Design Portfolio - Rubin Quarcoopome (2016)

Rubin Quarcoopome’s

PORTFOLIO

2

Rubin O. Quarcoopome37614 Dorchester Drive

Farmington Hills, MI 48331313-204-3319

[email protected]

EDUCATION

Masters of Architecture, 2016Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Bachelor of Science in Evolutionary Anthropology, 2012University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

SKILLS

Digital DesignExtensive knowledge of Rhinoceros 5, Revit, AutoCAD, as well as the Adobe Suite. Experience

with video and audio editing and production. Proficiency with the Microsoft Suite.

WritingSenior Contributor, Gargoyle Humor Magazine, 2009-2012. Wrote pieces for each issue of the magazine. Mentored new recruits to the staff and helped them develop their own writing

style.

ArtLifelong honing of sketching and digital painting skills, with pieces for sale on the professional

art websites, Deviant-Art and Society6.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Venice Biennale Exhibition Fellow, “The Architectural Imagination”, Venice, Italy, 2016Installed and served as docent for the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale. Spent two weeks documenting and installing 12 projects for the

international event from established architects including BairBalliet, Preston Scott Cohen, Stan Allen, MOS, Greg Lynn, Marshall Brown, and Andrew Zago. Then served as docent for the opening days of the Biennale, giving tours of the installation and interacting with press.

Subcontractor, Durrie Design Build, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2015Worked as a paid architectural assistant, tasked with measuring sites, creating BIM models, crafting AutoCAD drawings and renderings,

and meeting with clients to propose new designs. The designs and work were subsequently built, all over the course of three months in the Summer of 2015.

Treasurer, National Organization of Minority Architect Students, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2014-presentIn charge of fundraising and funds for the Taubman chapter of NOMAS, the largest student branch of the organization in the country.

Planned, designed, and supervised numerous school-wide initiatives, keeping the chapter fiscally secure.

Editorial and Technical Assistant, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2013-presentSupervised the filming and technical component of lectures by speakers such as Peter Eisenman and Kristina Ford. Wrote numerous news articles for the Taubman college website. Acted as a major component of promoting the school’s events to the multiple digital sources like

Dezeen and Archinect.

Museum Assistant, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2013-presentAssisted in the installation of several exhibits in the Taubman College Gallery and the Liberty Annex. Helped build components and

arrange them in exhibition spaces. Worked as part of the audio/visual staff for lectures and events.

Graphic Designer, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2012-presentDesigned numerous logos, websites, banners, and graphic components for several businesses and startups, including Benkari Mechanical,

DETour, Products Direct, Roffles, Taxi Black Games, and Detroit Center on Poverty.

AWARDS AND HONORS

National Organization of Minority Architect Students’ Exceptional Student Prize (2016)Honorable Mention - Blank Space’s Fairy Tales Competition for “Honey Street” (2016)

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And the Livin’ is Easy

Resume and Contact Info

Section Story

Fair Street Project

Honey Street

Carr Center

201 E. Huron

The Architectural Imagination

Art

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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The high-rise stank. None of the lavatories or garbage-disposal chutes were working, and a faint spray of urine hung over the face of the building, drifting across the tiers of balconies.

Even the run-down nature of the high-rise was a model of the world into which the future was carrying them, a landscape beyond tech-nology where everything was either derelict or, more ambiguously, recombined in unexpected but more meaningful ways.

The deliberately mindless assaults on anyone found alone or unprotected, the infantile smearing of blood on the walls of empty apartments

By now what violence there was had become totally stylized, spasms of cold and random aggression. In a sense life in the high-rise had begun to resemble the world outside-there were the same ruthlessness and aggression concealed within a set of polite conventions.

The WorkerBee Garden

3-4

6-9

10-13

14-17

22-25

18-21

26-29

30-33

34-37

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ARCHITECTURE“And the Livin’ is Easy”

Fall 2015Exhibited in the Taubman College Gallery Dec. 2015 - Jan. 2016

A comprehensive and imaginative take on the architectural principle of the Gesamtkunstwerk, “And the Livin’ is Easy“ conceptualized a small house that

doubled as a set for an opera.

That opera’s libretto in question was Adolf Loos’s “Poor Little Rich Man”, though the music chosen

was the standout, melancholic song, “Summertime”, from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”. The song’s

sumptuous soul influenced the deliberately stylized and psychedelic exterior and 60’s-inspired circular interior.

The home featured several rounded areas designated as “glow zones” for the surreal quality they gave the exterior character. These zones punctuated the grid of the home, interrupting the three long horizontal strips of the floor plan, and giving rise to unique programmatic elements, such as the centerpiece

glassed garden space. The exterior was then overlaid with a grid of metal, as an inversion to the interior

relationship.

A video was created for the project, using the interior model as a “set” for an adaptation of Loo’s iconic tale.

RENDERED ELEVATION

The play of light, mood, and depth are of paramount importance to the

project.

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INTERIOR RENDERED SECTION

A glimpse at the moody interior of the building. The garden space can be seen, readily transparent, as

well as the glow zone structures, contrasting with the rectangular datum of the grid.

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VIDEO CLIPS

The complimentary video, set to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s “Summertime”, utilized green-

screen effects to project patterns to the model-set. It also featured moving, hand-drawn animation for the

characters.

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ARCHITECTURE“Section Story”

Winter 2016 - Thesis ProjectGroup Project with Jueying Liu

“Section Story” borrows the many techniques of comic book design and applies them towards the creation of the un-imaged structure of J.G. Ballard’s 1975

novel, High Rise. This project imagines the spaces of the titular building intertwined with the plot arcs of

three major characters, Anthony Royal, Richard Wilder, and Robert Laing. These wildly different, mysterious, and often violent arcs are mapped to a section, and proceed to mix the convention of the architectural

drawing with that of the comic book page. Poche and gutter become one, time and sequence rely on the

power of the panel, and the section can now be read in a specific way and direction.

In the end, what is left is a series of readily accessible, yet detailed and complex documents, that express both

the space of a structure and the dynamic narrative of the society therein, never once relinquishing their status as architectural documents. Section Story is an exploration of the importance of narrative in the built

world, so much so that the story shapes the building as much as the other way around.

DETAIL

The elevator shaft of the High Rise, showing several motion states at once

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Laing stood by the tiled verge at the deep end, under the unvarying fluorescent light.

Not for the first time, he wished he had purchased an apartment above the 30th floor. The high-speed elevators were bliss.

The spectacular view always made Laing aware of his ambivalent feelings for this concrete landscape. Part of its appeal lay all too clearly in the fact that this was an environment built, not for man, but for man's absence.

Laing leaned against the parapet, for the first time conscious of the immense distance to the ground below.

The entire 10th floor was given over to a wide concourse, as large as an aircraft carrier’s flight-deck, which contained a supermarket, bank and hairdressing salon, a swimming-pool and gymnasium, a well-stocked liquor store and a junior school for the few young children in the block.

She and her companions began by fooling about in the water, drinking champagne on a rubber raft against the swimming-pool rules and splashing people leaving the changing cubicles.

As he guessed, even this appar-ently casual meeting in Char-lotte’s apartment had been set up to test his attitude to the upper-level residents who were trying to exclude children from the swimming pool.

The changing cubicles were closed, the curtains drawn across the shower stalls.

He gathered that the accountant was complaining that her children, not for the first time, had been urinating in the pool.

He was sure that he had drowned the Afghan, not because he disliked the dog particularly or wanted to upset its owner, but to revenge himself on the upper storeys of the building.

He had seied the dog in the dark-ness when it blundered into the pool. Giving in to a cruel but powerful impulse, he had pulled it below the water. As he held its galvanized and thrashing body under the surface, in a strange way he had been strug-gling with the building itself.

Laing had found the dying architect while chopping firewood in the 25th-floor lobby.

The water had long since drained away, but the sloping floor was covered with the skulls, bones and dismembered limbs of dozens of corpses.

Disturbed less by the sight of these mutilated bodies-residents who had died of old age or disease and then been attacked by wild dogs, Laing assumed-than by the stench, Laing turned away.

When Laing last saw him, he was moving towards the steps at the shallow end of the swimming-pool, as if hoping to find a seat for himself on this terminal slope.

On the polished dining-room table stood two silver candle-sticks

The apartment was the largest he had seen in the building

The high ceiling and masculine furniture reminded him of a house he had visited as a small child.

The waiter now stood alone between the bar and the buffet tables.

The entire cocktail party had moved along the roof

He was encircled by a heavilly breathing group of his fellow residents

Anthony Royal was watching Laing with a thoughtful gaze.

A pair of tattered papier-mache wings, part of a child’s angel costume, were fastened to the victim’s back

Already, led by the jeweller’s widow, they were dragging the injured accoun-tant towards the balustrade.

Royal could almost believe that he was surrounded by a crowd of semi-literate children. The zoon had rebelled against its keeper.

He unlocked the gate of the sculpture garden and moved through the darkness among the statues, releasing the dogs. He saw that the whole interior of the

play-garden was drenched with blood. The tiled floor was slick with bright mucilage.

Dozens of the gulls surrouned him, crowded together on he tiled floor. They followed Royal expectantly, almost as if they had been waiting for him to bring something to them.

These retrievers, poodles and dachschunds were all that remained of the hundreds or so animals who had once lived in the upper floors of the high-rise. They were kept here as a strategic food reserve.

Between the bedrooms a private staircase led upwards to anoth-er chamber, and a small suite of rooms overlooking the roof.

Far older than Wilder, his hair dishevelled by the wind, he stood at the head of the staircase, looking down silently at the intruder below him.

As the architect advanced down the steps towards him, Wilder raised the silver pistol and shot him through the chest.

It had started three weeks earlier when he and Pangbourne had decided to dress for dinner each evenng.

His apartment was empty, the highceilinged rooms deserted.

He could hear a faint hooting noisee from the darkened corridor, moving away from him as if emitted by these escaping women.

Royal had ordered the women to extend the dining-room table to its furthest length, so that he could sit with his back to the high windows and the illuminated decks of the nearby buildings.

The candlelight flickered over the silver cutlery and gold plate, reflected in the silk facings of his dinner-jacket.

The women had brought candles and silverware from secret caches and served an elaborately prepared meal

A bottle of sparkling wine had fallen from a floor fifty feet above, ricocheted off an awning as it hurtled downwards, and burst across the tiled balcony floor

Laing looked out at the high-rise four hundred yards away. A temporary power failure had occurred, and on the 7th floor all the lights were out. Already torch-beams were moving about in the darkness, as the residents made their first confused attempts to discover where they were. Laing watched them contentedly, ready to welcome them to their new world.

Presumably the bottle had been knocked over the rail by a boisterous guest. Needless to say, no one at the party was in the least concerned about the ultimate destination of this missile-but as Laing had already discovered, people in high-rises tended not to care about tenants more than two floors below them.

This over-priced cell, slotted almost at random into the cliff face of the apartment building, he had bought after his divorce specifically for its peace, quiet and anonymity.

A marauding band of women led by Mrs Wilder had entered the apartment. The circle of women drew closer. In their bloodied hands they carried knives with narrow blades.

Laing knew that he was far happier now than ever before, despite all the hazards of his life, the likelihood that he would die at any time from hunger or assault.

Would he soon be the last person alive in the high-rise? He thought of himself in this enormous building, free to roam its floors and concrete galleries, to climb its silent elevator shafts, to sit by himself in turn on every one of its thousand balconies.For weeks all he had been able to think about were

the next raid, the next apartment to be ransacked, the next tenant to be beaten up.

Giving up, Laing stood to one side. He watched as the shocked young woman stumbled into the mouth of this eager gauntlet and was pummelled through a circuit of fists before she was allowed to disappear into the stairwell.

His neighbours were like a group of unrehearsed extras playing a lynch scene.

The party was one of the most successful Laing had attended. Unlike the majority of parties in the high-rise, at which well-bred guests stood about exchanging professional small-talk before excusing themselves, this one had real buoyancy, an atmosphere of true excitement.

Laing immediately recognized her as one of the "vagrants", of whom there were many in the high-rise, bored apartment-bound housewives and stay-at-home adult daughters who spent a large part of their time riding the elevators and wandering the long corridors of the vast building, migrating endlessly in search of change or excitement.

Although it was after ten o'clock, the entire building was alive with noise. Residents were barging in and out of each other's apartments, shouting down the staircases like children refusing to go to bed.





The only real events in his life were those taking place within the high-rise.

As he pulled back the steel grille he noticed a thin-shouldered young woman hiding behind the control panel. She was pallid and undernourished, but she watched Wilder with interest, as if glad to welcome him to this private domain.

Wilder soon found that it was more difficult than he had assumed to climb to the 37th floor. The five top-floor elevators were either out of order or had been taken to the upper levels and parked there with their doors jammed open.

His own body was almost naked, and he rubbed at the lipstick smeared across his chest and shoulders

The walls around him had been freshly painted, their white surfaces gleaming in the after noon sunlight like the entrance to an abattoir.

The old woman, unable to take her eyes off the dog, stepped through the gap in the barricade.

A young woman of about thirty, probably the daughter, peered over the old woman’s shoulder.

The stair case was carpeted, muffling the tread of his boots.

The sun, continuing its laboured descent of the stair-well, at last reached hem and began to warm his skin.

The dog’s eyes were fixed on the landing above. Its ears picked as it detected the sounds, inaudible to Wilder, of someone moving behind the barricade.

Beside a burnt-out fire, an elderly man lay asleep, apparently unaware of the spasm of violence that had taken place.

The residents of the high-rise remained where they were, hiding behind the barricades in their apartments, conserving what was left of their sanity and preparing themselves for the night.

Three doors along, Laing entered an abandoned apartment. The rooms were empty, the furniture and fittings long since stripped away.

Suspecting a secret food cache, he rolled back the carpet, and found that a manhole had been drilled through the wooden floorboards and concrete deck to the apartment below.

A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties lay fully dressed on the bed, playing with a persian cat. The cat vigorously licked at the bloodstains on its coat, and then seized the woman's wrist and gnawed at the thin flesh, trying to reopen a wound.

Realizing that his arrival had been anticipated by all these people, Wilder turned to leave, but the corridor behind him was blocked. A group of six residents had emerged together from the elevator lobby.

With his powerful physique he knew that he could put to flight any three residents of the high-rise. However, he calmed himself, deciding against a frontal attack-he would reach the top of the high-rise, but by guile rather than by brute force.

The first clubs whirled in the torch-light. Without any warning, he felt a flurry of blows on his shoulders .

He felt suddenly exhausted, as much by the building's weight and mass as by his own failure. His casual and unthought-out attempt to scale the building had ended humiliatingly. In a sense he had been rejected more by the high-rise than by Royal and his friends.

He climbed the steps two at a time. The staircase was deserted-the higher up the building the more reluctant were the residents to use the stairs, as if this in some way demeaned them.

He stepped out with relief into the deserted lobby of the 37th floor. He stood by the staircase doors, suspicious that no one was guarding the lobby.

As he pressed on upwards Wilder peered through the windows at the car-park sinking from view below.

OVERVIEW

All sixteen panels combined, with three plot arcs influencing the architecture

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DETAIL

Featured here are a few panels showing Robert Laing’s plot arc. His is a more nostalgic journey, and is rendered with circular, temporally displaced rooms

evoking the comic image of thought-bubbles.

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PRESENTATION

Section Story realized on the wall at Final Review. Meant to resemble a comic page, the project took advantage of a painted wall and vellum prints mounted on thin pieces of museum board. A comic book guide to the

design concept was also created, mounted to the right.

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ARCHITECTURE“Fair Street Project”

Summer 2015Subcontracting Work for Durrie Design Build

The Fair Street Project was a remodel of a retired couple’s home. The design ambition was to open up

the formerly claustrophobic kitchen to the outside. This new vision eliminates an overbearing wall and readjusts

cabinets to rest consistently under the lowest beam height. The deck connected to the space, on the other hand, was given greater emphasis, with massive floor-to-

ceiling windows bathing the area in light.

The couple ultimately and enthusiastically agreed to the renovation, citing my drawings and renderings as critical to their decision-making. The remodeling

finished in February 2016.

DETAIL

A view from the remodeled kitchen looking out to the backyard.

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Drawing No.

Graphic Scale

Drawing Title

Designer

Nick Durrie1444 Jewett Ave

Ann Arbor, MI48104

1731 Fair St.Ann Arbor, MI

48103

6/30/2015

Detailed Sections

RQ (ND)

Project

Revision Date

Drawn by (Checked by)

04

0’ 4’ 8’2’

0’

123”

95”24³⁄4”

90¹⁄4” FF to Beam

83”FF to Beam

30”

126” finished

123”

95”24³⁄4”

90¹⁄4” FF to Beam

83”FF to Beam

30”

126” finished

R15 Kraft faced fiberglass batt insulation

2” x 4” joist, 16” O.C.

1” closed cell foam bd.

1/2” ply sheathing

Ext. siding

R21 Kraft faced fiberglass batt insulation2” x 8” joist,16” O.C. (cantilevered)

3/4” subfloor w/ 3/4”oak floor

Cantilevered 3:1 ratio bolts

2” foam bd

Cement bd. exterior cladding

INTERIOR ELEVATIONDETAILED WALL SECTION

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Drawing No.

Graphic Scale

Drawing Title

Designer

Nick Durrie1444 Jewett Ave

Ann Arbor, MI48104

1731 Fair St.Ann Arbor, MI

48103

6/30/2015

Plan - 2F

RQ (ND)

Project

Revision Date

Drawn by (Checked by)

02

0’ 4’ 8’2’

DN

N

Master Bedroom

Reconfigure 2 bedrooms into Master Suite

Living Room Existing Roof Deck

Possible screened-in porch

Remove existing kitchen walls (leave bearing post)

Dining Room

PLAN - 2F

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The QueenHoney ResevoirThe QueenHoney Resevoir

ARCHITECTURE“Honey Street”

Fall 2014 - Situations Studio Final ProjectWinter 2015 - Honorable Mention, Blank Space Fairy Tales Competition

One of the largest honey packers in the country, Groeb Farms Inc. of Onsted, Michigan, decided to start a bold new initiative, Honey Street. This project was meant both as a way to revitalize the Highland Park area and to make a tidy profit from the bee

industry. Three nearby buildings were picked: a church, a strip club,and a hotel. Each was given an aspect of honey production while retaining its initial program.

However, in 2013, Groeb Farms was caught in the largest food crime of all time, Honeygate. It drove

them to bankruptcy. Their Honey Street initiative had to be abandoned, and the buildings were vacated

and left unoccupied for years. But the bee contribution never stopped. As walls weakened and fell apart, the hives within began to become visible. As the honey

bulbs kept dripping, pools of the substance began to form. Bees began to remake the structure, and the local community found renewed use in the mutated

places they suddenly had access to.

This conceptual project’s aim was to combine a stirring narrative with an imaginative architectural proposition

for an area of Detroit.

DETAIL

A closeup of the church’s massive honey pool.

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DETAIL

A closeup of the hotel before and after its conquest by bees. The former is a fairly benign hotel, with a courtyard. The latter is a fully formed bee garden.

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The DroneHive Complex

The DroneDeja Vu

The DroneHive Complex

SECTIONS

The Deja Vu gentlemen’s club, once a bee trap, has fallen victim to arson (p. 20). The Revival Tabernacle’s former honey storage grew to excess, with a huge pool

of honey a reminder of what once was. (p.21).

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The QueenHoney Resevoir

The QueenRevival Tabernacle

The QueenRevival Tabernacle

The QueenHoney Resevoir

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ARCHITECTURE“201 E. Huron”

Winter 2015 - Systems Studio Final ProjectGroup Project with Ye Fu

Designed with my partner for the semester, Ye Fu, 201 E. Huron envision a mixed-use commercial/residential

building situated in downtown Ann Arbor. The lot was small, at 9000 ft2, but with an FAR of 5.7, was capable of sustaining a skinny, tall residential tower on its commercial podium. This residential space (30,184 ft2) came in four distinct unit types, each

taking advantage of the facade’s louvre and balcony alternate patterning.

The podium consisted primarily of office space (15,218 ft2), with a handful of retail spaces (2,602

ft2). The lobby space was highlighted by a vibrant and expansive stairway connecting the three floors.

My contributions to the project’s deliverables included all renderings, the West detailed wall section and

material elevation, and plans for the podium floors.

INTERIOR RENDER

Inside the lobby of the podium, underneath the unique staircase.

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2F - Office

4F - Residential

1F - Office

3F - Office

Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 4

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Site 3: 201 E. Huron St, Ann Arbor, MiFAR (Max): 6.95 (7.00)Height: 120 ftRetail/Office: 1F-3FHousing: 4F-11F

North Wall Section 3/4” = 1’Detailed Plan 3/4” = 1’

North Elevation 3/4” = 1’

1 Flooring: Tile 1” Reinforced concrete mortar bed 1” Waterproof membrane 1” Reinforced concrete slab 8”2 Precast concrete panels 2” Thermal insulation 2” Structural precast concrete wall 8” Interior concrete finish 1”3 Floor screed Waterproof membrane 1” Structural precast concrete slab 8”4 Operable wood-frame windows

1

2

3

4

DETAILED WALL SECTION/ELEVATION

Elements of the building was carefully considered, from the specific tiling system to operable windows to

promote circulation within living spaces.

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ARCHITECTURE“The Carr Center - Projective Plan for Transformation”

Fall 2014Group Project with Anya Sirota + AKOAKI

This collaborative project with Anya Sirota and her design collective, AKOAKI, saw the creation of a

massive and complex model meant to convince the board of Detroit’s iconic Carr Center of the value of the space. The proposal imagined a revitalization of the interior, injecting the old with the new in the form of exhibition spaces, mixed medium workspaces, and an ambitious third-floor ballroom transformed into an

experimental cultural space.

Thanks to this model, and the tireless work carried out by myself and others, the proposal saved the Carr

Center from being sold to the highest bidder.

I was involved in every step of the model’s creation over a two-week period, from laser-cutting of acrylic plates, to spray-painting of entourage and scenery, to

installation of lighting and overall assembly.

DETAIL

Exterior shot from amidst the trees in Harmonie Park.

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INTERIORS

Several glimpses at the model’s interior, showing, from top to bottom and left to right, the mixed medium workspaces, the experimental cultural space, and the grand staircase of

the lobby.

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ARCHITECTURE“The Architectural Imagination”

Summer 2016 - US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice BiennaleCurated by Monica Ponce de Leon & Cynthia Davidson

Detroit is a city of tremendous potential, and one undergoing an overdue resurgence. Ponce de Leon & Davidson’s submission to the 2016 Venice Biennale, “The Architectural Imagination”, is a work focused on making the architectural possibilities the city overflows

with apparent to the world.

As one of six Fellows chosen to install the exhibition, my contribution included unpacking, repairing,

assembling, framing, and mounting the twelve projects in time for opening day. These projects included work

from Marshall Brown, Preston Scott Cohen, MOS Architects, Andrew Zago, Bairballiet, and Stan Allen,

among many talented others.

The conclusion of the installation saw my duties transition to that of a docent, supervising the exhibition

through the first several days, interacting with press, and giving tours to the thousands of guests that excitedly lined outside the Pavilion, hungry for a

glimpse inside.

INSTALLATION

Determining the layout of Present Future’s project for the US Post Office

32

INSTALLATION FLOW

The twelve projects came in thirty-nine crates, all of which were unpacked, documented, and installed. The

exhibition was well-received and well-attended.

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INSTALLATION

Mitch McEwen’s project for Mexicantown required days of framing, mounting, and model assembly and repair. The final piece came together to the great satisfaction

of the architect.

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ARTCreated between 2014-2015

Architecture and Art are the two great loves of my life, and I would be remiss to feature one without the other. The following are several works of art of mine, showcasing a range of competencies from the digital sphere - using Photoshop and Wacom Tablets - to the traditional pencil and paper to explorations in

photography.

“THE COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED” Photography - Fall 2015

A well-timed capture of a family of deer running in front of an austere

concrete apartment building.

35

2015

FG

See Like Me How

to See Like an Architect Quarcoopome

“SEE LIKE ME: HOW TO SEE LIKE AN ARCHITECT” Digital and Physical Book - Fall 2015

A rhyming children’s book meant to communicate complex architectural concepts to first-graders. A copy was given to a

grateful class after a well-received and enthusiastic public reading.

36

“MONONOKE” Digital - Fall 2015

A digitally drawn and painted rendition of an iconic scene from Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke.

“SELFIE” Digital - Fall 2015

A digitally drawn and painted satirical take on the modern selfie, showing the several pop-culture creations and influences on the

mind of the artist.

37

“IMPOSTER” Digital - Fall 2014

The ambition of IMPOSTER was to reimagine Hugh Ferris’ rich sketch drawing of the Johnson Wax Company Building through the stylized

lens of Morphosis’ Hamburger Stand.

38


Laing stood by the tiled verge at the deep end, under the unvarying fluorescent light.

Not for the first time, he wished he had purchased an apartment above the 30th floor. The high-speed elevators were bliss.

The spectacular view always made Laing aware of his ambivalent feelings for this concrete landscape. Part of its appeal lay all too clearly in the fact that this was an environment built, not for man, but for man's absence.

Laing leaned against the parapet, for the first time conscious of the immense distance to the ground below.

The entire 10th floor was given over to a wide concourse, as large as an aircraft carrier’s flight-deck, which contained a supermarket, bank and hairdressing salon, a swimming-pool and gymnasium, a well-stocked liquor store and a junior school for the few young children in the block.

She and her companions began by fooling about in the water, drinking champagne on a rubber raft against the swimming-pool rules and splashing people leaving the changing cubicles.

As he guessed, even this appar-ently casual meeting in Char-lotte’s apartment had been set up to test his attitude to the upper-level residents who were trying to exclude children from the swimming pool.

The changing cubicles were closed, the curtains drawn across the shower stalls.

He gathered that the accountant was complaining that her children, not for the first time, had been urinating in the pool.

He was sure that he had drowned the Afghan, not because he disliked the dog particularly or wanted to upset its owner, but to revenge himself on the upper storeys of the building.

He had seied the dog in the dark-ness when it blundered into the pool. Giving in to a cruel but powerful impulse, he had pulled it below the water. As he held its galvanized and thrashing body under the surface, in a strange way he had been strug-gling with the building itself.

Laing had found the dying architect while chopping firewood in the 25th-floor lobby.

The water had long since drained away, but the sloping floor was covered with the skulls, bones and dismembered limbs of dozens of corpses.

Disturbed less by the sight of these mutilated bodies-residents who had died of old age or disease and then been attacked by wild dogs, Laing assumed-than by the stench, Laing turned away.

When Laing last saw him, he was moving towards the steps at the shallow end of the swimming-pool, as if hoping to find a seat for himself on this terminal slope.

On the polished dining-room table stood two silver candle-sticks

The apartment was the largest he had seen in the building

The high ceiling and masculine furniture reminded him of a house he had visited as a small child.

The waiter now stood alone between the bar and the buffet tables.

The entire cocktail party had moved along the roof

He was encircled by a heavilly breathing group of his fellow residents

Anthony Royal was watching Laing with a thoughtful gaze.

A pair of tattered papier-mache wings, part of a child’s angel costume, were fastened to the victim’s back

Already, led by the jeweller’s widow, they were dragging the injured accoun-tant towards the balustrade.

Royal could almost believe that he was surrounded by a crowd of semi-literate children. The zoon had rebelled against its keeper.

He unlocked the gate of the sculpture garden and moved through the darkness among the statues, releasing the dogs. He saw that the whole interior of the

play-garden was drenched with blood. The tiled floor was slick with bright mucilage.

Dozens of the gulls surrouned him, crowded together on he tiled floor. They followed Royal expectantly, almost as if they had been waiting for him to bring something to them.

These retrievers, poodles and dachschunds were all that remained of the hundreds or so animals who had once lived in the upper floors of the high-rise. They were kept here as a strategic food reserve.

Between the bedrooms a private staircase led upwards to anoth-er chamber, and a small suite of rooms overlooking the roof.

Far older than Wilder, his hair dishevelled by the wind, he stood at the head of the staircase, looking down silently at the intruder below him.

As the architect advanced down the steps towards him, Wilder raised the silver pistol and shot him through the chest.

It had started three weeks earlier when he and Pangbourne had decided to dress for dinner each evenng.

His apartment was empty, the highceilinged rooms deserted.

He could hear a faint hooting noisee from the darkened corridor, moving away from him as if emitted by these escaping women.

Royal had ordered the women to extend the dining-room table to its furthest length, so that he could sit with his back to the high windows and the illuminated decks of the nearby buildings.

The candlelight flickered over the silver cutlery and gold plate, reflected in the silk facings of his dinner-jacket.

The women had brought candles and silverware from secret caches and served an elaborately prepared meal





A marauding band of women led by Mrs Wilder had entered the apartment. The circle of women drew closer. In their bloodied hands they carried knives with narrow blades.

Laing knew that he was far happier now than ever before, despite all the hazards of his life, the likelihood that he would die at any time from hunger or assault.

Would he soon be the last person alive in the high-rise? He thought of himself in this enormous building, free to roam its floors and concrete galleries, to climb its silent elevator shafts, to sit by himself in turn on every one of its thousand balconies.For weeks all he had been able to think about were

the next raid, the next apartment to be ransacked, the next tenant to be beaten up.










The only real events in his life were those taking place within the high-rise.

As he pulled back the steel grille he noticed a thin-shouldered young woman hiding behind the control panel. She was pallid and undernourished, but she watched Wilder with interest, as if glad to welcome him to this private domain.

Wilder soon found that it was more difficult than he had assumed to climb to the 37th floor. The five top-floor elevators were either out of order or had been taken to the upper levels and parked there with their doors jammed open.

His own body was almost naked, and he rubbed at the lipstick smeared across his chest and shoulders

The walls around him had been freshly painted, their white surfaces gleaming in the after noon sunlight like the entrance to an abattoir.

The old woman, unable to take her eyes off the dog, stepped through the gap in the barricade.

A young woman of about thirty, probably the daughter, peered over the old woman’s shoulder.

The stair case was carpeted, muffling the tread of his boots.

The sun, continuing its laboured descent of the stair-well, at last reached hem and began to warm his skin.

The dog’s eyes were fixed on the landing above. Its ears picked as it detected the sounds, inaudible to Wilder, of someone moving behind the barricade.

Beside a burnt-out fire, an elderly man lay asleep, apparently unaware of the spasm of violence that had taken place.

The residents of the high-rise remained where they were, hiding behind the barricades in their apartments, conserving what was left of their sanity and preparing themselves for the night.

Three doors along, Laing entered an abandoned apartment. The rooms were empty, the furniture and fittings long since stripped away.

Suspecting a secret food cache, he rolled back the carpet, and found that a manhole had been drilled through the wooden floorboards and concrete deck to the apartment below.

A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties lay fully dressed on the bed, playing with a persian cat. The cat vigorously licked at the bloodstains on its coat, and then seized the woman's wrist and gnawed at the thin flesh, trying to reopen a wound.

Realizing that his arrival had been anticipated by all these people, Wilder turned to leave, but the corridor behind him was blocked. A group of six residents had emerged together from the elevator lobby.

With his powerful physique he knew that he could put to flight any three residents of the high-rise. However, he calmed himself, deciding against a frontal attack-he would reach the top of the high-rise, but by guile rather than by brute force.

The first clubs whirled in the torch-light. Without any warning, he felt a flurry of blows on his shoulders .

He felt suddenly exhausted, as much by the building's weight and mass as by his own failure. His casual and unthought-out attempt to scale the building had ended humiliatingly. In a sense he had been rejected more by the high-rise than by Royal and his friends.

He climbed the steps two at a time. The staircase was deserted-the higher up the building the more reluctant were the residents to use the stairs, as if this in some way demeaned them.

He stepped out with relief into the deserted lobby of the 37th floor. He stood by the staircase doors, suspicious that no one was guarding the lobby.

As he pressed on upwards Wilder peered through the windows at the car-park sinking from view below.

39

Thank You for

Your Time.

Design Portfolio - Rubin Quarcoopome (2016)

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Transcript of Design Portfolio - Rubin Quarcoopome (2016)