Located at the 14th Street bridge anchorage in Manchester (across the James River from Richmond), this project envisions a comprehensive urban design strategy along amidst the city’s industrial icons, adjacent to a defunct industrial canal. The project proposes a three-phase scheme to:

a.) remediate the site as a public landscape;
b.) construct a series of environmental and biomedical research buildings;
c.) establish a civic space that looks back to Richmond. Ultimately, this new gateway landscape will nurture Manchester’s nascent post-industrial identity as the creative capital of Richmond as well as provide vital civic and productive spaces to its inhabitants.

Awarded the Student Prize for The Harlem Edge | Cultivating Connection Competitions organized by Emerging New York Architects (ENYA).

The design proposes a new typology for both the city and the role of the transfer station. The bounds of the program must be expanded to become larger than just a facility for Nourishing NYC; instead, it is an act of uniting the city and its parks, which have been disconnected through typical infrastructural practices. The Stairway to Harlem proposes a unification of the city fabric and its trade route through an expanded experience and through the mission of Nourishing NYC, an outreach for nutritional health.

Rather than a transfer station of waste, the new station becomes a series of productive landscapes through community gardens, vertical greenhouses, educational & cultural programs, markets, and its sustainable shipping port. The new territory of Nourishing NYC becomes an innovative and energetic place for the growth, education, and dispersal of healthy foods.

The once isolated waste transfer station is transformed into a productive educational campus that reconnects the citizens of New York City back to the river through its expansion of the park system and as an active, sustainable, and educational shipping port.

The once isolated waste transfer station is transformed into a productive educational campus that reconnects the citizens of New York City back to the river through its expansion of the park system and as an active, sustainable, and educational shipping port.

A new natatorium and community center is envisioned to revitalize Richmond’s historic Gas Work’s site.  The proposal reuses the existing warehouse buildings to serve as new gymnasiums, spa and sauna rooms, changing rooms and administrative services, while a new building is place in the center to house a olympic size swimming pool.  The interior of the natatorium has a large opening to allow for natural light to filter in and the exterior walls are tailored to allow for views to the historic Gas Works.  A new high dive is introduced within the old gas storage container.

The proposed Roots of Music Center, located on the abandoned Wheatley School site, reclaims the existing school building and forms new spaces for the program’s need for marching and instruction. Reacting to the flat, broad, and elevated structure of the 1950’s elementary school, the proposal creates two heavy vertical bars that stretch perpendicular to the Wheatley’s horizontal momentum, holding classrooms and an indoor marching space. Together they form an enclosed courtyard for private outdoor marching band practices, while also creating an identity for the Roots of Music Program that can be seen from a distance. The idea to constantly march throughout the site informed the spatial organization of both interior and exterior space; a twenty-foot wide corridor weaves through, over, and under both new and existing buildings creating dynamic sequence of spaces for the band.  The proposed design allows for the building to not be in opposition to the march, but instead reinforces the role of marching within the Roots of Music through its form.

Located on land this is currently an abandoned urban renewal site which used to be the home to a vibrant African American community.   The building’s axis is shifted to emphasize the displacement of the once community.

This museum closes itself from the city and opens to the surrounding countryside while defining a new urban edge for future development in its infill location.  Its exterior massing is to solidify the importance of the museum, and its street facade is permeable to allow for the view into the building to become a living display of its interior life.  The museum holds galleries on the top two levels to inform its arts with surrounding view and elevate the galleries above the ground.  A thick linear concrete service core acts as the backdrop to the front facade of the building which allows the interior to become a storage of visual life of the building program.

A new American Academy located along an existing alley and located in the interior of a city block.
Its exterior massing is a light-filled box that is divided in the middle by a translucent facade to separate public and private realms while still allowing visual communication and flows of people, air, and light. Its transparent identity radiates light to the alley at night while exposing the interior life as a invitation for community gatherings. During the day, the glass facade captures as much southern light as possible for this darkened infill site.
The existing site is reinterpreted within the building by a facade that splits the building into two halves. This division creates the vertical connections between the floors and allows sunlight to reflect down into the interior spaces and theater. The first floor gallery, which is open to the theater, is enclosed in glass to expand the building’s experience into its front court and alley.

Stair as Axis | Piazza del Campidoglio, Michelangelo, Rome, 1538-1650
Regarded as one of the most significant contributions to urban planning, this stair creates a strong axial pro- cession within the city through its broad flight of steps. Its character strengthens a procession from street, to piazza, to Palace, to the sky.

Stairways of Rome
Stairs have always been necessary to negotiate movement upon and around the seven hills that comprise the city of Rome. While some stairs may wind down into a cellar, others weave the fabric of the city together. Yet others may suggest a heavenly ascension or the merging of historical and cultural phenomena. Stairs mediate the human scale, cradling our every step and forming places of rest for the body. They are the intersection of forms, the experienced walk between scales, they are central to a larger set of urban and architectural issues. Stairs position within the scale of the larger urban environment, linking seemingly disconnected parts of the city in magical and inspiring ways. As stairs change in scale and character in response to their urban context, they also change the way we perceive processional space. Hierarchical views, sun trajectories, material changes, and align- ments all contribute to the development of each procession’s character, each stair then can be seen as a critical juncture of larger forms that synthesize and weave together our surroundings.

A proposal for a big box development scheme that fused water management, healthy ecosystems, and a system of public parks with typical retail development.

This institute is situated beside the Folk Art Museum and Museum of Modern Art, which is currently an empty lot.  The site strategy was to build on the left side of the lot creating a pedestrian alley, serving as a continuation of the public route on the opposite side of the street.

Internally, the building has four major components: the grotto, the entry, the institute, and the residences.  Each piece of this 20-story building characteristically  creates a dialogue with its surrounding site and also sets up a structural rhythm and logic.

The exterior masses are scaled to give the rhythm and proportion for future development alongside the Concert Hall.

A subterranean plaza develops a threshold for the building while also allowing for the lower level of the building to invite the public into its cafe and community center.

A competition required to participate in during the spring semester of 2012. Worked with 11 other UVA Architecture students in a two week time span to develop a concept for the Belmont Bridge located in Charlottesville, VA. My primary task was graphic representation, where I completed all graphics for the competition submission. The graphics included axons, diagrams, perspectives, and sections.

Received Honorable Mention for the Hines Urban Design Competition 2012

“Green Tech Corridor” a two week competition focusing on developing sustainable community in Downtown Houston through a design proposal that incorporated a market analysis, finanical projections, master plan, identity and job creation, building development phasing, & transportation analysis.