AMELIA “MILLIE” WEST
PORTFOLIO + SELECTED WORKS
CURRICULUM VITAE | CV
EDUCATION. SKILLS.
University of Tennessee | College of Architecture + Design
Knoxville, Tennessee | Anticipated Graduation - Spring 2025
Bachelor of Architecture + Minor in Graphic Design Dean’s List
University of Arkansas, Rome Center | College of Architecture Rome, Italy | January 2024 - April 2024
Fred J. Page High School
Rudderville, Tennessee | Class of 2020
Summa Cum Laude
Rhino | Grasshopper + Plug-Ins + VRay
Physical Modeling
Some Revit, Archicad, CoveTool, and Enscape experience
3-D Printing + Laser Cutting
Adobe Creative Suite | Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Media Encoder, After Effects, Premier Pro, etc.
Sewing + Weaving
Microsoft + Google Suites
Sculpture + Ceramics
Graphic Design | iPad Workflow
Windows + Mac OS
REFERENCES. HONORS.
Dean’s List| University of Tennessee Fall 2020 - Present
Uber Review Selection| Fall 2021
“Perverted Epidermis”|Professor Cayce Anthony work chosen by peers and professionals to represent the physical + conceptual skills of the studios and cohort as a whole.
WORK EXPERIENCE.
Teaching Assistant | History + Theory of Architecture I: Pre-History to 1750
Professor Katherine Wheeler| Fall 2023, Fall 2024
coached students in academic research and writing scholarly essays, held office hours and individual meetings with students, graded papers and exams, and aided in research relating to the course for Professor Wheeler.
Teaching Assistant | Visual Design Theory
Professor Brian Ambroziak| Spring 2025
mentored first year students in architectural theory, led weekly discussion sections, graded concept based assignments, educated students in adobe softwares, held office hours and individual meetings with students.
Architectural Intern | Home by Hattan
Karen and Mark Hattan| Summer 2024
careful selection of fabrics, fixtures, and finishings for a variety of client goals, coordination between clients and contractors, translation of on-site data to 3-D models and visualizations, ability to communicate client needs and concepts.
Prestige Beauty Advisor | Ulta Beauty May 2024 - January 2025
expertise and extensive knowledge in beauty products and current trends, ability to recommend products based on specific customer concerns, ability to meet and exceed sales goals, ability to build customer loyalty and maintain customer relationships.
Barista | Starbucks
Summer 2019 - Summer 2023
demonstration of excellent customer service, inventory audits, stock management, training new baristas, leadership and teaching skills, creating hand crafted beverages to a strict set of company standards, and hosting coffee-tasting sessions with customers.
Katherine J. Wheeler, Ph. D. | Lecturer + Adjunct Professor
e: kwheel24@utk.edu
Cayce Anthony, M.A. | Creative Director at Casa de Copas e: caycejanthony@gmail.com | c: 615 . 713 . 9592
CONTENTS
STUDIO PROJECTS
COLOSSUS - Fall 2023
HUMAN NON HUMAN - Fall 2024
CAMP AMERICANA - Fall 2023
PERVERTED EPIDERMIS - Fall 2021
SELECTED WORKS
WHEN IN ROME - Spring 2024
REPRESENTATIONAL WORK - 2020 to 2025 ARCHITECTURAL NARRATIVES
STUDIO PROJECTS
COLOSSUS, HUMAN NON HUMAN, CAMP AMERICANA, PERVERTED EPIDERMIS
COLOSSUS
project type: industrial maker-space a project in collaboration with Marlow DeGraw and Grace McCluskey
FALL 2023 - PROFESSOR JAMES ROSE
Appalachia found its roots in community and the act of making. This skill has been passed down through generations and across landscapes, trickling its way into culture as we know it today. East Tennessee can be characterized by its strong ties to the Appalachian landscape and Knoxville as a whole can be classified as a hub for making and assembly. This is brought to life in Knoxville’s Old City, where the intersection between new and old exists, and there is now a need for technological advancement in these associated industries of making, in which our solution is COLOSSUS. COLOSSUS is an architectural testament to the art of making physical objects of beauty. An ode to the maker-culture of Knoxville, Tennessee, the project is formatted as an affordable maker-space that will eventually catalyze an entire maker-district in the Old City of Knoxville. COLOSSUS is a hybrid of industry and commerce, accomplished through the placement of program, massive scale, and rigid modularity.
As an integrations project, many challenges presented themselves at the intersection of technology and concept. This intersection, however, proved to be the basis of our project: an industrial colossus based in its own structures, themes, and site. The defining characteristic of the project is one we dubbed as the notion of the “rift.” This idea can be defined as an instance where there is a separation between masses to create a moment of weightlessness. This relationship between rift and massive concrete creates a variable poiesis that sets the scheme of the grander project.
HUMAN NON HUMAN
project type: computationally manipulated meat processing facility a project in collaboration with Christopher Bahrke Jr. and Trevor Woodyard
FALL 2024 - PROFESSOR CATTY DAN ZHANG
Human Non Human is a process based iterative project addressing the role of automated processes in the architectural field. The project asks questions about automated and computational processes through the lens of designing a slaughterhouse in Union County, Knoxville, Tennessee. Human Non Human explores the relationship between computational and human processes, laying the foundation for how to approach the architecture: a body of work that is the result of the trade-off between human and non human processes. Through these exchanges, we were then able to establish form, program, placement on the site, construction details and more. To achieve this process, applications such as Midjourney, Meshy, PolyCam, Grasshopper, and Houdini were used, supplemented by human interventions. A typology the project returned to time and time again was that of Temple Grandin’s Serpentine Ramp. A weaponized form of architecture, the Serpentine Ramp is used to soothe and herd cattle towards their excecution: stunning, beheading, and processing. The somewhat gruesome and perverted use of architecture served as a basis for many of the questions this project is seeking to answer. By adding the additional layer of automated and computational processes through the lens of slaughterhouses, we open the door to what automation could look like on a massive scale.
selected pages from HUMAN NON HUMAN process document
selected pages from HUMAN NON HUMAN process document
CAMP AMERICANA
project type: speculative future research facility + mobile housing
FALL 2022 - PROFESSOR SCOTT WALL
Five silos haunt the coast of Douglas Lake as an unmistakable reminder of the past. When the Tennessee Valley Authority flooded what we now know as the Tennessee River Valley, thousands of families were forced to relocate and hundreds of farms were lost. The steadfast remnant of these farms: five standing silos. As the water level fluctuates throughout the year, other artifacts reveal themselves and tell the story of this generational site: foundations of old houses, broken ceramic dishware, and pieces of old farming tools. Once an area of domestic stability and permanence, Douglas Lake is now occupied by mobile homes and recreational vehicles that come and go. In a world of global climate crisis, Douglas Lake will serve as one of the few climate havens across America, a safe-haven for refugees of the climate crisis. My proposal, Camp Americana, is a preparatory camp anticipating the eventual dry-up of Douglas Lake by the end of the next one-hundred years. With increasing temperatures due to global warming, the earth will eventually succumb to drought and erosion. For Douglas Lake, this means a bitter return to the past in the face of disaster. Camp Americana is a live-work solution dedicated to preparatory research regarding the oncoming long term climatic disaster. The site is occupied by small communalstyle residency pods that are available to those working at the main research facility, as well as their families. All architectures related to Camp Americana on Douglas Lake are mobile so as to flex with the changes of the site that occur over the next one hundred years, along with the changes that Douglas experiences in just a calendar year. The culture of Camp Americana is centralized around renewal, a strong sense of humanism, and academia. This off-shoot of Appalachia will act as it always has: a haven.
THE PERVERTED EPIDERMIS
project type: wearable architectural prosthetic at the body scale a project in collaboration with Callie Walmsley, selected for Fall 2021 College of Architecture and Design Uber Review Distinction
FALL 2021 - PROFESSOR CAYCE ANTHONY
The Perverted Epidermis is a wearable architectural prosthetic that concerns itself with the plasticity of the human facade, the spectrum of projection, and the ultimate distortion of oneself. The human body is a trans-mutating architectural site that is infinitely subjective, deeply adaptive, and conceptually territorial. The fluctuating relationship between the “media body” and the “meat body” were two general territories investigated through material study and hand-tailoring, the cross-breeding of ideas under each category, and the in depth analysis of readings by Donna Haraway and Barbara Kruger. Material selections were made based on their porous, guttural, and flesh-like qualities [ TULLE, NYLON, LEATHER, INSULATING FOAM ]. Materials underwent an extensive experimentation process in which they were tested on their reactivity to chemicals, flexibility, and other extreme conditions. Only when materials survived this examination process were they considered for our purposes. The materials were then stitched, tied, and welded together, held by a central leather collar. Analytical drawings disecting each piece of the wearable were then done to document the construction of the piece. The Perverted Epidermis aims to explicate our current understanding of our shared, hybridized technological landscape as it permeates the physical and political, social, and cultural edges of the human body.
SELECTED WORKS
WHEN IN ROME, WORLD’S FAIR: PARAMETRIC TENT, ARCHITECTURAL WRITING, CURRENT ENDEAVORS
WHEN IN ROME
a collection of photos and drawings from the eternal city
analytical plan and section of Borromini’s forced perspective in Galleria Spada in Rome
plan of the Diocletian Baths in Rome
perspective of Borromini’s Sant’Agnese in Agone in
plan of Borromini’s Sant’ivo alla Sapienza in Rome
Rome
WORLD’S FAIR PARK: PARAMETRIC TENT
a proposal for the outdoor amphitheater in Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park using Grasshopper with Karamba plug-ins and V-Ray to create a tensile structure.
ARCHITECTURAL WRITING
from “Camp Americana” and “Perverted Epidermis”
CURRENT ENDEAVORS
I am currently in my final semester of architecture school at the University of Tennessee, pursuing my thesis titled: Bacchanalia: Modern Issues and Ancient Solutions
“ The fog hung low over the water, an oppressive, creeping mass that seemed less of a natural phenomenon and more a symptom of the place itself. It thickened the air, muffling sound and dampening warm, orange light, and gave the city a dreamlike quality - one of those dreams where the streets twist and fold back on themselves, and nothing is quite where it should be. My surroundings emerged piece by piece, the grim logic of their arrangement dawning on me only as I began to see them clearly.
Venice.
I had never been here before, though something in the bridges, the leaning buildings, the burbling canals felt familiar in the way a halfremembered story would. The wooden boats rocked dully against ancient stone walls, their movements slow and predictable, as if the water beneath them carried some sort of incantation of a dead language. ”