Design Portfolio | Caitlin TurskiApt 2W, 522 East 83rd Street

New York, NY 10028p: 865.599.1911

e: arcturski@gmail.com

/// Projects /// Undergraduate Thesis: House of Reflections | Treasure-house of Darkness

/// Competition Boards

Contents

Odd Fellows Scholar’s Research Center Spring, 2009 (3rd year Undergraduate)

Chattanooga Artist Cooperative Fall, 2010 (5th year Undergraduate)

Maude Abbott Medical Museum Spring, 2012 (Graduate)

Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Museum Summer, 2012 (Professional)

/// Projects

This project deals with preserving memories and perpetuating knowledge through processes of individual ritual and passage. It begins to draw distinctions between ritual and tradition while exploring the way in which individual experiences can strengthen ties to the community. The passage goes from hovering above the cemetery on the boardwalk system to actually entering the earth and inhabiting the realm of the dead in order to gain an understanding of one’s own past. In the memorial landscape project, I examined how the implementation of communal traditions can foster the development of new memories within a community. The first was the insertion of small dogwood boxes containing person items into the reliquary wall at the death of members of the current community. The second would be an annual illumination and dogwood planting ceremony that would take place during the Dogwood Arts Festival each spring and serve to memorialize the unmarked graves already existing within the cemetery. With the Odd Fellows Scholars Center, I began to look at how these traditions could begin to relate to a series of individualized rituals. The first is the creation of an identity marker for an unmarked grave by elementary school children, and the second is the writing of an Odd Fellows Scholar Paper by a high school student. In terms of the cladding system, the concrete functions as an element relating to the existing cemetery while the wood siding relates to the boardwalk system and current community, and they reflect programmatic relationships to these two conditions.

Odd Fellows Scholar’s Research Center

Spring 2009

Entry Level Plan (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

Left: The interior of the craft room takes on a sculptural quality as it is carved out of the hillside. It is etched out of the stone and serves as a space for the creation of headstones to mark forgotten members of the past community.

Right: The meeting room is clad entirely in wooden planks. As the primary space for communication and interaction between members of the present community, it takes on many of the formal characteristics of the boardwalk system.

Section E through archive, gallery, and classrooms (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

Section A through three community bars looking toward reliquary wall (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

View of threshold along reliquary wall (formZ, photoshop)

View of outdoor gallery space from classrooms (formZ, photoshop)

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, this project has the potential to create a zone of unified cultural identity for the art sphere downtown and the academic sphere of the university through a shared interest in encouraging visual literacy. Downtown Chattanooga has grown into an area defined by the arts, while the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga focuses much more heavily on education and academic learning. There is a clear disconnect between the two, both culturally and experientially. Despite UTC’s proximity to the downtown, it is lacking in connection to the vitality and traditions of the city. Through the design of the built landscape a dialogue can be established that will allow the university and city to develop a new shared cultural identity, enabling them to interact in a more meaningful way. The act of walking through the pedestrian corridors of the campus should serve as an extension of the act of walking through the outdoor public space of the city. The Sculpture Park continues the system of public parks beginning downtown at the waterfront onto the campus and then further into the Chattanooga Artist Cooperative through the gallery, creating a common zone for interaction and shared communal experience centered around the arts and visual learning.

The Artist Cooperative consists of 10 studio spaces which the University will be able to rent out to local artists. Locating affordable studio spaces on campus with pedestrian access to nearby historic neighborhoods will help to reinvigorate them and promote growth.

In addition to the private studios there are 2 larger classrooms. During the day these are used by UTC students taking seminars on public art taught by members of the Cooperative. In the Spring these courses would culminate with an exhibition of student work in the gallery and Sculpture Park, possibly coinciding with the Biannual Sculpture Exhibit downtown and giving the community a chance to come and engage with work being done by the students. This promotes the city’s proposed Public Art Plan, which seeks to extend the installation of public art on the riverfront onto campus and the gateways to neighborhoods like Fort Wood.

After school and during the summer, these classrooms could be used for programs fostering vieual literacy and an appreciation for the arts in children from neighboring school systems, helping to attract young families to the area. The art classes would be taught by artists from the Cooperative as well as UTC students enrolled in the public art seminars. The children would be learning how to communicate with one another and with other members of their community both visually and verbally, becoming a strong source of vibrance and creativity within the city.

Chattanooga Artist CooperativeFall 2010

Section through desk in artist’s studio (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

Site Section through gallery (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

Site Plan (cad, illustrator, photoshop)

View of artist’s studio space, September (formZ, photoshop)

View of classroom during CAC Summer Art Academy, June (formZ, photoshop)

View of gallery opening displaying CAC Art Academy work, December (formZ, photoshop)

View of gallery opening displaying UTC student work, April (formZ, photoshop)

pink gel compact fluorescent with motion sensor

3 aluminum hospital curtain rods, recycledequal spacing

brass angles andcap with grooves for acrylic shelf and glass faces, angles bolted in place,can be removed to open each unit for the rearrangement and cleaning of specimens

brass cap and angles

standard hospital bed wheels, recycled, locked during exhibition

specimens, fitted to shelves

glass,1/8”semireflective,shatterproof

acrylic shelf, 1/2”custom fit to specimens

Exploded view of single unit (rhino with v-ray, illustrator)

The design of the Maude Abbott Medical Museum entails the renovation of the existing rotunda of the Strathcona Building of Dentistry and Anatomy at McGill University in order to house a collection of approximately 2,750 anatomical specimens originally collected by Dr. Maude Abbott and Dr. William Osler. The display of the specimens in the museum aims to challenge the medical representation of the body as an objectified set of dismembered organs by thinking of each organ as a discrete body to be encountered-- both individually and collectively with the other specimens.

To achieve this, the display is treated as an organ interface that brings together the sheer number of specimens in the collection while also heightening our experience of each organ through a consideration of both live and dead bodies and the way in which they meet. The interface is comprised of single units, fitted to the size of the organs it houses, which then come together as curtains. The illumination of the specimens with pink-gel flourescent lights (the same bulbs traditionally used in embalming studios to vivify dead flesh) provokes different ways of seeing the organs. The lights are mounted in motion sensing fixtures, meaning that the organs are illuminated only when confronted by a living visitor.

Maude Abbott Medical MuseumSpring 2012

Level 01

Level 02

Level 03

Axonometric view of specimen distribution (rhino with v-ray)

The shadow cast across the organs under the fluorescents provides a heightened clarity and contrast while the pink glow vivifies the flesh, removing the formaldehyde grey tint it has acquired in solution.View through organscape from entry of level 02 (rhino with v-ray)

View from within respiratory system, level 02 (rhino with v-ray)This revival of the flesh establishes a connection between you and the organs in front of you while also making you aware of the presence and location of other living bodies within the museum as lights flicker off and on in your peripheral vision.

View of Abbott Collection looking toward the Holmes Heart at the center, level 03 (rhino with v-ray)Moving in to a single specimen, you can see all the abject qualities of the organ as well as the very faint reflection of your own body, establishing an intimate distance between yourself and the specimens on display.

Level 04

Level 03

Level 02

Level 01

MuseumExterior

The brick scrim is constructed of a load bearing, 6 wythe perforated running bond. This massive wall system wraps and contains the gallery volumes, flexing in depth to reflect the variety of interior spatial conditions. The exterior wythe, facing the exterior, is a black brick, and the interior wythes are coated in white.

In detail, each wythe of the wall assembly is offset 1/2 module in plan and section. This allows for a modulation and refraction of the direct sunlight into the interior galleries. On warm summer days, cool air from the sea wafts through the walls and clings to visitor’ skin. The bricks, now cold to the touch, explode with a warm light.

Wooden louvers embedded into the ceiling cavity diffuse and articulate artificial light within the gallery spaces. The varieted profiles sculpt the shadows, evenly washing the artwork in response to changing levels of natural light.

Buenos Aires Contemporary Art MuseumSummer 2012 with nt21 studio for AC-CA design competition

Amongst the metered brick warehouses of Porto Madero, the Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Museum [BACAM] stands as a familiar stranger. Massive and visually dominant from a distance, the thick brick scrim transitions to a perforated, light-filled curtain as visitors approach. Sited along Dique 3, the museum conforms to the contextual rhythm that defines the barrio. The extruded walls define a distinctly urban edge, yet perforations in the facade create a dialogue with the street and boardwalk. These specific moments of incision are complimented by the semi-transparency of the facade, allowing light and air to flow into the museum, but denying complete access to the works and spaces within.

An eden lies sheltered inside the perforated mass, sculpted by the incoming light. Punctures along the facade allow visitors to slip into the poche, where they remain until encountering the luminous courtyard. Here, they begin a careful choreography between the shadowy cooridors and the illuminated galleries.As they weave amongst the artworks, two lightwells provide layers of transparency and bearing to visitors. Overhead, long rows of louvers craft intricate tapestries of light.

When visitors reach the top level, their journey ends with a view back out to the sea.

All the other overwhelming colors, in company with the years, kept leaving me,and now alone remainsthe amorphous light, the inextricable shadowand the gold of the beginning.

-Jorge Luis Borges, The Gold of the Tigers

Section through courtyard and galleries (cad, illustrator, photoshop)A young man walks amongst the worn cobblestone ridges as a ballet of colors performs along Juana Manuela Gorriti. In the late afternoon sun, dappled sunlight flickers across the low brick walls that line the water’s edge. Swelling from the post-industrial landscape, the delicate brick scrim demarcates a new territory. As the sun traces across the warm January sky, lightwells concentrate the luminance along the gallery walls. When the sun slips behind the city’s horizon, the dormant walls radiate a dancing light.

View from within cafe-courtyard, level 01 (revit and sketchup with artlantis, photoshop)He hadn’t expected the sudden baptism of light. Moments before, he had been in a cool, dark tunnel, his hands running across the smooth bricks. Now, standing on the white gravel floor, he cranes his head to the sky.

View from within gallery, level 02 (revit and sketchup with artlantis, photoshop)Rippled brick walls, sheared by the tall glass shard, rise high from the gallery floor. He moves amongst the large carvings, bathed in a cascade of soft light. No shadows fall to the polished floor, only distant reflections of another time. On the balcony, a young girl watches intently.

Undergraduate thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010-11

Awarded Tau Sigma Delta Certificate of Merit and

ARCC/King Student Medal for Excellence in Design and Research

/// House of Reflections | Treasure-House of Darkness

Final installation,.Overall dimensions: 8’x4’x5’-6”. All images taken from physical models, illuminated with LEDs.

Throughout time, looking to the sky has been our way of trying to understand our place within the vast expanse of the Cosmos. An understanding of day and night is critical to our perception of the landscape we inhabit. The design of an observatory and astronomers’ housing at Death Valley National Park serves as a vehicle for exploring issues of cultural memory and identity, regarding the stars as the horizon marking the limit of our cultural knowledge and understanding.

Through ties to memory, architects have the ability to preserve or change social and cultural patterns. The act of looking up into the night sky is a tradition that has bound together members of the human race since the beginning of time. It is a manifestation of our desire to explore, understand, and experience wonder. We build up cities which, lit up in the darkness, twinkle like the stars themselves— a monument built by man to translate the ideas embedded within the night sky onto the landscape.

Modern American culture is a detriment to astronomy.

To really see the otherworldly light we are drawn to, we must seek out the darkness our society has effectively destroyed. The astronomer embraces this, becoming the sole member of her own culture with its unique set of rules and traditions. She is the Night Dweller—nocturnal. She sees the wonders within the Cosmos with a different set of eyes than the rest of us.

By providing a space for visitors to come and experience wonder, the observatory can instill a more widespread appreciation for the darkness it houses, preserving the traditions of the astronomer, while helping to reinvigorate a cultural appreciation for the night sky and the act of stargazing.

It abolishes the light of the city, becoming a new form of monument to starlight.

The project focuses on the design of a nocturnal architecture, carving space out of darkness through carefully modulated lighting in response to the inverted conditions of night and day experienced by the astronomers and allowing visitors to reestablish their connection to the heavens.

The Racetrack Playa is a dried lakebed at Death Valley and possesses one of the darkest skies in the National Park system. However, skyglow from Las Vegas to the east is just barely visible over the mountains—a sign of the impending threat of civilization.

The Park has demonstrated great concern about this, and it makes the Playa an excellent site for the experimental implementation of UNESCO’s proposed Starlight Reserve Concept.

The House of Reflections will harbor two telescopes and will be directed and operated by the Night-Dweller, director general and public liason, and her husband the Grapher, director of data management and archiving.

Each year they will accept applications for the use of the Satellite Coupled Occulting Telescope and select 5 teams of researchers, with one astronomer and one student intern per team, who will be permitted to stay for a maximum of one year to conduct their observations and analysis.

The observatory is situated at the edge of the Racetrack Playa, and the astronomers’ housing and visitors’ gallery is located 6.7 miles to the north at Teakettle Junction.

Explored primarily through model, the tectonic of the project seeks to modulate and reflect light in response to the inversion of night and day experienced by the astronomers.

(all images taken from physical models, illuminated with LEDs)

Final installation and critique, shadowboxes illuminated and shown in darkness.

2:38 pmThe Explorer wakes— four hours to sunset.Rolling over, unlocking the hatch. Rote memory. Sunlight [starlight] pours in, washing the Night from his eyes.His day begins now— four hours to nightrise.He must cherish these precious hours of daylight, the color they bring to the desert.

6:38 pmNight is coming.They gather in the courtyard— polished stoneTo watch the dusky browns ignite, dancing across the walls,Immersed for a few moments by the wild fire of the Star’s death throes.Each Night it collides with the mountains SupernovaMagnifying color before erasing it entirely.

They move to the dining hall to speak only of night.

7:40 pmHe gazes into the depths of her eyes,Searching for the reflected reflection— The righted image, the truth.The fragments of reality spawned from her dreamwalkTo the edges of the celestial sphere.He records and verifies her dreams. Translating, giving them distinct form,Occupying a space somewhere in-between—Not of her world, but beyond our own.He lives within his archive, Reliquary of her recordings.

8:59 pmLight fades, yellow to orange to blue. They have been earthbound, trapped by the sun until now when the night brings their freedom.From beneath the sage they emerge, traveling deeper into the desert— deeper into the darkness.She will rejoin them later.

She must wait to accompany the visitors.

They enter the Treasure-House of Darkness, and the Night-Dweller tells them about the telescope, her research on asteroids, and what is visible in the sky that night.

Night-Dweller: The Observer

She wakes into the realm of dream,The sphere of her consciousness framed By the night-time darkness.She views the worlds(Not ours, but others)Through eyes which are not her own.The telescopic eyepiece magnifiesDistorted reflections ofUnknowable realities— stars.The eyepiece, the eye.Her eye. Her soul.Each night she leaves herself,Her soul transmitted through the mirrorAnd into the heavens,Where she wanders unfetteredThrough the starlight.

New York AIDS Memorial I 2012, Honorable Mention (with nt21)

MAXmin Alumni Competition | 2012, First Prize (with nt21)

AC-CA Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Museum | 2012 (with nt21)

nt21 is a design collaborative co-founded in 2011 by Clay Adkisson, Andrew Ruff, and Caitlin Turski

/// Competition Boards

New York AIDS Memorial International Competition, awareded Honorable Mention. board size 11”x17”

Sponsored by the AIDS Memorial Park Coalition, Architectural Record and Architizer

The competition called for the design of a space, sited at the corner of 7th and Greenwich Avenue across the street from St. Vincent’s Hospital, that would function as both a community and a living memorial to the Aids crisis in New York. Entries were asked to utilize existing underground space for the memorial, leaving the space above grade for use by the surrounding neighborhood.

MAXmin Alumni Design Competition, awarded First Prize. board size 24”x36”

Sponsored by the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design

The competition asked alumni to redesign an existing courtyard outside the college while questioning the nature of assembly and community within the school.

AC-CA International Competition: Buenos Aires Contemporary Art Museum. board size 36.45” x 27.08”