2. FOREWORDS
FABRICATING THE TRUTH
Architects are the great fabricators of the world. We are storytellers, not with pen and paper, but
with stone, light, wood, and steel. Every project is an allegory, and every allegory is an attempt to
communicate a truth. Designs are a means to test beliefs and ideas about the world. These ideas are
shaped by an architect’s life experiences that create his or her own paradigm. Each paradigm is unique
and so creates unique buildings.
Every building must tell a story. Design problems are opportunities to fabricate something new and
communicate a story worth telling. The stories may change. The characters, plot, and setting may
vary, but all of them carry the singular theme of searching for a truth.
The truth is elusive and will change over time. But only through the act of architecture may a designer
grow. The truth may never be known, but the goal is to develop into a better designer,a better storyteller
with each project. Each tested truth only adds to the repertoire that the architect may rely on when
building the next story.
This portfolio is an examination of stories and truths gleaned throughout school. They are representations
of growth. They are my paradigm being forged.
3. A BATH HOUSE IN NEW ORLEANS, LA
URBAN DENSITY
This is a story of a city and its inhabitants. Specifically, this project dealt with the unique urban
landscape of the city of New Orleans. The studio’s first task was to understand the city through direct
experience. Immersion in the landscape lead to drawings and diagrams of place. What made this place
unique? The drawings revealed a peculiar density in the city where a collection of disparate elements
conglomerate together to create a thick “gumbo” of life.
The density is a foil for the bathing program. The building tells a story of two parts. First, the urban
density is invited into the site by pushing the entrance of the bath house to the back, creating a wide
public plaza. The form of the building mimics the invitation with its outward thrust and wrapping
form. Second, the interior of the building forms a sequential story of cleansing based upon Roman
bathing practices. A grand exterior staircase mediates the two parts. Users are continually cleansed
by the bath and reintroduced to the city as they circulate via the stair. They experience the story by
contrasting the sanctity of the interior with the impurity of the exterior.
5. Above: conceptual perspectives moving through the project
A COMMUNITY CENTER IN BATON ROUGE, LA
MID CITY PORCH
This is a story of a community. Brought about by the efforts of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, this
project was a combination of homeless services and civic use. The program called for a grocery store,
cafe, and classroom to satisfy a deficit in health, work, and education in a Mid City neighborhood.
Working in groups, the studio engaged with the local community to determine their wants and needs.
Splitting into design groups, the students then developed those needs into architecture.
Mid City Porch is a story born of a neighborhood’s need to connect to one another. Many residents feel
that they lack options for large gatherings or an outlet for recreation. The team crafted a narrative
of interaction within the area, studying how people came together and remained involved in the lives
of others. Notably, most people used their porch. The porch became both a symbol and a protagonist,
serving as the mediator between public and private life. In the design, a large “porch” acts as the
centerpiece. A large, open atrium, it is an entrance and a destination, allowing for nearby residents to
gather and interact with transient patrons of the cafe and grocery.
7. Below: Transverse Section showing “Porch” space alongside classrooms.
Longitudinal Section showing “Porch” space alongside cafe, grocery, and classrooms.
A FURNITURE PIECE IN BATON ROUGE, LA
UPCYCLE
This is a story of innovation and stewardship. The class was charged with creating an upcycled design,
that is, a creation composed of trash that served a higher function. Splitting into design teams, each
group selected materials to study. Additionally the groups conducted site analysis at LSU’s University
Recreation Center (UREC) to determine what design would be most beneficial to the building.
A majority of the class was spent on testing the chosen materials, newspaper and water bottles.
Working both individually and as a group, the team continually pushed the limitations of the materials.
Eventually, a structural system emerged. Formed from tightly rolled reeds of paper held together
by pieces of the bottle, the structure proved to be surprisingly sturdy. The site analysis revealed an
extreme lack of seating at the UREC, so the structure became adapted into a lounge and chair.
Countless hours were spent rolling newspaper and binding the chairs together. But the effort was
rewarded with a highly functional seat that told a story of the environment. Common materials,
thrown away by the ton every day, could be transformed into something better that could enrich
people’s lives. The seats are a symbol of stewardship, how mankind might rethink cultural norms of
waste in order to benefit both itself and the environment.
9. A HIGH-RISE APARTMENT BUILDING IN NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
RECONNECTION
This is a story of context. Working in research teams, the studio began amassing information on the city
of New York and how a proposed high rise building might affect it. Teams were responsible for picking a
site, creating a program, and researching the history of the area. Eventually, a suitable site was chosen
in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The site carried historic importance, but was also part of an uncovered plan
for waterfront redevelopment.
The design focuses on the city’s call for waterfront redevelopment, emphasizing the need to reconnect
residents with their waterfront. The required number of apartments is split among three buildings to
minimize their site footprint. The site itself is a public amenity, acting as a channel for the adjacent
neighborhood to the water. Long, linear pavers on the site draw people across it while also offering
shade and seating for rest and relaxation. A water feature is cut into the site, bringing the water in as
a focal point of life and activity. Adjacent to it is a plaza created by the forms of the towers. A place
of rest, it counters the high activity of the waterfront.
Formally, the towers are pushed and pulled to mimic the energy and activity in the area. They are
centrally organized around a service core which allows for the one, two, and three bedroom apartments
to be pushed to the edge. Ample windows coupled with large balconies complete the focus on the
water.
10. Above: site plan.
Above, left: sample floor plan, one bedroom apartments.
Above, right: sample floor plan, two and three bedroom apartments.
11. A THEORETICAL ALLEGORY IN BATON ROUGE, LA
NATURAL ARCHITECTURE
This is a story about sustainability. The studio focused on architectural research and transforming
knowledge into design. To facilitate the design, the research was framed within a narrative, in this
case a story about the failures of sustainability and remediating the environment.
Nature is impermanent. It is the tendency all things to waste away and fall apart. To be natural
means to fail, not in a negative sense, but in a beautiful, poetic fashion to allow for the next phase
of existence. In contrast, to be sustainable is to rigorously maintain and resist change, and to deny
temporality. Between the natural and sustainable, architecture emerges as a barrier within a state of
flux. Architecture denies chaos and imposes order.
The building, the Ark, is poised to fall apart as time flows and the environmental forces transform
the city of Baton Rouge into an architectural Eden. Through its construction, the Ark engages in the
flux of nature by wasting away to actualize a new form of cypress swamp. At the same time, the Ark
is an act of human resistance doomed to fail. These two aspects, a building in flux and a transmuted
environment are embodied in three primary structures of the project: Eden, the Vault, and the Cradle.
Eden, an allegory for natural architecture and a projection of Baton Rouge as a future cypress swamp,
serves the good by remediating the environment of the city.
The Vault is a storage place for cypress cones that will become the swamp. It is built of a series of
specially shaped bricks, which clamp around a series of iron chains. This construction imitates the
manner in which the parts of a cypress cone clamp around its seeds until the right conditions for
germination have been reached. The chains of the Vault are designed to rust away, allowing the walls
of the chamber to fall in much the same way that the cones open to release seeds. As an allegory of
natural architecture, when the Vault collapses the city at its threshold will be flooded, creating the
conditions needed for Eden to emerge.
In contrast to the Vault, the Cradle maintains two cypress trees as an analogue to the grotesque
mechanisms of sustainability. Here, the natural is replaced with human intervention. The maintenance
takes the form of the art of bonsai. Bonsai trees are only grown unnaturally under the heavy hand and
guidance of the artist. That same force drives the growth of the trees as they conform to the prison of
the Cradle.
