Archvox _ The Catalyst Edition

T h e c ata lyst ed i ti o n

University of South Florida School of Architecture & Community Design

P h oto by: Au dr ey Alai

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Arch Abbrevi ati on (Architectural term) Architecture, Architec t

vox vox /väks/ noun (especial ly in music journal ism) vocal s; voic e . capital ized, vox is short f or voice operated switch, it is a term commonly used in tel ecommunications. It ref ers to a switch th at works when a sound is detectd by a device ( transmitter or recording device) which is activated by the sound in pl ace of a user pushing a button to transmit.*

* w e b o p e d i a .co m/t e rm/v /vox .htm l

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catalyst catalyst /’kat-l-ist / n oun Che mist ry. a substance t h at increases the rate of a che mical re action without itsel f undergoing any p e rmane nt chemical change.*

* d i ct i o n a ry. re f e renc e.c om / c atalyst

Phot o by: Gabr i el Chave z

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- Editor’s Note We hope to bring forth the presence of the School of Architecture and Community Design at the University of South Florida, its students, and their almost chemical reaction with this publication.

Throughout our school, each level presents their spark in ways that have attracted attention. SACD students are known to conjure up projects that have fueled growth as architects and people. ArchVox displays the humble beginnings of the student and how, through tension and abstraction, one comes to produce a new chasm of ideas.

In order for there to be creation, we must begin with a spark that ignites an idea and the passion needed to develop that idea from the metaphysical world. A catalyst speeds up the rate at which a reaction changes. For architects, this catalyst idea provides the foundation and structure to compose the fragmented ideas into a factual reality, thus allowing freedom within the creative process.

This idea fuels the constant desire for change and provides endless inspiration for further exploration; if it were not for the stimuli of peers’ advice, past projects, and a constant evolving environment the needed catalytic reaction would not be achieved.

We hope that this inaugural issue of ArchVox can behave as a catalyst and incite novel thoughts in everyone whom engages with the text. For outsiders, it is a welcoming look into the quality of work produced by SACD. For the faculty, it is a reminder of their own passion and efforts through the work we continually exhibit.

For families, ArchVox is a justification for our coffee addiction and desire to sleep for days on end—an invitation into our world. For us, the students and ArchVox is Our Voice, and Catalyst is our first speech.

P hot o by: R ober t G or en

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A dva n ce d d e s ign Advanced d e si g n a

Mei Ng Alex Giraldo

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I nt ro des ig n

Kim Nogueira Gabriel Chavez Rachael Dippel Johnny Ramos Nathan Mickelson Danielle Barozinsky Luke Keene Luke Larson Alejandra Gomez

Vanessa Marin Robert Rubley Robert Goren Victoria Statzer Courtney Cook Vivi Lowery Steven Arrubla Yesenia Vega

Advanced d e si g n C Stephanie Henschen / Laura Lozano/ April Grimes Kayla Baker/ Joseph Caiazza/ Genevieve Frank / Josh Frank Jad Alawar/ Mikel Amias / Manuel Dominguez Gadiel Marquez /Vignesh Madhavan

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Co r e D e si g n

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Table of

Contents

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Mast er p roj ec t s The Team

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Stu d io Lif e

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Israel Sanchez Daniella Covate Juan Ferreira

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“I write a lot of emails.”

B ob MacLeod Attempting to schedule an interview with the director of the School of Architecture and Community Design would have been a difficult task had it not been that the director is Bob MacLeod. MacLeod is an attentive director towards students, faculty, and all those who approach him. When interviewed at his office his enthusiasm for our school was evident as he relayed answers to our questions and started up easy conversation.

When we asked him if he could simply summarize what it is he does as a director, he laughed and said honestly, “I write a lot of emails.” Even though this was a lighthearted response, it did cut to the chase of what it is he does for the school. Bob MacLeod is all encompassing mediator and guide for the School of Architecture and Community Design program. MacLeod has to deal with everything from course programs, new faculty, budgeting, outreach, and much more, even the occasional appearance on a student’s jury.

It is curious as to how he is be able to handle all these tasks and deal with all those emails, but speaking with Bob MacLeod definitely solidified his enthusiasm and energy for the school and the direction in which the program is moving.

MacLeod’s father served in the US Air Force, requiring his family to travel and live in notable countries around Europe, including England, Germany, and France.

These experiences as a teenager led MacLeod to feel “fortunate to be able to go to these places because at that point they’re really making an impact on you.” As students at SACD can attest with certainty, it is these types of experiences that provide the inspiration for design. These are the types of moments that inspired MacLeod to

take after his uncles, who were draftsmen, and drive down from Valdosta State College in Georgia to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida to pursue architecture.

After several years of learning, practice, and experience he became the director at the University of South Florida’s architecture program.

Bob MacLeod was easily one of the best candidates for the position, but after longtime friend Michael Halflants showed him around the studios and introduced him to SACD’s faculty he was thoroughly impressed and has not turned his back to the school since. MacLeod even went on to say that this program was “the best kept secret in Florida.” Since the Spring of 2009 that MacLeod joined the school, he has been working to fulfill the faculty’s wish of making “the best kept secret in Tampa…get the word out.”

Before MacLeod came in, the school had been through several directors since the school began in 1986, yet the SACD standard never changed. MacLeod continues to praise the faculty for all of their fruitless efforts to maintain such a hard but rewarding curriculum and the students for rising above expectations and reaping those rewards. There is a sense of pride in the school for what has been achieved and MacLeod looks over it all humbly.

This praise, although flattering enough, does not refrain MacLeod from dreaming of bigger goals for the future. Already during the spring semester of 2015 the faculty, with MacLeod leading them, has been on a new faculty search to not only replace old members but contribute to SACD’s constantly growing name. MacLeod draws a football analogy to explain that he does not want to take the best quarterback on

the team, but the best athlete on the board.

The new faculty search is fairly open, but does require candidates to be flexible in the subjects they can teach while still providing expertise. The only problem seems to be that all three candidates have valuable experience and can contribute greatly to the school’s curriculum. Of course further discussion has to follow in order to make the best choice, but the faculty is looking at having a great new addition in the end.

Along with this addition, MacLeod always desires to create a new connection with the Florida Center for Community Design and Research. This research arm of the school will allow students to take part in reaching out to other areas and grow as academic learners. MacLeod states that students at SACD are comfortable with the manual arts and technical training, but typically do not take the time to read. He believes that by taking part in research and participating in “real life” situations, students will “be shocked by how much it impacts their studio work.” This would create a new goal for SACD and draw attention from not only Florida, but other well-rehearsed schools.

Throughout the interview, Bob MacLeod hints at drawing attention to the school and giving it the praise it deserves. He hopes that when alumni graduate and travel and live in different parts of the world they will carry the name of USF SACD proudly and embody the principles they were taught at school in their personal lives and professional careers. Anyone who speaks to Bob MacLeod can tell that he is proud of the school he directs and will continue to serve it in any way possible so that it may grow to its full potential.

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Intro I

Mei NG Nancy Sanders

ARCHVOX As a student in Intro I, Mei Ng’s first project of the semester was to design Le Petite Cabanon, a small cabin __.

Olsen Kundig’s Delta Shelter provided the precedent research needed to understand the ideas of form, function, and how the intervention sits within the context. The students were expected

in an actual location on the University of South Florida campus. Ng decided to place her wall near the Fine Arts building. Adjacent to the building is a scenic pond and a vibrant green lawn that student organizations use to host events. The concept driving her project was the necessity to create a space where

“o rgan i zed ch aos” to complete a series of graphics that represented the themes they deemed important when they studied the Delta Shelter.

Ng began this project in the same fashion she likes to begin all of her projects: a large series of sketches. These sketches informed the ideas she focused on in her graphics: hierarchy, positive and negative space, and scale, and were then reinterpreted in a series of smaller models that explored the ideas using an array of wood types. Ng was not afraid of experimenting with a wide variety of designs, colors, and textures, but used that to her advantage to develop a unique language within her design. She decided on a concept based on shifts in movement and how those changes transitioned into different colors and textures. Each area of the design was created with a different type of wood, which was a direct result of Ng’s initial experimentation and unfaltering openness to all her design possibilities. Her design was seen as a frantic experimentation with wood and color and perceived as a successful exercise in “organized chaos.”

While Ng was challenged by her first project, she found the Water Wall to be her most daring assignment of the semester. The project was to design a scale model of a 150ft wall to be built

students could study, create, and interact with each other on various levels ranging from personal to creative. Ng’s design proposed upper and lower sections featuring walkways and galleries where students could continuously create and display work while enjoying the natural beauty of the pond. She was nervous about incorporating an angle into her design, but found the angle was an effective in guiding people toward the wall. During her critique, the jurors agreed her design possessed a controlled flow and connection to the surrounding context.

The third project of the semester was the Light Well. This project required the students to explore the definitions of lightness and darkness, understand the spatial constraints with each, and be able to effectively design a spatial construct that incorporates the student’s individual themes. Ng’s design revolved around an interior sacred space for active thought.

She explored the concept of fragmented space, which she played with in her first project, in order to trigger a distinct and separate feeling in each space. She used chromatic lighting to establish a hierarchy between rooms and emphasize the differences in function of each: one to show film, one to display pictures, and another for active discussion.

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Intro I

Alex Giraldo

Some students find it difficult to adjust to an abstract curriculum, but this way of thinking agrees with Alex Giraldo. His process is one based on the principle of constant refinement. Being in Intro Design and dealing with the important fundamental design challenges, such as

Nancy Sanders

What is striking about Alex is how much he loves to push himself, a quality that will serve him well in upper design courses. He revels in the rigor of architecture school, stating, “It’s challenging, and I like that… I’m always finding new ways to challenge [myself].”

“It’s challenging, and I like that.” playing with creating habitable spaces, rhythm, and manipulating light, Alex is focused on gathering and fusing ideas together. He finds inspiration in the work of architects like Frank Gehry, and can finds relation in the design processes he reads about. Alex’s own process lies in his sketches, which he uses to frame his conceptual ideas and begin to spatially abstract those ideas.

When reflecting upon his deep love of architecture that he developed while taking drafting classes in high school, he notes that “it’s amazing how you make ideas out of paper and apply them to the real world.” He has a palpable passion that will no doubt flourish as he continues through the program and learns how to “create something that will be used for years, even decades.”

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Phot o by: Jose G onzale z

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COREDESIGN

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- OVERVIEW A new challenge awaits the incoming students who are eager to take their first step into the School of Architecture and Community Design. Under the guidance of one of three professors, students begin the study of architectural archetypes with an emphasis on tectonic development. Their graphic studies emphasize the role of visual mediums for communication of meaning, ideas, and substance. They explore the development of their creations unconventionally to gain a better understanding of how the parts affect the whole: what constitutes the wall, floor, and ceiling and how each piece reacts to the other, and the thresholds, apertures, and relationships between spaces.

Students learn that architecture is more than sculpting space and form but is also an expression of the craft of making and the understanding of tectonics. They comprehend the critical importance of studying significant architects and their work as a means to better understand expression of ideas and the creation of a cohesive whole. In addition to models, the Core students learn graphic skills that help them better communicate their ideas and the nature of their design interventions. One professor insisted on making his students create with found objects to emphasize the possibility of using nonconventional materials to generate ideas while dubbing the development for the wall exploration “wall-ology.� The process is valued and represented by layers of messy documentation pinned up to the burlap walls. Another professor places emphasis on the reciprocity of elements and the speculation that leads to thinking of tectonics in different ways.

Students are encouraged to challenge their preconceptions of space making. Another professor offered powerful encouragement and delicate attention to architectural evolution through the repeated analysis of an ever-evolving project. The smallest of details are painstakingly analyzed and critiqued in order to assess the smallest of details.

All of the students experience exponential growth because of the high demand for quality process and work under the professors.

Their experience with the professor and older students allows them to see clearly what they have been drawn into as they anticipate the years ahead.

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Core Design II

“Hope.”

That is the message Kimberly Nogueira tried to put forth with her memorial site.

The project was to create a memorial that focuses on the relationship between the floor, ceiling, wall, and tower. Kim chose to design an experience that serves as a parallel to the Chilean miners that were trapped beneath the earth’s surface in 2010. The project created a rare display of a current event being used in a way that was not only optimistic but also profoundly inspiring. Kim saw the wall condition in her project as a metaphor for the experience of being trapped in the mine. The floor-ceiling became the ever present hope for survival of the miners and in the ingenuity of the Chilean scientist designing the escape capsule.

The tower was placed in the position where that the rescue occurred, and was meant to evoke the feeling of light, hope, and love. The whole site strived to create a sense of intimacy that people felt when experiencing a disaster. The public expressed a certain closeness to these unknown strangers through the media, and now these emotions are evoked

Kim Nogueira

through the site and its ability to create a profound sense of humanity.

“Light.”

The Miami project required students to design a space that houses artist studios, media center, and artist residences.

Kim’s project focused on managing the polarity between the desire to intervene in the tight triangular lot and the desire to leave the important passageway to the beach from the urban area unharmed.

The project was a study of the culture and strove to create a condition that would blend into the site without taking over.

To capture the essence of Miami in her design, Kim utilized open floor plans, exposed structures, and transparency in her building’s skin system. She placed her gallery space on the second floor, allowing for greater light accessibility, and put her artist studio on the ground floor. This made the studio space shaded in comparison to the gallery. It also gave the studio a ground level presence that would make the studio easy to engage with during Art Basel, an internationally recognized art festival.

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Core Design II 024 ARCHVOX “Nothing” is what all of Gabriel Chavez’s projects for Core Design 2 started with.

It began with a blank piece for the first project, a war memorial site, and a program-less void in South Beach.

“There was no program, just build something here,” Gabriel recalls the instructions that began the project.

The projects evolved through distinct iterations of his inspiration, and layers of complexity began to come forth.

In his personal adventure from the unknown to the known, Chavez stressed the importance of “having an idea going through all.”

For the first project Chavez decided to divide the memorial into three nodes,

Gabriel Chavez

leaders of the two opposing sides would meet. During the war, the site also served as a place where people would cross the divide in attempts to reunite with their family members on the other side. The site is now a memorial with information and memorabilia of the war, emphasizing the political nature and impact the war had on soldiers and families.

The second project, in an alley between Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive in Miami, became a home for the work of an artist. In Gabriel’s case, it was a site not only for Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake to sell his work, but also for the acclaimed designer to challenge

“N o th i n g.” with little idea about what those nodes were or what purpose they served. “Each time [they] had more purpose,” Gabriel states, as his project evolved into a site marking the former divide of a country that had been plagued by a civil war. The site is adjacent to a dried up river and a neutral, demilitarized point where the

prospective designers. The site would, for 9 months out of the year, become a home and workspace to a young designer who won a contest Miyake ran.

The young designer would then have the opportunity to display their work alongside Miyake’s for 3 months out of the year when Miami hosts Art Basel.

Brandon Hicks

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Luke Larson

Levent Kara

In conceptualizing the first project for Core Design II, a war memorial with three interventions, Luke Larson looked first at the battle of Kursk that took place during World War II between German and Soviet forces. Larson was drawn to the battle because it was the “largest tank battle in the war,” and based on the study of this battle, he began to “incorporate all aspects of tanks” into his design for the site. This is most evident in the use of a constructed ground running through his model meant to “mimic tank tracks.”

Luke saw the three intervention pieces— the tower, floor-ceiling, and wall—as “infectious things that emerged from the ground.” The three elements were a means to “symbolize what the war was” with the use of meticulous, almost invisible, connections in the detailing of the elements to tie back memories of the war. The tower was “thought of as a sniper den” with a large, enclosed space underground, which culminates in a 2-3-person space for overseeing the entire site.

The concept for the second project centered on an idea of hanging lanterns in a small site in Miami right across the street from South Beach. The project started with an intense site study: full “sections, plans, measured…all the site conditions down.” Upon returning, the

class learned that the program called for three lanterns that related to art and the community in some way. For this project Luke delved deeply into the idea of light as an element that dictates human behavior. The nature of the site made it necessary to play with this notion of light heavily so that it would reach the lower portions of the site. His project became “three body paint stations and a gallery for them.” He decided to keep his building’s footprint minimal, touching the ground only in two correlated spots as a way of retaining the path from the city to the beach.

Luke found that in order to stay effective as a designer, he simply had to persevere.

“I just kept building,” he said, working 10-12 hours a day on his projects.

He faced the challenge and benefit of working with two professors that placed emphasis on different elements of design. He credits Brandon Hicks in Core Design 1 with teaching him how to use structure and develop clear designs.

Levent Kara, he says, taught him to have more fun with what he was doing and look into using more angular geometries in his designs.

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Rachael Dippel

Brandon Hicks

Rachael Dippel underwent a rigorous and vast transformation during her semester with Professor Brandon Hicks. During the first project, Rachael crafted three nodes in a field to serve as a war memorial. These nodes aimed to portray a narrative about a war in which two races of people are trying to acquire one valuable mineral. Loosely based on the movie Avatar, she develops connections between the three components of her site—floor-ceiling, wall, and tower.

Drawing from precedents of previous war memorials she crafts an experience that dictates fully how one interacts with the different pieces. Branching out from the ground, she manipulates the floor-ceiling condition through tectonics to generate the wall directly from it. This became the datum on which the two races were divided. The site culminates at a tower that manipulates the user through small spaces being “woven in and out of the skin system.”

The second project of the semester was based in South Beach, Miami, in a small wedge of land that “connects two streets together, and is kind of a thriving point that connects the beach to the inner city.” The program called for theatrical innovation and a performance space for both public and private events. Using different scales, Dippel crafts an interaction that “brings in Miami to the project; what Miami is about and the problems that are happening there now, such as global warming and sea levels rising.” In a slightly satirical manner, she creates a space in which the public can interact and play with screens to get information about what is happening at the time. Three months out of the year an artists would stay in the building and interact with it by creating street art.

Dippel points out that as one goes further up the construct the different skin systems portray the intimacy of the space inside. As people move through the project, a distinct transition from a public atrium to a more private program fully develops.

Walking around Miami when Dippel went with her class was what truly allowed her to develop a true understanding of the site. “Being in the atmosphere, around the people and tourists compared to the residents,” revealed to her the liveliness of Miami: “a place teeming with culture and need.”

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Core Design II 030 ARCHVOX Nathan Mickelson drew inspiration from the World War 2 Battle of El Alamein for his first project of the semester. This project centered on three interventions: a wall, a floor-ceiling condition, and a tower placed together in a site. From maps of the battle, Nathan took the lines on the site and let them be “hodge-podged into craziness,” from which he extruded his architectural forms. Coming up with the design for the site was brought forth by

Nathan Mickelson

draws from the totem poles is that people from the north are used to seeing totem poles from the native cultures of those regions and this, he thought, would bring a level of familiarity to the Miami based site.

As his design developed the movement of the biomechanical totem poles became a metaphor for the architecture of the site itself “the buildings seems to move, they have this energy to them,” he said.

The site later became an institute for

“hodge-podged into craziness” the idea of war and its translation into the memorial through the experiential qualities of each moment. He initially designed the wall to act as a buffer between the people experiencing the site and the site’s climax: the tower. Next, the floor-ceiling was embedded into the site to create the experience of a shroud from the war, taking place on the site, in which one senses “everything’s happening above, but you’re safe here.” With the tower he tried to stress the vulnerability of climbing to the site’s highest point, climaxing at a tiny lookout in which “[one] looks and sees how vast everything is and how small [one] really [is].”

When conceptualizing his second project, Mickelson went even further into his whimsical form of madness, describing his conceptualization process as “trying to think of the most obscure thing that somehow has some relationship to anything.” The initial idea for the site program was an institute for biomechanical totem poles. The tangential connection he

biomechanical movement in general and the studio spaces became places that were visible to the public exploring the site’s other programmatic elements.

In the end, Nathan’s intentions were to form tangential ties—reflected upon the perfection in alignment of the buildings elements.

Nathan made a case for the importance of the Core Design program, stating that Professor Levent Kara’s deadline setting prowess enabled him to be pushed to, but not beyond his limits as a designer.

Further he stressed the importance of the core program in his development of, as he puts it, “Strong Core-Strong Architecture,” emphasizing the need for a healthy level of stress to achieve growth.

Levent Kara

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0 Core 32 ARCHVOX Design II

Danielle Barozinsky

Steve Cooke

Thematically Danielle Barozinsky explored the idea of natural disaster in architecture with her first project, investigating the capacity for not only humans, but also for the earth to create shifts in her memorial site. More specifically, Danielle examined the way that shifts in ground, due to natural disasters, could affect a wall condition as well as nature’s capacity to create a dynamic environment. Her floor ceiling had capacities built in for hurricanes to create literal walls of water, and to flow, swirl and be the cause of response from the built environment. The tower was centered on the idea of the water flowing down to create new, ever-changing skin systems coupled with movement from dark to light that is meant to evoke feeling of emergence. This emergence is perhaps from literal dark, or from the metaphorical shadow that natural disasters leave in their wake.

Danielle’s Miami project could be summed up in one word: trajectory.

The project is about the promenade

from an art gallery, underneath an artist’s studio, and then to a café. The café visually projects out to the beach, offering both a moment of pause and destination. Danielle has strong ties to music and took the programming of a local performance space very seriously.

“Having an intimate relationship with music is important. There’s just something about the environment. It’s the sharing of a feeling that you can only get with the kind of closeness that this location provides.” The performance space is meant to act as a second stage to the New World Symphony. “It will offer the musicians that play in the symphony a chance to play more personal shows, and connect with audience in a way that is wildly different than that of symphonic performance. When you play in a group, you have a kind of rigor to your playin … but it doesn’t have the kind of soul that playing one on one with a small audience provides.”

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“It’s unused and it has so much potential… it could have so much life at night.” Alejandra Gomez saw this site in Miami as a missing piece in the puzzle that is South Beach. In order to find the missing puzzle piece, Gomez looked around the site to find its key features.

Taking cues from Collins Avenue’s restaurants, all accessible by one elevated step from the sidewalk, she notes the atmosphere of wealth in the city; people flaunting nice cars, tight bodies, and plastic faces. But beyond the mirage of Miami, Gomez was able to discern what Miami lacked: vernacular architecture, built for and of the environment that it is located in. In a site that broke the city grid, the architectural language was broken as well.

Alejandra Gomez

to become the vital missing piece the city needed. Her restaurant is raised, giving the wealthy the chance flaunt their affluence to passersby, while the path remains level as one moves through the site, allowing people to pass through.

The project uses shading mechanisms to create cool, shaded environments, rather than blasting air at square voids.

Simultaneously, the project shows off the work of a resident artist and at night, the restaurant becomes a bar allowing it to blend in with its neighbors along the beach drive. This is what makes the project and Gomez’s design sense so compelling: it’s ability to be something so different in language, yet so similar in the way it responds to its context.

Her project derives itself from the excess while also filling in the gaps left

“it could have so much life at night.”

Steve Cooke

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Core Design II

Luke Keene based his first project for Core Design 2, an abstracted creation of a war memorial site, on two different concepts. The book SlaughterhouseFive by Kurt Vonnegut—a postmodern narrative centered on the firebombing of Dresden, Germany for which Vonnegut was present—and the Second Raid on Schweinfurt during World War 2 which was an attack by American forces on ball-bearing factories in an attempt to remove a critical element from German war machines, were the two premises on which the design was based. Luke studied the bombing patterns of these two battles as a way to generate lines for his site and for the larger elements of the project. During the raid on Schweinfurt, 200 B-17’s were shot down, and these served as the driving conceptual device behind the 3 elements of the project.

The wall mimics “the nose gunner, belly gunner and tail gunner with its openings,” itself made from the skeleton and folded sheet metal of a fallen B-17.

The floor-ceiling centers on “the idea of a crashed airplane,” with a wing embedded in the floor condition that visitors can interact with to better understand the scale of the machines used in the raid.

The Tower is meant to be a B-17 shot down, with the geometry mimicking the initial order and ensuing disorder of war.

His grouping of structure is a metaphor for “anti-air turrets meant to hold the plane up” and reveals the scale of the plane.

Luke Keene

Luke’s second project for Core Design 2, which takes places in a site across the street from South Beach in Miami, is what he calls “The Banyan and The Bongo.” He plays on the narrative of a set of bongo drums buried in the ground, only to later be ripped apart by the roots of a growing banyan tree.

This narrative generated his key space making mechanism that he refers to as “deconstructed conical shapes.” The program of the project itself is fittingly, a bongo factory, which called for a teaching space, a finishing space, and further performance spaces. The factory features an elevated performance space that simulates the acoustic properties of the bongo drum, which allow its sounds to be projected in all directions. He uses the metaphor of an octopus to describe his design. The factory also forms a drum circle space in the city, and another performance space along the beach.

With these outstretched spaces, Luke manages to merge the communal aspects of music and urban design in a way that engages the surrounding and touches upon the roots of people that live there.

Levent Kara

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Core Design II 038 ARCHVOX Johnny Ramos conceptualized and designed a war memorial museum for the semester’s first project in Professor Brandon Hicks’ studio. Ramos chose not to focus on a specific war or battle, but instead found inspiration from a specific type of combat—areal battles.

Ramos chose to explore the concept of “how actions in the sky affect the spaces below.” This concept was demonstrated through the main elements of his design: the floor-ceiling, wall, and tower. While no single war or era was the sole basis for his design, Ramos found that World War II contained the largest amount of areal combat.

The floor-ceiling served as the main entrance to the memorial which reminisced an airplane hangar containing several aircrafts. The guest would walk through and be initially immersed in the scale of the project while the wall provided a transition between the floor-ceiling and tower containing a variety of artifacts from multiple areal battles. Here the guests can interact with the history and various events at a more intimate level. This transition prepared guests for the next piece that is a recreation of a famous tower previously destroyed by a kamikaze pilot. The plane’s impact is made to be transparent and the guests are able to see to the other side from the ground.

The second project of the semester required a design for an actual building site in Miami. To begin this project, Ramos traveled to Miami to study the

Johnny Ramos

site with SACD. He decided to use his design to explore the concept of “transitioning from public to private space.” Ramos wanted the building to appear welcoming and approachable to pedestrians yet also to seamlessly warp those who entered into a deeper and more intimate experience as they ascended into the structure. The building itself was a performance space and dance studio designed around the philosophies of a dance he found to be captivating.

The concept that “performers are also viewers” served as the basis for this design allowing the performing spaces to transition into viewing spaces with ease.

Ramos also designed these spaces to be connected with minimal separation, so that all performers could watch each other while they performed and were watched. This idea of connection and blurring the lines of performer and viewer made this design one of his personal favorite projects.

Ramos attributes the success of his design and concepts to the intense rigor of the course. While he found it to be an incredible challenge, he noticed significant improvement through the iterations of his design and encourages incoming students to prepare for a taxing but rewarding experience saying, “It never gets easier, but you learn to enjoy it.”

Brandon Hicks

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P h ot o by: Jose G onzale z

Miami trip

Spring 2015

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Core Design II

P h ot o by: Dani elle B a rozin sk y

Miami trip

Spring 2015

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ADVANCED DESIGN

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- OVERVIEW Advanced Design is composed of three design studios: A, B, and C. Advanced Design A is the first in the three-course sequence in which students tackle the issues of site development, sustainability, complex building programs, and vertical circulation. Typical projects would include multi-family housing, large-scale civic buildings, or commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet.

In these studios they develop basic skills in designing for complex programs in multi-story buildings and begin to master fundamental sustainable design concepts at the schematic level while also honing their verbal and visual presentation skills.

Advanced Design C expands students’ knowledge beyond the architecture and design of buildings to include the design of natural and man-made systems and the integration of the public realm. In this segment of design, students explore a number of complex urban design challenges in the design of buildings, landscapes, and other infrastructure to achieve an environment that is conducive for healthy living, learning, working, playing, and interaction. Designing for these issues help students develop a thorough understanding of the scale and experiential quality of urban space. Students learn about formal and spatial systems (natural and artificial) to order urban space and explore the public qualities of built form. Even though Advanced Design takes a step towards a more realistic approach from the earlier Core Design, expectations from the professors are silent, yet demanding, and vary among each studio: some are enthusiastic about moving parts, intricate skin systems and almost fictional work, while others expect clean, modern and very realistic designs. In the end, the Advanced Design students must be able to communicate vocally and visually while presenting their projects. Drawing from their tangible ideas and realistic true-to-life designs, this Advanced Design shift between Core and Thesis prepares the students for their final year.

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Advanced Design A

Vanessa Marin

Michael Halflants

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During the spring of 2015, Vanessa Marin found herself in Michael Halflants’ Advanced Design A class and had her first encounter with the world of “actual building” reality. For the first project the students were asked to create an addition to an art center in Manatee County and an accompanying housing addition that served to generate revenue for the center. Programmatically, the studio was asked to address new studios, a large gallery space to display artwork, and the residential portion. Vanessa allowed herself to “keep as much of the existing building, and create an addition that wouldn’t stand out too much but would still improve what was there.”

Inspired in part by Renzo Piano’s use of structure in his addition to the Pierpont Morgan Library, which she visited on her recent trip to New York in Core Design 3, she crafted her addition in a way that celebrated the space in between the existing structure and the new creation via a communal atrium space that connected the two.

The second project of the semester was set in Chicago where the students were asked to create an art school composed of studio spaces, a small gallery, a large auditorium, and another art gallery that would house very specific pieces made with reclaimed items that were assigned to the students. To Vanessa, the auditorium was the most problematic part of the design as it needed a large amount of space that struggled to fit within the “strict square-footage of the site.” Overcoming this adversity, it was this element that became the central axiom of her design: a quasi-sculptural floating room that overlooked the site.

Drawing inspiration from the works of Mies van der Rohe, of which there are a plethora in Chicago, she created a structure ruled by clean lines juxtaposed by the creation of a distinctly different language than that ruling the structures outlining the site.

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Advanced Design A

Vanessa Marin

Michael Halflants

niraM asse noitavele htron ledoM laniF-eetanaM retneC stnallaH leahciM -A ngi Vanessa Marin Art Center Manatee-Final Model Design A- Michael Hallants

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Advanced Design A

Robert Rubley Mark Weston

|Stanley Russell

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“Reflections on the Water” by Claude Debussy, “Reflections on the Water”

by Claude Debussy, “Reflections on the Water” by Claude Debussy, “Reflections on the Water” by Claude Debussy, “Reflections on the Water” by Claude Debussey, and then it clicks. Falsetto shrieks and baritone stabs, the first act, Cacaphony. One hit, big, multi-tonic, the second act, Unison. Stab, Shriek, Stab, Stab, Shriek! … Unison, the third act,

outside performance space of its own that happens to be on the moor that the floating theatre rests upon. This allowed Rob to accomplish literal performances involving “Reflections on the Water.”

Rob’s tower benefitted greatly from a clear diagram of 3 elements: an educational center, a public gallery, and a student gallery. The three elements

“Reflections on the Water.”

Drama. The journey of the music speaks to Robert Rubley as metaphor, elements clashing, combining and then becoming a floating theatre. This was his ground study, a combination of grid line studies and a direct metaphor that relates the architecture to the abstract. “We were left completely in the dark,” Rob recalls, finding this rhythm and repeating it as an ostinato throughout a series of graphical studies before finding out what the final design would be.

The theatre itself is a study of transparency; it engages the sight lines of nearby citizens by giving them glimpses into the theatres, views of the performance taking place within the building.

Rob heavily strove toward these specific views because he “wanted the building to become almost transparent.” The site has an

were kept discrete with the galleries servings as stilts for the education center to stand atop. The site also ran parallel to Chicago’s L Train on the Near North Side of the city, and Rob utilized this fact to great effect. By using fritted glazing, the silhouette of a large interior piece of artwork cast a giant human shadow out towards the train, a sight designed to inspire train goers to visit the museum for amalgamated art.

The project also benefitted from Rob’s new foray into Revit. Using Revit, Rob was able to modify the floor plans of individual floors in the project without compromising the integrity of the building. This allowed him to quickly solve back-end program issues, such as bathrooms, storage spaces, and fire staircases within the framework of his original diagram.

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Advanced design a

Robert Rubley

Mark Weston |stanley russell

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Advanced design a

In his first project of Professor Weston’s Advanced Design A studio, Robert Goren crafted a moving theatre along the Spree River acting as a lens for viewing Aerial Silk. This theater signifies the driving force of the project: a longing for revitalization of an area in Berlin Germany known as Holzmarkt, the former site of the Berlin Wall. The project exposes the series of complex and conflicting requirements through a series of key acknowledgements. An understanding of the rich history of the site and a series of graphical studies of classical music suggesting notions of rhythm, form, and movement were first crafted. Then a sensibility developed towards emphasizing the “ribbon twirling beautiful dances” that occurs in the theatre.

The second project emerges from its site as a marker in Chicago for the nearby train terminal, reminiscent of Rem Koolhaas’s terminal at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The project’s exterior is ingrained in its

Robert Goren

sense of locality; utilizing shipping containers to form the exterior skin, while the interior focuses its design around Patrick Dougherty’s inhabitable wood sculptures and Jee Young Lee’s miraculous transformations of studio spaces into miniature worlds. The interior also demonstrates Goren’s stance that the studio space should be separate from the museum space, relegating the studio to the higher, secluded areas of the building. It has internal spatiality that is geared towards differentiation in which “one can always tell when the space shifts, and that’s always a powerful thing.”

The tower reflects these worlds created

by Lee and the wooden spaces of Dougherty within the studio/gallery separation that Robert Goren creates.

Goren crafts a successful interpretation of his ideas, expressing direct regards to detail and tectonics. It is his will to overcome the project and its main components by re-imagination that produces joy from the work.

“You can always tell when you’re in a different space, and that’s a powerful thing.”

MarkWeston |stanley russell

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Advanced Design A

Victoria Statzer

Victoria Slater’s two projects in Advanced Design A contrasted each other in their scope, concept, and breadth. The first project dealt with an interfaith chapel that is heavily conceptual and the other is a programheavy re-design of Tampa’s Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. This diversity in program leads to more dynamic designers who are often accustomed to dealing with numerous design problems.

The interfaith chapel drew from a “focus on the three constants in life: life, death, and change.” The ideas are about the coexisting notions of having a space that is capable of drawing inspiration while also offering a tranquil environment. These initial concepts were used later in the projects as tools for creating space in a way that is more conceptual and less a literal translation. The end result is a design giving the notions of these ideas rather than bluntly expressing each concept.

Dan Powers

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts relied heavily on its program and required around 20,000 square feet per floor. The project has two atrium spaces; one connects the lobby floor together and the one above serves as a hub for the gallery spaces. The extensive program also calls for education and research floors, and relied extensively on the use of parti models. Victoria stated that she “loves partis because when you start, you have a million things going on at once…and if you can simplify your ideas and grow from them... it’s very helpful.”

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“… if you can simplify your ideas to grow from them... it’s very helpful.”

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Advanced Design A

Courtney Cook Mark Weston | Stanley Russell

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Situated near the former site of the Berlin Wall and the now standing Holzmarkt, a co-op which seeks to celebrate the unification of a city once divided, Courtney Cook’s project for Mark Weston’s Advanced Design A class was a removable floating theatre.

The theatre instills an ethereal transience as a temporary structure on a permanent barge along the Spree River. Her project only contains one wall throughout its interior which envelopes a “small, intimate

age of American Modernist architecture by implementing a strong rectilinear geometry for the exterior of the building.

In the interior the museum is a furniture gallery emphasizing the works of non-American designers Ron Arad, Verner Panton, Eero Saarinen, and Phillippe Starck; a group that Courtney chose for their “playful, wild, colorful, and inviting designs.” The design of the interior galleries taps into the playfulness and colorful nature of these designers works, which she

“playful, wild, colorful, and inviting designs.” performance area.” This was part of an international architecture competition that aims to revitalize this area of Berlin, thus Courtney focused on making the intervention temporary and nondisruptive to the surrounding redevelopment efforts.

Professor Dan Powers took the helm with the second project and Courtney developed an art museum in Chicago. Situated near a number of Mies Van Der Rohe buildings, Courtney’s project takes cues from the golden

is familiar with because of her background in interior design.

Reflecting on the design process, Courtney confesses her struggle designing a tower with multiple levels of program and “the whole ‘pancaking’ situation,” a problem which arises from simply stacking the same floor plate on top of itself repeatedly. However, Courtney’s efforts were successful in both projects and these reflections manifest from a constant desire to improve.

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Advanced Design A

Vivi Lowery

Dan Powers

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EAST ELEVATION

NORTHEAST ELEVATION

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Vivi Lowery

Dan powers

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Steven Arrubla’s first project for Advanced Design A, the Manatee Art Center, revolves around a courtyard. The courtyard is preceded by a promenade that reveals a larger scale to the project which contrasts the courtyard’s intimacy. The desired effect is accomplished by revealing the structure through transparent façade materials and the use of human scale elements. This allows the visitors to feel a sense of home and humanity as they enter the art center.

The project developed further with the

Steven Arrubla-Ruiz

For his second project, Steven channeled the nearby Lakeshore apartments by the much-adored Modernist master Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. Steven accomplishes this act of metaphorical mimicry through the creation of a “fissure” - splitting his project down the middle therefore increasing his capacity to make dynamic spaces. This will to create dynamic floor-ceiling relationships is especially prevalent in this work and is his way of dealing with the much lauded tropes surrounding the building of towers. The fissure allows views up from galleries to

“FI SSU RE” addition of a 4 story housing development that allowed greater financing for the project. This addition takes place along the wooden side of the sight, with a tower transcending the foliage in order to point out in a multitude of directions. Each level of the tower aiming in a different direction so that one must reach the top of the tower to fully experience the area around the site.

Steven subconsciously drew from a rich history of architects whom expose their buildings’ structures and reveal the rich skeletal tapestries that are present in the built form. The effect is achieved through the use uncovered I-beams, and Steven suspects that he is channeling the works of Renzo Piano such as the Pompidou Center in Paris within this project.

creation spaces and vice versa; creating a more engaging experience of promenade when one traverses the buildings stories.

Steven once again utilizes an exposed structure in this building to show the fabric that holds the many programmatic elements together. The programmatic demands for this project were vast; requiring education spaces, gallery spaces, a theatre, and a number of atrium spaces. Through his utilization strategic precedent studies, as well as structural and void relationships, he is able to accomplish these programmatic qualities with a grace that is both rare and powerful.

Michael Halflants

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Steven Arrubla

Michael Halflants

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Advanced design a

Yesenia Vega

In Professor Michael Halflants’ Spring 2015 Advanced Design A class, Yesenia Vega set out to push herself. She began by saying “You get stuck … making the same kind of skin system, always creating the same spaces … so I tried to push the limits of what I’ve already done before.” With Halflants’ advice, Yesenia was able to surpass this by emphasizing a plan and section mindset rather than axonometric way of thinking. She calls Halflants “the right choice” when moving from Core Design into Advanced Design. The similarity in design process and consistent demand for final products led to better produced designs.

Vega’s Advanced Design A class met on the first day of classes at the Manatee Art Center – the site for their first project.

The project was an addition to an existing structure, though as she recalls, many of her classmates wiped the former building from the site. She wanted the building to be a statement, but in context, it had to be a very controlled statement.

Vega went on to talk about the program as a whole. “I like being here,” she

Michael Halflants

explained to us. We discussed the way that the USF architecture program blends together physical acts like sketching, model making, and hand drawn graphics with digital modeling.

There is an importance in blending the two in order to achieve a well-rounded education. Yesenia also appeared content with the workload at SACD. “If you learn time management it doesn’t kill you too bad,” she exclaimed with a chuckle. This reflection bats its eye at the stereotypes of architectural culture and echoes her drive to transcend these issues.

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Advanced Design A

Yesenia Vega

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In architecture, you have the freedom to explore and influence society through the built environment. You’re an idealist, but have the rare opportunity to create a reality that improves the lives of others.

Danielle Mitchell, Assoc. AIA Member since 2015

Join me. aia.org/join

Join when you graduate and receive free membership for up to 18 months, plus free registration to AIA Conference on Architecture!* *Some restrictions apply. Review terms and conditions at aia.org/join.

P h ot o by: R ober t G ore n

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Advanced Design C 076 ARCHVOX Every year, Wompler’s Advanced Design C class travels to a new location where his students can study not only the architecture, but the diverse culture that this location has. On January 19th, these students found themselves in Quito, Ecuador for a week.

Quito is the capital city – ironically enough since it sits 9,350ft above sea level making it the highest capital in the world. Along with its incredible height, Quito also sits on a slope alongside the Andres Mountains. The topography of a Quito served not only as an interesting concept for Wompler’s class, but also as welcome design challenge.

After a week of investigation, sketching, and diving into a new culture, students came back to school to commence their semester long project of creating a new community in the city. Advanced Design C students are asked to spend four whole months coming up with everything involved in a community. This includes housing, transportation, markets, plazas, and paths. Four months may seem like a long span of time to decide everything, but when it comes down the thoughtful mind

April G. | Laura L. | Stephanie H.

Jan Wampler

of an architecture student, four months is a stretch. This is why students are divided into groups of three. These groups have to come together in agreement and complete a project unlike any other in their academic careers.

It can be difficult to work in groups, but one group, composed of Stephanie Henschen, Laura Lozano, and April Grimes, was able to surpass the inevitable clashing of ideas and create a harmonized project. Being that all three girls have been good friends, they were able to produce a functional community within Quito, Ecuador.

The class was to focus on a steep slope known as Itchimbia in Quito to build their community on. In this project, the group utilized the regions rich soil to create a selfsustaining agricultural program within the new community.

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April G. | Laura L. | Stephanie H.

The main focus of the town’s harvest would be bamboo, a native and versatile crop. Bamboo could be utilized to make clothes, building materials, and even food. By using and selling bamboo, the town’s people could afford to be self-sufficient and successful.

Along with bamboo, the town also took to planting roses as a reflection of the beauty and art of the Quito people.

Jan Wampler

the project in the end.

In order to learn how to grow bamboo and other crops, Henschen, Lozano, and Grimes planned for an agriculture school to be installed in their community where people could come to learn the trade. In addition, every home would have a garden in order to create an easy, but effective learning environment. This program allows for the farming and agriculture-based heritage of Quito to still be prominent even in this new community.

Getting from place to place in this community could be a challenge. Apart from the central pedestrian path, there were community buses along with cable cars that ran along the slope.

It was important to Henschen, Lozano, and Grimes that their communities inhabitants could have the ability to get where they needed to go even in the challenging landscape. An important design consideration that lingered on throughout the project was the placement and proximity of each landmark. Lozano states that they “focused on the most important things; how they connected”. The girls set out to accomplish a successful community in which there was still that sense of connection to the Quito people.

When it comes down to the details of how the community is arranged, that’s when the design aspect comes into play. When we asked Grimes about one of the concepts that was used for the project, she explained “one central path that organized the entire project”. The central path connected most of the major landmarks of the community and was able to tie the entirety of

But even with a clear purpose in mind, there were still moments of difficulty. The difficulty for Henschen, Lozano, and Grimes however wasn’t butting heads like we’d assume most group projects turn to, but too many ideas and not enough time. Henschen stroke an interesting point of connecting this Quito project to her prior explorations to Japan. The close, but comfortable quarters

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of Japanese spaces could easily be interpreted into Quito spaces. Looking at close-knit communities, such as Japan continued to spark ideas for design. Grimes talks about how each person in the group brings strength and hardest thing was trying to develop everything further. In the end, Henschen jokingly mentions that they didn’t even have time to develop the design of the door handles.

More time on a project is every student’s desire, but in Henschen, Lozano, and Grimes’ case they created a successful community in its traditional intent. With positive feedback and a giant final model, in the end the project was a rewarding experience in what it taught. This can all be summarized when Henschen says “it was really frustrating, but it was awesome.”

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Laura L. | Stephanie H.

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Design C

The goal of any Advanced Design C project is to design a community that emerges from an undeveloped place. In the case of Canal Works, a team consisting of Kayla Baker, Joseph Caiazza, Genevieve Frank, Josh Frank, and Yuki Wang, that place was the city of Cape Coral, Florida and that community was the urban downtown.

Cape Coral is a traditionally suburban area, being 92% residential and 8% commercial, feeding into the city of Fort Meyers. However, the city decided that now was the time to flip the polarity of that relationship and enlisted the aid of USF SACD students.

The project began with series of charrette workshops aimed to engage a variety of members of the community and solicit feedback from every individual. The SACD students facilitated the groups of local citizens with a specific focus on the needs and enhancements the city needed with a new downtown. The community members brought to light a number a desires: public waterfront access, green infrastructure and landscaping, a need for a new vernacular of architecture and, most importantly, a longing for a new unique identity for the city.

When designing the area’s initial scheme, the group focused on solving the biggest problems, or as Josh puts it: “We had to deal with issues like… transit, drive times, and block development. For example, it had to do a lot with being Florida friendly and unique and we thought that was a great opportunity for Cape Coral to brand itself. For a block… we recommended that western buildings be taller than eastern buildings to create shade for a building, a greenway, or a pedestrian path.”

The group ultimately created a series of boulevards inspired by those in Paris and Washington D.C. that culminate in an observation tower and urban city center.

Kayla B. | Josh F. | Yuki W. |Genevieve F. |Joe C.

Taryn Sabia

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These boulevards also serve the purpose of connecting all the neighborhoods in a way that made the city more accessible to pedestrians. This renovation of the city aimed to create the capacity to live, work and play. The scheme called for 10 parks, kayaks and bike rentals, and an arboretum.

Canal Works utilizes the city’s 40 miles of canals with kayak facilitation to uphold the intent of “Cape Coral becoming to boats as Amsterdam is to bicycles.” The arboretum would be a place for fruits and vegetables to be grown for the downtown as well as a place for students to visit an learn about urban farming.

Ultimately, community response was overwhelmingly positive. At the final presentation the community agreed that the proposal was “very doable,” Kayla Baker recalls. The presentation drew a mass of press resulting in evening news coverage, articles in newspaper, and most significantly the cataloging of the work by city council.

The city owns the work and plans to use it as a starting point for discussions with developers about the construction of the area, which appears to be moving forward sooner rather than later.

When talking about the project, Genevieve

Kayla B. | Josh F. |Yuki W.

|Genevieve F. |Joe C. Taryn

Sabia

Frank brought up the difficulties that architecture students face in order to present projects to a non-architectural audience. One has to “give the community multiple mediums to understand how the project works.” This was accomplished through plans, renderings, and models.

While they all emphasized the importance of learning from group members, Joseph Caiazza attributed their success to the fact that “all expressed our opinions and it came out to be a better project because of it.”

“Cape Coral is as becoming to boats as Amsterdam is to bicycles.”

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Design C Kayla B. | Josh F. | Yuki W. |Genevieve F. |Joe C.

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Advanced design C

jao a. | manuel D. | mikel a.

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ARCHVOX Set on a mountainside in Quito, Ecuador, Jad Alawar, Mikel Amias, and Manuel Dominguez’s project aimed to create a new community that enhances the greater city.

The team studied the spaces in between buildings where activity happens and density can be directly observed. These conceptual studies allowed the team more grounded and robust understanding of how the people interacted with the spaces that surrounded the typology and its elements for the community.

During their visit, the group noticed that the buildings did not use wood in their construction therefore chose not to implement that material in the project. In addition, the team observed a large mural wall in the country with a face on it and created a similar wall that could be used for the purpose of urban art. Further strides arose when the group created a sustainable agricultural program for the community along with a soccer field in order to further

unite the community. The group only leveled the site where absolutely necessary when dealing with the area and relied only on one main car artery leaving much of the site as is.

The projects’ critiques were conducted by twelve jurors total, with 2-3 at each group’s presentation for twenty minutes at a time.

This forced the group to look at their project from multiple perspectives that presented themselves with the diverse array of jurors.

This process also gave the group a chance to enhance their presentation skills and taught them “to sell [the] project,” Manny Dominguez recalls.

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Jad A. | Manuel D. | Mikel A.

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Advanced design C

“Great design shouldn’t feel great, it’s something that works,” remarked Vignesh Madhavan, speaking on some of the work of his influences. He understands that great design, the kind that idols Rem Koolhaas and Bjarke Ingels practice, is formulated from “a different way of thinking” in which a twist on convention is what turns design from something good into something great. With this in mind, Madhavan and Marquez set out to achieve something that was grounded in these ideologies wanting “to create something that was pretty out there,” as Madhavan puts it.

The project started out with each party acting independently: Marquez studying the rich tapestry of line work that he could derive from Hong Kong, and Madhavan studying the housing conditions of the city. Marquez

Gadiel M. | Vignesh M. sought out to find “a new way to draw Hong Kong” by assembling an army of graphical studies examining the topography of the street and building lines. From here, he was able to derive a powerful system of construction lines that went on to inform the placement of programmatic elements within the project’s two sites. Madhavan was concerned with the notion of density that he perceived when examining the city. The city initially seemed incredibly cluttered, as he recalls looking at maps and thinking, “the density was insane.”

Once he returned his perspective evolved after he “saw how well that infrastructure worked.”

After looking at the system of elevated bridges that join the cities network of towers together he shifted his focus to the creation of civic spaces in the groups’ site.

“Great design shouldn’t feel great, it’s something that works.”

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Gadiel M. | Vignesh M.

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“The density was insane.”

The group’s two sites were located at the former site of the Kai Tak airport and along the Causeway Bay. The pair worked on the two sites synergistically.

Gadiel iterated that they wanted “two sites that speak to each other architecturally, one focusing on horizontality, the other verticality with transit hubs that connect each other.” He aimed to “bring the urban condition back to the city” with the Kai Tak site being the favorite of the two sites. It had a progression that began with a series of fish markets, residential tower podiums, a Central Park style recreation space, an opera house, and an aquarium that ran the distance of the site.

The pair attacked these conventional programmatic elements in ways that were unconventional, and very much experimental. The aquarium also featured an adjacent swimming pool that would allow residences to swim alongside the animals in the aquarium. The towers, rather than standing upright, would cantilever out over the water with floating areas to play soccer and allow access to an underwater mall.

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Master’s Projects

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- OVERVIEW The Master’s Project in the School of Architecture and Community Design serves as a capstone where students spend two terms working with a committee to develop ideas that will lead to a holistic project. The objective of the Master’s Project is to create a thorough investigation on a topic through academic research, various abstract modes of inquiry, and design. The students are pushed to explore ideas that are personal to the individual undertaking them, and based in theory rather than straightforward design on a site. These investigations should inspire new ways of seeing, thinking, and understanding the initial ideas, and ideally should evolve and take new shapes based on these observations.

The end goal of a Master’s project is the application of design skills built up over the course of their school career. A professor from the school guides this process, working with the student on a day-to-day basis to help guide the evolution of the project. The student also reaches out to a team of committee members who serve as the critical audience for the project during mid-term and final presentations. The culmination of the thesis is a written publication documenting their year of work and a compelling final presentation that portrays a young architect prepared to enter the professional environment.

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Master’s Project

Israel Sanchez

“Don’t be afraid to start with nothing.”

I s r a e l San ch e z Israel Sanchez’s thesis project was driven by the experience of a journey. This one solitary, vague idea spawned a chronology of architectural works, centered on the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage that Israel took when he went to Japan with SACD. It is a trip through the wilderness at the southern tip of Japan that challenges one mentally and physically.

Inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, he undertook the four-day journey with fellow thesis student Josh Riek and refers to it as a “humbling experience.” It gave him a new perspective on how small the human being is compared to the vastness of the world. Through his experience, he was able to admire the wonderful spaces created by nature that architects often try to mimic.

When Sanchez returned from the trip, he found himself wondering how to go about rendering an architectural project from his journey. With the help of thesis chair Stan Russell, he set out to create a pilgrimage mimicking the one he undertook, this time through New York City. He understood that many people do not have the opportunity to go on the kind of pilgrimages he went on, and in an expression of humility, set out to make that experience available to others.

The pilgrimage runs from Central Park to its destination point, a temple in Battery Park. The journey is centered on these nodes, or moments of pause along the journey that make one stop and reflect on the beauty of the surroundings, thus running up, over and around the city, with these often occurring as interventions in the existing buildings.

It is through this path that one can be transformed by the

experience. During his thesis year, Sanchez thought about his project as a way of reintroducing the simpler values of life to the people taking the journey. He set out to create an experience that combines the vast machinery of the city with the rigor that a trek as arduous as this creates. Through his desire to make this project subtle he reflects inward in order to bring forth the design of the project.

Sanchez emphasizes the importance of his formative process in the end result and to not “be afraid to start with nothing [or] come in with something broad” as a way of allowing for an open ended question that allows for experimentation. The student will “make a million mistakes” before finding the great project within thoughts. “What makes something great is the possibility of design,” he added, as a way of expressing how an idea can be developed and where it can go. He took this empowering life experience and turned it into successful design.

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Daniella Covate

Da n i e lla Covat e Daniella Covate’s thesis project focused on the “study of vernacular housing typologies and archetypes and the adaptation and application of each.” Covate thought that a sense of regional identity was missing in the emerging architecture of today and sought to examine this more closely. Starting with a thorough examination of “19th Century vernacular homes and the archetypal kit of parts that comprised each,” Covate’s project emerged as an analysis of the elements in the kit of parts that consisted of site, context, climate, culture, and the social aspects of these homes.

can evolve and blossom in contemporary architecture. These archetypes were then adapted to three different densities of environment, responding to the contextual and sociological factors of the varying densities.

Covate reflected upon her thesis, referring to the project as an overall success and providing advice for future thesis students to “make sure to tackle something that you are really interested in and that you can have fun developing it over the course of an entire year.” She also iterated her gratitude for her thesis chair Dan Powers, expressing her

“three archetypal conditions: the porch, the gable roof, and the hearth.”

Conceptually, Covate was immersed in developing a strong understanding of the reasons behind the adaptations of each archetype across nine distinct typologies. As the project went on, it became focused on the southeast region of the United States where she dissected these typologies into “three archetypal conditions: the porch, the gable roof, and the hearth.” This examination led a desire to increase the level of regional identity in architecture such that these ideas

appreciation for the “time and effort that he puts into his students and the time management skills one develops due to his intense expectations and strict deadlines.” In conclusion, Covate encourages experimentation, risk-taking and a bold identity as key components to a successful thesis project.

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Master’s Project

Daniella Covate

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Daniella Covate

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Master’s Project

Juan Ferreira

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Juan Ferreira

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Juan Ferreira

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Juan Ferreira

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P h oto by: Au dr ey Alai

Studio Life

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Europe

Summer | 2015

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Europe Advance design C

Summer Faces| of 2015 Itchimbia

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Advanced Design C

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Advance Beaux Arts design BallA

Europe 2015

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Beaux Arts Ball

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Three years ago, I blindly agreed to step into the architecture program here at USF in hopes of finding a major that would demand hard work and encourage growth. Although I have a room overtaken by models and a concrete block that’s used for a doorstop, I feel truly submerged into something I never knew could draw so much excitement.

With that, I am so thankful to be a part of the beginning of a publication that will ground us deeper into our city and school community. Thank you to all who have supported ArchVox and the team working behind it. We have much to look forward to.

Danielle Barozinsky director assistant

Jose Gonzalez director In a world motivated by the creativity and the pursuit of being better every day, I take a step back to understand what the real motivation in the world is. I push myself in a direction that is not looking for perfection, rather one that is looking for inspiration. The work we do as architects must be motivated by the impact we have on other people. With this idea in mind, the idea of ArchVox came to me, while looking for something to offer to architecture community that surrounds us. ArchVox is just one step at the beginnings of this amazing adventure.

Niki Karambasis designer What began as a reaction to a high school requirement, the fulfillment of a studio art class, has become the most significant factor of my life and who I am as a person today.

Architecture is no longer a major I chose thanks to a drafting class I took my senior year. It is no longer a title neatly typed on a college transcript. It is no longer a thought, an idea, or a short-term goal. Architecture is my life’s accumulation, the sum of the parts of my being, and the catalyst to every fiber in me that has sought to grow.

I stand as a part of a team to cement our legacy and bring a voice to the school we love so dearly. ArchVox is an adventure, a learning experience, and the beginning of one of my proudest collaborations. I thank every member, contributor, and reader that supports and motivates us to never stop creating. Here’s to many more years to come.

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Time and time again I find casual conversations leading to passionate discussions of architecture and its influence. The eye for enjoying where design meets the arts has always been there but has just become second nature as I navigate through my third year in USF’s architecture program.

I consistently feel inspired and motivated to feed my creativity and truly love the opportunity that being an architecture student has provided. ArchVox has added another creative challenge for me and I am so excited for this new adventure. I would like to thank everyone who has supported the magazine as well as the hardworking team who has made ArchVox possible for me as well as our school, classmates, and community.

I would like to thank the ArchVox team for making this magazine a reality. It is the constant work of a group of individuals that makes a work like this possible, and I am grateful to be a part of such a group. Further I would like to extend this thank you to all of the faculty and students I had the pleasure of meeting with this summer and discussing architecture. Your philosophies on the design process are equal parts inspiring and enlightening. Thank you.

Kyle Santilli writer Natalia Yanes editor When a piece of work deserves recognition, its creator will work hard to bring it forth. As goes for our institution who has possessed such fine work for so long which we now hope to display before you. I’ve learned never to underestimate the amount of thought, time, and effort that students and faculty implement in their work. It’s been a privilege to listen and write about those whom contribute to SACD’s growing name. As challenging as a first issue is, I am proud to be a part of this publication and present to you not only projects, but the written vox of our school. I’m truly excited as to see where this will lead us and even more so, to keep working on making ArchVox an integral part of our community.

Marie Hart designer

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ARCHVOX Since I was young, I knew that studying architecture was my goal, but as it turns out that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Architecture has consumed my life entirely through the fruitless time and dedication I’ve invested. With only a few years devoted to the program, I am grateful to have chosen USF SACD as my place of study. I have already learned so much more than expected and have built many close relationships with others here whom are now practically family. Whether its giving each other strength through an all nighter, cleaning up someone’s blood after a bad cut, or even something as simple as making someone feel better after an unexpected critique, we do so as a family – something that I will never forget about my time here.

I know that these skills I have learned and these friendships I have made will last a lifetime. I am very humbled to be a part of the first publication of ArchVox and will continue constructing the legacy we are pursuing. So to my family I say, thank you.

The beauty of architecture relies on its variety and how you are able to manipulate it. Look around you. Everywhere you turn you are able to see, feel, smell, hear, and even taste architecture.

My passion towards architecture started when I felt I could design anything and actually build it and make it a reality. It is so rewarding seeing your own work out there; with ArchVox we are able to do so. We want everyone to see the amazing work done here at SACD USF. It was very exciting to have been part of a team that has worked very hard to make this new project possible. Please join us and make a difference.

Andrea López Senior secretary

Luis TilanoFernandez designer Alejandra Gomez designer I remember during my first day of Into one someone said that architecture would change my perspective on the world – they were right. The quality of work produced in SACD continues to amaze me and it’s my belief that ArchVox will be able to portray to outsiders the talent students have here. So far, it has been an adventure to be part of ArchVox: where I work with a motivated group of people that dedicate their time to showcase the potential SACD has. I hope our magazine evokes the same excitement as I’ve experienced and continues to do so as we move forward.

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Sebastian Gutierrez writer Christopher Weaver writer Evan Causey writer assistant Genevieve Frank editor Tim Barnett advisor Kristien Ring advisor Taryn Sabia advisor Robert Macleod advisor Mary Hayward advisor Mark Weston

Advisor AIA Tampa Bay sponsor

Tampa Bay

University of South Florida.

School of Architecture & Community Design 4202 East Fowler Ave. HMS 301 Tampa, FL 33620

arch.usf.edu