GABRIEL MATOS
RESEARCH
Mentor: Ryan Sharston
ANNUAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION BEFORE AND AFTER RETROFIT
This research focused on the feasibility of implementing Passive House principles in a historic house in Gainesville, Florida. The research uses EnerPHit certification, created by the Passive House Institute for building retrofits, to guide the intervention. The research uses the component criteria method to achieve certification because it specifies the insulation values of the building envelope. The research uses ladybug tools, a grasshopper plugin for rhino 3d, to aid in the energy modelling. Energy models show that energy consumption decreases by 17% from the baseline.
ENERphIT COMPONENT CRITERIA METHOD
MONTHLY ENERGY INTENSITY BEFORE AND AFTER RETROFIT
COMPETITION
Land Art: Celestial Architecture
Gabriel Matos and Fiorella Carrasco
HUACA SECHURA
This project aimed to decolonize architecture by creating a design that draws principally from pre-Columbian Peruvian architecture. The competition title was Land Art: Celestial Architecture. As a result, the Nazca Lines, a collection of geoglyphs etched into the sand but only visible from the sky, served as our main inspiration. The drawings from archeologist Maria Reiche influenced the site mapping of our site in Sechura, Piura, Peru. This site was chosen because a total solar eclipse will pass directly over the city in the year 2118. Furthermore, the city borders the homonymous desert to the south, allowing us the opportunity to influence the city’s relationship with the environment.
MAPPING OF NAZCA LINES BY MARIA REICHE
Furthermore, the design of the main structure is influenced by the architecture of Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimu empire, and “huacas.“ A huaca is usually a sacred pre-Columbian temple or natural formation. These temples are scattered all across the city of Lima, city where both group members grew up. As a result, the spiritual significance and familiarity of this typology was implemented in this project, which we decided to name Huaca Sechura.
The figures roaming the Huaca are found in the Paracas textile. The textile was created by the Nazca culture, the same that created the Nazca lines. We used them to reflect on the persistence of these ancestors, their art, and their culture in the design of our project. PRELIMINARY
PLAN OF HUACA
DESIGN
STUDIO
CORE 3
Professor Peter Hall Academic Work
PROJECT 1
It is necessary to design with the culture and history of a place in mind to create meaningful architecture. In the case of Orlando, pre-Columbian vernaculars were of interest. The designs of these cultures have been historically neglected as a result of colonization and Eurocentrism. As a result, this project sought to use earthworks characteristic of pre-Columbian civilizations to influence the design of an educational center in a neglected but forested area near the Packing District in Orlando, FL.
BELLE GLADES TYPE B MONUMENTS (LAWRES, 2019)
PROJECT 1 LONG SECTION
PROJECT 2
For project two, I decided to educate myself better on the pre-Columbian native American societies of Florida. I was fascinated by the earthworks and urban design of the Belle-Glades culture, especially their radical and unique form and layout. Consequently, this project revives the memory of Belle-Glades urban design to create culturally and historically meaningful architecture for a cultural center and artist colony in Orlando.
NUCLEUS 1 LONG SECTION
NUCLEUS 2 LONG SECTION
D4
Professor Lisa Ryzhikova
Academic and Personal Work
VERTICAL DATUM
(ACADEMIC WORK) Based on the architectural experimentation of Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame!, the project sought to understand verticality through the manga’s dystopian setting. The main character, Killy, lives in a world inhabited by machines that continuously build vertically. This multilayered world, often out of scale, reflects the disparity between human and machinic spaces, perception, and creations.
HORIZONTAL DATUM
(PERSONAL WORK) This project, the last one from design four studio, felt unnecessarily confusing and unsatisfying. Consequently, following the academic completion of the project, I decided to redo the project. This allowed me to deepen my understanding of architecture by forcing me to critically think about a project’s creation, development, and objectives. I used the same site, initial sketches, and materiality as the original project, but decided to do away with the professor’s preference for collage. Instead, I opted for a digital site analysis and a hand drafted section and plan. Furthermore, I did not make a physical model. However, physical constraints influenced the design of the spaces.
OBJECT ISOMETRIC AND “UNFOLDING“
Aware of my own shortcomings, I decided to tailor my approach around my indecisiveness. The site mapping uses Adobe Photoshop because of the ease with which the site map can be traced and the speed with which drafts could be developed. It was worked on while experiencing strong COVID-19 symptoms, leading to a hypnotic obsession that allowed me to formulate and complete the mapping in one weekend. This mapping taught me to embrace, rather than reject, uncertainty and surprise. Likewise, the site section and plan are purposefully messy. I decided to draw every idea that came to mind, erasing as I saw fit. This sped up the iterative process because it encouraged me to make mistakes quickly. The only consequence of making a bad design decision was the invisible mark it leaves on the paper. Rather than seeing this as an imperfection, I reframed it and interpreted it as a palimpsest that reflects my design journey.
D3
Professor Michael Montoya Academic Work
PRELIMINARY SECTION
RUINS
By overlaying spaces over the vertical ruins of a previous model, the project adopts new meaning. The new spaces interact with the buried one in the gaps where it remains uncovered.
NEGOTIATION SPACE
This space has a solid wall on one side, reflecting the selfish factors that frequently dictate the final value of the desired good or service. It has an organic covering that reflects the unpredictable nature of negotiations.
TRANSFORMATION SPACE
It is hard to experience transformation if a person is not walking. Therefore, the transformation space is also the project’s circulation. Individuals experience various scales of building throughout their walk into the transaction space.
TRANSACTION SPACE
Since I associate transactions with a market, I decided to make a market-like space. This space is concentrated around the tall space that puts transactions on display for the people who have just arrived.
DOOR, WINDOW, STAIR
PRELIMINARY SKETCH
This project deals with the meanings and emotions associated with doors, windows, and stairs. Each threshold embodies various ideas. Moreover, architecture can give new meanings to each through the creative placement of these various elements. The project challenged students to interpret each element and inject it with meaning through narrative and poetic space-making.
The project is centered around the emotions that light carries. The large void that punctures the project represents the passage of time and an individual’s lifetime. People dwell in these spaces by situating stairs around the void, highlighting the constant movement and change that people experience throughout their life. Moreover, by moving upwards, individuals move towards a blinding light. This uncertainty reflects the same one that we experience. People move forward in life, never
sure where. However, life persists despite the uncertainties. Likewise, the project ends at a certain point, but an undefined continuation is suggested. The final height, same as time experienced, cannot be known until it becomes fact. Most importantly, the extruded circular shape of the void symbolizes the divine. Similarly to how Scarpa symbolizes the tomb’s metaphorical place between life and death with two overlapping circles, the cylindrical void embodies the life and eventual demise of all mortals. FRAGMENTED
D1
Professor Lee-Su Huang Academic Work
CUBE
Being the introductory project in the university’s architecture curriculum, this project sought to introduce the architectural concept of space through the creation of a 9in by 9in “cube.“ The project not only taught the basics of architecture, it also prepared students for the challenges that would persist in higher design studios.
D1 CUBE: FINAL MODEL
D1 CUBE: PROCESS MODELS
PHOTOGRAPHY PersonalWork
ORLANDO PUBLIC LIBRARY, 2023
LONG EXPOSURE AT NIGHT, 2023
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
Elliott Erwitt
Although it is a naive goal, I take pictures and share them on social media in the hopes people can get to know me better. I would like for others to see the places I dwell on the way I do. However, I would also like for others, strangers and friends alike, to find joy through my photography.
2023
ST. AUGUSTINE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 2023