Nathanael Nelson | Architecture Portfolio 2023

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Affordable Housing | Shared Space Academic

TIED APART

Urbanism | Spatial Justice Academic

COMMON THREADS

Public Library | Integrated Services Academic

FOREGROUNDING INEQUITY

Coalition Building | Spatial Justice Academic

RIVERSIDE

Placemaking | Environmental Sensitivity Competition THE JUEL PROJECT

Preservation | Truth Telling Professional

COOK CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

Humanist Design | Intergenerational Professional

traditional architectural career grounded in activism and social justice, and the specific ways I leverage my positionality to resist the harmful patterns of traditional practice.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Graduate Systems Studio UMich Fall 2022

In our conversations with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission and Avalon Housing, it was clear that the number one need was housing for families and long-term residents. Our project tackles this problem by proposing a framework specifically designed for renting families. Blending a rowhouse typology - highly valued but typically found in denser cities - with protected shared space and integrated family services, the proposal imagines collective living with the dignity of home ‘ownership’. Every unit has its own facade and exterior entry with direct access to the embedded “plus space”, fostering connections across family units without sacrificing routine and privacy. These micro-communities then scale up across the site, retaining walkability and accessibility as they spill into a central boulevard connecting to the AAHC offices and community center. Furthermore, the modular construction and simple but elegant detailing keeps the initial building costs low to meet affordability goals.

Massing Composition Diagram

SITE MASSING DIAGRAM

SITE

Undergraduate Thesis Project

UVA Spring 2019

Mona El Khafif, Instructor Ultimately Urban

This thesis investigates the role architecture and urbanism can play in promoting social and spatial change. One of the more wickedly effective tools the South African apartheid government used were ‘buffer zones’ - wide, empty areas dividing townships and preventing cross-cultural interaction.

Acknowledging that these conditions are present across the country, I picked Cape Town as a case study due to its global prominence and accessible data. Through detailed site analysis, I chose a specific site condition where buffer zones, disguised as highways, appeared to be an obstacle to organic integration, and therefore design could act as a catalyst for community-based revitalization.

TI ED APART CAPE TOWN, SA

Extending the grid Engaging with ecology Consolidating footpaths Breaking down the scale

How can long term negative effects be identified early in the design process?

How is justice represented in the physical landscape?

What is the moral role of tourism in places like shantytowns and townships?

What needs to be dealt with on a local scale, and what needs to be dealt with on a regional scale? How do you decide?

Exploded Actor Network Axonometric

Niyaaz Jainoodien

Thirty-five year old living just outside Bridgetown

Owns a struggling cafe in Athlone

Regrets the decline of social networks among younger generations

With the project, Niyaaz take a bus to the brewery or the gym after work, meeting other parents and rebuilding connections,

Faghrudeen Samuels

College of Cape Town student specializing Electrical Installations

With the project, Faghrudeen can take a the college satellite campus and engage in practical community development class, bringing electricity to the informal settlements.

Mabelithemba Zabezola

Niyaaz Jainoodien

Thirty-five year old living just outside Bridgetown

Owns a struggling cafe in Athlone

Regrets the decline of social networks among younger generations

Faghrudeen Samuels

College of Cape Town student specializing in Electrical Installations

Mabelithemba Zabezola

Mother of three living in an informal Langa

Owns a business selling braai meat

*All citizens identified through public articles or websites

With the project, Niyaaz take a bus to the brewery or the gym after work, meeting other parents and rebuilding connections,

Mother of three living in an informal structure in Langa

Owns a business selling braai meat from her home

With the project, Mabelithemba can move her business to the market space, close enough to maintain her current clientele while reaching out to other customers and giving her family breathing room.

Mickah

Middle-schooler living in Bonteheuwel

With the project, Faghrudeen can take a bus to the college satellite campus and engage in a practical community development class, bringing electricity to the informal settlements.

Wants to consistently play soccer but neighborhood’s lack of resources and pressure from gang members makes his wish almost impossible

With the project, Mickah has access to vast, well filtrated green space for soccer, and is connected with local community members to start a club.

Aselita February

With the project, Mabelithemba business to the market space, close maintain her current clientele while other customers and giving her

Retired lady living in Welcome Estate

Co-ordinates catechetics at St. Theresa

With the project, Aselita has access to a variety of flexible space for lessons, and can do her shopping within walking distance

Graduate Institutions Studio UMich Fall 2021

The premise of Institutions studio is to understand and grapple with the immense complexity of public institutions. This project proposes a new branch of Ann Arbor’s district library in the heart of the downtown. Over the course of this studio, we heard from librarians some best practices for a functional, fluid library design, and were encouraged to combine the library program with a program of our choice, to see how much we can ask the library to do.

Common Threads blends provisional housing, theater space, staff offices, and outdoor plazas with traditional library stacks in an adaptive, parametric circulation structure. Rigorous studies in form and volume, while staying incredibly sitespecific, resulted in an accessible and playful design that is transparent and legible, like a book.

COMMON THREADS ANN ARBOR, MI

Identify site grain

Identify solid and void spaces from contextual pressures

Label according to program and space requirements

FORE GROUNDING IN EQUITY

Graduate Propositions Studio UMich Winter 2022

The story of the Detroit River is richly layered and largely invisible. The land and water carry deep, traumatic histories of power imbalances, redlining, lead poisoning, disinvestment, and urban renewal - simultaneously, emancipatory histories of freedom seekers, technological innovation, food sovereignty, to name just a fraction. To address one truth while ignoring the other is to be complicit in continued inequity.

This project reflects on the visible and invisible systemic barriers affecting residents’ access to social and civic infrastructures in contemporary Detroit, and taps into the thriving community networks that transgress these barriers. Composed of individual modules designed in partnership with specific local organizations, the assembled system is fluid, chaotic, temporal, and striking. Between wall, fence, and billboard, the system turns a defensive device into a sanctuary for both humans and wildlife once displaced by development, and marks the built environment with visible symbols of historically subjugated infrastructures.

DETROIT, MI

ARCHITECTURE

How do we build local coalitions?

DEVELOPMENT

FUNDING SOURCES

Corktown,Detroit

CHINNOV ON

SalvagedMaterials(doors,windows,sheetmetal)

SalvagedMaterials(doors,windows,sheetmetal)

The chosen incubator site is an inconspicuous corner of land in Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood. Once home to the Western Market, the building and surrounding neighborhoods were razed by Fisher Freeway during urban renewal, eliminating a major distributor of fresh food and undermining thriving, majority Black social capital overnight. Today, Corktown faces dramatic gentrification and/or loss of granularity from large-scale investments by Ford, MDOT, DGC, and Hunter Pasteur - well intentioned moves that would cause disastrous results.

RainwaterCatchment&SolarPanels

2”DeckingonSteelFrame

ModularConstructedWetland

Verticalfarmingoperationworkingtoconsolidatethesupplychain

Non-profitcoalitiontoexpanduseofrainwatertohydroelectricgenerators

HydroponicGarden

HydroelectricGenerator

BiodiversityRefuge

DPSafter-schoolprogrammakingbirdandcritterhabitats

CollegeofEngineeringandScienceat

UDMercyresearchingbiomass

AlgaeFarm MarketStall

Freshandlocalfooddistribution,potentially fromthefarmsonsiteCorktownNeighborhoodAssociation startedalocalboulderingclub

Non-profitorganization improvingthecanopyof Detroitandprovidingjob training

BoulderingWallTreeNursery etc...

How can community partnerships be visible in the landscape?

RIVERSIDE

ULI Hines Urban Design Competition

Phase I Submission

UMich Winter 2022

Teammates: David Elam, Anthony Bui, Chelsea Gaylord, Nikshith Reddy

Advisor: Kit McCullough

Riverside, a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood proposal for North Charleston, positions the city as a creative and resilient leader in the face of mounting environmental, economic, and social challenges. Historically, the riverfront was inaccessible and harmful to the local population, with naval usage restricting access and traces of industrial production seeping into the landscape. By stitching the waterfront back to the urban core through a carefully constructed gradient of mixed-use living, learning, and playing, Riverside sets the standard for innovative design solutions for North Charleston and beyond.

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC

Radial nodes at the northwest and southeast corner, inspired by neighboring Park Circle’s Garden City typology, create walkable microneighborhoods that draw activity along upgraded, tree-lined boulevards. This allows for continuous pedestrian and bicycle access from the historic downtown, along existing Avenue B to Riverfront Park across Noisette Creek, and beyond, which in turn lays the groundwork for future development downriver.

Due to the risk of flooding, attention was paid to the relationship between the Cooper River and the development edge, using constructed wetlands and permeable pavers to absorb changes in water level. Restraining buildings inside a perimeter road and interweaving a playful boardwalk gives the waterfront back to the community - its rightful stewards. This edge, always in motion, is scaled perfectly for picnicking, kayaking, or simply sitting and enjoying.

THE JUEL PROJECT

Professional Work | University of Virginia Spring/Summer 2017

Research & Visualization

The JUEL Project (Jefferson’s University, the Early Life) aims to understand how the University of Virginia was constructed and operated circa 1827, and to communicate the importance of slavery in building the Academical Village. The digital reconstructions are based on a wealth of information, including but not limited to, Historic Structure Reports commissioned by the Office of the Architect, scans of original drawings and documents provided by the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, historic photographs found in the UVA Library’s Digital Repository, 3D scans of existing structures, as well as other books written about the University and the expertise of University historians.

As part of the 3D visualization team, I assisted in translation of historical plans and elevations to a digital environment, with the broader goal of modeling the entire Academical Village in 3Ds Max. Having the structures presented as they were in 1827 allows us to understand in greater detail the environments in which enslaved laborers, students, and professors interacted, and can assist in predicting areas where archaeology might yield more results, along with other valuable data.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA

Textured/Rendered under the supervision of Lauren Massari

Smokehouse

Workyard

The facades of the pavilions facing the Lawn are visually impressive, but they masked the very real work that was happening in the yards. A variety of supporting buildings such as smokehouses, outhouses, wells, and kitchens staffed by enslaved laborers occupied the lower elevation, hidden from view.

In an effort to re-imagine the spaces, the workyards were transformed into beautiful gardens around the mid-20th century. With archaeological records and site mapping, the JUEL project visualizes the truth of what these spaces were originally used for.

Researched, Modeled, Textured, and Rendered under the supervision of Lauren Massari

Subtle Design Changes

The Anatomical Theater, not included in original designs for the Lawn, is also the only Jefferson-designed building to be torn down.

This makes its gruesome history all the more significant.

“That the sum of $100 be annually appropriated from the Funds of the University, for the purpose of procuring subjects for the Anatomical class, and for adding to the Anatomical Museum.”

Board of Visitor minutes, July 10, 1832.

‘Subjects’ were, of course, exhumed cadavers, usually free or enslaved black persons. A complex, illegal system was used to snatch bodies from grave sites in Richmond, transport them in barrels to the university, and then await dissection in the theater.

The demolition of the Anatomical Theater at the turn of the twentieth century erased this painful history from the university’s memory. As of today, there remains only a small cornerstone in the ground where the theater once stood. This digital reconstruction was an important step in forcing the university to acknowledge this legacy of harm.

Professional Work

David M. Schwarz Architects

Summer/Fall 2020

Steven Horwitz - Project Manager

Maytham Alghaffari - Job Captain

Markus Hongmanivanh - Design Team Ryan Gebhart - Design Team

For over 30 years, David M. Schwarz Architects has been working with Cook Children’s hospital to design and construct a campus that is fun and friendly for kids through a postmodern design style. In the most recent phase of work, I had the opportunity to work on a new expansion to the hospital, including the exterior of the addition, a model of the new atrium space, and a covered connector between the garage and the addition.

I was on this project during the Design Development phase, and prepared a variety of documents for communication between the design team and the architects of record. We utilized multiple mediums to communicate design intent, such as a detailed Revit model, physical massing and detail models, and Bluebeam PDF sketches.

COOK CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL FORT

WORTH, TX

Exterior Work

My responsibilities for this project included updating the model (physical and digital) according to design direction, and assisting with DD sheet documentation.

Interior Work

My responsibilities for this project included assisting with the design and construction of the physical model of the atrium, including 3D printing and lasercutting specific elements.

Summer 2020 | David M. Schwarz Architects | Cook Children’s Hospital

Design Work

Render: Summer 2020

CONNECTOR: NORTH/SOUTH SECTION

While on the design team for Cook Children’s Hospital, I had the privilege to lead a micro-project. This covered walkway between the new garage and new addition was to be fun, accessible, and iconic to mark the new era of the campus.

We developed a playful bridge aesthetic that hinted at the postmodern medieval castle of the atrium, as well as the oversize tic-tac-toe language of the fences around campus.

As lead, I was responsible for material selection and communicating design intent with the architect of record.

CONNECTOR: WEST/EAST SECTION (FACING DODSON EXPANSION)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanael-nelson-a3a5b3179/

nelsonjn@umich.edu