Křižná Gymnasium Extension

Our proposal for the new Křižná Primary School gymnasium will supplement the growing needs of the school’s expanding student population, while simultaneously fulfilling the larger municipal requirement for a high-quality, accessible sports facility. Designed as an independent structure detached from the existing school, the new gymnasium will support maximum programmatic flexibility between the students during the day, and the regional community after school hours and on weekends.

The roof-height and geometric volume of the new gymnasium are key design features that quietly integrate the new building within the surrounding context while maintaining the maximum amount of natural light for adjacent buildings, particularly the canteen to the north. Connection between the school and the new gymnasium is made under a free-standing canopy that provides protective shade and shelter from the weather.

The athletic track will remain in its current location; however, the inner sports field will be transformed into a football (soccer) field, as the new gymnasium facility will house multiple basketball courts which were previously located in the inner field. Existing parking will be relocated to the north of the canteen to create a new generous pedestrian-only path from Křižná street to the new facility.

Volumetrically, the design references a vernacular shed, particularly through the use of planimetric triangulated roof modulations. To the west, the roof is elevated to match the height of the current gym. To the east, the roof dips downward delicately touching the ground, gesturing towards the existing athletic field, minimizing the presence of the new structure.

Structural Concept

The structure of the new gymnasium is a hybrid of reinforced concrete and mass timber. The foundation will be insulated reinforced concrete, while the perimeter concrete columns may be prefabricated off-site, or site-cast and thermally-broken. A triangular concrete beam spans the long direction of the gym, tying together the double-height angled concrete shear walls at the west and the conical concrete roof at the east. Pairs of concrete beams span in the north/south direction between columns and the roof peak. Timber Glulam beams run in the east/west direction, supporting the roof and bracing the concrete superstructure.

Mechanical & Energy Concept

The new addition is designed to be an all-electric building. Photovoltaic panels will be placed on the roofs of the existing gymnasium and canteen to provide the new facility with renewable self-sustaining clean energy. While 80% of Czechia’s total energy comes from fossil fuels, in the current global context, it is more important than ever to achieve energy security from renewable sources.

To minimize the use of artificial lighting and electricity, the façade and skylights will provide a maximum amount of natural daylight, particularly during school hours.

The HVAC design is based on a ground-source geothermal field that will be located under the existing athletic field. The geothermal system will feed a series of heat pumps located along the perimeter of the lower level of the new gymnasium. Fresh air will be provided by a mechanical ventilation system with energy recovery to enhance operational efficiency. Sliding façade windows will provide passive natural ventilation in Spring and Fall seasons. The building will be well-insulated with minimal thermal-bridging and high-performance insulated glass windows.

Warmth of the Wood Pile

Competition proposal for the Warming Huts on the Nestaweya River Trial in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

In the context of the global climate emergency, we choose to design a structure from cross-laminated-timber as a material with low embodied-carbon. Dissatisfied with the typical ‘post and slab’ applications of this burgeoning material, we attempt to develop a line of tectonic enquiry engendering novel formal and structural techniques to expand the use of a typically planer material to that of the spatial and volumetric. Large sheets of CLT are used to reflect light, offer protection from prevailing winds, and funnel the elements into a quiet space for contemplation. As snow builds-up within the tapered silo, a fire may be lit to melt the accumulation; simultaneously returning water to the river, and signaling occupancy and warmth to those outside the timber enclosure. Through simple geometric manipulations, we propose a new syntax for the future of mass timber construction.

New Jinju National Museum

The New Jinju National Museum is an institution that will operate at multiple scales, both as a highly accessible local resource for the community of Jinju, and functioning as a national caliber museum of history, culture, and war diplomacy history of East Asia. The new cultural institution will convey the gravity of the historic events that took place in the Gyeongnam Region and also celebrate the achievement and preservation of peace. A place for collectivity and communication, the New Jinju National Museum will provide an important link between representing the past and defining the future.

Design Concept:
One of the central concepts of the design proposal is the relationship to the historic Jinjuseong Fortress; formally, materially, and typologically. Our three-part building can be understood as an aggregation of Korean defensive Barbicans. The Barbican is a fortified gateway wall that extends out from the primary defensive wall of a fortification, forming a secondary barrier to protect the entrance to the city and to surround those who approach the entrance. The Barbican is a particularly useful precedent as it is at once a protective structure, and a means of access to the most sensitive and important artifacts of the city. We have reinterpreted the barbicans as a series of three open and porous courtyard buildings in which the community and the environment can freely integrate.

Organization
The scheme is designed in 3 programmatic volumes:
1) The Plaza / Permanent Collection
2) Children’s Museum
3) Special Exhibition Hall / Administrative Suite

There are two entrances to the museum: the primary entry from the pedestrian culture street and the eastern entry adjacent to the Citizen’s Forest Plaza. The plan is laid out on an 8-meter grid, whereby circulation and gallery space are considered a single element through which one experiences the museum collection and navigates the building.  The large grid allows for maximum flexibility to reconfigure exhibitions and stage events. Drawing inspiration from the existing Jinju Museum, we use naturally skylit spaces throughout many of the corridors and the large permanent gallery. The primary sunken plaza functions as a grand entry to the museum as well as a publicly accessible forum for meeting and exchange. Centered on one of the most significant cultural artifacts, the three-story stone pagoda, the plaza is simultaneously a space for contemplation, socializing, education, and celebration. The plaza is a reconfigurable multipurpose space offering views to the massive hanging painting of Buddha and opening-up to the generously glazed museum restaurant/café. Both the Children’s Museum and the Special Exhibition Hall are connected to the primary Permanent Collection building through two aluminum-clad bridge-portals that float above the sloping ground below, which has been lowered to allow for crossing the site without entering the building.

Swoo-Guen Kim, architect of the current Jinju National Museum, asserts that traditional Korean architecture is an assemblage of several buildings, not a single object. As a mat-building, our proposal oscillates between three separate entities and a single unified structure. As well, we give equal emphasis to the consideration of volumetric solid and void, using sculptural characteristics without defining a sculptural architectural object. Using a layered approach to spatial sequence, our proposal for the New Jinju National Museum establishes a strong connection from the pedestrian culture street to the Citizen’s Forest Plaza through the sunken cultural forum, bringing together the built, natural, historic, and urban environments.

Residence and Library for a Photographer

The Waynoka Residence and Library is a multi-phased project located in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. The project consists of a renovation and addition to an existing single-story dwelling, as well as the design of a secondary detached volume at the rear of the deep residential lot. The new structure provides a library and meeting room for a photographer/gallerist and contains additional space for an aging parent to live alongside their family. A large glass window-wall opens the library to the sunken exterior garden, while other apertures on the volume are sparse and selective. Daylight fills the space from skylights above, maintaining a sense of privacy and warming the modest structure’s wood-lined walls.

Incorporating the resident’s vocation into their new home, a photography development lab is placed within the new garage to the east of the library. Bookending the previously vacant side of the lot, the two new volumes establish a loose courtyard condition between new and existing structures.

The two new brick volumes – the entry tower and the library – are detailed with stepped shingled-brick on their inward-facing façades to echo the existing dwelling’s horizontal shiplap siding, thus creating a unified expression enveloping the backyard. The new structures adapt to the quiet residential lot by creating a visual dialogue between the new and old.

Siargao Community Center

The new Burgos LOKAL Tabo is a self-sustaining communal amenity that will provide educational, cultural, economic, agricultural, and emergency support to Burgos and the greater Siargao Island in the Philippines. This proposal imagines a new resilient architecture of regenerative infrastructure to mitigate climate vulnerability and enhance community autonomy.

At the most fundamental level, the design is bulwark against the frequent tropical storms and typhoons that regularly visit the island. Oriented to diffuse prevailing winds, the single-story building is low to the ground and therefore less susceptible to extreme weather events. Unifying the walls and roof into a singular element produces a uniquely sculpted building-form that distills typical Philippine vernacular construction in to two essential functions: wind protection and rainwater collection.

The scheme is composed of four basic elements: the Tabo, the Wind Wall, the tower, and the plinth. The LOKAL Tabo is a community center with a market, Karinderya, dining area, multipurpose space/library, WC, an attic stocked with emergency supplies, and a small studio for an artist-in-residence. An oversized sliding entry door welcomes people in from the street, while a large awning door allows the interior life of the Tabo to spill out on to the plinth, overlooking the re-established farm fields and coconut orchard previously lost to super Typhoon Rai. In the event of an emergency, the building can sleep at least fifty people comfortably. The Wind Wall and the tower are multipurpose infrastructural elements that provide shade, deflect wind, contain public WCs, and most importantly, produce clean sustainable energy from a vertical wind turbine atop the tower. During a weather event with excessive wind speeds, a metal screen can be raised to protect the wind turbine. The plinth is a semi-enclosed multi-functional public space that supports large scale community programs. On a typical day it may be filled with café tables and chairs. At other times it can be used as a staging area for harvesting crops, a place of public assembly, an open-air community market, and at night the back side of Wind Wall can be used as a projection screen for movies.

Using simple building forms specifically designed to support fundamental principles of resiliency, passive systems, and regeneration, we propose a new type of civic structure to elevate the collective spirit and help the community build back stronger.

Studio for Two Writers

The Studio for Two Writers is an adaptive-reuse project that transforms a derelict single car garage into a tranquil space for contemplation and creative writing within the urban context of Toronto. Conceived during the height of the global pandemic, the clients desired a space that would allow them to disconnect from the chaos of online school and working from home. Given the proximity to neighboring houses in the dense residential context, the studio is purposefully inward-looking while simultaneously draws-in light from three different orientations. A large round obscure glass window faces the rear lot line while maintaining privacy. A rectangular window provides a view back to the house but can be screened with a sliding shutter made from corrugated-perforated steel. A round skylight allows indirect light to flood down onto a desk and bookshelves.

As the demand for construction materials increased and supply chains were disrupted, cedar lumber became nearly impossible to procure, except for smaller lengths intended for trim and balustrades. The availability of 3’-0” lengths of 1.5” wood battens became the dimensional constraint which guided the proportion and detailing of the façade cladding. The interior of the studio is finished with Douglas fir plywood and oak flooring. Extending the language of corrugated texture from the studio into the landscape, the ground outside the studio is a carpet of overlapping roman bricks which approximate the dimension of the sawtooth cedar battens.

The studio and site are imagined as textured surfaces incised from a continuous corrugated field.

Franklin Street Garage

The Franklin Street Garage is an artist studio located in Piermont, New York. The freestanding structure is nestled within a wooded grove located at the bottom of a sloping site overlooking the Hudson River. To manage the steep terrain, two concrete retaining walls are positioned within the landscape to create a level plinth on which the studio rests. A space for art production and display, the interior walls are washed with light from full-height windows which extend the interior volume outwards into the landscape. Supplementary artificial lights trace the bottom of the crossed structural beams within the ceiling. The garage opens on to a private driveway with two full-height sliding door-walls providing 14’-0” high clear access for vehicles and loading. To amplify the light within the studio, the interior side of the sliding door-walls are clad with galvanized steel, which also extends the perceptual space of the interior. At the exterior corners, the roof projects beyond the interior volume creating a semi-enclosed exterior space at the perimeter. The gravel terrace frames the studio within the sloping topography, creating a series of outdoor rooms with spaces for gathering. Vertically oriented cedar cladding and board-formed concrete walls relate the structure to the surrounding context of old-growth trees. The shallow pitched roof is articulated with fin gutters to direct rainwater down the exterior face of the concrete walls which will become patinated over time.

Lighthouse Art Forum

Our proposal for the restoration of the Murro di Porco lighthouse will transform the site into an international arts venue and artist-in-residency program.

No new buildings will be constructed on the natural reserve. The lighthouse and historic buildings will be preserved, restored, and updated with modern amenities for living and working. The small stone ‘L’-shaped building, a short distance to the southwest of the lighthouse, will be transformed into the Artists-in-Residence living quarters. The small rectangular building directly south of the lighthouse will become the studio space for the artists. The lighthouse itself will maintain its function by the Italian Navy. The larger building adjacent to the base of the lighthouse will be activated by a three-part program: gallery exhibition space, art library / bookstore, and café/bar.

The primary new construction on the site will be the Plinth; a floating concrete forum for programmatic and artistic invention. A counterpoint to the extreme jagged terrain and the ornate architectural monuments in Syracuse and the surrounding province, the Plinth is a subtle and continuous space that oscillates between landscape, site, sculpture, and architecture. While purposefully indeterminate in program and type, the Plinth is a highly specific figure, deeply tied to the Capo Murro di Porco. The footprint of the structure represents the maximum allowable prescribed building area and is centered on the lighthouse.

The geometry of the Plinth is the material trace of an immaterial function; a physical imprint of the revolving light.

The Sky is a Blue Dot on the Shore

Our proposal is a sculptural space designed to amplify, reflect, and radiate atmospheric effects, while simultaneously providing a quiet moment of contemplation within the urban context.

The dish-shaped pavilion is formally derived from a truncated sphere, oriented to collect and magnify the light of the sun. Acting as both a heat reflector and a wind screen, the simple radial geometry creates its own micro-climate distinct from the shore of Lake Ontario. The square void in the dish has a volumetrically reciprocal relationship to the lifeguard stand; an imprint of the adjacent figure. Both the lifeguard stand and the void in The Sky is a Blue Dot on the Shore offer infinite fields of view; one perpetually outward towards the horizon, and the other perpetually inward towards the viewer.

Lake Shore Pedestrian Bridge

Competition proposal for a new pedestrian crossing over Lake Shore Drive that connects Grant Park Buckingham Fountain to Lake Michigan. The intent of this project is to honor the existing historic fountain without mimickery of style, but rather enhance its identity through the design of a contemporary counterpoint.

Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain is the center piece of Grant Park and is located precisely on the east/west axis of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Chicago Plan. The classical Beaux Art design is based on the ‘Bassin de Latome’ at the Palace of Versailles in France. The site prescribes a high degree of consideration for the addition of an infrastructural appendage due to its planimetric biaxial symmetry. The crossing of Lake Shore Drive, congruent with the path of the sun, presents an opportunity for the reification and extension of one of the primary axis bisecting the fountain; in Le Nôtre’s terms, a French Royal Axis. Thus, if the English tradition of landscape is defined by its occasion to portray an undisturbed naturalism, and the French tradition is identified by its willful imposition of geometry onto nature, it is our intention to create an English incision into French fabric. Le Nôtre’s work is characterized by its ability to create a tension between baroque dynamics and neoclassical formalisms. Similarly, this project abides by planimetric static formalisms while engaging an experiential baroque dynamic.

The constraints of a navigable sloped surface define the lateral extension of the path perpendicular to the direction of crossing. This extension allows for direct views of the fountain and lakefront to be maintained across Lake Shore Drive – a retroactive attempt to circumvent the rupture created by the highway. This project, through various means of connectivity, seeks reconciliation with the Canal Commission’s proclamation to keep access between the city and the lakeshore ‘forever open, clear and free.’