Portfolio - Huining Zheng

CITIZEN CENTRIC CITIES

INFILL-DENCITY: DEVELOPMENT FOR THE CITY OF LONDON

DIGITAL MODELING & FABRICATION

FORM FINDING & MODELING

CATCHER OF MAPLE VILLAGE

CULTURE EXPERIENCE CENTER

ABOVE THE FISH MARKET

MARKET RECONSTRUCTION

OHTER WORKS

PROFESSIONAL

Citizen Centric City

Infill-Dencity: An Infill-development for London

Project type: Group Work (4)

Tutor: Shajay Bhooshan, Ariadna Lopez, Leo Bieling

Project time: 2022

Site Location: City of London, UK

Recent data shows that the city of London hosts the jobs of over 400,000 people while only 9,000 reside in it. Further to this, the number of inhabitants in this part of the city has halved since Victorian times. Not only does the Central Mile have scope for growth, but there is also a significant percentage of unoccupied residential properties. Despite these reasons, there is negligible land to construct upon, with even the most minute sliver in the central mile serving a purpose.

Infill-DenCity, by virtue of infill development, explores the possibility of building upon and amongst the existing built environment. This is facilitated by incorporating governance technologies, designed to allow real-time, collaborative negotiations between developers and end-users via a game interface. This saves considerable amount of time compared to existing procedures, wherein approvals can take up to 26 weeks and even longer. The use of Gov-Tech helps achieve a transparent funding and decision-making process before reaching a consensus to material construction. hot wire cutting, enabling fast-paced, repeatable production of curved volumes. The resulting positive and negative fragments can be externally reinforced or used as moulds to cast in, respectively. Importantly, this results in a modular and reconfigurable kitof-parts with net zero material wastage.

Infill-DenCity aims to create a prototypical Citizen Centric City orchestrated by the active participation of its end users, residents and other stakeholders, while diminishing the gap between residential and commercial density.

Gov-Tech

*Grid System For Infill Urban Planning

*User-Friendly Digital Platform For Customization

*Mechanism for DAO

Spatial-Tech

*Modularity Architecture Design

*Strcture, Facade, Interior Components

*Ruled-Surface Geometry Exploration

Fabrication

*Robot Hot-wire Cutting

*Ruled-Surface

*Concrete Casting

DAO Platform

Module Design

Robot Fabrication

History & Issues

Up until the Victorian era, more people lived in the core of the city than anywhere else. That is however, no longer the case. Even as the square mile of the city of london is the one to attract most customers, offices and activity in general, there are as many people living on the outskirts as there are within it's limits. This is problematic as the number of job owners in the city of London is almost 45 times more than the number of home owners, 400,000 job oppunities while only 9,000 residents capacity.

Factors for Densification

Areas with existing high population density are not deemed suitable for further densification. The avarage income is also a factor that plays a key role, as areas with high population density and low income are least suitable for densification. The visual representation of the population density 10/average income ratio indicates a gradient that showcases which areas are most suitable for densification

Grid & Road System

The game grid is generated to achieve the propose of activating areas that lacking accessibility and density of utilization. We utilize the unused areas in between the existing buildings and extending the riverbank to obtain more avaliable waterfront space.

Plot Price Factors

The Plot Price is determined by 2 factors, View and Convience. The darker color plot has, the more pricy it gets. Through comprehensive gradient price system, non-expert users are more easy to make decisions.

St.Paul's Cathedral

Millennium Bridge

Tate Gallery

Blackfriars Bridge

Cannon Station

Price

DAO Developers

End Users

Game Platform

Customization & Participatory Design

Configuration Results

Player Data

Game Simulations

Digital Fabrication

Architectural Geometries

Robotic Hotwire Cutting Construction

Architectural Modules

Negotiation

Ruled-Surfaces

After customizing, players can view the building space quality by clicking and go through the interior space , expriencing and socilazing in the space, It’s an intuitive way for users to feel the interior space. then evaluate the space quality by like or dislike. They can also negotiate with each other in game whether they want to share common spaces with neighbours . If yes, they can get profit for sharing from DAO.

Developer's Game

The goal for the game is to infill, reach the multifunction & densification, making co-living density as much as co-working density.

Bidding Land Plot

Hybrid Progams

Mutiple-Users & Negotiation

DAO

Developer

End User

End-user's Interface

Here are the interface for the end-users'. The platform provides program options for them to choose, and then they could use architectural spatial modules to customize their spaces. The real-time transparent simulation platform allow them to communicate with each other in time, which has the potential to agglomerate more users with simlar program and target, and create bigger community circles. Also, simulation could provide oppotunities for people to attempt different combinations, create varity kinds of hybrid spaces, which increase the utilization of the land plot.

Architectural Module System

To make the City of London denser, we designed co-living modules and co-working modules to improve space utilization in both day and nighttime. Our spatial tech would is mainly divided into three parts: facade, interior, and structure. They can be assembled flexibly and offer users highly optional customization. We divide our modules into River front part and the In-between Infill Development part to make the architectures having more coresponse to the site surroundings. Differences are mainly reflected on Facade and the Structure modules. River front Modules are tend to have more open view while the Infill Modules are tend to be more friendly with city streets and neighbourhoods.

Modules for Inbetween Land

Modules for River Front Land

Co-Working Modules

We developed furnitures from the standard interior voxel: a 4x4m square. Users can connect the modules in different directions. As the customized area increase, more types of shared spaces can be provided, such as gyms, laundry rooms, cinemas, study rooms, swimming pools, and other entertainment facilities.

Co-Living Modules

Based on 4*4 Cell, we designed different sizes of co-living modules. We have single, double, and larger dormitories. More shared spaces users could have if the customized area is larger. such as study rooms or shared kitchens.

I II III IV

Select Main Structure

Select Interior Modules Select Facade

Varity Sizes of Facade Options

Procedure of Customization

After choosing the structure, the user first customizes the interior modules, and then they can choose the facade according to their needs. The users can choose whether they need balconies or not, and the size of the facade will be adjusted according to the size of the interior modules. Footing points of the columns can be aligned with each other and can be increased or decreased according to the user's programs.

Capacity: 10-20

Area:144 Sqm

Density: 7.2 Sqm/p

Capacity: 20-30

Area: 144 Sqm

Density: 5 Sqm/p

Capacity: 20-30

Area: 288 Sqm

Density: 16 Sqm/p

Capacity: 60-70

Area: 288 Sqm

Density: 5.5 Sqm/p

Capacity: 90-100

Area: 624 Sqm

Density: 6.3 Sqm/p

Capacity: 60-70

Area: 288 Sqm

Density: 5.5 Sqm/p

Modules A+B+C

Modules B+C+D

Co-living Apartment

modules for public program

Intelligent Modules

In order to provide the users with the maximum possible level of customization, we tried to develop an intelligent façade system. The façade modules are able to change the interface to accommodate the stitching relationship with the adjacent modules.

The entrance module can replace a combination of a first floor and a standard floor façade module, while matching the adjacent modules. On a larger scale, functions can be replaced with retail and gym. Roof modules are also able to change to match façade module of higher level.

The façade modules can be varied in height to accommodate different functions and spatial scales. When modules are spliced vertically, adjacent modules can optionally be combined to form a double height façade module.

Component A

Component B

Component C

Component D Entrance Module

River-Front Development

River-Front Development

River-Front Development

Infill Development

Fabrication

We choosed balcony module to present our fabrication method. First we separate the module into smaller component and add interlock in order to get the fabricatable size for robot. Using the turn-table to let the robot arm reach more flexible angle. With the help of turntable we could avoid keeping changing geometry's position manually after each cut.

We also explored how to transform materials and make better utilize of our fabrication method. By using the negative part of robot hot-wire cutting, we can reassemble the bounding box of the geometry and get the mould of the model. Through concrete casting, we could get a more strong and stable structure compare to the foam material.

Digital Modeling and Fabrication Techniques

Project

This 7 weeks workshop was about how to use grasshopper to explore different forms of geometries which structural rational and fabricatable. Using the 'Topo' Plug-in in Grasshopper, we could be able to create structural connection between two or more base geometries. And we explored different kinds of plug-ins to unroll the result model and fabricate through paper card.

Project type: Group Work (6)

Tutor: Pierandrea Angius, Meysam Ehsanian Mofrad

time: 2021

Location: AADRL, UK

Form Finding

After get using the Topos to get geometry, We need to manually refine the model using the rhino. We smoothen the branches to make the pattern more regular. Moreover, we tried to use quadmesh to fabricate instead of trianglemesh. By this way we can reduce the quantity of components, which will make us a lot more easier to build. As IVY is based on the logic of trianglemesh, we need to explore more stratgies to achieve this.

Refinement

By starting with low-poly and transforming into high-poly using the catmull-clark algorithm, we are able to improve the prototype into a more organized quad-mesh geometry. The advantage of this procedure is to make the strips more unified and simplify the fabrication process.

In the initial test, we use the cotton rope to connect surfaces. When we tighten the knot, surfaces will be folded and twisted into right curvature under the force of rope.

In order to let model keep balance, we also fabricated a base for model to sit on, which consist of 216 wood plates.

Strips & Rope

Base For Model

Connecting the components in series along the vertical structure line of the model makes the model more stable compared with connecting them along the horizontal structure line.

The Catcher of Maple Village

Cultural Experience Center

Project type: Individual Work

Tutor: Xiangting, Li

Project time: 2019

Location: Taoyuan, Taiwan

As one of the few villages in Taoyuan district, the Maple village carries many traditional Taiwan customs.With great farmland and numerous of rolling hills, it attracts more and more tourists come to visit, many students also come here to learn about agriculture. With huge potential of developing tourism, the project is a cultural experience center with hybrid programs, with variety kinds of flexible spaces to hold different activities, and B&B for tourists to stay, which aiming to let visitors experience local culture more conveniently and enjoy the beautiful scenery in the valley.

During farming, Many local high schools organize outdoor lessons in the village. Students will learn basic knowledge about agriculture and sketch in the green field.

Flower shows, drama, music festivals and other public activities are the important reasons that attract tourists to visit.They represent charastics of the village.

Tourism Farming Cycle

There are 2 farming periods in each year, from March to July, and September to December. The rest of the time is the fallow period.

Between Jul and Sep (or Dec and Feb), tourists come here to visit the flower show. Gardening and other relative activities are also appreciated by people during the conversion of landuse, which mainly occured between Jun and Jul (or Feb and Mar). Many visitors come here to help local farmer so as to experience the local culture.

Elements

These elements are the essential parts of landscape architecture. By creating a harmonious atmosphere, people could integrate into the environment more comfortably. In order to meet the needs of local activities, the flexibility of public spaces will be strengthen. Also, Topographic features will be used for creating space levels more diversely.

Landscape & Tourism Space

Leisure, Local Cultural

Each room has an exclusive balcony. Due to the characteristic of slope, sunlight can enter the interior without any interference, which might improve dwellers’ comfort.Recreation room is placed on rooftop where dwellers can communite and have leisure activities.

Event hall

Multifunction

2 Movable partition walls are placed in the event hall. When there are no public events to be held, the wall will be used as a partition for the reading and leisure room. And it will be retracted into the main wall during the public activities (like lecture or drama performing).

Outdoor platform

Viewspotswithcanopies

Stairs and corridors are placed in the wooden platform, where visitors can see the view of the valley and take photographs. Some parts of the roof are covered with movable canopies in order to make sure most of the platform could be used under normal circumstance during rainy weather.

Workshop

Seasonal

The workshops are divided into gardening and cooking. They are closely related to the local industries, which might cultivate people’s interests in learning the local culture.

Flowershop / Classroom

Transition Space

As it directly faces to the farmland, it is mainly used as an open classroom or flower shop, any groups that having outdoor classes can use it as a classroom.

Due to the topography, second floor has the majority of public spaces that connected to up level and down level. Visitors can reach the event hall, sightseeing platform, or tea culture space by the large stairs or landscape stairs. Also, workshops, outdoor farmland, plazas and flower shops are included in this level.

AA' Section

The sightseeing platform fits the mountain terrain. At here, people could have wide view to enjoy the scenery, and even communicate with the people who are farming and gardening.

A live house is being held at the event hall, which atrracts people to stop by and enjoy on the stairways.

Ramps are placed beside the event hall for people who tried by the leg so that they can easily visit the secend floor and enjoy the view.

There are three main public spaces at the ground floor: event hall, homestay lobby, and indoor/outdoor plaza. All public spaces are connected by front corridor. The plan below represents the arrangement of event hall during different times.

1.PLAZA

2.PLAY AREA

3.COMMON ROOM

4.EVENT HALL

5.LOBBY

6.BACK OFFICE

7.INDOOR SQUARE

8.DELIVERY CHANNEL

Ground Floor

1.WORKSHOP

2.OUTDOOR PLATFORM 4.B3.CAFE & B 5.TEA HOUSE

Platforms of different heights allow people to make eye contact and have communications with each other, which enhance the experience of users. Soft and natural materials like curtains and wooden structures could creat a warm and harmonious atmosphere in order to integrate into the local culture.

Both plans emphasize the open relationship between platroms and cultural experience rooms. The workshop is placed at 3rd floor, and the tea house is at 4th floor, they are accessable for people who are on the platform.

3rd / 4th Floor

floor 4th floor

FLOWERSHOP

Above The Fish Market

Reconstruction of Zhuwei Fish Market

Project type: Individual Work

Tutor: Chaoming Lv

Project time: 2019

Location: Taoyuan, Taiwan

Nowadays, because of the environmental protection and transformation concepts, the traditional fishing industry is shrinking, fishing ports are beginning to transform into tourism industries. The reclamation of new plots and the construction of recreational spaces have sprung up. The old fish market is now also facing renovation. What changes should the market make to adapt the comprehensive innovation? The project attempts to focus on the local culture. By analysising the original market and surrounding factors, we aim to renew the market that have more tight relationship with local culture. Using the wooden facade and roof space in the market, visitors can witness the life scene of the fishing port behind the structure frames.

Blocks Store Space Cold Storage

The market uses a Tic-Tac-Toe shape to place the stalls. About 60 stalls are placed in the market, and each block has about 15 stalls.

Store rooms are placed at the center of each block. Stall owners could share together to store seafood temporarily.

On the both side of the building, the market provides cold storages. Thery could be leased to the stalls.

Regional Distribution

The fish market is divided into market area and dining area. The market area is on the first floor, and the dining area is on the second floor. The whole building has 5 main entranc- es, which are used not only by people but also by trucks.

Usually many visitors will choose to purchase ingredi- ents on the first floor and hand them to the restaurant upstairs for cooking.Therefore, the upstairs and downstairs form a more complete process from purchasing to dining.

Circulation

Most of the circulations in the market are straight, which helps people in the space to circulate faster. However, there are still congestion and hy- giene issues in the market be- cause of insufficient in width. Each corridor is about 2.5 meters wide, barely enough for 3 people to pass at the same time.

Section

South side

North side

Reborn

The renewed market retains the number of stalls and follows the function distribution method of the original one. The building has many characteristics of South FuJian architecture, such as the use of brick walls and wooden structures.The ner market will better meet the needs of the fishing port industry.

Facade

The west side of the market faces the entire harbour, which is the best side to show life scenes. Using the curtain wall to enhance the visual interaction. Through the facade, the structure and texture of the architecture is more clearly displayed. At the same time, such scale of displayment also makes building more recognizable in the fishing port.

Story House

Visitors can meet the story hall on the roof, which is on the main traffic flow of roof park. There also have stairways and a plaza in front of the house where people could enjoy the sunset and watch fishing boats leaving the harbour.

Traffic Diversion

The circulation of the new market can be divided into 2 parts: logistics and public. The logistics one assumes the role of cargo transportation and staff circulation, and public one is responsible for the circulation of visitors to the market or restaurant They all continues the direction of the original one.

Location: Dongguan, GuangDong

Contributions: Project Designer, Concept & Development, Materials Research, 3D Presentation Design: Nov, 2019

Experience Center

Retail - Public Program

04.City Experience Hall

Location: LuoGang, GuangZhou

Contributions: Project Designer, Concept & Development, Materials Research, 3D Presentation Design: Sep, 2019

Site Location: Dongguan, Guangdong, China.

Project time: 2019 2020 (Built)

Participation: Concept, Schemetic, Development.

Sales Center

In one year of work, I have participated in the design of many projects, drawn technical drawings, and learned a lot of drawing expression methods.

In addition, because I often produce report documents and participate in project meetings, I now have a general under- standing of the basic process of work. Among all the partic- ipating projects, one has been completed, and most of the others are still being designed, and basically all the designs are public spaces, but also include a small number of collective housing designs.

City Experience Hall

Design: Nov, 2019

Center

GuangDong Drawings, Research

GuangDong Drawings, Research

Experience Center

GuangDong Designer, Materials

GuangDong Designer, Materials

02 Other Works

GuangDong Designer, Materials

GuangDong Designer, Materials

Experience Hall

Experience Hall

Liaobu Sales Center

02 Other Works City Experience Hall Sales Center Kindergarten

I designhave of technical a lot of methods.

I designhave of technical a lot of methods.

I often documents and meetings, underprocess hasparticofbeen the designsdesigned, are include collective

GuangZhou Designer, Materials I II III IV

Tsingyuan Experience Hall

Educational Program Retail Program Cultural Program

PROJECT VI PROJECT VII

PROJECT VIII

Tainan Corner

Third Prize/40 Teams

Tainan, Taiwan 2017

Organized by city government, Tainan Corner is an community building activity that aim to encourage college students to participate. It usually lasts about three months.

A certain budget will be allocated, students are allowed to use them freely on the project.

As a group of 6, we was assigned to one of the fishing villages. The goal was to renovate or rebuild the old scaffolding and pigsty.

During the implementation process, we have to learn various construction operations, the char- acteristics of various materials and how to use them.

Mid-Term

Mid-Term

Final Stage

Final Stage