HOANG THU AN architecture portfolio
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Architecture Design The Dancing Armature The Kaleidoscope House Barcelona Pavillion Visiting Center Ai Weiwei Exhibition Center Octagon House
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Artistic Practice Paintings Figure Drawings Travel Sketches Writing Sample Travel Photography
Strategy for creating void by means of contour
The Dancing Armature Northampton, MA spring 17 | graduate design studio II studio critic: Ray Mann
The project revolves around a site in Northampton as a canvas for the abstract exploration of the tectonic and stereotomic. The “site” is the transition between the railroad embankment and the Fitzwilly’s building as one enters downtown Northampton. The project is a light-framed addition to the side of the existing building, and a dynamic semi-covered urban transition space as a “gateway” amenity and connection into the downtown.
Concept model 2: Fluidity Concept Model 1: Light and Air
Concept model 2: Exploring Movement
Previous proposal: bike track - ground connection
Concept model 3: Structural Rhythm
Section: Stereotomic and Tectonic
Site plan
Approach from the bike track, coming into Northampton. Whole site view from above.
Stand on the bike track, stop to take a look at the stairs before going up.
From one of the floating viewing platform looking down at the structure.
Come down from the other side stairs to look at the armature at a different angle.
Walk down the stereotomic stairs from the bike track and feel the corresponding rhythm of circulation both above and below.
The stairs leads to the street level. Gaze at the whole system from Northampton’s Main Street.
Walk back underneath the stairs to get to the farmers’ market. Look up to catch this view.
As the day gone by, light and shadow chang to reveal this frame in a different light.
Barcelona Pavilion Visiting Center Barcelona, Spain spring 15 | intermediate architecture studio studio critic: Thom Long
The project is about the design of a new building from the ground up, establishing a formal, programmatic and spatial relationship with the existing historic building and site. Primarily, it will address the architecture of the Barcelona Pavilion connecting to and reflecting upon the style, space, structure, experience, theory or form. This addition consists of a viewing space, a study center and a library.
Roman travertine green Greece marble golden onyx Reflective elements Phenomenal transperancy: images of exterior pulled inward into interior green Alpine marble
steel frame and glass Roman travertine
Comtemplated arrangements Freedom of movement does not equal randomness
Material analysis
Interlocking spaces
chrom covered
Interlocking spaces diagram
Flipping the spaces vertically
Calculated distance frames the historic pavillion; reflection brings it into the new structure. The Pavilion get layered multiple times in the landscape.
The Layering of Space Overlapping floors: horizontally and vertically dynamic arrangement
The Layering of View
The Kaleidoscope House Amherst, MA fall 16 | graduate studio I studio critic: Pari Riahi
Three levels of translation, from an existing phenomena to abstract drawings and three dimensional structure then expanded to habitable space, comprised the spectrum of this project. First, the drawing series represent the abstract transcription of the phenomena of symmetry. The second phase took these flat drawings to three dimensional space. Lastly, the concept was adapted to a narrow site to build a habitable museum-residence for a collector who is fascinated by symmetry.
Moving into 3D
Site adaptation
Circulation: Public - Private
2F Residence
1F Residence
2F Exhibition
1F Exhibition Public | Exhibition Transition | Stairs Private | Residence
North Elevation
East Elevation
Longitunal Section
Cross Section
Adaptive Reuse: Ai Wei Wei exhibition center Paris, France spring 16 | GSAPP NYP architecture studio studio critic: Antoine Santiard, Marcos Rojo, Tsuyoshi Tane
An exploration of cultural infrastructures of public use, the project focuses on the adaptive reuse of a parking garage into a exhibition and cultural center in Paris 8ème arrodissement. The architecture of the refreshed garage should resonate with a chosen artist. Inspired by how Ai Weiwei generated dynamics and peculiar outlook out of most mundane materials, the concept aims at breaking monotony by means of substraction and addition while preserving and putting on display the original iron roof structure.
The Octagon House Amherst, MA summer 15 | TIA Architects supervisor: Tulio Inglese
The Octagon House’s geometry allows for extra living space and natural light while reduces building cost, heat loss and gain. The central column, with its radiating structure, creates an interesting dialog with the roof. The floor plan is designed to bring harmony to the public-private space relationship.
“Worn, Broken” fall 2016 | painting I oil on two 14x26 canvases
“Doors, Hanoi.” spring 17 | advanced studio seminar acrylic on 8x3 ft paper
“Figure I.” fall 2014 | drawing II charcoal on paper
“Twisting.” fall 2014 | drawing II pencil on paper
“Two Figures.” fall 2014 | drawing II charcoal on paper
On-site sketch | St. Jean Cathedral, Lyon
On-site sketch | Strasbourg Cathedral
On-site sketch | St. Peter Cathedral, Vatican
Chaos and Order: Jazz, Art and the City in Mondrian “Boogie Woogie” “...Similarly to the way jazz’s ad-lib complements the chaos and order of the metropolis, the organization of the painting embraces not only spontaneity and dynamism but also stability. While the haphazard blocks of color compose utter disorganization, depicting the internal zeal of the city, the straight, perpendicular lines lay out a checkerboard of yellow, mirroring the carefully planned grid structure of the city. For Mondrian, vertical lines represented vitality and horizontal lines represented tranquility. In the chaos of atomized bands of stuttering chromatic pulses, the geometric design and straight lines bring all the chaotic forces into an neat grid, generating a perception of harmony and order, thus achieving a balance of opposites. The entire space of Broadway Boogie-Woogie flowers in a myriad of different contrasts of the chromatic material, which concentrates itself at a single point, then return to the condition of multiplicity, from chaos towards order, then from order again towards disorder . The most noticeable quality of disorder in boogie-woogie elaborated visually in the painting is the unexpected syncopation of rhythm. At first impression, the composition of the painting consists of mainly yellow lines spreading across the surface and intersection blocks of different color, triggering a change in direction and proportion. The yellow lines of color guide our eye between the larger rectangles, which are spaced in such a way as to imply syncopation. Rectangle blocks of red, blue and gray constitute traversing lines, granting the whole structure an unanticipated movement, a new tempo, a bouncing staccato pulse. The varying short and long distances between the rectangles echo the rhythm of the piece. This new tempo is perhaps the most eye-catching pattern. While long continuous lines and large planes can be compared to whole or half notes in music, interrupting squares and blocks are equivalent to eighth and sixteenth notes. This novelty breathes into the canvas a new and sparkling vivacity. Not every audience can see through the tangle of jazz’s complication; “Broadway Boogie Woogie” translates the abstract language of music into a visual display, bringing viewers closer to the essence of jazz. Syncopation is not the only presentation of jazz, or boogie-woogie in particular, in this work of art. According to James Johnson Sweeney, who was the curator for the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1936 to 1946, there is a “constant repetition of the right angle theme, like a persistent bass chord sounding through a sprinkle of running arpeggios and grace notes from the treble.” In boogie-woogie style, the bass line is steady and repetitive, and the tunes, for most part, are twelve-bar blues. This harmonic structure is equivalent to Mondrian’s grids. The grid holds the harmony of the painting in a similar way. In addition, we notice that the three main colors of “Broadway Boogie Woogie” coincide with the famous primary color trio: red, yellow and blue. These colors correspond with the primary chords used in the twelve bar blues: tonic, subdominant, and dominant. In a sense, the yellow is a representation of the constant bass, while the red, blue, and white illustrate the common chords of boogie-woogie. Bearing the idea of chaos and order in mind, we can now reflect back on the inspiration of “Broadway Boogie Woogie” - the everyday swing of New York itself, with buzzing lights, skyscrapers, and the restless fervor of the city daily life. Looking at a grid of New York City from up above is very much like looking at a more complex version of Mondrian’s painting. In comparison to the grid of “New York I, 1942” (also by Mondrian) which delivers the mere outline of New York, owing to its close relation to jazz, “Broadway Boogie-Woogie” expands in depth, speaks to audience of its urban nature by capturing the spirit of urban living - the state of simultaneous turmoil and organization. Order alone is rather monotonous but chaos sparks charm into the urban life. As Piet Mondrian said, “Everything is expressed through relationships”, the relationship between art and music, or more specifically in this case, the quality of jazz reflected on the canvas of “Broadway Boogie Woogie” sheds light on the symbiotic existence of chaos and order. In the tangle of the urban space, order is the crochet hook that weaves threads of the intertwining, rather chaotic ideas of suspension, anticipation, spontaneity and individualism into an ever-appealing tapestry of city life.”
Chaos
“Ever-moving S(e)oul.”, Seoul “Suffocating.”, Tokyo
“Lights, Tokyo.”, Tokyo
“Ever-moving S(e)oul, ii.”, Seoul
“Order. Grandiosity. Symmetry.”, Beijing
Urban Melancholy
“Former Empress Residence.”, Beijing.
“Vehicles.”, Shanghai.
“Kites, Doors.”, Beijing.
“Rustic Playground and Skytree.”, Tokyo.