ISSUE:011

ISSUE:

FROM THE EDITORS ISSUE aims to catalogue and document the work of students at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (UTSOA). The eleventh edition of ISSUE pairs the concepts of “local” and “global.”

What significance do these terms have in today’s highly networked society? At UTSOA, our student work is inherently local—design primarily takes place here at the Austin campus—but it is also implicitly global. Every design problem has the opportunity to either consciously or subconsciously interrogate the situation of our school and the larger discipline of architecture in a globalized world.

ISSUE: 011 is organized in three parts. Local, the first section, emphasizes the work we do here at home in Austin. Student work is organized by the Austin neighborhood or Texas city in which the proposal is located. All of these projects address the question of place and culture in our rapidly growing city, many of which involve a real-life client or design problem. Connecting the Local with the Global is a section of the book that bridges these notions and focuses on classes and activities unique to our school. We present a sample of UTSOA culture, and recognize the many visiting professors and lecturers who are making a global impact in architecture, while also being locally influential here at UTSOA. Projects and features in this section are distinct to UTSOA and live in between a clear categorization of local or global. Finally, the Global section showcases the design projects students have engaged in around the world. Many of the design studios and independent research projects involved students and professors traveling to locations in Europe, Asia, parts of Latin America, and within the United States. These projects allowed students to bring back a broader perspective with which to re-engage the local context of Austin.

issue.publication@gmail.com http://soa.utexas.edu/publications/issue The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture

ISSUE:

CONTENTS

05 FOREWORD 06 LOCAL PROJECTS 74 UTSOA CONNECTION 106 GLOBAL PROJECTS 147 INDEX 148 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

The work I observe around our School of Architecture today brings to mind those bumper stickers we often mindlessly stare at when stuck in traffic that proselytize:“Think Globally, Act Locally.” This attitude speaks to how students at the University of Texas at Austin (UTSOA) have a far different perception of our world today than most architecture students did when I was their age. At that time, the world beyond my neighborhood—the city I lived in or at most my home state—was predominantly remote and mysterious. Today, the notion of isolation and estrangement is rare. Every moment of the day, the entire world is virtually at our fingertips, and the physical places are just a quick flight away. Students in today’s design schools are ever-globalized in their thinking. The world they live in now is much smaller, necessitating a broader awareness. As a reflection of this global society, architecture is now more atomized than ever.

Architecture today, both academic and in practice, asks for nothing less than a broad-based outlook—one that encompasses the planet as a whole, embracing its multi-faceted cultures and its diverse environments, many of which are under unalterable siege.

For young designers to have any sort of lasting benefit in this now-global setting, how they design will need to spring from the local, for this is where the pith and the marrow of the real takes place. As beginning designers who set out to add to the body of architecture, today’s students will make a difference by carefully listening and responding to a place’s cultural and ecological richness—by respecting its limits and reveling in that. If making real and poetic work—genuinely beneficial design on a global stage—is a desire, then there is no longer the option for either/or, global versus local when designing. We are all now citizens of a both/and world, the macro and micro simultaneously.

You will see the both/and way of designing exemplified here in ISSUE: 011. Students at our school are given many opportunities to cultivate broad, worldwide approaches in their educational pursuits. They then bring those ideas to fruition by focusing on the local.

UTSOA work takes place all over the planet. Through these junctures, our UTSOA students are learning to nurture global citizenship from a perspective that delights in what is at hand, and in turn learning how to give that universal application. Any given semester students might travel to Uruguay, Germany, Tanzania, Spain or Mexico to work on their designs, while the following semester they might be in a studio concentrating on a community garden project in East Austin. In such dissimilar locales they learn to think and respond to the both/ and society in which we live. In this mirroring, our students gain a greater regard for the beauty of the particular, such as cultural and ecological systems. Through establishing relationships with that which is near, what is learned can then be applied to the greater whole.

In the coming decades, students whose work is highlighted in this collection will be confronted with design challenges on a global scale hard for us to imagine today. Designers will face the growing impact of climate change that requires finding suitable resilient responses; they will be challenged to envision and develop imaginative and affordable housing for the planet’s increasingly disadvantaged population; they will be expected to develop new ideas for how we work in ways that, by comparison, will make our current office environments seem static and unproductive. The same challenges go for our places of learning, worship, recreation, our businesses, and the like.

The design projects highlighted here in ISSUE demonstrate how our UTSOA students are preparing for this imminent future through critical questioning that embraces the both/and of thinking and acting both globally and locally. The work at UTSOA is a testament to how our students acknowledge the truly small world they live in. How they respond to the issues at hand will impact us all. And while this actuality is of the utmost importance, what I think you will catch sight of in this ISSUE is the students’ absolute joy of making both beautiful and meaningful work.

Coleman Coker, Ruth Carter Stevenson Regents Chair in the Art of Architecture

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LOCAL PROJECTS 6

FEATURED PROJECTS 08 John Cunningham + Shelley McDavid

50 Adrianne Broussard, Lu Jiang, Melissa Sparks + Quan Yin

12 Alex Warr

52 Kendall Claus

16 Kristin Miller

56 Sheridan Treadwell

18 Chinh Pham

58 Elizabeth Arnold + Kevin Olsen

20 April Ng

62 Catherine Cordeiro, Izabella Dennis, Rebekka Grady, Vishal Joshi, Yung-Ju

Burton Baldridge | Austin, Texas | Downtown Austin Murray Legge | Austin, Texas | Downtown Austin Igor Siddiqui | Austin, Texas | Downtown Austin Igor Siddiqui | Austin, Texas | Downtown Austin Joyce Rosner | Austin, Texas | Lady Bird Lake

24 Ryan Carlisle

Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram | Austin, Texas | Lady Bird Lake

26 Namhyuck Ahn + Xiaoyuan Yu

Benjamín Ibarra-Sevilla | Austin, Texas | East Austin

30 Katherine Eastman + J.J. Fleury Jason Sowell | Austin, Texas | East Austin

34 Donesh Ferdowski

Ulrich Dangel | Austin, Texas | East Austin

36 Molly McNamara + April Ng

Matt Fajkus | Austin, Texas | East Austin

40 Haley Fitzpatrick

Allan Shearer | Austin, Texas | UT Austin Campus

Danelle Briscoe | Austin, Texas | UT Austin Campus Nerea Feliz | Austin, Texas | UT Austin Campus Francisco Gomes | Jonestown, Texas | Texas Hill Country

Kim, Jessica Kulow Steiner, Andrew Leith, Paula Nasta + Frank Ordia Benjamín Ibarra-Sevilla | Lometa, Texas | Texas Hill Country

64 Kelsey Kaiser

Francisco Gomes | Marble Falls, Texas | Texas Hill Country

66 Sarah Simpson

Dean Almy | Johnson City, Texas | Texas Hill Country

68 Ruihua Cai, Rachel Duggan, Katherine Eastman, Jamie Epley, Thomas

Johnston, Teng Li, Kuan Liu, Celine Pinto, Luke Stevenson + Huiming Zuo Coleman Coker | Goose Island State Park, Texas | Gulf Coast

72 Peter Binder, Sara Fallahi, Jorge Faz, Kimberly Harding, Christina Hunter,

Nicholas Lee, Barron Peper, Ryan Rasmussen + Shelby Sickler Coleman Coker | Port Aransas, Texas | Gulf Coast

Nichole Wiedemann | Austin, Texas | South Austin

44 Ryan Carlisle

Allison Gaskins | Austin, Texas | South Austin

48 Kerry Frank

Allison Gaskins | Austin, Texas | South Austin

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AMP FORUM John Cunningham + Shelley McDavid Technical Communication | Burton Baldridge | Austin, Texas Film and music production are central to Austin’s cultural identity, yet have minimal visible presence. Public space is vast but poorly distributed and largely uncurated. For the Austin Music Production (AMP) Forum, we propose a democratically oriented plaza. This public space is encircled by a floating film and music studio with ancillary production facilities pushed to the exterior to expose their inner workings.

This organization exploits opportunities for dense, unplanned human interaction between producers and the public, and within the public itself.

These informal experiences are essential to the urban environment currently absent in Austin. Thus, AMP Forum becomes a dynamic, ever-changing hub of music and film production; the public becomes both spectator and participant.

The forum includes three black box studios, wardrobe and fabrication facilities, offices, greenroom, short-term efficiencies, a public theater, and a loading yard. The studios, theater, and outdoor spaces are flexible to accommodate various events associated with annual festivals. The form and programmatic organization of the AMP Forum highlights the cultural significance of music and film production in Austin and encourages multi-faceted participation in its propagation.

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ROLLER SKATING AND BOWLING ALLEY Alex Warr Design IV | Murray Legge | Austin, Texas Bowling and roller skating—two programs loaded with preconceived notions.

Notions about culture, music, clothing, and design. These notions lead to constants; things that we accept about their being without question. This project is about changing those constants in order to create new experiences that break the typological norm.

The design process began with thinking about which aspects of each of the programs contribute to constant experiences. The game of bowling is experienced in one-point perspective, and as a result, loses much of the three dimensionality of space. Roller skating on a rink is closed and repetitive, removing the possibility for new experiences.

This project gives occupants a new experience of both bowling and skating through the manipulation of old typologies. Bowling is viewed perpendicular to the motion of the balls, giving a new three-dimensional perspective of the game. Changing the path allows skating to be different every visit.

All other design moves, from material selection to structural system, aim to enhance and encourage the unconventional experience of these familiar programs.

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HONOR FLAGSHIP STORE Kristin Miller Design IV–Interiors | Igor Siddiqui | Austin, Texas Design for this project was entirely based on HONOR, an emerging New York fashion line. The project began with two-dimensional wallpaper, which informed the design of a pop-up shop that was eventually sited at HONOR’s flagship boutique.

In this design, forms extracted from HONOR’s collections are mirrored, repeated and embellished to create a tiled wallpaper. Large scale versions of the silhouette form are repeated and rotated 90 degrees to create a tunneled pop-up shop. To both market and draw in visitors, the exterior of the pop-up shop is clad in the HONOR-inspired wallpaper, while the inside is only adorned with the collection itself.

Proposed for the McGarrah Jesse building on West Sixth in downtown Austin, the HONOR flagship boutique includes display for its current collection, four fitting rooms, a point of purchase, as well as two projection walls. These walls serve to screen the films HONOR produces to visualize the narrative of each collection. This narrative is the driving factor behind every season, and it is visible with the varying looks HONOR produces.

The design for the boutique adapts the pop-up shop structure and proportion to the site. Using the sweeping bands to create space, rather than display merchandise, allows fluid circulation, as well as privacy for the fitting rooms, office and restroom.

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THE BALLET AUSTIN Chinh Pham Design I | Igor Siddiqui | Austin, Texas The Ballet Austin is a public performance space at the corner of Colorado and Fifth Street in downtown Austin. The project explores the combination of day and nighttime activities in order to provide attendees with a variety of experiences.

Inspired by the movements and gestures of ballet dancers, the street-facing facade of Ballet Austin uses dynamic angles to simulate motion. Each vending space consists of an aperture which allows a visual connection between the interior and exterior. On one side, a small threshold leads to both the basement and the stage. When circulating through the building, attendees are presented with the option to dine or go directly to the show. The Ballet Austin aims to give people total flexibility and control of their experience, creating a memorable venue for Austin’s art scene.

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TEXAS ROWING CENTER April Ng Vertical | Joyce Rosner | Austin, Texas The Texas Rowing Center is located off the hike and bike trail along Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. The Texas Rowing Center believes the sport of rowing should be accessible to everyone by providing rowing lessons, memberships, as well as offering canoe, kayak, and stand-up paddle board rentals. The existing Texas Rowing Center is a prominent fixture on the hike and bike trail, highly visible to runners on the adjacent trail and from the trail across the lake. It is home to the junior’s competitive rowing team and the UT men’s crew team. During rowing practice, the intersection of the trail and the rowing center is often congested with runners, bikers, and rowers transporting 60’ long shells across the path to the dock.

The new design achieves a stream-lined approach to the Texas Rowing Center’s rental program and provides more storage and logistical efficiency for the rowing program. The new storage bay is placed near the water’s edge to create a dominant presence on the water while bringing the rowing shells to the south side of the path, which minimizes conflict with runners. The Texas Rowing Center’s rental area, offices, and locker rooms is located adjacent to Cesar Chavez Avenue to create a strong street presence and entrance for visitors and rowers. The two areas are connected by an elevated walkway to reduce congestion on the path, while also creating a resting place for runners and seating areas for patrons of the Texas Rowing Center.

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CONGRESS BAT CENTER Ryan Carlisle Design II | Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram | Austin, Texas This proposal is for a bat informational center located directly next to the Congress Bridge, where Mexican Free-Tailed bats are known to inhabit. The natural surroundings of Lady Bird Lake and the nearby downtown skyline form a dichotomy between natural and human intervention that is unique to the city of Austin.

This dichotomy is represented through the use of two contrasting circulation paths. One elevated path connects to an existing parking lot and rises above the landscape in a similar language to the Congress Bridge. Another path leads pedestrians off a walking trail and up a faceted, secluded landscape, providing a natural refuge from the activity of the city. While each providing their own particular experience, both paths congregate at a viewing platform, which provides an outlook for viewing the bats. Informational services are located below.

The underlying goal of this project was to provide a series of meaningful experiences with the land while also highlighting a connection to the water. At critical points in the design the user walks along a path that has been subtly carved into the earth, while at other moments the user is elevated above the land. Overall, the design aims to celebrate the uniqueness of Austin’s urban landscape while also allowing visitors to experience the natural phenomena of the flying bats.

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ROSEWOOD COURTS Namhyuck Ahn + Xiaoyuan Yu Historic Preservation | BenjamĂ­n Ibarra-Sevilla | Austin, Texas The Rosewood Courts in East Austin is one of the first U.S. Housing Act public housing projects for a mixed-income community. The studio focused on the rehabilitation, restoration, and adaptive reuse of historic properties, as well as comprehensive planning to transform the neighborhood into a more sustainable, viable mixed-income community.

In order to preserve existing landscapes and minimize damage to historic masonry structures, prefabricated additions were proposed at all scales; these proposals included additions to two-story buildings, new buildings exceeding one story, and corridors throughout the site to improve accessibility.

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POLLINATION PARK Katherine Eastman + J.J. Fleury Landscape | Jason Sowell | Austin, Texas Inspired by the critical relationship between humans and pollinators, Pollination Park reveals a connection between urban cemeteries and their environments through its unique infrastructure and programs. The design reintegrates a 150-acre green space into Austin’s urban framework and sustains it through a park that includes a cemetery, pollination research center, nursery, and community gardens, as well as mixed-use buildings.

The cemetery procession is central to the overall design of the park. It begins when you enter the chapel and move towards the scattering grounds. After parking, one walks over a water course, across a meadow, and along an edge until arriving at a platform under the canopy. This meadow-to-edge-tocanopy transition lays the framework for over fifty unique microenvironments that promote diverse pollinators, their habitats, and food(s). This planting plan also creates dynamic seasonal changes.

A major goal is to create pollinator habitats and programs that commemorate the dead while also enhancing the larger ecosystem. For example, urns are placed underneath a wooden bee block while straws are inserted into the block itself. As designed, a bee would place its larvae inside the straw. The larvae could then be frozen and released to pollinate a meadow at a later date. Through this activity, Pollination Park invites the public to experience the releasing of pollinators at various events throughout the year.

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PLAY STRUCTURE Donesh Ferdowski Vertical | Ulrich Dangel | Austin, Texas This play structure combines the properties of wood and earth. A skeletal dome rises above a planted mound. Children climb up the round rungs of this convex ladder, roll down the soft hill, and repeat. The ground stays four feet below the structure, ensuring that no one falls too far. Parents sit and watch beneath the shade of an old hickory tree.

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PROCESS AND CRAFT: COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY AND CULINARY ARTS Molly McNamara + April Ng Technical Communication | Matt Fajkus | Austin, Texas The College of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts offers an experimental curriculum for students seeking an innovative, hands-on learning environment in East Austin. Process and craft are the pillars of the school, which is categorized by theory, practice and research. Exhibiting the culinary learning environment and highlighting the school’s unique approach to innovation comprise the core of the CGCA. Curiosity and rigor inspire students and faculty to investigate the craft and processes of superior food preparation.

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burned

MOLLY McNAMARA APRIL NG

FINDING

THE SWEET SPOT

sweet + caramelized

400°F

Maillard Reaction/ browning begins

330°F where flavors start forming!

300°F

uncooked (raw) steamed (bland)

230°F

212°F

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

(the process of non-enzymatic browning AKA: MAILLARD REACTION)

HEAT IT UP

70°F

Y WH

DO

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250°F AK TM HEA

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FO

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TA

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GO

FOR REFERENCE ONLY

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NOT FOR CONSTRUCTIO

SCIENCE OF FLAVOR

DID YOU KNOW?

3

College of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts 3/8" = 1'-0"

BREWERY THIS WAY check out the tasting room downstairs!

THE

BREWING SHOULDER

WELCOME! we are pleased you came! we are here for our customers day in and day out.

LOIN+BACK

HAM

need a restroom?

micklethwait craft meats

A LA CARTE (by the pound) specialty sausage | 16 beef rib | 19 brisket | 17.50 pork spare ribs | 16 sliced pork shoulder | 14.50 smoked vealwurst | 16 barbacoa | 13 pulled pork | 13 chicken | 13 prosciutto cotto | 12 salami | 14 90 day pork loin | 32 120 day pork belly | 36

CHUCK SHORT RIBS LOIN

SIRLOIN FLANK

MORE RIBS

CHUCK

PROCESS

on the MENU

HEAD

BELLY + SPARE RIBS TENDERLOIN SIRLOIN RUMP ROUND KNUCKLE

NECK

SHORT RIBS

BRISKET

SHANK

Cured from 60 days to 10 months, all items are made or smoked on-site and proudly displayed in our humidity controlled locker.

1

Micklethwait 3/8" = 1'-0"

PLATES (includes two sides) 1-meat | 11 2-meat | 13 3-meat | 15

LAUTER TUN

ON THE MEZZANINE

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO? COPPER BREW KETTLE

SANDWICH | 7 with one side | 8 DESSERTS lemon bar | 2.50 apple cobbler | 3 pie (buttermilk, pecan) | 3.50

MASH TUN

ADD BARLEY MILLING

FIRST FLOOR

HEAT EXCHANGE

3

ADD HOPS

WHIRLPOOL

BASEMENT

FERMENTATION TANK

FERMENTATION TANK

CONDITIONING TANK BRIGHT BEER TANK

COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY AND CULINARY ARTS ADVANCED KITCHEN THINK TANK EXPERIMENTAL LABRATORIES

ACORN BREWING CO.

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COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY AND CULINARY ARTS

1

MICKLETHWAIT CRAFT MEATS ACORN BREWING CO. COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY AND CULINARY ARTS

0

COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY AND CULINARY ARTS

BREWERY MEZZANINE LECTURE HALL DIRECTOR’S OFFICE LIBRARY STUDIO KITCHEN

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES BASICS KITCHEN

ACORN BREWING CO. TASTING ROOM

RACKED!

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES BASICS KITCHEN

COLLEGE OF GASTRONOMY + CULINARY ARTS

The Maillard reaction is a widely practiced chemical process between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives foods their desirable flavors, smells and colors. Seared steaks, pan-fried dumplings, breads, beers and many other foods make use of the effect. French chemist, Louis-Camille Maillard first described the process in 1912, essentially laying the foundation for future food science.

PROCESS + CRAFT

In addition to testing laboratories, teaching kitchens, and theory program, the CGCA houses Acorn Brewing Company, a modest local brewery, and Micklethwait Craft Meats. Acorn Brewing has established a joint partnership with Micklethwait and the Culinary School, and serves as the link between the main programs. The brewery and restaurant act as a connection to the surrounding community, and help to define the outdoor zones that wrap the ground level and bring the public into an otherwise private program. Exposing the process of making food was a major driver of the design. The project seeks to emphasize both the meticulous nature of beer and barbecue, and the reciprocal processes related to integrating professionals, students and community members into a comprehensive culinary arts program.

MAILLARD REACTION

FILTRATION

2

ISSUED:

12.10

SCALE:

3/8" =

Brewery 3/8" = 1'-0"

DESIGN DEVELOPM

INTERIOR ELEVATIO INFOGRAPHICS

A2

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METAL COPING W/ COUNTER FLASHING

ROOFING MEMBRANE

RIGID ROOF INSULATION CAST-IN CHANNEL

Level 4 40' - 0"

Level 4 40' - 0"

Level 3 28' - 0"

Level 3 28' - 0"

Level 2 14' - 0"

Level 2 14' - 0"

Level 1 0' - 0"

Level 1 0' - 0"

SPRINKLER

12' - 0"

SUSPENDED CEILING

LOW E VISION GLAZING

COMPOSITE CONCRETE DECK METAL PANEL W24 x 162

MINERAL WOOL INSULATION 3

14' - 0"

A500

SPANDREL GLASS

3MM PERFORATED WEATHERED STEEL

FACADE FRAME

1 A500

14' - 0"

OAK WOOD SOFFIT

STEEL WINDOW

EXPANSION STRIP

CARTON FORM

3

Wall Section - South 1/2" = 1'-0"

2

3

FURRING WALL

W12x252 WIDE FLANGE PRIMARY STRUCTURE

South Elevation 1/2" = 1'-0"

A500

SPANDREL GLASS

1/2" STEEL PLATE THROUGH METAL PANEL 1" HSS TUBE STEEL

1/4" PLATE W/ 3/4" BOLT 1/4" ANGLE W/ 1/4" FASTENER SECONDARY PANEL FRAME

1

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Plan Detail at Second Floor 1/2" = 1'-0"

MOLLY McNA APRIL NG

FOR RE

NOT FOR

SCALE:

ISSUED:

DESIGN D

WALL SEC

LAYERS OF INHABITATION Haley Fitzpatrick Vertical | Nichole Wiedemann | Austin, Texas The primary investigation within this project is the layered history of water and landform, both natural and man-made, existing and new, and how these elements can strengthen the identity of the site and surrounding area. Great curiosity for early inhabitants of the Central Texas area and the continued notion of migration and nomadism in Austin fueled the idea of creating a central communal plaza. This very ancient, simple gesture of gathering would serve as a versatile intermediary space between the distinct programs (three indoor pools and an natural exhibition center). Furthering this primal idea of the evidence of inhabitation, selected walls of the existing 1960s brick structure formed the enclosure of the plaza, bridging the gap between past and future.

Formally, the project became a layering of materials responding to function, site, and climate, ranging from a rooted, rammed earth base that regulated temperature with the pool space, to an upper lightweight mesh enclosure inspired by early means of woven shelters, allowing both light and passive ventilation. Materiality and its interdependent relationship to touch and the human body became another driving factor for examining the quality of the various indoor and outdoor moments within the overall complex.

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SOUTH CONGRESS BRANCH LIBRARY Ryan Carlisle Design III | Allison Gaskins | Austin, Texas The biggest challenge that faces the library of the future is community involvement. Active participation with one’s community library and personal contribution to its resources promotes a sense of ownership and connection.

In order to instigate this participation, this branch proposal includes a secondary program, a print shop. The print shop would celebrate the art of printmaking, such as screen-printing, and serve as a gathering place for local Austin artists to create and display their work. More importantly, the print shop would allow visitors to print their own book. These original books would be given an orange binding and be filtered into the existing library collection.

Displaying community work within encourages unique encounters within the shelves of the library. The library aims to foster a sense of personal ownership among visitors and caters to the surrounding creative community. The central space of the library is an expansive atrium with the main stacks above. In order to take ownership of its unique location on South Congress and the prominent view corridor that exists, the library’s main reading room is located in a view portal that runs along the entire site and contains apertures that focus the view along South Congress. Finally, the branch library encourages visitors to take personal ownership of their reading space. Intimate reading nooks protrude out into the central atrium allowing the readers separation from the surrounding activity of the library to focus on reading.

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SOUTH CONGRESS BRANCH LIBRARY Kerry Frank Design III | Allison Gaskins | Austin, Texas Designed for the future, the South Congress Library looks at what a library should be: a piece of social infrastructure, a place between home and work, and a reinforcer of community. By bridging South Congress, the library encourages all to participate in the sharing and creating of knowledge while also defining the surrounding neighborhoods through the display of information and activity. Acknowledging the evolution of knowledge and technology, the library aims to create flexible space for the diversity of programmatic needs.

Spaces of variable sizes focus inward towards the central courtyard promoting sharing and community. The bridge acts as a divider as well as a connector, assigning distinct locations for static and dynamic programs, small and large groups, and a wide variety of user-defined activities. Through unobstructed sight-lines, spatial arrangement, and relationships, the library promotes interaction and cross-pollination of activity. Uniquely situated in response to the personality of the neighborhood, the library anticipates the needs of a growing city, to connect its citizens and provide them with resources.

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TAILORING THE CREEK Adrianne Broussard, Lu Jiang, Melissa Sparks + Quan Yin Landscape | Allan Shearer | Austin, Texas Waller Creek is a rare natural feature that runs through the University of Texas campus. The campus fabric around Waller Creek is growing at an accelerated rate, impacting the connection between Waller Creek and the urban campus.

This project aims to stitch together the patchwork of existing campus fabric utilizing Waller Creek itself as the crucial seam.

An initial analysis led to an understanding of the campus as an organization of districts. Each district was thought of as a kind of fabric stitched together with seams. The seams perform differently, but all need to move, be flexible, and relate with the surrounding fabric.

Four sites along the corridor were selected for their potential for development.

Each site engages the creek by increasing views of water along paths and areas for activity. Data such as areas of soil erosion, patterns of use, and access points to the creek served as the foundation for design decisions within these sites. Water flows over the entire site and defines the location of horizontal and vertical transitions, creating a “quilted� buffer with bioswales, retention ponds, and native vegetation to decrease soil erosion. Public access to this important area of campus is also improved with the introduction of bike lanes and light rail stops to the planned Dell Medical School and throughout the larger Austin region.

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AUSTIN EPICUREAN CENTER Kendall Claus Vertical | Danelle Briscoe | Austin, Texas Food culture in Austin, particularly the growing food truck population, makes up a key component of the city’s uniqueness. Despite their efficiency, these trucks demand production space, or commissary kitchen access.

The Epicurean Center serves as a hub for such demand as well as for the community surrounding Austin’s culinary culture.

The inspiration for this project stems from the food process itself, specifically the mechanical and labor-intensive journey of food from production to consumption. Through a series of investigative drawings and models, the building took form, engaging the four elements of architecture as defined by Gottfried Semper: hearth, wall, mound, and roof.

Finding every opportunity to activate in-between spaces and establish visual connections between programmatic zones, the project aims to generate a sense of community throughout its site. The Conveyer Buffet, in particular, draws inspiration from sushi restaurants in Asia, promoting public participation in both cooking and eating. The program also allows opportunity for a rotating production schedule from the shared kitchens back-of-house as well as use of the adjacent greenhouse.

The Epicurean Center showcases the mechanical process from food production to consumption. It acts as a catalyst for Austin’s community and a hub for its food culture.

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VISUAL ARTS EXHIBIT Sheridan Treadwell Design V–Interiors | Nerea Feliz | Austin, Texas Inspired by Maarten Baas’ Clay bookshelves, this system for an exhibit at the Visual Arts Center on the UT campus exemplifies elements from the bookshelf design. The structure seems impossibly thin, constructed of tall steel arches covered in clay. The arch pushes in to accommodate two staircases, drops down at specific moments to suspend antique pocket watches, and shifts to create seating. The idea of moments frozen in time served as inspiration, with each steel arch covered in clay and marked with handprints left behind by the person who formed it, a permanent stamp of the exact time he or she grasped it. The ticking sound from the watches adds an additional layer of experience to the exhibit.

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CIVIC GROUNDS Elizabeth Arnold + Kevin Olsen Technical Communication | Francisco Gomes | Jonestown, Texas Jonestown, Texas is undergoing great change in climate, demographics, and identity. As a framework for the future of Jonestown, this project frames ambiguous and open spaces with the intent that the citizens will take ownership and adapt the structure as needed. Therefore, the building will better reflect the character of the city, and seek to be a common ground for all citizens and visitors of Jonestown.

The project includes a city hall, supporting offices, library, hotel, dance hall, restaurant and gallery. Our design recognizes the independent needs of program, but overlaps supportive resources and unites the different uses.

Through visual connections across a series of open spaces, separation is achieved by sectional variety.

The programmatic space is organized around a series of courtyards. This strategy allows for access to daylight and ventilation, as well as allowing interior functions to overflow into these areas. Therefore, as the city experiences growth and varying needs, the complex can accommodate a range of activities at different scales.

A screen, a porous division between inside and out, is the uniting feature of the exterior. It reflects the nature of civic space: a balance of transparency and security. The screen also performs additional functions, acting as a shading device, and at a smaller scale, a handrail. The chosen material, cypress, is intended to weather and change over time.

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TEXAS HILL COUNTRY

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TEXAS HILL COUNTRY

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LOMETA TRAIN DEPOT DOCUMENTATION Catherine Cordeiro, Izabella Dennis, Rebekka Grady, Vishal Joshi, Yung-Ju Kim, Jessica Kulow Steiner, Andrew Leith, Paula Nasta + Frank Ordia Historic Preservation | BenjamĂ­n Ibarra-Sevilla | Lometa, Texas Historic preservation graduate students in the Fall 2014 Graphic Documentation class measured, recorded and created documentation for the historic 1911 Lometa Train Depot in Lometa, Texas. Final measured drawings were presented in AutoCAD using formatting guidelines from the Historic American Building Survey (HABS).

The town of Lometa is located in northwest Lampasas County and was founded in 1885 when the Gulf Coast and Sante Fe railway line expanded tracks through the area. The town came to supplant the nearby stagecoach stop of Senterfitt shortly after and quickly outgrew its original depot. In 1910, the Sante Fe Railway extended the San Saba to Eden branch line, connecting this artery to the extant line in Lometa, and causing a boon in the local economy. The existing train depot was built a year later in response to the increased demand and complaints about comfort and cooling in the first structure. This stop became one of the largest Texas country depots on the line and an important point for shipments of cattle, wool and mohair as far north as Boston. On September 7, 1982, the railroad company officially decommissioned the Lometa Depot. Circa 1985, the depot was relocated from its original foundation between the railroad tracks at the east side of town to its present location, a few blocks to the northwest. At the time, an effort was made not only to save the structure but also to stabilize it.

The Lometa Train Depot was documented by means of architectural field survey, field notes, measurements, sketches, photography and archival research. Final architectural measured drawings (site plans, floor plans, exterior and interior elevations, sections and details) were produced by the class and photographs were used to create a 3D video model with Photomodeler. The documentation process allowed for an in-depth study of the construction of the building.

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FOOTBALL STADIUM Kelsey Kaiser Vertical | Francisco Gomes | Marble Falls, Texas High school football in Texas can be characterized as a quasi-religious experience. Visiting a small town on Friday night might feel like being transported to a post-apocalyptic world–not a soul in sight and vacant businesses line the streets. The only sign of life is beaming from the lights down the road. Moving towards them visitors begin to see a stadium with the stands overflowing with the entire town in attendance. High school football events facilitate community engagement and allow interactions between the town’s residents. The remainder of the year, high school stadiums offers very little benefit to the community as they stand empty and devoid of significance.

This scheme aims to inject energy and life into the stadium when there are no football games by taking advantage of the waterfront. The current relationship with the water in Marble Falls is mostly a private experience with very few public properties accessing the water. To the west of the site lies two restaurants, a hotel and a nearby park. This site offers a unique opportunity in which to develop a path along the water that begins at the existing park and extends to the stadium. The stadium field will then act as a public park where the town’s residents can exercise, picnic, and play. With the two parks bookending this path, the community can move between them, congregate, socialize, and enliven this area of town.

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BUILDING DENSITIES: HOUSING STRATEGIES IN JOHNSON CITY Sarah Simpson Urban Design | Dean Almy | Johnson City, Texas As part of a group studio tasked with addressing issues facing the built form of Johnson City and the hill country at large, Building Densities focuses on the environmental, social and physical effects of post-war growth on small-town, rural America. The project studies how a town of 1,700 people can reverse its trajectory of unfocused sprawl to encourage higher density units and residences in support of a more vital, thriving downtown.

The project challenges low housing densities (1 unit per acre or less) as well as large, undivided blocks (upwards of 500’ x 2800’) in order to concentrate growth closer to the historic downtown and improve walkability. To create infill opportunities, a network of new street connections is overlaid upon vacant and underdeveloped parcels. As a result, available street frontage more than doubles and smaller block sizes facilitate pedestrian travel.

Remaining under-used or vacant lots increase resident capacity by more than 250% and, when paired with infill strategies such as accessory dwelling unit initiatives (ADUs), empower existing residents to create even more housing opportunities. Alternative housing typologies such as twostory attached housing (duplex to quadplex) sensitively build density and anchor community amenities, such as neighborhood parks, gardens and trail systems. Suggested Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NIDs) within weak neighborhood structures provide a branding mechanism to build character across a disconnected landscape and fund projects such as park creation, tree planting and sidewalk installations.

In order to discourage non-contributing/disruptive isolationist development beyond the city limits, mechanisms such as land conservation easements and financial incentives for infill development were explored at a policy and planning level.

The project was presented to Johnson City in the fall of 2014. The current mayor hopes to incorporate some of the proposed strategies into an upcoming land use zoning revision, including a specialized zoning category for the construction of ADUs and the creation of NIDs to enable neighborhood improvements.

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POETICS OF BUILDING Ruihua Cai, Rachel Duggan, Katherine Eastman, Jamie Epley, Thomas Johnston, Teng Li, Kuan Liu, Celine Pinto, Luke Stevenson + Huiming Zuo Advanced | Coleman Coker | Goose Island State Park, TX Goose Island State Park encompasses 321 acres of bay front, dunes, and coastal oak forest, offering camping, boating, biking, fishing, and bird watching. Directly in the path of the Central Flyway, the area is home to over 600 species of birds throughout the year, including the critically endangered Whooping Crane. Oysters, once a major part of the local economy and ecosystem, have been on the decline for years as a result habitat destruction.

The goal of the project is to encourage the dialogue between Texas Parks and Recreation and GISP’s visitors about the importance of this unique and fragile ecosystem. Construction of the project took place in two segments; modular elements and concrete formwork assembled in Austin and site work and installation performed at GISP over three four-day work weekends. The three build weekends were broken into three elemental tasks: concrete, wood and steel.

The essence of the project is contained in the shellcrete: a deliberate reimagination of the traditional building practices established by the earliest Spanish and Irish settlers of the area. The development of early shellcrete exemplifies the determination and resourcefulness of the pioneering spirit, and of economy and efficiency, utilizing materials at hand in the simplest way possible. Our implementation of shellcrete, though in a modern interpretation, allows the visitor to understand this place in the world as a part of history and the continuation of time in a particular physical location.

The formal tautness of the project and the restrained material palette is a celebration of subtlety. The pragmatism of pressure-treated southern yellow pine lumber for the decking and benches is elevated by the weaving of oak spacers into the assembly, a means to speak about local ecology. All of the materials are of the site, reformed into a place for dwelling. The cast materials rise out of the sand that comprises them, monoliths of the earth.

The wooden assemblies exhibit the milled order of intervention, producing straight, human-scaled boards from the windswept trees that enclose the site. The familiar singularity of an oyster shell, naturally dispersed throughout the area, is intensified by the presence of thousands contained in the thin gabion wall that knifes through the horizontal platforms. The geometric form of this construction exhibits intent by creating a clear distinction between the natural resources of the site and their modified counterparts, the materials with which we build. The imposition of man-made pattern in a natural site condition brings our attention to the essential qualities of both.

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GULF COAST

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GULF COAST

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DUNE PAVILION Peter Binder, Sara Fallahi, Jorge Faz, Kimberly Harding, Christina Hunter, Nicholas Lee, Barron Peper, Ryan Rasmussen + Shelby Sickler Advanced | Coleman Coker | Port Aransas, Texas The University of Texas Marine Science Institute is located in Port Aransas, Texas on 72 acres of beach-front land, at the mouth of the Aransas Channel on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The institute is dedicated to educating students and visitors about the unique environmental characteristics of this coastal region, including wetland education, estuarine research, animal rehabilitation, and dune system protection to name a few.

The Marine Science Institute asked the studio to focus on the importance of dune systems, hoping students and visitors could begin to interact and engage with an artificial dune system constructed for the purpose of education. The challenge was to design a shade structure that would operate as an outdoor classroom for middle school students and a comfortable gathering space for visitors. The structure needed to provide a visual and physical connection to the dune system located on the southern edge of the campus. The pavilion would establish a threshold for a series of paths through the dune system, to be implemented later.

The final design focused on three main criteria: comfort, access, and engagement. The result was a 12’ x 44’ pavilion that extends off an existing concrete bridge overlooking the dune system. The existing bridge connects the student dorms to the Visitor Center and laboratories. The pavilion acts as a bridge itself linking the existing bridge to a natural berm that slopes down into the dunes. The pavilion’s core structure consists of concrete footings, galvanized steel columns, and triple 2 X 10 wood beams creating five structural bays. The pavilion’s northwest façade is constructed of a 2 X 6 SYP sun-screen that provides a gentle filtering of light throughout the day. The white metal roof spans the 44’ length, eventually wrapping the southern façade while providing ample protection from the sun. The southern façade breaks, creating a ‘fissure’ on axis with the pavilion walkway, directing the visitor’s view to where the dune meets the sky. A metal grate, centered in the walkway and on axis with this ‘fissure’, was built into the pavilion’s wood deck walkway hovering above the berm. This grate allows the berm’s natural vegetation to grow freely. Five concrete benches of varying sizes were placed directly into the berm as it descends into the dune system. These seats allow the students to put their feet in the sand and their hands to graze the grass while surveying the environment. Although constructing pathways through the dune system was not a part of the “build” aspect of this project, the studio designed a master plan of paths to implement in near the future, with the pavilion as the threshold.

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UTSOA CONNECTION

UTSOA FEATURES 77 ESSAY: UTSOA Perspective Elizabeth Danze, Associate Dean of Graduate Students Juan Mir贸, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students

78 Lecture Series, Visiting Faculty + Featured Symposia 80 UTSOA Culture

FEATURED PROJECTS 82 Garrett Brown, Ashly Chirayil, Jessica Janzen, Cliff Kaplan, Ko Kuwabara,

Jos茅 Latorre, Jacob LeMieux, Ethan Menebroker, Anna Plyler, Chris Sailer, Raymond Shih, Adam Thibodeaux, Zachary Wright Francisco Gomes | Public Interest Design

83 Justin Bell, Ann Charleston, Kathleen Clark, Kathleen Coyne, Elizabeth

Farrell, JJ Fleury, Adolfo Gonzalez, Biying Kong, Erich Melville, Daniel Montalvo, April Ng, Mark Nordby, Ellen Sampson, Kaethe Selkirk, Sarah Wassel Coleman Coker | Public Interest Design

84 Grace Dixon

Mark Macek | Wood Design

85 Jordan Teitelbaum

Mark Macek | Wood Design

86 Leora Visotzky

Mark Macek | Wood Design

87 Thomas Hilde

Mark Macek | Wood Design

88 Shelley McDavid

Igor Siddiqui | Prototype

89 Kathleen Clark

Igor Siddiqui | Prototype

90 Ashly Chirayil, Matt Hill, Jose Perez John Blood | Virtual Worlds

92 Connie Chang, Joanne Koola, Jessica Sadasivan, Alex (Yen-Jung) Wu Keith Simon | Environmental Controls

94 Rossina Ojeda, Dominic Sargeant, Alex (Yen-Jung) Wu Kory Bieg | Design V

96 Jenna Ahon, Michelle Cantu, Irela Casanova, Kelsey Matteson,

Ashley Nguyen

John Blood + Danilo Udovicki | Design V

98 Donesh Ferdowski

Lawrence Speck | Theory I

99 Amy McDonnold

David Heymann | Architectural Photography

100 Shannon Harris Thesis Research

102 Evan Greulich

Independent Travel Research

104 Clare van Montfrans

Independent Travel Research

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UTSOA PERSPECTIVE

Design is what unites us.

As we prepare for our 105th academic year, ISSUE: 011 offers a window into the state of the School of Architecture. What issues are our design studios and classes focused on? What are students’ design questions and concerns? What challenges are their projects addressing?

This year’s editors have organized the selected work around the local and global reach of the studios and allied courses taught during the last calendar year. It is not only a relevant theme in the globalized world in which we live, but also a reflection of the impact we expect —and see—from our students and our school. At the institutional level, the University of Texas proclaims a slogan of great ambition: “What starts here changes the world.” It serves as the mantra that guides the multiple endeavors of the university. Like any good motto, it has an elemental appeal, yet may also be interpreted in many ways. Embedded with the progressive and optimistic notion that “change” is good, our motto implies change equals improvement and advancement.

This phrase also contains the idea of the local (here) and the global (the world). As designers and place-makers this is directly pertinent and relevant to our realm of concerns, but in today’s rapidly evolving and changing world, we may want to ask what is meant by “here?”

And what is the “world” we hope to change? In search of answers to these questions we might revisit the powerful concept of “the center of the world.”

Some ancient religions believed that “here,” the place where one existed, represented the center of the world. This notion of the center provided people with an anchor and a sense of grounding. It helped them to understand their surroundings. Nomadic tribes believed they carried the center of the world with them wherever they went. Their world may have been limited to a forest, a plateau, or a valley.

Whatever the size and place, they worked within this context to understand their role and impact on the world that surrounded them.

Our understanding of the physical world has expanded enormously over the centuries. Our belief systems have also changed; there are now myriad “centers of the world,” each one generating its own, sometimes conflicting, concentric circles, creating a confusing and sometimes stressful place to inhabit.

The School of Architecture does not shy away from the challenges of living in the 21st century, embracing instead a rich multiplicity of approaches and points of view. We challenge our students to tackle projects from different perspectives whether they be theoretical, cultural, social, technical or formal. We encourage students to explore and understand problems at scales ranging from a single item of furniture to changes in policies and infrastructure that affect entire geographic regions. We travel with them to destinations as far away and varied as South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, but also to sites in Austin, our very own dynamic laboratory. In this way, our concerns as designers naturally bridge the question of the relationship between the “local” and the “world.”

We are fortunate in our school to house under one roof diverse and wide-ranging programs of architecture, interior design, urban design, landscape architecture, historic preservation, sustainable design, and community and regional planning. We share a commonality across these disciplines: the belief that good design, the application of intelligent, beautiful and compelling solutions to problems of any scale or type, will change the world for the better. This thinking not only occurs in the design studios, but also permeates the content of required and elective courses, including environmental control, lighting design, wood design, prototyping and patterning, designing of virtual worlds, public interest design, and many others. In turn, the foci and concerns of these courses reciprocally inform the multiple agendas of the design studios. The power of quality design is what unites all of our work.

Our goal as a school is to foster a climate of learning that emphasizes collaboration among all design disciplines. We look forward to the day when they become leaders that promote and apply this thinking in whatever career they pursue. We also encourage them to look beyond the dichotomy of the local and the global. “Here” and the “world” are one and the same. As our graduates carry the “center of the world” with them wherever they go from here, they are empowered to change their world through good design in all its forms.

Elizabeth Danze and Juan Miró, Associate Deans of Students

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LECTURES + SYMPOSIA

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UTSOA CULTURE

FEATURED EVENTS

EXHIBITIONS

SUMMER ACADEMY IN ARCHITECTURE

METHODS OF ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

UTSOA | June - July

Materials Lab | March 21 - April 16

CENTER 18: MUSIC IN ARCHITECTURE BOOK RELEASE

AMBIGUOUS OBJECTS

Center for American Art and Architecture | October 26

Materials Lab | April 30 - September 5

STONE CARVING WORKSHOP: KINCANNON STUDIOS

INSIDE MODERN TEXAS: THE CASE FOR PRESERVING INTERIORS

Materials Lab | September 25

Battle Hall | April 10 - September 13

“BRILLIANT” HANDS-ON LIGHTING WORKSHOP

THE EXPLAINERS

Environmental Controls | November 12

Mebane Gallery, Goldsmith Hall | September 8 - October 10

CHIT CHAT

PART FOR THE WHOLE

GSARC | November 17

Materials Lab | September 17 - October 17

BIOPLASTICS WORKSHOP

CITY PAINTINGS

Materials Lab | November 18

Mebane Gallery, Goldsmith Hall | October 20 - November 21

2ND ANNUAL INTER-STACHE-L MUSTACHE COMPETITION GSARC + Clare van Montfrans | December 1

END OF SEMESTER CELEBRATION UTSOA | December 9

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THE STACKS Garrett Brown, Ashly Chirayil, Jessica Janzen, Cliff Kaplan, Ko Kuwabara, JosÊ Latorre, Jacob LeMieux, Ethan Menebroker, Anna Plyler, Chris Sailer, Raymond Shih, Adam Thibodeaux + Zachary Wright Public Interest Design | Francisco Gomes The Stacks were conceived by the City of Austin’s Office of Sustainability, the Austin Public Library, and the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Texas School of Architecture. During the summer of 2014 a group of University of Texas students designed and constructed the Stacks for deployment in branch libraries and community meetings.

The purpose of the Stacks is to engage library visitors in reflection and conversation about their neighborhoods and city. The Stacks ask Austinites to consider the place they know and to share their thoughts, experiences, concerns, and questions. Included with the Stacks are a few dozen prompts for visitors to respond to, which are meant to act as conversation starters.

Visitors will find the Stacks to be a fun way to respond to one another. In addition to their role as a forum for community conversation, the Stacks offer an opportunity for public offices, such as the Office of Sustainability, to display content related to sustainability efforts in the city on a digital interface. The Stacks offer the Office of Sustainability, the Austin Public Library, and the Center for Sustainable Development the opportunity to receive direct citizen input to better inform future place-making.

The Stacks will be installed in the new Central Library when it opens in 2016.

Until then, they will spend about three months each at nine branch libraries as well as the Faulk Central Library.

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GREEN ALLEY DEMONSTRATION Justin Bell, Ann Charleston, Kathleen Clark, Kathleen Coyne, Elizabeth Farrell, J.J. Fleury, Adolfo Gonzalez, Biying Kong, Erich Melville, Daniel Montalvo, April Ng, Mark Nordby, Ellen Sampson, Kaethe Selkirk + Sarah Wassel Public Interest Design | Coleman Coker This project, a prototype for the Green Alley Initiative, seeks to reimagine alleys as something more than neglected service corridors for public waste collection. Through public engagement, critical consideration of sustainable infrastructure, and resourceful use of recycled materials, the team hopes a lasting impact has been made that can inspire replication throughout Austin.

Located in East Austin, the 2014 Green Alley Demonstration Project was a result of collaboration between students, residents, the City of Austin, and UTSOA’s Center for Sustainable Development. Based on community priorities and the city’s goals, the design layers existing sustainable infrastructure on the alley—in the form of rain gardens and permeable pavers—into a larger ecology by introducing new wildlife habitats. Living planter boxes contain river rock in gabion structures, and are wrapped by cedar seats and habitat boxes. Students also worked with alley residents and artists, Johnny and Nora Cisneros, to paint murals on the alley’s retaining walls. The alley, now named “Three Sisters Alley” in honor of long-time residents, the Salas sisters, promotes healthy coexisting habitats, increases interaction between residents in the alley, and informs the neighborhood about local wildlife.

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WALNUT CONSOLE Grace Dixon Wood Design | Mark Macek This design was an exploration of storage as an entity suspended within a structural frame. The piece is constructed of warm, textured walnut and smooth, cool Calcutta gold marble, which acts as a signifier for where to place your hand. Both materials are rich and complementary. Simple geometric spline miters at each fold enhance the clean, continuous form. The bottom plane sweeps back, creating both a partially concealed storage space and a more ergonomic elevation while elegantly manipulating the piece of wood.

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CABINET Jordan Teitelbaum Wood Design | Mark Macek This cabinet was designed to showcase the qualities of two materials, wood and metal. The wooden outer case is constructed of hard maple, enabling a thin band around the cabinet’s facade. The plywood drawers are faced with powder-coated aluminum sheet, contrasting visually as well as providing a tactile difference that is felt when using the drawers. The case sits on a welded steel frame, with maple feet mimicking the steel’s profile. A single open compartment connects to a space behind the drawers for cable management, allowing audio and power cables to be connected out of sight.

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ROCKING THESIS Leora Visotzky Wood Design | Mark Macek The rocker is an exploration of the relationship between making and knowledge. The making of a rocking chair was a physical application of theory and an experiment in how making an object connects me to nature and culture. I embarked on making the chair with the hope that I would understand how the process affects perception of an object’s and the self’s existence in the world, and what kind of knowledge this perception yields. I chose to make a chair, of all things, because of its relationship to the body; it holds and contains the body; it can be used by more than one body; the object itself is reminiscent of the body—it has a back, seat, arms, and legs. It is an object that speaks to the corporeal connection to a world whose connections are becoming more and more virtual.

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RECORD CABINET Thomas Hilde Wood Design | Mark Macek This design was highly informed and ultimately characterized by the quality and beauty of its materials. White oak creates a warm and sturdy outer frame with unique grain figures that interact at the corners, where finger joints articulate the thickness of the solid wood. Set back into this frame is an uninterrupted horizontal band of walnut that opens downward to reveal stereo components and a wood slide turntable tray. The lower compartments house the exposed record collection, which invites browsing.

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SLIP CAST ZIPPER Shelley McDavid Prototype | Igor Siddiqui In this investigation, analog and digital processes of making were combined to generate a ceramic stool prototype. Grasshopper was utilized to generate the form of the stool, sliced along a diagrid pattern into five pieces that was then routed in foam used to cast plaster molds. The two-piece plaster molds were then used to cast the zipper stool pieces, intended to scissor together in five tessellating pieces. The hollow clay pieces, bisque and glaze fired, gain strength and stability through their assembly. The intent of this project was to explore new techniques in the process of slip casting via the application of digital fabrication techniques.

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COBALT 9 Kathleen Clark Prototype | Igor Siddiqui Cobalt 9 is a conceptual furniture design project, simultaneously testing theories of mass customization and human experience, as well as digital and analogue assembly. From a proposed series of 10 stools, Cobalt 9 was selected for fabrication. While the parametric design allows for an infinite series of different stools based on orientation options and various curving cut-outs, each individual stool provides the potential for a unique experience.

The user is able to establish a relationship with the object—“sitting with” rather than just “sitting on” the piece.

The design for Cobalt 9 recreates a stereotomic form using tectonic construction. The acrylic finish wraps the frame to create an ambiguous continuous surface. From certain angles, the painted blue interior seen though the white fabric gives the illusion of a solid form. With both curved and mitered edges, the CNC router made cutting the ½” plywood base frame efficient and precise. In contrast to the digital tools, the 4-way nylon fabric was hand-stretched over the base frame. The fabric works in tension to create the desired complex curvature in a continuous surface. Finally, the laser cutter was used to cut blue acrylic finish pieces, designed with curved edges and ½” finger joints.

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EUROPA Ashly Chirayil, Matt Hill + Jose Perez Virtual Worlds | John Blood Europa is a level design for a video game which takes place on Jupiter’s moon. The protagonist, Matilda, is a scientist studying the native life forms of Europa in hopes of deeming the moon safe for human colonization. When an asteroid hits–releasing radiation and causing terra forming–Matilda’s future hangs in the balance.

In three-person teams, interdisciplinary students collaborated to create a level of their own design. Modeling and coding for Europa through Unity software allowed for complete control over the environment and thus facilitating a study in behavior manipulation. In our design, the ability to control both artificial and natural light (temperature, intensity, and duration) is a key signifier for game-play. Emergency lights signal path, intense “sunlight” signals danger (from radiation), and low lighting intensifies the eerie mood. Color of building elements, the “natural” environment, signage, and light are a means of orientation and way-finding. Sounds such as footsteps, the beating heart, breathing, alarms, echoes, reverberation, and music are a means to direct game play and heighten the emotional connection of the player.

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NOLU LUMINAIRE DESIGN Connie Chang, Joanne Koola, Jessica Sadasivan + Alex (Yen-Jung) Wu Environmental Controls I | Keith Simon A majority of outdoor study spaces around campus do not have sufficient lighting for nighttime work or leisure. The rooftop terrace at the Student Activity Center adjacent to James Turrell’s Skyspace is a prime example.

There are four outdoor patio tables which are often used by students throughout the day and night. It is an intimate setting for small study groups and conversation. At night however, the existing lighting conditions are not conducive to these activities. Students are seen using their laptops and phones to illuminate the task surface.

NOLU is a versatile luminaire that maintains an intimate setting while providing diffuse, even illumination over the work surface for studying as well as ambient light for casual conversation. As a table-top luminaire, NOLU can be easily assembled around tables with and without umbrella stands. This versatility allows NOLU to be implemented as a lighting solution throughout the campus.

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OBJECT 3 Rossina Ojeda, Dominic Sargeant + Alex (Yen-Jung) Wu Design V | Kory Bieg This collaborative project was the summation of concepts and ideas developed individually by Rossina Ojeda, Dominic Sargeant, and Alex Wu during the creation of various objects. The form and fabrication technique was developed to generate an understanding of the relationships in defining and enclosing mass and space in solids and surfaces. Object 3 is a 3’ x 3’ object CNC-milled out of 1/8” medium-density-fiberboard. It is created by layering components that intersect to generate an applied pattern that varies the porosity of the material surface. The form of Object 3 incorporates surface and mass components that intersect utilizing gaps from the construction method. A large part of the study was an investigation in understanding the translation from digital form to physical form and methods to enhance that process.

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SARAN PROJECTION

Jenna Ahon, Michelle Cantu, Irela Casanova, Kelsey Matteson + Ashley Nguyen Design V | John Blood + Danilo Udovicki This installation creates a variety of film-watching experiences and manipulates previously unoccupied space. The Saran wrap projection room began with the sculptural form in the middle, designed to draw people in and connect the two viewing areas. The form captures the light of the projected short films and becomes dynamic and alive. The first viewing area, to the left of the loggia is large and open and allows for group viewing of the student films. The wrapped forms are less intrusive, and one can watch the films, while watching others interact. The opposite side of the installation is enclosed, and one must enter the Saran wrap form to observe the projected films. This experience is much more intimate than the group viewing. The overall form is made out of Saran wrap and metal scaffolding, exploiting the entirely tensile nature of the wrap and contrasting it with the compression and tension of the scaffolding. The installation is drastically different during the day and night. During the bright hours of the day, the Saran form itself is the most prominent, but beginning at dusk—as the scaffolding disappears— the sculptural form fills with the light of the projections and transforms into something alive and ethereal.

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KIMBELL ART MUSEUM Donesh Ferdowski Theory I | Lawrence Speck Students in Theory I are challenged to discover and express their beliefs about architecture, often for the first time. The semester culminates in a final project about one architect and their work. I chose Louis Kahn and the Kimbell Museum. The building is a world within a world and borrows its light from the sun. I spent an entire day in Fort Worth to watch the Kimbell wake up and come to life. In those spaces, I was conscious of the movement of the clouds, even though I couldn’t see outside. I tried to carry its light back to my class in black and white. With a friend’s help, I spent many hours in the UTSOA darkroom developing the photos. Each one tells us about Louis Kahn, the Kimbell Museum, and my visit there.

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LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY Amy McDonnold Architectural Photography | David Heymann The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library: designed by Gordon Bunshaft, photographed by a bystander. Through a lens of personal discovery, the LBJ Library gains an intimacy lacking in reality. Strategically capturing the atmosphere created by the building questions the monumentality of the objectified architecture, suggesting the possibility of a nuanced experience with the space beyond its glorified forcefulness.

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MUNICH-AUSTIN WATERWAYS Shannon Harris Thesis Research | Munich, Germany + Austin, Texas Conserving water in Austin and in Munich: how environmental knowledge translates to sustainable water practices in Munich, Germany and what it can teach us in drought-prone Austin, Texas.

My current thesis research examines how conservation approaches in the Texas State Water Plan, and the State Water Infrastructure Fund for Texas (SWIFT) Plan, will be implemented. In November 2013, voters in Texas approved two billion dollars to be transferred from the Rainy Day Fund to fund new water infrastructure. A minimum of twenty percent of this money must be used for conservation and reuse projects, which may include the use of auxiliary water technology such as desalination, rainwater harvesting, grey water use, reuse, municipal conservation strategies, and green infrastructure.

Traditionally, in contrast, Texas water infrastructure projects have not been diverse, nor have we focused on reducing our ecological footprint.

Citizens in Munich, on the other hand, are acutely aware of their ecological footprint, even though the city engages in little collection or reuse strategies.

Instead, the city concentrates on education about how to keep water sources clean, emphasizing the importance of successful conservation easements and aquifer protection plans. And, because the German Federal Government operates water policy from a top-down approach, requiring purity at the source for their drinking water, technological emphasis is heavier at wastewater treatment plants and in the industrial sector. This contrasts with Texan’s bottom-up approach that, while allowing local control, has contributed to water governance in the state resembling a patchwork quilt of rules.

The Isar River Reclamation Project in Munich, which re-opened the river channel to allow for seasonal flooding events, has had a positive effect on education about the how natural flows decrease water insecurity and allow positive ecosystem services to work in urban areas. In contrast, Lady Bird Lake in Austin is maintained at a constant level for recreation purposes. While this practice allows a vast array of recreation, it is one good example of an obscured representation of the ecological function of an important river in Texas.

Though political systems vary between Texas and Germany, the examples from Munich provide sustainable design and planning strategies helpful to western cities. I will use the Munich research, along with other studies from innovative programs in Australia, New Zealand, Las Vegas, Syracuse, and Seattle to lend insight and help inform possible policy recommendations for Austin, as well as the entire state.

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REFUGE WITHIN THE WAY Evan Greulich Independent Travel | Camino de Santiago, Spain This summer I walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage 1,000 km across Spain.

Fortunate to receive a UTSOA travel scholarship, I sought to study refuge in its manifold manifestations along this medieval and flourishing path.

I woke before dawn every morning, gathered thirty or so pounds on my back, and set off. Alone. Always alone, for I wanted to live the insecurity, quiet, and solitude of true pilgrimage. Anxious, exhausted, eager, contemplative— however I started my day—I inevitably confronted frustration and fear along the way.

Every day, I was surprised by the cemeteries I passed. Always enclosing cyprus-filled courtyards with beautiful gates and sturdy walls, these communities of the dead were a reassuring reminder to peregrinos of the many who had journeyed this way before. Inward-facing, these simple places poetically exemplified the communal way of the Spanish—in this life and beyond.

Hiking under the relentless Spanish sun or trudging through driving rain, I longed for shelter. Thick, protective walls. Again and again, I discovered refuge in “dark” and dimly-lit interiors. Churches, attics, monasteries–these warm, candlelit spaces gave me pause. I could sit, close my eyes, breathe deeply, and fortify my spirit for the exertion ahead. One afternoon, two companions and I encountered the Eunate Romanesque Church. Abiding within this small, dark sanctuary, we were each overcome with tears. Alabaster windows radiating the faintest glow of sunlight, its still, graceful atmosphere granted us immediate and unsolicited repose.

In architecture today, we regularly praise light’s ephemeral, ethereal presence.

But only by embracing light’s complement–darkness, shadow, depth–can we grasp its mystery. Endeavoring together, darkness and lightness enrich each other.

There is an old and beautiful Camino phrase oft-repeated, “Ultreia!”, which translates roughly as “onward,” “further,” or “to the end.” Ostensibly an encouragement to endure, “Ultreia!” actually urges pilgrims to search within themselves, to plunge into the depths of their inner journey. Arriving at that final vista, the often dreamt-of ocean in full view for the first time, I felt distilled. Refuge had formed within me. As we pilgrims learned, the real pilgrimage was, and had always been, inside of us.

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THE ROOM OF THE CITY Clare van Montfrans Independent Travel | Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany This past spring, I was awarded the Boone Powell Family Prize in Urban Design, a generous scholarship that enabled me to spend five weeks in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany comparing the ways in which historic and contemporary urban fabric influence the function, aesthetic, and spatial quality of public spaces.

Often in the study of built environments, we talk about the hypothetical experience of a place instead of actually engaging it. Through careful examination of the universal qualities shared by successful public spaces, I set out to better understand how architecture can promote communal interaction rather than isolation.

Initially, I structured my days around finding and analyzing a hefty list of pre-established locations. However, as I explored the streets of Copenhagen, Rotterdam, and Berlin, I found myself drawn to the “life between buildings� over the well-defined spaces. I wandered city streets, alone but surrounded by public life. This gave me ample time to dissect the impact of the built environment on my experience of public space and to look beyond physical surroundings and into the social realm of cities. I thought deeply about the shaping of public life and how we as humans desire to participate in it. My observations ranged from scale and enclosure to tougher questions pertaining to equality and politics in our urban environments.

I returned home with more questions than answers: which has greater impact on the shaping of public space, architecture or the underlying social structure?

As architects in urban environments, do we always have a responsibility to consider and provide for a positive interface between our buildings and the public? What does it mean to build a city from the ground up? Can we create architecture and infrastructure that ages gracefully? While I found my lack of solid conclusions initially unsettling, it soon became apparent that the framework of questions I was developing was much more valuable and aligned with the goals of the trip. I am excited to explore solutions through design as I move forward in my architectural education and career.

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GLOBAL PROJECTS 106

FEATURED PROJECTS 108 Nevin Blum

Hope Hasbrouck | Eagle Island, Alaska| North America

110 Joshua Lamden

Michael Benedikt | Los Angeles, California | North America

114 Jessica Sadasivan

Hope Hasbrouck | Point Reyes, California | North America

116 John Bodkin

John Friedman + Alice Kimm | Los Angeles, California | North America

118 Clare van Montfrans

Adam Pyrek | Phoenix, Arizona | North America

122 Cameron Benson

Wendell Burnette | Wendover, Utah | North America

124 Lucas Carriere

Simon Atkinson | London, United Kingdom | Europe

128 Samantha Cigarroa, Lauren Mullane, Jessica King + William Niendorff Simon Atkinson | London, United Kingdom | Europe

130 Elizabeth Sydnor

Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram | Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy | Europe

132 Kathleen Clark

Michael Garrison | Tororo, Uganda | Africa

134 Sophia Monahan

Sofia von Ellrichshausen + Mauricio Pezo | Quenac Island, Chiloe, Chile | Latin America

138 Brooks Cavender + Catalina Padilla

Juan Miró | Mexico City, México | Latin America

142 Jessica Mills + Heather Rule

Wilfried Wang | Mexico City, México | Latin America

IDITAROD TRAIL HOSTEL Nevin Blum Design V | Hope Hasbrouck | Eagle Island, Alaska Stretching from one end of Alaska to the other, the Iditarod National Historic Trail which runs over 1600 miles of iconic mountain ranges, Boreal forests, and frozen rivers, is one of the most dangerous and lonely trails in North America. The hostel, as an intervention, examines the intersection of the venerated nature of this trail with the peculiar settlement patterns of rural Alaska.

Unlike most trails, the Iditarod has no supply towns. Instead it relies on a fraternity and trust between permanent residents and transient hikers. This offers a unique social and physical connection along the trail. Resident houses act as informal checkpoints through which transient travelers pass and stop to access supplies and lodging.

Sited along the Yukon River, the hostel marks a transition between landscape and ecoregions, on an island that has historically been inhabited by Native Americans and Gold Rush towns that have since been abandoned: a missing link in the chain of settlements along the trail. The main buildings sit with their back to a spruce forest to protect from winter winds, with the program primarily arranged for the different users, either permanent or transient.

The permanent programs are cut and embedded into the ground. A full-time staff bridge spans both banks to create a visual marker and a measure of pace for dog-sledders rushing along the frozen river. The transient programs of the cabins, meeting hall, and bathhouse branch out from the hearth, distinguished by solid ground, above the submerged program. This allows the cabins to be fully separated related to a nomadic idea of security: the ability to see all walls of a dwelling.

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ADDITION FOR AGING PARENTS Joshua Lamden Vertical | Michael Benedikt | Los Angeles, California This project involved analyzing and manipulating the archetypal gable house to achieve a modest, picturesque addition to an existing prominent residence.

The original home was designed by architect Steven Ehrlich in the hills of west Los Angeles. The addition invokes a sense of “home” while also reflecting the existing structure’s Japanese inspiration by earthy materiality and focus on the outdoors.

The addition aims to anchor the expansive backyard of the estate, rather than coincide in close proximity to the existing home. This gives the garden and pool their own place on the uniquely nestled canyon site. The result generates an intimate setting for aging parents and later grown children to live on-site, while maintaining a strong connection to the family’s motherhouse.

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GROUNDED: TRAIL HOSTEL Jessica Sadasivan Design V | Hope Hasbrouck | Point Reyes, California The American Discovery Trail (ADT) was America’s first transcontinental trail spanning from the East to West coast. The ADT leads hikers from Maryland to California through various American communities, cities, and wilderness areas. This project proposes a hostel along the trail that purposefully positions the hiker within a transect of experience that heightens opportunities for reflection and the wonder of discovery that initially brought the hikers to the ADT. Located at the Pacific terminus of the trail in Point Reyes National Seashore, this project takes advantage of what is arguably the best place to provide the thru-hikers the ultimate place of reflection on their journey.

The spatial organization of the hostel celebrates and marks the conclusion of the hiker’s journey. As the hikers and visitors of the site move through the hostel campus, the level of “ownership” gradually shifts from public (campground) to private (ADT association). The hostel campus is arranged on the slope of a vale. ADT affiliated buildings are massed perpendicular to the slope as a way to establish its place on the site. The residences are parallel with the slope to blend in smoothly with the existing campground. On the periphery of the hostel campus sits the thru-hiker’s residence. Its position, perched upon the dramatic coastal cliff, gives the thru-hikers the privacy to reflect upon their journey and their subsequent transition back to normal life.

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SOUTH LOS ANGELES FITNESS AND COMMUNITY CENTER John Bodkin Advanced | John Friedman + Alice Kimm | Los Angeles, California The South Los Angeles neighborhood is continuing to transform into the twenty-first century and grow through its storied past; the South Los Angeles Fitness and Community Center acts as catalyst, using existing and new buildings to speak a new life into the neighborhood. Sited at the corner of an existing industrial park and residential neighborhood, the fitness and community center will be the first large-scale adaptive reuse project in the vibrant area. The community center is placed in an existing industrial building. The fitness center sweeps across the east side of the site, with views of the South Los Angeles neighborhood, creating a conversation between its mass and that of the surrounding local businesses and homes.

The basketball courts, locker rooms and swimming pool are located around the center of the site, creating a large park that feels protected from the neighboring streets with views of the entire center. The far west side of the site features an underground parking structure with a rooftop park meant for recreational sports. The design of the center is bold and meant to serve a greater population than most fitness and community centers currently in Los Angeles. A motivational center will benefit the disenfranchised community by offering an inspirational and healthful place to gather.

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NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER Clare van Montfrans Vertical | Adam Pyrek | Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix, Arizona is the most populous state capital in the United States as well as the fastest growing metropolitan area. Given the quickly densifying nature of the city, the role of the Native American Urban Center is to serve as both a public amenity and a private service for the city’s Native American population. The population is incredibly diverse, exhibiting a wide range of traditional and contemporary views of Native American culture. The existing facilities for Native Americans in Phoenix largely consist of repurposed office buildings and do little to elevate the identity of the population within the city.

From the outset of this project, I focused on creating a functional facility with an identifiable presence within the urban fabric.

In southwestern Native American culture, a pervasive respect for nature permeates belief systems and tribal mythologies. Existence is often described in relation to natural elements, primarily through the frameworks of earth and sky. The project addresses this as a vertical dialogue between the stereotomic building of the earth and the tectonic roof of the sky, connected by translucent prisms of light.

Around this concept, the building is organized as a series of terraced levels connected by three vertical structures. The main entrance takes visitors up a prominent exterior stair to the shaded roof terrace and cafe. From this exterior level, the program shifts from public to private as visitors descend through the building. The three cores serve as both organizing elements and vertical connections, two providing vertical circulation and exhibition space while the third allows light to penetrate the mass of the building below. From street level, this cone of light signifies the visual identity of the building, while inside providing a centralizing element between the wellness, business, and education centers.

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DESERTIAL LAKE Cameron Benson Advanced | Wendell Burnette | Wendover, Utah Located on I-80 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the Great Salt Lake Basin, this rest stop is meant to reveal the fantastic, sublime reality of the flats. Upon entering the basin, one understands its salty expanse as a desert, yet it is far more. The basin’s history is deeply connected to water. One-hundred thousand years ago, the basin was more than a thousand feet below the surface of Lake Bonneville, a paleolithic lake larger and deeper than Lake Michigan. The basin has since dried into a desert, its salty surface measuring five feet deep in some places. However, the lake is not gone. The few times it rains each year, the lake refills with a thin layer of water, forming a mirror. The lake itself also remains below the surface, trapped in three aquifers, in some places only a few millimeters deep. Minimal digging into the ground reveals the lake below.

Thus, cutting into the ground leaves a space that will be naturally infilled by these aquifers. The shape of the cut and the resulting building material is then preserved in the construction of the rest stop. The program encourages the visitor to experience multiple kinds of water: fresh water from deep below, the cut aquifer water, and a pool of rainwater. In refreshing themselves from their car trip through this desert, visitors uncover the reality of the basin. This basin is not simply a desert but rather a Desertial Lake.

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

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VAUXHALL CROSS, GB Lucas Carriere Advanced | Simon Atkinson | London, United Kingdom In understanding London’s Vauxhall Cross Station in its current state, there was an interest in the collection of a field of macro and micro-data. The most significant information, as presented, looked at the South London landscape as a tabula rasa, within which transit systems and human activity develop their own language and mapped sensibilities. The future of Nine Elms District in Lambeth Borough is, today, about growth and change, based in private, multi-billion pound, investments. Although there is no specific genesis for this torrential gentrification, the area is a planned future for the US, Dutch, and Chinese embassy, and one of reasonably low real estate values, historically. A conservative estimation predicts an immediate addition of 75,000 people to the area, the planning of public transportation system, however, will remain unchanged.

The hub, as proposed, builds a substantial network of pragmatic infrastructure, bleeding and uniting demarcated vertical urban thresholds.

The maximized infrastructure framework results in the “stage�, or base of the community theatre. The theatre, an additional programmatic element, is designed as an egalitarian community nexus for entertainment, and more broadly, neighborhood unification. Ultimately, the proposed is intended to address the goal of efficiency in transportation (motorized and non) and social activation. Vertical layering is employed dramatically, but intentionally, with consistent predilection for the pedestrian experience. The presence of the human is reinforced at each stratum, with the lower plaza and upper green-belt claimed entirely as pedestrian domain. The station, as proposed, is intended as a landmark for the site as a place-making, way-finding element, a structure designed around the forecasted charges in a constantly developing landscape.

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EUROPE

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EUROPE

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VAUXHALL COMMUNITY RIBBONS Samantha Cigarroa, Jessica King, Lauren Mullane + William Niendorff Advanced | Simon Atkinson | London, United Kingdom The Green Cathedral is an overarching concept designed to provide a unique urban community center dispersed across the elevated rail. The cathedral is a network of green buildings and linkages that tie the urban fabric together. It celebrates the rich history of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens with diaphanous architectural material made for plant interpenetration.

Vauxhall station is a busy transit node with an unfriendly pedestrian environment and a dangerous street presence. The neighborhood is a collection of disconnected green spaces, undervalued cultural and historical assets, and growing socioeconomic disparity. Current development plans for the Vauxhall area include a number of tall towers adjacent to the Thames, increasing the barriers from the wider borough to the river. Without careful planning, the current architectural barrier formed by the elevated rail may delineate an even greater divide in the future, restricting united economic growth and access to public amenities. The challenges and opportunities addressed were green space, landmarks, pathways, transit, and identity.

Our goal was to create a landmark urban community by re-envisioning Vauxhall Crossing as a celebrated moment of coming together in the city, generate a green-linked urban fabric incorporating the rich history of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and native ecology, provide equitable economic opportunities, and prioritize the pedestrian.

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VISITOR CENTER Elizabeth Sydnor Advanced | Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram | Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy The prompt of the Italy Study Abroad studio was to propose a program that would bring tourists to the small Italian town of Castiglion Fiorentino, located in Tuscany. The site is located on the cusp of the historic medieval town at a higher elevation, although newer development in the town has been established at a lower topography. The proposed program is a visitor’s center, public library, and contemporary art museum to serve both locals and tourists.

The goal of the project is not to be a direct revenue generator, but a source of information in which locals and tourists can be oriented and directed to the specialized agricultural, culinary, and artisan businesses. This intent respects the existing quiet charm and craft this unique town has to offer.

The new structures continue along the strong central axis of the medieval town, visually and physically connecting with the main political piazza, Piazza del Comune, the Cassero, historic Etruscan gate, and the ‘Spanish Steps’ which are East of the site, as shown in the site plan. Looking to the medieval portals that surround Cassero, the buildings serve as a contemporary threshold. They are registered to the land by the stone wall to the East. The three different programs are oriented to experience the wall in three distinct moments: passing beside it at the street level arcade, framing one’s view to the art gallery below; a “break” within it to enter the visitor’s center; and from a distance, creating an outdoor space beyond the olive grove that is adjacent to the library reading area.

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SMILE AFRICA Kathleen Clark Vertical | Michael Garrison | Tororo, Uganda Smile Africa is an organization offering educational and developmental programs for widows and children in the community of Tororo, Uganda. Seeking to expand their impact, Smile Africa is working with members of UTSOA to design a new primary school complex. For the future students of the school, their entire life exists within the school’s boundary walls. With this in mind, the overall design focuses on creating a holistic living experience: body, soul, and mind. For body - the layout utilizes the reinterpretation of a monastic cloister to provide covered walking space between classrooms, as well as to enclose an open grassy space for play. For spirit - the program includes a small chapel space for worship and a covered pavilion for community gathering. For mind - the classroom spaces accommodate classes of varying sizes and indoor/outdoor needs.

Within an individual classroom unit, the design incorporates local materials and construction methods - compressed earth block, minimal concrete pours, wooden trusses, and corrugated metal roofs. These common building elements are supplemented by unique features rooted in the culture of Tororo.

Sugar cane screens mitigate radiant heat gain and enclosure, while colorful textile screens, created by the women of the Smile Africa Sewing Project, allow for spatial flexibility. As a whole, the space flows from the hard, rigid, concrete cloister to the varying small/large, indoor/outdoor earth and wood classrooms.

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WOODEN CHAPEL Sophia Monahon Advanced | Sofia von Ellrichshausen + Mauricio Pezo | Quenac Island, Chiloe, Chile This wooden chapel, sited on the promontory of a small rural island in southern Chile, was adapted from the plan of San Carlo Alle Quatro Fontane through a process of abstraction and proportional play. The bilateral symmetry of the cruciform plan was emphasized while the proportions were stretched in the east/west directions.

The chapel is oriented at the tip of the peninsula to be approached along an east-west axis defined by a single row of trees in a field, a line of central columns inside the chapel, and a flight of stairs to the beach. The redundant structural grid, introduced to create niches with a human-scale intimacy, is carved away in the center to create a sublime space of communion. The chapel provides small spaces for individual contemplation, but these spaces serve to form a larger coherent space that guides visitors from a space of solitary reflection to one of shared epiphany.

In a gesture toward the tradition of painted wood churches in the region, the exterior wall cavity is painted blue. This color emerges as the interior surface peels back to evoke continuity with the sky. Light filters through the wall and catches the smoke of candles burning in the niches.

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URBAN SCAFFOLD Brooks Cavender + Catalina Padilla Advanced | Juan Miró | Mexico City, Mexico Urban Scaffold is a proposal that aims to create a form work for the interwoven city center of Mexico City. Drawing on Mexico’s history and cultural context, this project carves a plaza reminiscent of colonial monastic atrios, responding not only to the church of San Agustin across the street, but also commemorating the adjacent Museum and Cultural Center of Felix Candela.

Using programs such as open and enclosed markets, and keeping in mind the future use of the church as a university library, the scheme promotes a dialogue across the plaza thus activating and weaving the site into the dense urban fabric and transit corridors surrounding it.

The Museum and Cultural Center of Felix Candela alludes to the intricate and ingenious scaffolding that Candela used to create his emblematic thin shell concrete structures. Our intervention and addition to the existing building, the Antigua Bolsa de Valores, is expressed through a system of wooden lattice that not only evokes the ingenuity of Candela, but also serves as a structural system that supports the cultural hub of our design. Furthermore, the presence of the beaming wooden framework serves as a rich introduction to Candela’s awe-inspiring shell. Wood is used in the form of structural beams in the existing building as well, continuing the material differentiation of our intervention from the original design. Finally, the design uses sectional difference to introduce day lighting while preserving completely the integrity of design and light quality in Candela’s Shell.

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COLONIA AEROPUERTO Jessica Mills + Heather Rule Advanced | Wilfried Wang | Mexico City, Mexico As Mexico City welcomes Foster and Romero’s new airport in the next 15 years, our project proposes the re-development of the old airport site with a series of parks and green spaces that offset the future loss of permeable ground. Using deliberately smaller scale parks to maximize the benefit for more people in the surrounding area, our scheme mirrors the large urban park at the west of the city: Chapultepec Park. Alongside green spaces, the urban scheme is such that it integrates the new fabric with the existing surrounding neighborhoods.

With the larger site as an eventual end goal, our studio was structured to design from the bottom, up. We began at the scale of a minimal live-work unit. We standardized and combined two different apartment designs into a single module that shares a circulation core, articulated by a concrete block screen that plays with light and visibility. We took into consideration the typical Mexican street, which has solid and mute facades and open interior courtyards. In that vein, we reduced the openings at the street facade, favoring privacy. We then designed an interior courtyard with more windows, balconies, and social potential.

The aggregated module is repeated to form a perimeter block. By integrating “connector” buildings that divide the larger courtyard, we produced intimate courtyard spaces that provide a sense of ownership for the inhabitants. These buildings integrate mixed-used program directly into the block, used as libraries, day cares, work incubators, and studios.

As an exercise, we grow the single perimeter block into an eight-block “Urban Fabric Swatch.” We increased density at the green edges and integrated urban program such as schools, churches and retail. A series of parks and bioswales carry water from west to east across the site. That water then telescopes into the larger retention and filtration system to the city’s western perimeter.

These bioswales and green spaces invert the relationship of permeable to impermeable surfaces within the site. As the low point in Mexico City - it’s the bottom of the bowl - the airport can perform a role within the larger water management system..

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INDEX

BY STUDENT 96 26 58 83 122 72 108 116 50 82 68 96 24, 44 124 96 138 92 83 82, 90 128 83, 89, 132 52 83 62 8 62 84 68 30, 68 68 83 72 72 34, 98 40 30, 83 48 83 62 102 72 100 87 90 72 82 50 68 62 64 128 82

Ahon, Jenna Ahn, Namhyuck Arnold, Elizabeth Bell, Justin Benson, Cameron Binder, Peter Blum, Nevin Bodkin, John Broussard, Adrianne Brown, Garrett Cai, Ruihua Cantu, Michelle Carlisle, Ryan Carriere, Lucas Casanova, Irela Cavender, Brooks Chang, Connie Charleston, Ann Chirayil, Ashly Cigarroa, Samantha Clark, Kathleen Claus, Kendall Coyne, Kathleen Cordeiro, Catherine Cunningham, John Dennis, Izabella Dixon, Grace Duggan, Rachel Eastman, Katherine Epley, Jamie Farrell, Elizabeth Fallahi, Sara Faz, Jorge Ferdowski, Donesh Fitzpatrick, Haley Fleury, J.J. Frank, Kerry Gonzalez, Adolfo Grady, Rebekka Greulich, Evan Harding, Kimberly Harris, Shannon Hilde, Thomas Hill, Matt Hunter, Christina Janzen, Jessica Jiang, Lu Johnston, Thomas Joshi, Vishal Kaiser, Kelsey King, Jessica Kaplan, Cliff

62 92 83 82 110 82 72 62 82 68 68 96 83 82 8, 88 99 36 16 142 134 83 128 62 20, 36, 83 96 128 83 94 58 62 138 72 90 68 18 82 72 142 92, 114 82 83 94 83 72 66 82 68 50 62 130 85 82 56

Kim, Yung-Ju Koola, Joanne Kong, Biying Kuwabara, Ko Lamden, Joshua Latorre, José Lee, Nicholas Leith, Andrew LeMieux, Jacob Li, Teng Liu, Kuan Matteson, Kelsey Melville, Erich Menebroker, Ethan McDavid, Shelley McDonnold, Amy McNamara, Molly Miller, Kristin Mills, Jessica Monahan, Sophia Montalvo, Daniel Mullane, Lauren Nasta, Paula Ng, April Nguyen, Ashley Niendorff, William Nordby, Mark Ojeda, Rossina Olsen, Kevin Ordia, Frank Padilla, Catalina Peper, Baron Perez, Jose Pinto, Celine Pham, Chinh Plyler, Anna Rasmussen, Ryan Rule, Heather Sadasivan, Jessica Sailer, Chris Sampson, Ellen Sargeant, Dominic Selkirk, Kaethe Sickler, Shelby Simpson, Sarah Shih, Raymond Stevenson, Luke Sparks, Melissa Steiner, Jessica Kulow Sydnor, Elizabeth Teitelbaum, Jordan Thibodeaux, Adam Treadwell, Sheridan

104, 118 86 12 83 82 92, 94 50 26 68

van Montfrans, Clare Visotzky, Leora Warr, Alex Wassel, Sarah Wright, Zachary Wu, Alex (Yen-Jung) Yin, Quan Yu, Xiaoyuan Zuo, Huiming

BY INSTRUCTOR 66 124, 128 8 110 94 90, 96 52 122 5, 68, 72, 83 34 77 36 56 116 132 44, 48 58, 64, 82 108, 114 99 26, 62 116 12 84, 85, 86, 87 24, 130 77, 138 20 134 118 50 16, 18, 88, 89 92 30 98 96 142 40 134

Almy, Dean Atkinson, Simon Baldridge, Burton Benedikt, Michael Bieg, Kory Blood, John Briscoe, Danelle Burnette, Wendell Coker, Coleman Dangel, Ulrich Danze, Elizabeth Fajkus, Matt Feliz, Nerea Friedman, John Garrison, Michael Gaskins, Allison Gomes, Francisco Hasbrouck, Hope Heymann, David Ibarra-Sevilla, Benjamín Kimm, Alice Legge, Murray Macek, Mark Milovanovic-Bertram, Smilja Miró, Juan Rosner, Joyce Pezo, Mauricio Pyrek, Adam Shearer, Allan Siddiqui, Igor Simon, Keith Sowell, Jason Speck, Lawrence Udovicki, Danilo Wang, Wilfried Wiedemann, Nichole von Ellrichshausen, Sofia

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to the faculty members who generously contributed funds from their endowments toward the publication of ISSUE: 011. Without them, this book would not have been possible.

Henry M. Rockwell Chair in Architecture Frederick Steiner | Dean, School of Architecture

Sid W. Richardson Centennial Professor of Architecture Kevin Alter | Director, UTSOA Summer Academy in Architecture

Hal Box Chair in Urbanism Michael Benedikt | Director, Center for American Architecture and Design

Page Southerland Page Fellow in Architecture Richard Cleary

Ruth Carter Stevenson Regents Chair in the Art of Architecture Coleman Coker

Meadows Foundation Centennial Fellow in Architecture Elizabeth Danze | Associate Dean for Graduate Programs

O’Neil Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture Barbara Hoidn and Wilfried Wang

Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair in Interior Design Dr. Nancy Kwallek | Director, Interior Design Program

Lawrence W. Speck Excellence Fund + W.L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor in Architecture Lawrence Speck

Paul Philippe Cret Centennial Teaching Fellow in Architecture Nichole Wiedemann | Director, Professional Residency Program

UTSOA Advisory Council Friends of Architecture Goldsmith Society Professional Residency Program

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ISSUE: is an annual student-run publication featuring graduate and undergraduate work at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. Its intent is to foster interaction and the exchange of ideas among students as well as to record the intellectual activities of the school.

ISSUE STAFF EDITORS Elizabeth Farrell + Molly McNamara ISSUE VOLUNTEERS Lucas Carriere Ann Charleston Kathleen Clark Kendall Claus Grace Dixon Donesh Ferdowski Haley Fitzpatrick J.J. Fleury Evan Greulich Benjamin Hamilton Joyce Hanlon Mary Hohlt Thomas Johnston Joshua Lamden Grace Mathieson

April Ng Ellen Sampson Kaethe Selkirk Katie Slusher Preethi Sreedhar Elizabeth Sydnor Jordan Teitelbaum Casey Tucker Clare van Montfrans Alex Warr Sarah Wassel Drew Wilson Amy Witte Yee Sang Wong

Select photos by Jena Hammond, Jessica Kulow Steiner + Katie Slusher.

Courtesy School of Architecture Visual Resources Collection, The University of Texas at Austin.

Copyright Š 2015 ISSUE: All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9962542-0-5 Printed in an edition of 1500.