About the Design Workshop:
The Design Workshop is a team of graduate architecture students from Parsons School of Design who provide pro bono architectural design/build services to not-for-profit organizations across the United States. This year, we’ve teamed up with the NYC Parks Department to design and construct Splash House.
About the Splash House:
This year we are designing the Splash House: two poolside pavilions located at the Highbridge Park Pool + Recreation Center. The rec center is a crucial part of the Washington Heights neighborhood located in northern Manhattan. It’s a source for valuable educational and cultural programs; as well as an after school refuge for a neighborhood where over 30% of the population is under the age of 18.
Unfortunately, the recreation center is closed every summer when the entire building is converted into lockers and changing rooms for the adjoining public pool, depriving the community of an invaluable resource. By building the Splash House we can shift the lockers and changing areas out of the recreation center, and into brand new pavilions right at the pools edge! This will allow the recreation center to function year round!
Meet the Team:
Photo: 2011 Design Workshop: The 2011 Design Workshop Team
Alfred Zollinger (Instructor)
Alfred Zollinger is co-principal of Matter Practice, an architecture and exhibition-design firm founded with Sandra Wheeler. Matter has completed a range of public projects, including exhibition designs for the National Building Museum; the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; and the International Center of Photography, as well as several residential designs. The practice maintains its own prototyping and custom-fabrication shop and is informed by Zollingers early training as a precision machinist and interest in making as a mode of critical inquiry. He studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and completed his postprofessional studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he was designer and fabrication specialist on a number of widely published projects completed by the Cranbrook Architecture Office. He has taught at the ETH, in Zurich, RISD, and, since 2006, at Parsons.
Joel Stoehr (Instructor)
John Loercher (TA)
John Loercher studied Architecture at The University at Buffalo where he received his B.S. in 2005. After leaving Buffalo, was accepted into the M.ARCH program at Parsons as an advanced placement student where he graduated with his M.ARCH in 2011. He has participated in the Integrated Studio, the Design Workshop 2010, and the Traveling studio and worked as Teacher’s Assistant for the Design Workshop for two semesters.
Michael Brotherton (TA)
Michael Brotherton is a designer who has a passion for construction, fabrication and the process of turning the intangible tangible. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from Washington State University and has worked at design-build & traditional architectural firms in Phoenix and Seatle. While at Parsons he has been involved with the 2010 Design Workshop and the 2011 ICFF Metropolis Magazine Booth Design/Fabrication.
John Brandes
Luke Eddins
Jayme Elterman
Jayme Elterman is a 2012 Master of Architecture candidate at Parsons School of Design, where she has currently undertaken the role of project manager for the Design Workshop. She has been active in the practice of architecture since studying at Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Architecture Center in 2002 and completing her Bachelors degree in Environmental Design from Texas A&M in 2003. She became LEED® accredited in 2006, and her experience includes working on design teams at Martinez & Johnson Architecture in DC and later Holzman Moss Architecture in NYC for an array of public projects within the US, construction administration on supportive housing projects in Brooklyn, residential design at Freyer Collaborative Architects, assistance in architectural research at Parsons, and teaching architectural hand drawing at Pratt Institute’s interior design program.
Luke Haas
Greg Hittler
Evan Homoloka
Sarah Leenen
Tara Mrowka
Dan Newman
Rahul Shah
