Thomas Meacham Undergraduate Portfolio 2019-2023 v3

THOMAS

UNDERGRADUATE PORTFOLIO

2019-2023 Selected Works

RESUME

AWARDS AND HONORS

2023 SARA STUDENT NATIONAL DESIGN AWARD RECIPIENT

Award of Merit

Partners: Anna Rowell, Caroline Woodard

October 2023

2022 AIA SOUTH ATLANTIC REGION STUDENT DESIGN AWARD NOMINEE

Partner: Caileigh Treash

September 2022

AIA COLUMBIA CLEMSON CLASS OF 2023 COMPETITION

Honorable Mention, Innovation of Brickwork,

April 2021

2ND YEAR CLEMSON ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT AWARD NOMINEE

January 2021

PETER R LEE AND KENNETH J RUSSO DESIGN AWARD NOMINEE

May 2023

AIA SC CHAPTER AWARD NOMINEE

May 2023

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY

Dean’s List: Fall ‘20, ‘22 Spring ‘21, ‘22, ‘23

President’s List: Fall ‘21, Spring ‘20

EDUCATION

BACHELOR OF ART IN ARCHITECTURE

May 2023

Clemson University

College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities

Art Minor

GPA 3.69

CONTACT

Cell

+1(803)-417-3933

Email

tmeach318@gmail.com

Instagram

@meacham.architecture

@graeyarchitecture (with Eric Downing)

INVOLVEMENT GRÆY ARCHITECTURE

2021-pres

Co-founder of a team absorbed in liberation from the 21st Century fragmented design standards, “Two entities of gra/ey brain matter, iterating and ponder the future of architecture”

CLEMSON ARCH. STUDENT MENTOR

2022-2023

Student mentor responsible for three freshmen architecture students. Helping acclimate proper work-life balance, show new creative toolsets, and give studio advice throughout the year.

SKILLS

Autocad

Grasshopper

Illustrator

Indesign Lumion

Microstation

Photoshop Revit Rhino OBS Sketchup

WORK EXPERIENCE

ENTRY LEVEL ARCH. DESIGNER

Context Design Group · Fulltime

Aug 2023 - Pres

Greenville, South Carolina, United States · On-site

Utilizing digital drafting software, crafting presentational boards, site-visits, client / OAC meetings, learning building code and real world parameters and business operation.

BACK OF HOUSE

Solé on the Green · Part-time

May 2022 - Nov 2022 · 7 mos

Clemson, South Carolina, United States · On-site Alternating between expo, back of house duties, and line cook/prep work for Solé on the Green located off of Walker Golf Course.

JOB SITE ASSISTANT

RTM Drywall Company, Inc. · Part-time Jun 2018 - Aug 2020 · 2 yrs 3 mos

Charlotte, North Carolina, United States

Exposure to large scale commercial projects from beginning to end, while learning how to read plans. Hands on experience with job site materials and usages. Learned the workflow and communication within an office space and project lifespan to efficiently create a final product on a site.

VERTICAL POROSITY

2023 SARA NATIONAL STUDENT DESIGN AWARD OF MERIT

As new residential and public facilities catered to higher-income groups encroach upon the International District of Seattle, the availability of affordable housing for low-income individuals is dwindling. “Vertical Porosity”, located on Jackson Street, aims to counter gentrification by providing housing for families and seniors and the dynamic relationships those groups entail. Instead of prioritizing economic efficiencies, like most affordable housing projects, “Vertical Porosity” aims to highlight environmental efficiencies.

Despite being located in Seattle’s mild climate, the site is located in a significant heat island due to Seattle’s lack of green spaces and abundance of impervious surfaces. To combat this, the design utilizes porosity to facilitate cross-ventilation throughout the building. Rooftop and private garden spaces not only provide community gathering spaces but also encourages passive evaporative cooling.

Partner(s)

Anna Rowell, Caroline Woodard

Date

Spring 2023

Educator

Professor Amy Trick

WHERE

International District of Seattle, Washington

WHO

Co-Living Single persons

Multi-generational Households Families

Co-Living Seniors

WHY Problems

Area Heat Island Effect

Affordable Housing Crisis

Community Green Space Preservation Solutions

Culminate Fragmented Housing Types

Community driven public green space, local market space, and personal gardening opportunities

Green Space + Built Environment coexistence

Straightforward and simple gestures can describe the design of ‘Vertical Porosity’. After pushing preliminary concepts of radically fragmented structures, imbued with chaos, the spatial ideas and relations from fragmentation can still be found within the interspersion of unit typologies. The refining process from conceptual preliminaries allows each step to simplified into intrinsic gestures. Reactions to interstate noise, community + green space, and unique climate attributes are driving factors behind the massing.

Workload Contribution:

3D Rhino Model, Lumion Files, help assemble physical models, axonometric drawings, axonometric rendering, photoshop post production work, sketchwork, concept contributions, renderings

WHERE

PARTI AND PLANS

International District of Seattle, Washington

WHO

Co-Living Single persons

Multi-generational Households Families

Co-Living Seniors

WHY Problems

Area Heat Island Effect

Affordable Housing Crisis

Community Green Space Preservation Solutions

Culminate Fragmented Housing Types

Community driven public green space, local market space, and personal gardening opportunities

Straightforward and simple gestures can describe the design of ‘Vertical Porosity’. After pushing preliminary concepts of radically fragmented structures, imbued with chaos, the spatial ideas and relations from fragmentation can still be found within the interspersion of unit typologies. The refining process from conceptual preliminaries allows each step to simplified into intrinsic gestures. Reactions to interstate noise, community + green space, and unique climate attributes are driving factors behind the massing.

UNIT CONCEPT

12’ x 12’ programed cubes.

Combining cubes into housing units.

UNIT ARRANGEMENTS

Green Space + Built Environment coexistence Cc.

Bb. Aa.

Mixed typology housing units interlock with neighbors.

Plates stack to form collective chunks of vertical housing.

LOUVER SPACING METHODOLOGY

In order to combat the active Heat Island affect for the International District, and improve the quality of life for inhabitants of the housings, an operable louver facade system was implemented. Each tower’s cardinally oriented facade was measured and developed through a parametric approach of correlating the solar radiation exposure data during the summer and winter solstices, to a ratio of louver spacing. The louver spacings are in relation to the 4” depth of the operable louver. For example, a facade that obtains the highest solar exposure has an implemented vertical louver system with 4” spacings, in order to allow the 2” on either side of the 4” deep louver to become flush with one and another and successfully block out the solar exposure 100%.

CROSS VENTILATION SECTION PERSPECTIVE

. White aluminum operable louvers with varied densities give residents control over their physical environment. In conjunction with other elements,“Vertical Porosity” is highly efficient in environmental regards which lowers the cost of living for residents. The towers are designed to accommodate future growth, with plans for increased density and resources for residents. The ground promotes a sense of community through various unit types, community spaces, and programs to improve the quality of life for all residents.

Thomas Meacham

CALVINO WRITER’S THEATER

Our goal is to create a refuge from the dominant urban grid within the free space created by the continuous arcade at Piazza Rossetti. Opposing the dominant and repetitive grid of the Foce district creates a “space of difference” held in contrast to the sameness of the district’s repetition and density. The goal of this unique insertion within the pervasive grid is to create a dialogue between the user and the objects of use, a dialogue that reinforces the voice of the people and their choice of movement patterns and interpretation of the spaces.

Case studies & precedents for this project include: Thomas Phifer, Rice University; Renzo Piano ,Stavros Niarchos; PWP, Bangaroo.

Partner(s)

Anna Rowell, Jacob Spurill, Bryce Harris

Date

Spring 2022

Educator

Professor Julie Wilkerson,

WHERE

Piazza Rossetti

Genoa, Italy

WHO

Private Classroom’s Performers

Hosting Spaces

General Public

Local Businesses

WHY Problems

Providing a cultural performance space

Constructing within a historically gridded city Solutions

Understand and utilize the piazza and arcade typologies to justify breaking the Roman Grid Mass needed programs, arranged and permeable like the city port

Maintain permeability of the piazza

Straightforward and simple gestures can describe the design of ‘Vertical Porosity’. After pushing preliminary concepts of radically fragmented structures, imbued with chaos, the spatial ideas and relations from fragmentation can still be found within the interspersion of unit typologies. The refining process from conceptual preliminaries allows each step to simplified into intrinsic gestures. Reactions to interstate noise, community + green space, and unique climate attributes are driving factors behind the massing.

Workload Contribution: 3D Rhino Model, collage renders, axonometric drawings, axonometric rendering, photoshop post production work, sketchwork, concept contributions, renderings

WHERE

Piazza Rossetti

Genoa, Italy

Thomas

WHO

Private Classroom’s Performers

01.

Hosting Spaces

General Public

Local Businesses

WHY Problems

Providing a cultural performance space

Constructing within a historically gridded city Solutions

Understand and utilize the piazza and arcade typologies to justify breaking the Roman Grid Mass needed programs, arranged and permeable like the city port

Maintain permeability of the piazza

The proposal explores the relationship between mass and void by creating permeable and opaque thresholds in both the architecture and landscape of the site. By contrasting size, color, and materiality throughout our proposal, we establish a dialogue of scale between multiple elements of design that when taken together offer a reciprocity between objects and human interpretation. Such key ideas represented include: Façade and programming, Size and function , Perception and reality, Open and closed facades, Vertical and horizontal relationships.

02.

03.

Admin

Gallery

Bookstore

Blackbox

Cafe

Rehearsal

Theatre

PRELIMINARY IDEATION

While taking inspiration from the curvature of Genoa’s infamous port; a curvilinear form was decided upon to non-invasively define the fourth wall of Piazza Rossetti. The organic form along with bold color choice for defining programs, creates a dialogue of approachability, and the glass facade system with walking access to the piazza supports and invites a permeability of the architecture to reach the interior.

Many iterations of quick elevation sketches were produced to help visualize the approachability and permeability of the choice of architectural language. After thoughts of wooden coverings of ship hulls, colored plaster end caps, and contrasting concrete walls, the final outcome was to utilize a white painted aluminum curtain wall system and supporting column grid to promote the intended transparency. Programs can be identified from the exterior by looking for the colored massings, while sight into the internal piazza space is not hindered for visitors looking for their destination.

RENDERINGS

U.S. EMBASSY IN SANTIAGO

Tasked with recreating the U.S. Embassy of Santiago, Chile many questions quickly began to arise. How does a foreign entity represent itself in another country? What are the historic relations between the United States and Chile? Does Chile have precedents of personal architectural style? and how can all these elements, questions, and themes culminate into architecture?Can it?

Consistently exploring and asking questions during the course of the semester, led to the creation of goals for the architecture to achieve. In the end a concept of “Healthy Architecture” was set out to be sought after. But what constituted “Healthy Architecture” for this site? Main ideas to be conveyed included sensitive deployment of architecture on the site, humane workspaces, architecture that provides equi-potential space for different programmatic usages, and giving back to the surrounding community.

Partner(s)

Individual Date Fall 2022

Educator

Professor Dr. Kliess, PhD

WHERE

Santiago, Chile

WHO Diplomatic Personnel

On-site Marines

Visiting Public Workers WHY Problems

Security of Adjacent Programs

Security of both visitors and inhabitants

24/7 presence of Marines Solutions

Culminated access points, walkable spaces, and meeting places. Denser and opaque facade conditions at higher security areas

Organize program placement through acceptable stacking levels

Straightforward and simple gestures can describe the design of ‘Vertical Porosity’. After pushing preliminary concepts of radically fragmented structures, imbued with chaos, the spatial ideas and relations from fragmentation can still be found within the interspersion of unit typologies. The refining process from conceptual preliminaries allows each step to simplified into intrinsic gestures. Reactions to interstate noise, community + green space, and unique climate attributes are driving factors behind the massing.

Workload Contribution: All solo work

WHERE

Santiago, Chile

Thomas Meacham

WHO

Diplomatic Personnel

On-site Marines

01.

Visiting Public Workers

02.

03.

WHY

Problems

Security of Adjacent Programs

Security of both visitors and inhabitants

24/7 presence of Marines

Solutions

Culminated access points, walkable spaces, and meeting places.

Denser and opaque facade conditions at higher security areas

Organize program placement through acceptable stacking levels

The proposal explores the relationship between mass and void by creating permeable and opaque thresholds in both the architecture and landscape of the site. By contrasting size, color, and materiality throughout our proposal, we establish a dialogue of scale between multiple elements of design that when taken together offer a reciprocity between objects and human interpretation. Such key ideas represented include: Façade and programming, Size and function , Perception and reality, Open and closed facades, Vertical and horizontal relationships.

04.

06.

West Elevation

North Elevation

East Elevation

South Elevation

PRELIMINARY IDEATION AND RENDERINGS

Sensitive employment of an architectural embodiment is curated through the lifting of the predominant masses from the ground condition. The space created underneath is populated with sitting, congregating spaces, intimate gathering spaces, and vertical circulation enclosures. The landscape architecture present in the vicinity helps to curate and define some of the circulation and gather spaces in a non-invasive manner.

Thomas

ABSTRACT PRELIMINARY IDEATIONS

For the beginning of this project, a 5m grid system was utilized over the site. This allowed for easier programmatic massing, structural system placement, and circulation placements. On this grid system a series of abstracted games were played with line weights and color to create a dialouge between each element. Utilizing the abstracted geometry drawings, the lines could act as a representation of almost anything. Are they plans, sections, mappings of circulation, or perhaps even a system of facade opacities? This abstraction process garnered ideas of splitting the office massing, lofting the building upon solid dividing walls, and an upwards circulation stemming from underneath. A three-dimensional game of abstraction was then played with the layering and lifting of geometry to define programs in correlation to other functions. The produced graphical mapping can be found on the far left of the page.

CAYCE ARTS CENTER

AIA COLUMBIA CLEMSON CLASS OF 2023 COMPETITION, HONORABLE MENTION

Fascinated with the expression of floating within architecture, Cayce Arts Center strives to create a dialogue between light and heavy materiality & a playful journey of climbing up and over the landscape to access the building. The featured berm that creates such interaction also is responsible for creating a floating effect by building up to the three large concrete massings, but never touching. This tension is subtle but noticeable as one endeavors into the up-and-over journey of entrance. The berm itself is reminiscent of the journey of the Cayce, SC riverwalk - which is located to the East of the site along the Congaree. This notion is respectful to the historical value of the Congaree & the sediment utilization for supplying local & historical brick works such as Guignard Brickworks. These bricks can also be found incorporated within the ground floor of the structure.

Partner(s)

Individual Date

Spring 2021

Educator

Professor Byron Jefferies; Director Jim Stevens

WHERE

Cayce, South Carolina WHO

Art Educators and Students

General Public

Local Artist

Preforming Arts

WHY Problems

Lack of local exhibition space for artists

Educational Facility for classes in the art

Cayce has a need for green space and park development Solutions

Masterplan an engaging green environment

Create a preforming arts center that can architecturally inhabit a culmination of artistic programs and educational opportunities

Workload Contribution: All solo work

WHERE

Cayce, South Carolina

Thomas Meacham

WHO

Art Educators and Students

General Public

Local Artist

01.

Preforming Arts

WHY Problems

02.

03.

Lack of local exhibition space for artists Educational Facility for classes in the art

Cayce has a need for green space and park development Solutions

Masterplan an engaging green environment

Create a preforming arts center that can architecturally inhabit a culmination of artistic programs and educational opportunities

Masonry details of excluded concrete brick can be found on the central front facade & allows for natural light to interact with the polycarbonate walls of the interior gallery space to create a dim lighting effect. The excluded brick also exhumes the hidden gallery within the heavy mass by glowing at nighttime. The structure compartmentalizes the program through the use of massings & materiality choice.

ELEVATION AND MASONRY DETAIL

Masonry details of excluded concrete brick can be found on the central front facade & allows for natural light to interact with the polycarbonate walls of the interior gallery space to create a dim lighting effect. The excluded brick also exhumes the hidden gallery within the heavy mass by glowing at nighttime. The structure compartmentalizes the program through the use of massings & materiality choice.

SIGHT LINES INNOVATION CENTER

2022 AIA SOUTH ATLANTIC REGION STUDENT DESIGN AWARD NOMINEE

Located on 10th Avenue between 26th and 27th Street, our design for an innovation center and office space uses the surrounding site’s geometrical properties from both the twodimensional city grid and three-dimensional nearby structures. Conceptually the innovation center is a dialog between all built-environment elements founded in the direct vicinity of the site, who communicate through the convergence of found material and geometry to create a project that is unique to this location. The various fragmented elements intersect threedimensionally across the site and are refined into an inhabitable space, that radically acts as an extension to the preexisting environment. The local materiality choices are primarily comprised of found concretes, metals, and glass. Inside the building, geometric floor plates are created using the site lines of building geometries and carvings of view sheds. The building was initially designed in two orthogonal sectional instances, from the found geometry data. After recording planar geometries, the sectional and planar drawings were then booleaned together to form a functional three-dimensinal space.

Partner(s)

Caileigh Treash

Date Fall 2021

Educator

Professor Clarissa Mendez

WHERE

10th Ave, between 26th and 27th street

West Chelsea, New York

WHO Businesses

Entrepreneurs

General Public Startups

WHY Problems

Healthy and humane work space environment

Investigating a unique dialog culminated of elements from preexisting built environments

Need of collaborative office space environments

Solutions

Collaborative environment for individuals or organizations to exchange ideas, innovate, and develop

Study and fuse together geometries from site’s surroundings

Workload Contribution:

3D Rhino Model, help assemble physical models, created study models, axonometric drawings, photoshop post production work, sketchwork, concept contributions, renderings, section cuts, panoramic collage render

Thomas Meacham

WHERE

10th Ave, between 26th and 27th street

West Chelsea, New York

WHO

Businesses

Entrepreneurs

General Public

Startups

WHY

Problems

01.

02.

03.

Healthy and humane work space environment

Investigating a unique dialog culminated of elements from preexisting built environments

Need of collaborative office space environments

Solutions

Collaborative environment for individuals or organizations to exchange ideas, innovate, and develop

Here the process of compiling vectors of the surrounding building’s relationships, is illustrated with the red lines. These red lines are refined into geometrical shapes on perpendiclar orthogonal plans, that are further processed into solid three dimensional forms. These solid forms then undergo a subtractive process where collisions occur to create inhabitable three dimensional areas that can accommodate for the required programmatic squarefootage.

Study and fuse together geometries from site’s surroundings

Third

Thomas

Thomas

THANK YOU

Email