architecture + design | portfolio samples

Brandon ro

RECOGNITIONS + AWARDS: Winning Design, Pamo Valley Project, 2011

CPP Architecture Interim Exhibition, 2011BESS- Sustainability Symposium Student Poster Exhibition, 2011

Published in P. LaRoche, Carbon-Neutral Architectural Design (CRC Press), 2012

DESCRIPTION:The MOD 5 House is a new prototype for the San Diego single-family residence. The design is user-friendly, sustainable, and modular. Aimed at integrating itself into the beautiful, verdant landscape of Pamo valley, MOD 5 uses several passive sustainable strategies to achieve thermal comfort and become a zero energy home. One of the key components of the house is the Flexwall system which consists of moveable insulating panels, shading louvers, and floor to ceiling glass doors. Designed as a flexible configuration, the large sliding glass doors not only offer views to the valley but completely open the central core of the house to provide a

natural breezeway. These large openings are strategically placed to optimize heating, cooling, and lighting needs. In terms of flexibility, the house offers built-in furniture walls comprising shelving, beds, and desks. All furniture elements tuck away into the walls to create a large, flexible, and open floor plan. Paving the way of life for the inhabitants of the beautiful Pamo valley, the MOD 5 House is a symbiotic living system promoting biophilia. Thus, each resident is able to more fully appreciate life and their surroundings through a home that is low-cost, sustainable, modular, and flexible.

A Symbiotic Living System Promoting BiophiliaPamo Valley, San Diego, CA

MOD 5

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Design for Wind

Food Garden

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SW Solar Hot WaterLocal Fuel

Light Shelves

Operable Insulation

Active Solar

Design with Daylight

Food Production

Footprint Reduction

Passive Solar Heating/Cooling

Renewable Energy

Reduce Overheat/Overcool

Thermal Comfort

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INTERIOR

NORTH EAST

SOUTH WEST - Night

Aaron Locke, Brandon RoMOD 5 House

Passive Heating - Direct Gain Thermal Mass FloorsPassive Cooling - Night Flush Ventilation

Winter Luminance - Living

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Winter Avg. Daily Btu: 2,318Thermal Mass Potential in Living Area: 6,000 Btu/day

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MODULARITY Space Usage Solar Path Studies

M o r t e m O b i r ec o n f r o n t i n g d e a t h : a f u n e r a r y c h a p e l

Mt. Vernon Square, Washington, DCvideo presentation: http://youtu.be/h2oFC2Ce19U

A r c h i t e c t u r a l P o e t i c s o f S i l e n c e , L i g h t + H e a l i n g

Mortem Obirethe Latin phrase for meet death is a non-denominational funerary chapel that seeks to address the poetics of emotion, healing, serenity, and existential transcendence. The design uses the metaphor of axis-mundi as a central organizing node that forms a primordial center connecting heaven, earth, and the afterlife. It is experienced through the various processes of mourning, melancholy, healing, and transcendence. The ziggurat ramp envelopes the buildings and allows the patron to circumambulate around the central axis-mundi in a ritual ascent and sacred pilgrimage. This design feature is meant to mirror the moment in our lives when death claims someone we love. The intense emotions that come with such an experience are identified as sacred and are respectfully expressed through the architecture. The aim of the project seeks to create an oasis of silence and healing through materiality. Likewise, the architecture evokes contemplation and repose within the bustling, noisy urban context of Mt. Vernon Square in Washington, DC.

Columbarium Visitor Memorializing + Remembering the DeadThe Dead Journey to a Final Resting PlaceFuneral Procession Pilgrimage from Sorrow to Transcendence

upwards view in axis mundi from mourning room

chapel of healing + reconciliation private mourning room ziggurat ritual ascension

Exploded Structural Axonometric Sequencemultiple layers of transparency to create an immaterial experience

internal structure

ramps + skin

program volumes

louvers + panels

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Recognitions + Awards:Mrgenes Arquitectura magazine (Spain), 2012Beaux Arts Ball Reception Exhibit, AIAS, 2012

PROGRAM1. Lobby2. Reception Desk3. Flower Room4. Restroom5. Waiting Area5. Mourning Room6. Columbarium7. Storage8. Oces9. Priest Room10. Chapel11. Narthex12. Ambulatory13. Sanctuary14. Kitchen15. Eating Area16. Cold Room17. Prep Room18. Garden of Remembrance19. Meditation Area

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PROGRAM1. Lobby2. Reception Desk3. Flower Room4. Restroom5. Waiting Area5. Mourning Room6. Columbarium7. Storage8. Oces9. Priest Room10. Chapel11. Narthex12. Ambulatory13. Sanctuary14. Kitchen15. Eating Area16. Cold Room17. Prep Room18. Garden of Remembrance19. Meditation Area

PROGRAM1. Lobby2. Reception Desk3. Flower Room4. Restroom5. Waiting Area5. Mourning Room6. Columbarium7. Storage8. Oces9. Priest Room10. Chapel11. Narthex12. Ambulatory13. Sanctuary14. Kitchen15. Eating Area16. Cold Room17. Prep Room18. Garden of Remembrance19. Meditation Area

PROGRAM1. Lobby2. Reception Desk3. Flower Room4. Restroom5. Waiting Area5. Mourning Room6. Columbarium7. Storage8. Oces9. Priest Room10. Chapel11. Narthex12. Ambulatory13. Sanctuary14. Kitchen15. Eating Area16. Cold Room17. Prep Room18. Garden of Remembrance19. Meditation Area

Ground Floorplan

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LIVING CYCLESR e s t o r i n g e c o l o g y a n d h u m a n i t yLIVING CYCLES

Ephemeral City Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, CA

Recognitions + Awards:Duane McLeod Jury Prize, Walt Disney Imagineering, 2010 ECO Innovators Showcase, Spring Green Expo, 2010CPP College of Environmental Design Gallery Exhibition, 2010

SYNERGYSUBSISTENCESOCIALITY

LONGITUDINAL SITE SECTION

LIVING CYCLES

Come away on an adventure and find a breath of freedom in the heart of Ephemeral City. Focused on bioremediation and healthy living, the heart of Ephemeral City is called Living Cycles. It blends multiple vertical layers of ecologies and human living. PURIFICATION of air, water, and land is performed on the ground plane through a rejuvenating marshland and carbon sequestering forest. Visitors and residents traverse along floating paths which open up the mind for new DISCOVERY. Temples of living are a new type of vertical housing unit which instills

feelings of physical ACHIEVEMENT through exercise. Bathrooms and living spaces offer calming views to natural ecologies. A social JOURNEY commences as individuals traverse the highways to greenways. These elevated walkways are planted with

native costal vegetation and inspire friendly conversation and exercise. At the connecting pathway nodes, temples of learning provide areas to learn about and grow vertical agriculture. Each vertical garden helps promote familial and communal SYNERGY for subsistence. Each layer of Ephemeral Citys Living Cycles not only merges natural ecologies and urban infrastructure in a symbiotic fashion but helps to restore life into ecology and humanity. The design gives a sneak peak at the essence of a healthy sustainable lifestyle!

The contemporary aesthetics of speed and consumerism have collapsed, compressed, and fragmented the human experience of time. In some ways, humans have lost their capacity to dwell in time. Yet natures repetitive cycles and processes help to slow down, silence, and suspend time. In other words, nature reveals the sacred character of time. In order to regain the experiential space of time, its depth and plasticity, architecture must provide an environment where humans can once again observe the repetitive cycles of natures elements.

Eternal Return is a manifesto declaring the need for a new architecture; it is an architectural expression that rekindles the human experience of time to satisfy the existential longing for paradise at the beginning of time, in illo tempore.

SKYTIDES MOSS DECAY

O b s e r v i n g Cy c l e s o f T i m e i n N a t u r ePotomac River, NW Washington, DC

video presentation: http://youtu.be/A-pRKRS8wEo

ETERNAL RETURN

LEVEL 1 - STAIRWAY OF TIDES (+15) LEVEL 1a - HORIZON PLATFORM (+32.5) LEVEL 2 - ROCK + MOSS GARDEN (+27.5)

Thus, the project is more than a museum or observatory of time it is a temple of time. The design incorporates various natural elements to reveal time to the senses. The

elements include: 1) the earths connection to geological time, 2) trees with seasonal time, 3) light for diurnal time, 4) sky with its astronomical time, 5) wind for meteorological time, 6) moss and evergreens with their biological time, 7) copper for the time of oxidation, and 8) tides as both buoyancy and water time. Each element plays a key role to both reveal and suspend time in different ways. Eternal Return is one step closer towards a new architecture; a building that provides an oasis for humans to escape the chaos of contemporary consumerism and (re)discover time by (re)connecting with nature.

DECAY TREES STRATA

LEVEL 2 - HALL OF DECAY (+22.5) LEVEL 3 - TREE GARDEN (+32.5) LEVEL 2 - ARRIVAL PLATFORM (+35)

Feeling, Experiential Time, Qualitative, Variability

SUBJECTIVE TIME

Quantifiable, Uniform, Divisible, Directional

PHYSICISTS TIME

OBJECTIVE TIMEWidely Shared form of Subjective

Time, Felt Time, Understood by Many People

TEMPORALITYMemory, Historical,Remembering the Past

CYCLICAL TIMENature, Seasons

Celestial PhenomenaLife Cycles, HolidaysLiturgical Year, Myths

e l e m e n t a r y s c h o o lKorea Town, Los Angeles, CA

circulationSCHOOL SECURITY

urban connectivityCOMMUNITY ACCESSIBILITY

emergenceBIOPHILIA IN A DEMOCRATIC SPACE

L E s s o n s o f b i o p h i L i a i n d E m o c r a t i c s p a c E C o m m u n i t y a n d n a t u r e i n t h e C l a s s r o o m

Recognitions + AwARds:AIA-PF Online Design Awards Exhibition, 2009

descRiPtion:Located in Los Angeles Koreatown, the K-5 Cahuenga Elementary School will accommodate over 800 students and help alleviate overcrowded classrooms within the district. The architectonic language of the project seeks to give the community and their children a love of life and the living world - a lesson of biophilia. To accomplish this goal, the public is invited to utilize the school as a community center after school hours; meanwhile, the hours that school is in session, the architecture becomes a living laboratory for learning. Communal spaces, atriums, reading gardens, vegetated screen walls, and walkable green roofs collectively contribute to the love of life and the living world of nature. The Cahuenga Elementary School seeks to break down the barriers of inequality and political unrest from this urban setting through a simple diagrammatic design. Passive sustainable design principles enhance each lesson of biophilia which are taught in democratic space. Both community and nature are united in the classroom.

Recognitions + Awards:CPP Interim Architecture Exhibition, 2011

AIA-DC Unbuilt Awards Competition Entry, 2012

video presentation: https://vimeo.com/61864803

study + research center ritual ascension pilgrimage experience

The House of the LORD(Re)interpreting the Latter-day Saint Temple | Rome, Italy

The House of the LORD explores how contemporary sacred space can use hermeneutics (i.e., the interpretation of texts, buildings, experience, etc.) to transform human understanding. Just as different people experience and interpret their encounters with buildings in distinct ways, designing to evoke a specific meaning, message, or religious experience can prove a challenge to the architect. The complexity of such a challenge, however, is alleviated through a design process that focuses on the interrelationships between architecture (space + form), religion (ideals), culture (traditions), ritual (function), and the environment (geography). The interrelationships allow designers to anticipate the diverse layers of interpretation and thereafter assist in choreographing transformative human experiences.

FROM BELOW IN SECTION

ACROSS FILTERED VOIDTHROUGH FILTERED VOLUME

ON STAGGERED FLOOR PLATES

ACROSS FILTER

THROUGH FILTER FROM ABOVESTAGGERED THROUGH FILTERED VOID

THROUGH ENCLOSED VOLUME AND VOID

PUBLIC (non-initiated)SACRED (initiated)

DIALOG OF COEXISTENCE the phenomenology of transparency in architecture

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ADMINBAPTISMCHRISTUS SCRIPTURESSOCIAL HALL

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Temple Patron Ritual Spaces focused on Redeeming the Dead

Church MemberPublic Spaces focused on Perfecting the Saints

General VisitorPublic Spaces focused on Proclaiming the Gospel

Program Distribution

10 x 10 grid ribbon structure vertical planes layered transparency stacked program

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka. Mormons) serves as the client for this innovative 223,000 square foot mega structure located in the ancient suburbs of Rome, Italy. It combines a temple, chapel (stake center), visitor center, and housing facility to produce one large House of God. The architecture acts as an ambassador of the religion by expressing the true essence of its principles in weaving sacred and semi-sacred programs to reinforce the idea of community. In a way to allure reticent onlookers (some members + non-members) into the religious architectural experience, tours are given which follow an ascending pathway around the perimeter of the various programs and offer dramatic views to the interior volumes and voidsa concept derived from ambulatories of pilgrimage churches. The Christus gallery at the central core provides a space to meditate, pray, and experience solar phenomena since the design allows sunlight to penetrate and illuminate the statue on specific inter-religious holidays. The temple program is designed as a building within a building due to the demands for gradations of holiness and a hierarchical order within the rituals (ordinances). Particularly important is the design of the spatial sequence and circulation of the ritual drama which provide an atmosphere for re-experiencing Judeo-Christian episodes of cosmic history. The ritual movements from room to room include descending and ascending, transitioning from dark to light, traversing west to east and east to west, and experiencing spatial compression and decompression. The House of the LORD demonstrates how sacred architecture can become a metaphor of eternal realities, allure visitors into a dialog of coexistence between the sacred and profane, and provide opportunities for transformative religious experience.

layers of transparency

contextual site plan

3 7 0 0 s u n s e ta l i v a b l e c o m m u n i t ySilver Lake, Los Angeles, CA

Recognitions + Awards:AIAIC Sustainable Design Exhibit at Dos Lagos, 2009

AIAS/AARP Livable Communities Design Competition Entry, 2009

Connectivity, flexibility, and sustainability are essential design principles for the architecture of the future. Located near Silver Lake in Los Angeles, 3700 Sunset is a 60,000 square foot mixed-use development seeking to create a livable community. The development consists of 42,000 square feet of residential units, 11,000 square feet of retail space, and 7,000 square feet of community amenities. The mixed-use development respects the community master plan of the Silver Lake neighborhood to help maintain the current demographics for the area and prevent gentrification. The project is preparing for the design needs of the 21st Century by incorporating universal design principles, sustainable strategies, and methods of fostering community connectivity. Each housing unit has a flexible floorplan catering to single adults, families, professionals (live-work), and the elderly (assisted living). 3700 Sunset is a model for the livable communities of the future.

Apartment views to Hollywood Apartment views to downtown Los Angeles

Vegetated Courtyard Pool + Exercise room

King David once aspired to build a temple connecting heaven and earth. Building upon this tradition, Davids Tower is a monastery for the third millennium that explores architectural simplicity and symbolic ascent. Located in the rural outskirts of Washington, DC along the heavily vegetated Potomac River, the heavy concrete walls emerge from the earth as a silent rippling reflection. Body, mind, and spirit are engaged throughout the vertical sanctuary with views oriented to the river and dense horizon of treetops. Place + stillness, light + time, composition + gravity are guiding principles for the transcendental atmosphere of Davids Tower.

RECOGNITIONS + AWARDS: Wesley Theological Seminary Exhibit, Box of Miracles, 2013CUA Architecture Exhibit, 2012

DaviDs Tower Potomac River, Washington, DC

Chapel

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ExPLoDED Axon

1 entry2 pilgrimage chapel3 living cells4 refectory5 kitchen6 prayer room7 library8 study9 chapel10 sanctuary11 sacristy12 choir loft13 sky observatory

Prayer Room Looking upwards into Choir Loft

BRANDON RICHARD ROCELL: (760) 331.3813 E-MAIL: brro.sonrisas@gmail.comPROFILE: www.linkedin.com/pub/brandon-ro/22/89b/47 EXPANDED PORTFOLIO: issuu.com/brro/docs/brro_portfolio-2012

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONSBrandon Ro is an award-winning designer with a proven record of cutting-edge projects that have been published, presented, and exhibited regionally, nationally, and abroad. In addition, he is a results-driven leader who promotes enthusiasm and collaborative synergy on team projects. Having studied under internationally recognized architects, such as Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Campo Baeza, Brandon is committed to design and research that explores the ways to improve the interconnectivity between architecture, culture, ecology, and human experience.

EDUCATIONThe Catholic University of America Expected May 2013

Master of Architectural Studies G.P.A. 3.87 California State Polytechnic University, Pomona June 2011

Bachelor of Architecture G.P.A. 3.77

EXPERIENCE (selected)Smith Group | JJR Washington, DC

Intern Architect - Healthcare Studio Dec 2012Mar 2013Lemay, Erickson, Willcox Architects Reston, VA

Intern Architect MayAug 2012 Alliance to Save Energy Pomona, CA

Green Campus Project Coordinator, Team Manager July 2008 - Feb 2011Comstock and Kaufman Architecture and Planning Del Mar, CA

Intern Architect April 2005 May 2007

HONORS + AWARDS Awards:

16 design + 7 professional awards (organizations include: U.S. Green Building Council, Walt Disney Imagineering, Environmental Design in University Curricula and Architectural Training in Europe, North China University of Technology, Alliance to Save Energy, American Planning Association, Designers Lighting Forum, California State University Chancellors Office, etc.)

Exhibitions: various design projects have been displayed over 30 times (events include: Greenbuild, California Higher Education Sustainability Conference, Alt-Build, BESS: Sustainability Symposium, EE Global, American Institute of Architects, Cal Poly Pomona, etc.)

Honors: 32 academic honors + scholarships (includes: Presidents List, Deans Lists, Certificate of Achievements, Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society in Architecture and Allied Arts, Golden Key International Honour Society, Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society, Magi Endowment for the Liturgical Arts)

Publications: 8 design projects have been published in books, conference proceedings, and magazines (includes: Carbon-Neutral Architectural Design [CRC Press, 2012]; Port of L.A. Visions [Cal Poly Pomona, 2010]; BESS: High Performance Building Enclosures - Practical Sustainability Symposium; Mrgenes Arquitectura, etc.)

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