Re-Pairing Terrain
Atlanta BeltLine
This installation commissioned by the Atlanta Beltline Partnership sought to call positive attention to Atlanta’s abandoned BeltLine rail in order to transform it from a place of debris and detachment to a place of communal connection and exchange. The aim was to create an occupiable space that improved community connectivity and invited the restoration of character for the neighborhoods surrounding it. This project also served to demonstrate the need for an adequate number of pedestrian friendly public green-spaces along the BeltLine that could be easily accessed using sustainable modes of the transportation. Using computer simulations, shadows created by BeltLine earth banks were mapped onto a five thousand square foot area along the path. The data output from these simulations were physically represented by a matrix of vertically oriented slender fir columns installed along a five foot grid within the designated area. The resulting field of columns registered both the solar effect of the earth banks and the surface that once connected the contiguous neighborhood areas.
Bottle-Play
Blacksburg, Virginia
This installation comprised of recycled plastic water bottles was developed for the Atlanta Dogwood Festival’s Eco-Village children’s program and the Tall Oaks Montessori outreach program in 2011. Through the re-use of bottles generated by the campus of Virginia Tech, the goal of the design was to playfully contribute to the awareness of everyday sustainable efforts for young children. A paper shell served to position bottles relative to one another while the stacked bottles provided structure and rigidity to the shell membrane. Aided by solar illuminance simulations, the effective volume of light within a park clearing served to generate the installation’s form. The resultant stacked bottle surface created a light-filled play space for children to move through. Light danced through the clear bottles onto the translucent paper shell creating dynamic shifts of tone on the inside of the skin. As the sun moved across the sky, the installation would glow within the tree shadowed park calling attention to a good day’s work and the latent potential of material reuse.
Atlanta Fulton Central Public Library
Downtown Atlanta
This winning competition entry for the AIA's 2009 48 Hour Competition introduces a series of evenly spaced multi-media panels across the Central Public Library Plaza. Each unit, derived from the module of the library skin, carries a narrative through distinctive media (text, diagrams, charts, graphs, still images, and video) related to library events both past and present. Some units contain permanent texts that annotate works of art found within the plaza such as Richard Hunt’s sculpture and the building itself designed by Marcel Breuer. Other units contain information related to seasonal events sponsored by the library or daily events held within the plaza itself. In the evening, the panels glow in the plaza and serve as a beacon for congregation and exchange. The goal of this project is to extend the rich cultural heritage of the City of Atlanta to its citizens both current and future. With this extension the project hopes to stir a deeper desire within the general public to cherish and preserve the cultural footing upon which they stand.
Wandern Exhibition
Solomon Projects Gallery
This art installation was produced in conjunction with colleague and fellow artist Tristan Al-Haddad. Tristan and Tim were exploring the thickness within a conventionally thin place. For Tristan the thin place was a plane of plastic and for Tim it was a line a light. The light as a thin line, serving as a beacon, is most evident upon approach to the gallery. As one enters the gallery, moving closer to the installation, their understanding of the line becomes blurred as the light is split, twisted, and curled upward and downward by the columns suggesting that the line actually serves as a shared edge between upper and lower spaces. When against the light, one finds a multitude of additional lines that accumulate to form a space within the line itself. As the body moves within the installation space it perceives those subtleties that exist between the line as a figure and the line as a space.
Cloudland Residence
Nancy Creek
Situated along the Nancy Creek north of Atlanta, Georgia this single family residential project integrated the information provided by direct experience and computational simulation from the start of the design, allowing the building’s form to emerge from data that was gathered from the site. The environment in this project was a combination of both direct and indirect conditions. The indirect conditions influencing the project included prevailing winds, solar shading, and solar insolation. The direct conditions influencing the project included the site topography, the 100 year flood plain bisecting the site, and the river bounding the site on the southern edge. The design used a layered enclosure to coalesce the clustered specimen trees on the site with the southern exposed site slope. Masonry folds up from the ground to create a series of core spaces while layered wood screens define the perimeter of the home. The two systems combine to filter the southern light as it changes relative to the solar cycle.
Sense & Sustain-ability
Studio Profile
The studio was formed in 2005 while working through a series of design experiments that explored the emerging issues of technology and sustainability in architecture. Through these early experiments we examined how the use of digital modeling and computational simulation could lead to simpler and smarter sustainable design decisions. Today, as our studio continues to grow, we still hold a digitally informed sustainable practice of architecture in the highest regard. It is this expertise that most distinguishes the studio’s work partnered with the unwavering commitment to fulfill a clients needs with the most innovative and environmentally sensitive architecture.
We value the genuine characteristics of each individual client; we take their places very seriously; and we believe that good architecture is one that intertwines the genuine client with the depth of their place. (Images: Museum of Design Atlanta, AIA Emerging Voices Exhibit 2009)
