Discipline: ASU Architecture Journal 05

discipline

Student Journal Architecture Program at Arizona State University Spring 2019 | issue 05

Pivot In its historical declaration of servitude, the architectural profession has branded itself master builder in antiquity, and more recently, server of extravagance, often available only to the upper echelons of modern society. Buried beneath and obscured by misconceptions of mere blueprints and sketches lies the vigorous discipline of Architecture, delineated by paling perimeters of authority and dictated by autonomous creative agency. Today, we play witness to a paradigm shift in the definition, or lack thereof, of architectural discourse. Members of the profession are fervently pioneering multivalent practices, latent in archaic canon and decrepit familiarity. Architecture is no longer confined to concrete walls, but is now, more than ever, consumed through digital media and conceptual platforms alike. This year, we have given extensive thought to how discipline not only illustrates this pivotal moment in Architecture, but also empowers architects to assume command from our position of passive subservience.

Preface | A letter from the editor

This year marks an exciting milestone for Discipline – we have made it to our fifth publication. The first four years saw our journal growing exponentially year by year, further establishing it as a tradition for our generation of architecture students at The Design School.

Although still in its infancy, Discipline has found readers across the globe through print and digital media. Just like anything worth designing, our committee knew we had to evolve this journal to its next form. In doing so, Discipline has made its way through yet another iteration and a drastic one at that. This edition brought about a world of change.

First, our year started with Phil Horton, Discipline’s initial mentor, passing the torch to Marc Neveu, our new Architecture Program head. Marc brought with him a wealth of knowledge from his experiences not only teaching at the university level, but also his years as Executive Editor for the Journal of Architectural Education. Next, our group was encouraged to question the experience of our journal. As much as we adore the previous generation — much of it still lives on in this rendition, we looked to make Discipline feel more accessible. We chose to scale it physically to something that would fit better in our readers hands. We made changes to the paper and printing methods so they wouldn’t feel too precious. We truly wanted to make this a publication that can be used often by our readers, not solely for reading material, but to take notes, scribble in the margins, see where your ideas compare to the rest of our design community. Lastly, we knew there was something we could not venture from. At its core this journal is meant to empower design students, granting them access to a platform that not only showcases their works, but allows them to share their ideas and most importantly gives them a voice to discuss the future of their profession.

This has been a fantastic year to be editor! Change can definitely be scary, but more often than not, necessary. I would like to thank my mentors Phil Horton, Marc Neveu, and last year’s editor Brittany Bailey for believing in our committee, trusting we would do our best to represent our program and students well. My hopes for this journal are that students continue to see the value in their ideas, and that the publication continues to grow with the next generations of ASU designers.

Editor, Hector Diaz

mentors: marc neveu | philip horton | brittany bailey cover art by: amy dicker

Our resolution was to find ways in which conventional processes of design through rationalism deny the possibility of change within our discipline. Approaching research and design non-linearly extends the reach of our practice to a larger audience, issuing social change, engagement, and connection through non-conformity. Together we’ve discovered the notion of architecture not as a service to a client, but as a right for humanity with social implications beyond its physicality.

The making of Architecture and Architects should not be limited to the construct of a building.

Architecture is an agency for change and an exploration of expression through various disciplines and cultural world views. Though the role of the designer continues to change, the explication of the work still brings to the forefront a capacity to think critically and interpret both individually and as a union.

Therefore, we call upon our readers to understand how we, as designers, are capable of a Pivot between Research and Design, Transformative Agency, and Re-Engagement, in hopes that we are liberated from architectural complacency. By arousing our dormancy, we foster an inevitable sense of uncertainty. This uncertainty is paramount, as it leads to curiosity and ideation. Thus we allow ourselves to be seduced by the sirens that exist outside of the realms of design, trailblazing avenues beyond the traditional constraints of a one dimensional designer.

Discipline Committee, Isaiah Jones-Lane – 5th Year Representative Shasta Percival – 3+ Year Representative Brandon Wayne Powell – 4th Year Representative Nasrynn Chowdhury – 3rd Year Representative Meriel Vogliotti – 2nd Year Representative

A letter from the committee

As a diverse amalgam of individuals, we strive for and revere a resolute sense of solidarity through collective ambition. The content of this year’s issue of Discipline, however, necessitated a bit of independent introspection. In order to articulate the ever-changing role of architecture within a broader context, we were individually compelled to ask ourselves what role we aimed to fulfill within architecture and design. Whether it is a thinker, a problem-solver, or a political advocate, we ultimately recognized that the current multiplicity of Architecture cannot be circumscribed within a single mission statement, publication, or profession.

Contents

Devonshire Narrative Arts Center Christina Lufkin

8

Kolumba Housing Quiara Caguiat

9

Assyrian Community Center Geeso, Patrick

38

Liber.Teca Leonard, Siebrecht

40

Interview with Bundy, Rocchi, Shekerjian Nasrynn Chowdhury

42

Vidamos Galapagos Global Engagement

10

Interview with Josh Greene Shasta Percival

12

How to Disappear Completely Bundy, Rocchi, Shekerjian

46

Women in Design Conference Brandon Powell

15

50

The Movement of FABRIC Shasta Percival

16

NAM – Native American Museum Tara Drue Nez

52

Back to the Roosevelt Oscar Jin

18

Dobson Village Christopher Fernandez

53

The Salk Institute and Origins of Neuroarchitecture Erin Bascom

20

D Tower | Concrete Susan Liu

54

Underwater Museum Oriana Gil-Perez

21

Optimizing Technology for Architectural Purpose John Meunier

58

Eco Space Jones-Lane, Harvey, Hays

22

Cultivating Future Alejandro Lobato

59

Thread Machine Travis Rosenlieb

24

Parable of Permeable Brennan Richards

60

Baseline Melange Jules Byers

26

Arata Isozaki’s ‘City Demolition Industry Inc.’ and ‘Rumor City’ Christopher Landry

Desert Bacteria Amberley Johnson

28

Sonder Nasrynn Chowdhury

63

Interview with Marc Neveu Brandon Powell

30

Subvert[ere] Brandon Wayne Powell

64

Playscape Ke Zhang

32

66

FABRIC Tucson Amalia DeSardi

34

Thunderbird School of Global Management Parris, Raccosta, Sanchez, Strauss

68

Homo Rodans, 2018 Bundy, Rocchi, Shekerjian

36

Interview with Bryan Maddock Meriel Vogliotti

70

[alt] phx Camille Medeiros

71

Some Assembly Required Bundy, Clutter, Medina

72

Blank Slate Salley, Sarkar, Wu

74

Interview with Diane Jacobs Isaiah Jones - Lane

76

San Luis Port of Entry Alisa Hernandez

79

Southwest Micro Living Design Build Exhibition

80

The Revolt of the Masses Joe Pritchard

82

Cluster Melissa Quinones

84

Performance of the Hat Jessica Tsepal

85

Non-Referential Architecture Landry, Vogliotti

86

Barrio FABRIC Douglas Lusson

88

SunGap Nhu Le

89

Meanderings Boyana Babanovski

90

Agro-Dwelling Javier Carrasco

91

A Day in Little Fred’s Life Atziry Madera Sabido

92

Catano Wetland and Hurricane Recovery Center Wang, Wang

94

Studio Leads

City as a Frame Amy Dicker

Beau Dromiak Katherine Dudzik Smith Michele Fehler Heidi Fischer Thomas Hartman Philip Horton Victor Irizarry Bryan Maddock Elizabeth McLean Scott Murff Darren Petrucci Elena Rocchi Karin Santiago Brie Smith Catherine Spellman Max Underwood Claudio Vekstein

Christina Lufkin | Studio

Instructor: Phil Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Devonshire Narrative Arts Center

A new typology is proposed for a community center that emphasizes storytelling and literacy as a means to engage and strengthen local identity. The project is situated along the Arizona Grand Canal in the Devonshire Neighborhood of Central Phoenix. The program consists of a writing and resource center, a computer lab, a bookshop, cafe, and gallery space, each of which encircle the focal point of the project, a courtyard intended for hosting community-centric events.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

8

Quiara Caguiat | Studio

Instructor: Thomas Hartman Year Completed: Fall 2019 Project Name: Kolumba Housing

Kolumba housing is located in Phoenix where the history of the city inspires the design of the project. This multi-family housing project consists of 10 units; a combination of two loft units, four 2 bedroom units and four studio units. The design is inspired

by Native American dwellings, where thick walls and smaller windows are utilized. It also draws inspiration from Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum. It mimics a plan of a hacienda where the units wrap around a large courtyard that all the users of the space can share. A design trait in the project that makes it unique are the tiny openings in the wall. They not only filter light, but at the same time filters sound and air to each unit, much like the dwellings of Native Americans before. Each unit has their own private garden. The pathways where most of the users proceed have the “Kolumba Boxes” or light experience over them. These light boxes come to life in the evening, as people walking by the housing complex can see these boxes turn into lanterns, with light coming from the units themselves and solar light attachments.

Not only is this project a dwelling where people utilize and own space for comfort and relief, it is at the same time providing a unique experience of light and a structure that reminds people of a part of Phoenix history.

9

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Galapagos | Global Engagement Studio

loop system. Every resource is accounted for, being consumed by some entities, and replenished by others. Beautiful because it is one of the most delicate balancing acts in nature, a curse however if there is a break in the loop – most catastrophic when the break is introduced by an outside force.

Instructor: Petrucci, Fehler, Fischer Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Vidamos

In September 2018, a group of 23 graduate students and three professors from The Design School at Arizona State University had the opportunity to travel to Santa Cruz island, the second largest island in the Galapagos archipelago. The thesis for the semester was to design a wellness center for the islands aging population while referencing biomimicry as a design strategy.

The initial reaction to the studio project were preconceptions of designing a clinic or hospital as defined by our notion of western medicine. We were shocked to learn the intricacies or what a real wellness center in this archipelago would truly need to be.

What was once a virgin, harsh, and extremely delicate ecosystem has been impeded by human influences. These islands do not have an indigenous human population. Everyone who lives there is a transplant, most from Ecuador, but some as far as Europe, and Asia. The first generation of these immigrants are “aging out�, considered third age and useless. Thus they need a place to focus on their wellbeing.

This is where our challenge began.

We could not simply design a wellness center for human use, if this was to work we would need to fit seamlessly into the existing systems, taking what we need, and replenishing what we use.

The Galapagos Islands are formed by a series of hot spots at the equator approximately 1000 km west of Ecuador.

To this day, the islands remain some of the most isolated places on Earth. This seclusion was the catalyst to some of natures most extreme and unique evolutionary adaptations in history, and more glorious to witness first hand, as the stories we were told when studying Charles Darwin and theories of evolution in grade school could hardly do them justice. We found creatures like the marine iguana who adapted to swim in salty ocean water to feed. Various species of giant tortoises whose shells morphed allowing access to food sources at different elevations.

We even witnessed the only penguin found north of the equator basking in the sun before swimming to catch its next meal.

Our approach was to develop a system that would allow Galapaguenos to have a role in their community, economy, and their personal health.

Vidamos is an economic strategy that leverages Eco-tourism, helping to prevent financial leakages and redirect it back to the local population. This would require a network of hot-spots including farms, wellness centers, and tourist excursions mindful of the island ecologies. Any structures would need to be resource efficient looking to the islands to provide the building materials and methods while avoiding the import of exotic materials. The studio

The beauty and curse of island ecologies is their necessity to be a closed DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

10

developed a construction typology where in its purest sense could be constructed with a back hoe, and concrete mixer. We propose to use the land to form a series of wallows and mounds. The wallows, a habitat for native wildlife like tortoises, and the mounds to be concrete forms, poured over and the negative volumes to be excavated once the concrete has cured.

We set out to create a place of retreat and wellness for the islands aging population, but found we could not do so without addressing the system as a whole. It would be like treating only the symptom of a patient without properly diagnosing and treating the cause.

11

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interviewed by Shasta Percival

Josh Greene | Interview

Josh Greene is an alumni of Arizona State University and current designer at MASS Design Group in Kigali, Rwanda. While studying at ASU, Josh was awarded the Sean Murphy Travel Grant which enabled him to study social housing innovations in Chile. This unique experience fostered Josh’s enthusiasm of social impact design and his belief that architecture has the ability to create social change.

MASS Design Group is a non-profit architecture firm started in 2008 by a group of Harvard students to first design and build the Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda.

Today, all MASS projects are mission-aligned and continue to champion social justice.

MASS believes that architecture is a powerful mechanism that projects beyond walls and into the lives of communities and people.

How has working in Rwanda changed your perspective on architecture?

My time in Rwanda has shown me that architecture is much more than just design. Architecture is a living and breathing system, where every decision has an impact on either the environment, the people, or cost.

For example, on our current project we knew that we wanted to build our roof structure out of wood, rather than imported steel, or concrete that performs low in embodied carbon. Wood is more replicable for people to build in the rural context, speaks to the program of a conservation agriculture school, and highlights our narrative of building the school directly from of the earth. However, we are currently running into difficulties sourcing wood in Rwanda that meets our specifications. A large portion of our structural system was based on a kiln that dried wood at four meter lengths, but the supplier can no longer provide the species we need in large quantities. This led us to source a majority of our timber from Tanzania, with a much larger environmental cost due to the transportation needed, and doesn’t impact the Rwandan economy.

Most of all, we realized that if we found it difficult to design and source timber within Rwanda, it would be near impossible for any other designers or contractors around the country to do so as well. As we are moving forward with our design of the agricultural school, we made it imperative to replant the amount of trees that we used to construct the buildings. The trees will be a showcase of how much timber went into the school, will encourage the education of sustainable timber harvesting methods within the curriculum, and perhaps yield enough material to design an equally sized project 30 years from now. It is this systemic approach to wicked problems that I have fallen in love with and has opened me up to the intricacies of decision making that I will carry through the rest of my life.

What lessons can be learned from Rwanda? How do architectural needs and the role of the designer differ from Rwanda to the United States? How are they the same?

The school of Architecture in Rwanda is only about 11 years old, and with the inherent challenge of rapid urbanization and population growth on the continent, their focus is vastly different than a Western designer. This young generation of architects is challenged to not only create beautiful design, but also to solve some of the largest problems in their country.

This challenge forces Rwandan designers to be creative and think locally DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

12

due to context and cost. The result is one of the most incredible a makers economy that I have ever experienced. Here, a window is not something you pick out of a catalogue, it is custom made by a friend of a neighbor who has a precarious spot welder in the back of their shop. This deep knowledge of every aspect of the building allows architects to think more critically about detailing, materiality, and building sequencing. Designers from the United States can benefit greatly from this thoughtfulness of this process rather than the general disconnect before a product arrives on site.

What is the political climate like in Rwanda and how does that work for/against MASS Design Group’s mission?

Rwanda is the most stable economy and non-corrupt country in East Africa. We are able to do what we do because systems have been put in place that are more efficient and equitable than surrounding countries. As a landlocked nation, without any mineral deposits, the government understands that country-wide success will only come with an investment in human capital, evident in the services and resources available for a profession like architecture to thrive.

How important is the voice of the public during the design process, especially for projects geared towards social justice?

It is essential for an architect to be culturally proximate by immersing themselves in the context they are designing in. To be culturally proximate, architects must seek community input, ask the right questions, and build consensus among the community. Although this process has proven to be time consuming, expensive, and at times uncomfortable, it is essential to the long term success of a project.

Community engagement workshops greatly Increase likelihood that a project is accepted, while empowering people of different backgrounds.

The act of community input releases the power from the architect and the system, and gives it back to the community. At MASS we believe that “architecture is a physical manifestation of the power relationships in our world. It reveals the political, economic, and cultural priorities of those who have the privilege to build�, (MASS Manifesto) and participatory design is the best way that design can redistribute power and resources to communities traditionally overlooked.

13

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

How can social justice move to the forefront of architecture in the United States when many clients primarily focus on economics and efficiencies?

People are fixed on the idea that you can only have one or the other. You can either save the environment, or save money; you can either do community engagement or reduce a project timeline; you can have a project focused on social justice, or one focused on beauty. New practice models are needed to remove these “either-or� scenarios, and move towards a mindset where one is necessary for the other to exist. The public must not be forced to decide between justice or beauty. For social justice to move to the forefront of architecture, the public must see the two as inseparable. We must move toward a mindset that justice is beauty. To do this, we must educate our clients on the importance, and long term benefits to a social justice approach so that the public demands more from the architectural profession.

MASS Design Group is largely comprised of young professionals. What do you see as most promising in the new generation of architects and designers?

I see the diversity of our profession as the most promising aspect of this new generation of architects and designers. Working alongside architects from Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, and all edges the continent gives me hope that our profession is going to evolve into creators of diverse responses, and place based work. The lived experiences of this new generation of architects is diverse in every sense of the word, and they will soon prove to the design community that they not only belong, but are better suited for the majority of work that arises in this century.

How has your education at ASU influenced your endeavors?

What advice do you have for current students?

I am a large advocate of ASU as the New American University. Because the university is defined by those they include and how they succeed, the resources at ASU are unprecedented. There are an extensive amount of disciplines, passions, and resources on campus all geared toward student success, regardless of your passion. The fact that I was able to take courses in the School of Sustainability focused on sustainable international development, and take that knowledge back to The Design School is incredible. And even more amazing, are the resources within The Design School like the Sean Murphy Travel Grant, or independent design-build courses that were available for me to push those ideas architecturally. I would highly recommend current students to take courses outside of the design school in areas that are genuinely interesting to them. Weather its sustainability, political science, or dance, that perspective will forever change the way you approach projects. Some of the greatest designers at our firm have an undergrad in literature, worked as a nurse for a few years, or moonlight as spoken-word poets, and their perspective greatly enhances their design ability and approach.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

14

Women in Design Conference | Event

Event: Women in Design Conference Date: March 15, 2019

On March 15th, 2019 the ASU Design School Student Organizations of LASO, AIAS, AIGA, IDSA, ISA, ASLA, SOWA+, and others hosted a Women in Design conference as a first step to facilitate the conversation and connection between ASU students and local professionals.

The goal of the conference was to bring together students of ASU with local female professionals of their respective fields who are role models, outstanding mentors, and strong advocates to up and coming designers in the field, as well as to show the wide range of opportunities which professional women in design have available to them.

The speakers included graphic designer Amy Robinson, interior designer Kathryn Decker, landscape architect Allison Colwell, architect Karin Santiago, and industrial designer Kerry Brennan.

Graphic Design by Amanda Gomez

“We are the future, and if the future looks as supportive as we are, then the future is beautiful!.�

-Oriana Gil Perez

From left to Right: Brandon Powell (AIAS President), Kelsey Keber (Industrial Design), Oriana Gil Perez (Event Lead), Kathryn Decker (Interior Design), Kerry Brennan (Transdisciplinary Studies), Amy Robinson (Graphic Design), Karin Santiago (Architecture), Allison Colwell (Landscape Architecture), Nenwe Geeso (SOWA+ Co-President), Stephanie Hernandez (ISA President), Brett Cordova (ASLA).

15

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Shasta Percival | Studio

Instructor: McLean, Smith, Underwood Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: The Movement of FABRIC

As an extension of FABRIC Tempe, a fashion incubator and community resource, FABRIC Tucson aims to expand its brand to historic Barrio Libre. This project serves to maximize the strength of FABRIC’s networks both inside and outside property lines via movement.

“A site activated by movement provides opportunities for people to meet, engage in conversation, and build relationships to foster a sense of community.”

Using network theory as a foundation, this project features polarized programmatic “nodes” placed slightly out of convenience to encourage interaction in the mapped “day-in-the-life” of designers (red), employees (yellow), and the public (blue) diagrammatically coded.

From complex movement studies emerges a single diagonal path that cuts the neighborhood block. This walkway bisects the internal network of FABRIC with the public interface.

Large pivot gates guide foot traffic from the sidewalk to the path, lined with adjacent classrooms, workshops, retail, and manufacturing. At night, this path also serves as a runway for models to showcase the unique garments crafted there.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

16

17

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

This project is designed for a single family and the client’s intentions of preserving the historic area along Roosevelt Street. Drawing inspiration from the art of James Turrell, this project maintains characteristics of his art work while combining with local history utilizing architectural elements to create a two-story modern home. The design starts considering user experience through plan, while the exterior profile and structure are derived from shifting boxes. The client desired this project be urban, compact, and an integral part of the urban fabric. Other elements would provide different experience of light and space while proceeding through the project. Openings of light make the interior more spatial while their collection of James Turrell art would add a deeper sense of culture. Furthermore, this project is intended to stand as a new edition to the history and an irreplaceable element on Roosevelt Street.

10’

N. 9TH. ST.

Sustainability Narrative This project is about preserving the history along Roosevelt Street in Phoenix. According to The Roosevelt Neighborhood, a website for the Roosevelt Action Association, this neighborhood began in 1867 when John William Swilling and a party from Wickenburg settled along the lower Salt River.

In 1884, more architectural material could be transported to Phoenix because of the completion of the railroad through Phoenix.

Over time, the Roosevelt Neighborhood became a large community, however began a decline in 1960 due to a freeway expansion plan. The freeway demolished 3000 house, and downtown started shifting toward the northeast side of the city. Luckily, community leaders realized they needed to rescue and preserve these historical districts. With development of Downtown Phoenix, the Roosevelt Neighborhood, nowadays, is still irreplaceable in this big city community. Looking back to the history, the city and Roosevelt historical district have been through a lot. To be a conscious designer of this project it would need to maintain a consistency of tradition with other neighborhood homes, such as local plants, material, and structure. However, at the same time, the project would combine both historical culture and modern element to become a special residential architecture typology in this districts history.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

20’

40’

E. ROOSEVELT ST.

18

N. 10TH. ST.

Oscar Jin | Competition

Advisor: Thomas Hartman Year Completed: Fall 2019 Project Title: Back to the Roosevelt

19

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Erin Bascom | Essay

Title: T he Salk Institute and Origins of Neurorchitecture Year Completed: 2018

Beginning with Jonas Salk and Louis Kahn, a new approach towards design was created, an interdisciplinary one that combines neuroscience, physiology, and psychology. Their ideas laid the groundwork for defining a new discipline that will eventually produce a much healthier world. The research being done in the field of neuroscience will provide a new understanding of how our built environment affects our bodies and minds to then be implemented by architects and designers into their work.

This developing interdisciplinary approach towards architecture could ultimately result in a more thoughtfully designed world that is mindful of real human experience.

Winston Churchill once said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” This was a core understanding that Jonas Salk embodied when he sought architect Louis Kahn to design his institute. Salk worked with Kahn to design the Salk Institute as a research center where the built space would enhance intellect and creative ability. Not only was a revolutionary institute constructed, but a new way of approaching architecture was born. Salk was ahead of his time in using neuroscience for architectural design, and even today, nearly half a century later, is the field just beginning to take off.

In the last decade, this way of approaching architecture has begun to gain popularity and momentum within the field and architectural education. Neuroscience, the distinctive responses that occur in our brains — “consciously and subconsciously, cognitively and physiologically” — can be researched and a better understanding of the relationship can be had. For example, experiments have revealed that humans are drawn to vertical-axis bilateral symmetry as seen in animals’ faces. This attraction is not just an aesthetic preference; our neural system seeks out these features in the environment. A building’s entrance is reminiscent of an open mouth, symmetrically positioned details as eyes, noses/nostrils, ears, etc. These specific neurological preferences are present in many traditional and vernacular architectures. Contemporary architecture has strayed from these vernacular architectures towards image-based attitudes which are dominated and promoted by architecture prizes, institutions, publishers, and international commissions. Abstract expressionist aesthetics have become the “cutting-edge” and this newly accepted design typology is far from traditional and vernacular typologies in which our neurological preferences are present.

“The collaboration between neuroscience and architecture can provide a new depth of information about how we ‘perceive, imagine, interpret, and respond to buildings.”

Modern architects are being trained to have an inclination towards forms and shapes that would otherwise repel humans. Research has shown that “architects exhibit contradictory signals in their neurological responses to shapes and environments… this cognitive phenomenon is reminiscent of schizophrenia and results from conditioning.”

Abstract design exercises instill a subconscious preference for industrial forms, non-convex spaces, textures, and materials of industrial modernism that normally alarm us. Traditional architectural training and education teaches young architects to override intuition and natural responses. “Training to design the same industrial boxes (or warped distortions of them) downplays and ignores learning from our body’s responses to environmental stimuli and from vernacular architectures.” Our “evolving understanding” of the brain-environment connection reveals an increased need to attend to our neuro-physiological preferences.

The collaboration between neuroscience and architecture can provide a new depth of information about how we “perceive, imagine, interpret, and respond to buildings.” This developing interdisciplinary approach to the design of the built environment could ultimately result in a more thoughtfully designed world catered toward the human experience. Jonas Salk would be pleased to know that the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) is continuing the collaborative research that he started and their annual conference is held at the Salk Institute.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

20

Oriana Gil-Perez | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Underwater Museum

Tortuga Island is located in Venezuela. It is a paradise that is slowly growing. If it is not controlled, its large coral reef could be affected by pollution, global warming, overfishing, coral bleaching. PH neutral precast concrete meshes and art pieces would be placed under the water of Tortuga Island. These PH neutral concrete pieces ensure the natural adhere of corals on the corrugated concrete surface. The variety of coral colors, fishes, and precast concrete art pieces would create a colorful, and live exhibition while bringing awareness. Art pieces, corals, and fish make this museum unique of its kind. Raise environmental awareness, control the growth of the island, and guiding tourists to the underwater museum instead the natural growth coral reefs located on the other side of the island is the ultimate goal of this underwater coral museum. This could be replicated in touristic areas were coral reefs are at risk.

21

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Jones-Lane, Harvey, Hays | Studio Instructor: Catherine Spellman Year Completed: Fall 2019 Project Title: Eco Space

This is Eco Space, a civic center located in South Phoenix. The center focuses on the connection between the community and natural systems to promote health and wellness.

spaces and yoga studios to gathering spaces promoting community engagement.

They promote health by encouraging movement up and down, and throughout the spaces lined with native vegetation.

Inspired by the art installation Breathing Lights, which breathes life into abandoned and overlooked spaces, this project looks to breathe vitality into this vacant space and promote prosperity in the community.

The function of rainwater capture by the roof at the New Artist Residence is carried over to this project. The Eco Space roof reflects the undulations of South Mountain along the horizon. It provides shade for outdoor spaces and shelter the conditioned spaces while gathering and guiding air through the site by way of solar chimneys.

The building uses multiple strategies with form, orientation, material, and energy provided by the sun, to move air, filtered through vegetation and cooled by water, throughout the site. Conditioned spaces are minimal and range from private meditative

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

22

23

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Travis Rosenlieb | Studio

Instructor: McLean, Smith, Underwood Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Thread Machine

FABRIC Tucson is an expansion of a thriving zero-minimum fashion incubator in Tempe. As the next iteration of this ground-breaking model, FABRIC Tucson is ready to lead the way into the hyper-local, adaptive, and well-being focused economies of the 21st century. The expansion of the Tucson chapter affords an opportunity for architecture to empower its vital mission.

Thread Machine looks to take the agility and innovation which made FABRIC Tempe a success and adapt it to the socioeconomic and historical contexts of Tucson’s Barrio Libre.

“Driven by the client’s need for deep programmatic flexibility and mixed-use spaces, Thread Machine aims for an architecture which moves at the speed of fashion.”

The use of historic materials and techniques offer an envelope which respects historical context, while a spacious interior volume and variable geometry of a large gantry crane facilitate the creative ambitions of the clientele. By allowing the building to change its interior dimensions day to day, FABRIC Tucson will be better able to take advantage of local partnerships and opportunities as they arise. The open-ended approach to programming and collaboration is demanded by the rhythms of design and fashion at this scale, better equipping designers to transgress the horizons ahead.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

24

25

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Jules Byers | Studio Instructor: Claudio Vekstein Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Baseline Mélange

resulted in a final influencing composition.

An exploration of Marinilla Educational Park (Antioquia, Colombia, El Equipo de Mazzanti 2016) as a structural case study was conducted. Two- and three-dimensional drawings were created to document and understand the structural elements of the building, along with an analysis of the social justice impact of the project. Multiple iterations of the structural drawings were repeated at scale onto the South Phoenix site, treated like a pattern. Similarly, a study was conducted of the art piece Freedom is Back (Phoenix, Arizona, Fortoul Brothers, 2018) and its relation to social justice. Again, multiple iterations of the art piece were then overlay onto the site and structure to create more compositions. The final composition was manipulated in three dimensions. This final manipulation ultimately became the starting point for the Baseline Mélange design.

The Baseline Mélange offers the South Phoenix community a space to bridge athletic and social activity. In a community with economic, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, this space offers unity. The program consists of large focal dance spaces and indoor and outdoor pools. Dance and swim serve as equalizers that foster physical activity while stripping away social barriers. These large focal spaces act as public plazas for both the design and community. Smaller, support programmatic elements surround.

Just as swim and dance strip away social and economic status, unnecessary material is stripped away from the design. The exposed structure and abundance of glazing offers a sense of stripped-down transparency and visual connection between the community and the facility.

The design process included iterations of layered case-study compositions that

3

2

1 5

Site Plan

1 2

Swimming Pool Water Filter

DISCIPLINE

3 4

Canal Pool Deck

SPRING 2019

5 6

5 4

Parking Dance Space

26

6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12

up

Entry Cafe Kitchen Administration Dance Space Dance Studio Mechanical Indoor Pool Sauna Locker Room Lifeguard Break Event Space

Level 02

11

12

9

10

9

10

1

2

8

6

5

1

6

up

7

1 4

3

2

Level 01

Section A

South Elevation

27

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Amberley Johnson | Studio

Instructor: Bryan Maddock Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Desert Bacteria

This project looks at the evolution or deevolution of Suburbia through the return to a natural, desert environment. This is a community focused on remaining hidden, compact, and untouched — ultimately, digging themselves into the ground. This not only creates a folding, wave-like landscape integrated with the desert, but works to combat rising temperatures of the future.

UNIT TYPE B UNIT TYPE A

GROUND

unit type a

underground level

ground level

unit type b

ground level

slope level

underground level unit plans 1/4” = 1’-0”

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

28

UNIT TYPE B UNIT TYPE A

GROUND

unit type a

underground level

ground level

unit type b

section 1/8” = 1’-0”

29

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Marc Neveu | Interview

Interviewed by Brandon Powell

Marc J Neveu is the Architecture Program Head in The Design School at Arizona State University and was previously the chair of both graduate and undergraduate architecture programs in the School of Architecture at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. In addition, Neveu is a Fulbright scholar, coeditor of Architectures Appeal (2015), and the Executive Editor of the biannual peerreviewed Journal of Architectural Education (JAE).

As program head, Neveu has shifted his vision towards building a program at Arizona State which will continue to be relevant in practice, important in education, and meaningful for students long beyond their time in studio.

As a Fulbright Scholar and published editor, can you talk more about the origins of your own education?

I received a B.Arch from the Wentworth Institute of Technology, which at that point had a co-op program, meaning I had to work during the summers.

My father lost his job in my last years of high school, which meant that we didn’t have a whole lot of money to pay for college and it was important that I worked. As well, I understood my degree as a means to getting a job. I was lucky enough to work with Bruce Wood Kallmann McKinnell & Wood in Boston. The year after I graduated I got a call by the director of Wentworth. He called and asked if I would teach a second year studio, and through a good mix of ignorance and arrogance I said, “Absolutely I can do it!” I had no idea how to teach; and I taught the way I had been taught. I don’t believe I was a very good professor that semester....

Anyways, I was very interested in theory, and I had it set in my head that I was going to grad school. I was incredibly interested in the work of Alberto PerezGomez who happened to be at McGill University in Montreal. After visiting the university and viewing the program, I began my one year post professional M.Arch, which was followed a few years later with a PhD. I did work, but my professional education has led me to a very different sort of job, indeed!

Can you discuss an early experience with teaching, and what made you want to teach?

After finishing my M.Arch, I continued to teach. There was one experience in particular which has stayed with me. I was on a review with a colleague of mine, and at the end of one particular student presentation he stated to the student, “You might want to think about becoming an accountant.” The student was totally deflated. Reviews continued, and a couple students later he then said, “I want everyone to look at this work, this is what you all should be doing.” The second student was completely elated. I didn’t see that much difference in the work.

After the reviews, we were having a beer and I asked him, “how do you know?” and he replied, “Oh… I just know.” This made me question what I had been doing as a professor. If you don’t have “it,” how does one teach “it”? So I began to ask others about this, and the common consensus was “you just know it.” I felt incredibly deflated about teaching.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

30

After a few conversations with my thesis advisor, I decided to try to better understand architectural education by working on a PhD. My dissertation was on the origins of architectural education in 18th century Venice. It focused on narrative and the potential for storytelling to be an effective model of teaching. This approach removes the authority from the teacher and places it in the student. It’s much more maiutic; the role of the faculty is to help a student better understand what they may not have known they already knew.

As a wider range of diverse individuals begin to resonate with architecture, what changes do you feel may assist in the creation of a positive and equitable university experience?

This is a good question. It’s really important for, say, a student of color or an indigenous student to see a person who looks like them in a position of authority. If you go through six years of architecture school, and you never are able to identify with any professors; that’s a problem. Having role models that look like you or share similar experiences can be critical to a student’s success.

As a white male I cannot be a role model to those who are not traditionally or commonly represented, yet what I can model is conscious behavior and keep an awareness as to who is at the table and who absolutely should be included.

As the practice evolves, the traditional studio structure is quickly becoming outdated. How do we evolve the model for how studios should be?

Our current “traditional” model of the studio, with one professor and an average of 15 students is not ideal. In this scenario, a studio professor can become both the client and the critic; there is a lot of power in this role, and it can oftentimes be damaging. A different approach is to teach more through a community. If a community is created around the education and the assessment of the work, you don’t have to be limited to only tenured faculty; you could bring individuals from the community or professors from other programs into the studio. This system would then allow more than one faculty to be involved. This is a model we’ve already began experimenting with by bringing in local professionals to assist with the work of the third- and fourthyear vertical studio. Peer-to-peer review can be incredibly empowering.

In addition, the question of how we can allow students who might not be “traditional” to take the courses is incredibly relevant. I recognize that not all students who graduate from High School have the ability to immediately devote the next 4-6 years of their life to a program. So one solution is the creation of a program that may be online. Flexibility within the physical course may be a necessary change as well. Being in a classroom is important, yet if we can remove some of the barriers like the lock-step studio system where you have to take one studio before another, and create flexibility from the mandated working hours, then there are greater opportunities to teach more people.

What impact do you hope to create in the Architectural Program at Arizona State in the coming years?

I want to advance the question of how we leverage Arizona State University; the mission of this school is to be known by who we include and how they succeed rather than who we exclude. Opening up our program to everyone on the campus, creating an online program, and modeling how an architectural education should be for Arizona and beyond is our goal.

31

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Ke Zhang | Studio

Instructor: Katherine Dudzik Smith Year Completed: Fall 2018 Section ProjectNorth-South Title: Playscape

East-West Section

Dwelling represents the birth and death of the most primitive human emotions. We are all born with the incredible desire to love, so we want to build a “home” to establish a family with the person we choose. We are also born with curiosities, we never stop asking ourselves what the other side of the world is, so we build bridges across the ocean. Year after year, we even start wondering what’s in the universe. So there comes the spaceships.

However, it is also in those dwellings that we created, we lost the most precious emotions

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

we ever have as a human being. Our emotions have been more or less shaped to fit in the natural environment and the society where we feel our sense of our existence is strongly determined by the physical space we are in. By building a giant playground inside the community, I am aiming to provide opportunities for families to spend quality time together, playing, learning and having fun. Children play to learn. Playground, as a form of gathering space, contributes significantly to the sense of community.

32

Unit 1 One Bedroom /Studio

N

Unit 2 One Bedroom /Studio

UP

UP

“Community Movie Night�

PLayscape

S Dorsey Ln

Creamery Park

To explore: the phenomenology in Dwelling

E 8th St

Apache Palms RV Park

Hudson Park

N

33

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Amalia DeSardi | Studio Instructor: McLean, Smith, Underwood Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: FABRIC Tucson

From birth we are given two labels of identity - name and gender. From those labels our future begins to be shaped and challenged. The same notions applies to architecture when we begin to label and define spaces before we even occupy them.

exploration of masculine and feminine form in the built environment.

FABRIC Tucson, a fashion incubator located in Historic Barrio Libre, is the first project to explore this concept. FABRIC’s mission empowers and cultivates individuality for rising fashion designers.

It follows that FABRIC Tucson is an attempt to explore the possibility of androgynous architecture which allows for individuality to step forward.

“What if we address fashion, gender and architecture from an androgynous point of view?”

This project questions what an androgynous architecture would be while proposing the

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

34

35

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Bundy, Rocchi, Shekerjian | Competition

environment. The functions of these cocoons are contained in hatches in the floor, allowing the space to serve different functions throughout their stay. The envelope of these cocoons can be shed, allowing guests to transform their space at will.

Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Homo Rodans, 2018

Every once-in-a-while, people make time to quietly prepare themselves a cup of tea; during these brief and silent moments of self-reflection, people retreat from their hectic lives, sip their tea, and then return to their responsibilities with a sense of calm and focus.

These cocoons act as nodes in a forest that is abundant with organic ingredients; they are spaces where people practice silent meditation in the form of tea making.

Tea making is an act of metamorphosis.

It is a natural process during which people escape from quotidian stress and observe their own lives from afar, allowing for personal growth as a result of restful contemplation.

Over time, this metamorphosis-via-tea making creates positive change in people’s lives.

Ozolini can facilitate these personal metamorphoses by involving their guests in the production of their unique tea.

1) A landscape design which uses the ingredients of Ozolini’s Daylight Blend, the first tea to be created at Ozolini after the founder’s discovery of the abandoned farm. Apple tree leaves, Black Currant, Meadow Clover Flowers, Lemon Balm, and Mountain Ash Berries are planted along paths in the forest; during their stay at Ozolini, guests will explore the forest, foraging for these ingredients.

2) At clearings in the forest, a small area of topography will be terraced to support the foundations of COCOONS. These cocoons, the structures which support metamorphic activity, are elevated above the ground, providing guests with privacy and safety from the DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

36

37

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Geeso, Patrick | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Assyrian Community Center

The Assyrians, rulers of the world’s first great empire, have become a nation without borders. After the fall of the empire around 612 BCE, the Assyrian community continued to survive under the authority of foreign rulers. These circumstances lead to the ongoing persecution and removal of the Assyrian people. For hundreds of years the Assyrians have suffered countless genocides, and have witnessed extermination from their so-called homeland.

The project design takes place in the city of Erbil, which ties back to the Assyrians who had built the city over 6,000 years ago.

It is known as the current-day Arab tourist capital, and has a population of 1.3 million.

The city is primarily made up of Kurdish, Islamic and Assyrian cultures. Throughout history, the Assyrians went from being the majority to the minority of the land. Over time, they have been forced and pushed to the outskirts of this city, while other cultures flourished sporadically throughout.

Designing the cultural center near the heart of this city, allows for a light of hope to

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

return for the community. The center is designed to allow users to remember the past, with a memorial space that enters from the exterior ramp into the lower level of the building. As the users circulate into the upper levels, they interact with the gallery spaces, classrooms, and library, which provides them with the history of Assyrians, as well as recreational facility resources.

Today there are about 4 million Assyrians spread throughout 30 countries within the world. The community center becomes a safe haven for those who continue to live within their homeland, and a light of hope for those to come back to after being displaced.

38

AL LL

S A OMS RPOSE TRANCE

OMS EATER

E AREA

B SPACE NG SPACE T

Program Lower Level 1 Ruins 2 Memorial 3 Light Well Floor 1 4 Archives 5 Gallery A 6 Classrooms 7 Multipurpose 8 Main Entrance 9 Cafe 10 Restrooms 11 Ampitheater Floor 1.5 12 Mezanine 13 Reading Area Floor 2 14 Library 15 Gallery B 16 Storage Space 17 Gathering Space 18 Viewport

17 18

16 14 15

6

7

10 9

4

13 12

11

8

5

1

3 2

SITE ANALYSIS

ERBIL, IRAQ

ASSYRIAN CULTURE ISLAMIC CULTURE KURDISH CULTURE

CITADEL

39

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Leonard, Siebrecht | Studio Instructor: Catherine Spellman Year Completed: Fall 2018, Project Title: Liber.Teca

tributaries off the existing canal, an ode to the Hohokam tradition of cultivation.

Liber: Meaning ‘book’, can also mean the adjective ‘free’.

Creating a beautiful place to be - prior to building components the project assumes phasing that will turn this now vacant lot into a thriving community garden. A pedestrian canal (walk path) is established through the property parallel to the Arizona canal. This beings a process that connects community and sparks interest and investment.

Teca: Latin -theca, from Ancient Greek θήκη (thēkē, used for any kind of collection) The studio project is not a Liber.Teca as a collection of books. It is a collection of “free spaces” for social justice. The Liber.

Teca has become (and used to be) a place that serves the needs of the people and communities on multiple levels and in multiple ways. The Liber.Teca delves into questions of freedom, access, inclusion, equity and social justice in free spaces today.

Programming before the program- a series of small buildings collect to help foster the newly formed urban garden and methodically assimilate the non-profit organization.

Envisioned and built with materials intended to erode, these small outbuildings will later be preserved and incorporated/ reprogrammed in the final built form; a display and conservation of the project phasing.

Save the Family is a program that embodies the idea of social justice, equipping families to address poverty, overcome homelessness, and archive self-sufficiency. The project aims to take an established non-profit organization that is limited by its location and re-imagine it in a new place in desperate need of services. Along the way, the project explores how a site develops over time, from establishing roots, to involving the community, and finally to a purpose-built facility specifically for the non-profit cause.

Build over time- as the final phase of the project incorporates the small scale interventions with larger architectural gestures.

Create a free space for the communitythe final built campus is a series of four unique buildings that house specific function dedicated to Save the Family. The void between the buildings (outdoor plaza) is furnished as a living room for the community and the organization. Inextricably linking the project to place and creating free space as a way of social justice.

Our greatest challenge was determining how to phase a resource center.

Establish permanence - the project begins with a series of stem walls that lay foundation for future buildings and immediately shape the landscape, creating DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

*To find more information on Save The Family please visit, www.savethefamily.org

40

41

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interviewed by Nasrynn Chowdhury

Zachary Bundy, Elena Rocchi, Nick Shekerjian | Interview

Pictured: Elena Rocchi

Pictured: Zachary Bundy (left) and Nick Shekerjian (right)

Can you expand upon the idea of architectural dematerialization? Do you think physical dematerialization necessitates (re)materialization elsewhere (digital, intellectual, etc.)?

Elena: I will try to “dematerialize” your question to understand it myself. To me, “dematerialize” does not refer to the opposite of material -- the Spirit -- but to the operation of subtracting something from a matter as to narrow it down to its essence. “De” is a very solid particle we use in Latin to denote an act of “separation” from something that exists. For the “Fairy Tales” competition, Zach -- a current student in our architecture program, Nicholas -- graduated a couple of years ago and now Faculty Associate in the BSED, and myself we started to work together on the competition with the intention to separate from our daily roles and disappear in a truthful conversation.

Speaking of the competition one night -- during a dinner at House of Tricks here in Tempe -- we “dematerialized” into the moment of an existing fairy tale -- Cinderella -- to narrow it to what we all agreed upon to be its essence: the midnight moment when she loses only one shoe. What a moment! In examining the moment when Cinderella lost her shoe, we post-produced some images and an interview as descriptions of the time and space where the shoe disappeared.

As architects, we use our tools to expand the space of existing stories to build their essence, the necessary Prima Materia [starting point] of architecture -- that accident of images, the physical dematerialization that the category of architectural matter needs in order to be.

Zach: [Dematerialization is] not the preposterous sci-fi idea that we are all going to live our entire lives online and never have to go outside i.e. the Matrix. It’s the idea that, as Superstudio asserted in their Continuous Monument project, contradiction no longer exists. In relation to architecture, the lack of contradiction in the way we inhabit space is something which pervades contemporary life. The idea that when we’re at work we’re really online and when we’re online we’re in a space other than the physical space we’re in, so which space are we in? As Superstudio would say, the answer is “Both and neither.”

Elena: Now that I remember, Zach, I think this idea of dematerialization started even before, somehow during our Summer Workshop in Maruggio in 2017 talking with Beniamino Servino and then in our submission for the AIA Infill Competition with Nicholas. They have been previous conversations all around our idea of “absence”as an epigraph, as Beniamino’s idea of “vacua forma” (empty form). I believe we started to think of dematerialization not as such, but as “disappearance,” a synthetic experience as a prelude to built architecture.

Dematerialization is not referring to virtual reality but its opposite -- a concrete action of drawing before building, the clear contours of understandable, easily constructible images.

Nick: You’re right Elena, disappearing was how we realized the difficult phenomenon of DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

42

dematerialization. “Dematerialization”, like disappearing, means that something is not really gone, but is in a state of potential or becoming. I believe architecture is not dematerializing, but rather that architecture is moving between the physical and the digital constantly in a violent digestion of reality and images. This is to say that architecture, its physical construction, and its image constantly reference each other and move between the two constantly in a state of becoming.

When they move, they become damaged as a result of its translation by humans and machines and gain new properties. In this sense, there is no necessity for “re-materialization” because the digital space and the entities which house it are simply allowing the material to augment. It is, according to the speculation of this project and the images, that the digital and physical will always co-exist.

(How) do you imagine architecture disappearing alongside its user?

Zach: In regards both to our competition entry and to our current interests as a group, architecture is not “disappearing” so much as it is reappearing in other realms that humans now inhabit. The idea of defined space and its inhabitation by people is the fundamental core of architecture. This anthropocentrism pervades every environment as soon as we experience it.

This is why we see architecture appear outside of the readily understood confines of the discipline.

For example, Second Life, in the early 2000’s was novel in that human interaction reemerged not in a chat room or a message board but rather in a virtual space which reframes physical reality through a human lens. Now we see Facebook years later invest billions of dollars in virtual reality technologies essentially with the same goal. These new forms of space are no different from spaces that have already been created, designed, organized, etc., in the human image.

In the competition, we took advantage of the “fairy tale” premise to explore the fantastical, escapist nature of virtual space. By using the peripeteia of the Cinderella animated movie from the fifties, in which the clock strikes midnight, she begins to transform back into a peasant, etc., we try to represent digital escapism by creating a vivid layering of realities through a portraitoriented computer screen. We see the mundanity of everyday life, a person’s facial expressions, contrasting with a virtual space which holds all of their attention and mental presence.

We believe that theoretical (non-physical) space is, has, and will always be inhabited.

Architecture’s role in the humanization of our surroundings and the social ordering of these environments will remain even as the discipline potentially fades.

Nick: Architecture will always follow wherever humanity goes; there will always be a need for a comprehensive understanding of how to inhabit.

Architecture will not disappear, it will simply become more fluid.

Elena: In the end, the prince finds the shoe that is gone only momentarily.

As you mentioned in your submission brief, the process of dematerialization will prove pivotal in the architectural field. What sets of hindrances and/or opportunities does the liberation of physical constraints now pose to the conventional architect?

Zach: I don’t think we are liberated from physical constraints. There is irony in the fact that virtual reality is created in the human image of physical reality. The limit of architecture is in the limit of our ability to comprehend and adapt space to our needs, as well as the available technology to represent this process. (Both realities are understood by their binary relation with the other; real versus fantasy, physical, versus empty, etc.)

Elena: This sequence we have drawn always reminds me of Muybridge’s photographic sequences.

To us, the sequence made by progressive images of her descending the monumental staircase, tries to discover, for our own curiosity, at what point the shoe comes out of her foot. However, I think it represents more the moment of suspension, not the dynamics of the sequence.

Zach: I have some anecdotal evidence for this [changing of architectural constraints]; ever so often for work, I’ll have to go into a plan room and look through old construction documents in order to find information on the history of a building or site. It’s amazing to see how even large, complex buildings could be constructed based on such scant hand-drawn documents. In contrast, architects today are able to organize and synthesize much more information during the design 43

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

process, and reliably document it for construction. It would appear that the discipline is constantly evolving in its own particular way, in order to meet the demands of an increasingly complex world. Patrik Schumacher covers this idea very thoroughly in the Autopoiesis of Architecture.

In regards to the liberation of physical constraints, it is impossible to know exactly what hindrances and opportunities we will face as architects; at the same time, it’s easy to imagine that architects will have to design space in ever more abstract contexts, online or not. This is my specific assumption about something that maybe I don’t fully understand this early in my career.

Nick: Yes, Zach and Elena! Our process for creating the Index was in fact a representation of this need, as architects, to make space adapt to our needs. In this case we didn’t have evident space, so we needed to discover it in the seconds before and after Cinderella lost her shoe, by expanding that moment in time, as a device to generate a new narrative structure.

In doing so, we were able to generate images of the scenes of the story straight from this Index.

I think this project is a practice of a new method by which we find architecture in increasingly more abstract space. We were finding a way to define space, and build architecture for this contemporary phenomenon of “crossing the screen” to generate specific views of the space.

Hindrances will exist in the form of a constantly fluctuating sense of possession. In the physical realm, ownership is an issue which characterizes architecture. The digital space creates transitory, undefined, and even furtive habits of ownership and thus conflict will occur when architecture exists in digital space. The general public does not have a true, comprehensive visual tool of the architecture of virtual space and it is there the general public is very susceptible to manipulation. An Index to map our inhabitation of this space, how we “cross the screen”, might allow us to live consciously, protected, and empowered in the virtual space.

How do you foresee the act of story-telling informing built architecture?

Zach: The question is slightly inaccurate; architectural documentation is already heavily informed by a kind of story-telling. Architects manifest the narratives that people tell themselves about how a place ought to be used and inhabited, about how a person lives their ideal life, how society ought to function, etc. We tell stories through drawing.

Historically speaking, one can argue that the architectural discipline (as a self-conscious field of discourse) emerged during the Renaissance when the act of designing was separated from the act of construction. The design process evolved to be performed beforehand and off-site. In other words, architectural design was born as a fiction of construction.

Elena: Since the Renaissance, Architecture is directly subjected to the image. It is true that with Alberti the architect is categorized as the creator of “still images.” However, with the invention of cinema, new ways of seeing remove still images as the main obstacles of architecture to build them in sequences, introducing the idea of “effects of time” in bi-dimensional representations.

To us, our competition submission was trying to express this idea, and with it, what you call “the act of storytelling”-- a story not as a thought but as a physical document to inform future architecture: as I was saying above, a synthetic experience as a prelude to built architecture.

Nick: Storytelling is (minimally) an implicit part of architecture. The earliest recovered construction drawing of architecture is one of the Strasbourg Cathedral dating around 1260 A.D. Prior to, architecture was synonymous with in-situ construction. As Zach noted, this is the moment in which architecture becomes storytelling. As long as we produce representations of buildings, not physically constructing them, then we are willingly participating in a form of fiction. Storytelling is an act between two people: a performer and an audience. A description of how a thing might be requires a dialogue, and in architectural practice this is paramount to the success of a work. Our entry to this competition was a double-document; the images, and an interview/dialogue between the main character and an investigator. The project uses a catalog of architectural documentation to decipher space, as an examination of our own experimentation, simultaneous with the reading of the project. Since narrative is a kind of interpretive medium between reality and fiction, I don’t see it creating greater distinction between the two, but further obfuscating its boundaries. The results may be good or bad.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

44

Historically, how have individual “truths” (user perception, multiplicity of thought/opinion, etc.) alter the architect’s vision of designed space and how do you see this evolving now that we have entered the “Post-truth”/ Digital Age? Nick: “Post-Truth” is simply a moment in history to mark a shared awareness of truth as a fabrication. We have always existed in a “Post-Truth” state. Architects have always synthesized conditions of “truths”, “truths” being interpretations and then drawings of desires and external conditions. The architect is a director of law, near-truths, post-truths, and falsehoods to form understandings of reality. Rem Koolhaas and Madelon Vriesendorp depicted “PostTruth” in 1972 with The City of the Captive Globe where the world, as a globe, is captured subterraneously under the direction of multiplicities of reality. Schinkel participated in “PostTruth” understandings of 19th century Western Europe through classicist interpretations of gothic constructions which (for himself) only reinforced classicism as a form of “truth”. These individual “truths” took him his lifetime to discover. Technology will heighten the architect’s vision, it will hasten it, and it will explicitly relieve and/or destroy the assumption that the architect is a harbinger of truth. It will require, like Schinkel, the architect to first build internal structures of truths, the success of which is evaluated by how well and indifferently it is practiced.

Elena: What is Truth to architects? They are human, but the object of our profession is not: it is an objective arti-fact, a necessity as our second nature. Our “sense of shelter” needs the Truth of Tectonics because it “is” different from “everything else:” it is Real.

It is always the physical construction of reality that articulates what is inside from what is outside, even if it is a VR pair of glasses. It is in the “frame” where the Architect’s mind and the one of viewer’s perceiving eye unite. My current Ph.D. dissertation is investigating precisely this idea as the idea of Truth. As the inhabitant of the Beyond-Truth-Age, I personally believe in Truth without post, because Truth will never cease to exist.

Zach: I think that this dichotomy of individual and society is most pronounced in the architecture of public and private spaces. Privacy was something which first had to be invented; sacredness (separation) was adopted from religious spaces to accommodate an increasingly individualistic West. Perimeters in architecture have evolved over time to reflect this; walls were once for protection, then they were for privacy. After that, walls became voyeuristic thresholds through which individuals could view society.

Interestingly, the ideology of the Modern movement transformed walls into glazed perimeters (what Elena would call a frame) which obscure the boundary between individual and society while at the same time, maintaining social divisions. I believe that this Modernist manifestation of the wall has survived into the Digital Age. In regards to user perception, many people want to give themselves the appearance of accessibility while simultaneously keeping others at a distance.

Multiplicity of thoughts and opinions is probably something that is more visible in the Digital Age; even in our private lives, we are not able to ignore the thoughts of others.

It seems that our ideas of privacy are finally eroding. Architects will most likely have to reconsider the idea of privacy to accommodate a generation that is growing up without it.

45

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Bundy, Rocchi, Shekerjian | Competition

Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Title: How to Disappear Completely

This narrative illustration project was created in response to a prompt which called for (an unfortunately Luddite) criticism of storytelling in the “post-truth”/digital era.

This project builds upon the narrative devices of many sources such as David Lynch, Bernard Tschumi, Walt Disney, and even Zeno of Elea to create images which address current changes to the ways that humanity inhabits space in the Digital Age. We did not pay attention to the competition’s facile dichotomy of “Post-truth” and “Truth”

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

46

in respect to the Digital Age; in fact, our online experiences are often more meaningful, (truthful) than the experiences that we have in the physical world. As the philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj ŽiŞek posits, the intrinsic fiction (abstraction) of digital environments enables us to explore our own true natures, desires, ideologies, inner conflicts, etcetera.

People are not living double-lives, rather they are living a single life in a double-context.

These images depict the peripeteia of a young person in the throes of this exploration; when we look at the image of the screen, we see the facial expressions of characters as they experience life in glowing digital environments, mentally removed from the mundanity of the world behind them.

47

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

This project is not architectural in the strictest sense, however it brings to mind the issues and opportunities that we as architects must deal with in the coming future: what will become of spaces when most interpersonal communication happens online? What is a public space without a public? What about housing? Schools? Restaurants? Religious spaces? Cities?

What responsibilities do we as architects (as information coordinators, designers, and image-makers) retain during this process of dematerialization?

What changes must we make to our profession?

These are lofty questions, however we believe that rigorous experimentation is

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

48

urgently needed in order to embrace the new ways in which people inhabit space. We cannot design the environments of the future based on the assumptions of today.

The familiar built environment must be re-examined, and the inhabitation of virtual/ digital/augmented environments must be hypothesized and then tested.

49

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Tara Drue Nez | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: NAM - Native American Museum

Many Indigenous voices have been excluded from the written record, traditional knowledge is often in alternate form such as historic photographs, oral history, language, and objects. Many tribal communities develop tribal museums and culture centers for a variety of reasons.

This includes; preservation and control of indigenous knowledge, heritage in the face of social issues precipitated by colonization and US government policy, and to disseminate some traditional knowledge to outsiders to counteract misconceptions about Indigenous people.

The concept behind the building stems from the Navajo Emergence Story. The story is about how Navajo’s traveled from the black world and journeyed through the worlds (black world, blue world, yellow world, white world, and glitter world) to get to where we are today, the glitter world. Along the journey the Navajos came upon spiritual beings, plants, and land forms that they brought up from the previous worlds. The Navajo emergence story is filled with teachings that are still passed down from generation to generation. The form of the building is from the Navajo Wedding Basket (Ts’aa’ Baa Hane’), a sacred object. It reminds the people of the creation story, relates the history of the people, and is a model for growth and life. Ts’aa’ provides orientation and balance for living a good life. It is shaped as a bowl to hold sacred objects and thoughts, and it is part of many ceremonies and prayers.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

50

51

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Christopher Fernandez | Studio

Instructor: Bryan Maddock Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Dobson Village

During the Fall semester we were asked to do research on projected data for the future of Arizona, specifically 50 years; data encompassing anything that could have an effect and possibly change how life will play out. Based on that data, we were assigned to redesign how a future city would look.

In the design, the challenge was to take on the suburb and densify it slowly over the course of 50 years by the introduction external units allowing for private owners to be in control and gain a secondary income, house family,

or use for businesses. Eventually creating a dense, diverse, lively micro city where a basic suburb once took place. By using a modular design and putting all the main plumbing and utility in the core structure, it allows for the rest of the structure to be highly transformable. This giving the freedom to the residents or owners to program and design the rest of the building to fit their needs.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

52

Susan Liu | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: D Tower | Concrete

The experimentation of concrete casting is extremely influential for understanding the knowledge of precast concrete. It is the opportunity to explore rhythm, function, and construction of a complicated system based on a simple reputation. Therefore, mold making is the key to achieving a successful cast piece, and could be done with wood, silicon, or paper boards. In my case, molds built with wood led to the best results of all my casting.

D Tower is based on a mix of Chinese traditionally lucky elements including the legendary Dragon and lucky numbers “8” and “6”. The constraint is using precast concrete element to form a modern habitat that will accommodate a broad range of users. The façade of the building also acts as a structural member built with five different precast

+

+

concrete pieces. Each piece is modified based on multiples of 14ft (general floor height).

D Tower holds a total of 88 floors which includes 6 floors of public amenity spaces, 24 floors of housing, 24 floors of hotel space, 24 floors for offices, and 10 sky lobbies.

Base on the site study of a modern city Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the tower is developed to + + = increase office, housing and amenity area for citizens, but also encourage tourism by acting as a landmark of the city. This Skyscraper can further be placed in and adapted to any other modern city for the purpose of creating a modern lifestyle and habitat.

Furthermore, sky lobbies are incorporated in the design in a total of 10 sections including the rooftop green garden to show the sustainable aspect of the skyscraper.

The open floors support the building by letting the air flow through with less resistance and allow more vegetation to cool the building with natural elements.

+

53

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

John Meunier | Essay

Title: O ptimizing Technology for Architectural Purposes

Earlier this year, former dean of The College of Architecture and Environmental Design at ASU, John Meunier, was in discussions with colleague, Patrick Lynch, who encouraged him to write a few short stories on his experience designing and contracting his own works “capturing technical ideas to enrich architecture”. When defining what he found alluring about the topic, he recalled “I am haunted by a, probably apocryphal, story about a building that was heavily damaged in a storm. An interested friend of the owner asked how did it turn out.

“Oh it’s fine. The building is OK, but the architecture blew off.” I know that we all believe that the architectural quality should be intrinsic and not superficial, but I’m very keen to achieve it. I do believe profoundly in the interlocking combination of the Vitruvian triad : Utilities, Firmitas and Venustas.”

Of those many stories, John has submitted the following to Discipline.

Essay: Having to act as my own building contractor on my first house for economic reasons (it reduced my costs by about a third) proved to be a most valuable educational benefit. Hiring individual sub-contractors forced me to think about each of the trades individually, and then how they would relate to each other. So, for example, I decided to have the carpenters precede the bricklayers, raising the windows and the doors first and then have the bricklayers build around the window and door frames, thereby embedding them within the walls and removing the need for cover mouldings. Allowing the 11” cavity walls to overhang the 9” foundation walls by the extra 2’’ clarified the basic concept of the house as a 40’ square base with two overlapping cubic volumes, the living and sleeping spaces, sitting on top,

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

54

When we came to design the sports pavilion for the University of Essex there was a clear programmatic distinction between the introverted changing rooms and the extroverted tea room and bar. The former were therefore all brick walls, and the latter was glass set in prefabricated steel frames.

The steel frames, made of galvanized T’s and L’s prefabricated in 12’ long sections were bolted together, enjoying the rhythm of the bolt heads. These were strong enough to be structural so, with the help of only two internal columns made of three flat pieces welded together, they support the roof. Because the pavilion was only used after lunch, in the morning it is a day-care.

The bench seating and shelves were also bolted to the frames adding stiffening.

The red brick matches the brick of the grand house whose Wivenhoe Park is the site of the University of Essex

55

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

The idea of using windows to provide some structural support was used again with the house we did for the Eddingtons not far away from our first home in Cambridgeshire. The house is a simple rectangle (cost again) whose long axis is across the width of a long slightly sloping site. The primary structural members are two compound wooden beams set 3’4”in from the perimeter windows that look up and down the long orchard site. This reduces the span of the primary roof joists. Secondary shallower roof joists span across the top of the windows and project to provide shade and shelter for the wooden window frames which were also prefabricated and bolted together. These compound beams are supported by short brick walls which also provide lateral bracing for the long windows. These walls also imply some articulation of the interior space. The compound beams allow space for the wiring of ceiling lights

The site drops 1’6” from side to side and the floor slab follows with shallow steps between the children’s end and that of the parents, providing a subtle change of scale below a horizontal roof plane.

At the heart of the Wendon House are four 12” square columns made of 8”x 4”x 8” Forticrete white concrete blocks with bagged or brushed joints that do not emphasize the individual blocks. The 1:6 wooden ramps wrap around the columns leading to landings in the four corners. These four columns lend an ancient Greek megaron character to this small house.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

56

In this case, in a house for the architect’s physician son in Solana Beach, California, freestanding timber columns support beams set 3’4” in from the perimeter of a 20’0” wide space both shortening the spans and articulating circulation around a central living space 13’4” wide, comfortable conversational distance (Edward T. Hall on Proxemics). Timber columns are tactile.

In the Cincinnati house for Lynn Gordon, on a very steep site overlooking the City Center, there is a steel armature around which the timber frame house is built. This armature emerges below the house and its slenderness emphasizes the hovering/athletic quality of the house. Two of the columns are framed-in to connect the square façade elements down to the ground.

57

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Alejandro Lobato | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Cultivating Future

Phoenix is a major growing city, which is why I proposed my crop circle cities for 2070. About 80% of construction in Phoenix happens in farmland, so I wanted to preserve the farmland while still being able to construct on these areas to accommodate the growth of the city and the population.

Combining these two aspects will also have a smaller impact on the environment and decrease the footprint we leave. I designed elevated mounds composed of 6 units each with outer walls and roofs accessible to cropping; thus creating an agricultural and self sustainable community. The crops would vary from cotton to lettuce depending

on the season and climate. The mounds, which are arrayed within the crop circle, surround the center pivot of irrigation. This layout allows for the continued use of a traditional and existing irrigation system.

Ideally, these crop circles could be duplicated in lands with proposed construction as the city continues to grow.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

58

Brennan Richards | Studio

Instructor: Thomas Hartman Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Parable of Permeable

This project explored visual permeability in the context of an artist community as well as how the built environment enables community bonds. The site has a thriving local art community, which served as inspiration for this project.

The site has intense sun conditions which were dealt with using a central cover, strategically angled to give maximum sun light in winter and minimum sun light in summer. A series of meshes were also placed to shield exterior balconies.

Simply massing the units creates an issue with them facing into each other. Offsetting them creates more privacy for each unit while allowing interaction between them. Extending the second floor of each unit creates exterior balconies with views to Camelback mountain. This also creates a private balcony for each unit that looks into the central community space.

Bathroom

Exterior balcony

Bedroom

Office

Kitchen Laundry

Dining space

Living space

59

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Christopher Landry | Essay

Title: Arata Isozaki’s “City Demolition Industry Inc.” and “Rumor City” Year Completed: 2019

Japanese architect and urban theorist Arata Isozaki is the 2019 Pritzker Prize Laureate.

With a career spanning over half a century, Isozaki’s portfolio reflects the dramatic development of architecture from the 1950’s until today. Isozaki has explored many ‘styles’ throughout his career, but what solidifies his status as one of the greatest architects of his generation is his propensity for critical doubt. Against the false notion that ‘theory is dead’ and thus architects should solely pursue formal ingenuity, Isozaki’s written works are a testament to the importance of critical writing in architecture. Two essays written at very different points in his career are examples of Isozaki’s laudable skepticism and taken together they showcase his ruminations surrounding a major theme in his work: the Utopia.

In 1954 Isozaki graduated from the University of Tokyo. After graduating, he worked closely with many notable Japanese architects, including Kenzo Tange. Post-war Japanese architecture would come to be defined by the Metabolists, a group of radical young designers characterized by their belief in modern technology and attempt to re-imagine the cities of future through grand architectural gestures. Due to his proximity, Isozaki is often thought of as a metabolist architect, but in actuality he never formally joined the group.1 In fact, Isozaki was deeply skeptical of the ethos of metabolism. While the metabolists perceived that destruction from the war had created a state of “Tabula Rasa” in major Japanese cities, Isozaki conceived of the ruins not as a blank slate upon which a new utopia could be built, but existing conditions which necessitated a different architectural approach and an entire reconceptualization of the city as such. To express his doubt about the validity of the metabolist utopian project and to establish a critical distance from its ideology, Isozaki wrote “City Demolition Industry, Inc.” in 1962.

Rather than condemning the utopian project outright, Isozaki created a fictitious dialogue between two contradictory sides of his personality. ‘Arata’ represents Isozaki’s ‘Self ’ and his opponent ‘Sin’ represents ‘The Other’. The essay begins with Sin proposing that Arata join his newly formed company. The goal of this company is to undertake the systematic destruction of cities. Sin proposes that this can be accomplished by attacking the city’s physical infrastructure, functional systems, and image. He wants to destroy cities because he used to be a professional killer who took extreme pride in the artistry of his work, but modern cities have run him out of business.

He claims that “cities make people gradually forget the seriousness of death,”2 because in the city people indiscriminately lose their lives due to random events like traffic accidents and fires. By destroying cities, Sin believes the “human act” of killing can regain its importance in society.

Isozaki presents this ironic prospectus for Sin’s company to bring attention to the underlying ideas of the metabolist utopian project. For Isozaki, Sin’s naïve conception of the city and his twisted motivations for destroying it represent metabolism’s longing for the manifestation of a Utopia. Seduced by the opportunity to rebuild, metabolist architects began producing esoteric projects which sought to create a new image of the city. For Isozaki, such an act was the product of a fundamental misidentification of what constitutes a city’s essence. While metabolist design latently represents the city as an agglomeration of architecture which then directs users, Isozaki believed that the true essence of cities is immaterial. Cities are “abstract ideas” or “ghost images” created by people and then translated into architecture. What sustains the image (essence) of a city is its “complex feedback mechanism”-the physical and virtual network through which its citizens consciously and unconsciously distribute, update, and reinforce contradictory images of the city. Unlike the metabolists, Isozaki did not believe that changing a city’s architecture could change its essence. Rather, architecture merely existed as the necessary conditions for the complex feedback mechanism to continuously enact itself. As long as the machine of images continues

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

60

functioning, the city will resist the destruction of its physical matter, functional systems, and image.3

Through Sin’s dramatic business plan, Isozaki is challenging not only the methodological feasibility of metabolist architecture, but the troubling reverence for the utopian project which seeks to satisfy its own image, even at the cost of the conditions which produce it. Isozaki theorizes that because the essence of a city lies within people, only “the eclipse of a civilization” can ever truly destroy a city. In other words, only the absolute destruction of the existing condition can allow the utopia to be actualized.4 Despite destruction from the war providing the opportunity for a new architectural identity, Isozaki is questioning whether overt architectural will can actually achieve it. Recognizing metabolisms impact on his work (his own 1962 project “City in The Air” used metabolist language) and that he didn’t yet have an adequate alternative to the metabolist utopia, “City Demolition Industry” ends with Arata and Sin locked in disagreement. The two characters resort to calling each other names: Arata as the “cowardly Stalinist” and Sin the “Trotskyist killer”.

“City Demolition Industry” is the result of a young architect coming to grips with their generation’s conceptual framework. After the idealism of the 60’s wore off, architectural thinking turned away from grand narratives and towards instances of “Complexity and Contradiction”.5 As an expression of his resistance to Postmodernisms’ self-referencing historicity, Isozaki revisited the utopian project through an essay titled “Rumor City”. Written in 1999 as a continuation of the dialogue between Arata and Sin, Isozaki reflected upon his critique of metabolism. Despite believing that the utopian project could never be actualized, Isozaki realized that cities had been destroyed exactly as the metabolists implicitly proposed they should be. Physical destruction was perpetrated by economically motivated development which consumes history to make way for the new. The Functional destruction of a city is chronic; service systems which are designed linearly are easy to cut or clog. Fixing these broken systems preserves the city as a dysfunctional agglomeration of lines. An incessant desire for mass housing eroded the image of cities, a situation made worse when housing bubbles finally burst and revealed that changing economic and social structures were challenging the dominant image of the nuclear family. Because of the ubiquity of this ‘invisible’ destruction, Isozaki questions whether the utopian project is responsible, or if cities self-destructed independent of architectural will.6

Isozaki states that if the destruction of cities was willful, it was achieved through the “world of image”, a concept he defines as the “underground” of the city- an invisible and imaginary world that is adjacent to reality but not directly accessible to it. Because the implicit utopian methods have been actualized, a new function of the image must have occurred. Images now freely cross the “void” between the image world and real world. In the 60’s, the utopian project implied that actualization requires continual consumption of the utopian image. In theory this consumption will destroy the city and create a fertile ground for a utopian development. But this parasitic process stopped working after the utopian image failed to actualize in May 1968.

The revolutions in Paris showed that the resistance of globalization by means of a spectacle (Debord) only reinforce the existing societal structure. Direct opposition provided the necessary conditions for the French Republic to legitimize itself as a flexible system. Conditions can be improved, but the sovereignty of Capitalism can never be fundamentally threatened.

For Isozaki, “the turmoil of 1968 was nothing more than images inspiring one another and returning to the real.”7 1968 was the combination of “imaginary models” with “imaginary forms” that produced “explosive results”. He gives the example of two imaginary numbers being multiplied together to produce a real number. When images begin referencing themselves instead of reality, history implodes into a self-referential loop which relegates the Future to the subservient role in a constructed binary opposition with the Past. Enter Post-structuralism.

“Rumor City” is Isozaki’s critical reflection of his project Unbuilt, a response to the era of scientization and Postmodern architecture. Isozaki defines the Unbuilt, in Kantian Terms, as a “sacred barrier” to the postmodernist reduction of the “thing-in-itself ” to the “thing-asperceived through categories of understanding”.8 Such a metaphysical reduction of architecture to its image necessitates that images of architecture be continually consumed to produce ‘new’ architecture which is then translated back into an image. Postmodernism was the result of architects adopting this program of consumption, and Deconstructivism was its subsequent sale to the public. Isozaki theorizes that reducing architecture to the study of its own signs and images destroys its importance, because once architecture is understood in relation to its references it ceases to have any use-value and is thus forgotten.

61

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Isozaki proposed Unbuilt as a solution to this problem, but ultimately he critiques his own project as a yet another example of the “groundlessness” of negative prefixes. He lists terms such as “immaterial, unformed, deconstruction, and undecidability” as examples of the same poststructural jargon which defined the type of thinking he was resisting. “Did you think that you could hide the groundlessness of theological terms by calling them a paradigm?”9 30 years later, Isozaki is turning his critical doubt back on his own project. He recognized the irony of the Unbuilt: a product of postmodern philosophy that resists itself through postmodern methods.

In light of a new theory of images, Isozaki ruminates on the possibility of a new utopian project. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it seemed possible that utopian thinking could again become a legitimate sociopolitical role for architecture. In a conversation with Rem Koolhaas for Project Japan, the two reflect on how small-scale projects became the appropriate intervention for developed cities while large-scale thinking turned its attention to the then rapidly urbanizing Middle East.10 Koolhaas’ theory of “Bigness”, architecture which by nature of its sheer size resists control and subverts its context,11 describes how Isozaki’s work in Doha, Qatar rendered the Unbuilt useless, while satisfying the very program that he criticized the metabolists for in 1962.

During their interview Isozaki speaks about how the Emir of Qatar saw “City in the Air” and demanded that it be built in Doha. The metabolist utopian project was thus resurrected, but now it engaged in a struggle for actualization within a “random” context. Such a drive for a union of uncorrelated image and reality was finally achieved (but not satiated) with the Qatar National Convention Centre (2011). 30 years after “City Demolition Industry”, Arata and Sin collapsed in on each other and Isozaki’s theories of the utopia are rendered moot.

But only if one misunderstands what the fundamental role of architectural writing should be. Isozaki’s long-overdue Pritzker can be read as a signal that his practice of critical doubt is important now more than ever. This is a moment to ask ourselves what his writings can tell us about the current state of architectural discourse and architecture’s relationship with images. The utopian project has fundamentally changed. It’s manipulation through images has become more absolute. As architecture continues to readjust to its changing economic and societal conditions, an opportunity exists to redefine what architectural work is and how it engages with other disciplines and the public. If a new utopian project is to serve that end, it must be approached through writing, not just form.

Notes: 1. Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Project Japan Metabolism talks . . ., ed.

Kayoko Ota and James Westcott (Koln: Taschen GmbH, 2011), 37.

2. Project Japan, 52-54. Reprinted from Frampton, Kenneth, ed. , “City Demolition Industry, Inc.” 1st English ed., trans.

Richard Gage, in A New Wave of Japanese Architecture: Catalog 10 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980). Originally published in Japanese as “Toshi hakaigyo, KK,” Japan Architect (Shinkenchiku) (Tokyo: Shinkenchiku-sha, 1962).

3. Ibid, 53.

4. Ibid, 54.

5. See, Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966).

6. Isozaki, Arata. “Rumor City” South Atlantic Quarterly 106, 4 (Fall 2007): 866, https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-2007051. Reprinted from Isozaki, Arata. “Ryugen Toshi,” Hankenshikuchi (Unbuilt) (Tokyo: TOTO Shuppan, 2001), 8-20.

7. Ibid, 866.

8. Ibid, 864.

9. Ibid, 866.

10. Project Japan, 51.

11. For a description of Koolhaas’ theory of Bigness see Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large, ed. Jennifer Sigler, 2nd ed. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1997), 494-517.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

62

sensibility of the definition of dwelling.

Statistically, people who are isolated and disconnected from society have a mortality rate about three times as high. In other words, an isolated individual is three times as likely to die over any given period of time than is one who has multiple, healthy ties.

The term community is tremendously multi-faceted. Existentially, our social tendencies stem from comfort in the fact that other suffer as we do in the same world of indifference, meaning, we function as highly social animals. Simultaneously exists a social phenomenon in which we, particularly here in America, value independence.

Alongside it, an expectation that post-high school graduation, one will be financially, socially, and spatially independent from one’s original family. Independence in America has become a societal norm.

Though at first glance, America’s dangerous predilection for independence and the lack of cohesive communities seems an extraneous matter in architectural discourse, the built environment is often held accountable for either substantiating or mitigating these societal constructs. Architecture physically defines barriers or liberties through the creation of walls or doors, suggesting multiplicity or singularity within the way we live as individuals and interact with others. Therefore, it is our obligation as creators of the built environment to take agency, to ensure spaces that are conducive to healthier and more social lifestyles.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with independence, however, the issue of social isolation pervades even the most intimate adjacencies and experts believe it is linked to a social expectation of independence.

Lisa Berkman, a professor of public policy and epidemiology at Harvard University describes social isolation in reference not only to the number of ties one has, but also the quality of them in the context of community, religion, and work— a holistic

63

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Nasrynn Chowdhury | Studio

Instructor: Katherine Dudzik Smith Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Sonder

Brandon Wayne Powell | Studio

Instructor: Bryan Maddock Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Subvert[ere]

Shared

Subvert[ere] is the design of a new 2070 Phoenix typology buried in the Arizona landscape. With a predicted population increase of 4.8 times the current size, Phoenix will be a unique landscape troubled with water scarcity and excessive heat.

Farming Typology

Placed in the protected South Mountain Preserves, Subvert[ere] challenges the current perceptions on preservation and exploitation.

Constructed of sunken units and perfected geometry, the community displays an almost aborigines community forced to flee the over-densified city for underdeveloped land.

Housing Typology

With a sophisticated water conservation system and farming strategy, the community creates a scar like impact inside South Mountain while preserving a romanticized aesthetic surface native to the Arizona Landscape.

Overall Site

Farming Typology

Housing Typology

Farming

Shared Housing

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

64

Adrian Castro | Studio

Instructor: Elizabeth McLean Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Title: Public DMV

We were asked to redesign the relationship between public service (DMV) and public space. This project is located in Little Italy, San Diego with a site that is only 100ft by 100ft. The purpose of the design is to delete or at least blur the boundary between the public service and public space. Essentially most of the design is open to the regular public, even most parts of the DMV. I also have platforms that can serve as a waiting area for the DMV but also as a hang-out space for people visiting the site. To have activity in all of the platforms I decided that adding a coffee shop and a day care on the top platform will bring more people and it will be beneficial for the ones using the DMV. This brings activity in the ground as well as in the platforms. There is a market happening on Cedar street every weekend. In order to attract people to the site, I suggest food trucks to come in so the site becomes an informal gathering space. This brings the market into the site and at the same time the public is using the project. The building itself is not touching the ground in order to have the feeling that the site is not private but for the people. The people will be more encouraged to use the site and make it a successful corner.

65

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Parris, Raccosta, Sanchez, Strauss | Competition

independent unit of the Arizona State University Knowledge Enterprise. The MBA program transformed into a Master of Global Management (MGM) in response to marketplace demands that had shifted away from broad-stroke MBAs toward specialized master’s degrees.

Instructor: Thomas Hartman, Beau Dromiak Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Thunderbird School of Global Management

In a thriving downtown core, the new structure captures the essence of a spacious suburban campus in an urban, vertical campus in the heart of Phoenix.

As Thunderbird increases enrollment, new specialized institutes will form within the school. Collaboration with nearby schools such as the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law, the Walter Cronkite School of Business and Mass Communication and the public policy programs at Arizona State will provide fruitful cross-pollination of ideas. Flexible spaces are necessary to accommodate future growth.

The central spherical atrium rises four floors, creating visual connectivity across all programs. Passageways aligned to the surrounding urban fabric slice through the mass surrounding the atrium creating dramatic, canyon-esque entryways. On the fifth floor, a lush rooftop garden serves as a communal gathering space and a patio for the Thunderbird Pub that occupies the other half of the floor. With the integrated project delivery method, the BIM model in Revit accurately displayed all the structural and mechanical systems.

The schools aims to implement new teaching approaches to address a changing global environment, including the development of new, specialized institutes. We stress enhanced collaboration while maintaining an appreciation for other cultures. The location allows ease of opportunities within the Phoenix urban center for internships with governmental and nonprofit organizations. Above all, we strive to reinforce the unique Thunderbird culture that differentiates the school from other global management programs.

The Thunderbird School of Global Management was founded in 1946 as the American Institute for Foreign Trade.

Before the Internet and globalization, Thunderbird understood we would be globally connected. The curriculum was set up to immerse students in cultures around the world, and to bring students from around the world together to learn in a collaborative environment.

This project was conceived in a 5th year Master studio led by Thomas Hartman and Beau Dromiak and later entered into the Master Builder competition hosted by local design firm Architekton.

Thunderbird was ahead of the curve with global integration. Ranked consistently among the top schools for international business in the world, the 1990’s found its peak enrollment at around 1,600.

In 2014, Thunderbird became an DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

66

GR

EE

EXE

NR

CU

OO

F

TIV

E

67

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interviewed by Meriel Vogliotti

Bryan Maddock | Interview

Bryan Maddock is an architect, Director of Fantastic Offense, Founder of Dimensions.

Guide, and an Instructor of Architecture at The Design School. Maddock’s ongoing research and design work emphasizes the utopia as a strategic tool for proactive rebellion and a call for renewed professional agency.

Prior to Fantastic Offense, Maddock was a project designer at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in New York and a designer at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Hong Kong.

How were your experiences within the distinct work environments/ cultures of both OMA and BIG. How have these experiences been translated into your own practice, Fantastic Offense?

Question everything. I mean this quite literally in the sense that nothing is off-limits.

Though very different studios, both offices had a fundamental belief that the right direction is always the project that hasn’t been done before—the risky proposal.

Failure is something that we should celebrate constantly, and to be a part of teams that were willing to fail together is an experience that I hope to constantly replicate.

If a project direction seems like it has been done before, it’s probably not the right proposal. If a form feels safe and appropriate, you probably haven’t let the work ask larger questions. Fantastic Offense (FO) sits somewhere between the worlds of OMA and BIG—an overlapping zone of critical research efforts and formal investigations that revisits questions of urban form, scale, and architectural practice models.

What is your approach towards the development in the narrative of the city through your research and projects?

‘The City’ for me is an ambiguous ambition that implies a level of complexity and community achieved through social and spatial interactions. Most of my current work with FO and through the studios here at ASU look at the possibility of projective architectures to function with these essential values of a city. Paolo Soleri referred to the same type of problem as ‘miniaturization’ of cities into singular objects when he was working through the various Archology models. The Metabolists also took this task on through their organic part to whole urban experiments. As a skeptic of architecture’s ability to ‘solve’ problems, I’m more interested in these spatial breaking points and formal frictions that have to deal with both the scale and complexity of the architectural object and its ability to create a new spatial condition that may be understood as a city into itself. This type of project seems especially relevant in the context of Phoenix without many moments of ‘cityness’ to be found.

The way we share, perceive, and value architecture is changing as our social structure evolves and technologies change. Is the discourse and attention within the architectural community reflecting this development?

The discourse has never felt as broad and welcoming as it feels today. Obviously, this is my limited perspective considering I’ve only been engaged with architecture for fifteen years, but it feels like if you have a valid concern and interest you can find an outlet and audience willing to discuss with. I noticed the shift in visual sharing of architecture early via Instagram (and Tumblr before that) and am constantly looking for signs of further transformations. In the last year alone, there has been the invention of visual journals, interviews, and Instagram only design projects that allude to social sharing as totally new art form. Needless to say, there are people that are very against the casual glorification of the architectural image on these platforms, but I’m all for it. More image, more work, more energy, more sharing. Let’s see what the upper edges of this space look like! Where, when, and how does it break?

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

68

How has the role of the architect changed? Has the need for the architect changed?

Architecture, and the role of the architect in general, has always been in crisis and I think we are most woke when the larger cultural and social shifts make us aware of our own inadequacies and irrelevancy to the most immediate issues. Architecture is stigmatized for being a slow and self-critical art and the present world wants more content faster. What role does the architect have to play in a society where the speed and throw-away nature of instantly shareable online/digital material has been normalized across other disciplines? This new space is exciting because it seems to offer clues to a) how young architects can speak differently about the work they do, b) reach a global audience of people interested in that conversation, c) make more work, faster, and with less consequences. Future young architects will not know of a world where new projects and ideas were only distributed through slow media outlets.

How are you helping to transform the role of the architect to achieve professional agency?

To transform the role of the architect into the future, I think we need to rebuild and redefine what exactly an ‘architecture office’ is today. The most crucial realization I had when framing the ambitions of FO, was to establish what the office wouldn’t be. From a basic level this was architecture as a service-based practice, or what I would call a defensive practice model—an architecture office sits around waiting for the opportunity to wow new clients, keep return clients, and satisfy many people with their relatively safe and on-brand business decisions. What if an office was started as the opposite, an offense, from the very beginning? What would that look like? An office that proactively develops ideas for an audience that wouldn’t have knocked on the door otherwise? An office that speculates on how architecture can react to topics that are in this week’s headlines?

An office that creates new entrepreneurial efforts and invests in their own projects?

How can young professionals and students activate change in the role of architect within society into ‘knowledge workers’?

To transform the role of the architect into the future, I think we need to rebuild and redefine what exactly an ‘architecture office’ is today. The most crucial realization I had when framing the ambitions of FO, was to establish what the office wouldn’t be. From a basic level this was architecture as a service-based practice, or what I would call a defensive practice model—an architecture office sits around waiting for the opportunity to wow new clients, keep return clients, and satisfy many people with their relatively safe and on-brand business decisions. What if an office was started as the opposite, an offense, from the very beginning? What would that look like? An office that proactively develops ideas for an audience that wouldn’t have knocked on the door otherwise? An office that speculates on how architecture can react to topics that are in this week’s headlines?

An office that creates new entrepreneurial efforts and invests in their own projects?

Regarding the ‘Alternative Desert Cities’ studio you led, does the city of Phoenix, one with a non-architectural presence and identity allow room for architects to experiment?

Phoenix has incredible potential to become many things, but Phoenix’s problem is that it really doesn’t have many obvious spatial triggers or constraints that architects can investigate directly. One of the reasons I am so fascinated with what I call ‘limited cities’, cities that are forced to come to terms with the lack of undeveloped land in the face of housing shortages, is that they have very real social and spatial concerns that architects can take on directly. What are the problems with Phoenix? Sprawl vs density is a field condition and not an immediate issue—especially considering the fact that Phoenix is one of the most popular retirement cities because of weather and easy access to large private homes.

Are environmental concerns driving new architectural forms? Not really—the desert modernist palette and glossy private desert home magazine spreads haven’t changed in 30 years. Are people eager to develop the city? No, undeveloped lots in downtown Phoenix are typically more valuable as parking assets than mixed-use developments. Because we don’t have these forces to react to, young architectural practices in Phoenix are finding productivity elsewhere—speculation, architect-as-developer, fabrication etc. After living in cities all around the world for the last ten years, Phoenix feels like a space where an architect can come, hit the reset button, and start practicing in a non-traditional way.

69

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Amy Dicker | Studio

Instructor: Bryan Maddock Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: City as a Frame

Designed for Phoenicians of 2050, this project responds to the cyclical nature of living & dwelling with projected nature of nomadic residents. By 2050, trends suggest that Phoenix will be nearly inhabitable for long periods of time, which makes establishing permanent residence or formal architecture almost redundant. Because of this, I propose a framework stilted above the ground centered around new transportation systems, in the shadow of the previous dominant transport, our gridded roads. The framework creates a plugin structure for dwellings which are structured almost as a vertical ring with the lowest level acting as a connection to the public train system, the next level above dedicated to bedrooms/ sleeping suites, and the following level is more about the collective with designated kitchen, living amenities, & the entrance.

Additionally, a staircase connects the ground/ entrance level to the garden roof, which creates a second private living space above the building’s footprint and a communal garden path bridging between. The levels within the dwelling deviate modes of living, while outside the dwelling the levels dictate the speed of transportation. The top shared gardens act as the most passive transport, the below for foot and bike traffic, and

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

the bottom must act as the speedy public train. The framework came about with the intention to leave the least amount of footprint possible on the already degrading earth with the hopes for it to begin to regrow, in the cyclical nature people live.

Additionally, the project ideally connects to other frameworks throughout the city, as well as other cities through the magnetic train system. The chosen drawings illustrate the project on varying scales, with the largest detailing the proposed interactions between the frameworks, the next housing upwards of two thousand residents in the Phoenix footprint, and the most zoomed in showing the relationship between units and transport.

70

This work stands as a rejection of mass consumer culture; it instead idealizes the return to nature. It is a city located outside of phoenix in 2070 by saguaro lake. The units are designed to house eight individuals in order to support communal living. The project features a vibrant roofscape with areas for gathering and gardening. The housing bar is located in

the upper levels of the city to allow for light and air and the other programming of the city (entertainment, infrastructure, etc.) falls below. while the exoskeleton of the building is primarily concrete, the interior is made out of wood so as to be customized by the users.

The shell remains, while the interior is in flux.

71

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Camille Medeiros | Studio

Instructor: Bryan Maddock Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: (alt.) phx

Bundy, Clutter, Medina | Studio

well as visual) dialogue between the two. The main programmatic elements of the existing building remain in place and are improved upon; the existing courtyard is opened up to all wings of the building with hi-lift doors, and the courtyard is equipped with a heavyduty hoist, enabling large-scale projects which are currently impossible at the design school.

Instructor: Horton, Rocchi, Spellman, Vekstein Year Completed: Spring 2018, Competition 2019 Project Title: Some Assembly Required

Maximum cost-saving is achieved with the pre-cast concrete construction process when: a. Elements of a project are repeated as much as possible b. T he number of moulds required for pre-casting is minimized c. T he project site and pre-cast plant are in close proximity This project aims to create a prototype building expansion which redeems pre-cast cost-saving strategies as an architectural asset within the context of Phoenix’s rapid development.

The project begins with a renovation of the existing art fabrication warehouse Part of an existing road is utilized as a place to cast repeating concrete vierendeel trusses in segments (between expansion joints), which are then tilted and lifted into place with a crane. After the five trusses are erected, repeating pre-cast concrete catwalks are delivered to the site and then post-tensioned across the beams, providing lateral bracing. Then, pre-cast floors and walls are delivered and post tensioned between the trusses. These floors and walls are cast as single hollow core concrete pieces, simplifying the on-site construction process. Finally, a hollow core roof is post tensioned along the top of the trusses.

This proposal juxtaposes (superimposes) new and old programs, establishing a functional (as DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

72

73

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Salley, Sarkar, Wu | Studio

Instructor: Catherine Spellman Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Blank Slate

Blank Slate is a job advocacy and preparedness center located in South Phoenix.

This center promotes opportunities for the youth, the unemployed, and individuals who are looking to sharpen their skills. We offer training, which will prepare these individuals for jobs that they might receive in the future. Alternatively, this space also acts as a community hub for the neighborhood. With its roof bridge going across the entire site, this creates interest and opportunities for the community that is surrounding the site The space acts as a BLANK SLATE where they can rewrite their life, by receiving the necessary tools and possibilities that they otherwise failed to attain or receive in the past

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

74

75

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Interviewed by Isaiah Jones - Lane

Diane Jacobs - Holly Street Studio | Interview

Born in NYC, raised in Puerto Rico, educated in Tucson and trained in Boston, Diane has learned the value of individual stories, and multiple points of view. Her ability to work with client groups to create program driven designs result in places that express warmth, color, light and a respect for practicality and has led to a well-rounded portfolio of both large scale public work & intimate spaces in the private realm. Her work exploits ideas allied from disciplines including urban planning, environmental graphics, landscape architecture and lighting design. She founded Holly Street Studio in 1999 with the goal of bringing large firm expertise to local clients while maintaining the high level of service that a private practice firm affords.

Architecture as a profession seems to be at a critical point, one of constant change.

What does the profession need to do to prepare and where does Change happen?

The change is “greater access to information and greater abilities to collaborate” which changes the position of an architect to be more proactive in developing their own projects.

If Architects can be more proactive and develop their own projects, can the business of Architecture happen without clients?

“Yes, and the next generation of designers in our practice has greater access to information to build on that idea.”

Diane articulates the “tender times” of the world today have enabled more architects to apply the knowledge they have gained and relate it to social constructs. It begins to decipher into a way to educate architecture students with knowledge to finish school and pursue their own meaningful projects.

“Architecture school can have a greater balance between creative exploration and direct instruction. By sharing the exact means and methods for making a project happen, while exploring creative endeavors”.

As the field of architecture advances, more opportunities will continue develop.

Holly Street Studio subscribes to the philosophy that “Abundance for everyone is a better thing”. Diane added a personal thought saying “That if there were more architects practicing on their own, it would elevate architecture as an art form and a necessity. More people in their life would engage with architects therefore changing architects into a more ubiquitous entity like dentists, doctors, and lawyers.” – An example “Even when opening a business, lawyers are part of the tool box of people that people turn to, architects are not.”

Do you think the value of an architect is missing from humanity?

“Yes, it’s something that we’ve gotten used [to]… But it is okay to me that the value of the architect is not seen in humanity, I know that we bring value… It is tolerable that architects are not perceived as bringing value, especially when you see families and people enjoy the parks and spaces you’ve designed. I do worry about the people in the position to make those projects. I worry that the people who make decisions, don’t see the value in design to solve real world problems. The only way DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

76

we can change that is to share more information so that more architects succeed.” This would allow people to see the success more readily of how architecture can shape and influence the world around us. As an architect in training, I hold faith in this same philosophy. Holly Street Studio completed The Faye Gray Recreation Center, which was recognized for Design Excellence in the 2018 AIA Western Mountain Region Awards.

Fay Gray Recreation Center - Phoenix, AZ

A project such as this epitomizes the impact of design thinking. “This proves once again - the power we have as architects to make a real difference.”

How has Holly Street Studio dealt with change?

“We don’t predict change. The best way to sustain the practice of architecture is to nurture it, feed it, and allow it to evolve.”

What is your view on the scalability of a firm with its projects and competitions, can you define growth as change?

“You should take advantage of the heat competition brings. But it’s diminished when it’s just for the sake of beating out someone. Then the good stuff you have arrived at, after the competitive process, does not get shared and if it is not shared then it stagnates. The only way we can grow, is in the heat of our work and then have the heat of someone else’s work and combine them.”

Holly Street Studio has followed this moto into a new project where they are partnered with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Diane explains her strategy behind the balance of collaboration and competition. “We must be careful not to condemn the idea of competition.” – competition is reality. The first thing she mentioned was that a great leader must be present.

Then she articulates three important necessities to healthy competition and collaboration. “One, a level of discipline within oneself- to know why you’re doing this; eyes on the prize; two, being grounded – the ideas should be based on logic, reason, and rigor; and three, aspiration-what is it you are trying to achieve.” In this methodology is a learning opportunity for any designer. “I think about competing with myself and pushing that; when doing so, Holly Street Studio always ends up in the running.”

77

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

What should the next generations of Architects know?

“The intensity and late nights in architecture is very necessary. It is the intensity and pressure that leads to forging through to new ideas. But there is a balance to when you use that intensity and have more divergent times.”

“Everyone has a story and life experience and that’s what they bring to every project.” That’s the diversity in our field. We can all look at a site and designate forces that would yield a different response in form to each architect. That response is a reflection of your story and those experiences. Diane shares a quote that she uses often. “You have to come with the goods” How do you stay interested?

“People and their stories”-

Architecture happens like an evolution, but the service of architects has always been the business of the industry. This was true and expressed when speaking with Diane Jacobs, the Principal of Holly Street Studio - a firm that embraces making a change in the industry through their work in the public realm. Change is inevitable, but the profession is competing with other industries who are now recognizing the talent of architects. Diane shares change from her experiences having seen architects who “desire a larger impact on the built environment, and to also broaden one’s perspective and contribution”. Architects are moving into other positions like construction managers and development fields.

She shares that architecture as a business has become more accessible for more people to practice; “if you have the skills and a laptop, you can put together a set of drawings and have them built.” We see this model today as contractors and developers begin to participate in the architectural realm.

These changes can be our opportunities. According to Diane, it is the “opportunity to expand upon what it is we supply.” Diane Jacobs, with strong beliefs for the profession and successful design process to share, trusts that we are trained to serve. There is no separation between the business of architecture and the service.

You can find Diane and her passion for architecture at Holly Street Studios located in Phoenix, Arizona by visiting www.hollystreetstudio.com, and at design reviews and other events around The Design School at ASU.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

78

Alisa Hernandez | Studio

Instructor: Philip Horton Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: San Luis Port of Entry

San Luis Port of Entry project is located in San Luis, Arizona and San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. This San Luis Port of Entry Project, challenged my preconceived thoughts of what a “border wall” is and instead thought of what it could be. This project is intended to “blur” the sociopolitical threshold that is not only physically dividing two nations, but also the natural flow of the area, in this case, San Luis, AZ, and San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico.

This project aims to target various aspects of the negative effects a border port of entry can have on the communities of both sides of the border. As a first hand witness, who is native to the area, wait times, field workers, and congestion, (in chronological order) would be the most hierarchical problems now affecting both cities.

By aiming to incorporate an organic language to the very linear and diversionary character of the border, the project became a functional system of giving and receiving. As a result, delivering a flowing border, that is reflective of why San Luis first came to be, The Colorado River.

79

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Southwest Micro Living | Design Build Exhibition

Abstract:

the tribes have with each other.

With the poles being buried into the ground that relates back to living off the land and represents the importance of keeping grounded.

The shade canopy allows you to be outside and enjoy some of the heat and the outside environment, while still being protected from the sun.

The 2018 Southwest MicroLiving event, the fifth event of its type held at the Shemer Art Center, will showcase the latest trends in artistic design and architecture while creating an artistic challenge that leads to various micro housing and garden structures studied and constructed by our state colleges and city leaders.

This juried exhibition of up to 12 tiny homes and garden structures will be on display each weekend (Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.) from February 17 to March 11, and showcased as part of a larger festival that also celebrates sustainability and features micro art, micro gardening, and micro brews, plus showcases Arizona artists, art demonstrations, event-theme presentations, live music, food & business vendors.

Goals: Our design build goal is to create a space to gather, tell stories, reflect and appreciate what it means to live in the southwest.

Our team goal is to gain experience with hands on projects, design build projects and working with materials to help our growth as designers.

Concept: Inspiration for the design concept derived from the 24 Tribes that have been living in the southwest in a minimal manner for thousands of years in both solar and water extremes.

This structure represents the 24 tribes resiliency to live off the land and their strong respect and relationship with nature.

The 24 poles are strategically placed at the location of the Tribe’s current homelands. The poles represent both structurally and conceptually the support system and relationship that DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

80

TEAM MEMBERS/SKILLSET: The team members have taken on tasks of focusing on the concept design, design refinement, materials sourcing, and taking the lead on how to structurally make the shade structure work.

Rhonda Harvey, MArch 3+ Student, Designer Nhu Le, MArch 3+ Student, Designer Cody Short, MArch 3+ Student, Materials Lead Isaiah Jones-Lane, MArch 3+ Student, Designer Jazmine Salley, MArch 3+ Student, Designer Billy Rose, MArch 3+ Student, Structural/Construction Lead Design Advisor: Brie Smith, Honors Faculty Cultural Advisor: Wanda Dalla Costa, Visiting Eminent Scholar

81

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Joe Pritchard | Essay

Title: The Revolt of the Masses Year Completed: Spring 2019

Abstract:

The technological growth of the mid-20th century, beginning with developments in the field of nuclear science, has promoted the growth of cities, and the creation of architecture, whose reality is based on technology masked as an idealized reality.

Essay:

A converted squash court under the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago contained a precisely stacked monolith of carefully cut graphite blocks. Graphite was the medium chosen to hold 80,590 pounds of uranium oxide, 12,400 pounds of uranium metal,1 and 14 foot cadmium rods, which prevented the uranium from unintentionally reacting. On December 2, 1942, the cadmium rods were slowly removed and the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved.

Historic photograph of Los Alamos, New Mexico

This crude experiment began a new era of scientific exploration and development, making it an identifiable point along the path that led to the development of nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project. It also signaled the need for science and technology to expand beyond traditional laboratories, from the dark underbelly of an abandoned stadium, ultimately into the vast expanse of the American West. Los Alamos, New Mexico, would be the site for the first ground-up laboratory-city.

J. Robert Oppenheimer chose this site in part because of childhood memories riding horses in the undeveloped high desert of northern New Mexico. The logistics of the site were also amenable to the military leaders in charge of approving the site for such the project: vast expanses of undeveloped land, far from major urban centers, inauspicious and unassuming.

Oppenheimer got what he wanted―a spectacular view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains―and General Groves got a site so isolated there was only a winding gravel road and one phone line into the place. Over the next three months, construction crews built cheap barracks with shingled or tin roofs. Similar buildings were constructed to serve as crude chemistry and physics laboratories.

Everything was painted Army green.2

For the first time, the setting for a scientific endeavor of this magnitude occurred in one of the only places that had the capacity for such a thing: the American West. Los Alamos provided the necessary space, and resources, to conduct a project of this scale and scope. In his exploration of the beginnings of the nuclear age, the Italian architect Ludovico Centis points out that “you become aware of [not only] the engineering and economic resources it took, but also the territorial ones.”3 The American West was capable of defining a new technology, and it was that technology that led to not only the influx of more South Scottsdale, April 27th, 1957. (handout from Motorola) scientific experimentation, but the necessary cities that would have to grow with it. Technology became territorialized, and the landscape became necessary to support its ambitions.

Before the birth of cities and locations intertwined with technology, like Silicon Valley, other catalysts of scientific development began expanding to, and augmenting, existing cities that sustained modest populations before the advent of this new age. Cities like Scottsdale, Arizona, saw companies such as Motorola establish massive offices and plants, and with it, the necessary workforce made the pilgrimage out west. These facilities, however, could only be supported by the now affordable luxury of air-conditioning, needed “in order to provide the dust-free environment necessary for manufacturing.”4 This critical technology allowed for manufacturing and development to take place in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, creating artificial, climate-controlled space amidst DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

82

the field of cacti and creosote. But as the “employees began working in the air-conditioned plants Motorola had built,... they saw no reason why their houses should not be fully air conditioned as well.”5 Even before Motorola had landed in the desert, “by the end of the 1940s, Phoenix led the nation in the number of home air conditioning units installed.”6 Phoenix, and other western cities, grew as a result of the technology that allowed its people to harness and control nature. The reality created to support this was manifest in the modernist office buildings and labs, while the housing stock took on the facsimile of the typically post-war suburban houses being built back east. Maryvale, at the edge of what was becoming metropolitan Phoenix, provided housing fit for the Midwest, while air conditioning and modern automobiles allowed it to function in the desert. The tidy grass lawns and palm trees of Maryvale, and other tract home developments of the time, created an artificial reality that technology enabled the growing workforce to live out the post-war American dream.

This reality was sought as a dream, a dream to configure the built environment to suit the users desires rather than the actual reality of the desert. The ability to buy into an altered reality supported by technology is at its essence a primitive version of the reality created by the HBO television series Westworld, based on the 1973 movie created by novelist Michael Crichton. In the series patrons buy access to a complex amusement park, modeled after a 19th century western town, to live out their fantasies of murder, sex, and adventure. The park is populated by state-of-the-art robots who are indistinguishable from real people, both in appearance and cognitive functions. Maryvale, the first park of “MidWestworld” Although this leads to moral and ethical dilemmas for the main protagonists of the show, the premise stands as an allegory for the role of technology in modern society. Every square foot of the park is designed, embedded with technology, and monitored by park officials in order to curate the optimal experience for the guests. The confrontation between reality and technology permeates the philosophical actions of every character.

While the technology of Westworld is not quite achievable in this part of the 21th century, the reality we surround ourselves with is increasingly more reliant on, and shaped by, the technology of the day. And not just the cell phones which enable access to an intangible, digital world, but the technology that enabled us to live here in the first place: air conditioning, modern building materials, and automated electrical systems are the components of the reality we curate around ourselves. It is not a dependence on technology, but a dependence in technology that shapes our homes and the desert within which they exist.

These systems are the armature for whatever reality we want to create: faux Tuscan villas, modernist office towers, fully indoor sports stadia, etc. But, as Reyner Banham points out in The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, “technological potential continuously runs ahead of architectural performance.”7 Rather than creating reality of an aesthetic based on this technology, the role of the built environment can merge the desire for curated reality with the technology that enables it. And like the characters in Westworld, the question still remains as to how authentic that reality is.

A screenshot from the show Westworld, not showing technology as an object in territory, but the technology as territory.

Notes: 1 “Chicago Pile-1.” Atomic Heritage Foundation. December 01, 2016. Accessed February 27, 2019. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/chicago-pile-1.

2 Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. p. 207 3 Shaw, Leo. “Revisiting the Chicago Pile-1 and the Architecture of the Atomic Age.” How the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition Changed Architecture Forever - and Why It’s worth Revisiting – Chicago Architecture Biennial. August 23, 2017. Accessed February 27, 2019. http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/blog/chicago-pile/.

4 Gammage, Grady. Phoenix in Perspective: Reflections on Developing the Desert. Tempe, AZ: Herberger Center for Design Excellence, College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Arizona State University, 1999. p. 35 5 Ibid. p. 35 6 Ibid. p. 35 7 Banham, Reyner. The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. p. 27

83

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Melissa Quinones | Studio

Instructor: Thomas Hartman Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Cluster

This project, located in Mesa, Arizona, proposes a 9 unit housing complex with attached garage for live/work utilities.

Given that the location was surrounded by three undeveloped lots and mostly single residence development, the concept was to create flexible housing to meet the need of the current and future demographic of the site and to encourage a visible sense of community by having the circulation of the project pull you to the street.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

84

As The Design School moves toward a future built upon the foundation of interdisciplinary studies, collaborations throughout the university continue to evolve. Embedded within the curriculum of the first year Design Fundamentals course led by Professors Elena Rocchi and Kristian Kelley, is a project titled The Hat and best described as wearable architecture.

The Hat contributes to a freedom of expression, multiplicity of voices, as well as a subjective view. Constructed blindly, it is a manifestation of intuition and active consciousness rather than preconceived notions; it is a reflection of thought expressed through the utilization of materials and reinforced through structure. This semester fashion students were invited to share their perspective on The Hat, establishing a new relationship between The Design School and the Fashion Program at ASU.

Jessica Tsepal | Essay

Title: Performance of the Hat Year Completed: Spring 2019 Advisor: Elena Rocchi

Traditionally described, architecture is the design of forms and structures in order to give purpose and meaning to space. In recent and contemporary attitudes “Architecture is a way of seeing, thinking, and questioning our world and our place in it” as stated by Morphosis Founder and architect Thom Mayne.

What if architecture was no longer static; rather it was perceived as something that is mobile, transferable, and even wearable?

What does it mean to create wearable architecture? In the exploration of The Hat, students learn the fundamentals of year design students discovering tectonics through fashion. creating a headpiece out of modest materials such as chipboard First Photo courtesy of Amanda Ahlman and masking tape in order to focus on tectonic solutions. The culmination of the assignment was a fashion show orchestrated from every corner of the campus, where students took place in a procession that transformed promenades and pathways into catwalks. The students proudly wore their designs in a mobile exhibition. Professor Elena Rocchi expresses “We wear our ideas because we are designers, and in this sense clothing becomes our very first design decision.” The Hat is an important step in the evolution of how we perceive architecture and what it means to be proud of our designs. Anni Albers suggests “…if we think of clothing as a secondary skin we might enlarge on this thought and realize that the enclosure of walls in a way is a third covering, that our habitation is Photo Courtesy of Jen Grysho another “habit.”

Freshmen classes of both Design Fundamentals and the Fashion Program participated in a workshop exploring distinctive commonalities that drive both disciplines. Mood boards produced by fashion students were placed alongside photos of each design student’s Hat performance.

This exercise activated conversations and helped students to identify similarities in the creative process across different disciplines. Future development towards a module where architecture and fashion students use The Hat exercise to design together have been set in motion with a goal of becoming reality in the Spring of 2020. Within this collaboration Students mobile exhibition of The Hat Performance the fashion students will focus on the construction of the skin while design Photo Courtesy of Devon Leonard students focus on the structural aspects of The Hat, taking the next step in a new realization of what architecture can become.

Fashion students presenting mood boards alongside design students hats Photo Courtesy of Jen Grysho

85

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Landry, Vogliotti | Essay

Title: Non-Referential Architecture Year Completed: 2019

In May 2018 Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati published his thesis Non-Referential Architecture. In the book, Olgiati challenges the notion that meaning must arise referentially. His proposal was found to be controversial to architects as this is not a widely agreed upon idea. Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, formulated in his book We Have Never Been Modern, intellectualized the methodological approach to social theory that the human subject does not exist in isolation but instead actively shapes and is shaped by their complex network of relations and interactions. Within this model of thinking, referentiality is paramount to the creation of meaning. Olgiatis proposal of non-referential architecture, based on the belief that we now live in a non-referential world, that is a world where traditionally simple references no longer lead to shared meaning, should be read as an impetus for architects to critically re-examine their own ‘genetic’ beliefs rather than an attack on ecological thought structures and pervasive human-world relations. Because a collective reformulation of work is leading to a change in the position and importance of architecture as a discipline, Non-Referential Architecture is an invitation for architects to refocus on architecture-assuch, to forgo any extra-architectural concerns, and recognize the importance of intentionality that leads to the reality of our built environment and thus of our perception.

Valerio Olgiati proposes seven principles for designers to contemplate in the process of creating meaningful non-referential architecture. The most important principle Olgiati proposes is the ‘subjective universality’ of the experience of space. Generally, all human beings experience space corporeally in the same way, prior to personal biases such as intellectual, emotional, and cultural experiences that then bring about the user to deduce meaning from the space. The architect’s role is being the active shaper of experience, and it is crucial that the creation and conception of a space be executed with clear intention if the architect’s objective is to become successful. Olgiati emphasizes that it is unlikely that a user will have a distinct and meaningful experience of an architectonic space that goes beyond a chance encounter if the architect does not ideate and direct a space with a definite intention of user reception.

The principle of ‘newness’ is that which is in “The architect’s role is being the architectonic order that is able to captivate and engage the active shaper of experience, users in innovative ways, as well as that which can test the and it is crucial that the limits of our discipline. Newness is an essential component creation and conception of a in architecture’s social task which is to “create repercussions space be executed with clear within the souls of users” and to be phenomenologically intention...” impactful in meaningful ways to animate new perspectives.

The concept of newness in architecture can be approached as a thesis for the architect, which should draw from the epistemological as opposed to that which is fashionable and referential. Newness is not necessarily about new forms, it is about architecture holding and expressing metaphysical qualities that transcend program in new ways and can resonate with people in that specific moment in history. Architecture which is referential lacks a sense of novelty, and does not contribute to one’s conception of the world and individual creativity, rather it further reinforces predetermined expectations.

A compositional strategy laid out in the book is the principle of contradiction within architecture. Ogiati explains contradiction through Aristotle’s distinction between ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’. Difference is contradiction; a break, pause, or interruption in the process of conceptualization. It is a caesura, which triggers new mental mappings of a space or concept in the mind of the user. Otherness is defined as an opposition, as that which does not belong or contribute to the process of sense-making, a contrast rather than a contradiction. Contradiction is a ‘difference’ in the way a user creatively engages with a space, as it is the “interplay between imagination and conceptualization”. Contrast or ‘otherness’ is a symbolic element that is intended for conceptualization in order to trigger an intellectual understanding of a space; a referential understanding of space.

Throughout the book Olgiati states that ideas for creating meaningful non-referential architecture must be form-generative and sense-making. Sense-making ideas answer the question of why an architecture needs to exist and the form-generative aspect of that idea defines how the intentions for experience are manifested through architectonic order. In non-referential architecture, effective sense-making ideas are not the product of individual political, economic, cultural, or social realities and conceptions. Architects must approach the notion of universal human experience in an insightful way in order to have an effective sense-making idea that avoids alienating users. The DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

86

sense-making intention set forth by the architect can only be made clear to users through the direct deduction of an architectonic order from that idea, making it a form-generative idea. The rational ordering system of a non-referential building links its purpose and intention to its architectonic expression. The formal execution, the placement and ordering of walls, roofs, windows, doors, and choice of materials is ultimately what communicates the architects intention. Ideas for buildings should be metaphysical, philosophical, yet “exceedingly lucid” in order to reach users. Ideas should be understood directly, rather than being ambiguous and esoteric. “[Non-Referential Architecture] does consider the world broadly, but only with a view to demonstrating why non-referential architecture is the only way to make architecture today.” (11) V: Why is Olgiati making the bold claim that references no longer hold meaning in the world? Can that claim be considered valid?

L: Rather than trying to explain contemporary society (which is not the job of architects), I think he is reacting to the current state of a “leveled plurality” in which traditional hierarchies have shifted and systems of meaning are increasingly dynamic and fleeting. His basic argument is that the world is non-referential because it has become hyper-referential. This conception of the world is somewhat problematic but I don’t think that it weakens his argument for non-referential architecture.

V: In my view, references no longer produce concrete and stable meaning because images and signs that attribute such meaning are in constant flux. If meaning and references change so quickly, how can architecture, which is unchanging and concrete, ever hope to reflect an essentially ‘undefinable’ society?

L: Architecture inherently deals with creating shared meaning. If the process of creating architecture is motivated individual systems of reference, especially the architects own, then it can never fulfill that goal. I think that is what the book is inherently arguing, despite fundamental changes in the way we communicate.

V: Exactly. Non-Referential Architecture can be read as a method for bringing awareness to the failures of designing in morally righteous or self-referencing ways. The principles laid out in the book are pretty universal to any program or culture, Olgiati is trying to distance the narrative from architectural styles.

L: I read the principles more as general suggestions rather than a prescription for creating meaningful architecture. It’s important to approach the idea with a degree of critical doubt.

V: What resonated with me the most was his comparison of the referential ‘bottom-up’ approach of designing to a “top-down’ method. Traditionally we begin the design process with a presupposed form, adopt a program, and then post rationalize how users will induce meaning. This bottom-up approach favors form before user experience. It is not the most inclusive way to design because it doesn’t lend itself to a universal experience of space. Non referential architecture is a top-down approach, as it begins with an idea for user experience for its particular program, and an architectonic order can then be logically deduced from that intention. The top down approach is not concerned with anything “extra-architectural”. He writes of this as being liberating for architects, as it is the most architectural way of producing architecture.

L: I like the idea of encouraging architects to refocus on solely what they can control. I think it’s crucial that architectural form is conceived of with the user and program as the primary concerns. I’m curious as to what the process of designing non-referentially looks like in real life. It’s one thing on paper, another in studio, and probably something completely different when working with a real client. Clearly he’s arguing that we should deal with references in a fundamentally different way. It can also be read as a negative dialectic in order to understand the conventional approach to design. Is it just a matter of remembering the principles or do specific design practices need to change?

V: I believe that question is for the individual to answer. Olgiati’s claims and principles are only tools which can be beneficial when used with discretion.

87

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Douglas Lusson | Studio

Instructor: McLean, Smith, Underwood Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: Barrio FABRIC

Barrio FABRIC is a fashion incubator reviving the spirit of “corner markets” that once anchored the community, bringing together diverse cultures, folklore and works of art. This multi-functional adaptive space will provide a nurturing, collaborative environment for designers and brands to design, manufacture and promote apparel, and unite the community by offering programs and resources for vocational training, arts, nutrition, health, kid’s camps, movie nights, concerts and a host of other community events.

Barrio FABRIC will empower disenfranchised members of the community, who in turn will empower designers with their patronage.

As fashion designer Marc Jacobs observed,

“Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.”

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

88

Nhu Le | Studio

Instructor: Scott Murff Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Title: SunGap

park garden

garden

Located just south of Downtown Phoenix, Grant Park neighborhood is a low-income and under-privilege community. However, behind the underdeveloped faรงade is a close nit neighborhood that values family and culture.

The project addresses different challenges that the neighborhood faces: no access to healthy food, lack of social spaces and not pedestrian friendly. By exploring the individual housing units, opportunity arises to create a flexible series that can adapt to different plot sizes.

The green spaces created among these units allow the community to connect and grow foods on site. In addition, commercial units are added as part of the effort to improve the neighborhood. There are a grocery store to sell home-grown produces, a childcare center and a common share workplace.

plaza

bike

park

bike

89

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Boyana Babanovski | Studio

Instructor: Catherine Spellman Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Title: Meanderings

Resting within the banks of the Rio Salado River, this nature center operates as an educational facility for visitors to learn about and enjoy the environmental implications of Phoenix’s relationship with its natural and man-made water resources.

This project was formed through an organizational system that was derived from the geometry of the site’s topography, creating a drawing language that consists solely of circle tangents, arcs, and reverse curves specific to the site on which it rests. This organizational system translates the experience of the river’s meander into a system that informs the program of spaces throughout the nature center. Drawing on the idea of the convergent and divergent nature of water flowing through the bends in a river’s path, the geometry of the space dictates where visitors would linger rather than pass through. Event spaces are identified within concave areas of the project, carving a large area for visitors to gather within the space’s converging geometry. Circulation spaces exist on the convex sides of arced walls, pushing visitors into the next space, similar to water diverging as it flows down topographic landscapes.

While the project seeks to circulate visitors throughout spaces in a metaphorical reference to water, the roof of the project uses the same geometric techniques to visually and physically simulate water flow. Varying ceiling heights bring the idea of convergence and divergence into the section and elevations of the building and also allows the roof to direct water, in the event of rain, towards the surrounding landscape.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

90

The project proposes to create a self sustaining community by taking the currently closed school of Rafael Quiùones Vidal and re-adapt it to a new program that would be resilient in hardships that the island may face. The school location is in Caimito, a community on the outskirts of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. After a site analysis and visit with the global engagement studio the proposed program consists of taking the school buildings and transforming them into a farmer’s market, restaurant and Emergency Management that would empower the community in a disaster but function normally on a day to day basis.

The way this is accomplished is through the design of new green roof that folds over the existing buildings and connects them under one roof while creating a public space underneath for social interaction. Along with this a new housing development combined with farming is proposed in the remaining portion of the site to interact and create synergies with the rest of the program. This new housing has a green roof as well that folds back into the ground since the site sits on a hill. This fold creates a walkable green roof for the residents and connects the farming that takes place adjacent to the site.

5 6

1

4 7

8

14

1.Bar 2. Restaurant 3.Command Center 4.Kitchen 5.Storage 6.Communications 7.Disaster Relief & Assistance 8. Meeting 9. Nurse 10.Cofee Shop 11.Market 12.Office 13.Farmers Market 14. Residential

9

2 3 13

10

11

12

91

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Javier Carrasco | Global Engagement Studio

Instructor: Karin Santiago Year Completed: Spring 2018 Project Title: Agro-Dwelling

Atziry Madera Sabido | Sketch

Instructor: Victor Irizarry Year Completed: Spring 2019 Project Title: A Day in Little Fred’s Life

This piece explores a simplistic view of the human experience as understanding continuity between thoughts and actions, mind and body. Exploring architecture as an experience of space, this composition of poetic drawings expresses a journey while assigning awareness to the meaning of drawing technique and the use of line.

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

92

He felt like he did not belong.

He felt alone and empty.

It began to rain.

He found cover in a place of refuge.

A woman appeared, dancing in the moonlight.

After a sudden breeze, she was gone.

93

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

Wang, Wang | Global Engagement Studio

wetland with a long term plan to mitigate the hurricanes impact by creating pedestrian facilities, converting the wetland into a nature park for people to enjoy. These pedestrian facilities would also make connections from old San Juan to our site, attracting more tourists to sustain the sites economy.

Instructor: Karin Santiago Year Completed: Fall 2018 Project Title: CataÑo Wetland and Hurricane Recovery Center

In September 2017 hurricane Maria, a category 5 hurricane, ravaged the Caribbean.

Of the many islands to be devastated by the storm, Puerto Rico was especially affected.

Due to Puerto Rican residents moving off island after the hurricane, including to the American mainland, the school aged population drastically decreased, so much so that multiple schools closed. Since the storm, there have been many efforts to aid and rebuild Puerto Rico. Our purpose with this project is to restore nature, to mitigate some of the damage from the hurricane, and to create a community based hurricane recovery center.

Along the site we found that the existing buildings could not face some challenges of the future, like another category 5 hurricane, however they cannot be discarded. We worked to keep the structures, integrating them as part of the landscape and maintaining local memory and culture. The new structures were oriented so most of them lie parallel to the prevailing wind direction reducing wind disturbances. Designs also include elevated ground floors to alleviate flooding. The programs of the site could be divided into normal or emergency usage and can easily be deployed and altered.

Furthermore, to ensure power during and after hurricanes, we propose generating wind and solar energy in the wetland and rain water harvesting and cleaning on site to make the site energy self-sustaining.

The site is located at Cataño, a low income area in the San Juan metropolitan area.

Much of the wetland in the Cataño area was encroached by unplanned urban development. Most of these structures are poorly designed and one-third of them are in the flood evacuation zone.

We are facing three design problems.

1.

How to make our site economically sustainable?

2.

How to mitigate damage from the hurricane?

3.

How to instill quick recovery after future storms including hurricanes?

Since the fragmented wetland exits along the Cataño bay, our proposal is to restore the DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

94

Catano Wetland and Hurricane Recovery Center site plan current day.

Catano Wetland and Hurricane Recover Center network 20 years.

95

ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL AT ASU

DISCIPLINE

SPRING 2019

96