The Lao Sala project artistically, conceptually, and architecturally reinterprets a traditional Laos structure, the “sala” which is an open pavilion used as a meeting place to protect people from the elements and usually open on all four sides. The Lao Sala project takes the stance that innovative design can be a tool to promote cultural sustainability and awareness. Through the re-conceptualization of its design and creative reprogramming of the traditional sala typology, we seek to provide a means for the community to construct and implement an ongoing educational, interpretive, and reflective space centered around Acadiana’s Lao immigrant culture. The design pushes the level of performance from a traditionally passive shelter to an active space to engage with knowledge and culture. Through the elegant blend of modern materials, graphic art, installations, and cultural artifacts the sala expresses and educates visitors of the cultural, social and environmental context it dwells in. The Sala becomes yet another provocative response to how this community has adapted to a new locale, yet retained a distinct identity. The first phase of the project, a cultural kiosk installation, is set for completion on Saturday April 23, 2011 during the weekend-long Laotian Songkran New Year Festival.”

Xanamane worked as an artist apprentice for public artist Mary Miss on this 1200 foot walkway proposal for the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The walkway moves up through the tree canopy, across a canal, over a wetland and into the Art and Nature Park. The merges of the path, pavilion, and nature to give a contemplative journey for visitors before reaching the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. The experience of occupying (and wishing to occupy) the landscape from these multiple and unexpected positions allows the visitor to acquire a new understanding of this place and how it was formed.

Xanamane worked as an artist apprentice for public artist Mary Miss on this play area. At the center of the new park park is a gathering place defined by a ring of boulders that is also a children’s playground. There is a curved embankment that has a series of slides on one side with a climbing wall at the back. On the opposite edge there is a toddler’s area made up of circles of sand, grass and trees. An adjacent rock mound configured for an overview of the area also shows the water runoff pattern of a hilltop. A small stepped area for gatherings and performances as well as a stone labyrinth adjoin the mound. A field of posts and climbing nets occupy the area between the two edges of the larger play circle. In this central area of the park, the intention was to create a gathering area that integrates children into the heart of the park. There are places to climb, hide, be challenged and hang out, while others may picnic, perform or read. The alameda and plaza at the north end of the park is another gathering area.

project images coming soon...

Xanamane worked as set design intern for a children’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

PXS conceptualized a public art installation in the underserved West end neighborhood of New Iberia. "Envision da BERRY: Realizing Revitalization through Public Art" was a temporary, interactive public art installations by local artists and community to inspire creative urban development, happening in rotating venues along the Hopkins Street Corridor

A temporary garden of medicinal plants--ayurvedic herbs, trees and bushes--was the focus. The abstracted gardens found in the patterns of textiles and rugs were the visual basis for this temporary multi-part installation. 100 diamond-shaped units made up of evenly spaced orange pipes covered the grounds of a seventeenth-century Mughal pavilion in a city park in Delhi. At the center of each unit was a tin sheet outlined in blue pipes containing the name of one of the medicinal plants with text in Hindi and English describing its use. Looking out over the earthen surface of the park paved with orange and blue linear elements, the image of threads accumulating to create a pattern was evoked. A new set of connections have been made between Roshanara’s tomb and the neighborhood. A temporary net has been cast between the two. This project was part of the exhibition 48°C Public Art Ecology that took place in December, 2008 in New Delhi, India.

Xanamane worked as an urban designer for Victoria Marshal of TILL on this large-scale proposal. The Western Rail Yard Project is the southern expansion of the Javitts Convention Center as well as a catalyst for the growth of the entire Hells Kitchen South area. TILL and Meta Brunzema Architects proposed an integrated, four-block structure of 6.6 million square feet of mixed-use development including the convention ceter expansion, residential, office, hotel, retail and an 11-acre rooftop park --The Blue Roof

Xanamane worked as an apprentice for Mary Miss on this installation. The process of focusing on an ephemeral event outside memory or experience produces an alternative kind of map of the city. Rather than claiming property or territory, it uses the infrastructure of the city--its bridges, stairs, streets and buildings--to create a three dimensional map which makes apparent the ever changing presence of water. Instead of an abstraction, it is a mapping that makes apparent the constancy of change. This project is intended to bring attention to the possible flooding of Boulder Creek. It suggests some of the issues to be considered and how this information might be revealed. A fully implemented project would deal with these points and others in detail; it would be an ongoing collection of information involving experts in the field as well as the observations of the residents of Boulder.

Xanamane worked as an urban designer for Victoria Marshal of TILL on research and site drawings for Hoboken. Hoboken was once an island in Hudson Bay. Through years of development the hydrology of the site was adapted to meet the demands of new economic and cultural drivers.

Xanamane worked as an artist apprentice and emissary to public artist Mary Miss on this large scale sculpture for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The project focused on the water resources of Beijing. The temporary installation was comprised of an undulating metal wall nearly eight feet in height, along with a series of stools of varying diameters inscribed with text. The text of the stools—in both English and Chinese—provided facts and information on the sources of water for Beijing, its usage, condition, management and potential conservation. The wall was built with expanded metal to create a moiré effect, visually imitating the movement of water as one passes along the structure. Visitors were encouraged to move around the curving walls, occupying the space between the layers. Along the top edge of the wall, a drip tube kept the surface of the metal wet and created a cooling space within the layers of the structure.

In their 30-year history in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, Lao immigrants have continually reasserted identity through various social, economic, and cultural modes connected to a set of embedded relations or ecologies. A unique set of adapted spatial typologies which reinforced Lao village culture and social networks on multiple scales emerged from the translation of the ecologies. Mappings, diagrams, and photo-montages help reveal settlement patterns and adapted typologies that occurred within the community. The paper offers a framework for how contemporary cultural groups can be studied through the lens of architectural and urban design theory

A performance art piece exploring the Spatial Practices of architecture, urban design, and the performing arts. The ten day workshop asked students to study the encounters and spaces of three urban characters- tourist, street vendor and taxi driver - and their overlap on the streets of Bangkok.

This proposal establishes a bike-intensive and pedestrian-friendly infrastructural system connecting existing public transit and park networks, while providing new spaces and opportunities for commercial, housing, recreational, and cultural activities along an expansive stretch in the Bronx, which will be sustainable over the next 100 years and beyond.
Goals for Concourse and the Bronx
Grander—a multi-scalar urban strategy physically and programmatically transcends the scale of operation of the current boulevard, broadening the reaching impact of the concourse to the scale of surrounding borough, city, and region.
Greener—build upon existing efforts to provide more park space and green-collar jobs, by installing a landscape strategy which invigorates new economy and produces environmental benefits that improve public health.
Graffiti-ed—graffiti art repositions itself as a public amenity to residents and visitors. A program to support this unique art-form to find a productive role through this proposal as contextual information devices and way-finding signage.
 
Overall Design Philosophy
Establish programs to promote sustainable Bronx initiatives. Cultivate existing cultural and social character of the Bronx. Expand the reach of sustainable activities by physically and programmatically connecting with large-scale urban networks.
 
Physical Features
Graffiti Art and Way-finding System—graffiti art programs promote local artists and make the public aware of cultural institutions, history, public health issues, pollution, and transit stops in the area.

Submitted by Eugene Kwak and Phanat Xanamane. A series of connected water features — “hydro-scapes” — transform Grand Army Plaza into the central node of a neighborhood water-harvesting, filtration and irrigation system that is educational, beautiful and functional. Features elevated nursery terraces and greenhouses with public garden plots bridge the eastern roadway water mist screen for film projection water retention pond for collecting/ filtering water replaces north berm Bailey Fountain removed; central oval becomes “Riparian Ravine” with creek surrounded by meadows

Xanamane worked as an urban designer on this project and contributed to the conceptual development and production of the publication. Mary Miss recently developed an initiative called the City as Living Lab, a framework for making issues of sustainability compelling to the public. In thinking of the city as a laboratory, Miss envisions a collaborative process amongst planners, scientists, engineers and the community, where artists and deigners can help make a city’s sustainability plans tangible to its citizens. Developed with Marda Kirn, this program is based on the ‘Park as Living Laboratory,’ which Miss had conceived for a previous project.

The Urban Design Working group first developed a matrix showing the array of possible HERCULES (High Ecological Resolution Classification for Urban Landscapes and Environmental Systems) patches. The matrix consists of patch “family clusters which are arranged from left to right from built to vegetated dominated and from top to bottom from homogenous to heterogeneous in terms of landcover mix. In modeling the prevalence of certain landcover patch types in the Gwynns Falls Watershed, the UDWG has created a landcover ‘signature’ for Gwynns Falls.

I have an interest in theater and have participated in numerous theatrical productions both on and off stage. I have designed and built sets for two productions; a children’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a university production of The Tempest.

This project was derived through a process of analytical drawing and conceptual modelling of site phenomena. The drawing process moved between various graphic media ranging from watercolor, color pencil, digital graphic diagrams, photoshop montage, and physical modeling. The drawings techniques hybridized experiential and analytical representation modes. The resulting piece of architecture reveals natural phenomenon at the site’s ecological thresholds. The minimalist structure creates a subversive lens of formal poetry for the rich and unique context of Lake Martin’s flora and fauna migrations and seasonal cycles.

Work of students from the Architectural Design Program and the School of Constructed Environments, Parsons The New School for Design and INDA, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. In September 2008 sixteen Parsons students joined fourteen INDA students in a workshop documenting daily life at three passensger piers along the San Saeb Canal. The Parsons students worked on design projects for the three piers over the course of the Fall semester. The studies Brian McGrath was the studio professor. Xanamane co-taught as an urban associate specializing in Adobe Flash interface design. 

This studio was charged with a task that brought about an urban design-oriented, grassroots-level approach  towards community engagement and architecture. The transformative design process that’s  emerged provides a model for architecture as a social practice. Our work began with a systems-based urban analysis which framed the underserved West End district of New Iberia as an “unbound” site. Five groups were formed each researching a different topic: Health & Wellness; Markets & Commerce; Arts & Entertainment; Culture; and Transit. After completing an analysis booklet and presenting it at a community workshop, students created urban program and installation designs that highlighted issues and opportunities found in their mappings and research. The studio partnered with community organizations to make a five-week temporary public art installation occupying various sites within the West End. Social networking sites (i.e. Facebook and YouTube) fostered on-going dialogue during each week and provided feedback mechanisms between the design studio and community.

In the second half of the semester, four new comprehensive topic groups were formed to design integrated urban-scale schemes addressing multiple issues from the previous phases. Students then individually programmed and designed a building to fit within their new group scheme. At least one student from each group was required to re-design the Johnston Street Elementary School as a new community resource development center to fulfill the agreement made with our service-learning community partner, The Hopkins Street Revitalization Association. Other students designed their own quantitative building program with a 30,000 sqft max area. The results of the studio’s work will be discussed in the format found below.

A series of strategic urban-scale public space projects that address large issues of economic, social, and environmental sustainability in relation to Bangkok’s future growth and development.

Nitiporn Sawad, Parpis Lee, Golf names and course brief..

The proposal brings together thinking behind three frameworks: watershed model, human ecosystem framework, and urban ecology framework. The phasing strategy to rehabilitate one of Baltimore’s most neglected neighborhoods integrates various economic, ecological and infrastructural actors. The twenty year timeline engages regional and local issues by partnering grass-roots organizations with larger institutions, government agencies and initiatives. The strategy materializes into an architecture and landscape of integrated hydrological, ecological, and economic systems that transforms the blighted neighborhood into a watershed of fortune.

The project proposed to recharge the existing urban mosaic, with particular emphasis on the Llobregat river corridor. It suggests the reorganization of locally found actors, reuse of purified sewage, introduction of the Parc L’Bosque with nurseries, transformation of the existing small industry zone into a residential/commercial/cultural one. The method for recharge is to redirect treated waste-water for the purposes of irrigation of the park, sustaining river ecological flow, improving water quality and landscape by the creation of extensive regional lake and hydrological system. Parc L’Bosque is located at the crossroads of ecological and infrastructural paths. Parc L’Bosque consists of 4 interlaced elements which programmatically and formally compliment each other: river bed and flow transformation, reforestation, detention/retention pond construction and nursery introduction. Metamorphosis of infrastructure into architecture supports park related programs. Nurseries within the park are irrigated by the treated water from the plant as well as by storm water collected in the redeveloped zone. Through that flux a connection between these two entities is established even on the symbiotic level. The value of the real estate is predicted to grow. A new neighborhood is designed for ecologically aware and technologically conscious inhabitants. While zoning is changed, the strict regulations for the redevelopment in compliance with contemporary laws of sustainable construction are to be respected. The park, developed on the threshold of the existing Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat, becomes its integral part by proposing new amenities. It is by its location connected and respects Parc Fluvial Colonies del Llobregat.

Xanamane worked as a project designer and architectural intern with Jennifer Swee on this residential renovation. The Upper West side apartment for a family with three children was designed with the primary task of creating a family zone. This was created by opening and expanding the kitchen and carving out a dining area in what was a former closet