AGAINST
tHE GRAIN

FIRST-YEAR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO II
TAUGHT AT RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE S.O.A.

Choisy Drawings

From top left, clockwise: Fatimah Schulz, Izzy Catalano, Norman Perdomo, Chandra Cheedella, Teari Ordonez, Niamya Wansley, Sofia Amato, Mina Kim.

Platonic Massing Studies

From left to right: Chandra Cheedella, Sofia Amato, Izzy Catalano.

Building Massing Studies

Izzy Catalano

Mina Kim

From left to right: Sofia Amato, Izzy Catalano, Mina Kim

Sofia Amato

Norman Perdomo

Fatimah Schulz

The project site, located at Lock E17 in Little Falls, New York, encouraged students to explore the themes of water flow and containment, and the integration of non-human occupants. Given the Erie Canal’s historical role in transporting agricultural products such as wheat and corn, the studio brief called for the design of a granary hybridized with a bakery to facilitate a connection to the public. The non-human occupant for this studio was conceptualized as wheat and other commonly farmed crops.

Granaries, as ubiquitous agrarian typologies, were studied to examine dichotomies such as nature vs. architecture, the raw vs. the synthetic, and functionalism vs. inefficiency. Students investigated informal geometric relationships that referenced found granaries and how residual spaces emerge through stacking, peeling, shifting, leaning, and intersecting simple forms.

Studio Date: SP ‘24
TA: Acer Van Dis

Sections, Elevations
& Physical Models