sean w. mcguire

table of contents

Chaotic Territoriality: Mediating Spatial Conflict in Barrio Bravo, Mexico

Louisiana Civil Rights Museum

Ps 1: Moments’

Sarana, City of Refuge

Percival Stern Facade Renovation

Dutch Dialogues III: Seamless Topography

academic

professional

CHAOTIC TERRITORIALITY: MEDIATING SPATIAL CONFLICT IN BARRIO BRAVO, MEXICO under professor kentaro tsubaki january 2012- may 2012 tulane university

The open-air tianguis of Tepito have defined its cultural identity since its Aztec beginnings. Yet, government sponsored gentrification schemes have forced many locals to reconcile this imminent threat to their community, in order to preempt the destruction of their traditional ways. Other community leaders note the increasing willingness of local vendors to seize space in the public domain, and seek a new system of organization that balances private (vending) and public space. This system of informal economic ingenuity must be preserved yet modified to mitigate future spatial conflict. The emergent and self organized properties of this economic system has the potential to influence an architecture defined by informality, rather than imposing upon it. While past government proposals have focused upon aggressive relocation strategies to concrete-cast vendor stalls in barren plazas, this proposal creates relational nodes of commerce situated within the streets.

MORNING: CALLE EJ. 1 NORTE

NIGHT: CALLE EJ. 1 NORTE

LOUISIANA CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM under professor michael nius january 2010- may 2010 tulane university

The proposal seeks to create an expression of hidden experiences, with primary gallery space interlocked between two heavy solid bars. The exterior stone skin expresses interior activity through use of a tricolor palette, with darker, thicker stones represented more circulated/occupied spaces, and lighter, thinner stones expressing less occupied spaces. Thus, the skin and form begins to turn the building inside out.

ORETHA CASTLE HALEY

In 1959, Oretha Castle (who would later be known as Oretha Castle Haley after she married fellow civil rights activist Richard Haley) became involved in activism when she joined the Consumer League’s Dryades St. Boycotts while she was a student at Southern University in New Orleans and a worker at Hotel Dieu Hospital. Castle emerged as a founding leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which started in 1960 and would go on to take lead in direct action and civil disobedience work in New Orleans’ 1960’s civil rights movement. Oretha Castle actively recruited other young people to CORE, including an initially reluctant Matt Suarez and Oretha’s sister, Doris Jean Castle, who started going to Consumers’ League meetings with Oretha after she learned while on vacation in Chicago that Oretha had been arrested on a picket line. In addition to her protest activities, Oretha Castle participated in the Citizens’ Committee, a coalition of black organizations represented by Lolis Elie and Revius Ortique in negotiations with white merchants and political leaders to end segregation. As an adult Oretha Castle Haley continued as an activist for social justice and civil rights, particularly in the areas of health care and education.

PS 1: MOMENTS principal: ammar elouieni- AEDSdesign team: nick gervasi, jana masset, sean mcguire, jade jiambutr december 2011-february 2012 finalist for PS1 MoMa YAP

The proposal creates a 21st century urban oasis in the fabled courtyard of PS1. The design encourages visitors to meander through a maze-like field of objects, enticing them to take up different paths, creating distinct experiential moments. This anti-monumental, anti-plop art approach is acutely attuned to both the human scale and the elemental senses.

mist

green

water

VISUALIZING DATASCAPES: PERCIVAL STERN

under professor graham owen sept 2009 tulane universitypublished in the tulane reView, 2009-2011

the proposal called for a new skin for percival stern, a visual gateway often criticized as an example of poorly implemented brutalism on campus. the revised skin seeks to create a strong relationship to exterior “datascapes,” or contextual stimuli that influence environmental parameters on site. one such stimuli is the density of foliage, which was focused upon to create an undulating skin that varied in porosity according to live oak trees surrounding percival stern.

SARANA: CITY OF REFUGE intermediate 10: self organizing cities: marco poletto and claudia pasquero december 2010 - may 2011 architectural association school of architecturepublished in the AA Projects Review 2011

Sarana seeks to create a communal society in which fugitives from economic segregation, such as the transient workers of Dubai, can reintegrate themselves into the local urban community. The reoccupation of stalled projects and the reclamation of abandoned material, such as the Business Bay development on the mouth of the Dubai Creek, provide such an opportunity.

DUTCH DIALOGUES: SEAMLESS TOPOGRAPHY under professor john klingmansean mcguire + jade jiambutr sept 2011- dec 2011 tulane university

Dutch Dialogues 3 is the third in the series of workshops, involving international and interdisciplinary discussions, research, and design studios under the topic of New Orleans water management issues. Seamless Topography project is the result of the design studio component, using the area along the Orleans Avenue Canal as a test site. Under the premise proposed by a group of Dutch engineers that the appropriate solution for the city’s water management is to create flexible infrastructure that allows larger scale water retention, the design studio strives to explore possibilities of recon-nection between the city and its environmental context, water.

Seamless Topography seeks to reapproach this influential environmental condition through integrating a dynamic wetland condition in the Lakeview Neighborhood. By sculpting a programmatic bridge across the Orleans Canal, this project seeks to sym-bolically integrate City Park and Lakeview while exposing New Orleans’ true status as a city defined by its environmental condition.