CREMATORY APARTMENTS

RACE-WALKING : BELLE ISLE

FARMING TOWER : ANN ARBOR

TRANSLATIONS : FLOW

INVISIBLE CITIES

PHOTOGRAPHY

STUDY ABROAD : BARCELONA

CONTENTS

MAPPING : HAMTRAMCK

RACE-WALKING : DETROIT

RACE-WALKING : BELLE ISLE Undergraduate Studio 3 : Catie Newell

2.5 million people currently living in Chicago

3.5 million available crematory niches within the proposed structure

1.25 million available burial plots within Chicago city limts

2.5 acres of land created via roof top access (108,900 square feet created from the overlapping)

35 miles away is located the closest squash club.

2 miles from the site is the closest natatorium

400 miles away is the closests known fencing club (located in Windsor, Ontario)

4 four miles from the site is the closest boxing club

CLOSED

JEWISH ONLY

CATHOLIC ONLY

PUBLIC

10 Miles

20 Miles

30 Miles

The site for this project is a 160 foot by 160 foot plot of land located on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

The Structure contains 6 cores for vertical circulation and

crematorium ventilation. Four of the six cores start at ground level while the other two

begin 350 feet above ground at ­oor

29.

The living units are divided into 3 different sizes. In total there are 15

living units with 125 single living apartment spaces. Apartments vary between single level, double level,

triple level and quadruple level apartments.

walls allows for over 3.5 million bodies, condensed into 3”x3”x3” cubes.

The tower contains 4 recreational sporting facilities: squash club, natatorium, fencing club, and boxing club.These four sports celebrate the

individual which contrasts the program of the dead units where the individual

becomes part of a larger system.

The exterior spaces created from the overlapping of the units creates a little under 2.5 acres (108,900 square feet). There is

no speci�c program for these outdoor spaces allowing the users to create multiple uses

for these versatile spaces.

The units come together and surround a central shaft whch runs 60 feet below ground and 610 feet above ground. The

shaft creates the perception of an interior controlled space created from the facades of the

programatic units.

COMBINEDEXTERIOR SPACESPORTING FACILITIES

& OBSERVATORY DECK

CREMATORY UNITS

APARTMENT UNITS

VERTICAL CIRCULATION &

EXHAUST

SITE There are a total of 32 crematory units. The combination of exterior and interior crematory niche

APARTMENTS

COLUMBARIUM

SQUASH CLUB

NATATORIUM

FENCING CLUB

BOXING CLUB

VERTICAL CIRCULATION AND EXHAUST

OBSERVATORY

GROUND FLOORFLOOR ONE

FLOOR SEVEN FLOOR EIGHT

LIGHTS ON LIGHTS OUT

N

S

EW

RACE-WALKING : BELLE ISLE Undergraduate Studio 2 : Ellen Donnelly

Belle Isle in Detroit is an island contained within and composed of boundaries. It hugs the Canadian border and is divided into six zones that are contained by river, lake and forest boundaries. With boundaries in mind, the project seeks to create a boundary without impacting the views and atmosphere of the peninsular site at the far right of Belle Isle. This is achieved due to the fact that the building never rises higher than 15 feet from grade and utilizes glass exterior walls to not interrupt views.

The proposal for a race-walk training and competition complex addresses boundaries through the use of subtle level changes. These level changes denote different programs and space without the use of walls (a boundary which restricts views). This is seen clearly in a sectional model depicting the relationship between the work out areas, pro-shop and outdoor track.

The structure is divided into two wings: the spectator wing and athletic wing. The spectator wing contains program of an indoor track arena, two visiting team locker rooms, café, spectator lounge and race-walking museum. The athletic wing houses coach and management offices, a massage facility, a physical therapy facility, pro-shop, workout areas (stretching, heavy lifting and cardiovascular), and two private locker rooms for club member athletes. These two wings encompass an outdoor Olympic size track. The track is set 15 feet below ground level for maximum view from the above ground coach offices and spectator lounges. In consequence, the position of the track reduces wind resistance attributable to turbulent peninsula winds.

Michael Bosbous December 2009

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1 Indoor Track2 Private Locker Room3 Visiting Lcoker Room 4 Pro-Shop5 Stretching6 Outdoor Track7 Visiting Locker Room

8 Staff Offices9 Massage Center10 Physical Therapy 11 Weight Room12 Race Walking Museum13 Public Lounge14 Cafe

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5 ft x 3ftRouted MDF

Museum boardGraphic tape

DowelsAcrylic

SECTIONAL MODEL

Boundaries recur in the project model. Graphic tape denotes boundaries on site (dashed black graphic tape) as well as the route created for pedestrians from the existing road (white graphic tape), over the fully accessible green roof to the preexisting functional nature path.

RACE-WALKING : DETROIT Undergraduate Studio 2 : Ellen Donnelly

Progressing forward from race walking belle isle, the same program of a race walking facility is instituted; however, the project becomes constrained within a trapezoidal site roughly ¼ of the size of the belle island peninsula. In response to an additional challenge of site constraint a think-tank program is applied. After careful consideration of both programs, projection and movement become the inspiration behind Race Walking Detroit.

When comparing the race walker to the thinker, the walking speed and paths taken differ greatly. The speed walker pace forbids observation of the city’s details and allows city streets and sidewalks to delineate the path taken. In contrast, the thinker strays from the beaten paths, walks at a celestial pace and absorbs detail and aspect of their surroundings. The proposed design considers both characters. The building is comprised of two wings: the walker wing and the think-tank wing. The walker wing characterizes adherence to the boundaries of the site and surrounding streets whereas the think-tank wing secedes from the strict trapezoidal shaped site. While both walker and thinker are housed in the structure, the building is structurally proportioned more predominantly for the walker. The reason for this is that the building should be used as a meeting space for the think tank. It should aspire thinkers to leave the building and experience Detroit rather than be confined within the walls of the building. To accommodate the thinker, the building projects itself across Detroit creating pockets of program that parasite to other buildings. These parasites act as refuge for the thinkers allowing them to avoid the hustle and bustle of Detroit and reflect on their thoughts and travels.

The proposed skin for the structure is a lattice that increases or decreases it’s pattern around pockets or lack of program. In a way it mimics Detroit, which includes both dense and sparse pockets within its limits.

Michael Bosbous April 2010

a b c

5 ft x 3.5 ftRouted MDF

Museum boardGraphic tape

Acrylic

The model acts both as a physical representation of the proposed structure as well as a diagram for the movement in and around the site. Dashes of black graphic tape denote pedestrian traffic while silver graphic tape is representation for car traffic.

MAPPING : HAMTRAMCK Undergraduate Studio 2 : Ellen Donnelly

36 in x 24 inLayered MylarDigital drawing

Graphite Museum board

Michael Bosbous January 2010

Over the course of the past decade we have grown increasingly accustomed to and reliant on the authority of top-down satellite images. In addition, Google earth (and other online map databases) now present us with multiple points of view--not only planometric, but persepectivic and axonometric. Databases like photosynth allow for a collagic view of the world: contributions from the many add up to create an “average” image from an array of a potentially diverse set of images. It is possible to vicariously live through images and tags of others images, to learn historically about places through online research and to go “there” without “going there” and think we have done enough. But what about the primacy of lived experience? Is it enough to accept the collective “average” of an experience, or the “objective” view from above? Mapping: Hamtramck seeks to operate under the assumption that distanced research and analysis are not adequate descriptors of a site or territory. Taking into favor the subjective, the varied and the questionable.

Hamtramck, Michigan is a highly dense city with 9732 inhabitants per square mile. Intimacy and partial overlap between residential, commercial and religious zones make it notable. The drawing illuminates the density and overlap of the city. Density is represented through the materials and amount of drawings both hand drawn and digital. The drawing is made up of 4 layers. The base layer consists of a digital drawn map derived from the site (upper left hand corner). Next, a Mylar layer of hand-drawn storefront elevations represents the site’s commercial zone. Following is a third Mylar layer of hand-drawn home elevations.

The drawing represents the overlap of the city through the layering of the information as well as the use of collage to represent the streets. The collage is comprised of Polish newspaper clippings to represent the residential zone and residential heritage,various business cards represent the commercial zone that consists of businesses on the central street of Joseph Campau and religious prayer cards from the Polish cathedral represent the religious zone. These overlapping materials weave together in order to represent the bleeding of program and interaction between the different sectors of the city.

The model denotes ideas of overlapping and density translated from the two-dimensional drawing by means of two separate yet overlapping forms. Moments where the two forms meet are represented with a void allowing transient visitors to peer through from one space to the other. Density embodies the design of the skin. Irregular double-layered shingles represent the gaps between homes and businesses that allow for pockets of vision within the heavily populated city. The irregular perforated surface results in similar pockets of vision that add a new layer of density to the already dense city of Hamtramck.

FARMING TOWER : ANN ARBOR Undergraduate Studio 1 : Anya Sirota

Farming Tower focuses on the synthesis of a comprehensive program with the concrete limitations of an infill site. Program can mean many things in contemporary architecture. This exercise presents the notion of program divorced from Functionalism of Canonical Modernism and is willfully conceived as both plastic and playful. It proposes the idea that activities, movement, human relations, considered uses and spontaneous appropriations form the basis of spatial and material composition.

The project complexity includes harnessing the very concrete restrictions of the given site through systemic analysis to decipher the spatial and programmatic opportunities these conditions present. In addition, it delves into programmatic analysis in answer to the understanding of site and recognizes the varying needs of space spawn formal, experiential and conceptual tactics. Last, it explores the interdependence of form, program, structure and material and brings about a strong understanding of sectional design.

Michael Bosbous December 2009

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1 Farmer’s Market2 Office Space3 Restaurant Indoor Seating4 Restaurant Outdoor Seating5 Kitchen6 Outdoor Farming Plots7 Office Space8 Auditorium9 Indoor Farming Plots

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Farming Tower incorporates several programs: a farmers market, sustainable office space for an Ann Arbor organic farming coalition, urban gardenscape, a sustainable organic restaurant, and auditorium space for cooking and farming education.

OLD DATUM

NEW DATUM

SECTION 1 SECTION 3

The tower can house a crop yield of 3331 pounds of produce with over 2306 square feet of indoor farming and 18,771 square feet of roof top gardening allowing for a year round production of crops. Ultimately, the building expresses a year round sustainable farm, restaurant and farmer’s market that generates revenue that is supplied as a result of the garden tower and roof top plots. The farming tower aims at cutting down carbon emissions from non- sustainable farming and linking its community through cooking and farming classes and demonstrations.

The structures main shape is the result of a manipulation of two bars that knot together around the central 150-foot glass-farming tower. Subsequent to the transformation of these bars three key steps occur. The first being the creation of needed kitchen access to the gardens on the adjacent rooftops for easy access during restaurant services, the second being an office for the farming coalition to overlook the gardens, and the third which consisted of community teaching rooms and auditorium, at the highest elevation to allow students the ability to overlook the gardens that provide food for their classes and demonstrations.

2 ft x 2 ftMuseum board

acrylic

TRANSLATIONS Undergraduate Studio 1 : Anya Sirota

The design process of this project focuses on investigation of the activating idiom “to flow” through its translation from an existing two-dimensional image then, next to a two-dimensional drawing analysis and definitively to a three-dimensional proposal. The project forces the development of a vocabulary and working methodology inherent to the discipline of architecture. It focuses on the extent to which a person might flow freely through a designated space.

Specifically, the area of concern is from point A to B through pathways that flow apart and together in order to create new and defined space. Inspired by the sculpture “The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni” by Bernini, a line drawing is created and extruded. The drawing concentrates on the idiom by exploring both obvious and hidden pathways that flow underneath the folds of the cascading sculpted cloth portrayed in the sculpture. As a result of using the pathways as a form of a crude map, an explanatory drawing illustrates how one can navigate throughout the space, diverging along many different pathways (solid black and dashed lines) in order to arrive at a hidden destination.

Michael Bosbous September 2009

• Taking ideas from the extruding line drawing a stacked 97 layer model is created. The model retains the topographical qualities while at the same time it plays with the way separate pathways flow together both on top and inside the form.

9 in x 5 inMuseum board

Taking ideas from the extruding line drawing a stacked 97-layer model is created. The model retains the topographical qualities of the line drawing while at the same time it plays with the way separate pathways flow together both on top and inside the form.

A more planar investigation into the activating idiom “to flow” takes form through another 97-layer stacked model. This new form involves the double helix shape by connecting three planes turning them into a constant flowing space.

Taking basic ideas from this stacked model a similar form in rockite is casted.

A copy of the rockite form was created using museum board. During the final step of the project a brief investigation was conducted regarding the role of an applied skin and its reaction with light and restricted viewing. Taking influence from architect Toyo Ito and his Serpentine Pavilion, a skin is created enclosing the inhabitable space of the form. The skin takes the once open form and creates a “windowed” space that furthers the idea of restricted viewing that is investigated in the following triptych.

The activating idiom of “to flow” is now exemplified in this project by both the continuous path one pursues while navigating through the rockite form and the continuous flow of space from start to finish. The irregular edges and differing forms enclose areas that create space within the helix-like structure. Meandrous viewing through the flowing space, due to the asymmetrical forms and steady incline present new perspectives. Having to scale the rockite form up and then placing it within a landscape formulates the decision to best use the structure as an observation deck somewhere in a mountainous terrain.

INVISIBLE CITIES Pre-Architecture Studio : Dawn Gilpin

The project focuses on the invisible city of Eusapia from the novel Le Citta Invisibili by Italo Calvino. The project development begins with a master plan for Eusapia, a civilization that lived between two cities from which a city of the living and a city of the dead developed. Both cities explore ways to be identical yet have differences in the citizens it possesses. The project challenge creates the idea of density of the citizens both within the living and the dead city. It focuses on the idea that from ashes they are born, live, die and are reborn while taking advantage of their fading back into dust only to begin the regenerative cycle of Eusapians. This is represented through choice of line type and density. A cloud of dots evolves into dashed lines that progressively develop into lines. The lines increase in density and weight until entering the “ground” on the left side of the drawing where they are then reintroduced into the inverse composition located on the lower half of the drawing. Subsequently, the lines decompose back into dashed lines and then into a dotted cloud.

Michael Bosbous October 2008

Pulling from the two dimensional drawing of Eusapia the model furthers the ashes to ashes concept in that it is sparse and scattered near its fringe while dense and compact in the center.

7in x 4.5 inBass Wood

Vellum

Orthographic projections are used as a helpful tool to investigate the role of density and connections within the model. Specific instances from the drawing depict these moments. The first depicts the individual piece connections and the second depicts the density created within the center of the model.

STUDY ABROAD : BARCELONA Undergraduate Study Aborad : Ellie Abrons and Adam Fure

During summer 2010 the opportunity to study abroad in Barcelona presented an enormous highlight of international study that offered focus on Catalan Modernisme architecture. Specifically, Antoni Gaudí and Lluis Montaner were without a doubt favored in the program. Inspiration for this summer project came from Gaudi’s ability to mix materials in order to achieve complex compositions that were modern, flowing, avant-garde, expressive, unconventional and Suess-esque. His comprehensive description of work made you rethink architecture and marvel at the ingenuity of human creativity through the rich use of textures, colors and materials as seen specifically in the façade of the La Sagrada Familia.

The photograph embraces the death of the innocent scene on the East Nativity façade of the Sagrada Familia. This moment depicts Gaudi’s ability to mix materials and achieve complex composition. The mixture of rusted steel and stone seamlessly flows together creating an emotional scene of biblical history.

Michael Bosbous May 2010

Mixing of materials to heighten design complexity is also used in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. His rich mixtures of glass, steel, golden onyx and travertine in the structure illustrate Mies’ masterful command of space and materials. The included sketch was drawn on site at the Barcelona Pavilio using graphite and marker in order investigate the representation of materials through drawing techniques rather than color.

PHOTOGRAPHYPhotographed November 15, 2010 as part of a project encompassing two opposing programs: a crematory and single apartment complex. The photographs are of an aggregate model of a cremation space.

The walls are used as cremation niches that when the building is unpopulated the space is brightly lit; however, when the building is filled to maximum capacity, the crematory spaces become dark and solemn rather than light and cheerful.

Photographed September 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Use of digital alterations to intensify the tension between light and dark spaces.

Photographed November 2008 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Original photograph taken with no digital

alterations.