Undergraduate Architectural Design Portfolio

Kalen Johnson Architectural Design

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 Kalen Johnson James Madison University Architectural Design kbrynnejohnson@gmail.com 757.876.2482 kbrynnejohnson.com

09

Thesis, Spring 2019 Critic: Evelyn Tickle Pre-Thesis: Project 5, Fall 2018 Group Members: Sam Goodwin Critic: Jori Erdman Designing Healthy Places, Spring 2018 Critic: Wanda Dye Pre-Thesis: Project 4, Fall 2018 Group Members: Sam Goodwin, Sarah Pumphrey Critic: Jori Erdman Materials and Methods: Eames House, Spring 2018 Group Members: Kate Fritz Critic: Wanda Dye, Evelyn Tickle CAD: Barcelona Pavilion, Spring 2018 Critic: Sidney Griffin Drawing: Site Exploration, Fall 2017 Critic: Ronn Daniel Research + Fabrication Assistant: GROW Oyster Reefs LLC, Fall 2018 + Spring 2019 Owner: Evelyn Tickle Umbau Inc.: Vienna Studio, Summer 2018 Professor: William Tate

01 Thesis, Spring 2019 Critic: Evelyn Tickle Humans have made a habit of thinking from an anthropocentric point of view, in other words, they consider themselves as the most significant entity of the universe. This way of thinking and living has shaped the earth and beyond into what it is today. Humans have affected the environment in an infinite amount of ways far beyond understanding. The most recent generations will be remembered by fossils of excessive chicken bones and plastic rocks otherwise known as “plastiglomerates�.

This thesis begins to explore the possibility of training the human brain to think biocentrically through body augmentations such as synthetic skins, dermal implants, and piercings. These augmentations of the human body are designed in a way to create synthetic empathy. How might humans begin to evolve and shape their view points, and eventually their actions, if they physically and instantaneously feel the effects of their decisions?

01_ Concrete casting representing our past, present and optimal future, embeded with chicken bones, garbage, and platiglomerates.

02_ Casting detail

01_ Digital process collage addressing the societal divide between those who choose not to see the poor condition of the earth today and those who can see nothing but.

02_ Digital process collage questioning architectural norms, such as, the influence of entertainment on design. Societal values must be shifted, and the common idea of “normalcy� must be questioned.

03_ Digital process collage visualizing the anthropocentric thought process of humans.

04_ Digital process collages that begin to create a visual concept for the implanted devices.

01_ Digital collage of human body augmentations.

These devices will restructure the invasive relationship between humans and technology by synthetically inducing positive and negative emotions through physical means.

02_ Photographs of physical models 03_ Photographs of physical models

Pre-Thesis: Project 5, Fall 2018 Group Members: Sam Goodwin Critic: Jori Erdman

02

Centralia is a near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from more than 1,000 residents in 1980 to 63 by 1990, to only seven in 2013. Today, there are only 10 residents that call Centralia home. The dwindling population is due to a disastrous coal mine fire that has been raging underneath the city since it ignited in 1962.

The landscape of Centralia is extremely unstable. As the coal fire continues to burn, underground voids are created and the coal pillars supporting the earth above the mine are destroyed. The ground above the mines is subsequently weakened causing sinkholes and other types of ground fractures. The landscape below Centralia consists of enough coal for the fire to potentially burn for the next 250 years, thus, creating an even more unstable landscape and a labyrinth of spaces below the surface.

This post-apocalyptic environment is not the end of Centralia; it has provided an opportunity for a new beginning. We must address this new environment of social dysfunction and ecological distress in a new and innovative way in order to begin to understand how to survive after disasters such as this one. Our belief is that architecture must not only adapt to sustain in an environment such as Centralia post fire, but also, the architecture must bear witness to what is occurring in the immediate environment that surrounds it.

01_ Process drawing exploring movement and stabilization on unstable surfaces.

02_ Process drawing exploring possible methods for harvesting the energy created by the burning coal.

01_ Digital site exploration and visual narrative.

02_ Form and function studies inspired by the mosquito needle

Uninhabitable by humans, the burning coal mines will be explored and stabilized by machines designed to adapt to withstand the post apocalyptic conditions. These machines will not only bare witness to the conditions below the surface, but also harvest the energy emitted by the fires in order to perform the tasks involved in the rehabilitation of Centralia and the labyrinth of spaces that lie below its surface.

01_ Plaster site model occupied by rehabilitating machines 02_ Detail: energy harvest 03_ Detail: stabilization and exploration

03 Designing Healthy Places, Spring 2018 Critic: Wanda Dye Manchester, Houston, Texas is a highly industrialized neighborhood located next to Valero refinery facilities, I-610, Port Terminal Rail Yard, a metal recycling facility, a chemical plant, and a fertilizer plant. Pollution in this area is at an extreme high and is continuing to negatively affect the health of the residents from asthma to cancers.

Sources of the pollution are literally surrounding this community and are preventing its residents from living normal lives. Flooding in the Houston area has intensified the issue.

Within the Manchester Neighborhood is an under-utilized park, Hartman Park. Revitalizing this park in a way that will improve the overall health and quality of the Manchester community can be done by implementing technologies, such as a modified Presolv360 facade, and other resources that mitigate the surrounding pollutants and the contributing factors. Depaving unused lots that are currently owned by Valero will create more greenspace within the community and provide more area for the natural absorption of excess water. The new structures will be 3-D printed off site using the rubble collected from the depaving of the site. This newly renovated space will serve as a resource to members of the community by not only providing a healthier and safer environment but providing programmatic spaces specifically designed for the needs of children and other residents within the Manchester community.

01_ Second process model including three of the six revitalized blocks within the Manchestser neighborhood.

01_ Rhino Model: Top view of Community Center Building 02_ Site Model Detail: Community Center portico 03_ Site Model Detail: Community Center, sports stadium, shaded recreational area, green-roofed overlook 04_ Site Model Detail: shaded recreational area, green-roofed overlook

Pre-Thesis: Project 4, Fall 2018 Group Members: Sam Goodwin, Sarah Pumphrey Critic: Jori Erdman

04

This project exemplifies radioactive mitigation and human preservation through surrogate architecture.

Fukushima, Japan, devastated by a series of disasters, is now an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland. Our design encourages volunteer humans to live in and fuel creatures of mitigation in order to rehabilitate what was once a thriving city. Each creature plays a specific role in the cleanup process informed by radioactive mitigation research.

Once inhabitable, the preserved human will be released from its surrogate into the revitalized architecture of Fukushima to re-emerge into the human world.

01_ All images are are hand drafted proccess drawings collaged with digital images exploring form and function.

01_ Destroyer: demolishes pre-existing structures that have been contaminated and/or damaged 02_ Vaporizer: purifies contaminated waters 03_ Killer: kills the contaminated survivors and properly disposes of them 04_ Digger: (not pictured) removes the radioactive layer of soil 05_ Drawing: preservation, mitigation, release

05 Materials and Methods: Eames House, Spring 2018 Group Members: Kate Fritz Critic: Wanda Dye, Evelyn Tickle For this assignment, students were to closely study the building processes of a well-known building and construct a scale model that highlights those processes.

01_ 02_ 03_ 04_ 05_

Final model Detail: Final model Digital drawing: Roof detail Digital drawing: Second floor detail Digital drawing: Ground detail

06 CAD: Barcelona Pavilion, Spring 2018 Critic: Sidney Griffin For this assignment, students were to research the building processes of a well-known building and construct a digital model of it in Revit in order to become familiar with the program.

01_ Final Revit Model

Drawing: Site Exploration, Fall 2017 Critic: Ronn Daniel

07

For this assignment students were instructed to channel their inner Perry Kulper in order to analyze and better understand a site.

01_ Hand Drafted Drawing: The High Bridge, NYC, New York

08

Research + Fabrication Assistant: GROW Oyster Reefs LLC, Fall 2018 and Spring 2019

Working under Evelyn Tickle, the owner of GROW Oyster Reefs LLC, I was given the opportunity to assist in the fabrication process of her Concrete Rope Reef Tangles. Using Tickle’s own CaC03 concrete formula, these underwater tangles allow water to slow down in the interstitial macro-sized spaces created by the concrete for oyster larvae to latch onto these micro-sized divots where they can grow into Oyster Spat and stay for the entirety of their life-cycle, thus, creating an ecosystem for other ocean life to further inhabit.

01_ Concrete Rope Reef Tangle thriving with marine life just months after installation at the Underwater Museum of Art in Florida, USA (Image by Spring Run Media) 02_ Detail: Concrete Rope Reef Tangle

Umbau Inc.: Vienna Studio, Summer 2018 Professor: William Tate

09

The following photographs are my own and were taken throughout my time abroad in Vienna, Austria with Umbau Inc. 01_ 02_ 03_ 04_

Host home Pichler and Traupmann: OAMTC Building Pichler and Traupmann: OAMTC Building Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni