Thomas Tencer, Portfolio, 2023

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Thomas Tencer

Architectural Designer

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

(905) 510-2119

tommytencer@gmail.com

Study Models

Datum: Tommy Thompson Park Outpost

4B Design Studio • Independent Project

•

Supervised By: Andrew Levitt

• 2020 • 4 Months

Datum is an embedded infrastructure which aims to both preserve and enhance the essential character of Toronto’s Tommy Thompson park lighthouse, as a way-finder throughout the site and as a celebratory monument at the conclusion of the journey through the Leslie Street Spit.

The project acts on three converging axes to exploit the site’s rich environment and all of the buildings are embedded to take advantage of the earth’s geothermal properties, to counter any uplift forces created by concentrating wind and to reduce the project’s visual impact on the site.

Its East-West axis exploits the sites predominantly westward prevailing winds for ventilation. This East-West axis occurs at the same level as the main path and houses the project’s public programs including a cafe which faces the city and a collection of saunas + swim deck which extends out into the lake.

The North-South axis exploits the site’s shoreline breezes for ventilation, it acts as an extension of the peninsula and is raised to cantilever above the public realm. It’s entrance sits in a sunken courtyard which allows Northern light into the studio, shared programs are focused toward this Northern end and the private residences recede into the earth and out onto the cantilever to allow morning light into the bedrooms.

Mechanical equipment is all centralized beneath the lighthouse to hijack the vertical monument’s capabilities as a chimney. Heat producing programs like the sauna and cafe are located below grade and water is stored above grade, at the base of the lighthouse. This organization allows for water to be distributed naturally using gravity and rising heat must pass through additional enclosures or earth before escaping.

The project includes a super structure with a lifespan exceeding 100 years, within which smaller, easy to manipulate and lightweight constructions would be built. The tunnel infrastructure would far outlive the buildings designed within it, leaving an infrastructure for future projects, or a well designed landscape feature which harnesses the site to create a comfortable and engaging micro-climate.

Cafe Approach

Daytime Tunnel

Sunken

Winter

Solar

Winter Wind Rose

Stack Effect Ventilation

Summer Solstice

First Floor Plan

Deck Looking South

2.

3.

Deck Looking North

1. Bike Storage

2. Refuse

3. Studio

4. Mechanical

5. Storage

6. Utility Room

7. Inner Terrace

8. Kitchen/Living/Dining

9. Archive

10. Laundry

11. Residences

12. Outer Terrace

Upper Courtyard Daytime

Upper Courtyard Evening

Eastern Elevation

Northern Elevation

Inner Terrace

Western Elevation

Southern Elevation

Outer Terrace

Isogrid Soffit Detail

Plantings

Earth

Permeable Geotextile Barrier

Residence Entrance

Tapered Insulation

Drain

CLT Deck

Upper Insulation

Isogrid Superstructure

Lower Insulation

Steel Clip

Sheathing

Gasket Plate

Gasket Seal

Interior Cladding

Typical Superstructure Details

Glulam Webbing

Steel Connection

Glulam Column

Steel Column Base

Shallow

Footing

Rammed

Aggregate Pier

Glulam Webbing Steel Connection

Glulam Column Notched Gabions

Steel Column Base

Shallow Footing

Rammed Aggregate Pier

Glulam Webbing

Steel Connection

Glulam Beam

Glulam Column

Steel Column Base Shallow Footing

Rammed

Aggregate Pier

Glulam Webbing

Steel Connection

Glulam Column

Notched

Gabions

Steel Column Base

CLT Deck

Typical Substructure Details

Operable Trellis Details

Glulam Webbing

Steel Webbing Connections

Glulam Beams

Steel Beam Connections

Rotating Steel Connections

Steel Rod

Glulam Columns

Operable Mechanism

Steel Column Base

Shallow Footings

Rammed Aggregate Piers

Rampart: Celio Tourist Fortification

4A Design Studio • Independent Project

• Supervised By: Lorenzo Pignatti

• Study Abroad Term at The University of Waterloo Rome Campus

• 2019 • 2 Months

Rampart is primarily structured by three radial grids which originate from the three most prominent monuments within the extended site context of Rome’s Celio district; The Palatine Hill, The Arch of Constantine & The Colosseum. Inspired by the 1909 plan of Rome, the project aims to create a series of circulation paths and resulting views which highlight each of these urban artifacts and establish them as primary elements within the design. The project proposes that the tram line be relocated to the center of the adjacent street, a more familiar morphology of the Roman street-scape and where this perimeter circulation intersects with the aforementioned radial grids, cross walks are created to allow for seamless circulation between the site and surrounding monuments.

Adjacent to The Palatine Hill is a series of buildings built into and at the scale of the landscape and adjacent to The Arch of Constantine and The Colosseum is a fortification which acts as a means of filtering the crowds of tourists that visit these sites every day. This fortification is formed by the radial grids and their intersection with a series of stepped terraces that allow for circulation of the site at four levels. The cracks in the site allow for dramatic descents toward the surrounding monuments and create powerful framed views in multiple directions.

At the street level the buildings adjust to allow for a generous piazza with adjacent public amenities like cafes, shops and restaurants. The piazza dips on axis with The Palatine Hill toward the building’s main entrance and the first floor includes a lecture hall and a sunken courtyard to house the Forma Urbis. Around this scale model of Rome is a ramp which connects all the levels of the site and ascends radially around the model’s perimeter. The second floor houses the Torlonia Collection and the third floor houses the theoretical anastylosis space in which fragments of recovered statues would be stitched together; one part performance and one part reconstruction. Finally at the top level of the site there is a small projection which extends both in toward the courtyard and out toward The Palatine Hill, signaling to all who pass by that the site contains more than what can be perceived at it’s surface.

Radial Grids

Palatine Arch Colosseum

2. Washrooms

3. Auditorium 4. Lobby 5. Coat Check 6. Main Office 7. Shops & Offices

1. Forma Urbis

First Floor Plan

Torliona Collection

1. Washrooms

2. Restoration Workshop

3. Lobby & Offices

4. Archive

5. Torliona Collection

Second Floor Plan

Stitched

1. Artifact Intake & Storage

2. Anastylosis Laboratories

3. Lobby & Offices

4. Anastylosis Displays

Third Floor Plan

1. Upper Lobby 2. Palatine Lookout

Fourth Floor Plan

Ecdysis: New Skin For An Old Problem

3B Design Studio • Independent Project

•

Supervised By: Andrew Levitt

• 2019 • 2

Months

Over the next 15 to 25 years many of the glass facades of condominiums that compose Toronto’s skyline will begin to fail. Insulation failures in the curtain wall will result in water leaks and skyrocketing energy costs, and these failures will likely be so detrimental that their repair will cost more than entirely re-skinning the buildings. Furthermore, simply repairing the flawed curtain wall would indefinitely leave us with the same issue another 15 to 25 years down the line. Ecdysis proposes a re-skinning of these towers with a more ethical and efficient solution, which begs the question: what will be done with all the wasted curtain wall that has been removed?

Ecdysis proposes the re-use of this skin as greenhouse appendages to the existing towers, using the circular Parade at Cityplace tower, by Concord Adex, as a pilot example. This “failed” material could be reused to build these greenhouse pods, because as appendages to the re-clad tower, they would not need to be heat controlled or entirely waterproof. This material deemed unfit to house humans is still very much suitable to house plants. Furthermore, the greenhouses would add life to the sterile and monotonous condos in the area and they could help in part to balance the cost of re-skinning the buildings by adding value to each unit and providing residents with a secondary income.

Secondary to failures in the curtain walls, many of these condos have structurally insufficient balconies which crack, weather and fail far sooner then expected. Ecdysis strategically reinforces these balconies using vertical columns to support the greenhouses and pin the balconies at their cantilevered edge. The greenhouse structures are pleated, incorporating the inherent rigidity of triangles to increase their stiffness and interior shelves hold plants while also bracing the structures laterally.

In areas where the curtain wall is being removed lightweight insulated walls would replace it. These walls would be punctured by large and efficient windows which would allow in plenty of light, while insulating far more efficiently than the curtain wall system. In areas where the green houses are added there would be no need to re-clad the walls and doors, as the greenhouse would insulate the semi-exterior space naturally. So, much of the existing curtain wall could remain within the second layer of glass with the large air gap providing increased insulation.

Gradually, as the condo corporation gathered sufficient funding, the condo’s would be re-skinned and a small percentage of the building’s smallest units would be converted into communal “garden sheds”. This communal space would include an actual shed, a canning and cooking room, a large fridge and a plant nursery. As the amount of greenhouses increased a subsequent farmers market would extend out into the Canoe Landing park which sits at the base of the Parade at Cityplace tower. The farmers market canopy is pierced by pleated skylights, made up of all the excess curtain wall leftover from the transition. Once complete, Ecdysis would serve as a positive solution to The Condo Conundrum in Toronto and soon the surrounding towers would begin to shed their skins too.

2. Thermal expansion damages the which are imperative to containing insulative gases

Expansion

Escaping Gas

expansion seals imperative the gases

3. Seals fail and the insulative gases escape, thus drastically lowering the curtain wall system’s insulative capabilities

4. Failed windows are drastically less capable of controlling moisture and temperature, resulting in skyrocketing energy costs and moisture damage

Proposed Floor Plan

Proposed Garden Shed Unit

Greenhouse Details

Garden Shed

Burrow: Chomutov Adrenaline Park

3A Design Studio • Independent Project

• Supervised By:

Vladimír Sitta

• Study Abroad Term at The Czech Technical University in Prague

• 2018

• 4 Months

Chomutov is a small Czech city with a population of around 50 000. Though the city is surrounded by the production of energy, it certainly could not be described as energetic. It lacks vitality and to it’s visitors it almost appears to be asleep.

Upon closer inspection, clues can be found alluding to a hidden and untapped energy within the community. Piles of dust and ashes, displaced chairs and graffiti scattered around the town’s more hidden areas, these are all tell tale signs of adolescent activity.

A vitality exists within the town’s youth, one that is desperately needed to bring life back to Chomutov. But, for now it remains hidden, because there exists no suitable environment for these adolescents within the community.

The Chomutov Adrenaline Park sits on an unused plot of land, adjacent to one of the town’s elementary schools. It would serve as a means of embedding this micro-community of adolescents into the larger community of Chomutov. It’s design and program caters to preferences common in youth, while at the same time providing the area with essential public amenities for all the town’s residents.

Fort

Topography Changes

Topography Changes

Massing

Topography Changes

Building Mass

Tree Conditions

Building Mass

Existing Trees

New Trees Removed Trees

Tree Species

Building Forms

Beech Trees

Willow Trees

Birch Trees

Pine Trees

Small Growth

1. Tennis Court Clubhouse

2. Basketball Court

3. Fort

4. Skate/BMX Park

Tennis Courts

Clubhouse Floor Plan

Clubhouse Roof Plan

Basketball Court

Basketball Court Floor Plan

Basketball Court Roof Plan

Tree Configurations

Structural Axonometric

Reinforced Concrete Roof

Engineered Wood Roof

Concrete Base

Study Models

University of Toronto, 2023

Second Year Graduate Studies, Comprehensive Studio, In Progress

Study Models

University of Toronto, 2023

Second Year Graduate Studies, Comprehensive Studio, In Progress

Professional Work

GLUCK+, 2019

Building Application (Approved): Design Assistant, Project Modeling & Renderings

Project Principal: Stacie Wong • Project Manager: Steve Preston • 2019

Approach

Interior Courtyard

Refectory

Classroom

Gallery

Chapel

Oratory

Schematic Design: Project Modeling

Project Principal: Charlie Kaplan • Project Manager: Marc Pittsley • 2019

Post Completion: Project Visualization

Project Principal: Marc Gee • 2019

Chapel Study Models

Squash Facility Models

Mini Models For Donors

Base Associates, 2017

Building Application (Approved): Multi-Family Development

Project Principal: Aseem Sheik

Design Assistant, Courtyard Design & Project Renderings

Project Manager: Shameer Kahn

2017

Design & Design Development

View 1

Canopy Section B

Canopy Section A

View 2

View 3

Courtyard Plans

Planning Application (Approved): Conversion of Youth Center Into Multi-Family

Project Principal: Aseem Sheik

Project Manager: Tom Stroud