2018 Sukkah: Dwell in Design Competition Entry

Location: 7500 Park Lane, Dallas, Texas - Museum of Biblical Art

Sukkah: Dwell in Design is an innovative design competition and outreach opportunity for the Jewish community to connect with the greater Dallas/Ft. Worth population. Local and national architects and artists were invited to build a life size, modern, artistic interpretation of a sukkah, a booth that provides shelter while also remaining connected to the built environment. The competition coincided with the 2018 Sukkah Festival.

Envisioned as a tensile rope structure applied to a structural box framework, this Sukkah takes its material inspiration from Bedouin tents and refugee shelters. The Sukkah submission used the Star of David as a starting point to erect a temporary pavilion.

Rope and light-gauge metal are the principle materials used in the design.   Rope, as a material, relates to the narrative of the current global refugee crisis as it is used in refugee tents and in the erection of temporary structures, and as foot protection in the form of sandals.

Architecturally, the layers of rope provide varying degrees of transparency when viewed in elevation. Similar to paintings by the artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagi, the overlay of shapes blurs the subject behind it.

Semester: SCI-Arc Spring 2016

Instructor: Dwayne Oyler

The studio incorporated advanced 3d modeling software to give volume to such fleeting elements as smoke and ghostly images. As a way of beginning, recognizable geometries like cubes and rectangular volumes were introduced with figural geometries. Ultimately, traces of the figural geometries were visible after carving chunks out of the solid boxes resulting in ‘voids’ with figural qualities. These voids were achieved through boolean operations which produced diverse and often unexpected results.

Among the things being explored were -- the nuanced "doubling" of the original, multiple readings of the same object, ephemeral material effects, i.e. fleeting effects and blurred edges.

In this case, the figural element travels through the volume and creates large cavernous spaces and possibilities for circulation by connecting two separate volumes across the site.

These images are part of a series I created as site-specific sculptures intended for high traffic areas. Observed as interesting ‘oddities’ that people are forced to interact with during their daily routines, they rethink the traditional ‘barrier’—between traffic & pedestrians—as sculpture. Think of the bollards and barricades that separate pedestrians and vehicles: Simple, repetitive, boring, they limit access to people and places. Codes and regulations prevent their placement in the middle of streets or highways. Cars would be damaged and traffic patterns would be disrupted by foreign objects placed in the middle of roads. Yet, with the quarantine enforcement due to COVID-19 and the new emptiness of our streets and public spaces as a result thereof, these sculptures fill the physical void that we have recently surrendered. Put them in the streets. Asymmetric and colorful, they are studies in form generated through profile and extrusion.

These collages were created as stream-of-consciousness sketches. The materials are rough and lend a vulgarity to the art. They mix elements of rock and roll excess, punk-rock attitude, and eroticism. Using cigarettes, handwritten song lyrics, and iconic rock and roll photography held together by strips of thick black electric tape and mounted on canvas, the art provokes. Their in-your-face attitude makes the viewer want to put out a lit cigarette, throw cheap beer on the art, and knock the canvas to the floor.

A client requested a proposal for a new fence design that combined visual variety with traditional store-bought materials to complement the neighborhood while elevating the home’s overall design aesthetic. Composed of 5’-0” modular sections of cedar plank boards intersected with metal posts spaced 6’-0” on center, a rhythmic design for a fence enclosure is created.

This sculptural relief is composed of primitive ‘chunks’ carved out of a building model during an architectural massing exercise.

Des boucles d'oreilles - French phrase for earrings.

Jewelry intended for women’s earrings

3D printed nickel plated steel

Sketches and snapshots of ongoing work