Andrew Yu
Conditions
An Architecture Portfolio
TaBLe of CoNTeNTs
Petit Library Wing 01- .................................................................. Syracuse, New York The Warehouse Museum 02- ......................................................................... Cincinnati, Ohio Density Through Subtraction 03- .................................................................... Syracuse, New York The Ring Worm: Landscape as Extraction 04- ................................................................... Syracuse, New York A Tribute to the Day of the Dead 05- ........................................................................................ Mexico San Cataldo Cemetery Analysis 06- ............................................................................ Modena , Italy Monument Towards Autonomy 07- ........................................................................ Washington D.C. Work Experience 08- .............................................................................. Dallas, Texas Hand-Drawn Work 09- ............................................................................... Dallas, Texas
ayu100@syr.edu (469)-226-0855
2529 Scenic Drive, Plano, Texas 75025
01 Petit Library Wing
Syracuse, New York
The Petit Library Wing Extension started out as a study of Le Corbusier’s Sarabhai House and Terragni’s Casa del Fascio. Through an analysis of the Sarabhai House and the Casa del Fascio, I became interested in the idea of a rigid grid in which spatial fields were orchestrated by openings along a series of parallel walls. I executed this in plan by keeping the consistency of the parallel walls through the dashed overhead beams and creating a hierarchy of spaces through the openings along the walls. While the first floor walls follow a north-south orientation, the second floor walls are organized 90 degrees in an east-west orientation. The overlapping of the two systems can be observed in the courtyard space.
Sarabhai House Wormseye Diagram
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02 The Warehouse Museum Cincinnati, Ohio
Located in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Warehouse Museum is built over an existing warehouse and follows the program of an arts and learning center. Because of this, I wanted to accentuate this overlapping of two typologies as well as the repurposing of the warehouse space by allowing the footprint of the warehouse to puncture the newer museum typology. Furthermore, I wanted for the Warehouse Museum to become a central node for circulation that connected the top of the site, which rests above the hill, with the bottom of the site. To execute this, I allowed for the roof to become occupiable and relatively porous. This can be more understood in the axonometric diagrams.
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Fourth Floor Plan
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First Floor Plan Elevation
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Cross Truss System Column-Beam System
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03 Density Through Subtraction
Syracuse, New York In this project, my partner Lukas and I looked at the city of Syracuse as a whole, analyzing the city’s soil typology, wind data, etc. so that we could have an informed approach as to how we would design our building or series of buildings that rested on the skytop quarry. Firstly, when coming to understand the quality of soil at the skytop quarry, we determined that the site was less than ideal, as the area was muddy and the soil was unwalkable during the winter season. Secondly, when reading statistics about the growth of the city as a whole, we learned that the city was in decline, with people leaving year by year until the city has, at this point, stagnated. Therefore, rather than focus on the site at hand, we set out to find a way to repopulate the city. Instead of adding buildings to the site to attempt to increase density, we chose to reduce the land available for existing buildings; this was done by moving and compressing Onondaga’s infrastructure into a ring condition created by existing major roads. Essentially we looked to increase density through subtraction. From there, we proposed a supercity created along a ring with the interior consisting of agriculture and a power supply; the ring would operate as a cell. With density through subtraction, the land that was left following the relocation of infrastructure into the ring was given back to nature in a process known as rewilding. Looking at the ring condition, an urban fabric was created where people can both inhabit and work in. Furthermore, by moving everybody into this ring condition, the density increased from 580 people per square mile to 37,500 people per square mile. *all drawings done in collaboration with Lukas An*
04 The Ring Worm
Syracuse, New York As stated in the previous project, Lukas and I were trying to redefine the language of the modern city. However, as we continued to look into the site condition and its surroundings, we came to the conclusion that the site was beyond immediate restoration. Instead, we began thinking outside of the skytop quarry and projecting our ideas on Syracuse as a city. We shifted our ideas from a revitalization of the quarry to a revitalization of the city of Syracuse. By comparing the formats of revenue from other large cities, we determined that a large part of why Syracuse was so underwhelming compared to other cities was because of the declining population and its corresponding vacancy. We solved this issue by relocating Syracuse into the Ring Condition created around the initial site. From there, we shoved the population into the ring and gave the rest of the land back to nature. While this approach to a new city interested us, it wasn’t enough and didn’t capture landscape as provocation. In the end, we decided that the Ring Worm had to become its own life form that then slowly drained the Earth’s resources. To correspond to the demands of the Ring Worm, we projected our scenario 100 years into the future and reimagined Syracuse, not as the dying college town but as the final hope for humanity in some post apocalyptic scenario.
Video About Project *all drawings done in collaboration with Lukas An*
In order for the Ring Worm to sustain itself, we determined that it needed to have some way of gathering resources. Therefore, we designed the Ring Worm by section, with each section having a different function. The Ring Worm would use its limb-like members to absorb air, collect energy, and extract minerals, water, and food. These members pass through the porous shell and into the tubes inhabited by the last remaining humans on the planet.
Food Extraction
Air and Energy Absorption
Mineral Extraction
Water Extraction
Food Extraction
Air and Energy Absorption
Mineral Extraction
Water Extraction
05 A Tribute to the Day of the Dead Mexico
The culture of death and dying is a lot different in Mexico. Whereas we consider death to be this end to life, in Mexico, death is considered to be the reality to this dream that is our life. Therefore, on the Day of the Dead when the souls of the dead come back to this mortal playground that we occupy to visit their loved ones, there is a convergence of the dead and the living. The color yellow is used because marigolds are symbolic of the fragility of life. The color red is used because it represents the blood of the living. The street on the left is drawn in the style of the average Mexican street while the street on the right is drawn based on the conditions of the cemetery. However, the altars and graveyards, constructed as homes for the deceased become indistinguishable from the streets and urban typology of the city when the two converge. The overlapping qualities in which everything comes together to become an indistinguishable series of occupiable spaces is created only to say that the dead and the living are, indeed, indistinguishable in Mexican culture.
06 San Cataldo Cemetery Analysis Modena, Italy
The San Cataldo CemeteryAldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery was initially called L’azzurro Del Cielo, named after George Bataille’s Le Bleu Du Ciel which translates to The Blue of the Sky. Though the title suggests some sort of importance regarding a relationship with the sky, the book actually ends with the main character walking in a cemetery. There is a candle light for each skeleton in each grave, buried under the chasm of the funerary stars. This is an analogy to the procession that Aldo Rossi is creating in his cemetery, moving from the sanctuary to the ossuary before descending into final burial place. Rossi’s understanding of the Analogous City as a place being constructed by a collection of memories can be observed through the forms that these monuments take on; the form of the house and the factory are adopted into the system in this way to evoke memories for the dead. Aldo Rossi is creating a monument for the dead. A monument that transposes us as the individual in some sort of existential understanding of life and death. We are all fragile in life. However, when we die , we join the millions of others. Upon death, all inequalities are erased and we become one with the earth, sky, Christ, and ourselves.
07 Monument Towards Autonomy
Washington D.C.
The objective of the project was to design a hospice. Because of the level of importance that should be dedicated to one’s final moments alive, I focused on procession, philosophy, and figures of form as it related to the idea of dying. To be more informed on death, I read Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. In the book, Ilyich was angered that he had been selected to die. He had thought he was living the good life; he had a wife, kids, and a high position within government, so why had he been chosen for such a fate? This had haunted his dreams as he would often feel as if he were trapped in some dark sack, unable to break free. However, when he reflected about his life in more detail he realized that everything he achieved was given to him. His wife, his job, his home; these were simply material desires that some higher power had given him. It was only when he accepted that life was innately artificial that he was able to release himself from the dark sack that he felt he was trapped in. In this release, he saw light, felt true ecstacy, and died. This, for me, brought up the idea of autonomy as it relates to death. My project related to autonomy in the sense that it discusses autonomy in terms of scales. Ultimately, I argued that we don’t achieve true autonomy until we die. It is only in that moment when we understand autonomy in its most uncontaminated sense. Otherwise, we are controlled by surreptitious systems that vary in scale. Therefore, while we exercise “autonomy” in a sense, it is limited by the scale in which we think of autonomy whether it be liberty within the boundaries of science, morality, or law. The point is, autonomy is exercised in terms of the scale in which it is interpreted. The question is, how is that represented in architecture? I chose to represent it in plan through the use of figure and ground. At different levels of scale, the plan could be interpreted as figures that are among ground. However, as the scale changes, these figures become voids that with their own figures inside. Therefore, I demonstrated the complexities of scales within a system.
08 Work Experience Dallas, Texas
While I interned at Humphreys and Associates in Dallas, I had the unique opportunity to design a residential apartment for the Cornerstone South City, LLC. The site plan and elevations were completely done by me and through the process, I learned a lot about code and dealing with clientele such as how to fit the expected amount of units, beds, and parking spaces while still having the right amount of egress in the right locations. I also understood the structure of the architect and his or her relationship to the client better. Though in architecture school, we get to speculate on theory and craft narratives in architecture, a lot of the time, in practice, it is overcome by budget. While I will always prefer speculative design and theory over commercial architecture, this type of design occupies a lot of today’s urban fabric, and I am very happy to have had this experience.
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UMPHREYS & PARTNERS ARCHITECTS, L.P.
9 Alpha Rd., Suite 300, Dallas, TX 75240 | 972.701.9636 | www.humphreys.com
CONERSTONE SOUTH CITY, LLC
GAS STAT ION BM LLC ACRES
August 22, 2019
St. Louis, MO
09 Hand-Drawn Work Dallas, Texas
I find drafting by hand and sketching to be an extremely important tool in architecture. While a computer is an effective tool to have, it doesn’t show you how to operate within a space the way a pencil and paper does. Computers provide an efficient way to create models, but I believe that thinking and drawing, when it comes to architecture, go hand in hand. That’s why I don’t like the departure of tracing paper and a pencil in favor of a mouse and keyboard, epsecially because after talking with alot of my peers, many of them prefer to do everything digitally. One thing that my professor told me that really resonated with me was that architecture drawings are propaganda. We create drawings to push our project further. Because of what she said, I began to think about architecture drawings differently. Whereas before, I thought of architecture diagrams only as renders or plans that should only tell the facts about a project, I now see them as compositions that should can craft a story. I see them as viewing lens that allow for others to get an understanding of what is going on in my mind. That’s why as my portfolio has progressed, the drawings and diagrams have become increasingly more expressive. That’s also why in this segment, I’ve included a few of the drawings I’ve done over the past years. It’s a now criminally underrated skill that all architects should be able to draw.