Carson Michaelis
S13 → Forest Research Center
Fall 2024
Advanced Studio
University of Texas at Austin
Professor David Heymann
In central Ecuador’s dense cloud forest, the University of San Francisco Quito desires a new research station equipped with labs, classrooms, observation areas, and housing for researchers and visiting students. This project hugs the steep Andean hillside’s only flat spot, creating a courtyard and rain-garden within. Structurally, it leverages the availability of labor and simple, thin, glulam members to create a repeating sectional frame reinforced by its perpendicular walls. Larger spaces occupy this frame’s main volume, while smaller rooms and corridors seem to float over the clouds on either side. When in the building, researchers live like monks, enclosed by the solitude of the forest, whose density is reinforced by the repetitive framing members visible on the interior spaces. Their halls are like a labyrinth, and enable a connection with the space, as each room fills a unique volume.
Facade render from courtyard.
Building sections, showing courtyard confitions on left and outside conditions on right side.
Plans showing interior conditions with furniture.
Model images showing extreme slope of hillside, structural frames wrapping, alignment of floors, and density of surrounding forest.