Architecture is not just an object; architecture is an action. It is a reflection of our culture and who we are as humanity.

704.231.1699 matodd0220@gmail.comMICHELLE A. TODD

EDUCATIONUNC Charlotte, Candidate for Master of Architecture August 2012-May 2014- 3.6 GPA- NCAIA Architectural Book Award recipient

N.C. State University, B. of Environmental Design in Architecture August 2008- May 2012- Cum Laude

LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE & AWARDSNCAIA Architectural Book AwardUNC Charlotte, Spring 2014- awarded based on service to the school of architecture, in particularly leadership in planning criticalMASS 2013 under budget constraints and leading design and implementation of the vertical garden of the UNC Charlotte Solar Decathlon home.

Team Member, P3 Sustainability ProjectUNC Charlotte, Spring 2013- “Beyond Green: Bio-reactor Integrated Building Envelope (BIBE) in Urban Environment”- Worked with professor Kyoung-hee Kim to design a facade that utilizes algae to improve facade performance as well as the improve the building environment.- Chosen to travel to Washington, DC in April with 4 fellow students to represent the project in the P3 Sustainability Exposition.

President, Master of Architecture Student Society UNC Charlotte, August 2012-May 2013- Organized and planned the lecture and student thesis presentationsunder a budget cut for criticalMASS 2013.- Identified Johnsen and Schmaling to lecture on their work and critique thesis projects. - Identified and invited ten students from other universities to present their thesis projects in under the ideal to promote collaboration of ideas from our peers at other universities.

President, American Institute of Architecture Students North Carolina State University, August 2008-May 2011- President (’10-’11), vice president (’09-’10), secretary (’08-’09)- Increased membership by at least 3 times by using funds from AIA Triangle to subsidize dues.

WORK EXPERIENCETeacher’s Assistant to Dr. Lee Gray, UNC Charlotte January 2013-current- Recreating original print drawings of the Equitable Life Assurance Building in AutoCAD to pursue understanding of one of the first high-rise mechanicalsystems.

Research Assistant/Team Member, UNCC Solar Decathlon Project January 2013-October 2013- Oversaw the completion of the project manual. - Led the design, organization, and construction of the structural system and worked in a team to conceptualize the vertical garden system. - Assisted in construction of house.- Chosen to participate during the construction and competition in Irvine, California (Oct. 2013).- Video about vertical gardens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8-APUkss7I

Design Intern, Tonic Design, Tonic Construction January 2011-August 2011-Utilized SketchUp, VRay, and Adobe Creative Suite to create diagrams to further projects and for competition submissions.- Learned how to communicate and understand the skills of tradesmen through on-site construction (Rosenburg Reeves Residence).- Created models to articulate the concepts of projects.- Fabricated parts to create a custom railing system for the Crabill Modern House.

Design Intern, Wesley Coble Architect and Planner Summer 2010- Used ArchiCAD to ensure plans met ADA codes for restoration projects.

704.231.1699matodd0220@gmail.comMichelle Todd

DESIGN ABILITIES- Revit/Dynamo - Vasari - Ecotect - SketchUp/Vray - AutoCAD - Adobe Creative Suite - Rhinoceros/Grasshopper - MasterSpec - Model building - Sketching - Microsoft Office

Small Scale Projects

Rebar and Oak TableThe design of this table was based on the constraints that it had to contain a moment connection. This project was created for a structures class to demonstrate our knowledge of different structural systems.

Bike Shelter and Efficiency Bike Rack

The premise of this project was to first design a concept of a bike shelter and then secondly to design, in a small group, a more efficient bike rack. Seeing that people are increasingly using bikes as a means of transportation, there is an increased need for storage of these bikes. A typical bike rack takes of a substantial amount of space, and is not efficient. The bike rack designed, stores twice the amount of bikes in the same amount of space as a traditional bike rack and provides a more secure method to store your bike.

Haw River Cabin Retreat This cabin was designed based on a real-life scenario of constraints. A major aspect of the project was that we had to work with a family we knew to provide us with a list of requirements for the cabin retreat.

The site context was located along the Haw River in a low-lying area that is predominantly flood plain. The family that was worked with for this project requested plenty of storage and parking and so the necessity to raise the house based on the flood plain allowed for the opportunity to use otherwise “junk-space” for parking and storage. The cabin was also designed to be very open and conducive to entertaining and conversation.

Haw River Cabin Retreat

Medium Scale Projects

In order to design a visitor center that was not intrusive upon the existing successful building on site (constructed by Alvaro Siza), site analysis was done to find corresponding relationships between the site, the pools, and the buildings. The geometries and relationships that were derived from these analyses were used to inform a new visitor center that demarked the location of the pools by sitting on top of the topography, but would not interfere with the existing success of the original context.

Leca Da Palmeira Visitor Center

Municipal Courthouse

Site analysis model used to study existing and proposed site context including zoning and density.

Municipal Courthouse

Sub-level Ground Floor First Floor Second Floor Third Floor

While working on the municipal level allows some alleviation in rigidity in the planning, there are many circulation paths that must be isolated to protect those in custody, the public, the judge, as well as the jury. However, this complicated circulation cannot create an extreme excess in programmatic circulation. This project highlighted the fact that some buildings thrive on stacking mechanical and plumbing, which introduced a new challenge. By including additional programmatic space such as a non-profit cafe that hires people from the community, a relationship is formed and works with the pillars of law that have driven the traditional design of courthouses.

Process Models

Museum Pavilion | Kinetic Facade

The main aspect to this project was to design a kinetic facade that was based on a natural element. While many of the studio participants worked with daylighting, this project focuses on utilizing prevailing wind patterns to increase the efficiency of natural ventilation through a wind louver system. Ecotect and Vasari were used to calculate the necessary climate information

Vasari wind analysis using weighted seasonal averages Vasari yearly average Butterfly analysis

Museum Pavilion | Kinetic Facade

Using three different profiles of louvers, wind is scooped into spaces during seasons that natural ventilation benefits the building. In spaces the desire natural ventilation, such as the art education spaces, louvers are placed and respond to changes in wind direction as sensors perceive adjustments. In spaces that do not desire natural ventilation, such as the art exhibit spaces, there are no louvers considering naturally ventilated can be damaging to artwork. During seasons that no natural ventilation is used, the louvers can function as vertical shading devices, preventing unnecessary solar heat gain.

Large Scale Projects

Person Street Mixed-Use Development

The redesign of Person Street near the intersection of Peace Street was done based on the concepts of New Urbanism. The businesses that line Person Street in this district are struggling and while the surrounding historic neighborhood provides plenty of support, the current configuration and street conditions are not conducive to a productive business district for the neighborhood. By focusing on a design based on New Urbanism principles and introducing a design of a mixed-use build-ing, the community can be revitalized and become more successful.

Competition Projects

P3 Expo | Algae Facade

Under the advisement of Professor Kyoung-hee Kim, The intentions of the P3 Project was to explore the potential use of an algae facade system to improve the performance of buildings by offsetting the carbon footprint of the building, improving the building’s air quality, and designing an efficient and manageable system. The waste of the system can be used as biofuel to promote further sustainable practices. As a multi-disciplinary project, personal contributions to the project included the aesthetic design of the panel, research and feasibility of implementation, and presentation during the P3 Exposition, hosted by the EPA in Washington, D.C.

UNC Charlotte Solar Decathlon House

Focusing on bringing the garden into the city, the UNC Charlotte Solar Decathlon house focused on innovative materials, such as geopolymer cement concrete, as well as innovations such as an operable PV panel system and an extensive garden wall to make urban living more com-fortable and green. Personal contributions to the project were focused on the development of the vertical garden system, including the structure, the completion of the project manual, and construction and assembly of the house both on campus and in Irvine, California during the Solar Decathlon Competition of October 2013.

UNC Charlotte Solar Decathlon House

UNC Charlotte Solar Decathlon House

While personal involvement was primarily with the installation of the plant wall (left), other responsibilities also included helping to design, fabricated and install the handrails. As seen in the right image, in-shop fabrication was used to custom create the profiles of the railing systems that were featured in the house. After many long discussions, it was concluded that an off-the-shelf system would not be appropriate for our house and that a unique profile was the best option.

Master’s Thesis“Forging architecture from the flames: relationships between metalworking, architecture, and material culture.”

Henry Glassie, a famous folklorist and anthropologist, was the first to use the material culture to describe the objects that are created from a particular culture. Because culture is a tangible concept, the analysis of the items produced by a culture provides the reflection of what the needs of the culture is, concretizing the society. Glassie describes material culture to be “the inner wit at work in the world. Beginning necessarily with things, but not ending with them, the study of material culture uses objects to approach human thought and action” (pg. 41).1

Architecture, on a larger scale, is a form of object created by culture. Both on the scale of the building and on the scale of the detail, architecture is a manifestation of cultural needs and functions as material culture. To trace this concept, metalworking can be utilized as an architectural feature that can be tracked over time; the changes that architecture experiences in relationship to metalwork and advancing technologies reflects the changes in cultural.

To help prove that architecture is a form of material culture, three individual buildings are to be designed for a site in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. As a town rooted in craft, including a strong inclusion of blacksmithing, Spruce Pine desires to have a prominent set of buildings programmed around crafts that marks the entrance into the historic district of the town. The primary building designed for the site is a blacksmiths’ guild and will be located at the apex of the site, fronting all traffic that approaches from that direction. The second building that collaborates with this program is a blacksmiths’ gallery, which showcases work produced by the guildsman. The third primary building is the community market, which is connected to the community’s need to display and sell all types of crafts. Since each of these buildings has a unique program, the structure and material assembly will reflect the program. The guild will be constructed from exposed beams and wood, an appearance that is vernacular to those types of spaces. The gal-lery will be of a sleek design, with slender structure and an elegant façade so that the work housed is showcased. The community market is to be con-structed by materials informed by the local industries that support the town, which is mining and railway shipping. These three different approaches to structure will reveal that each program is indicative to the cultural needs of the program. To unify these buildings, there will be an overarching roof structure that covers the entire site and will merge each of these techniques to show that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While some of these spaces will desire a more handcrafted approach, others will desire a more prefabricated and economic approach, which does not necessarily mean that craftsmanship is lost. As stated by Fritz Kuhn “Craft can be proud of its past, but must nevertheless be constantly concerned with its present and its future” and ultimately “it is not the machine itself that makes the work less good, but our inability to use the machine in the right way” (pg xii).2

1. Glassie, Henry. Material Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Print.2. Kühn, Fritz. Decorative Work in Wrought Iron and Other Metals. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1977. Print.

Forging Architecture from the FlamesSpruce Pine Blacksmiths’ Guild and Community Market

Since context and culture is critical to the development of the thesis, a comprehensive site visit to collect photographs was important to be able to document the built and natural environments of Spruce Pine to better inform the design of the proposed buildings.

Site models have also been critical to the develop of this project to ensure that both the pedagogical ideas and programmatic schemes collaborate with the site. Final site model

In order to form a gateway to the community, these buildings are placed at the apex of the community to demark when the town begins. The three buildings (the guild, gallery, and market) are planned around an axis informed by the pedestrian footbridge (the orange diagonal line). The programs engage with each other, yet speak as individual identities.

Site Plan

Diagrammatic program axon

|gallery structure|-constructed on contemporary metal elements that reflect standar construction practices, but with attention to detail.

- used to frame the blacksmiths’ craft rather than exploit the structure.

|market structure|- constructed from industry informed elements such as railroad ties in the attempt to exploit the industries that support the communities ulture.

- structure becomes a feature of the building and is an organizational system that reveals itself.

|guild structure|- constructed from off-the-shelf items, such as c-channels that can be compounded and joined by the blacksmiths

-structure is developed to help articulate the craft of blacksmiths through the utilization of structure.

|canopy structure|-constructed out of leading-edge materials with a heightened attention to detail through the performance and perforation.

- the canopy serves as an articulation of the current material culture, which exhibits our desire for updated technology that displays a sense of elegance and lightness in presence.

Using the displaced views feature in Revit 2014, an exploded axon was generated to help diagrammatically highlight different components of metal working material culture and where they exist within the different programmatic spaces.

Opposite Page (Top) Final Model (Bottom Left) Final rendering of Guild (Bottom Right) Processionary experience (Above Left) Interior rendering of guild (Above Right) Rendering of open plaza space covered by the canopy. *Project & Renderings in Revit

Example Revit Work

Having recently taken the BIM class at UNC Charlotte not only taught me the basics in Revit, such as drawing a simple plan so that cut sheets can be taken, but it also allowed me to learn how to create more advanced forms and create photorealistic renderings using the cloud. Through Jeremy Roh’s class we learned how to create topography through various methods, how to use the adaptive and parametric components, typical Revit tasks, and also how to use Dynamo.

House Charrette

Storrs Hall Salon Roof Intervention

1/16" = 1'-0"1 T.O. Parapet High Roof

1 section box

The foundation for the idea of this roof design were the apertures designed by Renzo Piano for the Nasher Museum. While the constraints for that project were to ensure that light was appropriate for the display of art. The intent of utilizing a rotating cube is to create distorted shadows that morph as the sun pro-gressed through the sky. The size of the cubes are based on an 8” module in respect to the module that Gwathmey rigorously applied to the design throughout the rest of the building. While Piano’s ap-ertures are extrusions with a void in the center to create a shading device, the concept is inverted for this roof. The solids function as the shading device instead of miniature light-wells and the void-space in between begins to allow for the infiltration of light through spaces that would have been occupied by solids in Piano’s design. In order to create the roof, the form and pattern were constructed in Rhino

BIMethods MetroStation

UP

3Plans

1/64" = 1'-0"2 floorplans

1/64" = 1'-0"3 cross-section

The design of the Metrostation began with a concept to create a form that revolves around balance and forms a shell around the site. The overall form was initially developed through a series of extruded bezier curves, however, the form was further refined through the use of Excel Points in a Dynamo Script. From there, a divided surface was created to create the protective shell, howev-er, its intentions were not to restrict light to the metrostation. The shape of the apertures was developed using adaptive panels and applied to the surface. The orthogonal programmatic elements provide bracing for the structure as well as additional components to the site, such as a cafe and living.

Photography

Malibu & Laguna, California

Key West, Florida