Urban Design

Portfolio of Creative WorksSouthern California Institute of Architecture

2010-2011

Tom AmesUrban Design

Southern California Institute of Architecture [SCI-Arc]Future Initiatives [SCIFI]

Masters of Design Research in Urban Design, Planning and Policy; Emerging Systems and Technologies

Fall 2010 - Fall 2011Program Co-ordinated by Peter Zellner and David Bergman

<http://sciarc.edu/portal/programs/graduate/scifi /index.html>

CONTENTS:

5. Curriculum Vitae

4. California High Speed Rail Urbanism

3. Re-Imagining the LA CleanTech Corridor

2. Grand Avenue Augmentation

1. Housing SCI-Arc

Until recently SCI-Arc was a transient school, an institution that never owned property but had instead rented needed spaces for its entire history. This was fi tting given the experimental and rootless nature of an institution with such a radical, rebellious history. However with SCI-Arc’s recent acquisition of the quarter-mile long historical railroad freight terminal which had been the school’s home for the past decade, SCI-Arc has a golden opportunity to reimagine its future as an institution, its role as part of its inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood, and its potential role as property owner and developer.

The Future Initiatives program was tasked with the generation of a concept strong enough to drive the future development of SCI-Arc. Inspired by our surroundings, our team proposed establishing a neighborhood presence by redeveloping several buildings in the area, instead of creating a consolidated campus. This would not only be more cost effective than buying a single high-priced piece of land, but spur outside development around each site, as well as truly rooting SCI-Arc in the neighborhood. This strategy allowed us to investigate new housing typologies for LA’s core, analyze the fi nancial feasibility of purchasing multiple properties, and explore the unique character of the LA arts district.

SCI-Arc Studio Course. Masters of Design Reserach, Urban Design, Planning + Policy.

PROGRAM_ Campus Planning + Financial Modeling.INSTRUCTORS_ Peter Zellner, David Bergman, with Jamie Bennet.TEAM_Tom Ames, Wanda DallaCosta, Julieta Gil, Anne Gregersen, Hassan Ismail, Yong-Ha Kim.SOFTWARE_ Rhino. Adobe Creative Suite.DESIGN PERIOD_ September- November 2010.

Housing SCI-Arc

SCI-Arc and the LA Arts District

WomenMen

MarriedCoupleSingle

No ChildrenHas Children

NonresidentResident

OtherFacultyWorkerArtistStudent

OtherMasters4 Year Degree2 Year DegreeHigh School

Survey Sample: All Participants.

Current Housing: Within Arts District vs. Elsewhere.

NonresidentResident

Undergraduate

Graduate

No

Yes

Would more residents bea good thing?

No

Yes

Do you know an artistwho lives in the Arts District?

No

Yes

Visited SCI-Arc?

No

Yes

Is SCI-Arc good for theL.A. Arts District?

Other

Open Space

Food

Shopping

Creative Environment

Cost of Housing

What do you like about the L.A. Arts District?

Light Manufacturing

Artist Collective

O�ce Complex

City Park

Retail

Student Housing

Rental Housing

What would you like to see built on the large vacant plot of land adjacent to SCI-Arc?

Institutional Comparison of Students Housed On and O� Campus.

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union

Number of Students:

0 20 40 60 80 100

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union

Percentage of Students:

WomenMen

MarriedCoupleSingle


NonresidentResident





NonresidentResident

Undergraduate

Graduate

No

Yes


No

Yes


No

Yes

Visited SCI-Arc?

No

Yes


Other

Open Space

Food

Shopping


Cost of Housing


Light Manufacturing

Artist Collective

O�ce Complex

City Park

Retail

Student Housing

Rental Housing



0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union

Number of Students:

0 20 40 60 80 100

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union


WomenMen

MarriedCoupleSingle


NonresidentResident





NonresidentResident

Undergraduate

Graduate

No

Yes


No

Yes


No

Yes

Visited SCI-Arc?

No

Yes


Other

Open Space

Food

Shopping


Cost of Housing


Light Manufacturing

Artist Collective

O�ce Complex

City Park

Retail

Student Housing

Rental Housing



0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union

Number of Students:

0 20 40 60 80 100

O� Campus

On Campus

SCI-ARC [Proposed]

RISD

Pratt

Cooper Union


Research - Community Outreach

In order to better understand who lives in the Arts District, who visits the Arts District and what attracts them, we created and distributed a brief questionnaire. This survey allowed us to discover that the population of this area is young, with a median age of 25 years old, single, and childless. Most are well-connected to the LA arts scene, either as artists, students, or supporting creative production. They are attracted by low rents and creative environment. SCI-Arc is well thought-of, with the majority of respondents indicating that they have visited the school, and approve of its position as an anchor in the community. Most would like to see the neighborhood grow, and indicated the greatest desire for more art production space, retail outlets, and community open space respectively.

Urban Research & Strategies

Age:_______ Sex: M F Relationship Status: Single. Couple. Married. Children: Yes. No.

Residency: Resident. Guest. Where do you live? __________________________________ What brings you to our neighborhood today? __________________

Occupation: Student. Artist. Worker . Faculty. Other: ______________Education Achieved: High School. 2yr Degree. 4yr Degree. Masters. Other.

What do you like about the L.A. Arts District?PLEASE RANK EACH CATEGORY, WITH 1 BEING THE HIGHEST VALUE. Cost of Housing: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Creative Environment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Shopping: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Food: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Open Space: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Other: 1 2 3 4 5 6 What would you like to improve? _____________________________________________ What is the Arts District missing? _____________________________________________

Would more residents in the Arts District be a positive thing? Yes. No.

If you are not an artist, do you know an artist who lives in the L.A. Arts District? Yes. No.

Have you heard of SCI-Arc (the Southern California Institute of Architecture)? Yes. No.

Have you ever visited the school for a public event, lecture, or gallery show? Yes. No._______________________________________________________________________________

Do you think that SCI-Arc is a positive addition to the L.A. Arts District? Yes. No.

What would you like to see built on the large vacant plot of land adjacent to SCI-Arc? PLEASE RANK ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 7, WITH 1 BEING THE HIGHEST VALUE. Rental Housing: ________ Student Housing: ________ Retail or Grocery: ________ City Park: ________ Office Complex: ________ Artist Collective: ________ Light Manufacturing: ________ Other: ___________________________________________________________________

LOS ANGELES ARTS DISTRICT QUESTIONNAIRE:

4 PROPERTIES

LOTS A + D

NETWORK

Urban Campus Strategy

Conceptual Cross-section - Neighborhood Reuse

STRA

TEG

Y _

4 PR

OPE

RTIE

S

OUR CRITERIA

1. 5 minute walking-distance from SCI-Arc2. Prominent urban location / Visibility3. Full building purchase. Min. 2 stories Min. 20,000 sq.ft.4. Suitable morphology for conversion5. Economically feasible

MER

RICK

4TH ST.

TRACTION

2ND ST.

VIG

NES

TRACTION

ALA

MED

A

COLYTO

N

SEATON

4TH ST.

ALAMEDA VIGNES

COLYTON T.T.TOYSOCCUPANCY SCHEDULE

2011 - Vignes2012 - Alameda, Colyton, TTToys

DISTRIBUTION BY USE

Vignes Alameda Colyton T.T.Toys TOTAL

Vignes

Colyton

T.T.Toys

TOTAL

Alameda

STUDENT BEDS

58,900 sq.ft

23,000 sq.ft

80,700 sq.ft

162,600 sq.ft

STRA

TEG

Y _

4 PR

OPE

RTIE

S

OUR CRITERIA


MER

RICK

4TH ST.

TRACTION

2ND ST.

VIG

NES

TRACTION

ALA

MED

A

COLYTO

N

SEATON

4TH ST.

ALAMEDA VIGNES



DISTRIBUTION BY USE


Vignes

Colyton

T.T.Toys

TOTAL

Alameda

STUDENT BEDS

58,900 sq.ft

23,000 sq.ft

80,700 sq.ft

162,600 sq.ft

STRA

TEG

Y _

4 PR

OPE

RTIE

S

OUR CRITERIA


MER

RICK

4TH ST.

TRACTION

2ND ST.

VIG

NES

TRACTION

ALA

MED

A

COLYTO

N

SEATON

4TH ST.

ALAMEDA VIGNES



DISTRIBUTION BY USE


Vignes

Colyton

T.T.Toys

TOTAL

Alameda

STUDENT BEDS

58,900 sq.ft

23,000 sq.ft

80,700 sq.ft

162,600 sq.ft

STRA

TEG

Y _

4 PR

OPE

RTIE

S

OUR CRITERIA


MER

RICK

4TH ST.

TRACTION

2ND ST.

VIG

NES

TRACTION

ALA

MED

A

COLYTO

N

SEATON

4TH ST.

ALAMEDA VIGNES



DISTRIBUTION BY USE


Vignes

Colyton

T.T.Toys

TOTAL

Alameda

STUDENT BEDS

58,900 sq.ft

23,000 sq.ft

80,700 sq.ft

162,600 sq.ft

Building Sites

Coylton Avenue Site - Before

After

Vignes Avenue Site - Before

After

New Urban Campus Organization

Reconstructed Parking Lot, Entry Plaza, and Graduation Pavilion

Bunker Hill, Los Angeles’s corporate and fi nancial core, is the largest and oldest urban renewal project in city history. It was developed from the 1950s onward as a typically late 20th century dedicated offi ce district. Standing aloof at the top of Bunker Hill, these giant buildings are completely cut off from the renewed vibrancy of the surrounding Downtown LA neighborhood.

Faced with the monumental task and historical failures surrounding building on Bunker Hill, our studio was asked to develop a toolkit of highly innovative architectonic archetypes that may be grafted onto the existing urban condition in order to create a working, vibrant urban neighborhood, and reconnect the area to the rest of the city. Our individual archetypical ‘chess pieces’ were then combined in like groups in order to illustrate different tactics of occupying the site. A fi nal gallery exhibition presented an overwhelming totality of the individual permutations contained in our strategic toolkit, combined with the group investigations into aggregate monumental form making.


PROGRAM_ Speculative Urban Design.INSTRUCTOR_ Peter Zellner.TEAM_Tom Ames, Carrie Foster.SOFTWARE_ Rhino. AutoCAD. Adobe Creative Suite.DESIGN PERIOD_ November- December 2010.

Grand Avenue Augmentation

Residential Strands fi lling in gaps between Grand Avenue skyscrapersbetween G

Individual Pieces - Possible Permutations

Individual Pieces - Possible Articulation

Combined Pieces - Models

Combined Pieces - Presentation Drawings

Site Plan

Figure Ground

South West Axonometric

North East Axonometric

Over the past few years, the city of Los Angeles and the LA Community Redevelopment Agency has been developing an initiative to transform Downtown LA’s central manufacturing district into an incubator for green startups and environmentally friendly manufacturing dubbed the CleanTech Corridor. Using the recent CleanTech Corridor architectural competition <http://www.sciarc.edu/portal/about/cleantech/index.html> as a point of departure, our studio investigated the future of Los Angeles development, reimagining the form of the city on a grand scale. Our team’s investigations lead to a plan that, over the next fi fty years, would:

1. Remove a section of the I-10 freeway, replacing it with a naturalized LA River corridor.2. Reorganize the existing street grid to make it more easily navigable, encourage neighborhood connections, and

increase pedestrian traffi c.3. Create an entirely new building fabric organized by the same underlying grid, allowing residential, manufacturing,

commercial, educational, and other uses to directly coexist in ways that were previously impossible.

This radically new urban fabric would encourage residents to live in the same vibrant community as their place of business, and be constructed as a network of inherently sustainable, zero emissions buildings.


PROGRAM_ Speculative Urban Design.INSTRUCTOR_ Andrew Zago.TEAM_Tom Ames, Hassan Ismail, Kentaro Nagasawa, Monica McKay,Timothy Turner, Tiantian Sun, Sandy Phoxay.SOFTWARE_ Rhino. AutoCAD. Adobe Creative Suite.DESIGN PERIOD_ January- May 2011.

Project Exhibited at the 2011 Little Tokyo Design Week - Future City.

Re-imagining the LA CleanTech Corridor

Intertwined Systems form a New Sustainable Neighborhood

Neighborhood Context

Development of New Neighborhood Grid

Precedent - Albrecht Durer Typeface New Neighborhood Grid

Urban Fabric - Preliminary Study Models

Hoover St.

Urban Fabric - Figure Ground

RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL

CLEAN INDUSTRIAL

COMMERCIAL

RESIDENTIAL

3D Massing and Zoning Studies

Zoning Parti Diagram

Existing Condition Diagrams

Preliminary Neighborhood Plan Final

3D Visualizations

Scale Model - Massing

Scale Model - City Presentation

Scale Model - City Presentation

Changing patterns of human development have created not a crisis, but an opportunity for us to reconsider the mechanics of city life and recolonize our cities for the next hundred years.

The California High Speed Rail project has the incredible opportunity to not only affect modes of travel in the state, but to change the entire pattern of urban development in California. Compressing travel along a single infrastructural thread allows multiple systems to be aggregated along the rail line. Not only sustainable power generation or water conservation infrastructure, but a new urban aggregation will turn the network into a new type of linear city, blurring the lines between urban and rural, travel and stasis.

Hybrid systems are the true potential of high-speed rail, and are reflected in the station- the representational unit of high-speed rail urbanism. Both the hybridized organizational layout and structural system blur boundaries between city and building, indoor and outdoor. As the structural grid of the station increases to the scale of the city, it begins to behave as a vast field condition, variable yet unified; an instant city in the middle of the desert.


PROGRAM_ Urban and Transportation System Design + Train Station.INSTRUCTORS_ Jesse Reiser. Nanako Umemoto.SOFTWARE_ Rhino. Grasshopper Plugin. Maya. AutoCAD. Adobe Creative Suite.DESIGN PERIOD_ June- August 2011.

Project Published on the SCIFI blog.

California High Speed Rail Urbanism

Project Logo

Precedent Study - Formal Operations

Physical Model - System Module

System Morphology - Grasshopper Plugin

Field Condition Transformations

Preliminary Concept Sketch

Final Drawing

Statewide Context - California High Speed Rail Alignment

Regional Context

Citywide Context

DATUM.ROOF.

GROUND.

Conceptual Organization - Sketches and Diagrams

3D Model - Exploded Oblique

1- Ground Level

0 - Column Grid Condition

3 - Rail Platform Level

2 - Second Level

Column / Field Condition Model 1:100

Conceptual Rendering - Train Platforms

Perspective- Where Megastructure meets the City

Conceptual Rendering - Entrance

Judith Lance Inc. – Technical Designer (May 2012 – September 2012)Conducted site surveys, created conceptual, working, and shop drawings, communicated with manufacturers and contractors, and detailed built-ins and custom furniture pieces for high-end interior design firm.PAR | Platform for Architecture + Research – Competition Intern (February 2012 – May 2012)Developed research and analysis, assisted conceptual design, and created drawings, diagrams, and graphics for high-profile international architectural competitions including the Helsinki Central Library.Tulsa Band Instruments Inc. – Accounts Manager (September 2009 – July 2010)Maintained rental accounts for rent-to-own program, filed taxes, and kept financial books.Oklahoma State University School of Architecture – Teaching Assistant (August 2007 – May 2009)Collaborated with professors and supported coursework preparation. Graded projects, exams & papers.Cannon Design, Washington D.C. Office – Architecture Technical Intern (May – August 2008)Expedited the preparation of research, transposed red-lines, corresponded with product representatives, and detailed architectural working and construction drawings.

Experience

EducationNational Council of Architectural Registration Boards - Intern Development Program (May 2008 – Present)SCI-Arc | Southern California Institute of Architecture (September 2011)Master of Design Research in Urban Design, Planning, and Policy, Emerging Systems and Technologies (Future Initiatives)Oklahoma State University School of Architecture (May 2009)Professional Bachelor of Architecture (NAAB Accredited) Cum Laude. Minor: History and Theory of Architecture

Honors and AwardsLocke Scholarship for Academic Excellence (2008)Eason Leonard European Study Fellowship (2007)Nye Scholarship for Academic Excellence (2007)Second Place - Acme Brick Prize Design Competition (2006)Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education - Institutional Nominee Scholarship (2004)Boy Scouts of America - Eagle Scout (2001)

CURRICULUM VITAE

Expertise and ProficienciesCommunication Skills: Visual Communication. Problem-solving. Design. Theory. Creative Writing. Public Speaking.Creative Skills: Digital photography and cinema. Hand drafting and rendering (Technical Pen Ink, Graphite, Colored Pencil, Pastel, Watercolor, Inkwash). Hand-sketching (Graphite, Colored Pencil, Fountain Pen Ink, Watercolor, Marker).Shop Skills: Laser cutter. CNC Milling. ABS and Powder 3D Printing. General woodworking and fabrication skills.3D Software: Rhino. Grasshopper. Google SketchUp.Graphics Software: Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator. Adobe InDesign. Adobe Premier Pro.Drafting and BIM Software: Autodesk AutoCAD. Autodesk REVIT. Graphisoft ArchiCAD.Financial Software: Quicken. QuickBooks.

References furnished upon request

Service Organizations and Professional SocietiesSCI-Arc Student Union: Studio Representative (2010 – 2011)Sustainable Tulsa: Member and Active Volunteer (June 2009 – August 2010)AIAS | American Institute of Architecture Students – OSU Chapter:Lecture Series Coordinator (August 2008 – May 2009)Secretary (August 2007 – May 2008)ASTEK | Architecture Students Teaching Elementary Kids – OSU AIAS:Group Leader (2007 – 2009)Volunteer (2005 – 2009)

Tom Ames4162 Sea View Drive, Los Angeles CA 90065 +1 918 808 8218 [email protected]

Urban Design

Documents

noyesvisited sciarc

rooting sciarc

noyesis sciarc good

future development of

housing sciarcsci

housing sciarcuntil

arc studio course

sciarcs recent acquisition