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.

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.