I sense a growing momentum in architecture, fueled by a collective recognition of design’s considerable role in perpetuating social inequalities and environmental harm. It pleads for a change in our built environment, standing on demands that our discipline must evolve toward greater inclusivity, sustainability and social responsibility to actually protect the health, safety and wellbeing of the public.
Amidst numerous methodologies and approaches to this revision, I find profound inspiration in the transformative power of storytelling, used as a tool for enriching spatial experiences with meaning, purpose and connection. I believe that storytelling in architecture introduces complexity and nuance, allowing designers to create spaces that reflect the richness of human experience. By doing so, it has the potential to challenge patterns of underrepresentation, fostering a built environment that is more inclusive, equitable and culturally diverse. I strive to create architecture that amplifies underrepresented narratives, honor cultural histories, and foster a strong sense of belonging amongst its users.
“The responsibility of an architect is to create a sense of order, a sense of place, a sense of relationship.”
- Richard Meier
PROJECTS
O O O O O O O O
A Room for One
RESIDENTIAL STUDIO | PRINCETON
ARCH 501
Following the American Revolution, the black community in Princeton, NJ grew as slaves gained their freedom from fighting in the war and settled locally. By the mid-19th century, the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, centered by Witherspoon Street began to thrive as blacks established themselves as self sufficient entrepreneurs and service providers. Witherspoon Street became crowded with black businesses, restaurants, homeowners, churches and schools. Today, much of that history is condensed to sidewalk placards that often go overlooked as motorists quickly pass by and pedestrians briskly walk to their favorite cafes, shops and boutiques.
The room for one intentionally forgoes the project brief to simply be a room for one and chooses to act in reclamation; this project is a reacknowledgment of the historic Witherspoon-Jackson community through an explicit use of text as architectural facade.
THESE - VER -Y SAME - STREETS
“African Lane”, historically black Witherspoon St. profile
1. The Citizen 2. William “Sport” Moore Used Clothing and Antique Stores 3. Paul Robeson Place 4. Mr. Griggs’ Imperial Restaurant 5. Witherspoon YMCA-YWCA 6. Paul Robeson House 7. Witherspoon Presbyterian Church 8. Pearl Moore Allen’s Tavern 9. Mt. Pisgah AME Church
First Witherspoon School for Colored Children
Colored Cemetery
Lonnie Barclay & Andrew Teague’s Ice & Wood Plant
1. motorized aluminum louver 2. steel structure
hat channel framing
cable railing system
wood decking
blocking, as req’d.
LED lighting
A House for Two
The project dissects the traditional American suburban home into its iconographic elements: porch and gable, to directly accommodate the needs and desires of its occupants while consciously fitting into the larger context of its neighborhood. It speaks a formal language that harmonizes with its neighbors while simultaneously differentiating itself through a material palette of wood, metal and polycarbonate. The gable splits to define two separate residential units while the porch extrudes to figuratively re-unify them as one and literally define visually public and private spaces within.
The project’s usage of porch creates a platform for neighborly interaction while visually opening the units to the community’s eye. Non private activities such as working, lounging and cooking are revealed while the remaining poche masks private spaces such as bedrooms, bathrooms, closets and utility rooms.
The porch acts as a spatial bridge, connecting the private residence to the public community. Whether a backdrop for spectating, neighborly conversations or small gatherings, the porch accommodates many functions that all contribute to a heightened sense of community.
section A:AA
The split gable and north/south oriented roof void maximizes solar exposure, allowing light to filter down into each unit. From within, the two units engage with each other through shared light and obscured sight between units through polycarbonate glazing.
A Center for Many
COMMUNITY CENTER | PRINCETON
As of 2021, 6% of Princeton University graduate students identify as Black/African American. The Black Graduate Caucus (BGC) promotes a professional, informative, and social network for Black graduate students to ensure their retention and continued academic success at Princeton.
The purpose of this project is to amplify the voice and initiatives of the 6%, as a collective in the BGC, through providing a space to nurture, highlight and celebrate the joy and successes of black graduate students. The community center aims not to retell a narrative of blackness through histories of struggle and sorrow but rather to memorialize those hardships, acknowledge current issues and most importantly, foster uplifting black futures through providing a comfortable, familiar space, for us.
Community discussions generated themes of displacement, belonging and identity -- these were translated into architectural elements of inside/outside, centrality, and scale
The entry exhibition re-purposes the iconic Princeton arch as a welcoming threshold. Its curvature carries an inherent formal language of uplift, directing its guests to look up. The displayed content is curated to exclusively showcase the successes of black graduate students.
The building, as a circular loop, intends to physically de-emphasize hierarchy and encourage increased dialogue and inclusion. Internal arrangements are created from piece wise continuous curvature to shape an experiential sequence in a continued language as the building’s curved exterior envelope.
ETERNAL REST
ARCHITECTURE FOR BLACK REINTERMENT
MEMORIAL | ORANGEBURG
* PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness... One ever feels this twoness-- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder”
- W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
The project is largely an exploration of the double; both as it relates to W.E.B. DuBois’s expression of Blackness’s two-ness as well as a technique for producing black aesthetics in architecture.
Claflin and South Carolina State Universities share one parcel of land, yet their campuses function independently on either side of a fenced partition. There is a resultant double of each institutional programmatic type; except for the chapel. Given the parameters aforementioned, the project should be a duplication of the chapel as a methodology for completing an existing logic. However, a historic district, overlaid by the National Parks Service, negates the act of new construction on the project site. Therefore, the project isn’t about completing the double through a duplication of the chapel, rather a completion of the chapel through an association with its missing typological component: a graveyard.
What is intended to be a place of eternal rest and remembrance, many black graveyards and cemeteries have become a place of disruption, and erasure in the name of “desirable” development. This project proposes a process for the exhumation, examination, and reinterment of unjust black burials into a new, permanent burial condition that associates itself with the existing chapel on Claflin University’s campus. The process integrates ethical logistics of reinterment with black ceremonial funerary traditions of procession and burial to build a memorial that will hold the bodies that can be recovered from their wronged burial conditions while memorializing those that cannot.
auditorium 2. student center 3. gymnasium 4. library 5. dining hall 6. chapel
The impeding structure is to be carefully dismantled. The existing soil shall be left for excavation only by Historically Black Colleges & Universities of the state of South Carolina. This black community will also serve as proxy for family members as needed.
1934: South Carolina state authorities called for the damming of the Santee and Cooper Rivers to form Lakes Marion and Moultrie, flooding at least 3,000 black graves.
1936: The City of Orangeburg, SC knowingly constructed an armory over the black portion of the city’s public cemetery. Human remains were found during initial construction and during a 1977 renovation.
South Carolina State University
images courtesy of Library of Congress online catalog
praise & worship emotional
N site plan images courtesy of Library of Congress online catalog
After the remains are properly examined and identified, the existing chapel will hold a second homegoing ceremony. The newly designed connecting pathway accommodates customary processions of he remains to their final resting place at the burial site.
“casket sharp” procession
display
36’ - 8”
t.o. shaft
35’ - 0”
level 3
27’ - 6”
level 2
18’ - 4”
9’ - 2” level 0
0’ - 0” level U1
-9’ - 2”
level U2
-18’ - 4”
level U3
-27’ - 6” level 1
level U4
-36’ - 8”
b.o. pit
-39’ - 8”
section
As phases of reinterments occur, each level mechanically lowers into the ground when all of its crypts are filled. Once crypts have returned to the ground, the spliced column connections are removed and the remaining rammed earth shaft is left exposed as a memorializing object for the countless unjust burial conditions that can not be rectified.
The top of the shaft is truncated in a manner that both allows southern light to flood in from above as well as provide another high, steeple-like, point for visual reference. The memorial uses the existing chapel’s steeple height as a driver for the shaft’s total height.
4’ 0’ 2’ 8’ 16’
“Details are not the details, they make the design”
- Charles Eames
PROFESSIONAL VIGNETTES
Emory University School of Nursing
Atlanta, GA | completed in 2022
Created as built BIM documentation to aid the design team with the processes of interior renovation and conducted clash detection coordination amongst several consultants. Also designed and developed key moments contributing to a sequence of highly functional spaces for a world-leading healthcare institution.
Atrium Health Medical Office Building
Designed welcoming moments within the building, including the main reception/waiting lobby while also ensuring a successful carrying of design concept through the construction documentation phase. Charlotte, NC | completed in 2021
Kitchen_One Charleston, SC | completed in 2023 design + build renovation, by author
“When I see a white piece of paper, I feel I’ve got to draw. And drawing, for me, is the beginning of everything”
- Ellsworth Kelly
TRADITIONAL MEDIA
Venice, Italy
Charleston, SC
Charleston, SC
BROTHER, graphite + watercolor
COUSIN, graphite + watercolor
education
Princeton University
Master of Architecture, 2024
Clemson University
Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, 2019
Minor in Sustainability cum laude
selected honors + awards
2021- 2024 Princeton University Fellowship
Spring 2019 Clemson Undergraduate Prize in Design
Spring 2018 Ray Huff Award for Excellence
2017 Robert P. Madison Architectural Scholarship
2015 Congressional Black Caucus Visual Arts Scholarship
tools
Sketching Drafting
3-D Modeling | SketchUP, Revit, Rhino
Visualization | Enscape, Adobe Suite
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
digital portfolio
https://issuu.com/kennethbrabham
Kenneth A. Brabham, Jr.
(843)224-8370 | brabhamk1@yahoo.com
An emerging designer striving to advance in professional development and accelerate growth into a purposeful career in architecture. By coupling my own life experiences with a genuine interest in others’, I seek to positively contribute to the work and culture of a design firm with a profound emphasis on improving the quality of life for people and communities.
experience
Architectural Designer | Liollio Architecture
June 2023 - August 2023 ... September 2024 - current | Charleston, SC
Assisted in the creation of BIM models for several large scale projects as well as worked closely with client groups to effectively contribute to early design and development phases of various projects.
Architectural Intern | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
June 2022 - August 2022 | New York, New York
Worked cooperatively in a large, fast paced office environment to make effective contributions during the early design and development phases of multiple large scale, international projects.
Architectural Consultant | Joseph Hobart Weiss
December 2021 - May 2024| Princeton, NJ
Worked alongside an experienced architect, implementing contemporary BIM modeling workflows to aid in improved project documentation, visualization and delivery.
Architectural Apprentice | The Beck Group
May 2019 - August 2021 | Atlanta, GA
Worked integrally within various design teams to effectively contribute to the design, development, documentation and delivery processes of several award winning projects of varying typologies and scales.
Physical Asset Development Intern | Metanoia
January 2018 - August 2018 | Charleston, SC
Designed and developed small scale projects intending to revitalize an under-served community through an asset based developmental approach, catering to existing strengths found within communities.
