The project went through many iterations, however, some ideas remained the same: a raised canopy, a main axis extended from the road, and the intention to inhabit as little of the space of the site to provide more equitable and advantageous open space. At the end of the site sits an archive housing maps of the Canton Ticino. The design probes the contradiction and duality between geologic order imposed by nature and ideal order manufactured by humans. A strategic set up of this interplay acts not to declare a clear winner (human vs. nature), but to challenge situations and embrace the contradiction. To capture this interplay there are two types of juxtaposition: a tension cable system juxtaposed with a free-formed vines with flora and smooth concrete walls juxtaposed with their rough textured exterior side. 

Placed on Virginia Tech’s campus, this natatorium houses an Olympic size diving pool, Olympic size lane pool, classrooms, offices, and a small gym. The roof over the two pools is a variation on a waffle slab with beams tilted 45 degrees. Translucent glass panels oriented north pre- vent over exposure to the swimmers below. To celebrate the necessary structure to accommodate such large spans, the waffle slab becomes an architectural feature for the swimmers below and creates to the atmospheric quality of the natatorium. 

Over a short ten weeks, the team had the arduous task of designing and building a mobile stage for LEAF Schools and Streets. The project was particularly difficult because it had multiple sites, had to meet road regulations, accommodate snow load and wind load, and incorporated moving parts. The team used models, full-scale mock-ups, and Revit to work out design details. Unlike a normal studio project, the team had to work within real social, financial, and technical constraints. The LEAF stage uses a pulley system, leveling jacks, and torsion springs to lower and balance the stage wings making deployment an easy two person job. Time management, teamwork, and communication were key to finishing the stage before its debut at LEAF Downtown Festival in downtown Asheville, NC. 

The Montessori approach to teaching embraces child development through hands on lessons as well as teaching through environment. Here, a series of exterior columns hold crisscrossing beams connected by wood rungs. This structure celebrates repetition and allows for daylight over the classroom space. Through extensive modeling, I was able to test out different schemes and roof structures. In the final section model, at a half-inch scale, the structural beams inform the organization and construction of space.   

The National Bank of Blacksburg, completed in 1941, stands as a vacant, art deco keepsake at the corner of Roanoke St. and Main St. in Blacksburg, VA. Reinterpreted as a brewery, the building is given a new structural system to support the original façade and new forms of circulation. From the entrance, occupants can ascend up a stair that penetrates through the façade onto the roof top terrace on the adjacent building (featuring covered outdoor seating and views to the Blue Ridge Mountains). The stair straddles a small alleyway that leads to an entranceway to the loft apartments via a twisting stair. 

Hosted by the Freer Art Gallery at the Smithsonian, this temporary art installation served as a multi-sensory space that combined digital interaction with structure and light as material. Our studio held a public workshop to produce mulberry paper lanterns that were then suspended by the custom bamboo apparatus we designed for the gallery’s garden logia. Motion sensors around the perimeter of each bay triggered soft wind chime sounds and LED light that varied in color intesity from light white to deep pink based on people’s presence and behavior. Our design team was challenged to form communal design decisions from concept to final execution ulti- mately creating an active space that synced temporary architecture with public participation. Architectural Lighting Magazine honored the project with an architectural lighting design award for community engagement with lighting. Lan

Taken between January and April of 2015, these photographs act not as a summation of an experience, but as aggregate within a greater study of Architecture. Explored through a lens, they are focused on the genealogy of reoccurring themes, the function of ornament and structure, and the application of aperture.  

Short study on the growth of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro highlighting my graphic skills. 

Published in STUDIO Collective Magazine

Through taxonomy of common housing types across Blacksburg, several specific typologies have been discovered. In several situations throughout the town, these houses are placed in directly neighboring lots from one another. With digital collage as a vehicle, identical typologies located in neighboring lots are juxtaposed to help closer identify not only their similarities, but also highlight contrasting and regulating lines. In the situations where identical types are geographically sequential to one another, I have spliced the façade to simultaneously present them. When pairs were situated across from one another, the road (or middle ground) between them was eliminated to flaunt their mirrored or reciprocal position. The combination of these conventions was used in cases where multiples faced multiples.