This thesis takes a serious attempt to combine internal ideas of “sectional object” with those of (exterior) “character” by conflating the understanding of object and subject hood. As a result this thesis aims to expand and hybridize notions of architectural shape by relating, posture and character with internal volumes and circulation as well as the interstitial spaces between them, and re-imagining it all, as an bold urban proposition. The animate aspect of the project, its square-robot-childeske character, is based on both its shape and a posture suggesting a motionless movement. As a response to the problem, my thesis offers answers in regards of both, uniqueness of internal programs many of which have their own form and shape and represents something greater than sum of their parts establishes a new and more democratic homogeneous space.

Situated in Bogota, Colombia the brief calls for a complex social, cultural and sports center, the program is broken down into several disparate parts. The unexpected juxtaposition of programs allows for idiosyncratic spaces to evolve. The original brief for the project itself is remarkable and consists of a unique mixture of social programs, such as an auditorium, meeting rooms, basketball court, semi-olympic swimming pool, recreational pool, exhibition area, vocational art center and various social areas such as café and dining hall. Its sectional attitude is seen in the internal distribution of programmatic and problematic objects, which seem to float within an articulate transformer-like body. The serious robot internalizes the display of the expressive architectural icon. Within an exterior that takes on qualities of muteness or monolithicity, one receives brief and enigmatic glimpses of a strange architectural object that is seen far away from the city reinforcing the street edge and negotiating a severe scale transition. As one moves in, around, and through the building, one constantly experiences brief glimpses of an interior object hinting at a sense of “city within a city”. There is a constant negotiation between viewing thesis as a serious building but also enduring a playful side suggesting this sense of a serious robot.

The Model Kit establishes a dual quality of both acting as a city and as building. This indeterminate scale is produced from the kits half/unbuilt form, in which the total experience of the kit is somewhere between all of these parts and the final assembled form. With each transformation, the kit produces new realities through its multiple forms of representation. This flux in scale is carried over to the project’s structure where at some points delicate connections are made between its thin facade build up in contrast to the heavy model kit connections, which attach through a series of massive steel beams. Model kit techniques such as, overmolding and snap-fit connections are scaled up to building scale allowing the structure to be built off-site quickly assembled in situ. This indeterminate state is also influenced by early precedent studies of Saint Pierre Firminy, in which the project takes on multiple realities which can be registered as a model, ruin, and even as its built form. As in the model kit, Firminy also develops and expands its realities through its multiple lives and representations. In contrast to its thin single surface, the model kit establishes the project to a thick chunky mass that is parted out through the technique of a model kit.

Project Statment:

The project's operates at a micro/macro scale of a city based off the relationship between how infrastructure, domesticity, and circulation can be contained as a whole. A series of surfaces fold down to connect multiple levels between vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Situated in Boyle Heights, CA, the program consist of multiple housing units, that are loosely arranged along a series of surfaces that primarily act as an extension of the urban fabric. By destabilizing the typical housing typology, through the use of ground and posture, we start registering the new relationships between the existing and the new. The use of materiality becomes hyper-specific by indexing the relationship between typical architectural elements-roofs, walls, and windows by re-establishing their order. These typologies serve as an open framework for events to take place that are current in a typical residential neighborhood. These systems of operations break the conventional notions of property lines and lots, by creating new boundaries within the given site. The projects addresses how can we view something such as a city at an micro scale and connect it back to its macro fabric.  

Project Statement:

Looking back at Mexico City, we are fascinated with the notion of an aggregated city, a city that builds on top of itself, through to this notion we felt that it was necessary to produce a building that emphasizes these qualities by connecting back to the city. The “loose stack”, produces a connective tissue within the urban fabric of Mexico City. Through this aggregation of parts, the building starts to produce a open environment that allows for multiple disciplinary contacts through the understanding of a new ground. The new ground promotes a porous environment, producing a new apparatus between the existing urban fabrics.

Massing Strategy:

Through an interest in porosity, and producing continuity between the building and the present site, a “loose stack” was used as massing strategy. We interrogated the idea of producing discrete objects that become stacked and leaned against each other. Through this notion, the residual space produced from this stacks, activates new exterior spaces which can now be utilized for programmatic use. Through this understanding, the boundaries of the project starts to become questioned in an unconditional manner. Furthermore, the building is tucked in to the existing site, producing a new dialogue in-between the existing and the new.

Tectonics:

During the studies of our facade, we wanted to tackle a series of key points that are vital in retaining the mass qualities that the building contains. One of the key points that needed to be addressed, how do we create a facade that does not disrupt the legibility of the mass. Secondary, how does the facade co-exist within the understanding of the urban fabric. The facade consists of three primary systems - layers of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) panels, embossed Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) panels, and figural apertures. The apertures are deployed in a hyper-specific manner in contingent with the local urban context through use of sampled openings. The layering of panels creates moments of reliefs that ties back to the existing urban context that the prehistoric buildings retain. In order to retain the legibility of the mass, the embossed panels were deployed throughout the mass whilst maintaining an understanding of subtlety.

Using a single unit residential building located in Los Angles, we analyzed and developed the architecture by creating a detailed 3D digital model and a set of 2D construction documents specifically tailored for the design challenges of a single unit residential project. The building is located on the corner of two of Los Angeles main streets S Robertson Blvd. and W Olympic Blvd. In order to activate the corner condition of the site we lifted the belly of the building to create a large urban plaza that allows for social and community engagement within the site. The building features a wide array of tectonics form louvers to a kinetic facade system that activates based on the sun trajectory. The auxiliary programs consist of retails space at the ground level as well as the office space at the upper floor level.

Project Statement:

When we began the project one of the questions we asked ourselves – given program, how can we address the issue of typology in relation with a façade? How does one affect the other? Do they need to be interactive? And ultimately, what determines the inhabitable space, the façade or the mass? Typically mass is dispersed programmatically – given to space as needed. Where mass becomes interesting to us is the space given through the existence of the facade. Through the exploration of façade there is versions of layers, versions of thinness, versions of smooth, and versions of abstractly rough. In the end our façade studies left us with a thick airy mass that lent itself to many voids and optical features.

The thesis for this project therefore is, using void space and the tower typology, how do we design a system that utilizes all of its mass and generates space noticeable to the exterior, and a façade that is typically unseen on this building typology.

Façade:

The abstraction and its compromise took form in pushing and pulling of elements which allowed a “loose depth” to the façade. By capturing the essence of this loose depth and by furthering its concept – we formed a catalogue of tessellation to become elements towards the typology. These elements were envisioned by us to become – rooms, balconies, outdoor gathering spaces, and interior dwellings for the hotel’s guests. The façade therefore became mass, and allowed for a certain thickness and uniqueness in that façade’s lines of enclosure which became blurred – open, and utilitarian rather then aesthetic.

Mass design strategy:

When we thought about how the strategy may be applied to the given site, we thought about the general organization and programmatic needs and found it imperative to have the office on the corner of Bixel and 7th. The hotel would therefore then be closest to the highway, optimizing into downtown and the coast. Considering light into both of the masses lead us to explore a series of cuts into both main elements, office and hotel, thus creating a deep atrium condition within the hotel. Further, we interrogated both programs into how the texture may be applied specifically to each program. Where one permitted a deep cut for atria, the other allowed for a platform to attach and create a plaza. By stylizing the masses we’ve created through the use of this façade we developed specific strategies based on program in order to execute a more uniform design between the 2 major elements. Where one was completely additive, the other became subtractive and lead to specific interior cavities. Through the use of texturing subdivision and contrasting sub-elements established, we designed the site in a hyper-specific manner which resulted with planters, gardens, light wells, and areas of community within the public plaza.

Box Project Statement:

An architecture that juxtaposes the sensory and the visual optics within a bounding volume. The exterior can be interpreted as a soft, comfort and warm material, but the material has been decontextualized by adding the coarse texture on the surface. The exterior geometry uses pressure points to differentiate the edges from a hard to a blurred edge by the amount of Psi (7.5 Psi creates a hard edge, 5 Psi for a medium edge, and 3.5 Psi for a blurred edge). The interior consists of the coexistence of materials transforming from a physical material to a virtual material. The interior can be interpreted as a hard, monolithic mass. The visual effects of the curtain can only be seen in one elevation creating a misreading of the material in the other elevations.

Tower Theater Project Statement:

The project bases itself in the idea of layering materiality, and how this one can start producing estrangement within the characteristics of the whole. With a total of four distinct materials being layered onto each other or side to side, various uncertainties start to pop up, resulting on a lack of context within the box. The constant play of unexpected moments, scalar problems and formal differences come together to produce this effects. Thus creating moments of slippages within the whole. This project tackles the issues of a decontextualized building sitting within a highly dense urban context.

The set below consist of basic and advanced construction methods, analysis of building codes, the design of structural and mechanical systems, the development of building materials, the integration of building components and systems, fire/life safety and ADA planning, and the introduction of sustainability measures. The drawings are developed in a way to create a cohesive understanding of how architects communicate complex building systems for the built environment and to demonstrate the ability to document a comprehensive architectural project and demonstrate Stewardship of the Environment.

Project Statement:

An architecture that uses figures in different sizes that appear to be the same but, the programs defer based on the object. The building is organized by two sides that are materialized in different ways, one of the horseshoes which is a large objects creates a interior space with smaller objects that are suspended within and the other one is an aggregation of objects that collide and form a perimeter with an interior courtyard. The shape that looks similar to crops mark are based on three scales, small, medium and large. Small objects becomes a sculptural field, the medium objects act as a circulation vector, and the large objects as an occupied space. There are two entrances that guest  and residents can use, the side entrance which leads residents into the open court yard. The main entrance leading the guest into the exhibition space as well as the studio space which allows the user to experience the medium scaled object.