Kendra Koch_Undergrad Portfolio

PORTFOLIOKENDRA KOCH

Education: Iowa State University Bachelor of Architecture | 4th year Secondary Major in Environmental Studies Minor in Sustainability

Cumalitive GPA: 3.38Dean’s List: Spring 2015 & Fall 2015

Work Experience: Architectural Intern | Iowa Department of Transportation (Oct. 2014+)

Programming | Construction Documents | Specifications } Site Visits | Cost Estimates | Material Selection

Additional Experience: Elia Zhengelis Masterclass Study Abroad Trip | Rwanda

Skills: Photoshop | Illustrator | InDesign | Sketchup | AutoCAD | Microsoft Office | Revit | Lasercutting | Model Making | Sketching | Drafting | Photography

KENDRA KOCH

About Me01

Throughout my years at Iowa State I have been searching for the reasons I want to be an architect and have many a time pondered the idea that maybe I don’t. I took it upon myself to do some research on different majors and which would be best for my future career. Throughout this purpose-seeking phase of my life I happended to figure out that broad education that I could obtain through architecture is exactly what I need and I learned to see and appreciate the beauty and happiness that simply a form could bring to someone’s day. This idea about architecture inspired me and since then I have sought to incorporate beauty and purpose into all that I create. Along with architecture I enjoy doing ac-tivities such as playing a variety of instruments, painting, photography, traveling and being outdoors as much as possible. All of these things are not only beneficial in bringing beauty to my personal life, but also can be found in the inspiration behind most of my projects.

02About Me

Pages 05-10 Wetland Training Center | Rwampara, Kigali, Rwandada Fall semester studio | 4th year | Marwan Ghandour

Pages 11-16 Centrify | Los Angeles, CaliforniaSpring semester studio | 3rd year | Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco

Team Member | Katie McNulty

Pages 17-21 Ecology School } Ames, IowaFall semester studio | 3rd year } Bruce Bassler

Pages 22-24 Black Contemporary Studio | Ames, IowaSpring semester studio | 4th year | Pete Goche

Pages 25-26 Art of Place and Environment | Ames, IowaDesign 340 | Spring semester | 4th year | Scot Schuckert

Pages 27-28 Beauty and Goodness } Ames, IowaArch 528c | Spring Semester | 3rd year | Mitchell Squire

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04Table of Contents

Phragmites MauritianusCyperus Papyrus

Cyperus LatofoliusTypha Domingensis

Irrigation pipe

Filtration plants

Growing medium

Drainage layer

Section through open drain to terraces

05 Wetland Training Center

The city of Kigali’s hilly geography is unlike any other city and because of these hills there is a unique composition of the urban life. The hilltops are comprised of governmental and commercial developments while the valleys below are filled with continuous agricultural fields. The hillsides are where Rwandans of various levels of income have taken up resi-dence, configuring their homes in a maze-like way. Because of the initial lack of planning regulations many problems with sewage and storm water have become a threat to the health and cleanliness of the inhabitants in the neighborhoods.

While studying Rwanda I realized the most critical area was where the houses reached the wetlands where the food was grown. Drains for storm water run throughout the neigh-borhoods and eventually into the wetlands where the water is used for irrigation of the crops. However, it isn’t just storm water in these drains. Many people either dump or run pipes containing grey water from their houses containg directly into these open drains. This grey water is then not only affecting the health of the people, but the health of the crops below.

This project is a proposal to fix this problem of contamination using water from the drains running through the city, creating a buffer using native wetland plants before it reaches the crops, and in turn creating a smoother transition from ur-ban to rural life.The project also consists of a training cen-ter for farmers of Rwanda to learn how to grow crops in a more sustainable way on the proposed terraces that they can hopefully incorporate back into the agriculture of the wetlands that the training center happens to overlook.

With the implementation of these farming practices and the grey water filtration system, this area in the wetlands will become a cleaner, healthier place for Kigali’s surrounding communities.

Site Area

Wetlands

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06Rwampara, Kigali, Rwanda

Media Used: Photoshop | Illustrator | AutoCAD | Charcoal Hand Drawings

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EXISTING DRAIN CONDITIONS

These are a few images that I took as I was exploring the area around my site and I was following the course of the grey-wa-ter. The images show grey-water pipes spilling directly from the home into the drains, the water running through these open drains, the area where the water transitions from city drains to wetland stream, and the water as it flows through the bottom of the valley.


Floor Plan

1 Gathering Space - Interior2 Kitchen3 Storage Area4 Office Area5 Gathering Space - Exterior6 Mens Restroom7 Womens Restroom8 Classroom9 Filtration Terrace10 Training Terraces

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Compost toilet system

Existing pedestrian path

Grey water from city drains

Filtered water


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Sections and Elevations

1 North-east view of classrooms 2 Section through community space3 Section through classroom4 South-east view of community space5 Section through roof drain

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Brick wall/structure

Wood trusses

Clay tile roof

Filtered rain water storage

Hand pump

Bamboo wall


On a site located in one of the most dangerous parts of Los Angeles, with eight rival gangs fighting a turf war, Centrify serves as a low income housing for ex-gang mem-bers trying to rehabilitate their lives and get a fresh start. Homeboy Industries, a program developed by Father Boyle to aid the community members who have followed the wrong paths and want to better their lives, gives these eager in-dividuals the opportunities for jobs and friendships without a sense of violence. This business happens to be located at the heart of the community spaces of Centrify and is made the focal point not only by concept but by architectural de-sign. Centrify is proposing low income housing units for these individuals as well as providing market rate units in or-der to create more income in the area.

11 Centrify

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12Los Angeles, California

However, a project is already proposed to go up on this site that not only is unfitting architecturally but threatens to kick out the current inhabitants through gentrification. This project is proposing 80/20 type housing which has nev-er really proved to be too success-ful. With Centrify, the 80/20 concept is being rethought of in terms of square footage as opposed to the normal ratio of units. Thus more low income units will fit into the same amount of square footage and the real ratio of units could be 60/40. This proposal will hopefully bring more income into the area with the market rate units without gentrifying the people who live there.

College Station 80/20 divided by ratio of units

Centrify 80/20divided by sq ft ratio

Transformationmore low income units in the same sq ft as one marketrate unit

Conclusiondiagram of thebig picture





College Station 80/20 concept(unit ratio)

Centrify 80/20 concept(square footage ratio)

Media Used: Photoshop | Illustrator | AutoCAD | Sketchup | Model Making









Transformation: multiple low income units in the same amount of sq. ft. as one market rate unit

Conclusion

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13 Centrify

Double Unit (Opt 1)15’ x 20’ x 20’

Double Unit (Opt 2)30’ x 20’ x 10’

Single Unit15’ x 20’ x 10’

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Market Rate (Opt 2).60’ x20’ x 10’

Market Rate (Opt 1)30’ x 20’ x 20’

Single Unit Interior Perspective

15 Centrify


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For this project we were given a site to place a building that would be a summer ecology school for middle school students of Ames, Iowa. We were given the square footage requirements and programs needed within the building. These includ-ed: 3 classrooms (with one being a lab), a dining area, a kitchen, restrooms and an of-fice. We were also given a limit of three materials within the building with one being glass. I chose to use textured, poured in place concrete for the structural horizontal walls, wood for the structure of the roof and hallway floor and the glass is span-ning the vertical directions of the building.

17 Ecology School

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Floor Plan Key

1 Entrance Vestibule2 Offices3 Kitchen4 Dining Area5 Womens Restroom6 Mens Restroom7 Utilities8 Janitor/Storage Space9 Hallway10 Lab Classroom11 Lab Storage12 Classroom

Media Used: Photoshop | Illustrator | Revit | Model Making

18Ames, Iowa

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For my proposal I wanted to design a building that I felt the occupants would feel most like they were truly surrounded by the nature. The building itself is tucked into a path between the trees just wide and long enought to fit all three class-rooms.. As the children within descend fur-ther down the long hallway of the building to the classrooms, they are descending further into the small forest of both co-niferous and deciduous trees. The side walls are all glass so that nature’s sur-rounding prescense at the site can truly be felt even while classes are in session.

Interior Hallway Perspective

19 Ecology School

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20Ames, Iowa

A work still in progress....

22Black’s Heritage Farm, Ames, Iowa

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24Black’s Heritage Farm, Ames, Iowa

The site of study is an old family farm plot that has gone out of business due to larger companies that they could no longer com-pete with. While the family still owns the land much of it is rented out and it is not used to sustain their lives. When experiencing and exploring the site where other people saw memories, I saw mainly abandonment and emptiness. Perhaps this is because of my experience on my own family farm who’s future I fear for with the next generation as my siblings and I move on to different paths of our lives. Many of my pictures shown be-low and in class are pictures of emp-ty farm equipment, tools, cars and a random assort-ment of debris left behind. In some places you can see where nature is slowly becom-ing the new inhabitant of the place. Today in Iowa, due to advancing technology and past pressure’s from the government, the size of farms grow larger every year while the ac-tual number of farms is drastically dwindling. Small family farms have transitioned to large commercialized farms and have lost many values such as; community, local sustain-ability and the fullness of Iowa itself. During the winter months you see nothing but bar-ren farmlands and even though they may be full in the spring and summer, they are full of food that is not directly edible for hu-man consumption. My cabinets captures all of these ideas that deal with food, the fam-ily farm, and Iowa in general. You will see how most people look at Iowa, a full plate, with it’s large fields of tall corn, it is over-grown with food and farms must be thriving. On the other side you will see what these vast corn fields really mean and literally can be seen as in the winter months; an emp-tiness, an abandonment, a desert of food. S

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Media Used: Photoshop | Illustrator | Photography

25 Art of Place and Environment

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This class is a half semester studio class about creating art in the environment around us. There were two projects. The first was to design three installations (each representated by a single im-age on the left page) using only materials from the chosen site to create art. For the second project we were to create six instal-lations (pictured on the right page) at any chosen site, keeping a consistent theme in at least half of the installations. This class has not yet ended so not all six installations are shown. The images that are shown are only studies and may not yet be completed.

Left page:Far left: Zen Amongst Destruction | Demolition site on ISU Campus

Top right: Frozen Water -Capturing the Sun | State Ave, Ames, Iowa

Bottom right: Envelopment | State Ave, Ames, Iowa

Right page (in progress):Top: Accentuating Form | Frisbee golf course, Ames, Iowa

Bottom: Breaking the Pattern | Parks Library, ISU Campus

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04

“We make attempts to be known, to be seen, to connect.

Yet we are ill-equipped to breach our corporeal selves. We find our limits and incessantly push outward, seeking an understanding a fusion each other.

Our contact is a latent misperception, the self fundamentally unique in matter.

We read each other - our bodies, our flesh, our selves - and each time we get it wrong.

This is the space of breath and flesh; the separation of our marrows.

This is the attempt absurd; where bodies fail us.

This is where we try.

where we end.

where we begin again.”

-Stephanie Brunia

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This was a final project where we were to re-create an image or a series of images of an artist we had studied earlier in the se-mester. Stephanie Brunia’s work stood out to me because of the unique positioning of the body that may make the viewer feel un-comfortable and it’s parts that may usually go unnoticed. Her work is embracing un-comfortable situations in order to capture “frozen moments” of tension and uncertain-ty. Through her work she has created a new language to better understand these mo-ments of the body and it’s interactions with other bodies that at first may appear unusual.

Beauty and Goodness

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Phone: 515-205-3288

Email: [email protected]

Current Address: 510 Stanton Ave.,Ames, Iowa 50014

CONTACT INFO

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION