early projects

2002 | George Andrews Memorial Bench | Eugene, OR | Competition Entry [Finalist]


2002 | Art Box | Calgary, CA | Competition Entry
The transformability of the Art Box allows the artist to conform the space to their needs in addition to providing a secure and lockable enclosure.
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The Art Box is easily adaptable to many different site conditions – from parking spaces to sidewalks – from urban plazas to parks. Basic construction techniques and materials are utilized to form dynamic and ever changing spatial conditions. The primary materials of plywood and light-gauge steel framing are used in conventional yet inventive ways. The steel framing is exposed along the edges of the panels – giving greater visual movement and texture to the piece. Seams between sheets of plywood have been carefully composed to mis-align with the seams between major panels – giving a more playful and monumental compositional effect. Enclosed within the ceiling panels behind a wire mesh screen are fixed lights and tracks for additional fixtures. The entire Art Box is wired and will simply be connected via an exterior plug. In addition, the sturdy plywood and steel frame construction provides a stable base to which additional shelving and panels can be easily attached. The entire structure breaks down into a series of flat panels for easy transportation and storage.
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2002 |Bus Shelter | Bloomington, IN | Competition Entry
A bus stop is a brief moment along ones journey – a moment that’s about waiting – but about movement also. The form of the bus shelter pulls away from it’s own grounding – it inspires movement through tension and resistance. It’s about the desire to move forward.
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The construction is deceptively simple. The concrete base is attached to the given 5.5’ x 15’ concrete pad – this provides an extremely stable ground. A simple and inexpensive steel box framed structure forms the body of the shelter. This is then clad in a lightweight sheet metal or aluminum panel system. None of the metal is curved. Cutting their profile in the metal panels produces the curve of the letters. This could be done precisely using a computer controlled water jet cutter. Lights fitted to the inside of the panel system light up the edges of the letters at night. The time schedule of the buses is mounted to one of the inside panels.
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2001 | Tomihiro Museum | Gunma Prefecture, JP | Competition Entry

2000 | Urban Poetry | Cincinnati, OH | Competition Entry [Honorable Mention]
A parking lot constructs a transition between two modes of movement and experience: walking and driving. In an urban context we are constantly shifting between varying scales of movement and the conditions they create. We slip easily from one degree of space and time to another without so much as blinking an eye.
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The proposal juxtaposes the two conditions of walking and driving through a combination of experiential and scalar shifts. The intention is to acknowledge the sometimes-schizophrenic overlap between the two states of existence.

The glass wall presents itself as both a billboard and a shop window. But it satisfies neither condition, since it neither advertises nor encloses. One looks inside only to look outside. Semi-transparent images of a figure moving in sequence are silk-screened to glass panels. These are mounted to a steel frame and lit from below. The extension of the figure in motion puts it at the scale of the street and the speed of the car. But it is an abstract body, a floating body, and a disembodied body. Up close the pedestrian gets a different view: Partial reflections of themselves, others and the city co-mingle in a shifting collage of imagery, transparencies and reflections. Imbedded in the construction are mirrors that intermittently alter the clarity of the view through the glass. In addition the grid of the glass and the images play a role in both mapping the figure, the observer and the surrounding context, collapsing their scales through a common visible unit of measure.
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2000 | Donation Kiosk | Ann Arbor Summer Festival | Ann Arbor, MI
The kiosk is a 16’ tower divided into two sections. The base, a stainless steel box, contains the lighting, a sealed area for donations,and removable concrete ballast. Fastened to the top of the base is an internally braced light gauge steel-frame. The frame is wrapped in a large-format digital image printed on waterproof vinyl.
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The large scale of the imagery allows it to be read over a distance. The images are pixilated slightly and overlapped with text and other graphics. The grid texture of the reinforced vinyl fabric reads through the image when back lit enhancing the pixilation of the imagery. With it’s lantern like appearance the kiosk harkens back to a much older form of technology and at the same time is unmistakably digital. The stainless steel base and the residual light glowing through the donation slots add to the pieces’ high/low tech feel.
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1998-1999 | Enfolded Rope | Set Design + Digital Video Effects
Enfolded Rope was a dance performance that was presented at Cornell University in March of 1998 and again in a revised format at Duke University in August of 1999. The piece was a collaboration between the architects, choreographer, and dancers. The architects role in the piece was three-fold. They designed and fabricated the set, which needed to be both movable (on stage) and transportable. In addition they created the digital video images that were projected throughout the performance. They were also present on stage during the performances moving the set and manipulating the projections.
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This project was an investigation into the ways in which computer and digital video technology may transform the canon of live performance as it is presented in the proscenium theater format. In order to manipulate the space of the stage, I fabricated a pair of movable projection screens. A large horizontal screen, that I called the introvert and a smaller vertical screen, the extrovert. The small screen had a camera mounted to its “arm.” What this camera recorded was projected onto the small screen in real-time. The large screen had pre-recorded images rear-projected onto it’s surface. The effect was a compositing of live performance and live and pre-recorded digital images. This was accomplished in part through the simultaneous recording and projecting of the dancers as they performed against and behind the large screen. The space of the performance and the gap between live and recorded activity was in continuous re-definition.

Both screens were moved throughout the performance. Their position on stage and in relation to the dancers drove the choreography. They where not simply making space for the dancers to move in. But they pushed space and subsequently the dancers around the stage. There were moments when the dancers broke free from the pockets of space and spilled out around the screens only to be re-enclosed. The stage was stripped bare. The wing curtains that typically hide the backstage were removed. Some actions were performed completely off stage out of view of the audience’s naked eye, but were captured by the camera screen apparatus and re-presented to the audience through that device.

The screens read as an extension of the backstage fabric. Raw steel and vinyl “RP” scrim where used to construct the screens. Their “structure” was neither completely hidden nor disclosed. It was both support and shadow – material and image. At times there was a distinct co-mingling of the shadow image of the dancer, a digital video image and a shadow of the screen structure. These relationships evolved throughout the performance.

The projected digital images were recorded prior to the first performance in the theater that hosted the performance. The dancers were dressed in the costumes that they would be wearing. This was important as the recorded images were to suggest “real-time.” Because of the horizontal orientation of the large screen two projectors were needed to fill it. We saw the improbability of precise synchronization between the two projections as an opportunity to explore the space of overlap between them. At times the content between the two is continuous at other times not. This tying and untying of the images evoked the theme of the enfolded rope that the choreographer was exploring in the dance. These themes were explored on other levels throughout the piece through the tying an untying of various oppositions: screen space/space of the screen, onstage/offstage and structure/image.
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1994 | Xanthos Residence | Design + Build | Fort Lee, NJ
The Xanthos Residence was a two bedroom apartment situated in a high rise building in Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan. This proximity to the city and the specialized nature of the handicapped accessible apartment kept the clients from moving. However, the family’s two sons were coming of age and in need of more privacy than their bedroom could afford. Because there was limited access to the bedroom, our solution was to build a cabinet in the middle of the room which would replace all of the furniture (except beds) and act as a partition, effectively dividing the single room into two spaces.
1993 | Tsonopolis Residence | Design + Build | Morristown, NJ
The Tsonopulos residence is a split level single family home which had an inefficient family room arrangement due to a circulation path that cut through the middle of the space. Our design repositions the circulation at one edge and then reconfigures the room according to geometries determined by existing sight lines and established family use patterns. This is achieved through the position of existing furniture and eight custom designed new cabinets, some of which are movable. We designed the cabinets to provide our clients with their specific storage, lighting and aesthetic needs. Additionally, the project also consisted of renovations to the finishes and fixtures in the family room, entry hall, and bathroom.