Nittany Lights | Fall 2018
Walks of Light |
Held bi-annually, Nittany Lights is an opportunity for lighting design professionals and students to collaborate on a landscape lighting scheme somewhere on the Pennsylvania State University’s main campus. This year, I worked with two students and four professionals to light the Hintz Alumni Garden. Our team of seven took inspiration from an ensemble of statues resembling the Olympic Rings. The concept of people of all different “colors” coming together drove the scheme, “Walks of Light.” Each part of the garden was lit in different colors to resemble personality types - a calm pavilion, a wise full-grown tree - that coalesce onto a white pavilion. The pavilion, surrounded by benches, was envisioned as the safe haven in which an entire community could come together and share their stories. The white of the pavilion is thus the result of the mixing of all colors and of the peace that the future strives to achieve. Hence, “Walks of Light ” tells the story of how people from different walks of life can bring about the peace that we all seek.
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Architectural Design VI | Fall 2017
Wire|Framed |
As a multi-functional space located on the Via delle Botteghe Oscure in Rome, the Crypta Balbi 2 (CB2) serves locals and foreigners alike as a place in which Ancient and Contemporary Roman history come together as one. The spirit of the place (i.e. genius loci) underlies the design decisions made in WIRE|FRAMED. In order to persuade potential visitors to explore the site, on which supposedly stood the Temple of the Nymphs, the design of CB2 is “exposed” via glass walls. Through the glazing a visitor on street level can admire the two remaining columns of the temple, the works of literary art in the library and the works of visual art in the galleries. Albeit the main stairs continuously encircle the building, it is a wire-framed “skin” that serves as the primary visual connection between floors and as a sun-shading device. It is by taking advantage of visual connections and circulation that the proposed design for CB2 brings together the past [history of Ancient Rome], the present [contemporary artworks] and the future [of the multi-functional space].
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The Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC) | Spring 2017
Faith Proclaimed Through Light |
On 12 April 2017, the Grace Lutheran Church held the event, “Faith Proclaimed through Sound” to commemorate 500 Years of Reformation, Renewal and Reconciliation [of Lutheranism]. To accompany the selection of Lutheran psalms, three Bachelor of Architecture students in collaboration with the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing selected images of church interiors to fully immerse the congregants in the commemoration. As the implicit team leader and the explicit problem solver, I led my team members through the selection process of images and of the appropriate projection space to produce an enlightening experience. Each projected image - selected with special consideration to each psalm - took congregants from their seats in State College, Pennsylvania to over a dozen European locations. It is the combination of heightened senses that made the experience of perceiving 500 Years of Reformation, Renewal and Reconciliation possible to achieve.
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Architectural Design IV | Spring 2017
Finding One's Routes |
Philadelphia is historically known as the 18th-century home of the “Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness.” In the 21st century, the pursuit is of an Alexander Calder Museum located along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The inspiration for “Finding One’s Routes” is the centuries-old streets that are - or were - either parallel or intersect on the site. Their intersection marks the node of the art museum, which serves as a lobby encircled by a Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum-inspired ramp. It is the node that acts as the physical point off of which all gallery wings can be found. In addition to the wings containing Calder’s works of art, a series of six monumental sculptures physically cap off the glazed vestibules that lead visitors into the lobby. No matter where one is located on the site, the essence of Alexander Calder’s works permeates it all.
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Architectural Materials & Building Technologies II | Spring 2016
Project 1 |
According to architectural historian Alberto Perez-Gomez, the architect brings order to The Gap: a place of chaos. "Stepping Stones" bridges the 12’-0" gap as a single architectural element and supports Professor Marcus Shaffer: a 220-pound dynamic load. Graded on ambition, structural capacity, craft, and sophistication, its concrete and steel construction defies onlookers by appearing weightless regardless of being structural sound.
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Architectural Design II | Spring 2016
Project 3:
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The redevelopment of Chelsea (Manhattan), which was initiated by the completion of the High Line, is to be further continued with a new spa facility. Looking to Mikveh Rajel as a precedent, the program of "enlightened" focuses on the transition from impurity to purity via purification. To literally connect these three disconnected programs, a "rhizome" of grand staircases lead spa-goers from the ground floor to the sixth. To give further guidance, lightwells draw spa-goers to higher levels; hence, the search for enlightenment "in light tins".
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Architectural Materials & Building Technologies I | Fall 2015
Project 2 |
By using any material and assembly methods, the intent of the project is to design a structure capable of supporting weights: sixty pounds vertically and thirty pounds horizontally. The two designs featured in the slideshow successfully withheld the weights and won one of the three Best Design awards.
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Project 3 |
Demonstrating the ability to complete an accurate technical drawing; to apply what was taught throughout the semester via lectures and reading assignments; and to examine the influence of materials and construction technologies on shaping architectural space, the section, plan and elevation are of a signature area of the Project 2 design, completed concurrently in Architectural Design I. To further understand its design, technical drawings for the building envelope, interior and exterior finishes; assemblies, building systems and materials; and significant architectural elements that shape the interior space are included.
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Architectural Design I | Fall 2015
Project 2: |
The Nature Inn at Bald Eagle is in need of a storage facility for Bald Eagle Lake kayaking equipment. Its design deals with the relation of nature and a building and how to design a space to celebrate both. Taking into consideration the design, the experience, the sense of place, and the journey, the cultural origins of Bald Eagle Lake serve as inspiration for the thesis of achieving harmony between man and nature. Defining "bloodstream" as the circulation between the two gives rise to the design of a pair of boathouses connected by trails. The first is a literal interpretation of the thesis: stereotomic architecture that is physically "one" with nature. The second is figurative: a tectonic metaphor that achieves harmony by respecting the land. The equal but opposite interpretations of being "one" aims to maximize the human footprint and to minimize that of the building.
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Visual Communications II | Spring 2015
In the unpublished textbook, Drawing & Analyzing Architecture, James Cooper writes about the “principles and conventions in the universal language of architectural drawing and representation, applicable to both digital/computer and traditional media.” Under his supervision as an Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania State University, the aforementioned principles and conventions are put into practice in Visual Communications II . Many of the exercises take inspiration from well-known Ancient and Renaissance architectural precedents.
Basic Design Studio I | Fall 2014
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