portfolio

CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ

DESIGN WORK

STUDENT WORK

5th year, fall 2009 Dutch Dialogues Studio

2nd year, fall 2006 Levee Logic

3rd year, spring 2008 Convention Dynamics

4th year, fall 2008 Inhabiting the In-Between

DUTCH DIALOGUES STUDIO

This project, a collaborative design effort between myself and Joseph Keppel, is based on the urban proposals for New Orleans made by the Dutch Dialogues conference of geographers, hydrologists, and architects. The proposal imagines a new type of urbanism for the Hoffman Triangle neighborhood by strategically carving a contoured groundscape where blighted properties currently stand. The carving slows and retains storm runoff on its way to the overburdened pumping station.

An exploration of sustainable water infrastructure ideas generated by the Dutch Dialogues charette

city topography

program analysis

contours

groundscape

residual fabric

wet urbanism: the Hoffman Triangle

site plan

To consider the implications of this urban strategy at the building scale, we selected a site on the edge of the Hoffman Triangle to propose a mixed use building containing office, residential, and retail space. The building’s mass is lifted to allow the groundscape to continue underneath the building.

storm water moving beneath building

floor 4 - residential

ground floor - commercial

section

concept sketches

structural voids as light wells

structural void for water penetration

The mass is held up by large column voids that move water accumulated on the layered green roof down to the ground where it can be held in tanks for grey water usage in the building or released into the water network to move on towards the pump. The water that once threat-ened the sustainability of this neighborhood becomes the feature that invigorates it at every scales from vast urban retention pools to waterfalls through office space.

CONVENTION DYNAMICS

The scheme responds to the two identities of the convention hotel, which serves as both entertainment center and work place to its guests. The bar of service program separates the work bar from the leisure bar, separating their functions while providing both with efficient access to the hotel’s operations staff.

A hotel design for New Orleans that engages the complex programmatic needs of convention tourism

floor 2

ground floor

floor 4 - 13 separate

shift

kink

banquet hall lobby

extrude

split

egress hvac water

striations

structure

business bar roofscape

These programatic bars respond to the site, shifting and intersecting to provide the necessary adjacencies and perimeter access. Seven foot striations break down the three bars, becoming organizational guides for space planning and structure. The dynamic roofscapes provide oppor-tunities for grey water retention and guest recreation.

section B

business bar assembly

N

1”=32’

LEVEE LOGIC

40’ materials

10’ materials

2’ materials

40’ materials

10’ materials

2’ materials

lecture hall

amphitheater

lobbyconcessions

leisure pool

classroomsadministration

children’s area

locker rooms

elderly recreation

aerobic areas

lap pool

dive pool

indoor workout

40’ striations

2’ striations

10’ striations

N

entry perspectiveplan

programmed striations

section

2’ materials

10’ materials

40’ materials40’ bands

10’ bands

2’ bands

This project creates spaces for recreation through constructing bands according to the formal logic of the existing levees. The widths of the bands accomodate programs at various scales. The resulting landscape produces a condition of free circulation for the user to navigate.

INHABITING THE IN-BETWEEN

Rome has developed in layers, producing a significant vertical separation of the city’s ground plane from the river. The disconnection has encouraged major highways to develop at the river’s edge, further separating city from river. This underground bath house, recalling the public nature of the ancient baths, re-unites the streetscape to its river in both plan and section.

An underground bath house for Rome that re-introduces the public to the river, revealing the urban strata

sectional separation plan separation

sectional solution plan solution new connection

plan at grade

plan below grade

The highway and the bath program are under-ground, allowing the pedestrian life of the streets of Rome to spill out to the river’s edge through a parkscape, dipping to the level of the river in three pits. The bath program occupies the zone between the river’s wall and the highway.

view inside a pit

exploded perspective: buried urbanism

Cuts in the ground and in the layers of walls offset from the river wall allow users to experience horizontal and vertical layers of the city in a truly urban way. The public nature of the street has been replicated in the historically public experience of the bath house.

section B

bath progam in-between road and river

section along river

PROFESSIONAL WORK

Errol Barron/Michael Toups Architects + Trahan Architects Physical Models

TZCO, Fall 2009 Common Ground Health Clinic

Trahan Architects, Spring 2009 River Center Library

Arquitectum Tokyo 2010 Competition, spring 2010 Giant Robot

PHYSICAL MODELS

Working for Trahan Architects, I led the effort to construct this wood and plaster model to represent the design for the First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Spring. We cast the eight structural canopy pieces in molds that were digitally modeled and 3-d printed in the office. The model also features fiber oprtic lighting that runs through the base and uplights the canopies. The construction was a team effort in which I modeled and printed mold forms and cast all the canopies. I also designed the model and organized the construction of the base and context pieces.

3-D printing technology allowed us to cast plaster in complex forms to represent concrete canopies

Presentation models constructed with bass wood to represent large house projects in Greece

Villa Nicos VardinoyannisMariana Bay, GreeceErrol Barron / Michael Toups Architects

Villa VardinoyannisMariana Bay, GreeceErrol Barron / Michael Toups Architects

RIVER CENTER LIBRARY

focal point of downtown Baton Rouge

civic corridor

arts district

green belt

Trahan Architects’ River Center Library occupies a critical moment in downtown Baton Rouge, LA, where the civic corridor and the main street of the arts district meet at North Blvd, a green belt that cuts through the city to the river. The architecture embraces the public nature of its site, forming a perimeter layer of circulation that allows the building to be a part of the pedestrian life of the street. The mass of the building lifts up at two corners, allowing fluid circulation beneath the building form North Blvd to Galvez Plaza and the lawn of historic state capital building beyond.

An award-winning library proposal that takes part in the life of the street through perimeter circulation

lantern in downtown Baton Rouge

ST. P

HIL

IP S

T.

GALVEZ PLAZA

NEW FACILITY

ST. L

OU

IS S

T.

NORTH BLVD.

TOWN SQUARE

North Blvd. elevation

site plan

The library’s skin is a translucent screen that produces an image of absolute transparency and accessibility while protecting the building from the harsh southern sun. The building attempts to shift the roll of the library from a warehouse of knowledge to a public gathering space that serves as an interface between between different districts and users in downtown Baton Rouge.

descent into lobby from Galvez Plaza

main entrance from North Blvd.

COMMON GROUND HEALTH CLINIC

TZCO’s Common Ground Health Clinic inherits a dilapidated structure that was once an old jazz club, attracting well known blues and jazz musicians to Old Algiers on the west bank of New Orleans. The design’s essential task is to preserve the culturally significant structure while introducing elements that allow it to perform successfully as a contemporary health clinic. The design responds to this problem by adding an autonomous addition to the back of the building that meets the needs of the building’s new function. The wooden pergula establishes a dialogue between the new and the old by morphing their formal types. The new space created provides users with a rooftop oasis from the city, serving as both vegetable garden and classroom.

A clinic proposal that joins the old and the new with a pergula that morphs the two formal types

The depth of the rooftop garden increases where the structural walls below occur. The new topography is then divided into sections of varying depths that can accomodate the varying soil depths of different vegetables. The gravel zone in the middle of the roof is comprised of multiple circular zones, creating opportunities for groups of different scales to gather and learn.

floor 1 floor 2

floor 3 roof plan

roof garden

GIANT ROBOT

Designed in collaboration with Thaddeus Zarse and John Paul Pacelli, the project achieves flexibility through mechanical exterior stairs. The stacked internal galleries each exhibit a particular decade’s fashion, and the changing stair connections allow the curator to highlight particular relationships between different decades throughout the twentieth century. Constantly changing circulation opportunities allow the visitor to meander through the decades, discovering the curator’s alternative routes through history.

A vertical fashion museum concept for the Tokyo 2010 compeition featuring moving stair galleries

DESIGN BUILD

fall 2007 Wine Rack

fall 2009 Lamp

WINE RACK

Rubber balls strung on suspension cables meeting the most basic needs of holding wine bottles

LAMP

This lamp was produced in collaboration with Corey Green as an investigation of the design implications of the capacity of digital fabrication technologies to directly translate virtual geometry to real material. The lamp was designed with animation software, in which we emanated particles from a grid and effected their trajectories with a vortex force. Thinking of these particles as light particles, we 3-D printed the composition as a series of tubes and ran glowing tube through them to reproduce a moment of the animation in a composition of real light.

Designed as a digital animation, 3-D printing technology enables translation to the medium of light

HAND DRAWINGS

Italy, fall 2008 Watercolors

Italy, fall 2008 Charcoal + Graphite

WATER COLORS

Il Redentore Venice, Italy

Castel Sant AngeloRome, Italy

CHARCOAL + GRAPHITE

Piazza NavonaRome, Italy

Ponte RotoRome, Italy

CONTACT

[email protected] 504.450.6659