2. Paul Christiansen
E: christiansen.paul@gmail.com
P: 619.971.0066
W: www.paulchristiansen.info
A: 10832 Quail Canyon Road, El Cajon CA, 92021
I am currently a undergraduate student at
Northeastern University majoring in Archi-
tecture Design. I have a strong passion
for architecture design and technology.
The following portfolio is a compilation
of the work I have produced in my fresh-
men year as an architecture student with
projects ranging from the study of spaces,
materiality, and the overarching funda-
mentals of architecture design.
2 | Paul Christiansen
3. Contents
4 Spaces Project
8 Museum Project
14 Miese Courtyard House
18 Villa Savoye Transformation
24 Jacobs’ House Study
26 Website Design
3
4. Spaces Project
Assignment:
This project was a simple project that
focused on the study of creating spaces
using only 9’ and 15’ walls to create
overlapping, interlocking, and adjacent
4
spaces. I elected to design my building
with one roof covering a circulation path
that flows around two 15’ U shaped wall
pieces
4 | Paul Christiansen
6. The light diagram below shows one of
the main ideas of this project, which
was my decision to leave the two 15’
U shapes unroofed to let a great deal
of light into the circulatory spaces that
they create. I wanted the circulation
around the two U shapes to blur the line
Parti Diagram between inside and outside spaces.
The parti diagram above shows the
overarching idea of my project; to
use two U shaped unroofed walls that
would serve as the basis for creating
a circulation path that moves around
them in a way that creates interlocking
and overlapping spaces that work with
eachother
Section 1 Light Diagram
6 | Paul Christiansen
7. The image below is the final floorplan of
the space, and by using a strict rectilin-
ear grid I was able to achieve multiple
spaces that incorporate quality of
spaces, circulation through them, and
an overall sense of connectivity through
the use of 4 wall pieces that do not
touch.
The above rendering shows the south
1
side of the building which acts as an
entrance to the space, but encloses
the circulation path through the use of
transparency between the two spaces.
The tall wall shown is the back of the
central U shape
N
10 feet
5
1
7
8. Museum Staircase Project
Assignment:
This project focused on the design of a
staircase for a museum gallery that would
house two paintings: John Singer Sergent’s
Daughters’ painting and Saint Luke paint-
8
ing the Virgin and Child by Rogier van der
Weyden. The staircase would act to cre-
ate spaces that worked with the composi-
tional elements within the paintings.
8 | Paul Christiansen
10. I started by analyzing the artistic elements John Singer
Sergent used in the painting of the Daughters and spe-
cifically looked at the directionality and use of light.
The top right diagram shows the main idea behind his
painting and how he used the daughters as objects
in their respective fields of the painting. I incorporated
how he created a well lit foreground with a mysterious
dark background that leaves the viewer curious as to
what lay behind. In my design for the stair I made a
literal recreation of this by placing the painting on the
bottom gallery next to the entrance to the staircase,
which emulates the mysterious dark space in the back
of the painting to pull the viewer towards the stairs.
10 | Paul Christiansen
11. The second painting dealt with use of perspective, framing of
objects and the idea of multiple layerings of spaces. Again,
I took a literal approach to recreate the idaes behind the
painting by eroding the wall in the upper gallery and placing
the painting in the upper space. The viewer looking at the
painting sees the layering in the painting and then realizes
that the painting is used as an object in the composition of the
view toward the main gallery and to the outside. The way to
approach the painting makes it so that guests coming up the
stairs to view the painting are moving objects in the composi-
tion of the view out from the space.
Framing Diagram
11
13. Another important element I incorpo-
rated in the creation of this project
was quality of light as the visitor moves
through the spaces to the second floor.
I incorporate the layering present in the
two painting and create literal represen-
tations of it by layering spaces through
the use of light directionality. In section,
there is a mezzanine level created that
allows views to the outside, views of the
main gallery, and creates a middle layer
between the main space and upper
gallery.
13
14. Mies Courtyard House
Assignment:
This was a short project that dealt with the
analysis of Mies van der Rohe courtyard
houses. I looked at his use of materials,
simplicity and light quality and produced
14
a series of renderings of the spaces to il-
lustrate some of his main ideas behind the
courtyard houses he designed. I also cre-
ated a few short movie clips of circulation
paths through the houses to show how
these ideas are related in physical motion.
14 | Paul Christiansen
16. The rendering to the left shows a summer day in the
courtyard house where I was analyzing how Miese
created transitional spaces that act as circulational
space, but create views of other spaces and outside
and blur the line between inside and out.
The rendering to the right shows the house at dusk.
This specific rendering shows how the materials Miese
chose to use work with eachother to create interest-
ing spaces. I used Kerkythea Rendering to add in
polished chrome, marble textures, contrasted with the
simplicity of the roof.
16 | Paul Christiansen
17. The series of images shown above repre-
sent one of the videos I created to show
creation of views as a visitor moves through
the house. The movie starts in the very
dark kitchen and moves out to the main
living space, bordered on both sides by
long glass walls. It then shows the views of
the outside and quality of light created by
moving toward the front door.
17
18. Villa Savoye Transformation
Assignment:
One of the main projects of my fresh-
men year, this was a long project where I
deeply analyzed the successful elements
present in Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. I
18
then recreated a new Villa Savoye on a
site given to me by my professor and had
to incorporate shifts in the program and
placing of elements on the new land-
scape
18 | Paul Christiansen
20. These three axonometric diagrams
are studies of some of the main ideas
behind the villa savoye, and the image
on the left shows how I incorporated
them into the programatic design of
my villa on the elongated landscape. I
spent a great deal of time diagraming
the different ideas behind creation of
space, light, circulation, and program
before even starting my project so that
Ro
of
Ga
rde
n
I could create a villa that had the same
functionality as the Savoye, and once I
had developed a deep understanding I
started to design my villa.
Kit
ch
en
Liv
ing
Ro
om
Pa
tio
Ha
ng
ing
So
Ga ns
rde Be
n d
Gu
es
tB
Ma ed
ste
rB
ed
Se
rvic
eR
oo
ms
En
tra
nc
e
20 | Paul Christiansen
22. The diagram shown at left is an exploded axonometric of
my final design. Since the site is so long and one half of the
bottom floor is buried i moved the entry to the unburied
side and made it a curved ramp to replace the sculptural
service stair present in the Villa Savoye foyer so that the
service stair could still serve the same functionality it does in
the Savoye. The bottom diagram is a light study and shows
how I use the patio as a central field to bring light into all
the spaces of the house.
1st Floor
West
2nd Floor
M
Aftern
or
n
in
g
oon
on
No
Af
te
rn
oo
n
No
on
Mo
rnin
g
East
22 | Paul Christiansen
23. The comparitive diagrams at
My Savoye left show an analysis of how
Private
the Villa Savoye and my villa
share the same programatic
ideas and that even though
Circulation
2
1
the site is elongated, the ideas
behind circulation and sepa-
Public
ration between public and
private spaces is not compro-
mised.
The section cut shown below
is cut through the ramp at the
center of the house to show
1. Section looking West
the circulation path that one
Villa Savoye
would take through the house.
Once proceeding up the
curved ramp, a guest enters
on the second floor at the
junction between the patio
and living room, as it is in the
Villa.
2. Section looking East
16 x 5 1/4quot; = 6'-11 3/4quot;
23
24. Jacobs’ House Study
Assignment:
The first project I completed in my fresh-
men year was a study of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s Jacobs’ house. I was given a plan
of the building and using online images
24
and research I created multiple section
cuts through the house and using these,
diagramed various elements present in
the house.
24 | Paul Christiansen
25. Living
Carport and Utilities
Grid vs Wall
Social
Alignment Parti
Backyard
The three images above look at various elements Wright incorporated into the plan
of the Jacobs’ House. The section cut shown below, created in Autocad, demon-
strates the layering of the project in section from the public street to the private wing
of the house and backyard. As a first project in architecture, this study helped me
understand some of the fundamental principles in architecture and how they are
physically implimented in a house.
Private
Public-Private
Public
25
26. Website Design
I went to a high school called High Tech
High, and as the name suggests there
was a strong influence from technology
in the projects I did throughout my four
years there. Two of the projects displayed
26
at right are digital portfolio’s I created
to showcase my work online. The third
was a website I designed while taking an
internship with the Resource Conservation
District of Greater San Diego
26 | Paul Christiansen
27. The website at left was one of the Digital This website was another Digital Portfolio that I creat-
Portfolio’s I created in my four years ed in my senior year that showcases all the important
at High Tech High. I used Macromedia projects I did throughout my four years as a student
Flash to create an interactive website to at High Tech High. I used this as a basis for a thirty
showcase the projects I had worked on minute presentation I gave as a thesis at the end of
throughout my sophmore year. By elect- my senior year showing how much I had learned in
ing to create my portfolio in a software the four years at HTH. I used Dreamweaver again for
that allowed me to create an interac- this site but used a lot more of the functions I had not
tive page as opposed to a static page previously experimented with. It can be viewed at:
with text and images I learned a great www.paulchristiansen.info
deal about the possibilities of website
design.
The image shown left is the website
I designed for the Fire Safe Council
of San Diego County, who works
in association with the Resource
Conservation District which I took
an internship with. I worked with
the president of the organization
to create a template for what they
wanted in a website and then used
Macromedia Dreamweaver to cre-
ate a website that could be handed
over to an employee and would be
easy to maintain after the end of my
internship. www.firesafesdcounty.org
27
28. 2009
Architecture
Paul Christiansen
28 | Paul Christiansen
