Teodor Mlynczyk_Portfolio_Winter-2024

TEODOR MLYNCZYK

Living Architecture Systems Group

Toronto, ON, Canada

June. 2023 - present

WORK EXPERIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

MCM 2001 Inc.

Toronto, ON, Canada

Jan. - Apr, 2022

NORR Architects & Engineers Limited

Toronto, ON, Canada

June. - Aug. 2021

• Acquired diverse experiences across production management, design, and fabrication within a dynamic studio environment

• Gained transferable knowledge working with an extensive variety of materials (metal, plastic, acrylic, mylar, wood, silicone, foam), fabrication processes (heat forming, metal bending, metal stretching, soldering, etc.), and tools (filament printers, resin printers, laser cutters, metal press, wood saws, etc.)

• Played a pivotal role in several prominent projects, taking on versatile roles in both design and fabrication. Noteworthy projects include Poietic Veil Tilburg, installed at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg for the immersive “Is it alive?” exhibition, and Noogenesis Sphere, which featured in the Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses exhibition

• Engaged in diverse roles on the shop floor and in the design office

• Acquired valuable expertise using various woodworking and metalworking tools/ machinery, while also gaining insights into each stage of the production process

• Demonstrated proficiency in AutoCAD for creating precise shop drawings and comprehensive drawing packages for project submittals

• Assumed some production management roles, tracking the progress of ongoing projects

• Played a pivotal role in projects within NORR’s Commercial and Interior Design studios

• Utilized Revit and AutoCAD to produce technical drawing packages for design submissions and client presentations

• Worked closely with senior team members to conduct massing studies (in SketchUp) and develop presentation drawings for a large-scale urban regeneration project

Zeidler Architecture Inc.

Toronto, ON, Canada

Jan. - Apr. 2021

• Collaborated with multiple design teams, working both in-person, and remotely contributing to high rise residential and revitalization projects

• Utilized programs including Revit, SketchUp, InDesign, and Photoshop to create technical and representational drawings

• Successfully navigated a challenging period of changing work environments amidst the peak of the pandemic, enhancing teamwork and communication skills

SKILLS / EDUCATION

PROFICIENCIES

Fabrication:

Model Making

Metal Working

Wood Working

Hand Drafting

Foam Cutting

EDUCATION

2017 - 2022

2013 - 2017

HONOURS/ ACHIEVEMENTS

2017 - 2022

2020

2018

2017

2017

2016 - 2017

2016 - 2017

2016 - 2017

EXHIBITIONS/ AWARDS

2024

2022

2020

2020

Laser Cutting

3D Printing

CNC Milling

Prototyping

Software:

Rhinoceros 7

AutoCAD

SketchUp

Autodesk Revit

Vectorworks

University of Waterloo School of Architecture

Bachelor of Architectural Studies

Holy Trinity Catholic High School

Ontario Secondary School Diploma

2019

V-Ray

Enscape

Adobe CC

Grasshopper

Java Coding Language

• Excellent Academic Standing – all terms (University of Waterloo)

• Buildings Workshop: Summer 2020 – received certificate of completion

• South Simcoe Sonics Bursary (for continual involvement in the club)

• President’s Scholarship Award (University of Waterloo)

• The Grand House Award (competitive essay)

• Outstanding Student Award (Holy Trinity Catholic HS)

• Fine Arts Award (Holy Trinity Catholic HS)

• Senior Male Athlete of the Year (Holy Trinity Catholic HS)

Learning From Tianguis (Installation – 2024 DesignTO Festival): Interactive market stall, designed and fabricated in collaboration with Chiun Lee Kim, and installed at STACKT Market (Toronto) for the DeisgnTO 2024.

Embodying Memory (Project Exhibition – University of Waterloo): End-of-term exhibition showcasing highlighted work from our 4B Studio.

Biomimetic Pavilion (Project Exhibition – University of Waterloo): End-of-term online exhibition showcasing highlighted work from our 4B Studio.

St. James Town Hub (Project Award – Online Competition): Received an Editor’s Choice Award for the Parasitic Architecture Competition 2020, and was published in Uni’s 2021 E-Yearbook.

Common Waters Exhibition (Installation – BRIDGE Centre for Architecture): Produced an experimental model that was showcased in an public exhibition aimed to examine our relationship with water and the current climate crisis.

PORTFOLIO CONTENTS

ACADEMIC WORK

EMBODYING MEMORY

Pg. 4

SCHOOL FOR THE SENSES

Pg. 10

BIOMIMETIC PAVILION

Pg. 14

PROFESSIONAL WORK / INSTALLATIONS

LEARNING FROM TIANGUIS

Pg. 17

MCM 2001

Pg. 19

LASG

Pg. 21

Supervisor: Beatrice Bruscoli

Type: Group Work

Academic level: 4B

Year: 2022

Location: Rome, Italy

EMBODYING MEMORY

At the foot of the Porta Portese, at the threshold into the ancient city of Rome, is the site of the Museum of the Tiber River. The intention of this project was to create a stronger bond between the historical site, river, and surrounding urban context, while also revealing and examining the stratification of the site’s history. To do so, the museum is placed into an existing network of public spaces and educational buildings, on a derelict site with three significant historical structures. The key aspects of the project include a central stepped piazza through the core of the site that links the street level to the river, two major water features which recall memories of the Tiber flooding, and two newly built structures (at either end of the site) that cut into the earth, exposing its stratified history.

The journey through the site begins at the Porta Portese, where visitors are then guided through the refurbished historical buildings (where temporary exhibitions are held) alongside the two water features. On the west side of the site, an auditorium building faces the water and opens onto a platform that extends into the western slope (which left untouched in its current natural condition). On the east side, the core museum building steps down towards the river and is excavated into the site. The visitor’s path winds through the two floors of the museum, descending to the level of the river, where visitors are then led out onto two public spaces lined with trees, plantings, and benches alongside the existing bike path and the water.

Rome is a stratified city

To walk through the streets of Rome is to inhabit a liminal space between past and present, both outside of history and crucially a part of it.

Here, the new city never replaces the old; it consumes it. So that at the end of each day, deep in the bowels of the city, a new Rome is born that is both the old and the new, an ancient presence with the characteristics of the newly-born. Thus Rome lives in constant renewal of itself.

The memory of Rome is likewise built up. Architecture here is the physical manifestation of the passage of time. Walking through its streets one observes the signs of ages, like following a path carved through a great and ancient rock and pondering wondrously the accumulation of lines, red and white beneath a strip of blue.

And since memory here is a physical presence, so too must the act of remembrance. To keep Rome alive is to participate in the daily ritual of collective recollection performed by its inhabitants. Every Roman walking underneath the scorching hot summer sun, pushing up the side of one of its seven hills in extreme physical and spiritual exertion participates in the act of defiance of the city against the tyranny of time and in doing so restores to the city its re-juvenessence with each passing day.

This is the junction at which our project inserts itself, at the meeting point between inhabitant and the city. Ours is an instrument of remembrance. A place to learn about the city through embodying the liminal space between knowledge and action, and in so doing, to participate in the daily creation of the new Rome, the old Rome.

Section AA - through sculpture garden and museum building (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

Rendered Site Plan (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk):

1. Porta Portese

2. Magazzino del Sale (historic building)

3. Corderie (historic building)

4. Sculpture garden

5. Central stepped piazza

6. Arsenale (historic building)

7. Auditorium building

8. New museum building (archives and artifacts)

9. Riverside public space

Level 1 Floor Plan (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk):

1. Main site entrance

2. Museum lobby and bookshop

3. Cafe with outdoor patio

4. Temporary exhibitions (artifacts)

5. Sculpture garden

6. Secondary site entrance

7. Central staircase

8. Temporary exhibitions (sculptures)

9. Auditorium and meeting rooms

10. Lookout point (accessed through auditorium)

stepped piazza (Author: Marco Adly)

| Rendered view out of the Corderie (Author: Marco Adly)

|

Rendered view down the central staircase (Author: Marco Adly)

(Author: Marco Adly)

| Rendered view looking into the Arsenale (Author: Marco Adly)

| Rendered view of the museum interior looking at the planting wall (Author: Marco Adly)

Supervisor: Mohamad Araji

Work

Individual

Type:

Academic level: 4A

Year: 2021

Location: Stratford, PE

SCHOOL FOR THE SENSES

The core inspiration for this project, located along the northern edge of Hillsborough Bay, PEI, began with an investigation of the site and its forces, through videos, photography, and preliminary research. The intent was also to bring forward an indigenous perspective by consulting the resident elder at the University of Waterloo, as in indigenous culture the way we live and learn is deeply connected to the land. From this, the following project statement emerged:

The School for the Senses attempts to guide its users to experience the site and its forces by creating an immersive sensory-oriented learning environment. This is accomplished by forming a

deep relationship between the building and site itself and by designing spaces where learning done is through touch, sound, smell, and sight. Students will recreate their understanding of the world around them through a multi-sensory experience that expands on conventional teaching methods. Within the learning experience of the school, there is also a strong connection to indigenous culture and forms of teaching that fully connect the building and its students to the natural environment.

On the following pages, the form, distribution of programs, materiality, and sensory experiences of the project will be exhibited in more depth, based on these underlying principles.

Starting with a simple rectangular shape, this is the base from which the form finding process starts.

Form / Space Diagram

Following the path of the sun, the rectangular shape is curved into a “solar hemicycle.” Based off of the form, a radial grid, with a key linear axis is created.

Finally, as the building takes its shape, spaces are layered, from inside to outside, creating thresholds and places where the environments blend.

images (left to right: site image; Doucet House; Melissa Peter Paul artwork

As a multipurpose building for primary education, research and summer camps, the school incorporates a large variety of programs as outlined in the floor plan above. Entering the building from the north/south access road, a foyer forms a “hinge” connecting the semicircular part of building (which houses the classrooms) to the gymnasium and administration part of the building. At the end of the semi-circle, along the linear axis, is a circular library and a bath house. Finally, the landscaping forms two key spaces: the exterior learning areas each centered around a “learning tree” (extending the classrooms outside) and a central gathering space with student run gardens and a central firepit.

1.

17.

19.

20.

22.

| Perspective cross-section through the teaching spaces (Author:

Teodor Mlynczyk)

Rendered view of the interior classroom (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

interior classroom (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

Supervisor: David Correa

Type: Group Work

Academic level: 3B

Year: 2020

Adaptable

Location:

BIOMIMETIC PAVILION

both as a

and innovative

environmental

change shape under different moisture conditions. The biological inspiration for these modules came from two plants: False Beard Moss and the Common Sunflower. With the moss, we looked at how the plant was able to absorb moisture and generate a twisted geometry (and how this geometry could be abstracted). Then, with the sunflower, we isolated the differential growth in its stem as a key influence, translating this into the use of differential wood grain expansion in the modules.

| Image author: Teodor Mlynczyk

The Biomimetic Pavilion is a multi-purpose structure that acts

community hub

piece of

design. The AESS pavilion holds up a canopy of rain-capturing modules that

Through an iterative design process of physical prototyping (on a smaller scale), a final module was developed that would “open up” with rainfall/moisture, acting as a partial rainscreen and collecting water at the same time. The modules are placed on top of a truss in an alternating pattern to maximize coverage and create an interweaving pattern seen from below. The space underneath the canopy can be used for various community events and adapted to different locations, but in this adaptation, it supports a marketplace.

Module Prototype

The module’s rain collecting element consists of three pairs wooden actuators with a flexible, water repellent fabric in between. The actuators have a polyethylene layer facing outwards and an exposed wood surface facing inwards. This assembly, along with the orientation of the wood grain, allows the actuators to twist outwards, opening up to collect water like a flower, which funnels down into the collecting pipes of the structure. The primary drainage pipes then funnel down into four columns, around which landscaping, seating, and water features utilizing collected rainwater are located.

| Module prototype during testing (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

| Close-ups of the prototype (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

False Beard Moss

Focus: water absorption + movement

Common Sunflower

Focus: flower movement + structure

Differential cell elongation in the stem

Midrib

Rain / Moisture 45°

Movement of leaves

Sunflower movement

Abstraction of movement

Abstraction of geometry

Abstraction of geometry

elevation (Author: Jacob Dimla)

| Rendered view of the pavilion under dry conditions (Author: Jacob Dimla)

Modules along the primary drainage pipes

Primary drainage pipe

Structural bracing/ sculptural elements

Landscaping/water feature serviced by rainwater collection

Pipes to potentially service nearby buildings

Water storage/cistern

| Rendered view of the pavilion under wet conditions (Author: Jacob Dimla)

LEARNING FROM TIANGUIS: EXPLORING HYBRID MARKETPLACES

Thesis work by Chiun Lee Kim, featured at STACKT Market for the 2024 DesignTO Festival Collaborator for fabrication and assembly https://designto.org/event/learning-from-tianguis/

Location: Toronto, ON

Year: 2024

Academic level: Thesis Project

Type: Group Work

In a rapidly evolving retail landscape, where physical open-air marketplaces over time are being replaced with more convenient digital alternatives, the exhibition ‘Learning from Tianguis: Exploring Hybrid Marketplaces’ by Chiun Lee challenge contemporary methods of shopping experiences. The immersive experience delves into reaching a middle ground between tradition and innovation, showcasing how lessons learned from various Mexican brands and communities particularly around the tianguis settings can enrich the future of retail, merging the strengths of physical and digital spaces.

The heart of the exhibition lies in the Tianguis, traditional Mexican open-air markets, that has had a long and rich cultural history and a strong community-driven ecosystem. Particularly, the vibrant colour of the textiles that engulf the marketplace and ongoing interactions between sellers and buyers paint the landscape inside the tianguis. Such foundation in the tianguis demonstrates the vitality of physical storefronts as hubs of community interaction and the embodiment of culture.

| Conceptual drawings from Chiun Lee Kim’s thesis work

In juxtaposition to the physical marketplace, the exhibition incorporates interactive digital mediums that capture and project and explores the global reach of online retail. Product recommendations, personalization in user experiences allow for the incorporation of the strengths in such retail including convenience, wide variety in products and ease of transaction.

The core narrative of the exhibition lies in the convergence of more traditional, tangible methods of communal aspects of the traditional tianguis and digital platforms that improve convenience and global outreach. Unironically, bits and pieces of each the physical and digital are already being implemented in newer brands in Mexico City depending on their business context. Looking at such precedents, the exhibition explores how this intersection can augment both the tangible, communal aspects in buying and selling with more convenient and immersive experiences provided by digital platforms.

| Images of the full installation (top left and right) / projections onto fabric (below)

MCM 2001 INC.

Workshop Experience

The segment of my co-op at MCM 2001 spent on the shop floor was divided between the wood shop, metal shop, and veneering department. In the wood shop I worked with the furniture assembly team, constructing storage cabinets, security desks, and kiosk stations for various projects, including Fido store interiors (see image below). Next, in the metal shop I learned how to use various tools and metal-working machines, while contributing to several minor projects (both in-house and for clients). I received comprehensive training in welding, gained experience with both TIG and MIG methods (see images below). Finally, in the veneering department I worked with a small team preparing the individual components of multiple ongoing projects for next stage of the assembly process, or for a final pass in the paint room. Overall, these experiences were invaluable for gaining insights into every stage of the production process.

| Images of me using a drill press (left), MIG welding (middle), and using a metal lathe (right)

| Image of a Fido store interior, with millwork and cabinets (see close-up in top right image) fabricated by MCM 2001 (Image credits: MCM 2001)

| Finished kiosk stations for Rogers store interiors (left) and security/storage cabinets for Fido store interiors (right)

Centre for Computing & Data Sciences

During the portion of my co-op placements spent in the design office at MCM 2001, I worked closely on the now completed Center for Computing & Data Sciences for Boston University. MCM’s role in the project was to design architectural ceiling and wall panels. I utilized AutoCAD to produce design drawings for submittals and working shop drawings for the project across its three sectors (interior ceiling panels, exterior ceiling panels, and interior wall panels). The selection of drawings on this page showcases some of my work from the interior ceiling panel portion of the project.

| Interior images of the Center for Computing & Data Sciences (Image credits: KPMB)

| Ground floor plan - Zone 2 panel layout (Author: Teodor Mlynczyk)

LIVING ARCHITECTURE SYSTEMS GROUP

Poietic Veil Tilburg

Poietic Veil Tilburg, installed at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, was one of four featured projects in the immersive “Is it alive?” exhibition. The sculpture is composed of an interactive, suspended veil, the dress Lucid created by Iris van Herpen, and an innovative new projection system, Living Shadows, which couples the dress to the sculpture by means of light and shadow. The lace-like structure with its responsive components invites curiosity and visitor interaction. I played a crucial part in the onsite fabrication and installation of this artwork alongside LASG colleagues and students from TU Delft. The installation is currently staged until April 2024.

of the Poietic Veil (Image credits: LASG)

Noogenesis Sphere

Noogenesis Sphere is a spherical sculpture that was unveiled with the Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses exhibition. The crescent-shaped structure, crafted from metal and acrylic components, is wrapped in layers of fronds, and encrusted with glass jewels along its inner shell. Enveloped within the gentle curve of the crescent, a small, truncated icosahedron hangs suspended, subtly hinting at its central role within the broader architectural composition.