Art & Architecture Portfolio

KRISTINA MIESEL

art & architecture portfolio

UNDOING HIERARCHY

Site: MFA, Boston

Fall 2023 Advanced Studio

Instructor: Stephanie Choi

Partner: Emily Lo

A Universal art museum, originally referred to as encyclopedic, is a museum with collections of art and other cultural items from around the world, not just from the nation where the museum is located. The MFA in Boston is a well-known example of this typology. These types of museums tend to push a narrative of being spaces devoted to serving the public and making art and education accessible to all. However, they end up promoting misguiding stereotypes about different cultures, in the way they organize their collections. Within the existing walls of the MFA, we proposed a designated gallery that would allow visitors to experience the museum's permanent collection in a space that removes the temporal and spatial hierarchy that is present in their existing curation. This will allow visitors to engage in the work in a more thought-provoking way, giving them opportunities to explore a wide range of work without the sense of an overarching hierarchy creating biases towards specific cultures.

Axonometric, with details

THE MEANDERING PARK

Site: Bandemer Park, Ann Arbor MI

Winter 2021 Studio Instructor: Zain Abuseir

Located at Bandemer Park along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, MI, this new boat house synthesizes the natural landscape and the built environment. The new structure seemingly emerges from the ground pushing up with it the landscape, allowing none of the park’s surface area to be taken away from the general public who come to the park to enjoy a nice walk, a swim in the river, or a picnic with friends. Currently, this location acts as the meeting point for the local crew teams in the area to meet and practice in the Huron River, but they do not have a proper structure to store their equipment. This new design would provide these teams with a space where they can come together to practice and learn.

roof vegetation

guardrails

roof

walls

window

team room

bathrooms

gym

rowing pool

main hall

rowing shell storage

ramp

basement walls

BED ROOM, ROOM BED

Spring 2023 Advanced Studio Instructor: Ian Miley

This cozy space was Inspired by a study of famous beds and the architecture of fortresses. With this mini project, I set out to create a room of comfort and protection, or even a space to play. For a child, I could imagine this being seen as the ultimate pillow fort. The woven cube allows users to slip between different materials as they move throughout the space discovering different textures to wrap their body in. The strips are made up of different materials creating a multitude of gradients that interact with each other to make different spatial conditions: Light vs dark, fuzzy vs smooth, tight vs loose, and thick vs thin.

Opposite page: model of the Bed Room, Room Bed

1

THE DOLLHOUSE

Spring 2024

Dollhouses, while rooted in architectural representation, have historically been excluded from architectural discourse, relegated to the devalued realm of the frivolous and feminine. With a complex history connected to craft, education, and play, dollhouses have commonly been perceived as mere reflections of existing social hierarchies. However, this perception tends to overlook the creative agency wielded by people, usually girls, as they engage with dollhouses, reinterpreting their functions and challenging norms. Crafted traditionally at a scale of 1:12, these miniature homes intricately capture different aspects of our domestic environment. Within the walls of a dollhouse, the architectural container often assumes a secondary role, with primary importance placed on the objects it holds. This perspective stands in contrast to conventional architectural representations, which frequently idealize pristine spaces, disregarding their lived-in realities. Instead, within a dollhouse, our most intimate spaces are shown with the objects, memories, and messes that define them, fully on display. Thus, the dollhouse is situated as an important tool for learning how we conceive, design, and inhabit spaces. This thesis aims to reframe our understanding of what architecture is through the lens of the dollhouse, highlighting the fact that spacemaking is defined by the interplay between everyday objects and human interaction.

Opposite page: The Objects, 1:12 scale

Drawing studies

Domestic Scenes documenting the aura of objects: the space needed to interact with them and the space they occupy

The Dollhouse Section how does our interaction with the objects within define our spaces?

PARTS FOR PLAY PAVILION

Site: Innovation District Park, Providence, RI Fall 2022 Core 1

Instructor: Evan Farley

Through a series of relief models made by studying the geometry of the Sonsbeek Pavilion in plan, I derived a new language of geometry that was deployed on the site of Providence's Innovation District Park as a set of Pavilions. I started by taking the grid that is prominently seen in Sonsbeek’s plan and using it as a framing device, rotating and layering the plan on top of itself to form new shapes in the overlaps. To create a threedimensional structure I thought about how these shapes could be extruded at different levels to create a hierarchy of space. Color was used throughout this project to designate the different layering of geometry, and later as spatial distinctions. The unique geometry allowed for the parts to be layered and played with in multiple ways.

Opposite page: model of pavilion parts

Low-relief diagrammatic study models of

Model of pavilion parts

THE STATION

Site: Providence, RI Fall 2021 Studio

Instructor: Malcolm McCullough

The Station aims to organize the necessary programmatic elements of a train station in a rational way to provide optimal movement through space, while also discovering what else it can bring to its community. Interested in the pedestrian experience, I looked at the different directions people would be approaching the site from and wanted to understand how that movement towards the site could transition into movement through the building. After studying many historical train stations, I looked to Torino’s Porta Nuova, for two architectural elements that would inspire the form of my design in Providence. Those are the grand arrival hall and the walkway that is created around the building by the arcade. The perimeter walkway wraps around the building and provides the first layer of entrance into the station from all three sides someone can approach. From this first layer of the building, people are directed into the arrival hall that spans the entire height of the building, connects both major roads, and acts as the divider of the building into two parts. The whole form of the building follows the same organizational logic that the layout of the columns present and the grid it begins to form.

Preliminary sketches

a. offices

b. conference room

c. storage

d. bathroom

e. staff room

f. lounge

a. arrival hall

b. bus info desk

c. ticket booth

d. bag storage

e. storage

f. bathroom

g. cafe

h. bike shop/rental

i. bookstore

ART

2020 - 2024

This section highlights the diverse array of artistic mediums I have explored. Over the years, I have immersed myself in various art forms including oil painting, watercolor, textile arts, jewelry making, paper making, printmaking, and more. Across these different mediums, my creative inspiration consistently revolves around a singular theme: the aspiration to encapsulate moments of sentiment and home. I have been drawn to using old family photos, and memories of my childhood home and trips taken with my family as inspiration.

Opposite page: In Rome, Watercolor

The Family Cat, A Series, Lithograph, 4in x 4in