MOVEMENT + MEMORY
MICHAEL BELL
Memory fools us all into perceiving it as an archive of the past; truly, it is an artifact made by and for the present.
Architecture is an exercise in memory. It litters the world with buildings that alter and are altered by their contexts-materializing an archive of reflexive interpretations that write futures as the narrate histories.
The plaster work Pinch (above) was an experiment in memory; formal relationships coerce viewers into perceiving a false archive of compression forces enacted on the object.
CONTENTS
A PLACE BETWEEN WORLDS
DOCUMENTATION & ANALYSIS
EXPOSITION
SPRING 2024
FALL 2022
SPRING 2021
LEARNING "PLACE"
SOLITUDE & BELONGING
(RE)GENERATION
SPRING 2019
SPRING 2019
SPRING 2020
SELF-DIRECTION
SUMMER 2020
Previous Page. DREAMS + MEMORIES. Pencil and Ink Sketches: (2003-2018). Upper Left. PINCH. Chiseled Plaster: (2016).
A PLACE BETWEEN WORLDS
DATE: Spring 2024, 13 Weeks
SITE: New Orleans, LA
A rampart forms an edge. An edge defines where two worlds meet. Culture in the city of New Orleans has been defined by two worlds: that of the French Creoles and that of the Anglo-Americans.
A hostel on a through-lot along the city's historic and touristic core, the program included commercial space, guest amenities, 18 private rooms, 17 4-bed single-bath guestrooms, and 17 6-bed 1.5-bath guestrooms.
Located along the city's original rampart systems, the site occupies the nexus of former urban boundaries, linguistic communities, eras of urban design and architecture, and famous parade routes.
As hostels scaffold tourist experiences and perceptions of the city, architecture becomes responsible for representing and preserving city memory.
Comprehensive Studio (Tulane) Professors: C Dubberley, K Tsubaki
Left. 'Mardi Gras Day' rendering. Revit, Illustrator: (2024).
Right. Shadow Study in Context. SketchUp: (2024).
Left. Ground Floor & Street Façades Pamphlet. Revit, CAD, Illustrator : (2024). Above. Floorplans. Revit, Illustrator: (2024).
MURO (WALL): K-02
SOMBREA (HATCHES)
AGUJEROS (Holes)
HONGOS (Fungi)
HORMIGÓN (Concrete)
MORTERO FALTANTE (Missing Mortar)
MORTERO PREPARADO - CAL Y CEMENTO (Mixed Mortar - Lime and Cement)
SALINIDAD (Salinization)
VEGETACIÓN QUE PONE EN PELIGRO EL MURO (Vegetation Endangering the Wall)
VEGETACIÓN QUE NO PONE EN PELIGRO EL MURO (Vegetation Not Endangering the Wall)
DATE: Fall 2022, 2 Weeks
SITE: San Millán, Spain
Taking place at the Monastery of Yuso, this project centered on researching and documenting the 4 kilometers of 11th century walls enclosing the complex, which have since fallen into ruin as the monastery has become increasingly unimportant in the region’s cultural and economic landscapes.
Working on a research team, we each took tasks relating to either descriptive or analytical documentation in order to create a cohesive report for UNESCO that detailed alterations and damages in the wall to create a base for conservation interventions and community awareness.
The field sketch and diagram shown are my own work analyzing deterioration taking place on a 14 meter section of the wall.
Left. Deterioration Diagram. Photography, Illustrator: (2022). Right. Field Notes. Pencil Sketch: (2022).
DATE: Spring 2021, 13 Weeks
SITE: Hilton Head Island, SC
The Coastal Discovery Museum: an institution focused on the culture and ecology of Hilton Head and its environs.
Considering intrusive modern development schemes on the historic island, project to negotiate present circumstances with cultural and ecological conditions of the past in order to inspire a socially and environmentally resilient future.
Driven by my own research in archaeology, the proposal weaves visitors through five cultural periods and three site ecologies - unearthing and elevating island identity.
As a member of a group, I modeled, rendered, created sections, and conducted research on site history.
Comprehensive Studio (Clemson) Prize: 2nd Place, technical execution Professor: B Terim Partners: N Ashford-Carroll & N Gonzalez
Left. Site rendering. SketchUp, Lumion: (2021).
Right. Shadow Study in Context. SketchUp: (2021).
Freedmen Towns (extirpated)
Union Civil War Fort (eroded)
Indigenous Shell Enclosures (erased)
Intertidal Plain (3ft depth)
Protected Live Oaks Grove
New-growth Pine
Union Fort
British Ship Building
Colonial Wharf
Diagonal. Section Rendering. Rhino, Lumion, Photoshop: (2021).
Next Page. Exploded Axon. CAD, Illustrator: (2021).
Top, Left. Map Diagrams. Illustrator: (2021).
Bottom. Research Synthesis Diagram. CAD, Illustrator, Photoshop, South Carolina State Survey Data: (2021). Pine
Community Event Field (Existing Program)
Plantation Scars
Native American Shell Circle
Former Agricultural Field
TRANSITIONING
Just as cultural layers have key artifacts and features, island eras have centered around particular ecosystems.
The museum site is positioned at the transition between the island’s three most economically, and thus also culturally, important ecosystems: a tidal marsh, a live oak grove, and a former crop field.
Emphasis fell on site development which offered a range of experiences without suggesting hierarchy; weaving the constructions into the surface of the landscape and through the perspectives and component parts of the region’s many narratives.
Tidal Creek (7ft-10ft depth)
Intertidal Plain (3ft depth)
LEARNING "PLACE"
DATE: Spring 2019, 5 Weeks
SITE: Columbia, SC
What does it mean to grow up in the state capital? Located where a range of incomes, educations, and neighborhoods converge, this library asks how public space in an administrative city can foster connection - both within itself and with the wider context it 'rules' over.
A public, circulatory corridor through the building connects two commercial streets and scaffolds the architectural portrayal of three key regions in South Carolina. Along with a green for the local community, these 4 areas offer visitors learning through experiences with materials, forms, and plants significant to each place.
Expanding upon the traditional role of libraries as accesible hubs of learning, the library serves to educate and encourage reflection on individual, community, and state identity by and through constructed space.
Prize: 2nd Place, overall design
Professor: C Mendez
Jury: AIA Greater Columbia
Left. Render of Event Lawn. SketchUp, Lumion: (2021).
Right. Shadow Study in Context. SketchUp: (2019).
Above(2). Series of Sections through Corridor. AutoCAD: (2022). Page. Map of South Carolina. Original - James Cook: (1773); JPG - David Rumsey Map Collection: (2022).
Left. Site + Ground Floor Plan. AutoCAD, Illustrator: (2022).
Above(1). Segmented Perspective
Rendering of Corridor (Labeled Left). Rhino, Lumion: (2022).
SOLITUDE VS. BELONGING
DATE: Spring 2019, 5 Weeks
SITE: Clemson Experimental Forest
Situated on an abandoned manmade lake in a forest, 5 cabins frame 'escaping to the wilderness' through two romanticist aims: solitude and belonging.
Combining these convoluted desires to curate the 'sublime' led further studies into tensions on site - around nature vs. artifice, obsolescence vs. revival, and individuality vs. society. Although expressed as opposites, together they define a gamut ranging between the extremes: two terms describing a single element, a membrane upon which a spectrum of reactions can take place.
The site design became itself a careful negotiation of architecturally encouraging moments of privacy and togethernes. A single terrain wall undulates to position cabins for privacy and shape programmatic uses - inside and outside.
Threading through each cabin, this wall unifies the ensemble and site water management.
Professor: C Mendez
Left. Site rendering. SketchUp, Lumion: (2019).
Right. Shadow Study in Context. SketchUp: (2019).
Spatial Legibility.
Inside, the single wall bisects the cabins and shape-shifts for programmatic uses.
Sets of two parallel walls framing each cabin draw on this further by suggesting spaces through variations in thickness: emerging in and out of being, like clearings in the forest.
Lake Issaqueena
Cabin 1 Spaces:
Cabin 1 Assembly:
Center Middle. Floorplan Diagram. CAD, Illustrator: (2019).
Center Bottom. Sketch. CAD: (2019). Right Side. Site Plan. CAD: (2019).
Left. Study Model. Cast Plaster: (2020). Center Top. Assembly Diagram. SketchUp, Illustrator: (2019).
Forest Spaces:
Cabin 2
Cabin 3
Cabin 4
Cabin 5
Cabin 2
Cabin 3
Cabin 4
Cabin 5
Top. Interiors. Lumion: (2019). Page. Stitched Site Elevation Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop, Illustrator: (2019).
DATE: Spring 2020, 5 Weeks
SITE: Glendale, SC
Can the past die? Once deemed the textile capital of the world, the Carolinas, and their many former mill towns, sit now on a precipice; as many mills, now abandoned, have fallen into ruin, so too have their paired communities.
With issues like depopulation, poverty, and food insecurity, many of these mills -and their townsface extinction.
In such circumstances, it seems necessary to sacrifice the past for a dying present; but, the future proposed is retrospective. Site and, therefore, community resiliency are regenerated by recycling the mill as an architectural, economic, and social bastion of the remnant mill town.
Once a generative site, creative revival is achieved through the reimagination of the former textile mill’s social and architectural programming: echoing vernacular expressions and spatial forms across a new era.
Professor: S Hambright-Belue
Left. Site Prospect. SketchUp, Lumion: (2021).
Right. Shadow Study in Context. SketchUp: (2021).
PAST ORIGINAL VIEW WAYS
PAST OPERATIONAL CONDITION
CURRENT SITE RUINS
CURRENT SITE PROGRAMMING
CURRENT VIEW WAYS FUTURE WATER MANAGEMENT CURRENT FLOODING
FUTURE SITE PROGRAMMING
Left. Section from Mill Town through Site to Creek. Photo & Sketch Collage: (2020).
Right. Site Analyses. Pen & Ink: (2020).
FUTURE ENTRY AXIS (ACCESSIBILITY + FOOD OPPORTUNITY) - NORTH
FUTURE ENTRY AXIS (ACCESSIBILITY + FOOD OPPORTUNITY) - SOUTH
PRESENT PROSPECT (EXPOSED VIA MILL COLLAPSE) - NORTH
PRESENT PROSPECT (EXPOSED VIA MILL COLLAPSE) - SOUTH
PAST ENTRY AXIS (ORIGINAL, SINCE ABANDONED) - NORTH
PAST ENTRY AXIS (ORIGINAL, SINCE ABANDONED) - SOUTH
Page. Collage. CAD, Hand Sketching, Lumion: (2020). Background. Map: 2020 State Surveyor Data, Photoshop: (2020).
Page. Section Perspective. CAD, Illustrator: (2020).
Page. Section Historical Analysis. CAD, Illustrator: (2020).
water taxi | waterbus
tram rail | trambaan
cyclist lanes | fietspad
train station | treinstation
movie posters | filmposter
projection cubes | beamerblokken
stairs + seating | trappen + zietplaatsen
planters + seating | planten + zietplaatsen
Nieuwe Maas
DATE: Summer 2020, 11 Weeks
SITE: Rotterdam, Netherlands
This cinema forms the center point of a proposed redevelopment plan for Feyenoord in Rotterdam, a district southwest of the city center along the river Nieuwe Maas.
Inspired by scene diagramming for films and an exercise in designing the future of immersive cinema, focus fell on viewer and visitor experience and mobility as the architecture worked to span the different heights, areas, and programs across the neighborhood.
Providing options for traversing the 12.4m (40ft) elevation gap between De Strip, a pedestrian walkway, and the street level was realized in five areas of the site strategy: a ramp for cyclists, interior circulation for cinemagoers, and three outdoor options that each provided different cinematic experiences.
Professor: D Lee
Left. Site Context Collage. Rhino, Grasshopper, Lumion, Photoshop, Google Earth: (2021). Right. Shadow study in context. SketchUp: (2021).
As much as films imagine and visualize, they are also exercises in control; forced perspectives and controlled releases of information shape audience experience.
The contextual importance of this cinema's location encouraged design moves which returned agency and direction over experience to the array of users.
Page. Stitched Site Elevation Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop, Illustrator: (2019). Left. Sentence/Circulation Diagramming. Rhino: (2020).
Though depicted as static and permanent, memories are dynamic and fleeting. Like shadows from buildings, memories are mere projections cast and re-cast by constructs they are born from.
My work on the sculpture, Skeuomorph (below and right), explored the movement of memory through material translation. Beginning with cardboard trash and cycling through digitizations, 3D prints, burn-out casts, and bronze pours, memory proved equal-parts ephemeral and enduring.
Always curious about the interplay of culture and memory, my passion belongs to an understanding of the built environment as a stage for adaptation, cultural construction, and human projection.
EDUCATION
M.Architecture - Tulane Uni. '25
BA.Anthropology - Clemson Uni. '21
BA.Architecture - Clemson Uni. '21
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
RESEARCH PROJECTS
DIGITAL SKILLS
MANUAL SKILLS
LINGUISTIC SKILLS
Peter Pennoyer Architects - Intern (2024); bella design studio - studio assistant (2021-24); Gibson House Museum (2022-23); The Context Workshop - Designer (2021-23).
Tulane Class of '73 Travel Fellowship (2024); Visualization of a Saudi Arabian Government Campus for the DoD (2021); HKS Mid-Atlantic Design Fellowship (2021); Clemson House History Project (2020-21); Public Space in the Virtual Age (2020); Fort Rutledge Archaeological Survey (2020); Vasagard Excavation (2019); Arch. as a Tool of National Identity in the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (2018).
Adobe (Ps, Ai, Id, An, Pr); ArcGIS; AutoCAD; Blender; Grasshopper; Lumion; Revit; Rhino; SketchUp
Sketching; Model Building; Plaster Casting; Drafting; Painting; Excavating; Land Surveying; Sewing
Advanced - English; German Intermediate - Hawaiian; PA German Beginner - Danish; Czech; French
Above and Left. SKEUOMORPH. Cast bronze from plaster burnout mold: (2016).