Maximo Malaiu

01 — Building Design

Terracotta Facility

Horizontal stratification and the gradient towards form.

Close view of a layered physical model: bands of terracotta, cream and green material stacked and slumping over a brick base.
Stacking studies
Year
2025
Type
Academic, ARC 207
Place
Syracuse, NY
Structure
Rammed earth

The project

The proposed terracotta facility emerges from the same ground the material is being excavated from. The design plays with the natural shapeless quality of the soil, guiding it towards the center of the building where it takes on a more formal and structural role.

To further emphasize its connection to the earth, the structure is made of rammed earth, which gives it a natural, raw feel. The project is designed horizontally to blend into the landscape and create an open plan, enabling the easy flow of heavy terracotta artifacts from room to room.

The site and building are organized by layers, from formless areas to increasingly formed geometries — extraction zone, educational extraction zone, and finally the cafe.

Axonometric drawing of the facility: a grid of linear geometries overlaid with areas of loose, speckled terracotta fill.
Axonometric

Site & plan

Site plan showing the building set into contour lines, with terracotta-colored excavation zones around it.
Site plan
Floor plan of the facility showing production, firing, gallery, cafe and extraction areas across an open grid.
Plan

Sections

Two long sections cut through the facility, showing the rammed-earth mass meeting the ground and the roof line held level across the slope.
Sections

Model

Physical model seen from above, the building embedded in a white plaster landscape.
The building as ground
Aerial view of the model showing the flat roof plane and the glazed production hall beneath it.
Roof plane
Close view of the model where rough plaster meets the ordered structural bay.
Formless meets structural
Interior render: terracotta-textured piers along a glazed production hall.
Interior

Generative studies

Exercises in layering and controlling degrees of form. Linear geometries were introduced to guide otherwise fluid materials, testing how structure can shape formless mass.

Physical models informed a parallel digital simulation in Blender, translating the same rules of gravity, stacking and compression into computational form. These studies established the gradients between order and informality that later informed the facility.

The full stacked model on a terracotta base, with glass panes slicing through the piled layers.
Panes
Grey scanned block of layered material, section one. Grey scanned block of layered material, section two. Grey scanned block of layered material, section three.
Stacking rules, Blender
Long grey elevation speculating a building assembled from the stacked and compressed forms.
Constructional studies