HAZEL GAO PORTFOLIO 1
Hazel Gao
gaochanghzl@gmail.com Cell: 1(617)-758-9845 Website: https://hazelgao.work/home
Education
Harvard GSD – MArch I, Master of Architecture – 2022 - present University of Toronto – HBA, Specialize in Architecture and Minor in Philosophy – 2018 - 2022 Dean’s List 2019-2020, 2020-2021 Hart House Judo Club Student Mentor & Orientation Leader
Professional Experience
Studio Zhu-Pei – Architecture Intern – Beijing, May - August 2021 (3 months)
- Participated in the company’s ongoing cultural and residential projects in various stages including Langfang artist community, Zhu-Pei Ocean House, Majiayao Museum...etc. - Designed and detailed one of the residential massings in the Langfang artist community for preliminary concept presentation for the client. - Revised and translated the Ocean House construction documents and detailed interior design. - Coordinated the work between a few other interns in the making of Ocean House hand model.
U of T Entrepreneurship Hatchery – Graphic Design – Toronto, Sept 2021 - 2022
- The Graphic Design Assistants implement and developed the Hatchery’s branding strategy. -Make creative original designs that induced student interest in participating in activities that help with startups.
Other Experience
Dreamaker Theatre – Stage Crew for Thoroughly Modern Millie– Beijing, 2017
- Assisted in the assembly of the stage setting and props. Ran the visual media display during the performance of the children’s musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and contributed to the great success of the musical.
BIE的 Media – Writer – Beijing, 2017
- Contributed content and ideas, independently wrote a piece on my experience as an atheist in a religious high school.
University of Toronto – Orientation Leader, Student Mentor – Toronto, Sept 2020 - May 2021 - Provided guidance to three lower-year students regarding their course selections, career interests and daily lives at Daniels. Not only did I share my knowledge as an architecture student, I also direct them to the right resources to help themselves in the future.
Café 059 at U of T Daniels – Manager – Toronto, Sept 2021 - 2022
- Manage a team of Baristas and guide them through their work. - Created a safe and stress-free environment for the baristas so that they enjoy their time working in the cafe which made the coffee taste even better!
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Skills & Software
Rhino Grasshopper(Ladybug) Basic revit Illustrator Enscape Photoshop InDesign
PremierPro VRay AutoCad 3D Printing Laser-cutter Model making Woodshop
Interests
Judo | Speculative Science-fiction | Philosophy | Wood-working
Languages
English and Mandarin
Self-initiative Eye for detail Problem solving Teamwork skills Well-rounded personality Leadership skills Responsible
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TABLE OF CONTENT
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I. Roxbury SESC
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II. Wood-thing
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III. Picture House
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IV. Ordinary, except
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V. Night at the Museum
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VI. Professional Work at Studio Zhu-Pei
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VII. IWIWFW
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VIII. Tower on Spadina
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I. Roxbury SESC
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Academic work Core III: Fall 2023 Community Center
Located in Roxbury, MA, a neighborhood that is made up of some of Boston’s most under-privileged populations, the Roxbury SESC is challenged with an ambitiously expansive programmatic demands. The programs range from a 14,000 sq ft Olympic swimming pool, to 45 single-unit dorm rooms.
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History| Roxbury is a community that has been subjected to a lot of change in the last century; like many predominantly black regions in the 50s, many neighbourhoods in Roxbury were deemed “unsafe,” and therefore planned for demolition to make way for a new expressway to Boston. The expressway was never built due to public dissent, leaving Roxbury an urban void for many decades to come. Today| The area is confronted with a contemporary demand: gentrified by lucrative pharmaceutical companies. My proposal for Roxbury SESC harbors this change with layers of adaptability, environmental control, and publicness.
Proposed Project
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1| Ruggles Subway Station
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2| SW Corridor Park
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Big Pharma
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4| Unbuilt Pharmaceutical Company
5| Flat-Six Apartments
6| Unbuilt Pharmaceutical Company
7| Madison Park High Football Field
8| Whittier Street Health Centre
9| Madison Park Technical High School
10| Vernon St. (Adjacent to new developments, slow traffic, potential to become a vibrant streetscape) 8
3| Boston Police Headquarters
Left and Above| City context site model highlighting key building adjacencies that I want to establish connections to. Vernon street is currently underused and dilapidated. However, it will become crucial when the new developments around the parcel are built. It is also a secondary street to the major thoroughfare, Tremont st. The slower traffic and new developments will provide an ideal harbour to a vibrant streetscape on the ground floor. 9
Below| Proposed Roxbury SESC site plan. The previously established site connections point to a clear gravitation towards Vernon Street. The freed up ground floor provides a flexible intermediate space for public activities in a semi-controlled environment.
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My proposal for Roxbury SESC harbors this change with layers of adaptability, environmental control, and publicness...
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Exposed
Controlled
Exposed
Public Swimming Pool Diving Pool Basketball Court
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Private Squash Racquetball Theatre Changing/ locker rooms
Art Gallery Library Dance Studio Gym
Dorm-rooms
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Principle Floor Plans
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1.35m
13m
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6.3m
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Ground Floor
Seventh Floor
4m
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Ground Floor 1’-0” = 1/16’
Fourth Floor
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Ninth Floor
Ninth Floor 1’-0” = 1/16’ 16
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Left| Case studies of double-skin facades
Right| Roxbury SESC North Facade Detail 1 60-minute fire stop 2 24” x 24” Glulam column 3 Cast-in-place concrete with 5% slope
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Exhibition Center_Lacaton & Vassal| Bio-climatic buffer zone, polulated with climbing plants and flowers that have different seasonal rhythms
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Solar House_O.M. Ungers| Layering of climatic control based on programs: climbing plants > glass > sun-room > circulation
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Research Center_H Arquitectes| Use of buoyancy effect in multi-storey programs 20
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1 Thermal-mass activated water-tubes 2 40mm polycarbonate with tongue-andgroove connection 3 - Concrete on corrogated metal deck -1’ insulation -W12 x 40 steel section
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Three Facade Conditions
South| Gathering Space The greater distance between the exterior skin to the interior facade and the walk-way in between performs as brise-soleil to the summer sun from the south facade. Hot air is further extracted by stack-effect through the double skin.
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North| Corridor The smaller distance between the exterior skin to the interior facade and the walk-way in between allows natural sunlight in from the north facade. Stale interior air is further extracted by stack-effect through the double skin.
East| Dormitory All dormitories are stacked on the east facade where the exterior skin is the most approximate to the interior facade, and therefore offering direct sunlight and fresh air.
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Structural Skeleton Study Model| The skeleton model shows the structural characteristics in each segment of the building. Large CLT frame system supports the swimming and overall roof, as well as framing the entire system. The Swimming pool itself is cantilevered on top of a column grid system by large trusses that span the length (at this stage, Vierendeel trusses) as well as small trusses under the pool that are hung from the roof-truss and span the width.
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II. Wood-thing
The material composition is extremely economical, utilizing a single piece of 2” plywood picked up from the free-cycle section of the woodshop, a small sheet of ⅛” plywood, and some wood glue. Through persistent trial-and-error, I successfully refined the technique of making a splined miter joint on this bench.
Personal Project Fall of 2023 Object
The idea for this bench is to create a versatile piece that opens up a variety of possibilities of interaction, reminiscent of the Ulm stool. Each dimension of the bench is the double of the previous one - x, 2x, 4x. This results in an object that is at seating level when laid horizontal, and at table level when placed vertical.
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III. Picture House
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Academic work Core I: Spring of 2023 Cinema
Picture House | Picture House is a hyper-adaptable space for the collective or individual consumption of cinema. Picture House takes the commercial cinema models such as Cineplex that have long dictated cinemas as a building type and rethinks their economic model, social experience, and typology. The site is located in a quiet sector in the bustling Back Bay of Boston, between Cambria st. and Scotia st.
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The Site | The site is located in a quiet sector in the bustling Back Bay of Boston, between Cambria st. and Scotia st. The resultant of highspeed routes disrupting a city grid, the site is the negotiation of height, orientation, and speed differences.
Mass Turnpike
Cambria st.
Berklee Performance Center
Site
Parking Tower
Scotia
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St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church
king Hill Church
Page on the left | Concept models for the ramp, programs, and facade. In its most essential and reduced diagram, Picture House takes on a seemingly simple system of two paths: One ramp, and one stair. Without dictating how one may use or enter the spaces, the ramp and the stair offer the possibility of two speeds of procession. At times, the “fast” route may turn slow, when it lets events and programs take over and unfold on it freely and completely. Visa versa, at times the “slow” path turns fast, as the converging threshold filters foot traffic, and the fleeting glimpses of the simultaneous view of the inside world and outside world mesmerize the walking experience. Right | Ideas of some moments that might constitute the building
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Second Floor
Ground Floor
A mediation between...| The disorder of the disrupted Boston city grid that is dictating this parcel is mediated by the ramp to an orderly interior world. This interior is autonomous in a way but not isolating. The ground floor lets the street and sidewalk take over. The photo on the left shows the brick-patterned sidewalk that spreads to the Bar housed on the interior, and the interior furniture spill out to the street. 34
Third Floor
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academic project IV. Ordinary, except Two-person GSD MArch Core I Artist Residence/ Residential
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bell hooks Artist Residence| The proposed new bell hooks Artist Residency located on Topliff st. in Dorchester, MA are composed of three residences transformed from the existing triple-decker typology. The triple-deckers are designed with the prospective of being converted into other civic programs or back to housing. In our case, the triple-deckers are imagined to be converted for civic use, such as a market. The alley inbetween the buildings become activated as space for the nearby residences.
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Ground plane| We are interested in the ground plane. It determines the relationship between inside and outside, the tall and the low spaces, the public and the private, the ordinary and the exceptional. Our critique of the triple-decker typology lies in the elevated first floor that often feels excluding and may bar accessibility. In two gestures--lowering the first floor and economizing circulation-the triple--decker can accommodate the multiple and changing needs of the artist-residency and retain its flexibility should the program change. 42
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V. Night at the Museum
Individual Academic Project GSD MArch Core I Civic/cultural
Mixed-program | The building houses two programs--a nightclub and a natural history museum. These two programs lights up the building at different hours of the day. The exterior staircase provides a second e-gress as well as connecting the two staggering programs in one circulation. In a way, the wrap-around staircase has a civic function that brings public life onto the terraces and into the building.
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Ground Floor
Third Floor
Second Floor
Fourth Floor
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work VI. Studio Zhu-Pei Professional All designs by Zhu Pei
Hand-model team: Zihao Wang, Huanxiao Yao, Yaran Zhang, coordinated by me. Summer 2021 This section is dedicated to the work I had completed for Studio Zhu-Pei
Ocean House, Carmel California The project below is a hand-made model for Ocean House in Carmel, California. I was asked to coordinate and plan the physical modelling work between a few interns and I to best capture the concept and visions of Pei. I also assisted with the communication and construction document revisions between Pei and the American engineers/ contractors. In constructing this model, we were able to locate possible construction difficulties before the construction documents were cemented.
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Academic Project VII. I WISH I WERE Individual Architecture Studio I A House for Two A FLYING WHALE
Part One Case study | This project begins as a case study of Charles Ray Eames’ Eames House. The Eames House is filled with “stuff:” artifacts collected by the couple while travelling; some made by man or woman, others made by nature. It is unclear where architecture ends and stuff begins. I wonder if the objects alone suffice to speak for the dweller and the architect’s intentions. The case study is a film unfold from the perspective of Eames’ Whale. The home becomes obsolete, objects turned into debris. And suddenly, the whale wakes. Below are initial sketches for the narrative, as well as stills from the film.
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Black foam board Metal pin
Black thread
Object
Bottom | Initial sketches for the narrative Left | Stills taken from the film in temporal sequence Right | Diagram explanation for the means to which the objects are fixed in the air to create the illusion of floating in air in the film production The complete video is attached in the application
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Part Two A House for Two| The final goal of the project is to design a home for a wheelchair user who is a government official and a writer who owns 3,000 books. The design features double-height floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a long, meandering ramp through the house. Identity through things | Throughout the course of this project, I began to develop narratives about these imaginary couples inside the houses, completing details to their life stories, constructing their characters and identities. One of the things that ingrained in me since the Eames House case study stage of the course was the contemplation of identity through the objects possessed by the inhabitants of the house. In the final film I have created for my own design of the house, I incorporated a narrative of the two inhabitants that is only revealed by the stuff they own.
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Legend | 1
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1 | Dining Room 2 | Washroom 3 | Kitchen 4 | Staircase to the basement, the writer’s space 5 | Ramp leading to the second floor 6 | Semi-basement, the writer’s study 7 | Garage 8 | Living Room 9 | Bedroom 10| Terrace 11| The government official’s study 12| Second-floor Bathroom
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Section Perspective
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The Phenomenology of the wheelchair user| Heidegger argued in his famous book Being and Time that when we are in our average everydayness, we experience objects as ready-tohand equipments. For example, when I turn the door knob to enter the bathroom, I do not notice the door knob it self, but rather the end goal of using the bathroom. The object itself fadesW into the background. However, objects come into light when there is a failure or malfunction which interrupts the fluidity of experience. Mundane objects like door knobs, cups, chairs, ramps are often forgotten or overlooked if they are functioning properly.
The Phenomenology of the Wheelchair User
1 | Scissor lift for wheelchair
Consider a wheelchair user in a poorly accessible building. There would be a constant interruption of the continuous flow of experience. Most private houses in Toronto are not designed for a wheelchair user. This house implemented a continuous ramp throughout the wheelchair user’s habitual spaces, and a lift at the landing of the ramp that leads to the writer’s study at the basement. When the house is well accustomed to the user, the equipment should disappear into the background.
2 | Different heights to accommodate wheelchair user
3 | Home elevator platform at ramp landing
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VIII. Tower on Spadina
Individual Academic Project Architecture Studio II (1 Semester) Student Residence
Part One A Study of My Room | During the pandemic, the confines of the bedroom became the single most important places in the world. Two computer screens constitute my only contact with the world outside of my room. This is why I have started the designing of a student residence with a study of the condition of my own being. Intersubjectivity only comes after subjectivity. Because so much of my life exist on my desk, I imagined the objects on my desk having a life of their own and occupying its own room in my house.
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Part Two View | The main goal of this student residence is to direct view. The Spadina Tower across the site forms a giant wall that blocks the view and sun. The building deals with this problem by rotating the internal core 27 degrees from the facade in order to direct the view away from the tower while retaining a uniform profile with the other buildings on site. This rotation also leaves leftover spaces between the facade and the internal core for which I have assigned for public spaces.
ina Spad
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Left | Northwest Isometric Right | Street Elevation The building is compact in size, which reduces HVAC costs and carbon footprint. The public program of the building is the section of the building that is rotated 90 degrees from the rest of the building, signifying its publicity externally. 72
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Section Perspective South Facing
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Residence Floor Plan
Communal space
Unit Floor Plan
Kitchen space
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Public Program Floor Plans
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