JENNIFER LAI PORTFOLIO

JENNIFER LAI

Works 2010 - 2015

Architecture Portfolio Bachelor of Science (Architecture) McGill University, Montreal,Canada

JENNIFER LAI

2016 Professional Work Application

1

CONTENT

01

TABLE OF CONTENTS

02

INFINITE STAIRCASE

04

FLOATING FOREST/DREAMWORKS FACTORY

07

STEAM HOUSE

14

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

19

MUTATION

21

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL WORKS

Professional work competition, 2014

Professional work competition, 2014 - 2015

Academic project and independent development, Winter 2013, 2015

Academic project, Fall 2012

Collaboration project, Winter 2013

Works at Sou Fujimoto Architects, Kengo Kuma & Associates 2013 - 2015

JENNIFER LAI

INFINITE STAIRCASE

2

01 Infinite Staircase Sou Fujimoto Architects, 2014 Invited Competition, First Prize Project Manager: Yibei Liu Team Member: Nicolas Gustin, Jennifer Lai

Research Design Production

Hinging on the Second Ring in Beijing, China, the project is envisioned to be a contemporary gallery that will activate a district of its cultural richness and artistic phenomenon. In the heart of the traditional courtyard house, verticality is introduced to activate a new ‘artistic experience’. The central staircase creates a new typology for threshold, fluidly connecting ground and basement levels.

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

2014

JENNIFER LAI

Passage/Threshold The design is inspired by the mountainous plank roads that ancient Chinese scholars and artists once traveled to acquire a higher spiritual transcendence. The ritual of elevating yourself to the acme most often involved production of poetries and paintings. A threshold, therefore, does not simply signify a direct connection between two altitudes, but a more poetic representation of art-making process.

INFINITE STAIRCASE

3

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

2014

JENNIFER LAI

FLOATING FOREST/DREAMWORKS FACTORY

4

02 Floating Forest/Dreamworks Factory Sou Fujimoto Architects, 2014-2015 Invited Competition Project Manager: Jennifer Lai Team member: Yibei Liu, Tang Li Qun

Research Design Production

The project is a tourist factory situated in the industrial zone of Taichung, Taiwan. The aim of the design is to open a standard, often enclosed factory and allow maximum natural lighting into the spaces. Inspired by storaging shelves in factories, the grid facade not only expresses a visual transparency, but creates an additional social space that surround interior working area.

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

2014- 2015

JENNIFER LAI

Cloud in the Mountains An artificial cloud aloft in the Central Taiwan mountain range. Analogous to factory storage shelves, the grid module acts as a buffer zone between nature and industrial space, allowing a more genial transition from exterior to interior.

FLOATING FOREST/DREAMWORKS FACTORY

5

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT

2014- 2015

JENNIFER LAI

FLOATING FOREST/DREAMWORKS FACTORY

6

Floor Plan 1:2000

FLOATING FOREST/DREAMWORKS FACTORY

JENNIFER LAI

STEAM HOUSE

7

03 STEAM HOUSE Advisor: Sinisha Brdar Winter 2013, 2015

For centuries, humans enjoyed an intimate and relaxing relationship with bathing until the arrival of Industrial era. Due to piping and technical concerns, water spaces were confined to a minimal area. Thus, abstaining people from the sensual pleasure of bathing experience.

How do we re-introduce bath back into a modern house, so its leisure function is liberated and furthermore, amplified? Careful investigation and re-imagination of the relationship between water and a domicile were canvased. Not only liquid water, but various states of water were explored in the design based on changes in altitude and temperature.

At the centre of the project is a ‘steam core’ that penetrates the house. The opening on every floor slab allows the bathing experience to be shared throughout.

Internally, a resident’s daily activity reciprocates a family’s experience. Externally, vapor condensation on glass walls obscures visual perception, denoting the privacy of activities taking place. Inside and out, the proposal attempts to present a new connectivity stimulated by bath that can be leisurely enjoyed.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

JENNIFER LAI

Rise and Fall of Bathing Culture Diverse potentials of bathing were explored throughout history. Unfortunately, the more advanced technologies became, the more diminished bathing culture. Vigor and expansivity of bath experience attenuated from an interactive ciruclation between hot and cold in a gregarious setting to an one-way circulation for an individual throughout history.

STEAM HOUSE

8

Temperature - Program Analysis Body temperature dominates cerebral activeness, inducing slumber or consciousness.

Modification of water temperature can hence subsequently influence resident’s vitality.

Functions of a program and the adequate temperature associated are analyzed along with passage of time. Program zoning and placement of furnitures are carefully specified in the design.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

JENNIFER LAI

Site Analysis A typical site in jam-packed Tokyo, Japan. In the quiet residential area in Senganjaya District, neighboring volumes circumscribe the site: providing shading, and impeding direct northern winter wind into the house.

STEAM HOUSE

9

Steam Core A core that allows every resident to partake passively in bathing ambiance regardless of time and location. Without direct interaction between people, water acts as a crucial junction in the forming of a mutual social phenomenon.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

JENNIFER LAI

Unveiling the House The confining characteristic of the site provides a possibility of max. glass enclosures, thus eliminating opaque walls.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

10

Heat Recycling Both hydronic floor heating and hot water are preheated from waste water. Hot air rises up through vertical void providing natural heating and humidity adjustment.

Openings on slabs and glass enclosures enable natural lighting to penetrate the entire building.

STEAM HOUSE

JENNIFER LAI

STEAM HOUSE

11

Basement Plan 1:100

Ground Floor Plan 1:100 1m

Spatial Arrangement Spaces are assigned locations according to level of intimacy. The more private a program is, the closer it is to the central steam void, thus placing circulation on the outer most region. Kitchen and MEP spaces situate in basement level due to heating and piping concerns.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

JENNIFER LAI

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

12

Second Floor Plan 1:100

Roof Plan 1:100 1m

Structure and Waterproofing The overall structure is concrete slabs supported by structural walls. Waterproof details are further examined to avoid rust and damaging wear. To maintain slab horizontality, roof plantation and handrail details are studied .

STEAM HOUSE

JENNIFER LAI

01 INTERIOR_BATH

02 INTERIOR_ROOFTOP STEAM ROOM

STEAM HOUSE

13

03 EXTERIOR 2F

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

WINTER 2013,2015

JENNIFER LAI

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

14

04 Children’s Museum Advisor: Howard Davies, Andrew King Fall 2012

The project’s aim is to create a space for ‘play’. When we strip away subsidiaries, the most cardinal and primitive aspect of play is the explorative engagement with nature. From dynamic topography to winding passages in forests, nature is the most unpredictable playground.

Intended to be a nature-like museum, the project delves deeply into the relationship between architecture and nature. More practical issues such as contamination and ruin on site were attempted to be amended. Spatially, the boundary between interior and exterior is made ambiguous akin to that of forests.

The most fundamental aspect of the project hinges on the vigorous search of a harmonized relationship between man-made architecture and nature. The project attempts to not only emulate the playfulness, but also augment spatial interpretations of the natural environment.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

FALL 2012

JENNIFER LAI

Natural Playground Children explore and play on the ever-changing ground level.

Occasionally, they seek shelter from the rumpled shading of unevenly distributed leaves, and hide behind tree trunks that act as if the ‘columns’ of sky. With no specific spatial construct that governs the in and out of games, the potential of play is limited only by the extent of creativity.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

15

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

FALL 2012

JENNIFER LAI

Composition Axonometric The composition of the building is the combination of grid columns and free-flowing roof with glass enclosures. Forest of grid columns are extruded based on the preceding grid of ruin throughout the site. Programmatically, service functions locate at street-facing side of the building. Playful spaces such as exhibition and kid’s play room are placed in the more secluded area surrounded by natural vegetation on the North.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

16

Floor Plan 1:1000

Colonial Bentgrass Canadian Silver Birch Metal PCBs

Violet Metal

Sunflower Heavy metal

European Frogbit Metal

Phytoremediation On-site metal contamination amounts to 120,000 cubic meters, implying a 26cm polluted soil layer throughout the site. Specific vegetations are utilized in landscaping in the attempt to purify soil over time.

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

FALL 2012

JENNIFER LAI

Structural Composition Freeflowing roof is composed of H beam supported by grid of steel column and steel structural wall.

1

2

1. COLUMN - FLOOR

12.5mm bent plasterboard 25mm acoustic insulation 8mm sound absorbing coating steel column (white paint) seamless flooring 50mm w heating thermal insulation 25mm vapor barrier 350mm reinforced concrete c50 200mm

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

3

2. COLUMN - H BEAM

H Beam StPL 3.2x30x100 steel column (white paint)

3. STRUCTURAL WALL

seismic resistant steel plate PL.9mm Cover 100x100

17

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

FALL 2012

JENNIFER LAI

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

18

Section A-A’ 1:500

Section B-B’ 1:500

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

FALL 2012

JENNIFER LAI

MUTATION

19

05 Mutation Collaborators: Mark Lien, Long Chuan Zhang Technical Consultant: Helton Chen Advisor: Franรงois Leblanc Winter 2013

Research Design Production

Since the beginning of life, organisms have constantly evolved and mutated to adapt to the ever-changing environment. Mutation initiates and increases genetic variability through the process of reproduction, thus perfecting the evolution of organisms. The project attempts to illustrate the phenomenon of evolutionary system through mutation under an environmental variable, specifically, light intensity.

Mutation occurs upon a change in the light environment. However, such change is not instantaneous with a single immediate response.

Depending on the light, it will trigger specific types of mutation. Such mutation in a segment of the information will carry on through several loops of reproduction and reassembly. Until then the matrix finds a new expression suitable for the given light environment and given mutation to its original character.

Three light sensors are placed on different sides of the board. When there is change in light intensity, sensors initiate coding process, then information is sent to the programmed servos to trigger movements.

The spline-like structure entangles itself until the it finds the most suitable expression that fits the extant condition.

COLLABORATION PROJECT

WINTER 2013

JENNIFER LAI

MUTATION

20

Translation of An Organic Behavior The code is structured to mimic two main categories of evolution: reproduction and mutation. The code’s algorithmic foundation represents the divisibility and manipulability of a single strand of information in gene composition. When triggered, types of mutation such as Insertions, Accumulation, Duplication, Trans-location, and Inversion are translated arithmetically and fed into the motors as a binary instruction: direction and angle. The physical composition of the model is built so the movements are magnified to distinctly represent evolutionary process.

COLLABORATION PROJECT

WINTER 2013

JENNIFER LAI

Additional Professional Work Kinmenisland Nature Village Kengo Kuma & Associates

The project was an in-depth investigation into architectural materials. Various approaches were taken to explore material potentials of facade louvers, roof tiles, plantation mesh, and interior stone pavements.

21

Additional Professional Work Sao Paulo House Sou Fujimoto Architects

An aggressive attempt to challenge the definition of a house. Form-function relations were especially focused on. Taking Brazilian weather into account, opening positions and cantilevered canopies were delicately experimented.