From Arts to Sports in Spring Studio Final Reviews
This spring semester’s studios investigated the value of architecture that is environmentally responsible, contextual, and functional. The final reviews presented projects that spanned from designing a public arts institution in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn in Carrie Gibbs’ studio, to a community recreation center located in Doha, Qatar in Kelly Hutzell and Chris Gardner’s studio.
Hutzell and Gardner developed and co-taught the studio that sought to reveal a new territory for architectural agency by exploring the relationship between sports and culture, and the ways in which they can manifest through architecture. Rima Taher consulted on student projects and their structural systems. A guiding question was: how can we, as architects, learn from sport?
Taro Narahara’s studio on the other hand, focused on application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the context of Architecture and Urban Design. Using various digital design tools, such as Head- Mounted Displays (HMD), Game Engines, Rhinoceros Grasshopper (GH)…students analyzed spatial quality based not only on environmental issues such as solar exposure and airflow, but also on subjective criteria derived from aesthetics and attractiveness, such as level of comfort inside the space.
Kesha Patel used Narahara’s studio to further explore concepts from the Hutzell’s studio: “As Final Project I wanted to create a parametric covered pathway for my current studio where the topic was sports recreational park in Doha, Qatar. A user-friendly space was created to attract different types of users to the site. By exploring Grasshopper with its different plugins, a desired module was generated. In addition, the rendering of the model in Twinmotion was able to achieve the desired results.”
In Gernot Riether’s Precast Concrete Institute (PCI) Research Studio, Karly Savinon and Ella Martz project received accolades and won a travel prize – a trip to the 2022 PCI Mid-Atlantic Summer Meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, where they will present their project – courtesy of the studio sponsor, PCI. “4 Gardens by Karly Savinon and Ella Martz was selected by the students as the best project of the studio. In my opinion this project stood out because of its unique idea, conceptual clarity and quality of presentation,” said Riether. Read more about the studio here.
Being the Hillier College’s hometown, City of Newark was the site for several studios. Tony Schuman’s studio focused on designing sustainable, affordable housing development for employees at the local universities (NJIT, Rutgers Newark, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and Essex County College).
“Post-Retrofit seeks to engage with some of the older vernacular of the city while also shining a light on the new possibilities for habitation in Newark. This 36 Unit Apartment Complex will help ground faculty and staff in the city as well as invite the community to engage and participate alongside them,” explained Samuel Roberts, one of the students participating in Schuman’s studio.
This semester the students were back to presenting their work in person and in front of their classmates, faculty, guest reviewers, and professionals from the industry, although some of the guest critics joined the reviews virtually. Most of the student projects were individual, but there were also projects that were conducted collectively by student teams. For example, in Erin Pellegrino and Charlie Firestone’s studio all students worked together to design and build a Parklet. Read that story here.