Smack My Glitch Up!

The first aspect of the competition brief this project challenges is the name: ‘Smart Dock’. A dock is a static, fixed entity for mooring or plugging into. It seems the program really calls for something which is dynamic, and connective; a space to foster and support collaboration, interdisciplinary thinking and making. It is important to note that it is a physical space for experimentation. Not really a ‘dock’ but a ‘nexus’.

Consequently, the form and location for the suggested program simply could not be sited statically within the bays as neatly suggested by the competition. In our solution the suggested location becomes a portal to a kind of collaborative throughput. A cubic centroid floating in the central bay is projected out (and beyond the envelope breaking the brief rules) as truncated pyramidal arms to capture light, contain program and actualize a physical and conceptual nexus. Form follows and promotes the flow of people and ideas.

Lastly, the idea of architectural form as a vehicle for visual fixity is clearly outmoded. Screens and moments for projection have long since been superseded by texture mapping and architectural scaled projection mapping. In this case the entire form is a vehicle for projection mapping. The idea is that the entire form can carry projected content when needed but when it is in a state of rest, or in a kind of ‘sleep mode’, algorithmic glitches of past content is projected. In this way the experience of the architectural object is indeterminate. It exists in constant flux like the inhabitants and their experimental productions.

Project Info:

  • Client: One Prize 2014
  • Date: August 2014
  • Location: Brooklyn, New York
  • Size: 4,000 sf
  • Status: Competition Finalists

Flatlot

The American Institute of Architects – Flint and Flint Public Art Project announced the first annual Flat Lot Competition, a program to design and build a temporary summer pavilion in the central parking lot in downtown Flint.
Formerly occupied by a series of office buildings and storefronts along Saginaw Street, the full–block surface parking lot known as the Flat Lot has become a staging ground for parades, flower–plantings, car shows, road races, and almost every sort of public event that draws large crowds. The Flat Lot Competition sought proposals to design and build an innovative temporary structure to provide shelter, shade, and seating for a wide range of public events, define space within the lot, and demonstrate the capacity of contemporary architectural form–making to transform space and captivate the public imagination – all while occupying no more than eight parking spaces during normal business hours.
The Flat Lot will be a new center and symbol for the city, an attraction for regional visitors, and a site that amplifies the many existing events that help define cultural life in Flint.

Project Info:

  • Client: AIA Flint design Competition
  • Date: February 2013
  • Location: Flint, Michigan
  • Size: 16,000 sf
  • Status: Unbuilt

W(h)IM

Wine is often described in terms of its characteristics. It can be described as baked, balanced, beery, big, brilliant, broad, clean, clear, cloudy, cloying, course, common, deep, dry, dull, elegant, fat, flabby, flowery and so on. Characteristics are described to evoke character and a deep wine collection is often a cast of characters. Wine invites comparisons to other flavors; berry, apple, butter, vanilla, chocolate, cherry, cranberry, raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, plum, etcetera. It cannot be contained within its own taste realm. Characteristics, taste analogies and other comparisons are constantly used to describe wines because the range is vast and complex. Wine storage systems often have ‘character’; Rich woods, sturdy configurations, classic detailing or clean industrial materials and elegant minimalist detailing. This is fine but one of our aesthetic goals was to eschew the idea of having ‘character’ and seek the idea of the design object being a character so we might be able to use words like fat, flowery, lively, luscious, rounded or vigorous to describe the design object as well as what it holds. This project wonders what would happen if wine storage might somehow begin to function as an indicator of what it holds; a pre-cursor to the experience of the wine and a visual guide to enrich that experience and enhance the selection process. We wanted the wine storage system to serve as a visual index; a three dimensional map that might indicate varietal, age, region, and bottle size at a glance.

Project Info:

  • Client:Vin De Garde
  • Date: February 2012
  • Location: n/a
  • Size: variable
  • Status: Competition Judging

Drylands Design

This competition entry, the result of collaboration with Herrera environmental consultants, explores the ramifications of water futures in the American west. We believed the only way to answer the competition brief challenge to 'uncouple water' capture, treatment, distribution, and use from energy-intensive delivery systems' was to address the problem at multiple scales simultaneously. Imbedded in the premise is ta desire to address one of the most pervasive and problematic conditions in the American west. Our proposal is to completely reimagine the ubiquitous sub-urban development and address issues of consumption; energy use, water use, water variability and scarcity, at the scale of a single family residence, and at the scale of developments they exist within. The idea is to design a model for growth to create wondrous living environments that go beyond mere sustainability. The project is a planning proposal, a landscape proposal, and an architecture proposal.

Project Info:

  • Client: Arid Land Institute
  • Date: April 2012
  • Location: Fresno, CA
  • Size: 200 acres
  • Status: exhibited at A+D museum los angeles

City Park




Project Info:

  • Client: SWA
  • Date: 2011
  • Location: Withheld
  • Size: 1,000,000 sqft
  • Status: Pending Final Judging

Vertical Garden

There was a sensibility explicit in the 2002 competition 'schindler's paradise: architectural resistance' sponsored by the MAK center that the mutation of the physical context of the house, especially as represented by the development to the south of the lot, constitutes a cultural abomination and perhaps a broken promise of a future which never came to pass. This sensibility was implicit in the vertical garden competition as well as an agenda of resistance and a program to reform or perhaps inform the context of the historic residence toward a version of the future more aligned with Schindler’s vision and ideals.

Project Info:

  • Client: MAK Center
  • Date: May 2006
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
  • Size: 200,000 sf
  • Status: unbuilt

San Jose Art Museum

The San Jose State University Museum of Art and Design, even in its most gestational stage as mission, objectives and requirements demanded a multiplicitous architectural agent. It demanded both an infrastructural operative and a symbolic icon. It demanded Architecture. A scrupulously rigorous pursuit of the essential goals the University intended to accomplish through the Museum resulted in the deployment of a set of architectural performers or operatives pre-selected to act in concert.

Project Info:

  • Client: SJSU
  • Date: November 2002
  • Location: San Jose, CA
  • Size: 35,000 sf
  • Status: awarded honorable mention