A House, a stair, a stage, projecting the street in while projecting out multiple performances to the public.
Video access: https://vimeo. com/799382979
ARCH2101 | Fall 2021
Instructor: Andrea Simitch
The project “Mise-en-scenes” is a house designed for two couples on Cascadelia avenue in Ithaca. NY. The concept of the scheme is a continuous stair capped by a translucent polycarbonate envelope, where the stair turns into a shelf, a seat, a kitchen counter, a bed, a bar, and a chamber room.
While the structure of the stair spirals up as a continuation of the street, a series of chamber rooms protrudes out, acting as stages that visually connect to the public space. Acting as a stage, the protruding chambers are being seen from the exterior, yet they could also act as spectator seats seeing the outside: the performance of sunrise, the dance of the falling leaves, or the ensemble of the canal...Thus the house is a performance, sometimes private, sometimes public, or a mixture in between.
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concept model featuring the protruding chambers and the continuous stair. fig.3 - 4
concept sketch/model: The concept of the scheme is a continuous stair capped by an envelope, while sometimes the stairs extrude, backs off, and touches the envelope.
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fig.5 site model: cascadelia avenue with a canal running east-west direction.
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1. Event Space for Various Activities: Living Room / Gallery / Stage / Workshop etc.
Bar/Seats
WYNWOOD FLANEUR
What does it mean to get lost in your neighborhood?
ARCH3102 | Spring 2023
Instructor: Andrea Simitch
Situated in the residential zone in Wynwood Norte, Miami, FL, this housing project aims to construct a collective living with various happenings.
The project features a translucent housing grid interconnected by irregular meandering passageways. These passageways serve as dynamic arteries, facilitating the flow of people and activities throughout the residential complex.
The design of irregular meandering passageways echoes the spirit of the flaneur by encouraging residents to explore their surroundings and interact with one another spontaneously and organically. These passageways serve as inviting pathways for residents to meander through the complex, discover new vistas, encounter neighbors, and participate in various communal activities.
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Conceptual diagram showing how the site (Red) was interconnected to the meandering passage way (Orange) with a sampling of adjacent programs
Design scheme showing the 2 major systems: Housing (which approapriates the scale of the neighborhood) and a "flaneur"/meandering passageway consists of mixed use programs that challenges public and private realm, yet provides spaces for maximized accidental encounter
Mathare 4B, the oldest and second-largest urban informal settlement in Kenya, sits on governmentowned land, leaving the community vulnerable to forced eviction and displacement. In April 2024, a once-in-a-century flooding event further highlighted their precarious living conditions, exacerbating challenges related to housing insecurity, limited economic opportunities, health risks, and safety concerns.
In response to these pressing issues, we are carefully improving upon the existing rental housing model and integrating digital fabrication technology as an adaptive strategy to build resilience against environmental pressures and socio-political challenges. This approach not only addresses immediate vulnerabilities but also leverages digital fabrication to foster generational wealth and promote circular community development, paving the way for a more sustainable and empowered future.
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Field photos and notes from Mathare 4B, Nairobi, Kenya: Site visit, Local community and stakeholder meetings, local material supplies etc.
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Nairobi City Urban Mining map indicating Mathare's proximity to industrial areas, CNC facilities, and material resources, while emphasizing road transportability to connect with regional supply chains and markets for recyclable materials.
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Site condition of Mathare 4B
Mathare circular development Plan
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Ground condition of proposed intervention
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Nairobi
fig.6 field notes from Lavenda, a Mathare 4B resident, detailing her daily rituals and the spatial layout of her house.
-> more research
"Lady" is a documentary film that follows Lavenda’s daily routines and explores her personal reflections on the meaning of home.
Wall Unit and Arrangements: The design focuses on improved spatial efficiency and indoor comfort, featuring daily items organized as plug-in wall elements that save space and double as sound insulation to enhance indoor comfort.
Mass Customization of wall system: Columns often disrupt sptial continuity, leaving areas under utilized. Mass customization revitalizes these leftover spaces by bringing both sides of the column. transforming them into a continuous and functional dimension.
Adaptable and reconfigurable unit layout facilitated by the grid structure and modular shelf system.
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Fig. 7.8
Day:
The kitchen and living room are arranged for daytime, where Lavenda enjoys meals with her family.
Night:
In the same room, beds are pulled out from the wall along with the room devider boards to accomondate individual privacy.
SYMPHONY OF S TONE
What does marble, or a bus stop sound?
ARCH1102 | Spring 2021
Instructor: Sasa Zivkovic and Felix Heisel
Teaching Assitance: Oonagh Davis
Located right above the waterfall of the Nature Trail in Lansing, New York, the bus stop is a threshold of nature. Inspired by the overlying rock bed and waterfall down in the gorge, the project appears as a composition of colorful interlocking marble pieces stacked and interlaced together. The marble pieces come in four modules, where three horizontal modules form the roofs and walls, and one vertical module acts as a column that stitches the whole project together.
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Site analysis of the bus stop and its peripheral views of the gorge.
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Video access: https://vimeo. com/799383190
Using the tile saw’s angle and trace, the facade system channels rainwater through horizontal modules, creating a hidden cascade that mimics a waterfall and blends with the bus stop's ambient sound.
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When the water flows over the marble, the stone surface is temporarily polished, where water activates the color and texture of the marble, triggering a transitory yet intimate moment that could only be seen in the rain.
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Scrap pieces produced during the production become mosaic flooring, acting as a visual cue that leads visitors to the gorge. As visitors trample on the floor, the marbles rub against each other and make a rattling sound.
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Notes on archive:
"The activity of archiving is an engagement, an interruption in a settled field, which is to enter critically into existing configurations to re-open the closed structures into which they have ossified." -- Stuart Hall, Constituting An Archive
SOFTENED WALLS
How to construct a living archive on the land that has a painful history of Gayogohó:n ǫɁ ’ (the Cayuga Nation) dispossession?
ARCH 2102 | Spring 2022
Instructor: Tom Carruthers
Situated in the historical district of Seneca Falls, NY, the library is a community hub that aims to construct a living archive. Achieved through bridging, the concept of the project is a series of fenestrated walls linked by transparent volumes. Thickened walls appropriate the dimension of the historical site. Moments of the program are understood to be both physical and metaphorical bridges that engage and critique the past to generate provocative spaces.
Parti diagram: an open archive of solid and transparent walls that continues the rhythm of the urban fabric
The visual percpetion of the wall changes as one approximates the archive(B)
Site analysis of the historical district in Seneca Falls
Site model labeled with entry circulation (B)
Design model with exposed sections
Detailed section (Transparent Wall)
Library as thickened wall
Reading space as trasparent wall
THE CAROUSEL
A film about an office, a playground, or a never-ending machine.
Link: https://vimeo.com/799380331
ARCH 4509 | Fall 2022
Instructor: Christopher Battaglia
The Carousel is an independent film about mundane activities in an office. Like a never-ending machine, the office operates like a gigantic elevator, where a series of plates runs up and down, as all utilities are summarized in a single vertical bundle based on the stream of the movement. The project is inspired by Bernard Halfner’s Linear City, in which a network of traffic and communication infrastructure is located in a linear urban structure to maximize efficiency. In my project, the human becomes the infrastructure where one’s individuality is merged into the architectural machine. The mechanism of the office also operates with dynamic movements as of those carnival rides, through spinning, lifting, and diving, portraying the office as an amusement park, or a playground. The uncanny juxtaposition of playground and office sets the satire of production operation and human labor.
The
fig.1 physical model for shooting
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Channel 1: Carousel Music by Tom Meijer
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Channel 2:
Data.Matrix by Ryoji Ikeda
The film has two sound channels. The Carousel music rhymes with the carnivalesque movement of the lifting and revolving office mechanism,
romanticizing the office space into a playground. Ikeda’s electronic micro sound sampling resembles the robotic keyboard sound relating to the act of labor. The eerie juxtaposition of office and play achieves a strong, accumulation effect, connoting a sense of sullness and tediousness, a characteristic element of the modern industrial world.
Two major scheme of the machanism: a revolving stage and elevating plates.
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PROFESSSIONAL WORK
Architectural Intern - 2023| New York, NY
Projects: Louis Vuitton Visionary Journeys: Bangkok, Thailand (2024) and Future Locations
Mixed-Use Commercial Tower: New York, NY, USA (2026)
Phases: Schematic Design Design, Interior Design
Over the duration of three months, I was involved in the concept design phase of the LV Visionary Journeys in Bangkok. I was giving full control in making rendered perspectives and physical modeling. I worked in V-ray and Photoshop to visualize these renders.
PROFESSSIONAL WORK
Mosaic Design Inc.
Architectural Intern - 2024|Tokyo, Japan
Over three months, I contributed to the full design process of an 18,700 sqm competition proposal for the International Center Station Northern Area Complex in Sendai, Japan, featuring a music hall and an earthquake memorial center. My work focused on developing research narratives on post-earthquake reconstruction, creating conceptual diagrams, and refining design iterations. I assisted in modeling and visualization, producing renderings for thematic representation and competition presentation.
