2024 Architecture Portfolio - Grace Ruddy by ruddy.g

ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

Grace Ruddy

GRACE RUDDY

Northeastern University Candidate for B.S. in Architecture Minor in Urban Landscape Studies ruddy.g@northeastern.edu (603)-728-8442

Living With Nature:

An Urban Walk Up Housing Prototype

Designing with the Past:

A Historically Mindful Walk Up Housing Prototype

Setting the Stage: A Recycled Wood Theater Pavilion

Free to All:

A BPL Chinatown Branch Library Proposal

Serving the Community: A Public Rest Stop and Pavilion Proposal for Chinatown

Organizing the Office: Variations of Office Space Design and Layouts

Lighting the Way: Using Signage and Lighting to Activate a Facade

The Mother Stair: A Thick Thin House Design

The Climb: A Raum Plan House Design

Living With Nature: An Urban Walk Up Housing Prototype

This project sought to create a walk up housing prototype module that would house Northeastern graduate students and Boston residents on two sites with a street between. The design was to address both sites and the street, creating a narrative for living. The key goals in this design was to provide residents access and interaction with sunlight and nature from every unit; create compact units to maximize both space for nature, windows, and code capicity while still meeting the varied needs of the residents; and reflect the surrounding building typology of bay windows and brick facades to blend the new architecture into the existing fabric of the neighborhood.

South-East Site Axonometric

Designing with the Past: A Historically Mindful Walk Up Housing Prototype

This project sought to create a walk up housing module for a site along Barnstable Road in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The goal of the design was to go above and beyond the standards set by the Hyannis Historical District design guidelines, primarily by paying homage to the famous Cape House design and aesthetic. The classic gable roof and dormer was imited for the third story of the buidling, creating division and variation in the large front facade. The addition of the historic Widow’s Walk was used to hide mechanical systems while still providing easy access for maintenance.

Setting the Stage: A Recycled Wood Theater Pavilion

The project focused on public pavilion design, but with the added twist of material and design constraints. The pavilion was to be designed using only the materials available from deconstructing a precedent pavilion, and the design was to reflect the themes of precedent in some way. In the case of this pavilion, based off the case study of the CCP Pavilion in Chile, it was built using pine wood and constructed as modules. The new pavilion was designed to serve the users of a local park as a stage backdrop and seating to inspire performance arts in the area.

Fragment of 3 Modules

Free To All: A BPL Chinatown Branch Library Proposal

This project explored library design, in terms of both form and program. Using a real site in Chinatown, the goal was to create a Boston Public Library branch library to serve the Chinatown community, with both a library and an outdoor community space. The main concept of this library was the adaptation of a traditional Chinese screen design into bookshelves, using the stack screens as program dividers, structural elements, and aesthetic design. To contrast the complexity of the screen and keep the main focus of the design, the overall building form is simple, with directionality for both sunlight and views.

Serving The Community:

A Public Rest Stop and Pavilion Proposal for Chinatown

Restrooms

Dining

Program Diagram

This project looked at the design of public spaces, specifically pavilions and restrooms. The goal was to design a year-round public rest room integrated into a seasonal pavilion that met a need of the Chinatown community. This pavilion was designed to act primarily as spaces for dining, to serve the numerous restaurants and shops surrounding the site. The form was inspired by traditional Chinese courtyard style homes and the Vitra Design Museum. The cutthrough guides circulation through the site, while the open nature of the pavilion encouraged interaction from Hudson Street.

Organizing the Office: Variations of Office Space Design and Layouts

The office is often seen a necessary evil by most, but it is also a space in which many workers spend the majority of their week. With the right design, an office space can be transformed from a place that is dreaded into a place that is productive and lively. Office space should be design with the office workers in mind, to make a space that best serves their goals and caters to productivity. Of course, office space design is constrained by the boundaries of the tenant space, requiring clever and often inventive spatial problem solving. It is good practice to present a company with multiple designs for a space to give them ideas as to all the different ways a space can be shaped and find what fits their needs best.

Lighting the Way: Using Signage and Lighting to Activate a Facade

View

With this project, the client wished to address the issue of a large blank exterior wall facing a busy highway. The goal was to use signage and lighting to advertise the building and attract customers to its many businesses. The sign announced the address, while the use of lighting worked to both illuminate the sign at night and also work to break up the monotony of the long wall. The trees acted much the same, adding some decoration to the wall and the hill in front of it, and breaking the wall up into sections. The trees, like the sign, were to be lit up at night.

The Mother Stair: A Thick Thin House Design

This project explored thick thin in residential design. Using the case study of Louis Kahn’s Dominican Motherhouse to shape serving space, scaling down the individual buildings into rooms, and using it as a core like in free plan. Raum plan was also used, with the center of the serving core being a staircase, and each space having a different level. Spaces were defined by a combination of the core serving space and the varying floor levels. The circulation was defined by the major route, the central stair, to main spaces and secondary routes to more private areas.

The Climb:

A Raum Plan House Design

This project explored the concept of Raum plan in residential design. Inspired by the classic canal houses of Amsterdam and the Loba House by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, this design used half of the given site to maximize natural light and outdoor space. Slight level changes were used to manipulate ceiling height and define spaces, as well as accomate the slope of the site with minimal need for regrading. The major level changes defined private versus shared space. Together, both the minor and major level changes work to create a gradiant of program and privacy starting at the entrance and flowing to the top of the home. There was also an emphasis put on vertical structure, with walls extending from the ground floor to the roof.