Re(treat)

Sansusī Forest Food Court

2023
Susėja, Latvia

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois

Awarded 2nd Prize by Buildner






The modular food court is a glowing beacon for hungry festival goers. It remains materially and spatially connected with the forest it sits in, with an adaptable layout designed to ensure no trees are impacted by the structure. Prioritizing construction effectiveness and optimizing interior space utilization, the design is composed of lightweight modular wooden frames that can be assembled by a small team on or offsite. 



The structure is enclosed with breathable wooden slats, allowing for the free flow of air and light. During periods of non-use, benches find a secure place within the units, ensuring their longevity. The modular design allows for easy assembly and disassembly, allowing materials to be upcycled effectively throughout their use-span. As the needs of the festival change over time the food court can expand or move.






Section Perspective
   

Unit Plan

Circulation Diagram






Perspectival visualizations


Elevational view



Loading/Entry through outer sliding door

Assembly diagram













Rooms (Hug House)

Rooms Option Studio

2015
Garrotxa, Spain

Guided by Bet Capdeferro and Ramon Bosch at Cornell University.




A set of rooms embraces a farmhouse on the site in Garrotxa, Catalonia, and blurs into the territory through the material and spatial vocabulary of the arch as a set of ephemeral, temporal, experiences. 

Hug House redefines the concept of enclosure by exploring both personal and territorial scales, drawing inspiration from the natural texture of Garrotxa. The canopies and partitions of the landscape inform a design language that operates at both human and territorial scales. The project emphasizes thresholds, celebrating their ability to blend distinct conditions and create dynamic spatial boundaries. These limits shift with use, time, natural forces, approach, and materiality, while concave arches introduce varied conditions of enclosure and programmatic specificity.





Eating/Daydreaming


Outdoor Bath
Sleeping/Daydreaming.



Initially, vegetal arches are constructed around the house, formalizing natural spaces and connecting them through light, shadow, scent, and color. These arches serve as transitional interfaces, offering privacy and enhancing boundary distinctions. Over time, vegetation overtakes the arches, merging architecture with territory and allowing the creation of temporary “rooms” within the evolving landscape. These simple, functional spaces—a swing for reading, a hammock for napping, and a platform for dining—maintain the essence of the territory while fostering moments of human connection and daydreaming.







Territorial and Elemental Embracing in Garrotxa.Topographical embrace of the air. Weather patterns are directed by the mountain behind the site, producing a unique microclimate.
Sleep/Eating/Daydreaming Constellation Drawing













Sprouts

Floating Pavilion
2019
Amsterdam, Netherlands

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois

Awarded the Editor’s Choice Award by Switch
Featured in  POOL Magazine Issue n.7: Float





Sprouts is a floating pavilion designed for the central pond in Vondelpark, Amsterdam. As spring arrives and flowers begin to bloom, visitors are invited to stride onto the pavilion, where a variety of flowers, grasses and small shrubs create a soft, labyrinthian experience for a walk, a spot to contemplate or listen to music, or a place for a picnic with friends. Inspired by houseboats in the Amsterdam Canals, Sprouts extends the usable square footage of the park by placing the pavilion on water, dissolving the boundaries between the natural and built environment.

The pavilion takes shape through the reuse of mulch produced from trees felled annually in the park as part of Amsterdam’s urban forestry program. This mulch is molded into cylindrical forms that transform over time into mycelium foam, a biodegradable material modeled after the proportions of disused oil barrels. These foam cylinders are aggregated and floated onto the pond, gradually decomposing and fostering plant and animal life. Over its lifecycle, the pavilion evolves into a permanent artificial island, seamlessly integrating with the pond’s ecosystem. With an emphasis on minimizing industrial materials, Sprouts is an intervention that enhances both the ecological and experiential qualities of the park.



Plan over time
Sprouts in its later stages of growth





Sprouts in its first growth

Sectional transformation over time








Elävä Museo
Art and Design Museum


2024
Helsinki, Finland

In collaboration with Laura Stargala, Timothée Ryan,
and Amparo Dominguez Soler




The Elävä Museo, the living museum, utilizes local timber to recognize Finnish vernacular architecture, embracing regional resources to create a meaningful cultural contribution to the Helsinki harbour. The museum is designed as an extension of the market, blending industrial architecture with the port’s landscape. It consists of two volumes: one as an archive of Scandinavian heritage, and the other as an engagment with its people. These are linked by a central atrium that serves as a dynamic public space. The museum emphasizes transparency by exposing the construction process, allowing visitors to witness the building’s evolution and creating an immersive, ongoing narrative connected to its urban and maritime surroundings.


Sectional Drawings

Sámi Building Structures

Indigenous communities built shelter with the materials available to them - the architecture was dictated by the constraints of the site, climate, labour, and culture. Similarly, the Elävä Museo responds to its current context, using timber as the main structural material, as well as for wall paneling, roof tiles, and furniture. It is a response to industrialized globalized markets, offering a new way forward for design.
Covered Goods Shed

This image, painted by Magnus von Wright in 1842, illustrates how the previous buildings occupying the site were a ‘katettu tavara vaia,’ a covered goods shed, made of timber. The Elävä Museo recognizes its past by embracing the timber structure that once stood on its site. While the timber structure can be used to house goods, it can also be used to house artifacts of architecture, art and design.
Harbour Structures

This photograph, taken by Gustaf Nyström in 1883, shows a pier’s goods shed. The timber structures were commonly built to house goods and provide shelter for the people occupying the piers. The Elävä Museo utilizes the commonly used material, timber, to create a unique interpretation of sheds across the Finnish harbour landscape.
Fishing Villages

The fishing villages of Finland exemplify the use of timber construction along the water. Timber is not only used to construct architecture, but also boats, furniture, and other design objects. The Elävä Museo is an example of Finnish vernacular architecture, utilizing regional methods and techniques in order to create a meaningful impact on its urban condition and cultural traditions.
The building offers a traditional experience with easy access to exhibitions and shops but enhances engagement by including typically hidden areas, such as back-of-house and employee zones, as part of the visitor experience. This approach allows visitors to connect more deeply with the museum, extending their experience beyond the exhibits on display. The architecture encourages exploration, with a striking roof that leads visitors to an interior garden on the upper levels, where they can enjoy sculptures, events or quiet reflection. This design fosters a sense of belonging and ownership among visitors, making the museum a place of personal and emotional connection.








Ecological, social and economic sustainability are integral to the design, with wood as the primary construction material, reflecting Finland’s traditions and providing environmental benefits. Locally sourced, sustainable wood enhances energy efficiency, reduces costs, and ensures easy maintenance. Social sustainability is addressed by creating a warm, acoustically pleasant interior, making the museum an inviting and inclusive space. Additionally, the roof design provides natural lighting and ventilation, further enhancing energy efficiency. Overall, the museum aims to create a memorable, impactful experience that resonates with visitors, encouraging them to return time and again.


Perspective: View of the atrium from the second floor balcony

Longitudinal Section/Elevation Drawings



Plan Drawings



Aerial Perspective from the Harbor






Over-UnderUrban Public Bench Reinvented


2016
Winnipeg, Canada

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois

Awarded 1st Place by STUFFgroup, Featured in Cornell AAP News
Cornell University AAP Spring 2017 Newsletter, and The Street is a Public Space by STUFFgroup




Over-Under challenges the typical understanding of a public bench by turning inward. Alongside additional seating and bike storage created, the orientation of the seating dramatizes the ordinary, mundane dialogue between the street and the sidewalk, creating new opportunities for connectivity and conversation. A simple, welded structure made of circular and square steel sections support ten plywood steps, en face, while a translucent, acrylic screen anchors and embraces the whole. All materials for the bench were repurposed and recycled after its disassembly.

Bench across from the MAKE Coffee storefront



Visitors taking a break from their bike ride



Axonometric diagram
Initial Exploded Component Diagram




A social reinterpretation of the bench









Vibrations

Handknotted Wool Rug

2016
Los Angeles, California

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois

Awarded 1st Prize Rug Your City by Floorplan





Designed for and sold on Floorplan Rugs, Vibrations is derived from the convergence of the varying topographies in LA.   Los Angeles is a city of vibrations. Through its many cultures and expressions, there is always a sense of movement. The entertainment and sense of play trickles from the studios and stadiums, to the coastline and highways that weave through its diverse neighborhoods, each with their own identity. It is in its many gestures that we see Los Angeles not as a flat system of gentrified grids, but rather a movement of intersections and confluences.

Available for purchase at Floorplan.




  





Vibrations of L.A.














    


Air As Infrastructure

Infrastructural, Botanical, and Ecological Information System

2016
Tapajos River Basin, Brasil

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois






Air as Infrastructure is a program integrating various infrastructural, botanical, and ecological information systems which aim to provide autonomous communication channels for protected territories and indigenous communities in the Tapajós National Forest. The scalable broadband communication network solution provides protective tools to the forest and its residents to monitor their land. It also enables the transaction of decolonized information between communities and territories, strengthening social organization and broadening access to internet-enabled devices within the forest.



Total RF propagations in the Tapajós generated by the communication network, providing local communities with protective tools to monitor the forest.

Temporal densities mapped in the Tapajós National Forest

App interface: geotag and identification of species along path




Archaic modes of specimen collection


Scale model of technical components in the rainforest.






Line of Sight/Site cataloguing the topographical obtrusions in the broadband range

Mesh Node propagation










    



About Liam Martin

  iamliam@me.com

Instagram  Linkedin  Curriculum Vitae












Liam Martin is a designer and visualization specialist in Brooklyn, NY. He grew up in the grassy hills of Central Kentucky, where he discovered the beauty and power of design rooted in its context. Frequent hikes at the local wildlife refuge and many memorable visits throughout his youth to a nearby Shaker Village instilled in him the value of simplicity and intentionality—principles that continue to guide his work, which spans narrative-bolstering visualization, bioremediation strategies, adaptive reuse, industrial and product design, and residential renovations. 


Liam studied architecture at Cornell University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2018. While at Cornell, he was a Martin Tang Fellow—supporting his work serving as chair of the student chapter of Mayor Potencial, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering impoverished rural communities in Honduras through education, healthcare, and disaster relief initiatives. Liam traveled with Mayor Potencial in 2015 to El Rodeito, Honduras to collaborate on the design of a new high school. 

In 2015, collaboration with Laura-India Garinois, he cofounded Superinfra, a design-research practice focused on infrastructure, phenomenology, and ecological restoration. Liam has also worked with Madrid-based RICA*studio, assisting in the design of a biophilic play-therapy garden for La Fe Hospital in Valencia, Spain. 

Since joining COOKFOX Architects in 2018, he has been a key member of the visualization team, crafting imagery with the project teams of St. John’s Terminal, 555 Greenwich Street, Terminal Warehouse, 335 8th Avenue, Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, and Marymount School of New York.

Liam’s work bridges speculative projects and built architecture, and through an interdisciplinary and collaborative spatial process, he advocates for thoughtfully crafted, contextually-sensitive design that prioritizes nature, wellness and sustainability.




His work has been published by POOL Magazine, Association, Archdaily, and Metropolis Magazine.












Journal





Re(treat) Superinfra wins 2nd Prize of the 2023 Sansusi Forest Food Court Competition. With Laura-India Garinois.
Community Center. Feasibility study for a heavy timber community center in The Bronx. With Todd Drucker. 2022.
Proton. With Laura-India Garinois / Superinfra. Supervisor: Stephanie Owens. 2017.
Evil Katsu. Storefront Design in the East Village, with Todd Drucker. 2021.
EDENISM. Concept. 2014.
Metropolis Magazine Workplace of the Future 2.0 Finalist. With Laura Stargala and Justin Yoo. 2014.
Anthropolens.  Fiber Optic Installation. With Laura-India Garinois. 2017.
Catnap. Proposal for a temporary pavilion in Montpellier, France. With Laura-India Garinois. 2024.















Liam Martin



A designer in Brooklyn, New York