Transect 2020-2021 by NJIT TRANSECT

New Jersey Institute of Technology Hillier College of Architecture and Design Transect vol. 3

Elizabeth Kowalchuk The word “unprecedented,” was commonly used over the past two years. While the transition to online classes to finish out the Spring semester of 2020 felt like a unique short term shift in the daily lives of students, the beginning of the Fall semester had a distinctly diﬀerent feeling. First and second year students, who have yet to experience a full year of a “normal” college life, operated in a hybrid studio environment, meeting their critics virtually, but physically spread across Weston Hall in groups of 5-6 students to a classroom that usually became home to 15-20 students each. The third, fourth, and fifth year students conducted studio in an entirely virtual format. We became more and more desentized to the global headlines that lit up our phones and the emails of Pandemic Recovery from our institution. It was easy to feel a lack of control h mistakes it continues to make, and our world became warmer and more polarized. It was in this feeling of a lack of control that we found ourselves obsessed with our own agency. Superstudio claimed that “architecture is one of the few ways to realise cosmic order on earth.” This became a guiding force and a mantra over the past two years of producing this publication. A reminder how as designers and as global citizens, we simultaneously own the agency to use architecture to take control and use our voice, while also recognizing the surrender of agency we must make through production. Through our studio explorations, we began to consider what it meant to give way to the shifting apertures of perspective that happens when a project is completed, when it becomes dissected and reinvented by the reader, the user, the occupant. Through this publication, we hoped to find our voice and to find peace in the lack of control.

Table of Contents Fall 2020 First Year Second Year Third Year Pandemic Methods of Communication Spring 2021 First Year Second Year Third Year -

EX01: Unfold First Year, Fall At the beginning of the semester, first year students are introduced to EX 1, an exploration of combination, representation, and tectonic connections.

Facing a choice between strategies, students must take an immediate stance and defend its expression through their work while accepting criticism from their studio critic. They must further defend Using two four-inch paper cubes as a their development and refinement of starting point, they are asked to employ their strategy through study models and the tectonic strategies of interpenetration, sketches. Thus, EX 1 serves not only superimposition, and twinning to develop as an introduction to model making and a completely new object through the representation, but a first foray into the interaction of the modified cubes. By fundamentals of architectural education approaching this project using two and the importance of finding and dimensional methods of representation showcasing their perspective in the work and three dimensional models, students they do. EX 1 [R] further reinforces that learn each oﬀers new and unique ways idea, while acknowledging that sometimes of analyzing and developing the chosen abandoning an idea and starting fresh is strategy. Additionally, starting with necessary in finding a unique personal the basics provides an even plane for perspective. students with varying experiences in art and architecture. Before moving onto Working either from home or in a EX 2, EX 1 [REDUX] oﬀers students a reduced-capacity studio space, students chance to reflect on their EX 1 project had to contend with an atypical studio and either 1) continue with the same experience -- one that could, at times, concept and continue developing it or 2) feel isolating and frustrating stemming start completely from scratch, with a new from limited contact with or help from strategy or concept. Many students took colleagues -- brought on by an atypical the latter option, preferring to examine a situation. However, the completion of EX completely new path of inquiry instead of 1 and EX 1 [R] sparked excitement for treading familiar ground. the rest of the semester, regardless of its challenges.

Sketch / Kevin Nguyen

Physical Model / Kevin Nguyen

Templates / Kevin Nguyen

Physical Model / Acewin Tam

Templates / Acewin Tam

Assembly + Perspectives / Acewin Tam

Physical Model / Kamil Ciemier

Assembly / Kamil Ciemier

Process / Kamil Ciemier

Elevations + Assembly / Kamil Ciemier

EX2: Silhouette to Volume First Year, Fall

Unfolded Template/ Grady Henderson

Physical Model / Grady Henderson

Process / Grady Henderson

Physical Model / Acewin Tam

Unfolded Template / Acewin Tam

Process / Acewin Tam

Exploded Diagram / Joaquin Acuna

Physical Model / George Azmy

Unfolded Template / George Azmy

Physical Model / George Azmy

Physical Model / Layla Neira

Unfolded Template / Layla Neira

Physical Model / Layla Neira

Process / Layla Neira

EX3: Volume within Volume First Year, Fall This project is all about introducing interior spaces and exploring the relationship between exterior and interior. The previous projects only required a study of the exterior volume, so this was definitely a new concept, meaning a new approach was to be taken. The students were asked to construct a volume within another larger volume and to represent the unique poche that was created by the space “in between”. Although the end result for this specific assignment was clear, each student had their own thought process on how to go about this project, and their own individual challenges and obstacles. Diving right into the ideation process, the critics instructed their students to just open the Rhino software and begin exploring, allowing them to

comprehend the task at hand slowly. Whereas some of the students began exploring with their EX 2 projects as a starting point, many others started completely from scratch, which proved to be a lot more diﬃcult. After the first round of pinups and critiques, the students had a clearer understanding of the process of creating this complex volume, and some even decided to start over. Reflecting on this project at the end of the semester, most students have shared that the toughest part was the software. At a beginners level, most of the students had only learned how to make somewhat complex solids, and now that the interior had to be created it took a bit longer to grasp all the new tools and techniques. Other students concluded that they were having diﬃculty approaching the

volume correctly. They realized that at one point they were just carving random voids to create that hollow volume inside, but when cut through, the interior solid was not exactly a volume. This had, in part, to do with the software but also with the way the students were thinking about the project. Rather than a whole volume, students began thinking of it as two separate halves or two entirely separate objects. Lastly, students struggled with grasping the concept of poche and how to create complex, meaningful, poche. In the end, almost every student came up with successful solutions and were able to create interesting 3D models that replicated their digital work.

Sectional Model / Acewin Tam

Sectional Model / Eric Garzillo

Sectional Axonometric / Eric Garzillo

Physical Model Detail / Eric Garzillo

Sections / Eric Garzillo

Plans and Sections / Joaquin Acuna

Perspective / Joaquin Acuna

Persepective / Joaquin Acuna

Sectional Model / Joaquin Acuna

Section / Alexandra Goodwin

Sectional Model / Alexandra Goodwin

Axonometric / Alexandra Goodwin

Concept Collage / Alexandra Goodwin

Sectional Model / Sean Jaeger

Plan / Sean Jaeger

Sectional Axonometric / Sean Jaeger

Interior Volume Concept Sketch / Sean Jaeger

EX4: Solar | Site | Shelter First Year, Fall Throughout the first semester of architecture school here at NJIT, a lot of emphasis is placed on the design process, iteration, and learning the basic principles of developing meaningful ideas. The resulting structures are just called massings that students are told to explore in various contexts. For example, EX 3 requires the students to create a volume that has a volume within it. This object is a mere study of the interior and exterior spaces of a structure. This thought process is encouraged for EX 4. The project has a lengthy process and requires an immense amount of research, exploration, iteration, and patience. The goal for EX 4 is to create a suitable shelter at a specific site that relates to the landscape around it. Each studio was assigned a site along the Appalachian trail and introduced to various

techniques to manipulate that land. These techniques and research are to be applied to each individual project to create a real life solution. Many students described this project as a challenging one because of the change in technique and approach that was to be applied. The program, purpose, location, landscape, and much more had to be considered when designing the shelter. The first stage was research and this took the most time as each site was to be analyzed in depth. The climate, topography, program circulation, foot traﬃc, environment, existing shelter, and even the history had to be researched in order to begin the actual design of the shelter. Most students felt as if the research was straightforward, but having to apply that research is where they felt stuck. After

the preliminary research, each group was to research strategies to manipulate the land such as plinth, berm, terrace, etc, using the concept of cut-and-fill. They were then told to incorporate this technique into the landscape in their own unique way. This process occurred parallel to the shelter design as they both took many iterations to get to the end result. Beginning with the EX 3 models as a starting point, many students wished that they had known what EX 4 entailed, as they struggled with turning their volume into a functional shelter that followed all the guidelines of the assignment. Regardless of the obstacles faced, almost everyone came up with a result that they were satisfied with and felt as if they had gained a lot of new knowledge on the design process.

Sectional Axonometric / Estarlin Abreu

Sun Studies / Joaquin Acuna

Section / Kevin Nguyen

Physical Model / Kevin Nguyen

Concept Collage / Kevin Nguyen

Site Research Sketches / Sean Jaeger

Section / Eric Garzillo

Physical Model / Eric Garzillo

Physical Model Detail / Eric Garzillo

Circulation Axonometric Diagram / Sean Jaeger

Section AA / Sean Jaeger

Level 2 Plan / Sean Jaeger

Concept Sketch / Sean Jaeger

Aperture/Sun Diagram / Alexis Milano

Concept Sketch / Alexis Milano

Circulation Site Plan / Alexis Milano

Longitudinal Section / Alexis Milano

Physical Model / Acewin Tam

Longitudinal Section / Acewin Tam

Site Plan / Acewin Tam

Aperture Diagram / Acewin Tam

Site Context / Raymond Huth

Exploted Axo / Raymond Huth

Fairmount Historical Timeline/ Raymond Huth

Green Space vs. Trash / Bridget Corman

Texture Mapping 1 / Griffith Humphrey

Texture Mapping 2 / Griffith Humphrey

Mapping / Loc Nguyen

Fairmount Timeline / Dhruvi Rajpopat and Megha Patel

Fairmount Gradient in Grasshopper / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Community Center: Preliminary Design Second Year, Fall Using the skills and knowledge that was obtained during the previous site analysis and site design project; students were asked to develop a strategy to position the program for the community center within the boundaries of the site located in Fairmount, Newark, NJ. The primary objective of the exercise was to gain an understanding of how a community center functions in an urban context. For this exercise students were asked to make ten digital models of the program of their choosing and further develop three designs in the form of either physical models or digital (depending on studio requirements). The students explored quickly rotating ideas and concepts in order to decipher the best programmatic arrangement. For those who chose to make physical models, the material choices were

much more explorative. After receiving a lecture on model making and the idea of a “Schmodel” student were allowed to explore several diﬀerent materials, depending on what was easily accessible. Students were encouraged to consider many factors into their design such as circulation, site context, traﬃc, demographic, and use of the community center. Much of these design factors were defined in a prior assignment where students completed a full analysis of the site. Thus, the primary challenge was to implement the research into a well rounded concept. Students were encouraged to visit the site and collect data from what they observed while on location. While also drawing inspiration from precedents in order to design the ideal community center for the community of Fairmount, Newark.

Program / Beatryz Mendes

Circulation / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Circulation / Jason Wittlinger

Collective Experience / Wei Huang

Individual Experience / Wei Huang

Gardens / Jason Wittlinger

Massing Process / Beatryz Mendes

Final Design Second Year, Fall In the final assignment of the semester, students incorporated the research and iterations from the previous assignments to develop a community center. As community centers are focal activity centers for the members of the surrounding neighborhood, it was essential that students considered the needs of the people of that neighborhood. In these attempts to create a center that serves a variety of uses, an important question arose: how do we [the students] accommodate for the needs of a community of which we are not a part? As the pandemic continued, students did not speak to many people in the neighborhood, so they relied on their own skills of observation during their site visit to determine what they thought would be a good addition for the community. The objective of the assignment was to learn, implement, and develop the building envelope and enclosure, circulation, aperture and daylighting, and structural and environmental systems,

which informed the strategy of the spatial organization and building form. Students analyzed their precedent research and their previous project proposal to develop these diﬀerent systems of their project in more detail. They also began to implement basic code in terms of ways of egress and accessibility (ADA) as a way to consider how their projects would work in real life and space. With the analyses, they created detailed diagrams that explained the design rules of these strategies and systems and how they related to the final design. The concepts applied to develop the forms of the previous assignment drove the incorporation of the diﬀerent systems into the building forms of the final assignment.

User Site Plan / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Program Axonometric / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Illustrative Perspective / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Cross Section / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Level 03 Plan / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Grasshopper Mapping / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Illustrative Perspective / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Program Diagram / Jason Wittlinger

Interior Perspective/ Jason Wittlinger

Exterior Perspective / Jason Wittlinger

Longitudinal Section / Jason Wittlinger

Interior Perspective/ Jacob Pesenson

Final Model / Jacob Pesenson

Exterior Perspective / Jacob Pesenson

Final Model / Jacob Pesenson

Site Third Year, Fall The site for the third year housing studio was located on the boundary between NJIT’s and the Baxter Terrace neighborhood of Newark. At this cross section, there exists simultaneously an underprivileged, previously redlined district, a thriving community of the James St. Historic District, as well as a redevelopment neighborhood at risk of contributing to gentrification. The site has a corner condition neighborhing Sussex Park, NJIT fraterity homes, and an assisted living facility across the street. Students were challenged to think about their site as a crossroads, where many diﬀerent demographics would pass through or gather. The surrounding neighborhood contains many vacant lots, which are planned to be developed by the city of Newark. Considering the context of their residential housing project, students were challenged to consider the demographics they were responding and

catering to. While some housing projects responded directly to the presence of NJIT and Rutger’s Newarks student population, others decided to cater to the broader urban fabric of Newark. Many projects attempted to mediate the complex relationships between these two groups of people reconsidering the boundary of Central Ave as a gradient space of meeting instead.

Neighborhood Mapping / Elizabeth Kowalchuk

Site Analysis / Jessie Bernardo

Perspective / Mary Riccio

Site plan / Mary Riccio

Wind diagram/ Mary Riccio

Circulation Diagram / Jessie Bernardo

Site Plan / Patrycja Ptak

Airﬂow Diagram / Cooper Schipske

Image Title / Elizabeth Kowalchuk

Image Title / Lesly Vergara

Image Title / Nairi Arslan

Image Title / Dana Naim

Third Year, Fall

Nairi Arslan / Sectional Perspective

Sectional Perspective / Elizabeth Kowalchuk

Exterior Perspective / Sidhu Burke

Interior Perspective / Sidhu Burke

Exterior Perspective / Bianca Sanchez

Site Plan / Bianca Sanchez

Levels 1, 2, 3, 4 / Bianca Sanchez

Image Title / Credit

Perspective / Mary Riccio

Section / Terevina Tawdroos

Perspective / Terevina Tawdroos

Floor Plan / Patrycja Ptak

Perspective / Patrycja Ptak

Plan / Jessie Bernardo

Pandemic Modes of Communication Due to the several complications from the pandemic, the methods of presentation in the Fall 2020 semester have been distinctly diﬀerent from those used in prior semesters. The biggest obstacle has been the transition to moving entirely to online pin-ups and reviews. In previous years, students were able to present to their peers and critics with their audience present physically in front of them. All the models and process work was visible on big boards where they had pinned their work. Now, the situation is quite diﬀerent, with Miro, Webex and Zoom being the primary methods of displaying and explaining your work, students were challenged to rethink methods of communication, and explore various ways architecture can be displayed outside of the traditional drawing types. The first year students focused heavily on architectural writing. The first writing assignment, inspired by Peter Zumthor, encouraged students to consider their relationship with architecture and the feelings it may invoke. It asks students

why they chose to pursue architecture and how the field may aﬀect their thinking. This assignment was personal and the reading was provided as an inspiration for students’ writing. The second assignment had two parts. The first was about a recording called, “Looking Up and Up,” describing the lynch memorial at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. After listening to the recording, students explored the architectural concept behind the memorial through individual research, and understood how a conceptual project statement manifests into a built form. This project acted as an example for students to approach their own project statements by rationalizing their research/analysis, architectural concept, project goals, and the design decisions into written form.

“Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.” ― Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture

Hillary Franco

The second year studio classes focused on methods of “systems thinking.” Finding manifestations of larger complexes and methods of organization was introduced to students in the process of diagramming. In a site mapping exercise, students explored the distinct ways cartography could be used to represent objective and subjective patterns about a given space. The systems that are present on a particular site were explored on the surfacelevel, with explorations of formal systems such as bike lanes, streets, and surrounding infrastructure; they were mechanical. The systems that were a resultant of the mechanical, formal systems, are informal, or emotional. They would consist of the pedestrian tendencies of movement, placemaking, and gathering as well as sensorial developments. Students were asked to choose a site that they were interested

in, and portray them in a way of deeper understanding. Instead of tracing, they were asked to diagram and to map. By finding intricacies in the ways their sites were laid out and their implications, students were able to extract methods of understanding their site, at physical and emotional levels. Finding new methods of decoding data and understanding what it meant for the use of the site became a revelatory experience, and students found out things about these sites that they wouldn’t have necessarily found out at first glance. The goal of the exercise became about finding patterns and analyzing recorded data to find what is frequent and what behaves like an anomaly. Understanding the way humans and users interact with the site also changed the way the site functioned, and proved hypotheses of the intentions of the surrounding architecture as

true or false. A popular aspect students looked into was the safety of the site, how safety was translated to the user, and where it was still an issue to combat. In the time of a global pandemic, visiting our chosen sites was a challenge, especially for those who chose sites far away from their residences. Formal systems, however, were more easily understood when seen in person, and their implications in the informal systems became apparent. Throughout the assignment, it was slowly understood that formal systems tended to be easily read in plan, using circulation arrows, color coding, and traditional drafting standards. Sections, however, were crucial in understanding the site on a human scale, being able to see interactions of large and small spaces and how they aﬀect the perspective of the user.

Jacob Pensenson

Elizabeth Kowalchuk / Jaison Desai

The third year studio emphasized the use of communication and expression as an act of design themselves. In a virtual format, clarity of presentation was more important than ever for both formal critiques and daily meetings with critics and peers. The third year course began with a PechaKucha exercise, a creative reinterpretation of the traditional methods of studio presentation. A PechaKucha, designed to encourage presenters to “talk less, show more,” encourages students to focus on clarity of images/ diagrams and specificity of their words. This is done by limiting the students to 10 slides and 20 seconds to speak each. Presentations were brief and directly to the point, encouraging students to synthesise the dense information found about their case studies to the most clear and engaging ideas. This challenged the students to distill information clearly into a succinct script, and display information through simple and clear diagrams.

Physical Model / Maegan Santos

EX1: Material First Year, Spring Students kicked off the spring semester with an exploration into how materiality affects the design process. Through this exercise, they were introduced to affect, performance, and behavior. Despite many students choosing similar everyday items, their approaches to the materials were drastically different. Not only were their organizational systems and thought processes very different, thus leading to their systems being categorized differently, but how students used the materials were also different. What one student found and considered to be a weakness in a material, another exploited it to their advantage to create something entirely different. However, despite all the differences, many students similarly felt challenged to create so many iterations of material that seemed so common and with only one use in everyday life. Through this, students also learned that not every model has to be something spectacular; instead, some are meant to just show what the system should not be.

Section Perspective / George Azmy

Sketch / George Azmy

Singular Model / George Azmy

Render / George Azmy

Aggregation / Isabella Gil

Aggregation / Maegan Santos

Module / Acewin Tam

How to Make It: Module / Isabella Gil

Module / Elizabeth Stoganenko

How to Make It: Module / Elizabeth Stoganenko

Elizabeth Stoganenko

EX2: Ordering Systems First Year, Spring Moving from EX1’s emphasis on material properties, EX2 asks students to systematize one of their models (while preserving the identified property) and then apply it to create a Gateway Pavilion in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park. By focusing on the system’s tectonics and the varied spaces it could create, modifications of the original material’s geometry became necessary to emphasize aspects important to each student. The system’s application was guided by initial explorations of the park’s context. As one of the pivotal areas in early 20th century European immigration to the United States and overlooking Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty, students had to answer questions about what a Gateway Pavilion should be and mean to the millions who visit it every year and then spatialize those ideas with their system. That meant constantly shifting between the structureand system-scale to reach a satisfactory design. This was accomplished through a series of increasingly refined iterations.

With experience from the Fall semester and EX1, students continued to develop their workflows in a variety of mediums including Rhinoceros 3D, sketching, and physical modeling, discovering the advantages and limitations of each. On top of that, the communication of spatial relationships and construction details required hybridization of typical architectural drawings to include diagrammatic elements, illuminating technical challenges in addition to conceptual ones. At the project’s conclusion, students had a clearly defined structural system, completed a small-scale test of its spatial properties, and were ready to move to a larger scale.

Perspective / Jacob Swanson

Physical Model / Jacob Swanson

Module System / Jacob Swanson

Physical Model / Jacob Swanson

Physical Model / Acewin Tam

Module System / Acewin Tam

Circulation Diagram / Dhwani Shah

Program + Circulation / Acewin Tam

Circulation / Elizabeth Stoganenko

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Program / Elizabeth Stoganenko

Form / Elizabeth Stoganenko

Physical Model / Elizabeth Stoganenko

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Sectional Perspective in the Future / Isabella Gil

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EX3: Just a Park? First Year, Spring Moving about 250 feet north-west from the site of EX2’s Gateway Pavilion, EX3 challenges students to redesign an existing modular administrative building into one more responsive to its Liberty State Park context and accessible to the public. Students must also work with the passage of time as an active part of the design. Building oﬀ of initial research done for EX2, EX3.1 oﬀers students a chance to dive deeper into the site’s history, culture, ecology, and existing program as well as precedent studies and Italian radicals Gruppo Strum’s theory of the Intermediate City. The Intermediate City is this exercise’s conceptual grounding, emphasizing public spaces as places of solidarity that are independent of the influence of capital and behaviors enforced by the city.

These ideas were translated to the park through intermediaries-extra, individualized programmatic spaces that apply those aspirations and turn an ostensibly boring oﬃce building into something much more vital, and thus radical, for the space it occupies. Then, students moved onto schematic design. Thinking about how each programmatic element relates to the ground, the broader concept, and the context results in a clear direction for the structural system developed in EX2 to be modified and utilized. Design development follows, where the structural system needs to be reconciled with abstract and complex ideas to create not just a building, but a place. The use of unconventional structural systems also gives students tacit permission to depart from

conceptual orthodoxy. Due to the four-week timeline for design development, critics ask students to focus on areas of the project, at any scale, that communicate the idea of the project rather than work everything to a high level of detail. This is the major technical challenge of the project and is dealt with in many ways, including physical and digital models at multiple scales and levels of detail, hybridized and layered drawings, and writing. As such, EX3 acts not only as the culmination of the first year curriculum, but a window into the challenges and questions students will pursue throughout their architectural education and practice.

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Sections + Elevations / Julia Okon

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Sectional Detail / Acewin Tam

Axonometric / Acewin Tam

Section / Julia Okon

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Perspective / Elizabeth Stoganenko

Axonometric / Elizabeth Stoganenko

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Programmatic Exploded Axonometric / Isabella Gil

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Physical Model Sketch / Layla Neira

Spatial Radii Study / Layla Neira

Sketches / Layla Neira

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Sections / Dhwani Shah

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Site Plan / Dhwani Shah

Rendering / Dhwani Shah

Circulation + Program + System / Dhwani Shah

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Ground Floor Plan / Jacob Swanson

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Future Perspective / Jacob Swanson

Exploded Axonometric / Jacob Swanson

Section / Jacob Swanson

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Circualtion + Programmatic Diagram / Isabella Gil

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Render / Isabella Gil

Exploded Axonometic / Isabella Gil

Evolution of Parts / Isabella Gil

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(Re)Imagining a Place for Learning in Time of Crisis Second Year, Spring Much has changed in campus life due to not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but social injustice and climate change, as well. This resulted in a focus on new ways of understanding spaces of a university campus in terms of these crises, and how they influence the social and cultural atmosphere of university in an age of technology. Working through iterations was the key strategy throughout this semester. The project itself was to create an extension of the Hiller College of Architecture and Design in favor of the new social distancing normal that was placed upon the world by the recent pandemic. But additionally, it was also in eﬀort to demonstrate the fast-paced work that is required in the real-world field of architecture. When grappling with such a large task of designing a comprehensive university building, complete with spaces for learning, relaxing, making, and researching, there are a lot of factors we need to account for.

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In a fifteen week studio or in an architectural firm, iterations of projects are required to produce a comprehensive and succinct design. While the process is grueling and labor-intensive, it serves as the end product of the studio. The first half of the semester was dedicated to understanding the site, the project requirements, and students’ own personal concepts for the project inside and out. They started by developing standalone, new, and innovative typologies for educational space, ones that diﬀer from the conventional library, studio, and lecture hall, an exercise that was the most successful due in part to the clean slate they all started with. As the semester progressed, students began developing their sites with consideration of daylight and topography. Additionally, they focused on regulatory systems, like egress, travel distances, occupancy, and accessibility to best integrate their projects into the surrounding

context. Once they began to develop several iterations of the project in relation to the site, they had to learn to step away from original concepts developed in the typology exercise and focus the process on taking it one step at a time, developing individual iterations for sun studies, exterior circulation, and site conditions. Through these iterations, students began to refine what worked and what didn’t to create a final presentation that addressed the diﬀerent systems of the building in relation to campus. They continued to discuss what they believe to be the future of higher education in terms of acknowledging and adapting their design choices to diﬀerent crises of the world. At the point where students had to begin thinking about the final

massing and interior circulation was when all of these ideas suddenly had to come together. Naturally, whatever iterations they put together couldn’t work out without so quite a bit of reworking and revisiting. Eliminating the unnecessary, and only keeping what added to the concept was a key step in the process. Iterations make them focus on the bare necessities. By the end of the project, it was clear that no matter how their projects turned out, they had understood a new way of focused and precise thinking, and this was the goal of the studio. Iterations helped students approach their work with rigor and contemplation, enough to help them become more strategic and critical thinkers.

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Perspective / Bridget Corman

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Section AA / Bridget Corman

Circulation / Bridget Corman

Section BB / Bridget Corman

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Physical Model / Anddy Franco

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Section AA / Anddy Franco

Perspective / Anddy Franco

Section BB / Anddy Franco

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Perspective / Isabelle Letham

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Structure Detail / Cooper Quigley

Perspective/ Cooper Quigley

Plans / Isabelle Letham

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Concept Diagram / Cooper Quigley

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Solar Studies / Cooper Quigley

Section AA / Cooper Quigley

Section BB / Cooper Quigley

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Circulation Site Plan / Dhruvi Rajpopat

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Perspective / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Section AA / Dhruvi Rajpopat

Section BB / Dhruvi Rajpopat

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Perspective / Zehra Dulgeroglu

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Perspective / Zehra Dulgeroglu

Program / Zehra Dulgeroglu

Section AA / Zehra Dulgeroglu

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NJPAC’s Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center Third Year, Spring The third year spring semester focused on a site within NJIT’s home city of Newark. The students were given an exciting opportunity of working with a real client, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). An anchor cultral institution in the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey, the NJPAC is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States and has one of the largest arts education programs of the nature. The NJPAC is a major driving force behind the revitalization and development of Newark, and is beginning to break ground on transformational downtown masterplan. One phase of this neighborhood revitilization plan includes the Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center, currently being designed by architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Centered around NJPAC’s mission statement, the Cooperman Center is an educational, performance, and community center with a broad list of programmatic requirements including professional and educational studio

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spaces and classrooms, a community center with a children’s library and family lounge, and a blackbox theater. Located across the street from the NJPAC theater and proposed neighborhood expansion, the project was to be though of as one piece of the overall expansion. Students had the opportunity to meet and present their projects to their NJPAC clients as well as architects from SOM through their design process. Students were challenged to focus on the sustainability and cultural impact of their designs, especially within the context of a large cultural instituion and an ever developing city at risk to gentrification and neighborhood change.

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Exterior Perspective / Krunali Shah

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Structural Grid / Krunali Shah

Programmatic Organization / Krunali Shah

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Concept image / Brian Bueno

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Structural Organization / Brian Bueno

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Section Perspective / Brian Bueno

Exploded Axonometric / Elizabeth Kowalchuk

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2020-2021