Degree Project | Fall 2020
Degree Project Fall 2020
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DP: Daring, Profound As the differences between architectural practice and architectural education diminish, it is important to recognize this situation not just as a challenge but an opportunity. We must understand the discipline of architecture as an arena where speculation and compromise with the real world are compatible, necessary parameters, rather than antagonistic forces prohibiting interaction. For the Degree Project, each student spends one semester conceiving of a design proposal and their final semester implementing it. They work closely with select faculty experts to enhance their knowledge and embolden their future practices. First and foremost, we want our students to be licensed to dare, to test, to inquire, and to propose. Though these are individual initiatives, a common thread unites their intellectual efforts. Collectively, they represent a persistent operation to scrutinize, evaluate, and tackle pressing issues of the contemporary city. Our own location in Saint Louis has proved an exciting territory for this compendium of projects, fostering exploration at various scales and with multiple programs and users. It offers a clear opportunity for thoughtful analysis of place and condition. As the culminating architectural studio, the Degree Project is a vivid, powerful statement of our deepest belief that architecture can, optimistically, make important contributions for a better world.
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Professors’ Words
4-6
Professors
7-10
Guest Jurors
11-18
Adrian Luchini’s Section
19-26
Chandler Ahrens’ Section
27-34
Julie Bauer’s Section
35-42
Philip Holden’s Section
Adrian Luchini Degree Project | Fall 2020 2
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Professor Faculties
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Adrian Luchini Raymond E. Maritz Professor of Architecture Adrian Luchini teaches graduate-level design and theory courses, which make explicit the relationships between architectural theory and practice. He is an internationally recognized architect who has practiced in Argentina and the United States, and whose projects have been published in A&U, Casabella, Domus, Quaderns, Progressive Architecture, and other journals. Luchini has collaborated with Rafael Moneo and worked in private practice with the firm Schwetye Luchini Architects; he was a Senior Architect at Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum, Inc., and from 1996 until 2002 was design director of architecture at Jacobs Facilities, Inc. He founded LuchiniAD in 2001, a firm with projects in the United States and China. Luchini was named to the "Young Architects" list by Progressive Architecture in 1990, and received the "Emerging Voices" citation by the Architecture League of New York in 1992. He has received numerous AIA awards, and has lectured extensively; his projects have been shown throughout the United States, and in Europe and South America. He is also a painter, and his works have been shown in the United States and Latin America. A monograph of his work from Rockport Publishing, part of the Contemporary World Architects series, was published in 2000.
Chandler Ahrens Associate Professor Chandler Ahrens is an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis as well as a co-founder of Open Source Architecture (OSA), an international transdisciplinary collaboration developing research and commissioned projects. His focus is on the intersection of material investigations, environmental phenomena, and computational design processes. Ahrens' teaching has been recognized with an Emerging Faculty Award from the Building Technology Educators Society. His work with OSA has received several AIA design awards and a Chicago Athenaeum New American Architecture Award, and is part of the permanent collection at the Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) in Orleans, France. He is the editor of Instabilities and Potentialities, Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture (2019), co-curator and editor of the Gen(h)ome Project (2006), and co-chair and editor for the exhibition Evolutive Means, ACADIA2010. He was on the board of directors for ACADIA.
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Prior to OSA, Ahrens worked for several large international architectural firms including nine years as a senior project designer at Morphosis Architects, where he was responsible for notable builds such as the New Academic Building at Cooper Union in New York; Hypo-Alpe Adria bank in Udine, Italy; Emerson College in Los Angeles; Embassy in London; and Phare Tower in Paris. He has been a visiting professor at the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Lyon, France, since its inception in 2014.
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Julie Bauer Senior Lecturer Julie E Bauer is an architect with over 15 years of professional experience designing and leading projects for internationally regarded practices. She teaches graduate level design studio and the preparatory class for the final degree project. Bauer holds a degree in Architecture from the Technical University of Berlin and studied at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Her career in Europe started at Barkow Leibinger Architects in Berlin and later continued at David Chipperfield Architects in London, where she spent more than a decade reaching the role of an Associate Director. Amongst other award-winning museums, residential and hospitality projects in UK, Russia and the Middle East she spent the majority of her time designing and managing the expansion of the Saint Louis Art Museum. Involved since the project’s inception to win the competition 2005, Bauer lead the project through all phases from Master Planning to Construction Administration, including 2 years of final on-site supervision. After its completion in 2012 she moved to New York, to work for other accomplished firms including high-end luxury retail architect Peter Marino and REX Architecture before rejoining David Chipperfield firm’s as the firm’s New York representative and acted as liaison for the new Modern and Contemporary wing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Philip Holden Professor of Practice Philip Holden is a practicing architect and principal of Holden Architects, having established his office in 1982 after apprenticeships with Harry Weese and Stanley Tigerman in Chicago. Many of his projects are recipients of AIA awards, notably St. Alban Roe Parish Center, Mary Mother of the Church Activity Center, the renovation of St. Francis of Assisi Church, the office of Virtual Realty Enterprises, and the design of his own offices. His St. Gerard Majella project received the Masonry Institute's Triennial Excellence in Architecture Award and was featured in the Forum for Contemporary Art exhibit New Architecture in St. Louis.
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Holden's work was published by Progressive Architecture in 1987, introducing him as one of the outstanding young architects in the United States. He received AIA Medals in both 1976 and 1979, along with the Ewart Traveling Fellowship in 1974. Beyond practice, he teaches architectural design at Washington University.
Photo credit to Simon Menges 5
Guest Jurors
Degree Project | Fall 2020 6
Alvin Huang
Sarah Lorenzen
Principal, Design Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture Director of Graduate and Post-Professional Architecture Programs, USC Associate Professor, USC School of Architecture
Principal at TOLO Architecture Architecture professor at Cal Poly Pomona
Alvin Huang, AIA is the Founder and Design Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture and the Director of Graduate and Post-Professional Architecture Programs and an Associate Professor at the USC School of Architecture. He is an award-winning architect, designer, and educator specializing in the integrated application of material performance, emergent design technologies and digital fabrication in contemporary architectural practice. His work spans all scales ranging from hi-rise towers and mixeduse developments to temporary pavilions and bespoke furnishings. His work has been published and exhibited widely and has gained international recognition with over 30 distinctions at local, national, and international levels including being honored as the Presidential Emerging Practice of the Year by the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles Chapter in 2016, being selected of as one of 50 global innovators under the age of 50 by Images Publishing in 2015, being featured as a "Next Progressive" by Architect Magazine in 2014, and being named one of Time Magazine's 20 Best Inventors of 2013. He has been an invited critic, guest lecturer, and keynote speaker at various institutions in the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Japan and China.
Troy Schaum
Principal of Design Practice Murmur Associate professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA
Associate Professor, Rice School of Architecture Partner, SCHAUM/SHIEH
Heather Roberge is a designer and educator based in Los Angeles. She is the founder and principal of design practice murmur and an associate professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA where she currently serves as Chair.
Troy Schaum is an Associate Professor at the Rice School of Architecture, where he was the 2008-2010 Wortham Fellow. He is also a partner in SCHAUM/SHIEH, where his design and research interests focus on new possibilities for form, representation, and politics in the post-megalopolitan city. Troy has extensive experience building at a range of scales; prior to his position at Rice and the founding SCHAUM/SHIEH, he was a project architect at OMA New York responsible for the design of Cornell’s Paul Milstein Hall and has also worked at LTL Architects and Studio Daniel Libeskind, both in New York, and Jim Jennings Architect in San Francisco. Troy holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton and a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech, where he was the Donald and Joanna Sunshine Alumni Travel Fellow.
She has received numerous accolades in recognition of her distinctive work including the prestigious 2016 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York, a 2015 AIA LA Merit award for En Pointe, an installation for the SCI-Arc Gallery, a 2011 AIA Next LA design merit award for the Succulent House, and was selected as a Finalist in the 2006 MoMA|PS1 Young Architects Program. Her work has been published in A+U, Wallpaper, Architectural Record, Log, Architect, Architects Newspaper, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times and exhibited in group shows in the U.S. and abroad. Degree Project | Fall 2020
Sarah grew up in Mexico City and moved to the U.S. to attend college. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Drawing at Smith College and at the Atlanta College of Art, and has two Master of Architecture degrees, the first from Georgia Institute of Technology and a second Masters in Metropolitan Research and Design from Sci-Arc. Sarah has published and edited numerous articles on architecture and urbanism, and she has received multiple design awards and grants including several Graham Foundation grants, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a six-week travel fellowship to China. From 2007-2020 Sarah was director of the Neutra VDL House overseeing the restoration of this National Landmark and developing cultural and arts programming.
Heather Roberge
Ms. Roberge’s research and professional work investigate the spatial, structural and atmospheric potential that digital technologies have on the theory and practice of building. Her teaching emphasizes innovative approaches to material, computation, and manufacturing to expand the formal vocabulary and spatial implications of building envelopes and assemblies.
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Sarah Lorenzen, AIA is principal at TOLO Architecture and an architecture professor at Cal Poly Pomona (where she was chair from 2012-2016). Sarah has practiced architecture for more than 20 years, working on a variety of building types including residential, institutional, and arts-related projects. Prior to TOLO Architecture, Sarah worked as a project architect at a number of award-winning firms in Atlanta, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
SCHAUM/SHIEH, Troy Schaum’s practice, has a particular interest in the city at the scale of the building, both as a site of theoretical experimentation and as a reality that may be transformed through building. SCHAUM/SHIEH was a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, named one of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA, and awarded as one of the Architectural League’s 2019 Emerging Voices. Schaum’s built work has received several AIA design awards. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, the Storefront For Art and Architecture, Harvard GSD, Yale SOA, University of New Mexico, and the Center For Architecture in New York and published in many journals including: Architect’s Newspaper, Texas Architect, Dezeen, Domus, Architect and Architectural Record.
Chris Warren
Linda Taalman
Principal and design director of WORD
Lecturer, Woodbury University Director, Taalman Architecture
Chris Warren is the founding principal and design director of WORD. His designs have won numerous awards–the studio was recently honored as one of ten international Architectural Record Design Vanguards for 2020 and Chris was also selected as one of four Emerging Talents in architecture by the prestigious Monterey Design Conference. With over twenty years of experience, Chris has played an essential role in projects ranging in scale from a 4,500 unit Olympic athletes’ village, to NOAA’s satellite operations headquarters near Washington DC, an adaptive re-use creative office, and a corner café in Los Angeles – all of which earned AIA Design Awards. After receiving his masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Chris immediately moved to Los Angeles, where he spent his formative years working on over twenty commissions with Pritzker Prize laureate Thom Mayne at Morphosis. He later co-founded the award winning Studio Shift and also began teaching at the University of Southern California, where he delivered the commencement address to the School of Architecture’s class of 2011. Most recently, Chris has taught programs in Shanghai, Rome, Como and was a visiting professor of urban design at Washington University of St. Louis.
Linda Taalman is a dedicated teacher who previously taught at Art Center College of Design, the Cooper Union, SCI Arc, USC and UCLA before joining Woodbury University. Taalman currently directs Taalman Architecture based in Los Angeles, which has completed a number of award winning projects including the itHouse (AIA LA Merit Award 2008), the Small Skyscraper (LEF Fund) and Stabiae Archeological Park (ASLA Scraper Award). For 12 years, she has explored architecture as a collaborative practice, engaging in a wide range of projects including museum and exhibition spaces, public art, master planning and domestic architecture. Linda Taalman earned a BArch in Architecture from the Cooper Union in 1997. Shortly after graduating she founded OpenOffice arts + architecture collaborative with Alan Koch in New York in 1998. Under this banner Taalman was partner in charge for the Dia: Beacon museum (AIA NY Merit Award 2006) and a series of collaborative arts endeavors including Trespassing : Houses x Artists (NEA grant 2002). Currently she is working on a dozen small houses using the itHouse prefabricated component system. Taalman is a registered architect in New York and California. She has lectured on the collaborative nature of her practice at the Architecture League in New York, the Aspen Institute, California College of the Arts, Columbia University, the Sculpture Center, Yale University, and ARTFORUM Berlin. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the world at MOMA, the MAK Vienna, Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Art Basel, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and the Vitra Design Museum.
Stella Betts
Lawrence Blough
Coordinator, Graduate Thesis at Parsons the New School for Design Professor, Cooper Union and Syracuse University’s School of Architecture
Professor with Tenure, Pratt Institute School of Architecture Principal, GRAFTWORKS Design Research
Stella Betts received a Bachelor of Arts from Connecticut College and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School for Design. Stella is currently an adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. From 2006 – 2011 Stella was the Coordinator for the Graduate Thesis at Parsons the New School for Design. She has also taught at the Cooper Union and Syracuse University’s School of Architecture and has participated on numerous juries including Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, City College of New York, Pratt and the University of Michigan. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Architectural League of New York.
Lawrence Blough is Professor with Tenure at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Principal of GRAFTWORKS Design Research. In addition to being head of the undergraduate core design sequence and previously coordinator of the third year housing studio, he teaches advanced seminars on the theory of architectural program and contemporary collective typologies. He has also held teaching appointments at Washington University in St Louis, Tulane and Catholic University. Before founding GRAFTWORKS, Blough worked in the offices of Peter Eisenman and Antoine Predock and was a Senior Associate at Architecture Theatre, a nonprofit architecture and urbanism foundation in New Haven, CT. His design work has been widely published both in the US and abroad including the New York Times, Green Building & Design, Architects Newspaper, Interior Design, Architectural Record, and Space Magazine among others. Blough has worked on a diverse range of building types from affordable housing, research facilities and schools, to art museums and private houses. His projects and collaborations have been exhibited at Kenderdine Gallery in Canada, Temple University, Museum of Modern Art, Locust Projects in Miami, CAUE 92 in France, Yale University and Pratt Institute, and in 2005 GRAFTWORKS was a finalist in the prestigious PS1/MoMA Young Architects Program.
Degree Project | Fall 2020 8
Javier Maroto
Diego Arraigada
Founder, SOLID ARCHITECTURE and MAREMOTO LANDSCAPES Professor, ETSAM. UPM.DPA
Architect, The Architecture Studio Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Torcuato di Tella University (UTDT) Professor, National University of Rosario
In 2001, Javier Maroto and Alvaro Soto founded the architecture and interior design firm SOLID ARCHITECTURE and the landscaping company MAREMOTO LANDSCAPES, with the goal of partnership among architecture, city and territory. They have projected cultural buildings, sports facilities, offices, private and social housing and the rehabilitation of various buildings to suit new functions and have in their curriculum several Awards of Architecture and Urbanism of Madrid, the Architecture Prize of the Madrid Association of Architects and the FAD prize of design. They have obtained in the practice of their profession, both as individuals or as a team more than 50 awards at national and international competitions.
Diego Arraigada is an Architect from the National University of Rosario (UNR), Argentina (Graduated with Silver Medal, 2000) and Master of Architecture from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), USA (Graduated with Distinctions in 2003) through of a Fulbright Scholarship. He is Professor of the Undergraduate Degree at the School of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Torcuato di Tella University (UTDT) in Buenos Aires. He has also been a professor at the National University of Rosario and has given workshops and lectured at various Argentine and foreign universities and institutions.
Maroto teaches design studios at the intersection of landscape and architecture as a tenured full professor at the ETSAM. UPM.DPA in Madrid, Spain. He is a lecturer and principal in seminar and postgraduate courses focused on the histories, theories, and contemporary practices of architecture beyond building and between urbanism and landscape. He is a co-founder and active member of UPM's merged research group Nuevas técnicas, Arquitectura, Ciudad, which explores contemporary collective housing study cases with the use of new design tools, applied to sustainable design, social dwelling, and the meaningful development of cities. His research focuses on the attributes of landscape and architecture in relation to contemporary urbanism, dealing with the investigation of growing processes of cities through the analysis and study of residential systems.
The Architecture Studio was established in 2006 in the city of Rosario, Argentina. Its main activity is the realization of projects and directions of architecture, landscaping and urban planning works, of multiple scales and complexities. Among other distinctions, the firm has obtained the Argentine Silver Medal at the XII International Architecture Biennial of Buenos Aires awarded by the International Committee of Architecture Critics (Buenos Aires, 2009), the AR House Commendation Award granted by the Architectural Review magazine (London, 2010), the selection as one of the three Argentine studios participating in the II Biennial of Latin American Architecture (Pamplona, 2011), the selection for the installation of LIGA 13 in Mexico (Mexico DF 2014) and the SCA CPAU Award for the best Argentine work abroad (Buenos Aires, 2014). He was nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Award for Emerging Architecture. (Chicago, 2016) and guest speaker at the II Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2017.
Zander Tamm-Seitz
Gerardo Caballero
Senior Associate at Morphosis Architects
Principal, Gerardo Caballero Arquitecto Professor for International Programs for Graduates, Washington University in Barcelona and Buenos Aires
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Zander is a Senior Associate at Morphosis Architects. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Zander has worked on a series of notable projects. As a project architect, he worked on 8850 Sunset Boulevard, Beirut New U.S. Embassy Campus, Taubman Complex at Lawrence Tech. As a project designer, he worked on the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Taipei Performing Arts Center, University of Chicago Center for Creative and Performing Arts, Los Angeles Historic Park. In addition he has worked on the Vialia Estación de Vigo, Phare Tower, New Orleans National Jazz Center, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU, East Darling Harbour Development, Giant Interactive Group Headquarters, FLOAT House, Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech, Four Towers in One Competition.
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Gerardo Caballero is owner of Gerardo Caballero Arquitecto. Since 1993 he is Professor for International Programs for Graduates, offered by the Washington University in Barcelona and Buenos Aires. He studied at the Architecture School of the National University of Rosario from 1976 to 1982. As a student, between 1978 and 1981, Gerardo worked in Shiira-Albano office, in Rosario. From 1983 to 1985 he worked as a collaborator in Corea-GallardoMannino office, based in Barcelona. In 1986 Gerardo obtained his Master in Architecture at Washington University in Saint Louis. In 1988 Gerardo moved back to Argentina and started his professional career in Rosario, being partner with Architect Ariel Giménez up to 1992. In 1993 he founded Caballero Fernández Arquitectos together with Maite Fernández, which continued until 2013. Since 2013 he has worked on his own. He has been invited by the University of Arkansas, Kansas University, Graduate School of Design Harvard University, Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile, University Andrés Bello, University Diego Portales and University of Talca in Chile, Mas Fisher Chair University of Michigan, University Torcuato Di Tella and University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, and by the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Gerardo’s works have been recognized, exhibited and published in America and Europe, and he has received many prizes and awards, as well as honorable mentions in national and international architectural design competitions.
Adrian Luchini’s Section
Degree Project | Fall 2020 10
Light Interfaith Church Chufei Wang Light and shadows are dynamic with no fixed form. Taking light into account, time become a factor of the space. A church can embody this feature of light. The chesterfield district in St.Louis contains many mixed races and the population in this area keep gaining. An interfaith church can provide a sacred space for people with different religions.
Abandoned City Yihao Zhang
Degree Project | Fall 2020
The Old North Saint Louis has a long and refulgent history but it has been declining since half century ago. There are so many abandoned buildings and more and more people lever this region. How to make The Old North Saint Louis revive again is the main goal of my project because there are plenty of districts and regions that are declining. This commercial and residential complex project provides opportunities to people and it attracts people to The Old North Saint Louis for shopping, working and living.
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CADENCE Rap Paradise within St. Louis
Bowei Xia The site is beside Delmar Blvd which is one of the most important roadways in St. Louis, not only because it is the most prosperous area in the city, but also it is the boundary of diversity of cultures. Therefore, building a hip-hop related music school should be a great choice to spread different kinds of culture and art. There are several creative spaces in the site, just trying to regard them as the entrance of the project, also the layout of the whole site follows the similar pattern of these service spaces, which will form series of field within the building volumes and can be the site for hip-hop performance
Half-exposed Data center Yinzhu Yao Half-exposure in architecture is not only semi-open space, but also a point between two opposite conditions. The data center has two parts, a data bank hidden, and workplace revealed. There’s a pond in site, which makes my building in the junction of water and land, and provides opportunity for my cooling system of data servers, with rich natural resources.
Degree Project | Fall 2020 12
Reunion Yu Chen In the last century, the development of railways was accompanied by the prosperity of the city of St. Louis. The railway and its surrounding industrial areas have also become the dividing line between the urban downtown area and the surrounding areas. Nowadays, with the decline of railways and industries, the industrial areas along the railways have long been abandoned and become memories of that era. I hope to reuse the abandoned site through the Railway Cultural Park, reconnect the residents on the north and south sides separated by the railway, and reactivate this abandoned industrial area.
(Re) connect Daniel F. Barbara
Degree Project | Fall 2020
There are many ways to improve performance in the workplace. However, recent studies have showed the benefits of the connection between employees and nature. This phenomenon utilizes biophilia, the human tendency to interact or be closely associated with nature. Studies have also proven that well-being and healing time is enhanced when patients have access to nature. With Covid-19 changing the way we will work going forward, this project aims to use biophilic architecture to create a new workspace which provides safe working environments that promote performance and well-being. Multiple scales are employed to promote ventilation, views, and physical access to nature.
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Promenade crossing Keren Li Railway used to be an important infrastructure of St. Louis. It was the witness of the splendid history of the city. However, it cut city into pieces, leaving empty space near the railway. It is rarely used now but occupied space stably. Neighborhood was separated. Residences are hard to communicate with people crossing the railway however they are actually close to each other. Therefore,a community center rooted in the culture of planting, which is common in the neighborhood was proposed. The community center is an open path across the railway with small units providing functions. The path is not only a method to link locations, but also a public space containing activities.
Re-beginning of the new beginning in Old North, St. Louis Yeqi Jiang Old North, once was a central industrial and transportation area of St. Louis city, has come to its decadence in 21th century. The divorce between city and county, along with the removal of factories brought the zone to its low point of both population and development. Yet, the new NGA project nearby might give new opportunity to this shriveled heart of old time industry. Based on such background, my project is aiming at designing a maker space grounded on an existing old building -Mullanphy Emigrant Home, and using my project as a symbol of regeneration of the local development as well as a bridge to connect the lost industrial memory of Old North. Mullanphy Emigrant Home once was a symbol of immigrants’ new life, to respond to such a historical new beginning, I hope this project can become a re-beginning of Old North.
Degree Project | Fall 2020 14
VILLAGE Community Center In Old North St.Louis
Haoxiang Zhao My project is a community center in Old North St. Louis. People living in the neighborhood need public facilities to take exercise and enrich their social life. I want to build the building into a village. Every room in the building is like a house in the village. When people walk through it, they will see activities in different rooms and levels and infected by the warm atmosphere. I propose to adjust public spaces by applying color and texture to improve the environmental atmosphere and enhance the expression of architectural surroundings. Finally, attract everyone to enter this building.
The Bubble Tianfang Fang
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Urban prairie emerged gradually within the city of St. Louis as the city came to its post-industrial era. Such vacant land is mostly concentrated in the north and green space can be captured from block to block. Old North, a historic neighborhood in north west of downtown experienced dramatic population lost over the past decades and it is still declining because of its expanding vacant lands. The project proposed several urban complexes that utilize urban prairie and abandoned structures to fulfill the need of people in the city including greenhouses that produce hydroponic tomatoes, a gym, a farmer’s market and a restaurant all attached to the Trestle –an abandoned, elevated rail line spanning from Old North to the Mississippi riverfront.
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CHERSTERFIELD PIER. On the edge of the edge
Ethan Chiang Chesterfield, a rapidly emerging settlement on the edge of Saint Louis City, is becoming a new center for the suburban area. The site locates at the edge of Chesterfield is composed of four parallel edge conditions: levees, flooding plain, forest, and river. My project is like a pier cross over all the edges from the levee to the river, providing a speculative office for people to feel pleasant to work in a beautifully dynamic landscape.
Crematorium & Birth celebration ceremony hall Rock and rose
Jian Liang Funeral and birth rituals vary from religions as well as regions. Depending on their culture, people might use fire, water, sunlight, or sound as significant element during the ceremony. Hence, this project is trying meet people’s needs from different cultural funeral and birth ceremony. Meanwhile, it offers a rich natural environment which positively attribute to people’s experience. The nature is part of the funeral and birth ceremony. This project coexists with nature and the experience will engrave in people memory.
Degree Project | Fall 2020 16
Superflat Yihang Guan
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Murakami used sunflower patterns to occupy canvas and named it SUPERFLAT which gives reviewers a sense of missing their focus. Superflat also can be used to describe Japanese architecture such as Toyo Ito’s, SANNA’s and Junya Ishigami’s ...... In Earth city, we can easily find out its flat feature. I apply superflat concept into my design and try to use a prototype volume to occupy the site, creating a place under the flatness context and superflat features. It’s a place for co-work and study at day time, for entertainment at night.
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Chandler Ahrens’ Section
Degree Project | Fall 2020 18
(New) St. Louis City Hall Wenzhao Zhang This project is a new St. Louis city hall at corner of natural bridge ave. and good fellow Blvd. in St. Louis. The project is inspired by the political proposal “Better Together� in St. Louis area. St. Louis City and county separate in 1876. There are many problems occurred from the separation. Two police system, two re system, two emergency system, even the library system is different. All of these differences make people live inconvenient and low efficient. Therefore, bunch of people are working on making St. Louis together again. This project is about a new metro government headquarter for the new government system. The main design idea is focus on the blurring the boundary of the city and county. Using phenomenology in architecture which is using dramatic contrast in material, space size, space shape, light, and structure to emphasize the atmosphere to lead people feeling, thinking, and acting. Feeling the culture, studying the history, making the communication with neighbors. Blurring the boundary, making people together for a better life in St. Louis.
Joe Mueller
Degree Project | Fall 2020
The stadium pushes against the norms as a singular event space and tries to redefine what it means to be a stadium by being always fully open. The stadium is designed to holistically integrate into the surrounding community, providing assisted living units directly into the fabric of the stadium, a grocery store to supply the surrounding neighborhood and the team, and a day care with services for the neighborhood. The health center is elevated, mimicking the adjacent grain silos of the former Lemp Brewery, to provide a unique experience for both the team and the community. Fan spaces across every level at the new Community Stadium deliver incomparable levels of quality and choice. The restaurant and bar space in the South Concourse provide a vibrant area for the home support to gather before and after matches.
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Xinyao Li The project is aimed at revitalizing the abandoned historic district and developing a new city anchor by adaptively re-using the existing historic building to create a compelling new addition in downtown south for attracting visitors and expanding the downtown walkable area. Through adding a bold and bright walking path with a gigantic rectangular space above the east facade of the Crunden Martin MFG building, the existing “Decorated Shed” is transformed into a “Duck”, a signage, and a billboard to catch attention from the people on the rail, highway, and the other side of the river. This path is not only functioning as an access to the top viewport, but also a gallery, an exterior circulation, an art wall, a fun park, and a re-connection to the glorious history of the St. Louis City.
Rebuild the Boundary From Isolation to Connection
Zhao Yang Life in a modern city is increasingly disconnected by urban elements. City and suburbs are linked by highways. The existence of highways shortens the travel time between places, yet these uninterruptible lanes also slice through the established neighborhoods and segregate the urban space and social life of people living in the city. The emergence of high-rise resolved the issue of scarcity of urban land and provides great view for people living in the city. However, issues including the isolation from social life of the street and increased distance between people also come along. While enjoying the benefits and convenience brought by these urban elements, our city and social life are wrecked and altered unconsciously. our living area is divided into many small regions. high-rises and highways became the barriers between us. so, how to rebuild the connection between people? Degree Project | Fall 2020 20
Space in Motion Recreation Center in downtown STL
Peiyao Li The main idea of the recreation center project in downtown St. Louis is connecting with the experience of movement, of moving through space. Steven Holl states that,” The real test of architecture is the phenomena of the body moving through spaces, which can be sensed and fell regardless of understanding the architect’s concept and philosophy”. The running track is conceived as a path in different story height, providing the sum of multiple perceptions understood by our bodies running in space. To enhance the concept of motion, the project also provides different angles of slope for climbing, seating, skating, and environmental issues. In the aspect of urban realm, the building is next to the highway, crossed by a railway of metro link, connected with an underground metro station. The design takes great advantages from the site context, generating the continuity of spatial sequence in architecture and urban physically and visually.
The Evolving House. Bringing the suburban lifestyle to the city.
Zhuoxian Deng
Degree Project | Fall 2020
This project believes that the design process is the act of making order out of disorder. The imperfection within order generates disorder in the city, the streets, and even the buildings. This heterogeneity creates a crucial diversity that defines the character of the space, and architecture has the power to create the space for this disorder to happen. With the characteristic of suburbia, it has layers of parking, streets, front yards, units, and back yards vertically, evolving through time under people’s participation. Surrounded by the concrete jungles, the project stands out by activities that happen everywhere vertically, which reviews or hides by the operable ‘fence’ that expresses inhabitants’ individuality.
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Restorative Justice Center Design Ying Bi The Project is for a Restorative Justice Center, in ‘Hyden Rectangle’, which has a high rate of criminal activity, as a way of studying the possibility to use religious power to reduce the criminal activity in the future. Since the project is the lowest security level, and inmates can contact to others with permission, three circulations and security corners are designed to control security. The project focus on the overlaps among public space, semi-public space and private space to build more interaction and help inmates to be welcomed by the community. And the design provides both the community and inmates with opportunities to get education, healthcare and work to end the criminalization cycle in the future.
Skin Talk Lu Yu Hyde Park historical district faces an uncertain future due to urban blight. The brick community is struggling to become self-sufficient and the vacant plots calls for new, flexible uses. The project introduces a clay workshop, a tree nursery and a community archive to Hyde Park. Connected through the movement and transformation of clay, the proposed programs rethink the value of vacant land and offer ways to move the community forward through a transition period. The architecture itself traces and records the small improvements made over time. It is a place to tell a story of the land and the people,a story about “failure”, change and growth.
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Kat Nemetz Due to the growing crisis of climate change and consumption, industrial programs must become accessible to the public and create a deeper connection between the community and their environment. Within St. Louis, the constant flooding will only continue to worsen. A pilot project along the River des Peres will focus on the purification of water out-take and help alleviate the collective challenges they endure. Instead of covering up the natural challenges that St. Louis poses, this project chooses to celebrate and respond through a series of movements and layers offered by the site. The landscape is manipulated to create a closer connection to both the river and the process of water treatment. A choreography of movement around and on the tanks themselves creates both a physical and visual connection. To help drive this movement, the project provides a space for research and education as well as areas of recreation such as rock climbing and kayaking.
From The Earth Tayo Odunlami
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Construction today typically involves using specialized materials that require much energy to produce and transport over long distances. This practice constitutes a heavy burden on the environment, as buildings and construction are responsible for 39% of carbon emissions globally. Beyond that, these specialized materials begin to alter the character of communities. “From the Earth� takes a hint from St. Louis’ past by using locally sourced limestone and clay as the primary construction materials, exploring how these materials can be used in a novel way, serving as an example of the new possibilities that old construction materials can have for the city. The materials are sourced locally from the earth and abandoned buildings in Saint Louis; this displaced earth itself serves as a building material that interfaces with the project, enclosing a park, museum, and clay workshop for community engagement.
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nest (-s, -ed, -ing) The Hospital as a Refuge
Josephine Hsu When natural disasters strike, the hospital is one of the places in a community expected to remain standing. Whether serving those sheltering in place or people seeking refuge, it is a place to weather the storm. However, hospitals are often ill-suited for acting as a shelter. Drawing from the standard programmatic needs of a hospital with a disaster-relief shelter, this project looks at how a hospital can be framed to not only withstand a storm but be a place of refuge for its occupants and its community. Using the motif of a bird’s nest, it looks at how spaces can bolster the mental resilience of occupants during a storm.
Agriculture Transit Center Yuejia Ying
Degree Project | Fall 2020
The United States is the largest agricultural exporter in the world. It trades hundreds of millions of agricultural products from soybeans to cotton every year. Behind this global trading market, there is massive agricultural production that has created many environmental problems associated with land pollution and water eutrophication. It also fails to respond to varies of local need, including community need, medical or genetic research need. On the other hand, many companies, including Amazon,start to establish their on-call agricultural product delivery system with new advanced technologies in planting automation, pesticide control, and data-driven equipment that allow agricultural production to meet the diversity requirements. As automation becomes an inevitable trend in the future agriculture industry, this project introduces a combination of production–research –delivery system that based on the interaction between humanity and machinery and how this relationship would affect future architecture.
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Disappearing The sharing stadium
Tiansu Wang The traditional stadium has a vast size and often stands out in front of people. But this project is trying to create a stadium that would disappear unconventionally. It is also huge, but it is not abrupt. It will fit nicely into the site. It uses constructing the terrain to hide the vast volume effectively. And at the appropriate time to create some gaps for communication and transportation. Through these Spaces, each area’s connectivity blurred the boundaries of each function and made participants flickering in view.
Micromobility Network Jess DeAngelo
Degree Project | Fall 2020
E-scooters have been taking the world by storm, appearing nearly overnight, and changing the way people move through cities. By bringing users into the repair and charging processes, this project strives to make a tangible space for the aggregation and maintenance of scooters within the city. The micromobility hub, located at the crossroads of sustainable forms of transportation, explores how architecture can operate as a network of interconnected spaces. The system provides for pedestrians in a way that promotes interaction and synergy between forms of transportation.
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Julie Bauer’s Section
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Holistic Cancer Wellness Center Halie Moss Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The aim of this wellness center is to provide a welcoming environment of support for people with cancer, their families, and friends. Nestled in the trees on the eastern edge of Forest Park,this is a space for cancer patients to receive the benefits of being connected to nature throughout the changing seasons. Formally, the building breaks the mold of traditional healthcare architecture to encourage the active pursuit of holistic health by engaging in activities that compliment medical care.
St. Louis Multicultural Center Courtney Prentiss
Degree Project | Fall 2020
The St. Louis Multicultural Center is a design response to the diverse mosaic of communities that call, or once called, the metropolitan area home. Located in the Downtown West neighborhood, this project aims to be a central node connecting various cultural identities and community organizations to resources for long-term support, creative expression, and public gathering. The multicultural center is comprised of three main programs: public gathering atrium, library/archive, and performance hall,reflecting the heart, mind, and soul of society. The expression of form references architectural features made timeless by global and local prevalence, such as brick faรงade and the archway.
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The Rewilding Jiayi Wu With the rapid urbanization process, the interaction between cities and the biological circle and the earth’s resources has become more and more strong. In St. Louis, with urban sprawl, the urban areas are invading natural neighborhoods and creating artificial boundaries for human territory. The industrial area moving out of the urban area, and many workers and residents left. Increasing abandoned architecture and wildlands interspersed located in the urban district and restore themselves over time. Human territory creates the boundary between city and nature and abandoned vacant land rewilding erodes the urban district. The Rewilding Project is located at the historic Pruitt-Igoe site. Eons ago, the Pruitt-Igoe site is covered by nature systems, then it was highly urbanized in the 1950s and has been rewilded and covered by a wild forest by 2020. This project is trying to map the history of this site and connect the composition of rewilding.
Parlor of Lafayette Square neighborhood Minzi Zhang Lafayette square neighborhood is a historical district in St.louis. The residents hope to attract more people living here,they are very proud to introduce their historical architecture to others, and hold activities every year to invite visitors come to their parlors. Parlors showing some personal collections which belong to owners of the house, each parlor have different decorations and collections. It’s not easy to open their door every day for visitors, therefore, a historical architecture museum can be a culture communicate center for residents and visitors. Taking parlor as the unit, this museum is composed of many parlors. One parlor connected to the next parlor through the interlock space of the rooms. The building as a parlor of Lafayette square, always welcome visitors to come and stay.
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POLITICAL THEATER Anna Friedrich Inspired by my research into the fascinating back story behind the eighty-eight City Hall buildings of St. Louis County, POLITICAL THEATER proposes a Government Transparency Research Center, Digital Library, and Entertainment complex in one of the most politically fragmented neighborhoods of St Louis County. Located at the junction of six micro-municipalities in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of North St. Louis County, my project seeks to provide a neutral space for political action and awareness, as well an entertainment amenity. The building that houses the Government Transparency Center and Digital Library is designed to be a focal point for political rallies,a billboard to broadcast political ideas and news,and a projection screen at night. Spaces for meeting are arranged like boulders around the central billboard. These spaces can be used for large community meetings as well as live performances and movie screenings.
Library of Skills Sofia Aguirre
Degree Project | Fall 2020
The aim is to create a space where skills can be exchange, learned, and passed on. This library of skills is supplemented by a library of things to be borrow, traded, stored, and displayed. The user is invited to develop new skills and create new things. Both activity and object become part of the exhibit. A square grid regulates the interior organization and aids the user’s understanding of the space. A structural system composed of CLT panels, Glulam columns and beams defines the grid while revealing both activity and object. This system connects roof, to column, to shelf in order to create a perceptible diagram of how it is put together. On the whole, this building creates a space for the transparent exchange of activities.
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Mixed-Use Connection Xuan Li Kingshighway likes a barrier, it makes communities atmosphere very different on both sides. The west side is mostly industrial buildings and lacks vitality while the east side is a vibrant Grove neighborhood. I try to break down the barrier and connect the west and east side of the Kingshighway. And I want to bring more vitality to the neighborhood on the west of Kingshighwayand design a vibrant hub in this area. At the same time, huge industrial buildings have been unable to meet the living and working needs of modern people in St. Louis. The vibrant hub will break the traditional mode of office, life and shopping and bring more vitality to people’s life today. The Mixed-Use Connection contain the connection between context, people, working, living, and modern life.
Micro City of Scaffolding Refugee Resettlement Community
Mingyang He This refugee resettlement community is designed to be like a micro city in the area of Cortex to offer a public gathering place rather than just an aggregated housing project. St.Louis is now facing the big problem of population decrease these years, how to transfer the refugees and immigrates to new citizens becomes the primary mission. With the mixed functions of living, training, communicating and socializing, residents can easily get integrated in St.Louis. The scaffolding here is more than a physical structure but a protection skin everywhere inside of the project to guarantee the privacy, sun shading and insulation. Also, the big roof space makes it possible for residents to get involved in different kinds of activities separated from the ground public space. Degree Project | Fall 2020 30
Sports Complex Park Chanil Park Sports and a park can be enjoyed and participated by anyone regardless of race, culture, rich or poor, gender. Watching and Participating in sports also provides opportunities to nurture physical fitness and social interaction. As concretion’s definition, I propose that “REFLECTION” makes architectural spaces for people to be together and gradually affect social severance through several effects. In terms of architecture, reflection makes fascinating space effects. What kind of public space is created by reflection? Reflection transforms spaces through materials, time, weather, light, angles, and position. Used as an architectural strategy, it can create, enrich, and multiply the experience of the public domain, as a social congregator.
Spatial Order Priya Uthaman
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Among many schools in St. Louis, William Ittner’s design for educational buildings was revolutionary a hundred years ago but his techniques are outdated for the current educational model. This project is a response to dated traditional school teaching techniques and spatial qualities. The Vandeventer Vocational School is a chance for people of all ages to start or resume their education that was halted. This alternate education school will have four main components to it; a Business Administration school, a GED Training and Testing Center, rent free business start-up spaces and a library. The library serves two functions. It connects inward to hold together the business school and the GED center, while also connecting outward with the neighborhood. This school starts to break away from the traditional constraints of teaching versus learning spaces.
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Industrial design school Wenxi Du St.Louis, known as an industrial city, has transitioned from a frontier outpost and trading center to an industrial power house. Under this background, the project aims to redefine crafts and craftsmanship to examine what kind of workshop it can exist alongside mass-production with the industrialized society. My proposal is to build an industrial design school to house a variety of workshops, where traditional craftsmanship, modern manufacturing and contemporary craftsmanship can work together. The programs selected are based on the existing work shop programs in St.Louis. The project aims to conclude them in one school to train professional people as a future job, not only for a hobby, The building is located on Washington Avenue, that will engage,serve and partner with surrounding communities.
“Homeless� theatre A performing arts center for homeless institutions and local artists
Sheng Wang Located in the courtyard of a complex business park, this performing arts center builds links with existing buildings and brings new activities into the park. The original courtyard is activated to allow more events to happen here, which means more engagement from residents of the park will be involved. This will make the center not only a venue, but also a catalyst for the future development in cultural and business activities. Offered with flexible stage settings, institutes and artists could explore various ways to present their creative ideas within the center. End stage, thrust, arena, immersive and etc., schemes could be achieved through the system of the sliding panels. Meantime, interactions with adjacency spaces give opportunities for other potential activities and spatial experiences. Degree Project | Fall 2020 32
Disappearing The sharing stadium
Shuyan Wang Back alleys in St. Louis seem to be leftover spaces, but actually actively used in an informal way compared to front sides of houses. The alleys are occupied by children after-school as a playground that brings out children’s creativity in free playing. My design is to bring the spacial qualities of back alley to a children’s after-school play and care center. The design focus on “free” and “explore”, which translate into an intertwining system of “open plan” and “play-alley”. The unexpected scale and connection of the spaces allow children to run around,climbthrough and sit upon the building without supervision. Polycarbonate, timber and high-saturation colors together, are cooked into a welcoming and inspiring place for children.
Setting a New Frontier Old North as a Pioneer Neighborhood
Larissa Sattler
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Set in Old North St. Louis this proposal seeks to re-establish an anchor point in the community through the inclusion and integration of three levels of program: a community center, a wellness center, and assistive device manufacturing. At the moments where the programs are allowed to intersect flexibility between spaces is given to allow for shared interactions and expanded potential for dialogue. Additionally, the entire design integrates the use of a ramp as not only a driver for socially equitable design, but to act as a community and social engager that ties all three levels of program together into one fluid space.
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Philip Holden’s Section
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Scenes Within Realms Jiankun Chen The project is a community complex for social exchange at the intersection of Delmar Blvd and Eucild Ave, on the north side of the Central West End. As a platform accommodating a variety of activities within different realms, the community center will provide the opportunity to engage residents in the surrounding neighborhoods as well as embrace the complexity and accessibility of functional units in the building. The interrelation of the closeness, openess and betweenness of space will be mainly discussed based on public and private realms. Materials and geometry manipulations are utilized to code the privacy and publicity.
Trainspotting Hotel How railroads could generate public space
Wenjie Yan
Degree Project | Fall 2020
St. Louis as a historical city of being centrally located, it has a complex railway system. However, railroads arise the problem in the urban area called “barrier effected.� They separate the relationship between neighborhoods, disconnect space along the railroad, and break the urban life. This project investigates the question of how railroads could generate public space and integrate the train into the city. A pedestrian bridge with a boutique hotel is designed that takes advantage of the unique setting near the trains and, at the same time, aims to initiate a public connection between two sides of the railroad, exchange the activities, and activate the space in 24 hours.
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Maggies’ Centre in St. Louis Sijie Ding The project is located in Mercy Hospital, a medical campus in St. Louis. It essentially a community center which provides people with traumatic experience such as cancer patients a gathering place. The facilities include dining areas, gardens, galleries, a library, and private rooms. Visitors will have different sense of outer environment in different zones. Instead of direct medical treatments, those public and private space may build a spiritual shelter for the visitors to soothe their passive emotions.
Broadcasting the Archive Chi Zhang Broadcasting the Archive aims to use the media approach to expand the archive as an“archive of the commons”, emphasizing both the city history of St.Louis and story of individual to make vital connections with the present.
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ORNAMENTAL INFORMATION Information Oriented Supermarket in Food Desert
Muzi Dong In the current typical supermarket, visual merchandising is mundane, confused, and disoriented. From fresh fruit, meat, dairy products to aged cheese, wine, etc. the quality of these contents are various and changeable. People tend to get lost in the supermarket and spend a lot of time finding and locating their targets. They probably have to be there several times to remember each area selling different merchandise and food. Hereby, Architectural ornament can be served as an indicator and navigator of information to organize and represent the huge amount of categories of merchandise. Meanwhile, to make these ideas converge with contemporary culture, particularly in this pandemic period, a well ventilated, accessible and information friendly supermarket, illuminated by natural sunlight which offering the curbside pick-up and delivery service will be the most indispensable supermarket in the current pandemic circumstances.
Transcendence A Farewell Architecture
Yiwen Jiang
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Permanent is a popular theme in architecture since its appearance. When death and farewell are associated with architecture, the interaction between them will create transcendence. Space experiences that far away from ordinary life will lead people to go beyond physical needs and realities, making the building no longer a simple functional object, but a spiritual guide for the users. The background at the farewell to the deceased will become the mourners’ last and eternal memory of the deceased. The project provides funeral, cremation,and ashes storage services for the neighborhood. As a building located in the community, what should be concerned are not to disturb other residents and to provide tranquility to mourners and the deceased.
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Outside In Yuanhang Guo From wild edible plants to mechanized agriculture, from temperature and humidity-controlled green house to today’s artificial lighting vertical farming, farming technology developed through history. Located in the Agtech district of St Louis, this project intends to unfold the development process of farming to public, by creating a collection of farming types. It primarily includes four types, the wild native plants, the organized field, the light oriented greenhouse, and the completely artificial lit hanging garden. The design seeks not to limit the view to a certain farming type at a time, instead to embrace the view to different farming space along the path.
NET-SCAPE Howie (Haoyi) Chen The proposal for my project is an integrated project named as cultural factory constituted with performing space, education space, making space, and dinning space to achieve the goal of fulfilling people’s needs of communication and development. Focusing on enhancing the connection between CORTEX and surrounding neighborhoods. The program fills up the cultural gap between Cortex and neighboring districts. Introducing art and performing event is essential to accomplishing the ultimate goal of building an innovation community. To further activate the district, a new landscape architecture system will be established in order to form an iconic destination which is palpable for everyone. The system will work as catalyst to guide people’s movements and activities by changing their perception of the overall landscape of CORTEX area.
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Xiaoyu Yang This project is a youth development center in Grand Center, open to the community, any young people,and involving educators who work in the Missouri mode for alternative training for juveniles who are involved in judicial system. To have porous spatial quality to support the mixed programs: Performing art center, workshops, athletics training, and offices, I connect programs with the idea of process of achieving. These intertwining and overlapping volumes connect and disconnect spaces. Cores of building becomes the key elements among all the connections, both physically and socially. The structure help the building to state its levels of publicness, and the publicness presented by structure and façade would visually guide people through the project.
Translucent Phantom A reformed border as a screen for the city and a stop point for landscape.
Justin (Zhiqian) Xu
Degree Project | Fall 2020
This project is a bicycle visitor center. The site is located adjacent to the Busch Stadium, crossing by the I64 Highway Overpass and Metrolink. For now, the I64 Highway overpass seems like a border to separate the downtown in two part. In the future, the Chouteau Greenway would be construct in the south side, the site would be a border between the urban space and landscape. The intention of this project is to reform the original negative border space, as a vertical screen to maintain the urban interface, and a landscape stop point to extend the greenway bicycle activities. The intervene strategy is twisted translucent surface to increase the spatial perception, reactivate the interaction of the border’s both sides, and making a comparison to the original heavy border –I64 Highway Overpass.
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Waste-to-Energy as Urban Landscape Mingjian Suo Waste-to-Energy Building is a kind of industrial building that few people would like to explore. My proposal is to design a new type of incineration plant embedded into city landscape for people to climb and see what happens when the building is running to deal with the daily trash. Many slopes and ramps are around all the incineration machines so people can get access to them when enjoying the landscape.
Unearthing an Urban Chronicle Megan Folkmann Past. Present. People. Place. Visible. Invisible. Layer by layer these strata build the narrative of a society. Layer by layer builders construct a city throughout time. Each brick adds to the story. Each layer of paint begins a new chapter. For St. Louis,the story unfolds beneath the surface with a cave system formed by water sheds flowing toward the Mississippi River. Caves provided an early form of shelter and served as the first repositories for art and language. As each year passes, these invisible spaces shape the visible heritage of the city and society. Yet, many are unaware the cave system exists nor appreciate its impact on the identity of St. Louis. How do we bring this story to the surface? The Strata Center is a living museum that both looks back and moves the community forward,generating social, cultural, and economic activity while also preserving and celebrating the past.
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A Democratic Courthouse Yongdi Li
Degree Project | Fall 2020
Justice buildings in the united states are normally not welcoming and the spaces are intimidating which is not the architectural way to represent a democratic society. Started from the humanistic point of view, this project is trying to make a courthouse that conveys social justice and democracy. This idea was originally inspired by the PNYX which is the courthouse of ancient Athens and is just a giant rock open to the all citizens. This design tries to combine the idea of totally public space with the complicated and strict requirements of program, circulation and security control. Topics such as program, zoning, security, spatial quality and human interaction were discussed during the design process.
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Many Thanks to Our Professors and Jurors! Congratulations to All of the Students!
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