HENRY JIAO
Architectural Design Portfolio 2015-2020
PERSONAL WORK p.4-11
M. Arch (Year 2) Theatre of the Everyday
p.12-17
M. Arch (Year 1) London Data Parishes
p.18-19
M. Arch (Thesis) Urbanism + Technology
p.20-23
Competition Framework for Housing
p.24-29
BA (Year 3) The Cinedrome
p.30-31
BA (Dissertation) The House that Cinema Built
p.32-33
BA (Year 2) Museum of the Moving Image
2020 | AA, Part II
THEATRE OF THE EVERYDAY Paris, France
Diploma Unit 5 Tutors: Umberto Napolitano (LAN)and Andrea Guazzieri (GFC-A) This unit was focused on the study of the theatre; both as an architectural and urban typology. My project poses the question: how can we make a spectacle of the everyday? I was drawn to Paris as it is incredibly vibrant and naturally voyeuristic; overflowing with everyday life. The city itself is theatrically themed - Haussmann’s bold boulevards (18531870) focus on views between monuments and are lined with facades composed like the décor of a stage. The sunken railway cuts of the same period, however, were left exposed and unfinished - in need of renovation despite having the highest visual exposure to traffic in and out of the city. I chose an unremarkable urban block sitting along this harsh edge of the city as a site. From studying the composition of contemporary theatres, I found that all contain two very clearly defined networks of public (grey) and actor (white) spaces. The public journey through the foyer – bar – through corridors – ending in a viewing area to see actors perform on a distinct stage. Instead, I placed the city as the actor – the context becoming the white acting space, looking at different degrees of public intervention to bridge the relationship between viewer and actor – from clearly defined to more blurred experiences. Exploding out from the space of the spectator, the theatre is dismantled to become an institution that frames life in new ways while rejuvenating and sustaining the activity of a city block. The importance of the traditional black box fades away into newfound territories where the public have the chance to see an array of performances but also to become spect-actors. Though this project began before the outbreak of Coronavirus, it grew within the midst of the global pandemic (theatre institutions becoming inaccessible). This extreme situation highlighted an increased need for informal spaces of expression – people applauding and performing on balconies; becoming actors viewed by the city. This project uses the activity and amusement of everyday life as a driver to rethink traditional theatre establishments.
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I looked for inspiration in plays, films, and novels that transform the spaces of the everyday: the romance and tension of the street – loneliness and mystery of hotel rooms - murder within the home – domestic claustrophobia – crime and passion in restaurants – and chronicles of office life. So while a traditional theatre peaks at its matiné and evening performance; by taking these daily spaces as new stages, activity is prolonged to 24 hours. Working into the existing conditions, I created a series of prosceniums along the railway framing the everyday life of several blocks. This opened up a theatrical promenade linking key theatre spaces of restaurant - large hall – workshop – vertical hall. All with a sense of monumentality responding to the scale, speed, and noise of the rail infrastructure. Forming a ‘plug-in’ jigsaw piece that ‘completes’ the site in response to its density. This initial stage splinters into more eccentric spaces deeper in the block with a final result of a program fragmented across a city block. This creates a gradient of theatricality from controlled rooms to more parasitic entities feeding on daily activity, establishing the moments that the theatre is an institution vs. when the theatre could be everywhere.
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2019 | AA, Part II
DATA PARISHES London, England
Diploma Unit 13 Tutors: Indy Johar, Joost Beunderman, Carlotta Conte, and Jack Minchella (Dark Matter Labs) The brief of this unit was to focus on near future challenges and engage with their real world consequences. Focusing on the rapid change and restructuring of London, with an emphasis on the institutional ‘dark matter’ lying underneath its physical urban fabric. The studio set out to produce a strong individual research foundation on which to develop a proposal. I began the year by looking at the increasing prevalence of ‘smart’ devices and the intersections of online and offline activity in the city. Focusing on how their accelerating generation of big data is introducing a largely unseen host of newly contested sovereignties and power struggles. I was also interested in the concepts of human farming and post-privacy. My research was largely based on mapping and understanding the systems that process data; a stack of: - Infrastructure (data centres, fibre optic aiicables, satellites, etc.) - Analytics (how information is stored and aiisorted, machine learning, and artificial aiiintelligence) - Applications (how information is transformed aiiinto a new use) - Interfaces (physical devices and screens / the aiiinternet of things) The understanding of these systems helped me to form a proposal that operated within the evolving mechanics of feedback loops. London acting as a testing ground for a reactive and proactive city. The result was a new civic infrastructure for London founded on computational analytics. This would replace the slow and siloed London borough council system to create a commons infrastructure of place based around user-centric data applications. The final building is formed of a data centre / agora hybrid to generate and manage services and discussion at the local level while forming a network to maintain an economy of scale at a city-wide level.
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Research Online worlds increasingly overlap and intersect with the ‘Offline’ analogue world - transforming citizens into resources of data that is analysed for predictive profit. There are currently two dominating forces in this postprivacy world: The USA and China. The U.S. presents a privatised panopticon that exploits its citizens with surveillance capitalism. One example is the developing Hilton smart hotel room striving for perfection in UX. China presents a state controlled system aimed at the mass-social engineering of its citizens. The recent introduction of ‘social credit’ scores has seen shocking new restrictions on the experience of the country for different individuals. Within each of these examples, tech companies play a large role in data gathering and policy changes, working autonomously or in combination with government systems. At the same time, the EU and UK have focused on campaigning for user rights; trying to throttle the use of personal data for smart applications. While these intentions are noble, there is currently a policy vacuum for dealing with computational analytics, with no supporting architecture for publicly beneficial applications. I hoped to begin to form a system to fill this void and use data to empower its users; learning from the many private and state applications emerging in the U.S. and China.
Data Protection Act
European Parliament General Data Protection Regulation Council of the EU
Federal Law USA PATRIOT Act Federal Trade Commission Act Financial Services Modernization Act Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Fair Credit Reporting Act Electronic Communications Privacy Act Judicial Redress Act
State Laws x50
Internet Information Content Management MLPS / Cybersecurity Multi-Level Protection CAC MPS MIIT
Critical Information Infrastructure Security Protection
Six Systems Personal Information and Important Data Protection
TC260 MIE
Network Products and Services Management
Cybersecurity Incident Management
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Proposal The proposal of new London data parishes aims to put power back into the hands of individuals. Dismantling the large inaccessible offices of the town hall, the proposal is a cloud-like data structure that introduces real-time analysis of boroughs and the city at large. Each building provides spaces for a feedback loop of data collection, analysis, testing applications, and discussion. Inviting the public to become the owners and stewards of civic data; discussing and developing socially beneficial applications. While a traditional borough system might tackle healthcare with the expensive and laborious process of building a new hospital; a data parish would facilitate the implementation of rapid-fire activities, environmental adjustments, social care, or other services focused on improving the health of an area. The applications generated could then be monitored and reviewed in the same building and improved upon; interpreting civic services as updatable patches to the operating system of the city.
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2019 | AA, Part II
URBANISM + TECHNOLOGY Written Work
Thesis Supervisors: Manolis Stavrakakis and Mark Campbell This thesis is composed of five case studies, picking up on examples of feedback mechanisms at different stages of evolvement; considering how they operate, the motives behind them, and their ability to ennoble or imprison within various conditions. It is crucial to rethink societal power where the capacity and precision of technological networks is simultaneously global and infinitesimal, supporting both top-down and bottom-up command and control. Each case study hopes to interrogate the incentives and positions of a society placed within this complex network, from the city to building, and from the robot to the body. The last decade has seen an explosion in a myriad of emerging ‘Smart’ devices, from phones to cities, and even augmentations to the human body with wearable tech. These sensors and transmitters have become ubiquitous in both public and private spheres: entwining a networked layer of connectivity to life where every action creates recordable ripples of digital information. In our post-privacy world, most people are ‘black boxed’ by the complexities of contemporary technology; unwittingly hegemonized to feedback loops harvesting human data. Computational analytics consumes this data to fuel innumerable algorithms that create an intricate subsystem of cybernetics, operating through feedback loops linking actions - quantification - analysis / aspirations - new actions. Section
The Partnership
These mechanical causal chains make the question once posited by Cedric Price ever more relevant: ‘Technology is the answer, but what was the question?’
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Sidewalk Labs Toronto
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Songdo IBD
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Westworld (HBO)
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Metabolism
WeWork
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2017 | Open Competition
FUTURE HOUSING Seoul, South Korea
HouseUS Teamates: Jimmy Lei and Tom Lowe A competition to propose new visions of housing in Seoul. This submission was selected for publication and consisted of several drawings, a written essay, and 3D model for printing at an exhibition. This work was produced with a team of two other Cambridge graduates. The natural landscape of Korea is interspersed with mountainous regions – available flat areas have dictated city growth. As a result, ‘the shape of the urbanized areas [has become] irregular and discontinuous.’1 With the current population of 25 million expected to peak at 26.7 million in 2031, more and more strain will be placed on the metropolitan area. The city’s population density is already one of the highest in the world: two times that of Tokyo-Yokohama. Two organisational extremes have evolved in response to this density: high-rise apartment blocks, and informal squatter settlements. In stark contrast to the authoritarian arrangement of these towers; squatter settlements form in the lower strata of the city, ‘most prevalent in the SMR [Seoul Metropolitan Region].’2 Prescribed by poverty, the developments formed in these regions are uncertain and spontaneous. The approach of self-built extensions into ambiguous boundaries seems to be common behaviour across Seoul: ‘the sense of impermanence is all-pervasive and even thrilling.’3 Rather than deteriorate the city, this porosity stimulates community and socialisation. Similarly to regions of Japan, ‘Such a city is better defined by its events, human activities, fast and continuous change, and a penchant for novelty, than by its physical entity or material substance.’4 1. Kim, Sung Hong. Changes in Urban Planning Policies and Urban Morphologies in Seoul, 1960s to 2000s. Architectural Research. Vol. 15, No.3 (September 2013). pp.133-141 2. Ha, Seong-Kyu. New Shantytowns and the urban marginalized in Seoul Metropolitan Region. Habitat International 28. 2004. p.129 3. Koo, Se-Woong. Pleasures of Seoul. Korea Exposé. May 2016. https://koreaexpose.com/pleasures-of-seoul/ [Accessed on 18th August 2017] 4. Bognar, Botond. What Goes Up, Must Come Down. Harvard Design Magazine. 1997. http://www. harvarddesignmagazine.org /issues /3/ what-goes-upmust-come-down [Accessed on 18th August 2017]
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‘True vernacular tradition is based on participation, engagement, and an egalitarian political ethic. But much of the connection to these forces has been lost in modern society, and this has lead to ignorance, weakening of culture, and a decline in personal empowerment.’1
A state of residential overflow seems to permeate the streets and alleyways of Seoul, which often become the stage for social activities. Contrary to Western custom, streets in Seoul are usually unnamed. The solidity in the concept of a street scape is redefined, blending both communal and retail functions as an extension of private homes, ‘movement is the essence of streets’2. This proposal is a planar development strategy influenced by informal hill settlements in Seoul where such delineations of public/private spaces are blurred to the extreme. It is clear that the development of a living unit in the city should allow for peripheral overlapping zones with its neighbours. Rather than focusing on the definition of this individual unit - this project imagines a ‘Framework’ for future development. A retrospective of vernacular traditions, it is an assemblage of placemaking assemblage of placemaking through independent construction that allows units to incubate.
re-developing Housing in Seoul is constantly re-developing within a turbulent contest for Floor Area Ratio, whereby ‘most clients and land owners are paying for the invisible quantity of the building’3. This demand for quantity will only escalate with a population rise predicted for the immediate future. The framework responds to this need by providing a container for growth: large hydraulic arms attached to tracks along the frame can be programmed by occupants and developers to carve out architectural elements while services run uniformly across levels below. This allows units to connect, expand, and contract in response to individual needs. Unlike traditional hyperdense vertical extrusions, the porous framework framework proliferates the horizontal strata of the city. The city is a layered concoction of temporal boundaries and spaces. Self-design Self-design provides an outlet to interpret and utilise these boundaries, allowing a natural progression of forms within the framework that embodies the essence of Seoul.
1. Glassie, Henry. Architects, Vernacular Traditions, and Society. TSDR Vol.1. 1990. P.9 2. Wei Shi, Beisi Jia, H. Koon Wee. Public Space as a Soft-Connection for Urban: Study on Japanese Streets. International Journal of Contemporary Architecture “The New ARCH” Vol. 2. 3. Kim, S. The FAR Game; Constraints Sparking Creativity. Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. 2016
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2016 | Cambridge, Part I
THE CINEDROME London, England
Studio 3 Tutors: Eric Martin and Nikolai Delvendahl (DMA) After initial groupwork to form a masterplan on a site next to the Regent’s Canal in Tower Hamlets, I focused on a single mixed-use building within the proposed development. The brief aims to unpack the traditional ‘black box’ of cinema screening rooms onto a ramped circulation route, combined with flexible office, market, and restaurant spaces. The ramps combine to generate multidirectional sloped floors that form a continuous topography from a completely open street-level market. The resulting building resembles a vertical playground - cinema working throughout as an active catalyst for people to interact, work, and enjoy film. This passion for cinema grew from a rich history in pop-culture with the area appearing as the backdrop for films and television shows, including: Luther (2015), Kingsman (2014), and Mortdecai (2015). A large portion of the design development came from building models ranging from 1:2000 - 1:20 scale. These helped me to explore the flow of internal space, experiment with a variety of materials, and play with transparency. The final design employs a double layered glass skin facade that frames snapshots in and out of the building.
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2016 | Cambridge, Part I
THE HOUSE CINEMA BUILT Written Work
Dissertation Supervisor: François Penz This written work examins the portrayal of the house within Joanna Hogg’s film Exhibition (2013), contrasting it with Rem Koolhaas’ Elements (2014) as an analytical tool. In breaking down the film into a collection of representations: of doors, stairs, walls, and windows - this work hopes to construct a study that begins to explore the lived experience of architecture. This review pulls from theories of architecture and film in order to explore how the techniques and emotions of cinema might feed back into architectural practice. The underlying driving force is the concept of a separate narrative form ingrained within perceived architecture. I focused on the exploitation of architecture to convey and advance the film’s narrative. Experiences formed within this cinematic story begin to illuminate a myriad of interactivity embodied in architecture. As the film develops, the house itself begins to influence the actions of inhabitants, its attributes lending themselves to that of a character in its own right. The work reveals Hogg’s success in bleeding new fiction from an existing building, and how this reveals a deeper potential for architecture as a whole. I went on to present this work alongside my dissertation supervisor in a symposium at the opening of the centre for Film and Screen in Cambridge.
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2015 | Cambridge Part I
MoMI London, England
Studio 1 Tutors: Pippa Nissen (Nissen Richards Studio) and Edmund Wilson (Foster Wilson Architects) Focusing on the recent development of King’s Cross, this studio brief aimed to propose small developments along the Regent’s Canal. My project is a Museum of the Moving Image, combining two small screening rooms with a collection of studio and gallery spaces depicting a history of cinema. The building aims to create a journey through a gradient of lightdark spaces, culminating in a room at the top forming a camera obscura. The facade facing the street is a collection of fins with printed films, tilted at different angles to act like a lenticular print to display different gradients of colour as people pass by.
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