Open Loop Cohousing is an intergenerational housing project seeking to generate social symbiosis; an access to healthy communal living that fosters mutual aid, extended support networks, and spontaneous interaction which bleed into the greater context of Urbana, IL. Joined through a continual looping pathway, residents are connected to each other and the landscape as spaces expand and compress; ribbon-like forms cascade and secede into the landscape, blurring the lines between both building and terrain, and public and private space.
second floor unit module
first floor unit module
interlocking unit module: bedroom type
living / office common house
kitchen / dining common
KINNECT
Fall 2023
ARCH 371: Architectural Design & Urbanism
Professor Aneesha Dharwadker
Earl Prize Nominee
KINNECT is a proposal seeking to challenge the inflexibility of city infrastructure as a remedial response to building material immutability in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. Functioning internally as a library for construction and demolition waste, community members are encouraged to actively participate and interact in the movement and transition of city fragments as they are needed today. A third place for both the people and the city’s materials, the building envelope and its accompanying urban setting openly scripts and re-scripts itself in response to the phases of Albany Park. The building envelope extends as a moveable partition shell with three potential settings, each intervening with Lawrence Ave. as the city needs its streets. The front plaza stands as a flexible space for community gatherings and events, re-choreographing traditional American streetscapes. KINNECT pursues the agency in adaptation by questioning who cities and streets belong to.
A portraiture of the project site analyzing the agency of the people in coordination and in spite of the urban fabric. A focus lies in the delicate ways people find a voice within their immediate built environment in a holistic evolution of Albany Park through color; A historic neighborhood made colorful by its people.
TOP DOWN
THE CABOODLE THE GLISSANT THE ARMOIRE THE VITRINE THE WOOTON THE TREASURE CHEST
Re: STRUNG
Fall 2024
ARCH 473: ACSA Steel Design Competition
Professor Erik Hemingway
Earl Prize Nominee
Re:STRUNG is a Re:flection of music as light and light as music. A new amphitheater for “The home of Blues & Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Re:STRUNG gives new life to a city where steel has played a central role in the evolution of popular music and live music performance. Re:STRUNG utilizes the existing location of currently decomissioned Mud Island Amphitheater, a beloved space with Downtown Memphis and the Mississippi River as its backdrop. The new carbon steel pavilion pays homage to the city and the historical resilience and adaptability of Memphians through light, oscillating on a steel string tension system. Re:STRUNG expands on music as sound, including light and water as active architectural agents. Light and steel serve as a visual representation of sound; The Re:flexive quality and airiness of the steel structure creates a visual musical quality, reflecting the culture of Memphis as it sits along the Mississippi River. Providing an amplification for audiovisual events, the stage pavilion serves as a beacon in the night and in the day, creating dulcet daytime shadows and celebratory midnights.
Public Pipeline
Ongoing
Public Art: Illinois Art-In-Architecture Program
Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) Rail Splitter
North/ Southbound Safety Rest Areas
Could Be Design: Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison
Public Pipeline is a public art installation that transforms an interstate rest area wall into a celebration of public infrastructure and human connection. Featuring a vibrant array of oversized pipes and water fixtures, the artwork pays homage to the vast networks of utilities that support the interstate highway system and the essential services offered at rest areas. The pipes twist, coil, and loop across the wall, echoing the flow of water, energy, and movement that sustains travelers.
The 1:50 scale model carves out dynamic spaces that hint at miniature rooms, passageways, and landscapes, evoking the feel of a micro-city where the infrastructure itself becomes the architecture. This playful miniature realm reflects the larger purpose of the rest area, a place where travelers step out of the stretches of roadway to find a moment of refreshment, respite, and hydration. The water fixtures, spigots, and valves integrated into the artwork nod to these basic human needs, while also serving as touchstones for reflection on the unseen labor of infrastructure systems. By blending form, function, and fantasy, Public Pipeline provides an artistic pause where the functional merges with the fantastical, celebrating the interconnectedness of movement, sustenance, and play.
Personal contributions to this project include concept design and ideation, color studies, and fabrication of a 1’0” = 2.5” scale model for proposal.
scale model
interstate rest connection. artwork interstate The pipes the flow journeys. works—it within the that hint feel of a Through shelter, world environments. area, a stretches hydration. The these on the function, and pit stop, fantastical, play.
BACK PANEL TO HAVE 2” FRAME TO CONCEAL MOUNTING
HARDWARE; PROVIDE 1/4” GAP BETWEEN WALL AND ARTWORK
PIPES/FIXTURES/SCALE
FIGURES ATTACHED TO BACK PANEL FRENCH CLEAT STYLE
ALUMINUM Z-CLIP ATTACHED TO WALL AND ARTWORK FOR PERMANENT MOUNTING
IDOT
View 06 | Section: Installation Detail
View 07 | Elevation with dimensions
View 04 | Elevation Perspective
CRATE - TO - CRADLE
Spring 2023
ARCH 274: Representation
Professor Andrea Melgarejo de Berry
Crate-to-Cradle is an artifact-turned-marketplace in Urbana, Illinois. Focused on the formal exploration and deconstruction of a cube, the structure works to create a unified space for gathering. The primary atrium space emphasizes the verticality of circulation, encouraging movement in the car-dependent area. Complete with exposed cross-laminated timber framing, passive light filtration, and seasonally accessible pavilions, Crate-to-Cradle becomes a flexible, efficient, and sustainable farm-to-table market for the downtown area. This project is a direct continuation of Nest (see page 38).
Nest is a multi-scale fabrication project exploring stacking as a structural system. Beginning with a cube, Nest takes inspiration from a Russian Nesting Doll. Each module fits within the next, creating modular agency in complete subtraction. The final small scale artifact was individually fabricated as a 6-inch cube constructed in red oak and serves as both the basis for the larger model and as a stand alone evolving explorative piece. Through an 8-person group project, three weeks were divided into planning, drawing and constructing to develop a 4 foot interactive model. In pine board framing and strategic faces, each module is fully constructed and stands independently, utilizing a cantilever and counterweight. Nest becomes a communicative tool to teach students about physical behavior and spatial relationships.
