Meditating Through Compost
Food waste makes up around 30% of the waste in the Johnston landfill. This project proposes a hybrid program meditation park and in-vessil composting system within the Swan Point Cemetery to radically push compost into the public realm. In normalizing compost with a quonset hut design meant to be viewed as beauitful, education around our waste and how to properly discard of it will encourage more diversion from the already close to capacity landfill.
Breathing Berms
Within a heavily urbanized landscape the Quebrada Josefina has become heavily constrained to the built environment. With the channel isolated between concrete walls, it has lost its connection to the land and the people who inhabit it, posing a constant threat of flood damage to those who live closest to it. Our goal is to soften the connection between land and water, create more space for ecological growth, predict and control flooding, and create new relationships between locals and the water they live beside. Stilt and Berm housing units feature a gradient from private to public, inviting residents to look towards the Quebrada instead of away. These two new housing typologies are strategically deployed to respond to FEMA flood zones, minimizing flood damage in the surrounding neighborhoods through the creation of a controlled flood plane.
This was a group project with Olivia Messimer (RISD B.arch 2026). The shown drawings are my part of the project.
Swan Point Cemetery Site Analysis
While developing a composting hub in Swan Point Cemetery, I created a set of drawings in order to analyse how the existing site composts and who has access to the composting facilities present in order to understand what was needed at the site. This consists of a site plan where drop off points of compost are mapped out and an estimate calculation of how much food waste is produced within the neighborhood of Blackstone is made. Additionally, a zoomed in site analysis shows the type of people around the site which would use compost. Finally, the three sections show the path of potential compost and how soil is used throughout the cemetery.
Urbanism and Bioremediation
This is an Urban ecology project based on idea of bioremediation of the marshlands in New Bedford, Massachusetts. By establishing a series of living machines throughout a pathway structured around the entirety of the site, waste-water treatment and bioremedation of soil becomes an inevitable aspect of an inhabitants life. This was a group project with the section drawings, diagrams and community center plans done by me and the residential and site plan drawings done by Michael Earle. Models and site strategies were collaborative.
Tracking Industry in New Bedford
This drawing is an analysis of invasive species tracked into New Bedford through dredging. It was inspired based off of the areas rich history of dredging and field research showing the amount of invasive species on site. This study further pushed the ethos of my Urbanism and Bioremediation project by allowing me to expand my focus of the inhabitants of an urban plan beyond just humans.
Painting Pavilion
This pavilion proposal provides learning, making, and exhibition spaces for RISD students, specifically the painting department and the greater community of Providence interested in exploring outdoor painting. Here, outdoor learning and open air painting is highly encouraged through the use of porches and mezzanines. The project can be read as nesting smaller spaces to create outdoor shaded areas and responds to the site by following its elevation through roof heights and different level entry ways focused on the retaining wall.