Ecology / Monumentality / Aggregation
First Year Graduate Studio
City College of New York, Spitzer School of Architecture
Spring 2020
Studio Brief: The experience of the city is heterogeneous, layered, and disparate. One day, perhaps in the late afternoon, the play of light and shadow might captures an essential quality of the city. On another, it is invisible lines traced by daily transactions and exchanges. And on yet another, it is the sheer range and intensity of human activity.
(Problem 1 Work by Victor Gorlach)
Designers perceive the city in richly varied ways. Be it a visible phenomenon or an invisible system, no lens is too big or
too small to capture a critical perspective. As designers, it is crucial to navigate these various frameworks, as well as their
relationships and intersections, as they help us conceptualize architecture in an urban context. Conversely, architecture is a tool through which we can more deeply understand the city.
(Problem 1 Work by Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty)
This semester, we will investigate architecture in an urban context, undertaking three projects that explore the city through different lenses.
(Problem 1 Work by Coleman Downing)
Problem 1 - Public Toilets: Engaging the Subnatural: When we invoke “nature” relative to architecture, we usually refer to those aspects of nature that are desirable: sun, clouds, trees wind. These conditions seem to exist in a pre-human condition that would continue to exist should all humanity and its constructs dematerialize. However the most natural parts of the city are in fact phenomena that only come into existence through contact with people and the built environment: mud, dankness, smoke, dust, exhaust, gas, debris, weeds, insects, pigeons, crowds. While architecture often is created specifically to distance us from these primitive, filthy, fearsome, and uncontrollable “subnatures,” the inescapable reality of these conditions beg the question of whether and how we might invite a harmonious and productive relationship with them.
(Problem 2 Work by Victor Gorlach)
In this project, we specifically mine the subnatural phenomena of “dankness” and “crowds” as defined by David
Gissen to design a public toilet structure contained within a park, at the edge of Manhattan’s urban grid. New York’s
severe lack of public toilet amenities has generated a condition where the bodies of public citizens are capitalized--where
public citizens seeking to address their most basic and involuntary human needs live at the mercy of private entities,
be they shops, hotels, or restaurants. In designing a public toilet, we seek to understand the 2-directional relationship
between structure and context-- “architecture and the environment and produced simultaneously.” The “subnatures” of
the likely dank site and biologically-motivated user group create the potentially productive conditions out of which your
interventions will emerge, and out of which they will enter into dialogue with the idealized nature of Riverside Park.
(Problem 2 Work by Catherine M. Brizo Saravia)
Problem 2 - Infrastructure as Monument and Space: The city exists in a state of constant flux. Over days, months, years or decades, invariably buildings will rise and fall, uses of spaces will change, small transformations will accumulate to entirely new experiences of the city. Bearing witness to the changes are the urban artifacts whose overall contours remain constant throughout the years - the shell of a building, a sculpture, a bridge, etc. Aldo Rossi wrote of monuments, “A monument’s persistence or permanence is a result of its capacity to constitute the city, its history and art, its being and memory.” In Rossi’s view, a monument can be anything from a functioning building to an unused vestige of the past, but with the common characteristic that something of its form survives the passage of time.
(Problem 2 Work by GwonSeob Cha)
Keeping in mind both ideas of permanence and temporality, you will be asked to imbue a piece of utilitarian urban
infrastructure with monumental and public qualities. As you design, a few things to consider: What qualities make
something monumental? Which aspects of a building can or should outlive our own time? What can or should a
monument commemorate to future generations? What qualities and activities constitute a good public space?
Your structure will be an object sitting in a park. For half the year, the interior main space will be filled with salt and
inaccessible to the public, much like the cella of a Greek temple. This means the perimeter of the volume must be
carefully considered to activate the public realm. For the other half of the year the space will be free of salt, open and
inhabited by the public. As your building will be a long span structure, you will be asked to explore its articulation through stereotomic (i.e. solid) vs filigree (i.e. framed) construction.
(Problem 3 Work by Anna Roymisher)
Problem 3 - Adaptive Reuse & Urban Autophagy: A city is the accretion of millions of separate ideal urban visions, amassed over centuries. This evolution, a constant procedure of cutting, hybridizing, and rebuilding, defines great metropolises; continuously reusing and reformatting generations of buildings in combinations befitting the current place in time. It is what gives cities their morphological distinctions and historical evolutionary legibility. Our responsibility as architects is not only to continue the formal, spatial, and structural development of the discipline, but also to cultivate this process of urban autophagy, fusing old with the new, pushing an agenda that progresses the built environment not as a series of technology or style-driven schisms, but as a continuum.
(Problem 3 Work by Catherine M. Brizo Saravia)
To proliferate this process, we must confront two questions: first, how do we continue to adapt and reuse buildings
and urban structures while maintaining their vitality? All constructions have inherent value beyond their historical
significance, simply in that they exist, and were an expenditure of finite resources. New York City alone produces over 3
million tons of construction waste annually, only 35% of which is returned to the production stream. Second, how can we
design new buildings and urban structures that simplify this regenerative process? What if we considered buildings not as bespoke objects with 50-year lifespans, but as pieces of infrastructure designed to last 500 years?
(Problem 3 Work by Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty)
With this in mind, we will insert a programmatically complex athletic club into a relatively stagnant block of commercial
real-estate in midtown, imbuing beautiful but outdated structures with new uses and architectures.
(Problem 3 Work by Kyle Crozier)
Topography / Topology
Second Year Undergraduate Studio
New York Institute of Technology
Spring 2020
Studio Brief: This studio explores the concepts of topology and continuous surfaces through the design of a musem for Central Park.
(Student work by Saad Khan)
(Student work by Omer Khan)
(Student work by Joseph Okyere)
Assemblies
Third Year Undergraduate Studio
City College of New York, Spitzer School of Architecture
Spring 2020
Studio Brief (by Christian Volkmann): In this coming semester we will not design an entire building. We will reverse the method of developing the whole before addressing its parts: This time, we will start with investigating the parts (maybe to develop the whole).
(Problem 1 Work by Ahmed Helal)
We will design interrelated architectural episodes, which investigate the ways we materialize significant assemblies within a building. These episodes are associated with the “domestic”, with how we live + work and how particular spaces and material assemblies respond to requirements of comfort/function and specific tasks. Developing these requirements must consider the method of designing simultaneously in different scales. Assumptions and interpretations of these requirements, and of how “technology” and “technique” are used to serve the design intent, must be approached in a creative and innovative way. The outcome should relate to tangible solutions of material understanding enhancing the intended architectural experience.
(Problem 1 Work by Violet Nash Greenberg)
For this particular reason we will work in architectural scales that are larger, therefore able to be more detailed and thus capable of expressing materiality and assembly strategies. A specific site will be given to you. This lot might be considered “unbuildable”. However, its provoking fragmentation (due to an embedded outcropping embedded within the northern part of the site) reflects the spirit of the overall approach. You are responsible to discover and negotiate how this lot can be occupied and how to set up a system that can contain your architectural episodes.
(Problem 1 Work by Christopher Moreno)
Problem 1 - Stair (by Christian Volkmann): Inserting a multi-story stair into that framework has consequences. Any conceptual idea and resulting intervention have to consider the structure that supports it and the space(s) it will create. Especially the limited width has significance for the overall organizational structure and spatial experience. The location and composition of the stair is thus a crucial decision for a succesful parti.
(Problem 2 Work by Violet Nash Greenberg)
We will also work on full-scale investigations of materials and techniques necessary to achieve an effect and architectural experience.It is important to be aware of what architectural scales are suitable to do certain investigations and how to combine them in processing your design (“zoom-in” + “zoom-out”). Instinctively, we comprehend with the ‘human scale’, considering our own body’s relationship to its surrounding. We will therefore always insert scale figures (or parts) into drawings to maintain control.
(Problem 2 Work by Ahmed Helal)
Problem 2 - Kitchen (by Christian Volkmann):A kitchen is considered the heart of a building. This is expressed both by the build-up of actions and interactions in this room (- kitchens are known as busy environments -), but also by the extraordinary materials used: The room is often built of extensive amounts of cabinetry, concealing behind it lots of diverse items and functions. Countertops are heavy-duty, due to the extraordinary usage. All functions are organized in an efficient way related to the manifold processes required.
(Problem 2 Work by Angie Montenegro)
The particular materialization sometimes makes this room read like a “house-in-a-house”. The versatility of a modern kitchen creates other technical requirements: It services heat (cooking: cooktop + oven), cold (preserving: refrigerator/freezer), water (cleaning/supply/waste: sink), general power for all appliances and appropriate (task lighting. All of these should be placed in a way that they support and assist efficient cooking conditions.
(Problem 3 Work by Moonjung Jang)
Problem 3 - Bathroom (by Christian Volkmann):A bathroom is a modern amenity for apartment design. You can relax and “rejuvenate” after hard work. Leaving the public zones of the house, you might like to find a space where you can be calm, alone, and wind down for all different kind of reasons. Water plays a significant role. The immediate access to water wasn’t obvious cleansing standard about 100 years ago, when buildings very seldom had the commodity of pressurized pipework to transport water and wastewater.
(Problem 3 Work by Violet Angie Montenegro)
Sometimes these circulation systems are ‘surface-mounted’, but most often they are concealed and have a mysterious aspect when experiencing i.e. water just coming out of what was considered a wall. Now the wall is hollow and equipped with various resources. (Circulation comes to you, instead of you circulating to the required fountain, as it once was.) Your bathroom must be organized efficiently and it has to fit into various contexts (structure, circulation, plumbing, electrical/light), related to your stair and kitchen projects.
(Problem 3 Work by Violet Nash Greenberg)
Urban Autophagy
Advanced Studio
City College of New York, Spitzer School of Architecture
Summer 2019
Studio Brief: Manhattan has grown tectonically complacent. While colossal, bottom-line driven developments continue to evolve around the fringes of the island, its core remains a stagnant mass of commercial masonry. Staggering real estate costs make its habitation nearly impossible to most, and give building owners little incentive to change. If New York City is to remain the world cultural leader it claims to be, as countless other urban areas grow increasingly enticing to innovators, it must become more inclusive to all of its inhabitants, both current and future. Midtown needs a spatial and programmatic revolution.
Urban Autophagy is an investigation into new and novel forms of mixed use communities in dense urban areas. As work and consumer cultures continue to evolve, generic office and retail spaces will achieve obsolescence, and the current physical manifestation of Manhattan will grow increasingly difficult to reconcile with its most pressing needs.
This studio presents the challenge of embedding radical new typologies into existing historic commercial buildings
in Midtown Manhattan. This semester, we will develop proposals for a research institute in the Garment District. The specific area of research will be at the discretion of the student, as this will bring specificity to each programmatic organization. These institutes will include public and private laboratories, lecture halls, offices, areas of public interaction, a vibrant ground plane, and dense housing. Students will be require to demolish, maintain, and reconstruct portions of the building, so their final projects will be formally, spatially, and programmatically complex.
(Work by Belma Fishta & Josmarlyn Henriquez)
Task 1, Interpretive Mapping: Students conduct extensive precedent studies of a monastery of their choosing, from either the eastern or western tradition, with the implicit goal of identifying a key spatial quality and ritualistic value central to the site. These studies will inform their work for the rest of the semester, so depth of investigation is paramount.
(
Work by Belma Fishta & Josmarlyn Henriquez, Anisha Ashraf & Jessica Garduno, and Conor Inclendon & Ju Hyun Hwoang)
Task 2, Interpretive Modeling: The act of integrating new, vibrant architectures into an existing system is one of inserting one living organism into another. To gain inspiration, we will assess the life cycles of obligate parasites, namely those with insect hosts.
(Work by Andrew Cardona & Isabel Flores)
Task 3, Research Institute: This semester, we will develop proposals for a research institute in the Garment District. The specific area of research will be at the discretion of the student, as this will bring specificity to each programmatic organization. These institutes will include public and private laboratories, lecture halls, offices, areas of public interaction, a vibrant ground plane, and dense housing. Students will be require to demolish, maintain, and reconstruct portions of the building, so their final projects will be formally, spatially, and programmatically complex.
(Work by Andrew Cardona & Isabel Flores)
(Work by Belma Fishta & Josmarlyn Henriquez)
(Work by Belma Fishta & Josmarlyn Henriquez)
(Work by Belma Fishta & Josmarlyn Henriquez)
The Shape of Water
Third Year Undergraduate Studio
City College of New York, Spitzer School of Architecture
Spring 2019
Studio Brief (text by Fabian Llonch, CCNY):This semester’s exercise is to design an Aquatic Center in Coney Island Brooklyn, NY. Students will explore this particular program, from concepts to construction details, and at a varies scales, with special focus on the surrounding environment and its particularities and the charged history of the place.
Students will learn how to integrate multiple systems in an architectural project, studying how these systems must be integrated in an overall concept, and how they can be represented and communicated by separating different bodies of information and addressing different scales. The emphasis of the design process is on the comprehensive negotiation between the conceptual and the material worlds.
The semester will elaborate on the integration of material systems and the consideration of construction methods within the design process. The most crucial element of investigation is the interrelationship of program, structure/tectonics, environmental stewardship, and the material formations that shape a building’s experiential space and surfaces. Life safety, egress and ADA requirements will be addressed within the conceptual framework.
Architectural Design is a complex matter, in which multiple factors and considerations have to be unified to make an artifact. Many of a building’s inherent qualities are based on the knowledge and masterful application of the “endoscopic” composition of its elements and layers. The understanding of how a building is put together is thus a
mandatory skill to have in order to create architecture.
(Work by Christina Chun, Francisco Cifuentes, Kimberlo Cueto, Isable, Flores, Johnoy Gordon, Jeffrey Gyemibi, Kami Loli, Joseph Maricevic, Mohommad Mostafa, Alicia Niebrzydowski, Francis Reynon, Brendan Smith, and Vicky Yuen)
Task 1, Interpretive Mapping (my text): Using data gathered from the site, along with multiple processes of transformation, students are to create highly abstracted, expressive mappings of the site. These mappings are an expression of their own inherent design interests and desires, and will be used to uncover information not yet known about the site.
This exercise is highly iterative. Students will make dozens of mappings before they select 3 to progress to the next phase. Further, each mapping must have a narrative of some sort (meaning decisions cannot be completely arbitrary). It is alright if the narrative is not clear when mapping begins, but it must be solidified at some point.
(Work by Kami Loli, Isabele Flores & Johnoy Gordon, Jeffrey Gyemibi & Mohommad Mostafa, and Francisco Cifuentes & Francis Reynon)
Task 2, Interpretive Modeling (my text): Students then translate your mappings into physical form. Students will test the possibilities of each of their final mappings, and choose the one with the greatest possibilities. You may combine elements from multiple mappings / models. The map is to be treated as a starting point, allowing the model to generate richer and more diverse relationships that both test initial theories and generate new questions. This model is not a precious object. It must cut, hybridized, and rebuilt as the ideas develop. As they work, students must pay attention to site cues such as scale and proportion. Like the mapping exercise, this should be highly iterative.
(Work by Kami Loli, Francisco Cifuentes & Francis Reynon, Joseph Maricevic & Brendan Smith, and Jeffrey Gyemibi & Mohommad Mostafa)
(Work by Francisco Cifuentes & Francis Reynon)
Task 3, Aquatic Center: Students will explore, from concepts to construction details, and at a varies scales, this particular program in a Coney Island site, with special focus on the surrounding environment and its particularities and the charged history of the place.
(Work by Francisco Cifuentes & Francis Reynon)
(Work by Isabele Flores & Johnoy Gordon)
(Work by Isabele Flores & Johnoy Gordon)