Nicholas Perrin | Recent Work

The projects here represent a selection of work carried out over the last 3 years.

Contents

1. Architecture1.01 Flexible Space | Housing

Second Year M.Arch StudioInstructor: Brian Phillips

1.02 Arc-Graft | Archive for the Guggenheim Institute

2. Small-Scale2.01 Plywood Watering Can

Industrial Design CourseInstructor: Peter Bressler

2.02 3 Birch ChairsSelf Initiated

2.03 Serial Grains | Urban Food Stand First Year M.Arch StudioInstructor: Julie Beckman

3. Urbanism 3.01 Post & Current | Houston Urbanism

ULI/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition Designed with Andreas Kostopoulus, Xiao Lin & Kyle O’ Connor

3.02 Cuban Links | 2 Public Chances for HavanaThird Year M.Arch StudioInstructors: Enrique Norten & Irina VeronaDesigned with Christopher Dowds and Hyungmo Nam

3.03 Informal Armatures | Stitching HarareThird Year LARP StudioInstructors: David Gouverneur & Thabo Lenneiye

Second Year M.Arch StudioInstructors: Ben KroneDesigned with Gray Garmon

The Greenpoint housing structure has two faces, one borders the street and the other interacts with a backyard. Observing the distribution of pervious ground in Greenpoint-Brooklyn we find them predominantly as communal back yards serving an entire block. Working from the typology of the industrial hangar building, while incorporating the backyard into its fabric the building aims to create a dialogue between the urban terrain and the landscape. The building provides an armature for plant growth as well as living. Wedding precedent forms with the environment this structure offers the itinerant inhabitant exposure to a local and removed experience.

The project takes its root from a warehouse typology because (1) of its prevalence within Greenpoint and strong relationship to the immediate area surrounding the site & (2) because the building type provides a blank slate, an inherently flexible space. The project aims to define a system that can be developed to support plant life and people. The building evidences its adaptive potential through the inhabitant’s use and the conflation of programs.

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Flexible Space | Housing

1.01

2

city & shared backyard edge conditions

proposed gradient between two edge types

gradient vector

basic floorplate structure

cleft floorplate merging edge conditions

ground floorunit axon

typical floor planunit assembly

1.01

4

Examining the Archive for the Guggenheim Institute in Long Island City, New York through the lens of grafting presents the opportunity to explore systems of linkage and integration, within the programmatic constraints of the archive, to site and to the Guggenheim Institute at-large. The location of the Archive is interpreted as a microcosm of Long Island city and is situated with respect to the undeveloped Guggenheim museum, while taking cues from the street alignment, train tracks and the different elevations present.

The Grafted Archive is created through altering the present built environment and entwining the core element of the program with the site. At the moments of connection between new development and previous structure a type of callus is formed, and is experienced as a threshold, passage, window or change in materiality.

Grafting provides a structure unlike a hybrid, in that it catalogues what is generative and as well as forms that propagate and deposits of the various types of conflation are catalogued throughout the overall form.

Location: Queens, New York

Arc Graft | Archive for the Guggenheim Institute

1.02

6

1 Stock Building Pedestrian Opportunity

Massing as Bridging Site Grafted Moments

Grafted ArchiveNew Walkways & Open Space

4 Points of Approach 2 Distinct Elevations

1.02

plan at 3’ plan at 18’

plan at 29’ plan at 39’

8

Part sculpture, part product, the Watering Can was made in response to a prompt from a product design course. Its execution was coupled with an analysis of the formal and performative aspects of watering cans over time.

The piece is intended to have a ambiguous relationship with its utilitarian task. Formally, the product distinguishes its fill compartment from its spout with a simple change in height, while the traditional handle has been reduced to two holes that guide the user’s hands.

Plywood Watering Can

2.01

10

The 3 plywood chairs were created as unadorned and inexpensive furniture that clearly exhibited the elements of fastening and production. 5/8” Baltic Birch plywood served as a metric to work within. The designs expose the edge condition of this engineered wood’s laminates to allow subtle disruptions to the simple lines in the furniture.

The seat is emphasized in each chair through framing it by the dimension of the sheet good used, creating a type of surrogate cushion.

3 Birch Chairs

2.02

15”

27.25”

12”

15.25”

16.75”

30.5”

16.75”

18”

21.25”

27.75”

19”

18”

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The Food Stand, within the context of the city, presents a peculiar dialogue with its surroundings. Here, the assembly combines a relentless construction method and subtle changes in form with a sensitivity to a line of sight in hopes of creating an experience where one would become aware of their place within a city with respect to the food they choose to eat.

The design of the structure was rooted in permutations of a previous project, extracting moments of fastening and expanding the derived catalogue of parts into a vernacular for a new project. The repetitive, mechanical-looking, forms that constitute the Food Stand are a result of this process.

Serial Grains | Urban Food Stand

2.03

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2.03

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The site in downtown Houston, though currently blighted by infrastructure, unused buildings and vast lots, provides the opportunity to preserve and revitalize an urban landmark while creating residential loft and office spaces for a diverse demographic.

The massive ex-post office is divided into urban blocks and injected with programmatic variety, while new pedestrian corridors connect the complex to the river front.

Franklin Street is realigned and coupled with new roads for various scales of transport to create a connection to the complex, while encouraging residents to walk and bike.

In the final stage development is fully landscaped, furthering the connection to the river front and providing multiple scales of parks. The emergence of small apartments and retail spaces in the townhouses by the water expand the diversity on the site and fully integrate the development into the fabric of the city at-large.

Location: Houston, Texas

Post & Current | Houston Urbanism

3.01

18

10 ft 20 ft0 ft

12

34

12

34

12

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Franklin Street realigned

Current Building Layout Current Street Layout Proposed Building Layout Proposed Street Layout

Townhouse

Phase 1

fresh air acrossBuilding section: single sided ventilation via a double facade

fresh air in

hot air out

Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

Office Building Retail

Hotel

Theatre Covered Parking

Residential

Townhouse

Single Resident Occupancy

Affordable Housing Office Office Grocery/Retail

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20

Cuban Links | 2 Public Chances for HavanaSite 1 Havana Central Railway Station A site defined as a connector, in fact isolates multiple parts of the city from each other. By replacing the existent rail system, which does not serve the public need, with a Bus Rapid Transit system the land is reused as a botanic garden with defined pedestrian corridors, bike lanes, new vehicular routes and massive amounts of new land new development while maintaining the Historic Train Station as a Cultural Beacon.

Site 2 Loma Modelo, Regla Loma Modelo is the western most barrio in the Regla neighborhood. Through years of industrial use and government occupation the coastline has been rendered unsightly and has detached the community from the bay and disconnects the area from the urban fabric. With the movement of the shipping industry to the Mantanzas Port, further down the coast, the area is available for new programming. Here, entertainment and recreational components are introduced into a new park that acts as a connector between the neighborhood and the bay, to create a type of Urban Siphon, allowing for a place of repose within the urban density.

Location: Havana, Cuba

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2

3.02

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Loma Modelo Park

3.02

Havana Central Park

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Monte Maximo GomezCorralesApodacaGloria

GloriaMisionArsenalNew Road“Rambla”

New RoadNew RoadMalecon

Informal Armatures | Stitching HarareHarare is a patchwork city. The vision for the city in 2040 is progressive and sees it equipped to handle the increase in population by creating new centralities that are ecologically minded and offer vibrant moments in currently under utilized areas.

The relationship between neighboring Glen Norah and Waterfalls is disrupted by the wetlands of the Mukuvisi River. This condition is further amplified by the roads that have been placed without the intention of fostering an infrastructural connection between the neighborhoods. The armature that is proposed combines tiered transit opportunities with the development of the edges of both communities. The tactics employed aim to dissolve the insular tendencies that characterize the city’s urban fabric, and place these neighborhoods in dialogue with each other, as well as the city at large.

By working within the seams of the city, an opportunity for public chance, economic stimulus and community building is created. The link between Glen Norah and Waterfalls is established by improving transit options and existing assets, while introducing programmatic diversity and bamboo as a new productive planting. These interventions enable the development of a culturally rich moment in Harare’s urban fabric that links Glen Norah to Waterfalls.

Location: Harare, Zimbabwe

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Master Plan

3.03

Current Condition New Infrastructural Links

Green Armature Structural Interventions

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Spine ‘A’ | Recreation & Entertainment

Harare Arena Linear Park New Residential Bike Lane Library Market

Spine ‘B’ & ‘C’ | New Residential Density

BRT Hub Market New Residential Museum Mixed Use Retail/Office

Hospital New University Campus Primary School

Spine ‘D’ | Health & Education

3.02

Edge Conditions

Housing & Agriculture

Production & Infrastructure

Recreation

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Nicholas Perrin2013