Maya Mashiach Practical Design Portfolio 2024

CONTENTS

Professional / Freelance

i. Los Angeles Low-Rise Competition

ii. Odessa Avenue

iii. Canyon Beach House

Undergraduate California Polytechnic SLO

i. A Mobile Sector

ii. Westside Google

Postgraduate AADRL

i. Halokinesis

ii. Society Nano

iii. Out of Stock

Other

i. Network Trajectories

ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES

PRACTICAL CONCEPTS

EXPERIMENTAL COMPUTATIONS

CONTINUED WORK

LOS ANGELES LOW-RISE

// Competition Proposal

Social Studies Projects

Team Members _ Mary Casper, Kay Mashiach, Bradley Nissen

Los Angeles, California 2021

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.

Combining photoshop and vray rendering to achieve an artist inspired rendering quality. Perspective views from agricultural space (top), western walkway (middle), interior greenhouse (bottom left), and interior kitchen of unit (bottom right).

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Isometric composite drawing breaking down a housing unit’s parts within the context of the site.

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ODESSA AVENUE

// Residential Renovation

Freelance

Team Members _ Kay Mashiach

Los Angeles, California

2021-Current

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 “family-room” 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.

Primary bathroom render iterations.

Photographs of completed primary bathroom.

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- Rhino - Odessa

Overall designed ground floor plan of the Odessa Avenue residence with conceptual undertones.

Completed images of the guest bathroom (top row) and primary bathroom (bottom row) with renovation of the other spaces still in progress.

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CANYON BEACH HOUSE

// Residential Home in Malibu

Montalba Architects

Project Manager _ Joe Diaz

Santa Monica, California

Contributed _ 2019

Completed _ 2021

This new single family residence sits high in the Malibu hills with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean. Anchored by discrete, multi-level travertine elements and massive operable window-walls, the property dissolves as it opens up the interior spaces to the surrounding site and the ocean beyond. Wood finishes warm the interior, while water and landscape elements across the exterior provide the backdrop for the family’s sculpture collection. An open stair links the family’s main living spaces, each with a custom stone fireplace. Flanked by a water feature and an infinity pool, the main living space coupled with a private guest suite above the garage provide the perfect setting for entertaining.

An extensive art collection is housed throughout the property and the gardens. One of the key challenges for the designers was creating enough wall space for the Client’s collection while maintaining the desired level of exposure to the site, openness and light. This meant using partitions between spaces that did not run the extent of the room, allowing for light to permeate between spaces.

During my internship at Montalba Architects, I participated in the conceptual, schematic, and design development phases of this project. I provided plan iterations and renders for client packages.

Exterior render of completed project.

Rendered view of exterior patio.

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OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

OPTION A - GRAND LIVING

1ST FLOOR PLAN

1ST FLOOR PLAN

A MOBILE SECTOR

// Global 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.

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Nanjing Blimp

Pudong Heli Huangpu Boat

California Polytechnic SLO - Illustrator - A Mobile Sector

Orthographic visuals of each mobile sector in its context within Shanghai.

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California Polytechnic SLO - AutoCAD - A Mobile Sector

GROWTH OVERTIME INFRASTRUCTURE

Chunk sections of heli (left) and boat (right) at critical regions.

Map of Shanghai growth from 1970 to current ( left ) ; Map of Shanghai thoroughfares ( right).

Main floor plan of heli attached to building (top); main floor plan of market on boat (bottom).

Visual of nightime Shanghai with Mobile Sectors in the skyline of the buildings.

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California Polytechnic SLO - VRay - A Mobile Sector

Nanjing Blimp visualized during early morning on Nanjing Road in Shanghai.

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Huangpu Boat

Pudong Heli

Nanjing Blimp

California Polytechnic SLO - Illustrator - A Mobile Sector

Isometric visual of all mobile entities docked together on the Huangpu River.

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WESTSIDE CAMPUS

// 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-squarefoot 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 workplay 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.

Viewpoint of campus walkway from fifth story office space.

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LA Metro - Grasshopper - Westside Campus

Viewpoint of campus offices from main road walkway.

Overall Isometric visual of facade ribbon massing (left) and programmable space (right).

Form finding visual steps explored in grasshopper and amplified for field studies of campus spaces.

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GOOGLE LOUNGE

5TH FLOOR

Full longitudinal section through center plot of site, demonstrating array of spaces.

Arrangement of detail plans and sections from each major program within the Google Campus.

HALOKINESIS

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.

Still image of salt tectonic salt sheet simulation, exploring nature for research.

Still image of salt tectonic salt canopy typology simulation, exploring nature for research.

// Crystalline Salt Infrastructures

cube _ dodecahedron _ mesh iterations

_ pyramid

Still image from animation of coral growth on a single agent based on directional sunlight.

Simulation images iterating the most ideal shape for ultimate salt growth on a spicule (left); Simulation images exploring surface meshing for a spicule agent (right).

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- Thesis Project - Halokinesis

Still images from simulations experiementing with inflation phasing underwater in relation to an individual agent.

Renders displaying top down directional growth resultant from sunlight typical nearer to the equator line (left) and slowed growth resultant from sunlight in consistently clouded and shaded regions (right).

Renders displaying salt growth based on relative waer level simulations.

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Various salt crystallization models and experiments, utilizing every aspect of the environment to achieve maximum growth.

Crystallized salt on spicules after 6 months of growth.

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AADRL - Thesis Project - Halokinesis

Photograph of two half scale physical spicules. The models are each 1 meter wide and are installed with sensors.

Photograph series of inflating arm based on nearby distance of another agent.

Perspective diagram showing the kit of parts of an agent and its robotic elements.

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Images taken from simulations created demonstrating how our agents will harvest salt from its initial location and maximize crystalization.

Images taken from simulations created demonstrating how our agents will self-organize as an ever-changing formation that balance the salinity level temporally.

AADRL - Thesis Project - Halokinesis

Still images from an animation which demonstrates the harvesting phase of the group of agents in a single saline area.

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Perspective breakdowns of formations predicted from the salt tectonic in nature, we translate pressure and density into buoyancy and cohesion force; With information from the neighbors, agents would behave collectively and form an autonomous cluster.

Still image of animation demonstrating the coral revival formations from underwater.

Still image of animation demonstrating the phase changing of each spicule formations from underwater.

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Render created in Unreal Engine of the predicted Australia formation, based on coral bleaching detection.

Render created in Unreal Engine of the predicted Carribean Sea formation, based on coral bleaching detection.

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SOCIETY NANO

// void setup () {

M. Architecture Robotics Studio _ AADRL

Duration _ November 2021 - December 2021

Professor _ Apostolos Despotidis

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 ‘Machine-Machine’ 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.

Photograph of a set of society nano robots without their silicone shell.

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Arduino and robot mechanical parts / assembly diagram (middle); Robot form iterations (bottom row).

Physical robot kit disassembled (left) and fully assembled (right).

Photograph of individual robot detecting green and lighting up red. Focus on color sensor.

OUT OF STOCK

// Active Wireframes

M. Architecture Wireframes Studio _ AADRL

Duration _ September 2021 - November 2021

Professor _ Apostolos Despotidis

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.

Photograph of physical model, sampling tensioned and relaxed system using piano wires.

AADRL - Grasshopper - Out of Stock

Photograph of physical model, sampling tensioned and relaxed system using piano wires.

Process images of physical model experimentation.

Rigid

AADRL - Grasshopper - Out of Stock

Export of procedural grasshopper node process.

Detail perspective of relaxed system (top) and tensioned system (bottom).

Isometric and front view of various states within the tensioning process utilizing kangaroo in grasshopper.

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NETWORK TRAJECTORIES

// Computation Explorations

Freelance Commission

Los Angeles, California

2023-Current

In this series I seek to understand how pathway trajectories and curvatures influence a system in motion. Further, I will be exploring more facade finishes in order to complete a form finishing mesh test.

Procedural Form Generation Using Grasshopper in Rhino. This project aims to explore the principles of computational design by leveraging Grasshopper, a visual programming language plugin for Rhino. Through a series of conceptual formations and hands-on exercises, I have leveraged

samples of exploring how to create complex, parametrically driven forms and facades. Starting with basic shapes and patterns. Network Trajectories gradually progresses to more intricate designs, experimenting with various parameters such as scale, rotation, and repetition. By the end of the project explores an understanding of computational design principles and the ability to generate diverse architectural forms and facades using Grasshopper in Rhino.

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Freelance - Grasshopper - Network Trajectories

Grasshopper procedure for right form trajectory.

Grasshopper procedure for bottom form trajectory.

Output iteration of mesh pipe finish and curve iteration variation.

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Freelance - Grasshopper - Network Trajectories

Front view of procedural steps of formal domain. Form utilizing butterfly meshing.

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