Design Port folio
GRACE LEE
2011-2014
Transformation I am fascinated with abstract art becoming something substantial and ideal, becoming architecture. I believe that architecture is an interdisciplinary subject, an art form through which politics, philosophy, literature, ecology, and urban studies filter. As a visual thinker, I use mockups and sketches to learn effective craftsmanship, design, and presentation. The design process has also helped me develop a new approach to my studies creatively and rationally, to no longer think of prompts and solutions as just linear cause and effect.
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rendered in 1914. Cubism is conceptual form of art, and i subjectivity. It breaks away from from the expected, and reestab
ow a wall to share a line with a pillar, with a tree. zeway from the home to the office, establisher, a tension is presented by the pillars, which do the home or the office. It disturbs the flow in the own grid system, overlaying it with the original. orest on the site are taken out to make room for
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Paper Quilt
Intro to Architecture Spring 2012 Media: Paper, bristol board Dimensions: 5” x 5” Twelve 1” squares cut out from a magazine photograph
The twelve 1” squares are glued onto another image with 0.25” spacing
Twelve 0.5” squares are cut out from the centers and put aside
Nine 1” squares are cut out in a group
The nine 1” squares are reordered, rotated, and a line is glued on each
A 0.5” border and twelve 0.5” squares are glued down
Nine 0.5” squares are cut out from the centers
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An abstract mixed media project, the Paper Quilt used magazine clippings to form a collage. Through improvised steps, a pattern formed from squares of various sizes. This finished 5x5 inch 2-D version was very different from the architecture models we had been doing, and was the first time that an architectural investigation took on the form of 2-D mixed media.
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Mockup #1
The 3-D design was a direct transformation of the 2-D Paper Quilt, taking each of its layers apart. I began with sketches, but very quickly moved onto doing 3-D mockups of the piece’s corners. The small details of the collage made the mockup process very messy and intricate, so I learned to move onto a new mockup as soon as it was apparent that the design was not working. I began exploring the idea of having the different layers mirror each other such that the bottom half concaved in, like Medium: Cardstock, bristol board Dimensions: 5” x 5” x 1”
Mockup #2
Mockup #3
having it restart its pattern all over again. A silhouette continued at different levels, and one pattern continued throughout the piece at two different levels. Every layer became a different color and at a different level so that it could be pulled apart before the observers’ eyes. After I finalized my design, assembly became easier because I understood my own plan thoroughly. I started gluing pieces together within the nine individual squares, pieced within the concaved frame, and finally fitted the whole center into the border frame.
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Sketch #1
As it was my first still-life drawing experience, I spent a considerable amount of time putting down quick sketches to plan out the page. I learned to use pens of varying weights to create a sense of depth with decisive strokes. I was very uncomfortable doing freehand drawings, as I had to use intuition and look for negative spaces to determine proportions.
Sketch #2
Sketch #3
Sketch #4
Forms and Spaces
Sam Fox Architecture Discovery Program Summer 2013 Media: Ink on bristol board Dimensions: 18� x 24�
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Great Bamboo Wall
Advanced Architecture II Winter 2012 Media: Cardstock, museum board, basswood, clay, wire Dimensions: 7” x 15.5” x 5” The Great Bamboo Wall was constructed as one of a series of sustainable and eco-friendly houses designed by Asian architects along the Great Wall of China. I was interested in this house due its location in Beijing, its emphasis on sustainability, and the influences of Chinese and Japanese culture. I didn’t have accessto many technical plans or elevations, and thus had to rely on photographs and sketches to determine the interior. I built a series of mockups, each more complex and detailed than the last. It was also the first time that I constructed a natural landscape, as the Great Bamboo Wall was designed to appear natural and to leave the landscape intact.
Mockup #1
Mockup #2
Mockup #3
Mockup #4
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Walsh House
Mockup #1
Immediately following my study of the Great Bamboo Wall, I began investigating the Walsh House, a minimalist structure in Telluride, Colorado designed by John Pawson. This was the first assignment for which I was to independently decide which materials to use, in order to translate and convey the spirit of pure minimalism. Therefore, I experimented with different color schemes and paints. Emphasis was put on craftsmenship and aesthetics, which I strived to make impeccable.
Advanced Architecture II Winter 2012 Media: Cardstock, museum board, basswood, paint Dimensions: 7” x 2.5” x 3”
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Walsh + Bamboo House Fusion
Advanced Architecture II Winter 2012 Media: Cardstock, museum board, basswood Dimensions: 7” x 2” x 2.5”
This house was designed with the influences of the Great Bamboo Wall, but preserving the interior of the Walsh House. Bamboo-covered walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a flat, double room had to be reconciled with the setting of Colorado. This project went beyond adaptation, requiring a purposeful transformation of the essence of an Asian influence to compliment western minimalism.
Second floor
First floor
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Wagner House and Addition Intro to Architecture Fall-Winter 2011 Media: Museum board, basswood, wire, cardstock Dimensions: 12” x 12” x 4”
The Wagner House was the first architecture model I had built, an experience that introduced me to learning through the simple act of making. An architecture model is only efficient if the viewer feels transported to the space, which means that any craftsmenship errors will act as a distraction. Through this simple cabin in Vermont, I learned how to read plans and elevations, make mockups, and build a clean structure.
Site plan
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East
Using the specific dimensions given, I was to build an addition to supplement the original Wagner House. I designed eight mockup floor plans, finding it difficult to provide a flow of movement while also considering space efficiency. It was the first time that I began to look at other structures for inspiration, such as floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that also doubled as a wall.
North
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West
South
Wagner Revisited
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Advanced Architecture III Spring 2014 Media: Presentation board via Photoshop and InDesign Dimensions: 24” x 36”
Following the idea of transformation, I transposed the elements of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion to the site of the Wagner House. As the Pavilion was built in 1929 in Europe, its political, philosophical, and sociological undertones would no longer be relevant today and had to be updated to reflect modern society.
Translation of Patterns
Sam Fox Architecture Discovery Program Summer 2013 Media: Ink on paper; graphite on bristol board Dimensions: 4” x 6”; 18” x 24”
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The first project of the Washington University in St. Louis Pre-College Architecture Discovery Program asked me to create a small postcard that expressed my interests and personality. I submitted an overlay of a photograph of the Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland under one of my favorite quotes, from sociologist Jane Addams. When I arrived at the program, I was asked to derive a pattern from it. However, some limitations were set. There had to be at least seventy-five lines drawn continously across the page in various weights and three 2.5” squares in the middle of the page. Any time a line hit a square, the line’s weight had to change within the square, providing contrast. I decided to construct three quadrilaterals of decreasing size but increasing line weight. This was a representative and abstract simplification of the depth and size of the castle and bridge which dominate the postcard.
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Identical Spaces Medium: Bristol board Dimensions: 2(2.5” x 2.5”)
For the second project in this series, I was to create a pair of identical 2.5” cubes that capitalized on the essence of the first project. In scale, the cubes were to represent identical 10’ structures that, even when flipped on another side, could allow someone to move from one space across to the other. I was not allowed to subtract forms, but only to modify through cutting, scoring, and folding. I used quadrilaterals openings to be utilized to be openings (doors) and skylights, with the foldings to be overhangs and interior structures.
Plan
Elevation
Section
Abstract Mutations 13
Media: Graphite on bristol board Dimensions: 18” x 24”; 9” x 12”
The next step was to show the cubes’ flattened net, using unbroken lines to show cuts and dashed lines to show folding. I was also required to draft plans, elevations, and sections of the identical cubes. This was my first experience using different line weights to communicate depth in architectural drawings. The elevations, sections, and plans were copied at 100%, 200%, and 400% magnification. I combined and overlayed one version at each size to create a new drawing. I used a plan at 100%, an elevation at 200%, and a section at 400%. The result was a complicated pattern made up of varying line weights, which were then translated to a 3-D structure in the next step.
In the last part of the series, I used basswood sticks of varying thicknesses to build a 3-D topographical structure from the previously-derived pattern. I built concavities to symbolize a natural landscape, including a metaphor for running water with a bridge over it leading right into the structure. The architecture was built into the topography, once again using quadrilaterals to create skylights and openings.
Topography and Space Medium: Basswood Dimensions: 9” x 12” x 4”
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