Site Analysis
Grafting Connections: Taking over Squirrel Hill
Throughout the semester, I unpacked the street scape as sites of opportunities focusing on how people, matter, and flux are connected through the notions of communication. To start out my explorations, I unpacked the rituals around a telegraph, how tapping, sounds, and people are connected. I used this to frame how my site the street of Murray avenue acts as a zone where various parts of the urban ecosystem such as birds, squirrels, objects, climate, and humans make contact. Building Facades, windows, doors, sidewalks, urban furnitures, electric poles, and streets becomes means for dialogues
The project uses this understanding to reclaim electric poles into a new infrastructure for territorial inhabitations, including homes for birds, play scape, and bus rests.
By reclaiming electric poles into spaces for co-inhabitation, my project explores how these ordinary leftover infrastructure can imagine new small scale forms of architecture.
Through the study of these invisible implied territorial zones created by claiming street objects, the project attempts to recreate new strategic zones of street connections to elevate new relationships.
The structure consists of three modules. As the structure grows in sections, the module becomes narrower and smaller allowing for smaller members of the ecosystem to claim their space on the street. This proposal tells the story of how architecture attempts to weave social-ecological relationships dealing with modular growth in reclaiming public territories.
Chez Pittsburgh
Our design is derived from our chef, Alice Waters’s ideology. Alice Waters is an author, food activist, and founder of chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. We focused on three aspects of Alice Waters ideology:
Firstly, Alice Waters believes in encouraging local vendors hence our design consists of an educational farm that attracts the vendors and establishes a connection to the building.
Secondly, she believes in connectivity and community engagement therefore we connected the educational and public space creating a dialogue between the two, even allowing the public to witness the learning happening in this space.
Lastly, Waters believes in reflecting on the culture of the space therefore our design will reflect the Pittsburgh culture to some extent.
Our site is in south shore facing the Monongahela River. Our site is extremely accessible through different sections of Pittsburgh and is close to two of the bridges across the river. It is also a very pedestrian friendly zone consisting of multiple bike paths, green zones, sitting spaces etc. It also has high accessibility to restaurants and commercial buildings.
Studio Name: Poiesis III
Studio Professor: Jeff King
Group Project with Tianshu Huang
McKinley Environmental Center
McKinley Environmental Center is a 4-story mass timber building located in McKinley Park in Beltzhoover Neighborhood, Pittsburgh. Our building descends to follow the slope and contours of the site allowing each floor to be on grade with entrances needed by code. Some particular features of the building include a cistern on the first ground floor, a mechanical room stacked on each floor, and a PV parapet roof.
The building integrates design strategies for the envelope, HVAC system, water, and energy use which aims for efficiency and low environmental impact to support carbon-neutral design.
It is designed to both educate and immerse its occupants with every visit, through an experience that emphasizes both the working systems of the building, as well as the natural beauty of this small pocket of Pittsburgh.
Our McKinley environmental center bridges the elderly center to Haberman green-way Allowing for connection to the general community of neighborhood, educational centers, and ease of accessibility as we have entrances on each grade allowing more connectivity to the nature. We have two main entrances using bridges, one perpendicular to the sidewalks, a street Bridge from Michigan st 3 floor and pedestrian bridge from Belmont street entrance on 4 floor.
Floor 2 is primarily classroom and conference space which emphasizes the overhang that immerses visitors and students into the surrounding environment.
Our third floor hosts our street entrance facing the neighborhood. It also includes our staff where they have access to a kitchen. It is a more secluded space, but all floors are
and elevator.
Central Vista Avenue
During my internship, I assisted in India’s largest project, which is the redevelopment of its administrative capital. I specifically worked on Central Vista Avenue which is the space between the India Gate and the Rashtrapati Bhawan, This space consists of a range of features now that make it even more appealing and enjoyable for the public. It consists of better pathways, allocation of vending zones, and more green spaces to create more space for India’s large population.
Each tree on this site was examined, based on which in various places, trees were excavated, and new and more trees had to be planted. This also helped elevate this public space. In addition, even the administrative buildings were redeveloped keeping in mind the existing/ surrounding building materials.
Firm Name: HCP Design, Planning, and Management
Studio Head: Vipin Gupta Internship
Proposed Master Plan
The central secretariat houses all the ministries of India. This site plan is one of the central secretariats out of the 10. The exterior resembles the other buildings around it to create a common visual language.
This elevation shows the central secretariat 10 (CCS 10) compared to the India Gate indicating the height will be less than 41.9 meters, which is less than India Gate hence in the skyline India Gate will stand out. (All buildings designed for this project will be shorter than India Gate)
This drawing showcases the use of red sandstone which is representative of Indian culture as this material is derived from nature, it is readily available in India, and it has a long history: since it is so easily available in India, most famous historical buildings such the sheesh mahal, red fort, and many more are built using this material as it is also cheap and durable.
Lobby of CCS 10
MATERIALS & ASSEMBLY FALL
DRAWING KEY:
1. GRAVEL BACKFILL
2. DAMP PROOFING
3. RIGID INSULATION
4. FOUNDATION DRAIN
5. ANCHOR BOLTS
6. 10” CMU BLOCK WITH REINFORCEMNT
7. SLAB TO WALL ISOLATION JOINT MATERIAL
8. CONCRETE SLAB
9. VAPOR BARRIER 10. CAST IN PLACE CONCRETE SPREAD FOOTING 11. REINFORCING STEEL FOR FOOTING AND WALL
GRAVEL BED
UNDISTURBED SOIL
MATERIALS & ASSEMBLY FALL 2021 ASSIGNMENT # 1 rimasach@andrew.cmu.edu
W1 12x22 Secondary Steel Beams 3. W1 16x50 Primary Girders 4.