Page. 1-4: Architecture Thesis, 2023: Vail to the Orisha
Page. 5-8: Holst Architecture: Rand Road (Current Project)
Page. 9-12: Architecture 581, 2022: Crystal Chalice
Page. 13-16: Architecture 582, 2022: Shrine to Gaia
Page. 17-20: Architecture 481, 2021: Black Rose
Vail to the Orisha was my absolute favorite project to complete in my entire archtecture career. The goal of this three term thesis was to fix Eko Atlantic (which is a huge urban developemtn in Lagos Nigeria), so that it does not become a new Dubai and ignore the people of Lagos and their needs. This was a balancing act between the needs of the people and the desires of the city, which resulted in a kilometer tall skyscraper that works as a vertical street so that people’s needs like groceries and medical centers are available while expensive lots for stores and offices of international as well as gobal conglomerates can work in recovering revenue and earning profit for the nation of Nigeria, the city of Lagos, and the people of the African Diaspora.
The composition drawing above shows the varying spaces within the skyscraper with indicators of where they exist in the archtiecture. The main backdrop is an anticipation of how Eko Atlantic’s skyline will evolve as it desnifies in the future.
The Map to the right is my redisgn of Eko Atlantic to incoporate more water and green space in the plan, for the condensing act of the skyscrapers in the city allows more useable space on the streets for natural interventions. That is one of the benifits of building up rather than building out. This also allows me to employ more water ways within the urban design to aid in the cooling factor of the city. This may be an architecture thesis, but the architecture is tied to the urban landscape of the city. In other words, my thinking is why stop at the actualy building when there can be a dialogue between it and the city it hopes to improve.
Black and gold were major influences to how the exterior and interior colors come together, as well as how I drew the floor plans. The composite drawing on the bottom shows the floor architypes in scale with each other. There were floors only for the lobby space, commercial use, office use, residential use, educational use and museum usage (ascending in that order). All of which had there own floor plan design to give them each their own personality. The Commercial and Lobby floor architypes are divided into four parts for the bottom of the portion of the edifice is split into four parts to allow air to pass through and reduce the amount of draft caused by the structure on the ground level of the city. Additionally, this alllows the four parts to combine into one building, but with a slight twist. Adding a twist to these four parts allows for more light to penetrate the massive interior space, and adds lateral stability to the project.
For the massing of the skyscraper, I based it on clothing within nigeria, and the way it drapes over people’s bodies. Graphically, I used space as the background for the floor plans, for space is often time associated with celestial bodies. In another way to praise the Orisha, the skyscraper is also covered with Yoruba patterned mullions to keep consistant with respecting the gods.
My work at Holst has consisted of various design phases of various prjects. I touched every phase of design from feasibility to construction administration. My specialty though was in pure design. In the project Rand Road in Hood River, Oregon, I was able to work closely with my project designer to execute his vision of the housing on the campus, and aid in improving their outlooks. Rand Road was a seven building project that consisted of townhomes, three story walk-ups, a four story elevator building and a community building. All of the buildings are presented in the aerial render to the left. Not only did I assist in designing all individual buildings, but I also worked a lot with the landscaping of the site. This involved coordinating the design intent of the landscape archtiects, and intertwining their ideas with our own. In the bottom left, we converted a fire turnaround into a turf field for the residents to play on, while, on the bottom right, we intergrated a community garden in the space between two of the walk-ups. In the process of modeling this project, I used a plugin for SketchUp called Skatter frequently to paint vegetation easily into the model.
Skatter played a significant role in adding the Hood River atmosphere into our renderings, which helped with conveying our architecture with the local plantlife. This is appaerent in the community building’s patio render. In this view, we are able to get a view of how people will experience our architecture with the surrounding nature.
For the bottom three renders, they show the work I made on the interior of the buildings. Our workflow was main design changes were made in SketchUp before we brought it into Revit to coordinate with consultants on next steps for the pragmatics of the actual architecture. I worked in both SketchUp and Revit to design and document the changes in the building design. For example, in the community building kitchen (bottom left), I designed the vaulted interior ceiling in SketchUp then went to Revit to place the lights in accordance to how the luminaire engineer suggested. There was a back and forth on what type of lights we should use, how far we should place them to create a rythm with the 9-wood trusses, and trying to reduce the amount of lights to save on cost once we figured out we were over budget. I continued this hrough casework, air terminals, wall paints, equipments, etc.
Crystal Chalice is project where we have to envision how to aid Portland with their climate and water issues. For the urban side of things, I invested my time into making a system of trenches that aid in capturing and distriputing water thoughout the neighborhood. To the right is a urban plan on how the trenches are dug through the neighborhood. this shows how the trenches do not replace any streets. In fact, the trenches exist between the expexted housing that will arise in the future, which this expexted housing is more densified apartments. This strategy gives them all access to the water in their backyards. This is a system that can be applied to any neighborhood in South East Portland.
My answer also included a skyscraper that acted as a water tower, but with some new techniques. This to holds rain water captured from the sky and from the rest of the city. In the video on the previous page, there is a pool of water far away from the tower that poeple were gathering at. This is one of many pools a part of a trench system throughout certain neighborhoods in Portland that capture water and send it back to the Crystal Chalice. Collecting water from Fall to Spring aids in preventing flash flooding, along with having a plethora of green space design all around the trenches to help prevent dirty water run-off like bioswales. The water not only gathers in the chalice, but also the “Central Park” design that surrounds the Crystal Chailice on the Block it stands on. The composite drawing on the bottom highlights various stages of this water gathering throughout the urban plan. In the end of the process when Summer arrives, the Crystal Chalice will distripute the captured water back into the city so that it can evaporate in the trenches. This evaporation allows the water to cool the city. It is also available for people to jump into the water themselves and interact with it as they please.
The Crystal Chalice can also host a farmer’s market, classes on gardening, and community kitchens for the community to self enhance for the better. All of these features are present in the Floor Plans on the top middle.
The drawing on the bottom middle is a Cartoghraphic Imagination on how the water of the local mountain (Mt. Hood) is still heaviliy conected to the people of the city.
The Section above helps in exploiting the magnitude of water this tower can hold, while the Eevation to the left shows how water is collected from the oceans, the sky, and space, with my edifice being the “middle-man” to all of these phases.
In Shrine to Gaia, we were tasked with making a boat house, as well as studying an architect to help influence this design. The site was on the riverfront of the Willimatte River in Portland. This old site eventually degrades down to a sharp shore into the water, and I was expected come up with a soluiton ot aleviate this issue so that the poeple that use the boathouse can have an easier time accessing the water as well as their boats.
For the design, I eventually came up was combination of a light house and a boat. In the section to the top right, the taller portion of the architecture is meant to retain all programmatic elements except for holding the actual boats, while the longer part over the water is suppose to hold the boats. My reasoning for dedicating a large potion of the project over the water is to allow the boats to easily access the water from the building trough a ramp system. Contunuilly, I made the decision to add a lattice structure to the top of the tall portion to simulate the form of fins or sails, and the idea of using a lattice frame became common theme throughout the rest of the design. This is epecially apparent in the roof of the portion over the water, which is exclusively used for holding the boats.
The lattice roof structure uses glulams for its structure, which gives the structure a more natural feeling. The render/collage to the left aids in demonstrating the feeling inside of this section of the boat house.
The three collages to the bottom of the page are based on my precedent study of Max Taut, who was a German architect of union buildings. The study of union buildings is ludacris to a boathouse, but the excersise was to find the similarities between architecture that are fundamentally different. In my studies, I chose to make these three collages to represnt my feeligns throughout my research. The far left one is a collage of how it felt to watch history unfold from the confines of the book I was reading. The details were about book burning from the Nazis in the 1930s. The Middle collage is how I visualize Taut drawing a building from the exotic to form to the interior. The last collage to the right is all of his union buildings united in the storm of facism. The lessons that I found from the study is how to unite poeple in pleasurable places, as well as giving the architecture a form that invites poeple in.
Black Rose was my first Skyscraper design challenge for a class, and what really reinvigorated my fire for architecteure. The mission was to design a luxury Skyscraper within a quater block lot. The site was in downtown Portland, and in the site vignette to the right, Black Rose is suppose to be a rose on the face of the city.
I was thrilled to design a skyscraper for luxury apartments in the constraints of a quarter block area. For my design, I based it on the form of a Rose, since the project was in Portland; also known as the Rose City. I called my project the Black Rose as you can see in the title page, and it is built to exfoliate beauty to the city. The intent of its crown was to help distinguish it in the skyline, as well as adding a flower to the the beauty of Portland and her urban context. The Vignette on the bottom was to present the challenge that I had in front of myself of approaching a design analogous to a rose, while the render next to is shows the results to my labor.
The skyscraper is 450 feet tall, with a floor every 10 feet. Conversely, the first 4 floors were all used for the lobby. The goal of the floor plans was to add fluidity to them, as well as in the perspective to the left of the tower from outside. The rest of the interior design was meant to retain the continuity of the fluidity caught from the exterior, and then further transfer the flow of the render into the way the floor plans flow as well. All of which stride to hold a organic shape similar to a rose.
Further transformations to the floor plan would add a more triangular shape to aid in distinguishing the varying apartments in the plan. Two of the apartments on the floor would be one floor, while one of the apartments would take up two floors as shown in the floor plan to the bottom left. In the elvations, you can see how the added twist to the triangular shape gives it a unique envelope.
