Location: West Hollywood, California, USA

Term: Winter and Spring Quarters 2017

Studio: Tectonics and Housing

Type: Academic Project, Individual 

The project aims to reconcile the relationship between human and nature. In and attempt to do such, a series of studies where preformed, starting by mapping the natural green spaces of West Hollywood. These spaces where then scaled up in order to introduce a hierarchy. After scaling, the spaces were then enclosed in an intuitive boundary in order to establish a sense of respect to such metaphorical green spaces. Finally, after knowing the placement of the ‘metaphorical green boundaries of West Hollywood’, the amount of square footage needed for such multistory housing  was introduced and it was defined with the help of a formal grid. 

The ending boundary of the green spaces was later better defined as clear ellipses. These funnel through the building all the way to the ground, following the sun path from east to west, thus maximizing the amount of natural daylighting for each unit. At the bottom of these funnels one finds planting that run parallel through the ellipses from the underground parking level to the roof top level. Such strategy creates unique spatial experiences at every level that encourages the user to engage himself with nature. By enclosing the few green spaces from West Hollywood into a bounded perimeter, the design throughout attempts to reconcile men’s relationship with nature.