portfolio Chen Sun, MArch, MEng, Rhode Island School of Design, Glasgow University, Glasgow School of Art 1
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There are no facts, only interpretations
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Computing Drawing:
Inhabiting Surface 12 - 17
Proposition in Mexico:
Reverse Anatomy 18 - 25
The Water Institute of the Gulf:
Master Plan and Headquarters
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Architectural Analysis:
Instrumentality: Maison de Verre
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Architectural Design:
Waterfront Sport Club House
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Degree Project:
In light of Light
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COMPUTING DRAWINGS: INHABITING SURFACE Carl Lostritto, Advanced Studio, Rhode Island School of Design, 2014, Spring
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This studio explores applying scripting as a media of design. The methodology requires the mind to be transcribed and expressed with computational logic as if one could with language, unlike through pre-programmed software that simulates the functionality of the physical realm. A constant reciprocal relationship is created due to the innate ambiguity lies within the complexity of the script, discourses are generated between the visual outcomes and the logical inputs. From these discourses, certain desirable principles discovered are prioritized and continued to the development of an imaginary architecture. The drawing on the previous page is created through the movements of two types of particles, which are dictated by internal logics and external confines. The resulted field like drawing is plotted with numerically controlled pen plotter with an adapted rapidograph pen, thus the plotting process is as organic as the generating process. Through directly reading the variation of the field as light and shadow, also interpreting its innate logic with an added dimension. The drawing is adapted to exist in 3D as a thick surface. Though, by definition, a mathematical surface shouldn’t have thickness, for a surface to be physical, it needs to obtain a certain tectonic order, within which, one could start imagine scenarios of inhabitation.
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The thick surface created regarding the principles of the drawing is a system consists of two independent three dimensional lattice grids starting at identical positions that respond to inputs of two sides of the same mesh surface, altering itself according to the input geometry while maintaining its internal structural integrity. The response of the structures is iterative and incremental, therefore adjustment could be made observing the proceeding of the transformation. As the outer edge of the structure approximates the mesh surface, an imaginary thick surface is generated in-between the now separated structures.
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As mathematical surfaces have no thickness, the
The lattice structures are adjusted to allow to
site is located at a political border crossing, which
adapt to the architectural constrains, rather than
could be regarded also as a surface that possesses
staring with a three dimensional grid with constant
no thickness, no physicality. The significance of the
number of nodes, the new system grows from a
border was diminished by the lack of physicality,
two dimensional point cloud into a desired three
a phenomenon that’s quite common in the U.S.
dimensional configuration incrementally, layer by
State borders are generally rendered with minimum
layer. The new logic is capable of capturing finer
efforts, welcome signage with rather small size are
adjustments to the input surface mesh holding
the usual, which, at highway speed, they offer no
contextual information from both the site conditions
experience denoting a border.
and the programmatic requirements. The adjacent nodes could also break free from each other’s
The project then, is to apply the thick surface
confinement creating inhabitable spaces, including
logic to the border between Rhode Island and
the office program and the tunnel underneath the
Massachusetts as a toll station on the I-95 highway,
structure for the tollbooths.
marking an invisible surface with physicality offering sensual experience crossing the border.
The border is signified by the sudden change in lighting condition, hence, a gap left unfilled between the opposing structures. Thus, even at speed, the passenger in the vehicle would experience the change of crossing the border. 11
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Architecture spaces are created by exerting artificial confinement onto undefined spaces, where the artificial confinement established could varies from total enclosure, of the physical, to no enclosure at all, of the mental. Therefore spaces, are mostly viewed as the product of construction. By reversing the anatomy of this thinking, starting with the space as the basic element composing the architecture experience then building outwards towards its most external enclosure, the space will stay purer to its designed intentions. An siteless space engaging only with natural light is designed through modeling inspired by local hand crafted artifacts. The model of the space is then tested under natural sunlight as the light of the sun are true to all scales.
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The space is constructed by taking form from a local handmade artifact, a small container made with woven thin metal strips. The constructing principle of the container gives it a distinctive paraboloid surface. Yet, without the help of computational modeling tools, the paraboloid surface is being estimated with triangular planar surfaces, which constructed a calculated multifaceted enclosure with an singular oculus like opening for natural light casting different shades and tones on through the depth of the space.
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Reversing the anatomy, reconstructing the negative of the main space, an enclosure of the building is formed. As the logic of estimating a paraboloid surface with triangular facets, the thickness of the main space is built out of the further estimation of the facets, which also clarifies the process of reconstruction of the ‘carved’ negative. As before, without the help of computational tools, all estimation is done with the principle of projection and mesaured drawing, during which, sequence of movements are designed leading a spiral pilgrim. The external surface is pure and unassuming, a plain monolithic box, while giving a hint of the complexity within at the very entrance of the building.
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THE WA TER INS TITUTE O MASTER F THE G PLAN AN Warren LUF: Schwart D z, Robert H E Silver, A A D QUARTE dvanced Studio, R R hode Isla nd Scho ol of Des
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Water Institute of the Gulf commissioned to design a mix-use campus close to downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana on the bank of the Mississippi river. The main purpose of the campus is anticipating well over 2000 occupants to house scientific, engineering, construction and governmental agencies. The campus also need to serve publicly as an educational site regarding the research conducted within the institution.
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downtown Baton Rouge and the Louisiana State University, which is also an important participating organization in the water institute. The main grain of the urban plan of downtown Baton Rouge contradicts with the grain from the LSU at the site of the campus at an angle. The master plan is derived from the contradicting grains, creating large building masses regarding the public circulation of the campus, then the large masses are subdivide to generate private programmed spaces and circulations. Through this method of arrangement, the private and the public are intertwined on the same site without conflicts. The headquarter of the campus is being positioned on top of the levee of the bank 25ft higher than ground level activating the water front of the Mississippi river.
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STRUCTURED PARKING
RETAIL + COMMUNITY PROGRAM
RIVER MODEL + COASTAL MODEL
HOUSING + HOTEL
LAB + OFFICE
The campus site is being positioned between
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The headquarter building is programmed to serve both public and private functions. It consists three main programs, private office, public museum and auditoriums. Therefore, in section the building is being proportioned into three main volumes, with the museum on the ground level and two grand volumes above pinching an atrium in between. The private office is positioned facing the campus and the auditorium is facing the water. The two volumes are connected through a shared staircase volume on the side of the building providing a vertical experience for both the river and the atrium space.
The atrium is shaped by the tilted surface of the two volumes, creating a perspective experience of a much grander atrium space. The roof form is designed to reminisce the same logic of the main campus plan. The slit openings will mark the moving sunlight into the atrium providing a sense of connection to the exterior environment and time. The perforated Cor-ten steel panel material of the faรงade and the atrium roof is to provide enough shading from the sun yet still keeping transparency between the exterior and the interior.
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Hansy Better, Drawing Studio, Rhode Island School of Design, 2015, Spring
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Warren Schwartz, Robert Silver, Advanced Studio, Rhode Island School of Design, 2014, Fall
ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS: LA MAISON DE VERRE AND INSTRUMENTALITY
ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS: INSTRUMENTALITY, MAISON DE VERRE
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The architect of La Maison de Verre claimed that the building was in his best effort to be absolutely modern. The rather conflicting image appears when one starts to dig deeper into the details. The generally dominant surface and spatial logic that signifies modernism is nowhere to be found, replacing it, the exquisite attention about revealing tectonic detail through the entire building. The rather special programmatic condition with its intriguing public to private separation became rather bland comparing to what has been accomplished through the emphasis on pursue of instrumentality. The active process of selected transparency by the means of a partial wireframe drawing depicts the characters of the house and reveals a clearer image of laMaisonDeVerre.makeToAnalyze() .chen.sun
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GN: I S E USgE D O L H A B LUign, 2012, Sprin UR T C C T E R T I O f Des ARCH RONThoSdePIsland School o F Studio, R TER Core , WA s rne es Ba Jam
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The site is located adjacent to Indian Point Park lies on the southern edge of the city of Providence on the shore of the Narraganset bay. The overall form of the club house is drawing inspiration from the water eroded pebble stone that could be found around the shore. Three distinctive forms are parametrically designed and modeled around the rigid regulated sports fields and courts, while framing three openings among them facing the downtown, the park and the water. The negative spaces of the massing are used for multilevel observation and circulation, where people would enjoy the free movement among different games. The top level of the negative space is connected back to the park as an extension integrating the club house into the Indian Point Park, providing a public accessible view of the Narraganset bay.
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ol : ho c T S C nd a l JE HTode Is O G h PR F LIroject, R EE T Ogree P R G H ez, De E D LIGMartin INnrique E
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Our understanding of Light originates from accumulated experiences of observation. Our
LIGHT AS MEMORY LIGHT AS DRAWING LIGHT AS CONTRAST LIGHT AS SOLID LIGHT AS VOID LIGHT AS LIGHT
minds have been trained since birth about the phenomenon of light. Through the shared intentionality, these understandings could then be communicated through language. The shared intentionality, though, based on visual experiences, language can never communicate the exact of the visual information, as Ludwig Wittgenstein has stated, ‘what can be shown, cannot be said’. These drawings on light are a representation of personal correlation of words describing light. The simple gestures rid of detail of scene, focusing on illustrating the most immediate property of a lighting condition within personal understandings.
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Light resides between the mind and the physical world. It serves as a courier of information, a language through which the space communicates with us. Mostly, space is a concert and we are the audiences listening patiently, couldn’t make a sound. I wish, though, to hold a conversation, personality intermingling with spatial quality. It could be a duet, a debate, murmur or a casual chat. It would reveal understandings that were previously hidden, not because they are elusive, only us not asking the right question.
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LIGHT AS PAINT LIGHT AS MATERIAL LIGHT AS OBJECT LIGHT AS LANGUAGE LIGHT AS CONVERSATION LIGHT AS LIGHT
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The process of photography collapses both the experiential dimension and time, leaving an interpretation of space and event. if one would ask to draw the plan of a frame of film, obeying conventions, it would be represented as a single line. Yet, the temporal space suggested at the both sides of the line is infinite. This phase of the discourse is in effort to bing out the temporal space within the recordings. The three dimensional objects resulted would be resemblance in effect as it can be consider to be an temporal projection of the two dimensional photograph in time.
LIGHT AS LINKAGE LIGHT AS VOID LIGHT AS INTERVENTION LIGHT AS LIGHT
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LIGHT AS DISPLACEMENT LIGHT AS STRUCTURE LIGHT AS MOVEMENT LIGHT AS LIGHT Hypothetically, one could imagine a gargantuan pane of glass spanning few hundred feet, penetrating through multiple levels of inhabitation. The glass would give structure while also bringing light from up top to down-below while maintaining most of its intensity. And the level of inhabitable spaces are created by the displacement of other glass and their attached critical volumes. The spaces then would be connected through the glass, transmitting a hint of inhabitation from another space. Though, the behavior of light can’t be interpreted by us into any useful information, it provides a sense of position and liveliness gathered from other spaces. 40
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OMA’s description of the theoretically well-
Over the years, we had mixed ourselves with the
known Tres Grande Biblioteque of 1989 states
businessman, the technocrats, the philosophers,
‘The ambition of this project is to rid architecture
the politicians, the socialists and the artists, yet, it
of responsibilities it can no longer sustain and
had seemed that we failed to fathom our unique
to explore this new freedom aggressively. It
value as a profession, resulting an image of jack
suggests that, liberated from its former obligations,
of all trades, ace of none. However, it should
architecture’s last function will be the creation
have been clear, as it is quite simple and obvious.
of they symbolic spaces that accommodate the
We are the insights, masters and visionaries of
persistent desire for collectivity.’ This statement
the artificial human inhabitation. We specified
intrigued, and still resonates with me everyday
in resolving relationship between human and
observing the rapid change of the world, shifting
the built world at all scales, from the universe
from the physical to the virtual. I was born around
down to the body. With the adaptation of virtual
the same time the Tres Grande Biblioteque was
inhabitation substituting significant portion of
designed, growing up experiencing the rapid
physical inhabitation, notwithstanding, architecture
progress of the digital realm. Retrospectively,
needs to be able to allocate its values. I intend to
our social behaviors had been altered within 30
establish a harmonious architectural stage for the
years in scale that would take probably a few
new paradigm of inhabitation focusing on emotions.
centuries before. Just as Rem Koolhaas suggested,
As Rem Koolhaas suggested almost 3 decades
architecture had been denied a lot of responsibilities
ago, architecture needs to explore this newfound
that shaped the practice originally, left architecture
freedom from the traditional responsibilities
practice scrambling for meanings of existence.
aggressively. Space should design to participate the inhabitation, not merely containing it. Also, considering the physical constrains of contemporary metropolitan areas, light is the perfect instrument to realize the symbolic meanings for desires of architectural spaces.
Chen Sun May, 2015 RISD
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Thank you
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