EMILY S YEN PORTFOLIO M.ARCH 2015
Rhode Island School of Design Dartmouth College
EMILY S YEN PORTFOLIO M.ARCH 2015
CONTACT INFORMATION Emily S Yen 907.317.7459 eyen@risd.edu www.emilysingeryen.com
BRIEF INTRODUCTION I believe in and work towards a built environment that facilitates the human experience. Without its inhabitants, architecture becomes obsolete. There has to be, however, a connection between our construction, the land it occupies, and the non-human visitors. It is in this connection that we define our sense of place. To foster such a connection, I play and explore. I work intuitively with my hands in drawing and making, inside and outside. It is this balance between the intuitive hand and resolution of details where architecture comes alive. Architecture is at its most powerful when it enters the physical world. The effort behind that translation is moutainous and worthy. We sow what we eat and we build where we live. This is our world.
CONTACT INFORMATION Emily S Yen 907.317.7459 eyen@risd.edu www.emilysingeryen.com
EDUCATION
ARCHITECTURAL WORK EXPERIENCE
Rhode Island School of Design
Architectural Intern - Cooper, Robertson & Partners (CRP) New York City, NY • May - Aug 2014 Collaborated with a multi-firm team for a bridge park competition in Washington D.C. Designed program specificities both at the scale of the project and its urban context Built physical/digital models and presentation drawings for meetings and mid-review submissions
Providence, RI • 2012 - Present Masters in Architecture Candidate Cumulative GPA: 3.6
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH • 2007 - 2010 BA in Studio Art, Engineering Major GPA: 3.4
Freelance Architectural Designer - Senior Lecturer Karolina Kawiaka Providence, RI • Jul-Aug 2013 Researched/represented daylighting methods for Washington Mall competition and rendered dwgs
SKILLS
Architectural Intern - Watershed Studio Architecture, LLC White River Junction, VT • Sept 2010 - July 2012 Designed the winning RFQ for a canoe club renovation at Dartmouth College Worked in schematic designs, presentation drawings, permitting issues for canoe club renovation Drew construction documents for various projects and helped build certain design details
Software: Rhino • Maya • AutoCAD • Sketch Up • Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Lightroom, Photoshop, Muse • Microsoft Office Languages: English • Chinese • Spanish • Italian Studio: Woodworking • Torch-welding • B/W Photography • Chainsaw Certification Other Interests: Dance • Whitewater Kayaking • Mt Biking
SELECT AWARDS Overall Winner Museum of Science Fiction, Preview Museum Competition September 2014 Design Competition Shortlist SwitzerCultCreative October 2012 Artist/Writer Grant Vermont Studio Center April 2012 Solo Exhibition Hopkins Center for the Arts, Barrow’s Rotunda Jun - Jul 2010
Architectural Intern - Livingston Slone Architecture, Inc Anchorage, AK • Jun - Aug 2009 Drew construction documents and lighting plans and conducted general construction inspections Assisted in selection for 1% for art program
ADDITIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE Overall Winner - Museum of Science Fiction Preview Museum Competition Washington, D.C. • Sept 2014 - Present Won the architecture competition for concept for a temporary (3-5yr) museum Consult with the design team regarding the project and other Museum of Science Fiction programs Gallery Assistant - Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI • Sept 2014 - Present Prepare the gallery for different exhibitions and lectures by building furniture, painting, making labels Collaborate in making certain exhibition materials like SO-IL experimental plaster casts Artist in Residence - Vermont Studio Center (VSC) Johnson, VT • Apr 2012 Received the VSC Artist/Writer Grant to for installations examining environmentalism Developed/created two installations questioning the nature of ground through viewer interactions Construction Volunteer - Dartmouth Outing Club Hanover, NH • Jun 2010, Sept 2008 Learned and helped build a traditional timber-frame cabin using hand tools only Helped de-bark trees with a draw knife for a full-scribe log cabin and build miscellaneous details Volunteer - Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve Tena, Ecuador • Jan 2008-Mar 2008 Directed design and applied for funding for a rural playground in a local community
REFERENCES
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Silvia Acosta Rhode Island School of Design Professor 401.729.9969 sacosta@risd.edu
Mentor - ACE Mentorship Program, Providence RI Chapter Providence, RI • Sept 2013 - Present
William Kentworthey Cooper Robertson and Partners Partner 917.542.0084 wkenworthey@cooperrobertson.com Daniel Johnson Watershed Studio, LLC Principle Architect 802.291.7080 johnson@watershedstudio.us
Instructor - Architecture Department, RISD Providence, RI • Jan - Mar 2014, 2015 Math and Physics Review Teaching Assistant - Architecture Department, RISD Providence, RI • Sept 2013 - Mar 2014 Architectural Analysis (Carl Lostritto), Architectural Projections (Nick Brinen) Studio Leader - Boston Architectural College Boston, MA • Jul - Aug 2013 Summer Academy: High School Design Exploration Special Intern Instructor - Studio Art Department, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH • Jun - Aug 2010 Intro to Photo (Virginia Beahan), Intro to Architecture (Jack Wilson); and additional responsibilities
CONTENTS
sketching by casting
ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS
Thesis-In-Process
Inhabiting the Intersection : Vertical Void
Re:Thinking Urban Living Variations on Light RISD MachtPlatz
EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES Sci-Fi Preview Museum
Ronchamp Analysis
Fairy Tales Competition 2015 Ceramic Geologies Plastic and Heat
Span and Balance Cast Plaster Shells
Knife Rack
Getting Dirty
ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS
thinking begins with the hand; strengthens when pursued through material constraints; concretizes in resolving details
THESIS PROCESS
fictional translation in images
A NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF MULTIPLE REALITIES Advisor Silvia Acosta Rhode Island School of Design September 2014 - May 2015 Between the tangible and the intangible lies a narrative architecture of multiple realities. It occupies worlds of physical limitations, natural processes, fears, dreams, everything, and nothing all at once. Bound by gravity, context, programmatic necessities, and expectations, its release is revealed through an anticipatory fiction, psychology of space, defiance of reality. When this multiplicity becomes one, the story emerges. Within, a pursuit of simultaneous contradiction: strength and fragility, endurance and ephemerality, limitations and imaginations. Truth cultivates untruth. Nothing is absolute, but not everything is relative. Beyond the paper, architecture comes to life; intentional fiction draws strength from the rigors of the built world. There is no beginning and there is no end; there is only a continuance of being.
MULTIPLE READINGS: interpretations and combinations, a diverse fictional world
THESIS PROBE: three-dimensional translation enter the world
FICTION WITH ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS: visualizing fictional atmospheres, physical relationships, and motifs
COMPILATION OF ELEMENTS: from drawing to model, back to drawing
Embedding
Defiance
Time
Flow
Awareness
MOMENTS IN PLASTER MODELS: working through models, varying levels of control, testing in weather’s elements finding moments of opportunity and inspiration in material realities
COMPILATION OF ELEMENTS 2: from drawing to model, back to drawing
INHABITING THE INTERSECTION : VERTICAL VOID
tectonics and circulation model of the vertical void
ADVANCED STUDIO Professor Silvia Acosta Rhode Island School of Design February - May 2014 intended experiences of site connections understanding and feeling weather, gravity, material history, circulation, time created through principles of intersection and continuity to house a museum of kinetic constructions reacting to weather, gravity, material history, circulation, time scaled from the detail to urban to facilitate an intuition, experience about space beyond the literal and physical
INTERSECTING URBAN VOIDS: site analysis and abstraction
INTERSECTING VOLUMES: architectural order and abstraction
INTERSECTION AS PIVOTAL VOID: intersection at vertical void as the heart of circulation and experiential atmospheres when two geometries collide
INTERSECTING SITE AND ARCHITECTURE: moving through the vertical void and traversing the horizontal
VERTICAL VOID: perspectives from inside the main void experience from top to bottom
VERTICAL VOID: modeled perspective void and circulation from the exterior
temporal spatial awareness at scale of programmatic detail and site extents
SECTIONS AND ELEVATIONS: intersecting geometries at all dimensions, circulating through the vertical void experience
PROGRAM PERSPECTIVE: utilizing light and shadow movements in site-based kinetic installations
RE:THINKING URBAN LIVING
urban aerial sketch
URBAN DESIGN PRINCIPLES Professor Gabriel Feld Rhode Island School of Design November - December 2013 reimagining urban living in Boston’s South End where density doesn’t engender claustrophobia and tightness darkness and constriction where city living can provide access to light and air views and privacy for all bringing desired qualities in suburbia to urban living residential forms rise above layer and intersect bridge governed not by street grids but by standards of living leaving groundscapes available for commercial and public
SITE SECTION 1” = 40’
SITE PLAN 1” = 40’
SECTION A-A: TYPICAL RESIDENCE, LONGITUDINAL
1/8” = 1’-0”
SECTION B-B: TYPICAL RESIDENCE, TRANSVERSE 1/8” = 1’-0”
VARIATIONS ON LIGHT
site and architecture concept model
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO Professor Anastasia Congdon Rhode Island School of Design February - June 2013 a waterfront site and a program to encourage and encompass life direct, energetic light greenhouse, aquaponics ambient, atmospheric light human interaction shadowed, controlled, limited light compost, mycoculture one operation, a range of light conditions the angle masses peeled from the ground in orientation to southern exposure a range of natural light variations gravitational graywater recycling
LIGHT STUDY MODEL: single light source depicting range of light and shadow
SUN ANGLE STUDY: section axonometric bio systems
SITE PLAN: circulation and movement integration of plants and people
final sectional model light conditions and range
AXONOMETRIC HYBRID: inhabiting the angle and connecting to its waterfront site
RISD MACHTPLATZ
sketchup massing model and site drawing
INTEGRATED BUILDING SYSTEMS Professor Jonathan Knowles Rhode Island School of Design September - December 2014 in collaboration with: Taylor Haywood Nicholas Cote Jungmoon Choi towards a new making place for all of RISD campus studio and workshop focused on details calculations and responsibilities structural integrity and conceptual alignment environmental considerations and integration of design
MASSING EVOLUTION
WUFI STUDY: envelope integrity of detail by Passivhaus software
FINAL MASSING STUDY
SINGLE BAY DETAIL MODEL: structure and expression of single bay in bridge component
FACADE DETAIL MODEL: structure and expression of facade and openings in bridge component
SECTION DRAWING: circulation tower, studio bridge, and workshop block
SECTION DETAIL: studio bridge structure and pop out facade detail
EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES
constantly challenge boundaries and expectations; exploration and discovery as impetus for personal and professional growth
SCI-FI PREVIEW MUSEUM
Overall Winner Preview Museum Competition Museum of Science Fiction Advisor Carl Lostritto Sept 2014 informal beginnings of thesis interests learning to integrate concept and technique efficient representation concept: scalable cube object or architecture inside, contents evoke curiosity tilted reality ambition: constructable but atypical economic but wondrous physically temporary psychologically permanent
RONCHAMP ANALYSIS
Architectural Projections Professor Peter Dorsey Mar - May 2013 by hand, exploring Ronchamp in depth through details and analysis geometry and space-making by Rhino modeling and exploding Corbusier’s elements configuring and reconfiguring architectural components as objects process and object one and the same
FAIRYTALES COMPETITION 2015
Thirteen Ways a Container Advisor Silvia Acosta Between words, images, and objects lies an architectural process. Working between writing and drawing simultaneously influences both and strenghtens both. This is based on my written adaptation of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” These drawings and writings examine a sense of oneness in multiplicity, blending earth and sky, inside and outside, reality and anticipation. An embodiment of everything around it, inside it, expected of it, the container is.
CERAMIC GEOLOGIES
Ceramics Sculpture for Non-Majors Professor Jan Holcomb Feb - May 2015 playing with the level of control, allowing clay to do what it does best mushing and merging drooping and remembering its creation is dependent on and inspired by natural processes: gravity wind air water this is the beginning of a series of explorations in establishing site for thesis
PLASTIC AND HEAT
Materials Laboratory RISD Wintersession Jan - Feb 2013 plastics: plexiglas and recycled felt learning by making testing through mistakes pushing convention by playing by experimenting
SPAN AND BALANCE
Re-centering Centroid Professor Anastasia Congdon Mar 2013 building and balancing intuitively, trusting plywood forms driven by the scroll-saw learning to adapt and adjust by hand and by machine
CAST PLASTER SHELLS
RISD Architecture Department Graduate Assistantship Sept 2014 - May 2015 Under the guidance of Professor Aaron Forrest, our team of five graduate assistants plan and install the exhibitions that rotate through the BEB architecture gallery. Our involvement ranges from simple painting and installing to building custom tables to a more in-depth collaboration with So-il from NYC. My specific work with So-il entailed the experimentation of casting doubly curved thin plaster shells at a larger scale. Jiali Xuan and I tested different methods of fabric casting in conjunction with So-il architects to strengthen the piece despite its thinness. Our final piece and its formwork were incorporated into the exhibition.
Photography Credits to: Brandon Wang, Jiali Xuan, Natalie Kruch
KNIFE RACK
Learning to Weld Personal Project Aug 2012 working with steel for enjoyment and curiosity how we wield how we store knives benefits of materials efficiency ease whimsy strength
GETTING DIRTY
Dartmouth College Construction Volunteering Sept 2008 - Jun 2010 Through my tenure at Dartmouth College, I volunteered extensively with the Dartmouth Outing Club both in outdoor leadership and in construction projects. Two primary projects with which I spent significant time were a full-scribe cabin on Gilman Island on the Connecticut River and a traditional timber frame cabin at the base of Mount Moosilauke in the White Mountains. Through these two projects, I learned and participated in the chainsawing and felling process, de-barking, detailing mortise and tenon connections with hand tools, structural frame raising, putting together of components, strengthening structural integrity with diagonal braces, raw finishing, and adjustment process for continuing to dry logs. Working with my hands and participating in construction are just as interesting to me as conceptual thinking and design. It is the integration of process, from diagram to concept to tree selection to barn-raising, that is so potent in the making of this world, and what drives me as an architect. Photography Credits to: Phil Bracikowski, Greg Sokol, Lucas Schulz
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
CONTACT INFORMATION Emily S Yen 907.317.7459 eyen@risd.edu www.emilysingeryen.com
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907.317.7459 eyen@risd.edu www.emilysingeryen.com