The design proposal for a virtual mural gallery utilizes the adjacent walls of the neighboring buildings as spaces for digital art work. Rather than defining a set studio space, the volume is flexible with no formal boundary between patron and artist. The tiered series on inhabitable slabs are situated in a way to provide visual connection between the two sides. The project is divided into three modules with grated transition spaces in between so that users can move from one program to the next. The module located in the back of the site, serves as the central circulation area where users can go between floors. These volumes break up the space in the vertical direction and provide variety within the layered slabs.
The natural properties of these transition spaces filter daylight and lend to the lightness of the project, as light perforates through on the grates connecting the ground plane to the roof plate. The use of slabs, thin columns, and beams also emphasize the lightness of the project with the art as the focal point rather than the structure.itself. The tectonic upper is juxtaposed with the stereotomic lower basement cut into the site. The basement contains private areas such as bathrooms, offices, and storage.
The zoning map of Bogotá, Colombia investigates the socio-spatial patterns of the zoning policies in place that reproduce and reinforce uneven development and social inequality. This uneven development manifests itself both socially and spatially at multiple scales and illustrates how the distribution of power between private and public entities establishes itself in the spread of new development and built space.
The scale comparison maps analyze the density and spread of urban programs in cities around the world compared to a site in Bogotá, Colombia. Compared to the density of residential neighborhoods in Portland, Oakland, and Santa Cruz, it becomes clear that the residential neighborhoods in Bogotá are designed as city blocks as opposed to individual units. However, the density of Bogotá is more spread compared to the megablocks in Berlin and Madrid.
Ampitheater
This proposal works to undermine the socio-spatial patterns and policies in place in Bogotá, Colombia that reinforce uneven development and social inequality by investing in a public development project between two middle class stratas. Bridging the gap between the two neighborhoods separated by a highway, the public pavilion provides community members with public amenities including showers, laundry, bike racks, market stalls, and community spaces. Formally, these programs cling onto the top-down, winding infrastructure that serves as the circulation path.
WETLANDS
Wetlands are ecosystems such as swamps, marshes, or bogs covered intermittently with shallow water or have soil saturated with moisture.
•Flood Prevention: “Wetlands trap and then slowly release rainwater, snowmelt, groundwater, and floodwater. Trees and the roots of other plants slow the speed of runoff and distribute it over the floodplain.
•Biodiversity: Wetlands are key habitats for fish and wildlife.
Freshwater Wetlands Act of 1975 intent to preserve, protect and conserve freshwater wetlands and their benefits, consistent with the general welfare and beneficial economic, social and agricultural development of the state.
(Source: NYSDEC)
BIODIVERSITY
Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all it's levels, from genes to ecosystems.
HUMAN IMPACT ON WETLANDS
•Humans have significalntly contributed to the detorioration of wetlands through land development, agriculture, water pollution, air pollution, and the introduction of invasive species.
•Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of naturally occuring events hurting many ecosystems including wetlands.
INVASIVE SPECIES
•An invasive species is an organism that is not native to a particular area and causes environmental harm by altering the ecosystem.
• On the site, algae is an invasive species.
•Ecosystem services: Humans rely on services ecosystems provide such as freshwater, pollination, soil fertility, food, and medicine.
•Reduces disease: there is a close link between disease outbreaks and the degradation of nature.
•Solution to Climate Change: Biodiversity reduces carbon emissions by storing carbon, and provides a buffer to extreme storms and flooding caused by climate change.
•Economic Incentive: Our economy relies on biodiversity as commodities.
Of the 160 threatened or endangered species identified by the NYSDEC, 50% are wetland species.
RARE ANIMALS
Rare animals are listed by NYS as Endangered Threatened, Special Concern, or Rare.
RARE PLANTS
Rare plants are listed by NYS as Endangered Threatened, Special Concern, or Rare.
Site
State Regulated Freshwater Wetland
State Regulated Wetland Checkzone
Freshwater Emergent Wetland
Freshwater Forested/Shrub Wetland
Freshwater
Rare Plants or Animals
On Architecture’s agency to undo human harms
This project explores the agency architecture has to restore the natural landscape closer to its pre-existing form in order to undo the harms humans have done. Although this is impossible due to climate change and other irreversibilities, it is still beneficial to try to the extent that we can in order to preserve what we have left. The idea is to allow nature to heal itself through limiting human intervention and human interaction. This is done by having strict boundaries between the parts of the site humans can enter and what’s left to nature. This hand-off approach restores the site into the original wetland habitat which will naturally encourage biodiversity and help with the issue of endangered wetland species. Restoring the wetland also addresses the site’s flooding issue as wetlands naturally serve as flood prevention. g
The goals of restoration, preservation, and healing are translated into the architecture. The system is a series of boardwalks raised above the ground to minimize the structure’s direct impact on the landscape. The boardwalk is a pathway through the site’s connective programmatic spaces meandering around the preexisting natural obstacles avoiding contact with natural boundaries. The series of metal arches over the pathway serve as a metaphorical cage trapping the human into space so they can’t interfere with the exterior. Additionally, the programmatic spaces are covered with a cage facade, again reinforcing the narrative of explicitly separating humans from nature. These cage forms also encourage foliage growth onto them, as plants can climb up the cage and engulf the structure. Overtime, these cages will be overgrown with foliage, and metaphorically is a way for nature to reclaim its territory.
The floating micro home contains three modules supported by a series of plastic pontoons on a steel truss system. The birch lattice diffuses sunlight into the rooms covering both interior and exterior spaces. Using scalability, the module has the potential to multiple and link together to form communities of different sizes.
Rigid Insulation
Birch Plywood Metal Framing
Double Pane Window
Birch Plywood Rigid Insulation
Birch Lattice
Glass Underlay Solar Panel
Birch Plywood
Rigid Insulation
Birch Plywood
Rigid Insulation
Steel Piping 0 5
Steel Epoxy Coating
The project is located in Syracuse, NY on the site of the controversial Columbus Statue. The proposal deemphasises the site as a symbol of stolen power by removing the statue entirely and replacing it with a public pavilion that aligns with the social goals of the socio stratified neighborhood. The circular amphitheater space is built through the tiering of concrete circular structures. Levels are tilted on an axis for accessibility purposes and to allow the user to meander around the tiers before arriving into the central space. The arrangement of columns provides visual connection between the modules in the public market place while still defining space and limited access.
The landscape of the Yellow Pine Pit in central Idaho has been a wasteland ever since the gold pit mine was abandoned during the 1940s and has recently gained interest by the antimony extraction company Perpetua. This design proposal is a research center and living space that questions how community is built through the lens of a capitalist society.
