Background. Situated in the Catskills, this retreat for union members and their families would provide a low-cost
vacation facility as well as a meeting place for local union chapters. It is intended that this facility should provide an
experience in the country in contrast to the day-to-day life of the exclusively urban membership, and through the resulting
interaction of people from different cities, an increased sense of union identity and purpose.
The project objectives are: (1) to deal with the juncture of land and building on a steeply sloping site, (2)
to exploit inherent formal characteristics in the programmatic items to further both an 'overall idea' and specific social
intentions (togetherness, separation, singularity, etc.), (3) to exploit building forms for the same ends, (4) to develop
a project with a definite social image; some possible alternatives are the Soviet workers' resort, the US Park System lodge,
and the commercial resort hotel.
Project Description. The program provides housing and recreational facilities for about one hundred fifty adults
and children (30 thousand square feet of floor area). The steep site, combined with the need for flat athletic fields, leads
to a solution involving extensive terracing of the site. The eastern area has been left untouched, creating a vivid contrast
of the natural with the man-made environment, as well as a fitting buffer zone between the retreat and the State Forest land
to the east.
The structure of the dwelling units is reinforced concrete and masonry block. The main building is framed in
steel.
The original drawings are in technical pen, at 1/32 inch = 1 foot.
Project: A HOUSE IN THE SANTA BARBARA STYLE
Adviser: Robert A. M. Stern.
Duration: Three weeks
Background. This project is the first in a series of studies aimed at strengthening the designer's skills in making decisions
about form. The particular interest in this case is to capture the formal essentials of a regional style. The functional problem
is that of the single-family house: at once the most familiar and most complex building type. Although this series of studies
is principally concerned with issues of form, serious regard is given to issues of function; every decision about form relates
to the psychological, utilitarian, and symbolic aspects of function.
Project Description. The program is a 3,000 square foot house, including living room, dining room, kitchen, family
room, master bedroom, two children's bedrooms, two and a half baths, a two car garage, and a covered outdoor area. The design
of the landscape is an important feature of the work. The site is a hypothetical invention developed in accordance with formal
needs.
The structure of this house is a standard wood frame. It is sheathed with smooth stucco, and roofed with clay tiles.
The original drawings of the plans and sections are freehand in ink, at 1/4 inch = 1 foot. Elevations are in ink, with
wash, at 1/8 inch = 1 foot.
Front Elevation Sections, First Floor Plans, Second Floor Plans
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Project: THE MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Adviser: Alexander Kouzmanoff
Duration: Nine weeks
Background. The Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation, at the time located at 155th Street and
Broadway, is devoted to the collection, preservation, study, and exhibition of all things connected with the anthropology
of the aboriginal people of North, Central, and South America. Its holdings consist of objects of artistic, historic, literary,
and scientific interest. It is the largest collection of its kind in the world, numbering in excess of four million individual
items. As a resource for research and education, it is without parallel.
The Museum was seeking new levels of achievement, new programs, new and broader audiences. An exciting
new public exhibition facility and a unique institutional program was envisioned. The then current site was considered inadequate
for various reasons.
Project Description. This project assumes a site at Second Avenue and 59th Street. Its particular advantages
over four other then proposed sites were proximity to the midtown shopping and gallery areas, large acreage, and high visibility,
due in part to the traffic that exits from the Queensborough Bridge. Its chief disadvantage was due to this same traffic,
which is intense, and required the locating of the Museum entrance on 59th Street. This happily allowed the entrance to face
the Roosevelt Island Tramway Plaza, and connect it to the main stream of pedestrian traffic which flows across 59th Street.
The program called for approximately 150 thousand square feet of floor area, divided into about 60 thousand
for collections, 35 thousand for exhibitions, 25 thousand for educational facilities, and 30 thousand for offices and staff
functions.
The project conceives of the Museum as having two central cores around which the other facilities are grouped:
the collections, and the exhibits. The exhibit core is planned for atmosphere and versatility, while the collection core is
planned for security and ease of access. In the exhibition area, a spiral-shaped void is carved out of the floors between
the two end wall zones, creating an interior landscape which might be likened to a hillside village. 'Interior' and 'exterior'
locations allow for the considerable variation in the size of exhibited artifacts.
The main structure of the building is reinforced concrete. The upper floors containing the curators' offices,
library, and dining areas, are suspended by cable from a deep truss consisting of the upper two floors. The central portion
of the main facade is of molded concrete panels. The remainder of the main facade, and the two other facades, are in double
modular brick.
The original drawings are in pencil, at 1/16 inch = 1 foot.
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Project: LE CORBUSIER'S VILLA STEIN REVISITED
Adviser: Robert A. M. Stern
Duration: Three weeks
Project Description. This project is the second in a series of studies on form. The
objective in this case is to design a house that pays specific, recognizable, and loving homage to some architectural
icon. I chose the Villa Stein. The program is again a house of 3,000 square feet. This is about one third the floor
area of Villa Stein, and the resulting contraction is one of the chief problems to overcome in maintaining the spirit of the
Villa Stein.
Structurally, this is a reinforced concrete building, with exterior walls of masonry
block, sheathed in smooth stucco.
The drawings are in pencil and colored pencil.
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