Yixin Li
We l l e s l e y C o l l e g e 2009 - 2012 Candidate for MArch 1
Musical Concepts Jardins Sous La Pluie
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Marketplace Canopy Conceptual Design
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Narrative Space
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Drawing
Installation
Contents
Built & Natural Environments
Spatial Perceptions
Spatial Sensations
Creek of Peach Blossom
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Cut Along The Dotted Line
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The Academic Quad
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Aurora Observatory Model
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Dimensional Transformation Model
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Studio Panorama Drawing
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The Mouth Drawing
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Light Wall
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Installation
Installation
Topographic Studies 16 Keyboard Wall Model Installation
Drawing
Drawing
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“Architecture.. [is] a sort of ‘expired harmony’ : the sounds fade away but the harmony lives on.”
—— Anthony Vidler, Unhomely Houses
Music al Conc ep ts
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Jardins Sous La Pluie
charcoal, mylar, paper 36” × 48” 2012, Advanced Drawing
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Jardins Sous La Pluie, translated as “garden in the rain�, is the third movement of Claude Debussy’s piano composition, Estampes. By recording my fingerprints while performing the
piece on top of the paper, I mimic the image of raindrops via the variation of texture and intensity of charcoal powder. Three registers correspond to the three sections in the music: before, during, and after the rainstorm.
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The Canopy
digital renderings 2011, MIT: Integrated Architectural Design Intensive Studio
Tas k
Within the given undulating ground with barriers, design a marketplace canopy which contains structure while retains its formal integrity. All the structural elements including columns and windows should be continuously incorporated into the form of the canopy.
P r o c ed ur e s
i. produce a raw drawing by a set of rules ii. develop a solution to the task by transforming the drawing into a spatial structure in Rhino
plan
“swirl” units
raw drawing
The “Sw i r ls” Polygons with areas exceeding the threshold value were pulled upward, while others extended downward to form columns. The height of the resulting “swirls” are inversely proportional to the area of the original polygons.
oblique profile
Plan and Profile Wavy profiles are created by directly extruding and vertically bending the tangent lines of four of the ridges of each “swirl”. By projecting them into space, gaps are formed between the adjacent edges, providing openings and lighting to the interior space. A “grid” plan is preserved since these vertically undulating edges are visually straight in plan. 07
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Narrative Space
(collaborative project of a group of eleven students) site-specific drawing installation 2012, Advanced Drawing
The assignment was a response to our reading of Julio Cortazar’s novels and our class discussions of the concept of “uncanny”. In the empty shop space, each student may express her thoughts using ink, tape, threads or drawing tools on four separate sheets of paper, on the wall or on the floor. The free collaboration was like a musical composition where each of us uttered and contributed to the ultimate harmony.
“They’ve taken over our section,” Irene said. The knitting had reeled off from her hands and the yarn ran back toward the door and disappeared under it. When she saw that the balls of yarn were on the other side, she dropped the knitting without looking at it.
——excerpt from House Taken Over, Julio Cortazar
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“The double feelings of achievement and guilt in destroying nature perplexed our ancestors. Architects nowadays share the same contradiction. This paradox should always be at the core of our field’s research and reflection.” —— Free Translation on Kengo Kuma, Introduction to the New Architecture
B uilt & Nat ural Env ir onments
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Creek of Peach Blossom
wood, hay, dry branch, tracing paper 18’’ × 18’’ × 8’’ 2010, Spatial Investigations
The ancient Chinese story, the Creek of Peach Blossom, depicts a Utopian village removed from the wars and turmoil that occurred during the historical period. With its secret entrance by a creek that ran along the peach woods, the village was totally isolated from the outside world and located at a beautiful natural site. By shrinking the size of the models and installing the little houses at a covert corner beside Lake Waban, I reproduced the village described in the story, where both an ideal human society and a harmonic human-nature relationship are presented.
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Aurora Observatory
museum board, wooden sticks 20’’ × 20’’ × 20’’ 2010, MIT: Experiencing Architectural Studio
15 Human Figure (Dancers) Studies
Tectonic Study
Final Model
The task is to transform human figures into a natural phenomenon observatory. In the process of transformation, a formal connection among the human figure, architecture and nature is created. The Aurora Observatory gives the viewers three different experiences. The first level as a dark alley captures a thin strip of light that would reflect on the wall; the second level as a grand opening makes a space of extreme brightness; the third part is a translucent sphere in which reflected lights interact with each other to give a dream-like realm of blur.
Landscape Transformation
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Topographic Studies and Landscape Transformation
vellum, card board, straight pins 10’’ × 10’’ × 1.5’’; 5’’ × 5’’ × 1’’ 2010, MIT: Experiencing Architectural Studio
Topographic Studies
mountain area
valley terrace
golf course
The task of this project is to use topographical information as a tool to transform the cityscape in a chosen city. Choosing Seattle as my site, I aim to direct water flow to the bottom-right corner of the site to create a wetland around an obsolete factory.
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“The world of physics is essentially the real world construed by mathematical abstractions, and the world of sense is the real world construed by the abstractions which the sense organs immediately furnish.”
——Susanne K. Langer, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling
Spat ial Per c ep t ions
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Cut Along The Dotted Line
black masking tape on wall 2012, Topic: Contemporary Practices in Art
Through this installation, I visually flatten and unfold this complex interior space which is featured with oblique angles and non-parallel walls. Installed in the Jewett Arts Center, this work locates at the entrance to a glass bridge. Designed by Paul Rudolph in 1950s, the Jewett Arts Center was an independent structure when first built. The passage was later added to connect the modern art center to an adjacent Collegiate Gothic building, and this corner has been opened up as a connecting point. By playing with detaching signs, I comment on both the history and the structure of this space.
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Dimensional Transformation
12’’ × 8’’ × 7’’ 2010, MIT: Experiencing Architectural Studio
“zerography”
Analytical Drawing
23 poche
structure
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Keyboard Wall
black cardboard on wall 2010, Spatial Investigations
This installation of a scaled up and lifted piano keyboard intervenes one’s perception of this space, generating confusion and disorientation.
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“Lightness for me goes with precision and determination, not with vagueness and the haphazard.”
—— Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium
Spat ial Sensat ions
The Academic Quad
charcoal on paper, 100” × 24” 2011, Advanced Drawing 28
From midnight to early morning, the passage of time casts distinct atmospheres to the academic quad on campus. By representing the shift of viewpoint in a time frame, I play with the changing nature of space in time and try to demonstrate how different times of day bring different qualities to the space.
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Studio Panorama
charcoal on paper, 120’’ × 36’’ 2012, Advanced Drawing
31 Addressing the contrast of the permanent space and the transitory occupants, I render the drawing studio along with hints of activity and movements in the space. Differences between the static and the ephemeral are indicated by the use of hatching, variation of line weights and degrees of transparency.
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The Mouth
charcoal on paper, 36” × 24” 2011, Advanced Drawing
My goal for this piece was to show the “flesh-ness� of the human body. Of the lip and the tongue, a sharp contrast in tone and varied amount of details largely add to the recession of space. It delivers messages of tension and pain using the image of a mouth that threats to engulf everything.
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The Light Wall
charcoal on paper, 60” × 72” 2011, Advanced Drawing
Inspired by the gorgeous light effects in the interior of the Ronchamp Chapel, I aimed to create an imposing image that embodied an emotion of longing and hope. Taking the interior openings of the chapel as my subject, I expanded the view and altered the perspectives to intensify the surrealistic tension. The dramatic interplay of the extreme light and shade creates a transcendental space that calls for a spiritual response associated with the concept of sublime.
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