YEAR 2 Portfolio

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Alumni Commons Surface Manipulation

Below is some of what was my midterm project for second year studio. It was a surface project of sorts at the Alumni Commons area of Pasadena City College. I studied the undulating flight modes of Starling flocks as an external frame of reference from which to pull characteristics that could be translated architecturally. This project took many different shapes over the course of the eight weeks that I worked it, and is still in a developmental phase here. The manipulation maximizes the programmatic spacial potential both on and underneath the surface as well as on the vertical aftermath, while maintaining the existing circulation.

RESEARCH, SITE, PLAN, DIAGRAMS, RENDERS


STUDY MODEL MANIA

Frog Town Water Reclamation

Below is some of what was my 1st year final project from last Spring. It was a "Living System" water reclamation facility for a block of the community of Frog Town near Atwater Village and the L.A. river. There is a wetlands park and a water recycling system that is designed to work like this:

- Houses on block use water
- Black water and gray water are separated
- Gray water flows to site where it is reclaimed through a five phase living system (settling tank, secondary settling, tertiary filtration and anaerobic digesters, and UV filtration)
- Reclaimed water flows to adjacent block for use

...and so on and so forth.

It is designed to serve as an educational facility as well, where the public can learn about the benefits of Living System water reclamation.


RENDERS


SITE, PLAN, SECTION


PHYSICAL MODEL

...n that I was easily distracted

Model?

gottardo nord from fb1 visuals on Vimeo.

Cube

The infamous 10B Studio Cube Project. This was a nice break following the prior project (below), which was from hell. We began with a photo collage of "found space". For example, the assumed volume underneath a freeway overpass, or the alley way between two structures. We were to identify several implied geometric masses within the found space collage, model them digitally, manipulate them digitally, then subtract them from a given cubic volume. Once the pieces were differenced, we contoured both the positive and the negative massing, had them laser cut from 1/8" MDF, and built them on a series or four dowels. It sounds more complicated than it really was.


Photo collage
My "found space" lies beneath the Colorado Bridge in Pasadena. This is an area that I like to hike, and that offers a variety of promising spacial conditions, so I killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.

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Found spaces, modeled and manipulated in Rhino 4.0
Rendered in Maxwell


Further manipulation and cube relationship


Early contoured studies of positive and negative massing
Modeled in Rhino
Rendered in Maxwell





Physical Model
Laser cut 1/8" MDF sanded and assembled on 1/8" bass wood dowels.

Positive massing



Negative massing

Spacial Relationships and Circulation

Towards the beginning of the semester we spent a large amount of time discussing the relationships of different spacial configurations. For example, adjacent spaces or the poché, interlocking spaces, overlapping spaces, and spaces within spaces. I know. Architects love their words, and space is among the top five. I never thought it possible to hear it as much as I've heard it. We also looked at the circulation of the inhabitant and the visitor, primarily the latter, and how it reacts to space. Put simply, we talked a lot about public and private situations. We did several studies with different precedents of our choosing, then settled on one to develop diagrams and physical models. I landed on the Cape Schanck House by Jackson Clements Burrows. It's a really fun house, and worked well with this project.

A diagram series
Combined Spaces


Test renders (1)Spaces (2)Exploded




Physical Model
The walnut represents private or adjacent space and ground planes, and is fixed. The acrylic represents public interlocking space. The bass wood represents public circulation. The model was built in such a way that it can be disassembled only in the direction of the circulation, or the path of travel. In other words, where a person would enter the first space would be where the first piece of bass would be removed, thus unlocking the first acrylic piece, and so on and so forth. This one was a brain scrambler.

Visual Communications II Final

Below is my Viscom final board. I scribd it so you can maximize the pdf to full page view and have a better look. For the presentation I printed this at 24" by 72". The size of my body. It was 100 bucks. It sucked paying 100 bucks, primarily when my professor asked to keep it for the studio. But the review was a success. There were three professors on the jury, each of which had three little green stickers to put on their three favorite boards. Mine was one of the two boards that received three stickers. Good times.

12B FINAL

Open bar. Free. I will be there.

56 Leonard St

I found it! I saw this video last semester with a fellow class-mate, and have since not been able to remember what it was... until now. A pretty insane promo/presentation video from Herzog and de Meuron.

Summer Sleeper

This is what my Visual Communications final is beginning to look like. We were assigned a 8' by 20' by 20' bounding box to build a guest sleeping unit for the Eames House property. One of two systems types are to be used; stranded or tiled. There needs to be a skin and a structure, or the two can be one, which is the case with mine currently. Our program requirements are simple:
-door
-stairs, min. 3' by 12" run by 8" rise
-second floor plate

I'm working with 2" plates that swell at 3 points per plate, allowing them to stack. The plates can be manipulated to form stairs, shelves, doors, floor plates etc. both internally and externally. This is still developing, always the case, but here is where I am right now.

Built in Rhino 4.0
Rendered with Maxwell (default mxm brown plastic) 2hrs



Here is some stuff from earlier in the semester.

This was an experiment in proportion. We were required to develop a module, then enlarge or shrink that module based on a proportional system of our choice. I was working with the Fibonacci spiral as my growth control. The modules then had to merge into one another, forming a system. My concept here was based on the arc of the arm, pivoting at the elbow, when swinging a drum stick. There is more force involved at the beginning, hence the larger module.

Mat board and acrylic.



Serial section hand drafting on vellum w/ HB.


This was a beach trail shelter installation.



This was a cardboard TV chair. We were required to use only one 4x8 sheet, and when finished it had to support the weight of our professor. Success! I called it The Fan Chair, as it is designed to fold up, tuck under your arm as you walk, and unfold to use.




I'll get some more up as they develop.

Petrified Potatoes Upset Housewives

Having just returned from my first trip to New York City, I have since been obsessed with the idea, and the entity, that is the New York subway system. I've seen it in the movies. I knew it was big, and fast, and even dangerous. But there is nothing like the actual thing. It is immense. Multi-leveled beneath the surface of the earth, and in places beneath rivers, it is at some points almost 200 feet deep. And as old as it is, it works, well.

In October of 1912, while portions of the subterranean tunnels were being excavated, an article ran in the New York Times about potato rocks. Workers and pedestrians were finding round rocks that resembled petrified red potatoes. Children would get there hands on them and place them with the grocer's real potatoes. Women would then buy the rocks, take them home and either ruin a meal or break a dish, and promptly return to the store fuming. I found this interesting as one of the many random stories regarding the construction of the subway in New York City.

Right Place, Right Time

This is a pretty, pretty, pretty amazing photo (Carlos Gutierrez/UPI/Landov) of Chile's Chaitén volcano a couple days ago, which hasn't erupted in over 9,000 years. Some stats: 12 mile high ash plume, 4,000 evacuees, square miles in dust.

It's called a "dirty thunderstorm." It's a phenomenon not well known yet, but most atmospheric physicists maintain that volcanic lightning is a result of a large amount of electric charge released by the volcano itself. The static charge is sparked when it collides with ash and ice particles in the plume.

A fascinating photo. It looks like what I imagine the end of the world to look like. We will awake in the middle of the night, walk outside into the middle of the street with our neighbors, where no one speaks. They look up. It's all around us. And it sounds like hell. Like cats screaming over a thousand baritone singing men.

Animation!

I'm doing a minor case study for arch 11 on one of twenty optional Los Angeles based buildings. One happened to be the Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, built by Robert Stern. I chose it because I love all things Disney, and I saw this as an opportunity to visit the grounds and have a closer look. However upon arriving I found this task pretty much impossible. Unfortunately the studios have been on lock-down since 9-11. I did enjoy pacing the perimeter though, and hope to one day be invited in, for what? I don't know yet.

Based on my research, I'm calling the concept of my study "Rebirth".

When Walt died in 1966, the Disney animation, in a sense, died with him. He truly was the magic behind the movies. Over the years the department separated and spread out, almost at a loss for direction. It wasn't until 1991, with the release of Beauty and the Beast that Disney animation experienced what put them on the map 60 years back, enormous success, and a large demand for more. A couple years after, Robert Stern was commissioned to build the new animation headquarters, across the street from the birth place of Snow White and Bambi, and we saw the department reunited and re-energized.

The building is very much a Disney structure, with playful lines and loud colors, and the unavoidable, three-story tall sorcerer's hat that Mickey wore in Fantasia. The landscaping is thick, with water features here and there, and animals residing in the trees. The lot is clean, the staff are smiling, and the air even smells sweet. Stern's ultra post-modern styles merge nicely with, as Herbert Muschamp reports, "...the buildings spaces and symbols that are dedicated to the serious work of being silly."

Good times.

The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles Chapter just had it's Skin opening. This is an exhibition where local student show off their sweet skillz. Though we missed the free booze and live dj, it will still be on for a couple weeks. If anyone wants to cruise with the wife and I, say yeah! More here.

Whoever did this did a damn straight job. It grew hands and grabbed my eyeballs for a few reasons: whiskey, sex, visuals, skinny tie, polka dots, brass ship and wood paneling. Very pleasing. It was between this one and the "Your Dad Had Groupies" one here.

Trailer Tower

A perfect example of making the best of what you've got. The Trailer Tower gives us a fascinating look into countrified redevelopment possibilities. Am I right or am I right? Right... right.