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Portfolio Jason Pion

The Spectacle

1140 Broadway Cornerstone Architects

Illinois Institute of Technology

The Fold

Ply-Cab

Design/Build IIT

Illinois Institute of Technology

Personal Study

Mercado

Eco Vietnam Group

The Spectacle

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The point of a Spectacle is to draw attention, and this is intended to draw people to the community of Pullman. The project was an adaptive reuse of the Historic Market Hall which had burnt down multiple times and all that was left was the exterior masonry walls. The program was an event library, a space that leased objects to host parties and community events. It would also provide events spaces to be leased by the members of the Pullman and Roseland neighborhoods on the upper levels of the building.

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The institution inside of the library is meant to celebrate the milestone of housing. The types of events the library focused on was housewarming parties as a jumping-off point. As moving to a new house, apartment or any sort of housing is a big step, whether from a starting point of a young 18 year old or from homelessness to housed. It is important to celebrate every family and every individual that achieves housing. It forces us to remember that it not a commodity but a human right. Project completed 3rd Year under professor Trent Fredrickson.

TH ST

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Vertical Circulation Circulation Display Space

Exterior Immersive View

Circulation Diagram

The Existing Shell

Tectonics Concept Model: Hanging Mass

Floating Massing / Attracting Attention

Added Structure Concept Diagram

Concept Sketch

Tectonics Concept Model: Framing Detail

1/16th Inch Model

Building Section

Cut Away Axon Cut-Away Axon

1140 Broadway 1140 Broadway was a project that explored the potential of adaptive reuse and renovation of underutilized cultural institutional buildings. The focus was on an old Christian Reformed Church in the West Grand Neighborhood of Grand Rapids Michigan. I worked on this project while I was employed at Cornerstone Architects, I served as the project manager. I was involved in this project from (Schematic Design) SD through to Bidding. This church served as a communal space until its closure in 2005. The shuttered church was designed in an eclectic Romanesque Revival style with a limestone addition built in the 20’s. The building was turned into a banquet hall serving the purpose of bringing people together. The building is open today and serves as a wedding venue. Sadly the client revealed themselves as Anti LGBTQ+. I want to make clear I don’t agree with their stance and was unaware of the client’s prejudice when working on this project.

Historic Photo of 1140 Broadway Circa 1920, Source: Grand Rapids Historical Society

Site Plan and existing context of the West Grand Neighborhood

West Elevation

Building Section Looking East / West

Mercado Mercado central is a community in the Humboldt park neighborhood that combines residential units for 30 residents with a market hall, ELS (English language school) and urban farm/greenhouse. The project started with understanding the vacant site was already being used by the community for makeshift markets and events. So the architectural intervention was meant to be as light as possible hence why the building is lifted off the ground and given back to the community for their use.

GREEN HOUSE RESIDENTIAL RESIDENTIAL ELS CLASS Exterior Immersive View

MARKET HALL

ELS Class

Humboldt Park Boat House Structural Diagram

Typical Mass Timber Structure

Hybrid CLT Structure Concept Diagram

Typical Residential Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan w/ Classrooms

Section looking East / West

Section Looking North / South

Market Hall Immersive View

South Elevation

North Elevation

The Fold The Fold is a community for people who are under pressure of being priced out of Bridgeport. The Fold represents the idea of a community that you return to and you get support from. A focus on housing that is affordable and intergenerational allowing seniors and young professionals who were originally from the area to live and learn from each other. The Fold also represents form of the buildings and roof. The act of folding the roof over each unit creates both a threshold and an outdoor space that can be private and maintained by each resident. This also serves as a larger gesture about social / communal cohesion by connecting each unit by a common outdoor corridor that each unit overlaps.

ISO View

Site Folding Diagram

Organization Diagram: Inspired by the Mere expo-

sure effect each unit overlaps the circulation to promote a friendliness and familiarity among residents

Residential Unit Diagram

Unit A First Floor

Typical Wall Section

Unit A Second Floor

Unit A Section

Unit B First Floor

Unit B Section

Exterior Immersive View

West Site Elevation

Unit A Interior Immersive View

HOME-MART

Ply-Cab A4

Ply-Cab is short for Plywood Cabinets, important for the focus on off the shelf and readily available materials. Using simple materials based on the standard module of thirty inches by thirty-six inches. The design abides by a simple principle with the focus on three goals Affordability, Constructibility, and material Efficiency. The cabinet played a major role in the renovation of a dining room for a student organization at Illinois Institute of Technology. The larger plan was to replace three heavily worn tables that were once the main food serving tables.

Ply-Cab Large A9 Ply-Cab Small

Ply-Cab Large Assembly Diagram for Ply-Cab

Ply-Cab Small Plan Diagram of Dinning Room with Ply-Cab

Ply-Cab was built during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic so making the project as affordable as possible became an important priority especially with supply chain issues and high cost of wood. These constraints help narrow our focus on material efficiency, we used the Plywood in the shear direction to minimize use of material and maximize strength.

Affordability

Efficiency

Project Goals

Site Folding Diagram During construction of Ply-Cab before polishing of concrete countertop

View of the Larger Ply-Cab

Constructibility

For durability and expense of the countertop, cement with fine aggregate was used along with crushed glass embedded in the top. All the labor done in the project was conducted by me and a couple friends of mine. That is where constructibility became an important aspect. We learned a lot about concrete form work, general wood working and about accurate craftsmanship. The Ply-Cab project has the potential to serve as a prototype for self-built furniture. The design based on a simple module with easily sourced materials allowed us to fulfill all three goals set out by the project intention, Affordability, Constructibility, and material Efficiency.

Design/Build IIT The main goal of the building was to combine the local vernacular lessons of dealing with climate and urban/rural conditions. We responded to the factors present in the rural Vietnamese region of Lam Dong. The project was exciting and we learned a lot of valuable lessons about self produced architecture. During the process our studio ran like a small architecture office. We had people working on legal contracts, meeting with client, drafting construction documents, fundraising and finding sources of financing, research and documentation, narrowing down and synthesizing our design and then of course construction. It is hard to narrow down what my role specifically was, I was kind all over the project, personally I did everything I could so we could construct the library addition in Gia Bac, Vietnam (and so did others). This meant occasionally taking the initiative reaching out to the Dean of the COA (College of Architecture), meeting outside studio hours, leading design discussions, and editing legal documents.

ISO View Our true intent was to build something vernacular and timeless for our Not for Profit partner ECO Vietnam Group to serve as a library addition and support their existing program. The project also served as a lesson for us to better understand the colliding worlds of rural and urban architecture. Vietnam as seen from an outsider perspective is a burgeoning economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia. A region experiencing rapid industrial and urbanization, leading to the desired use of brick and concrete in most new construction. Due to its quick procurement and fast fabrication. I am so grateful for this wonderful opportunity and how it has drastically changed the way I architects and our agency over the built environment.

Eco Vietnam campus plan: Material Hatching, Line work Editing and, Line weights by Jason Pion (me), Original Line Survey by Alejandro Reyes Community Center

New Library Addition

Dormitories

Existing Water Closet

Proposed Water Closet

Existing Library

Form work construction in progress with rebar being tied in-place: Fellow studio mate Reed Tangeman tying rebar; Image source: Jason Pion (me)

Concrete structure during a Vietnamese seasonal monsoon rain: The structure was erected in three weeks; Image source: Nhat Nyguen, Studio TA

Interior progress of the new EVG Library: The inside of the screen block walls, image source: Nhat Nyguen, Studio TA