Programmed as a compact, 1200 square foot residence, Les Cabanons is situated on a promontory overlooking a picturesque valley, two nearby hills, and is contiguous to both the Appalachian Trail and Green Mountain National Forest preserves in South Pomfret, Vermont. The apertures of the house are designed to translate the landscape into a series of foregrounds, middle-grounds, and backgrounds, while collapsing the relative distance and distinctions between these. Using highly textured resilient materials as cladding - from roofing to wallpaper - the project seeks to extend a visual record of the landscape through the residence, using its surfaces as planes for visual and physical integration with the site.

publications:
Praxis X, Thresholds 35: Difference

In 1752, the year Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, he also established the first American fire insurance company. That these innovations share a common source is notable not only for the fact that Franklin’s impact on American architecture may be greater than is customarily assumed, but also because this parallel development prefigures the interwoven relationships between invention, building insurance, and legislation that underlie the production of architecture today. Industrialization brought new threats to the city (electricity, speed, explosives) while also dramatically increasing the scale of historical perils (flood, fire, theft). In turn, these threats gave rise to a field of new products, accessory to conventional building. Negotiating the thresholds between the developing infrastructures of the city and its private spaces (as insured and legally defined), these emergency devices can be understood collectively as a crumple zone intended not to prevent urban disaster but to absorb, limit, and contain its effects. In their early forms, the automatic sprinkler, exterior fire escape, panic bar, emergency light, and theft alarm were, like Franklin’s original lightning rod, ready for production and deployment on a large scale, without definitive spatial identity, and suitable for use in new or existing construction. Culminating in their current ubiquity, the integration of these devices into the spatial and psychological landscape of the city is the story of the Encyclopedia.

J1931 is an alteration and addition to a generously-dimensioned city lot with a single, 65’ tall, 4’ diameter oak tree standing near its north edge and a shingle-style, pattern-book, late 19th century wood-frame house defining its southern edge, parallel to the street. The spaces within the existing house were, without exception, oriented towards the interior, with small apertures located independently of local conditions. The project redefines the interiority of the house on the one hand, by including the north yard as a “room” with clearly defined edges, while also re-orienting the northern edge of the house to the oak tree. In doing so, the spaces of the project are at once clearly delineated and incomplete.

The large glass wall on the first level is fully operable, allowing the project to operate both as a room within the house and a sheltered extension of the yard, which is used primarily as a plot for growing vegetables and grapes. The new interior spaces defined within and adjacent to the house are surrounded by thickened walls which house storage, appliances, insulation, wiring, plumbing, and lighting – all the trappings of domestic life - and also interlock with the larger interior of the yard. In this way, the new apertures operate not as picturesque framed views, but as visual and physical connections between two alternative forms of interiority. The surfaces of the project exposed to rain are clad in recycled, corrugated aluminum shakes, while the surfaces protected from moisture are clad in white-washed pine plywood. In contrast to these monolithic surface treatments, the floor surfaces and depth of the wall are treated with a collection of textures ranging from black concrete to grass, organized to create subtle spatial differentiations within the larger spaces of the project.

awards:
Exhibition Selection

The Planetarium in the 21st Century: Au contraire des artefacts d’un musée type, où le sujet est constamment present, le planétarium est un environnement ultra-médiatisée dans lequel le sujet d’astronomie est traduit et interprété au profi t de l’observateur. Il y a peu d’objets a montrer, mais une pléthore des concepts et principes à expliquer. Le planétarium est, en somme, un musée sans artefacts. Un musée des concepts. Au moment où l’acces a l’informatino devient omniprésent - les moteurs de recherche comme Google Sky donnent un accès aisé, interactif et personalisé à une vaste quantité de data, les cinémas maison devient des plus en plus sophistiqués - le rôle d’un planétarium publique dans l’âge des nouvelles médias doit etre interrogé. Quel est le rôle de la Planétarium dans le nouveu millénaire?

Le planétarium du XXème Siècle doit servir d’interface pour la découverte et l’éducation, une experience immersive qu’engage le visiteur spatialement et activement dans le spectacle singulier de l’espace. Le bâtiment ne peut pas se contenter de servir uniquement en réceptacle passif d’un voyage virtuel, mais doit jouer un rôle central dans l’experience immersive, invitant le visiteur à naviguer à travers ses programmes, comme une métaphore pour l’espace lui-meme.

Project Team: Elijah Huge (Periphery), Bimal Mendis & Joyce Hsiang (Plan B)
January 2009, Montreal, CA

publications:
Architectural Record, Dwell, Landscape Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education
awards:
AIA Small Projects Award (Honor), 2010 Green Circle Award: Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection
exhibitions:
Global Warming: Artists and Climate Change, Zilkha Gallery, Middletown, CT

SplitFrame consists of two integral pieces - a floating Observation Deck and an elevated Viewing Station - connected via a hinged staircase. It is situated at the end of a long weir, a vestige of the wildlife sanctuary’s former use as a commercial cranberry bog. Working with only hand-held power-tools, all on-site construction was completed without the use of heavy equipment. Informed by student research on sustainable construction technologies and building materials, design precedents, and the project’s 19-acre site, the studio worked collaboratively to develop and implement the project following the final client review. Using an innovative pre-cast concrete pin-foundation system for the elevated Viewing Station and a floating aluminum frame assembly for the Observation Deck on the water, the project was designed to minimize its impact on the site, both in construction and over the projected life of the structure. Together, the two platform components provide an immersive site experience, bringing visitors out onto the water, and offering an overview of the sanctuary from the maple tree canopy above.

North Studio Project Team: Elijah Huge (Studio Leader), Zachary Bruner (Teaching Apprentice, '08), Jason Bailey (‘09), Hunter Craighill (‘09), Henry Ellis (‘10), Nicole Irizarry (‘09), Yang Li (‘10), Angus McCullough (‘10), Megan Nash (‘09), Rebecca Parad (‘09), Arkadiusz Piegdon (‘08), Derek Silverman (‘09), Julia Torres (‘08), Renae Widdison (‘10), Yale Ng-Wong (’10),

awards:
Third Prize

The Tangshan Earthquake Memorial Park is an accumulation of landscape components - from a modulated collection of ten - which are brought together to form both the Park and Memorial. Each modulated component represents a specific ground condition, with the monument ground as the most important within the set. The Earthquake Memorial is made of three of these landscape components: the monument ground, the memorial pools, and the living groves. It is a place of reflection and remembrance where loved ones can gather, drawing water from the memorial pools to write the names of loved ones upon the monument ground. The ground of the Earthquake Memorial extends to the East and to the West as a series of interconnected pathways, built of the same staggered components as the memorial ground. To the west, the ground extends over the ruins, via a series of elevated pathways, offering visitors an opportunity to move through and look over the ruins and providing the possibility for connecting the memorial to the planned Square of the New Era (Master Plan 2005-2010). To the East, the staggered memorial ground extends through the park, connecting the memorial to the local infrastructure. While the memorial pools separate the monument ground from the ruins to the West, the living groves extend through the park to the east, connecting the landscape of the Earthquake Memorial with that of the large park surrounding it. It is also proposed that the future museum be built on the Northeast corner of the Earthquake Memorial, in the center of the Park on the primary North-South pathway. Throughout the park, the ground is the area of focus for which the variation and repetition of staggered landscape modules provides a strategy for creating a unifying and moving experience.

(1/276) August 2007, Tangshan, China

Drawing on a picturesque tradition concerned with the concealment of boundaries, scenic contrast with minimal visual transitions, and surprise, PARKSLOPE merges landscape and equipment. To this end, slope is the principal means used to produce a crafted topography in which play- and park-scapes are consolidated.

The immersive environment that results supports an extensive variety of play experiences through a careful synthesis of complementary organic and synthetic materials. Slopes blend into benches, balancing beams, scaling inclines, climbing walls, and transition into slides and tubes which connect the synthetic play surface at the top of PARKSLOPE with the surrounding organically surfaced play areas below.

Engaging tactile and sensory experiences are provided both by the materials of PARKSLOPE and by the connections they create with the surrounding lawn and stately trees gracing John Leigh Park, which remains visually connected across the shallow fosse defining the southern edge of the play area.

February 2007, Altrincham/Manchester, England

awards:
Exhibition Selection

There is a legend that lace was born of the sea, in Venice, through the gift of an exotic and delicate water plant brought back from a distant voyage by a young Venetian mariner for his lover. She cared for the plant carefully, her adventurer again at sea, but it inevitably began to fade and give way to age. Seeking to preserve its memory, and that of her absent beloved, she is said to have taken needle and thread and meticulously copied the intricate patterns and lines of the plant, creating a material translation of its every detail.

Overlace proposes to extend the rich history of Venetian lace, creating an architectural experience intimately tied to the city’s past by translating the materials of this craft for which Venice was once famous into both a structural system and urban strategy. Structurally, the density of the lace pattern is tied to the physical load it needs to support, reaching maximum density at the areas of highest moment and shear stress, while becoming more open and transparent where these stresses are lower. At an urban scale, Overlace acts as a fabric accommodating both a complicated program and navigating a series of difficult transitions on and over the Grand Canal. The structure is stretched and modified to engage the conditions of the site, directly connecting the Campo S. Vidal and Campo d. Carita while seamlessly integrating both the required program and the spaces that occur along the route that is created. At once a space of transition and a programmed structure, Overlace is a projection for the future of a city of revived and reinterpreted traditions.

Design Competition:
(1/484) , July 2006, Venice, Italy

publications:
Journal of Architectural Education

A joint project between the City of Middletown and Wesleyan University, the Green Street Arts Center was conceived as a local arts destination, offering after-school programs, access to studio and recording space, and arts courses. Situated in a transitional neighborhood, the Center’s welcoming interior opened directly onto a poorly lit parking lot. North Studio was asked to seek out possibilities for enhancing the Center’s visibility and its relationship with the surrounding streetscape and neighborhood. Through an initial research project, the studio sought out opportunities to extend the perceived safe space of the Center’s interior beyond the limits of its exterior walls in an effort to enhance the identity of the neighborhood, and engage the broader Middletown community. The result was a report in the form of a Playbook, presented to the Center’s board and community partners.

Following the presentation, North Studio was asked to focus on developing potential improvements to the Center’s entrance and parking lot. Site analysis revealed that the parking lot drive aisles were significantly oversized. By reducing these to standard widths and reconfiguring the Center’s parking lot, a new “site” was created between the parking lot and the building’s front door. At 14’ wide and 48’ long, it was proposed that the site could be programmed for outdoor projects for the Center’s successful after-school programs. As an exterior room complementing the Center’s interior spaces, the site would be used as both an outdoor classroom and a mediating space between the center and the surrounding community. The project was carried out by the City of Middletown’s Department of Public Works.

North Studio Project Team: Elijah Huge (Studio Leader),
Phase I: Joshua Aronson (’07), Allison Torpey (‘07), Renae Widdison (‘10),
Phase II: Joshua Pavlacky (’08) Hunter Craighill (‘09) Renae Widdison (‘10)

awards:
First Prize

publications:
Competitions

INTERTIDAL is a park in perpetual flux. Its topography carefully calibrated to the amplitude of the tide, it is a park free of objects where use is tied not to space but to relative tide and topography, their interrelationships rendered as patterns in an endless, fluctuating loop. Responding to the sea's ebb and flow, the intervening wetscapes and landscapes reveal the cyclical and recurrent processes of a nature that is more effectual than picturesque.

The park oscillates between three distinct states during any given tidal cycle: pools, stripes, and islands. At low tide, the park consists of a series of linear pools that act as circuited reservoirs for marine life. The pools spread across the designed topography as the tide rises, leaving a series of stripes that form north-south connections between Main Street and the canal path. At high tide, a collection of islands emerge, which contain intertidal's programmatic elements, including a celebratory green space, a bandshell, a visitor center and arboretum.

Situated between the Cape Cod Canal and Main Street, the site holds the possibility to connect two of the town's most important resources and attractions. In making the connection, intertidal also responds to two distinct scales - acting as a gateway to the system of linear parks along the canal and as a catalyst for main street retail activity. Connecting Main Street and the canal, INTERTIDAL is an accessible and didactic wetland, and also a fully accessorized park. In addition to a crafted range of wildlife habitats, the park is marked by a series of open green spaces and augmented by specialized attractions.

Project Team: Elijah Huge (Periphery), Bimal Mendis (Plan B), John Booth, Sebastian Mallea (video)
(1/160), May 2005, Bourne, Cape Cod, MA

awards:
Deborah Norden Fund Award (Architectural League of New York)
Stewardson Keefe LeBrun (AIA New York)

Stationed Overseas is a research project focusing on the architectural, planning, and development initiatives for the reuse and conversion of decommissioned United States Military Bases and other land holdings in the Republic of Panama and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. These sites, while typically outside the purview of architectural study, are part of a long tradition of military camps, outposts, and fortifications built and strategically planned on a grand scale. With over 135,000 acres of former U.S. Military positions between them, a combined area that is nearly ten times the size of Manhattan, Panama and Puerto Rico offer a rich collection of case studies in large-capacity planning, land use and programmatic conversions, and environmental rehabilitation, all of which are critical issues not only for developing countries and communities, but also for the architectural profession at large.

AluPly is an aluminum shelving system composed entirely of folded aluminum sections cut and bent by a cnc brake press from 1/8” thick aluminum sheets. The bent sections are connected using a dry-state adhesive, creating a large-scale, single-material system without attachment hardware that is fully recyclable. Within the system, section dimensions are calibrated for overall strength, material efficiency, and desired installation extents. Installed, the ratio of wall area covered to linear feet of shelving produced is extremely high due to the minimal vertical and horizontal profiles allowed by the systematic use of the material. Once filled, the system disappears.

Slipstack is a milled plywood system composed entirely of pieces cut from 3/4" thick furniture grade plywood sheets. The cut sections are sliped together and stacked, creating a large-scale, single-material system without attachment hardware that can be repeatedly assembled and disassembled. Within the system, cut patterns may be scripted for material efficiency, and desired installation extents.

publications:
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (review)

As systematic structures of organization and regulation, codes set the terms for architecture’s amenability to an ever-widening web of internal and external forces. Nevertheless, codes generally —and building codes specifically —are frequently dismissed as onerous requirements to be met and inhibitions to the free undertaking of design. This myopia overlooks the reality that codes are neither neutral nor objective documents. Physically ambiguous, yet charged with political, social, and formal intent, codes operate as the architecture of architecture, creating its preconditions and shaping its production. As they continue to exert such power, architecture cannot remain uninterested in the production of codes, nor disengaged from their directives.

Traditionally, in architecture as in other fields , codes have been treated as a tool of choice for the imposition or explication of order. How does architecture codify its boundaries, and how should those boundaries be mediated? Is there room for social, political, or economic agency in architecture, and how might their terms be negotiated? What role could architectural production play in shaping —through tactful engagement with the codes that intersect it —the systems behind these codes? Such questions are as expansive, and as unavoidable, as the possibilities of codes themselves.

awards:
Honorable Mention

exhibitions:
Designing the High Line, Grand Central Terminal, NY

Built to circumvent the interruptions and encumbrances of the Manhattan street grid, it is of the utmost importance that any strategy for reengaging the highline within the broader cityscape of Manhattan must go beyond the linear condition into which the high line was designed - as an extension that could easily be severed. It is therefore proposed that the Highline must be grafted onto other urban structures and programs for which it is particularly well suited - parks, the waterfront, athletics - as an integral component within a system of continuous loops. The highline and its adjacencies are particularly suited to a range of activities and programs that the general grid condition cannot accommodate or encompass. In presenting a supplementary form of organization, the loops join these eccentricities of New York - the Park, Broadway, the shoreline - which coexist with the grid, but are never subsumed by it.

The looping strategy operates at all possible scales, ranging from the standard block (an island within streets) to the entire island of Manhattan itself (an island within an archipelago). Central to the proliferation of this looped system are programmatic events that punctuate the loop and three dimensionally activate the specific blocks they occupy. The multiplicity of nested loops within these blocks provides for the simultaneity and layering of infrastructure, circulation and program that transcends the limitations of the single-datum and vector-based Cartesian grid, and allows for the reintegration into the streetscape of a new topography.

These variations within the platted pattern are but moments - the strategy of loops seeks to effectively establish another pattern altogether, woven through and within the flat, rectilinear framework of streets and avenues through out the city. It is a pattern which does not respect the singular division between the street infrastructure and the blocks of stacked interior, nor does it encourage the base condition of object-oriented, plot-line development. Instead, the gradual blurring of the grid and the multi-level looped systems allow for the possibility of another Manhattan.

Project Team: Elijah Huge (Periphery), Bimal Mendis (Plan B)