2015

Degree Project / Senior Project / and Graduate Thesis

Woodbury School of Architecture 2015 Faculty Bachelor of Architecture Woodbury School of Architecture Los Angeles Ewan Branda, Coordinator Berenika Boberska Degree Project, Senior Project Frank Clementi and Graduate Thesis 201 Peter Culley Matthew Daines April Greiman Scrap Marshall Norman Millar Micah Rutenberg Architecture Marc J. Neveu, Chair 5 Dean Maxi Spina Los Angeles Mark Stankard Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter Mark Stanley Associate Dean BArch faculty Berenika Boberska / Scrap Marshall 7 Master of Architecture Marc J. Neveu Ewan Branda / Maxi Spina 21 Architecture Chair, Los Angeles Anthony Fontenot, Coordinator Frank Clementi / Matthew Daines 41 Peter Culley Micah Rutenberg / Peter Culley 55 Christoph Korner Mark Ericson Mark Stankard / Mark Stanley 71 Interior Architecture Chair, Los Angeles Joshua Stein MArch faculty Peter Culley 86 Catherine Herbst Master of Science in Architecture Mark Ericson 92 Architecture Chair, San Diego Hadley Arnold Anthony Fontenot 98 Peter Arnold Joshua Stein 104

Bachelor of Fine Arts, MSArch faculty Hadley Arnold / Peter Arnold 111 Interior Architecture Annie Chu, Coordinator Heather Peterson Interior Architecture Christoph Korner, Chair 116 Faculty Bachelor of Architecture Los Angeles San Diego Marcel Sanchez-Prieto, Coordinator Philipp Bosshart Eric Johnson BFA Interior Architecture Annie Chu 118 faculty Heather Peterson Master of Architecture Hector Perez, Coordinator Stan Bertheaud Philipp Bosshart Architecture Catherine Herbst, Chair 136 Eric Johnson San Diego Marcel Sanchez-Prieto

Master of Science in Architecture BArch faculty Philipp Bosshart / Eric Johnson / 138 Real Estate Development Marcel Sanchez-Prieto Ted Smith, Coordinator Mike Burnett MArch faculty Stan Bertheaud / Philipp Bosshart / 166 Brett Farrow Eric Johnson / Hector Perez / Tyler Hanson Marcel Sanchez-Prieto Lloyd Russell David Saborio MSArch RED faculty Mike Burnett / Brett Farrow / 170 Jonathan Segal Tyler Hanson / Lloyd Russell / Corrigendum David Saborio / Jonathan Segal / Ted Smith The following students graduating with a Master of Science in Architecture were instructed by the following faculty:

Student Gregory Andrade: Instructors Anthony Fontenot and Mark Stanley Student Cyrus Dorbayan: Instructors Bill Roschen and Christi van Cleve Woodbury School of Architecture Burbank California

Woodbury School of Architecture San Diego California Los Angeles 5

Marc J. Neveu Architecture Chair

- open / closed ? so a wise professor told me upon graduation. One door closes and another opens” “ It made sense. I was leaving the warm confines of an un - dergraduate academic womb and entering into a new life of professional practice. It was, I was told, going to be a shock. Design would be replaced by redlines; theory with practice; thought with action. Sure, I could make a bit of but at what cost? money, It is at once door at 11 rue Larray. Then, I found Duchamp’s both open and closed. And, sometimes, neither. you this other door as a model of the situation I offer now face. Perhaps it may allow you to reconsider your de - gree project and your approach to professional practice. may very soon come to realize that the questions sur You rounding your project do not simply end upon graduation, rounding your project do not simply end upon graduation, nor does your professional life need to necessarily disregard your academic interests. I raise this as a possibility but not mandate. How will you your frame the door between academia and practice? It’s and your hinge. Is it open, or closed? door,

Los Angeles 7 Berenika Boberska and Scrap Marshall, Instructors

Constructive Mythologies

Students Daniela Angelo Collectively, as a studio, we will argue that vision- ary architecture and the Mythological City is indeed Adrinee Bodakian constructible, and unlike the utopias of the past, can become material, tactile and experiential through Marilyn Chavarria carefully orchestrated collisions with the everyday

fabric of Los Angeles. Amanda Clay

Gregory Dulgeryan Every city has its Constructive Myth– something which explains how it has come to be in both its Elizabeth Fernandez physical and its perceived form. In some cities, this Myth is more obvious spatially; in others, it exists Chadi Hakim only as a fiction. For Los Angeles, this could be the Endless City, the City of Sprawl, the American Dream, Jose Iglesias Arcadia, or the City of Cinematic Fictions. But per- haps these Myths have run their course... Joseph Miller What would happen if a foreign Myth, in all its inten- George Rivera sity, collided with Los Angeles? This necessarily would Kelly Ta result in deformations and transformations on both sides. The grafting of the “other” into the context of Vedi Vartani Los Angeles would also provide a kind of de-familiar- ization of what we think of as ordinary or banal– and begin a blossoming of sites into their unexpected po- tential– in both poetic and pragmatic (useful) terms. The key aspect will be the examination of distinct local situations and archetypal L.A. forms which are often overlooked, local economies and cultures in need of reinvention. We will explore the spatial and programmatic opportunities in the frictions and alli- ances between the “mythic” and the local.

LA 9 Potential Difference : Porcelain Landscapes : Photovoltaic Flooding of Los Angeles The Blossoming of LA’s Hidden Water Infrastructure

Los Angeles dwells in the space between an The water infrastructure of Los Angeles remains imaginary attic and fictitious cellar; a place that hidden to the general public. In effect, we have is dreamed to be hopeful and bright. However, little knowledge of where the water comes from, the city is deprived of the experiential aspect how it is treated, how it gets to our faucets, and of the dark basement and the mysterious attic. where it goes after our use. The project proposes By conceptually flooding a neighborhood in Los not only to uncover water infrastructure in or- Angeles with a photovoltaic plane, a common der to make it visible, but also to orchestrate its ceiling in-between houses is created, allowing spatial, experiential and functional blossoming into for a dual atmospheric experience to exist above a series of ceramic vessels and landscapes in an and below the plane. The plane is then explored attempt to inspire better stewardship of water. The through shared structures capturing a spatial stair- Daniela Angelo case– a vessel connecting the cellar to the attic. Adrinee project merges the very industrial functions of a An archipelago of structures begins to traverse the Bodakian water treatment plant with a more poetic reading polarized spaces alongside the existing ordinary and potential public uses including a playground, structures poking up above the datum. The idea an amphitheater, as well as the everyday functions of property lines is washed away beneath the that utilize water, such as a laundromat. Inspired datum plane as towers that serve as generators, by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, where pipe work staircases, lanterns and batteries cross boundaries, blossoms into vessels that hold water, this project interfering with traditional ways of inhabiting a is a spatial transformation of water infrastructure neighborhood, generating new social interactions. into a white porcelain landscape. LA Immured Projections: 11 Folkloric Farmscapes : The Potential of Walled Cities Re-drawing the American Landscape as an Urban Strategy for Future Los Angeles

It has been several years since I’ve seen my family, immure absorbed as I’ve been, enthralled by city life and 1 (archaic or literary) to enclose within or as if within walls; my circle of friends. I can recall, as a young girl, imprison 2 to shut (oneself) away from society living my whole life in the countryside, where my parents and grandparents grew up nurturing the projection fields. As I arrived at the far-reaching fields of the 1 a jutting out; a part that juts out 2 land I left behind, I noticed its appearance was an estimate of future possibilities based on a current trend different. An intervention had taken place. It was Today’s gated communities of today continue unfamiliar. I suddenly discovered a walkway as to offer protection and separation between the I stepped onto the freshly ploughed ground and people who choose to live in them, and those who Marilyn fields of fruit. Gliding through this endless path- Amanda Clay live outside of them. Strict regulations preserve Chavarria way, a beautiful tune reached my ear. As I contin- the specific atmosphere and spatial structure of ued, the melody of the music reached closer and each community. The project seeks to amplify the closer. As I progressed, the pathway transformed historical trajectory of gated communities of Los its long extended arm into a cavernous perfor- Angeles in order to uncover their hidden poten- mance space in the middle of the field, lines of tial– and perhaps desirability– in spatial, architec- thread spinning above my head… tural, and social terms. The extreme thickening of the wall and other operations would lead to the emergence of an archipelago of Walled Cities. The So begins an exploration into the future of Califor- over-regulated walled cities would act as nodes nia’s Folkloric Farmscapes. within the autonomous regions beyond, providing centers of regulation, industry, and retail. LA 13 Public Industries - Hidden pockets American Gothic - Inverting the “American Dream”

Along with Los Angeles’s commercial and transit American Gothic explores the future potential development, boulevards have manifested hidden of public space and social integration in the pockets of underutilized space within the burgeon- Watts district of Los Angeles, and questions the ing city. This project focuses on the “in between” usual language deployed by architects to tackle spaces of the major commercial boulevards of these issues. The semi-suburban houses of Watts the San Fernando Valley: the transitional spaces exemplify the stubborn, if fading, notion of the of narrow alleys and parking lots between the American dream. Pleasant and rational, the single commercial businesses and the residential homes. family houses, with picket fences protecting the This backstage world would hold a new type of front and back yards from the ever-encroaching spatial form and use; a collective cottage industry. city, speak of a detached private domain. This industry brings residents from nearby housing units, with their unique mix of hobbies, direct- Gregory Elizabeth American Gothic uses the idea of the Gothic as a Dulgeryan ly from their private living rooms into a shared Fernandez structure of collective productivity. Their specific symbol of revolt against society’s rationalization placements are dependent of the unprompted and demarcation of private and public space. The proximity formed between the existing and the fantastical and the everyday meet in the Gothic new. The project then grows from these sponta- wooden towers and pits in a series of new public neous relationships to intensify an atmosphere of stitches that cross the L.A. River. By taking frag- hidden density. The architecture explores occupan- mented, clandestine social activities and incorpo- cy through fields of suspended mechanical fabric rating them into the everyday yet soaring forms spaces, to accommodate the evolving configura- of the collective Gothic, we can begin to question tions of the program. the way public space is designed and used. LA 15 The Emotive House Mechanics of Nature

The development and ubiquity of Tract housing The project explores the endgame of nature in America has allowed houses to be built quickly and parks within cities, as begun in the mani- and cheaply. However, in creating endless en- cured and controlled urban parks of today and claves of identical houses, these dwellings have as seen in history, specifically in the artifice of become constrictive and unresponsive to both the Baroque gardens and in Romanticist ideas of pervasive demands of contemporary life and the forces of the external environment. This thesis the picturesque. contemplates an alternative form of housing that takes emotion, responsiveness, personality and The proposal is for a highly augmented park– character as its key drivers. Thanks to the integra- fake nature which becomes a decoy masking tion of pneumatic systems and alternative con- an electric steam power plant. The labyrinthine Chadi Hakim struction details, the emotive house can peel its Jose Iglesias cliff employs folds of geotextile fabrics, har- walls, reveal hidden spaces, converse and flirt with vesting the steam of the power plant to create the neighbor’s house and, in the extreme, protect a soggy landscape, traversed by pathways and the neighborhood from the unpredictability of its nestled hybrid follies. surrounding environment. Here, a new suburban sphere is formed through the transgression and distortion of property lines, where the house, its inhabitants and environment become critical and dynamic catalysts for the radical rethinking of domestic space. LA 17 The Lost Season Burbank Hydrohoods

In contemporary architectural discourse, natural The Jeffersonian Grid has relentlessly controlled atmospheric conditions are often looked upon as the American landscape for over 200 years, a hindrance to the construction of a stable and asserting a false equality over the land and its controlled interior environment. ‘The Lost Season,’ people. This project questions and erodes the Joseph Miller however, looks to use local climate conditions grid through the exploration of the San Fernando acting on a site to generate an architecture that Valley’s ancient landscapes, revealing its active but embraces and amplifies these conditions, through hidden hydrological functions. Here, an alternative an orchestration of spaces as well as purpose- urbanity is created: spaces which anticipate flood ful mis-specification of materials and mis-use of events and the cyclical nature of the seasons; an building tactics. The project looks to the presence emergent new folklore and the everyday functions of these atmospheric conditions as key drivers in of a neighborhood: all highlight the increasingly the design of alternative and heightened interior George Rivera climate. The ambition here is to generate an interi- important relationship of water, landscape and or landscape of seasons that are rarely experienced culture in American life. The project achieves this in typical Southern California weather. Spaces through the spatial and architectural interpreta- orchestrating specific atmospheres are accurately tion of a series of reservoirs, stepped excavations, positioned, allowing for “seasonal” changes to oc- cistern spaces, sinks and nestled programs that cur within the liminal corridors between the larger support the needs of a local neighborhood. Inhab- volumes. In these threshold corridors, Los Angele- iting these new “Hydrohoods” is a series of urban nos can experience weather such as precipitation, monsters or social utilities that hybridize the mor- humidity, and post-precipitation dew. phology and demands of major rain events with the poetics and potentiality of the everyday. LA 19 Burbank Atlas of Repository Landscapes The Abbey of Los Angeles

The construction of this Atlas begins with the Phenomenologically, humans do not dwell on the myth of the film industry leaving Los Angeles present moment– we anticipate the future or remi- resulting in a loss of jobs, a downturn in econ- nisce about past. In our destination-driven society, omy, and an overflow of movie sets spilling out the focus has been obtaining future goals in a way of abandoned production studios. After rounds that often detracts from the joy of the journey. The of city-wide delegations, these fictitious environ- ments are relocated to Burbank: the heart of the Abbey of Los Angeles, through its various produc- world’s cinematic production and a city where so tive actions and spaces, aims to unsettle pragmatic much is filmed but so little of the city is actually work habits, transforming work into a contemplative seen. In efforts to revitalize activity throughout act and turning everyday ordinary occurrences into local businesses, the sets are refitted, reoriented, extraordinary phenomena. Kelly Ta and repurposed to undertake new roles within the Vedi Vartani urban environment. The unusual juxtaposition of The architecture of this Monastery explores the mundane reality and constructed fantasy results possibilities of deconstructing habitual actions and in catalysts for programmatic changes to the city’s thoughts through the orchestration of a series of extant conditions accommodating co-existing, surreal places and sublime atmospheres. The visitor collaborative programs. The densification of cin- ematic remnants throughout the urban landscape should be able to learn and unlearn constantly, there- results in a redefinition of Burbank as neither city fore the project will become a school of thought, a nor film set, but, instead, a synergetic hybrid of place of contemplation, the temple of “Now,” focus- pragmatic nostalgia. ing on the ephemeral nature of the moment. Los Angeles 21 Ewan Branda and Maxi Spina, Instructors

Multiples: The Archipelago and the Franchise

Students Gevork Aelian Robert Mehring Architects today are often asked to choose between formalism and social engagement. In this studio, we Denisse Alejandre Timothy Nelson examined the possibility that architectural form has Lauren Amador Tomás Ortiz social and political agency. We situated our exploration of form within a particular subset of formalism: the Michael Anderson Harold Ramirez multiple and the problem of variation within a type. Vincent Ang Adrianna Saavedra We looked at the human-machine interface and the problem of generic storage, in the belief that contem- Viviana Colin-Torres Yervand Sarkisyan porary “interactive architecture,” rather than being lo- Adrienne Fortin Samvel Simonyan cated in boutique installations, is actually found—and is much more ubiquitous—within the large storage and Melvy Gonzalez Sal Vargas data centers of today’s corporate franchises.

Juan Guardado Our definition of automation thus had a broad mean- Ariga Khachekian ing, touching as much on the programmatic as on the formal and the technological. We approached these themes through a number of historic and contem- porary sources, from Durand to Mitchell’s Palladian Grammar and early computer art, to Aureli’s more re- cent writings. At the heart of our exploration was the polyvalent nature of the allegedly generic franchise, with its multiple combinations and permutations in which architecture might reclaim its status as an object that at once accommodates and resists the pervasive forces of capitalism and urbanization. LA 23 The Displaced Agrarian L.A. Kultur Forum

This project proposes a winery in an urban context This thesis explores the European concept of the by displacing wine production from its tradition- comprehensive culture forum and how it can ally agrarian setting. It takes as its starting point propose an alternative model for the public library. a linear production line: harvesting the grapes, Since knowledge is no longer limited to books, de-stemming, fermenting, aging, bottling, and stor- today’s culture allows people to absorb information age. It examines how this linear system reacts in a from social interaction. What would make this cul- compact urban condition, looping back over itself ture forum any different from the rest? While Euro- to create spatial opportunities not otherwise seen pean culture forums are funded and controlled by or experienced in a linear system. As the wings their governments, American culture forums would of the form begin to turn along with its system, it be privately owned and branch out to their com- Gevork Aelian begins to create programmatic and volumetric rela- Denisse munities for growth. This project proposes a cap to tionships. The resulting spaces substitute for Alejandre an already existing volume, organized through the the pastoral ideal and its associated nostalgia. compositional device of the umbrella. The form will be structurally supported and confined by the circu- lation spine, and the remaining volumes will house programs such as the cafe, performance center, museum, and the library plaza. The result would be the reincarnation of the library. LA 25 Habit Unfamiliar Transposed Rustication

This project takes the latent non-building of a This project for a storage facility for private art parking structure and fully materializes it into an collections and antiquities in the plinth of the Bank unoccupiable storage space/spectacle. The typical of American Plaza in downtown Los Angeles ex- architecture of a parking garage as a fabric building plores the problem of architectural rustication. As and the habit of parking are banal. In this project, with most buildings of importance, materiality and an automated parking structure eliminates conven- ornament convey vital information about purpose, tional inhabitation and circulation, and intensifies the programmatic potential of the ground floor. program, and organization. Rustication, when Turning from the predictability and inertness of liberated from its strict definition as building or blind functionality, architecture becomes novel with facing with rough-surfaced masonry blocks having Lauren Amador a change in technology and user habits. Divorced Michael beveled edges and pronounced joints, produces from the typical ramp-based form, the typical Dom- Anderson a new experience for the user through perspec- ino diagram is modulated from a neutral form to a tive and materiality. Here, ornament can provide highly specific, tuned mechanism. It is efficient and information of program and define space, and can light, familiar yet surprising. It is time to abandon be seen as a threshold for exchange rather than attempts to make the parking garage into an occu- an absolute boundary. piable architecture and instead replace the tedium of utility with a jolt of momentary intrigue. LA 27 Paper Monument If / Then Mode

Documents have always played a central role in This thesis challenges the assumed form of the the construction of cultural identity in the West- urban intersection. It proposes a multi-use, spec ern world. In this age of corporations, however, shopping mall that bridges, activates, and ulti- cultural identity is no longer strictly bound to mately defamiliarizes an urban intersection in notions of ethnicity or nationality, nor to tradition- North Hollywood. In combining the flexibility al conceptions of high culture. This project for a of fashion and the durability of architecture, it processing facility for Iron Mountain– a company that offers secure storage and document destruc- develops the intersection through an array of fac- tion services– proposes a new type of cultural in- tors such as site conditions, urban networks, and stitution, the next step forward in the evolution of local interconnections. In place of the linear and Vincent Ang archives, libraries, and museums. Located just off Viviana singular model of the bridge, it employs the mat Grand Avenue, the principle monumental cultural Colin-Torres building diagram to span the intersection, thereby axis of Los Angeles, this facility is the first step in producing a vivid new architecture that considers Iron Mountain’s claim on the future of cultural, the changing social and physical demands of users institutional, and corporate memory. By combining over time, and stitches the space of the intersec- generic container with specific form, it asks what tion into the surrounding urban fabric. form a new monumentality might take today. LA 29 Habiliments of Industry Cymatic Exchange

Can the ceiling define a new landscape? This This project extends the San Fernando Valley Swap project for a textile manufacturing building propos- Meet to provide a space of exchange for Craigslist es an interior condition based on the modulation transactions. Inspired by its context, it amalgamates the tectonics and the arrangement of the flea market of the umbrella service ceiling through the material Melvy Gonzalez and the big box retailers and warehouses across principles of fabric. Like the traditional industrial the street. Given the unknown properties of objects open floor plan, the ceiling houses all services and and services being exchanged, the building propos- enables a flexible open floor plan. At the same time, es a condition of maximal spatial variation, arguing the modulated ceiling creates an overhead topo- that programmatic flexibility is supported by spatial graphic landscape, a set of places that preserves the Adrienne Fortin specificity rather than generic free plan. It turns to universally serviced space below and at the same Cymatics or resonance patterns to introduce ways of time promotes spatial differentiation and hierarchy. changing circulation and creating visual connections within spaces. As the resulting fragments aggregate to a whole, a range of spaces are developed. These spaces range in sizes, open spans, and privacy, to support the multiple programs of Craigslist. LA 31 Community Modulator Boundary Museum

This project transforms a network of local USPS This project examines ways in which a contem- offices into community hubs for the sending and porary institution might be inserted into a histor- receiving of physical mail and digital scans and ic district in downtown Los Angeles. It proposes a prints. As such, the local post office becomes the new type of institution in which art museum and interface between the physical world and the art storage are hybridized. As museums store more virtual, where objects are transformed into data and more of their collections in analog and digital and vice versa, and where new types of commu- archives, the boundary between storage and dis- nications can be carried by increasingly obsolete play becomes blurred. This new hybrid institution infrastructures. In this context, the architectural organizes distinct programmatic zones into a series elements normally associated with stasis and sta- of layers: digital archives are below, a public muse- Juan Guardado bility, such as walls and floor slabs, might be con- Ariga um in the middle, and physical archives above. In sidered interfaces rather than merely separations. Khachekian this way, the hybrid program composed of discrete The result is a blurring of the line between wall elements creates a new kind of museum as an and floor, creating a fluid flow of space, objects, interface to a largely automated storage system, and data. while offering a heterogeneous formal language for relating the building to its context. LA 33 Vestibule Bargaining Unit

Circulation is normally seen as wasted space, a This project proposes a system for embedding function to be minimized or eliminated entirely. amenity nodes for factory workers within the open This project recuperates circulation as a zone of spaces of the contemporary automated manufac- spatial experimentation. It proposes a missing turing facility. Each node houses a combined pro- gram that brings managerial operations together public interface for big-box Ikea stores in which with amenities for workers, such as cafeterias and the perversion of Ikea’s recursive and labyrinthine break rooms. Using a cross-grain logic that is at internal circulation systems are taken as a starting once compliant with and resistant to the panopti- point for an attitude to public space. Within this cal and technological demands of surveillance and double-layered skin system, a series of vestibules transparency, these nodes assert an autonomous Robert Mehring and entrances infest and latch onto the highly Timothy Nelson form that disrupts the open, column-grid system engineered existing circulation of Ikea, piercing of the factory while encouraging spatial continu- the surface and shaping a public space from the ity. The result is a condenser of management and non-place of the big box store. labor, a communal environment that encourages collaboration and recuperation through accidental and serendipitous interaction. LA 35 Monolithic Montage Ghost Series

How can a single architectural monolith act as This project proposes a series of nightclubs on a picturesque montage? Montage in film is the Hollywood Boulevard, where the context creates a putting together of short shots, edited and merged relationship between multiple corner lots that can be into a single sequence, so that time, space, and understood as a far-reaching narrative. The narrative information are compressed. Questioning the frag- of the “ghost” is derived directly from an approach mentation inherent in the architectural montage, to the program: kinetic architecture transforms each this project arranges parts of a single monolith nightclub to adapt its program to its temporal and into a picturesque order by promoting a series of oblique views on all sides of the building. Each spatial context. From sunrise to sunset, each build- ing emphasizes its commercial and retail activities, Tomás Ortiz monolith organizes a series of sound stages ac- Harold Ramirez cording to a pinwheel ordering system. As in film, while from sunset to sunrise, each emphasizes its each side of the pinwheel is treated as a single nocturnal activities. In this way, the formal urban scene in which oblique perspective becomes the problem of the static corner building is addressed dominant and generic view. through a constantly changing serial logic. LA 37 Unlimited Poché Soft Bunker

Contemporary speculations on the future of the The basic goal of civil defense is the well-being library tend to focus either on the virtualization and security of people in the event of a disaster. of the book or on new types of public space with This project considers a cyber-attack (a new type diverse and hybrid programs. By contrast, this of a disaster) that results in civil unrest or cha- project for a prototypical branch library of the L.A. os. It provides a community’s private and public County Library System directly considers spaces for space. By emphasizing dual-purpose programs, it reading and storage. It reinterprets the great read- promotes peacetime value as well as disaster-time ing rooms of the traditional library as a complex of smaller and diverse spaces where reading can be- effectiveness. The resulting complex offers a place of refuge where architectural space and social Adrianna come a private affair. Building upon Le Corbusier’s Yervan Saavedra spiral diagram for unlimited growth, it uses poché Sarkisyan events take the place of network services and to interweave spaces of storage and reading. In so social networks during times when all of our online doing, it introduces finite and discrete space into a systems go down. diagram of infinite accumulation. LA 39 Autopoietic Showroom Toolbox

Today’s techniques of mass customization liberate This project proposes a series of self-help toolboxes industrially manufactured architecture from the providing access to printing workshops, digital fabri- regimes of self-similarity and repetition inherent to cation, and other facilities to communities dispersed pre-digital manufacturing processes. Digital tools, throughout Los Angeles. Each toolbox creates a we are told, allow for radical variability within a space for community-based development with the coherent formal language. This project explores ability to adapt to each individual community’s a different form of variability within architectural prefabrication. It proposes a big-box showroom needs as its members see fit. The result is a recog- for prefabricated building components, organized nizable type that is adapted to its local conditions. through the compositional device of the nine- Inspired by Adolf Loos’s concept of the Raumplan, Samvel square grid in which domestic wholes are produced Sal Vargas each building’s exterior is an abstract form that as- Simonyan through the aggregation of the parts available serts its autonomy from its neighborhood, while its for purchase. The result is a constantly changing, interior houses a rich assemblage of cultural activi- autopoietic interior streetscape in which inconsis- ties specific to its community. tent protocols between manufacturers’ parts result in a whole that is modulated through the irrational logic of the glitch. Los Angeles 41 Frank Clementi and Matthew Daines, Instructors

Fabricated Memory: Architecture as Mnemonic

Students Faisal Alzakari “There is a wide measure of agreement… that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-me- Roberto Beltran chanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the Joseph Fitzjerrells realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of Fernando Garcia the realm of matter.”

Cecilia Herrera - Sir James Hopwood Jeans, 1937

Karla Lopez Architecture addresses the roles that memory and Tarek Mustapha meaning play in the composition of space, while ex- Alfredo Sanchez-Mendoza amining the societal value of objects and actions. This studio encourages students to identify shared spac- Gerardo Sandoval es and experiences which serve to trigger collective

Nicholas Wilkins cognition and act as receptacles of collective memory. We also explore the relationship between interpre- Tatiana Zavala tation and reaction. Image, music, speech, texture, etc. trigger visceral reactions: pupils widen, hair rises, hands clasp, stomachs turn. What is the connection between mind, experience, and physical reaction? These three: matter, mind, and making, form the basis of the studio—though the relationship is cycli- cal, not linear. Each in turn affects the next. Crafting an artifact imbues intrinsic value, matter is subject to altered interpretation, and the process continues. LA 43 Temporal Dispersal | A Flowing Community

Can there be architecture without buildings, with walls or floors extending indefinitely to create a spatial field? Architectural space, is not only vol- ume, it is also the in-between. This project generates a “gray area” community; at in-between scales, in-between configurations, using in-between forms (plan vs section). Relating constructed architec- ture to compositional art, it questions construction, experience, and representation; and the relationship between the invisible and the visible, figure and ground, finite and infinite, planned and improvised. Faisal Alzakari Methods analogous to musical notation choreograph compositions of fragmented shapes, or “notes, to produce a music-like composition. This composition then propagates, creating an endless field of walls, lines and floors, exhibiting perceivable patterns, sequences, and occasional chaos and chance. Main- taining relative indifference to the composition of the whole, it honors the production of difference at the “within” scale and more fluid, bottom-up– as opposed to top-down– forms of control. LA 45 Heroes & Horses The Station

Architecture allows the senses to be triggered in The Station utilizes the inherent action of a modern a manner that influences emotions and therefore train station and integrates it with a lively social a memory or thought is provoked. This project space. Trains are dramatic, loud, and kinetic. The explores the relationship between memory and arrival and passage of a moving train is undeniably emotion through the juxtaposition of the programs exhilarating. The mass and velocity of this histor- of both life and death. This program consists of ic means of transportation could integrate with a veteran housing, equestrian facilities, and a ceme- dramatic social space such as nightclub, where they tery– all interconnecting in a harmonic manner. would symbiotically benefit each other from the The articulation and manipulation of the spaces associated noise, flashing lights, activity, and vibra- allows for a symbiosis to be expressed that thus tions of the arrival and passage of trains and people. creates opportunities for the living and the dead Coordination of sight lines, shared program and Roberto Beltran to reach a balance. There are spaces within the Joseph Fitzjerrells materiality and transparency allow inbound trains architecture that express moments of subtlety as well as moments of aggression. The architecture an exciting glimpse into the nightclub. Serving as an acts as part of the landscape in order to reinforce attraction and promotion, riders on the train will be the idea of the relationship between the living and intrigued by seeing into the club, and are tempt- the dead. The equestrian facilities are also part of ed to stop to check it out. At the same time, club the landscape that eventually transitions into a goers inside will be able to see the train glide past ritual ceremony commemorating and celebrating gracefully, gaining speed or slowing, or thundering the veterans. though with lights flashing. LA 47 Elysium Thresholds Connecting Threads

This thesis deals with significant and insignifi- Can architecture, as a connective thoroughfare, act cant conditions and how we assign significance as a definitive threshold to reinvigorate the disparate to common moments in life. Using a Duchampi- urban and social conditions created by 20th century an Readymade style of integration, the project dead-ends and culs-de-sac? A “utopian island” in explores stitching two miscommunications. The Elysian Valley, better known as “Frogtown,” seems first miscommunication is between something my lifted from a parallel functional universe and aban- father heard and what his gifts mean to me. Every doned as another patch of the fabric of Los Ange- year my father gave me pink balloons, but on my les. This patchwork of urban growth obstructs the 14th birthday, the balloons stopped coming. The continuity of the city’s ecologies. The undeveloped miscommunication was how much I hated pink, a perimeter of these obstructions emerges as threshold statement my father heard and how the color did Fernando conditions, especially at street culs-de-sac. When Cecilia Herrera not matter when it came to the balloons my father Garcia considered together as a series of operational nodes, gave me. The second miscommunication is the these truncated roads can speak as mementos and site. The site miscommunicates what it is and what begin to redefine the bike path and river as circula- Google says it is. People arrive expecting a park tory spinal elements to Elysian Valley. With the in- but find an abandoned lot. The idea is that these terconnected uses of the bike path/river and streets, existing miscommunications will stitch themselves these threshold events will act as social condensers together to provide a space for a father and a and collective signifiers of the new connected nature daughter and any visitor to communicate. of the Frogtown neighborhood. LA 49 Village of Constructed Memories Divination

Memory is often lost with the increase of urban density. Would it be possible to preserve the The process of adjudication is one that requires memory of a community in the face of increas- the discovery of facts. Before the trial, the action ing density? The intent of this project is to aug- in question has already occurred, requiring those ment the stereotypical suburban residential typolo- charged with judging the action to go through a gies through the creation of a specific village, or process of discovering evidence and justification rather a community of residents that represents for a verdict of either guilt or innocence. Architec- how people in this particular community live. This ture, on the other hand, is commonly a process of will not only be about questioning generic subur- iterative articulation and development. Aiming to ban housing and density, but about understanding the way people with memorable experiences live merge these two processes, I began by developing Karla Lopez through a physical community, and about making Tarek Mustapha a talisman. This talisman is generated through the connections between these memories and experi- use of various mediums of exploration, and the ences, to utilize them as a means to create spaces conditions influenced by these mediums. These that reflect that use. It will be about keeping the conditions become sets of rules and data in which memories of the community through the use of the architecture can be discovered. Within this dis- materials and typologies that already exist, and covery, the performance of adjudication will occur. about creating spaces that allow individuals to live the same way they use space. LA 51 Working Both Sides. Stitching Arts and Sciences. Santa’s Workshop Creating Fantasies From Logic.

Creativity and logic are often segregated to The sublimation of a toy shop to a penitentiary recalls separate hemispheres. This project proposes to being ordered to “go to your room” to reflect on formally intertwine them to produce a school your actions. The room acts as your personal reha- of thought that encompasses craft from “both bilitation space– “your prison”– but also where the artifacts of your memory reside. Santa’s Workshop sides of the brain.” Existing warehouse buildings challenges the traditional, segregated prison, and pro- serve as an organizing logical grid within which poses a penitentiary integrated into a community. The Boolean procedures unite disparate programs. workshop consists of diffused, almost pixelated sub- This unity literally and symbolically connects terranean fragments that make up a system, focusing students and programs repurposed to strategic on reintegration versus punishment. The workshop locations. Boolean logical operations– subtrac- and the imprisoned “elves” work as a unit to deliver Alfredo tion, addition and intersection– craft spaces Gerardo children toys and at the same time help rehabilitate Sanchez-Mendoza with cues for visual relationships. The connec- Sandoval the prisoner. The interspersing of public space, resi- tions become evident. The combination of two dential neighborhood, and prison workshops acts as a existing warehouses across an alleyway, as well motivational strategy with the gradual exposure and social interaction inmates receive as they maneuver as the integration of two conceptual modes, from the subterranean central core towards the lofted provide for previously unimagined outcomes. crust. With a secure core, a merged mantle, and an Furthermore, variations of Boolean logic operat- almost public, broken-up crust, the prison expresses ing within this logical grid create communicative itself on the surface as enigmatic, illuminated archi- spaces. The gap or alleyway creates a unique tectures of absence. habitat for this mixture of crafts. LA 53 Perceptive Indication Disrupted Program

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe justified his ‘impres- Disrupted Program challenges the boundaries of sionistic architecture’ in terms of the new kind mundane functional architecture, focusing on of perception produced by the speed of modern augmentation through fragmentation. The proposal life. We can no longer appreciate building details enhances existing generic dwellings, allowing for the at the speeds we are capable of traveling. Ob- influences of sought desires. The disruption fractures jects have hidden energy shown through images the uniformity of the buildings, allowing objects of from a camera traveling at different velocities. A memory and desire to infiltrate and juxtapose aug- successfully marketed image is recognized and mentations to serve the unmet desires of the users. understood easily and quickly, even if cunningly Cutting across boundaries of private, semi-private, conveyed. Architecture can be scaled to allow var- and public spaces, Disrupted Program creates a ied perception from a range of traveling velocities. lively communal environment for residents.The site Nicholas Wilkins These differing velocities are experienced through Tatiana Zavala consists of existing residential buildings that pro- various activities; driving, walking, cycling etc.., vide for the needs of daily life, whereas Disrupted from being stopped in traffic, to traveling at 70 Program fulfills more of the wants. The disruption of mph. The location and orientation of the building program interjects movement, fracturing the monot- relative to these velocities plays a role in its per- onous continuity of floors and walls. This provokes a ception. The participation between the viewer and visible break between private and public spaces, and the structure can be activated not only through juxtaposes them with incongruous forms and cele- the facade but its internal articulation. Form and bratory uses. The intervention allows residents and content are related through the velocity and the visitors to transport mentally and physically from duration at which a person views the construct. one unique experience to the next. Los Angeles 55 Micah Rutenberg and Peter Culley, Instructors

Mixed Use : Hybrid Architectures, Topological Reconfigurations, Uneasy Pairings and Unexpected Visitors

Students Abdullah Alessa “Criticism – particularly in the form of critical practices of design (poiesis)– should be simultaneously emancipatory Nada Almehairi and conservative (i.e. situated), acting as a reconciliatory medium between ‘prophecy’ and ‘memory’.” Oliver Aus der Muhlen - Introduction to ‘The Landscape Imagination: Collected Writings of James Corner 1990- 2010’ Mohamed Bensasi by Alison Bick Hirsch, 2014. Edda Figueroa

Devin Flores As we look back within our cities for resources and pleasure, and question our sprawling desires, we Robert Ko search spaces amongst and above the unchartered in- terfaces for new combinations that have been politely Alan Manning avoided before. Ghettoized components of a com- bined operation– a distant sewage plant or hidden oil Grace Park field– can hide intriguing truths. But what to do with permutations that are symbiotic in program but antag- Jessica Santana onistic or just plain uncomfortable architecturally? So begins the search for compressed conditions, montag- Arvin Shirinyans es, existing places that need to shift in the quest for Paul Tuason a lively, meaningful marriage. Los Angeles is the city of awkward interfaces: topologically (mountains meet Sylvia Zilifian flood plain), infrastructurally (transport, primary en- ergy and water supply meet residential canvas), eco- nomically and culturally (Hollywood meets Watts). Fu- ture narratives and speculative fictions are employed to better understand issues of our own moment. We look to the imagination to liberate opportunities.

LA 57 Interior Public Space | Filling the Gaps of LA

In the city today, people meet in many interior public spaces, such as churches, gas stations and bus stops. Public interiors play a significant role in a variety of spatial transformations, such as allowing for gathering and shortcuts. Today, over 2000 gas stations occupy L.A.’s landscape. The design of gas stations is typically stripped down to pure function and they are highly accessible. This makes them an ideal urban element that could play two roles in the city: community gath- Abdullah Alessa ering and the perpetuation of movement. This project envisions the future of Los Angeles, where the gas station is seen as a community gathering space of “significant”design. The current design of the gas station could be reinterpreted as an interior public space with a sense of privacy and shelter. The canopy and other elements would be modified according to the site to create a space where the community can gather and meet. LA 59 Metro Stop, Thrill Start: Entertaining Transport Inhabiting Unintended Spaces: Collaborating with Antagonistic Weather Conditions

A 2011 statistic showed that 72.3 percent of Los The building discipline controls and regulates atmo- Angeles commuters use automobiles to drive to spheric conditions toward the well-being of its oc- cupants. But the functional intention of a factory is work and 7.3 percent of commuters use public to manufacture a product, without regard to human transport. In New York 41% use the subway and comfort within the mechanized construct. Often, 24% drive, while in London, 79% of commuters these industrial complexes are off-limits to the use public transport. Meanwhile, in the same year, public and mysterious to most civilians. But along- 19.1 million people visited the amusement parks of side human curiosity resides the primitive yearning L.A., 16.2 million came to Disneyland and 2.9 mil- to explore the unknown. Perhaps it is the craving lion came to Six Flags. So, how can L.A.’s love and to enter places that are restricted, the interest to proficiency of entertainment transport help adjust occupy areas unsuitable for humans, the desire to become symbiotic with the inhospitable. What if the Nada Almehairi the psyche towards utilitarian methods of move- Oliver ment? Looking at methods of pleasure transport, Aus der Muhlen accidental effects of condensation forming within and around the walls, piping, and machinery of a both in L.A. and further afield, and identifying factory could prove to be opportunistic? Through the and forming landmarks and nodes in the typically selective matchmaking of program to existing space, landmark-less Valley, this investigation tests the the architecture opportunistically induces a reaction possibilities for a new type of transport interchange between opposing weather conditions in order to at the North Hollywood Red and Orange Line ter- supplement a building program that is beneficial to minus that entertains while it propels. human inhabitation. LA 61 Fortified Fiction: A Tale of Three (Walled) Cities Farm House Ha-Ha / City Reality-Check

Go within to go out, to get out. Fiction provides A simple garden wall separates a residential area an escape route from the uncomfortable realities of from the Inglewood Oil Field in an accidental collu- life. In being tricked, we are offered the chance to sion between primary industry and domesticity. become the people we want to be and lead the lives we would like to live. If escape from reality relies on How can a more sophisticated dialogue be developed fiction, then falsities, too, require truths to set their between these two apparently conflicting worlds? escape in motion. Paramount Pictures on Melrose is the only major film studio remaining in Hollywood. Reframing the industrial landscape as a pastoral Within its fabled walls lie 62 acres of stages, work- scenario and employing devices of the picturesque– shops, offices, infrastructure, architectural scenes, a floating farmyard, framed bucolic views and a Mohamed and open spaces. Could Paramount become a place Edda Figueroa living wall– a new set of romantic relationships is Bensasi of escape from the city by introducing the ingre- developed as decoy to the cleansing machine below dients of everyday real life? In this scenario, three the surface. notional Angeleno protagonists – The Curator, The Flaneur, and The Gaffer – are new inhabitants of the Paramount Walled City, each occupying and creating unique places between fact and fabrication. LA 63 The People vs. Courtroom (2015) Where the City Stops: Designing for Life on Hold

Social jurisdiction orchestrates a strict role in our Time is an important aspect of our lives. However, society and imposes major design limits on the when one loses the ability to control one’s time, buildings involved. An evident typology affected it triggers a range of responses spanning from is the courthouse, where issues of control and boredom and stress to introspection and relief. But cultural metaphor are played-out in architectural being thrust into that pause of time is perhaps it is arrangement and ornament. The evolution of the past twenty years has rendered the nature of the the ideal setting for self-reflection and rebalance. courtroom obsolete, thus radically departing from The Building and Safety Department Building in Los limitations on race, gender and politics. Los Ange- Angeles, specifically the space of plan check and les is a shelter for sites of governance that con- permit processing, creates a stressful atmosphere form to normative protocols, yet also conform less because it governs time in a way that is unproduc- Devin Flores to imperial world cues than most other American Robert Ko tive and inefficient for the architect. The plan check metropolises. This study will investigate the role department provokes psychosomatic responses such of outdated patriarchal spaces that are currently as increased heart rate, sweating, etc. that warrant stagnant, seeking to break down the authoritarian a territorial response on the part of the architect environment of the courtroom. Working within when struck with these moments. This intervention carefully defined limits, the project will refer to the mechanics of theatre, utilizing its dynamics (stage would therefore take the stressful energy created lifting, scene changing) and the additive concepts by these existing pauses of time and redirect that of interior materiality to develop new systems of energy to be more positive and self-reflective. democratic spatial arrangement. LA 65 The Glamour Machine: The Unspoken Exchange: A Sublimation of Celebrity Image Valuation The Exchange of Goods Between Two Worlds

LA’s relentless network of billboards conditions Social disparity between the extremely rich and the subconscious modes of valuation within the extremely poor is a pervasive issue in Los Angeles. urban environment. How can this strata of detached This nation’s most privileged and most underprivi- floating spaces, visually authoritative yet physically leged citizens reside within a 15 mile radius, and yet inaccessible, be transformed into a high value place have no interaction, which causes segregation and of habitable exposure? The Chateau Marmont, furthers social disparity. However, engaging these whose cultural significance is measured in high two worlds would heighten the attention to this profile indulgency and tragedy, straddles a unique matter and allow us to explore architecture’s role in arrangement of billboards. Some meet the ground, social issues. Amongst the retail stores on Skid Row, others tower, and one hovers above the villas of the a new trend-setting luxury fashion store attracts Chateau itself. This cluster of billboards has the the privileged consumers of the Westside of Los Alan Manning potential for permeated architecture where the image Grace Park Angeles. On the surface, the two worlds seemingly of the celebrity is surveyed, advertised, and dissem- inated. This thesis uses the site’s artificial elevation collide. However, beneath the surface, there is an to both expose and hide the ‘untouchable’ A-list unspoken exchange between the two worlds that celebrity, providing programs that reveal the persona mutually benefit each other. These worlds exchange but privatize the person. The strategic reconfiguring cardboard, textiles, and edible waste through three of image valuation results in an architectural subli- loading docks, which act as portals that transform mation. Visually encountering The Glamour Machine these materials into something useful for the surviv- conditions a way of seeing by rechanneling our desire al of the other world. into an enhanced association with prestige. LA 67 The City and the Black Box Migratory Disaggregates

The city in the 21st century is moving away from We live in a city that is fixed on the one hand while revealing the truth of its broader operation. A constantly evolving and transforming on the other. problem with this increasing opacity is the city’s The fixed city is that of buildings; the other city is desire to resolve internal spatial realities and their of technology. The technology of everyday life cre- interaction with the public. Los Angeles has a ates the opportunity for us to fulfill the necessities plethora of large-scale buildings that restrain a of our dynamic and moving lifestyles to the extent continuous urban experience. Thus, the black box, that updating our devices as often as every week impenetrable and uncompromising, represents the in order to satisfy our latest needs has become impossibility of total transparency and resolution. standard. The demolition of architecture on a daily

Jessica Santana This thesis interrogates the black box phenomenon Arvin Shirinyans basis brings new attention to the words “function” in search of an architecture that is contiguous with and “functional life.” What if architecture was to the city and reconciles the dissonance between the be reconfigured, reoriented, and reintegrated into black box and the experience of the city. Looking its new conditions instead of being demolished? at the Hollywood Storage Building as the Black Box, Migratory Disaggregates conceives of an architec- the study will aggregate a journey of discovery. ture that moves and transforms in an intelligent Worming its way into this unknown city, revealing fashion, unmaking and remaking the new and old what is hidden, and exposing life within, this thesis together in order to engage and satisfy the new is an exploration from the inside out. requirements of contemporary life. LA 69 Industrial Co-Inhabitance Blossoming Rampart: A City Growing Within A City

Unlocking industrial landscapes in the search for Los Angeles: best known as a sprawling metropo- urban serenity. Los Angeles has 55 known oil fields lis with a freeway network strewn uncomfortably within. However, is there another way to regard located within the county limit. The city of Baldwin relationships between the city and its network of Hills harbors a massive 1,100 acre site that contains superhighways? The approach of this thesis is to up to 800 active oil rigs. treat the highway as a ‘river of transportation,’ reconnecting earlier traditions of public and pri- L.A.’s soundtrack, laid down on the cycle of derricks vate places located next to major lines of move- ment. This investigation cites a stretch of the 110 at work, begins a transformation from distaste Freeway in the heart of downtown L.A., where the towards the sublime. Where typically L.A. has been city works as an artery connecting various condi- Paul Tuason successful at camouflaging evidence of primary Sylvia Zilifian tions to one another. Seeing existing infrastructure industry, this approach exonerates the tools of along the strip of highway as modulators between extraction from being the enemy, and searches for fluidity and fixedness, this thesis reimagines future possibilities for the highway. A temporary shut- harmonies between machine and inhabitant. down of the strip every Sunday allows residents to engage with passersby, establishing a new com- munity of blossoming thresholds, and introducing up-beat culture to the typically unenthusiastic ac- tivity of traveling along the shores of the highway.

Los Angeles 71 Mark Stankard and Thomas Stanley, Instructors

Rotate View – Elevating Dissenting Spaces

Students Jagruti Eadala Los Angeles famously represents itself as a private and horizontal city. Recently, Downtown L.A. has John Ha been transforming and expanding due to vertical pos- Nancy Hernandez sibilities for residential and commercial occupation. Being high above the crowd below and overseeing Ron Hernandez the city offers a unique type of prestige and power. Elevated vantage points and optimal transparency Bani Davod Hesar result in expansive, ever-changing, privileged views. The uses though, are typically private– law offices, Byron Marroquin expensive restaurants, luxury condos, and current Reza Mirrezaie tower occupancy rates hover at about 40%.

Aysha Muzzo What happens when these norms are shifted, rotat- ed, extended, converted, transformed? Inspired by a Matt Nguyen vertical rotation of Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Mayra Orellana Sunset Strip and Louis Sullivan’s The Tall Building Ar- tistically Considered, we will examine a public-private Jason Sanabria reversal to occupy high spaces with civic programs, events, situations in public spaces floating over the XanDr Stack city, working over 800 ft. above the ground on a Justin Yap siteless site. We will operate somewhere between two tragic mythological figures– Aeneaus (who needed to be connected to the earth for his power) and Icarus (who flew too close to the sun). Taking advantage of views, expansion, atmosphere, transparency and human response, we will transform floors 55 through 57 of the 707 Wilshire Boulevard tower. LA 73 Collect, Preserve, Display, Rewrite - LA Rare Book Athenaeum

A rare book library contains collections of rare and precious books for people to view, read or refer to. The L.A. Rare Book Athenaeum will operate as a sacred ritualistic experience while being open to the public. The library within will be a temple of litera- ture to preserve, rewrite and honor books. The Ath- enaeum will be arranged according to the book’s origin in relation to the 707 Wilshire tower. Book shelving provides the architectural armature of the Athenaeum. Threats to books, such as misuse, fire, and marking, offer design inspiration. Jagruti Eadala The architectural approach, outward expansion from the core, enables extension beyond the tower’s edges. The expansion zones contain reading rooms, preservation labs and the scriptorium. A bookstore will sell replicated manuscripts and rare books. Mini-forests will be grown for production of manu- script paper. LA 75 Refraction: Superposition of Self and Space Recomposing the Suburban Neighborhood

Standing In Line is a truism of human existence. The American Dream has been defined as a single Whether at a coffee shop, check-out counter, doc- family home with a garage, front yard, mail box, tor’s office or cafeteria, being In Line is a certainty sidewalk, living room, kitchen and domesticated ob- in how we live our lives. The wonderful essence jects, allowing everyday tasks to be conquered daily John Ha of being In Line is that it’s neither here nor there. by a woman. That image is dated, or is it? Our desire isn’t to be In Line, but to instantly be at the End of Line. In Line is being in limbo, an With the rising demand for urban housing, this pro- inevitable imprisonment of our physical location. posal regenerates the American Dream through the A typical In Line experience is at the DMV. It’s eyes of a woman, including past advocates like Char- unavoidable, yet architecture can create com- lotte Perkins Gilman, who insisted that progressive positional dialogue between the Line and banal homes should cater to the needs of working women. administration agencies, changing the reality of Nancy Hannah Hoch utilized confrontational collage to the In Line into a sublime cognitive engagement of Hernandez challenge the status of women in the domestic realm. spaces and experiences. Through spatial narrative, Their views and techniques are applied to the single storytelling that augments and maneuvers program family home, then raised, inverted and flipped to oc- to create suspense and eagerness, and superposi- cupy high spaces for urban families. This approach to tion of programs via a day/night cycle, In Line can highrise homes privileges a woman’s point of view to evolve from the arbitrary waywardness of transit balance family and work life and create new neigh- into the absoluteness of destination itself. borhood experiences within the 707 Wilshire Blvd. highrise cityscape. LA 77 Engineering Beautiful Failures Land-Air Archive

The job of an educational institution is to teach For the past two hundred years, real estate has what is known and stimulate students to develop become a significant value for Los Angeles– to own accepted information along a progressive path. property in L.A. has become a way of life. Do we Putting the understood status quo to the test and care about the history of the property we purchase? redefining it allows for the loss of fear and the What about the quality of the air we breathe? I finding of courage to explore new boundaries. A propose an interactive archive where people search higher level of learning takes place when teaching for property information and evaluate the quality of shifts from being understood theoretically to being L.A. air. Located at the heart of downtown, floors experienced practically. The touch and feel of a 55-57 of the 707 Wilshire Blvd. tower will be a place material, combined with an understanding of its to study the history of Los Angeles property and properties, allows for design experimentation that is the quality of the air above it. The building’s long Ron Hernandez both guided and felt. The scientific comprehension Bani Davod Hesar cantilevers will continuously collect and monitor air of experimental engineering can lead the creative design of architecture. samples. Land-Air Archive allows the public and real estate professionals to interactively learn about the Three selected floors within the 707 Wilshire Blvd. city’s past and speculate on its future. It simultane- highrise will house an institute to create a play- ously monitors and protects the land we live on and ground for experimentation with structural ma- the air we breathe. terials and design. Material labs, a wind turbine, studios, offices and support spaces will combine to develop ongoing highrise structural innovations. LA 79 Amalgamated Live / Work Disaster Relief Scaffold: An Urban Appliance

The Downtown District of Los Angeles is experi- In times of disaster, our ancestors fled to the highest encing transitions and growing at a rapid pace. The terrain for safety. Disaster Relief Scaffold cradles an blue-collar maintenance and janitorial workforces affected population with architectural nourishment are affected by these urban development changes, and shelter. Natural or man-made disasters occurring forcing longer commutes from suburban outskirts. in the heart of the city, including electrical brown- In theory, it makes total sense for people who clean out, minor to major earthquake, zombie apocalypse, and maintain a building to live within that build- drought, hurricane, flood, etc., will be addressed ing. This shift reconciles the live/work typology with the scaffold’s vertical modular components. The for the maintenance workers of the 707 Wilshire scaffold’s solar skin produces electricity, educational Blvd. tower. The Justice for Janitors Union becomes information, and advertising revenue for disaster literally exposed to the city by occupying portions of the building at various floor levels. Window relief. Survival pods traverse the building skin to Byron Reza Mirrezaie service the floors within the tower and people on Marroquin cleaning lifts transform to communal circulation. Programmatic spaces, such as housing, child care, a the ground. They can also take flight to remote lo- union hall and a flea market, activate the workers’ cations as needed. The egress stairs provide vertical presence throughout the tower. These strategies are circulation and help to structurally anchor the tower. derived from Russian social condenser communal The entire curtained scaffold system can be applied housing, allowing maintenance, janitorial, and office to other towers in other cities as a global urban di- employees the opportunity for new social interac- saster relief network. This Disaster Relief Scaffold at tions through a combination of cultural and atmo- 707 Wilshire Blvd. functions as a giant appliance to spheric layers. provide services to victims in central Los Angeles. LA 81 Circulation: A Non-Monumental Itinerary Avian Migration Hostel

In “The Practice of Everyday Life: Walking in the This project transforms three upper floors of the 707 City,” Michel de Certeau relates that the story of Wilshire tower into a sanctuary for migratory birds. a city is composed by the “operators” within the Los Angeles advances toward the sky with high- city. “Their intertwined paths give their shape to rise buildings, while above us, the avian migration spaces.” The character found on the street created of the Pacific Flyway occurs annually since before by passersby exists far beneath the 707 Wilshire human existence. This clash between human and Blvd. tower. Transposing an everyday path from ground level to the top of the tower generates a bird domains creates opportunities for architecture small scale street path that creates spaces com- to participate in an ecological system at both global posed by various operators. The literal path from and urban scales. With programs to monitor climate Aysha Muzzo street level, elevated and transformed to the Matt Nguyen change based on bird migration patterns, the project tower’s floors 55-57, provides leftover areas for includes an observation center, an avian infirmary programmatic events to occur. Everyday programs for injured birds, an outdoor learning space, various derived from found objects in downtown L.A. will nesting places, and an artificial wetland. The Avian play a series of minor roles within and around the Migration Hostel rethinks what it means to co-min- tower. A bar, chaplet, and eight other programs gle animal species with human settings. Concrete, lead to an activated and articulated space, rather wood and steel armatures provide numerous struc- than a space without a story. tural niches and voids as nesting spaces for birds of various sizes and species. Depending on the migra- tory seasons, the architecture adjusts to accommo- date bird versus human demands and interactions. LA 83 Sky Vault: A Necropolis for Los Angeles Revealing Graceful Violence

Traditional cemeteries were set apart from the Violence is seen as a primitive way of using physi- city in order to separate the living from the dead. cal force to hurt, damage or kill someone. Grace is However, due to urban/suburban sprawl, the defined as simple elegance or refinement of move- horizontal figure-ground conveys tensions between ment. These words are opposites, yet can combine the metropolis and the necropolis, solid versus to create interactions that otherwise would be void, whole versus particle, dirt versus marble. The invisible– the grace behind the violence is often typology of a tower allows this horizontal program overlooked. To reveal those beautiful moments to take new direction and become infinite in rela- spatially and materially, I will create a boxing gym tion to the ground’s footprint. As part of the urban that provides the knowledge and skill to transform density, columbaria niches replace burial plots, like an average athlete into a superior one, inspired by downtown micro-apartments replace suburban Rem Koolhaas’s “Downtown Athletic Club.” Rath- Mayra Orellana houses. The efficiency dematerializes and maximiz- Jason Sanabria es space for an experience of post-mortem equality er than having a typical ground floor boxing es- and overall simplicity. The hybrid program re-iden- tablishment, this project elevates the boxer above tifies the spaces of grief, sorrow and remembrance the city to breathe healthy thin air and be inspired into a heavenly atmosphere. Exterior gardens and by dramatic views. Spaces derived from body irreligious sanctuaries hover above the city grid training exercises and boxing rings will create new with privileged views. The architectural charac- physically activated architecture. Public viewing teristics provide a series of interrelated elements: and awareness will reveal the tensions between mass versus void, illuminated yet dark; weightless boxers and the spectators that pay to watch their yet heavy; claimed and unclaimed. gracefully violent interactions. LA 85 Instituting Ambiguity: The Hive The Phenomenal Transparency of Neurodegenerative Disorder

The pinnacles of the downtown Los Angeles The Phenomenal Transparency of Neurodegen- skyline tell a story of segregation: consumerized erative Disorder weaves education, research, and ground floors, capitalistic private domains above, treatment for neurological degenerative diseases. and private shopping malls masquerading as It correlates elements of private institution and public learning, defined by transparency and trans- XanDr Stack public space. This project opposes this separation lucency, as well as revealing and layering dedicat- of urban functions and hierarchies, proposing a ed and transitional spaces. In traditional facilities, more integrated Team 10– like approach, encour- such as at UCLA & USC, research and health pro- aging interaction to learn and socialize through fessionals are separated and secluded in privatized spaces of aggregation. By appropriating capitalist institutions. At 707 Wilshire Blvd. in downtown architecture to effect social change, interaction is Los Angeles, neurological degenerative diseases, encouraged across social and economic barriers to Justin Yap such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and focus on community growth rather than individual ALS, will be studied in innovative cross-disciplinary aggrandizement. Intervening directly in the elitist methodologies. Patient care, disease research, space of the upper floors of a modernist skyscrap- and a learning center are actively intertwined on floors 55 through 57. This will allow for the public er, a public domain is established that is reclusive to experience the impressions and materiality of without being exclusive: an open, all-inclusive the spaces, which allude to specific degenerative athenaeum for the digital age. characteristics. In addition, the implemented herb garden, featuring plants such as sage and rose- mary, will help with memory retention and aid in research and future discoveries. 87 Learning From Graffiti: Getting up and Burning

Polychromatic. Superficial. Anarchistic. Schizophrenic. A palimpsest. Bad grammar. Big worded bubble letters, Peter Culley, Instructor flairs, melted misspelled drips, the constructed contort- ed picturesque, territorial markings, a bedazzled design Los Angeles attitude, wit and sarcasm.

Learning from Graffiti explores the complex rela- tionship between anarchic operations and the built environment using non-conforming methodologies, vocabulary, and techniques of street art. Using prompts Students Diana Barash from the trade such as ‘rosettes in heaven’ ‘scrachitti Diana Barash entrance’ and ‘throwie pop up gallery spaces’ a series Julius Taniguchi of site interventions upon the as-found canvas of the historic Bekin’s Public Storage building in Hollywood form a self-initiated hostel. Graffiti becomes inhab- Sam Sabzalijamaat itable space as it misuses, re-appropriates, and rede- fines the existing blank face and gridded matrix of the Mojdeh Kazemi building. ‘Spray Caps’ of dorm rooms, and ‘one liner’ circulation systems weave, wind and drip through this Dahlia Bukhamsin cellular monolith. LA 89 Tinkering with the City: Remixing Rodeo Drive Surface of Performance

Tinkering is a tool of curiosity, of figuring out how “The urban environment becomes a stage on which architecture literally and actively performs.” and what, and thus is a potential driver of innova- - Branko Kolaveric tion. As a practice, architecture is– to the loss of

experimental configuration and discovery– distanced Sam This investigation seeks to improve the spatial con- from tinkering. Further, In typical construction, the Sabzalijamaat ditions of the urban environment, utilizing dynamic consumer has limited knowledge of the compo- surfaces to generate vibrant, hyper-programmable settings that respond to both different users and nents lying beneath the surfaces of the buildings programs. It explores flexible, adaptive, and interac- they inhabit. By exposing the compositional logics tive qualities in architecture through a simplified set of buildings and their mechanisms, new architec- of self-modifying angled planes that create vastly Julius Taniguchi tures emerge from disassembled existing conditions different scales and environments. The multiple in an open-ended process where the bits are more conflicting programmatic needs directed towards Pershing Square and the Parking Garage cry out for important than the finished product. Here, in highly a solution of movement and adaptation. At differ- polished Beverly Hills, fashion boutiques are reduced ent times of the day, week, month, or even year, to aggregate pieces laid out on the street for all to the patterns of use completely change demanding see as a new didactic. a totally different set of tectonic configurations and interrelationships to form a more tangible relation- ship between the living and the built environment on the city stage. LA 91 Naked Island: In Search of the Sublime Swimming Skins

Los Angeles is the quintessential sublime city, a com- A façade may demark or alternatively belie its plex blend of sunshine and smog, a place where the interiority, but either way, some hints of internal beautiful and the ugly occupy the same fabric and operations are difficult to avoid. A nostril suggests form, where edges dissolve and some information the lungs within, just as the smoke exhaust fan gets lost. As a ‘city on film,’ this mysterious duality may mark a voluminous atrium down below. Look- is perhaps best investigated through the medium of ing from the inside out, our world is moderated the movie in a real-world materialization of film- ic staging, bringing to life the shadowy inversions by these same devices. that repress and reveal the contrasting conditions of architectural scenography. Using translations of the The internal operations of an aquarium clinic Mojdeh representational techniques of the motion picture, Dalia opened up to the public– where a whale overtakes Kazemi space is created and amplified echoing juxtaposed Bukhamsin a street and turns the city and the envelope inside light and dark depiction. Set in a confluence of civil out– form a didactic scenario of operation, inhabi- engineering infrastructures, this investigation is a tation, structure, and program. graphic play of high contrast manipulations and ambiguous infinities. Enacted as a journey through a series of drawing and framing techniques, we enter a storyboard between imagination and reality. LA 93 Architecture Unbound

Architecture is a discipline based on the delineation of boundaries. Lines are used to separate interior from exterior, public from private, and above from Mark Ericson, Instructor Los Angeles below. This disciplinary predilection for boundaries is largely tied to the representational practices that are at the center of architectural production, planning and sectioning. The geometric and formal properties of walls and floors are bound to single lines that can do little other than separate one thing from another. Architecture Unbound thesis confronts this prac- Students Tamim Almamood Tamim tice by deploying topographic contour drawing as a Almamood means of defining architectural form and space. Walls Fatima Al Shuaibi and floors are no longer structured by single lines, but by many. Each line providing a nuanced reading Mohamed Noamani of differently bounded conditions. Interior and exte- rior no longer exist on either side of a single line, but Sergio Legon-Talamoni overlap and intermingle through the accumulation of variable contours. Nafiseh Salavatian LA 95 Figuring Gradients The Projective Envelope

Architecture defines a clear boundary between solid The building envelope is often considered a means and void. A clear example of this is in the Nolli maps of mediating between exterior and interior condi- where private buildings are shaded in dark poche, tions. In the design process, the envelope’s orga- nization is contingent upon the overall formal or and public space is left as white. Such renderings of Mohamed massing strategy of a given proposal. This thesis space, figure matter as either solid or void, leaving Noamani proposes an alternative to this strategy through a little room to understand the variable densities of detailed analysis and translation of the Saudi Arabi- space that exist in both cities and architecture. This an Roshan Al Azhar Hotel into a design methodol- thesis revisits the figure ground map as projective ogy that binds strategies of massing to the organi- architectural tool, by proposing a gradient between zation, form, structure, and usage of the building solid and void. It understands space not as either envelope. This thesis argues that the building enve- Fatima lope should not be seen as simply a technologically Al Shuaibi solid or void but rather as a set of variable condi- and mechanically advanced wrapper, but rather tions of programmatic and volumetric densities. It as central to all of the organizational and formal aims to identify architecture not as a static proposi- issues in a given project. The envelope ceases to be tion of solid objects and empty spaces but rather a a wrapper of formal and spatial proposals. Instead, dynamic and highly charged discourse of experien- the envelope becomes the projective generator of tial, spatial, and formal densities. architectural form and organization. LA 97 From Flatness Uncanny Figuration

The photograph, especially the still photo has Architecture is typically organized and structured traditionally been put in a precarious position through abstract systems of order, deriving formal within the discipline of architecture. Too often, it and spatial strategies through the intentional and has been placed in the realm of documentation, systematic accumulation of geometry– an approach thereby negating its potential as a projective me- that favors purity, alignment, and clarity. This thesis dium. Placed before its geometric dimensions and proposes another alternative, systematically de- constrained by its two-dimensional medium, we ploying the uncanny as a drawing methodology for are blinded by the photograph’s animation of that the production of form, space and programmatic which fills the frame of the photograph in all of its organization. In lieu of abstract geometry, Uncanny Figuration, accumulates familiar figures drawn from transparency. The flatness of its medium necessi- existing buildings as an organizational framework for tates the imagination to animate the represented Sergio Nafiseh the production of architecture. In so doing, it allows Legon-Talamoni space, imaging the entire architecture at once. The Salavatian unexpected interactions between programs, forms space is no longer what is viewed presently, but and spaces. Restrooms intersect the proscenium of the sum of that and what has been seen before. a theatre stage. The collision of stair geometry and The photograph denies this progression by fixing window mullions introduce a dense organization- time absolutely. This thesis seeks to deploy the al grid which is materialized as a series of pleated photograph as a projective medium of architectural surfaces. The familiar figures of architectural form representation by translating its properties into a become the progenitors of an architecture of unex- strategy for the production of form and space. pected encounters, disruptions, and resolutions. 99 Vertical Glendale: The Architecture of Intensification

This thesis explores the notion of a “Vertical City,” with all the intensity and diversity typically associ- Anthony Fontenot, Instructor ated with a dense urban center. The site is locat- Los Angeles ed adjacent to the Glendale train station and will serve as the site for investigating the re-forming and re-planning of a vertical city. The site serves as an extraordinary meeting point of various flows, including local and regional travelers. This project attempts to rethink the concept of the skyscraper, Students Rafif Alsheblw creating a “vertical neighborhood” composed of a Rafif Alsheblw great diversity of programs typically found spread Catherine Eppes-Fletcher out across the city landscape, yet condensed and organized vertically. This new urban configuration José Eduardo Martinez seeks to introduce intensified relationships between programs and social groups, encouraging novel Behnoud Najafi forms of human interaction. This project seeks to offer an alternative to the horizontally dominated Crystal Paraiso Tan cityscape of Los Angeles. LA The New Ecology of Animal/Man: 101 Destabilized Architecture Exploring the Relationship between Humans and Bees

Architectural conventions, or “norms,” create an This thesis explores the ambiguous relationship architecture and environment that is easily taken between animals and humans, particularly that of for granted. Unnoticed and repetitious, architec- office workers and bees. Given the pressing ecolog- ture becomes part of the mundane task of daily ical concerns of the period, there is an urgent and unconscious activities, with never a moment to Jose Eduardo practical need to reimagine the urban environment destabilize or denormalize the act of engaging Martinez with architecture. “Destabilized Architecture” as a shared place of coexistence for various species. challenges the architectural norms to destabilize Architecture is explored as a new type of interface the body, engaging it with architecture. The site between species that allows for cohabitation typically of intervention is the Los Angeles Department of unseen in the natural world, creating an unforeseen Water and Power Building (1964), an environment level of ecological integration. The specific ecosystem Catherine dominated by a mundane program of offices, grids, associated with individual species is explored to en- Eppes-Fletcher bureaucracy and homogeneity. This thesis explores hance the relationship between the natural world and the oblique as a means of fracturing the relentless architecture. This study seeks to integrate bees into grid attempting to destabilize normal activities and the urban setting to demonstrate their vital function architectural conventions. The oblique offers an in the larger ecology. The Long Beach Civic Center opportunity to reorganize the existing mundane program of offices, destabilizing the movement building, designed by Allied Architects in 1976, is the through it and the interactions of its various users. site of intervention that will serve as a prototype for This thesis seeks to create an unavoidable experi- reinvigorating urban ecologies by showcasing novel ence that will return the conscious act of engaging forms of interfaces between man and animal. the body with architecture. LA 103 Adaptable Architecture or the Ever Changing Grid Piranesi’s Carceri and the Architecture of the Underworld

“Mat-building can be said to epitomise the anonymous collective; Piranesi’s etchings of the Carceri serve as the point where the functions come to enrich the fabric, and the individual of departure for an investigation into a new form gains new freedoms of action through a new and shuffled order, of spatial architecture based on “three-dimensional based on interconnection, close-knit patterns of association, and hatching.” The theoretical and formal complexities Behnoud Najafi possibilities for growth, diminution and change…” of etchings are analyzed to reinterpret their spatial - Allison Smithson qualities of chiaroscuro and phenomenal transpar- ency as the basis for developing a methodology This thesis explores “adaptable architecture”as a based on Piranesi’s techniques and principles. The form of infrastructure that can enable individuals atmospheric characteristics and the ambivalence of a to adapt themselves to their place of habitation. fragmented architecture that compose the dungeons Architecture becomes an agent of participatory ur- banism, encouraging new forms of performance and of the Carceri etchings inspire an appreciation for the Crystal qualities of subterranean spaces. The site of interven- spatial change. The program is a“media camp” for a Paraiso Tan collective of young actors, directors, writers, travel- tion for this project is the ruins of the underground ers, artists, media creators, and trend promoters. The Hollywood Subway station of the Pacific Electric adaptable aspects of the project enable its temporary Red Car. The abandoned infrastructure serves as the residents to manipulate their spaces in novel ways “Carceri of Los Angeles.” The subterranean spac- to live, preform, trade and create. The site is located es of the subway offer an opportunity to challenge at the intersection of the California High Speed Rail, the legacy of the “Architecture of the Sun” that has Metrolink train station, and the Burbank Airport, dominated Los Angeles and inspires a more delicate linking various neighborhoods and industries. relationship between architecture and light. 105 Sky Safari: Exploring Hollywood with Bird’s Eye

From the sky toward the earth’s surface is a magnifi- cent space full of intersecting moments with many nat- ural elements. Birds are one of the things that we don’t Los Angeles Omar Al Barak deal with directly. However, by adding nature and birds Joshua Stein, Instructor to the city and giving people a new experience through new vertical and horizontal layers, one can be trans- ported to a space surrounded by real environmental elements that cleanse the view of the urban.

Students Omar Al Barak

Rebecca Fox

Alejandro Ochoa

Helsa Smith

Nan Wang LA 107 Keeping Up Appearances: Civic Terrain: An Architecture of Domestic Discontinuity Breaking the Principles of Capitalism

The house itself is a way of looking, a surveillance Adam Smith once said “Happiness never lays its device monitoring the possessions that occupy it. finger on its pulse.” Our current economic system When something is missing, the gaping space will operates in a profit mode in order to have a to- cry out. Edith Farnsworth is quoted as saying: Alejandro talizing market but in the last couple of decades Ochoa we have leaned toward a hyper-consumerism “I don’t keep a garbage can under my sink. Do you know that has consequently eroded our civic space. In why? Because you can see the whole kitchen from the Los Angeles and other cities around world where road on the way in here and the can would spoil the appearance of the whole house. So I hide it in the closet public space is supported by private development further down. Mies talks about free space, but his space and commerce, this undermines the potential for is very fixed. I can’t even put a clothes hanger in my civic space in the city. This project seeks to explore Rebecca Fox house without considering how it affects everything play and learning in order to eliminate commerce from the outside.” from within its perimeter. It seeks to change the urban landscape, reviving it for the imagination I propose a contamination of the spaces of domes- and pleasure for all ages by engaging the theory tic efficiency, in order to corrupt the rationality of of play and learning. It is informed by experimen- the design, to provoke ideas relating to stigmas of tation in order to create a place that brings all the domestic. members of the community together. LA 109 Olfactory Remembrance: Cyber-Zoo: An Architecture Evocative of Memory An Architectural Bestiary for Augmented Nature

Architecture is often derived from visual, audito- In the preface of Jorge Luis Borges’s The Book of ry, and physical qualities of how one would like Imaginary Beings, he describes a child’s visit to to experience a space. While the sense of smell is the zoo. With wonder and fear, the child delights factored into the design process last or not at all, at those confused and mysterious creatures that according to Marcel Proust, memory is very closely he sees for the very first time. This project, as an linked to the olfaction process. Proustian phenom- architectural bestiary, brings to the adult world ena suggests that scents connected to particular the stimulation and anxiety of children discovering events and the events themselves are recorded the zoo for the first time. Through the perspective simultaneously within our minds as memories. This of the child in… Imaginary Beings, this project takes us on a trip to the near future, where we architecture ties scent to a particular moment in will encounter a new form of life, an augmented time as a means to create an architecture evoca- Helsa Smith Nan Wang nature that is born of science and biotechnology. tive of memory. As individuals peruse through the By using the backdrop of the Old Los Angeles Zoo, site, scents will not only create a memory of what this speculative intervention is not only a home once stood in existence but also become an inher- for those mysterious creatures, but is also a better ent guide to the users. Through an olfactory pres- chance for people to interrogate our idealistic and ervation that focuses less on form and detail, one preservationist view of the nature. will experience a heightened sense of self whilst in the once lost Beatniks’ Gas House of 1950s Venice Beach, California. 111

Los Angeles

Hadley Arnold and Peter Arnold Instructors

Students Gregory Andrade

Aja Bulla-Richards

Cyrus Dorbayan

Sandy Ghaly LA 113 Spectacle Space Confluence: The Intersection of Water Infrastructure and Cultural Practice

“The spectacle is general, as the concrete inversion of With over 7,000 miles of road, L.A. has the largest life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.” municipal street system in the nation. As the city - Guy Debord reinvents itself, expanding public transportation and at the same time seeking long-term supplementary Gregory This thesis explores architectural form as a means Aja water supply solutions, this extensive monofunctional Andrade of subverting “the spectacle” through the use Bulla-Richards network is called into question. I propose a network of of its own means in order to promote societal tributary streets that connect nodes of infiltration sites awareness. Engaging various influences far be- at commercial intersections throughout the San Fernan- yond the immediate site, the project seeks to ex- do Valley. These sites will perform as social space and plore a universal level of consciousness in opposi- landscape laboratories for stormwater and greywater tion to the “Spectacle of Freedom.” The accepted collection, filtration, conveyance and infiltration, initiat- model of the past, present, and future continuum ing layered social and ecological benefits to the city. is dissolved into an opposition between cultur- Prototypical interventions are designed to not only re- al paralysis and the “Freedom of Awakedness.” duce unsustainable dependence on water importation, The spectacle is then poised to become a vehicle but also to transform single-function infrastructure into multifunctional, inclusive community watersheds. supporting communication, interaction, cultural Integrating ecological performance into the fabric of reflection, and exchange, the very qualities that neighborhoods provides multiple benefits and expands are systematically eliminated in the “Society of our experience of water, connecting everyday rituals to the Spectacle.” vast ecological systems and natural cycles. LA 115 Envisioning Progressive Public Space for the Third Urgent Biophilia Los Angeles: A City-Wide Proposal for 29 City Centers Until now, best management practices for storm- Characteristics: water conservation have been landscape solutions, Civic Programming: Flexible spaces that allow for multiple pro- directing and filtrating urban runoff after it hits the grams to occur at the same time. ground. In contrast, the relationship of buildings Community Centers: Makes it accessible for all to understand and to stormwater has been defensive and negative, as participate in city government and provides a public forum. evidenced by terms like water-tight, water-repel- Economic Platform: Creating sustainable public space is dependent Sandy Ghaly lent, and water-proof, disconnecting a significant on income generation on-site and nearby, and responsible to local relationship between the built and natural envi- social equity issues. ronments. What is the role of design in crafting Data Mining: Exploits the regional scale and city centers concept to determine value and benefit for neighborhood paradigms. buildings and cities that consciously, visibly welcome hydrologic variability while increasing public aware- Method: ness and engagement with water conservation? To investigate and design one city center that integrates with the How can we enhance the relationship between Cyrus Dorbayan greater city by creating a destination public plaza on Hollywood buildings and landscapes to integrate the recovery Blvd. Located between two metro stops, it supports a transporta- and re-use of water? “Urgent Biophilia” reconnects tion corridor and community place-making. nature with the built environment through a net- work of multi-faceted architectural systems that Mission: work coherently to steer variable climate change Programming a democratic process in real time through spectacle, responses toward synergy. The goal is to construct curiosity, and policy. an environmental scaffold that celebrates a gradual unfolding of unpredictable transformation, synchro- nized with precise hydrologic management solutions for each specific site. Los Angeles 117

Christoph Korner Interior Architecture Chair . . d “I don’t think you should strive to make anything new - Coy Howar Our graduating students are about to enter a new chap - see them go out into the world and infiltrate it with some of see them go out into the world and infiltrate it with some of behind the comfort and beauty of their university, peers, and peers, and behind the comfort and beauty of their university, a different kind of strange, the kind that challenges you, kind of strange, the that challenges you, a different men at Woodbury University, they encountered the strange, they encountered the strange, University, men at Woodbury They learned to embrace grow. makes you question, wonder, ter in their lives. It will be new and also a bit strange, leaving ter in their lives. It will be new and also a bit strange, leaving Only a couple of years ago, when they were fresh - faculty. it and, in their final project as seniors, they created it. They is the first generation of graduates under my leadership as of the School Architecture, are proud to faculty and staff this exciting strangeness. transformed from curious freshmen into critical thinkers. This transformed from curious freshmen into critical thinkers. This I think you should strive to make something strange. I think you should strive to make something strange.

Because new is only for how long?” Chair of the Department of Interior Architecture and we, the Chair of the Department Interior Architecture and we, 119

Los Angeles

Interior Architecture

H

Annie Chu Instructor

Heather Peterson Instructor

Students Narine Ataian Kristen Dusold

Chelsea Cammaratta Alena Elsen

Annette Chang Aleni Lopez

Melania Gourehzar Omar Montelongo

Mitzi Hernandez Amy Rayne

Stephen Nguyen Francisco Salgado

Shabnam Peida Meng Ting Sun

Casaundra Quackenbush

LA 121 Formal Explorations

Architecture and fashion have always longed for a relationship of influence and translatability. The dis- ciplines have borrowed from each other techniques of fabrication, morphological attributes, relational concepts and material transfers literally and inter- pretably. In considering Galeana, a skirt created by Alexander McQueen in 2005, the project exercises the motives to translate the skirt’s system of formal and material relationships metaphorically. Inherent

Narine Ataian in the exploration is observations of influence by the underlying presence of the body, a fertile wellspring shared by both fashion and architecture. LA 123 Pattern Making Space Beauty in Imperfection: A Balance of Simplicity and Complexity

Interior Architecture has entertained a strong Wabi-sabi is about finding beauty in imperfection interest with surface-making. One of the methods enhanced by passage of time; to slow down in or- of surface creation is through the proliferating der to experience the moment more mindfully, and of patterns that can exhibit interpreted material also to mine value among the everyday. Inherent properties and invite tectonic translations. React- in the creation of an environment conducive to this ing against orthogonal geometry within the Car- intimate experience, this project takes the form tesian system, pattern privileges surface-making a pavilion situated at a marginal corner outside and may offer different agencies and resistance of the Design Center on campus. The design and to create the realm between architecture and the construction of the pavilion acts as a laboratory for

Chelsea body. This project focused on pattern surface Annette Chang material tectonics aimed at orchestrating an itiner- Cammarata exploration to create interactive spaces, and to ary of sensorial engagement. The method of shou challenge the status quo archetype of spatial ele- sugi ban, otherwise known as “cedar burning,” is ments and furniture. explored to create a material context that embraces the manifestations of interiority and exteriority. This set of experiences forges the relationship between the interior and nature. It also allows a personal reframing of the marginal landscape to elevate that experience of the everyday. LA 125 Spatialized Light: An Empirical Approach Adjusting the Nations Edge

Embracing the temporal effect of natural light is The border between the United States and Mexico seldom the major impulse of interior architecture. has been conceived as a barrier which privileges The interaction of natural light and the interior the present dominant power and diminishes the environment creates a powerful dialog connecting potential of the in-between to critique and rebal- ance the experience of the status quo. Informed nature with architecture. Conscientiously crafted re- by studies of social geometry of family meetings lationships between light and use can enhance the at the border fence, the project reconsiders a experience of choreographed movement through thickened border condition to express cultural space. This project proposes to explore this impulse attitudes towards space and object-making. by situating a series of interior experiences for a Melania Mitzi Hernandez Gourehzar collection of glass art objects by Josiah McElheny, Jay Musler, Stanislav Libensky, Marcela Rosemberg, and Lino Tagliapietra in the Malibu light. LA 127 Enduring the Transitional State of Silence, Darkness, Sublime Aperture and Surveillance

This work explores the inter-connective effects of Architecture sculpts light into memorable geometric silence, darkness, and of being surveilled. Silence forms, paramount components of phenomenal ex- can suggest unlimited space and can also mediate perience. This project investigates the ability of light between the absence of sound and the presence to create perceptual space within physical space, of noise. Duration of the condition of silence and explores the materiality of light. The space of impacts comfort levels. Darkness influences the investigation is constrained by a monochromatic mind’s eye to perceive imaginative and animated, palette in order to provide an abstract context to or real forms. Naturally, the need arises to identify observe the effect of light. Growing up in Sweden, a connection of the existing, unknown form to a I have internalized the contrast of intense winter prior confrontation. The awareness of surveillance darkness and vivid summer brilliance. Situating the Stephen Nguyen significantly impacts behavior, perception of time, Shabnam Peida project in Lund offers the disparity of extreme light and atmospheric qualities. In the presence of these conditions throughout the seasons. The specific light three conditions to anchor spatial experiences, of this geographical location focuses and challenges the project explores, through representation, the a design solution that can elevate an appreciation for nuanced and layered effects of the transitional the poetics of light and darkness. existence between the rational and the imagined. LA 129 Appropriation: An Overlay of Systems Contested Marks

Bees claim territory by appropriating an existing A palimpsest can be defined as a surface of indexical situation. In the act of taking possession of an un- languages and physical cues that record a site’s his- derlying system, such as a pile of twigs, the bees torical narrative. This thesis seeks to investigate the construct wax comb planes between the twigs, design potentials of the palimpsest and to challenge adjusting thickness of structure according to spans. the myth of the tabula rasa. The Athenian Parthe- Taking as site a typical type V wood frame house non, a palimpsest par excellence, will serve as a under construction, the project explores a parallel testing ground for reexamining how we discuss and process by collecting discards in the house’s neigh- define architectural history and its values. borhood, developing a language of interaction be- tween the western frame and those found objects, Casaundra thereby territorializing the house by an overlay of Kristen Dusold Quackenbush installations. The design of those exhibit scenarios continues to investigate the process of appropria- tion, first by aestheticizing the found objects and secondly by establishing its display methodologies while negotiating the tectonic potentials of the overlay of systems. LA 131 Brackish Morphology: Solid Draping: A Reinterpretation The Erosive Potentials of Architecture of R.M Schindler’s Concrete Construction

Architecture often works to suppress the evidence The rapid growth of technology has contributed to of its use and the presence of its occupants. globalization and the homogenization of building Through maintenance and upkeep, traces of human technologies that often marginalize local, tectonic, occupation and environmental wear are regularly and material traditions. The contemporary Swiss checked or erased. This thesis will investigate the architects, Herzog & De Meuron, are known for their time-based potentials of wear, both human and close study and translation of vernacular building traditions and material tectonics into contempo- environmental, to shape and develop new aesthetic rary built languages. Their tectonic translations are languages, forms, and spaces by anticipating and primarily focused on issues of envelope and skin, and employing erosive processes and their imprints. are rarely explored as spatial and interior conditions. This thesis proposes to study the West Coast vernac- Alena Eisen Adeleni Lopez ular tradition of tilt-up concrete construction through a close reading of Rudolf Schindler’s Kings Road House. The vernacular techniques of tilt-up concrete construction will be reinterpreted to create interior spatial conditions that enhance the qualities of tex- ture, dimensionality, aperture, and threshold, which are made between solids, membranes, and delicately interwoven to create three-dimensional forms. LA 133 In Formation: The Complicity Triangle: Memorialization and Interiority of Furniture in Constructed Environments

Memorials have historically been designed and Furniture has the capability of generating socio-spa- executed as exterior conditions or objects; rarely tial bonds within the built environment, which can have they taken on the challenge of representing inform the boundaries of architecture. This thesis an event through interiority, and the few that argues for the potential of furniture to act as a exist have done so in a curatorial fashion, creating generator of spatial ideas and human relationships. a museum. I believe there is great potential for Furniture ranges widely from the modest to the interiority to memorialize historic events through a exclusive. Its functional and decorative aspects synthesis of light, material, and episodic indexing; condense period and place, ritual, resources, and cultural aesthetic value. Thus, a table can engender in particular, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of a particular function. In this case, a table will be 1911, which was responsible for the deaths of 146 Omar designed for the ritual of drinking yerba mate, using Amy Rayne workers, and sparked radical change in labor laws Montelongo specific techniques and materials that either individ- and building codes. ually or together reinforce its cultural value. LA 135 ACDC: An Alternative Contemporary Dilated Spaces: Detention Center A Performative Investigation of Mechanism, Light, and Experience This thesis investigates the typological relation- ships between contemporary art museums and prisons; specifically, their comparable strategies Natural movement in our world is driven by the of lighting, materiality, surveillance, control, energy of the sun. Artificial movement is defined and anti-social organization. Constrained by the by the gesture of mechanism and the language conventional material palette of concrete, steel, of technology, which harnesses and manipulates and glass, this project will explore the formal and the sun’s movement and energy. This thesis will atmospheric developments that have occurred explore the potential of mechanisms to negotiate within contemporary museums– such as innovative between the natural world and the human world sky-lighting, or the tempering of brutal materials– through the light-sensitive program of a rare book and adapt those findings to the environments of Francisco Meng Ting Sun library–an addition to Gunnar Asplund’s Public Salgado incarceration, guiding their populace toward better Library in Stockholm, Sweden. post-incarceration prosperities. San Diego 137

Catherine Herbst Architecture Chair

- .” but how you are beginning your career s just another project.” s just another project.” It’ “ I hear myself and my colleagues say this count plete their degree at the same time. It is etched with friend - ships and hardships and I think the best classes remember it ships and hardships I think the best classes remember it know the students have found their ethic. Their motivation know the students have found their ethic. Their motivation less other clichés to each class of students as they struggle less other clichés to each class of students as they struggle through their last project. From my perspective, the Degree through their last project. From my perspective, the Degree Project is a measuring stick for group of people who com - Every year it morphs with the directions of an able fondly. Aspects get better and sometimes things are lost. faculty. The only is their own, and that will carry them a long way. But when the studio is humming at eight in the morning, I But when the studio is humming at eight in morning, I thing I enjoy more than students is alumni. And so wish them all well and will see again.

“It is not how you are ending your education, “It is not how you are ending your education, San Diego 139 Philipp Bosshart, Eric Johnson, and Marcel Sanchez-Prieto, Instructors

Speculations at the Edge: The San Diego – Tijuana Region

Students Stephanie Absalon David Lopez In our second year, we continue to research the contested territory of the bi-national border re- Jeremiah Artates Bradley Marquette gion of SD/TJ. As borders harden between nations with economic imbalances, this region uncovers Jason Bontempo Luis Madrigal the nature of opportunism as a medium for adap- tations and mechanisms for survival, coexistence Richard Balistreri Jesus Morocho and a challenge to the established structures of Cory Bitting Andrew Nguyen both countries. Along the border, an opportunistic landscape materializes that promises to resist the Derek Buskirk Alexander Rodriguez alienation associated with traditional urban models of control. Joshua Chilton Jorge Rojas The research developed in the course alights upon Talyssa D’Avila Kevin Solis this notion of opportunism and harnesses recent interest in this region in order to discover and Mark Chien Yesenia Taylor propose interdisciplinary contextual prospects and provide emergent philosophies, tools, and social Phillip Fowler Alvin Vuong practices while using the bi-national divided region Sandra Guillen Forrest Whitmore as a laboratory for research and speculation into new forms of architecture and urban adaptations. Mehmet Gundogar Abel Zatarain Therefore, the projects in Degree Project are an Ian Heacox array of opposing modes of operation that both benefit and polarize each other, coalescing points Juan Ixta of view, stimulating and motivating the possibili- ties of architecture as a de facto actor in designing contemporary culture and possible futures. SD 141 Transitional Place MotorHub: Highway Intervention

During the 19th century, transit stations were In the current age of automotive transportation, considered a central space for commerce, commu- highway infrastructure has been modified to nication and culture. Public transportation in the accommodate maximum efficiency for its users. United States of America has yet to experience The increased use of vehicular transportation has a resurgence in development and design, as has demanded the expansion of San Diego’s highway occurred in Europe, and continues to compete for systems, which has evolved into a categorization of ridership as the automobile stands as the conve- vehicular occupancy and modes of transport. The nient and predominately popular mode of travel. outcome of such manipulation and construction San Diego’s old town metropolitan transit center has yielded a separation between the proximity of will serve as a testing ground to revitalize the the pedestrian versus the circulation of vehicular Stephanie cultural identity of the transit station, invigorate Jeremiah Artates movement. Absalon the public spatial experience, and strengthen the network infrastructure. This thesis is an explora- The MotorHub assesses the disjunction of vehicular tion focused on excavating the interrelationships experience of current highway infrastructure, and between the binary conditions of departure and the existing systems of the Rancho Bernardo Transit arrival. In addition, the social and built structures Station. Through the studies of circulatory and facilitate in the determination of possible spatial programmatic communication, the MotorHub will conditions occurring in this indeterminate space revive the motoring experience and enhance the are examined. void which occurs between point A and point B. SD 143 Mechanized Urbanism Procured Sound

The current maquiladora system within the Tijua- Given that the inevitable urban soundscape is na, Mexico region metabolizes the urban region at something tolerated, but also an environment to a catastrophic rate. A mega-structuring measure which we have not found an adaptation, Procured is required to close this entropic open system and sound is an architectural execution amassed from recalibrate the failing infrastructure of the Tijuana the field of urban sound studies to expose potential river aqueduct, which is both sacred and acts as opportunities for manipulating the experiences of a divisional gap within the city. This heuristic ma- sound. Spatial experiences present new theoretical chine will enable a transparent framework to allow insights backed by relevant case studies to sup- surface stitching, a prosthetic mechanic engage- port the outlook of sound and noise as they can ment, and metabolize the failing system in play. be applied to architecture. Developments in sound Jason Bontempo Richard Balistreri studies are seen across various disciplines, but have not yet attained maximum potential in architectural debate. Being able to introduce innovative technol- ogies to control sound can advance the way archi- tecture is approached. The thesis aims to investi- gate sound, not as an obstruction, but to exemplify its architectural qualities and possibilities. SD 145 Between The Edge: Inhabiting The Freeway Void Sonic Transparency

The post-industrial culture of San Diego has in- In society today, the concert hall is often com- duced an urban flight, catalyzed by the modernist missioned to be the face of our cities, yet, while creation of a mass private transportation system the building and program is enjoyed by many, the of freeways. The resulting dissection of the urban internal experience is perceived as only for the fabric has segregated and destroyed neighbor- elite. This project will explore how architecture hoods. A design methodology to convert the null can challenge the innate exclusive quality of urban space of the freeway boundary-edge into a bor- concert halls through the control of sonics via der-edge, a destination, is explored in this thesis. surfaces. The goal is to arrive at an aural transpar- These major boundary-edges have transformed ency between the music-producing private sector San Diego into a city of archipelagos, introspective and the music-receiving public sector, where the Cory Bitting islands disconnected from each other. The city Derek Buskirk urban landscape of the city can coexist with the has the opportunity to mitigate the boundary of concert hall. the freeway from within itself, by reestablishing a density of pedestrian connections and activity. The interjection of a border-edge will reinstate the human scale at the freeway edge and revert the introspective archipelagos of San Diego. SD 147 Recover: Strategic Integration Of Aquatic Sociopetal Space Opposing Social Isolation And Civil Culture

This thesis aims to investigate the vacant ground As our urban landscape becomes increasingly den- in Taichung, Taiwan, where former military hous- sified and vertical in nature, it is necessary for ur- ing once stood, as an ideal site for interventions ban neighborhood planning to provide more areas that trigger new forms of public life. The water for quality social interaction. This can be accom- culture endemic to the region allows the project plished through the introduction of civic and social to strategically intervene to preserve the cul- places into the high density urban fabric, offering ture through the integration of seasonal aquatic multiple programs and activities to attract users of fluctuation with public space. With components varied ages, socio-economic strata, and cultural that amplify historical, cultural, recreational and heritage. Historically, public places have been the natural elements, the intervention generates a cornerstone of social and civic life for people in decentralized system of dispersed, yet connect- urban centers. Today, public and private spaces, Mark Chien ed, micro-parks. Interactions will extend, not just Joshua Chilton between people, but also to the parks themselves, especially in America’s consumer-driven society, connected by the transforming seasonal features have become intertwined, and social spaces for the and water level changes. Water retained for rec- public have become a hybrid. My proposal is in reation will be filtered and distributed to the com- response to this changing dynamic. By combining munity of Rainbow Village, a preserved portion of the elements of a community arts and performance the original military housing, where water short- center, public plaza, restaurant and retail spaces age is a concern. This thesis will investigate how with porous street edges, this project will provide the micro-parks become a negotiation between such an outlet to the age-diverse and densely pop- social groups and contested territory. ulated Cortez Hill community. SD 149 Sheltering Interjections Consequence of the Voids “Reconnecting the Urban Fabric Through the Voids”

This thesis will focus on current living habits, quali- Disruptive forms and splintering forces divide the ties of life, and spatial organization to re-distribute, city into parts that obstruct any hope of an organ- re-adapt, re-shape, re-evaluate and re-configure ic recovery of the city’s urban fabric. Consequence the way we dwell in our homes. The subject area is of the voids is a response to this reality. Through the 1950s suburban home in Clairemont, San Diego testing the redistribution of program in section (California). The architectural strategy is acknowl- with conflicting grids will create new forms of edging that the existing living conditions are flawed directionally neutral separated layers of complexity and not focused on contemporary comforts, effi- that will create meaningful relationships with the ciencies of space, systems and structure. urban fabric.

Talyssa D’Avila This exploration is developed by generating a series Phillip Fowler Today’s architecture has lost its conditional rela- of scenarios manipulating the typical model with a tionship to the urban fabric. At the local level, we hierarchy of rules, allowing for hybridization of the move around our city within one system, The Ur- dwelling. The hybrid system provides the necessary ban Fabric. The urban fabric is not efficient, with flexibility to sustain future habitation, emphasizing uneveness, fragmentation, and divergent parts of sustainability, physical and emotional health, materi- conflict. Through defined design goals and the use al quality and energy standards. of architectural solutions, a contemporary urban repair strategy will be deployed against imp erme- able urban edge conditions.

Organic Mechanism SD 151 Retrofitting Public Spaces: Fulfilling Urban Needs Latent Territories: Waterside Opportunism

As San Diego expands, density has increased with Seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered mega-building blocks and high rise residential with water, but the waterfront edges are scarce. towers, resulting in isolated communities. Archi- tects create massive buildings with short lifecycles During the industrial growth, the edges of the to accommodate specific needs, ignoring the urban cities were taken over. ‘Cities’ growth was driven a fabric of which they are a part. Spaces that promote divergent direction. Today some of these edge ter- interaction and integration with the community ritories are vast, underutilized, and hard to access. are usually ignored. These meaningless structures dominate the urban ecosystem. The multilayered This thesis seeks to discover potential strategies for urban experience demands a more holistic approach infrastructure and architectural urbanism to reclaim for designing public spaces. This thesis aims to the latent waterfront territories as new areas for Sandra Guillen Mehmet investigate how the collective urge to develop well- design and future engagement. designed hybrid public spaces can come about by Gundogar focusing on the concept of horizontality to create an urban field with linear display surfaces, weav- ing a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces. This type of public space should be able to respond and transform constantly with the city as it grows, becoming the lens through which the contemporary city is represented and reunited. SD 153 Fragmentation of the City Revitalizing Land: A Post-Leisure Experience

The decay of industrialization in downtown San The Post-Leisure experience is the residual use of Diego has produced remnants of old warehouse skins land that was once determined to be Leisure-pro- that are either adapted or demolished. The destruc- grammed. Contemporary issues such as economic tion of these artifacts due to their inability to adapt downturns, water shortages, and aging infrastruc- is inefficient, but a reality. However, these artifacts ture have resulted in suburban and urban environ- still have value: the historic aspect, the value of the ments developing rapidly and perfunctorily, leaving infrastructure/land, and the industrial spatial feelings swaths of land open and abandoned. These empty evoked by these decayed warehouses. These vacant spaces can serve a purpose in their abandonment. buildings are often located close to major attractions As such, golf courses are the focus of this investiga- tion to discover the underlying usages of a Post-Lei- such as the Gaslamp, Petco Park, and housing high sure experience. Ian Heacox rises, allowing for interesting interactions. Even with Juan Ixta positive adjacencies to the site, these buildings are ig- The logics of the site and the death of the Leisure nored in the city plan, creating fragmentation. While program originally intended for the site lead to the the building structure is made up of walls and space, birth of new architectural typologies. This thesis will this thesis aims to investigate how these artifacts first analyze the site from a minimalist approach. can reconnect with the city center using the skin of Second: reintroduce new programmatic elements for the building. By focusing on the roof, the thesis will the emergence of activity hubs. And third: deter- investigate the potential to open and connect the mine how the site will accommodate the privatiza- structure by perforating the skin. tion of the site and the public realm. SD 155 (Interstition) The Space Within the Line Life Support : Analyzing the Spaces We Inhabit

In a globalized world with linked economies and in- How can we develop spaces for both commercial tercontinental civic engagements, areas of persistent and residential inhabitation that can adapt to political conflict have emerged with a defining geo- our varying programmatic needs as individuals? graphic trend. This hostile line of political turmoil These spaces hold quantitative and qualitative is aligned between 28-­33 degrees North Parallel: needs that can inform how spaces should react The Political Equator. Within this combative space to a given environment. Through this we can ab- lies Mexico and the United States. While the two stract a kit of parts which can be used to develop countries are contentious with one another, they are a framework that defines orientation and the not in a state of armed conflict, unlike other coun- physical needs of these spaces. tries along this political thermocline. This thesis aims to negotiate the geographic elements at the locus of David Lopez Friendship and Border Field Park. This border space Bradley separating the U.S. and Mexico will be examined to Marquette determine which elements, if any, contribute to an environment of conflict. The observations will be applied to both sides of the border region to medi- ate the geographic factors and mollify tensions, re­ conceptualizing the border. Through examination of the specific area will architecture and other elements be crafted to create regional continuity. SD 157 Manifestation of the Archive Moments of Sound and Space

A new Social Society has emerged with impli- Concerning the perception of sound, architecture cations of self-worth being determined through has lost relevance, failing to address the percep- the consistent documentation of our lives using tion of the world through the simultaneous use of social media. We create an exponentially grow- all five senses. Visual perception has been heav- ing amount of information that is in flux with the ily and disproportionately favored in the field of places that are physically able to store this infor- architecture and this has deprived us all of the mation. Soon, our archives will begin to protrude potential to use our other senses. Since a space into the cityscape when the demand for bigger without sound can feel even emptier, this project and faster storage increases. Manifestation of the seeks to explore the reverberation of sound in a Archive revisits the manner in which architects space and the quality of its reflectiveness that will Luis Madrigal deal with storage typologies in order to create Jesus Morocho be affected by geometry, proportion, and material- new typologies adapted for data warehouses, stor- ity. This thesis seeks to enrich the senses of volume ing our increasingly cyber lives that have massive and space and would create opportunities for the growing physical-spatial requirements. public to experience these moments. The design will create a better transition from the overstimu- lation of the neighborhood of the waterfront, to an audio-rich space where the user can explore the building and enjoy the surroundings. SD 159 M.A.R.S (Modular Adaptive Residential System) Mall Almanac Prototype 2.0

The M.A.R.S. prototype is a project that is designed Because of shifting consumer trends, Shopping malls to test and conceptualize how residences may be in the contemporary urban society have become produced using a completely industrialized prefab- inefficient structures due to the overcompensation ricating process. The core concept for the building of space, limitations of accessibility, and sterile social system is the manipulation of tessellating geometries environments. The fundamental political struggle in order to design a building formed by the overlap- of city development has historically dealt with the ping vertices creating arrangements that are dy- juxtaposition of expanding private spaces and the namic, scalar, and responsive. This, in turn, enables limitations set forth by public spaces. The shopping users to adapt the building’s program and configu- mall, designed by Victor Gruen, was an innovative ration to match their lifestyle needs. Furthermore, by-product of the post-war competition to accom- Andrew Nguyen the M.A.R.S. prototype is designed with delivery in Alexander modate expanding middle-class families and to mind, using lightweight, cutting-edge materials to Rodriguez re-imagine a city’s walkability. Cataloging existing make project delivery possible in even the most dif- mall conditions such as Victor Gruen’s City Center ficult and remote locations: locations where building Mall, Jon Jerde’s Horton Plaza, and Rem Koolhaas’s on site, or delivery of materials, present a logistical 360 Mall department store will inform the preceding challenge. This lightness enables the project to be evolution of public and private spaces in an effort to delivered by traditional means, air transport, heli- develop new components of urban social spaces. copter, or even by remote aerial systems. SD 161 A Monument is for remembering forgetting. Compressed Interaction

A transition between two opposite conditions of- This thesis concerns the identification of the al- fers an infinite amount of possibilities where both leyway as a positive space, rejecting the negative identities (opposite conditions) have a sense of archetypal stigma. Alleyways exist as the subtrac- belonging. As an outcome of the continuing con- tive space between architectural projects, allowing for opportunities to analyze different programs. dition of dynamic change and ongoing processes Kevin Solis Substance will replace desolation, encouraging the of decay and renewal of the emerging metropolis, community to inhabit these spaces and enhance the urbanity has brought with it feelings of security functionality of the block, bringing the community and financial prospects, but also significant draw- together. Enhancing the alleyway, subtracting the backs that emerge over time, such as segregation, negative public perspective and re-imagining it as social exclusion, and poverty. positive, is necessary to add infrastructure to dispel Jorge Rojas the negative void. By addressing the environmental challenges that divide two communities (opposite in financial and Community spaces play a crucial role in the success political stature) not just physically, but culturally, of a city and its inhabitants. The infrastructure of the public by-ways engage the buildings, dwellings the topic of the monument will serve to commem- and formal public spaces. The thesis focuses on en- orate spaces of mitigation. A place where two hancing a new infrastructure within the alley, bring- communities can find a sense of belonging within ing a community together and rejecting the negative a neglected site. identity traditionally associated with alleyways. SD Media Meditation: Improving Architecture 163 and Design by Utilizing Technology that can Educate, The Enabled Environment Inspire, and Communicate Ideas

While drawings, collages and models transmit an This thesis focuses on architectural surfaces and urgency to be understood, there are new technol- their ability to increase quotidian mobility. Con- ogies emerging that could revolutionize the way temporary architectural design, limited by rigid architecture is represented. By comparing the work parameters, has largely neglected the handi- of the modern-age ‘paper architects’ (Perry Kulper, capped and less mobile populations. Conven- Thomas Hillier, etc.) to the new-age augment- tional design, while focused on energy and cost ed reality technologies, it is possible to see how efficiency, tends to design buildings that are only representation techniques have evolved to aid the functional to the largest swatch of population, imagination-impaired. This new form of represen- ignoring users with more difficulty. However, an tation is a more experiential means for designing effective design can create accessibility for varied architecture and ensures that all questions posed types of users, regardless of conditions of mobil- Yesenia Taylor by biased, static drawings will be visually answered Alvin Vuong ity. The surface-oriented design will be described and understood by the eyes of the user. This new using a school’s built environment. The thesis will mediation between designer and non-designer will focus on school institutions as an archetype for change the way architecture is valued, not only general design principles in the community. Ad- provoking ideas and feelings, but also demand- ditionally, schools require design to account for a ing memory and relationships. Changing the way wide range of possible disabilities and users. There architecture is represented is the key to influencing is a need for a designed built environment where relevance and importance in the architecture and individuals with disabilities are comfortable and design professions. productive members of the larger population. SD 165 Compression Boundary Deviant Bodies

While contemporary practice focuses on the arbi- This thesis investigates the potential of architectur- trary manipulation of exterior surfaces to create al prosthesis as an “auxiliary organ” by examining ‘exuberant’ buildings, the compression boundary the contemporary role of the body in architecture. utilizes density, hatching, and axonometric repre- The body is examined as three classes; the orthotic sentation to alter volumetric architecture within body (in need of adjustment/correction to skeletal or simple forms. Computational design technologies musculatory structure), the prosthetic body (use of negate the complex intrinsic potential of tradi- prosthetics to replace a lost or damaged limb), and tional architectural drawing techniques. Although the post-body body (a normal body that wishes to these techniques have the connotation of merely extend its abilities through orthotic and/or prosthetic being surface-based, the overlay and density of devices). The site contains a grid of trees, this field is Forrest the hatching determines the aura, depth, light, Abel Zatarain analyzed as a set of primary (tilt causes displacement Whitmore resolution and structure of space. of terrain), secondary (growth of one is affected by adjacent growth), and tertiary (voids cause growth along trunk) relationships. Can the investigation of ‘deviant’ body classes and their primary, secondary, and tertiary relationships of inhabiting space critique the role of bodies in architecture? San Diego 167 Stan Bertheaud, Philipp Bosshart, From the Inside Out Eric Johnson, Hector Perez, and Marcel Sanchez-Prieto, Instructors This project started out as an exploration into the relationship between taxidermy and architecture, which led to the relationship of the façade to the interior and how the poché becomes the in-be- tween space of a building packaged all together. In taxidermy, the skin is removed and placed around a form in the shape of the animal; here, the interior changes by being confined to the form of the Timken Museum, with the original façade then having an additional façade placed around it. Students Joseph Gravius Joseph Gravius The façade is encasing the interior, the same way the skin would act. Inspired by the fall semester Maritza Reh in Rome and the work of Francesco Borromini and his use of geometry in the confined space of John Shannon San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, the in-between or poché created by surrounding spaces became more interesting due to their geometries for the new space created in the Timken. SD

Rescuing A High Voltage Fossil : 169 Between Harbor Avenue and Main Street in Barrio Logan Transforming America’s Industrial Typology

The mix of uses as well as of a lack of a community This thesis will explore how innovation, technology, centers in a post-industrial landscape produce an community, and abundance are producing an archi- underprivileged community, and an environment tectural typology for America’s “New Industry.” The that is not favorable to close social interactions, and thesis will define the typology of “New Industry” does not encourage the people to improve their own and show how these typological characteristics are ecological surroundings. Recognizing that complex transformed into humane, economic, and ecologi- cal architectural feedback loop systems. The archi- systems of people, nature and environment impact tectural typology will re-adapt and re-vitalize the one another in a reciprocal interaction, it could help abandoned envelopes of earlier industrial typologies– to understand the different elements that are in- “Old Industry”– while evolving to meet the new volved to establish the new positive conditions, and economic and social needs of American communities Maritza Reh create a progressive and dynamic design. A range John Shannon and industries. The El Toro Marine Base in Irvine, CA scale between public spaces and industrial design is an energetic urban setting with the necessary ex- can help to recover and improve the relationship of isting structural and industrial landscape to allow the the people of the community. In this case, the archi- architectural feedback loops to succeed. The project tecture will be a mediator in the process where the will locate itself within the envelope of an existing citizens become the creator of the new space that hangar on-site. Once inside, the new typological will work like a catalyst, strengthening the social characteristics and systems will be deployed through relationship, and increasing urban biodiversity. modular flexibility, expanding the existing envelope and its boundaries. San Diego 171 Mike Burnett, Brett Farrow, Tyler Hanson, The Yellow Mellow Lloyd Russell, Jonathan Segal, Ted Smith, and David Saborio, Instructors Nested in the heart of Barrio Logan, San Diego, this 22-unit multi-residential project is a revival project of an old metal shop that was rusting in its own pile of scrap. Barrio Logan is currently a community that is rising to its artful and diverse cultural potential. The project’s design is suggestive of the new tran- sition of the community, while keeping the design reminiscent of the gabled metal roof structure as an homage to the bustling industrial community. Ten Students Yu Kwang Chun Yu Kwang Chun of the live-work units are a conversion of the exist- ing building shell while the other 12 units are newly Al Hussein Dantata built lofts. The total development cost of the design is projected to be $2.9 million at a capitalized value Sin Hei Kwok of $4.1 million. Seyed Marashi

Adam Martin

Stella Murphy

Paulina Olmos Brenis

Jeffrey Umphres SD 173 El Barrio Voltaire 6

El Barrio is a small, mixed-use development in the Voltaire 6 is a for-sale development consisting of heart of an up-and-coming neighborhood in the six condo map homes. The project is located at Barrio Logan area of San Diego, CA. Designed to the corner of Voltaire and Abbot Streets which is blend in with the current built-environment by a block away from Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA. keeping the scale relevant so the building will not Walls and windows are articulated not only to seem out of place, the complex is to function as emphasize natural light and ventilation, but also small community within the neighborhood and to serve as one of the first steps toward the revival of to avoid overlooking issue on a high density site. the district. Each unit provides large private patio/balcony/ outdoor showers to extend the spatial experience

Al Hussein The complex is comprised of 11 new apartments Sin Hei Kwok to outdoor. Four units on Abbot Streets on level Dantata and 8 commercial spaces from the converted for- three have valuable view to the ocean. mer metal shop. The complex is expected to cost $3.1 million at a capitalized value of $4.3 million when completed. SD 175 Beach Row Houses The Lyceum

Located in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San The Lyceum is a development consisting of six Diego, CA, Beach Row Houses was the subject of “fee simple”– ie. for sale– homes. The site sits in an analysis of a for-sale project in the Real Estate the Ocean Beach Neighborhood in San Diego, Cal- development program. Considering its proximity ifornia at the corner of Voltaire and Abbot Streets. Seyed Marashi The project’s design and siting is highly influenced to the beach, the site is a prime residential location by the beach, located a little over a block away. which potentially could be a great purchase for a Rather than create traditional row homes which are family of two or three. Row homes consist of 1 and limited to natural light on three sides and share side 2 bed rooms with two baths, front yard, balconies walls, the intent is to clearly delineate ownership on upper levels and car garage with a lift providing and create value via a more habitable gap between two parking spaces. The analysis started by studying Adam Martin the homes, thus reinforcing the nature of indepen- neighborhood price comparisons and then examin- dent ownership. Privacy is afforded by providing ing the site itself with regard to maximum usage of roof overhangs and cleverly orienting the windows. the site according to what zoning allowed. Finally, Each 2-story unit is given an uninterrupted view creating a pro forma in this study put everything into toward the ocean. The project is contiguous in perspective about whether the project was profitable character, but varied in massing and siting, leaving room for each home to take on a distinct identity with respect to neighborhood market prices. within the overall development. SD 177 Barrio Mix The Fold

Located in Barrio Logan, this mixed-use development The fold is a small residential project located in a consists of 12 residential units, 6 commercial or live/ beachfront neighborhood in San Diego, California work units, and 1 large 2800 sq. ft. space intended to known as Ocean Beach. This building occupies a 10,000 sq. ft. lot on the corner of Voltaire an Abbot house a collection of cars. The residential units will be Stella Murphy Streets (2 blocks away from the beach) and consists new construction flanking the existing steel fabrica- of 5 three-story row homes, each paired with its tion building on the site and creating a new urban own private patio and garage. edge that respects the pedestrian experience. The new live/work spaces will consist of new construction The Fold has the intention to provide ocean views as well as an area carved out of the existing building to each unit and preserve their privacy at the same within the shell. The total development cost is esti- time, which is the reason of the orientation, position, Paulina and massing for the houses: One set back from the mated to be $3.2 million with a capitalized value of Olmos Brenis other, creating this space of natural ventilation and $4.7 million at completion. illumination. These 2 bedroom/2 bath units connect interiors and exteriors through large glazed openings and garage doors.

The building is intended to be sold right after the construction making a total return on investment of 50%. Case Study - Massing Colophon

Through case studies such as this, we begin to under- stand how these characteristic forms can be assimi- lated into our developments from design, as well as being financially informed and having functional per- spectives. Each space has a value and every decision has both aesthetic and pecuniary consequences. By using this as a metric, we are guided toward a mean- ingful balance between design and performance.

Jeffrey Umphres

Book Design Team April Greiman / Made in Space / LA Louis Alvarado / Tiffany Chin

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Burbank Campus building Tom Bonner San Diego Campus building David Hewitt and Anne Garrison Architectural Photography

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Corrigendum

The following students graduating with a Master of Science in Architecture were instructed by the following faculty:

Student Gregory Andrade: Instructors Anthony Fontenot and Mark Stanley

Student Cyrus Dorbayan: Instructors Bill Roschen and Christi van Cleve Degree Project / Senior Project / Graduate Thesis 2015

Woodbury School of Architecture

Burbank Campus 7500 North Glenoaks Boulevard Burbank, California 91510-1052

San Diego Campus 2212 Main Street San Diego, California 92113-3641

architecture.woodbury.edu