C L A I R E KUANG harvard gsd m.arch I portfolio
CLA IRE KUA NG kuang.claire@gmail.com issuu.com/clairekuang github.com/clairekuang
01 SWEAT / SHIVER transformable housing in extreme climes
02 T ILT SHIFT recreational center for brookline, ma
03 SPLIT SCREEN recreational center and hotel in phoenix, az
04 H YPERCO NVERGENCE transportation + housing in hudson yards, ny
05 ET CET ERA S algorithmic richter topological typology
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SWEAT / SHIVER t r ansfo r ma b le housing in extreme c limes core studio I instructor: kiel moe fall 2013 A transformable structure that has a distended, exposed form in the hot environment and a compact, introverted form in the cold environment, the Sweat/Shiver housing uses thermal extremes to enhance the experience of temperature as its inhabitants enter the building. The hot plates and reective roofs take on different roles in each form to allow for functional thermal performance while exaggerating each environment just before entry, understanding thermal comfort as a relative (not absolute) condition. A thickened envelope contains primary circulation, adding another thermal barrier between the interior and exterior.
1.01 render. SWEAT housing (top) and SHIVER housing (bottom)
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TRANSFORMATION MECHANISM The project, which centers around a grasshopper-based framework of hinges that enable 180 degree rotation about speciďŹ c axes, is designed so that any geometry tied to this framework can be manipulated within these constraints. The dual nature of the SWEAT/ SHIVER House utilizes rotation combinations to shift between a compact (low surface area to volume ratio) radial conformation in a cold, windy climate and a convoluted (high surface area to volume ratio) linear conformation in a hot, windy climate. The thin layer of air directly outside each wall is considered as part of the thermal system and is thus moved along with the solid geometry - it acts as an insulator in the interior of the compact form and the exterior of the convoluted form.
CO Z Y CO URT YA R D ...
In the SHIVER house, the dweller must endure extreme cold and windchill as they approach the house, circulating through insulating wall space into their rooms, and ďŹ nally into the warm communal courtyard, heated by the nested hot plates.
. . . C OOL TE R R ACE
In the SWEAT house, the hot climate is ampliďŹ ed by the plates, now exteriorized: the dweller must pass through these in order to enter the house, once again circulating through the buffered wall space into their rooms, ending in a series of cool terraces exposed to the wind.
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T ILT SHIFT g y m and bathhouse in brook line, ma core studio II instructor: max kuo spring 2014 Our site, located on the extremities of various communities, functions as the locus of intersection between commercial and residential, high and low income, Brookline and Boston. These intersections are immediately legible through the modes and organizations of access to the site. Though paths of access are often intended to connect different locations, they can also function as barriers to the ones they bypass. This project highlights the speciďŹ c qualities of motion, visibility, and sound that are characteristic of a gymnasium in order to respond to the site conditions on the scale of the street, the neighborhood, and the city. Rather than forcefully integrating incompatible communities, the TILT SHIFT recreational center allows for the uid and local appropriation of spaces within to accommodate the changing and diverse social fabric of Brookline. 2.01 site plan. connections to high income commercial center and low income residential neighborhoods
PLATES + PROGRAM
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The recreational center is split into a public gym and an exclusive bathhouse, which are arranged so that the most private bath programs are located on the lowest floors, exposed to the community at street level, and the most public gym programs are on the highest floors, drawing users up into the building and responding to the scale of the city.
ENVELOPE (GLASS) The more public gym program is north-facing, which enables the use of a glass facade that allows for cool, well-lit interiors and clear visibility from both approaching visitors and other users within.
ENVELOPE (SOLID) The bathhouse, facing south and offering exclusivity and privacy to its members, is wrapped by a thermally massive solid envelope which stabilizes the warm, low-lit, moist programs within.
CORES + CIRCULATION Structurally, two dipolar cores support the floorplates and the coiled ramp: while the circulation is contained within the core on the gym side, it migrates to the outside of the core, which now contains program, in the bathouse.
COMMERCIAL HIGH INCOME
BASKETBALL COURT SHOWERS POOL/SQUASH LOCKER RMS. POOL/SQUASH SAUNA/STEAM TRAINING RM. YOGA ROOM WEIGHT RM. R E G I S T R AT I O N LOBBY/COURTYARD
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exterior courtyard lobby (gym)
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weight room lobby (bath) + ofямБces
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spectator squash + training room yoga + dance
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bathing pool + squash courts sauna + steam
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squash courts + lap pool lockers
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basketball court showers
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2.02 section. envelope/core weave 2.03 model. massing and site study 2.04 model. core and circulation study
DYNAMIC TRANSITIONS The interplay between core and envelope, program and circulation generates a uid space that transitions between degrees of transparency, allowing for the appropriation of any level while preventing complete exclusion.
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SPLIT SCREEN r e cr e a t io nal c enter and hotel in phoenix core studio III instructor: jon lott fall 2014 On the scale of the city, our site is situated at the cusp of the growing urban core in downtown Phoenix. This implicit boundary then determines access patterns at the local scale: on one side is a dense urban fabric favoring public transportation, on the other is urban sprawl that necessitates travel by car. Phoenix’s desert climate, car culture, and urban sprawl are major obstacles for creating a pleasant evironment for the pedestrian. By creating a split building with a massive bar hotel oriented towards the parking lot and ‘floating’ public green-roof program facing the densifying downtown core, the Cascade hotel maintains visual connection with the ground plane while also addressing the severe eastern exposure to the sun. 2.01 render. SPLIT SCREEN from the public realm
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2.02 site plan. 3pm cast shadows, bus stops, parking lots, and east and west views from the site 2.03 axon. SPLIT SCREEN structure and program.
THE URBAN FRONTIER The transition from Phoenix’s dense downtown core to its peri-urban sprawl is abrupt: a line that is reected in the ease of public vs private transit. Our site, sitting at the intersection of E Washington St. and S 1st on the urban frontier, straddles that informal line where approach from the west features multiple bus stops within a 10min walking radius and shaded sidewalks, while approach from the east is replete with car parking and sun exposure.
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PHOENIX, A SP(L)ITTING IMAGE SPLIT SCREEN responds to the polarity of site with a monumental concrete hotel bar facing the harsh sun and sprawl on the east, while oating glazed gym and bath programs take advantage of long cast shadows and urban demands from the west. Each side plays in tandem and in tension with the other: the disturbances of the public gym and bath programs are reected on the surface of the exclusive hotel bar.
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THE PUBLIC REALM Supported by cable and truss structures that elevate the building, SPLIT SCREEN rests on a sloping ground plane from which extends a pedestrian path into the public programs as well as entrances down below into the public pools. The public path, in an attempt to re-engage the pedestrian in a car-dominated landscape, meanders upwards into the building along the western facade, creating a much needed park space in downtown Phoenix.
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HOTEL + GYM
HOTEL + BATH
BETWEEN THE SCREENS Schematically, the more public gym and bath programs connect to and sometimes intrude upon the high-end hotel, necessitating a buffer zone that acts as a screen between the two modes of occupation. This creates a ‘triple-loaded corridor’ condition at various moments in the building, along this plane of contact. Communal showers in the massive core then become the point of trespass (alternatively, exposure) as gym and bath users migrate through the screen into the hotel bar.
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A CITY IN THE SUN Phoenix’s urban heat island effect creates an unrelentingly hot microclimate at the street level. By taking advantage of the tall towers to the west, SPLIT SCREEN’s vertical park remains mostly shaded during the long afternoon, providing a temperate outdoor environment while preventing radiative gains to cooler programs such as the gym and squash courts.
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2.04 sections. summer sunlight exposure at all hours 2.05 model. circulation; vertical park 2.06 model. structure; cable screen, plates, and trusses
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H YPERCO NVERGENCE t r a nsit and housing in hudson yards core studio IV instructor: carles muro spring 2015 Collective space is a composite of where people gather, how they get there, and the interface of that transition. In spatializing Manhattan’s coastline as a thick layer formed by different modes of access, we see this boundary as the interface between Manhattan, the outer boroughs and new Jersey, mediating between how people move both within and to-and-from the city - a heterogeneous and dynamic collective space. In a perpetually densifying Manhattan, the distinct separation between collective space, transitory space, and residential space is no longer an effective model of city living. The introduction of housing program into Hudson Yards provides a unique opportunity to reconnect the individual across scales from the unit to the transportation platform. 4.01 render, new port authority 4.02 render, housing and vertical courtyard
“ The area where the street and the plaza or open space meet is the key to success or failure - the transitions should be such that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. ” Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980)
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4.03 image. Seagram Plaza. Manhattan 1963 4.04 image. Urban Flow by Adam Magyar. New York 2015 4.05 map. grasshopper definition.venice and manhattan’s accessibility imprint on the coastline. 4.06 map. grasshopper component and definition. venice coastline 10 min accessibility by car, water taxi, vaporetto, and walking.
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MAPPING MOBILITY PRECEDENT. Manhattan and Venice, though both geographically islands, function as major centers of commerce and culture in their respective geopolitical contexts. This interface of exchange occurs at the coast - a heterogeneous boundary space that reflects the relative ease and difficulty of access through different modes of transportation. Abstraction of the coastline into a perfect circle makes legible the spaces of penetration, contact, and isolation. In the overlap of Venice and Manhattan’s theoretical coast, one bears witness to the democratic nature of access for the Venetian, in contrast to Manhattan’s highly segregated transit patterns.
4.07 images. google maps street view, 2015. streetscapes in Hudson Yards.
4.08 images. google maps street view, 2015. pedestrians and infrastructure around port authority.
4.09 images. port authority bus ramps and rail lines into penn station, aerial view. 4.10 site plan. commercial (left) and residential (right) land use 4.11 graph. data from us census bureau, 2010. percentage of total nyc population living inside manhattan.
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1850 transit infrastructures
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75% grand central brooklyn bridge williamsburg bridge manhattan bridge queensboro bridge
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holland tunnel george washington bridge lincoln tunnel
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percentage living in manhattan total nyc population
penn station (rebuilt)
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COMMUTER CITY Each day, Manhattan’s population doubles as people commute in from the neighboring residential areas to the increasingly commercialized urban core. Of the 1.6 million daily commuters, more than half ows into and through our site alone. This is an unprecedented amount of trafďŹ c, not just within New York City but on the national and international stage as well. These trends are also visible from a chronological perspective as well: the total population of New York City has increased from 500,000 to over 8 million people between 1850 to 2010, yet the percentage of that population living inside Manhattan has dropped from 70% to 20%. This exodus from Manhattan coincides with the construction of Penn Station in 1910 and Port Authority in 1950.
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COMMUTER CITY Manhattan’s large transit infrastructures - the rail tracks leading into Penn Station and the bus ramps into Port Authority- do not integrate well into the existing city fabric: while the bus ramps try to negotiate the densities below, the rail altogether carves out huge swathes of land. The expansive nature of this transit environment erodes the city’s streetscapes in a scale out of touch with that of the pedestrian. HYPERCONVERGENCE seeks to reintegrate these infrastructures into their residential contexts by weaving hetergeneous mixed-use courtyard housing in between Penn Station, the 7 line subway line expansion, and a reimagined Port Authority in a reclamation of pedestrian space. Responding to the isolating stratification of the infrastructural environment and the pedestrian experience, HYPERCONVERGENCE uses the section as a device to reconnect people with the built environment across scales.
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4.12 plan section. hyperconvergence in context 4.13 diagram. courtyard typology accessibility 4.14 unit plans. small scale sectional devices. 4.15 axon. s/m/l courtyards, from private to public.
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4.16 plan section axon. s/m/l, xl. the balcony, vertical courtyard, interior court, and public promenade. 4.17 plan section. gradient of courtyard intimacy from private (left) to public (right) 4.18 plan. overlay of housing units and courtyard spaces 4.19 section. housing underbelly landscape 4.20 section. port authority reimagined with commuter housing 4.18
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4.21 model. courtyards, topography shaped by interweaving pedestrian, commuter, and resident paths. 4.22 model. transit hub with commuter housing units. 4.23 model. hyperconvergent mixed-use housing; The Hudson Yards Project (in development); rail lines to Penn Station.
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ET CET ERA S a lgorithmic ric hter digital media instructor: andrew witt fall 2014 Richter’s process, though aesthetically visceral, is meticulously calibrated to capture irreconciliable conict as a cogent whole. His abstract paintings are slowly excavated through an iterative process of adding and subtracting layers of paint to produce increasingly textured results, until reaching an intuitive state of completion where these opposing forces - vertical and horizontal, addition and subtraction - reach a tense equilibrium. In a digital reformulation of this process as an emergent phenomena generated through low-level, simple rules, Richter’s artistic intent is re-imagined as the local propogation of intersecting lines. A global compositional behavior begins to emerge as the script balances between too few (no emergence) and too many (fast deterioration) intersections: areas of strong-weak and neutral lines start differentiating the compositional space. The calibration of this cellular automata, under the right conditions, can rapidly generate thousands of Richter-esque iterations.
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5.01 image. Gerard Richter, Abstract Painting 5.02 diagram. grasshopper-generated Richteresque compositions.
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ET CET ERA S t o pologic al typology digital media instructor: andrew witt fall 2014 By harnessing the techniques of computer vision, graph theory, and statistical analysis, it is possible to redefine the architectural type through a topological analysis of spatial organizations. In other words, an architectural plan can be distilled into a series of connections between ‘rooms’, and the patterns of connection between rooms can be thought of as a fingerprint. Using a collection of predefined typologies - in this case, the Palladian villa and the Beaux Arts building - we derived a characteristic spatial pattern that can then be used to propogate any number of similar floor plans within that typology.
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PALLADIAN VILLA
BEAUX ARTS
population 7 average depth 2.42 standard deviation 0.29 variance 0.09
population 7 average depth 2.49 standard deviation 0.32 variance 0.10
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5.04 diagram. palladian villas (left) and their respective graph representations, showing an average depth of 2.31 with a standard deviation of 0.18 5.05 render. aggregations of palladian villa (left) and beaux arts (rights) style plans.
C L A I R E KUANG harvard gsd m.arch I portfolio