Hipster Haven

The space is industrial to compliment rather than juxtapose the current warehouse. I used concrete for the walls, floors, ceiling etc because it is economically practical, durable and thermally comfortable. It is slow to heat up and cool off. It is low maintenance and healthy because there are no floor adhesives making better air quality. The concrete to wood transference in the stairs emphasizes the transition of space. The bathroom placement was decided based on mimicking the missing square across the plan and it also is close to the public space. I put alligator heads on several of my scale figures because generation xy wants a sense of individualism as well as the fact that it adds an element of fun.




Stair model. Cement bottom and wooden top. 1/2":1' scale.
Plan. 1/2":1'

Perspective of exterior entrance space. 1/4":1'

Perspective of kitchen and front entrance space. 1/4":1'

perspective of loft space. 1/4":1'

stair detail.


section of floor, wall, ceiling detail.
section. 1/4":1' scale.

section. 1/4":1' scale.


section. 1/4":1' scale.

plan detail showing section cuts.

Habitable Wall

intent: introduce the element of designing for a human, building to the proportion and purpose of a client. concieve, design and build a model that engenders and concentrates on the meanings of engageable, responsive, enervated, habitable, space and wall. 

requirements: develop a three-dimensional expression of a habitable wall using your client profile. your three-dimensional expression will be free standing and exhibited as part of our final presentation with scale drawings, rendered perspectives and process work. the model should have a place to sleep, work, socialize/entertain, showcase their work and provide storage.

final model: 1":1' scale-restricted to paper and adhesive, no larger than 20' x 20' x 14'.

This project began with the assignment of an artist. Frieda Kahlo was my assignment. Next we were to research the life of the artist; disabilities, anything that would indicate needs that a space built for them might require. With the information gained by research, a booklet was created that documented the needs of said artist. Next we were given the assignment of creating a "habitable" wall for the artist. I chose to concentrate on Kahlo's engrained sense of national pride and drew from Mexican architecture for my original ideas. I wanted the wall to be more about the actual person, than about her art. This was perhaps easier than some artists, since her art was entirely autobiographical. After making several sketch models, I felt that one idea was worth pursuing.  This model was is the bottom photo and was made of cardboard with a sliding bed/desk. I felt that this was not a necessary part of the design and eliminated it. To progress with the design, I made a bubble diagram that indicated the function of each space and what the proximity should be. Then I made the next model out of foam-core. Although the original guidelines stipulated the model be made of paper, I thought that I could best indicate the varying width with a material that had more thickness than paper. After this model, the following model and then the final model did not change much in form, but rather changed in defining the craft and the aesthetic of the model. One of the largest changes in the final model was the addition of three beams on the top rather than one. This change was made because while the one beam did mark the spot of compression of all the wall planes connecting, I felt that repeating this beam would incorporate more Mexican architecture since the beams are a reference to the roof of an adobe style building. The next notable change was the addition of color. Frieda's native home in Mexico, La Casa Azul, was a traditional Mexican building painted entirely vibrant blue. I wanted the colors to show Frieda's personality as well as the colors she surrounded herself with and the colors in her paintings. The place where I struggled the most was the back part of the wall which was to be used mainly for entertaining and display of her art. For this reason, I was hesitant to develop the wall very much. In the end, I simply placed a long, jagged, tabletop area. Although a door through part of the wall would have made sense pragmatically, I chose not to because I did not want to interrupt the fluidity of the wall and make it more like a designed space rather than a "habitable" wall. In the end I feel that I successfully filled all the requirements of the project and created a "habitable" wall that Frieda Kahlo would have enjoyed living and working in.

Space Development Charrette

Assignment: Develop a sleeping space, zone or cavity for one person using only the materials you brought to class. Include storage for linens. Your design should efficiently utilize space and be structurally sound. You may use adhesives but remember that joinery is an important part of overall aesthetic.
The wire on the front allows the door to slide back and forth. The shelves for linen are in the inside.

Atypical Sleeping Quarters

CAPitalizing on RE-USE

"The necessaries of life for man may be distributed under food, clothing, shelter, and fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Assignment: All items used to build your bottle-cap model must be salvaged or biodegradable. Expect to justify all of your materials through the lens of "Radical Simplicity".

Above: The final iteration of our product proposal




























Above: Beginning to build our final proposal





























Above: First iterations

For this project the assignment was to create something functional or decorative using bottle caps and other biodegradable materials as a proposal for Terracycle's challenge to create a marketable product reusing bottle caps. Our first step as a class was to create an ideation charette of 15 idea sketches. After this we paired up and began working. Molly and I had several ideas we felt merited an iteration. Our first iterations were a shower caddy and a drink coaster. The shower caddy was not at all what we had hoped for and immediately abandoned that idea. While we liked the shape and colors of the drink coaster, we felt that perhaps it was a bit tacky. While I liked the idea of using the entire bottle cap in its original form, we were challenged by our professors to be more innovative. We bounced ideas around for a while before finally deciding to create a chandelier of sorts. We built a wire frame out of wire coat hangers and used a hot glue gun to secure everything. Our defense for using glue was that we found an environmentally friendly glue called EcoBond which aggressively bonds to plastics and other materials. We coved several bottle caps with the aluminum from Diet Sun Drop cans, from which we drew our color scheme from, to add more interest. To create the circular shapes we slit the edge of the bottle cap to create a flower shape and then using scissors, cut these edges off to leave only the top of the cap. These were then glued together to resemble a honeycomb circle. While this project was rather time consuming, due to having to cut all of the bottle caps, and took roughly 8 hours to create, we feel that it was worth the effort.

Nature and Tools as Teachers: project 2

Assignment: In this project you will investigate and record a natural object, fruit or produce. You will extract patterns and relationships from your investigations to create 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional and architectural statements of your revelations. All your submissions should respect a 6x6" format. Your final presentation should be a time line of at least 15 drawings and 4 models.

This project began by picking a fruit or produce. I chose an orange bell pepper. The first step was to draw the top, front and side of the pepper. Then we were to cut our produce and draw several section cuts and then several zoomed in drawings of the produce. After this we were to use a tool to manipulate our patterns. I chose needle-nose pliers. Then we wrote a haiku about our produce. After this we built several iterations of models based off of our patterns, which we then turned into an architectural statement with a scale figure. After all of this was completed, we were to get in groups of 4 to coordinate our presentation boards with and ultimately present with. My group was called The Bell Peppers and consisted of Lauren, Brianna and Ashleigh.
















Group presentation














Group presentation

Nature and Tools as Teachers: models

Progress is shown from bottom to top. These models were all based off of the following pattern which was drawn from the inside of my bell pepper. At first I struggled to create a model that was not just an extruded version of the pattern. The next to models after the literal model were terrible so I decided to just focus on a small part of the pattern and see where that took me. The next model, the plain white stacked circles model I liked a lot more. The next models were tweaks of the previous. I tried to make it mores sturdy, since many of my models began to fall down and for my final model I made different levels have different varieties of thickness.