Yongxiao Liu Portfolio
NO 1. DETROIT MUSEUM HIGH + LOW Student Work: UG3, Fall, 2011 Instructor: Tony Patterson What is seen in Detroit is a broken balance of highs and lows. The concentrated and isolated housing, the high-rises of the central commercial districts and the popular recreational centres, are separated from each other, making the city fragmented.
Original Programs
The site environment, on the contrary, is exceptionally rich in its contents of both old and new, density and scarcity, popular and the less attended. The design for a museum deals with different programs and issues such as education, digital media arts, live/work artists residences and general residence, all these different programs make the museum complicated, yet at the same time provide great opportunities.
Housing
The organization of the museum follows the mixing idea by vertically alternating the highs and lows (in terms of popularity of each level), dark and bright, art and residence, etc. To maximize the experience of visitors as well as a response for the site.
There are three special spaces inside the museum: the public graffiti exhibition entry level, the dark digital media art level and the open sculpture level up high.
Studio
Office/
Admin
Organization of programs
Teens Support
The organization of programs follows the principle of alternation and differentiation, Galleries while there is a general division between the residential and the arts exhibition area. Although a simple stacking project, the relationship between each floor is carefully calibrated to maximize the contrast and the Digital Media experience.
Restaruant Entry
Vertical Redistribution
Horizontal Redistribution
Spatial interaction
Spatial Integration
West Elevation HIGH + LOW DENSE + SCARCE NEW + OLD
1. Space and skin (Charcoal on Bristol 24" x 6"): The skin extends into the architecture, creating a pattern of the exterior, at the same time forming space sthat to enable interaction and perform as rooms and partitions.
2. Ramps from above (Charcoal on Bristol 24" x 6"): 1
2
3
The structure of the ramps from the upper level are exposed to the lower level, and it is meandering around the central circulation core.
3. Entry level Graffiti exhibition hall (Charcoal on Bristol 24" x 6"): As one of the special elements of the museum, the space embraces one of the characters of Detroit, allowing graffiti artists to create their works on the provided artboards in the museum during opening hours. The artboards are meant to be painted from the inside so it maintains the clarity of the fasade at the same time creating a sense of playfulness and mystery looking from the outside.
NO 2.
BRIDGING THE GAP
Student Work: UG2, Winter, 2011 Instructor: Caroline Constant
As a public library in Detroit, Michigan, this project aims at bridging the gap between the residential area to the east and the park to the west of Woodward Avenue, which should have functioned as a recreational spot for the residential community, but now seperated by the boulervard. This library is envisioned less as a container for information but more as a means to encourage the public to engage its social and cultural opportunities through its internal and external spatiality. Three primary volumes each have a distinct orientation and thrust, as if expressing the desire to embrace the world beyond. On the interior each volume contains discrete programmatic elements that are mediated through the spatial continuum and visibility across gaps between the levels. On the uppermost floor a more relaxing reading area allows views both within the building and outward to the park, echoing the internal arrangement of book stacks that extend outward from the rift that separates the trays of the three primary volumes.
bookstacks Organization The organization of the book stacks strengthens this relationship by radial alignment, pointing into the center, and pointing to the outside. The organization of the book stacks is acknowledging the center as well as bringing attention to the outside and letting people appreciate the great landscape of the public park.
4
Entry Level Plan
16 0
32
The two entries, of both importance, are trying to bring visitors coming from different directions. The openning is addressing the park, which should have been provided more attention to, but now is left in oblivion. Slowing down the passing traffic is really the key in directing the generation of plans and massing.
Interlocking The library consists of three interlocking massings, all are set at a different level so that they provide visual and spatial connections that guide visitors from bottom to the top. The geometry of the void in the middle follows the geometry of the massing, creating a greater tension between the three volumes, at the same time providing enough space in be3 tween for a triple-height central core.
1. View from across the street 2. Book Stack Organization 3. Roof Garden 4. Entrance View
3
1
2
4
NO 3.
SEE BEYOND
Student Work: UG4, Winter, 2012 Honorably Mentioned in the 2012 Wallenburg Competition Instructor: Ellie Abrons THIRD LEVEL
See Beyond is a children's museum of digital media arts. The project seeks an architecture that we know by touch, rather than by sight. Using material changes that are hidden from view, low light levels, and light projection to dematerialize surfaces, it reinforces and makes aware the power of touch through an exploratory occupation of space. The project is organized on three levels, connected by a continuous staircase. The floor slabs are covered by a layer of white, elastic material that conceals the varied underlying structures and textures, giving way to the pressure of footsteps and the touch of the hand to reveal the materials beyond. The elastic material allows for the creation of a smooth space that eliminates the hard boundaries of edges and objects; thus producing ambiguity in size, scale, and direction. The minimizing of the surface and the maximizing of the underlying layers produces an unexpected space and calls attention to the ways that the quality of experience can be different from how a space appears.
SECOND LEVEL
The material exploration of density, softness, hardness, decay, and smoothing studies the relationships between those materials and architectural elements such as stairs, openings, and pathways. In addition, the project questions how these various material qualities can be leveraged to alter the way people usually conceive of the architectural interior, and to explore a way of occupying architecture, space, and activities with renewed insight.
Seeing the Plan Understanding of the plan can only be possible when looking at both its superficial surface and the embedded surface. As the latter is disguised by the former, it produces a spacial experience that is conveyed by "touching" and "feeling" rather than "seeing" the architectural interior.
ENTRY LEVEL
0
10
20
30 ft
Material study models 1. Floor finish, beyond 2. Fiber strands 3. Polyester fill
1
4 Diagrams 4. Incontinuous surface, beyond 5. Soft and hard mateiral 6. Light and flexible surface
Key symbols 2
5
Floor/ wall finish, beyond Polyester fill
Sand
Tactile experience
3
6
Projected sufrace
CONCRETE SLAB
Surface / Detail / Discovery "There are no Details"
-- Paul Rudolf
Design of interior of this project is about discovery: the generity of the interior was on one hand reduce the vision to the minimun, but to create refined details on the other hand. The generic white is composed of fibers that naturally merge into walls and floors, and are perceived as a vague "clouds" from a distance. The architectural interior surface is then discovered as the visitors move from distant to close, and see it from a whole to different parts. The interior also serves to shift the visitors' attention from vision to senses, suggesting the possibility and power of "touch" and "feel" by constructing the path beneath the "cloudy" surface. And by doiong this, the children's museum becomes one that is to be touched, interacted and explored, rather than one that is to be apprieciated visually.
SPOTLIGHT/ PROJECTOR
SPANDEX CONE
PROJECTOR
2 5
CONNECTIONS FOR FIBER STRANDS
FIBER STRANDS
FINISH CONCRETE SLAB, BEYOND
Longitudinal Section STRUCTURAL CONCRETE SLAB
CONCRETE SHELL
7’
1
5’ - 4”
4
7’
3
Detail Section 2
Cross Section
SPOTLIGHT/ PROJECTOR
penetrate through, creating a foggy, ambiguous atmousphere.
Each indivudual of the composite fiber is composed of a few single fiber strand, and by which way it allows the form to shrink or spand. Also, it allows light to diffuse and penetrate through, creating a foggy, ambiguous atmousphere.
SPANDEX CONE
The detailed material section moves a step further to show the quality of the surface and address the sence of "touch". The understanding of the experience now completes its journey from the large scale (architecture, form), the middle scale (sections, plans), and finally to the small scale (material quality).
END CONNECTION
FIBER STRANDS 2’ - 6” 5 ‘ - 6”
CONCRETE WALL
POLYESTER POLY FILL
Detail Section 1 CONCRETE SLAB
LAYERS OF FIBER STRANDS FINISH CONCRETE SLAB, BEYOND CONCRETE SHELL OPENINGS FOR PROJECTION FIBER STRANDS SPOTLIGHT/ PROJECTOR
CONCRETE WALL
1/2 “ CONCRETE FLOOR FINISH
SAND
SPANDEX CONE
THREADED ANCHOR INSERT
END CONNECTION
J - ANCHOR
PROJECTOR
CONNECTIONS FOR FIBER STRANDS
Detail Section 4
Material section 5
NO 4.
TOWER OF THE CITY
Student Work: UG1, Fall, 2011 Instructor: Sean Vance
As a museum displaying the history and culture of Ypsilanti, Michigan, and being located in the less populated district, the focus of the project is to establish the marker of the area, preserving and inheriting the history of Ypsilanti while letting people go up and appreciate the beauty of the entire region. The project focuses on the inter-relationship of different programs to each other; namely, the space of observation, the space of motion and the space of rest, and how these spaces collaborate and define the building and vice versa. As a result, the effort is to explore the very basic quality of spaces. A key concept for this project is the relationship between "travel"and "rest". The space of motion is entangled withthe space of observation, each of which provides the visitors a unique perspective to the landscape. The other side, the "rest", is located at a rather solemn and retrospective double-height space that provides not only a physical space to rest, but also a space for meditation.
Site / Circulation The site is located within the historic district in the town next to a public park, and close to the farmer's market, which provides a rich cultural background that contributes to the building's role as a museum of the history of Ypsilanti. Because of the infill condition of the site, the architecture finds a way to engage the neighboring building as well as the alleyway, creating a semi-exterior space that can either function as a passage or a shelter.
Depot station (historic)
Frog Island Park
Vehicular traffic Pedestrian traffic train track (historic)
3f
Longitudinal section
2f
Cross section
Plans
1f
Travel / Meditation Exploring the history of a city is a travel of mind. Looking at the history of any place is a travel through time and so it is true for Ypsilanti. The travel is about moving and seeing. As circulation meanders up, there are moments of observation where the view of the town gives people a broader map of the city as a helpful hint to understand the history of the town. “Meditation“ , in the higher, more divine space that gives you time to think about what you have seen and what you have felt, a stop at halfway of the journey.
Observation
"Travel"
Rest Motion
Wall of Surveyor
Wall of city
Wall of Books
"Meditation"
NO 5.
TENSILE STRUCTURE Vertex hub
Student Work: Special topics -- Gimme Shelter Instructor: William Shaun Jackson
The idea of the project is to define "shelter" through the eye of the manufacturer. Consideration of the detail and manufacturing process is therefore extremely important. The project made use of a variation of manufacturing tools including the ZUND knife-cutter, industrial sewing machine, punching machine for better details, as well as the digital tools such as rhinoceros, grasshopper for a closer simulation. The wisdom lies in the flexible thoughts of both designers and an engineer to consider aesthetics, details, functionalities at the same time.
Webbings
Seam detail
The final project is made of combination of two fabric types with variation of colors. Its shape is thoughtfully considered in a digital format and carefully manufactured through professional manufacturing tools in order to come up a more industrial and modern design that goes beyond design but has the potential to be a mass-produced commercial product.
Zipper detail
Clamp detail
Prototype Design The preliminary design used rhino and grasshopper to create a digital model that predict the final form and a scale model to see further adjust according to the approximate shape. This step ensure the final shape to be exactly what the designer thought about.
Parts of detailing Assemblies
NO 6.
Representations and Parametric Design
This section is about other representational projects which I have done in the school. The point of the projects are mainly about my techniques of translating ideas to a 2D surface or 3d volumes. THe drawings are mainly done in graphic softwares such as photoshop and illustrator, or in 3d modeling softwares and parametric modeligs software such as rhino and grasshopper.
Architectural Representation project -- Mesh-Up
Parametric Design Project -- Grasshopper Forming Process
Yongxiao Liu Portfolio