Corfu, Greece

unedited Istanbul

unedited Mykonos

unedited Athens

Shady Lane Kitchen Makeover 2008

Over the summer 2008, partially in preparation to sell the house, my mom and I redesigned our kitchen in Dover, DE.  Utilizing only the brute strength of friends and family, and one contractor (also a friend of the family), we removed the outdated 1950s/60s kitchen, installed a new quarry tile floor with radiant heat, installed custom Kraftmaid cabinets with self-closing drawers and environmentally friendly butcher-block style solid bamboo countertops and new appliances.  The resulting space is a calm, inviting space that everyone gravitates to.  During the winter, the floor cut the gas bill from $400 a month to less than $50!

Art Conservation 2006-2008

Senior year in University of Delaware's Art Conservation program, I interned with the University Collections, consolidating and in-painting a Russian icon from the collection, as well as creating my own icon using the traditional technique of multiple layers applied over time. More images to come.

Architectural Conservation: Summer 2007

For the summer 2007, I interned with Milner + Carr, an architectural conservation firm out of Philadelphia, PA. It was an invaluable hands-on experience with various treatments, particularly for stone, including Jahn mortar patches for cracked coping stones, repointing, biogrowth removal and ferrous stain removal. The following are images from the project at Nemours Mansion and Gardens in Wilmington, DE.

Place-Making for Plastic Minds: Greensboro Day School at Revolution Mill

For spring 2009 studio, we worked as a 28 person class to come up with a cohesive design for the adaptive use of a historic mill building in Greensboro, NC to house the middle school of our client, Greensboro Day School.  Although we were divided into different groups based on "interest areas" (i.e. classrooms, cafeteria, administration, art, etc..) we met as a class every day.  Below are some of my ideas for the administration portion of the building.  As a project incorporating the historic preservation tax credits, it was important to maintain the historic integrity of the structure, in this case, particularly the repetition of the wooden columns, the original floors and exposed brick walls, while still providing private spaces to host the life of the school.  

Administrative Assistant's Office, as viewed through Abraham the Fish's wall tank


Faculty Work Area


Counselor's Office Seating Area

Podium

SketchUp with Podium

SketchUp Video Walk-Thru

3D video walk through of kitchen/dining room modeled in SketchUp

SketchUp-- First Try

3ds Max/Viz

By far the most frustrating program I have ever worked with.

WPA poster emulation

This project was especially interesting, because I have always found WPA art to be beautiful and intriguing. I enjoy the simplicity and depth within the images, as well as their extensive use of text. The following images provided inspiration to my final creation, and the bottom two were my first iterations of WPA posters.



I think this image is a beautiful example of WPA posters. The artist created incredible depth and texture while using a monotone color palette.


The angle of this poster inspired my work because it allowed for a more dynamic image, and also allowed for more information both graphically and through text.


Like the first poster, I am attracted to the monotone color palette of this image.


The text of this image was very inspiring, because it was a single image with examples of types of text incorporated into numerous other WPA posters. Overall, the WPA posters seemed to use mostly large sans-serif text, intermixed with script. I also enjoy the vibrancy of this particular poster, another trend of WPA posters.

First drafts of my own posters:

Object Persuasion: Product Ads

"Final" version...


First couple of tries at product advertisements

Urban PATHways

First project using Adobe Illustrator... a little more difficult to pick up than photoshop, but interesting nonetheless. The image I used is of Burano, one of the Venetian islands. I wish I could say the photo was mine, but my computer is new and none of my pictures are on it. Come to think of it, I should probably get them off my other computers before their harddrives completely crash..

Scene of Discourse: Final

Assignment 2: Part 1

For assignment number two, we were given one random descriptor and one random mood. The two words I picked were "ornate" and "festive." At first I had trouble trying to come up with what types of images would adequately portray this feeling, but ultimately decided that bright colors and textures best displayed these to me. Still needs some work.

Assignment 1: Pattern Perception

My photoshop software finally arrived the other day, just in time for this project, so I was able (excitingly!) to work on it on my own computer. I looked through a number of different urban landscape sort of images, and settled on one of the St. Louis skyline, taken from the Illinois side of the river. In addition to being simply one of the most incredible architectural accomplishments of our time, I also have a personal attachment to it because I am originally from Missouri, and still have family in St. Louis, and I think it is fun to work with things you are familiar with in some way.

Looking through Victorian patterns, I noticed that many of them have interconnected curved shapes, repeated volutes or geometricized flower-like shapes, so I attempted to draw on that, as well as a smaller, central bud shape, in my image. (I'm sure there are easier ways to do what I did, but I almost always do things the most difficult way.)

Computing in Architectural Design

Computation has been an important part of design as far back as the days of Vitruvius, and has played and will continue to a play an increasing role in design of the present and future. Algorithms were developed to calculate “proper” dimensions, and the use of computation has long helped communicate layouts and elevations to clients and builders, particularly after the 19th century. In 1963, Ivan Sutherland created the first Sketchpad program, which integrated design and analysis programs. Computer aided design thus first took hold in academic areas, spreading to architectural practices in the 1970s. These computational programs, however, were too cumbersome, so the introduction of cheap personal computers, display technology and graphics-oriented input devices made CAD systems more accessible to a wider community. The second generation of CAD systems were more general than the first, and lost a lot of the unique aspects of buildings. This “dumbing down” of CAD programs was unique to architectural design, while software in other disciplines became more intelligent. With an increase in processing power, display resolution, and the advent of cheaper, raster color printing, modeling systems have become more affordable. Nonetheless, the author claims that the 3rd generation of CAD systems, although similar to the first in terms of being centered on architectural objects and supported design rather than simply being representational, have been less effective as practical design tools because the architectural community has been intractable, not wanting to give up the design process to a computer. The author views the use of CAD in architectural design as either fulfilling preconceived roles or as a search for the appropriate role it should take. Computers today have the ability to function as design tools, means of communication, and design assistants. They have become such an engrained part of our society that they have in fact changed our culture, by creating design environments, and forcing the designer to come to them. They also create habitable physical environments, where they are diffused into our everyday life. Finally, computers even create virtual environments (cyberspace-- non-physical “there”).

Hand Rendering for Shelter Bus

The following are my marker renderings for the Fall 2008 studio Shelter Bus project.