2

Skills

Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Offi ce

Rhino, V-Ray, Sketch-up,Maya, Revit

Sketching, Modeling, Watercolors, Woodworking,

Welding, Photography, Sewing, 3D Modeling

Spanish, English, Italian

Education

Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA Bachelor of Architecture Thesis: Parallel practices between Fashion and Architecture

CSU Firenze, Florence, Italy

Awards / Recognitions Gates Millennium Scholars Honorable Mention Vellum Furniture Competition Dean’s List Presidents List Best of Third Year Nominee

Experience

OMA New York, NY (Two Weeks)Assisted with the execution, documentation, and development of fi nal models including: photoshopping, laser cutting, making rubber molds and casting resin.

Chavez Brothers Mexican Candy Vancouver, WAExecutive Assistant to administrative work and quality controls of products.

AeD Press San Luis Obispo CAEditing and designing publications of student and faculty work from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Coast To Coast Workshop Ascoli Piceno, Italy (One Week)School of Architecture in Ascoli and CSU Firenze collaborated on a project to redevelop an old historical ruin site. This was held in Ascoli under the direction of Cristiano Toraldo di Francia.

CSU Firenze and Domus Academy of Milan Workshop Florence, Italy (One Week)Architecture students from both schools collaborated in a group to fi gure out a solution to the lack of infrastructural design existing in the outskirts of Florence Italy. AIAS Member, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

2008 - Present Fall 2012

8 Quarters2011 - 2012Spring 2011

June 2013

2008 - Present

2012- 2013

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

2009 - 2011

2011 - 2012

March 2013

3

Table of Contents

20The Circuit

28Creased

36Linear Opportunism

42ZIP

44Flex

04Vogue Events

4

0101Vogue Events

Fashion’s main purpose is to connect the biological and social bodies to provoke individuality and the self-erotic experience of “seeing and being seen.” Through fashion people are able to explore different personas and portray those into the social realm. Because fashion is dramatic and theatrical, there is a separation from reality when the wearer engages in this activity. Architecture is thus able to create environments in which people are able to showcase their possible personas in a social setting. The architecture that was developed in this thesis, places people in display from different vantage points. Through the use of converging ramps, open fl oor plan, transparency, and a series of atriums it allows people to connect visually and encourage social interaction. Due to people’s inclination to act differently when they are the main focus of others, by placing people in display, the building encourages an alternative persona, the performer to be showcased. This persona, does not speak to a real interiority, but focuses on the ‘possible self ’ someone can become through the means of fashion. Since this architecture encourages ostentation, performers, viewers, visual connectivity and interaction, people that come here will be encouraged to bring forth their best personas when inhabiting the building. Architecturally the diverse program of the building will bring together a variety of people with different interests and personas together thus creating unexpected event spaces out of the architecture. The outer shell was designed to further explore the idea of fashion not refl ecting a real interiority, but instead exploring it as different entity that covers a core underneath. The transformation from a plane to a volume through manipulations of pleating was a large priority as the bridge that interconnected the fashion and the architecture. The building acts as a continuation of the street into the building, through the incorporation of the parking. This plays off the car culture of the city of Los Angeles, and creates a vertical street scape. The building is also inviting to pedestrians due to its immediate proximity to other entertainment venues.

6

Regal Cinemas

Nokia Theater Nokia Theater

Staple Center Staple Center

Los Angeles Convention Center

Ritz Carlton Hotel Ritz Carlton Hotel

LA Live LA Live

Site

F.I.D.M.:Fashion School of Desing and Merchandise

Macy’s Plaza

LA Central Library

Santa Monica Freeway (10)

Harbor Freeway 110

World Trade Center

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Culture and Entertainment

Hotels

Office Buildings

Educational Buildings

Retail

Motion Picture Studios

Metro Lines

7

Top: Digital representation of the shell covering the interior. The exterior does not hold to a true interiority, but instead covers and de-emphasizes the inside. The building is direct translation of how high fashion designs interact with the body, and their ability to transform the body into different selves.

Bottom Left: Physical representations of the shell

Bottom Right: Developed interior model.

8

Pictorial depictions of development of shell skin articulation

Articulated shell structure

1

2

3

4

5

6

9

Exterior Shell

Programmatic Spaces

Vertical Circulation and Egress

Main Programmatic Ramp

Mega Column Structure

Diagrid Core Structure

Viewing Escalators

Mixing Viewing Floors

Mega Column Structure

Cantilevered Cable Bridge StructureRunway Seating Dressing Room StructureDressing Room

Dressing Room Entry

Cantilevered Runway

Continuous Looped Parking

Left: Axonometric Interior.

Right: Exploded Axonometric of major components of the building.

99

Section Cut Through Atrium with Shell Section Cut Through Atrium without Shell

Runway Procession Circulation Parking Lot Circulation Program Ramp and Mixing Floor Circulation Transparent Cores/ Vertical Circulation

10

11

Runway Atrium

Viewing Escalators Atrium

Main Programmatic Atrium

12

13

14

The changes in elevation where important, through the converging ramps to recreate the elevation changes that are apparent in retail stores and in fashion runways. This further increased the amount of visual connectivity and body display.

15

16

Level One

Level Two

Ground Level

Level Three

Level Four

Level Five

Level Six

Level Seven

Level 3.5 Mixing Floor1

Level 2.5

Level 1.5

Level 2Runway Level

Level 4.5 Mixing Floor 2

Level 5.5 Mixing Floor 3

Level 6.5

Level One

Level Two

Ground Level

Level Three

Level Four

Level Five

Level Six

Level Seven

Level 3.5 Mixing Floor1

Level 2.5

Level 1.5

Level 2Runway Level

Level 4.5 Mixing Floor 2

Level 5.5 Mixing Floor 3

Level 6.5

Diagram portraying the optimization of the spiral form. Through the use of the spiral, half fl oors were created in order to facilitate diagonal viewing

Level One

Level Two

Ground Level

Level Three

Level Four

Level Five

Level Six

Level Seven

Level 3.5 Mixing Floor1

Level 2.5

Level 1.5

Level 2Runway Level

Level 4.5 Mixing Floor 2

Level 5.5 Mixing Floor 3

Level 6.5

Vantage points at the left side of the building

Vantage points at the right side of the building

17

18

19

0202The Circuit The concept of recycle, reuse and reduce is personifi ed in a self sustaining community in which the architecture maximizes the use and effi ciency of food growth and culture at a site in the perimeter of the city of Florence, Italy, a territory that “fl ows into the surrounding countryside and melts away, blending with farmland and creating interluded hybrid territories.”

Christiano Toraldo Di Francia

Team: Juan Chavez, Francisco Choto, Gabriel Santos.

2020

Concept Diagram

Closed Loop System Diagram

2121

Program Diagram

Program: Graphical Representation

Site Plan

Interior Courtyard Rendering

2222222222

2323

Process Work

First Floor Second Floor

2424

25

Third Floor Fourth Floor

26

27

2828

0303The new exit to the Uffi zi is meant for people to have a place of distraction and disconnection from the city’s historical context by shifting the attention of the exiting public from the history, to one another, By creating different gathering spaces where people can assemble and congregate their attention will be shifted more towards people as opposed to the city.

The areas of circulation and gathering intersect in elevation, creating points of convergence for people to stumble upon one another,. The plan on the exiting fl oor is free of any structural obstruction, in order for people to create and handle the space as they choose to. This area is covered by a proportional, repeating, harmonious; self supported origami folded plate structure elevated by cables that are attached to the Uffi zi. This form was inspired by the eclectic undulating roof scape of Florence.

Creased

2929

30

Adjacency Diagram First Floor

Second Floor

Exit Lobby

Ramp Connecting to Street Level

Courtyard

Mezzanine Cafe

Cafe Terrace

Vertical Circulation

Front Elevation

31

Section Perspective of Courtyard and Roof

Applied Structure Flat Plane Pattern Folded Plate Skewed Folded Plate

3232

33

Courtyard Perspective

Connection Detail

Applied Structure

Flat Plane Pattern

Folded Plate

Skewed Folded Plate

34

3535

36

37

04Linear Opportunism This collaboration with Domus Academy in Milan and CSU Florence, dealt with the lack of design of the infrastructural opportunism in the area of Navoli in Florence. The project wanted to give functionality to the voids created by an overpass that went through the site with the infl uence of “The Metabolist” movement, thus becoming a modular structure under the over pass in which programmatic spaces were inserted. Being the north gate to the city, we saw this as “a play on the pit stop” considering the limited time people would spend here before leaving and entering the city.

Team: Juan Chavez, Francisco Choto, Gabriel Santos

Exploded Axonometric

Concept Diagram

3838

3939

4040

4141

42

43

05ZIP The installation was intended to showcase the thesis work done during Fall 2012. The students each produced a book of design research, which related specifi cally to his or her developing project. The installation was constructed primarily of 250,000 cable ties, looped and tied together, to create a fabric. Studio 400 brought forth the concept of a storefront installation exhibit as a spatial experiment while using limited materials as the construction medium. The zip tie fabric unraveled to lure and signal visitors towards the entrance of the gallery where they are squeezed through the aciculate portal before entering the reading room. The installation’s central vortex expanse defi ned reading space with varying levels of seating. ZIP ultimately promoted visitor interaction with the fabric’s prickly surface, through books, light, music, color, and conversation, which allowed visitors to become involved in the students’ theses.

Professor Karen Lange

Team: Studio 400: Thesis studio class, 19 members.

Photographer: Brandon Sampson Photography

06Flex Flex: A planar deformation as a response to gravitational pulls in relation to mass.

The sitting surface of Flex conforms to the body as opposed to the body conforming to the sitting surface. As a person begins the motion of sitting, it is slowed down prior to coming into contact with the surface. Flex thus embraces the body and temporarily suspends it in space. The sitting surface is meant to lengthen the duration of sitting, thus becoming a facilitator of prolonged relaxation or socialization.

Flex was constructed out of rebar and metal that were repurposed and welded to create the frame of the chair. The weaving technique of the chair is a simple design that was accomplished with one continuous strand of bungee cord that loops over itself to create a radial pattern. The bungee cord has the ability to regain its original shape as a fl at plane. The tension in the bungee cord assists the user propel forward and helps the user stand up.

Vellum Furniture Competition: Honorable Mention

4444

4545