01 02 University of Memphis Alumni Center
Project Team. Jeffrey Johnson, Design VI Studio
The University of Memphis is acquiring land around the campus to expand. The expansion includes a new Alumni center, Music Hall, and a parking garage among others. The University is expanding to the west to create a “face” for the campus and link it to the existing and newly proposed retail.
The Design VI studio is tasked with 2 phases. The first phase is to create a set of Design Guidelines to help the University of Memphis beautify it’s campus while creating continuity throughout. These Design Guidelines range from drainage treatment, signage, open spaces, and vegetative screenings to building specific aspects such as building materials, accessways and entrances, and lighting. Due to the collaborative effort of this phase, no specific documentation can be uploaded. However, a full 73-page document is available upon request.
The second phase of the project became individual charettes in which each student re-designed the University of Memphis’s masterplan for the addition of new buildings and public spaces. Images 01 and 02 are my personal additions to the charette. The first concept is to create public spaces on the west border to create a link between the retail environment and the campus. By placing the new Alumni Center on the street front, the University has a representative face along with the retail on Highland street.
*a more detailed document including all student projects and class consensus is available upon request.
03 04 Central Avenue Master Plan
Project Team. Jeffrey Johnson, Design VI Studio
Central Avenue is a main arterial street on the north side of the University of Memphis campus. There are many hazards restricting this street from becoming a great urban street to both pedestrians, cars, and the University. Some of the issues that are being faced include: safety of students crossing the street, speed limit, incorrect signage, reducing parking footprint, haphazard vegetation, and ADA access. In roughly four years at the University of Memphis, up to fives students are either injured or killed because of this street.
The Architecture Design VI Studio completed a two week design exercise in which the students examined the major problems of the street and developed design alternatives for the University.
Images 03 and 04 represent some of my personal work in the developing design process. The focus of this design is to eliminate two-thirds of the parking to replace it with a new parking garage. This allows the valuable land around it to be further developed into a welcome or events park. The introduction to “gateway” artwork presents the University to the vehicular community. In order to decrease the speed limit and increase the awareness of drivers, speed tables and raised crosswalks are implemented. Reducing the existing five lanes to four lanes plus a median also requires drives to be more aware of their surrounds and reduce speed.
*a more detailed document including all student projects and class consensus is available upon request.
05 06 Highland Street Development Plan
Project Team. Jeffrey Johnson, Design VI Studio
The Highland Street Development Plan is another collaborative effort during the Design VI Studio to create a newly updated entertainment district to the west of the University of Memphis. This project was produced for the UNCD (University Neighborhood Development Corporation) to investigate and analyze the existing conditions of the sites in question and propose a plan for their future development.
Each student focused on one of four sites and completed a masterplan of the site. The site I chose was plagued by traffic accidents and a problematic intersection. The roads are redirected to allow for perpendicular intersections allowing for a small surface parking area on the corner of Walker and Southern. With the addition of the parking lot, the street parking became abolished allowing for a pedestrian boulevard to slow traffic and create a linking axis between the retail shops and the University.
*a more detailed document including all student projects and class consensus is available upon request.
07 08 Form + Space
Small scale models representing interaction between spaces, light, planes, and viewing.
09 Objects
10 Shameful Robot
11 Squiggle
12 Space
Various drawings throughout my education representing different types of techniques.
13 Gallery House Perspective
A constructed 2-point perspective drafted drawing of The Gallery House
14 15 Floorplan and Elevation shading
Both exercises in shading with pencil. Both images are of a proposed Tennessee Concrete Association building
16 17 Architectural Manifesto
These images are a sample of my personal Architecture Manifesto created during my undergraduate education at the University of Memphis.
*a more detailed document is available upon request.