Academic & Interests
Spring 2021
Francesca Dong
M.Arch | University of Pennsylvania
P O R T F O L I O
timeline
table of contents
26
02
Carnival float
Catching Celebration
Urban Connector
Gossamer
08
Community Health Center
foliageLAB
Artiact Mixing Chamber
Lyrical Descension
22
14
Penn Museum Extension
Kaleidoscope
30 The Double House
conglomerate
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
Gossamer urban design challenge urban connector over the vine street expressway with special consideration for connectivity and community engagement
2021 / BLTa Student Design Challenge Philadelphia, PA With: Harsana Siva
Gossamer is an innovative urban revitalization project that breathes new life into a unique piece of Philadelphia with open air green spaces and increased connectivity. Gossamer creates a mixed-use district for pedestrians living near Rail Park by coalescing community space with sustainable recreational areas. Echoing the rail park's existing curvilinear language, Gossamer provides a seamless flow between an overpass transition across the Vine Street Expressway to the resilient hub of outdoor parks, retail shops, and contemporary tial apartments. The
sinuous webbing on the residential apartments mirrors the curving typology of the site, fusing the landscape to the architecture and creating a visual cohesion between the parks and the building facades. At the core of Gossamer's mission is its commitment to cultivate healthy, sustainable communities. Within the heart of the project is a Community Hub dedicated for sustainable community groups, starting with Sacred Seeds, to utilize and raise awareness about climate change for present and future generations. The outdoor parks
surrounding the Hub will be irrigated entirely from recycled rainwater, sustaining a microclimate on the overpass for plant species native to Pennsylvania. Our strategy is to design a haven for modern life, merging eco-friendly zones with large green spaces and parks, offering a space of recreation for nearby communities, as well as a respite from the high-density redevelopment around. Commercial program blends into public amenities to forge a multifaceted relationship between recreation, social interaction, community, and culture.
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
2
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
4
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
2021 | BLTa Student Design Challenge 2021 | Gossamer
0’
200’
340’
580’
6
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
foliageLAB urban design challenge community health center with thoughtful consideration of how economic, social, and environmental issues may positively affect comunity health
2021 / HOK Future Designs Competition Philadelphia, PA With: Harsana Siva
The challenge asks participants to design a community health center in the Mill Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia that provides localized clinical services for maternity health, urban open space, access to fresh, healthy food, and provides high-quality, affordable daycare. The Center needs to benefit diverse community members through a unified campus.
The Center is an interdisciplinary community space that seeks to nurture, engage, and connect community members in an environmentallyconscientious, vibrant space.. The Center will contain indoor pods that house maternal health patients in a calming, serene atmosphere with indoor foliage, creating a safe intermediary space for patients living in
the Mill Creek neighborhood. foliageLAB will engage the community by partnering with local Philadelphia artists, starting with Group X, to design interactive childrens' installations for the outdoor playground, part of a series of common spaces that are open to the public.
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
8
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
FARMER’S MARKET
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
BACK ENTRANCE
10
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
AXONOMETRIC
2021 | HOK Future Designs Competition | foliageLAB
SECTION
AXONOMETRIC
ELEVATION
12
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope archive & research extension an extension space that houses penn museum's extensive indigenous artifact collection while providing a public gateway to the museum
2020 / Academic Project Architectural Design 501 Studio Philadelphia, PA Professor: Vanessa Keith
Working exclusively with the Penn Museum, the 501 studio designed a museum extension that decolonizes Penn's role in systemic racism. The Museum's archive collection houses artifacts from indigenous people that suffered greatly from European colonization.The extension probes questions of public interface through its curation of artifacts for the 21st Century audience, as well as its physical presence in a rapidly expanding university campus. The site sits in the Stoner Courtyard of the Penn Museum and creates a unique opportunity to provide a public face to the typically withdrawn nature of the museum archive.
Reimagining the Penn Museum as a symbol of transparency, of community outreach, and of equitable learning, Kaleidoscope is an extension of the Penn Museum that houses Penn's indigenous artifacts. My goal is to help unfasten Penn's history of opression and dominance within West Philadelphia, encouraging a welcoming dialogue between the museum and the diverse communities within West Philadelphia. The glass in my building allows light to penetrate through the interior space and courtyard, illuminating the open areas in a warm glow. The glass is a symbol of academic transparency and retribution as the Museum works to undo
its problematic history of obtaining objects through colonization. The mirroring pool symbolizes the museum's profound reflection of past and present as it mirrors a beautiful dappled texture on the curvilinear walls of the museum exhibition space. My extension houses numerous cascading tunnels that circulate visitors throughout the space, from the entrance, to the subterranean exhibition spaces. Ultimately, Kaleidoscope seeks to educate the youth of West Philadelphia on its origins as a msueum, the history of the cultures it represents, and opportunities for children to get involved with archaeology and historic preservation in the future.
2020 2020| |Penn PennMuseum MuseumExtension Extension| |Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope
14
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
AXONOMETRIC
16
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
CROSS SECTIONAL ELEVATION
CROSS SECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
CHOISY DRAWING CHOISY DRAWING
18
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
STAIRWAY TUNNEL
2020 | Penn Museum Extension | Kaleidoscope
LEVEL 3 GALLERY SPACE
20
2020 | Mixing Chambers | Lyrical Descension
Lyrical Descension mixing chamber a designed container for the artifacts as curatorial devices, showcasing specific material culture attributes of each artifact by revealing, hiding and transposing certain features
2020 / Academic Project Architectural Design 501 Studio Philadelphia, PA Professor: Vanessa Keith
Reexamining the Penn Museum program and the notion of display through the lens of decolonization, we explored the relationship between the artifact as simultaneously precious physical construction and scanned digital simulacrum, as well as its deeper connection to acient and contemporary systems of meaning.. Lyrical Descension is an experiential mixing chamber of artifacts from the Hopi and Chiriqui Native American people. Each artifact is held in high regard to the culture of each tribe,
including the Katsina clown doll, a spirit that provides comedic relief during sacred katsina rituals for the Hopi people, the whistle, which serves as a musical component in Chiriqui rituals, and the Sow-ingwu Kachina doll that symbolizes the Hopi deer spirit which brings good harvest. Each artifact was initially placed in a container where their tribal significance resonates throughout the container through form and directionality. The final mixing chamber, titled Lyrical Descension is a
synergy of all three artifact containers. By extracting the essential DNA of all three containers, our mixing chamber fuses the Hopi Katsina legend with the lyricism of the Chiriqui whistle into a three-dimensional space. Through the utilization of materiality, rhythm, gravitational pull, and directionality, Lyrical Descension embodies the sacred Katsina dance rituals that occur within the Hopi spiritual realm.
2020 | Mixing Chambers | Lyrical Descension
EXPERIENTIAL RENDER
22
2020 | Mixing Chambers | Lyrical Descension
ELEVATION RENDER
MATERIAL STUDIES
2020 | Mixing Chambers | Lyrical Descension
PLAN CONTOUR
SECTION PERSPECTIVE
24
2021 | Schenck Woodman Competition | Catching Celebration
Catching Celebration juneteenth festival float carnival float that celebrates Black culture and heritage through the facilitation of dance
2021 / Academic Project Architectural Design 502 Studio Philadelphia, PA With: Oluwatosin Oomojola Wenjing You Hanfei Xiao
The 2021 Schenk Woodman is the launch of the Spring semester's 502 studio-wide counter-hegemonic carnival for the 52nd street corridor in Philadelphia where the Juneteenth festival and parade was recently relocated to. Considering the history of structural racism, police brutality, neo-liberal withdrawal of basic public services, Penntrification and relentless criminalization of West Philadelphia's Black community, we designed a float that can infect the public with revolutionary dreams, an architecture of temporary liberation for the Juneteenth celebration in West Philadelphia's 52nd street corridor. Staging a fictitious design collaboration with a
progressive activist organization of the city, floats will be demonstrations of world-making processes that defy the oppressive order of things; vehicles for building collective consciousness, raising social awareness and for spatial rebellion; performance and public discussion. An "Architecture of Temporary Liberation, our float celebrates West Philadelphia's Black communities through the integration of African dance and form. After the Juneteenth festival, our float will function as a permanent platform for community oactivism and political organization for the next six months. Performers on the float are encouraged to rearrange the colorful netting in
multiple orientations that facilitate their dance performance by creating customizable, intricate spaces.
2021 | Schenck Woodman Competition | Catching Celebration 2021 | Schenck Woodman Competition | Catching Celebration
26
2021 | Schenck Woodman Competition | Catching Celebration
MANUAL OF ASSEMBLY 3.
1.
2.
Screw rods with tires attached on bottom section of steel frame
1.
2. Construct base frame using steel wide flange beams
3. Screw PVC pipe platform frame perimeter together using two insertion points centrally located together
1.
2.
Screw PVC pipe platform frame perimeter together using two insertion points centrally located together
Screw PVC pipe platform frame perimeter together using two insertion points centrally located together
1.
2.
Platforms: metallic microlattice
Add supporting beams running across outlining frame
3. Fill frame and supporting beams with metallic microlattice to be encased and with a frosted glass spray finish
1.
Frame: PVC pipe 3
Tie rope onto the framework
Rope: solid braided nylon rope 1/8
Exterior Net: metal mesh curtain
2. String netting through long piece of rope to be tied at ends of PVC pipe
Platform Finish: frosted glass spray
2021 | Schenck Woodman Competition | Catching Celebration
28
2019 | The Double House | conglomerate
conglomerate double house a designed container for the artifacts as curatorial devices, showcasing specific material culture attributes of each artifact by revealing, hiding and transposing certain features
2018 / Academic Project Architectural Design 4.023 Studio Boston, MA Professor: Maya Shopova With: Kedi Hu
The Double House takes cues from the urban facric and historical context of Mission Hill by echoing the "double house" typology commonly seen in this uniquely residential neighborhood. Our plot of land rests on a historic hill, outcropping towards a physical and spiritual cornerstone in the neighborhood, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. While the double house unit typically exists in a stacked or adjacent format, this final project aims to expand the notion of the double with a radical alternative that hosts both long term and short term residents, along with a shared program that engages the broader public. conglomerate serves as a collective gathering
space for the public, as well as a private residence. Both residents and the public are invited to access the topmost layer of our house through a trail that continues from the foot of the hill upwards towards the top, leading to a manmade crater. The short term residen'ts access point is through this crater at the top of the hill. We looked at three attitudes of toward the rock: completing the form through an exterior building, extrusion of volumes out of the rock, and excavation of subterranean volumes. Rooms in the house are organized into two types of rocks - the conglomerate and the erratic. Rooms within the rock form part of the "conglomerate,"
while the large residence that intersects the existing rock at one corner in plan view emulates a glacial erratic. The stratified rooms inside the rock are modeled after sedimentary deposits over time.
2019 | The Double House | conglomerate
A
A
B
B
C
A
A
B
B
C
THIRD FLOOR
ROOF CONDITION
CRATER ELEVATION
30
2019 | The Double House | conglomerate
ELEVATION
MODEL OF EXCAVATED SITE MODEL ROCK OF AND EXCAVATED CRATER CONDITION GROUND AND CRATER CONDITION
2019 | The Double House | conglomerate
A
D
B
A
D
B
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
32
SECTION
SITE MODEL OF EXCAVATED ROCK AND GROUND LEVEL
A
B OTB
OTB
A
B
SECOND FLOOR PLAN
34
Francesca Dong MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE | UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
2021 fdong5@upenn.edu | 609-468-5405