Maya Mashiach Portfolio 2024

PORTFOLIO

MAYA MASHIACH

HALOKINESIS

// Crystalline Salt Infrastructures

M.Architecture Thesis _ AADRL

Duration _ January 2022 - January 2023

Professor _ Dr. Theodore Spyropoulos

Team _ Maya Mashiach // Kay Mashiach // Zhen Jia // Zhichang Yang // Stephanie Di Gironimo

Within the contemporary condition new conceptual terrains emerge that raise questions of agency and intelligence within a deep ecology of our environment. The work explored examines environmental phenomenon in the service of sustaining life on this planet. Challenging the orthodoxies of contemporary spatial landscapes, this studio focuses on the temporal nature of the environment, while applying provocative research methods through material exploration. While questioning the ecological application of architecture, an inquisition towards generative and procedural forms engages in a discernible environmental and discursive conversation, igniting an urgency within this field. The thought is a worldly application – an architecture that can be implemented into multifarious environments, which include the most extreme environments in an application to urban systems.

HALOKINESIS is an architectural endeavor that utilizes salt, a universal material, to re-balance the coral bleaching environments within applicable locations on this planet.

HALOKINESIS is the magical ability to move salt with one’s mind, and thus, this project explores salt crystallization’s phenomenology by harnessing this power within our reality. Salt, an essential and abundant element on earth, is known for its ubiquitous flavoring and preservation, while also denoted as a sterilizing agent. However, salt remains an essential element of life. Salinity’s increasing abundance in relation to its paradoxical attributes of sustaining and annihilating situates itself as a priority in investigating its usefulness and applications. Analysis of this element revealed an inherent nature of supertemporal growth, requiring us to elicit interventions through controlling behavioral propagation. As salt is seen to be a keystone to the ecological processes of the world, we take into consideration the circulation and movement of salt bodies on earth. Our HALOKINESIS relies on time coupled with a responsive scaffold, growing crystals to achieve strength and formations. Salt tectonics, halokinesis, and crystallization are typically referred to as existing within the "geological time scale," existing within the history of the Earth.

SALT ANTICLINE

SALT CANOPY SALT SHEET

// HALOKINESIS SALT TECTONIC SIMULATIONS

3D

equatorial sunlight

top down directional growth resultant from sunlight typical nearer to the equator line

indirect sunlight

slowed growth resultant from sunlight in consistently clouded and shaded regions

// AGENCY INTEGRATION

FORMATIONAL ORGANIZATION

TIME _ 20 WEEKS

GROWTH _ 185%

// STIGMERGETIC SALT HARVESTING

// SELF-PROPULSION MIGRATION

// POLLINATION FORMATIONAL ORGANIZATION

SOCIETY NANO

// void setup ()

M. Architecture Robotics Studio _ AADRL

Duration _ November 2021 - December 2021

Professor _ Apostolos Despiditis

Team _ Maya Mashiach // Kay Mashiach // Zhen Jia // Zhichang Yang / Stephanie Di Gironimo

When presented with a task to design and assemble a form of creative robotics, we chose to develop the ‘MachineMachine’ relationship. First we set up a series of rules that all the individuals would follow, and then built a society for them to interact and perform. A key factor to this project, was the development of interacting robots, which were not initialized by human interaction. With the inspiration from flying machines and bioluminescent creatures, we decided the robot should be able to simulate flying or floating and with the ability to glow. The material silicone is light, transparent, and can be easily cast into different shapes. We designed different types of silicone shells for the robot. A void space was left in order to design a frame and attachment system for the Arduino and electrical setup, as well as the vertical pulley.

This specific pulley system is based on a simple physical mechanism, which requires a continuous rotational servo located inside the prototype with all the Ardunio set-up. The prototype is attached to a frame and goes up and down through the coded rotation of the servo. To create a machine-machine interaction, the robots needed to speak a specific language with each other. We decided to use color as the language. So the robot was equipped with an R/G/B color sensor. We tested the sensor connecting it to the wheel with the calibration in the light environment, followed by experimenting with connecting the wheel with the calibration in the dark environment. This connection was established through the coding of the Arduino, a language which ensured direct interaction.

ROBOT PARTS

ASSEMBLED ROBOT

LED COLOR VARIATIONS

ITERATION 01

ITERATION 02

ITERATION 03

// Active Wireframes OUT OF STOCK

M. Architecture Wireframes Studio _ AADRL

Duration _ September 2021 - November 2021

Professor _ Apostolos Despiditis

Team _ Maya Mashiach // Kay Mashiach // Zhen Jia // Cemre Demicri // Swati Singh // Bensu Talay

The goal of this project was to explore how different wire thicknesses effect the bending properties of components through creating a dynamic system of rigid and active bodies. We developed components which assisted us in examining the behavior of a system clearly. These components included a rigid body which embodied a simplified primitive geometry as the main unit of this system, which was then accompanied by an active and rather complex unit. The geometry on these components was studied in detail to facilitate the dynamic system which resulted in the decision of having the rigid body in a volumetric organization and the active one toggling between 2D and 3D.

The connection point between two pyramids’ components were facilitated through the attachment of our active, slider component. By attaching the edge points of the pyramids to the mobile wire within the movable loop, we can afford a basic expansion or contraction of the space between. As separate entities, the pyramid and the slider act oppositely. The slider creates its own internal tension through the deformation of the wires. The pyramid is fixed in its body, only changing when applying outside forces. When pulling and pushing the slider

handle, a reaction is caused where the outer loop expands or contracts, creating movement that scales the distance between the two wires. The main aggregated module is comprised of five pyramids and two sliders. There is a center pyramid, in which every point is attached to another pyramid, comprising a five-part pyramidal structure. By attaching two sliders on opposite edges of the center pyramid, the flex is most seen in the end points of the triangles, compressing and coming together when movement is applied.

Creating a source module for our cloud formation allowed us to explore variations in connections, leading us to decide upon a clamping mechanism in application to the loop. The clamping of two triangles when a loop/slider is pulled, we find that there is a tension that is transferred from the deformable component (sliders) to the rigid components (pyramids). Trying to combine one module with another posed a problem for us to solve. We explored the idea of a chain link. With each module being a link in the chain, we are able to expand the module into a more dynamic form. Just as well, these formations allow for an extreme variation in dimensionality through the tension acquired within the slider.

A MOBILE SECTOR

// Global and Infrastructural Space

B.Architecture Thesis _ Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Duration _ Septemeber 2019 - June 2020

Professor _ Doug Jackson

Site _ Shanghai, China

While global networks afford power to the individuals they connect, they also render them vulnerable to the effects produced by others within the network. Consequently, the invisibility of global connectivity makes it possible for the exploitation of unsuspecting individuals by non-local agents in addition to these inhibiting individuals from taking full advantage of the potential power to resist that exploitation that global networks might afford. Although other virtual mediums of interaction have their advantages, their biggest downfall comes from the fact that their space of engagement is removed from the public sphere. However, a tangible infrastructure that could represent the flows of and exchanges of globalization would allow for a conscious and public engagement with these forces. This tangibility would allow

humans to gain an immediate and direct connection to the otherwise inscrutable global reality in which they live. This would result in a new subjectivity, wherein individuals become empowered to act within this global context.

This thesis will demonstrate the potential of such a tangible manifestation of this global reality in the form of speculative globalized infrastructures for the city of Shanghai. The typology of infrastructure is familiar to humanity and presents itself as an organized machine. This prescribed organization is in contrast to the accidental nature that takes place within life itself. The political empowerment that such a virtualization affords is particularly crucial in the context of a city such as Shanghai.

The Nanjing Blimps are corporate-sponsored hovering screens that move throughout the city, engaging its citizens. Ostensibly used for advertising purposes, these screens solicit testimonials from individuals as a form of highly-visible corporate propaganda. However, in enlisting the voice of everyday individuals, such individuals are empowered to respond in a manner that enables subtle critiques of the prevailing corporate and governmental power structures through tactics that include coded language, double entendre, body posture, and over- or under-enthusiasm.

The Pudong Heli is a flying architectural extension to existing corporate towers that provides a temporary helipad and accessory space for face-to-face meetings conducted as part of global commerce. As it manifests its presence intermittently in the space of the city and at different times, it gives form to the fluid space of global forces that are entangled with the local reality of the city, allowing the

impact of such global influences to be recognized by the city’s population. Meanwhile, during the times when this mobile infrastructure is attached to a corporate workplace, it affords the workers occupying that building the opportunity  to inhabit and appropriate the spaces of this structure.

The Huangpu Boat allows citizens of Shanghai to physically engage the fluid spatial reality of global commerce. The program re-appropriation takes advantage of the political and legal flexibility of such space to transcend the existing geographical and cultural reality within China. Located on the Huangpu River near the Bund in Shanghai, this entity ostensibly serves as an offshore warehouse to store goods that are being imported to or exported from China. In doing so, the fluid and liminal space of global commerce has become a new physical space whose inherent virtuality can offset the urban and political rigidity of Shanghai.

NANJING BLIMP

PUDONG HELI HUANGPU BOAT

PUDONG HELI

HUANGPU BOAT

GROWTH OVERTIME INFRASTRUCTURE LANDMARKS

HUANGPU BOAT

PUDONG HELI

NANJING BLIMP

WESTSIDE

// Google Campus

B.Architecture LA Metro _ Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Duration _ January 2019 - June 2019

Professor _ Stephen Phillips

Site _ Los Angeles, California, USA

Tasked to design a 1.5-million-square-foot Google Complex, the challenge was to incorporate media programs, retail floors, public and private dining facilities, and recreational facilities throughout the campus. Initially, the studio was prompted with a design project which explored primitive form mash-ups that created a dissimulated base for spatial studies on the Google Campus. In this series, each of the four forms is repeated, scaled, and translated to create a complex puzzle of spatial interactions, using Grasshopper. Application of material texture reveals the contrast of faces in their collapse and their crash actions. The section of this final form conjunction displays an arrangement of overlapping interior spatial qualities. Not only does an interior start to reveal itself, but exterior situations become more dynamic with these rearrangements of shapes.

The form of this dissimulation lent itself to a habitat, where program was internally organized to be virtually self-sufficient. A habitat supports the future work-play organization of an ideal lifestyle. By placing programmatic elements in different height levels, it aggregates the buildings to imply a city organizational quality. Even though only four basic forms are transformed, the various scale and organization of them are intended to spark interest throughout the project. Seeing as the programs are vastly wide, the attempt to explore various placement of program is important to this project to determine the best use of the resulting form. Each program explores and embraces its own form. The exploration of split dissimulation forms is so that each program has its own resulting interstitial space that can be refit with appropriate application. All programs agree to its form, whether narrow or wide, thick or thin.

FIELD STUDIES

FORM FINDING

STEPS SHAPE

FOUR SHAPES; EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC

DUPLICATE

PARKING

EQUINOX

HOTEL/THEATRE

PROGRAM

ISOMETRIC

HOUSING

RETAIL OFFICES GROCERY

RESTAURANT

28

RETAIL

CLOSE-UP SECTIONS // VARIED PROGRAMMATIC LEVELS

CLOSE-UP PLANS // VARIED PROGRAMMATIC FLOORS

HIGH-INCOME HOUSING

HOTEL ROOMS / THEATRE BAR ( FLOORS 2 - 7 )

GOOGLE OFFICE ( FLOORS 1 - 3 )

GROUND FLOOR EQUINOX LOBBY

GROUND FLOOR LOW - INCOME HOUSING

GOOGLE LOUNGE ( FLOORS 3 - 6 )

STORES ( FLOORS -1 - 4 )

5TH FLOOR HOTEL ROOM

4TH FLOOR GOOGLE OFFICES

5TH FLOOR RETAIL ATRIUM

( FLOORS 10 - 14 )

LORI

// Los Angeles Low-Rise Competition

Social Studies Projects

Team Members _ Mary Casper, Kay Mashiach, Bradley Nissen Los Angeles, California

Sisters is a proposal for the resurrection and re-appropriation of the notably Richard Neutra-designed and Ayn Randoccupied, Josef von Sternberg house, in Northridge, California. Originally built in 1935 and demolished in 1971, the veritable estate originally envisioned on “a distant meadow” originally included just one primary bedroom and several servant quarters. Taking this project as our starting point, which serves as a sort of archetype for the heroic single family, individualistic American dream, we set about plotting a reversal of power. From one residence, the proposal carves four, which encircle shared spaces devoted to community, education and agricultural self-sufficiency. The original house

is reconstructed as a glass greenhouse at the center of it all, with the building’s original rooms quite literally exploded across the site into discreet units, affording its residents the formal experience of the single family typology while living and working in community.

Like the three sister crops, the units in this project are envisioned as socially supportive, typologically diverse, and ecologically aligned. We designed the project’s three programmatic considerations in a parallel sisterhood: The Communal, The Sustainable, and The Spatial.

VIEW FROM NORTHEAST TOWARD GREENHOUSE

VIEW OF MOAT WRAPPING COMMUNITY COURTYARD

INVERSION SITE SCHEMATIC

AGGREGATION SITE SCHEMATIC

MACARONI SITE SCHEMATIC

VILLAGE SITE SCHEMATIC (CHOSEN SCHEME)

TOTAL SITE ISOMETRIC

STUDIO, ACCESSIBLE

1 BEDROOM, ACCESSIBLE

2 STORY, 2 BEDROOM

2 STORY, 2 BEDROOM

ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN MODULE // DETAILS 32

UNIT PLANS; 1/8” = 1’-0”

GROUND LEVEL + LANDSCAPE PLAN

1 Community Market Courtyard

2 Pollinator Garden

3 Demonstration Garden

4 Learning Garden

5 Orchards

6 Native Lawn

7 Permeable Driveway

8 Greywater Retention Pond

9 Greenhouse

10 Preservation Kitchen

11 Classroom

12 Farming

13 Hydroponic Vegetables

14 EV Chargers

15 Bird Highway

16 Raised Beds

17 Farm Cafe

18 Bee Hives

PHOTO-SHOPPED VIEW OF ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN

PHOTO-SHOPPED INTERIOR VIEW OF GREENHOUSE

LASSEN STREET

ODESSA AVENUE

// House Renovation

Los Angeles, California 2020 - 2023

The Odessa Avenue house renovation was a multi-phase redesign of various spaces within the home. Beginning with the entry-way/secondary bathroom and finishing off with the primary bedroom, each square foot of this home was rethought. Whether it was moving walls or finishing tiles, the outdated interiors were refreshed to be more fitting for a family.

The main idea was to consolidate storage spaces into a mudroom and into the garage, which opened up more opportunities for space maximization when it came to bedrooms and bathrooms. On the first right hand of the entry space, there was originally a storage closet as well as an L-shaped full bathroom. By removing the entry-way closet and converting the bathroom to a full rectangular shape, we were able to create a larger space for the secondary

bathroom, as well as a larger closet area for the guest bedroom.

Looking at the garage, it became renamed to the “familyroom” which was intended as an expansion space of a livable extra bedroom. Built in storage was added to the family room with custom 36” deep closets. In addition we newly outfitted and combined the laundry room and mudroom, allowing for a large storage capacity and comfortable backroom.

The final phase of the house remodel was the primary bedroom and secondary bedroom, which included the primary bathroom. Storage here was maximized by moving walls, as well as creating a larger space for the bathroom. The finishing of this whole house was completed with consistent and new oak flooring, as well as wallpapers and fresh paint.

GARAGE ISOMETRIC

SECONDARY BATHROOM ISOMETRIC

PRIMARY BATHROOM

proposed floor plan

// DETAILS

SECONDARY BATHROOM DETAIL PHOTOS

PRIMARY BATHROOM DETAIL PHOTOS