LESLIE BRISTOW MIGNIN

The catalyst for the design of this store of this store emerged from a strong appreciation for the character of the existing buildings.The concept focused on a series of cuts, openings and infills throughout the store, strategically placed in order to introduce heightened moments in the shopping experience.  These openings served a range of programs and occurred at many scales, from the cut out for the new stair, to cuts in the ceiling, to opening up the back of shelving to expose brick. Since the existing structural walls and openings were relatively set, the general programmatic layout was generally already prescribed, these ‘subtractions’ were critical in order to signal to the shopper they had entered a new and distinctive area of the store. 

The storefront strategy involved the preservation of the existing paneling and detailing. In areas where the molding was in disrepair or missing, matching millwork details were incorporated. This main street in Franklin, TN is in a historic district and thus the design and drawings for the storefront had to pass a historic committee which reviewed the commitment to the historic integrity of the town as well as the character of the signage and lighting. 

To the left are several details which were developed in order to support the store merchandising and visual teams, including a floating ‘art panel’ which serves functionally as a shelving wall which accepts steel rods and shelves. The visual team uses these walls in a variety of ways, as they can design their own shelving units and configurations  in order to  specifically support the apparel story being told. The art panels in Franklin were detailed in order to appear as though they are ‘layered’ and leaning on one another. The detail served to convey the relationship between the existing and the new elements in the space. 

Spring 2010: Prof. Francois Roche & Caroline O’Donnel ,in collaboration with Cristina Marais 

Our project began with material and conceptual design research which focused on the geometry employed in fish cages. The fishes enter the structure through large conic openings and trap the fish in the center due to the smaller openings. Encouraged by Francois Roche, we experimented with flies and documented their resultant paths through these conic landscape ‘walls’. 

These refuges occur around the congestion zone in London, heightening the ‘cleansing’ of the center by encouraging a relationship with humans and pigeons along this once-invisible border. Mechanical nets protrude out of each component as well as connect components as they spread and grow across the site.

An important aspect of our project is the structures ability to react to the amount of birds in the structure at any given time. We are currently working on the robotic ‘spikes’ which will protrude and keep birds from entering when the structure is too ‘full’.  These spikes also retract and widen , allowing for pigeons to enter as well as creating a porous almost transparent structure. 

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Situated in a small scale retail development north west of downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, this retail store seeks to attract the current student population as well as the residents of  new growing neighborhoods near the site.

The concept  behind the design of this store was initially informed by an old map of Ann Arbor which depicted the original downtown roads and plots extending into the distance; a grid which formally and programmatically would go on to determine the future of Ann Arbor. This sparked an interest in a gridded landscape on the ceiling of the space which could create spaces for specific merchandising opportunities.

The axonemetric drawing at the left illustrates the how the beams on the the ceiling and the corresponding walls both divide the store spatially as well as  programmatically. The architecture is directly supporting the different stories curated by the store's visual merchandising team. 

In order to strengthen the architectural concept taking place on the interior, we extended the wood grid onto the storefront, allowing for a playful play of plaster, glass and wood. Despite this strong move, it felt necessary to further divorce our storefront from the existing  architectural and structural design of the mall like the brick and screen.  Details like the steel header and ‘side light’ were thus developed. 

One of our responsibilities as the design architects on a project is to keep in mind the critical details that need to be conveyed to the architects of record. One such detail for Ann Arbor involved the storefront where we introduced brass screws. The screws are both aesthetic and functional as they eliminate the need to blind nail the wood cladding and add a surprising detail the customer can appreciate.

CounterSpace was designed and completed summer of 2011 in the annual European competition, Europan. Available to participants who are under 40 and of European citizenship, I completed this competition with Caroline O'Donnell partner at CODA in Ithaca, NY. Together we completed and finished in first place in response to Dublin, Ireland's call for a redesign of the banks of the 'Dublin Docklands', a neighborhood which is currently isolated from the center of the city despite its close proximity.

The competition charged designers to 'seek out the special qualities will make the built project attractive to families with children. It should address the changing nature of today's 'nuclear' family and allow for the varied household sizes which we increasingly are faced with due to changing gender roles'. 

Counterspace answered this challenge with a series of linear forms which weave through the landscape along the waterfront, enclosing safe and private outdoor spaces for the residents as well as heightening public spaces along the riverfront. The forms play on the interstitial, the 'inbetween' spaces. Counterspace brings into question the difference between the private and public programs in a housing development and the opportunities available when they begin to blurr.

Inspired by Vancouver’s large shipping port and  spatial ideas associated with shipping containers, the design for this store seeks to inject the spirit of this retail store into a sleek and modern new mall development in Vancouver, BC. Conceptually, we were interested in the idea that these 'containers' of space abut each other closely, incorporate traditional detailing and rich materials serving as a purposeful juxtaposition to the existing mall.   The size and location of these ‘containers’ are designed to provide merchandising opportunities for specific categories of merchandise.

The axonemetric diagram to the left illustrates the positioning of these ‘containers’ throughout the store. Between these containers is the glazing system which moves up and over these containers further emphaszing their unique character. 

In the summer of 2010 I was hired by The Post Family, a young and talented group of graphic designers in Chicago to design and coordinate the construction of a new work space in an existing gallery. Inspired by the modularity of the furniture pieces in which they kept antique type, I investigated the idea of using a modular, pre-cut material for the storage and desks.  

Birch plywood was chosen for its neutral and elegant aesthetic quality, but also for its read availability and standard dimensions of 4’ by 8’ foot sheets.  These dimensions went on to shape the programmatic layout of the space in order to keep waste and cost to a minimum. 

100 Cranes was designed and completed summer of 2011 in the annual European competition, Europan. Available to participants who are under 40 and of European citizenship, I completed this competition with Caroline O'Donnell partner at CODA in Ithaca, NY. Together we completed and finished in first place in response to the city of Dubrovnik's call for a 'new public space, with multiples story parking garages and storage space underground, and a new terminal for tourist buses with complementary public facilities (cultural, recreational, social-kindergarten) on ground level, in order to improve inhabitants quality of life and to alleviate the current public transport terminal west of the city gate. The city walls should be free from parking, and offered as a view, being one of the characteristic features of the city imagery.'

The paper crane functions as a series of oblique surfaces which through a series of actions are manipulated across a plane, changing in program and function as the 'cranes' are flattened or expanded. 

As the crane moves across the field which overlooks the old city, plazas, museums and finally a bus station is supported through the 'underbelly' of the crane. At its deepest point the crane's under carriage transforms into  structure and light wells deep in the parking garage below. 

Fab_Flux involves the investigation, design and fabrication of a responsive system that seeks to demonstrate technology's potential to serve as

"a means to an end, a material to manipulate, a tool to inform design, to realize intention and create effects" 1

The specific technologies and materials in Fab_Flux were chosen not in order to solve a problem but 

"to provide an opportuity to generate effects & conditions that are excessive,robust, spontaneous, & performative." 1

Programatticaly, Fab_flux questions ways in which architecture and technology can impact the program and activity taking place in real time. 

Through the conflation of simple, ready made materials and the manipulation of specific technologies, fab_flux hopes to demonstrate that hard and soft materials, hidden and exposed technologies,  program and conventional architectural boundaries can begin to blur and take on more dynamic roles.  

1) Schafer, Ashley (2003): Designing Inefficiencies, Betsky, Aaron et al(eds.): Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Dillard Scofidio, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 93 102

This project was designed and completed for Cornell’s Dean of architecture, Kent Kleinman, as a gift for important benefactors to the architecture program.  With limited resources in the NYC studio, our design focused on using readily available materials like  2 x 4 wood studs, plexi, magnets and existing studio lamps. The magnetic liquid, ferrofluid, was the exception to this rule.

Our concept from the beginng was to ‘record’ or document the dinner in some way. By attaching magnets to the back of all the dishes and cups, the objects used by the guests pulled the ferrofluid up onto the back of the plexi. By the end of the meal each guest had a unique ‘drawing’ before them.

in collaboration with Tansy Mak and Andrew Heuman

fabrication assistance: Chris Oliver, Frank Parish

This prototype was designed and built for a competition which charged designers to think of a product that “re-defined dining”. Our design posits that a meal at home alone need not be a solitary or a ‘cheap’ experience. We see our design as the medium through which one can have the social intimacy and sense of refinement often missing in meals eaten at home by a young single professional.

The two trays are easily connected together via a set of metal legs which occupy the void that once housed the laptop. The legs are unfolded and snapped into place. The plastic leaves are slid to the center and an additional ‘nice’ wooden table leaves are inserted.  Dignity and refinement is celebrated whether one is dining alone, with a virtual guest or a real live person. The design allows for both kinds of meals to be intimate and special. 

Prof. Dan Kaplan and Gustavo Rodriguez_FX Fowl in collaboration with Yu Ying Goh

The assigned program for this project was a design and art school for Cornell on the Highline. in response, our project suggest that a school and a place of learning can be a 'viewing machine' through which the public as well as students could experience the city and the Highline.

It was important for the overall intentions of filtering and viewing the city to be expressed not just in plan and section but in the details of the facade and skin as well.

This framing and filtering of views and program came to life in a powerful way on the avenue corner of the ground floor. Here the building mechanically opens and closes at the start and end of each day, thereby making the open-plan of the ground floor accessible or not to the public. 

Public circulation in the building occurs in a large elevator  in the courtyard. As one travels from floor to floor the 'inhabitable frame' increases the amount of layers and density of frames through which one experiences the  activity and program occurring in and beyond the building.

Designed in the summer of 2011 under Caroline O'Donnell while working at CODA in Ithaca NY, Zoom House is project commissioned by a young family of three. The family was interested in the construction of an addition to their existing home which would transform based on the seasons. Via tracks along an outdoor track, zoom house moves outwardly in the warm weather allowing for the family to enjoy a small pool. In the colder months the extension rolls back and connects with the  main house. 

Prof. Dan Kupkova_Cornell University in collaboration with Melissa Constantine

This cultural and recreation center was derived by the inital devlopment of a genotype  which has  branching capabilities. This genotype was developed with the intention of carrying water across varying slopes across the site, branching and adapting parametrically where needed.

Once the genotype or code of such a form was understood, it was applied to the site. The park had drastic changes in slope thus the program as well as the water filtering system had to adapt and change as well.

The three-skinned nature of the facade allowed for one system to accomodate private, public and semi public activities.  The skin is a lso programatically responsive as the porosity of the outer layer varies depending on the level of privacy demanded by the program beneath.

This studio began with an intense investigation into the theories and history of model-making in architecture ,which quickly led to our own models base on site analysis. Modeling was used extensively throughout the semester through which program and materiality was evaluated.

Diagrams and film analyses of the Alfred Hitchock film ‘Rear Window’ were used to explore the theme of  framed and blocked activity/program/view.  As Hitchcock played with the audiences expectations as to the activity taking place behind walls, buildings, curtains, etc, so to does this project. One is forced to infer and look through many layers of material and screen in order to understand the activity taking place beyond. 

work completed while an intern at von Weise Associates from May 2006-May 2008

This project was motivated by a competition which challenged designers to reconsider the nature and role of public outdoor furniture. We looked at our immediate surroundings and were inspired by the city of Ithaca’s active lifestyle and culture. We saw the need for not just more bike racks, but public outdoor places of rest that could serve as moments of interaction in the city.