This “ice planter,” embodies the protest chant to ‘Melt ICE.’ By placing these planters outside religious sanctuaries, some of the few places where undocumented immigrants are safe from deportation, New Yorkers are able to inspire action by placing an ice cube like one places a candle and watching it melt. Once melted, the water falls through the center hole in the planter and waters a plant with some sort of significance toward immigration. Plants used in the pieces so far include Hops, Wandering Jew, and Quinoa.
-2017-
Like a tea candle or an upturned hourglass, a placed ice cube melts and drips to form a growing puddle in the concrete base below. As the ice continues to melt, ripples spring back and forth like a metronome clicking back and forth.
-2015-
While living and working in Rwanda in 2015, I spent my weekends working with three cobblers from the Nyamirambo District of Kigali. Due to lack of cashflow in Kigali, the three cobblers were confined to making sandals and repairing old shoes despite their incredible talent. The four of us worked together to produce a limited edition run of 170 pairs of shoes. Upon completing our work, one of the cobblers turned to me and said “Nziza Cyane” or “Very Nice.” Thus, the brand Inziza was formed. Translating directly to “The Nice Ones,” Inziza has a simple goal: To showcase the beautiful materials, craftsmanship, and smiles that East Africa has to offer.
-2015-
This fuel efficient wood burning oven was designed to help nurture local economies in East Africa. Designed to be built out of reclaimed oil drums and local materials, the project was completed with a 115 page instruction guide that requires no reading skills to understand. By helping villages create small bakeries, The Women’s Bakery is able to improve the overall health of the community while enhancing the local economy.
MASS Design Group
-2015-
These Sharehouses, located on the slopes of Northern Rwanda, serve as a place of respite for physicians working at the nearby Butaro District Hospital. During its construction, I oversaw the design, fabrication, and installation of much of the furniture, interiors, and lighting. The dining room ceiling and exterior soffit of the share house porch is burned, brushed, and treated with a locally made soy oil sealant to achieve a natural color modulation. The combination of these processes create a strong, water resistant seal without requiring any imported goods.
MASS Design Group
-2015-
After school fees were eliminated from Rwanda in 2006, the Mubuga School was forced to accomodate 831 students a day in only six classrooms. I worked on a team at MASS Design Group to build three new classroom blocks and redesign the landscaping to foster a fun, interactive learning environment. During my time on the project, I worked with one other designer on furniture, a custom paver for the walkways, and the color scheme for the school.
MASS Design Group
-2015-
In Rwanda, most pavers are purchased from a single factory and are produced in a few similar shapes. After some calculations, we found that for a similar price per paver, we could install our own design. The paver we created calls to a cross section of the traditional Rwandan home, while also relating to the angles and textures of the entire Mubuga Primary School Project. To manufacture the pavers, a mold was welded from scrap steel to act like a pop-over cake, allowing the paver to be packed, flipped, and set out to cure.
MASS Design Group
-2015-
The Ilima Primary School is located deep in the forests of Congo. Due to its remote location, almost all of the materials for the project were harvested on site. This constraint led to the design of this playground tunnel, made from saplings and bark strips collected nearby.
This chair was designed and built for the teacher’s housing at the Ilima School. Despite having few electric tools, the expert craftsmanship of the local technicians rivaled that of craftsmen in a modern studio. The joinery was done using a drawboring technique to allow the wood to shrink and hold without the use of glue.
-2014-
Built as my thesis exhibition, Affection was designed to interact with both the viewers and the architecture around it. The pieces that make up Affection converse with their location by cutting angular shards of light beside the curvilinear shadows cast from Packard’s barrel vaulted clear roof. The modular pieces were moved throughout the week long exhibition to form different architectural spaces, challenging participants to interact with the show in new ways each time they visited.
Abstracted panels, material studies, and scale models were displayed alongside the main piece during the exhibition. Though some of the panels served as standalone pieces, many of the studies were placed to better communicate the design process behind the body of work.
-2013-
These reflecting pools were created as a final project for a sculpture class at Colorado College. The forms were inspired by the context of the architecture around it. Over time, the rust that formed in the bottom of the pools visually mimicked the concrete below it.
-2013-
Created during an Installation/Performance Arts class at Colorado College, this piece uses yarn to imply architectural space. It was built into a series of catwalks so that the piece could be viewed from above, at eye level, and from below.
