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Luis OrozcoApril 2011

ID: 260375190

Arch 202 Portfolio

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Material Experiments

ThePassage

PassageDrawings

Housefor a Hero

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Instead of working with concrete in all the textures and shapes that we have around us, I felt it would be more interesting to investigate the qualities and effects of Translucent Concrete in my Material Experiments. The concept that I tried to work on through my investigations was to bring a lightness to a material one would expect to be dark, compressive, and heavy. These investiga-tions led me to finding different ways of puncturing the concrete with materials that would convey light through them. My final experiments were able to bring planes, points, shards of, and even

bent light into this most ubiquitous of building materials.

Material Experiments

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In captivity, beehives are boxes with sheets of honeycomb organised inside. However, in nature, beehives have bulbous shapes, in which the honeycomb grows organically. I wanted to take as-pects of both these environments, the rectilinear and the amorphous, as well as the regularity of the honeycomb pattern, and bring them into the beeker’s. The idea of juxtaposition of opposites continues throughout the passage, whose horizontality stands against the verticality of the black tower, whose dark concrete complements the light that passes through it, and whose reflective,

polished floor contrasts its cast concrete walls.

The Passage

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The aspect of this passage project that drew me to it the most was the range of materials and textures it has. I wanted to show how distinctive all of these materials were, and after a series of texture tests, found a way to represent each material with a different medium and taking ad-vantage of the existing texture of the paper. The actual physical dimensions and the location of entrances were altered from the original model to match the feeling I got from the movie of the

passage expanding from darkness to light.

The Passage Drawings

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I chose to design a house for Tim Delaughter, the frontman and self procliamed insigator of the 23 piece orchestral rock band The Polyphonic Spree. His three most notable characteristics are his strong connection and love for his family and children, his idea of having a Vision for his life and work that is connected to something greater than himslef, and his strong religious undertones. After a thorough site analysis I decided that the view to and from the sight, and how light inter-acted with it were its most important aspects. From these two sets of characteristics I derived the crossed volumes of the house, reminiscent of crossed beams of light, the slatted concrete exterior, the courtyard, and architectural moments such as the staircase and entraceway. The program of

the house included a recording studio and room for a family with four children.

House for a Hero

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