Research Portfolio 2012

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More architecture

Portfolio/Resume Workshop

Wednesday, June 27th
6:00-8:00 p.m. @ DCFA

FREE EVENT - register here

Inviting all students, interns and architects who are looking to improve or start their resumes and portfolios to our FREE workshop. Coordinated by the Young Architect's Forum and the Associates Committee, a panel of established and diversely experienced professionals from the local architecture community will be speaking about portfolios and resumes in terms of content, presentation and effective communication. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

Panelists:
Charla Blake, Assoc. AIA, Art Institute of Dallas
Annie Carolla, Corgan (Recruiting Officer)
Bob Meckfessel, FAIA, DSGN Associates
Carole Steadham, Hon. AIA, Placement by Design

Thesis: Asemic High

Image description:

1. Perspective from Windsor
2. Rail Interchange at base – Floor 02
3. Rail Interchange at base – Floor 01
4. Street Level Perspective
5. Aerial Perspective
6. Section
7. Rail Interchange – Floor 01
8. Rail Interchange – Floor 02

 

This project discusses the Asemic as a generator for certain geometries, certain spheres of sensation, while providing a paradigm for economically viable urban housing and integrated transit.

Asemic geometry denies signification in favor of the emotion of the glyph: that through the serialization certain geometries emerge, invoking sensations which are referential (perhaps) but maintain their independence from meaning. Exploitation of these tendencies, these geometries, yield techniques which allow for fluid conditions to exist between indices, largely defined by the line or curve.

The project is situated in Detroit just north of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel and will serve the dual purpose of a primary transportation hub for a 10 billion dollar rapid transit corridor proposed over the next several years, and a larger residential element situated atop this transportation plinth. Rapid transit will begin to connect the largely disparate suburbs of the Detroit Metro area, bringing residents back into downtown and into the recently redeveloped riverfront district. This high-rise will act as the mediator between the newly defined district and the transit system.

Economically, the project will be subsidized through a housing authority and deed restricted, reducing risk to the contractor (cost) and the government while providing an infrastructure and housing solution to the locality (similar to the Dutch Housing Act of 1901).

halfset

asemic pliant geometries

An investigations into certain geometries which discuss the asemic as a mode of sensation and seriality in the high-rise typology.

(link to graphics)

Based on the pliant and the current economic state (as was similar in the past), certain architectural (urban) conditions are ripe for discussion: the fold (interstitiary connections), sensation, economic/sustainable drivers, ornament/structure, and geometry (as a study of the asemic as we "curve away from deconstructivism").

Infrastructure has to be retooled. In the next few decades, a huge initiative to create large public infrastructure projects will come to pass, creating a paradigm and a precedent. As people detach themselves from the ground, which will, when coupled with large vacant office high-rise space (due to the real estate boom's effect on rental values) create opportunity for the integration, of weaving, of high-speed and low speed (social condensing moments) infrastructure which spans from building to building. Sky lobbies will not be a vertically driven program, but now can be understood as a horizontally derived program as well. Therefore, certain public space accommodations must be made; a programmatic agenda, but a valid agenda none the less. These spaces must drip of movement, a muscled space pulled by (as a static expression) both the vertical and the horizontal.

Infrastructure disintegrates the ground in both directions normal to its surface: infrastructure of the air becomes as crucial as below level. This includes but is not limited by underground parking (as highway systems, which is being developed in Dubai), a lower pedestrian concourse, as well as subway or high-speed rail. Because of the project's site (see below), infrastructure will invade both the earth as well as the bay.

The fold, then, is an argument away from external, urban contradictions, as argued by the deconstructivists, and toward internal "heterogeneous" blends. Blended space, the space that retains several identities, will "fold" upon other space, still maintaining itself while becoming a construct of the whole (the Deleuzean "felt").

This logic (sensibility) is seen in the weaving of infrastructure about a redefined ground (or lack there of), and ties in well with other arguments of the asemic, or asemic geometries. Asemic is defined as "a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means 'having now specific semantic content.'" at the same time, we understand text (or the glyph) as having certain geometry which can be altered to create the phenomena of seriality. This can be easily understood by selecting a font in adobe products, in which the user is inundated with several hundred fonts, all with a distinct geometry about each character (again, glyph). These geometries, which here are devoid of semantic meaning, argue for other things, like emotion, all defined by some sort of sensibility or aesthetic. And while I say sensibility, as if we all define it for ourselves, there is a broader logic to this: that certain type sets (or styles of type sets) are typically be used for wedding invitation strongly deviate from that which is commonly used for rock concert posters, etc; an argument for geometry and style. If we look into architecture, one can see similar things: the tassel house by Victor Horta is a clear example of the use of graphic (for ornament, disintegration of the edge, etc.). One would argue this as a stylized look, but even so has a level of sensibility and sensation about the space (not to mention the lighting from above, color, etc.).

However, the asemic must be contained within that of the fold, the fluid connection. Geometry is one thing, but as indices weave and are warped about, opportunities for bending the column surface in upon the ground surface and in column to column relationships becomes a compelling argument for ornament and, again, sensation.

Note that these are preliminaries. The next phase of the work is to architecturalize the project. I will be developing a structural logic about the project with professors Holliday and Fry in the very near future which will allow for other extremely important considerations (like floor plates & vertical circulation) to be developed. At this point the project is primarily a study in geometry, and while the project will be developed in other ways, I would not call the current work Architecture, but again a study in geometry and sensation.

 

interior system

 

 

northern perspective | cell graphic

 

detail at sky lobby

 

entrance and ground articulation

Portfolio_VIP

video in print – the inclusion of very thin, very small videos within the printed medium

And why not? (well, other than expense, technical difficulty, proprietary technology, whatever…)

I don’t believe this is at all gimmickish - if done right. Animation could really explain certain works (as perhaps best shown by Joshua Prince-Ramus about his work on Ted Talks, see the last 3 minutes or so…), and would provide a completeness to the project that would be unobtainable any other way. This would, in a way, spoil much of the modeling technique spawned today throughout the profession – that is, only model what will render – and produce a stock of work that further investigates affect – another argument for the study of the workings of cinema in terms of architectural expression.

If nothing else it might better portfolios in some way – imagine using both print and video in the same printed portfolio…

parametric study – solar articulation/surface aggregation

 

For this study, I was asked to design a skyscraper who accommodates a system of panelization in which each panel is to be normal to the sun. One could think of these as either solar shades or PV panels. This condition allows for a level of sustainability about tall, topological projects, while still allowing the architect to control form while keeping the surfaces developable.

A number of steps went into solving the problem:

1. Planar surfaces where created from the NURBS surface using LIFT Architects Grasshopper Primer.
2. I then divided each panel into a 2x2 grid using U & V values, which yielded 9 points. I then extracted the corner points (1, 3, 7, and 9) and the middle points (5) into two distinct lists, or arrays. 
3. To create surfaces normal to the sun, I used trigonometry based on the vectors between the sun and the center/corner points of the original diagrid pieces. Because the magnitude (length) of the pre-existing vectors are known (both to the corners and to the center) as well as the angle between those vectors, a cosine function can be used to determine planar points along the corner vectors. Basically, as long as all end points of all lines draw a perpendicular vector to the existing central point vector, the surface, by definition, will be planar (see diagram). 

   GIVEN

   SOLUTION

4. Once I had the four new corner points, I used a ‘surface from four points’ component and baked the geometry into Rhino.

Because of the parametrics of grasshopper, one can view all possibilities of each panel, the number of panels, change the solar path relative to the building, etc.

To find the solar data I used an excellent excel spreadsheet put out by Greg Pelletier through the Washington State Department of Ecology (titled solrad.xls v1.2). It can be found on the web here.

Additional geometries can be explored (such as VT’s solar decathlon house wall pattern) which would do the same technique, in aggregation, which would perhaps give more variation to the work.

 

 

 

Images

(panels fixed in July position except in the video)

Interior Perspectives (January vs. July)

 

 

If the panels were to move in relation to the sun, it would look something like this (July solar data, of course):  

Portfolio 2009

 

(Link to the Portfolio with controls.)

a SWELL project

Professor Gabriel Esquivel

Ryan R. Collier – Project Manager

Nick Cignac | Matt Richardson | Todd Christensen | Mitch Scott Rocheleau | Chris Gassaway

“life is nothing but instability and disequilibrium... a swelling tumult continuously on the verge of explosion.” ~ Georges Bataille

“Swell” emerged from the posture of presenting an argument emerging from architecture itself. Is it possible to talk about architecture from its own discourse? This project fits within the continuum of architecture through references from works of the classicists to early modernists. A significant part of the research revolved around the discussion of classical ornamentation: a layer of architecturalization that was perhaps best articulated by the early modernist Louis Sullivan as seen in his intricate, highly articulated Guaranty Bank(i) corner to cornice detailing.

Not unlike the Baroque, there is a sense of levitation and anticipation – a feeling that the swell condition will either a) cause the entire beam to ultimately invade the floor and spread as a viscous fluid, or b) explode under the pressure of the aforementioned systems. Ironically, although the swell condition creates the illusion of weight, the project is - because of geometry, castellation, and material studies - quite the opposite. Furthermore, the form can be understood as an exaggerated moment diagram, as if the weight of the interior is causing deformation about the middle of beam.

This project addresses a classic architectural problem of the column/beam or more literally the corner/beam condition, a swelling condition in this case. The space includes a logic of ornamentation through aggregation of apertures and voids about the surface. To the benefit of the whole, two subservient (submissive) systems work concurrently, interdependently to erect an affect of Swell. Arguably, the one system without the other would be beautiful, but without any sense of abjection. Abject then is the state in which the object begins merging with the subject, literally dissolving the boundary between the two; the abject replaces the object. As the two systems invade the other and create such interaction, the composite condition begins to swell under pressures, literally ripping the surface: apertures graze the surface where there were none. The micro condition of the porous appears taut via stretching of certain geometries, ultimately achieving a high porosity the swelling turning into poché. This poché is the condition of the surface against the softbodies, a system beginning to distend: an infinite cleavage, a condition of invaded interstitial spaces.

The interstitial space, implied or contained is interpreted as a suppression of the paradox of physics and metaphysics of space that aims for an argument of desire, or that of the seductive void.

The void then can assume various shapes/relations. The question is whether or not the void is understood as a condition of interiority or exteriority. Our subjective affiliation to the project could be explained as the classic repression exercised by the superego, exposing another way to look at it in terms of the “other," in which otherness is present within the subject: a condition of abjection. “The interiority of exteriority is not understood until the internalization of absolute alterity disrupts the self conscious subject by revealing the presence/absence of an unconsciousness that can never fully enter consciousness”.(ii) Since the outside is always inside, the self is, in some sense, forever outside itself. The seductive “within” is not merely a need that can be filled by the possession of an object: the discourse of the other signifies an insatiable desire.

“Swelling” is presented as a disruptive condition that argues emotional possibilities, from its sensual and ominous ornamentation to questions whether it is psycho sexual, an explosion, or simply a disruption of the condition of the surface?

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(i) Image provided by: http://www.wrightnowinbuffalo.com/whattodo/images/Guaranty4.jpg

(ii) Jacques Lacan, Ecrits. A. Sheridan. New York; Norton 19

*Construction documents available upon request.

 

   

Education and Sensation: Renderings

I put this off till I had a bit more time. Here are the renderings (along with some images from before) that I’m submitting to a competition later on this month.

street facade

exterior perspective

exterior perspective

interior perspective – typical affect condition

interior perspective – typical toddler area