Jean-Pierre Villafañe - GSAPP Graduation Portfolio

GSAPP ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

FILTER PARK BROOKLYN, NYC

gARDEN OF RESILIENCE:

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ADAPTING TO UNCERTAINTY SĂŁO PAULO, BR

city farm

east river, nyc

school that learns queens, ny

the aviary

chicago, biennale

how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighbourhoods and streets, it always left him with a feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but

15'-0"

New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter

lost not found

within himself as well. Each tiem he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving

this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within. The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him dwell on any one thing for very long. Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body. By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he had no intention of ever leaving it again.

Paul Auster , City of Glass / New York Trilogy.

JEAN-PIERRE VILLAFANE + ARIS MINARETZIS

ducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and

east village, nyc

EL TEATRO DE LA CALLE

himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by re-

the aviary is itself a community. Above is an aggregation of birdhouses within one 15x15 unit.

The birdhouses give additional voids for birds to rest, or build -the aggregation and structure emulating a tree.

domestic theatre bronx, nyc

vertical sidewalk stuyvesant town, nyc

botanical library the aviary

brooklyn, nyc

the aviary / proposal for TBE Entry to the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2017 Stephan van Eeden / sav2124@columbia.edu Jean Pierre VillafaĂąe / jv2590@columbia.edu JUNE 23, 2017 beyond architecture

everywhere

FILTER PARK BROOKLYN, NYC

The waste and water infrastructures of New York City are its shadow heroines and background music— overburdened, outdated, and continuously processing, transferring, and accumulating the city’s and our own outputs. Heaps of unwanted trash bags ready to be trucked out of the city every day and leaky, overflowing sewage pipes offer a counter narrative to modernist progress. These infrastructures mediate repressed and abject materials and fluids, and are not so much smooth and fast technological machines, as they are forgotten systems inundated by excess. It is in this excess that we might explore a different kind of nature and definition of environment, a Third Nature (borrowing a term from anthropologist Anna Tsing) that accepts our environment as compromised as a starting point, and admits coexistence with contamination and waste as a given to open up hopeful new design possibilities for our strange time.

New York City is a hydropolis, surrounded, governed, and shaped by its waterways. Water both binds and divides the city, a collection of islands that historically prospered due to its critical aqueous position for international industry, transport, immigration, and trade. But these days, water is a slippery thing, quite literally difficult to grasp, at once charismatic and hostile. New York presents a contradictory attitude towards water and its public perception in how water contributes to our urban experience. On one hand, New York City is developing an engaged, resilient edge of parks, recreational activities, and greater public accessibility to the water for leisure and enjoyment. On the other hand, with mounting anxieties due to global warming, rising water levels and the realities of the impacts from Hurricane Sandy, the city’s response has also been one of fortification with barriers, walls, and big Us. This response suggests that water, and nature by extension, should be feared, opposed and controlled.

New models are necessary for designing infrastructure at a time of new normals when global warming is no longer a looming threat but amongst us and the need for collective civic design is critical. While the design of infrastructure has been limited because of a technocratic approach, in fact infrastructures have alternative capacities precisely because they are not necessarily buildings. Rather than relying on a modernist attitude of problem-solving, functional efficiency, and sterile designs, can we produce frisky infrastructures that propagate and spatially risky proposals that have new energetic capacities for the city?

Prof. Tei Carpenter

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Interior elevation of botanical garden & water purification station

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garden of resilience: adapting to uncertainty são paulo, brazil

In such a connected world, where the limits between urban, rural and nature are blurred and interwoven, built and natural environments are a single entity. We cannot distinguish landscape from cityscape. It is all part of the same constituency. São Paulo’s landscape is realized in the infinite repetition of ordinary elements, whether we look at it today or before the city was settled. It is not constituted by focal points or iconic elements; it’s about the scale of ordinariness. Few exceptions are Copan or Paulista Avenue or Estaiada Bridge, a cumbersome road infrastructure.

When we look at São Paulo’s landscape, we should also look below the concrete crust to find the hidden geography of rivers, soil and topography. The site was to be approached simultaneously from above and from underneath, as a metaphor but also as an intervention act. This is an ethical concern as well as a question on how these suffocated natural assets can contribute to and inspire the designs.

The intervention in such a large and central area is an opportunity to challenge the usual consolidated standards and propose new arrangements that can impact how we think the metropolis as a whole. Parque Dom Pedro II summarizes how São Paulo has historically related to its landscape, its waters and its public spaces along its development. The studio took this critical and unique area to raise new hypotheses, by exploring the relationships between architecture, infrastructure, landscape and ecology. It looks at Brazilian and international case studies and investigates the Escola Paulista to imagine how it’s principles can be reframed - shifting from modern and monofunctional to green and hybrid infrastructures - to inspire urban architectures that combine resilient ways of thinking the built environment with bold strategies towards the right to the city.

The proposal is not expected to resolve all the complexity of Parque Dom Pedro II. Instead, is intended identify particular conditions and focus on them to propose new relations for the site: spatial, infrastructural, social. The design performs as a resilient garden, a landscape which reminds visitors of the past of the territory they inhabit while simultaneously adapting to the uncertainty of climate change.

PROPOSED PALMS

Prof. Pedro Rivera

PROPOSED TREES EXISTING TREES SHRUBS & BUSHES FLOWERBED MOSSY STONE SAND LIME BRICK BURNT CLAY BRICK BASALT PAVING LIMESTONE PAVING AQUADUCT FLOOD RESERVOIRS GRASS FIELDS BIOSWALES SCIENCE MUSEUM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

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METRO STATION TRAM STATION

1:2000

FOOD MARKET

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NEWTOWN CREEK OIL SPILL GREENPOINT/LONG ISLAND CITY TO BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN EXXON MOBILE Oil, Mercury, Lead, Multiple Volatile Organic Compounds, PCBs, Coal Tar, Cement, Nitrate, Pathogens and Sewage Wastewater

CONSOLIDATED EDISON EAST RIVER REPOWERING LOWER EAST SIDE Responsible for 1/4 of air emissions in the area Oil burning toxins released into river ASTORIA & EAST RIVER PARK SEWAGE DISPOSAL Streetwater runoff + Sewage Disposal and Bathroom Drainage

SUPERFUND SITE: 2010

urban farm east river, nyc

The East River, historically the East edge of Manhattan, moves more and more into the center, essentially becoming a central line between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. The X-Pier is not only reaching out onto the water, but potentially also reaching in, connecting the East River Park to the City, which is currently mostly cut off by the FDR Drive. The X-Pier should be considered as part of a regional plan for storm surge protection and rising water levels, with a rise in sea level by as much as two feet along the North American Atlantic coast by the end of the 21st century.*

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Sitting at the edge of the city, the interface with the water, at the limit of 14th Street where it meets the East River Park, the X-Pier becomes part of the promenade sequence around Manhattan. Reversing the dominance of the car, the X-Pier gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists. A new transport interchange must be meticulously incorporated to allow easy pedestrian circulation between 14th Street and the East River Park. Moreover, the new reliance on ferries means that many people now arrive from the water at East 34th Street and require safe street crossings and transportation connections.

The X-Pier predicts future patterns of living in the city, re-structuring, systematizing and re-grounding the urban relationship between infrastructure, ecology, and culture, ephemeral and physical. The X-Pier creates a new ground, physically, but also conditionally as a site of interaction. Programs for the X-Pier will be variable and spring from a comprehensive list of possibilities. As the corners and intersections form a line east-west along 14th Street, the pier can be understood as an extension of this line beyond the edge of Manhattan, a vector of energies to the opposite shore and horizon, pier-ing into the future of myth and reality.

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Appearance of Sarcoma Cancer, Ghonorrhea and Dysentery GOWANUS CANAL OIL SPILL 1947 - 1977 CHEVRON TEXACO + BRITISH PETROLEUM SPILL Oil, Mercury, Lead, Multiple Volatile Organic Compounds, PCBs, Coal Tar, Cement, Nitrate, Pathogens and Sewage Wastewater “Mafia” dumpsite: bodies & guns

Soil and Ground Water Toxic Vapors Water Toxicity Level (density refers to concentration)

Prof. Josh Uhl/ Cristoph Kumpusch

1/32”=1’-0” Underwater Map of East River + Health Wave of LES & Brooklyn

SUPERFUND SITE: 2010

mapping correlations between water toxicity and diseases

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THE PERFORMANCE OF DOMESTICITY IN THE THEATER OF THE SIDEWALK bronx, ny

Domesticity is not a condition, but a performance. There is nothing about the table covered in a plastic tablecloth patterned with a faded flower motif that imposes the feelings of domesticity in abuela’s kitchen. Yet the image induces certain emotive and sensory metaphors that urge us to behave in certain ways around the kitchen table.

Yet, the table may just be a table, and the kitchen just a room with cooking appliances. The prescriptive nature of the plastic covered table and of abuela’s kitchen materializes through the way these rooms are used and the memories created in them, which they in turn evoke. The kitchen table is covered with plastic to make cleaning an easier chore for grandmother. Yet the same exact table serves as a study for the granddaughter more often than it hosts a large family meal. Is this room a kitchen, or is it a study? Perhaps it is both.

And the aforementioned description of the table becomes a nostalgic image of memorizing the multiplication tables just as it brings back the smell of a hearty arroz con gandules. The rooms in a house are thus imbued with an aura by the inhabitants, instead of the rooms commanding a certain behavior from the same residents.

Prof. Mario Gooden

domestic sidewalk

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The aviary

chicago biennale

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The urban park lies on the boundary between city and nature. We ask the following questions: How do we imagine a park within collaborative vertical urbanism ? How do we align the typology of the tower with nature?

We propose that a reframing of how we understand the boundaries between urban and wild, culture and nature, within the tower begins with a recognition of the existing territory.

Over 300 different species of birds can be found in Chicago throughout the year.

Some pass through during migration. Others nest, or spend the winter. Orioles, hummingbirds, falcons, tanagers, herons, cranes, woodpeckers, sandpipers, cuckoos, owls and more. Some of these birds are endangered, threatened or rare, and many are facing population declines due to loss of habitat.

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By minimizing its horizontal footprint, the tower inhabits a vertical territory.

This proposal moves against the instinct to replicate or construct a horizontal landscape within the confines of the vertical tower that by its definition is artificial, disconnected from the ground. Instead, we propose to give a place for one of nature’s vertical inhabitants, its birds, to enter.

To enhance the role of the park as a place to recognize the territory, we propose to create an aviary for protection of local wildlife. A non constructed space— but with each ‘house’ is calibrated for the needs of each species. The embedded structure gives the condition for birds to roost, construct their nests, and security of place.

Collaboration w. Tatiana Bilbao

the aviary is itself a community. Above is an aggregation of birdhouses within one 15x15 unit.

The birdhouses give additional voids for birds to rest, or build -the aggregation and structure emulating a tree.

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scheme the aviary for

an aviary

the aviary / proposal for TBE Entry to the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2017 Stephan van Eeden / sav2124@columbia.edu Jean Pierre Villafañe / jv2590@columbia.edu JUNE 23, 2017

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The project seeks to identify existing synergies and complementary methodological approaches between art, architecture, design and social experiments as communication entities, that can be applied transversally into problem solving scenarios.

The approach consisted of an interactive exchange between myself and a specific community. The focus of the experiment aims to provide methodological tools to be translated into the architectural process. Using the case-study of Queens in New York City, and with the view of creating spaces that can learn from its users, it challenges the understanding of architecture as an object by transforming it into a subject.

The research methodologies include: ethnographic techniques, asset basedmethodology and design thinking applied in participatory games/toys, in addition to cognitive mapping and knowledge exchange strategies. These allow a vision to understand different forms of comprehension, identities and social practices involved in place-making processes around the Jackson Heights, Corona and Flushing neighborhoods, enabling a more ludic and diverse participation in architecture and urban interventions.

Prof. Giancarlo Mazzanti

Tapping into alternative economies

vessel for alternative economies queens, nyc

intersections for alternative economies

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lost NOT found east village

The project proposes a transient space for lost and found objects, a database and portal connected to the new L Train station at 14th Street and Avenue A. The Lost + Found portal is a new structure between grounds: a space for the misplaced, lost between the public and private domain, the personal and the political, social engagement and poetic disengagement, competing identities, all which constitute the complex territory of [the] city. Shifting the view 90° from the proto-corner to emphasize the ground plane, Lost + Found, as an exploration and translation of figure and ground, not only implies the relationship of above to below, but also the threshold, and the in-between: a transitional space of objects and people, transforming states of moving through the city. It considers the essential notions of inhabiting the edge: threshold / transition / transformation, expanding and extending both above and below ground.

The portal includes a database terminal and reception center to receive lost articles (collected weekly from the portal), and accommodates one attendant, known as the MTA Secretary of Misplacement. It is accessible from and connected to the subway station [under] and street level [above] in proximity, merging the two. The structure articulates cycles of dispossession and reclamation within a city space. The pattern is symbolic of the city’s continuous losing and finding of itself.

Prof. Josh Uhl/ Cristoph Kumpusch

Effect of social exchange on perception of time in MTA Subway

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botanical library This project explored the current changing nature and cultural significance of the space of the public library through the lens of light and shadow.

Emphasis was given to the importance of the human experience and qualities of these spaces.

Libraries today are changing how they address the needs of their communities.

Particularly in NYC, libraries are becoming more and more hybridized.

The program of our public libraries go far beyond the traditional circulation of books and study.

This more diverse collection of program requires, perhaps, a greater diversity of spaces. And with the use and program of our libraries now constantly in flux, how does that change the way we design and organize the space of the library?

What if the spaces of the library were organized less on program specificity and instead offered a variety of room types based on size, different qualities of light and shadow, greater or lesser amounts of acoustic privacy, etc?

Prof. Stella Betts

Library Section

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Nathalie Djurberg: Turn Into Me

August 15 – September 13, 2009

COLMBIA UNIVERSITY: GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

SPB TASK NUMBER: 2

PROFESSOR FARZIN LOTFI-JAM

DRAWING TITLE SECTION PERSPECTIVE ORTHOGRAPHIC

SUBMISSION DATE: 10/18/2016

ERECTION DATE: MARCH 13, 2009

DRAWING NUMBER

DESIGNED BY: OFFICE FOR METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE DRAWN BY: JEAN-PIERRE VILLAFAÑE CHECKED BY: COCO KE SHI FILE NAME: jv2590_Prada Transformer

1.0

1_2

SHEET NUMBER

PROJECT TITLE PRADA TRANSFORMER

Waist Down: Skirts by Miuccia Prada

April 25 – May 24 2009

COLMBIA UNIVERSITY: GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

SPB TASK NUMBER: 2 PROFESSOR FARZIN LOTFI-JAM SUBMISSION DATE: 10/18/2016 ERECTION DATE: MARCH 13, 2009

DRAWING TITLE EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC ORTHOGRAPHIC

SPECIAL EVENT

PROJECT TITLE PRADA TRANSFORMER

FASHION EXHIBITION

ART EXHIBITION

DESIGNED BY: OFFICE FOR METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE DRAWN BY: JEAN-PIERRE VILLAFAÑE CHECKED BY: COCO KE SHI FILE NAME: jv2590_Prada Transformer_Axonometric DRAWING NUMBER

2.0 CINEMA

SHEET NUMBER An Eclectic Sampling Menu

by Iñárritu

June 29 - June 30, 2009

2_2

September 29 - September 30, 2009

Student Takeover: Chung, Sunwoo Yang, Jungyoon Cho, Heehwa

Prada Transformer - illustration of assembly

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Simultaneous events in section

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Dear viewer: My work is an anthology of delirious explorations in an attempt to escape reality – the sequential time and the fragmented space - that the City has imbued us with. By simultaneously focusing on the distortion of forms and the creation of imaginary environments, I dream. Deliberately intuitive and instinctually calculated, I have developed a new visual vocabulary comprising of simple forms, sinuous lines and vivid colours to oppose gradation, nuances and confusion of “reality”. By navigating the line in a deviating trajectory I encourage viewers to visually participate in creating their own compositions as a chimerical delight in a voyage to the uncertain.

Personal work

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