Cliff Chan Selected Works | A Prospectus of Thoughts and Inquiries

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Selected Works A Prospectus of Thoughts and Inquiries 01 Returning Home Tactics in Land Reclamation 02 Satellites Learning from Engey 03 A Service in Civility Surveying Alternatives in Educational Reformation 04 Loose Territories Behaviors in Informal Occupation 05 Sorgenti del Piave Archi[te]nsions 06 The Greatest Grid: Manhattan Dialectic Archi[te]nsions 07 The Timekeeper Tactics in the Appropriation and Dissolution of Time 08 Waterscape DavidClovers 09 Scope of Works Aedas 10 Dishonesty without Apologies Strangely Familiar


01 RETURNING HOME Tactics in Land Reclamation

Considered the most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history, New Orleans and the lower ninth, in particular, captivated our attention and implored massive reinvestigations of the district’s infrastructural and ecological systems. Many have considered this area uninhabitable, forewarning the rebuilding of this area entirely. Afterall, it was the costly and ineffective dams and levees that disrupted the cyclical process of this natural flood zone from renourishing these ecosystems. The urban proposal set forth is a response to the receding naturescapes and imminent rising tides of the area.


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THE EFFECTS NINTH WARD

MARSHLAND LOSSES

CHAMLETTE

VIOLET

KATRINA x RITA

220 SQ.MI

IVAN x GUSTAV

120 SQ.MI

POYDRAS

BRETON SOUND BASIN

340 SQ.MI

-13.55% 287.66 SQ MI PRE KATRINA 39 SQ. MI POST KATRINA

RATE OF COASTAL LOSS

-34.9

SQ. MI PER YR

RATE OF BASIN LOSS

-33.5

SQ. MI PER YR

UNIQUELY (SE) LOUISIANA SALT

BRACKISH

Spartina alterniflora Oyster Grass

blue crabs

FEEDING THE LAND

periwinkles

LOSSES OF RIVER SEDIMENT FROM THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA HAS RESULTED FROM INTRUSIVE MAN-MADE STRUCTURES SUCH AS DIKE, LEVEES, AND CANALS. AS A RESULT, NATURESCAPES ARE UNABLE TO PROPERLY REPLENISH SILL DEPOSITS. THIS DIRECTLY AFFECTS PLANT LIFE AND RESOURCES NECESSARY FOR A SELF SUSTAINING ECOSYSTEM.

ribbed oysters

redfish

INTERMEDIATE FRESH Spartina patens wire grass Typha cattail

otter

Schoenoplectus three-corner grass

nutria

Nymphea water lily

speckled trout fiddler crabs

crayfish

muskrat

Rising Tides Rising sea levels and land loss is an inevitable factor with the changing climates experienced globally and felt locally in the state of Louisiana. Inundated flooding has become the normative with every rainy season. Traditional pile stacked homes along the water’s edge are growing longer with each pile to anticipate elevated tides. These measures are only temporary solutions to a growing global problem.


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Relaxing Edges As a preventative measure, the call for relaxing the edge lines of the current hard division set forth is used to mediate future flood plains. By disbanding the rigidity of the cartesian grid, this urban proposal works to apply lowlands, estuaries, and marshes while overlaying residential corridors into the new landscape. By allowing for regulatory tidal shifts, a natural process of renourishing the lands growing sill deposits from the river may once again produce a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. Additional measures of incorporating small farming gardens will also remediate the food deficiencies prevalent in this blue collar community.


1/F

2/F


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Towards a New Architecture Le Corbusier once wrote of architecture ‘being a machine for living’ and ‘modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.’ Perhaps the rising fear of natural catastrophe and the defense against nature needs re-evaluation. These lands before the levees and dams, flowed freely and uninhibited with the silt from the Mississippi renourishing and reclaiming the land seasonally lost. Known popularly as a fishing and water residing culture, New Orleaners must reembrace these core values. By adopting the local airboat prototype as a base, the use of smart materials shall troubleshoot encroaching flooding and moderate hurricane force winds. The use of light-weight concrete with foam cores are incorporated to achieve buoyancy. Wood, poly(methyl methacrylate), and fiberglass shall complete the finishes for the contemporary boathouse.


Kitchen


08

Living Room


C

SE

N

O TI

BEDROOM NO. 1

BATH NO. 1

BATH NO.

DINING

PANTRY

KITCHEN


10

BATH NO. 2

BEDROOM NO. 2

.2

N

LIVING


kelp brine farm

plan

sheep farm

herring brine farm

vegetable brine farm


02 SATELLITES

Learning from Engey Upon prudent investigation into the word “Satellite�, the rudimentary definition is distilled into binaries: artificial and natural. The interplay of the word informs the thought and architectural execution to which the project is conceived. From aerial images, the satellite settlement is received as a cruelly drawn circle which is flattened against the landscape. Nevertheless, a landmark against the otherwise burnt orange landscape. From the horizon of the nautical sea, crewmen are drawn across the jagged island’s edge before raking across the nestled self sustaining settlement which serves as safety and warmth. A satellite that serves as a beacon which gently rises above the berm meadows.


Wells Past and Present The act of brining and storage of these cured fish, seaweed and other vegetables pivots entirely off the rainwater cisterns past. Using the relics past, we are provided the information in building the future satellite settlements of tomorrow.


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Circle of Life Operating as a self sustaining work-live residence, the narrative of the Icelandic people embraces the harsh and extreme climates found in the North Atlantic nation. Prior to Engey’s tsunami which decimated the barrier island, rows of rolling hills were dug and created to blankets the residents from the unwelding winds which sweep across the isle. Blowing east to west in the morning and south to north nearing dusk, the strategy of allowing the settlement to be berm into the landscape.



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Beyond Reykjavik During mild seasons, festivals could be hosted along this flat stretch of open land serving as act of Reykjavik’s adventureland for hot air balloon races, music festivals or recreational leisure.


03 A SERVICE IN CIVILITY

Surveying Alternatives in Educational Reformation The proposed Educational Reform School shall be a robust addition to the existing Redhook Judicial Courthouse. Presently, a burgeoning alternative to the treatment of petty thefts, domestic altercations, and first time offenders the institution has become a center for community reform and retribution. Building as an open door facility which welcomes the rehibilitated and struggling offenders, the new addition shall incorporate an educational wing, a mental health diagnosis center, and after school programs. In addition to becoming an educational haven, it shall work with those convicted to community outreach programs and in-house participatory services, rather than instituting the participants to the traditional 30 day cell treatment sentence. Providing housing, full time security and food in traditional jails has only increased the overcrowding and financial burden on taxpayers. As a result, the facility has become a launch point and an alternative method of arraignment. For all first time and petty theft accusees are asked to repopulated and reintegrated themselves back into the community as productive citizens of their locale.


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Exchange of Information In an exercise to provide the real consequences of being declared guilty, the circulation program and paths mimics the intensity one faces upon conviction. An emphasis to emulate the scenario leading up to individual’s day of judgement through the commencement, proceeding and completion period are informed by the design’s emphasis in staging circulation diagrams and relational studies discovered through intensive data collection and research process.


plan

DN

201

202

217

203

204

216

205

206

207

215

208 209 DN

211 215

210

212

213

214

2/F


20

Admittance Lobby

Mental Health Examiner’s Wing

perspectives


04 LOOSE TERRITORIES

Behaviors in Informal Occupation In 1967, Jacques Tati’s masterpiece Playtime scrutinized the banality and draconian atmospheres prevalent in the sterilized modernist offices. The repressive formality was demonstrated in the omnipresent views capturing the arrangement of rigidity commonly found in office plans of the time. The evolutionary model of office planning of the 21st century has undoubtedly shifted. Moving past previous misconceptions that a hierarchical institutionalized planning of the modernist period drives efficiency, the use of cubicles are disappearing (and rightly so). Rather a greater efficacy has been identified through an equal blend of quantitative and qualitative measures for the enhancement of environments. An activism towards the exploration of happenstance discovery, informal trajectories and willfulness leads the discussion of design principles. The proposed office landscape lends itself to the Burolandshaft model developed in Germany. With the consideration of spatial and experiential dexterity, the relationship of each room is not transfixed to programmatic symmetry. Each space is in tension and belonging in part to the larger internal system. No one space is singularly exclusive of the neighboring parts of the whole. One space may be simultaneous inclusive of two programs or simply a means for fluid circulation or temporary speculation. Delineations of open spaces and darker more privatized spaces are simulated through operable partitions, curtain systems and moveable furniture. Employing these potencies for penetrable spaces operating within these spatial practices, we see an agency that allows human behavior to produce models for informal clustering and dialogue while still maintaining the ability to return to curated spaces that shall undoubtedly serve the more formalized private collective. By seeking these aggregation studies, productivity may situate itself between public and private, inclusion and isolation, independence and cohabitation all of which enrich the human experience.


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Mixing Floor


05 SORGENTI DEL PIAVE

Archi[te]nsions | 2011| Research + Visualization Assistant The conceptual idea behind the project for the re-qualification of the Piave springs in the Italian Dolomites is based on a new narrative path that will guide the visitor through an educational experience for the a better comprehension of the area. For our sustainable approach we choose to use the local recycled wood, durable and easy to maintain. We used different strategies for the different parts of the project. The new landscape paths are re-configured to guide the visitor to specific points of naturalistic interest and is scattered with small wooden “follies� where you can rest, eat and look at a specific part of the landscape.



diagrams

sections

plan


26 site

perspectives


sections

Morphology The tectonic approach is to anchor the project to the local building shapes and material tradition, referring to the typical vernacular construction of the mountain barn. We used a typical section of the barn as a generative form to redefine the program throughout the entire park, from the access door to the small structure placed in the landscape as a refuge to the new main reception structure for the tourists.


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G/F

UG/F

plan



06 THE GREATEST GRID: MANHATTAN DIALECTIC Archi[te]nsions | 2011| Research + Visualization Assistant

The design proposal for the celebration of the 200 years of the Commissioner’s plan of Manhattan aims to find a new approach to develop the grid and the actual condition of the city. In 1811 the vision was deeply innovative, although the grid has been conceived as a tool for cars, with the limitation of the two dimensional plane. In the 21 century social and physical networks changed and the grid needs to find its own ecological behavior returning to its roots and history and more importantly considering the 3rd dimension for the future development. Our proposal is more than a project, it’s an action of claiming back landscape and life in the city through a pure cognitive reinterpretation of New York City where the most important fact is the experience of an observer who navigates through the urban fabric and the generation of events produced by human behavior.


Chronicles of New York City In our vision the manipulation of the urban context and consequently the city fabric and its architectural objects are influenced by space and time through the experience of the observer and is resolved through an intentional “non-resolution� of dialectic forces. The experience becomes the 5th dimension of a four-dimensional space-time coordinate system within the urban fabric. The observers, who are the subject of the experience (tensions), are the inhabitants of our cities that interact with the main variables, space and time, in their own local frames. Using an analogy with physics this condition produces a hyperspace, where the main space-time phenomena are the collapse, acceleration and simultaneity. Studying the different plans of New York City from 1609 we discovered a gap between the previous condition and the Commissioner Map of 1811: the original landscape was erased and re- created artificially somewhere else.


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Welfare Initiative The grid now collides with its original landscape and condition, changing the ecosystem and the natural identity of the town. These opposed forces, nature, versus man-made will reshape the grid into a new ecosystem that will be naturally balanced, productive green helping the economy of the city, new activity for the inhabitants and tourists, a strategy for the water rise level that will reshape Manhattan into an archipelago, and high hills to catch the winds to produce energy. The ongoing project will give an opportunity to all inhabitants of New York to bring back the green. We are designing self initiative where everybody will choose how to improve the city.


Inflated Value We will create artificial inflatable hills that will populate the city highlighting the need of a green public space. This project is a permanently under construction master plan that will help the city to reshape and adapt according to the needs of the users and their social behaviors.


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16

Flatiron District


Rockfeller Center (looking South)

Rockfeller Center (looking North)

SoHo


36

5th Avenue & East 20th Street


07 THE TIMEKEEPER

Tactics in the Appropriation and Dissolution of Time Collaborator : Alessandro Orsini | 2011 Informed by the ephemeral nature of trade show expositions, the proposed pavilion for the Ceramics of Italy possesses the intentional of physically orchestrating time. The dynamism and progressions of a trade show are hinged on the premise of rapid installation, sampling, and consumption of known materials goods. Our lo-tech tactics uses a pin and clip mechanism, which allows the consumer to easily remove the tile once the pin is removed from the clip securing the tile above the stage. Participates shall be able to sample tile pieces of their choice which demonstrate the tactility and R-value listed behind each sample. The installation is both participatory in capturing the loci of the event while minimizing wasted materials and clean up post-expo. This staging process of showcasing temporality through morphosis illustrates a sustainable exercise towards distribution and narration. Programmatically, the design had to fulfill a 3,000 square foot rectangular perimeter, while incorporating a cafe, information desk, reception and storage containment area. The pavilion also highlighted the capacity for future reuse of materials and ideas for future exhibits.


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section

section


perspectives

Tactics in the Appropriation and Dissolution of Time A study suggesting the inversion of the space and behavior relationship speculates that behavior informs the making of the space rather than the rational of space dictating behavioral action. This proposal may be witnessed through the dissolution of site through time. The participatory action of collection is a corrollary one, where the act of removing the artifacts from the site itself then becomes a performance tracing the notion of past, present and future. Behaviors therefore orchestra the space itself including the density rhymth and headroom clearances within the site.


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information kiosk

cafe


08 WATERSCAPE

DavidClovers | 2012 | Junior Designer Waterscape explores ways of recaliberating the traditional trellis, pool deck and planters. The design ingenuity is by way in which it works with traditional materials and techniques transformaing them in computational and contemporary ways. Colored grouting and granite mixtures were implemented to enhance the colors and playful interactive areas for children. Wood is used in a series of unique ways varying from a double layered trellis where shadows congeal and dissipate across the waterscape below to an integreated planterbench-gazebo-wall that surrounds and frames the landscape.


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Mixing Chamber The project seeks to diversify what is otherwise seen as purely functional or overly glorified common areas to produce spaces that act as one part recreation, one part social condenser, one part infrastructure.


09 QUEEN MARY HOSPITAL SENIOR STAFF QUARTERS RENHE RETAIL CORRIDOR SAI KUNG RESIDENCE AND RESORT SAINT FRANCIS CANOSSIAN COLLEGE TEMPLE MALL ST. REGIS MACAU Aedas | 2013-p | Intermediate Designer Serving as the job captain at Aedas of Hong Kong for 2.5 years, I’ve developed an understanding of administrative procurement and procedural protocol for a wide spectrum of significant project scales within the education, healthcare, hospitality and retail sectors. Working under the project administrative role, I facilitate design conceptualizations within the compliance boundaries of the Hong Kong (HKIA) Building Codes. As the direct line from the end users and design directors, I regularly coordinates value engineering tactics while liaising with external facade engineers, internal MEP consultants, and signage advisors to detect and execute managed solutions. I ensure that the construction and consultant team stays on schedule and executes schematics that conform to the requirements of the project director and client. I often participate in the creation of drawings and adheres to all budgetary constraints.


QUEEN MARY HOSPITAL SENIOR STAFF QUARTERS 2014-15 | Construction Adminstration | Under Construction

SAI KUNG RESIDENCE AND RESORT 2015-16| Detail Design| Design Development

RENHE RETAIL CORRIDOR

2015-16| Detail Design | Design Development

SAINT FRANCIS CANOSSIAN COLLEGE 2015-16| Job Captain | Under Construction

TEMPLE MALL

2015-16| Construction Adminstration | Under Construction

ST. REGIS MACAU

2012-13| External Coordination | Built

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Selected Works

The printed matter of thoughts expressed 01 Returning Home Tactics in Land Reclamation 02 Satellites Learning from Engey 03 A Service in Civility Surveying Alternatives in Educational Reformation 04 Loose Territories Behaviors in Informal Occupation 05 Sorgenti del Piave Archi[te]nsions 06 The Greatest Grid: Manhattan Dialectic Archi[te]nsions 07 The Timekeeper Tactics in the Appropriation and Dissolution of Time 08 Waterscape DavidClovers 09 Scope of Works Aedas 10 Dishonesty without Apologies Strangely Familiar

Cliff Chan

US Citizen email: cc929@cornell.edu 08


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