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F R O N T I E RA R C H I T E C T U R E
M A T T _ O S T R O W S K I
L I G H T
R E S E A R C H
U R B A N I S M
T E C H N O L O G Y
C O N S T R U C T I O N
T H E _ P O W E R _ O F A R C H I T E C T U R E
Conclusions fromWalking Through Doorways Causes
Forgetting: Further Explorations
�In sum, walking through doorways serves as an event boundary, thereby initiating the updating of one�s event model. This updating process can reduce the availability of information in memory for objects associated with the prior event. Here, we were able to show that this effect extends to different degrees of immersion and is not a result of an encoding specific problem. Finally, an analysis across multiple studies shows that the parsing of the flow of experience into events, foregrounding, and competitive retrieval all combine to influence processing as a function of whether an object is associated or dissociated and whether there has been an event shift. Thus, overall, it is quite clear that memory for recently experienced information is affected by the structure of
the surrounding environment.�
By Gabriel A. RadvanskySabine A. Krawietz and
Andrea K. Tamplin
p r o j e c t _ d a t a
p r o j e c t _ m a t r i xp r o j e c t _ m a p
NEGRETE_KOLAR_ARCH1601 E 7th Street #200 | Austin, TX 78702
T: 512 474-6526 | F: 512 [email protected]
Negrete and Kolar Architects has worked with a full spectrum of project types, from low-income housing to private custom residences, from municipal buildings to high-security government facilities, and from downtown office buildings to town recreational parks. These projects have ranged in size from very modest buildings, renovations and additions to large-scale
developments.
David Negrete, AIA and Roger Kolar, AIA have practiced architecture in south and central Texas for over thirty years. The firm operates from two design offices, one in downtown Austin and the other in central Edinburg, part of the Lower Rio Grande
Valley.
With their combined experience, Negrete & Kolar possess skills that complement one another. Roger Kolar�s special interests are interior design and historic preservation. David Negrete has an extensive knowledge of building construction and innovative regional design, with a special interest in adaptive reuse, civic design, and working with clients to improve communities. Both architects share a passion for the rigors of
planning and the process of design.
The Negrete & Kolar team brings broad experience to every project, including a range of technical production skills, and maintains a friendly, professional
atmosphere.
EARTHSHIP_BIOTECTUREPO Box 1041 | Taos, NM 87571
Earthship Biotecture is a global company offering proven, totally sustainable design and construction services worldwide. The company is lead by Michael Reynolds, the principle biotect and creator of the Earthship Concept. Their mission is:
To evolve the way humans live on this planet by evolving existing methods of
living, home by home.
To make small, believable steps toward slowing down and ultimately reversing the negative impact of human development as it relates to the Earth�s ability to continue to
support life.
To present these steps in a way that affords easy understanding and inspires people to
act.
To empower people to make positive changes in their own lives to reduce their
personal effect on global warming.
To specifically design and build homes that
1. Heat and cool themselves naturally via solar/thermal dynamics, 2. Collect their own power from the sun and wind, 3. Harvest their own water from rain and snow melt, 4. Contain and treat their own sewage on site, 5. Produce a significant amount of food, and 6. Are constructed using the byproducts of modern society like cans, bottles and tires.
To transfer this knowledge globally through books, seminars, films and demonstrations.
BR ASIL_ARQUITETUR ARua Harmonia 101 | Vila Madalena
São Paulo SP | 05435 000, BrasilTel | Fax + 55 11 3815 9511
The architectural practice Brasil Arquitetura was founded in 1979. Since then, the firm has developed projects for diverse programs: museums, residential buildings, private houses, boutiques, restaurants, and community and cultural centers. Additionally, the firm is involved in furniture
and exhibition design.
In 1986, the �Marcenaria Baraúna� a joinery workshop was set up, attending the in-house construction of wooden crafts and
furniture designed by the architects.
The practice is run by partners Francisco Fanucci and Marcelo Carvalho Ferraz, graduates of the College of Architecture and Urban Design - University of São Paulo
(FAU-USP).
A F F I L I A T I O N S2011
2007
E D U C A T I O N2009
2004|8
R E S E A R C H _ A N D _ P U B L I C A T I O N S2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
P R O F E S S I O N A L _ E X P E R I E N C E2012|3
2012
2011
2008
2007|11
2006
New York NY
Taos NM
Austin TX
Austin TX
São Paulo BR
Recife BR
Austin TX
Austin TX
Southwest Key Programs Visiting Lecturer
UT School of Architecture Visiting Critic / Reviewer
Bachelor�s of Architecture University of Texas at Austin
Dean�s List, HonorsDesign Excellence
Studio ProjectsCourtyard Pavilion
Pool Complex Outdoor Cinema Yacht Club and Boatshop Memorial Sundial Architecture School Vacation Lodge Central Library Sustainable Sports Center Spiral Skyscraper Beach Pavilion
P R O F I C I E N C YAutoCAD 2012
Sketchup, FormZRhino 4, Topmod
Lightwave, VIZ/MAXAnalog Modeling
Revit 2012, Grasshopper
Kerkythea, VIZ, Maxwell
CSS, HTML5, Dreamweaver
Microsoft Office SuiteAcrobat, Yed Graph Editor
Photoshop, Tableaullustrator, Indesign
Piranesi, MathematicaProcessing, Tessellation
Pen, Watercolor, CollageAcrylic, Colored Pencil
Charcoal, Pastel
Canon Digital SLR
Solar GeometryMechanical, Electrical
Plumbing, Lighting
Residential , Straw BaleEarthship (Offgrid)
Woodshop, Laser Cutter, CNC
TX/NM Building CodeLEED 3.0, ADA, IBC 2009
Programming, Site AnalysisSD, DD, CD, CA, Bidding
Parametric ModelingLumion, Visions of Chaos
CityEngine, Ecotect
Drafting
Modeling /Animation
Parametric/BIM
Rendering
Web
Productivity
Graphics
Hand Media
Photography
Engineering /Analysis
Design Build
Certifications
Codes
ProjectManagement
Interests
Frontier ArchitecturePursuing Registration
Earthship Biotecture
Construction ApprenticeGlobal Model Earthship / Loantree / REACH Community
EVE (Earthship Village Ecologies) Center
Licensing Exam Completion
Austin Future Fair
Brasil Arquitetura
Graphics, Drawings + AnimationGuaporé Historic Bread Mill and Museum
Favela Housing and Urban MasterplanCESA Favela Garden School
Unipalmares Afro-Brazilian University
AFM Arquitetos
Negrete & Kolar Architects
BIM + Project ManagerPediatric Clinic / TFC Hidalgo County ClinicLRGVDC Development Council RenovationsPrivate Residence, Modern Spanish Colonial
Superior Oil Express
Construction AdministrationAISD Crockett High School
Graphics, Drawings + AnimationFirm Office / Harlingen GSA Renovation
Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural CenterMcAllen Intermodal Transit Terminal (MITT)
Border Patrol Adaptive Reuse
Project TeamECISD Brewster Elementary Additions
Romeo Flores County Park
Aitcheson Design Build
Digital Publication
School Workshop
Architecture Exhibition
Independent Thesis
Regional PlanningTexas Urbanism
Material Study / InnovationJoint Detailing
Modern American DesignModern American Design
Practice TheoryBuilding Skins
Circo Assembly in ChileSustainable Sports Center
Design Innovation Award
Site and UrbanismPostmodernism
National Romanticism
Architectural HistoryArchitectural History Architectural HistoryArchitectural History
Architecture and Society
The Hyperprogrammatic City
Architect as Community Leader
Austin Future Fair
Creative Communal Living Spaces
Sao Paulo Metropole, BrazilTessellated Texas Online
Benefits of Straw BaleZumthor, Scarpa, Mecanoo and MVRDVThe Reflective Surface in the Modern Era
Buckminster Fuller Presentation
Where is Home? Camping and ArchitectureMont-Cenis Academy Photovoltaics
2G: Smiljan Radic UT Architecture: Issue 3
Paco Arumi Memorial Sundial Competition
Luigi Snozzi�s Monte Carasso, ItalyJames Stirling: Staatsgalerie
Gunnar Asplund and Eliel Saarinen
Gracanica Monastery, Novo Brdo, KosovoKatsura Detached Palace, Kyoto, Japan
San Vitale Church, Ravenna, ItalyMinoan Palace of Minos, Knossos, Crete
Federation Square, Melbourne
m a s t e r p l a n _ h e a l i n g _ t h e _ c i t y _ u n i t
�We need desperately to relearn the art of disposing of buildings to create different kinds of space: the quiet, enclosed, isolated space; the hustling, bustling space, pungent with vitality; the paved, dignified, vast, sumptuous, even awe-inspiring space; the mysterious space; the transition space which defines, separates and yet joins juxtaposed spaces of contrasting character. We need sequences of space which arouse one�s curiosity, give a sense of anticipation, which beckon and impel us to rush forward to find that releasing space which dominates, which climaxes and acts as a magnet, and gives direction.�
Architect Paul Rudolph, 1954
The City Unit uses data analysis and visualization software (Yed Graph Editor) and a reprogramming of relevant city building typologies (referencing international building code occupancies) to arrive at a flexible masterplan prototype. The program and its spatial data can be adjusted to initiate new relationships of utopian city planning. A reinterpretation of building typologies through the metaphor of cellular biology provides a perspective for such relationships. Studies in geometric masterplanning through urbanists and architects exemplify theoretical systematic material geometries and essential relationships. The prototype uses generic yet successful, existing typologies
and, given appropriate spatial parameters, generates a tessellated city unit.
This project is also a template for the integration and renovation of previous Frontier Architecture projects applied with a judicious evaluation of their
scale, cultural character and context.
R E S E A R C H
United States City DataInternational Building Code - Occupancy
Edward Segel - Narrative VisualizationUrban Farming
Cellular BiologyOccupancy by CodeBuilding Typologies
Flowchart Optimization
MVRDV - FunctionmixerPatrik Schumacher - Parametricism
Jose Luis Sert - Barcelona MasterplanCobusier - Villa Redieuse
OMA - Lille / DubaiFrank Lloyd Wright - Broadacre CityMies van der Rohe - LaFayette Park
Herman HerzbergerMoshe Safdie
Hugh Ferris - Metropolis of TomorrowHilberseimer New Regional Pattern
Paolo Soleri - Arcosanti
The city is a network of inter-related nodes (knots) of architectural use.
s h a p e _ m a t r i x _ f o r _ i n t e g r a t e d _ h o u s i n g
Executive Housing is a grid-based matrix of three type forms which are: linear, semi-circular, and snaking. These type forms provide structural, spatial and functional continuity to the housing complex, resulting from the design operations of the matrix. The matrix is applied to the type forms with an interest in resulting hierarchies, dependencies, transitions and intersections. The resulting housing complex can be suited to particularly repetitive forms which provide architecturally-valuable relationships, including open spaces, main corridors, density-specific enclosures, and natural lighting specifications. The three type forms can be mirrored and overlapped in additive and subtractive operations to control density and dynamic space. This complexity is a goal of a diverse
multi-family housing complex, which thrives on specificity to provide for the naturally unique architectural domains of individual life.
genetic_matrix_for_organic_cities
The contemporary hypercity is a lattice of symbolism expressed without hierarchy, a heterogeneous perfect game aiming for self-satisfaction. The masterplan is a template for the structuralist individualization of popular global technological culture. The nature of urbanism is an olympic exercise of dreams, memories and freedom from human mortality and self-knowledge. The integrated resulting
masterplan is the frontier and working vision.
An example of an extensively propagated architectural type-form expressed in socialist continuity is expressed in a geometric structure assuming the hierarchy of worldwide religious historical architectural language in the geometries offered by the square, circle
and triangle.
This project accommodates 1 million residences based on a foundation of 31 unit structures with a 16 unit foundation. Each tower unit has 4
triangular wings with 36 (polynomial of 8) duplex living units.
The interstitial nodes (cubes and spheres) that connect the unit structures serve as healing and communication points for a future population in which memories and knowledge are downloaded into the visitor�s minds. These volumetric nodes are light chambers which activate religious experience. Some serve as merely water cisterns and generators. The entire framework is a skeleton for
additional infrastructure and sliding transports.
h e a l e r � s _ h o u s e
Once many years ago, I built a camouflaged house in the trees above an abandoned mansion on the great plains. (Who desires no
home?)
At the time, I made a sacrifice worth considering - vandalism of a holy land, the land of an unknown man, established by a now-abandoned mansion, a dominant colonial hotel with an eastern portico and an insulated ballroom. In the modern world, at a certain point in life, each person will discover the challenge of inheritance, of building on the
land of ancient knowledge.
Not intricately detailed or interlaced with robust systems, the thin, dark box in the trees stood alone, faithful and defensive. I came back to this house today, years later in the exhausted wake of a rainstorm. This house is nearly the same as the first house, and thus only house, that I designed one decade ago. A recessed northern kitchen connected an east living room to a southern bedroom, guarded by a western storage space and
northwestern observation deck.
In a meditative state, I looked beyond the kitchen counter, the selfless kitchen with its silver white walls and obligatory but
provisional wooden trim, through the sunken bedroom, which was reached by a short but dangerous open-air boardwalk, through the bedroom window through the trees to the mountains and plains. The living room, like a decorated garage with diagonal entry and access points and hanging strings of catenary lighting, fought the dark trees to reach the light but gazed ultimately into the entrance
of the dead mansion.
Finally, we examine the mired visionary void of the observation deck. From this deck I saw into the fields of the plain, with serene farm fences and cattle grazing among woodland creatures, such as the fox and the fawn. From the balcony into the void, I felt the cool wind of death approaching. A beast flying across the land, the stature of an eight hundred pound mountain lion leaping from pasture to pasture, tearing at the throat of each creature in calculated form. Too quickly to measure, the bravest foxes and fawns hanging like ornaments from its solid legs in momentary turn as it bit deeply into the soft left throats of the cattle, laying waste to the idyllic spirit of the plain. Beneath the balcony, the body of a fawn lay fallen from the camouflaged porthole of the
ascension ladder.
Escaping the house, to begin depopulating the home of its vandal chord and my belongings (a camera, a book and a golden coin), the wet brown leaves of the soil below the canopy, articulated with chert constellations of broken glass, ground like slipping beach shells, alerting the arriving caravan now parked beside the
mansion.
Engaged in their domain, two men and a woman brought small bags
to their now awakened mansion.
As the caravan departed, I lay silently in the darkness beneath the camouflaged home, and the driver called to me. Come here, he said kindly. I climbed into the vehicle. He said, I�m a ghost
hunter; I raise the dead.
East and west are analogues, obscure to determine spring or autumn, vision or obscurity, and one�s relativity to the past and the
future.
The building must be built east to west though, initiated by the sun through the common room or bedroom and terminated by a concentrated relationship of space and form upon a selfless,
resplendent conclusion.
South is summer, the static heat of a focused lens on paper, a period of examination and subject-object relationships as the sun confronts the temperate terrain. North is winter, rigidly pensive, eternally welcoming, capitalizing on limited but vibrant horizontal illumination, a period of still lifes and intricacy. The north-south relationship is a stasis portal founded on the skeleton of a deus ex machina, and is vegetal, populated by symbolism and
biogenerative complexity.
The extra-terrestrial house must land on safe ground.
The landing of an extra terrestrial disc is a metaphor for the alignment of sun and earth, the consummation of spiritual planes and the integration of all people and life with the heaven and underworld at the perceivable threshold of the known states of matter and energy. Pure horror is the maligned, unfocused earth-disc. The dynamic state exists in
both forms.
p r o m o t i o n a l _ c i v i c _ c e n t e r
The civic center is architecturally expressed as a ballroom with crystalline clerestories which project Rorschach exam outlines. The space suggests the NYC Grand Central Station, with its dramatic beams of light. The monumental interior thrills the public with the archaeology of achievement. Its logic of material, space and light suggest the Viennese Jugendstil (particularly Josef Hoffman and Otto Wagner) and the emergence of modernism. The 144 x 40 x 40 meter structure is surrounded by a multitude of gardens in a world that has discovered all approaches to
integration, definition and ritualized perception.
u n i v e r s a l _ a r c h i t e c t u r e
S O L U T I O N S
Architecture has always been challenged by its own impotence in defining a dynamic society.
The value of this project is to develop a more versatile philosophy for a designer to design for other people with significantly different
personalities.
The designer may likely, for example, be an intuitive thinking rationalist and this may limit their ability to be versatile in a feeling sensing realm, to cite the reality of the dominant personalities of American architects and the
general American population.
A contemporary architecture must be fluid yet precise to accommodate contextual changes
over its lifetime.
The Jung/MBTI Provisional Architecture model accommodates a broad social context through the use of a matrix simulation of architectural
traits.
This model analyzes and integrates trades, interests and social context.
T Y P E _ I N D I C A T O R
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality type matrix designed with 16 complimenting aptitudes in a 4x4 grid of
combined, resulting personalities.
The MBTI is a development of Jung�s work which should be applied to the practice of architecture
to connect people to their ideal habitat.
The MBTI should be applied to contemporary urban planning, to respond to the urbanism of
the contemporary global demographic.
From urban plans to all scales of housing solutions, such an urbanism should fundamentally nurture
all users through precise cognitive support.
D E S I G N
The 16 MBTI personalities are initially appropriated as users.
Thus, the community model uses 16 architectural classifications.
A representative architecture is assembled from the combination of traits.
The architecture is assigned program after is users and is established.
The architectural language is referential but innovative in its integrated approach.
This urbanism attempts to create a community from unified and discrete architectures.
This is urbanism is a parametric, algorithmic model which provides deeply psychological,
socially synthetic, and contextual results.
The urbanism that results from this model can presuppose or measure a demographic and then model an architecture that accommodates these
precise characteristics.
The architecture devised for each dwelling can be specifically determined by programs and site.
Ad-hoc urban communities, conveniently organized according to migrating boundaries of conflicting social principles, fail to efficiently transition in rapid urbanism and infrastructural
demands.
This urbanism attempts to make efficient spatial development, efficient spatial transitions and complex but resilient and multiscalar
communities.
Each user, consisting of MBTI personality traits, cues the parameters that tailor their architecture, a precise architectural language in a fully
customized and deployable reality.
A prototype conversion logic, a useful architectural �calculator�, compounds the personality traits of an individual or group and then resolves them with a suitable design
prototype.
B U I L D I N G _ C L A S S I F I C A T I O N
Building are biologically classified, initially by occupancy, and then given operating provisions by their internal logic of interactivity and use
frequency.
Buildings are are organic habitats with a choreography of internal and external life.
Individual occupants play roles according to their lifestyles, interests, eccentricities, physical
characteristics and psychological nature.
Humans integrate with architecture, resulting in a compounded cultural biome operating on a
number of scales.
When architecture fails to integrate its users and provide meaning, interior design and informative
tools become a necessity.
The eight initial binary traits according to MBTI conveyed in an architectural medium, must attempt to represent the noosphere of human reality, to perform in tandem with human
perception & being.
collect / exhibit Introvert / Extrovertabstract / touch Intuition / Senseartifice / landscape Think / Feeltarget / field Judge/ Perceive
1 6 _ A R C H I T E C T S
A strong MBTI think tank may be the best organizational unit in responding to international crises and global urban
challenges?
Architecture and its related fields should leverage an existing, multidisciplinary Team 16 (think Team 10) which embodies the type characteristics of its users and collaborates on significant global development and resourcing
projects.
Team 16 is suited to produce a wider spectrum of solutions, balancing the independent / collaborative model and
the additive / subtractive approaches.
R E F E R E N C E S
Metabolists, Team 10, The New York Five, Archigram, Bauhaus
CIAM (Congrès International d� Architecture Moderne)
MBTI - Myers Briggs Type IndicatorAmerican personality demographics
American architect demographics
McCrae and Costa - Big FiveSystems Theory and Spontaneous
Order TheoryZwicky Box for Morphological
AnalysisCellular Automata
Stan Allen - From Object to FieldWord Cloud Analysis
Diagrammatic Models of the Universal Housing Complex
The curving building�s circulation is a gradient of programmed space, interfacing the classrooms and administration wings with design studios. Thus the structure can be interpreted as accommodating three buildings, for Exhibition, Administration and Production. Two stairwells and elevator structures define the intersection of these three building units, which are all
connected by a top floor library.
The illuminated atrium of design studios overlooks the street with occupiable outdoor terraces. Between these studios are review rooms, and across the atrium lightwell are faculty offices. Below the studios are a computer lab and
clerestoried workshop.
R E S E A R C H
Comprehensive local precedent studies 6 Architecture Schools in Texas
Programs area data, room proportions Space and design characteristics
a r c h i t e c t u r ec o m p o s i t i o n _ s c h o o l
Austin, TexasMichael Benedikt Studio
P R O G R A M
The new architecture school relocates the total programmed services (165,000 SF) of the current UT School of Architecture to an undeveloped site on the corner of campus, adjacent to the College of Communications, student dormitories, and commercial property with room for expansion
and programmatic fluidity.
D E S I G N
The final design is a modernist tube, both ends bent to face the campus. Its porous courtyard facade treats the campus avenue gently, with a receptive reservoir for pedestrians. From the courtyard facade, the faculty, administration, and exhibition areas can embrace a shared space. The courtyard counters the monumental building shell boldly and defiantly facing the public avenue, in accordance with many other campus buildings which maintain the university�s physical border as a result of security measures
taken during 1968 riots.
James Stirling - University buildingsWill Alsop - OCAD Toronto
Walter Gropius - BauhausPaul Rudolph
Yale School of Art and Architecture Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects
Knowlton School of Architecture Alvaro Siza Viera
Porto School of Architecture
Historic studies of programmed rooms
Hoidn Wang and David Heymann Reconfiguring the UT School of Architecture
Louis I. Kahn - Process �The building is a society of rooms.�
�What does a brick want to be?�
p r o g r a m m i n g _ d ata
Hidden Cities 1: Olinda
In Olinda, if you go out with a magnifying glass
and hunt carefully, you may find somewhere a
point no bigger than the head of a pin which, if
you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals within
itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights,
the gardens, the pools, the streamers across the
streets, the kiosks in the squeares, the horse-racing
track. That point does not remain there: a year later
you will find it the size of half a lemon, then as large
as a mushroom, then a soup plate. And then it becomes
a full-size city, enclosed within the earlier city: a new
city that forces its way ahead in the earlier city and
presses its way toward the outside.
Olinda is certainly not the only city that grows in
concentric circles, like tree trunks which each year add
one more ring. But in other cities there remains, in the
center, the old narrow girdle of the walls from which
the withered spires rise, the towers, the tiled roofs, the
domes, while the new quarters sprawl around them like a
loosened belt. Not Olinda: the old walls expand bearing
the old quarters with them, enlarged but maintaining their
proportions an a broader horizon at the edges of the city;
they surround the slightly newer quarters, which also grew
up on the margins and became thinner to make room for still
more recent ones pressing from inside; and so, on and on,
to the heart of the city, a totally new Olinda which, in its
reduced dimensions retains the features and the flow of lymph
of the first Olinda and of all the Olindas that have blossomed
one from the other; and within this innermost circle there are
always blossoming--though it is hard to discern them--the next
Olinda and those that will grow after it.
From Invisible Cities. Italo Calvino. 1972
compositional_modelingp r o m o t i o n a l _ m a p p i n g
Olinda, Brazil (UNESCO Historic Site)
In Olinda, we traced a route from the Eufrasio Barbosa Market to the prominent plaza of the Se Cathedral, comprehensively mapping all immediate buildings, plants, and trees along nearly one kilometer of the town�s most
spectacular dwellings.
Along this topographical town ridge, the historic urbanism of the initial Dutch colonization vitalizes the annual Carnaval scene, claimed the
best in Brazil.
The tight, north-oriented streets are shadowed by the sun and impressed by a composition of festive paint and architectural ornamentation
defined by local law.
The basic proportioning of the residential building facades results from two predominant structural systems: trabeated timber and solid
masonry.
These systems allow different scales and economies of community development. Decorative motifs flourish above the typical
facade�s frieze.
The simple geometry and robustness of decoration ranges predominantly from colonial Brazilian floralism and geometric motifs to Brazilian interpretations of Art Deco. By ordinance, owners may not change the colors or
ornament.
The mapping information captured in the illustrated elevations and site measurements can be integrated as compositional instrumentation for music. The system of analysis will eventually become integrated with a digital architectural
experience mapping software.
s u p e r v i s o r � s _ To w e r
A tower for residential lofts is defined by dramatically warped concrete floor plates.
The bi-level, oval-shaped floors present a dramatic view from either end.
The tower is designed with dimensions from the Fibonacci series.
compositional_modelingi n s t r u m e n t _ m a p p i n g
A process is developed in which to convert musical compositions from composers who utilize rhythmic and structural forms into a definite, elemental architecture. The logic behind this translation is that the fundamental structure of music is capable of communicating its meaning in a spatial experience through color, repetition, material, and other architectural elements. The process for translation is to convert MIDI music data into CSV (comma separated value) text into CAD as point or line data, representing notes, duration and instrument and then through modeling software such as Rhino, to produce visible structure, and if appropriate, apply it to a dominant geometry such as a curved or cylindrical wall or landscape form. As such, frequency/note, duration and instrument might be interpreted as location, dimension and material (reflection or contrast, for example), respectively. The interpreted architecture may potentially respond in more-than visual means, through tactile or audible characteristics. Examples such as stairs with user-activated musical notes provide near-immediate interactivity and the practice of life becomes a
new game and social experiment.
C O M P O S I T I O N S
Terry Riley (In C)Bach (Brandenburg Concerto)Phillip Glass (Metamorphosis)
Vijay Ayer (Mystic Brew)Steve Reich (Clapping Music)
R E S E A R C H
Stephen Malinowski (MAM) Music Animation MachineORPROJECT - Anisotropia
Iannis Xenakis / Le Corbusier Philips Pavilion
Vi Hart Music of Mathematical Sequences
Ernst Chladni - Cymatic PlatesHarmonic Waveforms
Above: Philip Glass� Metamorphosis, MAM mapping.
Left: Steve Reich�s Clapping Music, spiral mapping.
s y n t h e s i z e r � s _ p o o l
West Austin Park, AustinElizabeth Danze Studio
P R O G R A M
The project is a new public pool, community center and administrative office for the West Austin Park in the historic
Clarksville residential district.
D E S I G N
Replacing an under-used tennis court, the new pool is an accessible and iconic overlook.
The pool�s concept evolved from the changing room study model: an thin entrance through a wall which separates two discrete, peripheral enclosures. The enclosures (for viewing, storage and changing rooms) are accessed by monumental stairs
and ramps, framing the active, recreational swimming pool.
The three level concrete structure is accessed from the nearby parking area (behind the wall) and from an adjacent sloping
hill.
A cast concrete study model exploring space and light for the pool�s changing room provoked a systematic material detailing logic for the remaining design. This logic includes cast concrete slabs with planar surfaces and intersections, an asymmetrical structural composition and dominant concrete forms infilled
where appropriate with wood and glass framing.
The administration office (and small community center) faces the pool from across the park, established parallel to existing
earth berms.
Both buildings have occupied spaces carved into existing topography.
R E F E R E N C E S
Peter Zumthor - Thinking Architecture
2. It is HEURISTIC, inducing a challenging social game encouraging reaction and unexpected �disorder� through the
instability of the (initially) author-driven narrative.
3. It is FRAMELESS and MULTIFACETED, differentiating its message through a non-unified field of visual and auditory
space.
4. It is INSTRUMENTAL and 5. PARTICIPATORY, strategically involving visitors in this game, such that the film is presented ever-uniquely by the audience, who determine the outcome
through their adaptation to the interactive machines.
R E S E A R C H
Film theory & criticism - Eisenstein, Vertov, Kracauer, Zizek, Godard, Hitchcock
Set design - Metropolis, Blade Runner, Citizen Kane, Sans Soleil, Le Mepris, 8-1/2
Polemical 20th century cinemas - Geode Cinema, Park de la Villete
i n v e n t o r � s _ c i n e m aAustin, Texas
Nik Nikolov Studio
D E S I G N
The avant garde cinema is extrapolated from historical tangents.
This new form of cinema challenges the commercial indoor amphitheater by creating an experimental and transformative environment for different film formats and mediums and out-
engineers the sterility of passive cinema.
The cinema architecture expresses a relationship between multiple occupiable levels, screens, and auditoriums in a kinetic structure that presents an unpredictable cinematic experience
through dynamic social interaction.
1. The new cinema is EXPERIMENTAL, involving nonstandard components and media.
p r o m o t i o n a l _ b o a t s h o p
Lake Travis, Austin, TexasJohn Blood - Sound Building Studio
P R O G R A M
A cutting-edge boat shop for the construction of experimental race craft and a new administration building for the Austin Yacht Club on
a fluctuating waterfront site.
The boat shop, built directly on the rocky lakefront, is designed to be reusable after periodic lake flooding. Equipment can be hoisted to the second floor, which is above the flood plain. The retractable polycarbonate screens provide a retractable and floodable glazing
alternative.
An extreme, 75� cantilever alludes to the contemporary nature of modern boat racing and construction. These steel girders support fabric shading devices which protect the building, docked boats, and spectators on the pier, while powerfully exhibiting the material which moves sailcraft. Workers conduct their daily labor near workstations overlooking the water. The facility deposits new boats
into the water via an internal-external gantry crane.
The site contains a natural peninsula for observing the boat races, launching sailboats via boat ramps, and constructing safe marina structures. The higher, wooded grounds in the center of the site are
appropriate for lodging and utilities on this serene site.
The dramatic boat shop, tethered to the water�s edge, challenges land and water.
R E S E A R C H
Sailboat and Trimaran Construction Site codes and regulations
Pier Luigi Nervi - Flaminio Stadium, Rome Jean Nouvel - Cantilever in Lucerne, Switzerland
Renzo Piano - Agnelli Art Gallery, Lingotto Engineering of heat gain, daylight factor, HVAC load,
Retaining wall structure and cantilever
c e n t r a l _ l i b r a r y
San Antonio, TexasChristine Mueller Studio
S I T E _ A N A L Y S I S
For the design of a central library, four sites were explored through maps and parti models for illumination, access and character. These sites were a Highway interchange, Colonial Mission, Downtown Riverwalk and Intercity
Fringe.
The Downtown Site, chosen for its vitality and potential, mediates the street level and the recessed Riverwalk near an active bus transit center on the north edge of the central business district. The lighting conditions and pedestrian movement on the site were studied for extrapolation in the
architectural concept.
S U P P R E S S I O N _ R E L E A S E
The building concept is initial suppression, then catharsis into illuminated reading rooms.
Visitors descend a dark ramped corridor (characterized by art and literature bulletins) through the site diagonally,
emerging into an expansive lobby with book stacks.
This monolithic room is illuminated by channeled clerestories in the walls and trapezoidal ceiling under a
fragmented, grassy landscape.
From the main space, visitors vertically ascend into a suspended tunnel for more serious study, offering superior
views of the snaking river and library plaza.
The plaza, partially integrated with the library, operates as a public marketplace and cafe.
R E F E R E N C E S
Dominique Perrault, Bibliothèque Nationale OMA, Seattle Public Library
h i g h w a y
d o w n t o w n
s o u t h s i d e
m i s s i o n
t e m p o r a r y _b e a c h _ p a v i l i o n
Porto de Viejo, Chile Cecilia Puga and Smiljan Radic Studio
P R O G R A M
Utilize a prototypical design methodology based on Chilean rural construction types for a dune adjacent to a seasonally occupied coastal area known at Puerto Viejo. Propose a wall construction system that can be synthesized into an entire beachside pavilion. The detail characterizes
an indefinite cultural edifice.
R E S E A R C H
Alvar Aalto�s Glass vasesCollage - Superstudio Drawings
Chilean Dune Topography Mapping
Inventory and Construction Sequence of Chilean building typologies, including:
Wood shingle roofingGalpon (vaulted wooden farmer�s shed)
Circo (circus made with fabric and wooden posts)
Aqueducto (wood and concrete space frame)
Silo (concrete tower with wooden formwork)
C I R C O _ S E Q U E N C E
00 Lay out materials01 Attach 4 roof fabrics together at
edges02 Tie metal ring to top loops on the
roof fabrics with a spiral of wire
03 Slide center pole through metal ring and tie end ropes to the center pole, 1
meter from its top04 Tie 3 guy ropes to top of center
pole05 Dig post hole for center pole06 Erect center pole, use 3 rope pegs
to anchor the 3 guy ropes in the ground07 Erect 32 outer perimeter poles at a
radius 15.25 meters from post hole08 Tie the 8 top loops on 4 outer wall fabric pieces to the tops of the 32 outer
perimeter poles09a Pull the roof fabric ends and attach the 32 rope loops to tops of the 32 outer perimeter poles. After each rope loop is attached, anchor each outer perimeter
pole into the ground.09b Back with a pole rope and rope
peg10 Erect 2 front stage poles11 Tie topes of center stage fabric to
the 2 center stage poles12 Erect 13 front stage pegs in a circle,
for front stage13 Tie 1 front stage fabric to the 13
front stage pegs
D E S I G N
The precedent exercises culminated in a tactile, flexible, and self-supporting wooden wall that is applied as an art and public services pavilion designed for a
selected, existing dune.
The wall system is based on the form of Alvar Aalto�s vases. The form is a complex interpolation of two separated bezier curves. Sawn pecan bark fragments are sewn together along 7 interpolated rings with twine. The effect is a wooden cloak, tactile and responsive. The dune�s one foot contours determine the outlines of the wall systems. Creative application of wall heights and locations determine the movement and
experience of visitors.
p e r f o r m a n c e _ l o d g eMichael Benedikt Studio
This small (12,000 cubic feet) vacation lodge is designed for seasonal use on lakefront property. A recessed v volume connects to living quarters and a
central bedroom with river views.
Two river-viewing portals intersect on a concrete sundeck. The skylight and view portal from the bedroom intersect with the concrete sundeck which creates an outdoor walkway between the dining room, bathroom and boat deck. The bedroom entrance, facing east, receives an additional throw of morning sunlight. The bathroom projects from the building for panoramic views. The concrete and glass materiality and spatial organization of the house makes a simultaneously confrontational and
introspective architecture.
m e m o r i a l _ s u n d i a lUT Campus
Richard Swallow Studio
D E S I G N
This vision for this memorial sundial is presented to declare architecture�s presence in the physical world, and pay tribute to a friend and teacher, the late and greatly
respected professor Francisco Arumi-Noe.
The site for this sundial is vitalized by unpredictability and change. Fountains spray at strange times, bells chime at odd hours, and the periodic rains paint walls with soft grey
stains.
Likewise, the sundial becomes a reflection of its environment more than a sculpture placed within it does. A sundial must partially dissolve into its environment, while
its components gleam in the changing light.
This sundial is a reflective and elegant metallic form: suspended, hovering, glowing, living through its shadow, while reflecting and completing its form on the mirror behind it. Noon rays will reflect around Inner Campus Drive, making the sundial an active beacon � a sweeping
spotlight.
C O N S T R U C T I O N
Two 1/4� thick manufactured triangular stainless steel panels are manufactured to a half-cylinder and welded to a mirrored wall mount, a vertical, rectangular plane. The two triangles are united at their fragile intersection with a 5/8� stainless steel sphere as the sundial�s gnomon. The mount and curved panels are mounted to the façade at
grout joints.
The usu, or shadow plane, is the façade itself, covered in the center by ½� rolled steel bars.
The equinox line is marked by a thin metallic bar as well, welded atop the other bars. These bars are welded to small, numerous, concealed supports in the façade�s
grout-work.
m o d u l a r _ p l a z a _ c a f eAustin, Texas
The structure slides apart to accommodate a coffee stand and a bench spanning the components, which also provides access to a small second floor lounge. The modular cafe is designed for the plaza at the University of Texas in Austin film school. Sequential site sections explored the spatial
transitions to create the cafe user�s narrative.
f r a c t a l _ g a r d e nf o r _ p e r f o r m e r s
The children�s play garden is designed using the Sierpinski Carpet fractal geometry (particularly the Menger Sponge) which is defined by a square with hierarchical
cavities.
The planimetrc grid is organized with the dimensions from the Fibonacci sequence
for spatial complexity and hierarchy.
1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89
The garden exhibits complete parity of mind. On one hand, it is a fractal net through which children run and play, turning corners and stepping on ancient stones. On the other, within the complex, are cubic stone chambers filled waist-high with water, illuminated from above by a thin translucent film of what could even, in
theatrical fashion, be blood.
p u b l i c _ s e r v i c e _ c e n t e r
A public service center accommodates multiple uses, such as religious group study, martial arts, art events, and social celebrations. The congregational spaces express constant internal connectivity to visitors. Quadripartite planning and use of centralized natural lighting systems create finite continuity. Three clerestories delicately express different spatial characteristics. Horizontal light channels are superimposed on the rooms and frame internal views of the courtyard trees while sharing external views of community context. The central louver bisects the room with diffuse light rather than a wall. If separation is needed, a white curtain may be used. A subtle light slot above the trabeated entrance alerts visitors to the delicacy of social
presence and the nature of shared space.
f r a c t a l _ p o o l sf o r _ h e a l e r s
The fractal pools are water-filled subterranean chambers within the Fractal Garden, which can
be reached by a monolithic stair.
The ceiling of each pool is an eardrum which resonates with the environment.
s u s t a i n a b l e _ g y m n a s i u m _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The sports and exercise center is an adaptive reuse proposal for a school district in the border town of Roma, Texas established in an existing, unoccupied classroom building. The project was featured in an international competition and presented to the school board. The proposal preserves most of the classroom walls and proposes that local materials be resourced into the building as trellises, rainwater collection and a plaza. The addition of a gymnasium on the second floor and addition of a changing room and accessory use building. The project underwent code analysis and targeted Gold LEED 1.0 through mixed use
programming, site selection and adaptively reused materials.
Roma, TexasRichard Swallow Competition Studio
Collaboration with Merrill Engvv
p y r a m i d _ h e a l i n g _ h o u s eThe pyramid house is a nine square plan like Palladio�s Villa Rotunda, but with walls falling inward to represent a disassembly of the typology.
b e a c h _ h o u s e
The beach house operates as a mirrored gateway which reflects the land as one
passes into the sea.
The common level steps up from the sand as a shaded linear patio and enters a kitchen.
The building is a twisted channel which reaches a second floor bedroom by an
interior stairwell.
A light tunnel directed at the sea bisects the horizon and clarifies the daily solar event.
c o u n s e l o r � s _ h o u s e
The Spiral House is a simple compound surrounded by a spiraling wall. The wall provides interesting architectural features which integrate with the structure of the house, creating interior and exterior continuity and a logically determined plant space, portal, gathering area and pool. The reductive program employs such elements. The experience is a Baroque, Greek and Japanese ideal of
diagonal approach of properly defined architectures.
One reference is the Brazilian courtyard with functional edges. Another reference is a story written about a spiraling tower in the fog, in which people and landscapes were discovered at the turning of each corner, finally arriving at a limitless and overwhelming experience. The doorway to the Spiral House uses two offset walls, an extension of the door logic of Mies van der Rohe�s Barcelona
Pavilion.
a n t h r o p o m o r p h i ch e a d _ h o u s e
This prototype in the innovative field of �anthropomorphic architectures� spatially correlates room functions to the integrated systems of the human head. For example, the mouth of the head house is a room designed for communication and eating. The head, sculpturally abstracted into architectural elements, such as ear gardens, eyebrow awnings and nose doors, results in an environmentally
responsive, monolithic dwelling.
R E F E R E N C E S
The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts by Philip
Steadman
HR Giger / De Es Schwertberger / Jean Michel Basquiat / Francis Bacon
t ex a s _ s o l a r _ g u est h o u s eSaint Hedwig, Texas
Both residence designs for a rural Polish family aim for self-sufficiency regarding water and
solar power collection.
The guesthouse is scheduled with economy in mind, a construction material cost ceiling of $20k, while using labor-intensive but low skill earth construction techniques. Passive solar is reinterpreted as northern light to accommodate the region�s limited diurnal shift and semi-arid
climate.
A systems analysis flowchart illustrates the integrated offgrid processes.
arcspace_temporary_o u t d o o r _ g a l l e r y _s pa c e _ c o m p e t i t i o nAustin, TexasCollaboration with Stephen Grant
C O N C E P T
A curved, static wall is bisected by a hinged joint. These two walls operate independently to enclose and expose local art and exhibitions. A dynamic, configurable structure provides a multitude of exhibition forms and display surface orientations. The goal of a flexible design for an exhibition pavilion is economy of material, portability, and reuse. The construction materials are lumber, fabric, fiberboard
panels and a steel frame.
POSITION 1: DEPLOYMENT (570 cubic ft)
Folded structure closes for security and transport. It may be used as a bollard
for nighttime visual displays.
POSITION 2: OPEN ARCSPACE (1570 cubic ft)
Inviting architectural presence, strong geometry and formal elegance. With built-in foldout panels for horizontal displays and an additional fabric shade above the inner ARCWALL. A structural shelf is designed but not necessary for the ARCSPACE, which, according to the pavilion�s orientation, becomes either a horizontal display surface or an indirect lighting shelf
above the ARCWALL.
POSITION 3: INVERSION
Opposing self-shaded galleries welcome visitors to a binary exhibition
or dual projection.
e n g i n e e r � ss o l a r _ z o e t r o p e
C O N C E P T
Within an occupiable cylindrical space, a sundial and camera obscura are independently innovated and then
hybridized.
S Y S T E M
The anti-sundial uses its dial as a light beam which enters through a slot in the wall and finally reaches the time-
marking lines on the opposing wall.
The camera obscura is adapted into a zoetrope (animation wheel) as a perimeter array. Its point-like holes project an inverted panoramic of the exterior environment around the interior wall. The architecture is a machine that reinterprets the
landscape.
E X P E R I E N C E
The solar zoetrope is a meditative space in which people can gather to open the feedback circuit of their unfolding life memory. The occupation of such a space conflicts with the
f i b o n a c c i _ h o u s e
D E S I G N
The Fibonacci sequence was applied iteratively to a binary series of spiraling boxes in XYZ
Euclidean space.
P U R P O S E
The project explores the volumetric determinants with a residential architectural program, including a kitchen, underground garden living
space, roofscape and floating bedroom.
The American Dream is a gelatinous projection of family life and the social mindscape. The scenography and narrative in contemporary renderings of the new American architecture suggest our intuitions and desires to explore and sell reality, comfort, complexity with a certain strangeness. Normative values are stated in each
pixel and byte.
sociological hunger for the virtual, electronic experience. This space may also expand the sense memory of our building-coded environments, with their coded restrictions of space, function and material construction. Our proverbially-lost desert oases are worlds unlike those of our typical
secular domains.
D E S I G N
The wall surface is high luminance, high reflectivity, and low specularity to express the projected imagery. The floor and ceiling are low luminance and low reflectivity to suppress and
elate the observer.
R E F E R E N C E S
Greek Orthodox church, Earth mounds, Sufi Muslim darvesh
Philosopher Mo Ti, Aristotle, Scientist Alazen, Leonardo DaVinci, Giovanni Battista delia Porta, Vermeer, Venitian
painter Cantaletto
Today there are approximately fifty public camera obscuras in the world,
five of which are in the United States.
edinburg_cisd_brewster_masterplanclassrooms_gymnasium_&_cafeteria
Negrete & Kolar ArchitectsEdinburg, Texas
BIM, Project Management, Graphics
The new school addition and masterplan for the ECISD Brewster Campus includes a high school cafeteria, gymnasium & classroom building of nearly 15,000 square feet. The design also includes a new athletics field and competition track around the relocated football field as well as a new concession building with plumbing, electrical
service and fixtures.
Full Architectural & Engineering services were provided including district wide school type programming, site selection evaluation assistance, comprehensive master planning, site planning, isolated bus and personal vehicular parking and roadway design, building design & separate gymnasium structure and structured personnel
and building shade canopies and shading devices.
f l o r e s _ c o u n t y _ p a r k _ a n d _ p o o lNegrete & Kolar Architects
Zapata, TexasConstruction Documents, Graphics + Animation
This public park project rehabilitates neglected land on the outskirts of the City of Zapata into a viable community asset with broad recreational options. Facilities include a swimming pool with adjacent wading pools, a renovated softball field, a new little league field, picnic areas and facilities, site walkways and a nature trail. The site masterplanning includes additional recreation facilities for future
phases.
s u p e r i o r _ o i l _ e x p r e s sNegrete & Kolar Architects
Sharyland, TexasBIM + Project Manager
This vehicle maintenance center focuses on an engaging customer environment through the use of tropical landscaping, an interior showroom, and dramatic wooden structural trusses
at the main lobby.
This Negrete & Kolar project is a pioneering use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) software for project design,
detailing and documentation.
m c a l l e n _ i n t e r m o d a lt r a n s i t _ t e r m i n a l
Negrete & Kolar ArchitectsMcAllen, Texas
Graphics + Animation
The McAllen Intermodal Transit Terminal (MITT) serves as a central arrival and departure terminal for local, interstate, and international bus services. The facility contains an ample 250-seat waiting area, toilet facilities, 14 bus line ticket counters, newsstand and general vending, public telephone banks, lease space for bus and packaging service offices, grantees satellite offices, lease spaces for a restaurant and specialty shop, a security oversight office, and facility management offices. The additions and renovations to this Intermodal Transportation facility are developed with 80% Federal funding and 20% local
contribution.
Services provided include project management, master planning, project design, site design, contract administration, and construction administration. Involvement also included participation in community outreach efforts and coordination between county grantee, Federal government and City
government.
p r i v a t e _ r e s i d e n c eNegrete & Kolar Architects
McAllen, TexasBIM + Project Manager
This family house is a modern and regional variation of the Tuscan architectural style. Its notable design features are the coffered wooden ceiling with natural daylighting in the living room, and the illuminated atrium tower that leads to the second floor bedroom. The building layout embraces an
east-facing pool, patio, and colonnade.
r e g i o n a l _ b o w l i n g _ c e n t e rNegrete & Kolar Architects
Edinburg, TexasBIM + Project Team
Research, design and conceptual presentation for a prospective client. The 13,000 square foot facility features a landscaped outdoor cafe plaza and 12 bowling lanes with service and administration rooms. The building
features a dramatic clerestory above the transitional access corridor.
p r i m a r y _ c a r e _ c l i n i cNegrete & Kolar Architects
Edinburg, TexasBIM + Project Manager
This 13,000 square foot project for the Texas Facilities Commission is a one story Primary Care and Substance Abuse Clinic Facility for outpatient treatment initially for Juveniles under the age of 16. The facility accommodates various medical exam rooms, group counseling rooms, offices, community education rooms and ancillary space for infrastructure and daily maintenance operations. The facility also provides ongoing and future primary care services and services for prevention and treatment of substance
abuse among adolescents and adults in the Hidalgo community as funded.
a i s d _ c r o c k e t t _ s c h o o l _ r e n o vat i o n sNegrete & Kolar Architects
Austin, TexasConstruction Administration Team
This 1624 square foot campus science wing addition for the Austin Independent School District is designed as a classroom-laboratory combination arranged, organized and equipped so that laboratory activities can be undertaken by students working in groups (2 to 4 students) as a routine daily practice. The space was designed to accommodate work in all science disciplines, with flexibility in furniture arrangement, abundant storage, sufficient working space for the safe conduct of activities, and
holding space for ongoing projects.
c z e c h _ h e r i ta g e _ c e n t e rNegrete & Kolar Archtitects
La Grange, TexasGraphics, Modeling + Animation
Photographs by Tomas Pantin
The Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center is a non-profit organization founded by descendents of Czech immigrants who settled in Texas during the second half of the 19th century. The organization�s primary goal is to celebrate and preserve the culture, history, and language that
these settlers established in their new home.
The TCHCC Library and Museum is the first major construction on a site in La Grange, a town geographically central to Czech settlements in rural east-central Texas. Earlier, the organization had erected an amphitheatre and moved several houses and small buildings onto the site to form a
Skansen representing Czech pioneer life.
The new 10,000 ft² building provides a spacious and permanent venue from which the organization will pursue its goals. The building consists of three gabled pavilions, interconnected by corridors and support facilities with low-slope roofs. The pavilions contain the building�s three major functions, the exhibit hall, the library, and a multipurpose hall. Also housed are a board room, a gift shop, offices, and a catering kitchen. Most prominent in the design is a double-height lobby, glazed on three sides, that glows like a lantern when lighted. Outside the main entrance, a 1,600 ft² deck expands activity space to the outdoors. The simple gabled roof forms pay homage to early examples of rural Czech settlements in Texas, recalling farmhouses, schoolhouses, and dance halls. While the building stands well on its own, it is envisioned as the first of a group of buildings surrounding a courtyard that will be built as the
organization�s mission expands.
p e d i a t r i c _ c l i n i cNegrete & Kolar Architects
Edinburg, TexasBIM + Project Manager
This adaptive reuse project is a children�s dental clinic in central Edinburg. Full architectural services were provided to infill an existing concrete masonry building shell with highly-customized interior design finish out. Research into the total design requirements for a functional and enjoyable facility, site limitations, heavy client and consultant coordination and a tight budget made this project an unique challenge. The design concept is a Y-shaped hallway with illuminated marquees that circulates visitors from a hemispherical lobby into private consultation offices and hygiene
stations with state-of-the-art entertainment consoles.
l r g v d c _ r e n o v a t i o n sNegrete & Kolar Architects
BIM + Project Manager
This project is a 6,470 square foot addition to the existing central operations and maintenance offices of the LRGVDC (Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council) Regional Metro Bus Service. This facility is comprised of open plan office space, a workshop and learning center, LRGVDC board meeting room, computer data rooms, and a new staff break room. Additional staff and bus parking and landscape have also
been included in this project.
c e s a _ j a r d i m _ i r e n e
Brasil ArquiteturaSanto Andre, Brasil
Modeling + Graphics
Irene is an elementary school on the outskirts of the city of Santo André, in a compressed and protected watershed area near the municipality of São Bernardo. Its tapered connection with
the town is through the roadway precisely in front of the land. The strategic choice of land foreshadows the importance of the deployment
of this equipment in the lives of local residents.
The Way of Vianas is, in this passage, an embankment cuts across the floodplain of a stream. The terrain is made up by the long strip of land flooded between the avenue and the stream, which has a slope of reserves remaining of the original vegetation of the place in his other side. This small hillside, miraculously preserved
in a region of occupation without any control or planning is like the tip of an iceberg, the apex of a large green area that continuously goes to the Pedroso Park, through successive plots that survived the relentless advance and chaotic city.
The Garden Irene settled in a watershed, formed by three springs that join to form the stream André Magini, within a Special Area of Environmental Interest. The project views a nearby lake, and gains benefits from the landscape that regulates the stream flow to avoid
repeated floods afflicting the local population due to a bottleneck caused by channeling them into a stretch downstream. This lake (clean water at the end of treatment and rehabilitation works of the springs), along with the green hillside that forms a small park, coupled with the deployment of CESA, the Garden Irene will bring his great
leisure center, your passport to citizenship.
The program also provides CESA a nursery and a community center. The set will have a 250-seat auditorium and two blocks, one indoor and one outdoor, in their own coverage. The architecture proposes a solid building, consisting of one side by the nursery, the lowest elevation of the ground and across the school, in the highest part, linked by the community center, the intermediate dimension. This building is poured continuously at the points where the terrain levels are the same avenue, creating gateways that as input to
the new urban park.
The combination of educational activities (school and kindergarten), sports (blocks), cultural (auditorium), social (employment center, workshops and community center), leisure (park) and health (clinic) form an important center reference, identity and coexistence for this piece of the vast and poor outskirts of the
megalopolis of São Paulo.�
u r b a n _ m a s t e r p l a nfavela_public_housing
Brasil ArquiteturaPerus, São Paulo, Brazil
Digital and Analog Modeling
S I T E / D E S I G N
The Perus Favela in Bamburral is a community built upon one of the largest landfills in Brazil. Like many other favelas, most of the residents are illegally squatting on the property, without economic means to relocate their families and community to an urbanized location. In some cases, the community remains and grows for a long period of time. The Brazilian government approaches the issue in various ways when needed, sometimes forcefully ejecting the community and clean-sweeping the land of its labyrinthine and semi-permanent residential structures. Brasil Arquitetura sought reurbanization solutions for the threat of eviction and serious environmental
pollution.
1. The favela�s polluted creek must be scraped clean, sufficiently widened and rebuilt with an elevated deck to accommodate existing traffic and local
development.
2. Design a robust pedestrian avenue to the north, to engage the hill and creek, offering residents various urban features such as terraces, community gardens, and
loosely defined spaces for group activities.
3. Phase the communal housing construction after the boardwalk. Brasil Arquitetura also introduced their previously-designed 2-story communal housing block
prototype.
u n i p a l m a r e s _ u n i v e r s i t y
Brasil ArquiteturaSão Paulo, Brazil
Graphics + Animation
This urban project is an expansion of the Unipalmares University campus, an eminent Afro-Brazilian institution known for excellence in athletics. A clear priority was to maintain the same atmosphere of the older classrooms and school. We developed a diverse masterplan
expanding upon these concerns.
The central administrative complex houses a library and numerous classrooms. The most accessible and prominent building on the site, it represents the new scale and effect of the campus in the urbanizing neighborhood. Positioned south of a river and highway, it is designed with welcoming presence, using with a concrete panel
facade adorned with monolithic cast-in-place rocks.
The western gymnasium repossesses an aging concrete building and exhibits its branching substructure under a glass skin.
A sports pavilion atop the gymnasium is contained within a metal canopy and netting.
The theater, conceptualized as a geode, contains a crystalline interior of complex concrete formwork dressed with a gradient of bright
paints and reflective panels.
i n v e n t o r � s _ c a f ea n d _ b o o k s t o r e
The cafe / bookstore is derived from a modular partition between interior and exterior which features a variety of partially-transparent glazing units. The interior architectural levels result from the major unit partitions, which accommodate seating areas while framing each level�s collective use. The cafe area facade is made with various arced louvers, while the bookstore area facade is composed of massive
concrete louvers in the form of standing and stacked books.
c h a m p i o n � s _ f o r t r e s s
The cruciform house is centered on an atrium and four balconies within monumental walls in a lush context. The fortified architecture expresses the
self-determination of its occupants.
l i g h t _ p a v i l i o n
This design integrates a winding ramp with a hillside pavilion. Thewinding ramp bisects the pavilion rooftop balcony andinteriorspace while providing dynamic natural lighting.
m o d u l o r _ b i o m e t r i c s
The knowledge of the human body�s divine proportions is critical for developing architecture. Artists through time understood this through their artistic representations, in the examples of Leonardo Da Vinci�s Renaissance Man and Le
Corbusier�s Modulor System.
First, measure your body. Enter the information into an adaptable chart to generate design criteria, including dimensions for furniture, rooms, structure and architecture. We standardize environments, interior designs, and landscape architectures, based on demographics and �prototypical� target users, many times mental projections of ourselves. We can never propose a one-size-fits-all solution and a fully customizable, flexible architecture is not yet practical with our design technology. The physicality of our environment and practices is also highly residual of lifestyles and expectations. Combining these challenges demands user biometrics to achieve uniquely proportioned, user-customized architectures. Lofty, proportioned spaces empower, protect and comfort people, as well as their tall doorways, tall chairs and large steps. Customization
provides the benefit of relative definition of space.
i n v e n t o r � s _ t e m p l eAn experiment in iterative design, transcribed from a dream, resulted in a monolithic light temple consisting of two stacked cubic volumes of a light-modulating matrix of unique 5 x 5 openings. The recorded dream pattern was explored in CAD for its system hierarchies and patterns nested within the grid.
The extrapolated patterns were modeled and scaled as a design concept.
a n t h r o p o m o r p h i c _ h a n d _ h o u s eArchitecture is the handwriting of the human race. - Victor Hugo
Is your home a hand? Many architectures can be associated with the shapes and uses of the human hand.
e n g i n e e r � s _ t e m p l e
The temple is experienced as a promenade through two illuminated hallways into an elevated chamber.
The first passage is subject to tall rectangular light tubes which diffuse light vertically onto a level path while in a subtle transition from the exterior environment.
The second passage is an ascension under a matrix of stacked, square louvers which simultaneously reflect and gather light, viewed from beneath as a segmented beam, or metaphorically, the transition of light to matter.
The final, white chamber is brilliantly lit by a grid of light through suspended square panels.
From the entrance, the journey is revealed as one of three similar and integrated constructions sharing light, though only one passage is experienced by humans. In its entirety, the temple folds space into itself as a Moebius Strip or Klein Bottle, and this concept might be explored in magnetic fields.