DESIGN/BUILD

Outdoor Classroom at Yeditepe University, Istanbul (Summer 2022). A series of three wooden structures offer a discussion area for classes on a sharply sloped site within a grove of diverse vegetation and tree canopies. The project team included: Prof. Dr. Ece Ceylan Baba, Prof. Dr. Charlie Hailey, Asst. Prof. Dr. Bahar Aktuna, Asst. Prof. Dr. Berna Göl, Asst. Prof. Dr. Burçin Başyazıcı, Asst. Prof. Dr. Esra Karahan, Asst. Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Resta, Lect. Cem Topçu, Lect. Eren Okar, Lect. Nilay Yurtsever, R.A. Erdal Kondakcı, Alphan Buğra Tevetoğlu, Bahar Irmak, Berna Kural, Buse Elif Kule, Ece Özkan, Erzan Fettah, Esra Güney, Deniz Doksat, Elif Kızıl, Eylül Nur Dinç, Lara Portakal, Melis Acar, Nazlı Sena Ceylan, Salih Güney, Sırma Evcen, Umay Ülker, Serkan Ayra.
Catharine Hobday Memorial (Spring 2020): This studio focuses on designing and building a memorial for the town of Cedar Key. Inspired by the coastal environment and the town’s rich history, the project commemorates the life and work of Catharine Hobday, the area’s first and only female lighthouse keeper.
Sky (Fall 2016): On their first visit, students were inspired by the November sky and the salt marsh. Deep azure and bristling grasses. After discussions with members of the community, students developed two approaches (and two working groups): sky and earth. The “sky” team explored ways to connect sandy ground to horizon and upward into the air. “Sky” provides a cathedral’s seats to link ground to sun-filled air. (Four years later, the cedar wood has weathered to a silver patina.)
Carver Pavilion (Spring 2015): Students designed and built a pavilion in White Springs, Florida, to make room for daily activities and to host the annual Emancipation Day events. The project commemorates the teachers of the Carver community.
Art Horse Project at Rawlings Elementary, Gainesville, Florida, with Elizabeth Cronin (Spring 2022). Project team: Zoe Heimburg, Mya Hobson, Keirra Kole, Ellery Susa.
School Desks and Stage Platforms at Rawlings Elementary, with Elizabeth Cronin (Spring 2022). Project team: Jacob Faust, Nicole Fleury, Anthony Hernandez, Julie Noury, Laura Tracy, Jackie Zuckerbrod.
Garden Classroom at Rawlings Elementary, with Elizabeth Cronin (Spring 2022). Project team: Jeremiah Costen, Desinty Leiva, Nicole Marrero, LIam Riley, Eric Rykard, and Ray Wincko.
Drift (Fall 2018): Drift responds to Cedar Key’s desire for a flexible community space, where patrons of the adjacent library can read or access the Wi-Fi, where outdoor movies can be projected on a summer evening, and where tourists can relax outside the Chamber of Commerce. (Grad 3 studio with Sami Rintala and Philip Tidwell)
Earth (Fall 2016): After that first visit and conversations with Cedar Key residents, the “earth” team worked on a horizontal project that hovered over the ground. It lifts you just above the marsh’s sensitive ecosystem. Like the nearby “sky” project, this construction has certain associations: a ship’s hull, a weather vane, or an animal’s skeleton.
Muir’s Rest (Fall 2017): On October 23, 1867, John Muir concluded his thousand-mile walk here in Cedar Key and wrote: “Today, I reached the sea!” 150 years later, to the day, fifteen architecture students completed this project for the town’s Cemetery Point Park to commemorate his journey and his legacies. (Grad 3 studio with Sami Rintala and Philip Tidwell)
Builder’s Yard (Fall 2017): The studio collaborated with the Repurpose Project, a thrift store in Gainesville, to design and build a fence that can be occupied by customers, artisans, and craftspersons.
Trash Castle (Spring 2018): Our studio joined the Repurpose Project in Gainesville to design and build a mobile maker-space that combined an all-in-one fix-it shop, a gallery space, and puppet-stage. (Design 8 studio with Donna Cohen and DK Osseo-Asare)
Studio Percussion Kiosk (Summer 2010): To open and sustain a dialogue between university and community, we will design and construct a studio kiosk for the local nonprofit Studio Percussion, which provides music education to the Alachua County community.
Outdoor education facility (Fall 2010) at Camp Crystal near Keystone Heights, Florida. Sited on Crystal Lake at the intersection of three major ecosystems, Camp Crystal is a unique, environmentally-charged educational setting for Alachua County’s school-age children, all of whom will visit the camp at some point in their education. The camp’s ecological and historical layers, its intensive and indispensable resources for public education, and the multiplicity of stakeholders and participants afford the design-build studio rich opportunities to explore a complex, pedagogically charged program and to rethink ecological frameworks for design at three scales: material detail, open-air building type, and master plan.
Seahorse Stair (Fall 2016): This studio designed and built a walk and stairway to link the Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory (SKML) with the Gulf of Mexico on the key four miles offshore from Cedar Key town. The project responded to the erosion of the ancient dune, hastened by sea level rise and Hurricane Hermine, and provided landings for displaying collected specimens.
Solar Kiosk (Spring 2013): This studio focuses on designing and building an environment- friendly mobile outreach hut for the University of Florida’s Office of Sustainability. Modeled on a bike trailer, this small-scale project allows for intensive exploration of material detail, energy intensity, and cost; project scheduling and fabrication; and the relationship between shelter, the human body, and landscape. The studio project provides an opportunity to explore both static and kinetic architectural systems. Throughout the semester, students will also gain experience discussing the project with the hut’s user group in a variety of settings, which will be analyzed for their climatic, spatial, and formal relation to the mobile unit. Ideas of play and games as educational tools will also be investigated within the construct’s components.
Playscape (Summer 2018): This independent study project designed and built a playground at Satchel’s Pizza for the local community (in collaboration with Elizabeth Cronin).
Field to Fork Pavilion (Spring 2016): This project provides a retreat for gardeners and walkers in the teaching gardens on the University of Florida campus.
Project for migrant farm-worker family (Spring 2014): In this studio, fourth-year architecture students designed and built an outdoor deck and renovated interior spaces of a migrant farmworker family’s mobile home and trailer.