Allyson Tan Architecture Portfolio

ALLYSON TAN Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Architecture 2021

architecture design portfolio selected works

[ARCHIVAL] PERIODS

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SUSTAINED TERRARIUM

02

ACOUSTICAL DISHES

03

DIA-HEMP LOOM

04

FLEXFORM

05

FRAGMENTS AND CONNECTIONS

06

CHAOTIC BUTTERFLY

07

ILLUSTRATION AND ARTWORKS

08

Integrated Design Development Spring 2019

Design Studio 4 Spring 2018

Design Studio 7 Spring 2020

table of contents

CASE Material Systems and Production Spring 2020

Vertical Studio Fall 2019

Design Studio 1 Fall 2016

Vertical Studio Fall 2020

Select pieces done outside of architecture school 2014 - 2021

[ARCHIVAL] PERIODS Collaboration with Amy Lam

Location: Albany, NY

Project Type: Library

[archival] periods is located in downtown Albany, an area filled with different architecture ranging from Victorian row houses to more modern brutalist buildings. The library aims to reflect this intersection of styles through its long hallways, which intercept into one another. The first few floors are split into two areas to separate the classrooms and library to control circulation. The exterior is wrapped with angled white terracotta panels creating fluid strips. The structure of the building relies on its two elevator cores.

[ARCHIVAL] PERIODS

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LEVEL 2

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LEVEL 8

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LEVEL 1

LEVEL 7

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- 17' - 0"

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LEVEL 6

[ARCHIVAL] PERIODS

[ARCHIVAL] PERIODS

SUSTAINED TERRARIUM Collaboration with Madison Irish

Location: Cohoes, NY

Project Type: Mixed Use + Housing

This residential building project aims to self-sustain its residents. The building holds a terrarium, cat walk, and a seed bank. In the terrarium, crops are studied to enhance their growth; the cat walk creates leisure space surrounded by nature; the seed bank provides a library of seeds for the people to practice planting and growing. Each resident, based on their location in the Sustained Terrarium, grows a crop in their rooms which they can share with their fellow residents. It’s a give and take community.

SUSTAINED TERRARIUM

SUSTAINED TERRARIUM

SECTION 2

SCALE: 1/16” - 1’

SUSTAINED TERRARIUM

ACOUSTICAL DISHES Location: New York City

Project Type: City Infrastructure

Acoustical Dishes is a form of communication from the city to the streets that shares information through a spatial auditory channel while not contributing to the cumulative sound of the city. The modes of communication can be grouped into 3 modes: inside-outside relations, pure information, and ambient sounds. Rather than implement speakers throughout the city, transducers are placed on building material to create sound through vibrations. As such, the “speakers” are integrated into the building design. The dome shape directs sound in a specific direction creating targeted areas.

ACOUSTICAL DISHES

ACOUSTICAL DISHES

DISH parabolic mic pin points at sound (direct and select certain sounds)

AMP

DISH AMP

MICROPHONE AMP INSIDE MULLION/ SUPPORT SPEAKER

CLOUD

MICROCONTROLLER MICROPHONE

DISH MICROCONTROLLER

x21

SERVER

CMS (Content Management System)

AUDIO FILE MICROPHONE x5

DIA-HEMP LOOM Location: Upstate New York

Project Type: Material Design

We were tasked to redesign a typical structural insulated panel with hemp yarn, hemp fabric and mycelium. While being a more eco-friendly and durable alternative to current SIPs, issues arose in how the yarn would be wrapped to retain shape and structure. Inspired by the diagrid framework, a loom with nodes placed strategically across its edges was developed as a way to dictate the wrapping pattern. This project is built upon and is a continuation of past CASE research.

DIA-HEMP LOOM

DIA-HEMP LOOM

SIPWeaving Weaving Manufacturing Process SIP Manufacturing

1. Resin impregnated hemp yarn is wrapped around the loom. The number of wraps depends on the structural load. The yarn provides strength and strucutal support like the exterior panels in a normative SIP. Duration: 1 hour (wrapping) + 24 hours (resin curing)

2. After the resin dries and the loom is removed, the yarn is wrapped with resin impregnated hemp fabric.

While the it doesn’t provide structural support, it protects the interior from external elements, creates a mold for mycellium to grow, and provides more surface bonding.

Duration: 1 hour (wrapping) + 24 hours (resin curing)

3. Mycellium, the insulation, fills the inside from top to bottom and left to grow. It also acts as a binding agent, so by bonding all three materials together mycellium adds strength to the SIP. Duration: 10 days (growing) + 1 -2 days (drying)

Continuous/Layered: Speed: Structure: 4. Mycellium is baked when it’s grown enough.

Duration: 30 minutes (baking)

5. Final product.

Customizable:

Layered Slow (~2 weeks) Customized therefore stronger Using different loom designs

author/heidi-moore. “Three Unlikely Materials Find Use in the Commercial Building Market.” Architect, 18 Jan. 2013. www.architectmagazine.com, https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/products/three-unlikely-materials-find-use-in-the-commercial-building-market_o. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ecovative-website-production/documents/Grow-It-Yourself-Instruction-Manual-v1.0.pdf

Material Systems and Production / Spring 2020

FLEXFORM

Collaboration with Tanner Vargas and Queena Wang

Location: Downtown Troy, NY

Project Type: Housing

Flexform challenges the traditional notion that major elements of the home should be static. Typical household symbols—chimneys, walls, windows— can be flexible. By making these programs tectonic, each constantly shifting between private and public needs, the home is able to create new modes of social living and communication at both the scale of the home and the community. In redesigning the living space, we tackled 3 major programmatic needs: sleep, storage, and shower.

FLEXFORM

FLEXFORM

FLEXFORM

FRAGMENTS AND CONNECTIONS Location: Mars

Project Type: Housing + Laboratory

The residents of this dwelling/laboratory are a human researcher and their AI companion. Their relationship, while it had started off with skepticism, ended in mutualism as each benefited from the other; a companion for the researcher, and endless knowledge for the AI. This initial fragmented-turnedto-connected relationship is reflected in the architecture. It comprises a massing and a mirror of itself.

The researcher is free to move between both massings, whereas the AI is limited to just the dwelling. The AI, though, has control access to the laboratory as a way to support the researcher.

FRAGMENTS AND CONNECTIONS

FRAGMENTS AND CONNECTIONS

FRAGMENTS AND CONNECTIONS

CHAOTIC BUTTERFLY Collaboration with Queena Wang

Location: Virtual

Project Type: Immersive Spatial Experience

The concept for Chaotic Butterfly derives from the Butterfly Effect, where a seemingly mundane action leads to a bigger consequence. Rather than build a 3D virtual space, we decided to create space with hand drawn frame-by-frame animation. Hand drawing allows us to explore different transitions and morphs through objects, object materials, lines and space itself. Precedents include The Petting Zoo by Christoph Niemann and Gorogoa by Jason Roberts.

CHAOTIC BUTTERFLY

Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxQOdOd-ir0

CHAOTIC BUTTERFLY

ILLUSTRATION AND ARTWORKS

Various works done outside of architecture school.

Materials and media include taskboard, graphite on paper, watercolor, and digital editing and vectoring.

Top right: Model of Robertson Lane Project for HplusF Right: Cyrtocapsus Color Plate from Smithsonian NMNH Above: Cube from Cornell Summer College Others: Art classes and personal works