Robert Morgan
Portfolio
Spring 09
Below The Surface
Thesis Project
Tribeca Film Festival
Comprehensive
Fall 09
Spring 08
Sala Conerti Pre-Comprehensive
Fall 06
Brooklyn Housing Studio III
Spring 07
Clover St. School Studio IV
Spring 06
Stoppages Studio II
Fall 05
Aarnio’s Retreat Studio I
Fall 05
Highline Gallery Studio I
Fall 05
Form Generation Elective
Below the surface
1 Machines and architecture are concealed inside a packaging that hides the mechanism and tectonics that should fashion them. The proposal seeks an architecture that is readily open to interrogation, fiddling, and having the mechanism typically hidden be exposed. An intrusion that calls for the removal of the surface to reveal the complexity of what's behind it. Space - an electronics peripheral workshop. Dynamic in that it's dismantling reveals the guts and the inter-working misaligned elements of the architecture. Elevating the program somewhere above the ground plane to carry on the obsession, desolate, taking place above the stratum where repetitive rituals of daily life take place. A desire for control, not pure functionality, implicates the occupant with its use. A mechanism with the occupant being the operator. An operable machine that turns the typically stationary into mobile space. Architecture is the rearrangement and reassembly of the materials of the world; placing the will of the occupant and his body in direct contact with the operational aspects of the architecture. The outer structure a descriptive index of alignment and symmetry, rational and hyperefficient - the engineer's handicap. The inside shell, a dynamically stiff space, highlights the contrast between the architect's intuitive design process and the engineer's obsession with efficiency and alignment.
Workshop Open Field The occupant/client is an electrical engineer by trait, focusing on controls systems. One who is obsessed with alignment and control. Intent can be coded into the computer but for an obsession with control and alignment the occupant must be a part of the machine where his input along with the collection of subassemblies in this contrivance dictates the space. The manipulation is directed through controllers which manipulate the inputs to a system to obtain the desired effect on the output of the system. Control Engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamitic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. These devices manipulate, manage, and command the behavior of other devices and systems. Treating building as a verb, movement is a means by which the architecture can be manipulated and configured giving the inhabitant the ultimate level of control over the space and flexibility so that the inhabitants will be enforced over the author's creation. Criteria to be considered: operable, inoperable, manipulation, control, input, output, assemblies, subassemblies, building (verb), standardization (of lighting, structure, etc.), texture, color, lighting, exposure, concealing, patter, materiality, alignment, misalignment, stationary, modular, continuous, edge/corner condition, fragments, realignment, connections, programmed, automation, direct manipulation, natural, artificial, fixity, mobility, dynamic, static, kinetic, imaginary, artificial, permanent, temporary, joints, packaging, unique, repetitive, reusable, rhythm.
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Tribeca Film Festival
9 Eisenstein wrote that the thoughts and emotions of spectators can be directly controlled through the rhythmic patterns of film form. The vertical dimension of film is the blending of image and sound. The horizontal dimension of film is the spatial organization of actors, objects, and settings in front of a camera and in-frame. Its formal aspect, the montage, is the linkage of shots and sequences shown in rapid succession. To achieve the strong rhythmic pattern, Eisenstein used clearly defined individual shots. Eisenstein argued that the key to a successful montage is linkage, arguing that separate strips of film were building blocks that, when arranged in a series, could expand upon an idea.
Theatre Tribeca New York, NY
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Sala Concerti
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The proposal for the Concert Hall dedicated to Antonio Vivaldi attempts to reinterpret the pathways, narrow streets, and alleys of Venice so as to use circulation to choreograph movement through the site. The pedestrian thoroughfares are used to link the program pieces together and mediate between public circulation and private program. Typical of Venetian architecture, servant spaces are located on the ground level and served spaces are placed above. The programmatic functions are translated to linear members to maximize the surface of contact with the outside in order to engage the Grand Canal and Fondamenta. The extroverted spaces are placed along the edges of the site to internalize the open space and wrap around the main function, the concert hall. The green screen walls delimit the site’s east and west boarders to separate the public and private worlds, with the concert hall being the core.
Vivaldi Concert Hall Venice, Italy Prof. Michael Zdepski
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Brooklyn Housing Project
23 “At the macro scale, densification becomes a way toward a more enlightened use of limited resources. Regarding housing, increased density is achieved through the introduction of new housing into existing infrastructure contexts. Since taxpayers typically pay for the expansion of infrastructure systems, housing built within existing contexts of infrastructure call for less public, or taxpayer, investment, while over the long run consuming fewer natural resources, thus benefiting the longer term prognosis for both national and global health.� Porosity was the concept explored for the Brooklyn housing project. A subtractive process was used to carve out communal space for the residents to enjoy the various amenities added to the restrictive program, including a day care center and an inclusive public space. The notion of individuality, one that is rarely undertaken because of the repetition needed for efficiency in housing, was studied with the desire to create unique apartments each with a view and layout that does not repeat while retaining the benefits of repetition by using the same elements.
Housing Project Brooklyn New York Prof. David Cunningham
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Housing Project Brooklyn New York Prof. David Cunningham
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Clover Street School
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The proposal for the Clover Street School creates a public facade for the institution along Clover Street. The Clover Street Elevation displays the ascending process a student would make through the grade levels, with stacked seating from each house to the next. The space is meant to engage the faculty and the students as they approach the school, creating a public exhibit space where the students can see the city and be seen from the outside. As a path, it extends upward symbolizing a typical student’s progression. The school is arranged in a way that allows the three houses to become a part of a single organization, allowing shared use of this space during Move-Up day where the students are elevated up one level, also allowing for the event to be seen by the public. The design allows for the school to present itself as a public organization, visually connected to the exterior where the ceremony can be seen from the street, engaging the public and making a public exhibition of the ceremony.
School Ironbound Newark, NJ Prof. Darius Sollohub
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Clov
ver Street School
Stoppages
The object, named stoppages by Marcel Duchamp, served as the major inspiration for the project. The object itself consists of three pieces of wood cut to the pattern of a length of string which Duchamp claims to have dropped three times. The resulting pattern is thus a random distortion of a straight line. Then they were stuck to the surfaces without any adjustments to the curves that chance dictated they fell into. The project aims to establish an oasis for the artistic community coming into Jersey City, as well as to create a gathering place for the residents of Jersey City, utilizing the idea of these stripes as the ribbons that generate the public surface above and shelter the programmatic elements below.
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School Ironbound Jersey City, NJ Prof. A. Soltani
The landscape aspect of the project will serve as the public place for assembly, while the program underneath remains more private. The roof garden will remain public, creating a place for discourse among the visitors and encourage them to lounge before and after set performances. The program layout aims to change the streetscape of Jersey City, where the gallery, retail, and cafe would engage the pedestrians and draw them into the more private portions of the program, including the two theaters.
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Highline Gallery
41 The initial concept for the gallery project was the extension of the highline, the idea of what the highline will become a public walkway. That then translated into a public staircase adjacent to the building, providing an additional entrance to the highline from the street level. The frame was done in such a way to provide maximum free space within. The open space this created was then subdivided into single display spaces using moveable partitioning walls, allowing the gallery to adapt to the next designer’s display. The partitioning walls were then extended to the outside on ground level to engage the public before they visit the inside of the building and underneath the highline. The stairs and all circulation were kept light and open by using transparent glass. The glass facade facing the highline and the street also eliminated the feel of a physical barrier between the inside and the outside.
Gallery Highline New York, NY Prof. E. Jackson
Eero Aarnio’s House
The Globe Chair was based on Aarnio's idea of what he described as a room-withina-room in that it is its own space, isolated from what is around it while at the same time being a part of that larger room. The overall design used this idea of a room within a room, a space within a larger whole. His globe chair creates this intimate feeling and private space while at the same time being a piece of furniture or a piece of the larger room, giving the freedom of designing each space individually, just what it needs to be and not a part of a larger floor plan but a part of a larger room. The three major components were the working area which includes the mourning office space and studio, the hallway which serves for circulation as well as physically separate the private from public, and the kitchen and bathroom space which is entirely private. The overall layout of the spaces allows the house to server as a means of getting from the very top of the site down the steep slope allowing Aarnio to walk the rest of the site without the need of a set path since the house itself can be used to move down the steepest part of the site. The three walls, or the larger room, frame the view of the landscape. It takes the designer away from the street adjacent and opens the property itself to the view of the river.
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Residential New York Prof. E. Jackson
Form Generation
Generative Design Prof. Andrzej Zarzycki
“The outside is not a fixed limit but a moving matter animated by peristaltic movements, folds and foldings that together make up an inside: they are not something other than the outside, but precisely the inside of the outside.� Gilles Deleuze
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Permutations Prof. Wassim Jabi
Digital Techtonics
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ROBERT MAGDY MORGAN Contact Information 58 Baldwin St. Bloomfield, NJ 07003 P. 862-215-3086
| E. robrmm4@gmail.com
| W. www.designedbyruby.com
Summary • Currently: Designer at Testrite Visual • Past experience: Architect Assistant with Yanku Architects | Summer Internship with Appel Design Group • Dean’s List • Selected Exhibitor: Works showcased at end of the year exhibits for NJSOA Technical Skills Proficient With: • Rhino • SolidWorks • Photoshop • InDesign • AutoCAD • SigmaNEST Working Knowledge: • Revit • 3DS Max • Illustrator Other Skills: • Model making • Rendering • Web Design and Content Management • Fluent in English and Arabic Education BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE, 2009 NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, New Jersey School of Architecture - Newark, New Jersey Experience TESTRITE VISUAL PRODUCTS, Hackensack, NJ Designer, Sept. 2009-Present • Designing and rendering marketing solutions to prospective clients. • Implemented use of Renderings and Assembly Drawings utilizing Rhino and SolidWorks in combination With Photoshop and InDesign. We are now able to provide renderings and assembly instructions along with BOM to our clients and manufacturing facility. • Drafting prototypes and refining the design in collaboration with the engineering teams and supplying our vendors with appropriate working drawings. • Initiated and currently maintaining Testrite’s Image Bank to share with our sales team and clients. • Acted as In-house Webmaster. Collaborated with Wed Designer on rebranding company website and initiating our reseller website program. APPEL DESIGN GROUP, Union, NJ Internship, summer 2008 • Documented existing site conditions, prepared presentation boards for prospective clients. • Designed alternative schemes for residential houses under the guidance of the project architect. • Updated red-marked drawings. • Assisted project architects in residential and commercial projects using AutoCAD and Architectural Desktop. YANKU ARCHITECTS llc., Montclair, NJ Architect Assistant, 2006 • Responsible for computerizing drawings for the Moore Residence project. • Performed site documentation and dimensioned existing conditions for residential projects. • Conceptualized alternative schemes, worked on varying phases including: Pre-Design Phase, Schematic Design, Design Development, and Construction Documents. • Illustrated alternative design schemes using 2D drawings and 3D digital models.
rm Robert Morgan | (862)215-3086 | robrmm4@gmail.com | www.designedbyruby.com