Jane Cole Architecture/Design Portfolio, Spring 2023

JANE COLE PORTFOLIO

Architecture & Design

CONTENTS

STRATEGIC SOIL

Columbia University GSAPP

Core Studio I

Critic Patricia Anahory

Fall 2022

This project explores the history of the underground— and excavation into the underground—in Manhattan’s northernmost neighborhood of Inwood. There are records of three historical burial grounds in Inwood, none of which are still in existence: one belonging to the Indigenous Lenape people, one belonging to Dutch colonizers, and one belonging to the African people that the Dutch enslaved. As New York City contractors began ground leveling in Inwood in the early twentieth century, these burial grounds were excavated and discarded. Presently, substantial rezoning of Inwood has ushered in significant new construction in the same territory where the burial grounds once lay. Despite the fact that the ground excavated will contain large quantities of valuable soil, the soil will nonetheless be exported out of New York City and discarded in landfills, just as the excavated graves were in the early twentieth century.

Site analysis maps | Comparison between the excavation and dispersal of New York City Indigenous, African, and Dutch burial grounds with that of construction soil.

Strategy diagrams | The project proposes a strategy for ensuring that Inwood’s excavated soil remains in Inwood in the aftermath of future construction projects. Using 375 West 207th Street—a high rise planned for construction in 2023—as a case study, detailed calculations show how excavated soil could be redistributed; some may be used for the construction of artificial coastal wetlands and flood protection barriers along Inwood’s eastern waterfront, some could be used to create earthen construction materials such as earth bags and compressed earth blocks, and the remaining soil would be repurposed for rammed earth public infrastructure, including benches and park dividing walls (right). The benefits of such a strategy would be manifold: to marginally reduce construction waste and carbon emissions resulting from the transportation of this waste to landfills, and to correct for the historical erasure of Inwood’s underground.

Hamburger Fries and Shake 45¢

Big Mac

During the 2003-04 academic year, NYU sophomore Steve Stanzak (”Bobst Boy”) lived in Bobst Library for eight months after being denied adequate financial aid and becoming unable to afford both tuition and housing, even with scholarships and loans.

Stanzak purportedly bathed in NYU’s nearby gymnasium, 404 Fitness, which he was afforded access to as an NYU student.

As a creative writing and music double major, Stanzak likely would have taken classes at NYU’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, only a ten minute walk from Bobst Library.

Not enrolled in a student meal plan, Stanzak ate his meals and studied at the Greenwich Village McDonald’s.

PROJECT IN PROGRESS: REVEALING MANHATTAN’S STUDENT HOMELESSNESS CRISIS

Columbia University GSAPP

Core Studio II

Critic Esteban de Backer

Partner project with Claire Navin

Spring 2023

Ccurrently in development for a Spring 2023 studio course, this project began with an examination of the Elmer Bobst Library, NYU’s iconic campus library. During the 2003-04 school year, an NYU sophomore, nicknamed “Bobst Boy,” took shelter in the library because he was unable to afford student housing or off-campus rent. My partner and my exploration of the Bobst Boy’s story, depicted in the section perspective drawings of buildings he frequented and in corresponding call -out illustrations, triggered an investigation into the broader, arguably more pressing issue of homelessness among NYC’s K-12 public school students. In the background of the drawing, circles represent the number of homeless students at Manhattan school disitricts where the overall rate of student homelessness is over 20 percent. Meanwhile, extruded buildings indicate real estate owned by private educational institutions, including primary, secondary, and higher ed.

Diagram drawing | I was responsible for the call-out illustrations, two out of four section perspectives, and the collection of data pertaining to student homelessness in NYC.

Physical model | Conceptual model tracing homeless shelter to school and back; spatializes home and school for student’s experiencing housing

an NYC 4th grader’s daily commute from a spatializes the disruption of the relationship between housing instability. Completed independently.

MIRRORED GREENHOUSES

Columbia University GSAPP

Introduction to Architecture

Critic Elie Zenoun

Summer 2021

The project imagines two linked, nearly-symmetrical greenhouses situated on Columbia University’s Avery Plaza. Though the site is nestled between campus buildings, it allows pedestrian access from Amsterdam Avenue. The greenhouses would not only serve the campus community, perhaps inviting collaboration with agriculture and ecology research labs, but would also be accessible to Morningside Heights residents. Benches, both inside and outside the structures, are integrated into the existing planters, and all entries to the Plaza are kept open so as to allow for flow of movement. In addition to fostering plant life, the site could serve as a multipurpose space for social life, studying, and/or leisure.

Perspective | Image featured in GSAPP Instagram post (@columbiagsapp), August 9, 2021.

EDITORIAL SPREAD: SOCIAL IMPACTS OF URBAN RENEWAL AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Skidmore College

Communication Design I (AR 209)

Professor Deb Hall

Spring 2021

I designed a magazine-style editorial spread around an excerpt of an essay I wrote during the Fall of 2020 for an independent Art History project. The essay investigates the sociopolitical ramifications of Urban Renewal and historic preservation in the resort and famed horse track town of Saratoga Springs, New York. Although the city’s charming, at times majestic Victorian architecture attracts tourism and evokes romantic nostalgia for the city’s prosperous past, Urban Renewal and preservation projects have also exacerbated racial and socioeconomic segregation. The prioritization of this aesthetic has created an identity for the city heavily associated with elitism and whiteness. My decisions around text, images, and layout engage the reader and offer visual context.

ENLIVENED, AWARE, AWAKE:

SYMBOLS OF ACTIVISM

Curated with mentorship from Tang Museum curators Rebecca McNamara and Rachel Seligman as part of the Carole Marchand ‘57 Endowed Internship.

Fall 2020-Spring 2021

On view at The Tang Teaching Museum February 20-April 11, 2021, my exhibition featured modern and contemporary artworks from the museum’s collection alongside protest ephemera borrowed from the activist organizations the Wide Awakes and The Free Radicals. I strived to create a thought-provoking, coherent narrative about the role of visual iconography in inspiring social justice activism, while also activating the gallery space in a way that was dynamic and visually engaging. Each of the symbols featured in the exhibition—the Black Power fist, rainbow Pride flag, and Wide Awakes eye—were dispersed throughout the gallery so as to avoid suggesting a hierarchy and to emphasize their intersectionality.

Installation views | I designed the exhibition title treatment, which featured a typeface inspired by 1960s-era protest banners, in collaboration with Tang Museum designer Jean Tschanz-Egger.

VISUALIZING CONSTRUCTION

Skidmore College

Drawing II (AR 223)

Professor Trish Lyell

Fall 2020

A study in pattern, texture, and mixed-media inspired by visual source material from a large-scale construction site on Skidmore College’s campus. I was interested in the juxtaposition between the surrounding natural beauty— and the way this can be expressed through physical and topographical maps—and the harsh, crude quality of the chain-link fences that divided the site from the rest of campus.

Drawing (graphite, ink) & collage

FAMILIAR MOTIFS

Skidmore College

Drawing II (AR 223)

Professor Trish Lyell

Fall 2020

Created as part of my final project, this drawing represents an imagined space which incorporates motifs and architectural elements from my childhood home. Common patterns found in my mother’s Morrocan textiles, which adorn nearly every surface of our home, are superimposed onto the wooden windows, siding, and molding that make up the house. I was intrigued by the merger of twodimensional designs with a three-dimensional space.

Drawing (graphite, colored pencil)