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00Khaled M. RiadArchitecture Portfolio

OPPOSITE:Superimposing Vantage Points:

Overlaying different vantage points of a model can produce an uncertain essence, especially

through the interaction with light. It is a similar effect to superimposing projected films.

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The Indeterminate ConstructWorldviews shape an understanding of our reality and provide a foundation to how societies think and implement. It is no question that the scientific revolution sculpted the framework of our environment throughout the industrial revolution up till the early stages of modernism. However, the current scientific model does not match the mindset of today’s society. There is comfort in seeking order and regulation yet our reality is much more complex than that. Quantum theory is seen as neither a realist, causal, nor deterministic ideology. It corresponds to a higher degree of intricacy; one that does not have the rational mentality of classical theory. This indeterminate construct looks into how scientific theory, specifically through the philosophy behind quantum physics, can serve as a model to embody an architectural design and provide a means to express our indeterminate reality. It challenges notions of a prescribed program and site, and seeks to investigate ideas of uncertainty in design through manipulation of architectural form, light, material, and experience.

Experiencing Uncertainty Through Surface FoldsTo experience uncertainty within a space, explorations

on surfaces, its materials, and the light shining on

it were conducted. The direction moved towards

manipulating folded surfaces to provide multiple

understandings of a space due to a person’s vantage

point. Different types of light were reflected, refracted,

diffused, and absorbed through its interaction with

opaque, translucent, clear, and mirrored materials.

Investigations of the movement of light - particularly

through means of film projections - were conducted. The

connection to film provides a peculiar experience that

can enhance uncertainty within a space, and provide

a loosely based program for the buildings construct;

one that is not limited or rigid, and one that allows for

spontaneous interactions to occur within spaces

OPPOSITE:Folded Surface Iterations:

Interactions between folded surfaces can create dynamic spaces depending on the direction

of the folds. Adding light (day light and film light) and shadow further emphasizes the folds.

The first massing model demonstrates the initial understanding of spaces outlined by folds. The angles of each block configured together expresses implied spaces. The next series of models investigates this further through means of folded surfaces, rather than folded/angled blocks. Light and material choices were taken into consideration with the following experiments in order to increase the sense of ambiguity within the physical form and essence of the space.

Folds Mater

StraightFragmented

Angled

Curved

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Absor

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earlucentective

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SunlightArtificial light

Film light

Street light

Site Axonometirc

The Building ConstructSavannah offers an ordered system that ranges from

its general layout to historic guidelines that enforce a

systematic environment. On the other hand, people’s

usage of the city is one that speaks of spontaneity and

drift, or the act of derive according to Guy Debord.

Derive correlates with the unpredictability behind

quantum thought, and thus the focus for the design was

to emphasize the idea of drifting through interacting

with architecture that evokes ambiguity. Investigations

mainly focused on how one experiences uncertainty

within a space, and how its translated on an urban

level. It is important to have the three chosen sites

to influence one another along with the surrounding

context. This is illustrated in the site axonometric view.

The Act of Drifting

First Floor Plan Second Floor Plan

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Third Floor Plan Fourth Floor Plan

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Section A

The drawings of the building construct demonstrate the unification of all three buildings and the relationship with the urban setting. They highlight the folds on the interior and exterior, particularly in the section. Films will be exhibited and projected all over the folded surfaces on each building.

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Section B

60x90 Jefferson Street Building

60x90 Broughton Street Building

It is important to note that all the drawings attempt to represent an uncertain/indeterminate quality. As part of the idea behind this thesis, presenting and understanding these drawings should be part of the characteristics behind a quantum mindset.

30x90 Broughton Street Building

The aim behind the Savannah Conservatory of music is to bring forth an awareness, on an urban level, to the intricacies behind music education and all that it entails. It creates an emphasis on what occurs behind the scenes, and demonstrates the rigorous training by the students trying to reach their desired goal. It is meant to celebrate the musicians that inhabit the building. To achieve this, the “practice room wall” - a series of practice rooms that are adjoined to one another - becomes an important feature to the building. The wall faces the main river front in Savannah, GA. and thus allows the opportunity for the students to indirectly or directly interact with the outside environment in various ways; either visual through their movement or audible through their music. It also allows the outside environment to gain a glimpse of the everyday life of a musician as the public can see silhouettes of them practicing.

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Savannah Conservatory of Music

OPPOSITE:Section Model:

Illustrating a section of the facade facing the Savannah River. The practice rooms are

elevated in front of the large auditorium.

321 Ballast stone ground Mixed stone wall Brick pavement pattern

Axonometric highlighting the site’s close proximity to the river.

Various configurations of theatre and practice rooms were sketched before finalizing the general layout of the two important elements - the practice rooms and theatre - in section. Also, careful consideration of the surrounding materials took place, particularly the ballast stone on the ground of the site. The stones were re-purposed to pave the ground when they were removed from the ships that ported Savannah.

Series of sketches developing the theatre and practice rooms

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First Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

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1. Main River Street Entrance2. Performer Entrance3. Rehearsal Studio4. Library5 Classrooms6. Greenroom7. Group Dressing Room8. Individual Dressing Room

9. Prop Storage10. Costume Storage11. Instrument Storage12. Mechanical Room13. Office14. 400 Seat Concert Hall15. 200 Seat Recital Hall16. Practice Rooms

17. Music Studio18. Bay/Emmet Entrance19. Ticket office20. Recording Studio21. Balcony for Students

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Second Floor Plan

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Section A

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Section B

North and River Front Elevation

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Wall Section

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Concrete Wall

Ballast Stone

Tie Backs

Open Web Steel Joists

Stud Framing

Drip Edge

Rigid Insulation

Roofing Membrane

Metal Decking

Steel Strips

Runner Channel

Steel Framing

Plywood Sheathing

Wood Cladding

GlazingAcoustic Treatment

Drip EdgeConcrete Flooring

Steel Beam

Steel Beam

Steel Angle

Wood Cladding

Z-girtSteel Framing

In order to keep with the continuity of the site, the ballast stone is re-purposed to the walls of the auditorium on the exterior and interior. The stones are casted within the concrete as it is poured in and held by tie backs.

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TOP TO BOTTOM:Parapet Detail

Spandrel DetailWall Detail

Perspective of Main Entrance

Auditorium Section

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The ballast stones also act as an acoustic treatment for the auditorium. Because of the stone’s natural shape, they serve as good surfaces for sound reflection. In order to obtain the right balance between sound reflection and absorption, the stone is spaced irregularly for sound to be absorbed between each one.

Auditorium Section Model

OPPOSITE:Proposed Warwick Junction Site Plan

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Collaboration with Justin Kruemmel and Ehsanul Amin

The urban intervention was part of a student competition that requested solutions for short, medium, and long-term effects to the city of Durban, South Africa. It particularly focuses on Warwick Junction, a train station which offers a dynamic crossroads of commuters, informal markets, tourists, and residents. Even though Warwick Junction offers a vibrant and diverse setting, it is evident that the existing train tracks that go from the northeast to the southwest part of the city divide and seclude the greater area of Durban. Thus, it was imperative to reconnect what has been separated and infuse the surrounding to offer an experience much akin to the setting at the train station. In order to do so, the already depressed train tracks were topped off by a park system that host a variety of informal markets, reconfigures the path between the two sides of Durban, and offers the chaotic experience that is an essential part of the city’s DNA.

Warwick Junction Intervention

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Capping the existing train tracks with a park/market system can effectively merge both sides of Durban and prevent the seclusion of one part of the city to the other.

Overview of Market Area

Section of Market Area

Entrance to Market Area

Market Area

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Countless of car advertisements that surround us all have a common theme, and that is that they glorify the car to the point where it loses the ability to connect to people on a personal level. Whether people watch the commercials that show strange angles and views of a car that nobody could really see, or superimpose the car on an extravagant image there is always an unrealistic approach to their portrayals. Because of how much the notion of the car has been glorified the advertisements give a sense of distraction and disconnection between car and human. The car loses it purity within the current midst of absurdity.

In the Midst of Absurdity

OPPOSITE:Site Axonometric:

Illustrating the Tesla dealership along with the surrounding context in Detroit, Michigan.

Thus, the first step that led to the complete design of a Tesla Car Showroom in Detroit, Michigan, was to work with a sphere as it is the purist of shapes. Given the location of the site, utilizing a complete sphere would raise questions. It could be said that it would create a sense of absurdity yet pure, because the sphere is absurd within its context but as a form it is the purists of shapes.

Site Plan

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First Floor Plan

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1. Lobby

2. Reception

3. Store

4. Mechanical

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Second Floor Plan

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5. Showroom 1

6. Showroom 2

7. Hotel Lobby

8. Offices

open to below

Third Floor Plan

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9. Showroom 3

10. Cafe

11. Hotel Rooms

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The areas where the Tesla cars will be showcased will always occur in those spheres, and it is culminated in the biggest of them all, as it also collides into an abandoned building and programmatically demonstrates and exhibits the history of Tesla.

East Elevation

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Located in the Piazza della Rotonda in Rome, Italy. The aim of the project was to honour sixteen individuals with reading rooms within a library across the Pantheon. Standing as one of the most prominent architectural feat in history, the Pantheon creates a stimulating site to work on for the library. This classical structure hovers over all of the existing buildings and so provides a good benchmark for building height. The focus was on fluctuation; derived from Rome’s history and the site. The site has many varying heights amongst the buildings thus creating a lively area. The undulation was to be expressed as a way to emphasize the reading rooms honoring the 16 individuals, and leading to many dynamic attributes characterized by the building. It creates more opportunities for views to the piazza, the path underneath the rooms, and allows more natural light to enter more of these rooms.

La Biblioteca Di Compagni

The fluctuating reading rooms correspond to the heights of the surrounding buildings. It allows for the unobstructed path beyond the piazza. Thus, the layout can be comprised of the fluctuating reading rooms and the general areas of the library. The rooms are categorized in numbers in the following plan.

Atrium

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ADA Parking

ADA Path

Egress Path

open to below

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Stacks

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ADA Path

Egress Path

First Floor Plan Second Floor Plan

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Roof

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Third Floor Plan

Section B

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East Elevation

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The help of technology has dramatically changed our lifestyles over the years. Through improvements, comes quicker processes and actions. We are now a society that seeks to be instantaneous. Communication between one another is also different. We can now reach out globally much easier, but has that made us more introverted because of the computer acting as a barrier between us? Quick spread of word through social media sites like Facebook and twitter assisted revolutions in Arab countries such as Egypt. However, are we now impatient and want change on political fronts to happen quicker than it should? It seems that we demand instant gratification; we want instantaneous change, we buy what we can’t afford, we try to lose weight quickly all for the sake of quick results.

Instantaneous Man

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SEATING

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Second Floor Plan

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DigitalProjector

6"x6"AluminumTubing

Image Projections

TranslucentPVC Membrane

The focus for the exhibition was to demonstrate the effects of instantaneousness, and so initial design was to create two pathways that would bring upon a different experience within the same exhibition. The straight quick path and the curved slow path were introduced to the design. From then on, it was important to gain a better understanding to what goes on within these spaces. The sketches show possible experiences when encountering those special topics for the exhibit and how they translated to the model. Further development led to a variety of experiential spaces created through the aid of the slanting walls, and roofs, protruding trusses, and different configuration of light and roof apertures.

Section A

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Savannah Founded 1733 1930, Split in the timeline

Now

Alternate Savannah

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74A Palimpsest of Events

OPPOSITE:Embrace Pandemonium

The urbs and civitas that make up a city are both dependent on one another. That goes on to smaller scales as buildings and people that inhabit them are mutually dependent. Thus, when buildings lose their use value, or even exhibit weak characteristics of use value, they do not contribute to the civitas holistically. Weak characteristics do not address social, political, economic, environmental, or religious aspects of current or future generations. When the main focus of historic preservation solely concerns visual elements of a building; when we strive to restore a building to an image of its former glory or leave it to age aesthetically and disregard its possible usage to current and future situations, then they become tourist attractions that serve temporary flocks of usage rather than fulfill the needs of a thriving community.

Alternate Savannah

by the 1930s and one where the mindset is to adapt

to abrupt changes. What if people took a different

approach around that time and reacted directly and

actively to the problem? Instead, people do not care about visual aesthetics and do not care to demolish partially destroyed buildings. They make use of the situation to meet their current needs and will find ways to accommodate when things change in the future. They are radical adaptors.

What happens when our role in historic preservation

and architecture refrains from the stagnant effects

of nostalgia? Or, we do not rely solely on the visual

elements of historic, age, and art value and instead fuse it with use value? And most importantly, what happens if we accommodate to change and unpredictably of the environment? We do not need to domesticate or tame disorder but in fact embrace pandemonium. Alternate Savannah attempts to infuse these points into the city of Savannah. The project thus demonstrates an alternate reality; one that shifted in our regular historic timeline

A Collaboration with Nada Afifi and Taylor Manley

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As part of a Rhino 3d class, a wall panel was designed and fabricated in order to exhibit characteristics that focused on the continuity, blending, articulation and smooth aggregation of surfaces, voids and details. The result comprised of breaking up a continuous surface with a cellular structure. Even though the cells are spaced in a random manner, it still depicts the curvature of the original unbroken surface, and this is because the tops of each cell has the smoothness of the original surface intact. This is effectively demonstrated in the bigger cellular structures on the panel. The project developed skills and techniques on working with complex surfaces in Rhino 3d, and envisioning the fabrication of the design through a CNC router with 3 axis. It also required some slight manipulation to the material used as a lot of sanding and spackling was required to attain a certain degree of smoothness.

Cellular Wall Panel

NA RiadArchitecture Design

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The following Project is RiadArchitecture’s proposal for reshaping a block in the upscale neighborhood of Cedofeita in Oporto, Portugal. The proposal entailed created a variety of residential building types, with retail and small businesses on the ground floor, around 5 pockets of urban spaces, to revitalize the haphazardly designed interior space of the block. My contribution to the project involved creating 15 different design schemes, one of which influenced the final design of the project. The idea of the scheme was to allow access on the north/south and east/west axis of the site and emphasizing the intersection of the two. The final design took this approach and attenuated it to fit the needs of the project. It was also broken up to provide an interesting dynamic between the solids and voids.

Aurifi cia Porto: Urban Regeneration

A RiadArchitecture Design

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RiadArchitecture’s Dancing Harps is a design attempt to create an abstract form that emulates the elegant fluid motion and curving gestures of Ballroom Dancing. The two sets of strings embrace, interlock, and move around together - similarly to a typical dancing routine. It is a prototype of a large musical instrument that seeks to challenge the notion of musical and visual performances in the 21st century. This project has won the YAF 10up challenge in 2013, and was funded by the AIA Atlanta Chapter. It is comprised of wooden frames, steam-bended wood members that are painted green, and nylon strings connected between the two members that are painted white. My contribution to Dancing Harps was in the construction process and the documentation of the installation. Duties included, stringing the instrument, tuning a portion of the strings, painting the strings and the wooden members, and photographing the installation.

The Dancing Harps

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