KATIE selected
works
2020 - 2025
architecture & art portfolio
FROM GROWTH TO WASTE
enfield food Pantry - community Hub
cornell university
arcH 3101 design studio - suzanne lettieri
enfield, ny fall 2023
faculty- nominated
DIVISIONS
As a historically agriculturally dominant area, the rural culture of Enfield, NY, has diminished with rural flight and increasing agricultural specialization. Using the greenhouse module, the community hub supports education around local food sourcing and production. Through principles of immersion and exposure, the hub brings local Enfield residents and farmers together in which every stage of the food production process; from growth to waste; is exhibited and deeply expressed in the progression of space.
FIVE STEPS in the food production process; growing, Harvesting, Processing, consumPtion, and waste; are exemplified in the shifting modules that creates interaction for visitors with every stage of the process.
The PUSH + PULL of these modules create areas for greenhouse integrated into the building that maximize sunlight from the south. Exterior pockets create small garden and gathering spaces. The shifting motif continues across the site in a series of additional greenhouses and crop patches.
FILM CITY
bingHamton university film & cinema camPus
cornell university
arcH 3102 design studio - tom carrutHers
bingHamton, ny
sPring 2024
Binghamton’s architectural and industrial history is evident and expressed in its urban landscape, however recent economic decline and lack of public space defines the urban experience of the downtown core.
This project aims to revitalize the downtown Binghamton streetscape and arts scene by creating appealing public space for young students to stimulate the economy.
HOUSING
STUDENT HOUSING
SKATE PARK
WORKSHOPS
SOUND STAGE CINEMA CAFE
THEATRE AGORA
SOUL
BODY
MIND
This project proposes an extension of the Binghamton University film department, providing student housing and supporting programs.
The site is divided into two buildings, each with two swells and two towers, one with a focus on media production and the other on consumption.
Programs are interwoven sectionally through a series of undulating planes. The thickening or SWELLING of a slab ripples upwards into housing towers. Shared programs are suspended in this elevated plate, informing the skate park below and the housing towers above. The ground pushes up to meet these swells, creating an open ground floor for skateboarders to move through the site.
PERFORMANCE // PROJECTION
Film has the ability to imitate reality through collapsing a threedimensional environment into a two-dimensional projection. This project interprets two different types of projection and viewing – one that is a technological projection applied to a surface, and the other is the act of viewing in perspective.
A FOCAL POINT emerges at the critical intersection of downtown Binghamton. This viewpoint treats the performance/projection to be the lives of those living in the complex, generating a sequential montage. Films are to be projected onto the facades of these towers, reinforcing a perhaps uncomfortable two-way viewing that occurs in several moments throughout the project.
EARTH LIBRARY
study of rammed eartH construction
cornell university
arcH 2102 integrated design - marta H. wisniewska
itHaca, ny
sPring 2023
In studying RAMMED EARTH construction as a sustainable building material, Alnatura Campus (by Hass Cook Zemmrich) was studied and used as precedent for the design of this library in Ithaca.
Prefabricated rammed earth walls were constructed using a combination of local loam and recycled earth. Prefabricated rammed earth units integrate foam glass gravel insulation and heating pipes for a more energy efficient facade system. Erosion checks minimize the impact of natural forces on the degradation of rammed earth.
A RADIAL PATH is created by two curved rammed earth walls. This corridor connects two entry points into the site, generating a radial grid that defines the rest of the programmatic space. The central path serves as a public path to house open artistic and educational events, with other public programs such as administrative offices, an auditorium, lobby, and children’s education area.
Tucked away stairs takes one to a more quiet, private library and study space on the second floor with offices, study and social spaces, and book stacks.
The angled roof conditions aim to maximize natural light and minimize erosion of the rammed earth walls.
Acting primarily as a facade and using concrete to supplement structure when needed, the prefabricated rammed earth unit consists of erosion checks, earth, foam glass gravel insulation, and integrated heating pipes. Details of connections to wood roof and flooring are shown.
SUNKEN MUSEUM
museum of arcHaeological eXcavation on tHe Palatine Hill
cornell in rome
arcH 4101 design studio - luben dimcHeff & labics
rome, italy
fall 2024
The Sunken Museum draws from Rome’s complex topography and layered archaeological history. As an exploration of interior void, excavation, and carved spaces; the museum reinterprets the ROMAN COURTYARD and PATIO HOUSE typology in a sunken, cavern-like complex.
Three large courtyard spaces penetrate the earth, casting sunlight that lights the entire complex.The Sunken Museum not only presents artifacts from excavation on the Palatine Hill, but presents knowledge and understanding of the excavation process itself.
COURTYARDS mark the cores of three types of spaces; scholarly spaces, exhibition spaces, and a public cafe space connecting to a grotto. These primary spaces are the brightest and open above, connecting to secondary, darker spaces that are then linked by dark, narrow paths.
Sited on the side of the Palatine Hill facing the Circus Maximus, the entrance appears as a slim, monumental extension of the hill, leading one to navigate dark, tight pathways that stumble upon open and bright courtyards. The monolithic spaces create a space for refuge, contemplation, deep reconnection with the earth, and an intimate experience of EXCAVATION.
FORUM PAVILION:
Architect: GiONA BiereNS De hAAN
STRUCTURAL MODEL 1’ = 1/2”
cornell university
arcH 2613 structural systems
in collaboration witH: osiel aldaba, angelique meza fall 2022
Created for a film festival in Nyon, Switzerland, the Forum Pavillion emphasizes flexibility and versatility through its design. As a temporary installation, its construction consists of a series of repeated braced frames, and lays on a wooden platform in the plaza, accommodating the slope of the ground.
The pavilion features ten operable doors that open the pavilion to the plaza. These large doors and their locking mechanism are accurately replicated in the model, with pins securing the door in their desired positions.
Essential structural components that were emphasized through the scale model include:
Braced frame system
Pinned connections
Hinged cantilever doors
Corrugated polycarbonate facade
Wood joinery methods were imitated at scale with nails as connections rather than glue.
HOUSE IN BETWEEN
House for cHairs
cornell university
arcH 2101 design studio - catHerine wilmes
itHaca, ny
fall 2022
House In Between reinterprets the typical house or dwelling, exploring modular geometries and indoor and outdoor living. This building utilizes the intersections of a series of pieces, whose geometries transition from a curved to rectangular form from the ground up. This spatial language is developed in designing a paper chair.
An arrangement of similar modules separate program with space IN BETWEEN that become outdoor areas that are an extension of the home.
Five volumes are arranged to create intermediate outdoor gathering spaces. Curved glass openings reflect the implied intersections of these volumes for views that connect the interior and exterior. There is a gradient of private to public space as the building is submerged into the slope, with program and chairs arranged accordingly.
A deep excavation into the earth creates semi-enclosed spaces that create unique lighting and roof conditions. A terracing condition is created with the roof line, as one initially arrives on the roof and descends into the submerged spaces -- a dramatic transition of spaces.
IDENTITY CRISIS
cornell researcH fellowsHiP eXHibition
witH catHerine wilmes
itHaca, ny
aPril 15 - aPril 26, 2024
role: researcH assistant (design, drawing, Production)
Cross-Pollination 1
Cross-Pollination 5
Identity Crisis explores new approaches to architectural elements by surveying Ithaca’s built environment and proposing a series of eight artifacts derived from photographic documentation. Discrete components such as doors, windows, gutters, vents, and chimneys were analyzed, disassembled, and reassembled to produce novel building components. These hybrids begin to speculate on the possibility of new cultural and technical functions.
Anthropologist Victor Turner has shown that various indigenous societies used a method of “componential exaggeration” to estrange everyday objects and employ them as didactic tools for the young to learn from. He argued that the deformed statues and objects that certain indigenous societies used, like the American Omaha, were made to have their youth question fundamental notions of beauty, courage, danger, and leadership.
Similarly, the eight designs shown here, along with the student work of the Mixed Mannerisms seminar of Fall 2023 aspire to be didactic tools for students of architecture to question our aesthetic assumptions when it comes to assembling building elements. The artifacts are understood less as end products than processes of collective questioning using methods of photographic, formal, scalar, programmatic, and semantic manipulation.
