CLK properties commissioned our team to redesign their four-story building plus lower-level. We proposed a layout that was aesthetically and physically pleasing to all users. The project is currently under construction.

“We are all responsible to and for shaping conditions for multispecies flourishing in the face of terrible histories, and sometimes joyful histories too, but we are not all response-able in the same ways. The differences matter - in ecologies, economies, species, lives.”

— Donna J. Haraway

Today we live in the Anthropocene age, where the human presence has the strongest influence on our geology. The Natural and un-natural factors causing landslides have resulted in enormous fatalities in many susceptible regions around the world. The human desire to build and not properly cultivate their terrain strains the environment while it tries to adapt to human life. The effects of human interventions to accommodate urbanization on mountainous terrains has triggered more landslide disasters than our natural geological forces. By simply restraining the terrain with bandage-like features only promises further programmatic instability on landslide-prone terrains. Living in a landslide-prone area has prevented rural communities from experiencing modern life outside of the City. So how do we provide rural areas of Cuenca with programmatic infrastructure and physical infrastructure while at the same time understanding that nature will do what it wants? How can physical infrastructure be an occupiable space that brings the human experience closer to nature, that informs the visitor about engaging with the landscape in conscientious ways, and behaves like an element that provides stability in fragile terrain and aids in its healing while avoiding further destruction?

As a response to the fragile situation in landslide-prone regions, I am proposing a case study for occupying these territories by inserting both man-made and organic infrastructure that strategically engages the earth through interventions that stabilize the soil using metal stilts, gabion walls and reforesting parts of the territory with a combination of indigenous trees and shrubs. This will help hold the soil in place while the above growth creates a cover that protects the soil surface from direct rain. Lifted volumes connected by pathways that lead from the city below allow urban dwellers to meander through the site along with the buildings. An Institute of natural disaster, risk and resilience will respond to the lack of programmatic infrastructure in these territories. The Institute will educate students in agriculture, arborist culture, sustainable soil culture, and horticulture. This connection reintroduces man with proper methods of cultivating our earth. Students will also learn skilled trades, disaster training, and ethical construction methods for building and training in the hazardous territory.

“I think that the ideal space must contain elements of magic, serenity, sorcery, and mystery.”

— Luis Barragan

The library is a building containing a collection of books, periodicals, and other materials like films. Before, we were able to read books or other articles we played with assorted pattern block toys. As children, we played in a branch of mathematics that deals with lines, points, and angles as well as solids and voids.

Libres

Formas libres is a design that takes the form of these geometric shapes to create reading areas, communal areas, and other amenities useful to the Red Hook Brooklyn community.

Wander through projects that engage a sense of play and agency, expressed through renderings and drawings.

“Man and nature tangle together in innovative ways that might, just barely possibly, render each other capable of a finite flourishing - now and yet to come.”

— Donna J. Haraway

As a counter effect on the ongoing exploitation of natural resources in Ecuador and Indonesia, the project aims to colonize the most vulnerable plant and tree species into Central Park to not only protect them from extinction but also to conserve (sustain) the World’s biodiversity. This objective can be achieved by providing specific infrastructure into Central Park to provide the means (i.e. land and tools) for the indigenous people to cultivate the invasive species (farming) for food production.

Olmsted created Central Park for the people of New York as a green land to help clean the air for the health of all New Yorkers. Central Park has since become the home to many nonindigenous plant and tree species. The majority of these new species are introduced illegally into the park. With this insight, we propose a set of robots that helps stay with the trouble by supporting this new type of illegal horticulture. I invite you to a number of different locations where you can forage, consume, and apply different plant species to your daily life.

“The task is to make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present.”

— Donna J. Haraway

Due to colonization and rapid city growth, our forests are under threat as well as the inhabitants living within them. Brazil currently lacks the resources to properly catalog its fruitful rainforests to ensure its survival in the years to come. The Seed Bank proposal seeks to bring back indigenous building techniques in addition to the implementation of animals and plant life to generate the intelligent design behind the system.

Macro-scale

Macapa, Brazil is a city located along the amazon that is facing issues brought on by plastic pollution. Currently the site hosts a group of people that collect waste, unfortunately this waste is not utilized in any way nor is there a way to safely break down plastics.

Microbiome

We propose a new system that works at multiple scales, the microbiome of the local environment is manipulated to break down the plastics infiltrating the water, while macro-scales of the project engage larger species at a social level.

The artistry of the non-humans

The building method we are proposing allows the equivalent of twenty-four plastic bottles set into one brick. These bricks are assembled on platforms supported by mature trees set years earlier in the site. The brick facades can support the wax worms that produce plastic-eating microorganisms. Silkworms are then introduced to the facade to produce strands of silk which are harvested and used as a cooling and shading device for the structure.

Lincoln Cathedral Laser Scanning (LIDAR) Documentation, Archiving and Exhibition Project

Joint Research Project between CHARLESMATZ Crucible System—The University of Lincoln—The Center of Excellence in Data

Visualization, Entertainment, and Education Engineering at the New York Institute of Technology

“When you move to New York, you are in an imaginary space between your country and New York. Rituals take place on each floor to help immigrants better situate themselves within New York Communities. It is a way to build bridges between different communities.”

— Sol Aramendi

The project is born out of the understanding that the diversification of cultures coexisting within New York City is in jeopardy of being eliminated by global entities. To protect these unique skills and rituals I proposed an architecture that becomes a codex of crafts which is this complex artifact that physically moves into different city blocks most affected. As result, safe spaces within the artifact encourage growth and sustain a more collective lifestyle.

Joint Research:

Mobile Print Power(MPP)

The goals of the MPP workshop are to explore the unique methodology for creating socially engaged art and participatory design. I was introduced to eight principles, their meaning, and how to take this out into other socially engaged work. The workshop also included collaborative image creation, silkscreen instruction, and the printing of several new MPP graphics.

The neoliberal framework of today's’ global cities pose a threat to urban life, reducing it into a commodity. One that is bought and sold, creating a more individualized environment. The effects have seeped into neighborhoods, eliminating local competition and jeopardizing the diversification of cultures coexisting within its city blocks. The street is now taken over by automobiles while storefronts occupy the ground plans of their buildings, leaving aside a small area for pedestrian activity. This public space is a large arena for mass transit, production, and consumption. As result leisure is limited to domestic spaces and public parks, in some cases they are even exclusive. It is with this precedent, that the parallel city is proposed. It aims to redefine a new “ground plane” in the city, by implementing new strategies of zoning and design. This will allow for local and global “entities” to coexist, sustaining a more collective lifestyle.

The fire department of the city of new york is modernizing it's facilities throughout the five boroughs. The FDNY has designated brooklyn heights as an area of rapid growth and in need of a new fire station. This new state-of-the-art facility will allow the FDNY to better serve this vibrant and expanding community.

Red hook has evolved into a diverse neighborhood that has taken over the old industrial buildings and become a small satellite community for artisans, craftsman, designers, and innovators. Some of the Red hook's biggest setbacks to exploding into a defined 'maker’, district include problems with zoning, accessibility to the waterfront, flooding, poor transportation, and the lack of places to display the artwork. Hurricane Sandy left red hook several feet underwater and the residents had little to no basic amenities to help them during the storm. To prevent future flooding a perimeter berm will be placed just offshore to act as a storm surge blockade. During normal weather conditions. The berm is a gathering park that also holds large sculptures. The artists and makers are the heart of the Red hook and currently are under-appreciated. To engage more people in the art scene several roads will be converted into pedestrian-only promenades paralleled with art centers, galleries, shops, and cafes. The artists are working in old industrial buildings. By creating a new zoning overlay that allows these buildings to be re-purposed, then can become live-work spaces for the community.