THE LOCKER ROOM

PORTLAND CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN | 2020

On any giving night in Multnomah County, there are ±4,000 people experiencing homelessness. Although Portlanders see sheltering the unsheltered as one of the area’s most urgent issues, it is safe to assume that this problem will not be resolved overnight, and hundreds if not thousands of people will continue to be without permanent housing. How then can we address the needs of this population? Two vital challenges faced daily by individuals who are homeless are how to take care of their personal hygiene, and how to keep their belongings safe. “The Locker Room” addresses these necessities by providing secure lockers, bike storage, laundry facilities, a dog washing area, hand washing stations, and four private shower rooms.

Feeling fresh and clean nurtures your mental well-being, contributing to an enhanced sense of personal dignity and control over your own body. “The Locker Room’s” free shower rooms and washer/dryers aim to make self-care and personal hygiene accessible for those living outside, helping to address community health needs and even lowering barriers to employment opportunities.

To that end, sustainability lies at the center of this refurbished MAX car’s mission, as well as its operational functions. Water needed for the showers and laundry will be provided from a hybrid system of rainwater collection and municipal water. The 1,300 square foot roof and adjoining cistern can collect and store 34,850 gallons of water over the course of a year. That is enough for 2,050 showers. Supplementary water will need to be provided by other sources such as adjacent fire hydrants. “The Locker Room” also provides people with 24 hour access to 52 lockers, storage for 12 bikes, and 4 lockable charging compartments. Being able to secure your belongings gives you the freedom and mobility to go about your day without the worry that your worldly possessions will be stolen or swept away. It gives you a sense of liberty.

Operating as a semi permanent sanitation hub, “The Locker Room” is intended to be serviced once or twice a day. Storage can be accessed at any time of day by users, while the restroom facilities can be opened or locked depending on the security needs of the area. Though intended to be stationary, the exterior ramps and stairs can be disassembled and placed in the bike storage area to allow “The Locker Room” to be relocated to future sites. Making “The Locker Room” project successful is contingent on garnering community partnerships and support. Working with groups like Oregon Harbor of Hope, a non profit that supplies mobile shower and laundry trucks, the City of Portland, and local neighborhood organizations, will ensure that these facilities will operate efficiently and be located where they are needed most.

To create thriving communities across Portland, neighbors and businesses must first acknowledge, welcome and support the needs of the houseless individuals and families outside their doors. “The Locker Room” provides practical assistance to this population in a manner that recognizes the role basic human needs play in supporting healthy individuals and, thus, the lasting health of communities.

MOZAMBIQUE PRESCHOOL

ARCHSTORMING COMPETITION | 2019

The “Ringlet Preschool” project focuses on providing a playful, environmental, and inclusive community for the young children of the Xai-Xai District. School buildings dot the site creating a ring around a tree filled courtyard, creating the sense of a small village surrounded by orchards and gardens. By using sustainable building techniques, maximizing occupants connection with nature, and providing accessible spaces, this preschool becomes a homey haven where any and all students can thrive.

The “Ringlet Preschool” project aims to transform the idea of preschool into one of an inclusive community that supports its most vulnerable members. The biophilic design of the site, sustainable features and construction techniques of the buildings, and inclusive components integrated into every space, culminate in a dynamic preschool where children can feel safe to learn, play, and discover.

RADIOACTIVATE

THESIS | FALL 2016

The intention of this thesis is to use architecture as a medium in which to increase the exposure, understanding, and acceptance of a resource many in society have grown to misjudge: nuclear energy. That acceptance is achieved by using the nuclear facility as a typology for experimentation on prototypical architectural elements, supporting water cycles, erosion, the passage of time, and the amplification of excesses to produce engaging public landscapes. The nuclear facility will be taking the place of an existing coal plant in Cleveland, Ohio. The systems of heat and water supporting this facility will be brought into the surrounding site in such a way that will erode and enrich the landscape while providing filtration and cooling for the plant while concurrently providing education and recreation for the public.

SITE MAPS

EROSION CONDITIONS

EROSION EXPERIMENTS

U.S. ELECTRICITY DATA

FLATTEN THE CURVE

ARCHITITS | 2020

A few months into Quarantine, while hunkering down in my SF apartment, I got a request from a newly formed women’s architecture group, Architits, to participate in a project showcasing how design can address Covid safety measures in public spaces.

My design uses simple curvilinear poly panels to create flexible gathering spaces that can be opened wide or closed off. The material and form of these partitions aims to promote safe connections with other people during a time when many of us are feeling increasingly closed off. The warm transparency of the panels allows visual connections to be maintained with those that you might need keep your distance from. Individuals or groups can section themselves off within a pod of safety, but still look around and be surrounded by others in their community. The curvature of the panels also aids with acoustics, freeing people from the strain of having to scream through their masks.

GROTTO_SCAPE

WET DREAMS | SPRING 2016

Milwaukee is in a position to reclaim its waterways in a way that redefines the city’s identity. One such opportunity lies beneath Interstate 94, where the Menomonee River branches off into two, man-made canals. 

Our aim is to construct a landscape that connects the land with the existing canals in a way that allows visitors to enjoy the water all year round. We devised a solution in which the gabion, a surface system consisting of wirework filled with stone, covers and connects the majority of our site. Through pushing, pulling, embedding, and expanding into the earth, air and water, the gabion forms to create environments that can be occupied from both above and beneath.

When the gabion dips into the water, it creates thermal baths and swimming pools. The stones filling the wirework filter the river water as it passes through and beneath the gabion surface unobstructed. When the gabion rises, it produces “The Grotto,” a cavernous architecture that houses saunas, changing space, and sensory deprivation rooms.

Though the river provides the majority of the water, it is the onsite power plant that provides the heat. By capturing and rerouting the 200°F waste heat from the plant, we are able capitalize on a completely disregarded resource. The hot water is pumped through pipes that direct it towards the thermal baths where it is filtered through the gabion. This project cultivates a warm, steamy, and sublime atmosphere that allows visitors to becoming lost and seduced by the blurred awareness the translucent abyss.

PURI_FOG

WET DREAMS | SPRING 2016

Through research on water filtration and form finding experimentation came Puri_Fog: a water collection system that utilizes the condensation of fog in order to concentrate water in a basin below.

Located on the former site of the Sutro Baths in San Francisco, Puri_Fog provides similar bathing services to visitors by collecting the fog that rolls over the site. This is achieved by suspending tarpaulin mesh throughout a copper frame. Water vapor carried by the wind condenses on the mesh. Gravity causes the droplets to run down and drip into the basin, supplying the water for a purifying bath. 

NAJAS REPRESENTATION

NAJAS ARQUITECTOS | 2020

Ecuadorian firm Najas Arquitectos invited a group of artists and architects to select images from Najas’ body of work and reenvision those projects with their own unique form of representation. I selected three Najas residential projects and reinterpreted the perspectives of the homes using sketches and collage to produce a painterly visualization of the imagined environment.

LIGHT INSTALLATIONS

SYMMETRY LABS | 2018 - 2019

The following is a collection of light installation designs that I contributed to as a contractor with Symmetry Labs, a design and technology studio that creates interactive LED installations.

BASEBALL STADIUM FACADE DESIGN

1,000 YEAR BLOOM

PIER 17 STAGE DESIGN

CHAPEL & BUTTERFLY GARDENS

diVISION

ARCH OUT LOUD | WINTER 2017

diVISION is a group submission for Arch Out Loud's Borders Competition. The project explores how a bathhouse on the border of North and South Korea can cultivate connections between the people of both nations, while still recognizing the current separation that exists between the countries. 

Our solution is driven by the double helix – a form that uses two distinct ribbons that produce a winding circulation that maintains physical separation between North and South Koreans, but fosters acoustic and visual relationships. Bathers are able to weave between North and South, each time passing through a waterfall lined light well that lies directly along the Military Demarcation Line. The light well and illuminated water bring brightness to this subterranean space, while emitting a luminescence from above.

PEEP SHOW

PILLOW TALK | FALL 2015

“Pillow Talk,” an architectural theory class focused on inflatable architecture, allowed students to study the history and characteristics of pneumatics while working towards the development of an inflatable design.

My partners and I were interested in the temporary, sensual, and phenomenological characteristics of pneumatics. UWM being a particularly segmented campus, we believed that an inflatable could act as a beacon that would entice and attract students from different disciplines to come and interact with our pneumatic space.

Drawing Inspiration from Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Verner Panton, and Ant Farm, we designed a large scale inflatable that interacted with the our school’s architecture as well as the courtyard, creating a whimsical, sensorial environment.

Our actual implementation was an enormous, pink mylar pneumatic that reflected light inside and outside of the building. Faculty and students passing by stopped in to drink punch and converse as they sat on the squishy floor made of suctioned recycled cups inside the inflatable’s double membrane.

WISCONSIN ART MUSEM

COMPREHENSIVE | SPRING 2015

This comprehensive studio explored a proposal to situate a new Museum of Wisconsin Art on Milwaukee’s celebrated lakefront. Focus was placed on developing an understanding of technical design aspects, systems and materials, environmental impact, and financial feasibility.

Embedded into the hill side, my proposal provides ample public space on the museum rooftop, allowing people to wind their they way down from the city above to the lakeside parks below. The design brings museum goers through the daylit gallery spaces while they simultaneously encircle the central courtyard. 

PIAZZA DEL CAMPIDOGLIO

SITE UNSEEN | FALL 2014

Situated on Capitoline Hill, present day Piazza del Campidoglio was once home to the Temple of Jupiter.  In this project, my aim was to highlight the historical transformation and creation of the piazza through my own imagined mythology. My mythology centered around the god Jupiter’s reaction towards architectural development. My diagrams depict a vengeful god imposing himself upon the site, destroying it with his thunderbolts and, through destruction, creating a new architectural condition. This condition is one in which mirrors and reflective surfaces bounce light throughout the piazza, dividing space with beams, and ultimately reflecting the light up towards the planet Jupiter as a grandiose display of worship to the god.

MIDAS

SMALL BOX | FALL 2015

The “Small Box” studio investigated issues of iconography, seriality, materiality, and speed relative to a chain typology. My small box company was Midas automotive service center, a company I researched through the representational style of James Stirling. After researching the company, I set out to redesign the prototypical auto shop into an establishment that recognizes the steady decrease of car ownership and increased curiosity of auto mechanics.

The following projects explore the role an automotive center might play in the near or distant future within the settings of downtown San Francisco, an Austin suburb, and the equator of Mars. 

SAN FRANCISCO

The site of this future shop is situated in one of the densest areas of America: downtown San Francisco. This city is the birth place of multiple car sharing start ups and driverless cars: amenities that contribute to declining car ownership and, in turn, declining understanding of how the car is made and maintained.

The high density of the area encouraged a vertical design that functions by way of a hydraulic lift that carries cars to the various floors of the dichroic panel clad building. A ramp that winds up the entirety of the building gives visitors an insider look at the automotive maintenance taking place, and culminates at the outdoor roof top overlooking the bay. 

AUSTIN

Suburban life is characterized by ownership. You own your house, lawn, car, etc. Given advancing manufacturing technologies (CNC, 3D printing, robotics), it is feasible to own the means of production as well. A 3D printer coupled with a robotic arm would allow for the mechanical repair of any vehicle. Not only would the robot be able to perform repairs, it would also print the garage around itself. Using steel from recycled cars, the robotic arm would be able to produce a custom steel space frame with mounted ETFE panels. The frame the garage would provide additional amenities for the user such as a jungle gym, storage, chicken coop, security, and dancing platform. 

MARS

With NASA and a number of private entities looking to further space exploration, settlement of Mars is becoming increasingly feasible. Given its harsh climate, future colonies looking to explore Mars would rely heavily on their vehicles, or rovers.

A rejuvenation outpost would become a necessary stop for those traveling between the hemispheres looking to tune up their rover. The sheer distance from earth would require that any structure built on Mars be constructed with in situ materials. This could be done by processing iron silica sand and basalt from the regolith using large, 3D printers.

The airfoil shaped shell mitigates the strong winds and protects a water filled, plastic membrane on the interior as well as the rover service area beneath. The interior double membrane holds and cycles the water that provides food, bathing and cushion for those looking for rest. 

RCFS MUSIC SYMPOSIUM

SUMMER 2014

The Rock County Folk Symposium, or RCFS, is an outdoor music and art event held in late summer in Janesville, WI. The festival was first created by a small group of friends from UW-Madison. Over the years, the event grew to become a platform for a diversity of artists to come together for one day and one night and celebrate the State of Wisconsin through music, art, and theatric performance.  I collaborated with a small team to design and build three interactive installations for the festival: 

REJUVENATION TENT

Comprised of an elegant, spiraling “wall” this structure was created by forming chicken wire around a frame of bent re-bar. Local plants and flowers were threaded into the wire to create a solid surface of lush vegetation. The floor was covered in dried lavender providing for a remarkable olfactory experience. 

P.E.A.R.L.S. [PHOTO_ELECTRIC_AERIAL_RESCUE_LIGHT_SYSTEM]

The design centered around the use of “quantum bits”, white LED lights that illuminate in response to movement. These lights were put inside of spherical paper lanterns and attached along lengths of rope. The ropes were then strung between trees where visitors pulled on them, causing the LEDs to illuminate. 

THE BARRICADE 

This installation served as the backdrop of the main stage of the festival. OSB was cut into strips and layered together, creating a series of intersecting slots. Oscillating shop lights were placed behind the structure along with several fog machines resulting in patterns of volumetric light moving and exploding out from behind the performers. 

HOME GR/OWN

COMMUNITY DESIGN SOLUTIONS | 2015

As a project manager for Community Design Solutions (CDS), I had the opportunity to oversee the design component of HOME GR/OWN’s Partners 4 Places, a City of Milwaukee initiative to convert vacant lots into parks and orchards. CDS worked alongside neighborhood groups and residents to design 20 orchards and 6 pocket parks on City-owned vacant lots. Leading this project provided many opportunities for collaboration while, at the same time, exposing me to the nuances of landscape architecture. Construction of the parks and orchards began during the summer of 2015. Featured below is a sample of the parks and orchards we designed alongside with local Milwaukee communities. 

MASTERCRIT

MOS ARCHITECTS | SPRING 2015

The inaugural MASTERcrit of 2015 was a project where students, nominated by the faculty, had the opportunity to work with MOS Architects in a one week design charette. Our task was to examine and rethink housing conditions in the Menil neighborhood of Houston, Texas, an area where “art” and “life” commingle. We focused on two prototypical housing types found in this region: the bungalow and the garage apartment.

I experimented with taking the three separate elements of the garage apartment; the garage, the apartment, and the connecting stair, and blended them together. The result was a cohesive house where space is defined by its elevation. The dwelling generated allows for a similar program as the original garage apartment, but with a more dynamic, open form that rethinks the prototypical house and more aptly contributes to the artistic focus of the Menil neighborhood.