M a r g o t E l t o nSelected WorkM.Arch Path A Applicant

M a r g o t E l t o nSelected WorkM.Arch Path A Applicant

M a r g o t E l t o nSelected WorkM.Arch Path A Applicant

M a r g o t E l t o nSelected WorkMaster of Architecture Applicant

Table of Contents

Creative Writing

Freehand Drawing

Diagramming

Metalsmithing

Design

my father’s footsteps

When I was seven, I waited up, lying in the dark, until I heard the car in the driveway and the back door slam. Minutes later, footsteps creaked on the stairs and I called out, “Daddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.” The footsteps stopped, change direction, and my bedroom door slowly opened. “What are you still doing awake?” he asked me, a smile in his voice. “I missed you.” He came and sat on the side of my bed and talked to me, for just a few minutes, before kissing me on the fore-head and telling me that now it was really bedtime. Finally, I was able to fall asleep.

Iwasfouryearsoldwhenmyfatherleftthearchitecturefirmhewasworkingforandwentoutonhisown.Hebought a building to house Elton & Associates and my sister and I stood watching as he and my mother painted, lay downcarpets,andconfigureddesks.Weplayedwitholdsetsofdrawings,pretendingtobearchitectsourselves,hunch-ing over plans and sections like we knew what we were looking at.

Last year, my sister told me that she thinks we were deprived children. “He was never around,” she explained. “Mom fed us dinner, gave us baths, and put us to bed. He came in after we were asleep and left before we woke up.” The words, “deprived children” seemed harsh to me. That day, I defended our daddy when my sister attacked, recounting memories from photographs on the walls of our house.

The summer before my senior year of college, I discovered a passion. During an intensive studio architecture course, I found myself truly happy. My studio instructor would rip apart two full days of work in twenty minutes and I would have to leave the studio to go cry outside, but even in those moments I was inspired and excited. Afterwards, my father asked me what I thought. “I want to go to architecture school,” I told him. “You’ve got the bug,” he said, smiling. “I can tell.”

My father never sits still and never relaxes. When we go to our country house for the weekends, he tinkers until the sun sets. He rebuilt our barn two years ago, even harnessing himself to the roof to re-tar and shingle it. The cur-rent project is a garage with a woodshop for himself and a bedroom for when “the girls bring home boyfriends.” Last summer, I spent every Saturday outside with my father, listening to country western music, laying concrete block. Our hands were raw and cracked and sweat poured down our faces as we maneuvered eighty pound bags of mortar mix into the mixer, and my father never stopped humming.

Creative writing has always been a passion of mine. Through writing, I have been able to explore my personal relationships, record memories, and create worlds into which I can escape. Writing helps me create spaces with words, which allow me to see them clearly in my mind, before putting them on paper as images.

fall 2006

I asked my boyfriend to tell me something about himself that no one else knew. We had just started dating, and I wantedtofeelspecial.Hedidn’tgivemearesponse,andaweeklater,Ifiguredhewasn’tcomfortableenoughyet.Thatnight, he called me. “My biggest goal in life and my dream is to be an outstanding father,” he started in when I picked up. “My father leftwhenIwasyoungsoIneverhadthatquintessentialfatherfigure.Thescarypartofthisdreamofmineis,asIgetdeeper and deeper into medical school, I’m realizing that being a physician is entirely incompatible with being an invest-ed father. I’m worried I’m not going to be able to be the parent I want to be. Chew on that.”

In the country, the sun streams through my curtains as it rises and as I hear the rustles of my parents beginning the day, I turn my back to the windows and bury my face in a pillow. Until the buttery smell of frying eggs sneaks into my bedroom, I stay curled up in a warm ball underneath my down comforter. My mother grinds her coffee, and I hear them place the heavy skillet on the stove burner. “Oh,damn.”Inmyfather’svoice,Ihearthefamilymorningslipaway.“I’vegottocalltheoffice.” His footsteps pad out of the kitchen, and disappear. I drift off, and the next thing I know is the sound of eggs spattering in their pan. I pull myself out of my warm cocoon only because I love family breakfast. We eat and laugh and sometimes it goes on for hours. Mymotherisstandingatthestove,abouttofliptheeggsovereasy.Theflippingisalwaysdaddy’sjob.Ipeekupstairs: my father sits in his swivel chair, poring over a set of working drawings, phone at his ear, speaking intently to anemployeestuckintheoffice. Theeggshavebeenflipped,andmymotherandIsitdownatthekitchentable.Weeat,andtalk,andevenlaugha little, but mostly we stare at my father’s empty chair.

My father and I took tennis lessons together during my senior year of high school. Every Thursday night, he’d pull up in front of our house at 7:50, honk three times, and wait. During the ten minute drive, we talked. About school, about my friends, about his work, about nothing in particular. I always brought music, CDs of the Backstreet Boys or 98 Degrees. My daddy learned the lyrics almost as fast as I did, and sang along in a falsetto, swinging his head back and forth in a parody of the “Backyard Boys,” as he called them. Thursdays were special days, because after tennis, daddy came home instead of going back to work. We joined him at the kitchen table while he ate his microwaved meal. Mostly, the conversation consisted of my father spilling out all the problems he was having at work: a zoning hearing he wasn’t going to win, an employee who wanted extra time off, or a contractor who suddenly had decided the job would cost a four hundred thousand more than he had bid for. My mother brainstormed with him, usually just to have something to say. I mostly stayed silent and listened, soaking up the presence of daddy.

I was home for a week in October, and my father left work one night to go to dinner with me. We walked from our house to the Chinese restaurant he knows I love, and for hours, just talked. About my summer class, and my fall semester at Haverford, about my thesis, and my plans for next year. We talked about his new six-story steel-frame build-ing, and the window design he wants to put in the garage when he starts framing it this summer. On the walk home, we talked about my choice to go to architecture school. I told him that I knew I wanted to be an architect, and I told him that I was scared. “Why?” I took a deep breath. “Daddy, I don’t want to be you.”

figure drawing

sleeping nude; charcoal on paperspring 2009 • 2 hour study

Studying sociology, I examined the needs, environments, and relationships in which people live and thrive. Drawing nudes allowed me to study people in a new context, converting my relationship with the human identity, formerly based in writing, into a spatial and visual one.

nude; charcoal and conte crayon on paperspring 2009 • 90 minute study

dancers

dancer; conte crayon on paperwinter 2009 • 15 minute study

Drawing dancers allowed me to think about grace and fluidity of form in relation to the human body. Throughout Lessons of the Lawn, Waldman has pointed out the architecture of the human form, and the manner in which buildings reflect the body. I see this relationship most strongly in the forms of dancers.

dancer; conte crayon on paperwinter 2009 • 15 minute study

dancers

dancer; conte crayon on paperwinter 2009 • 10 minute study

Dancers are constantly in motion, always progressing towards something new. I see a relationship between the construction process and dance. For both of these acts, we are witnesses to positive motion and change.

dancer; conte crayon on paperwinter 2009 • 1 hour study

portraitureThe face is the facade of the body. Just as the proportions of a facade must be taken into careful account, so must be done with facial studies. While drawing these portraits, I discovered it was necessary to disregard the proportions my mind believed to be true in favor of measurement and accuracy.

a poised face; charcoal on paperwinter 2009 • 90 minute study

portrait; charcoal and pencil on paperfall 2008 • 2 hour study

landscapeI found drawing landscape a way to engage myself with the natural world, which appealed to my interest in sustainability and environmental responsibility. Peter Waldman has emphasized the study of preconditions of the architectural site, and how they must impact design; it is, therefore, critical for design students to understand site and landscape.

copy of monet’s the rocks at pourville, low tide; pencil on paperfall 2008 • 3 hour study

mendon landscape; charcoal and colored pencil on paperfall 2008 • 1 hour study

the built environment Drawing the built environment helped me think about pro-portion and its relation to successful building, as well as gain an appreciation for building composition.

The Eric Goodwin Passage was the first project that I wrote about in Waldman’s course that I was able to visit and examine by putting pencil to paper. These studies allowed me to look at the Passage from a variety of angles and perspectives in an attempt to fully understand it.

eric goodwin passage; pencil on paperfall 2010 • 30 minute studies

historic downtown; pencil on paperfall 2010 • 2 hour study

campbell hall, uva; pencil on paperfall 2010 • 1 hour study

lessons of the lawn This fall semester, I had the opportunity to take Peter Waldman’s Lessons of the Lawn course, where I explored compositional design strategies in writing and diagrammatic form. Below are some of my writings and diagrams from the course.

“The Rotunda comes to mind as the strongest example of center in Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. There is another important center to recognize however-- the Lawn itself. The dormitory rooms act as edges and the grassy Lawn becomes a space where they can congregate as a group, a social center.”

Explorations of Center and Edge

“Unlike Jefferson’s Rotunda, the Pantheon was designed with no exterior windows save the oculus. This places importance upon this central object, which not only draws the eye but also provides light, giving it utility in addition to centrality...With his decision to place the name of Marcus Agrippa on the exterior of the Pantheon, Hadrian took himself out of the center and placed himself on the edge. This act is reflected in the design and placement of the oculus as well. The oculus brings in a shaft of light that could arguable re-emphasize the center , but I believe it actually serves to take away this emphasis. As the days and months progress, this shaft moves around the center of the Pantheon, shining on and highlighting different pieces of the dome and floor.”

fall semester 2010

Explorations in Horizontality and Verticality

“Le Corbusier was inpired by the idea that horizontality is a reflection of logic and exactitude. Villa Savoye has a dominating horiztontal band of windows, inside a horizontal box of a building. There is, however, a vertical element in the pilotis that disconnect the building from the ground. They do not reach the sky, but rather are terminated, showing the dominance of the horizontal.”

Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by the idea that horizontal space related man to the world as he knows it. His horizontal design strategy includes cantilevered terraces, and placing the staircases in the back of the building, where they would not draw attention to the vertical. The one central vertical element, the stair to the rushing river below, connects residents to the natural horizontal element below; Wright uses vertical elements to emphasize his horizontality.”

“Jefferson’s Academical Village is largely horizontal, encouraging linear motion towards the Rotunda. Once inside, the central staircases and oculus orient vision upwards, vertically. His library is a chapel of learning, and so Jefferson uses verticality to emphasize a connection to the sky, to faith, and to intuition.”

metalsmithing

tie clip: cut and brushed silver

The process of metalsmithing forces one to carefully plan a design before constructing, as all pieces need to fit together precisely. I believe that there are many similarities between the craft involved in metalsmithing and the practice of architecture.

Metalsmithing was the beginning of my fascination with the construction process. With these pieces, I was responsible for creating a deisgn and figuring out how to bring it to life. I pounded, cut, polished, and welded these materials, converting solids of metal into designed pieces. Looking back, they are studies in heaviness and lightness, and in the manners these can be intertwined in single projects. These were, in this manner, my first architectural acts.

jewelry box: cut, brushed, and welded silver and bronze.

lightning bolt lapel pin: cut, brushed, and welded bronze and copper.

campus bus stop

final model

Project: Create a bus stop for the campus bus system be-tween three college campuses. Structure must have mini-mum 3 sides enclosed.

design studio spring 2007 • 3 week project

The inter-campus bus lines are used frequently by students at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges to travel between and connect the tri-college system. My goal with this project was to make a structure that would be easily recognizable, providing identity and sense of place for students unfamiliar with a sister campus that would still maintain beauty through simplicity.

final model

front elevation, hand drawn

This bus stop is a structure of temporary inhabitation. Looking at the design now, through the lens of the Lessons of the Lawn, I see the temporality of its usage reflected in the lightness of the design. This is a delicate structure that comes out of a heavy stone foundation, a contradiction that continues through the fact that the lightness is only possible due to a solid steel truss construction.

study spaces

For an entrance to my medium study space, I used a ramp to pay homage to the ramp that snakes through the center of the Carpenter Center. Le Corbusier intended the ramp to be a focal point of the building and of pedestrian traffic. With this study space, I tried to do the same. medium study space (5-8 occupants)

small study space (1 occupant)

Project: Design three outdoor study spaces of varying size to be built into the grounds of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center at Harvard University, using a given kit of parts. The study spaces must be built physically into the ground, below ground level.career discovery summer 2006 • 2 week project

large study space (20-30 occupants)

I chose to construct my study spaces out of poured-in-place concrete to establish a sense of congruity with the concrete Carpenter Center. The plaster casts gave the models the same sense of weight and substance that the actual concrete forms would display.

Using the frame of Lessons of the Lawn to examine this project in retrospect, I see the dominant heaviness of the project’s materiality, contrasted with lightness in the columns of the large study space and the half wall in the small and medium spaces.

site model, hand drawn, colored in photoshop

The Carpenter Center is composed of complex curves and angles that I wanted to imitate in my design for the study spaces. To generate forms for the study spaces, I overlapped the outlines of the plans of the Carpenter Center with that of a building section. I studied the overlapping areas and found shapes that intrigued me.

artists complex Project: Design an artists’ complex for the Fort Point area of Boston. The program includes artists’ live/work spaces, gallery/exhibition space, classroom/studio spaces, retail, cinema, café, bar, and community outdoor spaces.career discovery summer 2006 • 2 week project

final model

Fort Point is an area of Boston undergoing a great deal of revitalization, with many empty warehouses and industrial buildings being converted into artists studios and apartments: a community is trying to develop. Studying this site and designing a building to be a part of this community reviltalization was an exciting process for me, as it meshed well with my personal planning interests.

In developing my design for this artists complex, I studied a variety of building organizations and circulation patterns. Simultaneously, I studied the building in programmatic sketches as well as figure ground elevations and sections to get a sense of the shapes and feel of the complex as a whole. The final design utilized a ramp as both formal gallery space and informal exhibition space, allowing for artists to open their studio onto the ramp, and to the public. The design incorporated outdoor spaces by bringing the adjacent park into a central courtyard and employing a series of outdoor terraces and balconies.

Looking back at this design after “Lessons of the Lawn,” I see a strong sense of emphasizing the center and inhabiting the edge. This design leaves the center of the building as open park space, and creates a ramping exhibition space along a built-up edge. This allows for a strong contrast between the heaviness of the concrete ramp and the lightness of the natural space.

massing model

final model

one good room Part of the final assignment for Peter Waldman’s Lessons of the Lawn course was to design “One Good Room” using the compositional strategies we studied over the course of the semester.

North-South Section

East-West Section

fall semester 2010

Plan

cardboard chair

To create the joints in this chair, I primarily used notching. The slats of the chair are notched into the base. The base is composed of several pieces alternating and offset from each other rather than one solid edge to add an element of stability and allow one to look inside and see the structure of the chair more easily.

This chair is designed to reflect the shape of the human body. Waldman talked often about the manner in which buildings mimic the human form, just as the Academical Village resembles a head and arms. My chair reflects the human body more purposefully, in its attempt to fit a body comfortably.

Project: Design and construct a chair using only single-ply cardboard that is structurally sound and can hold the weight of a person. The design may not employ any form of adhesives or external reinforcements.design studio fall 2006 • 2 week project