OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Rebecca Francetta GawronUndergraduate PortfolioUniversity of Florida School of Architecture2010-2014

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Studio

House

Using Chicago grids as a generator, I constructed a vertical plexi-glass model with the intention to house a Cirque du Soleil acrobat-ics team. The headquarters would contain a main performance space, practice areas, and finally private management at the tower’s peak. While focusing on the strength of verticality needed for nailing amazing acrobatic techniques, I recognized the need for mirrors in the practicing spaces as well as the idea of sound traveling within the multiple public spaces. In theory, a “sound wall” would accomplish a camaraderie between the acrobats during practice and performance even while they occupy different parts of the tower. Music and voice could resonate, creating efficiency with respect to this precise, collective sport. Mirroring created a meshed space development while the sound wall connected top to base.

CHICAGOMIRROR, SOUND, LIGHTCirque Du Soleil Acrobatics HeadquartersDesign 4

sound wall

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One of the most significant ame-nities that are missing in the ar-chitecture building are sleeping pods. Coffee and snack venders are also much needed for the stu-dents on campus at late hours. In light of this, the atrium interven-tion project was a perfect oppor-tunity to imply a system of pods that could house provisions sales and a few napping pods. The proj-ect is about rest and rejuvination, based on a caterpillar’s coccoon. A glass set of tubes juts from the third story over the atrium. It acts as a sheltered viewing area for critiques held in the atrium. The steel skin supporting the glass is a Voronoi pattern removed from a butterfly’s wings. It delecately controls the volume and maximiz-es the beautiful view to the lawn.

MetamorphosisAtrium Sleep Pod InterventionAdvanced Digital Virtuosity

Conceptual Sketches Plan cut Aerial Elevation

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Four glass sleeping pods nest toward the heart of the architecture building. They are paneled with wood armor, inspired by the protective layers of a chrysalis. The armor seconds as a drawing board or a mount for bulletins. Their tectonics create a controlled lighting condition to allow for short naps. This maximizes use among many students and also creates privacy.

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CHARLESTONReligious Studies CenterDesign 6Upon researching different sects of faith in Charleston, and interviewing multiple people of different religions, it was apparent that religion in itself has an underlying and universal essence. It involved being curious and full of faith. To believe in something separates those of us who can rationalize the paradoxes and conundrums of living. It is an understand-ing that pacifies and glorifies our feet on solid ground. The beauty and inconceivability of life is cradled by belief. No matter what the underly-ing faith, it seems to begin with a curiosity in beautiful phenomena that causes one to strive to find meaning. To see someone or something act in the light of God is an extremely powerful force. It is a catalyst to begin a path to understanding, and once one reaches enlightenment of himself and his existence, it hits hard. A person can change his own life by ob-serving and beginning to follow a mysterious way of life in religion. Faith through

enlightenment can justify every action and reaction. It then becomes obvious why religion is so prominent in of itself and not based on spe-cific ideologies but the result in following a set of positive ethics. It becomes obvious in those who do not do so. In this way, through fundamen-tal concepts of lightness, contemplative journeys, and spaces for thought and isola-tion, I hope that this religious studies center can literally re-ceive any curious occupant, rather than intimidating him with up-front ornateness or monumentality.

Charleston, being graced the Holy City, is home to al-most 270 separate congre-gations, nearly 20% of the entire state’s. While over 75 percent of the religions prac-ticed here are of Christian affiliation due to the over-whelming European Chris-tian embark here, almost one forth are not Christian congregations.

site diagram- places of worshipexperiential renders

site plan

3rd floor mezzanine plan

ground floor plan

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Charleston’s skyline is dotted with handsome steeples—its landscape is carved with some of the country’s oldest and most prominent religious centers. Church street lies within the bounds of the French Quarter, the original integration of Charleston’s settlement. That being the case, and in pursuit of glorifying Charleston’s very loyally religious culture, my motive for this project was to gather all congrega-tions to a place that syn-thesizes their basis of faith while meshing well with the cathedral-prone context. My driving concept was inspired by the contrasting adjacencies of St. Philips’ Episcopal Church and its Circular church. St. Philip’s is the oldest and most sig-nificant religious congre-gation in South Carolina. From this landmark came the idea to study the tradi-tional Gothic nave style of religious architecture.

concept sketches and trials site studies

wall composition- book protection(insulation and light control)angled revealed structure illusion

section cut

The nave was broken into three quadrants. Modularity and strength in statics are apparent in the linear axes of a traditional basilica. The circular space is conceptually the most spiritually significant and is proposed to be a place of destination, light and holiness. I conceptualized the process of studying religion into a progression from light-ness to enlightenment and finally contemplation. In regards to public versus private spaces, the knowledge held within a large scale circular library is the destination point for students of faith. To arrive here and achieve an enlightened state, a journey through a contemplative egress will give occupants an experience through light qualities and strong places of pause. The lecture hall and prayer room act controlled, heavy and quiet. I infiltrated the concept of looking skyward at many points throughout the circulation and the universal act of prayer within the physical constituents of the prayer room.

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essence diagramsegress studyformal sketches

prayer fold render

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The model expresses my interpretation of emo-tion felt in situations of fluctuating intensity and thresholds of events between these intensities within my murder story, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. It is vital in architecture to understand the psychologies of general emo-tions within spaces and how emotion and mo-ments affect each other in the human psyche. Light and dark are associated with universal ideologies of purity and evil, as well as clarity or comfort versus confusion and fear. In the story, these emotions are associated with each other in the traditional way, in descriptions of open, massive space (well lit) and dark dank dungeons. However, the fast-paced structure and transition of setting in the story developed moments where these ideas split, flip, trans-form and blend into each other. In my model, I strived to show those specific, few and subtle connections as they fluctuate, as well as the extremes of light and dark (despite their blend and integration within one another in small scale and moments of surprise) in general view. The large scale area has an upward undulating overhead condition and a downward massive stair to describe the feeling of expansive clarity and openness when the narrator discovers the murderer. The scattered stairs in the small scale moment define labyrinthine confusion and mul-tiple directions of the dark tunnels within the library. In the novel, the library was massive in comparison to the church.

Sublime DarknessDoor, Window, StairDesign 3

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CUBE CONSTRUCTWRESTLING MATCHPoplar

ROOM AND GARDENICARUS & DAEDALUSBasswood and PlexiglasWatercolr, lead, and Micron

MATRIXPC MOTHERBOARD

Mylar, lead and StickybackBristol and Piano Wire

DESIGN1

The matrix magnified the juxtaposition between spaces defined and the voids created to show that interesting negative spaces are just as important, and could be made by shift-ing, folding, or even by accident. The dimensions of the project and the materials restrict-ed the possibility of full extension to every corner, so it developed a fragmented contour and helped further emphasize the concept of figure ground. It helped the model retain its purpose as a matrix and suggested the extension and movement of its elements outward.

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VesselLight studyDesign 2

above: analytic light box - pigment blending, diffusionleft: layered courtyard perspectivebelow: final light study perspecrive, axonometric

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Design 2Di·a·gram/; n.a sketch, outline, or plan demonstrating the form or workings of something.a pictorial representation of a quantity or of a relationship:

Fisheye Camera Redux

Gator’s basketball movements and possession analysis

Building AnalysisLouis Kahn, Exeter Library

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METHOD OF CONSTRUCTIONBent Poplar Wall SystemDesign 8

This exercise was about establishing equilibrium between a modular piece and its action as a whole element. How do geometries and details come together to create something else? How are they constructed and what is the end result? I constructed a wood system of bending planes converging in four dimensions. The idea was to create a morphing form as one moves past the wall structure.

joint details

front and side elevations, plan

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Process Render- VRayCharlestion Civic CenterDesign 6

Concept Render- BrasilDoor Window Stair

Design 3

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Taoist Meditation ChapelUniversity of Florida Campus, Lake AliceGainesville, FLDesign 8

This two week project was focused on the idea of a centralized, spiritual experience. Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophical belief system that emphasizes the sanction of natural ordinances. The Tao or “the Way” is to “flow like water” and not to force any element against its natural order.

The idea for the de-sign of a Taoist cha-pel is to highlight the transition from busy daily life to a level of self-awareness and a congruity with nature. An entrance of over-stated height and nar-rowness is to stress the pressure of soci-etal preoccupations. The walls then taper down and expand out to reveal a decinte-grating enclosure. The space becomes open and relatable in scale. All the linear elements relate to each other directly forward to cre-ate a view out to Lake Alice, and to break the structure down from flush and obstructing to increasingly deli-cate. Inspired by the Montreal Biosphere, the chandelier brings light into the central place of pause, and relates the human body to the open sky at a molecular level. Its simple and light con-struction supports the rest of the installation as a catalyst towards levels of relaxation and meditation.

sky chandelier

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House of MemoryFaro, Capri, Naples, ItalyDesign 7

I designed a house for my parents to retire to; it is located in Capri, Naples, Italy, on the south-eastern tip in the Fado region of the island. They met by chance in Bermuda, which was an option for the house’s site, but Capri appeared a better option because it is equal in lifestyle, significantly more beautiful, full of rich Italian culture, and without the strict Bermudian citizenship and building requirements.

wandering line drawings of childhood memories

site implementation

The house consists as three basic spaces: An underground living room and bedroom, an L-shaped studio, and the kitchen core. I began the project by convoking various memories of my childhood, and from the events I drew wandering line sketches of the spaces I recalled. My father’s upstairs bedroom in the house he grew up in had an angled ceiling. My first house in Florida had an extensive L-shaped wall of glass to celebrate the back patio and lake in our backyard. A strong memory I have when I was very small distorted the height of the kitchen cabinets in the Albany house I grew up in. The core is a volume roughly 20’ by 20’ in area that imprints the steep and secluded cliffside. Underground is the bedroom and bathroom. Their surrounding hall is naturally lit with light wells projected from North above ground. The hall escalates up with a wrapping stair to the main space, the kitchen. With its mezzanine, it is almost a triple height space, and is largely constructed with glass windows for view and light. The kitchen is a well lit space with large ceiling volume because my parents spend most of their time there. My mother is a nurse with strong talents in creativity and innovation. Her painting and sewing studio sits atop the kitchen space and the adjoining lap pool that carves the mountainside. Her studio is constructed of structural glass with virtually no breaks to achieve a panoramic view. It is perfect for her to paint the Faro Lighthouse directly southwest and the supplemetary sunsets. It also serves as the entrance from the driveway as a sort of display of her works. The stair and the railing in the studio fold down into the kitchen and create a self-supporting bookcase for their large book and art collection.

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Another stair penetrates the ground to expose a home theater style living room. My father is a mathematics and computer teacher that enjoys his extensive film and music collection. In the hall surrounding the bedroom and bath are walls that swing up to reveal a long expanse of strorage for his collections. The theater itself is angled down and in towards the TV screen and slopes down to just about 6 feet. This form is to enhance a very engaging and acoustically intense experience while enjoying entertainment. He also has a small bar and seating area. A slit on the partially exposed roof reveals light coming from the television in order for my mother to physically see from her studio or in the kitchen, in case she wanted to join my father for a movie.Their separate and individual spaces knot at the kitchen core and the bedroom. The surrounding landscape is terraced from the thin layer over part of the underground theater to a few steps below the kitchen; it serves as garden spaces for them to tend to plants and produce together. Along with a lap pool, my swimmer/golfer father also has a small tee just outside the southwest door of the kitchen so he can drive golf balls into the sunset. The house is roughly 3,000 ft2 and Wwould be constructed mainly of Capri white sandstone, stone masonry, glazing, structural glass, black steel, carpet, and polished Venitian plaster.

volume sketch

plan sketch

digging analysis sketch

exterior, L studio rendering

1/32” site model

1/16” model

kitchen core/mezzanine studio rendering

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TV room Bedroom Hallway

model photos1/16” scale

model photo1/32” scale

Photoshop rendersfrom model photos

Photo of Bedroom/Bathroom

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My ruinscape is about fluidity in frag-mentation, which was overlooked in Detroit’s original structure, and how it can be carried out to assist in op-timum use of the built environment.

In diagramming Detroit, I found that parts of it (such as the Michigan Central Station and scales including entire streets and vector zones of the city) were planned with an unrealistic promise for growth and development. The swift transit evolu-tion in Detroit resulted in booming auto development without proper accommo-dations and the death of public transpor-tation systems, causing cultural isolation. This, in turn, caused spatial disconnec-tion in the buildings themselves as well as from space to space. I studied rela-tionships between the exorbitance of a public transit system whose demise was unforeseen, and how its disregard for in-dustrial growth projections left behind a skeleton of spaces never utilized. I found that the faith in public transit as Detroit’s crutch created unmaintainable extrava-gance, causing a flop in spatial density.

The linear bones of my ruinscape were constructed from the omission and re-stitching of these “negative ruins” to create new relationships and guides for construction. This was a further study resolving how the density of Detroit’s proud extravagance should have inter-acted with the spaces. It suggests that heavy integration and fluidity of these connective areas can create the essence of spatial connectivity that Detroit lacks. I further pressed this speculation to create an advancement on Detroit’s ruined Park Avenue-- the fragmenta-tion and void between these deserted zones can be exploited as a lan-guage within a fluid connectivity of the positive zones. This fragmentation via offset created by the bones creates a visual connectivity to all other spaces within the model. Therefore, no space will go unnoticed or utilized and will circulate seamlessly with one another.

Ruin and Revival:Detroit’s Unforseen FragmentationDesign 3

Map of Park Avenue, DetroitPlan of Michigan Central StationMicron, Vellum, TracePhotoshop

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ALEXANDRIAHidden LibrarySahara Desert Lat: 21° 59’ 55.9782”Long: 25° 0’ 7.6896”Design 4

A construct in the desert was particularly challenging because of the absolute lack of information gathered from site. My desert construct is a hidden library built monu-mentally, but for small oc-cupancy. It acts as a mirage; the 100-foot structure is sig-nificantly buried and incon-spicuous, and is positioned in the gut of the Sahara des-ert with a subtle entrance meant to accept friendly visitors traveling Southwest from Alexandria, Egypt. The library consists of two spaces. Dark, modular and enclosed areas for book stacks and storage settles behind a monolithic reading room with a mezzanine and massive light well.The main entrance is an occupiable wall that divides these two spaces to provide light con-trol and opacity. The con-cept of “opening a book” and “turning the page” is seen where the entrance stair peels off and breaks the wall between the books and the reading space. Not unlike beginning a novel, the journey down any path will begin with curiosity and finally reveals spaces and detail to ultimately explore and understand.

plan; 1/32” scale

model aerial

concept section studies:“opening a book”

roof morphologyreading space light well

model photos: 1/32” scale

peeling stair

book stacks

peeling stair

mezzanine

reading room

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classrooms

dorms

library

accessible student roof

student cafe

performance spacerestaurants (3)

barterrace

egress from gardenretaillobbyshards

metro /footprint

Berlin Civic SchoolIn collaboration with Asha Llewellyn and Richard WalkerDesign 7 Abroad

An open program and choice of site left us collaboratively thrilled-- we agreed on an insti-tute for younger people to thrive in the color-ful city of Berlin, Germany. Our concept was to marry work with play. The smaller twisted high-rise serves as dormitories for the board-ing full-time students, and classrooms oc-cupy the larger. Suspended between these vertical shoots is a large library space. It is an-gled and sloped to celebrate a lovely view to the Tiergarten green space to the Northwest and the Holocaust memorial directly North. At the base of the towers is a knot of public spaces. The culinary students, business and retail students, entertainment and marketing students can descend to actually service the public center and learn how true commerce operates within their city. They also have op-portunities to wander and enjoy themselves within the public.The form itself is meant to accept and stir community coming from the dense commer-cial and downtown areas nearby, such as the Potsdamer Platz. The division between students and public is the large bowed cafe space that is student access only. Public spaces include a per-formance space above its accompanying bar, multivalant restaurant spaces that can be shifted in scale for repurposing kitchens for education or business, as well as under-ground retail and a metro entrance.

site analysis form diagrams bug model

44terrace/restaurants render

Plan- Retail Level Skin Studies Lobby

Library Render

Public Space Egress Study

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D E S I G N P H I L O S O P H Y

Site Analysisconcerning nearbypower plantDesign 5

WE have all set foot in a grubby bathroom stall, a rancid kitchen, a decrepit hotel building and a stale living room. I want to be an architect because I feel compelled to master the ability to create space with a positive aura. Architecture is a selfless art; I want to consume all the knowledge of-fered to me in school, then graduate school, and in my travels abroad to earn skills that can help people, with or without their awareness.

Even in this economic disease, the federal wallet covers tabs on necessary projects. With the help of my passion and perseverance, my career field will survive no matter where I end up, and I plan to help design these projects-- federal, public, and philanthropic projects-- may they be hospitals, courthouses, DMVs, schools or post offices. These intimidating spaces generally daunt those who inhabit them. This is the conundrum I wish to conquer. It is an architect’s goal to be able to create space and the psychology of that space—but that which does not exist yet—and successfully transform idea to reality. I have tactics to fulfill requirements the building needs to contain while sustaining beauty and positive energies that should be physically apparent to those inhabitants. A keenly aware one will thank the architect; the rest will innocently smile. The skills I acquire under a ruthless and pricy degree I will strive to give back into the walls of a school or a hospital so, while children learn and elders heal, people in and around my buildings might not dread to be where they are. I believe it will even assist in their health, well-being and emotional core.

model photo: 1/32” scaleHidden Library

Design 4