Ghost Towns Mounds
MOUNDS
Collectives (2023); This group project done with Sydney Sinclair and Tara Grebe, under direction of Professor Kathy Velikov and Professor Jonathan Rule, is a new housing development in Port Austin around an artisan cheese space. The site takes the locally made dairy and uses the raw product to add value to the animal product and the local economy. The housing units are detached row homes that are organized around individual courtyards which bring light into the long units. The design also provides a space for gathering between neighbors. The cheese making spaces are covered under green roofs and surrounded by mounds to help regulate the climate of the cheese storage and distinguish them from the brick row homes. In this group project, my main roles were to design iterations of floor plans, build the models, and illustrate the large section cuts.
Image by Sydney Sinclair
Image by Sydney Sinclair
GHOST TOWNS
Ghost towns: apparatuses of preservation (2024); This thesis project with Professor Perry Kulper is a study in the acts of future preservation done out of necessity caused by the increased effects climate change which may make entire regions of the United States almost completely uninhabitable. This thesis uses three Sears catalogue homes as case studies of how a home could be preserved to compensate for the climate change conditions presented in that region. These three homes were then mashed together and compared to see how living conditions and important spaces that help define and encompass impactful memories of a space overlap, and how space can change due to memory, nostalgia, and acts of preservation.
PRAIRIE REVITALIZATION
Prairie Revitalization (2023); This proposal, with Professor Claudia Wigger, is for a rapidly expanding town in Iowa just outside of Iowa City. The land is currently a farm that has become surrounded by generic, repetitive suburban sprawl. With the increasing population, the farm has two likely options. It could continue to be a farm with dwindling quality in crop yields due to impacts of the surroundings, or to be swallowed by the duplexes and McMansions that are already encroaching. I propose a third option of reintroducing prairie landscape to the hundreds of acres with planned storm water flooding areas and integrating denser housing to help with the increase population in the area.
FOUND
Found (2022); This project, designed in Institutions Studio with Professor Peter Halquist, is an American Embassy in the capital of Brazil. The site is organized to utilize different wayfinding techniques that are accessible for those with different abilities, to traverse a space using different senses. These techniques include texture gradients, view lines, partial wall dividers, acoustic insulation, grid rotations, water runoff, and planed landscape. With these techniques one can use touch, sound, smell, and sight to find their way through the site. All this is used to make as many as possible comfortable and familiar with what can be an intimidating diplomatic space.
The site plan is formed using two grids. The first one in black is the business side of the embassy that includes the meeting rooms and conference spaces. The red grid is for the personal side of the embassy that is necessary for the staff to live and function on site. Where they intersect is where these elements of the embassy overlap in spaces such as the ambassador’s residence, that is both home to the ambassador, and also an entertainment space for visiting dignitaries.
NORTH CORKTOWN
North Corktown Development (2022); This is a proposal for new mixed use development for an empty lot in Detroit, designed by the VolumeOne Design Studio. The design of this proposal was led by the principals of VoumeOne Lars Graebner, and Christina Hansen, with some input from myself. I worked as the primary for modeling in SketchUp and floor plan layouts with VectorWorks, as well as assisting in the design process.
FOURTH FLOOR
THIRD FLOOR
SECOND FLOOR
FIRST FLOOR
FABRICAITON
Ceramic Facade System (2023); This group project with Joe Johnston and Jutang Gao, under the guidance of Professor Chris Humphrey, aims to simultaneously meet performance and aesthetic goals for a ceramic rainscreen facade system. A leaf-like design was created with Grasshopper that has different aperture levels that can increase and reduce the amount of shading on a building. The different leaf shapes were cut using a Kuka KR-6 Robot arm, using a custom water jet cut metal carving tool. They were then sliced out of the clay block and slumped over a piece of Polystyrene foam cut on the CNC Router at varying angles to give variety in both the porosity and depth of each individual ceramic part. These pieces come together for a new façade system proposal on the University of Michigan Art Museum, depicted by Jutang in the graphic. In this group project, my rules included proccessing the clay, assisting in the operation of the robitic arm, and designing the project proposal display.
Mycelium Lamp (2023); A small desk lamp designed under the instruction of Professor Glenn Wilcox. The stand consists of CNC cut plywood and laser cut acrylic, with an IKEA light bulb set. The shade is made using mycelium and hemp, then grown and formed to be draped over that small stand.
Ceramic Trio (2017); 15”x11”x4”
Ceramics with Professor Paul Briggs. Clay slab structure combining basic geometric shapes to create a more complex cohesive sculpture. Glazed using a bubble technique to contrast the shape of the sculpture.
Ceramic Cube (2017); 10”x9”x9” Ceramics with Professor Paul Briggs. A slab clay designed to create a negative space within the sculpture. Glazed to amplify the lines and surfaces of the work. Built to sit on a corner to suggest movement in a still object.
Small Wooden Stool (2024); A small scale stool created using a lathe and other wood shop tools. Made in a furniture design class with Professor Steven Mankouche. The design includes carved legs with a small foothold for at the front, under saddle style seat.
Large Wooden Rocking Chair (2024); A large redwood rocking chair designed under the direction of Professor Steven Mankouche. Handmade and designed to be a large recliner with a place to relax one’s feet on the edge of the large rockers.
