michael e. schissel 2 0 11
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michael e. schissel
contents academic projects found . tv . pg 1 community projects fitc . ram . pg 15 pattern generation oh! thrown . frit . hex . pg 23 music boxes pg 33 curriculum vitae
academic projects found tv
university of new mexico SA+P
2003
The third year design studio began with a request: that each of us
bring an object to class.
A found object. I found a small, convex, cracked, round mirror. It lay in the road that night, blinking with reflected street lights and the light of passing cars. Everything within its sphere of reflectivity was bent and arcing over its shattered surface in a fleeting dance. The object had a 2 inch diameter and a thickness of 1/8 inch, quite small relative to the broad river of asphalt in which it lay. The activated surface, however, made it a beacon, a distinct point in the landscape that amplified its presence beyond what its size alone was capable of.
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found
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the find
michael e. schissel
mirror, actual size
university of new mexico SA+P
2003
the door
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surface tension
I drew a number of self portraits (not shown here) to try to access my presence within the investigation, to confront the role of the scientist in the experiment. The reality that began outside of the object was slipping into the reflection itself and the boundary between the two became less distinct. The notion of mediated experience led me to study the ego, as well as the ontological and epistemological ramifications of self reflectivity, as subjects of exploration. The mirror caused a three-fold distortion, the curvature of the reflecting surface, the cracking, and slight shifted shards of the surface. Reality is transformed and somehow made precious as a miniaturized and contained picture of itself. The scale of the mirror left you wanting to carry it around in your pocket, like a totem or a charm.
convex lines
found
analysis
An intensive phenomenological of this object took place over the next few months, analyzing and documenting the mirror from within the perspective of three different contexts. The prescribed contexts for analysis were: the object itself in no context at all, the object within the original found context, and finally, the object within newly created contexts. I chose to address the object as being on the surface of water and on a door. These inquiries developed into a rather intimate relationship with this object, the mirror. It became impossible to analyze the reflexive space of the convex mirror without acknowledging my own presence within that analysis. The space of the mirror as well as the pretense of my inquiry were changed by the presence of my own reflection within it, and as a result I became, to some extent, the subject inquiry.
michael e. schissel
2 0 11
2003
university of new mexico SA+P
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plan
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section 1 5
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0
10’
30’
projection
pinhole
These endeavours culminated in the conception of a space that speaks of the object found, and makes visible that which is invisible in the object.
found
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“Perception does not give me truths, like geometry, but presences.�
maurice marleau ponty section 2
The camera obscura,
a pinhole camera on an architectural scale. The users enter the space across a long, steel mezzanine. It stretches out from the preceding space of solid ground and tenuously tethers to a monumental stone surface. The path is split, and they descend, left or right, into a cold, colorless capsule - and then total darkness for a moment before the eyes slowly adjust. The dark, cool chamber is a facsimile of the previous facade, enclosed. The edge between the contained space and the preceding exterior is marked by a small lens, projecting the image of the user’s approach onto the interior screen. Flipped upside-down, and then stretched across the slightly convex surface, the distorted vision of what was a preceding reality is not immediately recognizable, and would perhaps appear as rather foreign imagery.
section 3
michael e. schissel
university of new mexico SA+P
pixilation and the mediating screen
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image/landscape imposition
2003
with the investigation of a topic and the subsequent design of a museum of or for this topic. The topic I selected for study was
the television.
A box collapsing the event into a stream of images punctuated by advertisements that pay for the production of the stream that you are personally receiving. The television transmits more information to more people than nearly any other medium in use, and this hegemony has caused our varied forms of communication, our media, to begin to comport to the dominant visual form of the television. It becomes central to our culture’s epistemology. We exist somewhere in between the virtual and the actual, adrift on a stream of not-necessarilyrelated images, heavily distorted by selective editing. Such widespread inundation creates a sense of shared experience, and the differentiation between the event and its representation becomes blurred.
I explored the nature of this mediation through modeling, drawing, photography, and collage - the condition of pixilation, the screen, and the imposition of information and image on physical place. I sought to manifest the distortion of reality that I found in the experience of television- the way it collapses physical space, disrupts the continuity of time, and renders the representation nearly indistinguishable from that which is being represented. The museum’s architecture is subjected to the fundamental nature of that which was to be exhibited. An investigation of convex glass block revealed the pliability of light and the extensive distortion made possible by mediating surfaces. Here a vitruvian-esque man is rendered unrecognizable in form when viewed through a single layer of convex glass surfaces modeled on the television screen.
mediation experiments, convex glass
tv
In my final design studio I was tasked
michael e. schissel
2 0 11
2003
university of new mexico SA+P
The museum takes a pure, abstracted
form of the television and shifts it on its podium to respond to the acute angle of the site and address the major exterior screen to the view from traffic on the main thoroughfare. The three entrances, however, are oriented away from the main street, forcing the visitor to move around the face of the mass and enter on the sides or from the back of the site. This reinforces the spatial separation of the image of the building and the occupiable space within. The programming is largely distributed across screens covering the majority of its surfaces, and otherwise is enclosed entirely within them. The architecture of television is one of collapsed space, perceptual malleability, and control.
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level 2 plan
section 1
1
transfer frame
tv
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1 0
10’
ground level plan 50’
100’
michael e. schissel
exterior rendering
university of new mexico SA+P
Entering through expansive arrays of convex glass, the visitor is confronted by a large, echoing space defined by long, straight planes of hard, shining surfaces. Light and sound bounce and flutter across the hall, melding into a peripheral gauzy-ness. Just inside of the street-facing facade there is a concrete mass disrupting the circuitous flow of the hall, which houses the archive. Here visitors can access a catalogue of television’s broadcast history. Small cut-outs allow visitors inside to peek in on the archive viewing spaces, while the viewers themselves are projected onto street-facing screens above, exhibiting the viewing act. It is a voyeuristic loop that connects the archive viewer, the chance passerby on the sidewalk, and the visitor all in one long gaze.
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2003
Moving up the escalators, through an infinite reflective loop of parallel mirrors, the visitor enters into the permanent collection. This display is conceived as a hypostyle hall, wrapped with the image, distributing it across a non-hierarchical field. Above the permanent collection floats a mutable space. This space is a minimally articulated, morphing box externally supported by a space frame and designed to house installation work and changing exhibitions.
entry
tv
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entry hall, escalators
the archive/viewer viewing
michael e. schissel
the permanent collection: hypostyle screen
university of new mexico SA+P
2003
“This society which eliminates geographical distance reproduces distance internally as spectacular separation.�
guy debord
physical model 13
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tv
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screen cladding (perpetual)
space frame (exo-skeletal)
installation space (mutable)
hypostyle screen (permanent collection) on transfer frame
entry hall (overload)
michael e. schissel
the archive (viewer viewing)
community projects fitc ram
ARBOR LODGE
PIEDMONT
WOODLAWN CONCORDIA KING
CULLY
OVERLOOK
SABIN ALAMEDA ELIOT
BEAUMONT WILSHIRE
VERNON
BOISE
HUMBOLT
IRVINGTON GRANT PARK
ROSE CITY PARK
LLOYD
Portland, OR KERNS
PEARL
LAURELHURST
DOWNTOWN
BUCKMAN
SUNNYSIDE
CENTER
MT. TABOR
fitc Potential
FITC Urban Grange with a 5 minute walking radius
ABERNATHY
Existing Community Gardens Portland Parks and Recreation RICHMOND SOUTH PORTLAND
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BROOKLYN CRESTON
OSALT
fitc
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architects without borders
Food in the City
(fitc) is a program conceived by Oregon Sustainable Agricultural Land Trust (osalt) that seeks to increase neighborhood cohesion, create opportunities for hands-on learning experiences for the local residents, and also provide a source of tree fruit, grapes and berries for shared canning and baking. Clusters of gardens and orchards connect to an urban grange hall, and these clusters exist throughout the city. These clusters exist at no cost to taxpayers, and they are held in perpetuity for the use of neighborhood residents, not subject to economic fortune or political whim. The urban grange halls are equipped with teaching kitchens, where neighbors show each other how to prepare meals from the fruits and vegetables they have grown themselves, to cook and can, to freeze and dry, and to store the bounty of their gardens, vineyards and orchards. These also serve as incubators helping small businesses take root in the community. The centers are maintained by residents living on site at reduced rent in exchange for their service. This is Food in the City.
roof plan
upper floor plan
While living in Portland, Oregon my interest in the global food system became a central focus of my study of architecture. I began to speak with the local office for Architects Without Borders about what projects they had that needed work. They put me in touch with Will Newman, the founder and director of osalt. Newman wanted to have an idea of what one of these buildings might look like and some designs to help him raise money for the project. I invited Brendon Farrell, a co-worker of mine at Colab, to work on the project with me. We began by mapping the intersections of neighborhood boundaries, existing garden locations, and walking radii to determine the ideal zones for future granges. We then worked together to develop a simple model that could be easily adapted to varying site conditions and varying neighborhood needs.
ground floor plan 0
10’
30’
michael e. schissel
2008
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exterior rendering
the barn
We used as a formal departure point for the design. Taking this iconic form and raising it on a glass plinth provided the large, multi-purpose, public space required on the ground floor. This frame is then in-filled with salvaged windows. Externalizing the stair was less costly and provided a means to break the form and enclose one side, providing for the commercial grade kitchen and bathroom facilities. This also provided a buffer between the private spaces above and the public spaces below. Maintaining a small footprint maximizes the possible uses on a small, standard residential lot and the overall mass maintains a proportional relationship with the typical Portland residential street.
fitc
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architects without borders
Food in the City engages the formal and material vocabulary found in the historical, cultural context of the Pacific Northwest, but it also invites the inhabitants of Portland to change the way they live and improve their quality of life. It provides a platform with the possibility of generating social change by approaching the notion of sustainability as one that reaches beyond energy and material issues and must address the sustainability of community. This project sought to empower neighborhoods and promote a dialogue that fosters community cohesion through strengthened food security.
morphology
michael e. schissel
2008
Concept for a waste based
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urban food garden in an arid climate
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ram
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The landlord was a small company with little extra money for improvements to the property, but they were very receptive to the idea. I went about devising a way to create a protected and durable growing space with little or no material costs. As the building was located along a relatively commercial oriented street, adjacent to a parking garage, the garden needed some level of protection from motor and pedestrian traffic. The arid Albuquerque climate makes the use of rammed earth very effective, as does the ready availability of piles of earth. To form this earth I considered the amount of scrap 2x4 waste I see go into dumpsters in small residential building projects and I decided to find a way to organize that scrap to create a useful tool and keep the scrap out of the waste stream indefinitely. Using lots of screws and scrap wood, the form came together as an efficient, transportable, reusable tool.
michael e. schissel
I lived in a small apartment in downtown Albuquerque in 2009. There was grass in front of the apartment, but I wanted to see a garden there.
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rendering
form work
ram
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prototype
michael e. schissel
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pattern generation oh! thrown frit hex
2004
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oh! thrown
Laying on the ground, peering through the viewfinder of a Nikon FM-1, I try to capture the image of tattered picket fence slats as they fly over me. These unplannable arrangements, 30 5 x 7 silver gelatin prints, were then forced into a perceivable order, a re-cognizable shape, a refrabricated field. The result is an artificial sky and forced organization of chaotic conditions.
oh!
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computer aided fray
michael e. schissel
I called the project oh! thrown. It was the first investigation of many that explored the construction and perception of patterns. This evolved into a particular interest in the way computer logic can be manipulated to undo its own regularity. A later exploration of patterning techniques was produced using simple array commands in CAD software. These commands were layered to produce a level of complexity that dissolved the simple regularity of the geometry and created a sense of randomness.
I was brought onto the team at Antoine Predock’s office that was working on the North Western School of Media and Communications in Doha, Qatar. I worked to develop the digital model for the project, and also helped to build a physical model. My primary task was to design the structural glazing system that would wrap the large planes that encircle an interior courtyard. A ceramic frit was required to protect the building’s massive expanses of glass from the harsh desert sun, while maintaining visibility into its core. I developed two
patterns.
The first references pixilation, a building block of digital media, and increases in density toward the top in response to the increasing sun loads in these areas. This pattern was later adopted as the graphic motif for the building’s general signage.
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2A
pixel frit
2B
calligraphic mirage frit
2009
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antoine predock architect, pc
4A
4B
2B
2A
2C
3000
4C
frit
1200
The second pattern was derived from a photograph of a mirage. Put through a process of layered manipulations and filters, the mirage gained a fine detail reminiscent of calligraphy devolving into pixilated blocks. 1200
3B
1A
3C
1B
1C
4500
3A
school signage
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
base modules
michael e. schissel
A
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physical model
distributed modules
frit
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antoine predock architect, pc
michael e. schissel
2009
Ge ware
, an ancient Chinese ceramic glazing technique originating in the 11th and 12th century C.E., was the visual reference for a trellis designed to shade the top deck of a large hotel and sculpture garden outside Shanghai, China. This was also a project I engaged in while working in Antoine Predock’s studio.
ge ware
PRIMARY HEXAGON STRUCTURE
MODULE
1
MODULE
2
MODULE
3
MODULE
5
MODULE
6
120°
MODULE STRUCTURAL TYPE A, TYP.
3600mm
1000mm MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP.
4/A
MODULE
4
-50
1
trellis modules 2 TRELLIS MODULE PLAN
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SCALE: 1:50
2 0 1 0PRIMARY
antoine predock architect, pc
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HEXAGON STRUCTURE
hex
STRUCTURE
MODULE
MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP. MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE A, TYP.
1
1 INDIVIDUAL MODULES CRANED IN AND ARC WELDED TO HEXAGON STRUCTURE
3600mm MODULE STRUCTURAL TYPE A, TYP.
PRIMARY HEXAGON STRUCTURE
1000mm
MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP.
MODULE
1
MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE A, TYP.
MODULE STRUCTUR TYPE B, T
120째 3600mm MODULE MODULE STRUCTURAL TYPE A, TYP.
4
1000mm
1 TRELLIS PERSPECTIVE VIEW
2 TRELLIS MODULE PL
SCALE: N.T.S.
MODULE SCALE: 1:50 STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP.
assembly diagram MODULE
1
SCALE: N.T.S.
4 2
3
6
5
5
1 4
4 3
2 5 1
5 6
3 MODULE DISTRIBUTION PLAN SCALE: 1:200
6 3
4 2
1
3 1
5 1
2 4
6
1
5
module 3 distribution plan 1
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2 5
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2
4
2 5
6
5 4 1
1
2 1
1
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3 1
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5
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45
6 4
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2 1
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2 TRELLIS MODULE PLAN SCALE: 1:50
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4 2 1
4 SECTION SCALE: 1:20
michael e. schissel
1
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MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP.
5
4
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PRIMARY HEXAGON STRUCTURE, TYP.
1
4
4
MODULE STRUCTURE TYPE B, TYP.
3
5 TRELLIS PERSPECTIVE VIEW
PRIMARY HEXAGON STRUCTURE, TYP.
4 6
4
I was tasked with organizing the trace patterns found in ge ware, and translating this sentiment into a rationalized, buildable structure. To do so, I created a simple rule set based on the hexagon, and then isolated six representative formations found in ge ware cracking patterns. These six modules were then evenly, but irregularly distributed across the trellis plane and cut at its boundaries. The result is a modular pattern, complex enough to fool the human eye into thinking it sees disorder, only allowing its rigid, hexagonal geometry to be perceived for fleeting moments, a geometrical apparition. 31
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hex
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michael e. schissel
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antoine predock architect, pc
music boxes
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2009
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box
2007
Music/Vision Boxes made
michael e. schissel
using mechanisms extracted from other music boxes or purchased. Each employs a different approach and material to provide the resonant body needed to amplify the tiny machines’ sounds. The music boxes play across multiple senses. Their varying mass, material and form combine with each different song to create a pervasive atmosphere, seen through the distorting lens of the peep hole. They make you wonder if you are not looking back into a memory of a different time and place.
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contents academic projects found . tv . pg 1 community projects fitc . ram . pg 15 pattern generation oh! thrown . frit . hex . pg 23 music boxes
pg 33 2003
oh!
2 0 01
tv
2000
found
a l b u qu erqu e ,
2004 2005
university of new mexico SA+P
Instructor, Belen Public Schools . Architecture in Curriculum, Belen, NM
Instructor, Art in the Schools, Albuquerque, NM
Research and curatorial assistant . University of New Mexico Art Museum
Learning Environment . Albuquerque, NM Annapurna . Santa Fe, NM World Vegetarian Cafe . Santa Fe, New Mexico
Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, cum laude
Our Lady of Lavang . Albuquerque, NM
Architecture + Children, w/ Ann Taylor . Zuni Elementary, Albuquerque, NM
McCabe Residence . Albuquerque, NM
Panopticon . Metropolis NextGen competition
Five Rivers Community Development Center . Georgetown, SC
9th Street House . Albuquerque, NM
Modular Housing Project, Equatorial Guinea
evoc
Awarded Student of the Year
Presidential Scholar
Academic Professional
2008
ram hex
fitc
2009 2 010
michael e. schissel
2007
architects without borders
p or tland , ore g on
frit box
2006
box
, n e w m e x i c o a l b u qu erqu e , n e w m e x i c o
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cv
Photographic Publication in Roadcut : The Architecture of Antoine Predock by Christopher Mead
Guest Critic, University of New Mexico SA+P
Archipelagos . competition . Venice, Italy
Taipai Facade . Taipai, Taiwan
Carmel Luxury Resort . competition . Carmel Valley, CA Shanghai Sculpture Park Hotel . Shanghai, China
Luxe Lakes Expo Center . Chengdu, China
Canadian Museum of Human Rights . Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
NW University College of Media and Communications . Doha, Qatar
antoine predock architect
National Museum of African American History and Culture . competition. Washington, D.C.
PSU Bridges . Portland, OR
Guest Critic, University of Oregon A+AA
Dubai Creek . Dubai, UAE
Oregon College of Arts and Crafts . Portland, OR
Agency Ultra Sports Bar Lounge and Restaurant . Portland, OR
Honorable mention for interior detail . root awards -Portland Spaces
Marlborough House . Portland, OR
Plasteel Frames . Seattle, WA
Madinat Jumeirah Masterplan . Dubai, UAE
colab architecture + urban design
Allen Residence . Portland, OR Smith Block . Portland, OR
emmons architects
Rutgers University College Ave Campus . competition . New Brunswick, NJ Brazos River Lodge Master Plan . Brazos, NM New National Library . competition . Prague, Czech Republic Canadian Museum of Human Rights . Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada New Silk Road, Arab Cultural Area . competition . Xi’an, China
antoine predock architect
Guest Critic, University of New Mexico SA+P