Portfolio

Matt Gilbert

Performing Arts Plaza

Champaign Community Center

Transition from Utopia

Drawings and Sketches

1

11

19

27

33

Suburban Integration

Re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building

39

ARCH 374: Architectural Design and the City

Winner, Edward C. Earl Prize, May 2010Prof. Matthew Niermann

Performing Arts Plaza1

Lake Shore Drive

Michigan Avenue

Museum of Contemporary Art

Northwestern University Law and Medical School

John Hancock Building

Lake Michigan

The Water Tower

Water Tower Place

Project: Performing Arts Center at Lakeshore Park2

Location: 800 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago

Placing a performing arts center on the site of Lakeshore Park has many implications. The site is a space for recreation for the neighborhood and lies on an axis connecting homes to the north with workplaces to the south. It also lies on a cultural axis connecting Michigan Avenue, the Water Tower, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Lake Michigan. The site is the place where local users and visitors converge. Placing a performing arts center on this site opens up new possibilities for interaction with the performing arts taking place acting as a common thread linking diverse groups of people.

The building is a part of the landscape, not merely an object within it. The center of the building is pushed down into the ground to preserve the neighborhood’s sense of openness. A series of steps, terraces and green roofs turn most of the building’s surface into useful space.

It is essential that the arts be visible and accessible to draw people in. The building is perforated to allow views between performance and rehearsal spaces and the outside. Offering glimpses of interior activity engages the passerby and creates a sense of curiosity and anticipation for performances.

3

View from Lake Shore Drive

4

North Facade

Main Level Plan

5

View of central plaza

6

South Facade

Lower Level Plan

7

8

East-West Section

9

Concert Hall Section Model

10

ARCH 475: Architectural Design and Development

Prof. Art Kaha

11

Winner, Edward C. Earl Prize, December 2010

Champaign Community Center

12

First Floor Plan

A community center needs to be well integrated into its context yet stand out enough to be a focal point in the neighborhood. It must feel accessible and have an element of transparency.

Sited one block south of West Side Park, the building responds to it through a plaza at the corner of State and Clark. This plaza works as an extension of the park and as an extension of the building, allowing events in the multipurpose hall and cafe to spill outdoors.

The building is divided into three volumes based on function and divided by axes of circulation.The smaller volumes to the south and east surround the central multi-purpose hall, disguising its size and maintaining a scale that relates to the surrounding buildings.

The facade louver systems provide shading from direct sunlight while acting as a skin over the building that filters between the activities taking place inside and the life of the street outside.

Project: Community Center for Downtown Champaign

Location: 210 West Clark Street, Champaign, Illinois 13

Second Floor Plan

State Street

University Avenue

Randolph Street

Clark Street

14

South Elevation

North Elevation

East-West Section

15

East Elevation

West Elevation

North-South Section

16

17

24

ARCH 373: Architectural Design and the Landscape

Fall 2009Prof. Stewart Hicks

Partner project with Liz Kivel

19Transition from Utopia

20

This project studies past visions of utopian cities of the future, in this case, New Babylon by Constant Nieuwenhuys. My partner and I were assigned to diagram New Babylon compared to a current built city and later designing a space or structure that could transition between them.

We compared New Babylon with Chicago, noting the similarities and differences between New Babylon’s modular, above-ground development and Chicago’s ground-level spreading across the landscape.

Part One: Diagramming Cities

21

22

Changing horizon lines alter perceptions of city versus ground.

Folding floor planes blur the distinction between the forms of the two cities.

Creases in the floor become new pathways between levels.

Part Two: Space of Transition

Our transition mechanism explores the relationship between New Babylon and the ground, something Constant dealt with infrequently in his numerous drawings. We worked primarily from the perspective of a resident of New Babylon traveling to the remnants of a ground-level city for the first time. The twisting and faceted forms of the tunnel blurs the distinction between the forms of New Babylon and the forms of the existing ground-level building with which it merges. Our design challenges the user’s perceptions of what is ground and what is not, what is New Babylon and what is not.

23

Narrowing tunnel limits field of view.

Changing horizon lines alter perceptions of city versus ground.

Turns prohibit knowledge of the path.

More regular stairs create a consistent pace.

Creases in the floor become new pathways between levels.

24 Part Two: Space of Transition

25

26

ARCH 373: Architectural Design and the Landscape

Fall 2009Prof. Stewart Hicks

Partner project with Liz Kivel

27Suburban Integration

28

Fourth floor plan

Lobby level (second floor) plan

29

Suburban development is characterized by a separation of uses. The geographical separation of related functions reinforces the necessity of the automobile and limits personal interaction. We chose to examine the suburban hotel or motel, a building type ususally cut off from its local context. Merging outlying programs with a hotel creates a newtypology in the suburban environment, allowing the usually solitary hotel to become an active part of the community. Incorporating spaces that are shared by neighborhood residents and guests opens up new possibilities for interaction between visitors and locals, and among the neighborhood residents themselves.

The site chosen in downtown Urbana, Illinois requires the reurbanization of a once dense area invaded by a suburban typology - an enclosed shopping mall. Replacing a block of its vast parking lot with a mixed-use structure restores the density the area once had and re-energizes the declining Lincoln Square Mall. The indiviual hotel rooms are positioned to overlook the shared spaces within the building, which act as a transition between the room and the neighborhood beyond. The setbacks of the balconies afford privacy to each room while allowing its occupant to glimpse the activities taking place in the space below.

Suburban decentralization Merging programs New interactions

30

31

32

ARCH 374: Architectural Design and the City

Spring 2010Prof. Matthew Niermann

33

Re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building

34

This project called for the creation of a mixed-use apartment and retail building that could replace Champaign’s historic Metropolitan Building, destroyed in a fire during its conversion to such a mixed-use building. Our studio worked with the developer who owns the site to solve his unique problem of creating a twenty-first century landmark while honoring the nineteenth century one it replaces. At the intersection of three major streets, the prominent site has historically been focal point of downtown Champaign.

Project: Mixed-use Urban Development (re-envisioning the Metropolitan Building)

The plan of the building takes into account its location at the southern point of a future park. Pulling the facades back from the street leaves room for a large plaza that becomes an extension of the park, as well as a space for the audiences of performances in the building’s multi-purpose space. The angle of the north wall of the building roughly follows the angle at which Main Street reaches the intersection, transition-ing between the urban walls of Main Street and Church Street.

35Location: 221 N. Neil St. Champaign, IL

Neil Street

Church Street

Neil Street

Main StreetMain Street

Church Street

Park Avenue

Wal

nut S

tree

t

Wal

nut S

tree

t

Second Floor Plan

3 - Three Bedroom Apartment2 - Two Bedroom Apartment1 - One Bedroom Apartment

36

Third Floor Plan

37

38

Drawings and Sketches39

40

Temple Hoyne Buell Hall addition designInk, graphite, and collage elements on vellum

ARCH 271, Fall 2008 - Prof. Allison Warren

Frederick C. Robie House - Frank Lloyd WrightInk, Prismacolor marker, and colored pencil on vellum

41

42

Precedent Study: Stuttgart Airport, von Gerkan Marg und PartnerElevation: Ink on vellum

Sketches, graphite on sketch paper

ARCH 272, Spring 2009 - Prof. Lawrence Hamlin

43

Precedent Study: Stuttgart Airport, von Gerkan Marg und PartnerSection: Ink on vellum

Adams Street, Chicago, colored pencil on sketch paper