Partner Project - Aubrey Lassetter
The House of The People project consists of a system located in the Rocinha Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This system would create a space for the community of the favela to congregate for events, meetings, or any activities in their daily lives. It is broken down into three categories: The House (for the daily needs of the community), Self-Education (for study and teaching spaces), and Self-Governing (for the development of the community and decisions regarding the community). The approach to this project was to create a place that would be useful for the people of Rocinha while still allowing it to be appropriated in the future depending on this community’s needs and desires.
The walls of the system were designed by the elements of Indian Katta Kolam. Sample kolams were traced and analyzed to extract parent figures within the patterns. From these figures, 2 were selected to create interweaving patterns that produced a new composition that exhibited characteristics of Kolam.
Screen “Bulges” were created to develop separation of spaces while allowing interaction with the patterned screens. Depending on which screen the pattern was borrowed from, private and more public spaces were produced.
Opening Screen
Spear Screen
Free Screen
Uniform Screen
The bulges were taken to create a sense of “thickening” of the screen patterns, incorporating these patterns into a 3D form that connected walls to other walls or created pockets within a floor.
Bulges act as cutting tools on the floors to create a void space consisting of only framing. This framing allows for the community of Rocinha to use this space for any activity they need, leaving room for flooring and thresholds created by the patterned bulges.
This assignment’s goal is to demonstrate the grids underlying in all architectural designs and their quality of allowing creative liberty to add planes and create spaces. This aspect enables the use of grids to develop spaces with heightened functionality, and unique designs.
The purpose of this assignment is the exploration of color and how it is affected by hues, tones, tints, and shadows. The process to create the digital representations was to choose an analogous, triadic, or splitcomplimentary color palette to recreate a photograph of a previous exercise.
Triadic color palette
Analogous color palette
This exercise consists on the design of two apartment buildings contained within a limited space. The limiting walls are positioned 16 feet apart, with a length of 96 feet each. Within the site, there would be a garden existing on one side of the apartment buildings, while a plaza would exist on the opposite side.
These details were to be considered when developing the design in order to create a functional living space that takes advantage of its surroundings to create a logical arrangement of shared and private spaces.
This exercise was a variation of the Occupiable Walls exercise. The process began with a 90° rotation of the apartment building created for the Occupiable Walls project. From this rotation, the basic concept and form for this vertical tower was to be extracted.
The tower would then include a lobby, classroom and study spaces, a climbing wall for recreation, and 30 housing units which included bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and storage spaces. This exercise requires thorough planning for the efficient layout and design of all spaces, with a completely functional and purposeful arrangement.
Conceptual Sketches
The purpose of this exercise was to explore the qualities of point, line, and plane as seen in the natural world. As the exercise was developed and explored, the relationships between these three elements and how they interact with each other were discovered, as well as the balance created by these interactions.
Abstractions from References
ARCH 1016 - Foundation Studio I | Fall 2021
The excavation exercise had as a purpose to create a space which contained one big gathering space along with two small private spaces. The goal was to design a layout that provided clear circulation and entry to the space as well as its indoor and outdoor qualities.
The project acquires its name from the procedure needed to complete it. It consists on the excavation of ten layers of corrugated cardboard (12 feet underground) to create each space, and the intentional and efficient use of all pieces obtained by this excavation.
ARCH 1016 - Foundation Studio I | Fall 2021
This exercise serves as a continuation to the excavation assignment. Its goal is to demonstrate the inner workings of the design and spaces originally created in the cardboard model. It consists of two plan drawings along with four section drawings in order to graphically explain the structure of the space.
North - South Sections
This project had as a purpose to analyze and deconstruct the inner workings of kitchen artifacts such as pasta makers. The exercise helped develop analytical skills on the functioning of objects, which will later further develop into the functioning of architectural objects like doors, window frames, and flexible furniture. The assignment was vital for the practice and development of drawing skills, focusing on details, scale, and the introduction of axonometric drawings.
Front Elevation
Back Elevation
The Doris Farm project had as an objective to design a resort that focuses on a nature retreat which shows guests the history of the Black Belt in the South and the culture of Black Americans in the South. The exercise allowed for deep analysis of the site as well as research regarding the history of African Americans in the South and African vernacular architecture. The goal of the exercise was to design a site plan that included recreation areas, event spaces, restaurants, trails, and 30 cottages where guests had access to bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and a mix of private and social spaces.
Bed 1
Kitchen
Bathroom
Bedroom
Living Space/Dining
Porch
Working Space
Adjacency Matrices
Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom 2
Bedroom
Living Space/Dining
Porch
Working Space
34
Kitchen
Bathroom Bedroom 2
Bedroom 1
Living Space/Dining
Porch
Working Space
Bed 2
Bedroom 1 Bed 1
Living
Bath
Living Space/Dining
Porch
Conceptual Floor Plan (from bubble diagrams)
Floor Plan (furniture included)
Kitchen Porch
Comfort and privacy within nature
Working 17’ 20’-6” 8’ 12’
Comfort and privacy within nature
Floor Plan (furniture included)
Parti Diagrams
This exercise had a larger focus on the design of both single occupancy and double occupancy cottages. These had a limit of 250 sq. ft. and 350 sq. ft. respectively. The element of accessibility was thoroughly analyzed and made a priority for the design to be complete. As a result, the efficient use of space was vital, bringing forward the functionality of flexible spaces created by flexible and moveable furniture. The inclusion of private spaces as well as social spaces was developed to create the experience of a nature retreat that also allows for human connection.
Flexible Furniture Diagram
Single Cottage Plan
Single Cottage
Single Cottage Renderings
Single Cottage Plan
Single Cottage Sections
Single Cottage Sections
Single Cottage Sections
Sunrise
Single Circulation Diagram
provide an accessible and private space for retreat within the natural landscape of the Doris Farm site, while also designs include exible furniture, to create various uses for a space as well as to facilitate circulation and exible guests.
provide an accessible and private space for retreat within the natural landscape of the Doris Farm site, while also designs include exible furniture, to create various uses for a space as well as to facilitate circulation and exible guests.
Cottage Plan
Double Cottage Plan
Double Cottage Renderings
Double Cottage Renderings
Double Cottage Plan Double
Double Circulation
Double Circulation
Diagram
Diagram
Flexible Furniture Diagram
Double Cottage Sections
Double Cottage Sections
Single Cottage Renderings
Double Cottage Sections
1/4” = 1’0”
The approach to this project was to analyze El Lissitzky’s composition processes to borrow the use of affine transformations on different geometries. This allowed for a breakdown of shapes, lines, and patterns within his work to create a composition based on these elements of transformation.
The goal of this assignment was to build a roof structure utilizing a set of curves to create its shape, then repeating this product to elongate the system. This approach allowed for the building of an irregular structure that exhibited ceiling openings for lighting and a better circulation experience. The project was my first attempt at utilizing Grasshopper, it helped me learn new skills with the software as well as produce a structure with irregular geometries.
This project had a goal to analyze the structure and form of the “Los Manantiales” restaurant in Xochimilco, Mexico. By utilizing the findings from this study, a recreation of this structure was made using Grasshopper, to allow for the creation of variations by the manipulation of its parameters.
Variation 1
Number of curves reduced by half
Variation 2
Curve and center heights reversed
Variation 3
Number of curves reduced to 1
