Digital Portfolio

ALEX MORRIS

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTINSCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

CONTENTSCASA DE LUZ DOWNTOWN CAMPUS

SOUTH CONGRESS ART GALLERY

AUSTIN RAIL SYSTEM AND STATION

MOBILE WINE TASTING PAVILION

2011 SOLAR DECATHLON

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CINEMA

DIGITAL LIGHT RENDERINGS

CONSTRUCTION CASE STUDIES

HILL COUNTRY WINERY

ADDITIONAL WORK

RESUMÉ

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Casa De Luz

Instructor: Ernesto Cragnolino

The goal for this project was to design a building which would serve as a downtown campus for the Casa De Luz Center for Integral Studies. Situated on the corner of 7th and Congress in downtown Austin, the program called for a vegan restaurant, a yoga studio, a bookstore, a classroom, and an administration office.

The building was split into a front half and a rear half, with the programmatic elements divided based on their hours of operation. The restaurant, bookstore and yoga studio were located in the front half, and the classroom and administration rooms were located in the back, with the halves being bridged by an open meditation courtyard. At night, the back half of the building can be shut down to conserve electricity. The focal point of the building is its louvered façade, which at night presents itself to the street corner as a huge, glowing jewel.

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Art Gallery

Instructor: Richard Swallow

Located in the 1400 block of South Congress Avenue, this art gallery was designed to accommodate a wide range of art by Texans. The program included a gallery for two-dimensional art, a gallery that could be entirely darkened to exhibit film, an interior sculpture gallery, an exterior sculpture garden, museum offices, a café, and underground exhibit storage.

The narrow site posed many challenges, including how to best provide each space with natural light. The solution involved layering spaces according to program. The film gallery is located on the bottom floor, away from any windows. The sculpture gallery is on the second floor and receives natural light from the atrium and small sunken garden. The exterior sculpture garden is situated on the green roof. The location of these spaces was determined by the amount of natural light each piece of the program required.

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Austin Rail System & Station

Instructors: Werner Lang & Wilfried Wang

This is a recent project whose scope encompasses a range of scales. At its heart is a public transportation interchange centered around a rail station, but it includes the design of a downtown rail system and a larger regional rail system, a connection to a potential future statewide high-speed rail system, and a reconfiguration of the city’s current bus system.

The transit interchange itself will be an adaptive reuse of the 105 year-old Tips Engine Works building, and will feature platforms for multiple types of railcars, bus stops, taxi dropoffs, and bicycle storage, as well as luggage handling, information services, and other standard components.

The station will be the centerpiece of a transit-oriented development on an underutilized three-block site in the Southwest corner of downtown Austin, adjacent to Town Lake. This development will feature office and residential spaces; retail, dining, and entertainment venues; and a tree-lined pedestrian plaza which can host public events.

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Opposite: Proposed regional rail mapFar left: Tips Engine Works building in 1939Left: Tips Engine Works building in 2008Above: Proposed downtown light rail system (transit interchange site marked in red)

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Tasting PavilionThe goal of this design was to provide a wine tasting room that minimized the amount of the sun’s unwanted heat that reaches the building surface while maintaining the structure’s mobility. The building’s foundation is a steel frame designed to fit onto a semi trailer, and it can be placed on site with a crane. The steel frame also holds the building off of the ground, allowing air to flow around it.

Once it is placed, a patio slides out of the frame on the North side of the building, and a curved shading wing slides out from the South. This wing houses photovoltaic panels on the top, with a fixed mesh screen element on the side. It provides power to the building, shades the long window on the South side, and – via its separation from the enclosed space – creates a gap through which cool air is drawn from the ground and is pulled past the wing, preventing overheating as it flows past the top of the building.

Aerogel insulation in the walls and triple glazing on the windows provide an optimal thermal seal. Vertical PV fins on the East and West sides shield the building from unwanted heat gain while also collecting additional energy. Operable vents in the top of the North wall allow air to flow through the building.

Instructor: Michael Garrison

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CURV Appeal Home

Instructor: Vince SnyderDesign Team included 10 others

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UT SoA’s entry into the 2011 Solar Decathlon, the CURV Appeal Home provides homeowners the means to directly participate in the energy economy at an affordable price, moving them from energy consumers to energy producers. More than just an “off-the-grid” house, CURV Appeal represents an effort to economize building “green.”

The design team created a modular shell with layers and components that interact with the environment to provide an energy-efficient and comfortable home. A greenhouse produces food and serves as a heat engine during the winter, and a canopy door keeps the house cooler during the summer.

Energy efficient systems used in the home include photovoltaic panels integrated into the building envelope, fiber-optic and LED lighting prototypes, evacuated solar tube hot water heating, and an aquaponic garden that provides enough food for two people. All systems are designed to be cost-effective, making “green” building more available to the middle-class.

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rain collection

PV array

water hogs

hydronic tube system

standard AHU

inverter

main fuse box

chilled/hot water tank

hot water tank

tankless water heater

talapia aquaculture

greenhouse

aquaponic garden

to appliancxtures

chiller/heat pump

evacuated tubes

NFT hydroponic system

soil-less medium hydroponic system

air pump

water pump

ter

daylighting levels

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Cinemetrics

Instructor: Nik Nikolov

The intent of the studio was to investigate the relationship between cinema and architecture, namely, how architecture informs cinema and how cinema can inform architecture. This investigation was conducted through the creation of systems of drawing. These drawings contained architectural information in three dimensions (plan, along with partial elevations), as well as film information, such as the passage of time and the position of one or more cameras. The drawing at the left contains a typical plan and partial elevations (stills from the original film), with information – the position of the subject, elapsed time, as well as camera’s zoom and field of view – superimposed. This information illustrates the control the camera has over the viewer’s understanding of architecture in cinema.

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Path travelled by ball

Triangular planes defined by path

Volume enclosing triangular planes

CinemetricsLater in the semester, the drawings were expanded to include multiple camera views. Rather than create a drawing from which a scene can be interpreted, in these drawings the cameras were used as a tool for extracting information which could not be recorded through any other means. The intent of these drawings was to establish a method for generating three-dimensional forms based on an object’s movement through a three-dimensional field over a set period of time.

In this case, the object was a basketball which was in play for a period of 30 seconds. Using three cameras, its movement was tracked and recorded on a coordinate plane. Planes were interpolated from the positions of adjacent data points (shown), the positions of data points relative to a fixed point, and finally the positions of data points relative to a moving target point. Creating these planes collapses time onto itself so that an object’s position at three moments in time can be read simultaneously, thereby defining a space. Because movement is in three axes, those planes can be enclosed by a 3-D volume. This volume represents the most efficient encapsulation of the points in space through which the object traveled. This method of drawing still provides much of the same information about the event while also synthesizing new information by manipulating time.

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The final phase of the cinemetrics sequence was to “reassemble” the drawings into a three-dimensional model that informs viewers about the original scene. This model, constructed from PVC and wood, serves as a proof-of-concept of a kinetic piece which recreates the path traveled by the ball by running a marble through a sloped track. Due to size constraints, the path had to be abstracted, but it clarifies the process used to develop the accompanying drawing sets. The marble can be seen in motion, much like the basketball can be viewed in the original film, and at the same time, the path of the marble is evident due to the track it rolls down. Without the model, these two elements can not be understood simultaneously, as the basketball’s movement can only be seen in the film, while its path can only be seen in the drawings.

Cinemetrics

Instructor: Nik Nikolov

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Digital RenderingsThese renderings were part of a lighting design exercise in which digital models were produced in SketchUp and imported into Kerkythea, where lighting effects were added and the final images were produced. The goals of the renderings were to demonstrate competence in digital modeling, as well as lighting design.

Instructor: Charles Thompson

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The following are a collection of case studies undertaken as a part of the construction sequence. Structural and environmental systems were researched and analyzed, and construction drawings were then recreated in order to better understand various construction methods and their appropriate selection. Abstract models were created in order to understand how the buildings handle externally-applied loads.

Case Studies

Instructors: Ulrich Dangel, Vincent Snyder

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Winery

Instructor: Ernesto Cragnolino

This project was the product of a comprehensive studio whose goal was to allow the conceptual development of a building with consideration of structural, mechanical, electrical, and site integration needs while simultaneously designing an exemplary piece of architecture.

The project began with substantial investigation into the craft of wine production, and included tours of a number of functional wineries as well as interviews with vintners. From this research came an in-depth understanding of the winemaking process.

Located at the existing Fall Creek Winery 75 miles Northwest of Austin, the building took advantage of the site’s natural topography in order to facilitate gravity-flow wine production, which uses no pumps at any stage of the winemaking process. The building is dug into a hillside, allowing for a terracing of each successive stage.

Externally, the building belies its sectional complexity, appearing as a heavy bar emerging from the hillside, with a pair of glass pavilions floating above it.

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3rd Floor Plan

2nd Floor Plan

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1st Floor Plan

Longitudinal Section

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Cross Section

Cross Section

1. Concrete slab on grade foundation over sand, moisture barrier, gravel2. Reinforced CMU cavity wall containing rigid insulation, faced with stone3. Precast hollow core concrete floor slab topped with 2” of concrete4. Square steel tube columns welded to steel wide flange beams5. Corrugated steel decking under rigid insulation, waterproof membrane6. Rigid insulation bolted to steel angles, welded to wide flange7. Double-glazed window system8. Green roof with waterproof membrane, insulation, drainage system, soil

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Additional WorkThese renderings were produced during an internship at Booziotis & Company Architects in Dallas, and as a part of freelance design work done for a Dallas-area developer. They were major components of various design proposals for clients such as the Dallas Public Library, Texas Instruments, and the 6th Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza. These renderings were created using SketchUp to produce the digital models, IDX Renditioner to generate rendered images, and Adobe Photoshop to produce the final images.

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ALEX MORRIS

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Contact5905 Lakeshore Dr. Rowlett, TX [email protected]

Online portfolio: www.longhornarchitect.com

EducationUniversity of Texas at Austin School of Architecture August 2006 - May 2011Bachelor of Architecture Graduation Date: May 2011GPA: 3.33 / 4.0

ActivitiesStudent Mentor 2007 - 2008 - Provided project feedback and emotional support for first-year studentsMember of the Undergraduate Architecture Student Council 2006 - 2008 - Vice President in charge of communications, 2007 - Webmaster Member of the American Institute of Architecture Students 2006 - 2007 - Vice President in charge of communications, 2007

Related ExperienceIntern at Booziotis & Company Architects, Dallas May - August of 2006, 2007, 2008 - Worked on construction documents for the Blanton Museum of Art - Worked on design and construction documents for the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts - Contributed to architectural and interior design of a number of residential projects, including the Museum Tower in Dallas - Worked on the development of a campus master plan for Texas Instruments - Took part in site visits, and client & contractor meetings for the Dallas Center for Architecture - Assisted in updating plans and elevations of the historic DeGolyer House at the Dallas Arboretum - Contributed to the design of, and produced digital models and renderings for various clients, including Texas Instruments, the Dallas Public Library, and the 6th Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza - Produced presentation documents for numerous client meetings - Performed various office tasks including filing ASI’s, RFI’s, and RFP’s, and relocating & reorganizing 30+ years of company files - Assisted in troubleshooting various IT issues

Freelance Renderings May - August of 2008 - Provided Schematic Design services for a bar and lounge at 1404 Main St. in Dallas, TX - Produced concept renderings for client presentations

SkillsProficient in AutoCAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Kerkythea, IDX Renditioner, Mac OSExperienced in Dreamweaver, Premiere, ArchiCAD, Windows OSWell-versed in free-hand drawing, physical modeling, digital fabrication, and woodworking