I invite you to join me on a journey through emotion...
Our spaces act as psychological inkblots, brought to life by our unique emotional perception. In every work of architecture, various feelings and emotions are held, interpreted differently by each person. For me, each project was associated with a particular emotional experience. This inspires how the contents of these selected works are laid out. However, surely, each person’s perception of a project will differ, and so too will the feelings that come with it. This is the beauty of architecture - its ability to take on new meaning for every person. Therefore, I hope you will take a moment to stop and ponder on each project, making a personal connection and welcoming the emotions that arise.
SOUL WINDOW
HYPOSTYLE HOMES
Mixed-Use Residential
Graduate Design 3 | Fall 2025
Critic: Julia McMorrough
Location: Jeromesville, OH
Hypostyle Homes bridge between the worlds of urban and suburban, reimagining what the house of the future might look like in a world that moves past individualism. The ground floor of each home is an open hypostyle hall, connecting all the homes in a sea of columns providing ample space for public gatherings. Structurally, this hypostyle hall also provides each home a clean 3x4 grid which organizes the organic forms that make up these townhomes.
In each townhome is the opportunity for a personalized drum, a space with endless possibilities. The original drum was founded as a prayer/reflection space, ensuring that the community always has a space for prayer, serenity, and reflection. Other default options for the drum include a family greenhouse and a first floor cafe or store but the drum is easily adaptable to become whatever amenity you seek to bring to your home and/or your neighborhood! When these homes aggregate, they create a thriving community, unified by a field of sheltered hypostyle space, bridging between a variety of resources and amentities which allow the residents to bring economic and social prosperity to their own neighborhood.
The Rarified Cinema takes inspiration from the Raree Box, a pre-cinematic media technology which proliferated in the 19th century, transforming urban streets across the world into layered multi-sensory entertainment experiences. As a pedestrian passes by a raree-box, the animated storytelling of its narrator peaks their curiosity, the ornate architectural form of the raree-box invites further exploration, and looking into the lens transports them to worlds beyonds. This project seeks to recreate this nowrare sequential viewing experience, while examining the rarities of our modern cinema - notably its extreme scale.
A play of scale - in which furniture-like raree boxes are enlarged into buildings - allows the human to experience the physical world through extremely intimate perspectives typically only available on a cinema screen. The ground is extruded to create an acropolis-like stepped landscape, allowing the montage of objects on the site to gradually reveal themselves to the viewer. As the visitor moves through the site, the entire journey becomes a cinematic experience, built up of frames in which various building-object-characters take the foreground at different moments. Just as a movie allows the viewer to connect deeply with a character through viewing them both from afar and extremely close, the visitor experiences this intimate relationship with the buildingobject-characters on the site. With each frame, the visitor becomes further removed from the Ann Arbor downtown and more deeply embedded into worlds beyond.
Between Space reimagines a typical suburban block into a cooperative living community. It consisted of two-phases: block-scale and building scale
For the block-scale portion we imagined a community agreement in which all members agree to redevelop the block to encourage walkability, collaborative activities, and economic flourishing. We meticulously removed certain homes, repurposing as many as possible. We then inserted two and three-story co-op buildings between them, criss-crossing the site to create connections across the block and unique green spaces between.
For the buildings, we prioritized flexibility, designing around structural cores which allowed many variations of floor plans to be designed around them. The design aims to maximize biodegradable materials like wood and hempcrete while encouraging time spent outdoors through views and passageways.
Street view render. (Rhino, illustrator, photoshop.)
NORWOOD ST
Block redevelopment site plan (Rhino, illustrator)
Block redevelopment process diagrams (top to bottom) (Rhino, illustrator)
PLATT RD
ELMWOOD AVE
OAKWOOD ST
Typical floor plan example (Rhino, illustrator)
Section (Rhino, illustrator)
Elevation (Rhino, illustrator)
Enlarged elevation and wall section (Rhino, illustrator)
SOUL WINDOW
Hotel, Apartment, & Museum
Design 7 | Fall 2021
Collaboration: Michael Dieffenthaller (all deliverables made in collaboration U.O.N.)
Critic: Judith Monk
Location: New York, NY
Taking the form of an “urban window,” this design aims to frame the many iconic views of New York City while creating a threshold for natural light to reach the street. Bringing in the program of a Museum of Feelings transforms this “urban window” into a “window to the soul,” a place that uncovers the hidden feelings and emotions within the humans of New York. traverses through it, they experience a surreal procession of spaces that evoke a wide range of feelings. The space does not force a specific feeling. Rather, it acts as an inkblot, bringing forth people’s emotions and experiences as spaces are shaped by each visitor’s unique perception. The “Museum of Feelings” program carves into its adjacent hotel and museum programs, infusing emotion into every moment that is experienced
This design began with exploring the subjectivity of emotion and how it takes on different visual forms from person to person. My partner and I each created abstracted graphic representations of various emotions and then used those as the basis for designing an emotional itinerary through this building.
To read more, see my undergraduate thesis: https:// ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/08/82/01/00001/ Abdalla_Mira_Honors_Thesis.pdf.
Exterior perspective from Northwest. (Rhino, photoshop)
Mapping Manhattan through emotion (mylar, tape, graphite, watercolor, ink.) By Mira.
“Urban window” parti development process.
NUMB EXHILARATED ETHEREAL
MELANCHOLY CURIOUS APPREHENSIVE
RADIANT RESTAURANT
EXHILARATING BALLROOM
FLOOR PLAN - GROUND LEVEL
SECTION 01- by Mira. (Revit, watercolor, photoshop, illustrator.)
APARTMENT LOBBY 01
NUMB CORRIDORS
APPREHENSIVE GALLERIES
MELANCHOLY OVERLOOK
ETHEREAL ATRIUM
CURIOUS CAFE
SERENE SPA
ENERGETIC LOBBY
HOTEL LOBBY
Taking inspiration from the Floridan Aquifer and celebrating Lake Eola’s origin as a sinkhole, the Percolate Performing Arts Institute consists of many small nodes and moments of revealing which all connect to a larger system of circulation, ascending gradually into the Black Box Theater. This ceremonial ascent transports visitors from the urban realm to the chimeric nature of the theatre. Large light wells bring large beams of light into the otherwise dimly lit space, simulating the experience of light pouring in through a cave’s openings. This experience celebrates the phenomena of sinkholes as moments of revelation for a magnificient underground system.
As visitors journey through this cavernous building to reach their performance, the parti of this space to evokes curiosity, encouraging them to stop on the way and explore the various different programs leading up to it. While users who have extra time and physical means may climb the monumental stair, those who choose not to can experience the transcendental elevator journey up through the light wells, surrounded by various programs on all sides.
The dramatic itinerary of this project emphasizes life as a performance while also telling the geological story of the land that it sits on.
Exterior perspective from Northeast. (Rhino, photoshop)
DRESSING ROOMS
PRIVATE GATHERING SPACE
Floor Plan - Level 04 (autocad, photoshop)
SCENIC WORKSHOP STAGING / ASSEMBLY
COSTUME STUDIOS
Floor Plan - Level 03 (autocad, photoshop)
LIBRARY / GALLERY
PREFUNCTION
SECONDARY REHEARSAL
VIEWING ROOMS
PRIMARY REHEARSAL
LAKE EOLA PARK
SITE
Above: Narrative site plan/analysis. (photoshop) Left: Floorplan, Level 01.
PROGRAM: 1. Courtyard 2. Public Lobby 3. Library/Gallery
4. Lecture Space
5. Prefunction
6. Loading Dock 7. Backstage/Private Gathering Spaces
METAMORPHOSIS
Wedding Chapel
Design 5 | Fall 2020
Critic: Vernelle Noel
Location: Gainesville, Florida (on constructed wetland)
Perched on “butterfly island,” a hill in the midst of a vast wet meadow, this space is home for two very special, life changing transformations: the transition of many caterpillars into butterflies and the lifetime union of many couples. As each couple arrives, they are guided by light through a procession of spaces which transform with each phase of their wedding. As the light enters each space differently, it highlights spaces of circulation and pause. Echoing the overall counterclockwise journey of the park, the movement through this space transitions from light to dark, low to high, and closed to open just as a butterfly emerges from its cocoon and takes flight.
Pulling inspiration from the landscape it sits on, this building provides an ethereal journey guided by light and a variety of views out to the surrounding meadow. The threshold between interior and exterior transforms with each space, taking inspiration from the cocoon at the entry spaces and the butterfly’s wing pattern at the chapel.
Exterior perspective from southwest. (rhino, lumion, photoshop)
Constructed wetland masterplan, designed in collaboration, drawing by Mira (autocad, photoshop)
Wedding Venue
Reflection Pavilion
ROOFTOP
TOPOGRAPHY
FROM GROUND UP
This project began with a group effort in collaboration with Kyle O’Quinn, Melanie Quintero, and Michael Dieffenthaller to design a wetland that would collect and purify excess runoff in Gainesville, Florida. Utilizing the natural topography, we designed a cyclical itinerary through which the visitor can journey alongside the water as it undergoes multiple phases of purification, beginning at the Northeast and ending at the Southeast.
At the center of this wetland is a meadow with various Florida native plant species. It is meant to attract birds and butterflies in the area, creating a serene moment of immersion in nature, particularly on the “butterfly island” in the midst of the meadow. This “butterfly island” is the site for the metamorphosis wedding chapel (an individual project.)
02. (rhino, autocad, photoshop)
Process axonometric - by Mira. (photoshop)
SECTION 01 - East-West section.
LOBBY
Interior perspective of entry corridor. (lumion, photoshop.)
Interior perspective of lobby (lumion, photoshop.)
photoshop.)
CHAPEL
Interior perspective of wedding chapel (lumion, photoshop.)
