a r c h i t e c t u r ep o r t f o l i o

suma pandhi

GARDEN HOUSEFALL 2009 INSTRUCTOR: PERRY KULPER

The site of the house is Ryoanji temple rock garden, built in the 13th century. Working with the conceptual drive of archi-tecture of fast and slow surfaces, this house works to juxtapose and blur the simulation of landscape through lenses of the 13th and 21st centuries and the relationship to the tourist, voyeur.

0 10m

site plan_hovering

site plan_mutating

site plan_hovering+mutating

The small house is situated above the rock garden, hovering over the 15 rocks placed in a perspectival puzzle. Like the simulated landscape of the rock garden below, the house works to suggest alternative cosmologies through the breeding of silk worms, silk weaving, a purely domesticated practice of natural processes, robotics, and traditional Japanese night bathing.

sectional perspective

Day or night, 4 robots and a human live on site to work obsessively, eu-phorically. The robots are responsible for maintenance of the materials that clad the house and the large weav-ing loom that generates changing im-ages made of the silk produced in the house.

A monk gently rakes the cocoons that fall into the rock garden to dry. The human watches over these robots from the bath in the evening, enabling a shift from day to night productivity.seasons change, horizons shift. Tourist come and go.

artificial. real. automated.

elevation

Whole Foods: YOU pick WINTER 2008Instructor: Robert ShermanPartner: Nicole Kammo

Entitled the Big Box studio, the project studied a developing area in Los Angeles California for a new Whole FoodsGrocery store. In addition to the grocery store, the community also required further housing and office spaces.

Proposing that the shopping experience be mixed within office and residential spaces, the project was premised on the

DIRECTION

OF

PICK

kiwi

grapes

green beans

P R O D U C E I M A G E A B I L I T Y R E T A I L I M A G E A B I L I T YAROUND THE PICK

idea of “you pick”: The customer would buy produce based on the direction of pick as it grew on site. Basing picking lanes on direction pick, the design of the project works to engage the everyday of shopping, living, and working--from catching your own fish to buy in the down pick lane to picking your own grapes in front of someone else’s home in the up pick lane.

DIRECTION

OF

PICK

kiwi

grapes

green beans

P R O D U C E I M A G E A B I L I T Y R E T A I L I M A G E A B I L I T YAROUND THE PICK

down pick

side pick

longitudinal section

CHEVY IN THE HOLEFall 2008Instructor: Nataly Gatengo

The studio engaged the basic question: How does architecture deal with site remediation? In this project, the site was the former GM factory in Flint, MI, a brownfield site, located along the Flint Canal. Originally designed by Sasaki and As-sociates, the Flint Canal was designed to prevent flooding into the city. Through the concept of floating islands consisting

of fauna that clean the polluted waters, the project works in phases, remediating the site physically and socially. Over time, libraries and housing are integrated into the site, amplifying city and water life along the Flint River through the further use of green technology.

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

downtown edge downtown edge

capped mound: brownfield islands library river front reading and green education

modular green housing (varying prototypes)

penny cress biofuel

penny cress biofuel docking station

riverfront school learn green

green space

downtown edge

site process and phasing diagram

Site Processes

Floating Islandsrhizomatic plantsclean watermovement is controlledalong river forriparian remediation

Water Remediation Research Facilityongoing testing of water for pollutantsnear �oating islands and in site cuts

test>re introduce-->reuse--> test

Green spacegrows acrosscleans air

Public Library information regardingwater remediation+ records of site progress, digital information science of re-use

Housing for usersaccess to green spacelibrary, water facilitiesobservation + participation in water remediation

45% 15% 40% 20%site use

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

downtown edge downtown edge

capped mound: brownfield islands library river front reading and green education

modular green housing (varying prototypes)

penny cress biofuel

penny cress biofuel docking station

riverfront school learn green

green space

downtown edge

penny cress biofuel station

framework for decking and house

biofuel residential tank

steel tube connections from penninsula to framework, infrastructure for biofuel distribution

openings to allow light and rain for floating pennisula

water remediation penninsula

soil with plant hole

recycled plastic matrix

recycled marine foam

holes lined with rock wool

recycled marine foam

carbon dioxide sequestrationwater cleaned

systems drawing

model

longitudinal elevation

spring

winter

Wireframe Structure Winter 2008Instructors: Karl Daubman, Glen Wilcox, Paula ZellnerPartner: Dwight Song

As an exercise for studio, an egg was to be suspended over a given distance using only piano wire and solder iron.

The project was conceptualize treating the wireframe as a field condition that worked in tension and compression to activate the egg’s movement to its final destination within the structure.

Radiolarian StructureFall 2010Instructor: Peter von Buelow

Geometric Modeling Fall 2009Instructor: Glenn Wilcox

parametric green tower parametric evaporative roof studies

load bearing dome based on radiolarian behavior

Re-imaging the Local: ShimokitazawaThesis Advisor: Mireille Roddier2010

Thesis Statement_

From Frankenstein, to the bionic man, and to the typical knee replacement, the idea of the prosthetic is not only part of medical jargon, but also a part of our daily dose of pop culture. Prosethetic operates at different scales-tattoo to hip to ear-ring to smell. However, there are different applications for this word. Architect and theorist, Mark Wrigley, describes the prosthesis as a concept as ”always already architectural. Grafted onto repair some kind of structural flaw, it is a foreign ele-

ment that reconstructs that which cannot stand up on its own, at once propping up and extending its host. The prosthesis is always structural, establishing the place it appears to be added to.” However, the thesis works to move beyond prothesis as a structural ally, and as a working method.

The thesis begins with the analogy of surgery and the insertion of the prosthetic, its approach to treat a “diseased” or underperforming condition, its marking of the site, decision to cut and create both void and non void spaces, coupled with the awareness that up until this point, every other treatment has been given, and no other option exists but sur-gery. Without it, the diseased urban condition will continue, leading to a general deterioration. With the prosthesis, the diseased condition is alleviated and the human body, performs better than it could have ever without it.

shimokitazawa growth over 50 years (1600s-2000s) shimokitazawa 2011

healthy knee to a malfunctioning knee

Working Method_

At a macro scale, the body is working better, performing better—movement is faster, quality of life improved. At a micro scale, the prosthetic hybridizes with a local system within the body. Though the prosthesis is a separate, foreign object, it performs with the existing local conditions of the body, but is also its own system, clear upon insertion and connection into the local area of the body. Therefore, two systems are at work-the body and the prosthetic. So what are its possiblit-lies in architecture?

oroposed city highwayshimokitazawa 2011

knee replacement surgery post surgery

Shimokitazawa, Shimokita, or kita, known by its residents is located in Tokyo, Japan is a densely populated urbanneighborhood. Known for its tight arterial streets ripe with young designers, fashion, and music, it is the place to go in Tokyo if you want to know the next big thing. Since the 1800s this area has quadrupled in size.

site_

The current government solution is to introduce a 6-lane highway that effectively destroys the neighborhood itself, and has consequently met heavy resistance by the residents. However, the acceptance of the freeway as similar to the body’s acceptance as a prosthetic, suggests alternative possibilities.

Rather than just engaging the prosthesis as a structural ally to architecture, the thesis project proposes that the juxta-position of opposites, beginning with first the foreignness of the prosthesis and the locality of neighborhood at a larger scale, and then shifting to the smaller scale by suggesting how this built space can behave with the incorporation of a

1ʼ:1/256” N

site studies_

prosthesis better than it could have without it. The project begins by accepting the government proposed freeway, but then at-tempts to subvert its role as a megastructure within the development of two systems:1. the existing built space 2.the freeway in order to relentlessly preserve and enhance the original, local street life of shimo.

1ʼ:1/256” N

The freeway is broken up into four lanes that run through the existing buildings with the unending desire to maintain the existing street section. The four lanes run in two directions each and engage the idea of the prosthetic at a microscale.

These lanes are curated under four themes: blue (as an attached mood or color to the body post surgery), dis_replaced domestic (displacing something original when a new object is introduced to an environment), groomed getaway (scents, tattoos, are attached experiences), and swollen (the physical affect of cutting and moving). These themes are not a direct

1ʼ:1/64” N

dis/re_placed domestic

proposed conditiona

city proposed condition

Design

one to one translation of prosthesis and architecture, but rather a suggestion for the experiences that result upon the introduction of an entirely separate system that seeks to be part of a local environment system.

Specific design drivers became part of the freeway/neighborhood juxtaposition: fast/slow, above ground, underground, at ground, inside/outside, private/public, additive/subtractive, move/rest, work/play, and vehicle/pedestrian to allow for nuanced, localized experiences of two separate systems at play that enable the prosthesis to operate at different scales.

1ʼ:1/64” N

dis/re_placed domestic

proposed conditiona

city proposed condition

plaster model

a

street section block a

40 mph

at leisure60 mph

35 mph

1ʼ:1/16”

20 mph

25 mph

section 1 (block a)

longitudinal elevation

Time: 1 pmSpeed: 32 kph

location: driving in groomed getaway lane

a

Time: 5 pmSpeed: 10 kph

location: pedestrian street outside of Swollen Lane

a

a

Time: 1 pmSpeed: 0 kph

location: pedestrian street under the groomed getaway lane

a

Time: 3 amSpeed: 65 kph

location: inside dis/re_placed domestic lane drive through mosh pit

a

Time: 10 amSpeed: 45 kph

location: driving in the blue lane

a

Time: 6 amSpeed: 40 kph

location: swimmer in the blue lane

a