Kaleb's Digital Portfolio

In the Eastern suburbs of Berlin, this project shows the open form of an unconventional distribution of habitation against a homogeneous context of postwar prefab concrete housing. In the ADIP studio at the Technical University of Berlin, my partner Tobias and I proposed rearranging the same concrete elements that compose the context to form a superstructure, providing for a contrasting type of development. The final proposal was chosen for the studio’s publication.

This project was conducted during my third year at IIT’s architecture school, and it is the first of my investigations of structural form. To house a community art center by the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood, a tree-like steel structure supports the formation of hill that serves as venue space. Formal model-making was a priority in this particular studio.

Charged with re-purposing a tower along Chicago’s Michigan Ave. to suit the needs of an arts college, I proposed new programming including an outdoor cinema, a place to hold auctions, and a top floor piano lounge. The proposal’s form was inspired by the funky decor of the 70s publishing company that built the building.

Aiming to provide structure and atmosphere to a community market, a group of ten IIT students chose to implement my proposal for a modular shelving/work surface system. I was honored by the group’s selection of my design among a total of three proposals by equally capable architects. The challenge then lay in devising a construction method to include our colleagues with less-than-hands-on backgrounds such as finance or human resources. The final project was selected by jury as the best in show at IIT’s IPRO day.

During the course of my employment at Everlast Productions, I have made the fullest use of my versatility as a trained architect, providing a multitude of drawing styles and types for a gamut of unique situations on constantly pressing deadlines. This is a small sample of the work that I have provided.

This pop-up book was designed after interviews with strangers at the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is designed to reflect the atmosphere of the place of inspiration; like the museum steps, the sensation of reading the book is dependent on the sunlight, which illuminates the words of those interviewed.

During my final year at the Illinois Institute of Technology I was fortunate to be the sole architect amid a team of physicists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, and entrepreneurs to work on a prototype for an optical projection tomography microscope. My contributions to the team included soldering of components and graphic layout and text descriptions for presentations. The varied backgrounds of the constituent members made this a particularly valuable experience, and the final result was shortlisted for a university-wide prize in innovation.