Catherine Shih - Portfolio 2018

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C AT H E R I N E K A I S H I H

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CKS

C AT H E R I N E K A I S H I H

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Selected Academic & Professional Architectural Works 2009-2018 PennDesign | Master of Architecture Candidate 2020 Yale University | BA in Architecutre, Design

March 2018

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C CO N TE N TS 0 1 B u i l di n gs + Land sc ap es

PA CI MH IR RH SV CL PP

PennMuseum Archive

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Cemetery Island

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Music Haven

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Intertwine Residence Studio

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Rubix House from a Room

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Sectional Voids

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Capsule Loft

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Park Avenue Penthouse

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0 2 Objec ts + I nstallations

TU T BS DV BB

Twilight Unravelled

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Tessellation

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Body in Space

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Dominant Void

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Bento Box

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0 3 M ate rialit y + Grain

SC L I

Shonan Church

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Landscape

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Interlace

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01 BUILDINGS + LANDSCAPES

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PA P E N N MU SE U M ARCHIVE PennDesign Professor

First Year Studio, Fall 2017 Ben Krone

Situated in the courtyard of the existing Penn Museum and bridging a gap between the past, present, and future, this archive is a link between historical objects, the present Penn Museum, and spaces where objects are given significance for future study. All are intertwined in a feedback loop reinvigorating the other through a carving of space and a fragmentation of form that implies or generates new connections. This archive also provides connection between objects separated from their original context and given new meaning through archivists and researchers. This design reflects a mediation and an interconnection between a displaced whole, through a dialectic of completion and incompletion, inside and outside, solid and void, and presence and absence.

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Site

Underlying Cone Geometry

Regular Extrusions: Connection b/w cones

Displaced Extrusions: Connection b/w above + below

Public Archive

Private Archive

These diagrams express the underlying grid and organization behind the circular, cone-line forms. Just as archival objects are recontextualized, cone-like forms carve through the building and are displaced above, activating points of inflection that connect public and private space.

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Concept Diagrams


Study Models 11


Collections of objects and documents exist in fragments, often separated physically by type or size, but meaningful when unearthed, staged, and pieced together. This archive embodies this concept of displacement, creating visual connections through fragmentation and associations.

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Plan


Final Model 13


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Final Mode: Displacement


Final Model: Displacement 15


The rigid, carved-out portion below creates the private spaces – object and document storage, staging areas, and circulation for archivists and researchers. The dynamic, displaced forms above house the public spaces – classrooms, research spaces and gallery – creating vital points of entry from the existing museum down into the new archive.

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Section Drawing


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Vertical Displacement: Window Impressions

The idea of memory is potent throughout this project in relation to an archive. Window impressions are formed from the central cone, which is displaced below ground creating vital points of connection from one end of the archive to the other. However above ground, the central cone only exists as a memory, with impressions left over that create both the landscaped ground and the window openings.

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Model View: From the Exterior Looking In


Model VIew: From the Interior Looking Out Across the Courtyard 19


Context Connection

Softscape Displacement

Hardscape Displacement

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Concept Diagrams


Section Perspective Drawing 21


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Final Model 23


24 Map showing location of site


CI C E M E TE RY IS L A ND -PA R K Yale University Professors

Senior Design Studio, Spring 2015 Steven Harris and Marta Caldiera

A site was chosen within Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida to create a modern cemetery island encompassing 100,000 square feet. The site is aligned with the zero street that divides Miami into East and West. An obelisk marks the end of the island and identifies it’s location. A program of three layers was conceived. First, in relation to the gridded streets of Miami, a linear system of programmatic strips was generated, providing different types of resting places for people with varying opinions about death. These programmatic strips include traditional graves, columbariums, mausoleums, private family plots, and above ground burial structures. Second, a canal pathway winding through the island breaks the rigid linear system. Third, buildings and above ground burial and gathering spaces provide centralized elements within the linear plan. The buildings include a chapel with a large reception area, and a funeral service and multi-purpose building, both splitting the waterway. A sequential movement through the islands waterway brings one through the grieving and funerary process. First, one encounters the chapel and reception area, and then the funeral service building for the funeral to take place, before stepping onto the island at grade.

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26 Render of an aerial view of the island


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Traditional graves

Family plots

Mausoleums on the water

Columbariums and above ground burial

Traditional graves

Water basin entrance

28 Strips of program


Traditional graves

Mausoleums on the water

Chapel with canal running through

Mausoleums and above ground burial

Water basin entrance

Each strip of program provides different accomodations for a final resting place, creating a variety of experiences as one meanders through the island.

Renders of the different strips

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Section across the island 30


Axonometric plan with shadow and color

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Rendering of the columbariums

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34 Linear type sketch model


Linear type model

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36 Model integrating linear type model


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Rendering of the water basin entrance 39


40 Final model situated within the site model


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M U S I C HAVE N Yale University Professors

Senior Design Studio, Fall 2014 Turner Brooks and Adam Hopfner

Music Haven is a local string quartet that performs and provides lessons to children in diverse communities surrounding New Haven, CT. With a mission of building a virbant community through performance and music education, Music Haven asserts a dynamic presence within the city and is in search of a space that encompasses their ambitions. A new home with rooms for group practice at the top level, and individual practice spaces on the lower level that feed into the centralized performance space was conceptualized. With a focus on transparency, the building became the stage, providing visual access as spaces fold into each other. A sense of fluidity from the subtle level changes as one moves through the space embodies the integration of race, socio-economic class, genders, and ages that makes up the community of Music Haven.

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The original site strategy (figure 1) was to create a public gathering space where the building becomes a part of the ground, creating circulation into and on top of itself. The interior of the building is a sunken world where seating, balconies, and practice rooms blend together around the main stage (figure 2, 3). The final plan creates a geometry that extends this concept, with group practice rooms, individual practice rooms, office spaces, and reception areas circulating around the center. 42


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4. Center stage

5. Group practice rooms

6. Reception area

7. Offices

8. Entrance

9. Library and waiting area

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Lasercut model

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Final Model


The plan is cut from a single sheet of paper, generating a central circulation that folds back into itself. The shadows emphasize the subtle level changes and the continuity of circulation.

Plan Study Model 45


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Final Model 47


48 Final model


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IN TE R T W I NE R E S ID E NC E STU DI O Yale University Professors

Junior Studio, Fall 2013 Bimal Mendis and Trattie Davies

Wayne McGregor is a dance choreographer known for his avante-garde style of dance and choreography methods. This residence and studio space embodies the entangled and indistinguishable bodies that McGregor creates in his movements. The program for this house was conceived of as two seperate entities, public and private, or two human bodies, that unite as one form through choreography. Both the private and public pieces of program have a similar form when modeled seperately, but come together motivating circulating and creating a sense of rotation and dynamism.

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The entangled bodies of McGregor’s dancer’s became the inspiration for the form and circulation of the building. Sketch models on the right side of the page focus on an intermixing of program, spaces, and pathways.

50 Concept Image


Sketch models

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52 The public and private program modeled seperately


Second floor plan

First floor plan

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54 Final model


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R U B I X HO U SE FROM A ROOM Yale University Professors

Junior Studio, Fall 2013 Bimal Mendis and Trattie Davies

Rubix House incorporates and expands the formal language of a room designed by a studio-mate. The original room, highlighted in gray, is trabeated with a semi-striated roof. The combination of columns, translucent wall panels, and opaque wall panels creates an original arrangement on each of the 4 facades. Each facade is divided in a tripartite manner. Rigorously extending the original room’s form and facade treatment to the 6 planes of a cube creates a 9 square grid house that is objectified.

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A nine square grid characterizes each facade. Analyzing different combinations of a wall surface, a series of striated columns, and a translucent glass window adds to the compexity within this cube house.

56 Organizational studies based off of the nine-square grid


Sketch model rotated to show the variations in each facade.

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58 top: plan

bottom: elevation


Final model 59


60 Original slice


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S E C T I ONA L VO I DS Yale University Professors

Junior Studio, Fall 2013 Bimal Mendis and Trattie Davies

In this three part studio assignment, the task was to carve out space from a monolithic cube through a series of sectional models to create space, light, and circulation. In response, slicing is utilized as a subtractive approach. First, a sectional model articulated a dense circulation “X� and an extension of the diagonal geometries created by the stairs, in order to carve light into the space. Second, building a perpendicular section generated moments where circulation sliced horizontally through the cube, against the verticality of the central public atrium and dominant circulation path.

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62 Original slice of the cube


Final model

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64 Model photo and drawings showing the piercing of light through apertures


Model photo and drawings showing the diagonality of views and light streaming through the side windows

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66 Model photo and drawings showing the horizontality of the halls contrasted with the central atrium


Model photo and drawings showing the central atrium

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68 Photography by Peter Aaron


CL

C A P S U L E LO F T Joel Sanders Architect Team

Desiger + FF&E Coordinator Joel Sanders, Greg Epstein, Marco Li

This 2500 SF West Village apartment accomodates a second level for bedrooms while maintaing the architectural integrity of an industrial loft. Characterized by exposed concrete beams and tall south-west corner windows, this loft offers panoramic views of the Hudson River. A cantilevered wood-clad volume, the Sleeping Capsule, houses the master bedroom, with a guest bedroom on the opposite end. The floating volume defines a series of linked spaces - entry hall, media-home office, circulation path, and living room. A black oak stair core subdivides the space beneath it into two zones - a kitchen-dining area and a den. Each space has its own atmosphere, created by a unique color and material palette. * Awarded Best Of Year 2017 by Interior Design Magazine

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Maximizing space for circulation, the upholstered bed and side tables within the Sleeping Capsule were custom designed and built to accomodate the low ceiling height.

70 Final bed constructed


Shop Drawings 71


Defined by a series of zones within an open floor plan, it was essential to create unique sense of place to define each zone - the living room, dining area, kitchen, den, and media-home office.

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74 Living room rendering


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PA R K AVE NU E P E N THO U SE Joel Sanders Architect Team

Desiger + FF&E Coordinator Joel Sanders, Greg Epstein, Marco Li

This 12,000 SF penthouse apartment located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan creates zones of public living spaces on the East, with private program consisting of six bedrooms on the West end. A dramatic accent stairway made of poured concrete treads with metal plates and steel cables is adjacent to the main living space, conceived of as a floating stairway leading up to the outdoor terrace.

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Furniture layouts were finalized with the client for each of the six bedrooms and six distinct living spaces. Each had its own distinct color and material palette.

76 Plan with Furniture


Children’s Den 77


Opposite, aluminum frets were custom designed and placed to accommodate the design intent of a custom floating accent stair. Not only do they provide lateral stability between the steel cables, but they are also strategically placed to hide the connection between the metal plate of the stair and the cables.

78 Mock up and design


Stair in construction 79


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02 OBJEC TS + I N S TA L L AT I O N S

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82 Axonometric


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U N R AV E L L E D T W IL I G HT PennDesign Professors

Digiblast 10-day Studio, Summer 2017 Ezio Blasetti + Danielle Willems

Unraveled twilight is a pavilion designed for MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard. Utilizing a part to whole relationship, a pavilion was created through the design of a component, using aggregation as the main generator for form. This installation, especially at night during the summer concert series, creates a unique experience of walking through a pixelated forest.

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Starting with a simple, tensile component, the installation creates depth and obscurity through rotation and aggregation. Each interlocking component module is rotated and placed to maintain a fragile nature, creating a series of rectangular halos that unravell through the site. The square aggregations create a sense of place beneath, echoed by the stepped groundscape. Cast shadows disorient the visitors as they wander through the pixelated forest.

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Component, Section, and Plan 85


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Render 87


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T TE S S E L L ATI O N PennDesign Professor Team

First Year Studio, Fall 2017 Ben Krone Catherine Shih, Mitch Chisholm, Yihao Zhang, Rentian Liu

This pavilion was conceived as an installation withint the courtyard of the Penn Museum. Exploring the relationship of part to whole, this structure is the aggregation of one form expressed on three scales, that displays two primary conditions: open and closed. A flattened image of solid over void is perceived in elevation. However, from any other angle, the pavilion complicates - even directly opposes this initial condition. Parts are pushed and pulled in space, component scales are shifted, and connection points are varied to suggest new readings of the same structure. In essense, the pavilion explores the consequence of multiple interpretations in three dimensions: the expansion of space

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An exploration of tessellations was explored in generating a component that would allow for two different readings. The top diagrams explore how a circle within a square grid could create two different systems that overlap. The bottom diagrams represent the final component in plan, exploring presense and absense of space. The diagrams on the opposite page further explore

the idea of completion or implied space in three dimensions.

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POSITION 1: MOST CLOSED

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POSITION 2: MOST OPEN

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POSITION 3: CLOSED 2

POSITION 4: CLOSED 3

3d Tessellation Studies + Final Component 91


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PART TO WHOLE The resulting final pavilion was constructed at 5 feet in height - half scale of the actual 10 feet pavilion sited in the Penn Museum courtyard. The configuration accentuates the “closed” and “open” readings of the components as they are aggregated, and how this affects the overall reading as one moves around and interacts with it.

Final Pavillion Views 93


Fasten Screws: fasten plastic + creates joints Frame: holds the plastic

Heat Template: only heats one side Cover: fastens plastic + creates joint Mold: shapes the plastic

Press Rail support

Press further

Flip

Repeat space for formed side

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Fabrication Images 95


Large Component: 15” x 15”

Medium Component: 10” x 10”

Small Component: 5” x 5” Form Joint

Frame Joint

Hundreds of components were fabricated using our custom made jigs at three different scales. Once they were created, assembly began by attaching the components to one another in two different ways: through a form joint at the front nose or backside of the component, or a frame joint on the outer edge.

96 Component Installation Diagram


Final Components 97


FRONT ELEVATION Void within components

45 DEGREE SIDE ELEVATION Blurred solid + void openings

98 Elevations


SIDE ELEVATION Void between components

PLAN cairo grid outline

Elevation + Plan 99


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Pavilion in PennMuseum Courtyard 101


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B O DY I N SPAC E Yale University Professors

Senior Design Studio, Fall 2014 Turner Brooks and Adam Hopfner

A refuge for a single human was constructed into the granite face of a quarry wall in Guilford, CT. The journey through the wooden poles flirts with conditions of fear and vertigo, terminating in a secure intamacy in the interior where the body is held in a cozy relationship between the rock face and the void of the space of the quarry over the edge.

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THE IDEA The original idea that drove the project forward was a tectonic system of wooden poles that created a stepped journey and invited one to the edge. The space became driven by this edge condition, constantly flirting with vertigo.

104 Sketch Concept Model


Plan drawing of the grided system of poles and the winding, stepped journey. Axonometric drawing of one of the resting surfaces.

Exploded Plan and Axonometric 105


The location of the habitation is in a niche on the corner of the quarry wall’s edge. By expanding the language of the poles, a forest of wooden posts was created, where a clearing became an opportunity for movement and spaces of solitude. In the same way that living greenery infiltrates the interstitial space of the quarry wall, the human body is the life that moves through the man-made, wooden structure. The wooden poles not only create flickering views from the exterior, but also act as a surface and create distinguished landings and seating spaces when clustered together in a grid.

106 Site and Plan Drawing


Photographs of the final model showing the pathway and resting places along the journey to the rock face

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As one moves diagonally and circles down into the space, the varying density of the poles influences visual connections and viewing frames. In certain moments, views provide hints of the pathway and resting spots inside.

Model rotated showing path downwards 109


Drawing showing the varying experiences inside the habitation.

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DOMINANT VOID Yale University Professors

Senior Design Studio, Fall 2014 Turner Brooks and Adam Hopfner

An exercise in space making where the space that is designed (the void) becomes more palpably present and powerful than the outline of its definition (the wooden sticks).

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THE IDEA The idea began by taking two triangles and reorienting the position of one in order to change the perspective of the shape in relation to the other, and question the relationship that they have with each other. A second piece was constructed creating a tension in the mirroing of the two. By doing this, parallel lines merge and the mind looks for an intersection, even though there is no point of connection between the two entities.

114 Model photo of the two pieces combined creating an interstitial space


Model photo of first piece

Final Models115


116 Bento Box made of bass wood


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B E N TO BOX F O R S O U P DU MPL I N G S Yale University Professors

Junior Studio, Spring 2014 Joyce Hsiang and Sunil Bald

In analyzing the construction, presentation, and consumption of soup dumplings, a bento box for two was created that not only provides a meal, but also is an architectural spacemaker and organizer for dining.

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THE IDEA In creating a bento box for soup dumplings, one challenge was expressing the fragility of the dumpling as a container as well as the transformation that occurs in it’s making. The dough is stretched, pleated, and then stretched again as the gelatin forms into a liquid hidden inside. The idea of a hidden interior generates the language for an exterior cover unravelling to unveil something greater inside. The box celebrates what is inside. Eating becomes an experience that is intimate and elegant. Rather than a vessil for transportation, this bento box is more about capturing the experience of preparing, presenting, and consuming soup dumplings all in one box.

118 Sketch Model of Bento Box


Drawing analyzing the interactive motion 119


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At it’s essense the soup dumpling is a container. It’s fragile nature is expressed in the materiality of the unraveling container.

Final Model 121


From the exterior, the box is mysterious, with few hints of its function besides the tip of the flowering container and the utensil holders. The unfolding of the bento box becomes a spectacle, ultimately creating a space for two people to enjoy a dining experience. A lazy susan sits as the center piece.

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Final Model Opening 123


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03 MAT E R I A L I T Y + GRAIN

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126 Model made of rockite and bass wood


SC SHONAN CHURCH MATE R I A L STU DY Yale University Professors

Materials Elective, Spring 2015 Tim Newton

A study of Shonan Church, by Takeshi Hosaka Architects, was undertaken to bettter understand the materials and processes involved in the building’s making. The concave roof panels were created as segments of varying sized circles. The smooth, cast forms provide a striking difference from the roughly striated walls of the building. Streaks of light beam through the aperatures created by the seperation of the roof panels. In order to get a better sense for the way in which natural light moves through the space throughout the day, a model made of rockite and bass wood was created.

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128 Cast rockite in curved foam form


Curved foam form 129


130 Final Model


Model Detail 131


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L LANDSCAPE Yale University Professors

Junior Studio, Spring 2014 Joyce Hsiang and Sunil Bald

An integrated landscape was created for the preparation and cultivation of food. Driven by the ideas of centrality and an unfolding language created by the bento box study, the landscape became centrally organized, with spaces spiralling from the center. Movement through the site is directed by the placement of walls and is never orthogonal.

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The landscape study began by creating paper relief models that emenated the nature of the bento box and the preparation, presentation, and consumption of food. A precedent study was done of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and the way in which the hearth became an organizer of space for the rest of the house. This became the inspiration for a second paper relief model. A third paper relief model combined the two studies. From this, the idea for a final landscape was conceived.

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Relief Models 135


The stepped and smooth edge conditions create very different experiences when moving along the edge. The stepped walls create an intimacy along the wall at a more human scale. Towards the center of the landscape, the space flattens for circulation to collect.

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Paper landscape studies


Final Model 137


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Collage Drawing


Material Study 139


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Integrating the ideas from the landscape study, a local site on Yale’s campus with a canal path running through the middle was analyzed for the construction of a food center. A public food hall and educational center was constructed for the production, consumption, cultivation, and education of food. Issues of the site included mediating the canal path running through the center and accessing the building from both canal and street level. A cut and fill strategy relates the two sides along the canal. A sloped hill leading up to the food canal provides an outdoor terrace and a public resting place. On the opposite side, a retaining wall holds back cultivated land, creating a place for shade. Pathways and views that cut across the canal connect the two sides, creating a circulation that folds back into itself.

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Concept Drawing


Final Model 143


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Final Model


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INTERLACE PennDesign Professors

Spring Design Studio, Spring 2018 Danielle Willems

In designing a branch library for the community of East Parkside, the challenge was to create a public environment that maintained the low height of the row home neighborhood while also taking advantage of its site at the corner of two main roads. This exercise began as a formal study, transforming two dimensional ideas about fluidity and the integration of a hard and soft lagnauge into a 2.5 dimension model. Interlace Brnahc Library explores the relationship between hard and soft surface and the figure ground relatinship of connecting building and landscape.

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Rockite Model


Rockite Model 147


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Elevation Render View: Landscape Slipping Into the Building


Elevation Render: Landscape Slipping into the Building 149


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CKS

Catherine Kai Shih PennDesign MArch Expected 2020 cathshih@design.upenn.edu 908-268-3372

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