ADAPTABLE HOUSING

How can we use automation to pre-fab building systems that empower people to shape their own homes and communities? As global warming worsens resource shortages, massive numbers of people are fleeing conflict, natural disasters and economic hardships. High demand disrupts historic urban patterns and pushes housing prices to be unaffordable.  Cities with high-salary companies see soaring real estate prices divide the haves and have-nots.

The housing affordability crisis requires attention at all levels from policy, infrastructure, urban design and architecture.  I am looking at how digital-fabrication can create sustainable first-response shelters that may be reconfigured and repurposed for permanent communities.

SHAPING LIGHT AND AIR WITH FOLDED SURFACES

What if we could create something from almost nothing?

I turn sheet material into sculptural form through cutting, folding and bending. My research explores how efficient folding forms can modify environmental forces. After exploring light modulation, I have worked with Melbourne partners to examine how textured forms can affect airflow. We seek to understand how relief textures affect airflow in layered building facades, with the goal of creating exterior siding that increases ventilation without using any energy.

DESIGN THINKING REVEALED THROUGH ANIMATIONS

What do designers consider as they work?

What do expert designers do that beginners don’t do?

A scanning pen captures the process of artists and designers. The Digital Sketching collection of stroke-by-stroke animations contains life drawings from observation, diagrams from analytical thinking and design drawings from the imagination.

SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

How can we teach design methods that address real places and client needs to address the confluence of social, spatial and ecological considerations?

My most recent studios consider the role of nature in the city through the lenses of Biomimicry and Ecodistricts.

• Timber Tectonics in the Digital Age seminar, 2017-2020
• Thriving through Making: craft, technology, & DIY Maker culture merges learning with industry, 2015-16
• Visionary skyscraper designs for the Evolo competition, Fall 2015
• Lyceum Competition winners from Rejuvenation studio: multi-generational communities to revitalize aging cities and people, Fall 2014.

GLOBAL VILLAGE

How can we expand the classroom and connect students to external partners and resources?

• A Livable and Green Milwaukie, Oregon, by Shanghai Architects & UO students, Winter 2015
• Oregon – Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design Group exchange
• Oregon Ducks at University of Hong Kong: capturing a sense of place with video and spatial analysis
• In 2006-10, I worked with interdisciplinary colleagues in the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research to understand how learning portfolios can improve learning, teaching and assessment.  Online / On Target: Reflective Practice through Blogging