2023 | Architectural and Urbanism Research + Design | Unbuilt

The uniqueness of tabby is based in its process of collecting local and accessible materials to produce concrete through a non-measured/estimated process. The origin of tabby as either the North African tabbi, or the Spanish tapia, has long been debated and no conclusive evidence exists that points towards either location. This clouded absence of origin displays the character of tabbi’s his- tory as both rooted and rootless; fluid and based in an intercultural exchange that removes tabby from the confinements of borders and a linear timeline of a beginning, middle, or end. In tabby’s move to the Western Hemisphere, its existence is blurred across socio-cultural divides as a symbol of militaristic power, the plantation economy, and the homes of the slaves who built both. In the United States, tabby was composed of oyster shells sourced from Native American middens: the remnants and discarded materials collected by Native Americans years prior, holding a record of indigenous practices and colonial erasure. The introduction of Portland cement and the end of slavery completely changed the prevalence of tabby which relied on free labor to produce the time intensive process of burning and collecting oyster shells.

However, despite its importance in American building culture, tabby is a material that has faded historically and materially. If one were to happen across a tabby structure today, its former marble like finish will most likely suffer from deterioration due to weather damage and neglect, and the broken walls and floors will reveal the oyster shells beneath. In response, tabby structures across the country are undergoing many different types of preservationist practices, whether that is archaeological digs and recordkeeping, the physical preservation of tabby structures, or the continued use of oysters as a construction material in the American South.

This project proposes a new approach to tabby preservation based on its connection to reuse and its subversion of cycles of capital by the enslaved and indigenous peoples associated with its labor. By archiving everyday practices involving oysters and tabby, I hope to rethink how we orient larger tactics of environmental and material resilience towards the stories and labor of marginalized peoples. In this context, material preservation becomes both a social and physical endeavor through the context of the American South and the shore becomes a place where processes of land, water, and people meet.

This project was completed as a thesis project for Masters degrees in architecture and urban planning at the Massachusetts Insititute of Technology. The thesis project was advised by Sheila Kennedy and Garnette Cadogan.

2021 | Urban Research

Protesting Infrastructure examines three important protest to both the City of Chicago and the national history of the United States: The Pullman Strike, The Democratic Convention of 1968, and the Gorge Floyd Protest.

This drawing and research project utilizes the three events to illustrate the relationship between infrastructure and protest focusing on three infrastructural objects: the train, the street, and the bridge.

2021 | Building | Unbuilt

Menorca Museum is sited on the island of Menorca in Spain at Cornia Nou, which holds ancient Spanish talaiots. This project serves as a museum for the ancient Talaiot culture and the archaeological site of the Talaiots.

This project is designed to compliment the talaiots through a series of moder- taely sized structures that form a procession through the grounds, ending at the event: the talaiot. The two museum structures are connected by an underground pathway that acts a threshold between the different parts of the museum. The structure off-axis is the offices and library of the museum.

The physical structure of the museum acts as a method of transparency related to the construction of the building, melting together the natural and the industrial. Structural mesh peels off from the concrete and is exposed on the underside of the structure, while the texture of the concrete mixed with sand resembles the ground below. Therefore, the structure grows from the ground, creating a museum experience that becomes apart of the landscape.

2021 | Research + Urban Design | Unbuilt | Collaborators: Lasse Rau, Ellen Wood

Urban as Aina utilizes the Hawaiian concept of Aina as a term to rethink the indigeneity of the urban context in Honolulu, Hawaii, utilizng the native Hawaiian form of organizing urban space: ahupua’a. Ahupua’a is a spatial, cultural, and familial system that serves as the precedent to rethink Honolulu by decolonizing the space of two colonial forces along the Al Wai Canal in downtown Honolulu: Fort Derussy and Ala Wai Golf Course. The project transforms the program of Fort Derussy into a native Hawaiian fishpond and the glof course into a natvie Hawaiian kalo field, producing thousands of pounds of food on an island that has been transformed into a massive food desert as a result of colonial forces. 

This project investigates borders and access as an element of urban design in a decolonizing context, where access for all is not always wanted or needed, especially in places dominated by non-indigenous forces such as downtown Honolulu. By thinking of urban design through different forms of walls and thresholds as a way to preserve cultural spaces through a blurring of access, utilizing water, grass, openings, etc. along the edge that requires cultural and historical knowledge to traverse these spaces. Therefore, these sites are legally and visually public, but their access and navigation is a form of cultural know-how in order to preserve the space as one for indigenous knowledge.

2021 | Urbanism Research

Income restricted housing is housing units that have an income cap and reduced rent for low to middle income families and individuals. This is difierent than subsidized rental housing or voucher programs, in which rent is collected as  a percentage of one’s income or through the help of subsidies. Instead, income restricted housing is a lottery process in which people who meet a certain income are able to apply and pay a monthly rent. With growing housing costs and increased migration into Boston, the city has dedicated its resources in the last 5 years to increasing its income restricted housing stock. According to the Boston Housing Plan for 2030, Boston plans to increase income restricted housing by 15,280 units, with 895 units built last year in 2019. As of today, 20 percent of Boston’s housing stock is income restricted housing with over 2/3rds of housing for those who make less than 50% of the Area Median Income. Income restricted housing has become an important priority for Boston in maintaining its working class population and housing stock. However, it is important to be critical of the word “afiordable” as Boston moves forward in this process. Who are IR properties afiordable to and where? My research attempts to answer some form of this question by asking: how is income restricted housing distributed spatially in Boston? 

2020 | Building | Unbuilt | Collaborators: Sam May, Paul Gruber

A Seaweed Farm is sited in Portland, Maine at the Berlin Mills Wharf. Portland is one of the most important fishing towns on the East Coast, but is also undergoing massive cultural changes as the fishing industry declines and younger, more diverse populations move into the city. This tension is centered on the seaside wharfs where fishermen unions rightfully block the wharfs from redevelopment by the wharf owners, who want to open the wharfs for other activities and uses.

For A Seaweed Farm, we propose a seaweed incubation plant lifted above the wharf that acts as thick wooden beam supported by 3 concrete pillars. This spatial arrangement provides space for public activites below, continues use of the fishing boats along the side of the wharf, and moves fish processing and seaweed production to the new space built above the wharf. This typology allows for many diverse activities, combining the old and new histories of Portland.

2020 | Object | Unbuilt | Collaborators: Sam May, Paul Gruber

The Chilean coast offers the largest natural forest of seaweed in the world. Seaweed harvesting is an important source of income for many Chileans, particularly a group of mostly women known as Algueros who migrate back and forth from the city to dive for seaweed.

The typology of the dock became a structural catalyst for our design proposal because of its simple connection between land and water. Lids with sunken handles can be removed to reveal storage space and these handles also act as plugins for add-ons that the algueros can incorporate into their harvesting practices. A motor plug in can help harvesters travel along subtidal zones; a drying rack can help process seaweed while the platform serves as a workspace, kitchen and space from which to dive.

The construction method of the dock was inspired by Chilotan carpentry techniques. Chiloe is a large archipelago that breaks off from Southern Chile at the mouth of Patagonia. Stemming from both indigienous and European maritime cultures, Chiloe maintains an active industry of traditional wooden boat construction. Local carpenters utilize complex joinery and nail free construction to make vessels used in local fishing and aquaculture. This type of joinery allows the dock to be disassembled into a kit of parts for easy transport and repair.

It is important to understand the individual docks as the beginning of a much longer timescale. Over time, we imagine these modules and elements metabolizing to create a network of docks that grow over time and through its evolution, divers can creatively misuse and hack the docks for other purposes such as selling seaweed directly from the dock, using the dock as a rescue platform, or even selling food from the docks.

2020 | Architectural Research and Object | Collaborators: Johnathan Brearley, Isadora Dannin, Kailin Jones, Emily Weissman

A series of participatory design postcards. Each postcard details an activity for members of GrowingChange, a youth-guided non-profit, to complete. The postcards are a way to collect information on design needs and wants from a young client without design experience. For the project, the postcards would be applied to the next phase of design.

The postcards were made as a project for Group Project. Group Project is an architectural design and planning collective that practices under the notion that architecture is a right. Over the past four years, they have collaborated with GrowingChange, a youth-guided nonprofit, to imagine the future of a decomissioned work-campus prison site in Wagram, NC as a farm, community center, and museum.The postcards below were designed by Jola Idowu.