Ditto

A collaboration with Nicholas Brinen of Lightshed Studio

Year: 2012

The Warming Hut titled Ditto aims to bring a trail visitor to a space that reflects the context of the Assiniboine River Trail while providing a warm resting place. By mapping and scaling down an imprint of the adjacent riverbed, Ditto reveals a hidden topography that supports and shapes the surface of the icy trail. Upon entry, a visitor occupies the conceptual “in-between” space that resembles ice.

Within this conceptual space of ice, they can rest on the cork-block imprint of the river’s topography. The ceiling (a roof canopy also composed of cork block) is a “cast” imprint of the sitting surface below and gives the visitor a new perspective of the river’s depth. A layer of photo-luminescent paint amplifies the ceiling topography and provides a lantern or beacon during the evening hours. Along with emulating sheets of ice, the polycarbonate walls insulate, stabilize, and allow passive solar gain into the space. The two cork surfaces sandwich and trap the solar gain to create a truly warm space.

Harvest Wave

·         Collaborators: Andrew McGregor, Robert Miller, Teresa Cacho

·         Year: 2012

Sukkahville Competition Finalist

SECOND PLACE

Featured in:

Chairs and Buildings

ArchDaily

Exhibition|Socializarq

Adam Ladlow

HARVEST WAVE

LAYING IN AN OCEAN OF GRAIN.

LOOKING UP TO THE SKY.

WIND BLOWING THE STALKS.

SHADED FROM THE SUN.

ENVELOPED BY THE EARTH.

A CELEBRATION OF WHATS ABOVE

AND WHAT IS BELOW.

Auroville Youth Center

·         Collaborators: Jovanna Suarez

·         Course: Design Studio 4

·         Instructor: Anupama Kundoo

·         Semester: Spring

·         Year: 2010

·         88,910 Net Square Feet

Featured on Futures Design

In 1968, Mira Alfassa and Sri Aurobindo founded the township project of Auroville, an experiment in human unity. Although both Mira and Sri were closely affiliated with an ashram in Pondicherry, this was to be an entirely separate community based around collective living. “It seems that Auroville was planned excluding youth. In Auroville, youth are not meant to exist and many residents seem to think that youth should just disappear”. (Virya, Auroville Today) This proposed community center is sited in the city’s residential belt between private residences and a youth hostel. A youth center would promote a welcoming environment that respects the views and voices of the youth in the area. Young people are often both excluded from community discourses and seen as the problem in communities. However, they depend more than adults on their immediate neighborhood for their social life. As such places for young people to meet as well as age appropriate activities, should be an important part of community provision. Many communities provide youth center assistance through a variety of partnership programs that add to the positive impact and influences youth can gain while attending such programs. Some examples of these partnerships might include: health services, libraries, social services, arts and sciences, or cultural organizations. An important aspect of a youth center in Auroville would be to collaborate with other activities that are occurring such as the Auroville Film Festival. Participation in community events would enhance communication between all age groups of Aurovillians and encourage a cooperative environment that seems to not exist currently.

Red Hook Gate

·         Course: Design Studio 1

·         Instructor: Andrew Bernheimer

·         Semester: Fall

·         Year: 2009

The Red Hook Gate is a proposal for a transportation hub in Red Hook Brooklyn. This design proposes to create a gate/grand entry to a park located on a narrow strip of land. The bold design separates the park from the city main land, thus creating a bridge linking the site together. The program within the hub is bicycle storage and repair near the promenade, and indoor/outdoor cafes located in the upper light box.

Canal Street Triangle

·         Collaborators: Andrew McGregor

·         Course: Design Studio 1

·         Instructor: Andrew Bernheimer

·         Semester: Fall

·         Year: 2009

This project was a study in creating a small pavilion as a temporary rest-stop for no more than four pedestrians at a time. Sited at the intersection of Canal Street and Bowery, the location on the site was chosen for optimum use by pedestrians. It’s form and orientation was designed to create a visual relationship with landmarks and the near by bus station; basing the design on the site condition. This project addresses diagramming and visual exercises related to patterns of movement, velocity, reach, and accessibility.

Sunset Park: Educational Center

·         Course: Design Studio 3

·         Instructors: Rob Rogers; Jonathan Marvel; Guido Hartray

·         Semester: Fall

·         Year: 2010

·         88,910 Net Square Feet

Located in the post industrial coast of Brooklyn, NY, the Sunset Park Educational Center serves to revitalize Sunset Park and educate the community. Part high school and part vocational education, the center specializes in welding technology. The building design was derived from an analysis of the industrial decay of the site materials and roads. With the idea of elevated paths segregating the program into private and public sectors, the choice of materials within the paths notate the sectors. The street condition bleeds into the building, keeping the material choice and glazing design to mirror the site’s post industrial context. The ground level is designed as a public street, sharing a covered atrium with the private sector. In section it is also possible to cross the building from the street facade to water front facade without interrupting the private sector hovering above. The private portion is completely cladded in wood as a warm and welcoming material, and notates one’s location in the building.

Brooklyn Straits: Bio-Park

·         Course: Design Studio 5

·         Instructors: Marc Tsurumaki

·         Semester: Fall

·         Year: 2011

·         86,500 Net Square Feet

Located adjacent to the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Strait Bio-Park is a center of both scientific research and public leisure. Mitigating the tension between water and land, the Bio-Park stitches these two abundant elements and in-beds itself within the push and pull of the land and water. Derived from a study of water to land edge conditions, the linear straits enable a gradient of edge interface.

High Bridge Housing

·         Course: Design Studio 2

·         Instructor: Henry Smith Miller

·         Semester: Spring

·         Year: 2010

·         65 Unit housing Project

·         60,000 sqft of interior program

Given the geographic elevation of the site, I wanted to create a strong physical and visual connection to the city though view and location. The chosen location to site the project was chosen to create a physical connection to the High Bridge from Amsterdam Ave and to be able to walk across the bridge to the Bronx. The units feature large glazed facades that orient views in every direction but mostly to the South. All units of one bedroom or more have glazed facades facing the North East, and South West, which was a benefit from using the Corbusian skip stop assembly. Complementing the elevational condition of the site, I wanted to achieve sweeping panoramic views of the cityscape within every unit. Its elongated form visually bridges the gap between the street and the High Bridge. The units were lifted off of the ground to allow passage across to and from the street or bridge thus creating its own road. When arranging the units, their forms were designed with reference to Le Corbusier’s skip stop design. Due to the number of units, I decided to place the public program within the center of the building, carving out of the private space, and creating an exterior circulation mirroring actual street-like living conditions.

eVolo 2011 Upper Bay Tower 1

Competition entry for the 2011 eVolo skyscraper competition.

Featured on: Parsons Newschool

Upper Bay Tower 1 is an ark of urban civilization. Withstanding rising sea currents, a network of vertical neighborhoods redefine the waterfront of a drowning Empire State.

By: Raymond Bourraine and Andrew Mcgregor

Shadow and Distortion

·         Course: Representation and Spatial Reasoning

·         Instructor: Carlo Frugiuele 

·         Semester: Fall

·         Year: 2009

The concept of the installation was to analyze light and shadow and its effect in space. The part that interested me the most was the visual distortion created through shadow. The distorted silhouettes abstracted the forms we are all accustom the seeing. An interesting spatial change was created as the projected forms appeared on the adjacent walls. Turning the shadows into solids, the abstracted forms became a dis figuration its past formal attributes.

Threshold: Body in Motion

2004

Studying three separate motions, diagrams of pivots, tension, and compression were developed. Finding common motions in all three actions, the movements were overlaid on each other using a common frame. The end result is a 5’x9’ threshold sized; still frame of a common motion, that can con­clude its self in three different actions.