Keshika De Saram
Selected Works
Tatami Box
Contents
Cambridge: Reimaginingan American Small Town
Box Problem,2012
Street Wise, Florence, Italy, 2013
A Museum in Strata:The New Bell Museum
Graduate Design Studio OneFalcon Heights, MN, 2014
Master of Architecture candidate, [email protected] / 701.799.0273
transporoCITY
Northern Spark Festival, Minneapolis, MN, 2015
Keshika De Saram
Sharing Stories/Sharing the Stage
Graduate Design Studio Two, Minneapolis, MN, 2015
A Museum in Strata: The New Bell Museum of Natural History
Picture our experience of the natural world, as urban dwellors. To people in thecity, the natural world is a place of adventure. It is a distant place that one travels to and explores, away from the comfort of the city. This museum uses a large wall as a datum, the familiar and comfortable place from which one canset off on various adventures in Minnesota’s natural world.
Falcon Heights, Minnesota, Fall 2014Instructor: Charlie Lazor
Site and context
Gibbs Museum
ResidentialNeighbourhood
UMN Research Fieldsh
UMN Saint Paul Campus
New Bell
Museum
Wall as grounding datum
WelcoomeCenteer
The PlainsT
Deciduous Forests
EvergreenForests
Cross the wall to access eachMinnesota biome
Project site as driver of tectonic design Site reinterpreted: Interventions on the ground plane
The museum presents adventure along the datum wall, as it punctures into the ground plane
Sketching to understand sectional relationships
Conceptual site model Seeing adventures in section
Process work: Understanding program and tectonics in section
Representing section on the datum wall
Museum organized in section
Level 1: Earth and Water Level 2: The Land Level 3: Wind and Clouds Level 4: The Stars
Four strata:
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The Stars
Wind and Clouds
The Land
Earth and Water
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Tatami Box
Tatami Box is a ritual box designed around the act of lighting incense. Thebox is designed to drive users to perform a specific ritual, a ritual that involves a gradual discovery of elements in an ordered process. The box presents contrasts of change and stability, symmetry and asymmetry, or passion andplacidity.
The user has to open the box to access the wooden tiles, small fossil stone, and incense cones. He or she has to then create an original pattern of the tiles ontop of the box. Placing the fossil stone on one of the tiles creates a surface toplace and light the incense cone.
Open box Discover contents Place tiles Light incense cone
Box Problem, Fall 2012mInstructor: Todd Rhoades
Symmetry with the human body
Cambridge: Reimagining an American Small TownUMN Minnesota Design Center/Center for Urban and Regional AffairsCambridge, MN, Summer 2015Advisors: Tom Fisher, Mary Vogel, Elissa Brown, Stan Gustafson
Labour shed to adjacent counties
Most streets are wide enough for complete-street infrastructure, such as bike lanes
Cultural/Arts Dead space Community lifeWaiting/Boarding
Dead space
S T A T I O N M A L L P A R K I N G M A I N S T R E E TP A R K I N G
Cambridge is a community of about 8000 people north of the Twin Cities. Muchof its labor force commutes to the metro for work and leisure, a trend that coulderode its small-town identity and weaken its downtown.
This research project identifies the urban challenges and opportunities facing Cambridge, including strenghtening its core, nurturing its small-town identity, and engaging its sense of community.
The arrival experience for rail passengers needs to be redesigned
Walkable accessibility to major institutionsAbundance of natural amenities Opportunities for renewed downtown vitality
NOMINATEDNominated by Tom Fisher for anational AIAS Honor Award forGraduate Student Research
transporoCITYCollaboration with Takashi Chibana and Kyle PalzerNorthern Spark Festival, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Spring 2015Instructor: Molly Reichert
Designed for the Northern Spark Festival, transporoCITY plays on the strong edge condition at the site. The site is where Minneapolis meets the Mississippi River, a condition accentuated by a sharp drop in topography immediatelybeyond the site.
The project uses material that is both translucent and reflective. Users seethe city refl ected behind them and the river landscape framed ahead ofthem. Going through transporoCITY is an experience of emerging into the river landscape, as filtered out from the city.
How do you experience an edge condition?
Site plan Refracctivti e property of sunfilm mimicks light on the surface of the river
Panes thahat bbotho rreflectcttt andandand trtrtransansmitmit lilightghtggggg
Walking through the field of panes, the river landscape emerges andthe city disappears from view
Section: Panes shorten as one moves through the site
City is visible inrefl ection
River is not visible City is no longer visible
River becomes visible
TransporoCITY defines our experience of an urban edge
Sharing Stories/Sharing the StageMinneapolis, Minnesota, Fall 2015Instructor: Aaron Amosson
When serving a culturally diverse community, a performing arts center needsto provide space for the audience to add their own narratives to the storiesbeing told. This center features five unique venues, each more intimate than the previous. A continuous stage runs through all five venues to formally bind them together and make tangible the gradient of intimacy.
The five venues are celebrated tectonically as important places, with expressive use of concrete and timber-frame construction. All the back-of-house amenities are expressed as a part of the neighborhood’s existing urban fabric, simple blocks that are a built with simple timber-frame construction.
Five venues along the continuous stageThe continuous stage
Gradient of intimacy across five differentperformance venues
Urban context along Eat Streetin Minneapolis
M I D T O W N G R E E N W A Y
L A K E S T R E E T
ORANGE LINE
I-35W
NICOLLET AVE
Theatre
Improv
Dance
Yoga
Meditation
The continnnnnn nuouous stage e binds thehe five vevevve venues tot gethereeee
Armature: An Urban Condition
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ProsceniumTheatre
Theatre in theRound Dance Studio Yoga Studio Meditation
Education
CompanyCompany
Company
Lobby
Rehearsal Rehearsal
ChangingRooms/Prep
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Plaza
C e c i l N e w m a n L a n e
Nicollet Avenue
Plaza
UPUP
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Theatre Prep
Theatre Prep
Knoll/Outdoor SeatingKno
M i d t o w n G r e e n w a y
P r o p o s e d S t r e e t c a r L i n e
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Greenway Level (Basement) Level 1L Level 2
Building as an extension ofurban fabric
Timber-framed roofs claim parts of armature
Level 10' - 0"
Level 212' - 0"
Roof22' - 0"
Greenway-12' - 0"
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Roof Level Section: Proscenium theatre
Process sketches of conceptual development
Assembly: Expressive beam systems in each venue, Simple construction outside venues
Roof22' - 0"
Glue-laminated wood beam
Glue-laminated wood beams
Glue-laminated wood column
Curtain Wall
Wood Screen hangs outside curtain wall
Detail: Structure meets skin
Timber-frame construction and cast-in-place concrete Single columns sandwiched by double beams
Cast-in-place concrete
Treated wood plate
Steel plate
Timber beam
Timber beam
Detail: Wood meets concrete
Expressive beam system crowns each venue, celebrating it as an important space