This section contains samples of teaching material. As these courses were taught in Puerto Rico, documents were originally written in Spanish. For this portfolio, I am uploading English translations. I have done my best so that translations accurately represent the Spanish editions as the students saw them.
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History of Architecture I: Ancient to the Renaissance Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico |
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The course reviews selected territorial interventions, spatial manipulations, and works of architecture from different times, cultures, and regions in order to introduce an architectural corpus –from prehistory to the 16th Century– framed by history, theory, and critique.
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History of Architecture II:
Baroque to Contemporary Western Civilization Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico |
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The course stands on the notion of multiple modernities. It analyses a broad spectrum of ideas, discourses, trends, and contexts that informed architectural production from the Baroque to Postmodernity. The course explores primarily, the critical approaches and theories of architecture encompassed under the notions of modernity and modernization.
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History of Architecture III:
Latin America and Puerto Rico Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico |
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The course analyses the architecture of Latin America from the pre-Columbian period until today. Given that the history of architecture in Puerto Rico is seriously incomplete and has been studied in a limited way, one third of the semester is dedicated to Latin America while the remainder focuses on the Island. Especial emphasis is given to the notions of identity, its construction, and representation. The course is framed by Postcolonial Theory and influenced by Cultural Studies.
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Developmental Design Studio I:
Legal and Administrative Awareness Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico |
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This course is a team teaching design research studio developed as the first phase of the 5th year architecture program Capstone Experience. Students comprehensively analyze a problem of their choosing to be projected as an inquiry based / evidence based architectural design that will be completed at a second phase in ARAD 420. Problems are evaluated from five perspectives: sociocultural, technological, economic, ecologic/environmental, and regulatory. Client and user profiles are developed from critical evaluations of public policy, legislative and code compliance, and social frames. Research informs site selection and program development. Final requirements are a narrative in book format and a public presentation in Ted Talk format that must include explorative schematic architectural proposals evidencing a general design approach and spatial considerations as informed by research.
Selection of Student Work
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Néstor Camacho
Exclusión de un espectro poblacional: Diseñar para el adulto con autismo (2015) Research focused on people diagnosed with autism. Findings revealed a sustained increase in children diagnosed on the Island. However, the adult population within the spectrum is excluded from society once they reach 21 years of age as there is a severe lack of services for them. Research showed that without appropriate reinforcement, most adults with autism will start to loose the skills and abilities gained through childhood. The only option for most families is to put adult children with autism in homes for the elderly pending a review form the Department of Family Services. However, adults within the lower grades of the spectrum can contribute to society and live a semi-independent life. The project proposes a center for assisted semi-independent living for adults with autism at Ponce's city center. The program includes living areas, clinical areas for therapy, administration areas, and a commercial area. An emplacement in Ponce's urban core was chosen due to the services already in place there and the availability of a trustworthy public transportation network as well as the facility for walking mobility. Integration with the community was considered fundamental for the success of the proposal. By encouraging pedestrians to cross through the project autism becomes no longer invisible. So, the building's public area in the lower story is thought as an alternative seamless connection to the usual urban path provided by sidewalks. Given the main users' profile there is a need to control sensory overstimulation and to provide a clear and orderly spatial arrangement. One of the challenges was to design living spaces completely regulated by the sensory needs of adults with autism. Design strategies are intended to architecturally minimize light and sound overloads. Living areas are designed as groupings with clear circulation paths as to reinforce the sense of order. While transparency and openness is encouraged in the first story, facade treatment in the upper levels –where the living quarters are located– is opaque. Openings are strategically placed and designed to allow for a controlled amount of light to come into private and semiprivate spaces. |
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Germarilis Ruiz
Un acercamiento contemporáneo a la gestión cultural: Revisión de las políticas de intervención de los activos del ICP (2014) This project received the first place in the "art campuses" category from the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Estudiantes de Arquitectura in 2016.. Research questions the politics for intervention and the "pre-established" functions for buildings of patrimonial value located in historic centers in Puerto Rico. Findings suggest that in the Island, historic buildings administered by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP, for its initials in Spanish) tend to be consistently reused as museums, discounting other architectural interventions and programming that might respond better to contemporary needs and cultural trends. Further, the ICP's public policy on conservation adheres to replication practices in order to convey the sense of a "harmonious city". This practice provokes a Disneyzation of sorts that turns historic buildings into the backdrops of scenographic landscapes. At the same time, urban historic districts are suffering from the sustained abandonment of city centers as commercial, service, and residential functions continue to migrate to suburban areas. Ponce, for instance, has a floating population which is predominantly active during working hours. The project proposes that cultural resource management and citizen integration can support the natural process of cultural development and foster economic development. The objective is that through the strategic activation of historic buildings plus cultural agency, Ponce might drive a new sources of economic development and ways to bring people back to the urban core. The project intends to turn the notion of patrimony from a contemplative stagnant state to a participatory one. In macro, the proposal develops a network system of historic properties that organize a series of activity nodes within the city of Ponce. The idea is to redevelop architectural-cultural assets through contemporary programs which can assist in the reactivation of the historic center. Design focuses on a cultural complex that will function as an urban hub which will articulate the connectivity between the buildings managed by the ICP and introduce contemporary and global registers to the notion of patrimonial conservation. The architectural program includes spaces for the production of art in analog and digital modalities, a residential space for visiting artists, classrooms, spaces for seminars, conference rooms, etc. Workshops are adaptable and, in the first story, open to a public space. The floorplan is conceived as an adaptable work-exhibition space. The building's skin features perforated panels designed from an adaptation of historical stained glass pattern. As such, walls are sculptural and artistic elements but functionally, they serve as light and temperature controlling devices for interior spaces as well as become exhibition panels where works of art may be hung for showcasing purposes. Scale and context are acknowledged rotationally through the building's heights in each facade. In addition, skins reference wall thicknesses of historic buildings in the urban center. Not to exclude any artistic modality and referencing the idea of citizen integration in cultural activation, there is a wall provided for mural painting and urban art. |
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Senior Design Project I
Turabo University |
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This is a research for design driven studio in support of interior design students' final project. Students must demonstrate their research and development capacity for a topic of their choosing and then, propose an interior design project. Course work includes: the identification of a problem or an opportunity, the generation of a hypothesis (problem enunciation), the evaluation of a theoretical frame, the proof of pertinence of their proposal, the development of users' profiles, information analysis and synthesis (qualitative and quantitative), and production of a design guide.
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Selection of Student Work (2016)
Naomi Luna
Pevención y atención de la obesidad infantil: El restaurante de comida rápida como un espacio interactivo para el movimiento y la educación de niños de temprana edad
Research analyzed the propensity and triggers for obesity in children in current US and Puerto Rican society and culture. In addition, fast food restaurant design and marketing strategies geared towards children were studied using McDonalds as case study. The project proposes to rethink the interior space for the fast food restaurant by introducing active circulation patters, new color schemes, and furniture arrangement conducive to interactiviry and education about food-systems and healthier food-culture following the ideas of initiatives such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move", Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution", and gaming trends such as "Pokemon Go".
Natalia Guay
El rescate de los edificios industriales para impulsar los colectivos de diseño en Puerto Rico
Research focuses on creative industries in Puerto Rico, the lack of appropriate design and production spaces, and the difficulties in managing and maintaining suitable spaces by individual firms or designers. In addition, it explores the revitalization of abandoned industrial buildings in order to cater to the needs of these industries. During the 1990s and the first part of the 21st Century, following the end of tax exemptions for foreign own industries, many factory buildings in Puerto Rico were abandoned, as corporations left. Adaptive conservation of the former Abarca foundry in San Juan, will provide spaces for designers and makers as a collective work and medium scale production space. Interior design strategies are based on modular and transformable pieces that can adapt to the particular needs of industries such as fashion design, industrial design, product design, architecture, and others. The project considers space distribution to facilitate the use of communal facilities such as fabrication laboratories and production spaces, while catering to the privacy and intellectual protection needs of certain design start ups. It also delivers alternatives for collective marketing and selling of products.
Sharon Rodríguez
Casa de reposo para mujeres en depresión
Research analyzed the profile of women with depression and the trends for holistic treatment. The proposal uses the theories of Edward T. Hall on Proxemia in order to determine the arrangement of interior spaces. Strategies for interactions with the environment follow Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecologic Theory as well as Edward Wilson's theories on biophilic design. The project proposes the development of a temporary house for the holistic treatment of with depression in the rural area of Isabela, Puerto Rico. The project intends to use of a series of prefabricated structures and reuse of containers in order to design interior environments conducive to wellness therapies.
Crystal Carrasquillo
Centro médico para mujeres con cáncer: Un espacio que apela a las emociones
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Puerto Rico. Research focused on the analysis of the emotional stages of cancer patients in order to propose "palliative" spaces. In addition, traditional spaces for cancer treatment were studied in order to establish design guidelines for interior spaces which might be able to counteract the usual negative connotations. As theoretical references, the proposal uses Zumthor's and Pallasmaa's arguments on atmospheres and phenomenology. In addition, the project proposes to design a Maggie Center in Puerto Rico as part of the services of a mayor hospital in Hato Rey. As such, interior design develops from a comprehensive understanding of the patients' experience and emotional stages. The goal is to be able to design interiors that do not feel like spaces for the sick. Organization follows a centralized scheme for shared spaces from which radiate secondary spaces arranged and programmed following the conceptualization of the four emotional experiential stages: rage, negation, depression, acceptance.
Pevención y atención de la obesidad infantil: El restaurante de comida rápida como un espacio interactivo para el movimiento y la educación de niños de temprana edad
Research analyzed the propensity and triggers for obesity in children in current US and Puerto Rican society and culture. In addition, fast food restaurant design and marketing strategies geared towards children were studied using McDonalds as case study. The project proposes to rethink the interior space for the fast food restaurant by introducing active circulation patters, new color schemes, and furniture arrangement conducive to interactiviry and education about food-systems and healthier food-culture following the ideas of initiatives such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move", Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution", and gaming trends such as "Pokemon Go".
Natalia Guay
El rescate de los edificios industriales para impulsar los colectivos de diseño en Puerto Rico
Research focuses on creative industries in Puerto Rico, the lack of appropriate design and production spaces, and the difficulties in managing and maintaining suitable spaces by individual firms or designers. In addition, it explores the revitalization of abandoned industrial buildings in order to cater to the needs of these industries. During the 1990s and the first part of the 21st Century, following the end of tax exemptions for foreign own industries, many factory buildings in Puerto Rico were abandoned, as corporations left. Adaptive conservation of the former Abarca foundry in San Juan, will provide spaces for designers and makers as a collective work and medium scale production space. Interior design strategies are based on modular and transformable pieces that can adapt to the particular needs of industries such as fashion design, industrial design, product design, architecture, and others. The project considers space distribution to facilitate the use of communal facilities such as fabrication laboratories and production spaces, while catering to the privacy and intellectual protection needs of certain design start ups. It also delivers alternatives for collective marketing and selling of products.
Sharon Rodríguez
Casa de reposo para mujeres en depresión
Research analyzed the profile of women with depression and the trends for holistic treatment. The proposal uses the theories of Edward T. Hall on Proxemia in order to determine the arrangement of interior spaces. Strategies for interactions with the environment follow Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecologic Theory as well as Edward Wilson's theories on biophilic design. The project proposes the development of a temporary house for the holistic treatment of with depression in the rural area of Isabela, Puerto Rico. The project intends to use of a series of prefabricated structures and reuse of containers in order to design interior environments conducive to wellness therapies.
Crystal Carrasquillo
Centro médico para mujeres con cáncer: Un espacio que apela a las emociones
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Puerto Rico. Research focused on the analysis of the emotional stages of cancer patients in order to propose "palliative" spaces. In addition, traditional spaces for cancer treatment were studied in order to establish design guidelines for interior spaces which might be able to counteract the usual negative connotations. As theoretical references, the proposal uses Zumthor's and Pallasmaa's arguments on atmospheres and phenomenology. In addition, the project proposes to design a Maggie Center in Puerto Rico as part of the services of a mayor hospital in Hato Rey. As such, interior design develops from a comprehensive understanding of the patients' experience and emotional stages. The goal is to be able to design interiors that do not feel like spaces for the sick. Organization follows a centralized scheme for shared spaces from which radiate secondary spaces arranged and programmed following the conceptualization of the four emotional experiential stages: rage, negation, depression, acceptance.