Scars of Trauma
2022
Trauma creates a void in one’s identity, dissociating oneself from the present. Integrating “the traumatic event into the overall arc of one’s life” becomes essential to fill this void. Scars of Trauma explores the potential of Beirut’s Tobagi Garden as an island of safety in which one’s inner world is projected in a three-dimensional space mended in a way where the past, present, and future are seen in a much clearer perspective. By exploring the material, functional and spatial qualities that define our built environment, this thesis aims for spatial- and self-identity maintenance and reconstruction.
Harvest Moon
Winter 2021
Harvest Moon is a project driven by food activism in East Harlem using concepts of vegetation growth, vertical voids, and exposing the process of growing food to passersby of the community. East Harlem lacks initiatives like community gardens and urban farms where residents can find daily fresh produce and accessible education about gardening their food. The site is located in a food desert. Hence, we aimed to create a hub where local food sources are grown responsibly while advocating for safe, healthy food for everyone and educating communities on what they can do to make positive changes.
The comprehensive studio in which this project came to be, allowed me to explore the multiple aspects of an architectural project: structure, environmental, mechanical systems, embodied energy, etc.
Flemingdon Park
2021
“Flemo is a proposal for the neighborhood of Flemingdon Park that builds on the community's strengths to develop a service-driven urban intervention. Flemingdon Park is a socio-geographic urban peninsula with physical boundaries defined by the Don Valley ravine network and large infrastructure projects. Car-centric development organized by super-blocks has resulted in a ground condition dominated by privatized open spaces and parking lots that are underutilized and do not serve the transit and pedestrian-focused population. We propose to use these urban leftovers to stitch together existing community assets, generate new productive adjacencies, and establish an internal hierarchy of mobility. Processes of easement, de-privatization, and the introduction of new green spaces will benefit the youth population who participate in urban space through occupation rather than ownership. This strategy looks inward, reinforcing the existing community to ensure that it is not compromised by imminent future development.”
Toronto Housing
2020
For this studio, we were asked to develop a housing project in the Yellow Belt of Toronto, a residential sector composed of detached and semi-detached houses. Being 1.8 times larger than other Toronto neighborhoods, the development of this sector could increase by 35% of the average density and so help the issue of unaffordable housing within the city.
My proposition is organized around the concept of the collective. The project offers a collection of six buildings connected through an exterior circulation allowing access to community spaces located on each third floor of the buildings: interior greenhouses, a coffee shop, a kindergarten, and a gym.
Migratory Meeting
2017
The “Integrated Objects and Space, Passage” studio consisted in creating temporary, seasonal, and spontaneous devices to animate a particular site in the city. Moreover, the devices were designed considering the seasons, the site's evolution, and the city's changes and transformation. The devices’ main intent was to produce an experience for its users while putting forth the environment they integrated themselves in.
Considering the site required intervention, I chose “le parc des Rapides” since it is located on the St-Laurent river, surrounded by rapids. Most interestingly, it is a bird’s migratory pole. The park itself is artificial. Hence it is made of big rocks piled on one another, making it sometimes difficult to walk around. I choose to install my devices at the tip of the park, where most of the rapids are and where the view is breathtaking.
The installation is composed of medium-sized modules linked to one another through platforms. The modules slowly come down near the rapids, creating tension between the users and the water. In short, the intention was to design an installation that makes it easier to walk around the park’s tip and sit and enjoy what the environment offers and express to its users.
The module is a structural platform, a stopping point, and a sitting area. It is made of rocks and discreet materials so it can incorporate itself into the site’s materiality in a way that leaves as little as possible a footprint on the park.