Sara Gonzalez Selected Works 2022-2023
01 Annotate fillm stills of myself acting out the verb “to fold” with a baton strapped to my arm
Studio 1B. Circulation Exchange Circulation Exchange considers design through human movement. The form itself is an extruded annotation of myself acting out the verb “to fold”. This market and dance studio in LA’s Chinatown expores how prospective customers move in relation to commodity - by either circulating around it (as in the market) or within it (as in the dance studio). This idea of moving in, around, and through is expressed through a central passage core and translucent mesh facade. What emerges is a space that becomes a dance, where program mixes, and circuation becomes the commodity.
02 Layout annotations in single diagram, noting endpoints and time
Studio 1B. Circulation Exchange
03 Connect annotations using arcs
04 Isolate top portion and consider as figure-ground
Ground Level
Model Interior
Interior Render
Model Exterior
View from Chinatown Plaza
Culture is fostered through flexible, public creative spaces intended to spotlight local artists
Local business becomes elevated through centralized spacesdesigned to aid small businesses and local workers
NOMA Student Competition 2022. Elevation Park
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
In the 1960’s, the City of Nashville built highway I-40 through a prominent space in the Black community: North Nashville. This community was known as the “Black wall street” of its time, a cultural Mecca founded upon a thriving music industry and prominent spaces for Black education. The construction of I-40 fragmented what was once a united community. Access between schools, churches, and local businesses were cut off and the value of the land fell. In recent years, the City of Nashville has been looking to correct the wrongs inflicted upon the community by proposing the construction of a bridge across the highway. Elevation park is a proposal of this.
Resturants Coworking Space Offices Conference Room Vendor’s Market
Education is promoted through specific spaces designed to provide resources and pique curiosity
6. Recording Studio 7. Amphitheater 8. Sculpture Garden 9. Pavilion 10. Performance Space 11. Playground
12. Museum 13. Computer Lab 14. Library 15. Classroom 16. Community Garden 17. Museum Offices
Local Businesses
Elevation Park is not a bridge, but a conjunction: a web of connection that spreads and bends into the local community, healing the cut I-40 inflicted and returning the land it stole. Elevation Park’s unique park-conjunction typology provides public, accessible points of connection for North Nashville, promoting cultural expression, equitable education, and local business.
5
North Nashville doesn’t need a bridge, it needs its land back.
Religious Centers 9
7
8
17
1
Schools 14
13 16
15 6
4 2 3
Connect
Widen
Thicken
Spread 11
10
Pull
Push
Punch
12
Rooftop Park
Ground Level Circulation
Underground Museum
Elevation Park honors North Nashville’s past, equips its present, and secures its future. An interactive, underground museum walks patrons through the area’s rich past, providing a foundational understanding of the context. The ground level serves to equip the community at present through learning and business spaces. The rooftop Park provides the means for a sustainable future. Raingardens, solar panels, and passive cooling openings set a precedent for sustainability in the community.
Animation
Photoshop Render
Paper Translation
R=6
Visual Studies I. Cloud Loom Cloud Loom is an exploration of lightness and heaviness. It takes what is traditionally light (a cloud and a woven pattern) and combines it with material solidity and thickness. The result is an uncanny object, something tangibly solid that looks as if it is being hung or draped.
R = 1.18
R = 1.17
Weave Diagram
Woven Chunk
Traced shadows from existing school and neighboring Prospect Park trees
Gropius’ Flexible Elementary on site
Isolate main block
Double, bend, and add smaller scale
Trim
Studio 2A. The Extension The Extension approaches the traditional elementary school as an urban park: a point of interest that inspires curiosity and play in an otherwise predictable cityscape. It serves as an extension of neighboring prospect park and connects to it orientationally, visually, and experientially. A central corridor running through the middle of the campus with an amphitheater embedded between serves to connect the school, the community, and the park. When approached, the elevation gives the appearance of a tree canopy, due to layered masses that hang over the learning spaces and thickened columns that give the impression of tree trunks. Finally, The Extension embodies the park in experience. The classrooms themselves become points of interest through the ceiling. Layered masses derived from the shadow patterns of the trees in Prospect Park hang over the learning spaces, disrupting a predictable, gridded ceiling structure. These curious hangings incite curiosity, therefore drawing students into the classrooms to see them. The Extension then becomes not only a school, but a place to treat like a park: a space to play, a space to explore, a space to learn.
Roof, structure, ceiling, walls, facade, site
East Elevation
Main Corridor
Approach with View to Park
On site
Classroom
Traditional Apartment
Rotated
With Porches
NOMA Student Competiton 2023. The Porch Porches are incubators for those who have been excluded from the public space. Albina has historically served this purpose for hte Black community in Oregon, as a home for the unwelcomed. I-5, Memorial Coliseum, and Legacy Emmanuel Hospital took away this space.“The Porch” re-interprets traditional porch spaces that serve as a transition space between the public and private. Extruding the site and hollowing it, we create public space. This space, however, can only become a porch when connectred to the surrounding urban fabric. This Transitional Space is then classified into 3 teirs: the public, the semi-public, and the private to foster various relationships and connections throuhgout the complex.Affordable units are partitioned from the outside by colorful fog catchers inspired by the vibrant colors of Albina’s neighborhood porches. The water collected from these feed community gardens situated within pockets of the mass of units. These units are wrapped by a series of elongated porches which deviate from the traditional interior hallway to produce an atmosphere where a neighbor gets to know a neighbor.
4th Floor
3rd Floor
$557/month
$612/month
Ground Floor
$906/month
$1025/month
Looking out to courtyard
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Animation
Fog catcher screens transform Portland’s fog into water for community gardens
Southern Exposue in Courtyard
Winter (Green) and Summer (Blue) Shading
Central void with community gardens
Model South Elevation
ALLEY
EL +45’6”
EL +45’6”
2
Unit Unit
Stack Stack
Rotate Rotate
Repeat Repeat
EL +45’6”
EL +44’6”
EL +43’3”
EL +43’3” EL +1’0”
1
EL +3’0”
EL +40’
EL +42’4”
EL +47’2”
EL +39’9”
EL +5’0” EL +35’
EL +35’
3
EL +37’2” 5
4
Unit
Stack
Rotate
Repeat EL +23’6”
EL +23’6” 6
EL +34’7”
EL +39’8”
EL +41’
EL +44’6” UPHOLSTRY
STORAGE
8
EL +0’0” 7
EL +12’6”
EL +12’6”
EL +46’6”
Cut
Bound
Repeat Horizontal
CUTTING/SEWING
RECEPTION
EL +42’3” 9
Shear
Repeat Horizontal
Wrap
1’
Cut
Bound Studio 3A The Urban Mountain
The Urban Mountain, a housing complex situated in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, seeks to bring the exclusive ammentities of the LA foothills to the flats. Trails, teetering houseplots, views, and the illusion of privacy are brought to the city by a mountain that touches down in a new, urban context. The monolith of the mountain is broken down by the arrangement of the units themselves. L-shaped units rotate and stack to produce a porous mass. In this mass the architectural unit and the housing unit are no longer synonomous, with dwellings occupying multiple architectural units. The main circulation of the complex is relegated to the exterior, creating a circulation belt that partitions the dwellShear ings from the outside world. The Urban Mountain then turns inward, where balconies and gardens fill the pores. The slopes of this mountain provide optimal orientation for solar panels while also guiding rainwater. This rainwater is then stored in part of the facade made of pvc water bladders, the remainder of the bladders serving as insulation. These water bladders then feed into vertical farms that occupy pockets in the complex. The peach, plush appearence of these bladders juxtaposes the sharp, angular form of the massing, creating a warm, welcoming softness.
Dwelling unit facade use
5’
1. Unit H Living Area 2. Unit D Entrance/ Bedroom 3. Unit C Bed Loft 4. Unit G Balcony 5. Unit C Balcony 6. Unit G Living Area/Bed Loft 7. Unit B Living Area 8. Unit F Landing Floor 9. Unit A Balcony
10’ 1/8”=1’0”
ADAMS BLVD.
Ground Floor
5th Floor
Roof
Wrap
Front Elevation
Back Elevation
North-facing Section
Unit E 616 SQ FT
Unit C Built-in Desk
Unit C 950 SQ FT
East-Facing Section
Unit C Living Room
Unit H 706 SQ FT
Mesh Facade
Plush Skin
Entrace from circulation belt
Community Amphitheater
Interior Balconies