This Degree Project sought to bridge an urban divide between public green space and the urban fabric adjacent to it, divided by a major interstate highway.
The program consists of a bike share facility, bicycle repair shop, cafe and garden nestled underneath a velodrome which spans across the highway.
Completed: Fall 2015
Designed by: Jonathan Bryer
The Downtown Partnership for St. Louis came to us with a radical notion; take a one hundred year old structure and completely re-imagine the space. This became my first gut-rehab studio. Our studio worked collaboratively on both a book and site model while simultanesouly developing individual students’ projects. My design focused on taking this existing structure with minimal slab height and light in the interior and inserting calibrated light wells into the space without touching or changing the exterior facade. Calculated to engage programmatic elements, tailored via grasshopper to respond to solar and shadow conditions, and massed to provide gathering spaces and nodes at their cores, these light wells had a two-fold effect; they brought light through this existing dark space and created spaces through their three dimensional protrusion. The programmatic layout of the building is a mix of educational, high-end residential, museum and office space. The programmatic elements were defined based off of site and neighborhood mapping and demand coupled with a Washington University development model for downtown expansion.
Completed: Fall 2014
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Catalina Freixas
I took Finnish Chair Design as a digital elective and design-build project in my semester abroad in Finland. This project was simple: research Finnish chair design, understand human proportions and comfortability, design a chair within this aesthetic and utilizing single-form plywood veneers and steel tubular forms, ensure the chair could be fabricated with minimal material and assembly,fabricate the chair! This was perhaps my most enjoyable course through my graduate education to date. This chair is based off of proportions in the “Clash” chair as well as my own personal proclivities. This chair has integrated design, strucutre and functionality. Designed for my grandfather, a geriatric who requires assistance in getting into a seated position, this chair utilizes a single continuous (albeit welded) structural bar over which the seat is cantilivered. The cantilever support, which stems from the legs, wrap underneath the seat to form the arm rests which simultaneously serve as push bars off which the user can hoist himself up. This chair received top marks for its integration of design, structural cohesion and utility.
Completed: Spring 2014
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Julie Talvonen
A Hearth for Kamppi Square: features: 2,000 s.f. Pavilion à Narinkkkatori is a highly trafficked square in downtown Helsinki. The square is multi-faceted and serves a variety of roles in numerous capacities. Narinkkatori flanks the main bus station (Kamppi) and serves as a hinge between shopping, living and recreational Helsinki. In essence Narinkkatori is the eclectic center of Helsinki. However, due to the scale and materiality of the buildings around it, the square can feel cold and detached. Glass and metal are not the most welcoming materials, a problem compounded by the fact that Helsinki is a cold and frigid place in and of itself.
Completed: Spring 2014
Project: Public Pavilion
Design: Jonathan Bryer & Rolando Lopez
Critic: Peter MacKeith
In this studio, students addressed an existing delapidated University building and sought to redevelop the site while adhereing to a strict set of zoning, parking, setback and other municipal regulations. The unusual nature and shape of the site lent itself to only one possible parking and massing configuration while maximizing the allowable occupancy and adhering to ADA requirements. The resulting residential building boasts five units; each with setback private terraces to shield the residents from the street. This project was additionally designed by Joshua Dobken and Margot Shafran.
Completed: Spring '15
Designed: Jonathan Bryer, Joshua Dobken, Margot Shafran
Critic: Don Koster
The premise of this studio was to design a sustainable research facility located in the Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, Arizona. The studio was predicated on drawing formal and sectional qualities from natural geometric systems. I chose to use honeycomb rock as my formal basis. Site, environmental and indigenous analysis were coupled with the basic formal understanding of porous honeycomb rock. In addition to having spectacular spatial and light qualities, honeycomb rock has the capacity to create interior convex and concave spaces therein tailoring and adjusting views and perception. I began with a series of wire models aimed at highlighting the spatial formal qualities of semi-porous honeycomb rock.
The final building massing is embedded in the landscape to take advantage of the thermal mass cooling properties of the ground; an attempt to regulate the structure's temperature, as well as minimize the building's impact on the appearance of the landscape. The form is sculpted to create indoor and outdoor terraces that are shaded in the summer and exposed in the winter for year-round use. The specific site and massing locations were chosen based on a careful climatic analysis of the surrounding area, solar orientation, prevailing wings, existing foliage mapping, programmatic nodal analysis and other elements.
Completed: Spring 2013
Project: Systemic Sections
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Chandler Ahrens
The Artek-Vitra Education Center is a modern structure nestled within a historic cluster of Art Nouveau Finnish Museums; ostensibly creating both a temporal and cultural bridge - linking old and new. The task set before me was to create a mixed-use retail display, educational, studio and residential building blending Finnish design and modern techniques. Light and shifting volumes became the crux of this project. I focused on bringing light in through a central light shaft and triple-glazed façade and louver system. The programmatic layout of the building is a gradient of public to private starting from the ground up. The skin acts as a means of geometric unity among the various programmatic elements as well as a system for solar heat gain for public central circulation and the surrounding spaces. The louvered sun shading on the skin is inspired by the design of Alvar Aalto. The density of said louvers and their orientation on axis is tailored to fit their solar orientation and varies depending on which programmatic space the façade is covering, the degree of porosity desired in these spaces.
Completed: Spring 2014
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Peter MacKeith
The premise for this project was to design 100 self-sufficient housing units located in the Shrewsbury neighborhood of St. Louis, MO. My first step in design was to understand the local vernacular as the site sits adjacent to the end-of-line for the St. Louis metrolink as well as the Des Peres River. This site is simultaneously situated on a steep slope. As a concurrent theme I wanted to create a bridge between the landscape, community and metro station while simultaneously fostering communal growth and development. Communal space, wind blocking, exposure and orientation towards the reimagined Des Peres River landscape, views towards surrounding parks and green spaces and a unifying river boardwalk were all factored into the design. I analyzed amenities from the surrounding residential neighborhood within a walking distance from the site and noticed a lack of exercise facilities and dining establishments. Both of these were incorporated into my design. These elements are featured on the grade/ground, mezzanine and riverfront/boardwalk levels to foster communal growth, development and engagement. There are one, two and three bedroom units in each of the three buildings. Half of the residential units are lofted. Apartments are situated with each unit typology located directly adjacent to a different typology to further stimulate a sense of community by mixing use groups.
Completed: Fall 2013
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Elena Canovas
This course was one of two capstone courses for the "systems" curriculum requirement. For this project we were tasked with designing a culturally and environmentally responsive and appropriate facade and interior building systems. Our project focused on a deployable, angled solar shading device calibrated towards the harsh and low sun angles of Helsinki, Finland. This project is developed to detail section drawings as well as DIVA radiation and illuminosity diagnostics.
Design: Jonathan Bryer, Jeffrey Lee, Chris Taurasi
Completed: Spring 2014
Critic: Chandler Ahrens
This Digital elective...
Completed: Fall 2014
Design: Jonathan Bryer
Critic: Frank Hu
I take joy in photographing images and spaces around me.
Architecture. Travel. Cooking. Animals. Sports. Nature.
Nikon D700 & Apple iPhone
