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Jonathan LeJune holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Science in Design Research from the University of Michigan. His design research posits the demolition of monolithic institutions by accepting the digital methodologies of networks. The work, which exists across scales and disciplines, from graphic design to community based design to the design of landscapes, constantly interrogates the cultural conditions of place and the institutions that operate within geopolitical landscapes.

The work presented here takes as its subject matter those spaces/things/objects which would otherwise go unnoticed in our experience of an urban condition. The

design research agenda posits that through thorough exploration these spaces can do work on both the discipline of architecture and the urban fabric. This design research has the ability to achieve “a simultaneity of fragmentation, anonymity, promiscuity, utter strangeness, unknowable difference, and obscene perverse pleasure.” (John Ricco, The Logic of the Lure.)

My interests lie in social responses to the agitation of ubiquitous environments through architectural interventions in post-digital urbanism. Categorized through a resistance to reduce place to location, this work is about an urbanism that is networked but not contiguous. Sites of intervention are marked, in such a way as to describe a

set, an archipelago, however, the set is not geographically stitched together, rather connections are virtual rather than physical.

Rather than placing emphasis on the location of specific sites marked on the map, these projects were chosen for their propensity to be at once highly specific spots of intervention while at the same time being part of a larger geopolitical condition which facilitates a conversation around those specific works not just as doing work on that particular site, but on sites like it everywhere. In this way, the work compiled here it is both over- and under- specified in its detailing, allowing for kinds of inequalities perpetuated by institutionalized objects to be rethought and reworked to benefit the marginalized.

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Plexus

St. Claude Grocery

740 Phosphor

Tenochtitlán_Templo Mayor

Jacob’s Theatre

Woodlands

The Delta Floods

Project Reach: The Farm

Urban Anonymity

Bad Inifinity

Profile

Contents

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We’ve been taught to see architecture as singular forms. Buildings are envisioned as discrete objects placed within a Cartesian field. However, the ambition of this thesis reconceives the project of architecture as an interface between a person and their context. Rather than architecture standing as a singular form, it instead engages in the social act. The physical manifestation of the architecture would then not represent some abstract ideal, it manifests the potential for the user to engage with the architecture and the institution of healthcare in new and never entirely predictable ways.

The idea that health should be preventative and proactive rather than reactionary was explored through the architectural intervention of a community health center coupled with a library, legal aid office, and job placement program. This assortment of programs was chosen because the model for public healthcare currently fails as a singular form, as a monolithic institution. Effective architecture addresses the social imbalances present; the project effects an area that extends beyond the typical architectural site.

Plexus LocationNew Orleans, LA

Thesis AdvisorsJori ErdmanJim Sullivan

DateFall 2010-Spring 2011

ProgramHealth Clinic

Area20,000 sf

Thesis CommitteeNick MarshallRobert ZwirnGreg Schufreider

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This project was awarded a $25,000 pre-development grant for our non-profit partner.

In this adaptive reuse of an existing box retail center, the objective of the project is to bring a grocery store into the Lower Ninth Ward to alleviate a fresh food desert that has historically been in existence even before the storm.

This project was designed to LEED Silver standards. The student team was comprised of two architecture students, three urban planning graduate students, and two graduate finance students. We worked with the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development and held several community meetings throughout the process to ensure the support network would be in place to allow the project to move forward.

LocationNew Orleans, LA

Faculty AdvisorRobert Zwirn

DateFall 2009

AwardFirst Prize, Chase Community Development Competition

ProgramGrocery Store

Area20,000 sf

Non-Profit ClientCenter for Sustainable Engagement & Development

CollaboratorsLSU ARCHITECTURE

Marcelle BoudreauxUNO PLANNING

Rosanna BallingerMelissa EhlingerJohn KingLucas LillyDEPAUL UNIvERSITy, BUSINESS

Ian KosKevin Down

St. Claude Grocery

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740 Phosphor

This project attempted to resolve the particular issues of programming a dentist office in a suburban setting. Through exploring alternative methods of construction and siting and focusing on making the minimal amount of architectural gestures that would result in the maximum amount of architectural delight, the simple system of a panelized rain screen cladding over corrugated metal became the organizing element of the project.

The site was overrun with a series of coded conditions which limited the eventual form of the architectural object. A series of setbacks and easements prompted a stricter than usual relationship between the footprint of the building and the amount of parking required by zoning laws. The parking lot in this case drove the design of the building. The cantilever in the rear of the project allows the second story to gain additional square footage while accommodating parking spaces underneath.

LocationMetaire, LA

Studio InstructorRobert Zwirn

DateFall 2008

ProgramDental office and leasable tenant space

Area4200 sf

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The ruins of the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlán have been left without a proper response to the impact their unearthing has had on the cultural ties of the Mexican peoples. When Cortez came and destroyed Tenochtitlán, he not only demolished their city center, he removed their right to overtly express their culture and religion. With the exposure of this destruction at the Templo Mayor within the last few decades, the architectural response that is now required is to provide visitors to the site with a way to interface with the different layers of history.

By the insertion of the new layering itself onto the face of the old, parallels can be drawn to the way in which Hispanic history has been layered literally on top of the Mexica past. The project also attempts on another level to try to bring focus onto several present-day issues facing the Mexican people. The material choices use common materials in an improbable way. The urban garden emphasizes the lack of social architecture for the poor of the city.

The building photosynthesizes (through a photo-voltaic array), it breathes (by use of the sun space and eutetic salts), the building sweats (the green wall on the ramp portion goes through evapotranspiration), and the building provides nourishment for other organisms (through a community garden).

LocationMexico City, Mexico

Studio InstructorMichael Pitts

DateSpring 2009

ProgramArcheological Site Mitigation

Area5600 sf

Tenochtitlán_Templo Mayor

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LocationMcComb, MS

OfficeCommunityworks

Faculty AdvisorsMarsha Cuddeback and Frank Bosworth

DateSpring 2010

ProgramConference Center

Area27,600 sf

ClientDavid Feldman

CollaboratorsRiley KingJessica Wasiloski

Jacob’s Theatre

This project was part of a summer program in McComb, Mississippi that was focused on partnering students with local business owners who were part of the Main Street Association. I was the project leader, and along with two other students, developed this design for a new conference center.

By converting the historic Jacob’s Theatre building into a convention center for 350 event-goers, downtown McComb will be able to host events that previously could not have been held in town for lack of a venue large enough to house that many people. A conference center on the corner of Main and Broadway will also bring a large amount of foot traffic to the surrounding streets and businesses, which translates to higher revenue for existing businesses and an added incentive for new businesses to locate downtown.

In order for the conference center to extend its range of active use beyond just the occasional large event, offices for the McComb Main Street Association, Office of Tourism, Chamber of Commerce, and the Office of Economic Development will move into the ground floor of the building. In addition to the offices, a small café/magazine stand will bring early morning and lunchtime foot traffic to the area. A bar in the historic fly space of the theatre extends the hours of the building later into the evening.

A new entrance along Broadway Avenue will serve as the primary entrance for the Historic Jacob’s Theatre Conference Center. The grand stair located in the lobby doubles as an area for auditorium-style seating in the lobby. The Mezzanine level includes an executive office for the operations manager of the convention center as well as a large conference room.

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conference rooms

office incubators

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LocationBelle Chasse, LA

OfficeCommunityworks

Faculty AdvisorsMarsha Cuddeback and Frank Bosworth

DateFall 2009-Spring 2010

ProgramMississippi River Pavilion and Nature Center

Area6000 sf

Non-Profit ClientKatie BrastedWoodlands Conservancy

CollaboratorsElizabeth Williams and Laura Perez

Woodlands Trail & Park

This project presented Communityworks, LSU’s Office of Community Design and Development the opportunity to work with a client in developing a schematic design for a nature center in one of the last stands of bottomland hardwood cypress forests in the region.

The interpretive center is sited in an opening in the canopy caused by the felling of trees in the park during Hurricane Katrina. Placing the building in this particular location had several beneficial consequences. First, it allowed the interpretive center to act as a gateway into the park as it is within fifty yards of the trail head, deep enough within the forest to provide a sense of being within the park, but not so far as to be inaccessible to clients with limited mobility. Also, siting the building there meant that no old growth trees would be cut down in the process of building both the new center and the constructed wetland that abuts the center.

The Mississippi River Pavilion project presented a rare opportunity in that we were able to work with our client to move beyond their preconceived idea of what an appropriate architectural response to building at the water’s edge should be. Instead, by deciding upon an intervention within the landscape, the project became much more involved with the phenomena of the Mississippi River and the levee system.

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The aim of the documentary was to provide a historical context for the flooding of the Mississippi which occurred in the spring of 2011. Moreover, once the geopolitical history of man’s attempt to control the delta was understood, a new path forward could be proposed that allows for continued occupation of the landscape both by the commercial institutions which have benefited from the river and the alluvial soils of the delta, as well as the people whose homes and businesses have been threatened by choking off the sediment deposits that offset the subsidence of land in coastal Louisiana.

LocationMississippi River Watershed

OfficeCoastal Sustainability Studio

Faculty AdvisorsJeffery CarneyMichael Pasquier

DateSummer 2011

TypeDocumentary

Duration00:09:45

CollaboratorsLANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Audrey CroppBenjamin Wellington

ENvIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Jenna Milliner

The Delta Floods

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In an effort to supplement the program that Project Reach offers at risk youth in New york City, the non-profit has acquired a farm in upstate New york to serve as a grounds for testing the limits of interaction and conflict resolution. The strategy for accomplishing this through the adaptive reuse of the existing buildings on the site was to create an architecture that promoted interaction both with others in the space and with the spatial conditions themselves.

The existing coop is salvaged and accepted as-is, forming a deeply written shroud around a small internal volume for quiet meditation. The sliding roof retracts, exposing the interior alternatively to the warming sun and the splendor of the rural night sky.

Although heavily weathered, the coop will provide a shroud around the proposed interior volume. The occupant may experience the outdoors through the protection interior of enclosure and move through a slip-space between the layers of the building.

The Milk House structure was once used to keep fresh milk cold during the warmer months. Its massive concrete foundation acting as a heat sink was supplied with cold groundwater from a nearby stream. This design rethinks the Milk House as a modest bathhouse with shower and a long white cedar tub that penetrates the facade. Coils run from the projecting tub to create an exterior fire pit, which in turn heats the bath water through natural convection and provides a focal element for social gathering.

A 1950’s era wood framed house becomes the site for expanded sanitary facilities at the Farm through this proposal for a corral to contain a set of Port-A-Potties that are either in use as demand dictates, or cleaned and docked in a large stall. The existing structure is infested with mold and clad with asbestos tiles, two conditions that preempt inhabitation and renovation.

LocationFleischmanns, New york

OfficeMankouche + Schulte

Faculty AdvisorsStephen MankoucheMatthew Schulte

DateFall 2012

ProgramAdaptive Reuse of existing farm buildings into a camp for urban youth.

ComponentsStar-gazing ShedMilk HousePort-a-potty Corral

CollaboratorsJono SturtCharlie veneklaseMelinda RouseClaire Sheridan

The Farm:Gaming Strategies for Empowering Marginalized Youth

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“Marginality today is no longer limited to minority groups, but is rather massive and pervasive.” Evidenced by groups like Occupy Wall Street, where the 99% represent the marginalized section of society with respect to their platform of issues. The anonymous character of the anti-hero provides agency for the marginalized. This position of anonymity has proven to be a position of power and potential, allowing users to game systems in ways that would be impossible if their names were attached to their actions.

By slipping into conventions pre-established by institutional structures, an agency of piggy-backing is established. The architectures at play seek to reveal assumptions on both the part of the user and the part of the programmer. The work operates under two imperatives, to hide in plain sight and then to reveal its acts in order to change the way users understand space.

The decoy, the simplified version of the original, when seen in full resolution calls attention to itself as a decoy. While the overall form and partial aesthetic rendering might be right, it fails to perform in the environment in the same way as the object being decoyed. The camouflaged decoy puts the rest of its environs at risk, if there is knowledge of a decoy being present, the entire environment may be destroyed to out the decoy.

The anonymous can be found in the city in those spaces which are at once completely knowable, which have a distinct and specific set of rules governing their construction, and at the same time so dominated by those rules that they slip from our notice because of that very knowability – ubiquitous coding leads to sites that are unseen.

These explorations between the relationship of the structure of the anonymous and the urban landscape is through those facets of urbanism which are conceptualized as part of a ubiquitous coded condition (ie, the strip-mall, the banal office tower, the parking lot). This work operates on pieces of the urban

Urban Anonymity LocationAn Undisclosed Post-City

Design Research AdvisorsJason youngPerry KulperEtienne Turpin

DateFall 2011-Spring 2012

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condition that are both a part of the bad infinity of cities as well as exceptions to it.

By inserting into this bad infinity/coded condition projects which operate by the same code, but in an uncanny manner, through the tactics of baiting the snare, these urban installations typify a geography of the lure by enrolling ordinary users into what they are expecting will be an ordinary experience of whatever facet of urbanism the project is decoying, but instead will find other agendas at play. The geography of the lure, therefore, is characterized by anonymity, promiscuity, utter strangeness, and unknowable difference.

Bad Infinity is a collection of sounds ranging from white noise, to a computer-generated modulated voice, to the babble of youtube. It is a space in which the visitor is forced into the role of a critic of culture while having their criticism unknowingly catalogued on twitter. “Overheard at #badinfinity: ‘this is really nice work.’ ‘Oh my god, they have just random Korean television!’” Criticism lies squarely on the shoulders of the observer. “Overheard at #badinfinity: ‘what’s this?’ ‘Oh those are sandbags placed on coasts before a flood’ (2 guys discussing dwg by @fugitivegnome).”

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Bad Infinity is best seen at 30mph and in 72dpi.

The landscape burns of gestural repetition. Fluorescent buzz and flicker mark time. The sound of the abandoned house is the low battery beep of the smoke detector. Logistical space establishes itself as a new aesthetic. Absence presences itself forcefully. Normalcy becomes a deceptive action, hiding covert and banal operations equally—the drainage ditch and the revolution. Bad Infinity captures material artifacts as indicators of perpetual perpetuation.

Bad Infinity is an anonymous collection, its authors positioning themselves in a para-disciplinary way. The work attempts to place architecture deep inside its cultural site of reckoning, working vividly with media influences, technological imperatives, and representational biases within our post-digital culture. The work pushes beyond normative conventions, analyzed through but not delimited by the discipline of architecture.

Bad Infinity is a temporary occupation of space meant to agitate and then lure in unsuspecting passersby. It explores the agency of the impermanent in its ability to be mounted and disassembled very quickly. It occupies a blip on the radar screen of the gallery’s schedule and takes advantage of people showing up too late for the preceding show or too early for the next one.

LocationDuderstadt Digital Media Commons

StudioSTUD1O

Faculty AdvisorsJason young

DateApril 2012

TypeExhibition

ResponsibilitiesGraphic design work and the 3 time-based media installations in the space

CollaboratorsBrad Smith Charlie veneklaseJanet yoonJessica HesterKeith PeifferMelinda RouseSara DeanScott Sorlivaleria Federighi

BAD INFINITY

BAD INFINITYMS_DR POP-UP EXHIBITION

FRIDAY APRIL 6 - WEDNESDAY APRIL 11

Duderstadt Digital Media Commons Gallery

OPENING: 3 - 5 PM SATURDAY APRIL 7 Brad Smith _ Charlie Veneklase _ Janet Yoon _ Jessica Hester _ Jonathan LeJune _ Keith Peiffer _ Melinda Rouse _ Sara Dean _ Scott Sørli _ Valeria Federighi