Biblioteca Nazionale

Lytton Art Village

Cal Poly Pomona, Fall 07 | Luis Hoyos

In-vitro Meat Production Facility

Cal Poly Pomona, Winter 08 | Axel Schmitzberger

Place

CSU Florence, Summer 06 | Paola Giaconia, Achille Michelizzi, Marco Brizzi, Gianni Pettena

CSU Florence, Fall 06 | Paola Giaconia, Achille Michelizzi, Marco Brizzi, Gianni Pettena

Akei Toy Museum

Winter 2015 | Alex Pang

Location: Little Tokyo, CA

Program: Museum

In the increasingly bustling downtown areas of LA, the public space is threatened by more compact high rises. The Akei Museum addresses Little Tokyo’s pedestrian traffic by minimizing its footprint on the ground, and by creating a street like condition with series of plazas that that display the over sized art work for the public to interact with.

City of Gardens Apartment Homes

Winter + Spring 2016 | Dennis McFadden

Location: Pasadena, CA

Program: 14 Units of Low income housing

City of Gardens Apartments are located just West of Cal Tech campus, designed for graduate and professor level professionals attending Cal Tech. The 13,546 SF site consisting of 8 spacious single bedroom and 6 two bedrooms, the outdoor space is designed as a communal space to encourage sustianable living and a better life style. Courtyard areas to preform as community gardens

Joshua Tree Center For Sustainable Energy

Location: Twenty-Nine Palms , CA

Program: Education, Residential

Joshua Tree National Park is a place of sublime natural beauty, However, the extreme climate of the Sonoran and Mojave Desert area is uncompromising driving people away from a place the public think is dead. The Joshua Tree Center for Sustainable Energy is a residential science campus that is designed to serve the community and specially students from all ages to learn and apply science and sustainability in a safe enjoyable environment.

Spring 2015 | Pablo La Roche

NATIVE LANDSCAPE It protects water quality by reducing increases public health, and it provides

STRATEGIES

LOWER WINDOWS

LED MOTION SENSOR LIGHTING

Key Actions

GREY WATER RECYCLED 23,125 gal/yr

SOLAR POWER GENERATED 120,250 KwHr

PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES

5% 3%

PASSIVE SOLAR

The windows are oriented North to absorbe less heat from the sun as possible. The building heating and cooling was reduced by 70%

BEAUTY & HEALTH EQUITY ADA accessible 10,000 sf of garden Approx. 17,000 lbs of CO2 saved SECTION

ENHANCED ENVELOPE Thermal walls are installed South facing to eleminate heat coming to the building. The strategy works with passive solar to provide the indoor comfort needed

WATER EFFICIENCY

The petals reuse the reclaimed water from the site to grow the algae needed to provide biofuel that can be used on site

A 120,250 kilowatt array is used to generate electricity to the site to generate computers, lighting,

The Petals were inspired by the dense cells in the leaves of the desert flower, emulating nature's time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal of the Petals is to create fresh air, water and soil for a healty, desert climate friendly environment.

Bioreactor Petal

• A photobioreactor (PBR) is a bioreactor which incorporates some type of light source. Virtually any translucent container could be called a PBR, however the term is more commonly used to define a closed system, as opposed to an open tank or pond. Photobioreactors are used to grow small phototrophic organisms such as cyanobacteria, algae, or moss plant. These organisms use light through photosynthesis as their energy source and do not require sugars or lipids as energy source. Consequently, risk of contamination with other organisms like bacteria or fungi is lower in photobioreactors when compared to bioreactors for heterotroph organisms.

Light (energy) = O

• Bioreactors are also designed to treat sewage and wastewater. In the most efficient of these systems, there is a supply of a free-flowing, chemically inert medium which acts as a receptacle for the bacteria that break down the raw sewage. The biosolids can be collected for further processing, or dried and used as fertilizer

- Lower emissions

- Renewable

- Biodegradable

- Safer

Uses of Biofuels

The basic concept is that if we use as much product as we grown, then our net impact on the environment should be negligible if not zero.

- Transportation

- Power Generation

- Heat

Waste Water + MicroAlgae CH4 + H2 + 3 CH3-O-C-X CO2

Biofuels VS. Fossil Fuels

Rain Water Storage

CO2 + Nutrients introduced to algae and water

Algae Extraction + Water Recycling

Growth Tubes

BIOREACTOR PETALS

Rain Water Storage

CO2 + Nutrients for growth

Plastic / Fiberglass composite shell

PV Cell Panels

Bench

Concrete columns

2X Wood beams

Steel plate foundation connection

Concrete foundation

Particle filter + Valve

Harvested algae to be sent to refinery for conversion to bio fuel

BIOREACTOR SECTION

Growth Tubes

CO2 + Nutrients introduced to algae and water

Pump

Algae Extraction + Water Recycling

Harvested algae to be transported for refinment into bio fuel

Water + Wetland algae transport hose

TEMPERATURE HUMIDITY SOLAR WIND

Water Line

CASA II

Program: Residential

CASA II is a lightweight, flexible residential structure that could be installed on the rooftop of a building overlooking Piazza Repubblica, the rooftop providing a space where services and access already exist or are near at hand. A parasitic structure or a symbiotic addition for a disused urban space that can offer a sophisticated interplay of indoor and outdoor living among the clouds

Location: Piazza Della Repubblica, Firenze

Summer 2016 | Paola Giaconia, Achille Michelizzi, Marco Brizzi, Gianni Pettena

+

Biblioteca Nazionale

Fall 2016 | Paola Giaconia, Achille Michelizzi, Marco Brizzi, Gianni Pettena

Location: Firenze, Italia

Pogram: Historic Library Extension

The idea of Order vs Disorder is represented thoughout the city in the form of high complexity, it’s also presented by the renaissance art and the Florentine gothic style just few meters from the proposed library extension in Santa Croce.

Also, being in such a monumental location of the flood of 1966 and the need of gatherig public spaces other than the piazzas is very high, the idea of Outside vs Inside is presented by the proposed park expansion.

ORDER

Lytton Art Village

Fall 2017 | Luis Hoyos

Location: Hollywood, CA

Program: Mixed-use historic site

Group Members: Nathan Spencer, Jay Yan Yang

The current 60 Lytton Savings bank -occupied by Chase bank- is located on the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and North Crescent Heights Boulevard. One of the reasons that Lytton Savings is so significant is because it tells the story of Los Angeles in two ways. One is the architecture. It's Mid-Century Modern; everyone loves the zigzag roof, it's fun and memorable. And second is tells the story of the development of Southern California post-war, because these savings and loans funded all the residential homes throughout this town and the Valley. the big idea was to convey lightness and outdoor/ indoor experiences, the change of elevation brings control to the site and different outdoor spaces for the public to use. Our team's focuse was drawn toward the beauty of the original design and program which was the main inspiration for our special program (Element X). The idea of formal and informal carried-on to focus on three main attractions on the site, where buildings met, a collision happened and generated crystal shapes that originally were described as steel frame domes with glass panels very similar to the geodesic dome by R. Buckminster Fuller to focus the attention on the bank.The domes soon were manipulated and transformed to the needs of the site's square footage and dimensions to what is shown in the master plan to house our unique program.

From Chapter  of Preservations Briefs, NPS

+ Preserve significant historic materials, features and form. + Be differentiated from the historic building.

+ A rare or other secondary elevation is usually the best location for a new addition.

Housing

Population: 48,581

Median Household Income: $57,941

Gross rent

Median $1442

Housing unit a with a Mort gage

Median $3569

Hollywood, California

Space Available: 1,550 - 6,623 SF

Price: $4.25 USD/SF/Mo

Retail

7613 W Sunset Blvd - Retail Space Hollywood, California

Space Available: 1375 SF

Price: $2.75 USD/SF/Mo

Exhibition/ Event Spaces

Hollywood, California

Space Available: 2000 SF

Price: $650/hr @ 5 hrs min.

Hollywood, California

Space Available: 5,000 SF

Price: $3.75 USD/SF/Mo

7561 W Sunset Blvd - Retail Space Hollywood, California

Space Available: 1900 SF

Price: $3.25 USD/SF/Mo

Hollywood, California

Space Available: 1250 SF

Price: $200/hr @ 5 hrs min.

7551 W Sunset Blvd - Retail Space

Hollywood, California

Hollywood, California

Space Available: 1,100 - 2,289 SF

Price: $3.75 USD/SF/Mo

Space Available: 1450+SF

California Price: $4.50

Space Available: 2000 SF

Price: $500/hr @ 5 hrs min.

Element X is a key feature in the Lytton Art Village, it brings back history to where it once belonged and shares it with the neighborhood. It works as connecting points in both plan and section and brings openness and sense of community to the design. Since the bank is the focal point in the day time, the domes work to bring night life to the site. The light structures perform as floating lanterns emerging from the ground with different functions; Crystal  is a retail attraction, Since we have established that one of the towers will be housing creative office what's better than a convenient apple store that shares the values for art and modern design. Crystal  is an art exhibition space where artist come from all over the US to showcase their work and have it on display for purchase. The triple height space also can be rented for special events or can display large art work. Crystal  is simply a bar, since many locals were interested in a place where they can spend their weekday nights or a place for meetings that is not a Starbucks, we thought a European style bar would be the ideal addition to the new function of the bank building which is a restaurant, The bar and restaurant combination will be connected with a series open air piazzas to enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner outside facing the backside of the building. Lastly, we wanted to keep landscape minimal and focused on the private green roofs on both the office and residential towers, in order to achieve that, we added few trees to focalize the centers of the piazzas.

Retail : 105,000 SF Bank : 20,000 SF Total : 320,000 SF

In-vitro Meat Production Facility

Winter 2018 | Axel Schmitzberger Senior Thesis

Who Killed Bambi?

"Cities are constantly changing, ecology will just have to cope with the changes or they disapear" (1)

The City. Vernon is an industrial heavy city that showcases the daily life of blue collar working society layer in the greater Los Angeles, everything in the city is designed to fit the life style and the demands of people occupying it during working hours. Today, the city is a daytime drive through, it feels almost post-apocalyptic-humans are scarce, ensconced as they are behind the walls of factories, adult toy outlets, or warehouses. Around 50,000 people work in Vernon every day, but fewer than 500 live there. It is almost unbelievable for the modern visitor to Vernon to believe, but a little over 00 years ago, this area southeast of Downtown Los Angeles was an idyllically agrarian stretch of land, known as "the garden spot" of Los Angeles County and "sweet Vernon, loveliest village of the plain."

The Landscape. Vernon is no mystery, just like thousands of cities around the globe, it has changed drastically and it'll continue to evolve as long as the few hundreds occupying it control the show. From a development standpoint, the city thrives on the businesses on it's land. So why take that away? The city lost it's "Garden Spot" title long time ago and there is no turning back.

The Roof. The roof isn't a prominent element in Vernon, the sheds and warehouses are designed to be as efficient as possible, however, looking deeper into the city there are three buildings that stand out. The water tower, the bridge and the power plant presenting the most industrial building around the city, all three have a distinct roof datum and different functions associated with them. Alejandro Zaera Polo considers the building envelope "materializes the separation of the inside and outside, natural and articial"().

The Datum. Vernon has almost one single datum running through the city defining its height and visual quality. The datum is a distinction between what happens on the ground from manufacturing, production, storage, and reclamation of goods and the roof that isn't usually recognized however assumed ().

"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect." -Temple Grandin

The Big Picture. Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Globally, the cattle industry is responsible for nearly % of the total carbon emissions, the environmental impact of meat production varies because of the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. All agricultural practices have been found to have a variety of effects on the environment. Some of the environmental effects that have been associated with meat production are pollution through fossil fuel usage, animal methane, effluent waste, and water and land consumption.

A Hard Sell. Cultured meat, also called clean meat, lab-grown meat, test tube meat, tube steak, or in vitro meat, is meat grown in cell culture instead of inside animals.() It is a form of cellular agriculture. Cultured meat is produced using many of the same tissue engineering techniques traditionally used in regenerative medicine.(5) The first cultured beef burger patty, created by Dr. Mark Post at Maastricht University, was eaten at a demonstration for the press in London in August 0. It's no stretch to say that what Post is doing is revolutionary, given that it offers some answers to these seemingly impossible questions. Through his process, just a few cells from a single cow could generate up to 75 million quarter-pound hamburgers, or roughly what McDonald's sells worldwide each month (by contrast, it takes 0,000 cattle to produce the same number at present). Cultured beef would require 0 percent less land and 70 percent less energy to implement than conventional cattle farming measures, and do away with many of the associated pollutants and waste. It could also help eliminate variability in meat quality and incidents of food-borne illness.

The Different Components. Designing a distribution center for cultured beef would require a micro farm with few grass fed cows and grown in perfect conditions. It'll require a community-based center to educate people with the new technology, a market and a cafe for retail purposes, a lab for production, coolers for the Petri dishes, processing rooms that deal with raw and cooked meats. flash-freezing, packaging room, freezers and a shipping center.

Bibliography

(1) Paul Rudolph, The Evolving City

(2) Alejandro Zaera Polo, The Politics of the Envelope, web, pp. 77

(3) Rem Koolhaas, Junkspace, 2011

() Wim Verbeke, "Challenges and prospects for consumer acceptance of cultured meat". Journal of Integrative Agriculture.

(5) Mark Post, "Medical technology to Produce Food". Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

The Big Picture : Pollution

The cattle industry is responsible for 0% of the total carbon emissions in the world. An average cow releases between 70 and 0 kg of Methane per year.

Tissues are taken from a living cow by a biopsy then a lab technician separates the fat tissues from the muscle tissues.

Plasma Protein Extract from the cow's blood is added to the working cell along with amino acids and carbohydrates and placed in a refrigerator at -80 C

The newly grown and multiplied muscle cells naturally merge together to form a strand of cells called Myotube (0. mm) which then placed in a ring of gel that allows the muscle to contract frequently causing them to grow into a colony of muscle strand tissue layered together to form what looks and functions as a plate of ground beef that lacks in fat tissue and marbeling. The process requires 0 days from the biopsy to the grill.

Carbon emissions agriculture contribution

A comparison between worlds.

Scale:

+ +

Paveletskaya Place

08 - Present | 5+Design

Location: Moscow, Russia

Program: Underground retail historic site

Team Members: Arthur Benedetti - Founder and Principal

Mark Welz - Principal

Jeffrey Kleeger - Assoc. Principal

Ramon E. Hernandez - Designer

Featured: ArchDaily

Paveletskaya Place is a multi-functional public park, conceived around the experience of the visitors. The project is located next to the historic Moscow Metro Station, includes a shopping mall, programmable plazas, restaurants, event terraces, green spaces, and pedestrian walkways. Highlighting the public realm, the 7,000 square meters "park-integrated mall", situated in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow, will be experienced by the people in the nearby metro and rail stations, and the passersby through the continuous perimeter access. Actually a continuous flow of pedestrians enters this urban square from all sides. The design generates natural connections with the different surrounding components. Green spaces, meandering pathways, and skylights function on different levels to create a dynamic atmosphere. The retail floors are below the ground floor. The primary focal points of the shopping center, the Fashion Atrium and Food Hall Atrium, are underlined thanks to large skylights, allowing natural light to penetrate. Interior and exterior are merged in the larger of the two atrium spaces, with a flowing landscape from the retail levels to the park.

Located directly between historic Moscow Paveletskaya Railway Station and Garden Ring Road.

Below grade retail space preserves views of adjacent historic building.

Permeable web of civic space integrates public park and retail experience.

Two anticlastic canopies define the West and East court entries.

Retail: 7.000m of Land Area ( underground retail floors, underground parking floor), Planned GBA: 7.000m, GLA: .000m

Flagship Anchor

East Court

West Court

East Court Interiors

North Concourse Experience