Archinect - Cal Poly Pomona (Nicole)

A Township of Urban Ambitions: A Student-Run Charette

2015-09-04T12:55:00-04:00

1 charette. 48 hours. 25 students. 25 town blocks. 50 ridiculous programs.

Nicole Doan's site plan for a religious center for those who need help choosing a religion

For two days in mid-July, 25 students slaved away, designing absurd buildings such as a fire station that secretly burns books and a religious center for those who need help choosing a faith. A Township of Urban Ambitions (ATUA) acted as a theoretical city, consisting of a five block by five block grid, with each individual block reserved for one assigned program.

Cal Poly Pomona fourth year student Franco Chen took inspiration from Chris Riley's senior project, which featured a flexible cityscape with interchangeable buildings, parks, etc.

Chen explained, "Blocks could be rotated, shuffled, and removed all the while maintaining the integrity of the city beneath it... For ATUA, a charrette was the only way to go about it--to not want to make something inherently perfect or permanent, but rather to succumb to the messy and ...

Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award Winner

2015-06-24T23:20:00-04:00

For the past two years, Cal Poly Pomona won second place in the Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award design charette, but this year, we received first place.

Overall rendering of the project within the South Los Angeles Wetlands Park

Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Council, the competition typically took place over a weekend within the Gensler LA office, but the format changed to a two-week event, which required students to work in remote locations. Architecture schools within the greater Los Angeles area were invited to participate. This year teams of 2-3 students from Cal Poly Pomona, USC, SCI-Arc, Woodbury, Otis, and Long Beach State competed against each other.

Ryan Spruston, AIA of Gensler talks to the six student teams about the presentation process. While students worked in various locations, each team explained their project to a panel of jurors in the Gensler LA office.

The change in format made things difficult for Kate Bilyk, Jeffrey Stevens, and I because the two weeks co...

Cal Poly Pomona Senior Project Reviews

2015-06-24T02:41:14-04:00

I have attended architecture school for five arduous but rewarding years, and it all boiled down to a 30 minute critique on a project that was supposed to summarize the wealth of knowledge I acquired at Cal Poly Pomona. It's funny how architecture school works. I'm not saying that I'm dissatisfied, ungrateful, or upset at my critique or how my undergraduate life ended--quite the opposite, actually.

Photo by Zack Green - Presenting my project, "All Hail the Strip Mall", to Andrew Kovacs, Alvin Huang, Frank Clementi, Jimenez Lai, Herwig Baumgartner, Bryan Cantley, and Paul Gasiorkiewicz

In the beginning of the school year, a little over 60 students chose one of four tracks to follow, each led by one faculty member. Axel Schmitzberger focused on "invisible infrastructures", which are often underrated and surreptitious parts of the built environment (e.g. warehouses, storage, etc.). Michael Fox utilized technology to influence how buildings work and how it can alter or create programs, su...

The End of a Tradition

2015-05-27T11:25:00-04:00

For as long as I have been a student at Cal Poly Pomona, there has been a tradition of showing a dance video during the end-of-the-year Bauhaus Ball. In the past it has been a fun display of our silliness throughout the endless days and sleepless nights, but these past two years have been a forceful attempt to record reluctant, exhausted students as they half-heartedly wiggled their bodies. As the reluctance heightens, the more we are willing to let go of a tradition.

Last year, Zachary Green and Samuel Rubio invited me to assist them in a separate video project, on top of the yearly dance video. "Night", in some ways, was a tribute to the graduating class, acting similarly to the first several dance videos. This year, Sam and Zack have once again taken it upon themselves to create a second short film to end not only the school year--my last year in undergrad--but also the possible end to the Cal Poly Pomona dance video tradition.

One-Night Stand(s) and the Fear of Growing Up

2015-05-17T16:51:59-04:00

A sudden wave of anxiety washed over me as I found myself standing alone in the driveway of a seedy motel among a crowd of well-dressed creative types. From an outsider's point of view, it must have looked like a typical college party. Red Solo cups and beer bottles littered the ground. Groups of friends huddled together in tight circles. Music blared from multiple directions, one from an unseen DJ and another from a downstairs motel room. However, if one looked or listened carefully, one would notice that this wasn't your ordinary college function. Everyone was too good-looking and sharply dressed, not trashy in any way. Conversations revealed key words such as "figure ground", "Python script", and "Oculus Rift". Even though this wasn't a college party, the event was a one-night stand to remember.

One-Night Stand LA took place in the Holiday Lodge Motel in Los Angeles.

One-Night Stand LA; organized by SCI-Arc alumni Ryan Tyler Martinez, William Hu, and Anthony Morey; featured variou...

T-R-E-A-T.US

2015-05-04T12:21:00-04:00

Why write alone? There is no such need if one finds him or herself sharing similar thoughts with others.

Cal Poly Pomona's Neutra VDL House hosted the West Coast book launch for "Treatise: Why Write Alone?", a project carried out by fourteen young design teams and organized by Jimenez Lai of Bureau Spectacular. Treatise resulted in a series of small publications that touch on unconventional and often whimsical views of architecture. Despite the project's idiosyncrasy, it is not to be taken too lightly, for the books act as a series of treatises that allow for critique, experimentation, and theory on current architectural issues.

Cal Poly Pomona students Parker Ammann, Denise Nugent, and Manny Zermeno peruse books from the inventory stock room.

Cal Poly Pomona students Ben Tunigold, Ever Vargas, and Mark Fagan overlook book sales.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to help run the book launch. When Cal Poly's architecture department chair Sarah Lorenzen first brought up the e...

The Importance of Precedents and Being Earnest

2015-04-11T03:05:00-04:00

I am extremely tired of people telling me that a particular architect, movement, building, or method is irrelevant to today's design world and to my own work. Throughout architecture school we have been trained to conduct research on case studies in order to extract various types of information that have the potential to affect our own designs. At the same time, I have been told on multiple occasions to dismiss people and things such as John Hejduk or even parametricism, both of whom/which are supposedly obsolete. On the other hand, some of my fellow colleagues dismiss precedents altogether. To some extent, I admire those who can design without looking at examples, but when one refuses to look at existing projects and ideas in an effort to learn, then this is plain ignorance.

Today Andrew Kovacs (Archive of Affinities, UCLA) visited Cal Poly Pomona to discuss his interest in architectural oddities, anomalies, accidents, misfits, mishaps, monsters, mistakes, outtakes, failures, folli...

Death to the hype?

2015-03-26T12:48:00-04:00

It's 2010. I am still the naive 18-year-old first year student who is still easily impressed and not yet tainted by the harsh reality of life. I walked into Cal Poly Pomona's Interim Design Center (IDC) for the first time to attend the quarterly student showcase, which is strangely called Interim. The building's central bay is partitioned into several dense areas filled with beautifully crafted models, delicate hand drawings, and large posters. Everything I set my eyes on amazed me, and I couldn't help but doubt that I could ever create such lovely things with my hands. For two years, this same sense of wonder filled me as I meandered through the building during each Interim event.

As soon as I became an officer for AIAS in my third year, I no longer had the pleasure of taking my time as I gazed at every single project on the walls. Rather, I was one of the people who set up and curated the event. I often found myself serving hor d'oeuvres to visitors, manning the drink station, and ...

Winter 2014 Lecture Series

2015-03-17T01:02:06-04:00

This quarter Cal Poly Pomona's lecture series consisted of four diverse individuals from the architecture community. In the past, presenters sometimes adhered to a specific theme (i.e. sustainability, representation through drawing, etc.), but within the past three months, our guests each had something different to talk about.

The series began with Cal Poly's very own M. ARCH student Courtney Embry, winner of the LT Shanks Travelling Scholarship. She shared her insight on housing in Tel Aviv, her chosen location for her research topic.

We also had the pleasure of having Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design. If this quarter's theme is diversity, then Huang undoubtedly fit in perfectly, for he not only discussed full-scale buildings, but smaller pavilions and furniture as well.

The architecture department collaborated with the Department of Landscape Architecture for a presentation by graypants, a Seattle-based company that focuses on product design, in addition to architecture.

The quarter ...

Berlin Love Zone

2014-12-11T15:54:00-05:00

Frank Clementi's topic studio at Cal Poly Pomona, titled The Heresy of Function, explored the re-use and reprogramming of famous monuments.

As a large-scale love hotel, the Berlin Love Zone brings people together in the same location where the Berlin Wall once stood. Within this 500-foot wide region, the Berlin Wall changes from a linear structure to a field of Smoosh Walls, on which the hotel units attach. Various programs allow people to not only carry out their sexual fantasies, but even more private acts of love.

For nearly 30 years the Berlin Wall divided the east from the west. In 1961, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) erected the wall around West Berlin to prevent emigration and defection from communist East Germany. As the wall tranformed from a mere barbed wire fence to an entirely walled “No Man’s Land,” approximately 5,000 people endeavored to flee. Even until after 1989 with the reopening of the border, the Berlin Wall continued to symbolize imprisonment and the divis...

MIchael Rotondi interview with Orhan Ayyuce

2014-12-09T13:24:00-05:00

Fall 2014 Lecture Series

2014-11-15T22:27:46-05:00

Cal Poly Pomona's fall lecture series, funded by Henry Woo, featured student-picked architects from the Los Angeles area. This quarter we also presented the Neutra Award to Michael Rotundi.

Cal Poly Pomona Fall 2014 Interim

2014-10-02T21:16:00-04:00

Cal Poly Pomona 2014-2015

2014-08-31T22:58:46-04:00

The upcoming school year brings change to the architecture department at Cal Poly Pomona.

Lecture series

For many years, associate professor Axel Schmitzberger was the primary curator for the department's lecture series, but this school year a panel of faculty and students will take charge. While the group of students created a list of possible lecturers, the faculty members will begin to contact approved individuals, starting with this year's Neutra Award Winner. Within the last two years, CPP's architecture department did not present the award to anyone, so this year, the panel plans to grant the award to two architects, one in fall and one in spring. About four other lecturers will visit the school each quarter.

FabLab

Although there has been talk of having a fabrication lab in building 89A for the past year, the FabLab will finally be up and running in winter. Its grand opening has been put on hold because the construction of the fire-rated wall took longer than expected, due to c...

Senior project 2014

2014-06-16T23:38:26-04:00

With the switch of Cal Poly Pomona's architecture department chair in 2013, the curriculum has undergone a handful of drastic changes, including the senior project format. Rather than providing merely a 10-week quarter to design and produce a project, fifth years received the summer to do extensive research, one quarter for programming, and one quarter for detailed design. Students were placed in one of four categories which best fit their program: housing, sustainability, institutional buildings, and material studies. During spring quarter, consultants (structural, mechanical, etc.) looked over student projects for approval, and--as per usual--a number of students received warning letters regarding the incompleteness of their projects.

Despite this, some of the most thought-provoking projects were on display at the City Market in downtown Los Angeles.

Collapse

2014-06-14T21:04:42-04:00

In the Film & Urbanism class I took this quarter, we studied societal collapse and its effect on urbanism by watching various documentaries and fictional movies. By analyzing films such as Manufactured Landscapes and Blade Runner, we were supposed to obtain ideas on how to portray our own take on urban collapse in today's society. In the end, our short films hardly touched on the topic, due to a variety of reasons.

I worked with Corey Loren Pope and Cece Bensen to create a short about the human reliance on "the machine" in order to live. While technology helps us in countless ways, it also comes with problems. It has become so prominent and ever-present in our lives, but we forget how much we utilize it.

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Directed by Nicole M. Doan and Corey L. Pope

Written by Celia Bensen

Edited by Celia Bensen and Nicole M. Doan

Music by The Album Leaf

A small update

2014-05-03T19:07:44-04:00

Sorry for my lack of posts. I have become wrapped up in school once again. Now I am working at a firm as well, so that has consumed all the time I'm not spending on schoolwork.

In the meantime, Cal Poly Pomona has hosted a number of top notch lectures this quarter.

Alex Hogrefe holds a workshop of architectural graphics.

Neil Denari discusses the idea of "being concrete".

Perry Kulper answers questions regarding the various components of his drawings.

The glorified tent

2014-03-27T02:16:00-04:00

Within the past quarter George Proctor's winter topic studio focused on modular housing. Although we had the option of choosing program and users of the space, we were required to design a 500 sq. ft dwelling that incorporated space-saving techniques, such as moving furniture. The majority of students in the class paired up, while the rest worked by themselves. My partner in crime, Corey Loren Pope, and I chose to work together at the last minute.

Due to America's transitory nature, Corey and I decided to treat the project as an opportunity to design some sort of temporary dwelling. Initially we aimed to design a shelter for campers, backpackers, boy scouts, and other outdoorsy people that can be located in a variety of places, including the woods and desert. It had a self-sustaining element in the form of an overly complex green wall, in addition to moving furniture pieces. (See attached video.)

However, after our midterm review, our project changed dramatically for reasons I can't ...

Why, hello.

2014-03-23T03:12:05-04:00

I am Nicole Magsaysay Doan, a fourth year architecture undergraduate student at Cal Poly Pomona. I am also the chapter AIAS secretary.

I lived in the Bay Area for the first eighteen years of my life, and I am surprised to find myself in the Greater Los Angeles Area, especially since I used to have much disdain towards southern California. However, I no longer have the same sentiment. I have actually fallen deeply in love with Los Angeles, and I endeavor to advance my architectural career here. Maybe I'll return to the East Bay some day, to Berkeley with the rest of my fellow free spirits. We shall see.

In the mean time, I plan to obtain my architectural license and to teach architecture at the university level.

When I'm not in studio, I like taking long walks at the beach (or the streets of Los Angeles), putting my film cameras to use, and eating.