Matthew Moran
With my mom being an elementary school art teacher I was exposed to design and found a love for it at a very young age. In high school, I would draw buildings, landscapes, boats and all sorts of other things in my notebooks rather than actually taking notes. It was when I took a woodworking class that I discovered my passion for not only drawing but building what I imagined. That's when my decision to pursue architecture came. It's been 7 years since that decision and I could not be happier with the journey I have taken along the way. My experience at NJIT has exposed me to so many interesting and unique individuals that continue to inspire me to want to do great things and persist in my passion for design. I’m thankful for everybody that has helped me along the way to becoming the designer that I am today. NJIT has taught me to see design and building in an entirely different light and through multiple perspectives. I look forward to the future that this school has prepared me for.
The Four Freedoms
The design intention for the Four Freedoms Foundation was to create a public space at grade to allow for pedestrian circulation to travel seamlessly through both the project and the surrounding context with a single expansive gallery space seemingly floating above. At grade, open spaces blend together so circulation can pass through easily. The Foundation is aimed to disrupt the existing flow of traffic as little as possible while introducing new programmatic elements to the site. The goal of the main gallery was to emulate the feelings of depth and vastness created by Louis Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park. Rather than four individual spaces, the Four Freedoms Foundation Gallery is one enormous open space capped by an oculus looking across the river to the Manhattan skyline. The main gallery space is a clear, refined, expansive space hidden within the structure of the building, occupants within this space are meant to almost feel disoriented by the sheer scale of the room. The oculus floods the far side of the main gallery with natural light drawing the occupants forward. The return circulation directs patrons into a smaller space with the intention to make them feel as if they are traveling between the structural elements of the building. The structure is exposed and celebrated in all other locations to highlight the sleek image of the gallery. This museum is meant to serve as a new experiential quality to the site context, working alongside those created in Kahn’s’ project.
