The city of São Paulo is on the rise with one of the fasted growing populations in the world. As an emerging market, the city is a central focus to developers like Tishman Speyer. The proposed site is located on the outskirts of the city and provides an escape from the fast-paced downtown while still offering a view and direct connections via the interstate. The program calls for a dense residential component as well as a public landscape and a retail area. Issues of safety and traffic congested provide some key issues to be considered.

From the onset of the project, it became clear that tower-living is the norm in São Paulo. However, it was also evident that a site on the edge of the city called for a different solution. By creating a central piazza and splaying the residential units from the center, the site is safe while also avoiding the standard barrier security wall. Additionally, by creating a series of 10-12 story mid-level towers the complex has the potential for over 2800 units while also feeling more intimate in comparison to the typical 25+ floor tower.

The brief requested the design of a 1,500 square foot single-family home to be located on a standard-sized lot in Chicago. While the dimensions and codes were specified, the challenge was creating a design that could fit into any area or neighborhood in the city. The home was to include three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and kitchen, single garage and mechanical space.

By placing the bedrooms on the bottom and top floor the middle level can be left almost entirely open for circulation and airflow. A steel structural system allows the structure to appear very light and seemingly hover above the ground. The glazed structure is then wrapped by a series of cedar louvers to provide shade from the sun, visual privacy and a scaffolding for vines to grow.

The Beijing CBD proposal called for a large scale master plan in the heart of the city. The proposal included several towers including a signature tower as well as a several-block park with underground parking, shopping, transportation and several other amenities. The PCPA scheme includes a raised walkway that is both environmentally and socially conscious. 

Work completed while employed at Pelli Clarke Pelli.

The study of Flippo Raguzzini’s Piazza di Saint Ignazio (1727) revealed a carefully planned geometry transitioning into the Jesuit Church anchoring the piazza. The geometries manifest themselves through the curving facades of the surrounding buildings and the ornate cornices forming the skyline. The piazza was once a thriving space for theatrical performances but now serves mainly as a route between Via del Corso and the Pantheon. People constantly pass the site without taking time to appreciate the visual and experiential masterpiece.

Using facade studies and geometric evaluations as a starting point for design, the goal became to activate the once-populated space. Windows, balconies and openings became areas of relations between the neighboring buildings and the piazza within. In an effort to recreate the theatrics of the historic theatre, different forms of lighting encourage human interaction and play in and around the piazza by highlighting subtle features. The narrow alleys leading to the piazza are filled with a filigree of mesh inviting inhabitants to “Vedo, Vedi, Vede” (I see, you see, we see)

As part of the “More than a container” competition, our team proposed a multi-use shipping crate that would double as a company office and dinner party hosting nexus. With a simple paint-job, some perforations and a reused interior, the space would become a meeting spot for Brooklyn’s foodie population.

This proposal took third place in the international competition.

The 1,000 square foot pavilion is to be located in the Center of New Haven on the city’s green. A series of panels connected together with flexible rubber gaskets create a flexible framework to attach a fabric skin on the exterior while holding pointed rods on the interior. The juxtaposition of a sharp interior and soft exterior is made evident when the entire pavilion gently flexes in the wind. As a traveling pavilion, the shape is defined purely by the strength of the rubber connectors allowing the entire structure to bend varying amounts creating an ever changing floor plan reacting to environmental conditions and also programmatic requirements.

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In collaboration with David Yang

This proposal creates a cultural center for the Mnjikaning Fish Circle of Orillia Canada and their 5000+ year old fishing weirs located nearby. Because the weirs are located below water and the group has a minimal number of artifacts, the challenge was to represent the sacred & spiritual aspects of the group. This proposal re-envisions the existing swing-bridge as the gateway for a cultural center and sacred space. By rotating the bridge 30 degrees and creating a new walkway the proposal creates a strong axis leading to a void in the center of Lake Simcoe. The void becomes both a logo and a destination - a curious space promoting snowmobile riders, bikers, boaters and people in cars to question and search for answers.

Like many other small towns in Central Massachusetts, Taunton struggles with staying economically stable while being on fringe of what is considered to be a major suburb of Boston. While the city is only 40 minutes from Boston, traffic congestion makes for a long commute both ways. The Master Plan considered the proposed South Coast Rail re-initiating the rail line connected most of Massachusetts leading to the potential for development around the city’s Central green.

Taking cues from the Emerald Necklace in Boston, a series of green corridors surrounding the site and connecting several major attractions works to activate the site in hopes of new residential and commercial space. By placing a large sports center in the middle of the cite, the complex becomes a destination not merely for out-of-towners but also as a potential place of interest to locals.

Extra Extra Medium (XXM) investigates the role of scale in business and the impact of the consumer. Using the Sara Lee Corporation as a representative of large-scale food distribution and local gyro-vendor to represent a small scale business, the study examined how the facade can both expose and conceal a corporate identity. In the case of Sara Lee, the facade serves as a barrier preventing the public from understanding the true corporate nature of Sarah Lee with aspirations of consumers instead of associating a more home-made brand when in truth Sarah Lee is a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

The project became a speculation on a spatial milieu housing the functions of a company which usually go unseen. From distribution to storage and corporate lounges to a recycling area, all scales of business rely on spaces which are typically not exposed. XXM attempted to not only create dialogue between the apparent small and large scale businesses, but to benefit each by exposing the inevitable but non-celebrated stages of the food industry.

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Projected completed in collaboration with Nathan P. Klinge

The Cellophane House was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art as part of the "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling" exhibition in 2008. The House was built off-site and erected in under three weeks at the site in Mid-town Manhattan and assembled in a series of chunks and used no glue, epoxy or adhesives allowing it to be dis-assembled as easily as it was assembled.

Crafted Action was involved from competition stage through design development, fabrication, assembly and dis-assembly. 

The project was featured in Architecture Record, the NYTimes, Wired and on the Discovery Channel. It was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in Philadelphia.
(Select Photos by Peter Aaron | Esto)

The creation of several temporary structures, pavilions, kiosks, and signage for PowerFilm Headquarters located in Ames, Iowa.