THIS
CONTAINS THE DESIGN WORK OF PO-JUNG CHEN
contents 01 Time Capsule
Architecture Steganography
02 Mural of Mountain 03 Cube Living Unit 04 Miscellanea
Process of Creation
Minimal living space
Painting, Sketch, Ceramics, Woodwork, and Photography
01 Time Capsule
Architecture Steganography
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, perceives the existence of the message. Since some architectures seem to be undying as compared with the average human lifespan, they could be Time Capsules which provide ways of communication between generations and ages. Steganography also inspired me onto a special means of constructing for the creation of interesting structures with any information. 2011 Summer
archectural steganography
Inspiration The Tainan Confucius Temple was built in 1665. At first, there was only the sanctuary called Ta-Cheng Hall housing the mortuary tablet of Confucius, and then Ming-Lun Hall was built as a place for instructors to offer lectures and cultivate intellectuals. I visited the Tainan Confucius Temple in spring 2011, and the antique architecture impressed me. It's more than 300 years since those old brick buildings were built, and they were carefully maintained by generations with respect. As my research is in the field of Steganography, I was curious as to whether our ancestors wanted to express something via the temple and made the architecture a kind of “Time Capsule� recording important information. When studying in the structure and the composition of the brick building, I found that there are many ways to construct the same group of bricks. The figure below shows 6 different forms of groups with the same composition. If we make each leftmost point A in every group as a datum point, then we can shift other layers to make a different form. Moreover, gaps between every bricks in each layer can also be regulated. Under this logic, we can produce millions of different forms with only 12 bricks. So why did our ancestor choose the exact one from so many choices?.
A
A
Ta-Cheng Hall, 1665
A
The door of etiquette learning, 1712
Conception With the inspiration from Steganography and Tainan Confucius Temple, I conceived Architecture Steganography to achieve my imagination of using architectures as time capsules. I utilized four different types of bricks used in the classic game “Tetris” to construct an encoding system that we used a Message Unit which has 2 different kinds of composition containing only 2 bricks to represent 1 bit, which is either ‘0’ or ‘1’. Finally, Message Units can be assembled into bigger blocks as well as a whole architecture.
( Brick A + Brick B )
Brick A
Brick B
Brick C
( Brick A + Brick B + Brick C )
Brick D ( Brick A + Brick B )
( Brick A + Brick B + Brick D )
( Brick A + Brick B+ Brick D )
2 1
3
4
( Brick A+ Brick B + Brick D )
( Brick A+ Brick C )
Message Units
Composition 1 ”0”
Composition 2 ”1”
Hiden Messages : 01010
5
Building Messages According to Information theory, 5 bits of memory can simplify the writing system which has 26 letters in the English alphabet with 6 punctuations. In other words, we can use 5 Message Units to record one letter in the writing system. For example, if we want to hide the word “ACCEPT”, then we translate it into a binary bit stream and construct each bit using a suitable Memory Unit. 1
00000
A
17
10000
Q
2
00001
B
18
10001
R
3 4 5 6 7
00010 00011 00100 00101 00110
C D E F G
19 20 21 22
10010 10011 10100 10101
S T U V
8 9 10 11 12
00111 01000 01001 01010 01011
H I J K L
23 24 25 26 27
10110 10111 11000 11001 11010
W X Y Z ,
13 14 15 16
01100 01101 01110 01111
M N O P
28 29 30 31 32
11011 11100 11101 11110 11111
. ; ? Newline Space 30
Message : ”ACCEPT”
00000 00010 00010 00100 01111 10011
26 20
27 22
10 11 1
21
17
14
2
28
23 12 3
4
15
5 6
24 18
29 19 13
7
25 16
8 9
Means of Constructing As mentioned above, I provided a constructing method to replace the traditional way in brick constructions and made it a mean of hiding messages in constructions. In this way, we need to combine these bricks together just like playing Tetris game. However, the process of constructing inspired me the possibility to let the messages construct and grow up automatically. Just to imagine how interesting it is, if we can transform Shakespeare's most well-known poem, "Sonnet #18", into a fascinating structure which can be a reference to a real architecture design.
First, I extended the original 2 compositions for each Message Unit into 4 to 8 compositions by rotating 1 brick in original 2 types of composition. Finally we have 48 diversified compositions and structures that we can use in a new encoding system. The new encoding system used 6 bits to represent one composition. As the figure and the coding table below, first 3 bits represent the serial number of 8 compositions, and the last 3 digits represent the serial number of 7 or 5 Message Unit in circular order.
110010 Message Units
Composition 1 Composition 2 Composition 3 Composition 4 ”000_ _ _” ”001_ _ _” ”010_ _ _” ”011_ _ _”
Composition 5 ”100_ _ _”
Composition 6 ”101_ _ _”
Composition 7 ”110_ _ _”
Composition 8 ”111_ _ _”
000 111
000 111
000 101
000 101
000 111
000 111
000 101
000 101
001
001
001 110
001 110
001
001
001 110
001 110
010
010
010
010
011
011
010 111
010 111
011
011
010 111
010 111
100
100
011
011
100
100
011
011
101
101
100
100
101
101
100
100
110
110
110
110
1 Free constructing Message Units were combined in a way that the coming unit have the maximum number of connective faces with the group
Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
2 Stacking Layers of Brick Message Units were first combined into layers and then stacked up as a tower
02 Mural of Mountain Process of Creation The mural on the building of Department of Soil and Water Conservation in National Chung-Hsing University is a project designed by me and accomplished by all the members in Bohemia Art Club, NCHU. In this project, I showed my creation process with the freehand sketch inspired by Mount Ali and the usage of a computer program to produce relatively irregular patterns, as well as four painting methods into the final mural. 2008 Spring 2009 Fall
1
Background The building of Department of Soil and Water Conservation is located at an important road in National Chung Hsing University that students walk by frequently. The first floor contains classrooms for undergraduate students and rooms for graduate students are on the second floor. Before starting our project, the wall was too old to make the corridor gloomy. Thus, our goal is to beautify the wall with a meaningful painting.
Inspiration
My idea is derived from the experience of the spectacular mountain scenery during my trip to Mount Ali. The multiple layers of mountains in the fog accompanying the constantly changing light amazed me and made me feel that it’s the most suitable impression that can be expressed in this project to perfectly represent the beauty of nature with which the Department of Soil and Water Conservation is devoted to protect.
N
Original wall Locations The spectacular scenery at Mount Ali Freehand sketch of the mural Two sides of the view at the wall
4 3
1
2
5
b
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. a. b.
Height Width Slop rate Colour Distance Number of Mountains : 7 Position
Design Method First, I generalized the impression on mountains into 5 private factors for each mountain which includes height, width, slop rate, color (color of vegetation in mountain), distance from the viewer and 2 global factors which are the position of the viewer and the number of mountains to be seen. Using a program generating random factors in restrained ranges, I produced 100 different drafts, and selected the best parts of them depending on my esthetic sense. These images chosen are consequently adjusted and combined into the final drawing. static void drawantriangle(GdkDrawable *drawable,GdkGC *gc,int x,int y,int w,int h,double raito,GdkColor color,int cir) { GdkColor black; black.red=0; black.green = 0; black.blue = 0; int line=2; if(cir==1)drawantriangle(drawable,gc,x,y+500,w,h,raito,white,0); double shiftleft=sqrt(h*h+(w*raito)*(w*raito))*line/h; double shiftright=sqrt(h*h+(w*(1-raito))*(w*(1-raito)))*line/h; gdk_gc_set_rgb_fg_color(gc, &black); GdkPoint polygonline[]= {{x-(w/2),y}, {x-(w/2)-shiftleft,y}, {x-(w/2)+(w*raito)+(shiftleft+shiftright)*raito-shiftleft, y-h-(shiftleft+shiftright)/w*h}, {x+(w/2)+shiftright,y},{x+(w/2),y}, {x-(w/2)+(w*raito), y-h}}; gdk_draw_polygon(drawable, gc, TRUE, polygonline,sizeof(polygonline)/sizeof(GdkPoint)); gdk_gc_set_rgb_fg_color(gc, &color); GdkPoint polygon[] ={{x-(w/2),y}, {x+(w/2),y}, {x-(w/2)+(w*raito), y-h}}; gdk_draw_polygon(drawable, gc, TRUE, polygon,sizeof(polygon)/sizeof(GdkPoint)); }
Painting We use 4 means of painting to finish the mural. The material on the wall surface of the building is pebble wash which made the wall unsmooth. So, only if we painted with all our strength can get these pebbles painted completely. Utilizing this property, we painted the wall more than one time with different degrees of strength to generate the effect similar to transparency or color-mixture. In this project, we used four means of painting to generate four types of textures including 1-layer-1-color, 2-layer-1-color, 2-layer-2-color, and 3-layer-3-color. Moreover, we found it interesting walking by the wall with the smooth change of color just like the experience of watching the sunrise at Mount Ali where the colors of mountains change with different angles that the sun shine on.
Sid e View
Fro n t View
A B C D
A
B
Side/Front view of the pebble wash wall Smooth change of color in four positions Examples in 4 types of texture
C
D
1-layer-1-color
2-layer-1-color
2-layer-2-color
3-layer-3-color
Derivative Since there is a close relationship between the first and the second floor, I decided to derive the drawing of the second floor from the first floor. In the first place, I stretched the lines upward from the mountains image at the first floor, and made them cross with each other. Secondly, two blue backgrounds are placed behind those overlapped mountains as the impression of sky. Finally, just like a photographer finding the best view and take a snapshot, this project was eventually finished by the assistance of all the members in Bohemia Art Club.
03 Cube Living Unit Minimal Living space With the rise of house price in the city, we need to take advantages of space more efficiently, especially the vertical space. In this project, I designed a minimal space to meet all the basic needs for a person to live while maintaining the quality of the living. 2012 Winter
study
kitchen
bathroom
bedroom
living room
Bird’s eye view of the cube Rough drawing View from 3 directions
Living room Kictchen & Bathroom Study Scale of the cube living unit Bedroom
Scale
3.6m
3.6m
3.6m
1.75m
1.7m 1.2m
1.75m
The space designed for a 1.7 meter person.
60cm
Light
Daytime simulation V-ray rendering
04 Miscellanea
Painting, Sketch, Ceramics, Photography, and Woodwork 2006-2012
Oil Painting Us, 28.5’ x 24’, 2009
Woof in the woods, 24’ x 18‘, 2008
Luce Memorial Chapel, 8’ x 4‘, 2009 (Sketch)
Laser man, 21’ x 18’, 2009
My struggle, 28.5’ x 24’, 2010
5 min life Drawings, 21’ x 15.5’, 2010
Sketch Plaster Casts drawing, 10.7’ x 8.2‘, 2009
20 min life Drawing, 21’ x 15.5’, 2010
Self-portrait, 8’ x 7.5‘, 2010
Hongcun, 8’ x 4‘, 2012 (Sketch)
Ceramics Lovers, 8’ x 6’ x 5’, 2010
Crying man, 3.5’ x 2.5’ x 2.5’, 2010
Photography A chimney, Digital Print, 2011
Seaming House, Digital Print, 2010
Friends, Digital Print, 2009
Glass of water, Digital Print, 2008
Woodwork Cloths tree, Pinewood, 67’ x 18’ x 18’, 2012 connection part of a branch - Male connection part of a branch - Female Close-up of the bottom Close-up of a branch Stretch of branches Assembly drawing of the base and the roots Assembly drawing of the connection part between the branch and the trunk Assembly drawing of the trunk and the base
branch
trunk
root
PORTFOLIO OF DESIGN WORK