Isabel Jane Marvel Design Portfolio 2024

Isabel Jane Marvel

Portfolio of Design

Isabel Jane was born and raised in New York City to an Architect Father from Puerto Rico and a Costume Designer Mother from Uruguay. From them, in part, she has cultivated her love and eye for design. It is Isabel Jane’s wish to incorporate an interdisciplinary approach to everything she does, whether it is illustration, architectural and interior design, or garment making.

She is currently getting her M.Arch at the Rhode Island School of Design (‘24), having previously received a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History and French & Francophone Studies from Vassar College (‘17) which included a year of study at the Sorbonne in Paris (‘15). In her time between undergraduate and graduate school, she lived and worked in San Francisco, Puerto Rico, and New York, working in art & design, hospitality, and community service.

Index of Work

Drawings & Illustrations

Architecture & Design

Independent Architectural Illustrations, NYC

“High-Wasted: Water-recycling Bath-Tower”: Providence, Rhode Island

Tabby Lab: Oyster-Crete Marketplace: Providence, Rhode Island

Refugee Housing & Community Center: Providence, Rhode Island

Housing Intervention: Stockholm, Sweden

RISD Campus Design: Providence, Rhode Island

Tree Study: Providence, Rhode Island

El Conventito & Furniture Design: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Apparel & Textiles

“Waste Coats,” Thesis; Providence, Rhode Island

Two Dresses and A Jacket: Jaipur, India

Textile Designs: Providence, Rhode Island

Drawings & Illustrations

Freelance Work

Drawings remain an important part of my practice, having always had a passion for illustration and hand-drawing. Growing up in New York provided a profound architectural and social focal point for my curiosity and interests, and it remains a large part of my personal and professional practice.

The following drawings were drawn by hand for Proposals for Marvel in 2019.

Architecture & Design

RISD, Providence, RI

High-Wasted Bath Tower

“It has no walls, no ceilings, no floors... nothing that makes it seem a city except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be: a forest of pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts, overflows.”

— Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

High-Wasted Bath Tower, RISD

Providence, RI

Fall 2021

High-Wasted is a bathhouse project about water, washing, and making activities once considered public, turned private (hidden), communal (visible) once again.

Floor plates are supported by the pipes which serve as both the vertical structure and the water path.

Chunk model (below) made of cast “oyster-crete:” sustainable concrete alternative replacing cement with ground oyster shells, gravel with oyster shell shards, sand and water. Up-cycled textile curtains.

Denim Artifact + Drawing, RISD

Providence, RI

Fall 2021

Artifact as precursor conceptual exploration for the Bath House project; exploring making with waste and industrial materials and axonometric representation.

Object: Recycled Denim Pulp, Polyester Mesh, Textile Scraps, Bungee Cord

Tabby Lab: Oyster-Crete Marketplace Providence, RI Spring 2022

Tabby Lab is an all-under-one-roof space for aquaculture laborers, oyster-enthusiasts, locals and visitors alike that connects shell to space to sea.

The building is a shared facility for workers and consumers alike. The program is equally divided, spatially, for an industrial working building and a public space that offers food, views of a processing facility and out at the bucolic bay. It also provides the public with an up-close look at and immersive experience in oyster concrete — a sustainable alternative to standard concrete.

Taking formal and material cues from industrial typologies and precedents, the regular and planar form of the building is modified to accommodate its inhabitants by being sheared into two connected but independent programs. Adjacent but slightly disconnected, the newly offset grids emphasize the independence of the spaces while co-habitating.

Tabby Lab: Oyster-Crete Marketplace

Providence, RI

Spring 2022

The material choices for the building work together in their contrasts, shown in the chunk model, below, made of “oyster-crete,” replacing the cement with ground up locally-sourced oysters, mimicking the historic building technique called “Tabby,” shown in detail below.

Tabby concrete was primarily used in the southern coast of the US in the 17th century when oysters were abundant and construction was burgeoning

The textured solid base of the slumping textured wall is complemented by the floating lightweight smooth aluminum roof flirtatiously fluttering above.

“Slump” Artifact + Drawing, RISD

Providence, RI

Fall 2021

Artifact precursor and conceptual exploration for Tabby Lab; exploring making and casting with oyster-crete, in particular pursuing the natural deformation and slump of concrete when poured without a rigid form.

The concrete was colored with locally-found ground up seaweed and algae to play with site-based material usage in addition to the oyster shells.

Drawing: Rhino + Illustrator

Object: Oyster-crete cast in plastic-lined mesh, orange paracord for constricting effect.

Community Center Renovation

Refugee Housing + Community Center Providence, RI Spring 2022

Our second semester studio project was renovating an existing community center building and adapting it to include new programming for housing and additional resources.

The black areas in the model, shown on previous page, illustrate the existing single story brick building, and all new build is illustrated in bass wood.

The renovated building is newly organized around courtyards at different scales on both levels.

The ground floor is organized around two large courtyards, one (1) public facing for daycare dropoff and classroom access, the other (2) a private backyard and entrance for residents with access to the second floor dwelling units via a covered staircase.

2

Existing brick facade (black) wraps the new renovation

The second floor dwelling units wrap around open-air second story courtyards to form neighborhood-like clusters. The courtyards have opaque walls with a clerestory window to bring light into the hallway while provide privacy to dwellings’ entryways.

Mechanical and electrical equipment and water drainage would be routed through the second floor from the 2nd floor courtyards out.

Swedish Public Housing Model, RISD

Providence, RI

Fall 2022

The first part of the project focused on research and model development of another site in Sweden where we wrote an RFP and then handed the project off to another group, receiving an RFP and model to intervene on from yet another group.

The site model below is of a slice of public park in Tensta, a suburb of Stockholm. The site focuses on the relationship between the underpass, the park, and the border of the urban space.

The project asks for the underpass, a critical hinge point, to be renovated into a public luxury for the residents of Tensta. This model responds to part one of an assignment, part two is an exchange of site models and RFPs to be intervened upon by another student group.

Site Model, made of embroidered felt & embroidered and wood, is 36” x 18”

The underpass was the focal-point of the RFP; a dark space waiting to be ignited.

Hokarangen Public Housing Intervention

Housing + Public Luxury

Hökarängen, Stockholm, Sweden

Fall 2022

After studying the “Million Homes Programme” that launched the construction of 1 million new dwelling units in Stockholm between 1965-1975, we updated the existing housing stock and added a “public luxury” to the neighborhood.

This project was based on the premise of receiving an RFP from another group and proposing a design, modeling designer-client relationships.

We proposed 3 main interventions:

1. New Sidewalk Circulation proposal with recreational nodes

2. Floor Mitigation in existing housing blocks

3. Expansion of existing apartments to accommodate new family structures

^ 1. Sidewalk circulation: Site map of Hökarängen neighborhood with proposed pedestrian circulation, connecting mixed-use housing blocks with commercial zones and new recreational nodes.

< An elevated pedestian loop becomes part of the sidewalk redesign, pulled off the main road away from cars, to increase outdoor recreational activity.

2. Flood Mitiagtion:

Our team took a landscape design approach — noting that the actual construction quality of the buildings from the 1940s was high and the units large and pleasant — and implemented a new sidewalk for walkers and bikers with Bioswales and rain gardens to collect and redirect storm-water and excess rainwater pooling.

Rain Garden

Bioswale

Bioswale & Rain Garden Flood Mitiagation

Existing conditions prone to flooding

2. Housing Intervention:

In search of more opportunities for neighbors to interact with and see one another, increasing familiarity, we added new shared balconies of 6’ in depth to the south facade of certain units to extend the interior life and connect it to the newly expanded exterior life. They can be subdivided with panels or plants for privacy.

Additionally we altered the building entrances on the north side of the building to common vestibules shared by 6 units per block. The new entrance houses mailboxes and seating for a rest after coming in from the cold Scandinavian winter or to wait for your ride in shelter.

End units have an added third bedroom that punches out onto the balcony for growing family sizes.

Campus Expansion for RISD

Providence, RI 2021

Starting from an original concept diagram — combined geometry from an Annie Albers textile with a painting by El Lissitsky — I created a snaking, connected design of descrete structures.

Programming includes spaces exclusively for students — residences, workspace, educational and gathering spaces — and some public offerings in a Gallery for student work and a café.

Solo project at RISD using Rhino 7, Illustrator, Photoshop and Vray.

Student Housing

Student Workspaces

Lecture Halls

Theater & Indoor Gathering Spaces

Café & Student Galleries

Concept Diagram

Ground Plan

Public programming sits at the bottom of the hill participating in an existing commercial corridor, while the student-oriented facilities sit at the top of the site on Benefit St., where many existing RISD buildings sit.

At the first level, the buildings are grouped by publicly accessible on the left—café, gallery, auditoriums— to private access for RISD constituents—dorms, offices, and student work and gathering spaces.

The entire site sits on a staircase allowing people to sit anywhere, gather anywhere, and move anywhere. I imagine people running up or skipping down the steps, incorporating whimsy and play into ordinary travel from A to B.

For greater accessibility, there are ramps that connect key building entrances to the sidewalk spanning the length of the site.

Colorful facades signal RISD affiliation of the new development and sets it apart from the surrounding brick and wood-paneled residential buildings.

3D-printed cection model on CNC milled site, hand-painted and hydro-dipped for colors and marbled texture.

“A

campus-wide event”

Tree Mapping

Trees in architectural representation are often over-simplified.

I studied a living, planted tree like a building: Mapping and indexing the foliage Measuring trunk growth at different intervals Surveying, scanning, and creating a plan of the root system, Creating a plan of the canopy and its branches; Structural bookends.

Stitched together in a quilt the mass of foliage, trunk and branches.

Height: 23’2”

Max. crown diam.: 21’

Crown project: 195.5ft2

Canopy volume: 1,681.3ft3

Branch length: 11’

Professional Design Work

Marvel, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2020

El Conventito

San Juan, PR Began 2021

In 2016, Marvel purchased an abandoned building next door in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The building was an an old convent for the nun’s of the church on its other side.

In 2020, while working at the architecture office, it was decided:

“Let’s turn it into a hotel.”

El Conventito, now under construction, will be a boutique hotel set to open in 2025, in Machuchal, a busy and popular neighborhood in San Juan.

Existing conditions

Materiality and Minimalism drove the design of the studio rooms. The wood for all the bespoke furniture is locally-sourced Mahogany and Teak from Puerto Rico, specifically from the NGO “Puerto Rico Hardwoods,” that collects trees felled by earthquakes and hurricanes and creates salvage wood instead of being put in the dump as most trees felled by disasters are. The tiles are the original cement and ceramic “Lozas” which are typical of Puerto Rican interiors from the 1930-50’s.

The standard Studio room features minimal furniture to achieve a serene ambiance, echoing the building’s history as a convent dormitory for nuns.

Renderings made in Enscape in collaboration with Yuyang Tian.

The Studio room provides an ideal live-work environment for an individual traveling for work or working remotely. Inspired by Donald Judd’s minimalist furniture, and working with the constraints of the small rooms formerly occupied by Nuns, combining the bed and the desk became the solution for optimal circulation and layout.

Bed-desk final prototype in locally sourced Mahogany.

Apparel & Textiles RISD, Providence, RI

“Waste Coats”

RISD Thesis Work

Fall 2023

A Jacket and Pants made from 100% recycled denim building insulation. Instead of sitting in landfills, denim can now be up-cycled and used as building insulation as a healthier, more sustainable and equally effective alternative to fiberglass insulation (which is none of those things). This suit is the first of a coming collection made entirely out of industrial building materials that are being re-contextualized and reformed to continue their life cycle to avoid going straight to the dump. The longer we can keep a material in use, the more sustainable!

Vest stuffed with recycled denim pulp (with viewing window)

“Frost King” Recycled Insulation

“Waste Coats”

RISD Thesis

Fall 2023

Vest stuffed with recycled denim pulp (with viewing window)

Construction wear needs to be visible, durable, and suitable for all seasons; this vest is made with waterresistant high-visability orange nylon, lined with soft organic cotton muslin, and filled with up-cycled denim pulp, also known as “shoddy”

Up-cycled Denim Pulp used as puffer filling

Recycled Denim Insulation

“Waste Coats”

RISD Thesis

Spring 2023

A coat made from “Tyvek”, typically used as a weather barrier in a wall assembly. While it has no thermal mass or insulating thickness, the “Tyvek” material provides a shell that retains body heat, deflects solar heat gains, keeping the body naturally warmed by retaining its own radiating heat. The orange stitching provide an accent that nods to the familiar high-visibility construction orange, deployed in a zigzag stitch that holds panels together without creating a perforated line that would essentially create a tear-line.

Apparel Pieces

Jaipur, India

Winter 2023

Last winter I traveled to India with the Textile and Apparel Departments to explore traditional dyeing and textile making practices.

For three weeks I worked with embroidery and natural dye artisans to design and created three pieces of apparel that were inspired by the colors, symbols and materials of Jaipur.

The jacket is indigo-dyed silk-cotton blend with a pink mulberry silk lining. The embroidery is all sewn by hand. The various pins were picked up from the local material market.

Patterns / Textiles

RISD, Providence, RI

Pattern design following the process of creating bands of color extracted and extruded from photographs.

Work created in a Surface and Pattern design course in the Textiles Department at RISD, Winter 2022.

Top to bottom:

Sunset in Penobscot Bay, ME; Visions of La Navarra, Spain; A-top O’ Cebreiro, Spain.

Gouache paint on bristol.