Elena Baranes Portfolio

ELENA BARANESYale School of Architecture

2 Baranes

Advanced Studio : Material + Force = Form

Design Studio : Olympic Village

Design Studio : CASIS HQ

Design Studio : Sight Study

Design Studio : Vlock Building Project

Drawing, Fabrication & Publication

4 - 29

30 - 41

42 - 49

50 - 53

54 - 69

70 - 85

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 Baranes

What is it like to be in a room with an instrument? How can a person understand something visually that is meant to be heard? While one instrument may be best understood in a shower of direct sunlight, another may ask simply to peer out around a dark corner into a massive empty space. I began my project by addressing these questions, conceiving of the museum’s form from the instrument out. I observed each instrument—how it is played, constructed, and its role in an orchestra in order to formulate a method of communicating the experience of each instrument’s performance using light, shadow and the relationship of the viewer to the instrument. I maintained the instrumental categories established by Yale’s current collection—percussion, keyboard, wind, and strings—in order to create highly-controlled spaces of exemplary display, through which a person might gain a sensibility about the rhythm, vibration, performance and sound of each instrument. Open storage surrounds these exemplary displays of each instrument type, an exhibition method that showcases the breadth of the museum’s collection, additionally allowing for the communication of contextual and historical information, as well as overlap between instrument types.

In order to accommodate potential future shifts in musical typology and exhibition strategy, this method of display requires an open floor plan that allows for change within an existing shell. This necessity dictated the building’s material and structural system, which achieve the spans necessary, while still maintaining the clarity and minimal nature of the museum’s diagram. The size and positioning of each box, or lantern, is modulated both by the square footage necessary to display the associated instrument type and by the surrounding site conditions. The building’s massing and siting respond to two dominant open space strategies on Yale’s campus—first, that of large public lawns, continuing the cross-campus axis across the street and providing a ceremonial termination point at the museum’s front door; and second, that of internal courtyards, breaking down into smaller open spaces that run between the museum’s masses.

Critic: John Patkau with Timothy Newton

Project: Musical Instrument Collection for Yale University

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

ADVANCED STUDIO : MATERIAL + FORCE = FORM

Model Photo

6 Baranes Model PhotoSite Plan

8 Baranes Model PhotoBelow Grade, Grade, Upper & Roof Level Plans

10 Baranes Model PhotoSection

12 Baranes Exhibition Diagram

14 Baranes Model PhotoSection

16 Baranes Model PhotoClavichord Drawing

18 Baranes Interior PerspectiveView Diagram

20 Baranes Model Photos

22 Baranes Model Photos

24 Baranes Process Model Photos

26 Baranes Process Model Photos

28 Baranes Process Model Photos

30 Baranes

Our project conceives of Boston as built land with a pier system that mediates the connection between land and water. Our goal was to carry this relationship onto our site, examining the exchange of land and water by pulling the water up to meet the convention center, and in turn building back out into the water using a hybrid landfill and pier system that responds to water circulation and filtration needs.

Partner: Alissa Chastain

Critic: Alan Plattus

Project: Olympic Village Proposal for Boston 2024 Olympics

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

DESIGN STUDIO : OLYMPIC VILLAGE

Site Plan

32 Baranes Aerial PerspectiveSite Plan

34 Baranes Exterior PerspectiveSection

36 Baranes Exterior PerspectiveSection

38 Baranes Exterior Perspectives

40 Baranes Model PhotoExterior Perspective

42 Baranes

CASIS is an organization that provides access to space research to those outside of NASA. In order to continue its growth, CASIS has the opportunity to use its headquarters to advertise its groundbreaking research through public display. In order to achieve this central display of research, the interaction of researchers with equipment such as the Destiny Module serves as the organizing feature around which the building unfolds, functioning both as its conceptual and geographic center, and making pieces of CASIS’s research accessible to the public.

Critic: Martin Finio

Project: Headquarters for CASIS

Location: New York, New York

DESIGN STUDIO : CASIS HQ

Exterior Perspective

44 Baranes Interior PerspectiveSection

46 Baranes Upper Level PlansGround Level Plan

48 Baranes Model Photos

50 Baranes

In my approach to creating a visitor’s center on New Haven’s Science Hill, I used sight ratios generated by a prior site analysis study to create a structure that capitalizes on visual connections across the site. By carving into the ground and positioning walls, ceilings and floors in accordance with the sight analysis data, I used the building to direct and frame views according to the program of the pavilion.

Critic: Brennan Buck

Project: Museum Pavilion for Science Hill

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

DESIGN STUDIO : SIGHT STUDY

Site Plan

52 Baranes SectionGround Level Plan

54 Baranes

Our proposal conceptually posits a three-story front house and a two-story back house, connected by a circulation core, in order to maximize square footage and living space. This diagram illustrates a prototypical model that can extend and contract to accommodate different non-conforming sliver lots.

Partners: Hiba Bhatty, Zachary Huelsing, Ross McClellan, Phillip Nakamura,

Mahdi Sabbagh & Emau Vega

Critics: Paul Brouillard, Adam Hopfner, Amy Lelyveld & Joeb Moore

Project: Prototype House for infill lots in New Haven

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

DESIGN STUDIO : VLOCK BUILDING PROJECT DESIGN PHASE

Ground Level Plan

56 Baranes Exterior PerspectiveSection

58 Baranes Interior PerspectiveSections

60 Baranes Interior PerspectiveElevations

62 Baranes Exterior PerspectiveElevations

64 Baranes

Upon completing the design competition phase of the project, the school and client (Neighborhood Housing Services) selected one proposal that the students worked collectively to build. As a class, we refined and completed the chosen design, created construction documents, and participated in the physical construction of the house. Tasks included site work, framing, interior work, roofing, siding and landscaping. The house is a 1,500 square foot single-family residence at 32 Lilac Street in Newhallville, Connecticut, and functions as a prototype for similarly narrow lots throughout New Haven.

Class-wide Project

Project Director: Adam Hopfner

Project: Construction of winning house design

Location: Newhallville, Connecticut

DESIGN STUDIO : VLOCK BUILDING PROJECT CONSTRUCTION PHASE

66 Baranes

68 Baranes

70 Baranes

Rome : Continuity & Change

Alexander Purvis, Stephen Harby & Bimal Mendis

Drawing & Architectural Form

Victor Agran

Materials & Meaning

Deborah Berke

Visualization Series

Joyce Hsiang, George Knight, Sunil Bald, Kent Bloomer,

Ben Pell, John Eberhart & John Blood

Building Technology

Alan Organschi

Formal Analysis

Peter Eisenman & Matthew Roman

Retrospecta

Elective coursework and projects completed at Yale School of Architecture

DRAWING, FABRICATION & PUBLICATION

Rome : Continuity and Change

72 Baranes Drawing & Architectural Form

74 Baranes Drawing & Architectural Form

76 Baranes Visualization SeriesMaterials & Meaning

78 Baranes Visualization Series

80 Baranes Formal AnalysisBuilding Technology

82 Baranes Formal Analysis

84 Baranes Retrospecta