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DT Suzuki says, “One of the most significant features we notice in the practice of archery, and in fact of all the arts as they are studied in Japan and probably also in other Far Eastern countries, is that they are not intended for utilitarian purposes only or for purely aesthetic enjoyments, but are meant to train the mind; indeed to bring it into contact with the ultimate reality. Archery, is therefore, not practiced solely for hitting the target; the swordsman does not wield the sword just for the sake of outdoing his opponent; the dancer does not dance just to perform certain rhythmical movements of the body. The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.
If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an “artless art” growing out of the Unconscious.”

- Zen in the Art of Archery, Introduction (Eugen Herrigel)


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Fragments of a Mandala


MAKING CONNECTIONS
Bounding lines extend from the forms on the site of the existing Portland Children's Museum and create shapes, intersections, and ultimately connections. The different buildings in their existing phase are separated by an oversized parking area in the center and there are no clear connections. The problem was to design an addition to the Portland Children's Museum which contained program spaces such as a lobby, administration area, stu­dio/workshops, and indoor/outdoor exhibition spaces. There was a concentration on parti and schematic development through the use of diagramming, orthographic, and modeling ...


Portland Children’s Library







After investigation of the site and analyzing program spaces, the idea of the mandala became a driver that sponsored studies of existing connections through bounding lines and circles of presence. Existing and underlying spaces and shapes lended themselves to the creation, location, and forms of the addition. Intersections became important places, nodes, and thresholds.







Circles of Prescence


THE CIRCLE IS KING

This project is a computational intervention of a designed children's bookhouse that investigate the simple geometric principles that drive the program and anchor the final project to its diagram. This is especially important because the simplicity of form facilitates the expression of the parti, and thereby recollects kindergarten exercises in shape and size. In this building, the circle is king.




    




 

In this project, there was an attempt to create a final, end-all iteration of the circle in the building that would condense the sentiment toward the circle that the program expresses, as well as relate back to the meter of the building that exists from the scale of our intervention, to the scale of the site, to the scale of the park.






Layering Systems


This project combines a system of three systems- grids, follies, and frames to create a brewmaster's institute system on a steep hilled wooded site in Asheville, NC.
The horizontal and vertical grid that is oriented to the axis downtown Asheville allows us to create regulation to what looks like random follies and frames. A vertical diagonal grid element that is used for the main structure and to circulate along vertically and to transfer fermentation tanks to the storage unit and exhibition space at the end "frame" tower, The structural grids realized in the project are all rendered in wide-flange/tube columns, beams, and girders.



    
A Brewmaster’s Institute