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Academic Experience
A Flatiron City
Prof. Pablo Lorenzo Eiroa New York, USA Urban Studies City Structure and Fabric 2014 Fall Design Studio Independent work The Cooper Union
The aim of the urban studio is to explore critical relationships between the city, the urban fabric and the building type. City: New York Building: The Flatiron Building Structure: Urban Blocks interrupted by the Broadway i The first step is to identify the flatiron building as an interesting building type in tension with the structure of the New York city. ii Explore relationships between this type of interruption and the fabric in a larger city area; understand systematically the reasons of its emergence and its variation range within extreme opposite conditions. iii Out of this exploration, construct an architectural site boundary that presents the transition between urban fabric and urban object.
Mahattan Urban Gird is featured by the linearity and right angles of Midtown where there is little distinction between streets and property is equally distributed among every block. Yet the location where the diagonal orientation of Broadway intersects with the north-south avenues and east-west streets created Union Square, Madison Square, Herald Square, Times Square, and Columbus Circle, etc. These places accommodate automobiles, but do not allow them to dominate, thus creating a much more enjoyable city for people to inhabit.
72 St 66 St - Lincoln Center 59 St - Columbus Circle
42 St - Times Sq
34 St - Herald Sq
14 St - Union Sq
8th St - Astor Pl
Canal st. & Bowery
Urban fabric is the physical aspect of urbanism, emphasizing building types, thoroughfares, open space, frontages, and streetscapes but excluding environmental, functional, economic and sociocultural aspects. A building type takes it origin from the urban fabric but also influenced by the zoning, the location, and other aspects.
When a diagonal line interrupts into a grid spatial system, varies public space emerge at the intersection, where the buildings can have a bonus FAR and are much higher than the surrounding area. As a result, a typical Broadway skyscraper Landscape is created as the drawings above.
Flatiron Building Known for its triangular design at the intersection of 5th Ave and Broadway, the Flatiron Building's iconic presence has transformed an entire area of Manhattan into the Flatiron District. One of the most interesting aspects of the Flatiron Building is that its design accentuates the triangular site, which is due to its acute angel at 5th and Broadway that creates the cornered condition; the northern vertex of the building is only 6.5 feet ( 2m ) wide.
Typology and Topology Study In terms of the problematic relationship between typology and topology, type is explored as a problem in itself. Its origin and range of variation should be understand. Its genealogy should be constructed parametrically, distinguishing degree change from structural change.
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6 Parametric models are created to illustrate the process. The site should be an architectural construction and not only a delimitation, recognizing where these building types emerge taking to an urban-scale level the thesis of the analyzed question, tracing relationships between the type and the city. 1, 2, 3 Structural variation from one urban object (a building) to a urban fabric. 4, 5 Structural variation from one urban object (a building) to one urban fabric and gradually transformed into several urban fabrics. 6 Structural variation from one urban object (a building) to a urban fabric. With rotation and overlapping, new urban typology emerges.
GIS, Layered City Data, Big Data Mapping= Data + Representation The Design Phase also consists of integrating GIS to the urban analysis. First, the studio started pairing innovative techniques with the exploration of architectural problems. The main issue will be resisting the separation between data as information content and drawing as representation. We tried to study how layered information can be explored within a precise form, proposing an idea, an aesthetic for each independent formal configuration analyzed, so that the form of exploration may induce also conclusions to the data explored.
FAR allowance Hurricane vulnerability Flood vulnerability Mapping of the Grid Density
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Second, the studio tried working out layered connections and relationships among the different data sets. Layered information will interact, react and accumulate with and to each other, relating across city and environment, exploring the totality of the territory as a single condition. Third, the studio worked directly with Big Data sets and digital simulation, mapping out statistically the relationship between the form of our sites and how they produce, deviate, configure existing dynamic situation. This part of the exercise is aim to suspend structuralist thinking in relation to the set of dynamic conditions that we will be dealing with real time. 1,2,3,4 Digital Stimulation of the Hudson river and East river, layered with the Mapping of the Flood vulnerability and the New York Urban Grid
A Convent for 5
Prof. Compo Baeza Washington DC, USA 2012 Walton Critic Sacred Space and Cultural Studies Independent work Two weeks design This studio explores advanced ideas of architectural design as related to the Sacred Space and Cultural studies graduate concentration. A rural convent is a pedagogical vehicle to study the spiritual, cultural, and embodied dimensions of architecture. The studio hosted 2012 Walton Critic Alber to Campo Baeza for 3 weeks in DC.
The Convent is conceived as a light long rectangle that points to the river. From the river to the land, the function changes from scared use to daily use. The closest area to the water is the Chapel and the entry yard is in the middle. The furthest area to the river is a private yard that accommodate monk's private use.
The convent has always been a key topic in Architecture. From Le Corbusier's La Tourette to Louis Kahn's Dominican Sister Convent, Barragan's Convento de las Capuchinas, or Van der Laan's St.Benedictine Abbey, the convent as a program and building type has provoked new architectural models. The reason may be found in the fact that a convent is like a city homothety: a complex organism with cells, chapel, refectory, deambulatory, library, grove and services, where we can recognize the same elements that of a small town.
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Lower level
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Chapel Refectory Library Cells Services
The Chapel becomes a special exploration of sacred space and light. The Studio try to create a space with a clear sacred character, a space capable of suspending time, where we inquire about light, shadows, proportion and scale. Enormous tests of the relationship of light, water and space were done during the design process. Solid light can only be taken in when the architecture is oriented towards the south so as to receive the light as it pours in, almost perfectly apportioned. It is this southern, solid, dramatic, poured light that produces the spectacular effects. In the same way, diffuse light will normally be taken in by orienting the architecture towards the north to obtain a serene and peaceful, reflected and diffuse light. The light that produces restful, calming effects.
Process study: The Maximum of light is emphasised by the maximum shadow.
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Chapel
Hui Folk art Museum
Prof. Zao Li Hefei city, Anhui, China 2010.3-2010.6 Independent work Hefei University of technology
Located in Hefei city, the capital of the Anhui Province, the Hui Fork art museum is to demonstrates Anhui's great Hui Culture heritage. In the design research the traditional Hui architecture is explored. The Design process takes its cues from a rich vocabulary of the tradition. And these elements have been reinterpreted and synthesized into a new language and organization, one that is contemporary and forward looking. "When Architect tries to return to tradition, the search for identity is always ahead of us." Renzo piano, Tjibaou Cultural Center
Huizhou is a mountainous region in the south of Anhui province. Clusters of grey-tiled and white-walled houses can be found here, forming the most typical scene captured in traditional Chinese landscape paintings. These elements encapsulated the famous Hui-style architecture. The array of Hui-style architecture, built with black tiles and white walls, surrounded by high walls shaped like horse heads (for fire proofing), and harmonized with refined and elegant colors, brings us a strong sense of beauty. The village follows a self-organized pattern, which creates dramatic experience of different scales and space. Including bridges, streets, lane, alleys, pool, squares, gardens, and courtyard.
Three Boxes on Water A reflect pool is carved from the site. The exhibition space is expected to divide into three boxes that float above the water. Space diversity will be gained through further division.
Transformation Iterations
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Volume One to Three Interstitial connectors
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Space subdivision Space substraction
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Space substraction Skylights for indirect northern light
Resulting sectional conditions
AM 12
Prof.Dave Lee Greenville, SC Architectural installation 2012 Spring Seminar Design Technology Team Work Clemson University
AM 12, as the tensile fabric installation for Greenville Architecture week, is our final project for design and computation class. Grasshopper, Kangaroo and Rhinos the main software during the design process. I worked on physical models and computations. The installation took 20 hours for assembly
Supplies: -
thin string or fishing line white pantyhose sharpie scissors exacto knife foam core small alligator clips
A tensile structure is a construction of elements carrying only tension and no compression or bending, which are the most common type of thin-shell structures. In order to test the performance of a material with elastic properties as an example, an analog computing model is created.
Sectional View Kangaroo is a live physics engine for interactive simulation, optimization and form-finding directly within Grasshopper. Within the assistant of kangaroo in Rhino platform in the 3D space, an tensile structure is created by configure several points in the site.
Plan
Professional Experience
Super Cloud City
Shenzhen, China Shenzhen Bay Super City International Competition Team Work Director: Sun Wong Lee 2013 M Moser Associates
Shenzhen is located in the south of Guangdong, China, facing Hong Kong across the river and its GDP, ranked the fourth amongst cities in Mainland China for years. Areas surrounding the Shenzhen Bay will become the most important section in the broader area of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Shenzhen Bay will be the power house for Shenzhen, inspiring the city to be one of the best in the world. The main content for the competition is urban and architectural design plans for the central area of the Super Headquarters. The scope of the design covers all land plots encircled by the red line and the surrounding roads and the park. It is planned that 35.2 hectares of land will be used with a building area of 1.5-1.7 million square meters. As a world-class city center Shenzhen attempts to build, it pursues to play the same role as La Defense to Paris and Canary Wharf to London.
Super Cloud City The Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base The Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base will focus on building the top headquarter offices for industries, supplementing it with functions such as venues for international conferences, exhibitions and cultural and art programs. The overall structure for the super headquarters will be one Cloud City Center, two featured streets and a few three-dimensional city groups. The Cloud City Center, as the core of the headquarters functions crucial to the area's ecology and the intelligence and energy it aims to embody, is the priority and forefront of the construction. This notice solicits globally creative design plans with an international perspective based on its existing planning that includes three landmark towers, two land plots for cultural facilities and a central park.
Super Cloud City A City for thrive Where nature and high-technology come together to create a new dynamic and sustainable lifestyle with premiere social, cultural, and business opportunities. The Shenzhen Cloud City Master Plan weaves the urban fabric with natural elements, connecting and expanding the mountainous hinterlands to the north with the magnificent Hau Hoi Bay to the south. As observed from the sea, the new Cloud City rises from its natural context like a beacon, creating a shining new paradigm for urban living where super-tall structures open up and shelter large expanses of public green space.
从机场方向 - From Airport 从深圳市中心方向 - From Shenzhen Town Center
We imagined the tall buildings as communication hubs, great hives of human activity that would then ripple out through the surrounding landscape like the ripples spreading out from a single pebble dropped into in a pond. The ripples from each tower bump into one another, reform, rebound, redirect themselves and the recombine in a myriad of ways. Nature flows through, in, around, intertwines, and integrates the new man-made environments while forming a direct connection from the sea through the city to the mountains beyond. The fluid movement of the natural, horizontal design elements truly anchors the "Cloud City" to its regional context while encouraging a multitude of movements and experiences, expressing the dynamism of human interaction.
At 'Cloud City' the automobile and mass transit vehicles are kept away from pedestrians on separate lower levels. The Central Eco-Park was conceived as a 'roof' on which people can roam freely alongside human-powered vehicles, without having to compete with gasoline or electric powered forms of transportation. Openings for light and ventilation periodically penetrate down to the levels for cars, buses, and trains, providing views and adding interest, but it's the human scale that's the basis for the design of the interconnecting 'green roof'.
The iconic Tower 1 is planned as a 'Vertical City', composed around a series of 'Sky Gardens'. These green atria in the clouds connect, organize, and refresh multiple floor plates. The Design Team took into account the requirements and regulations set forth in the Chinese GB Codes in planning each floor plate for disabled access, emergency egress, fire control, and life safety. Each floor plate is rationally planned to efficiently support a variety of typical and special functions including open and enclosed offices, meetings, conference, hotel, dining, and leisure activities. The top of the tower contains an Observation and Viewing Deck open to the public.
External skin study
I was responsible for exploring several options for the external skin, including a unitized, hexagonal glass panel system. The hexagonal panels also allowed the towers and undulating roofs below to have the soft curves of our inspiration: the unique mountain ranges of mainland China. As with the triangular panels, the interior surface of the exterior glass skin will have a series of glass ceramic frits that will be arranged to minimize solar gain and glare. The patterns of these frits will be modified and optimized as per data from building energy models.
We try to optimize the skin pattern by the point attractors. The distance between the attractor and the openings influence the opening' size. Thus, we can adjust the openings in the western part relatively small and also get a gradually changing pattern on the whole skin system.
Distinctive multi-use structures rise with the dramatic and graceful arcs of a Chinese Mountain Landscape, creating a stunning canvas for the art of living. Intertwined and interconnected, these technologically advanced structures ingeniously coexist, shelter, and support the organic, natural, human-scaled settings planned at the ground plain. Central Eco-Park supports, enhances, and activates the residential, business, social, artistic, and cultural life at the heart of the city.
Site Section
STRUCTURAL SYSTEM Dual structure system is adapted. Central Core and 8 MEGA COLUMNs along outer perimeter serves as principle vertical load bearing elements. The CORE and COLUMNS are composite concrete members inserted with steel profiles and plates. Outrigger Truss of 2 story height located 9 MEP zones are employed as lateral force taking structure, which interconnects the core structure and mega columns. The transition of core are made with by sleeves to ensure the wall of the core are continuous for the core at high zone. The Tower Top is made is 8 truss rooting from Mega Columns and interlinked to a shell structure.
Tower 1 Thick, steel reinforced concrete walls surround the building core containingWQWW emergency stairs, banks of personnel, goods, and fire-fighting elevators, toilets as well as mechanical and electrical service rooms. A structural steel outrigger system is proposed to extend the floor plates out from the steel reinforced concrete cores to the undulating glass curtain-wall facade.
Tower 1 Vertical Ciculation and Core
Alvoe Love
Manila, Philippines Master Plan Multi-tower residential area Team Work Intern Architect Responsible for Physical model Diagram, 3D modeling, Master Plan Axon drawing and townhouse design CAZA Architects Principal. Carlos Arnaiz
Located on the quiet border of the Ortigas Business District, Project Love is envisioned to be a 3-hectare multi-tower residential enclave with a destination retail space intended to provide artisanal products and essential services. With Architecture that has a simple understated charm, Project Love is a contemporized mix of rich architectural character inspired by traditional European elements and old New York's brownstone architecture. It is a simplified approach on Neoclassical and Beaux Arts architecture.
Massing Studies
Tower Massing Studies
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1. Site 2. Multiplying into a Network of MoMa Courtyards 3. Multiple Degrees of Connectivity, Intimacy, and Porosity
Townhouse Organization Overview
Site Section
Others Objects, Photography and Sketches
The Estranged Objects
The Estranged Objects
Prof. Michael Young 2014 Fall Design Seminar The Cooper Union
The disciplines of Architecture find itself currently at a juncture regarding digital technology. The shift to a digital mediation has unleashed some rather strange qualities into our architecture world, qualities well worth looking longer at. The studio focuses on the definition of strange. Strange is defined as a tension between a real object and its sensuous qualities. As such, it begins to suggest a rupture between conceptual and sensorial aspects within the intent and reception of design. The Quality of Strange 1. Foreign: different from what is usual, normal, or expected 2. Unfamiliar: not known, heard, or seen before 3. Weird: not entirely comfortable or well The Process 1. The Defamiliarize 2. The Bashed Object 3. The Glitch Test 4. Delicate Variation 5. Biological Geometry
Photography
From Left to Right Parthenon Temple, Acropolis of Athens View from Temple of Hephaestus 6 BC, Greece Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence Filippo Brunelleschi 14 AD, Italy Gardens of Versailles, Paris Andr茅 Le N么tre 17 AD, France Barcelona pavilion Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 19 AD, Spain
Traveling Sketches
http://www.heatherzhang.com/
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