Miguel Ángel Arana Santiago | Graduate Portfolio | Fall 2021

Miguel Angel Arana Santiago

Graduate Portfolio M.Arch Candidate 2022

Fall 2020

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Advanced Architectural Studio 1 6-9

The Light of Absence

10-25 Anthrotopia

Media and Modeling 3

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28-31 Parametric Landscapes 32-35 Superficiem 36-39 Mutantur 40-45 Galleria Gwanggyo

Spring 2021

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Advanced Architectural Studio 2 48-53 Landscapes in Abstraction 54-67 Portman Prize Competition

Fall 2021

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Design + Research 1 70-85 Pride+Prejudice

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Advanced Architectural Studio 1

1A

The Light of Absence Professor: George Johnston Term: Fall 2020 Project type: Warm Up

In Italo Calvino’s Mr. Palomar, ego is described as the window through which we see the world. This metaphorical aperture however, like a real one, it is a filter through which the world can also see us. Just as Calvino argues that ego is that which allows the world and ourselves to see each other, I argue that light is the enabler which allows both us and reality to do the same.

By inverting our understanding of solid/void in reference to light, we are able to generate space from the absence of light. It is through this inversion that we can experience a new spatial reality that had been, until this point, negated to us both by our common interstice. By condensing the spatial defining elements, generated from inverting our spatial reality to a series of intersecting planes, space becomes a mere suggestion, an abstraction. Through this “the same space” can be read differently multiple times. With no clear definition of space these suggestions become a multitude of experiential opportunities, questioning our very notion of space. Merriam Webster defines the outside as “a place or region beyond an enclosure or boundary”. Is what we call the outside in reality outside if it is contained within a boundary that we cannot naturally see? Is the void of space actually a void if it is bound by the laws of space and time? What is Space and what is not?

Side B Side A

Side B Side A

Isometric Section

1B

ANTHROTOPIA Professor: George Johnston Term: Fall 2020 Project type: Social Incubator

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During the first half of the 21st century, humanity found its most dangerous inherent weakness, its divided self. Friction brought forth by neoliberal globalist policies proved to be extremely detrimental to social cohesion. As the barriers between different societal groups grew, so did social poverty. Realizing its survival depended upon unity, humanity embraced its capacity for compassion. In a collective effort to generate social capital, reduce friction, increase cooperation, and expand common ground, communities set up Social Incubators. These local institutions, help support the growth of businesses which in turn repay the community by financing social programs which foster the united embrace of human heterogeneity.

By empowering communities and providing a solution where communities themselves foster the growth of social unity, this project aims to function as a catalyst for social capital by abridging the distance between an economic system that always appears to be in crisis and deep cultural societal issues. As Simmel tells us about bridges, “...the fortuitousness of that which is given by nature is elevated to a unity.”

In the northern portion of the site, a civic stair provides a moment of pause within the Beltline, a concurred public pedestrian thoroughfare. More than providing a point of access to the Beltline from North Highland Avenue, these stairs take on the function of a theatron. From here we can see people walking, jogging, scootering, arriving, departing, laughing and even crying, snippets of our daily lives become accessible to others. They become the viewing gallery upon one may experience snippets of the life of others, creating visual interpersonal connections.

The already planned light rail station is also to be located within this portion of the site. This strategic placement ensures an ease of congestion between users of the Beltline, commuters, and users of the building.

This perspectival view, shows us how the theatron being used by observers. The variety of public interactions along the Beltline are elevated onto a stage and have become the protagonists in the play of everyday life.

The social incubator is nestled between Highland Avenue and the Beltline. Looking at the Beltline level a community dining room is located. The idea is that once a week a social dinner is shared between people. Anyone is welcome, those who may need the food that night, those who are looking to meet new people, and even those who just do not want to feel alone. To the left side a lobby serves as the main entrance to the business incubator from the Beltline.

In the third level, we encounter the Inc that interdisciplinary barriers are taken of ideas, the businesses funded by th The amphitheater located within the overlapping programmatic uses and u

cubator. The shared space collaborative environment ensures n down and cooperation is achieved. By providing a free flow he community have better chances of becoming successful. incubator is open to the public as well as entrepreneurs, by users the community-business symbiosis.

In the fourth level, we have a small multi use room, this space again can be used by the community or by the entrepreneurs. We traverse a roof garden as we cross the bridge onto the more community-oriented volume. moving across the rooftop garden we encounter workshop areas, a small classroom, and a communal area. These spaces again can be used by any user of the facilities. Grassroot movements might do a workshop for the community children financed by a business through one of its social programs. A projection box provides any type of audiovisual needs an activity in the agora might need.

This transversal section allows us see better how to the project connects both public thoroughfares together, it provides a place to be within the Beltline, and in doing so, it also it generates a spatial condition upon which spontaneous social capital might be generated.

Through this longitudinal section it is possible to see the highly public realm of the street is beginning to make its way down onto the Beltline. The sculpting of the floor condition allows for a public agora to be generated, a local politician might do their soapbox discourse from here, an outdoor talk can easily happen within the agora, or it may also function as a public plaza when no programed activity is underway.

This perspectival view provides us with a snippet of a ted talk underway in the agora.

02 Media and Modeling 3

2A

Parametric Landscapes Professor: James Park & Kurt Hong Term: Fall 2020 Project type: Attractor Fields

For this assignment I constructed attractor fields within Grasshopper. By implementing knowledge on two-dimensional parametric geometries and operations, it was possible to generate an arrangement of parametric motifs. These motifs can be altered and specified by a set of attractor points or curves. By altering the geometries to be attracted or repelled it is possible to generate a set of differing parametric landscapes through grasshopper.

Triangulum A series of quadrilateral planes, are affected by curves. The color oscillates between yellow and bluegreen as the quadrilateral planes shift in size.

Circu

A series of circular planes are repelle of points. The color changes from a circles get stretched.

ulus

ed, attracted, and scaled by a series a colder hue to a warmer one as the

Quadratum A series of square planes are repelled, attracted, and scaled by a pair of curves. These change color as they conglomerate in a more tightly packed manner.

2B

Superficiem Professor: James Park & Kurt Hong Term: Fall 2020 Project type: Mathematical Surfaces

For this assignment I constructed mathematical surfaces within Grasshopper. By implementing knowledge on three-dimensional parametric geometries and operations, it was possible to generate an arrangement of editable parametric surfaces. These motifs can be altered and specified by a set of mathematical expressions. By altering the variables within the expressions, it is possible to generate a set of differing parametric surfaces through grasshopper.

Möbius This image captures the moment just before a möbius strip begins to unravel itself apart.

Revo

The single surface generated fro unravel and stretch itself taking on

olvo

om a möbius strip commences to n a new shape.

Infinitus The ribbon resulting from the unraveling of a möbious strip has reorganized itself into a single perpetual surface.

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Mutantur Professor: James Park & Kurt Hong Term: Fall 2020 Project type: Morphing Tiles

For this assignment I constructed mathematical morphing tiles within Grasshopper. By implementing knowledge on three-dimensional parametric and spatial transformations, it was possible to generate an arrangement of editable parametric tiles. These arrangements were achieved by mapping and morphing relations of a three-dimensional polygon to a complex surface with a varying curvature.

Ellipsis A tile with a rotated elliptical fenestration in the center warps itself to follow a curved surface.

Duo Form

Here an ellipse and a cross join Substantially more porous than its and sun pass through itself.

mamenta

together to create this geometry. s sister, this tile allows for more air

Retorqueo A twisting tile again morphs through along a warped surface. This tile arrangement reconciles the solidity and porosity of its previous sisters. It is porous enough to allow ample sunlight and breeze through, yet solid enough to ensure privacy.

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Galleria Gwanggyo Professor: Team members: Term: Project type:

James Park & Kurt Hong Weston Byerly, Aliyah Cobb, Nirmit Patel Fall 2020 Parametric Building

For this assignment we recreated the Galleria Gwanggyo. OMA’s new retail complex, located within the vastly growing and prosperous city of Gwanggyo just south of Seoul, aims to become the new epicenter of social life. At the center of this young urban development surrounded by tall residential towers, the Galleria’s stone-like appearance makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo. Striving to pull people from many different walks of life, this project not only functions as a retail complex but as a public space.

Being this project was group effort, I have included the Facade System portion, as I was responsible for its development.

Building Systems Massing: Initial Building Geometry.

Structure: Interior Structural Elements.

Circulation: Glass Passageway.

Facade: Geometricized Tiled Motifs

Circulation

Core

Massing

Input

Levels

Structure

Slab

Facade

Massing and Facade System The main building systems which drive the generation and design of the Galleria Gwanggyo are: Massing, Structure, Circulation, and Facade. Each of these systems has been broken down and defined by parameters which not only generate the original built form but allows for a variety of possibilities. By separating the designs’ elements into four (4) main categories it was possible to identify, establish , and in the end modify the design guiding factors of the project, both externally and internally.

The facade system is intrinsically linked with the main volumetric form of the design. To ensure a clean façade, the height, width, and length of the building must be commensurable. That is, they must be all be measurable by a common standard. In this case the tiling grid is set up in a manner where the dimensions of the building are divided by that of a grid. Once this was established, it was decided to allow for comprehensive modifiability. By parameterizing the fenestration elements and the tiling grid, it was possible to allow for virtually any variation in both fenestration and tiling desirable, as long as the commensurability parameter was followed.

MASSING Firstly, the building footprint is referenced in from a planar surface in Rhinoceros. The surface is then extruded in the Z axis to the desired height in Grasshopper. In doing so we begin to parametrize defining elements of the building, such as height.

SOLID INTERSECTIONS The geometries which compose the varying fenestrations are created within Grasshopper. Utilizing the Solid Intersection functions, a boolean operation is carried out whenever the fenestration intersects with the main massing. Owing to the fact that the fenestration geometry is created within Grasshopper, we have total parametric control over the aforementioned fenestrations. Therefore it is possible to change the size, shape, and location of the fenestrations.

TILING Once all the fenestrations are subtracted from the main volumetry, the tiling can be generated and applied.

By tiling the facade it is possible to accelerate installation and have cleaner connections in the facade system.

Allowing for commensurability enables us to edit the tiling form and size whilst ensuring an ease of and clean connections at the facades terminal points.

Once the volumetry with fenestrations is generated, the sides of the volumetry are deconstructed into individual surfaces. A grid is generated over each face of the facade of the Galleria.

The centroids of the grid are located and a tiled geometry can be generated.

m

n To ensure commensurability of the tiling system, the building dimensions must be in multiples of 3.

The surface is tiled in a triangular manner to ensure a clean joinery between frnestrations, protrusions, and corners in the facade. The geometry can be changed an packed to provide a clean �it between the tiles.

Once the triangulationi has been mapped onto the faces, a surface split operation allocates for fenestrations within the facade system.

TILING Once the pattern is in place, the tiling is extruded to accommodate for real life materiality. The tiling at this stage is finished. Images, textures, and colors can be projected onto the tiling to provide for variability.

Original Facade Tiling

Facade Tiling Variant

Facade Tiling Variant

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Advanced Architectural Studio 2

3A

Landscapes of Ambiguity Professor: W. Jude LeBlanc Term: Spring 2021 Project type: Case Study

Torkwase Dyson’s “I Can Drink the Distance” considers how the body unifies, balances, and arranges itself moving through undisturbed and built environments. She dismantles and reassembles a series of geometric elements through the duration of the exhibition in order to generate spaces which forces the observers to navigate an ever changing spatial reality.

By taking a series of repetitive elements from the piece it is possible to extrapolate a generative guide. Disman- tling, reassembling, and rearranging them following guides from the piece as well as overlaying a perfectly flawed system, it is possible to create expressionistic landscapes which take the qualities of three dimensional space and collapses them into a two dimensional medium. These landscapes challenge our environmental notions space, scale, directionality, and order through visual illusions.

What moves towards the observer? What moves away? What collapses? What is solid?

What is above? And what is below? The landscapes offer multiple perspectives coexisting at once, none of which are either wrong or right. This communicates the reality of our built environments, we created them, no one experiences them the same, and we have the ability to change them and how we experience them. Be it a physical or social one.

3B

Portman Prize Competition Professor: W. Jude LeBlanc Term: Spring 2021 Project type: Civic (Portman Prize Competition)

Space is the ultimate mediator between ourselves and the environments in which we operate. Through constructed space we are able to process and react to the vast stimuli that our reality presents to us. The conditions on which we operate however, go beyond the physical, that which we can touch, hear, or even see. Social environments are human constructs, we build them up, deconstruct them, modify them, and in some moments in history we have obliterated them. These constructs wield power over our psychological, emotional, and even physical development. Due to the particular manner on which humanity has set up social environments, the result is a highly fragmented environ on which a multiplicity of experiences result from a single condition dependent on the observer. The link between the more abstract and highly complex societal environ and built environments is very telling, physical spatial conditions reflect societal conditions and vice versa.

This project is considered as being of that of a non-linear nature in time. It works to operate in a temporal duality, looking into the past, inhabiting the present, and moving into the future. It is located near the historic footprint of the Negro Building, working to remind us of the absence of the black voice. The volumetry of the design is generated by simplifying the original footprint of the Negro Building, and subjecting it to local site conditions.

The result is a building which looks onto the meadow, a representation of a time before environments, untouched by human ingenuity or prejudice, and looks onto Grady high school and the city beyond watching over the promise of successful integration and a harmonious future.

This Plan shows the ground level of the museum and supportive program.

This perspectival view, shows us how the public space around the museum building. A shallow pool serves as an interactive area for kids and families.

This perspectival view, shows us how the main entrance into the museum, one descends through a grand staircase in an allusion of the subversion of the black voice.

These perspectival view, shows us looking down into the large format gallery. The cafe, circulation, and gallery work to create an interplay of views exalting the need greater visibility of social issues.

This longitudinal section shows the path one must take to traverse the museum.

04 Design + Research 1

4A

Pride+Prejudice Professor: John Peponis Term: Fall 2021 Project type: Civic

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Betrayal at the sanctum, judgement at the crossing, oppressive meander, selfascension, and liberation... these chapters describe the narrative posed by this project, as one moves from darkness to light through an atrium of shadows the architecture embodies change - queer change.

A processional entrance details the violation of one of the queer sancta sanctorum, the bathroom; a waving flag remnant breathes with the same hope it did when it sparked a revolution; and a conquered icon watches over visitors embraced by the cloth child of the preceding item.

Some displays portray while others build pivotal moments of queer history into the architecture, juxtaposing the movement towards liberation with art. Allowing freedom for past, current, and future artists to be exhibited, the architecture replicates a synthesis of the harsh queer experience and journey of many, oppression to liberation, darkness to light, deception to verity...Pride, and Prejudice.

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The site to be occupied is a perking lot adjacent to the Peach Tree Center and Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta.

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First, John Portman’s rectangular gestures are mirrored onto the site, ensuring context continuity.

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One of the rectangular masses is shifted in response to the western side of the site, further responding to its physical context.

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4The masses are4 then truncated to create

welcoming gestures at both ends of the site.

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As a result of the truncation, public spaces are generated at both ends of the site, providing theaters for interpersonal relationships to develop in downtown Atlanta.

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This configuration allows the site to be more porous, and further communicate its welcoming nature.

Judgement at the Crossing

In plan, we see the processional entrance through the lavatory exhibition. This initial movement into the museum takes us through a restroom, recreating the conditions which violated the privacy of 20 men in 1953, which resulted in their conviction for homosexual sodomy. After this processional movement, visitors find themselves in “Judgement at the Crossing”, the rotunda is meant to make one feel isolated just many LGBTQ+ peoples feel, the space opens up in the upper portion, symbolizing the promise of liberation. The galleries that follow provide visual cues through windows as where one is to head but still force the visitor to meander about trying to find their way, mimicking the self-journey taken when coming to terms with our own sexuality.

The third level or “Liberation” shows how the plan is more open providing for greater flexibility in exhibits. The galleries “openness” not only mirrors queer liberation within today’s society but also the freeing feeling of self acceptance. In this particular plan an exhibit on the right side of the plan, space is delineated by the folding of a 1 mile long pride flag used for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1994.

Betrayal at at the the Sanctum Sanctum

1953’s Atlanta Public Library Perversion Case

This longitudinal section shows how the entrance compress the visitors at the beginning and slowly becomes less restrictive as one moves upward, this mimics the societal pressures LGBTQ+ peoples feel in their lives and the liberation of self-acceptance.

Waving Flag Remnant

This transversal section shows us the interstice between the public, and private spheres. By drawing up parallels it is possible to use this explorative dialogue of the complicated split and relationship between the public and private spheres of American culture (which preaches keeping behavior deemed unacceptable private) to generate empathy for the need of understanding, an issue which is at heart of both LGBTQ+ history and life today.

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