BELLA CHOU | SELECTED WORKS 2019 - 2022
1 FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION(?) Foreign + Familiar | Austin, TX | Spring 2021 Advanced Studio | Kory Bieg
15 GRIDS, ROOMS, MAZES Measures of Discomfort | Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
21 ONE HOUSE, TWO HOUSES, THREE HOUSES Measures of Discomfort | Austin, TX | Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
33 PEOPLE, OBJECTS, HABITS Measures of Discomfort | Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
39 UNDERLAND Paleontological Preserve | San Antonio, TX | Fall 2019 Vertical Studio | Murray Legge
FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION(?) Foreign + Familiar | Austin, TX Spring 2021 Advanced Studio | Kory Bieg Collaboration with Coleman Brink + William Hachtman Design Excellence Award
Technology is ubiquitous; our relationship with electronics, both hidden and overt, has become integral in our everyday lives and has reformed how we interact and perceive the world around us. In the perpetual pursuit of utopia, futuristic machines constantly propose a new and improved way of living. While many of these proposals seem to be more applicable to temporally distant societies, our rapidly changing environment and needs suggest these future technologies could be implemented in the near rather than distant future. Despite the vision of a seamless integration of these technologies, a question of the spatial requirements to house these technologies arises. Technology is a tool to change how we live, but contrary to our reliance on it in completing even the most mundane of tasks, technology is often tucked away into the periphery of our buildings and minds. Our project explores ideas of human viewership and interaction with the digital. Set in a near, speculative future, we wanted to confront our society’s complacency of existence— what are the implications of space-making with a non-human centered focus? Architecture as a discipline has become constrained. In our constantly changing world, architecture is stable. Our explorations play with destabilizing the status quo. Programmatically, our project is a spectrum of human occupation, with technology taking precedence while humans become the periphery. Our projects are highly speculative, but rooted in our observations of human interaction with technology. This is just one potential future of many.
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GRIDS, ROOMS, MAZES Measures of Discomfort Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
Grids, Rooms, Mazes investigates the relationship of how form rather than content is able to define the specificity of a room. The structure is divided into three units, which are further divided by 5 subunits of various sizes. Subdivision of the unit is defined by ceiling heights and types rather than traditional vertical partitions. The aggregation of the subunits continues the exploration of comfort and discomfort defined by privacy and space. No subunit is truly private; each subunit is fluid due to the lack of vertical partitions, and views into each subunit are possible within each unit and from other units. Each subunit is comfortable in the physical measurement of space, but is extremely uncomfortable with the lack of privacy.
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ONE HOUSE, TWO HOUSES, THREE HOUSES Measures of Discomfort | Austin, TX Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
“It is thinking about comfort that requires a thinking about discomfort.”1 Comfort is defined as “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.” While discomfort is defined as “sight pain; a state of unease, worry, or embarrassment; something that makes a person feel physically uncomfortable.” Levels of physical discomfort are easily defined, but the layers of psychological discomfort that augment these feelings are more varied and harder to define. One of the most prevalent psychological discomforts in the built environment is the idea of privacy in the domestic sphere. In this project, no subunit is truly private; layers of opacity loosely define public spaces from private, allowing views into each subunit from within the unit and from other units. Each subunit is comfortable in the physical measurement of space, but is extremely uncomfortable with the blurring of privacy.
1 Georges Teyssot and Catherine Seavitt in “Boredom and Bedroom: The Suppression of the Habitual.”
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Room Taxonomy — An exploration of subdivision without the use of partitions, each aggregation describes a different ceiling type.
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Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
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Aggregation Strategy — Each unit revolves around a non-traditional family unit, where traditional family units are defined as a married, heterosexual couple with 2.5 children.
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Facade Detail — Channel glass marks the “entrance” to each unit and shields the public spaces of the residence, while the opening between columns of the horizontal circulation create smaller apertures to view the private spaces of the unit.
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Section Perspective Unit 2 — Unit 2 houses two single people co-parenting a child. The bedrooms of the adults are stacked on top of each other, allowing for maximum privacy between the adults, while still allowing views into the child’s bedroom.
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Section Perspective Unit 3 + Perspectives — To create more privacy within the bedrooms, a system of sheer curtains is introduced to create levels of opacity and viewership according to the user.
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PEOPLE, OBJECTS, HABITS Lavatory Labyrinth Spring 2020 Vertical Studio | Piergianna Mazzocca
Based on Leon Ferrari’s “The Architecture of Madness,” People, Objects, Habits investigates and critiques the relationship of standardized measurements and objects with diverse bodies and the way these limitations inform comfort, space, and habits. Public bathrooms remain some of the most gendered spaces, and are an interesting juxtaposition of public and private spheres colliding. People, Objects, Habits is an exploration of comfort in terms of privacy and space — the amalgamation of stall doors are placed to create fluid spaces that shrink with each iteration. As the level of privacy increases, the space allotted shrinks. The project ultimately questions the criteria of comfort and challenges users to prioritize between physical or psychological comfort.
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Subject, Object, Element — The “average” cisgender male, with dimensions based from a sampling of young, able bodied men.
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Circulation Diagram — This drawing highlights the maze-like circulation users must navigate to reach their destination and the fluidity of space the movement creates.
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Organizational Drawing — Each “bathroom” incrementally changes dimension, starting with a 7x7 foot space and ending with a 5x5 foot space. This creates an inverse relationship of space and privacy.
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Plan — The meandering path the male users are forced to traverse underline the inequalities female users encounter in public bathrooms.
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UNDERLAND Paleontological Preserve | San Antonio, TX Fall 2019 Vertical Studio | Murray Legge Design Excellence Award
Friesenhahn Cave, once home to scimitar-toothed cats (homotherium serum) and a plethora of other Pleistocene Epoch megafauna, is an important paleontological site located in San Antonio’s suburban sprawl. The objective of the studio was to design an educational building within the four-acre site that did not encroach upon the 60-foot radius of the subterranean preservation zone. Origami-like folds in the walls were introduced to encourage movement into the space through fragmentation. The folding language of the structure explores the relationship of mystery, reveal, and views. The folding structure is meant to guide movement—a suggestion of direction— but visitors are ultimately allowed to explore the site at will.
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bella.athena.chou@gmail.com 515.302.1765