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Earth_Awake is an installation expressing the current epidemic of natural disasters occurring around the world, especially in Latin America: Haiti, Chile, and Baja California with Earthquakes and Global Warming. “La Lengua Muerte” is an art exhibit focusing on being Latin in America, this installation was done for this particular show.

Earth_Awake is my plea to the world to be aware, attentive, and to awaken to the situations millions of people are facing, and that inevitably the entire world will face, which is climatic change and Global Warming. To express this concept I used cardboard to symbolize the movement of the earth integrated in to the wall as one enters the space in the Labotanica Gallery to give a 3-dimensional effect.
Words are sporadically spread through the piece to implement the countries affected. In my work I use each theme to find reason behind a social and global issue. Hearing about the show dealing with Latin American culture, I immediately began contemplating how to incorporate the catastrophic events of the earthquakes around the world, especially in Latin America into this show.

The focus of this studio led project was to design a ceiling system within a new Jury Space in the Architecture Building for the University of Houston. The studio I was a part of developed a Ceiling Cloud that clips on to a modified suspended ceiling grid using lightweight folded aluminum panels that are designed to incrementally change dimension and drape into the space below. Constraints and variables within the parametric models allowed for the optimization and extraction of 150 unique panels that are also perforated with their own individual pattern. The variations in the folded surface disburse and dissipate sound through refraction and absorption created by the corrugation in the panels and their perforation. The holes are also calibrated as a gradient to allow more light to penetrate in the center of the space away from the walls which will be lit with exhibition wall armature lighting.

Recently the project won 1st place on the FAB Research Cluster at the Architectural Association in London 2009 AA|FAB Awards for this project.

The list of people involved are: Scott Marble, visiting critic (Marble Fairbanks/Columbia GSAPP); Andrew Vrana and Joe Meppelink, adjunct professors (University of Houston College of Architecture/METALAB); Rajaa Issa, paneling tools and grasshopper parametric software support (McNeel & Associates); and Ambox Limited (CNC laser cutting). Studio students were Eric Arnold (lighting and acoustics); Hugo Palma (modularity), Preetal Shah (patterning); Jonathan Aljets (display systems); Fabian Vargas (fabrication); and Alan Nguyen (parametric design). The digital fabrication seminar consisted of Marco Teran, Travis McCarra, Jenny Macedo, Lara Hamilton, Agustin Prebisch and Alex Smith.

Music is a pivotal factor to my work. However sometimes I feel that music is appreciated superficially and not the way the individual musicians intended their music to be understood. I wanted to explore the life and ideology each of these musicians, artists, and philosophers by having a focal point through a main picture and then to elaborate it through different pictures of their lifetime expressing their complexity.

Along with many people of this country, my parents came from an impoverished background. Both illegally migrated into this country to have a better opportunity at life, and if not themselves at least their children. Now as a maturing man I acknowledge what happened and what has happened through history world-wide and this country. I find it funny the hypocritical mask this country wears. So I decided to express my frustration through art. In this piece I show on one side the heroic tale of the migration of Europeans to the quote on quote “New World” when the reality is they came to America exploited, stole, and raped North and South America. My father and mother’s countries economy went into inflation, which caused them to have no choice but to migrate. Now the tables have turned, now immigration is illegal and looked upon in a negative connotation.

In my fourth year in the Architecture program my studio was given a site to design any thing one felt needed. On my multiple visits to this site before the beginning of the project I noticed a very distinct and unavoidable problem, homelessness. The Homeless surrounding market sq. (Houston) is distinguished. The park is empty and abandoned and revitalized by the homeless. Many call this home; there is something wrong with this picture. Market Square is populated only for occasional events; the rest of the time people avoid it or hurry through it, and now the majority of people utilizing this space are the homeless.

I began researching statistically the problem of homelessness in Houston.
Where I concluded that 10,000 homeless individuals are on the streets of Houston on any given night. 25% of the homeless are youth. More than 50% of these individuals have mental illnesses.

My design consist of a homeless dormitory in order to solve the problem instead of disregarding it, my design consists of an exterior dormitory/development center for the homeless. It will not be a program to be exploited from but to have opportunities to solve the problem; it will be a coalition with Star of Hope a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to helping the homeless in Houston.

Iranian Presidential election of 2008 was a controversial event between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi the contention between these ideologies inspired me to research and illustrate the situation as I see it. I depicted a vision utilizing the infamous picture of a viet-cong officer shooting a civilian in the head, I use the same image but instead I play with the imagery by having Mousavi shooting Ahmadinejad, this is a representation of my view that sometimes in order to have peace with a character like Ahmadinejad one must fight with democracy in their own language, which is violence. In the piece Mousavi shoots, bt when he shoots a green flower(representing peace) springs out, but the result is bloodshed regardless. Also I play with the concept of jihad is by having on both sides the Arabic scripture representing the beginning quote to each surah, however on one side it is upside down, symbolizing the corruption of an idea. At the bottom of the painting I have a covered women being silenced to her right to vote, and is also a representation of the killing of Neda Soltani a demonstrator killed while being in a demonstration.