[ARCHITECTURAL WORKS]undergraduate+graduate

2006.2012

CHARLES VAN AUSDELL

DESIGNPORTFOLIO

Design is about bold conjectures sometimes forward, sometimes back, incorporating new ideas at every step.

As architects, individuals must realize that they are not

designing for personal gain, but for the betterment of society; we have

begun to pull away from this belief and have started to design with only

our own personal aesthetics in mind. This is wrong. It is the job of the

designer to improve society as a whole through a healthier and

healing built environment while designing with human needs and

function in mind. Just because a design is functional doesn’t mean it can’t

be beautiful. We must seek to design in order to make life easier and more

pleasurable for the user.

3 ELLIPTIGO WORLD HEADQUARTERS [undergraduate]

5 UNFLESHED: AN ENVELOPE STUDY [graduate]

7 SERPENTINE PAVILION [graduate]9 BOISE FIRE STATION #5 [undergraduate]

11 VERTICAL COMMUNITY [graduate]

17 SUPPLEMENTARY DESIGN [undergradute+graduate]

25 MICRO TO MACRO: UNIFICATION THROUGH SCALES [graduate]

27 THESIS PROJECT: PORTLAND COMMUNITY ART CENTER [graduate]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DESIGN STUDIOELLIPTIGO

UNFLESHED: AN ENVELOPE STUDY

SERPENTINE PAVILION

BOISE FIRE STATION #5

VERTICAL COMMUNITY

Focusing on interior design and detailing, this was a re-design project of an existing business park space for the Elliptigo design team. The existing space was constructed through a standard CMU method, with a glulam beam and lumber roof structure. Overall project goals included creating a more welcoming, multi-purpose space that could be used to showcase the Elliptigo product, and create space for general offi ce use, as well as a workshop to continue the development of the Elliptigo product.

With visual connections in mind, the design for Elliptigo’s world headquarters began to take form. Using reclaimed hardwood fl ooring as visual dividers, ambiguous spaces take shape and create distinct locations for the employees and their cus-tomers. This allowed for the employees to continue working uninterrupted on their day to day tasks, while still allowing the employees to be aware of the events on the sales fl oor.

3

ELLIPTIGO WORLD HEADQUARTERSsolana beach california

4

This project sought to re-design an existing façade through visual interpretation of an assigned jazz piece. After the jazz piece was ana-lyzed, an infographic was created to represent the graphically collected information, which was then interpreted into an architectural re-design of an existing built-project.

5

UNFLESHED: AN ENVELOPE STUDYmelbourne australia

6

The project started out by creating a visual map of the song Bird’s Lament by Moondog. From there, the resulting diagram was integrated into the façade of the CH2 building in Melbourne, Australia. Using the existing mechanical shading device’s visual rhythm, a pattern of color was

created, adding paint to the inside of the wood members and changing their dimensions from all 2 x 4 lumber to a combination of 2 x 4, 2 x 8, and 2 x 10 lumber. Through this addition, the façade is able to provide constant visual change throughout the day as the louvers track the sun.

An annual event put on by the Serpen-tine Gallery, located in London England, the Serpentine Pavilion is designed each year by an architect who does not have any built works within the U.K. Each pavilion remains up for the summer months to be used by the public. During a twenty-four hour design charrette, two architecture students from the University of Idaho were asked to design a Serpentine Pavilion with an emphasis on sustainable design under the tutelage of an assigned London architecture fi rm.

This pavilion’s design revolved around the fi ve senses and how to actively engage them within an architectural environment. Various ideas were implemented, including an herbal green wall, which allowed for aroma and additions to prepared foods, a corrugated plastic roof and uneven creaky fl oors built from wood pallets for sound, and an infographic gabion wall to repre-sent London’s waste production for sight.

7

SERPENTINE PAVILIONlondon united kingdom

8

This studio project was for the Concrete Ma-sonry Association Design competition. Students were given a fi re station program for Boise, ID and asked to use CMU as the primary building material. The ultimate goal of the project was to heighten the use of the material beyond generic CMU construction. The design was a fi nalist in the competition.

The Design Strategy for the fi re station was to skew the visual and physical weight of CMU by creating what appeared to be fl oating CMU planes which also acted as shading devices. By doing this, CMU, a heavy material, appeared light and streamlined; this allowed for a unique use while still providing a highly functional fi re station for the city.

9

BOISE FIRE STATION #5boise idaho

10

This studio project aimed to design a mid-rise residential tower for the downtown Chicago area with a focus on structure and human interac-tion. The program included both residential and commercial entities within the design while also encouraging social interaction amongst the tower users and inhabitants.

11

VERTICAL COMMUNITYchicago illinois

12

COMMERCIAL

RES

IDEN

TIA

L

COMMERCIAL

RES

IDEN

TIA

LR

ESID

ENTI

AL

STANDARD RESIDENTIAL PARTI

PROPOSED RESIDENTIAL PARTI

The Vertical Community project was an attempt

to re-imagine how a tower functions and its

connection to a community. By manipulating the

standard horizontal orientation of our urban street,

it becomes both safe for the residents and

prosperous for business.

13

The concept behind the residential tower was to create a vertical urban street, allowing for residential and commercial entities to co-exist within one building. This would lead to increased accessibility and community viability for both building and neighborhood residents. A key design strategy for the design was a four story ramp which connects the commercial spaces to the streets below, highlighting the circulation of the user.

1413

VERTICAL COMMUNITYchicago illinois

Digital model of medium-sized living unit with views towards downtown Chicago.

detail of the steel structured exterior envelope. 14

ADDITIONALWORK/SKILLS

CENTER FOR ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY

FREEDOM BY DESIGN

digital imaging

SKETCHES

During a weeklong course at the Center for Alternative Technology, in Wales, students from the University of Idaho and the Center for Alternative Technology performed experiments on thermal mass. We started out by building test cells that would enable us to maintain a consistent environment for the experiments to take place, and then moved into testing various thermal mass scenarios. These included studying how diff erent materials performed as a thermal mass, how diff erent orientations and proximity would aff ect the performance of thermal mass, and also the importance of surface area versus volume to thermal mass success.

17

CENTER FOR ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGYwales united kingdom

Freedom by Design is a national architecture student club that performs design-build projects for people in need. For this project we designed a deck for Success by Six, a local daycare center which had accessibility and safety problems. The overall objective of the project was to create a safe haven for the daycare children to play in while also adding a ramp to provide wheelchair access.

18

FREEDOM BY DESIGNmoscow idaho

SUPPLEMENTARY GRAPHIC DESIGN

flower garden

scale: 1” = 50’

scale: 1” = 20’

lake

parterre

grand canal

allee grotto

water terrace

small canal

orangerie

hedges

ballroom

colonnade

poplarrows

bosque

grand fountain

large fountain

reflective pool

statuewalk

chateau

Coreen BeciaceciaeciaeciaeciaciaecececiaciaeciaeceBeBeBeCharleChCCCChChChChCChChCh s Van VanVanVanVannVaVannanVanVVaVaVaa AusAusdelAusdelAusdeAusdAusdelAusdeldelAAusdAA ddd l

larc 389

residence

small teahouse

large tea house

pavillion

lake

covered walkway

island

peninsula

island

river

fren

rrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennc

hn

elev

. 40f

t

elev

. 20f

t

elev

. 0ft

elev

. 20f

t

Movie poster (1 hour): This project was for my digital tools class to create a movie poster. The movie plot and overall design were to be inspired by an event found through a current event newspaper article search. Design re-quirements stated that the overall poster must be completed with only the clip mask and the text tools within Adobe Photoshop.

Earth Day poster (3 hours): This project was designed for a local Earth Day fair and an assignment for Digital Tools. An annual local competition and the winner would have their poster used as advertisement for that year’s Earth Day fair. For this particular project, we were only allowed to use clip masking, text, and vector based shapes.

Splice garden (20 hours): This was a design for a Landscape history class which involved another group member and I designing a splice garden (part traditional French garden style and part traditional Japanese garden). The project goal was to splice together these two contrasting design styles to form one coherent garden design. Auto-CAD was used for the line detail work and Illustrator for board layout and graphics.

Album Cover (1 hour): This was a design from a digital tools class which involved designing an album cover for a musical artist. Photoshop was used to produce the album cover designed for the musician Elliott Smith, and was inspired by his song “Between the Bars.”

movie poster earthday poster

splice garden

20album cover

21

Rome, Italy [Summer 2011]: Sketch of building near Vatican City, 20 min., Pen.

London, England [Summer 2011]: Sketch of Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine Pavillion, 15 min., Pen.

London, England [Summer 2011]: Sketch of Richard Rogers Chiswick Park, 5 min., pen

rome sketch

serpentine pavilion

SKETCHES

chiswick park sketch 22

THESISPROJECTMicro to Macro: Unification

through Scales

portland community art center

The Thesis Art Installation was a culmina-tion of information that had been collected throughout the semester from an essay series about modernity and its relationship to Time, Space, and Form & Content as well as information about our individual thesis topics. This informa-tion was synthesized into an art installation that began to show our initial positions/concepts of our Architectural Thesis Project.

Research has revealed that music has the ability to synchronize its listeners. This is evident when attending a concert: as the music begins, perceptions of the individual as unique tend to lessen, while all attendees begin to merge together to form the interacting “crowd,” synchro-nized as one through the sounds. My installation sought to represent this ability through the use of music superimposed upon graphic statisti-cal data of the community of East Portland. To highlight this concept, the installation depicts varying layers of synchronization taking place within the musical process through fi ve frames holding translucent diagrammatical maps; these show a scale of layers from the notes on the sheet music to audience listening together. A fi nal map is depicted on the gallery wall, with a single spot of light shining through the frames upon it, representing East Portland’s relationship to the city of Portland as a whole.

25

MICRO TO MACRO:unification through scales

26

This thesis project emphasized the social sus-tainability of a community in need through the implementation of a community art center where the individuals may gather and enjoy the visual and performance arts. This program was chosen because of the budgetary cuts to our public schools art programs, which in some cases leads to courses being cut. This becomes a concern because of the research that has been done and subsequent fi ndings linking cognitive benefi ts with involvement in art programs.

The project was designed with the idea of a beacon: something that the community can take pride in, therefore allowing for a sense of owner-ship which often leads to safer environments. With this in mind, the site was chosen based on local maps of crime rates, levels of vandalism, proximity to schools, access to public transporta-tion, overall walk-ability, and density. These criterions were created to identify a location that represented an area that was in need, while still allowing full access to all of the community.

27

PORTLAND COMMUNITY ART CENTERportland oregon

28

Connections, both physical and visual, were the main design strategy for the community center. This was accomplished through both the exterior of the building with vertical fi ns allowing visual relationships inside, and also the spatial layout of the interior. By allowing these connec-tions, the community center became capable of engaging the community even if you were not directly involved with the activities taking place. This becomes important for a community center because it can start to engage the entire com-munity, not only the active users.

29

PORTLAND COMMUNITY ART CENTERportland oregon

30

Site

MA

X

MAX

CAR

CAR

CAR

CAR

Public access was key for the success of the community

center. This diagram depicts the vehicular as well as

pedestrian traffi c around the site.

With the community center trying to reach as many

people in need as possible, crime rates were looked at

in order to have the biggest impact. This map shows the

crime rates for the proposed site and surrounding area.

Walkability and public access played a key role in the

selection of site for the community center. This map

shows the walkability for the proposed site in Northern

Portland.

31

With the desire to attain an engaging interior space to display art works and allow for im-promptu performances to take place, the perfor-mance hall became a main design feature that starts to break down the large central area to create these spaces. By allowing the performance hall to be augmented in ways to create spaces within spaces, the design was able to create smaller nooks throughout while also inspiring the users and their art.

PORTLAND COMMUNITY ART CENTERportland oregon

32

33

PORTLAND COMMUNITY ART CENTERportland oregon

The goal behind these details was to create a building that appeared to eff ortlessly carry itself. For this reason, the columns were placed two feet behind the exterior building envelope in order to hide them when viewing the exterior of the building. This led to problems limiting the thermal break of the building envelope because of mechanical vertical shading devices. The solution to this problem was to attach a support arm for the shading devices directly to the concrete fl oor slab with an insulated bracket that helps limit thermal transfer.

34

roof detailfin shading device

steel i-beam column

steel truss

perforated aluminum shading device

glazing

tension cable

foundation detail

perforated aluminum verticalshading device

hopper window

steel i-beam column

concrete slab on grade

sand

gravel

drainage pipe

operable shading device mechanism

wall detail

perforated aluminum verticalshading device steel i-beam column

hopper window

shading devicesupport arm

steel decking

steel support

concrete flooring

Charles Van AusdellEmail: cvanausdell@hotmail.com

Phone: (503)545-6608