Exploring urban design and the potential of spaces to blur the lines between intertior and exterior. Achieving such goals through a focus on scale, light and changing the perspective of the individual as they make their way through the site by moving the ground plane.
Warren Technological and Residential Campus//Warren, OH, USA pp. 04-09
North Hill Bicycle Shop//Akron, OH, USA pp. 10-15
Moments of Repose// pp. 16-21
Vertical Vista Sporting Center//Los Angeles, CA, USA pp. 22-29
Calle Ocho Community Center and Park//Miami, FL, USA pp. 30-37
The Technology and Residential Campus in Warren, OH grew out of the local growth and development of industrial companies that are moving into the region within the coming decades. These jobs will be numerous and are expected to attract employees at an international scale. This site will focus on developing the skills necessary for success in these fields and provide spaces to the public to learn and grow. The site will also provide housing for those who come to the region seeking jobs, whilst providing access to local art, food, and public spaces for those same individuals to express both themselves and the areas that they have traveled from.Additionally, the site aims to include a large amount of public space, both in the form of hardscape and purposeful green space that flows across the site. This will be achieved
through the central esplanade that moves from the current neighborhood, through the site, and is resolved at the Technical Building. The buildings across the site are placed on the site to both force various perspectives and to encourage movement through the site. These spaces will include multiple large-scale water retention ponds that create interaction between residents and the water through surrounding public spaces. Likewise, bioswales and rain gardens have been implemented in an effort to include a greater number of native places to Warren and to increase the volume of pollonators to create a more biodiverse and beautiful site.
Technology Center from Street
• Requires only 2-6 in. of soil depth
• Low maintenance following installation
• Reduce stormwater runoff
• Provide a natural habitat for pollinators and small species of birds
The climate of Ohio, and by extension Warren, is quite temperate with warmer summers and cold winters. Thus, the species of grass and other smaller shrubs for the extensive green roof would need to both be able to grow in this climate and one that is native to the region.
The North Hill Bike Shop was created and designed in conjunction with the idea of a local event that would takeover the site twice a year. After evaluating the local community, the realization that the closest bicycle shop was in the adjacent municipality prompted the idea. Solely introducing a new form of transportation to an area has its issues however, and thus , the idea for a bicycle race to be the conjoining event was obvious. Additionally, the site offers repairs and educational classes for parents and children alike in the maintenance and usage of bicycles. The site was also attached to the wider region through a bus stop on the north side of the site. This was planned to allow for a wider reach of participants to take place in the race, and to allow for a secondary form of transportation
to continue developing within the area. The second major piece of the project was its inclusion of a kinetic piece that changed the site for the event. The massive gears that sprawled across the roof of the separate structures would be rotated when the race was approaching and would be moved in line with the entrance to the site from the street. This created the starting and finish line for the race, whilst at the same time it rotated the gear on the smaller structure, which would change from promoting bicycle models to promoting the race. Furthermore, the site was placed adjacent to a local park with baseball fields, where the idea wasto create a more streamlined way of allowing bicycles to access the fields through the proposed site.
Scale: 1’’ = 16’ - 0
Scale: 1’’ = 16’ - 0
Scale: 1’’ = 16’ - 0
Rotating Column Detail
3’’ = 8’ - 0
Moments of Repose was a project that looked at the context and form given to spaces that need to be inhabited for relaxation. The process looked at three separate spaces; namely, the “mine” space, the “your” space, and then “our” space, and how each space both interacted with each other and the surrounding site as a whole. The idea of separate spaces across the site carried over into the materiality, which was a major point of this project. The idea was to take a household item and, through a series of experiments, to find how it could be connected without and adhesives, while also fitting the needs of the site. Thus CD cases were chosen as they offered both an easy way of connection between multiple cases, as well as mulitple types of connections that each created different
spaces that could be inhabited. Additionally, the cases have both one opaque side and one transparent side, which offered a different sort of ability to create spaces that interacted and opened to the site more, while also creating unique moments of color and light. These moments were all combined and placed together on the site, with the “mine” space occupying the hilltop that overlooked the adjacent porjects, the “your” site occupied the lower river bank, and the our space was placed near the middle of the site.
“Mine” Space
“Mine”
Space Floor Plan
Scale: 3/4’’ = 1’ - 0
Scale: 3/4’’ = 1’ - 0
Scale: 3/4’’ =
1’ - 0
Scale: 3/4’’ = 1’ - 0
Scale: 3/4’’ = 1’ - 0
Scale: 3/4’’ = 1’ - 0
Moments of Repose Site Plan
Scale: 3/16’’ = 1’ - 0
of Repose Site Section A-A
Scale: 3/16’’ = 1’ - 0
of Repose Site Section B-B
Scale: 3/16’’ = 1’ - 0
Angeles, CA, USA
State University
Vertical Vista is a sports and recreation center built around the idea of isolating and highlighting the rock climbing wall. The wall’s placement is reinforced by the adjacent program, both internally and externally, as it is pulled to the edge of the site to generate attraction within the surrounding cityscape. To further bring the cityscape into the site, the urban fabric is continued upwards from street level using a terraced seating area to promote moments of repose on the site. As visitors enter into the site, they are able to enter either through this terraced stepping into an upper lobby or on street level into a lower lobby. The rock climbing wall is allowed to pierce through each floor plate and the roof to create a unique experience for the climbers, utilizing both the wall’s interior and exterior faces to gives views from
the site into the Arts District. The climbing wall additionally acts as a large column that supports the entire eastern portion of the building. Aside from the rock climbing wall, the center also sports four racquetball courts, which are given their own space on the third floor, and a basketball court, which is placed externally on street level. The basketball court is specifically designed to reflect and pay homage to the basketball culture of the city. The court additionally has adjacent seating that connects to both the sidewalk and the adjacent park space to the north. Landscape is utilized around the seating to provide privacy from the street and to provide a screen to contain the game within the site.
Rendered by Logan Nelson
Rendered by Logan Nelson
Rendered by Logan Nelson
Throughout the project, the relationship between the ground and the objects it supports was heavily explored. The site proposes disassociating the ground, landscape, and building conventions from each other in an effort to pull the landscape away from the ground plane This was done, in part, due to the site’s increasing need to deal with flooding due to climate change. Additionally, the ground is not always treated as a flat surface underneath us, but as a playground that interacts with inserted forms. Thus, the project proposes a commmunity park that moves upwards, pulling both green space and usable interior spaces off of the ground. This proposal investigates the built environment as a series of contained worlds that will hold micro-environments, when stitched
together produce a new whole. As the park moves and creates new spaces across the site, the aim would be to utilize the proposed site as an outdoor space that is suitable to support the growing homeless population within the city. The adjacent programs would also move to support the increased overnight population, with the kitchen having the ability to focus on creating food for the individuals and the medical center would be able to provide weekly hours to provide basic checkups and physicals as individuals come and go on a daily basis.
Landscape Formation Diagram
Top Down View of Site
Section A-A
Reception Area
Floor Plan
