“We must always design in such a way that both components and totality are always open to be appropriated and so incite activity. And if that holds true anywhere, it is in schools. If architecture holds serious significance anywhere by providing the conditions that invite a richer world experience, it is here where the riches of the learning environment are so dependent on the space they occupy."
- Herman Hertzberger
Methods and strategies applied to contemporary school design are in a state of crisis. When a school's success is determined by quantitative test scores rather than psychological health and behavior of the students, qualitative considerations, such as design and layout, are non-factors. A wealth of scientific data suggests a correlation between a child's cognitive development, physiological health and his or her physical environment. Why then does the elementary school type resemble the autocratic building type more common to buildings designed for mass incarceration?
My thesis project is a sincere attempt to reevaluate and redefine our institutionalized perceptions of educational spaces in the US. The project explores a holistic, sensory, and integrated educational environment that draws connections, functionally and perceptually, to the immediate urban context, natural phenomena, and learning curriculum. The pre-thesis research consisted of a critical analysis of institutional building typology - beginning from a time when school and church were linked, to present-day institutional layouts - drawing correlations between structures designed for surveillance and confinement to our widely accepted modern-day school design. Emphasis on the legacy of design movements that focused on school reform
Based on the premise that learning is dynamic and non-linear and that every child learns at their own pace, this project seeks dismantle rigid distinctions between grades, subject matter, and age, rather taking a holistic approach to early education in which grades intermingle for different subject matter and subjects range from hands-on creative workshops, to activity-based / and role play style - asking the child to take part in to expand the educational experience from K to 12th grade to encompass the breadth of sensory encounter and connection to the natural world. Spaces that are sensitive to early cognitive development and perceptual intelligence. Research incorporates theories of gestalt, neuropsychology, and behavioral sciences to devise environments that cater to all the senses and challenge institutionalized patterns of behavior that are symptomatic of an ocularcentric paradigm.
Masters Thesis
Advisor: Ingeborg M. Rocker, PhD
What would a brick structure look like if you take away the bricks and leave only the mortar? This was the question that inspired my teammates and I to embark on a collaboration to undo the solid and leave a void. Instead of gravity loaded systems evolved from brick layering practice this project is a self-supporting structure based on a diagrid of light moment connections.
The erosion of the primitive triangle units from their corners allows each unit to maintain a co-planar connection with the next. The armature, closely approximating the structure of bubbles, connecting the centroids of each triangle lines the tangents to each side allowing for the manipulation of the form while ensuring that every connection is coplanar. Eroded modules were CNC fabricated and assembled with a simple tooth joinery. Because of the puzzle-like nature of the system, assembly of one corner was completed in a matter of hours.
Student Group Project
Team: Hiroshi Jacobs, Jonathan Scelsa, Teresa McWalters, Vara Shur
Over 9 million people, a little over 60% of the population of Mumbai, live in informal housing, yet they cover only 6–8% of the city's land area. This statistic is even more astounding when considered in the context of the low-rise, high-density housing typology of these informal settlements.
This project began with a comparative analysis of Indian housing types according to the different types of networks they represent. This analysis surmised that the distributed network (verses a centralized one) - a network built on shared resources and dependencies - is the ideal framework for a living environment.
Informal settlements operate like amoebas: formless organizations that appear to operate as cohesive masses yet are comprised of locally specific functions. They absorb, re-appropriate and adapt to their available resources and immediate environment.
Part architecture, part infrastructure, and part community activism, the project seeks to provide structure to the amoeba. It proposes a kit of parts of basic amenities (sanitation control, water capture + filtration, and transportation conduits) to the slums. The project provides structural retrofitting and the injection of new construction methods without undoing the live/work proximity that creates the social capital of low rise high density living environments.
Student Project
Critic: Rahul Mehrotra
FPM GAP Academy is a master plan design with an energy network for an academy outside of Port-au-Prince. This design will serve as a model of offset power production independent from a central utility.
The site is a 50 hectare rural site with a 90m elevation change rising from the bay. An energy network of solar and wind harvesting, water retention (latent energy), and biofuel orchards and ponds are distributed to their appropriate orientations and elevations.
My role on the project of five was to reconcile the topographic disparity with the programmatic and circulation needs of the project. Learning from the terraced rice paddy typology of southern China, the campus is sub-divided into ascending self-contained plateaus for academics, farms, low-cost student & faculty housing, and public markets and clinics. Primary and secondary circulation spines mark retaining walls and irrigation and mechanical conduits.
PROJECT TEAM
Principles: Mariana Ibanez and Simon Kim, AIA
Design Team: Ben Brady, Qiyao Li, Cara Liberatore, Teresa McWalters, Hanna Tulis, Shulei Weng, Michael Wetmore, Valmik Vyas, Ying Xu
