ARCHITECTURE
Stella has completed architectural projects relevant to her academic coursework at Harvard University during her undergraduate career, and at Columbia University for a summer program. Her work includes studies in geometrical operations, physical modeling/woodworking and graphic representation, with focuses in urban dwelling relationships, digital communication, and spatial-physical object relationships. Projects described below are merely several examples, and do not reflect the entirety of work completed.
STUDIO WORK
Studio I: Transformations
Spring 2013 / Zaneta Hong, Harvard GSD
Two main projects served as the foundation of this course. The first required that students design and construct-- using tools crucial to the practice of architecture-- models that physically embody the following terms: pattern, density, flow, and a combination of the three, known as "hybrid." The objective of the second project was to analyze and diagram a form of social media (in my case, the Facebook Messenger application) as a non-human dweller of the city of Cambridge, MA, in order to explore the ways in which digital information can travel across an urban landscape. To do so, students were asked to adopt a representational language used by an existing architectural firm. I chose the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), and referenced their Tree City project as the guiding influence for my diagrams (shown at right). Additional information specific to both projects may be found here: https://gsd8101.wordpress.com/category/gsd-8101-haa-96a/stella-fiorenzoli/ |
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HAA 179x: Construction Lab
Fall 2013 / Michael Smith, Harvard GSD
The images displayed here show three of the projects included in the course, whose main focus was the construction of wooden structures, often by non-conventional means (ie. without adhesive). Methods of assembly were chosen according to particular themes established throughout the course. For instance, one project was a study of equilibrium (see: final image in slideshow), while another (see: first image) was an exploration of fluctuating relationships between interior and exterior space. |
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Studio II: Connections
Spring 2014 / Yanni Loukissas, Harvard GSD
The objective of this course was to analyze the relationship between the urban dweller and the city, and how the two interact on a daily basis and over longer periods of time. The first assignment required students to create a video, using images generated by Google Earth, that depicts a specific path through a city of their choosing. The purpose of this was to emulate human travel through an urban landscape. My video is described and available to view here: https://cambridge.nuvustudio.com/posts/20016/ex-0-2-a-drive-to-remember The second project of the course was an analysis of the city of Cambridge from the perspective of a non-human urban dweller-- which, in my project, was the flu virus. The final portion--and main focus-- of my work was a proposal to cover specifically flu-prone surfaces in the Harvard Square subway station with surgical mask material which, in mask form, is otherwise used for protection against the human flu virus. This material would be hypothetically removed/applying in amounts directly correlating to the risk of flu infection in any given month of the year. The large-scale covering of flu-prone surfaces (which differ in hospitality to viral reproduction) would serve to increase human awareness of the interconnectedness between human and non-human dwellers in the city. The video of this proposal is shown here: https://cambridge.nuvustudio.com/posts/26711/ex-2-flu-fabric-final-video |
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Undergraduate Thesis
Hearing Architecture, Seeing Music: The Common Language of Reinterpretation Through Deconstruction Fall 2014, Spring 2015 / Harvard University Advisors: Chaya Czernowin, Mark Mulligan This thesis was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor's Degree in Music and History of Art & Architecture at Harvard University. It poses the question, How do the creative processes of architecture and music-- as two separate and distinct practices-- relate, and can each be applied to that of the opposite artistic field? In order to address this question, I strove to create a personal language that would allow me to identify specific concepts about one field, and in turn use them to direct my creative process in the other. In other words, I chose to deconstruct the core concepts of both architecture and music, and reinterpret them across the two art forms. To do this, I selected five conceptual terms relevant to each, and defined them in ways that express what I personally find exhibit their most crucial characteristics. In my thesis text I offered dictionary definitions of these terms, but merely to express a broader understanding of the concepts at hand. The five terms I chose to define in music are: harmony, texture, melody, tone color, and rhythm. The terms I chose in architecture are: line, texture, space, rhythm, and symmetry/asymmetry. Having defined these words, I then proceeded to reinterpret each definition in the opposite field; I constructed architectural models of the chosen musical concepts, and composed musical fragments as interpretations of the selected architectural concepts. For instance, I established a personal understanding of the definition of tonality (a sub-term of harmony) in music as a collection of pitches existing within a set range of tones, that are drawn to a tonal center. This tonal center acts as a metaphorical center of gravity, effectively attracting and pulling back any pitches that stray from the initial pitch collection. To represent this architecturally, I constructed a model (shown at right) in which a small, black Styrofoam sphere is suspended within a layered plexiglass structure. Each layer is circular from a plan (aerial) view, so that its center is always the ball--thus symbolizing a collection of pitches that have a stable, unchanging tonal center. In translating architecture into music, one of the terms I chose to define and reinterpret was rhythm which is, interestingly enough, a term common to both fields. In architecture, rhythm may be defined as the organization of objects and their relations along a surface or facade. It is determined by the pace at which the human eye travels across it. By this understanding I chose to use graphic notation-- in this case a series of triangles, circles, and squares-- to form a visual pattern that, when read from left to right, determines the order of pre-determined musical gestures (see: last image at right). The thesis project, in its entirety, is personal in nature; it is driven by my own creative experience and intuition, in the context of all I have learned as a joint concentrator in architecture and music composition. |