Cuyler-Brownsville Design Manual

Cuyler-Brownsville Design Charrette

Live Oak Railroad HQ

Architecture Studio 2

  

              Architecture  Studio Two was a design competition studio, creating luxury villas for a development outside of New Delhi, India. The developer wanted the homes to be classical or colonial in appearance.  The overall feel of the development will be that of a garden city,  and Savannah-like in charm. Desirable design features for the homes include formal symmetrical facades, classical ornament, covered entry ways, elevated main floor, and basement windows.  For this project I designed two homes with floor plans based on Victorian manors. The rooms are arranged along a grid with the formal public spaces in  the front of the building and the more private spaces in the  back. Throughout the design development phase of this project I restricted myself to hand drafting and limited my use of CAD software.

Mediun Villa 

Larger Villa- floor plan

Larger Villa- exploded view

The Cuyler-Brownville Design Charrette ~Part One: Project Overview~

               Recently I participated in a collaborative design charrette hosted by SCAD. The goal of the charrette was to design a single family, contextual, environmentally friendly, low income home in the Cuyler-Brownville historic district of Savannah, Ga. The charrette was funded by a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the project stakeholders included the Historic Savannah foundation, the USGC, and Habitat for Humanity int'l. Hopefully this project will act like a blue print for future collaborations between the National Trust, Habitat, and the USGBC in other communities. SCAD wanted this project to promote collaboration between the Architecture and Historic Preservation students. As a double major I found myself wearing two hats (fashion statement?).

             The project was Spearheaded by the Historic Preservation students. The architecture students involved in the project (myself excluded) where all volunteers. They joined us for the three day design charrette and then disappeared. This was the first preservation class I have ever taken which rivaled my Architecture studio in terms of time commitment and I had absolutely no life this quarter was very excited about all of the great networking opportunities that came from this project. The preservationists where responsible for all of the preliminary contextual, historic, and site research. After the research was compiled and distilled, It was presented to the architecture students and the project stakeholders, and followed by a three day long design charrette.

            In preparation for the charrette my Preservation planning class, was divided in to four survey teams to and each survey team focused on researching a different aspect of the community. The four teams focus respectively on the neighborhoods architectural context, urban fabric, social/cultural context, and history. I was the leader of the Architectural Survey team. We documented and identified the character defining features of the local architecture and common architectural styles. We also summarized the neighborhood's design guidelines and zoning ordinance. For the benefit of the charrette participants I produced a booklet of basic design considerations. which included a mock up project budget and a list of suggested materials.

  

 Sample pages from the design considerations booklet:

Bad blogger! Post more!

I have been a bad bad blogger.......

            The last time I posted I was in the middle of architecture studio 2. As of a few weeks ago I finished architecture studio 6 and completed my undergraduate BFA in Architecture and Historic preservation. In my next few posts I will summarizes some of my recent projects and collaborations. I will also lay out my goals for my upcoming M. ARCH thesis.

            This next year is going to be very exciting. On top of my work for thesis my Alma Mater, Savannah College of Art and Design, will be hosting the 2013 US/ICOMOS International Symposium. The theme for the symposium is The Historic Center and the Next City: Envisioning Urban Heritage Evolution. I can't think of a better city to have this discussion than Savannah!

Stuck in a studio rut? Then its time to Art Binge!!!

I am currently in architecture design studio II our studio is the students within my studio our competing for a real world project. We have been divided into teams each team is designing several Villas the winning teams villas will be construed in a development outside of New Delhi. I would to say more- but the contract I signed says that I can’t. Oh well, boo-hoo.

However that I can tell you that I am, and my competitors classmates are, experiencing studio burn out.

So in order to rekindle my creative energy I ventured out of our studio for a fine art binge.
I started at the Pei Ling Chan Gallery with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse spiral, an immense interactive lighting installation that responds to visitors heart beats. It was beautiful sensitive and extremely personal. The interaction between the art work and observer was intense and sublime. Watching those lights blink in time with my heart was a powerful experience.

Then I went to the Gutstein Gallery to see artwork by Mark Bradford, Andy Goldsworthy, and Do Ho Suh. The piece by Do Ho Suh , Gate- Small, 2003 was the high point of this stop. My stint as an intern at Art Pace, in San Antonio, familiarized me with the work of Do Ho Suh.

Then I warped up the evening with a lecture by Marina Abramović, the world renown performance artist. She read us her Artist Manifesto and told us about her life, her art, and the purpose and future of performance art.