Graduate Portfolio

LEX·I· CON

· parts or members which, together, form a body of work. · the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge. · in combination with grammar, forms speech.

SELECTED WORKS

2017 - 2019 · ·

CONTENT (s)

presented achronologically and with respect to theme.

Advanced Architectural Design Studio

Engaging with the under-served populations of Presidio and Marfa Texas, this Healthcare studio engages with the issues unique to Rural Healthcare.

Overcoming issues of distance, education, and standard of care, the generated solutions have real-world implications.

Architectural Studio VII

A six-week study abroad in Seoul, South Korea, this studio attempts to analyze large amounts of data embedded in emergent social systems—and thereby generate ameliorative solutions in the metropolitan ward of Changsin-Dong, one of the world’s leading producers of fabric and textiles.

Advanced Architectural Design Studio

Engaging with architecture through the lens of literary devices, this studio analyzes various plays, stages, and alternative media to provide new insight into the structures and methods of organization that govern the discipline.

Other Selected Media

As architecture’s multi-valency becomes more and more understood, other medias become necessary to investigate the ever-expanding scope of the field.

These specific investigations are manifested in photography, watercolor, and the media of literary narrative.

Kuhn Park Julie Zook

James A. Taylor

Armando Rigau

Integrative Design Studio

A topocritical approach to mapping, building systems, and architecture’s ability to provide long-lasting, impactful solutions on both the macro and micro levels.

Work CV and Résumé

James A. Taylor

Rafael Beneytez Durán

RURAL HEALTHCARE AID FOR THE UNDERSERVED : the Ownership of Care

In some locations of Presidio county, the largest county in texas by several thousand square miles, it can take up to ninety minutes for an ambulance to reach the victims of a disaster.

This radically inefficient, ineffective, condition is the result of under-funding, under-representation, of a topographically challenging location.

Kinetic Joint v2.0

While architecture’s ability to affect legislation has been, so far, ineffective (despite what many theses and lectures posit), there is the very real oppurtunity for the profession to generate a new strategy to serve this community. Such a strategy could not simply be a new clinic, hospital or trauma center—the money simply isn’t there. For this reason, a more precise, specifc solution must be generated.

With the rich history, and temporarly-affected populations of the county, Marfa and Presidio need solutions that can work beneath the heavy demands of temporality.

For this reason, an extreme site must be used to test the adaptability, endurance, and utility of the proposed solution. For this reason, the arts festival Burning Man is used as a theoretical site and testing ground for the solution: a simple joint and some cloth.

· How do we overcome the radical isolation and vast distance of underserved communities in West Texas? · What are the dominant issues of the area? · Must the architecture be made by architects?

Hidden in the crags of Nevada’s largest desert, Burning Man’s home of Black Rock City is a self-sufficient city complete with emergency, sanitary, and medical infrastructure. Though beneath this feat of master planning, there lies a lack of dedicated medical attention—stories of which are masked beneath a veneer of “Radical Self-Reliance” one of Burning Man’s ten governing principles.

Utilizing Burning Man’s extant infrastructure, the opportunity arises to embed a ‘theme camp’ within Black Rock city. Such a camp would need to allow ample space and relief in a crowded, incredibly intense landscape, while simultaneously adhering to Burning Man’s 10 Principles of Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decomodification, Radical Self-Reliance, Radical Self-Expression, Community Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation, and Immediacy.

Embedded within any large gathering, inherent risks must be mitigated for the gathering itself to succeed. For this reason, small medical centers are set about Black Rock City, with the main clinic located centrally in the plan. The quality of the care however, is somewhat limited by the facilities being used. Previously, the medical centers themselves have been small, cramped spaces with little light and metal walls. Though there are nurses, doctors and many volunteers to run these stations on the playa, they are inhibited by structures in which they operate.

All of this conjecture is useless against a lack of demand for medical services. Are people even injured at Burning Man? And if they are, are the current services offered not enough to facilitate appropriate levels of care?

This is a difficult question, because so much of the injuries and, rarely, deaths that occur at Burning Man go unreported, and mostly unnoticed. But injuries do happen, and in an experimental culture such as this, the issues that arise require full medical attention, and specific medications for care.

Burning man holds within it a long tradition of participatory architecture. Since its inception, artists and members of various fields have all come together not only to design structures and spaces, but rallied with one another to accomplish the construction and maintenance of them. For this reason, a modular system, limited only by the imagination and dedication of the users, can be successfully implemented.

BEFORE THE END OF ARCHITECTURE : The last Disciplinary Frontier

· Through what lense must architecture be viewed? · Is architecture a phenomenal exercise—or merely a manifestation of autonomy? · What non -architectural structures are applicable to the discipline?

Phenomenology vs. Autonomy

In any theoretical architectural dialogue, there are often two emergent “sides”: that of the “phenomenologists” (which are most accurately characterized by Zumthor, Holl, and Hadid); and then their are the “autonomists” individuals such as Peter Eisenman and manfredo tafuri. In this project, one of the two must be chosen, and then used as a means of generating architecture. In this instance, Phenomenology, dealing with materials and light, is the lense.

Concurrent with the research into phenomenology, the play No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre is analyzed for both its existential subject matter and the structures present in the play.

From these seemingly seperate analyses, a notion of planar emergence and recession forms, and is then further explored in a series of watercolor studies in phenomenology.

Injecting these varying levels of analysis into a an extant site and building, the project manifests as a theatre for the play which was studied earlier.

This occurs by taking the original sectional qualities of the extant structure and using a series of planes to highlight and occlude certain aspects of the space. As this manifests in the sectional drawings of the design, so too is the volumetric space affected.

Framing Phenomena

_Analytical Definition A theatre, with its dark, shrouded space, broken only by focused light, obliviates all but the stage. Creating a direct-line to the inner psyche of most people.

_Ideological Definition The phenomena of a theatre is akin to a cocoon, or chrysalis. This structure allows a protected transformation possible only by a death of a previous mode.

_Conceptual Narrative A theatre as a place for transformation would evoke many concepts of spatial organization and programming. But, by injecting this idea with knowledge from the Steinelset, and lessons from phenomenology, a more specific approach manifests through key insights:

SYSTEM OF RELIEF THE FABRIC OF CHANGSIN : An Ameliorative Solution

In the incredibly dense region of Changsin-Dong, Seoul, radical topography is a defining aspect of its northern half. This, coupled with the fact that most of the individuals who live and work in the area are over fifty, creates a severe problem.

With such a rich system of transporting fabric all along the ward, the elderly are negelected, if not endagered by the economic necessities of the area.

aA+Buggy

Since this problem is the result of a series of incompatible layers being forced to overlap, the apparent solution is to excise what does not work. This presents its own issues, however. Most notably, these stratas are too deeply engraned in the region to exise them while maintaing their integrity. The elderly will not be moved, the industry will not be moved, the topography will not be moved.

For this reason, a new system is proposed. This layer, instead of further occluding and congesting the region, serves to move between the layers and systems present in Changsin-Dong, and allowing them to all mesh together in a more compatible way.

The aA+Buggy is an autonomous transport system capable bringing residents of the areas to and from specifc areas of congestion within the area. This serves to free the streets, and put the elderly on equal footing.

· Is architecture bound to the notion of space? · Can the insertion of a new system into a plethora of already extant ones generate an ameliorative solution? · Are new systems compatible with old ideas?

TOWARDS A NEW NOTION OF GEOGRAPHY : The Depths of the Ogalalla Aquifer

One of the largest aquifers in the world, the Ogallala is a geological formation that underlies more than 174,000 square miles across eight states. Supplying 82% of the drinking water to the 2.3 million people who live within its borders, as well as fueling the agriculture of the Great Plains, the conservation of the this geological wonder becomes a dominant issue in the analysis of both micro, and a macro efforts at conservation

Colorado

It is projected that once the Ogallala runs dry, it will take more than 6,000 years to replenish itself. Yet, with the current laws and boundaries that split the aquifer among imaginary lines, it is easy to see we do not treat the Ogallala as a single entity, but merely fragments of a whole that each state may use as its leadership deems fit.

Because individual state governments (some moreseo than others) are unlikely to change much of their laws in an attempt to save the Ogallala, the need for an architectural solution arises.

By mapping information specific to each state, as well as information that affects the aquifer as a whole, a micromacro approach to the Ogallala’s conservation forms: Dividing the Ogallala into pieces generated by state lines, a formal understanding of the spatial characteristics in each region can be utilized. These formal representations not only supply residents with a form for their conservational efforts; but creates a visual representation of the thing which they may save.

· How may architectural solutions be generated to save a rapidly diminishing resource? · Through a topocritical approach, should such a resource be divided by our imaginary borders? · Should our borders exist at all?

WHAT MAKES A STATE? The boundaries of Colorado

It is also in this way that the slicing of the Ogalla becomes a formal gesture. The effort to better understand the arbitrary volume and the means by which it is evaluated can indeed be applied to the public perception of the thing.

In the ways that this fragment is measured, much is revealed, and its disection not only draws the public in, but allows an intimate relation to be formed during the conservational experience.

To be read as a map itself, the orientation of the form must maintain the same Northerly alignment which occurs in an actual map.

Its origin cemented, the formal qualities of the volume may then be analyzed.

Begining with the footprint of the aquifer fragment, the boundaries and therefore character of the form’s limiting aspects may be altered a little. This allows the contours of the site to be hyperbolically emphasized as it better depicts the nature of its qualities.

This then allows a further level of analysis by having a final volume. By slicing the emerging ‘mountain’ into bites that allow more specific investigation, the true qualities of the form can be revealed.

Each various attempt to divide and emphasize a different element of the Colorado then provides a new method by which the architecture may emerge.

Further, the carves made provide ready integration into the landscape where the conservatory is situated.

Emerging from the flat Grasslands surrounding the form, marbled with many paths used by avid bird-watchers, the fragment is stiched into the landscape of the Colorado plains.

Finally, the gesture created serves as a foil to the natually occuring flatlands surrounding the ‘mountain.’ For miles, the only observable elevation is the conservatory itself, and the canyons and buttes it gestures to— both of which have their geological origins in the Ogallala Aquifer.

Prowers Bent Otero

Crowley Pueblo

El Paso

Elbert

Arapahoe Washington

Logan Weld Larimer Morgan Douglas

Jefferson Lincoln

Baca Las Animas

THE COLORADO AERIE

-24’-6”

-16’-0”

THE COLORADO AERIE a Living Map of the Ogallala

Contrasting the flat plains of the Pawnee National Grasslands, the Colorado Aerie erupts from the even earth as a foil to its steady context.

Located within one of the few flat regions in the state, the Aerie is home to many of the Pawnee Grassland’s natural flora and fauna—the most notable of which being its diverse and plentiful avian population.

Arranged with its spine to true North, the Aerie is oriented as the Ogallala below it— allowing it to be read as a map. This orientation is further reinforced by overlaying the arbitrary boundaries of the Colorado counties across the volume— splitting the whole structure into various regions and programs. This dilleneation allows for each county of Colorado to be represented in the Aerie, the top of which houses multiple xeriscape gardens.

These gardens, and the regions which make it, behave like any garden in the area, they have droughts, bugs, weeds, vermin, and all normal means of destruction. But now also posses a mechanism by which these things can be prevented:

The Colorado Aerie takes waterconsumption data from all the various counties in the state, and manages the gardens based upon it. For counties which regulate their consumption, are responsible with their groundwater, and prevent pollution of the Ogallala, their portion of the garden will be wellmaintained and pristine.

For the counties which consume far past their guidlines and regulations, their portion of the garden will be left to nature and whatever it brings, showing a marked contrast with the regions that surround it.

IRRITABLE HOUSE Z4Z4

ARCHITECTS : Rafael Beneytez-Durán / Ophelia Mantz

Madrid, Spain

Settled in the outskirts of Madrid, the Irritable House poses a unique challenge in the delivery of its materials.

With the roads to and from the property layered with many overpasses, there becomes a requirement for the size, and therefore volume, allowed to be delivered at any one time.

In this way, the idea of modularity became a fundamental aspect of the design, and the idea of assembly, a focus.

joint structure

Allowing delivery of materials no wider than 3 meters by the bed of a truck, the movement of materials would be a laborious process, through which time and money would be spent rapidly. Instead, it became the idea that pre-fabricated modules, fully furnished and assembled, would be delivered to the frame of the house and connected on site in a quick, efficient manner.

This new idea then posed the question of how the modules would connect. With each part stacking on another, one by one, not only would a new structural system be necessary, but investigations into interlocking mechanisms had to be done. The result is a series of joints that allow the boxes to be stacked on one another, and connect quickly through bolts on site. In this way, the architecture provides a solution directly to the site and situation.