Kendall Jesse: Selected Architectural Works 2020-2023
KENDALL JESSE
SELECTED WORKS 2020-2023
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
EDUCATION
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 2020-2024 B.D. in Architecture, Minor in Dance, Magna Cum Laude GPA 3.79/4.00
Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL 2019-2020 A.A. in Architecture, August 2020. Graduated with the highest honors diploma. GPA 3.97/4.00
West Florida High School of Advanced Technology, Pensacola, FL 2015-2019 Certificate of Mastery for Civil Engineering and Architecture academy. GPA 4.75/4.00
STOA Architects Architectural Intern, Pensacola, FL 2023 Architectural internship primarily working on construction documents, interior packages, and project proposals.
Harn Museum of Art Landscaping and Gardens Student Assistant, Gainesville, FL 2022-2023 Work study internship position designing and maintaining all gardens on site.
UF DSO Hitchcock Field & Fork Pantry Student Assistant, Gainesville, FL 2020-2022 Work study position on campus providing a resource for students experiencing food insecurity.
Studio Dance Instructor, Pensacola, FL 2014-2020 Began apprenticing for dance classes of ages 2-5 years old. Continued as an instructor for ages ranging 5-20.
INVOLVEMENT
SKILLS WORK EXPERIENCE
Architrave 30 Editor-in-Chief/President Works Published 2022-2023
Architrave 29 Scripts Editor Works Published 2021-2022
UF AIAS Social Chiar 2022-2023
UF SoA Alumni Advisory Council
Undergraduate Representative 2023-2024
SKELETAL SYSTEMS IN ARCHITECTURE RELATING TO HUMAN ANATOMY
07 COLINA CELIO
DESIGNING URBAN SPACE FOR ROME
13 HORIZONTAL DATUM
COMMUNITY SPACE AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
17 CHARACTER MAPPING
ANXIOUS MEETINGS THROUGH PORTALS
ANALYTICAL SKETCHING
SKELETAL SYSTEMS IN ARCHITECTURE RELATING TO HUMAN ANATOMY
Fall 2023
Professor Alfonzo Perez-Mendez
COLINA CELIO
DESIGNING URBAN SPACE FOR ROME
Fall 2023
Professor Peter Sprowls
Partner Nathanael Campos Jimenez
Colina Celio draws inspiration from Rome’s seven hills as well as the nearby Colosseum and Parco Celimontana. The proposal is for Rome’s eighth hill on the site of the newly constructed Linea C metro line ventilation shaft. The concept of a porous hill that can be experienced in a variety of ways contradicts the other Roman hills, which typically have a linear path through ruins and significant churches and palaces. Programmatically, the geological nature of the hill informs naming conventions for the respective public, private, and transitional spaces.
Colina Celio is an urban space for public and private use. The main programmatic space is the rock wall climbing facility, or the quarry, that carves out an interactive space. This program draws from the athleticism encouraged by the Colosseum, just north of our site. The summit is the residential portion of the project that connects to the hillside via a waterfalllike overhead condition. The meadow is the main public space which is on the surface of the hill, acting as a moment for pause and socialization. The various spaces for movement are inspired by the flow of water via the “Acqua Appia” which was Rome’s first and largest aqueduct, found and excavated below our site at Celimontana.
HORIZONTAL DATUM
COMMUNITY SPACE AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
Spring 2022
Professor Elizabeth Cronin
The Field and Fork Food Pantry is a resource on the University of Florida’s campus that provides relief to students experiencing food insecurity. “Horizontal Datum” was given the purpose of designing an extension of this resource on campus as the first undergraduate project with a real and accessible site. The focus of accessibility and community made the design choices obvious in some ways and challenging in others. Being able to preserve the site was of high priority after examining the topography and placement of pre-existing pavilions and trees. The element of a garden enforces a community-driven, green space. Transparency also allows for the program of different spaces to connect. Programatically, the structure and design are given constraints that flow together and lead to overlapping of specific boundaries. Thinking on a more horizontally-driven scale contrasted other concepts previously explored and made for an interesting perspective on design concepts used in more vertically-driven projects.
CHARACTER MAPPING
ANXIOUS MEETINGS THROUGH PORTALS
Fall 2021
Professor Sarah Gamble
Based on the German, avant-garde film, “Run Lola Run”, mappings developed as a complete film analysis. This was based on the two main characters, Lola and Manni, who were so desperately trying to reach each other through paths that diverged and crossed throughout the film. The measurement of their emotions and timing translated into a language that benefited the understanding of layered movement along a span of time. This realization and development fostered learning in terms of how to create a space for a specific person and pull those elements through the entire space that they occupy with others. Anxiety and desperation as design concepts were some of the most interesting to dissect and communicate as uncomfortable as they seem to a common spectrum of people.
Another new concept was approaching the design from an omnipotent point of view. Portaled apertures were a tool used from a third person stance that allowed the supposed characters and lenses of a program to converge and diverge under varying conditions. Having a very elongated and linear path to take communicates a lack of pause to those in the space, while a tall and narrow area with an opening at the top suggests a pause and transportation from one point to another in an unconventional way.
Manipulation of light and space are connected quite obviously in this project especially. Using simple methods of bringing light into darkness and vice versa allow light and void to create space regardless of any structural elements. The organic nature of light can be controlled and shaped to an extent that was used to an advantage within precedent studies as well. Studying light brings out a poetic style of deliverables and work that allows space to be seen differently with a simple shift of gesture. Light and shadow become tools for design in all aspects of nesting, veiling, and transforming a space.
ITINERARY EXPLORATIONS
MEASURING DIVINE HIERARCHY THROUGH LIGHT & JUXTAPOSITION OF MOMENTS
Spring 2021 & Fall 2020
Professors Nina Hofer & Donna Cohen
The Seashore Chapel by Vector Architects was an inspiration for the measurement of divine hierarchy and pulling the divine aspect of light through a design in a literal and metaphorical way. Integrating the manipulated light into a warm space and section allowed an itinerary of light to emerge. The sun is a tool that travels across the sky, creating a path for the eyes of visitors to follow. This concept is comforting and draws people into the space just as the light is drawn in.
Inspired by a precedent study of Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole, Italy, this project, titled “Room and Garden: A Juxtaposition of Moments” was the first investigation of itinerary. This was the first attempt at studying an existing building in a higher education setting. Principles of the cemetery came through in a collage of time and space. The path that visitors would take may be different than those who have familiar connections, thus consideration of multiple types of people beginto come through. Hierarchy is naturally what prevails under this concept of itinerary and collage. Primarily, though, what drove the hierarchy in this project was the compressive and expansive spaces and how they juxtaposed each other. The use of parti helped evolve an itinerary through sections and the creation of a field.
VERTICAL DATUM
MEASURE & MUSEUM OF THE BODY
Spring 2022
Professor Elizabeth Cronin
The program of Museum of the Body developed from an in depth analysis on measure and movement within the body. An obvious choice of program related to the body was a spatial anecdote of dance as a bodily tool of expression. Using the museum program, a space for viewing, learning, and archiving allowed for an integration of a study on the human arm with the study of the body as a whole. Dance is a tool that can be shown in exact measurement or on a fluid spectrum of technique and art. Utilizing methods of veil and transparent materials that contrast with a heavy, volumetric intervention system, movement through the space becomes natural and bright.
Analysis of the human arm was utilized as a beginning process for measurement of the body. In the collage above, the concept of fluidity was extracted from “Jane B. for Agnès V.”, a French documentary on the life of actress Jane Birkin. Analyzing film became a tool for looking at the architectural parallels in other design disciplines, and the context of camera movement became a driver for the precedent concepts of the body. The way a camera person moves can be measured based on the quality and fluidity of the final film cuts. This movement inspired further study in collaboration with a fellow peer, Jessica Vorbeck. Mapping out the density of activity and movement in the human arm translated into ideas of density and movement within a vertical structure.
EXODUS
DESIGNING FOR THE FLORIDA LANDSCAPE
Fall 2022
Professor Kalra Ochoa
EXODUS NARRATIVE: PORT ST. JOE AND SALT
MARSH
GRASS MIGRATION
Exodus is a continuous and dramatic change that goes on throughout time and space. It implies that a subject shifts on this line despite outside factors. The constant idea of change over time gives way to a palimpsest of information within the analysis done. Permanence is relative to the ideas used in the site, but it is a tricky topic when considering nature and its evolution. “Some more permanent form for the exodus [is] needed” (Miller). The change can be categorized as well. More gradual changes can be seen on a gradient scale, not necessarily in association to color, but with the idea that subjects move into new seasons based on the previous conditions. There is a butterfly effect that occurs when one variable is changed. Whether the variable is introduced, taken away, or evolved, the environment reacts. The variation in change leads into the concept of contrast as well. The ideas of gradual development and exponential or immediate outcomes speak to each other in different ways. “There [is] no central exodus, but rather successive waves of migration that culminated” (Ackroyd). The contrast can complement the systems in any environment we examine, and with that, we are able to analyze and properly place our program in a space. Where I am not thinking of gradient in the context of color, I put the idea of contrast. Through color analysis of the existing environment and built structures, I am able to find colors and materials that serve respective purposes of preserving the atmosphere of the existing site as well as drawing attention to the intervention to gain the public eye. Occupying a site that shows constant change and variation is a task that can be done with flexibility. Mobility of the intervention is a priority when looking at multiple changing environments. The concept of change through layers of informational palimpsest is to be reflected on and emphasized in the intervention so that it compliments the beauty of exodus within the site. “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful” (Walker). The information collected becomes an asset to the minds exploring it. Through constant monitoring of climate and water factors that would affect plant migration, exodus is given a more specific purpose. The migration of water and plants that directly relates to each other should be analyzed according to weather conditions alongside water conditions. The variability is essential in understanding how to work with the concepts of movement and change along the Gulf Coast and in an architectural context. The design concept of continuity is one that I have kept in consideration tied into the idea of an exodus in both the research subjects and their facilities. Having a mobile lab reinforces the exodus that is happening on my chosen site as well as along the entire Gulf Coast with the shifting of estuary lines and, as a result, Florida salt marsh grasses.
GRANDIS SUI
Architrave 30 Editor-in-Chief
Grandis Sui is the 30th edition of the University of Florida’s School of Architecture undergraduate publication, Architrave. Grandis Sui is an exploration of the grandeur of human capacity and what defines us as conscious beings. How do we explain “self” in emotional and architectural terms? How does spatial awareness and consideration affect our sense of self? Humans are an enigmatic species that crave protection and wonder about eternity. Grandis Sui forces the reader to examine who they are and discover what challenges come with this reflection.
