Jenna Merry | Syracuse University SOA Portfolio

SYRACUSE ARCHITECTURE

SELECTED WORKS 2018-2023

PORTFOLIO JENNA MERRY

EDEN: MYCELIUM BIOMATERIAL METHODOLOGY FOR EPHEMERAL EXPERIENCES

As a society we have a craving for the premature disposal of short-lifetime products, called for from a capitalistic mindset that forces the increase of demand for consumers destined to become waste because of the way they have been designed and manufactured. Unfortunately for the society we have created, humanities demand for resources to satisfy this craving has exceeded the earth supply, and a significant redirecting of resources is the only way to delay this inevitable environmental collapse. We can no longer act innocent in terms of materiality, and with a society in which contemporary culture is material specific, revitalizing bio-based materials will be a successful initiative. Mycelium is a substance with properties that offer a solution to some of this wastefulness, as its regenerative growth and decomposition properties can combat the lifecycle of the indisposable trends of consumer behavior. Mycelium is a fibrous organism that grows fast and can be easily contained in any shape chosen by the grower. The final product is durable, waterproof, and completely biodegradable. This thesis aims to start constructing mycelium in forms in unique techniques of architectural and occupiable space that temporarily act. Using other biomaterials, such in this case hemp, to shape something that pulls and carves out divets and caves and pockets of space offering growth allowed for mycelium to freely creep along strands and merge together to allow for depth that is influenced by the crocheted paths. With a lot of inspiration coming from designer and artist Neri Oxman and Tomas Serrecano, a bio fibrous material playing alongside a fibrous structure that grows more fibrous spaces is something that balanced alongside naturally. You can see where spaces are stretched and formed, growing freely, weighing downs as it expands, and where others were unresponsive. This is studying this relationship between what is built and grown and allowing it to do so freely while still being designed, providing opportunities for habitation through interventions that can grow in scale. From bending, to folding, to stretching, to pulling, to placing, this overarching study has challenged further what capabilities are precise and controlled and which are irregular and fluid in the mycelium realm.

Under Prof. Julie Larsen, Britt Eversole, and Jean-François Bédard - Thesis - 2022-2023

Fully funded by the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement and the Reneé Crown Honors Program

Physical Modelmaking, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

EDEN- Model photos

Physical model maade of crocheted hemp rope, hemp burlap, and mycelium

EDEN- Conceptual drawings

Mycelium visual studies

REFLECTIVE FRAMEWORK

A visitors center on North Brother Island in New York City, focusing on the interaction of nature and architecture to insure the longevity of a historic relic of land while providing hands on education and visitation. Inspired by Kisho Kurokawa’s Agricultural City where the land below is left fairly untouched by the architecture itself to maximize space and disrupt the landscape minimally, the visitor center aims to do the same. The frame-working inspired by modern materials and the Metabolist ideal that a work is ever-changing and is flexible for the needs, reflected in how the walkways on the island are movable in order to provide a flexible learning and enjoyment environment. The visitor center main building reflects that same language with moving gallery panels and lightweight frame structure, perfect to juxtapose the dense greenery and remaining brick historical buildings by not interrupting the sight lines of this beautiful historical island and offering the center up as an incorporation to the island allowing plants to overgrow on it.

Under Prof. Matthew Celmer - Second Year Studio - Spring 2020 Rhino 5/6, Vray for Rhino, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

New York City map locating Historical elements from the island & how they were reintroduced to the city

North Brother Island vegetation and wildlife breakdown

North Brother Island photos cerca 2016

REFLECTIVE FRAMEWORK- Agricultural City Case Study

Renders showing the separation of rural and urban spaces

REFLECTIVE FRAMEWORK- Site Plan and Diagrams

Island Site Plan, showing walkways, historical buildings, and vegetation

Island Diagram showing orientation

Island Diagram showing vegetation

REFLECTIVE FRAMEWORK- Plans

First Floor, showing open and flexible gallery space, the cafe, and external staircases

Second Floor, showing connection to island walkways, terraces, classrooms, and office spaces

Third Floor, showing terraces, offices, and classrooms

Long section cut through atrium

Interior render on second floor overlooking atrium

MERCURY RESTORATION CENTER

A restoration center for Onondaga Lake, located in Syracuse, New York, which was the site of heavy mercury dumping from the 1940s to the 1970s, dubbing the lake to be called the “Most Polluted Lake in America”. Mercury, being one of the most toxic elements to humans and wildlife, was the by-product to chemical productions that were manufactured on the lakes coast. With a handful of ways that have been discovered to assist the cleanup of this contamination, this restoration center aims to highlight the acts made, such as capping and dredging, through glass exteriors and the building itself submerging into the lake, as well as offer spaces to research more possible methods, with scientific rooms and tanks to study contamination levels in fish. The building itself acts similarly to a hydraulic dredge, pulling in contaminated settlement through pipes wrapping the building, in order to flush out contaminated particles using filters and multiple tanks inside to strip soil and water from mercury as well as other discarded chemicals, so that action on improving the toxicity is constant and the center itself is constantly providing to the vision of a toxic-free lake. The center also offers educational uses, allowing visitors to enter and witness for themselves something that they couldn’t do otherwise, considering the catastrophic issue is microscopic.

Under Prof. Matthew Celmer - Second Year Studio - Spring 2020 Rhino 6, Vray for Rhino, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

MERCURY RESTORATION CENTER- Research

Isolation Capping

Thin Layer Capping

Dredging

Monitored Natural Recovery

Onondaga lake, shown by (1) the current standing on how mercury cleanup

Historical Photos from the Solvay

1x-5x Severity 5x-20x Severity 20x-37x Severity 1.3-6.5 ppm 6.5-26 ppm 26-50 ppm

PPM = 1 part per million of mercury in fish

cleanup has been done and what, (2) the toxicity levels found in different parts of the lake, and (3) the overlap of those charts

Solvay and Honeywell collection and showing the chemical plants and pipelines entering Onondaga with toxic byproducts

MERCURY RESTORATION CENTER- Research

Diagram showing how mercury travels through the food chain and how it is up-taken in plants. Mercury

doesn’t harm fish or plants, but does the things that eat those, and the risk is diseases such as the Minimata disease.

Axon showing extension into lake including piping system, and showing the submergence into the lake

Plan showing interior tank system of the far right 2 being the clean soil and water for return, the middle three being direct Classrooms and education rooms with tanks are seen throughout. The fishing dock

direct lake water thats open to lake, and the left three are contaminated water and soil going through filtering process. dock next to it shows the reflection of fish contamination and how far the lake has come in terms of contamination levels.

MERCURY RESTORATION CENTER- Section and Physical Models

Ariel view of the physical model showing tanks, interaction with lake, and pipe working

Section showing the middle three tanks and how they interact with the

lake, and how the tanks with contaminated sediment and water. Also shows the capping levels in the soil in the lake.

Physical model made out of laser cut plexiglass/cardboard and metal piping

49th STREET URBAN FOOD HUB

The 49th Street Food Hub is located on an abandoned rail in the neighborhood the Back of the Yards in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. Our group studio worked to activate the rail with this idea of reformative justice in mind, and we collectively concluded that justice needs to be combated by a number of angles to be effective. My team focused on the idea that the Back of the Yards is a Food Desert in Chicago, lacking nutritious and necessary food for the community. Following Chicago’s neighborhood’s love and dependence on community gardens, we wanted to harness that collaborative effort to maximize food availability and provide a space that allows for literal growth with at an industrial size. The building itself acts almost like a machine, using solar glass paneling to harness energy, collecting rainwater through the roof and façade, recycling waste to be made into both composting to give to community gardens as well as bio-gas that is harnessed for use in the kitchens. The hub provides 3600 tons of fruits and vegetables per year with hydroponic systems and a vertical forest. The hub also offers housing in the interior on the third and fourth floors, as those spaces are designated for our employees, hired right after going through the justice system to help destigmatize the job insecurity that formerly incarcerated people face, while also allowing for education in a culinary or agricultural field to assist with re-matriculation back into the working force of society. By offering spaces for the community to come in and participate in their own food security by harvesting the produce their families need, allows for spaces providing experiential, nutritional education to help secure much of the South Side at many angles.

Under Prof. Yutaka Sho - Third Year Studio - Fall 2020

Collaboration with Haley Harvey, Katherine Sincebaugh, and Ethan Hagen Rhino 7, Vray for Rhino, Lumion, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

URBAN FOOD HUB- Plans

First floor plan showing the first forest, composting and water treatment rooms, shipment zones, marketplace,

marketplace, and first floor forest

Second floor plan showing labs, kitchen, hydroponic systems, and rail entrance to hub

Third floor plan showing all growing, housing units, and the culinary auditorium

URBAN FOOD HUB- Sections and Render

Long section showing the martketplace, forest, hydroponic systems, and the

Short section highlighting the kitchen, lab, housing, marketplace, and hydroponic systems

the housing units. Also highlights both the catwalks in the forest zone and the connectivity to the rail-line with the ramp

View from ramp showing the visual interaction between the public and the bumped out auditorium

URBAN FOOD HUB- Sectional Persective and System Diagrams

Sectional perspective of the vertical flow of the

(1) The Aeroponic Hydroponic growing system, (2) The rain water systems including roof, facade cups, and pumped

the different planting systems. the shipment zone, catwalks, spiral staircases, and hydroponic growing lights are shown pumped tanks, and (3) Composting that generates gas for kitchens and organic material for local community gardens

NUCLEAR NEGOTIATION

Italy is home to the triangle of death, a 25 km area containing the largest illegal dump site in Europe, located in Campagnia. The dumping, stemming from cheap alternatives with the Italian Mafia and other corporations caused cancer and a decline in life expectancy rates. The government is currently considering 67 possible sites across Italy for permanent solutions for the waste. We proposed the site of Val d’Orcia, specifically Castiglione D’Orcia. Alongside storage, our project consists of a housing development for the influx of workers that will migrate to this area for the new nuclear jobs. The housing is all that you can see from the surface and is created with the excavated earth from the program below, reinforcing our research of the built environment coming directly from the natural one. The housing units are formed around four main cores, and resemble cave-like homes. The storage facility itself will be an underground labyrinth of safe and secure places to both work and store nuclear waste. The nuclear waste component consists of laboratories, transportation, pool storage, drilling zones, and the final storage. The laboratory is a zone for material testing and experimenting. Waste will be imported to the site within barrels as a liquid and be transferred down into temporary zones before heading down to the pools. The pools are tanks of water that the nuclear barrels must reside in for five years to cool and solidify. The drilling at the next level then allows for connection points and testing ground conditions within the lattice-like voids of transference and drilling. Within the final storage zone, the barrels are placed with concrete caves to seal them away. Our proposal thoroughly analyzes the safety measures and positions our project in a way that brings more comfortability in a program that strikes so much fear. Overtime, as nuclear waste continues to become the materials of the anthropocentric future, our site will provide the basis for preservation that changes the way we think of the traditional dichotomy and creates a nuclear negotiation.

Under Prof. Luca Ponsi - Third Year Studio - Spring 2021 - Florence Abroad Program Collaboration with Madeline Alves Rhino 7, Vray for Rhino, Lumion, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, SketchFab

The routes of nuclear waste disposal in Italy.

Historical Italian Nuclear Program sites as well as the 2020 nuclear waste sites the Italian Government was considering.

The analysis of Italy to determine prospect waste sites based on seismic activity, geology, mining locations, water content, and soil condition.

Flow chart showing progression from mining to disposal and the steps in between for nuclear energy.

Cut through from top of housing, to showing labs, to safety bases, to water cooling pools, to drilling zones, to long term

term storage units below. Emphasizes shear size of project without durastic scar to landscape, and how the project can grow over time. Also shows how the top portions of the project are directly built from extracted below.

NUCLEAR NEGOTIATION- Plan

Plan of the Housing units above, detailing the elevator cores, housing for families of multible sizes, the circulation, and the negotiation between carved and built.

3D extraction of model

NUCLEAR NEGOTIATION- Ariel Site Render

Site Render showing Living Program.

NUCLEAR NEGOTIATION- Interior Renders

Nuclear Waste Storage.

Underground waste circulation render.