The project was an urban planning / mapping project from our third year of school that focused on the representation and projection of the city of Amsterdam at 5 different scales. The first board, the largest scale, began to identify the underlying urban forces at play within the city and the surrounding area. It sought to highlight the condition of centrumitis in the urban centers, the stratification of the surrounding landscape, and the ongoing battle with land reclamation and rising water levels. Also represented at this scale are the various modes of transportation into and around the city centers. The second board of the series moved down to the 1:250 scale. Here begins our own architectural intervention into the city, stemming from the neighborhood of Ijburg. Drawing from this previously established urban network, we projected our intervention out into the Ijmeer to connect via land bridge to the city of Almeer. Using a network of roadways and varied zoning as our framework, we looked to establish our own monocentric condition, thus alleviating some of the stress on the given monocentricities and shifting the urban condition to one of polycentricity. The scheme also explored some conceptual ideas of aqua farming / tourism, floating market places, and transitional zoning regulations. The third board in the series, the 1:50 scale, moved in to examine the newly created network at the scale of a neighborhood. Here the project shifted to examine strategies for high density housing and became a dissection of the double loaded corridor. By pulling apart this often cramped and anti-social space, I attempted to integrate mixed use programs across multiple floors and create a multi-tiered pedestrian connection to the urban center. The final board, the perspective, shows a projection of what our newly developed centrum could become. To create the massings for the urban center, I took the existing buildings of Ijburg and reoriented them vertically, alluding to a transition away from horizontality to accommodate a more compact urban center. The buildings were also texture-mapped with historically significant works of art which I found fascinating in their attempt to describe a standardized shape or form with a proliferation of strokes and members, in a similar way t0 which architecture uses a composition of many elements to form a cohesive whole. Also it allowed for an assemblage of culture and historicism to be projected onto the new forms. The foreground of the perspective shows my housing scheme and a dissected urban corridor. 

This project was begun as a design exercise to create a portable, habitable space from a substandard set of conditions. Our aim was to create a one bedroom living area that could be towed behind a car for camping and outdoor activities. 

We began with an 8’ by 5’ steel frame trailer that came with a ball hitch and standard suspension. From there we removed and repurposed the original decking to create a strong structural platform upon which to build. 

The formal qualities of the design were focused around reducing overturn and limiting drag on the structure. As such we opted for an ‘A’ frame design. This decision introduced interesting challenges such as how to go about weatherproofing and framing the structure. 

Throughout this process I have learned a great deal about detailing, weatherproofing and on-the-fly design. Additionally, the design constraint of performing up to DMV standards was a fun and challenging concern throughout the project. 

School work. This project was produced in a class taught by David Gerber that explored compinatory drawing types, and the overlay/hypersatruation of data. Combined in each of these images is a plan / perspective / axonometric, topo and runoff data, and a decomposition of parts to whole. The pieces were produced as a diptych and are meant to be viewed togeher. Each piece relays a different set of conditions and information. 

The project began as a kitchen renovation and expanded to include a full 1000 sf addition to an existing house. The clients wanted a craftsman style home, so the design process was certainly a learning experience for me coming from a more contemporary background. The detailing and ornamentation involved in true a craftsman construction requires a highly skilled contractor, and careful planning. Plans and sections, when finalized to follow. 

The project is currently still in the planning phase, and hopefully construction will begin mid 2016. 

This project began as a 24 hour design experiment focused on using a kit of parts to develop a formal architectural language, and integrate typically disparate building systems across the exterior facade. Concepts central to this project are tattooing and overlay of information onto the building's skin, the blurring of typically separate building systems, and high speed iterative design. 

Tattooing of the buildings skin expressed itself in a number of different ways. Primarily it related the formal language used to create the buildings appearance and overall schema to the structure's patrons and general public. Secondly it helped to denote unit type and function. And third, it expressed typically hidden structural and mechanical systems to the viewer. 

The blurring of disparate building systems in this project focused on the cross pollination of structural members and water retention devices, the idea of combining standard handrails with  plumbing works, and utilizing lighting to holistically direct users to routes of egress. 

High speed design in this project meant that not all problems were necessarily thought of or taken care of, but that was not the point. I was interested in creating a means for exploring ideas quickly and iteratively, without regard for repercussions. The ideas presented here may not actually work in reality or under specific building codes, but allowed a quick and fun exploration of their central concepts.

I began this project by analyzing the success of the existing Geffen building: flexibility of space through the utilization of long span structures. I wanted to push this concept into its next logical form: a super structure to support an even greater flexibility of space and function. Through this process of investigating structural systems, I found the Vierendeel truss. This truss is interesting from an architectural stand point in that when scaled properly it allows for internal habitation of its structural members and the introduction of apertures. But, due to the Vierendeels high cost and large member size, I began to look for ways to integrate both shading systems and vertical support structures into its core composition. This investigation led me to a complimentary system of arches and curves that support an open central cavity and allow the programs that previously inhabited the ground floor to be moved upwards and internalized in this new super structure. From there the detailing and circulation systems picked up on this architectural language and created a cohessive design across building systems. 

Since the buildings typology is a museum, a central concept to this project was the desire to maximize natural daylighting. The highest level in the structural system consists of a span of louvers to baffle lighting into the spaces below. Moving down vertically, the rest of the architectural system focuses on bringing this diffused light into the galleries and event spaces. Furthermore a set of circular diffusers built into the 'belly' of the building creates a portal between public and private and allows further light diffusion to occur.