Connor Ryan Coleman

The goal of this project is to revitalize an unused space in the UNM School of Architecture using an Architectural Intervention.
We are blessed to occupy a beautiful building designed by Antoine Predock, however the monotony of our lives can cause us to pass by some of the  striking, yet subtle moments that happen in the building.
The space my partner and I decided to call attention to is a five-height space which extends from the basement to the roof of the fourth floor. The grandness of this space is often overlooked by the people using the building. For this reason we chose to map the vertical circulation of the building, showing the daily paths of around a thousand people.
Assigning one string for two people, a sculptural map emerged showing the density and frequency to which the building is used.

The curative force in psychotherapy ­ — man’s tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism. 
Carl rogers, On Becoming a Person. 1961

The culture of celebrity and entertainment prevalent in Hollywood creates a shallow  dehumanized experience that has fused into the Architecture there.  I believe that an architectural event in the parking lots prevalent in Hollywood can jumpstart a self-actualization in the occupants that encourages them to make their own destiny.
The pavilion is an inflatable to whcih architectural elements have been added. The space is fragile and ephemeral, reacting to the people occupying it. Giving the occupants agency in their own destiny. Rehumanizing the dehumanized. 

The Los Angeles VA hospital serves the largest population of Veterans in America, and homelessness has become one of its primary concerns. To address this issue they are planning to build a neighborhood of permanent housing communities at the Brentwood campus. I chose to unify my housing around a single continuous 1:16 grade ramp. The housing units are strung along it like beads on a necklace. The  units are stretched and squished following the undulating ramp forming units ranging from studios to two bedrooms. In areas where units are not possible because they would be too small or interfere with the geometry of the building public voids are created. Art studios are located at the apex of the ramp and the art produced by veterans is used to fill the void spaces creating an art walk. The ramp also houses the plumbing and electrical hookups fort the units just like a scaled down version of a street. 

When a house becomes a home it transforms from an object to a character in our lives. A home is a living organism that grows and ages. A soul gets imbued into the walls, and a symbiotic bond forms between the structure and the occupant. 
For Milton, this house became his home over the course of the last 30 years he lived in it. The house and the man have grown together, adapted with each other. 
This addition allows Milton to keep his relationship with the old cabin and the memories it holds, while also promoting the ability to form new memories and new experiences.
Using the existing log cabin as an anchor, the internal systems have been regulated pushing the kitchen to be in line with the living room and allowing the bedroom the become it’s own private space. Then to adapt to the changes desired and needed by Milton, the home grows.

San Francisco is  the best told secret of the young and hip. Here, the cost of living exceeds that of anywhere else in the nation, and yet people continue to flock. What is  San Francisco selling that makes it worth the wildly inflated cost?
Nothing.
My team and I investigated that indefinable element that makes San Francisco San Francisco. Where the problems arise, where they get swept, and the shiny gloss that  covers them into palatable, locally raised, and organic morsels.
What follows might be the facts, and they might have a statement.  But what really matters is that they look pretty.

The following images are a selection of the pages I created for the book we presented as the culmination of our project. 

The follow up to The Art of Selling Nothing, the task was to rethink the urban farm through the lense of said topic. I identified San Francisco’s dichotomy of nurturing yet exclusive atmosphere along with its need to be authentic and self made, and chose to create a live work space for the creator class supported by the non-creator class. The visible portion of the building floats above street level with the entrance hidden underground. The general public has access only to the basement levels where they can purchase nothing, supporting they artists residing above. 

German for “wonder box” or cabinet of curiosities, the goal of this project was to create a box and subsiquintly fill it with the items we keep around us. As designers we tend to gather items that give an insight into who we are. From the glass cup I blew to the pink toy sheep, each item has a meaning to why it was chosen.  the wunderkammer is meant to be analyzed by the viewer