While caught in the rain awaiting Haverford’s inter-college bus, a studio classmate and I realized that the bus stop – a sole, exposed bench – was insufficient for the community. We approached the College with an idea to devise a sheltered structure. This ambition unfolded as a year-long exercise in praxis, in which I developed a foundational appreciation for the care and responsibility required to realize a structure.

With mentorship by the College’s staff architect, I undertook site studies, engaged in community surveys, and consulted with experts from various fields. Our design draws inspiration from the craftsmanship of Haverford College’s Quaker roots and the region's rich timber framing tradition. The building, which incorporates lumber from fallen trees in Haverford’s Arboretum, ultimately provides meaningful presence to support shared, low-carbon transportation.

Curious to investigate the potential of computational infrastructure in expanding access to design resources, I co-founded Open House, a research and design group creating a circular, open-source building system to democratize sustainable space-making.

The core of the Open House system is an online repository of standardized, versatile building modules that anyone can access and contribute to. Easy to fabricate, transport, and assemble, the modules – called Boxels – are designed to be built by anyone, regardless of construction experience.

In addition to co-designing and prototyping the Boxel module, I coded open-house.org and developed the prototype for the Open House software.

While enrolled in sustainable urbanism courses, I sought concurrent hands-on learning experiences to contextualize and augment my studies. Interested in alternative approaches to low-carbon building, I volunteered to assist a local construction project that integrated recycled and natural materials to achieve a solar-passive greenhouse with no operational energy costs.

Guided by experts in off-grid construction techniques, I explored a variety of unique tectonics and assembly methods for building with reclaimed materials. Fully self-sufficient, the structure – designed by Pangea Builders – stores rainwater in cisterns located within a large earth berm, which acts as a thermal mass.

Working on the Greenhouse stimulated my appreciation for the profound sense of connection that comes from engaging with a community and a landscape through the act of building with one’s hands.

Although home to several grand parks, the City of Philadelphia has a scarcity of informal public space. Leveraging the effectiveness of the Open House modular building system, my partner and I set out to provide a replicable solution by designing and building a low-cost, rapidly-deployable community parklet as participants in the PARK(ing) Day Festival.

The design of Pixel Park distills the intimate scale of a living room, with wraparound multi-layered seating to provide an enclosure from the busy street. Continual circularity is a core tenet of the Open House system: Following the dismantling of Pixel Park, the Boxels were reconfigured as furniture elsewhere.

This composting toilet is the first structure within a grand vision to create a circular waste system at Stonehedge Gardens, a holistic arts and ecology center in Tamaqua, PA. Human waste composts off-site for six months to create nutrient-rich fertilizer for the land.

In collaboration with Point of Shift, I led the community design/build process, which emphasized permaculture principles and a minimal impact on the land. Inspired by the ancient Japanese practice of shou sugi ban, charring the wood acts to naturally preserve the structure while responding to the raw, natural surrounding landscape. Almost all of the materials used to build the structure were salvaged, collected both from a demolition warehouse in Philadelphia and from Stonehedge's grounds.

With the dual goal of perpetuating the rich vernacular construction heritage of Northeast Pennsylvania and providing wider access to these methods, I organized and oversaw a series of workshops with the Lehigh Valley Natural Builders Guild. I invited local natural building experts to share their craft, teaching building skills through participatory, hands-on projects.

Over the course of six weekends, twenty-five participants with diverse backgrounds and interests constructed a post-and-beam gazebo. In addition to learning traditional joinery and framing techniques, we explored characteristics of the various species (ash, black locust, oak, pine) of locally-sourced, rough-sawn lumber used in the structure.

This installation, sited in the historic Cherry Street Pier on the Delaware River and built for the 2021 DesignPhiladelphia Festival, probes the malleability of material and immaterial space. Those who pass through become immersed in its diaphanous nature. At times still and dappled by light, and at others billowing, the temporary structure adopts the form of a sail, intimating the Pier’s industrial past.

I led volunteer efforts for this collaborative design/build project, which included facilitating charrettes, co-designing the structure, sourcing materials, participating in construction, and coordinating the installation and breakdown.

Bill's Burrow is the first off-grid home to be built at the Tamaqua Sustainability Project, an emerging experimental architecture hub with a mission to spread ecological consciousness by providing education and inspiration for living in self-sufficient, resilient, and creative ways. In addition to helping develop the vision for the site, I assisted with construction of Bill's Burrow, the first off-grid, solar-passive home on the site.

In the fall of 2020, I conceived of, organized, and co-led a 12-person, weekend-long educational construction workshop focused on building walls with glass bottle bricks. Participants learned how to use reclaimed and recycled materials to build beautiful, durable structures.