Sebastian Toro

Design Projects: Boston Childrens Hospital Birmingham Charter Middle School AIA Birmingham Wetumpka Museum Residence On A Slope N.Y.C. Facade

Fine Arts: Watercolor

Contents

Bostons Children Hospital

Nursing Zone HallwayFamily ZoneOutside

Zone

Loud Quite

SITE MASSING SOLAR CONECOURTYARD

SOUTHERN APERTURE

10 a.m.

4 p.m.

MASSING

Problem:A hospital is a place which challenges us and our loved ones to face our fragility and mortality.How can the architecture aid us in meeting this challenge?Concept:The Boston Children’s Hospital should unravel itself to the people it services as a journey ofmeditation by which they may achieve acceptance the situation and hope.Methodology:The building achieves serene spaces conducive to self-awareness by the means of light andsound. The careful transitions from public spaces projecting ambient sound, to a chamber whichreflects, reverberates and amplifies the personal sound; allow visitors to become detached fromtheir environment and reveals to them their impact within the space. Natural and artificial Lightare diffused and scattered throughout the building in order to soften and relax space.

Rural Studio

The Rural Studio team acknowledged the connec-tion between sustainable architecture and the life-style needed to embrace it. We worked to establish a framework masterplan for Morrisette home by which the school could grow sustainably and responsibly. Rigurous research led us to the design of an organic farm founded on the concept of telling the Rural Studio story to its visitiors. The idea became a narra-tion as told by water and its involvments in organic/inorganic processes. The water, which connects all of life together, would connect zones across the farm, leading visitors.

Birmingham Charter Middle School

The Birmginham Charter Middle School was located in the his-toric civil rights district in Birmingham. The site was across from the North Church, which saw the bombings of four little girls during the civil rights movements of the 60’s. The schools main focus is on innovative forms of learning, but strongly aludes to the historic context.

The AIA Chapter in Birmingham was looking to move offices and asked us to provide design input in how design might inform the location, as well as the aim of the new space. Birmingham is a city di-vided by it’s past. Downtown became cut in half by the railroad and established a rich business district along with an historic civil rights district in the north and left a poorer southern zone kept afloat by U.B.A. The concept of the AIA office building was to create harmony throughout the city, bringing together as many components of the city together as possible. The Office building was placed adjecent to railroad park, the first major attempt by the city to unite north and south. This is also the point where both U.A.B’s masterplan and the cities master plan overlap. The greenery from around the area is allowed to flow into the building further attempting to em-phazise the cities desire to reconnect itself by extending green spaces. AIA Birmingham Office

Green Walkways

Civic Institutions

Financial Institutions

Recreational/Food

Possible Sites

Areas of Leisure Time

Encapsulating Transit Routes

Parks/Heavy Greene

Key:

Wetumpka city approached Auburn University Students to pro-pose designs for a possible Museum at the crater site of one of North Americas biggest crater sites. The museum was a study of the juxtapositioning alien and earth features. The outside, a rectalinear volume housed an alien world inside. Organic form embedded within simple geomtry allowed the visitor to experience the colliding worlds spacially.

Wetumpka Meteorite Museum

This project was located in New York City adjacent to the highline. The study was focused on the interac-tion of the people inside of the building and the pass-erbyes of the highline. The facade became a series of hollow glass blocks stacked ontop of eachother. The blocks, considered to be pixels, were infused with electrochromic gas, which would become opaque when an electric current flowed through it, blocking views and light/heat transmission from southern expo-sure. Each block would be circuited to a mainframe computer, which would then allow residents to con-trol individual blocks giving them the freedom to con-trol the interior environment and serve as a means of comunication with pedestrieans on the hiligne

The home on a slope was a residence for a client of our choosing, located on a waterfront site with a steep slope. The design was driven by the idea of hiding the residence amongst the trees, so that it would disappear from the view of the public within the lake and ensure a green waterfront. This consideration led to the residence being perpen-dicularly situtated to the lake and longitudinaly organied by a wall, which connected the street to the waters edge. The program of the home was organized along this wall

N.Y.C Facade

Home on a Slope

Watercolors