COMMUNITY CENTERS
Hanoi, Vietnam
93-hectare (229-acre)
mixed-use development 30,000 residents
350,000 sm of luxury residential development

Residences are organized in gated residential districts with community centers, swimming pools, and tennis courts. The 17-hectare (42 acre) central park is surrounded by a 60,000 sm (6.5M sf) water body, bordered by leisure and active recreational areas for the residents of North An Khanh New City.

Doctoral Practicum
Research, Analysis, & Design

PLACE BRANDING AS UNIQUE PACKAGING
The prospect of branding places suggests a filtering of image and a containment of meaning. Places are narrowed down, sifted, and refined for clarity of brand communication. Thus, the metaphor of the package becomes a container for the branding of places, however, places prove to be exceedingly complex and dynamic constructs of which meaning and perceptions often leak.

PLACE PARAMETERS OVERFLOW
The branding of places is primarily orchestrated around commodification. The constraints and conditions of modern land use, politics, and commerce are manifested and formalized in our built environment. The communication of places is connected to dynamic flows of people and their perceptions, politics, and agendas. These constraints and conditions are frayed in the periphery. As place dynamism grows, it causes the conceptual container or brand package to bulge. Further, branding places is a messy operation; hence, the complexities of places continually overflow and spill out. While branding appears to offer modes and methodology for place conception as mental, experiential, and physical construct, paradoxical overflow is proven evident. Therefore, the constructed parameters of places overflow with multiplicity, soaking the context with contradiction and inconsistency.

Architecture inquiry and work focused on residential and commercial projects. Work involved research, analysis, and drafting of construction documents for a modern boutique storefront on Worth Ave. and various types of residential homes.

Our work involved the analysis of existing structure, and the drafting of plans, construction documentation, and permit set—for the renovation of a multimillion-dollar Palm Beach residence. This project provided an opportunity to work with architect and principal Roger Janssen to produce CAD documents and plans for an aggressive construction and development schedule. Among other architectural variables we orchestrated the design around the constraints of ARCOM guidelines.

For this project a digital model and CAD documents were created as a permit set and presentation for a Lost Tree Village residence, in Palm Beach. This project was designed by Mitchell Miller, the Principal of Village Architects, with Chris Andrus, the Project Architect.