Meredith Petellin is a third-year architecture student at Iowa State University pursuing a minor in Urban Studies. Meredith is dedicated to pushing the limits of design. She emphasizes historical and cultural context within her work.
To design one must understand the weight of what it means to create.
To design is to decide time and space. “to create, is first and foremost,to create time” - achille mbembe
| phase IV
“What’s beyond the building’s surface. Rather than using language or using walls. Look through the thing. The ambiguity, what’s there & not, as much as the whole.” gordon matta clark
phase IV
arch 301
professor | kevin lair
partner | olivia maasdam
Hansen Prize 1st Place
To care for the land, you must be close to the land. Our project aims to understand different scales of time and their effect on the landscape, both natural and supernatural. Understanding how the landscape is truly animate leads us to uncover
the unseen. Our process of understanding the world around us begins within the strata as we peel back the layers of sediment and history. Natural alterations to a landscape we never knew, slowly being unearthed by the Anthropocene and its supernatural implications. Untouched land, forever altered by colonial intervention. Before destructive agricultural practices, the tallgrass prairie covered the landscape in a sea of gold. An unwavering force, dancing through the grasses. The same wind that blew through the swaths of prairie all those years ago Grounds us in place, and is a daily reminder of what once was. What came from fire will be born again.
From the ashes, a new landscape emerges
floor plans: site 1,2,3
Phase IV seeks to understand the different scales of time. Working through the past, present, and future. To integrate architecture as a tool of the land rather than a force against it. Phase IV interacts with the forces of nature guided by water and wind, natures way of carving a story in the earth. We work to harness this story through a praire resoration facility and educational space. Providing necessary equipment and space to facilitate large scale prairie burns to return native Iowan ecologies. Working through a series of three buildings and a set of deployable structures. southwest of Winterset Iowa, this program connects to the landscape. Understanding that the earth will tell you what it needs when you listen. That architecure must bow to the forces of nature.
site 2: plan and section perspective
site 3: plan and section perspective
interactive model diagraming
“We’re part of creating this world in which we live, but we’re unaware of how we do that or even that we do that.”
James Turrell
prana
arch 202
professor | roman chikerinets
Rituals are rooted in time, place, and culture. They are vital to the ways in which we understand ourselves. Prana is a meditation retreat in Mcfarland Park, Ames Iowa it aims to flow with the landscape and guide the user on a path of self realization. This is perpetuated through the usage of compression and release which encourages those expierenceing the space to follow the path of their breath. Prana is the understanding of oneself through breathing. It is broken down into steps the first if which being prana meaning “breathing forth” this is the entrance stage of the building. Here the user is encouraged to focus on Inhaling. Moving into the center space the user is guided into vyana meaning
“pervading the body” here the user is able to spend some time in the underground meditation space, here they can allow their breath to fill their body and allow their consiousness to take over. As the user exits the building they move into apana “meaning breathing away” here is where they can focus on their exhale and releasing anything that does not benefit.
“The tactile sense connects us with time and tradition: through impressions of touch we shake the hands of countless generations.”
Juhani Pallasmaa
Publications Design | Editing
DATUM No. 14 | Phase IV
Through my involvement in DATUM: student journal of architecture I discovered a passion for publication design and the intricacies of book making. This passion for publication design was revelaed to through my architectural education. The process of research, refinment, and display correlates strongly to publication design. This enabled me to display my work in a unique and effective way.
Super(Natural): I worked on DATUM No.14 as both an editor and submisson contributor. DATUM is a medium for critical discourse about architecture and design. Through DATUM I now have a deeper understanding of research and layout design. My role as an editor of DATUM has taught me the importance of detail
Phase IV: My passion for research started with DATUM and continued on into my studio work. My usage of publication design for this project allowed me to display all site analyis and design research in a tactile way. Each book is designed, printed, and bound by me this prosses allowed me to have a deeper connection with my work and heightened my passion for my documentation process.
