Justin Tan 2019 Portfolio by justan

PORTFOLIO JUSTIN TAN

INDEX AMERICAN GOTHIC

MAGICAL REALISM

FRUGAL PALAZZO

STILL LIFE

PROFESSIONAL WORK

GSD Design Studio Spring 2019

GSD Design Studio Fall 2018

GSD Design Studio Fall 2017

SCI-Arc Undergraduate Thesis Spring 2016

STUDIO

AMERICAN GOTHIC Site: Clyde, Ohio

Program: Church

Advisors: Pier Paolo Tamburelli Design: Individual

Harvard GSD Spring 2019

The idea of spirituality is changing in conservative smalltown America. While traditional local churches have experienced stagnating or declining attendance in the past decades, the “Big Box” or “megachurch” has enjoyed rapidly increasing attendance. Whether this is good or bad is up for debate, but it is interesting to observe the rapid rise in the popularity of these types of churches. What it reveals is that the traditional church is too conservative even for conservative America. In the face of growing social and political alienation, the people of Clyde want their spirituality - and by extension their churches - to have a sense of the new, the contemporary and the relevant. How does a small local church remain relevant in the time of the Wal-Mart Megachurch?

2019 STUDIO - AMERICAN GOTHIC

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.2

Fig.3

One could start from an assessment of the local context. Clyde has a fractured religious community; for such a small town there is a surprising number of small churches of different denominations. These traditional Churches with centralized plans, linear organization, and singular monumentality, are falling out of favor with those in Clyde. People simply want to be part of a community, meet informally, and not be told how to feel or how to behave by the architecture.

Fig.1

Fig.1 - Clyde, Ohio Site Plan

100 ft

For this fractured town I propose a fractured church. Chunks of the program are split up into individual volumes composed over the entire site, never consolidating into an individual building but rather a community of different characters that do not signify a single purpose or use. Each function of the church can be used casually and independently of one another; you are never in a “church” so to speak. Despite their simplicity, each volume has its own unique spacial and formal characteristics, maintaining some aspect of ritualistic or spiritual.

100 ft

Fig.2 - Elevation from East side of Site Fig.3 - Elevation from North- west side of site

2019 STUDIO - AMERICAN GOTHIC

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.2

The prayer room (1) is located on the north corner of the site, rounding off the on-site parking lot which as been incorporated into the configuration of elements on the site. As people mostly travel in cars and very rarely walk, the parking lot becomes an important element to consider in the composition as a form of entry.

Fig.1 - Ground Floor Plan

100 ft

Continuing with the idea of entry, a ramp (2) is located within the parking space that brings visitors down 3.5 meters underground to access the main hall. The hall (3) is sunken underground so that the roof level matches the other two buildings on the site while giving the impression of being larger on the inside than it is outside.

The rectangular building to the south with the large skylight houses the library, classrooms and offices, (4) which require large amounts of daylight. Bathrooms and a meeting hall (5) with a small kitchen are in the round building to the east. Spaces between buildings would be used as outdoor gathering areas.

One can also access each building without going outside through an underground system. This is also a reference to prohibition era Clyde; alcohol was outlawed and smuggled through secret underground tunnels into illegal bars. The basement plan is accessed through a stairway in a thickened wall space in each building. Storage, Sacristy, and a Choir Practice room are also located in these underground spaces beneath each building.

Fig.2 - Basement Plan

2019 STUDIO - AMERICAN GOTHIC

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.3

Fig.4

100 ft

Fig.1

Fig.2 Fig.1 - Composite Render Interior Sanctum Fig.2 - Composite Render Exterior from NorthEast

Corrugated steel is used for the exterior of the buildings. This is both contextual to the surrounding industrial factories and farms, as well as an economical choice as large façade to floorspace ratio makes other materials more costly.

Fig.5

Fig.3 - Long Section Fig.4 - Short Section Fig.5 - Physical Model Photo

2019 STUDIO - AMERICAN GOTHIC

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.1 - Stills from stop-motion animation film: https://youtu.be/vpQTXTvwOz0

Fig.2

Fig.2 - 1:100 Physical Model for stop-motion animation. Chipboard - Acryllic 3D print

STUDIO

MAGICAL REALISM Site: Kentish Town, London, England

Program: Mixed-Use Housing / Industrial Production Facility Advisors: Allison Brooks Design: Individual

Harvard GSD Fall 2018

Cities in developed countries have been wiped clean of the “dirtiness” of industrial production. The products of industry that we consume on an everyday basis (food, electronics, clothing, etc.) are integral to the everyday life of city inhabitants. Industrial production itself is seen as the “other”, far removed to the countryside somewhere out of sight, its conditions having nothing to do with our day to day life. Introducing heavy industry – the dirty industry - back into the city, and then taking it a step further and putting industry in an intimate relationship with our housing, has the potential to fundamentally change our relationship with industrial production, the commodities it produces, and our relationship with our urban environment. The city turns from a place of pure consumption and commodification back into a place of production again. This has the potential to produce and urbanity that is at once more heterogeneous, vibrant, authentic, and unpredictable.

Formal Strategy

2018 STUDIO - MAGICAL REALISM

Green: 200 units of housing totaling 15,000 sqm. Red: Industrial space totaling 1500 sqm.

JUSTIN TAN

Increase housing units facing new greenway and raise to allow for access to industrial space from the south.

Fig.1

What could be more real and more integral to our urban lives than food? People in cities such as London are obsessed with food, but should we only be interested with the end product? What would happen if we begin to reintroduce signs of the process of how our food is made into the experience of our daily lives? Would that change our relationship with the food we eat and would it force us to seriously confront how and under what conditions our food is made? Would this awareness of the underlying processes of production then extend to other industries? Small local abattoirs that would have supported local farms are being forced to close down due to increasing inspection fees, making large abattoirs the only economically feasible option. Many small local farms in the UK that supply

livestock to be slaughtered have to send their animals on long, stressful journeys to a centralized factory abattoir (where oversight laws and animal welfare are at risk due brexit, as many animal welfare experts are from EU) far away from anything which will then have to transport the meat back into the city. (Quality of meat affected by various factors including stress on animals, long distances and multiple stops for meat transport)

Adjust east and south-facing facade to fit in site

Due to an increased demand for local, sustainable, ethical, high quality meat, the shorter supply chain and food miles that result from locating the abattoir centrally within the city could be a solution. Also the mixed income from housing could also alleviate the economic burden of upkeep on urban abattoirs.

Fig.3

Fig.1 -Livestock Distribution diagrams

Fig.2

100

250 m

1 km

Fig.2 - Initial Massing Studies Fig.3 - Site of proposed masterplan in Kentish Town, London

2018 STUDIO - MAGICAL REALISM

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.1 - 1:250 Physical Model Styrene - 3D print Acryllic

2018 STUDIO - MAGICAL REALISM

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

20 m

The industrial area is divided into a few parts; the holding pens that the animals rest after their transportation from the farm, & the slaughterhouse where they ultimately end up. Between these areas are the two ramps that take advantage of the animals’ natural movement tendencies to guide them into the slaughterhouse in a calm and safe fashion.`

Fig.1 - Ground Floor Plan

Fig.2

20 m

`The livestock arrives along the road parallel to the railroads and are offloaded onto the southern loading plaza which is 1m above the road account for truck height. Offloading of animals would only happen at certain times of day such as early in the morning, when not in use the gates are closed to allow for a raised sidewalk.

Fig.2 - 2nd Floor Plan

2018 STUDIO - MAGICAL REALISM

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.3

20 m

Fig.4

20 m

The slaughterhouse ramps become pedestrian access to park space above the slaughterhouse. The ramps provide access to the green space for both housing bars and from the street to the north. These ramps also organize the park space; blocking public view to housing units and mechanical areas. The skylights provide light to areas of the Slaughterhouse program below as well as providing views of parts of the industrial process to residents above.

Fig.3 - 3rd Floor Plan

Fig.4 - 9th Floor Plan

2018 STUDIO - MAGICAL REALISM

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.1 - Long Sectin facing East

20 m

Fig.2

Fig.2 - Short Section facing south

20 m

STUDIO

A FRUGAL PALAZZO Site: Seattle, USA

Program: Mixed-Use Housing / Business

Advisors: Kersten Geers, David Van Severen

14 Design: Individual

Harvard GSD Fall 2017

As a neighbor of amazon - where material objects await deliverance to consumers around the world - the project proposes the palazzo as a series of storage cabinets for people and their constantly growing material and lifestyle accruements.

2017 STUDIO - A FRUGAL PALAZZO

JUSTIN TAN

The palazzo consists of a series of various sized rooms generated and organized around the perfect grid space of the interior courtyard, which serves as the structuring system for both form and lifestyle. The residents observe the various aspects of their life: cooking, sleeping, bathroom, etc. organized into these gridded storage spaces which serve as an idealized space for living. This monastic sense of living through idealized space is further reinforced by the cloister hallway around the courtyard that functions as circulation between the private spaces and the communal space along the back wall of the palazzo. The corner plaza functions as a parvis in relation to the interior courtyard; the stark concrete and glass brick façade suggesting the idealized space within. This contrast between idealized space and the existing imperfect and skewed urban condition is heightened by the other sides of the palazzo directly referencing the existing buildings on the site. This distinction between the two conditions serves to generate a reading of the form not as an endless gird but rather that of an object, a storage cabinet with front to back, inside to outside, us than them relationships.

This substitution of the contextual generic condition for the idealized generic condition is both the argument for the frugality of the palazzo as well as its possibility for a more subtle opulence

Fig.1

Fig.1 - Ground Floor Plan with context. Downtown Seattle, Washington

100 ft

2017 STUDIO - A FRUGAL PALAZZO

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.1- Typical Floor Plan

100 ft

Fig.2

100 ft

Fig.3

Fig.1 - Section Facing East Fig.2 - Section Facing South

2017 STUDIO - A FRUGAL PALAZZO

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

Fig.1 - Housing Interior Composite Fig.2 - Courtyard Composite

Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig.3 - Exterior Street Corner Composite

2017 STUDIO - A FRUGAL PALAZZO

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.2

Fig.1 - 1:100 Physical Model Styrofoam - acryllic

THESIS

STILL LIFE

Merit Undergraduate Thesis Award Winner Site: Kaliningrad, Russia

Program: Museum / Cultural Center

Advisors: Marcelo Spina, Marcelyn Gow, Neil Denari Design: Individual

19 SCI-Arc Spring 2016

This thesis poses the question of how architecture, an inherently stable medium, can remain relevant within the rapidly shifting historical and ideological fictions that contextualize our time. In a predominantly visual culture, investigations into formal character are ideally suited for the production of an architecture that can engage both societal and architectural discourses. The calibration of immediacy through the silhouette versus the deferral of formal recognition are important problems in the contemporary study of character, relating to the legibility of an object in relation to its context.

2016 THESIS - STILL LIFE

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

The project brief is based on a 2015 competition for redevelopment of the Kaliningrad City Center. This location was of key importance in the former Soviet Union and in contemporary Kaliningrad, where it continues to occupy a historical and central part of the city. The project area plays a strategic role in the development of a new image for downtown as well as for the city and the region as a whole. The site itself sits atop a concrete plinth, which contains the ruins of Königsberg Castle. The castle was destroyed during

Fig.1 - Figure/Ground Study of Kaliningrad City Center

100 200

500 m

Fig.2

100 200

500 m

WWII, and the western end of the plinth continues to be an active archaeological site. The site is also adjacent to the House of Soviets, immediately to the east. As the only other structure to occupy the site and the tallest building in the immediate area, the House of Soviets stands as a impressive example of post-war Soviet architecture. However, the building was ever completed due to unresolved structural issues and has sat on the site unfinised and unusable for the past four decades.

Fig.3

Fig.4

Fig.2 - Program Study of Kaliningrad City Center Fig.3 - Facade Treatment Study Fig.4 - Urban Access Study

2016 THESIS - STILL LIFE

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.3

Fig.4

Fig.1

Fig.2 Fig.1 - Formal studies in relation to precedents Fig.2 - Character Models 3D print

During the enlightenment, character was formulated as ‘architecture parlante’ by architects such as Claude Nicholas Ledoux. Architecture parlante denoted the function of the building; form and ornamentation were used to characterize typological order and thus produce legibility in relation to context. John Hedjuk later reintroduced the idea of character through recombining architectural elements to produce an uncanny legibility with implicit poetic and ritualistic functions.

This thesis builds on the discourse of character through the perceived transformation of architectural elements and the legibility of context. The project produces readings of rectilinear mass and hypostyle columns, but undermines the stable identity of these elements. Reinterpreting the relationship between column and mass as an uncanny character results in a fragile hypostyle and a top-heavy mass that has a stilted posture towards the ground. The strangeness of the form is further amplified through its development into a building.

Fig.3 - Reference Facade Studies Fig.4 - Facade Study Renders

2016 THESIS - STILL LIFE

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

The form and texture of the building echoes the heavy, rectilinear mass and piloti of the adjacent House of the Soviets, as well as the hypostyle columns and gothic spires of the castle that once stood on the site. These buildings both denoted state power. The form of the tower acknowledges those buildings while challenging their status as representational objects through a re-characterization of the site. Fig.2

Fig.1 - Section

20 m

0 5 10 20 m

Fig.2 - Site Render South Elevation

2016 THESIS - STILL LIFE

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.1

20 m

The courtyard mediates the historical presence on the site by creating an urban pocket for the building and context to coexist. The overlapping grid on the building envelope and the strong axial relationship between the two buildings creates tension and affects new relationships in the surrounding context. The attitude of the project is one that acknowledges and preserves traits of the historical context while rearranging these traits into a new cohesion. Fig.2

Fig.1 - Plinth 2nd Floor Plan Fig.2 - 1:500 Site Model 3D print - MDF mill

2016 THESIS - STILL LIFE

JUSTIN TAN

Fig.2

Fig.1

Fig.4

Fig.5

20 m

Fig.3 Fig.1 - Plinth 1st Floor Plan Fig.2 - Tower 1st Floor Plan Fig.3 - 1:125 Model Photo Chipboard - 3D print

Fig.4 - Tower 5th Floor Plan Fig.5 - Tower 7th Floor Plan

2016 PROFESSIONAL WORK HEALTHCARE FACILITY

JUSTIN TAN

Professional Work

Victory Blvd. Healthcare Facility Site: Los Angeles, California Firm: P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S Status: Ongoing Role: Visualization/ Schematic Design/ Design Documentation 2016

The project is a conversion of an existing warehouse into a medical facility; adding an entire new basement and mezzanine while expanding the existing wooden structure from 17,000 to 40,000 ft2. The proposal connects front and back by diagonally slicing the existing building, yeilding a newly landscaped open-air public plaza. This plaza acts as a green wedge, linking parking lot and public access while welcoming visitors with seating and grass areas. Four interior courtyards afford doctors and patients natu25 ral light as well as access to upper levels directly from the basement

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Fig.3

Fig.1 Fig.2 Fig.1 -Massing Diagram Fig.2 - Plan Basement Fig.3 - Ground Floor Fig.4 - 2nd Floor Fig.5 - Section

Fig.8 Fig.6 - Site Render Fig.7 - Courtyard & Section Renders Fig.8 - Consttruction Photos

2016 PROFESSIONAL WORK MIXED-USE HIGHRISE

JUSTIN TAN

Professional Work

Downtown MixedUse Highrise Site: Los Angeles, California Firm: P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S / SOM Status: Ongoing Role: Visualization/ Schematic Design 2016

The project is a new 1.8 million sqft mixed-use highrise complex in downtown Los Angeles. As well as making a stricking formal sillouete agains the LA skyline, the massing of the towers is shifted to produce a “vertical neighborhood”; exterior amenity spaces on higher floors that allow a visual connection between occupants within the towers.

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50 100

250 ft

Fig.1

Fig.2

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Fig.1 - Program Diagrams Fig.2 - Massing Diagrams Fig.3 - Skyline Elevation Render

Fig.4 - Condo/Amenity Level Fig.5 - Plinth Roof Level Fig.6 - Plan Ground Level

Fig.8

Fig.7 - Tower Facade Renders