Portfolio of Junfu Cui by Junfu Cui

JUNFU CUI More Info: www.junfucui.com

01 Wax Catacomb 02 Six Silos 03 Timber in the City

AIA Chicago Student Award Nominee

04 Loop of Life 05 Courtyard + Courtyard + Courtyard House 06 The Dawn of Mayaimi 07 [Re]membran(c)e 08 Condom Cloud 09 Alternative Chair 10 Give me a minute, please! 11 Smuggling Architecture Exhibition Models

Instructor: John Ronan

Chicago

Spring 2020 Work with: Yuyi Zhou

Material Study of Wax

Wax Catacomb

Wax Catacomb is far beyond a cemetery. As a bottom-to-top design, the key is to completely involve the function with material. Including those potential social rituals, these factors should all be generated from the unique features of wax. Wax is widely used when people hold sacrificial ceremonies. These half-transparency materials suggest the function and bring a sense of mystery to the visitors. After exploring its characters, we were able to form the wax without relying on other building materials. Role in team: Play an important leader in the design process especially in the initial design phase, preliminary research of climate change in Miami, conceptual design, technical drawings, architectural representation, renderings, physical models. Water forms wax To maintain the purity of material usage, we manage to limit material categories to those that would stay as architecture itself. In other words, material we used, including during the construction period, we only would apply wax as the cemetery, concrete as retaining wall, and the water from the site as mould. Therefore, no other material would be used only for construction that nothing needs to be disposed. Cold Water is a perfect mould for wax, it can not only solidify melted wax immediately, but also endow wax a free form. Wax obeies gravity Thanks to the gravity, it allows the melted wax to touch the ground and compose into a solid column instead of floating on the water. To generate different areas and volume of these solid wax columns, various impact forces and dropping height need to be added. During the simulation period, we controlled the shape of solid wax through giving different extrusion force to the container of wax so that those shooted melted wax would be strong enough to break through the water and touch the ground. Gravity scatters water After the gravity gives the melted wax forces to break through the water, the force would transfer into the vibration of water, which would eventually calm down and surround the wax. This period is rather short that the wax would be able to become an organic shape instead of being a solid cube.

Simulating Construction Process Step 1: Pour one layer of wax as ground. Step 2: Fill the boundary with water as mould. Step 3: Shooting melted wax into water. Step 4: Gently pour a layer of wax to cover the revealed void

Spring 2020

Water - Wax Texture When water hit warm wax, texture like this would be generated. These random voids on the surface create numerous unique graves for each deceased.

Wax Catacomb

Traditional Catacomb Catacombs are human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, a l t h o u g h t h e w o rd i s m o s t c o m m o n l y associated with the Roman Empire. In this evolved wax catacomb, the traditional burial system is applied but expressed in a unique and artistic way.

Shiny Star Buried in the City Located on the west side of Chinatown, the catacomb is surrounded by highway and parking lot. When the sun goes down, wax catacomb will flash the light and attract people from the city.

Spring 2020

Excavation the site

Drainage the water from the river

Throw melted wax with force to the water

Pour the final wax with light force

Building Process Unlike the simulating process, in real life, helicopters or other huge machines need to be applied.

Wax Catacomb

Simulating Plan Wax is not as strong as masonry or concrete, so to guarantee the catacomb can support itself. 80% percent need to be solid, which means the void, colored in white, can only take up to 20% of the whole volume

Simulating Interior Section These 20% Void are not simply extured. They are randomly arranged but also follow the path that is created by solid. These voids can be seen as different chambers, where the bone ash would be buried.

Spring 2020

Captured Experience Interior Scenes are unpredictable, and each moment inside the wax catacomb would be unique. Light, Sound, Smell and Touch would all be capricious.

Wax Catacomb

Grove St. View Pedestrians would barely see above the catacomb. But we indeed provide the opportunities for people to feel the exterior void, hopefully it would attract them to visit inside.

Aerial Photo Wax Catacomb suits perfectly within the context, especially the geometry and the texture. After 100 years, if people got tired of it, they can always melt the wax and remake one

Spring 2020

Night Scenes Thanks to the transparency of wax, with the light shining during the light.Not only the texture can be emphasised, but the street view would be improved.

Six Silos Fall 2018 Work with: Yuyi Zhou

Instructor:Patricia Natke, Robert natke

Chicago

Playing the Poche of the Spaces

Six Silos

The project is a renovation of the old silo factory located on an abandoned industrial area in Chicago. The silos have been abandoned since a 1977 explosion. Silos were traces of the industrial era. Through human development, more and more industrialized trails originally existed on the earth. How do we reuse them while highlighting their cultural value? Role in team: Play an important leader in the design process, conceptual design, technical drawings, and architectural representation, renderings physical Model. Silos always give people a feeling of mystery because of their opacity and height. People have no idea what is inside of them. We decided to take advantage of the mysterious feeling in addition to their structural thickness. We kept the original structure and added floors to the silos to create inhabitable space. First, we begin with the shape of the space as a circle which comes from the original shape of the silo. Then we break the circle to create the “wall”. We rotate the wall to create different feelings and different functions on each floor. The interesting thing is when we rotate the circular wall to create the inhabitable space, we create an interesting “Poche” space too. The Poche space could also be used as another room, furniture, or an armature. In this case we kept the old structure to represent the existing silo while creating new spaces.. We played a lot with the light to keep the silo mysterious so each silo has a different atmosphere due to the light conditions. Due to the height of silos, the building actually has a beautiful view. In order to make the building more cultural and commercial, We decided to add a new structure on top of the old silos. The program of the new structure is a small theatre for 300 people. Our goal is to create different functions and feelings through the old part of the silos to the new part of the theatre. The philosophy of this project is to use the existing forms of the silos to create types of spaces with different feelings and experiences.

Existing Overall View

Existing Interior View

Fall 2018

Poche Space in the Silo Take the original circular shape from the old silo, and think the circle as the main functional spaces when the circles tangent to each other, there is a negative space, just like the Poche spaces.

Alternative Poche Spaces Unlike the traditional Poche space, we think Poche space itself could become another program or an armature for the building.

Six Silos

Support Tower Office, Kitchen, Back Stage and Mechanical Room

New Construction Theater space

Open Platform Pre-functional space for theater

Vertical Transportation Six elevators reach the open platform

Double Facade

Provide better quality of acoustic and visual effect

Skyline Viewer Glass Staircase for entering theater

Old Construction Adding floors and walls to the existing silo structure

Existing Facade

Cutting different angle of the existing facade to create amazing lighting condition

Fall 2018

The original old silo structure

Adding the new structure on top

Adding floors and walls inside

Cutting the new facade for old silo

We choose six silos for the major program parts. Left four we carve out the original silo structure to make an opening space for exhibition. Right two we decided to put staircase and bathrooms.

Theater silo

Our rule for making new space in the six silos are choosing a quarter piece of the circle and rotate the wall for different angle, when the wall meet each other, they will generate different type of Poche spaces and different dimension of spaces for different programs.

Circulation silo

Whole

D Program silo C

Parts

Facade System

Six Silos

First Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

Entrance, gift store, and resting area Using the new construction wall to create more private spaces

Art gallery Using the new construction wall to create m

Second Floor Plan

Fourth Floor Plan

Classroom, working tables Using the new construction wall to create more private spaces

Restaurant Using the new construction wall to create m

more open spaces

Fall 2018

Open Platform Plan Pre-functional space An outdoor space for people to gather before going to the theater

Theater Level Plan Performing stage and backstage There are movable walls to divide the big seating area into six individual small stages

Six Silos

Nwe Part We rotated the form of the floor to create the roof so that the structure on the top will look the same language but different feelings. In order to let the roof part looks like new and light, we study different patterns for the new facade system.

Facade System We carve the facade of the old part of the building to create different lighting. The different angles of the curving facades create different angles of indirect lighting.

Fall 2018

Detail Section The new parts of the silo are constructed in precast concrete; the curvilinear geometry for the roof makes the precast concrete strong enough to span the entire theater.

Spring 2019 Work with: Botao Sun

Instructor:David Woodhouse

New York

Timber Structure as Tension Members

Timber in the City

The goal for the project is embracing new structure and ecological possibilities of wood construction, to design a mid-rise, mixed-use complex that includes affordable housing, a large community wellness facility and an early childhood education center. The challenge is to propose construction systems in scenarios that draw optimally on the performance characteristics of wood technologies and are encouraged to think about the site as a testing ground for socially, materially, and environmentally progressive and innovative models of sustainable urban living. Role in team: Play an important leader in the design process, especially in the initial design phase, preliminary material research in timber, conceptual design, technical drawings, and architectural representation, physical model. For thousands of years, solid wood has been used as a building material. Modern timber products and systems have greatly expanded the potential uses of this historical material. Timber is an ideal green building material: it is well suited for a broad range of structural and aesthetic applications, it offers economical construction and highperformance characteristics in strength and energy efficiency, and wood is an economic driver to maintain forests and protect jobs in rural communities. Timber as a construction material is good at in tension than in compression. The compression strength parallel to the grain is much lower than tensile strength.

Since our site is located in Queens, just south of the Queensborough/Ed Koch Bridge. Overlooking the East River, with views to Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, the vacant site can be understood as a segment within a larger chain of mixed-use waterfront development in the Borough, including the Hunters Point and Annabel Basin projects underway to the south, and stretching south to Brooklyn and north to the Bronx. These new approaches to affordable housing stand in contrast to the NYCHA Queensbridge Housing development to the north. Constructed in 1939, it is one of the largest public housing complexes in North America. Along with the adjacent Queensbridge Park, it reflects nearly centuryold ideals of living, construction, affordable housing, and landscape, which will be reconsidered and re-imagined in this competition. This site has a great opportunity to become a new landmark and public center with the program list we have. At the same time, the site, as riverside territory, has a very fragmented soil condition. Conduct a massive mixeduse architecture would also challenge us from a structural perspective.

Using Tension Wood Members to Construct

The general form came from the study of site and context; we decided to use four basic volumes to separate the programs and make the center as a plaza that opens to the public. And the diagonal crossing the site maintains great views for surroundings, becoming a new neighborhood center by melting into streets. Necessary elements as elevators and fire stairs are used as core columns that hold all the steel roof structure, so the rest of the timber structure could be hanging downward. In this way, the lumber become super skinny; column-free spaces are provided for ground floor programs like a gym, early education center, and the lobby. It is also the logical choice to construct a fragmented soil site along the river.

Spring 2019

New Waterfront Arrangement

Circulation

Green Space

Building Heights

Residential Space

Commercial Space

Private Business Space

Timber in the City

Phase 1

Phase 2

Construct the commercial program for income

Phase 3

Construct the apartment hanging on top

Construct the roof as a bedrock for hanging the building

Phase 4

Keep adding apartments and put more commercial programs

Lake View Viewing from Manhattan towards the project's site, the canopy of the building and the tension members makes the project light and elegant.

Spring 2019

Hanging Roof

Steel and wood members

Tensioned Facade Members Wood members

Tensioned members Wood members

Residential Living Every unites have the nice view of the river or the city

Compression Core Elevator and Stair

Center core Laundry, Mail, Shoping and Dinning

Stairs for Public Entrance

Ramp Connection to the Core Making the elevation gap to provide privacy for residence

Office Building

Water front Platform Private more open space for public

Public Courtyard

Make the centercore open to the city

Center Core Overview Axonometric The Core is connected by a spiral staircase and an elevator, with controlled access to the residential floors. All types of users are free to use the public space, with controlled access to the private space.

Timber in the City

Center Core for Dinning and Shopping Plan

Center Core for Daily Using Plan

Ground Level Plan The plan arrangement is based on the connection of the opening of the street. Beyond simply providing an active interface for public accessibility, it is a dynamic dialogue with the urban context.

Spring 2019

Melting into Street The center core of the building is completely open to the street in four directions which leads the public into the public plaza. The major opening allows a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline.

Timber in the City

Studio Unite River View

Studio Unite City View

1 Bed Unites River View

1 Bed Unites City View

Spring 2019

2 Beds Unites River View

2 Beds Unites City View

3 Beds Unites River View

3 Beds Unites City View

Timber in the City

Near Roof Level Axonometric Section The mixture of different program occurs on the center core which opens the building to the public and gives people a feeling of vertical hanging district.

Near Ground Level Axonometric Section At the base, the public plaza which allows access to the new waterfront, early childhood center, commercial core or the fitness center.

Spring 2019

Interior Centercore Perspective The interior of the center core is curvilinear. It is privates a different feeling when people see the building from the street. Each entrance as an opening has a great view of the surrounding.

Street Level Perspective Opaque and translucent facades highlight the differences between the residential core and the commercial core. The residential core has the opaque wood facade for privacy.

Instructor: Pezo Von Ellrichshausen

Mount Rainier National Park

Fall 20201 Work with: Ying Xiong

Crematory of the Corpse Flower

Loop of Life

While every building is a unique case , all cases together are the universe of Architecture . According to the original treatises, every case founds a specific discontinuity with its surrounding domains. Following popular myths, architecture is an artifice within the natural world. A case, a simple box, a chamber or a hall, is in fact defined by its degree of interiority, by the encompassing boundary that holds a certain volume of air.“Naïve Intention” is a term introduced in a lecture Pezo Von Ellrichshausen gave and later published as an essay book (New York: Actar, 2017). Its central paradox is simple: nature is unintentional; artefacts are not. We keep thinking that even the infinite field of sources of our supposedly total network is not enough to annihilate the inertia of our most traditional beliefs. This semester’s project is a botanical shelter for resident ecologists (as a satellite program for the United States Botanical Garden in Washington, at Paradise, near Mount Rainier National Park). Replacing the notion of native as indigenous by that of innate, projects are going to be developed as a self-referential research on spatial integrity. Instead of implementing concepts, diagrams or gestures, we begin our “designs” (from designare, todesignate, to draw) with the production of a large amount of rather small ideas. Our building is a botanic garden for titan arum, a rare tropical flower that is originally found in Indonesia. It is typically 2-3m tall and has a pungent smell when it blooms, which is known as the corpse flower. It has a growing cycle from a seed to mature flower and then back to a dormant seed. Every year, it will bloom and go back to sleep, and next year it will come back again. Inspired by its nature of growing cycle, our garden mimics the cycling experience both spatially and programmatically. Our site is located in a suburban neighborhood on the southside of the mountain rainier. We found deep interest in the local context as they are so close to nature but still highly intervened by artificial designs. We intend to put our building in the neighborhood and reflect the phenomena in our two facades. One that is a wall towards the highway which became a barrier to protect the local community from the cars. And the other side of the wall became a mirror that collects and reflects the character from the local context which is the elements of the ungracious buildings.

Loop of the Life The life of a flower is a cycle. The dead flower can provide fertilizer for other flowers after being dried and burned. Every year, it will bloom and go back to sleep, and next year it will come back again.

Spring 2021

Chaotic Context It ironic to see the unpretentiousness of these ungracious buildings and how they start to deviate from the banal. Each one is so different from another but at the same time they synchronize in the subrual context.

Loop of Life

Perspective from the Highway Approaching the building , you can see it stands with Mountain Rainier in the backdrops. A vertical solid wall blocks the highway from the neighborhood. While black smoke slowly rises from the chimney.

Perspective from the Neighborhood It is also ironic to see the unpretentiousness of these ugly buildings start to deviate from the banal. We intend to put our building in the neighborhood and reflect the phenomena in our two facades.

Spring 2021

Loop as Life In plan, a loop of space is surrounding the central courtyard. The chimney for the crematory became both the end and start of the journey. A furnace and chimney is at the entrance of the building where keepers can burn the flowers.

Loop of Life

Starting Point as the Ending Point The chimney space where the chimney is lifted with glass on the ground and you can kind of sense the heat and smoke inside. The skylight around the chimney allows light to pour down and light up the space. And your journey is complete.

Perspective of the Arum Flower's Garden And the titan arum flowers stand in the central courtyard. Then the building itself becomes a container of layers: the outside layer as a barrier and a inner side layer of loop of space surrounding the central courtyard for the flower.

Spring 2021

Ohter Perspectives If you look through the tiny window, you can see the flowers and the balcony. Our first floor is only accessible to the keepers. A long hallway connects all the spaces along the central courtyard.

Loop of Life

Spring 2021

Cavalier Drawing, water color+ipad+photoshop, 47x67in (on 8x4 A4s), 2021 45

Summer 2019

Beijing

New Typology of Traditional Chinese Courtyard House

Courtyard + Courtyard + Courtyard House

This project develops a new residential typology for the traditional Chinese Courtyard House. Traditional courtyard homes use rectangles as the shape of the courtyard to make theological “Feng Shui”, which is based on the “circle place”. The nature of the courtyard itself is natural, and the rectangular geometric shapes do not adapt easily to a natural concept. As a result, the courtyard space is surrounded by geometric shapes and becomes too monotonous. How to develop a new typology of the Chinese Courtyard House in today’s modern environment? The site is located in Houhai which is one of the most famous areas with traditional culture in Beijing, China. The streets of Beijing’s traditional courtyard houses are still preserved. They all face the water, and the streets formed by the natural form of the river are curved streets without a true north or south axis. Natural texture influences the formation of streets. In this area, the influence of Beijing’s grid on the courtyard house has gradually faded, and their orientation follows the natural curve of the street and river. The new form of the courtyard house combines the urban grid with natural texture. On one side is the residence’s response to the urban grid, and on the other side is the residence’s response to nature. With the fusion of the two mechanisms, the courtyard typology has been sublimated. The courtyard itself now has a curved property, which makes the form of the courtyard more natural and also increases visual diversity. At the same time, the functional distinction of the new form of the courtyard also meshes with the courtyard’s own geometry, so that the space itself can maximize its integration with the courtyard.

Form and Typology Studies Test how to let the curvilinear courtyard best fit the typology of the Chinese Courtyard house. What is the best shape to fit within the context, and what is the best form of the roof for the new courtyard house?

Summer 2019

Courtyard Form Iterations In a traditional courtyard house, each room has a very limited view of the courtyard. By modifying the form of the traditional courtyard house views to the courtyard from every room was maximized.

Overall Site Plan The new typology of Chinese Courtyard house combined both the urban texture of Beijing, and the natural texture of the waterfront, the geometry of the courtyard is a mixture of these two textures.

Courtyard + Courtyard + Courtyard House

Curve Analysis The complex geometry of the courtyard is designed based on reference to the radii of five separate non-concentric circles. This facilitated measured window mullion placement and ensured an affordable approach to construction.

Ground Level Plan The functional distinction of the new form of the courtyard also meshes with the courtyard's own geometry, so that the space itself can maximize its integration with the courtyard and maximize the view of the courtyard from every room.

Summer 2019

View Toward the Courtyard The courtyard divides the house into two parts; one part is for “public” functions such as a living room, or a dining room, the other part is for “private” functions. Two bedrooms and supporting bathing rooms are located within this private area.

Respect the Context The back of the residence references Beijing's city grid. The front part of the house is designed to respect the Site’s natural context. The roof is slightly sloped as a reflection of the home’s natural context.

Spring 2020 Work with: Yuyi Zhou

Instructor: Susan Conger-Austin, Paul Endres

Chicago

Infrastructure to Create New Living Environment

The Dawn of Mayaimi

There has been much discourse across a broad spectrum of stakeholders addressing the significance of climate change and the associated risks to dense population centers, but what if we embrace the coming change that could be created in the aftermath? The studio is about creating a living landform - an all-wood bridge spanning four miles that can accommodate a population of 100,000 inhabitants to achieve a new typology for collective housing/ community within the urban setting of Miami. The studio has two phases, the first half of the semester was designing the megastructure for the bridge, the second half of the semester was identifying and designing the programs located on the megastructure. Role in team: Play an important leader in the design process especially in the initial design phase, preliminary research of climate change in Miami, conceptual design, technical drawings, architectural representation, renderings, physical models. A century from now the sea level surrounding Miami, Florida is estimated to rise at least 6 feet. This will render half of the Miami beach area under seawater. Therefore, we are going to propose a “bridge-like” infrastructure for people who will lose their land due to rising sea levels. Rather than providing a connection from place A to place B, our bridge aims to become a place to mourn the past and to look forward to the future. Miami is a city of contrasts, on one end, there are landscape ecologies ranging from the Everglades to the dense tropical hardwood hammocks, to Biscayne Bay, and the beaches. These natural and distinct environments are mixed, and at times, subsumed by the rapid growth and densification of the city and its infrastructure. Our bridge captures the nature of Miami Beach which will no longer exist because of the rising sea level. We are trying to find a new type of living condition which allows humans and nature to co-exist. The grand canyon is a grandeur nature’s gift, and we decide to bring it to our bridge. “Lightness” is another strategy to achieve in our structure. This ambitious structure will be biodegradable, renewable, and built upon the inherent properties of wood to discover how “the invention of form coincides with the invention of the building process.”1 The idea of lightness is symbolic of the culture of our current generation. The bridge starts from the city side and cantilevers above the Miami Beach which is under the sea. The dramatic cantilever is going to be an icon for people when they see it stops in the sky, and the past is disappearing under the cantilever. We frame the depleted beach making the end of Miami Beach into our endless memorial. 1Rafael Moneo from his discussion of the origin of architectural form in the work of Antonio Gaudi

Miami Sea Level Rise Map By 2050 scientists predict rising sea levels of up to 3 feet, by 2100 the sea level will rise up to 6 feet above the existing Miami Beach. This means that half of the Miami Beach will be under the water level.

Fall 2019

Structure Iterations 1 The rising of the sea level will lead to the catastrophic fate of the city being submerged underwater. The bridge provides one model for sustaining its future. The original concept is to make a bridge with direct connections at each end.

Structure Iterations 2 Utilizing some different and more efficient structural techniques, we settled on pursuing the idea of a cantilever. A cantilevered bridge’s visual impact will be dramatic and also convey its presence as a haven from the rising sea levels.

The Dawn of Mayaimi

Three Dimensional Balanced Force In order to achieve the giant cantilever, there are two invisible slender towers. Each of them is balanced spatially by three forces. In this way, residents would not beneath the shadow of a huge structure - instead, what they will see are slender indistinct towers and delicate cables. The towers will also house the facilities to generate energy and a system for clean water supply for the entire bridge community.

Location and Origination of the Bridge The bridge will connect the neighborhood of “Little Haiti” and cantilever above the Beach. The units on the bridge are slightly tilted in angles, to allow the bridge to have the maximum amount of sunlight, the entire bridge is tilted 20 degrees.

Fall 2019

The Lightness of Structure Looking toward this proposed structure from a distance, it will almost be imperceptible. The supporting towers are thin and transparent, and the suspension cables are very thin.

The Dawn of Mayaimi

Design Modural Miami’s typical street module is based on 80 meters by 80 meters system. An extension of this drowning city, the same dimensions are applied in this bridge and become its rhythm.

Transportation System The bridge has six major stops for the visitors. Residents have direct access to private stops beneath each dwelling unit. The walking distance between each station is in 10 minutes.

Fall 2019

Rhythm of Elevation The interval between the two vertical massings is the stage for lightness and view. Similar but different experiences attract and entice the visiting audiences to explore the rest of the architecture.

Rhythm of Plan Walking through the entire bridge, they will experience many changes related to light and shadow - which will make the journey across the bridge dramatic. This is accomplished by shifting the residential units from different angles.

The Dawn of Mayaimi

One of Apartment Unites on the Bridge The hollow in the middle of the apartment building is an aerial “Grand Canyon” formed by artificial nature. When people live in an apartment, they are surrounded by natural elements.

Perspective of Openness Looking from the sea towards the city. The geometries of the bridge are occluded one to each other. ITurning around the view, we can see the openness of the structure with the nature inside the bridge. The bridge is welcome people to live in.

Fall 2019

The Light and Shadow Taking advantage of cooperation between each elegant bar and maximum influence. The interval between two massings is the stage for lightness and view - Similar but different experience attract audience continue to explore the rest.

The Dawn of Mayaimi

Fall 2019

Memorial Atmosphere The endpoint of the bridge is the most dramatic place and it is about a memorial garden, people in this place will see the horizon line of the sky above, and down below the former Miami Beach - a ghost beneath the rising waters. People will reflect on themselves what did they do and how to be better in the future.

Natural Atmosphere At this point, the size of the residential units is getting m u c h s m a l l e r, a s t h e natural component of the bridge is playing the lead role in this atmosphere. Inside the dwelling units, there is a great canyon hanging garden. People will live with this natural element in the new typology of the dwelling.

Living Atmosphere The starting point of the bridge is the residential community; almost 60 percent of the residents are living in this part, which is approximately 100 stories above the sea level. The experience of living in the canopy of a giant wooden jungle will become very c l e a r a s re s i d e n t s s e e people and watercraft down at the sea level below.

The Dawn of Mayaimi

Overview Towards to the City Side Each apartment unit is like a fish scale. When the light is sprinkled on it, each platform will display a unique color. People can watch the sunrise and sunset on the platform, which is in line with the existing local customs of the City of Miami.

Fall 2019

Poetic Ending At the end of the bridge, the view below is their former homeland. This area helps to bring natural elements into the structure which will aid residents to simultaneously reflect upon the past and look forward to their respective futures.

[Re]membran(c)e

The Confederate monument statues were erected decades after the Civil War, and it was celebrated by Southern States for a long time associated with institutional and historical racist. The individual object or heroic figure on the pedestal represents the glorification of the subject, in this case is the so-called “Lost Cause”. Statue as an obvious and powerful way to let people know this figure and its idea, opinion or achievement (systemic social inequality) it represents is important enough to cast in bronze and stone as part of Historic narrative and stand the test of time. It failed.

Instructor: Jeremy Foster

Fall 2020 Richmond

A Neutral Ground Document History

[Re]membran(c)e

Work with: Jingyi Xu, Junfei Pei, Ying Xiong

“Cities a socially produced…and city form is not neutral but imbued with ideologies…” -Malcolm Miles, Art, Space and the City: Public Art and Urban Futures, 1997

he archeology sites of previous slavery trail, auction houses, and slave burial ground, T which are now buried under parking lot, interstate highway…due to the rapid city development and intentional negligence on this untold past. The collective memories of colored people passing by their enslaved ancestors have no materialized commemorative space at all. But as a part of counter history, the “lost memory” exists immaterially as a foil to the Monument Ave. Sites and places for these untold counter-memories need to become obvious enough to the public.

NEUTRALIZATION

Fall 2020

[Re]membran(c)e

I t is what happens now in 2020 that let us rethink about monument, but not only focus on those long-stand statue at monument ave, but also the invisible monuments for the slavery history as an important evidence of social inequity. Most of the public are debating on if the statue should be removed. Minority use it as a counter point advocating social justice, by protesting around it, defacing and toppled it. Keeping the statues where they are (in a place of importance) means outdated ideas regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, class, war, equal rights, and everything in-between should remain stagnant.

Fall 2020

Meanwhile rightwing group and Confederate sympathizers speak against removal in the cause of “respect for history. Directly or indirectly, their support on social injustice represented by those confederate monuments are exploited as support on white supremacy inevitably. However according to public survey, 25-30% of general public are expected a certain degree of modification with current social context, instead of total elimination nor preservation. Noted that, however, all these happened around those monument with a “Object” or “Site”.

[Re]membran(c)e

The concept of palimpsest refers to a manuscript on piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. In the design of Remembrance, this concept is a leverage to complete the use cycle of the building material, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). From time to time, visitors come to Remembrance sites and write down their memories and voice on surfaces of TPU. As the writing accumulates, the TPU surfaces eventually will be disassembled and become a artifact for historical museums but still bear visible traces of everyone who has been there and voice out.

Fall 2020

Neutralization is part of our answer. By blurring out those permanent representative figure statues and reclaiming social injustice’s forgotten sites, the city’s collective memory can be reshaped from the formal history narrative. Making them temporary installations is a part of our tactical strategy, inspired by the fleeting but long-last memory perception of New York City’s scaffolding. Universal tectonics and materiality enhance the ability to apply intervention on different sites (buildings, bridges, vacant lot, rooftop, etc.). The strategy is also to create such a neutral point in-between eternity and temporality of sites of memory.

Condom Cloud

Instructor: Caroline O'Donnell, Dillon Pranger

Fall 2020 New York

Installation for Gender Gender Equality

Condom Cloud

Work with: Hanxi Yang, Yangli Hu, Zhongyuan Liu

Forty-three thousand five hundred condoms are being recalled during the manufacturing process, and 940,000 condoms expire in the United States stores per year. These condoms cannot be recycled directly in the factory, because they have lubricants and other additions on the surfaces. Thus, we raised the question that, instead of ending up in the landfill, how could these discarded condoms serve a new function to prolong their meanings, and how could they develop their features in a new possibility?

The goal of the pavilion is to create a “Gender Equality” space for people to play with. We use condoms as material not only because of the life cycle of the material but also want to give people a special meaning for gender. We use the condom to cover the body part of humans so that people can interact with people without knowing their Gender characteristics. Taking advantage of the flexible characteristic of condoms, we create a flexible pavilion which can be reshaped by interacting with people as well as the wind. The pavilion has three layers of condoms vertically. The top layer is the condoms with hydrogen. It can show different shapes over time responding to the surroundings and wind. The middle layer is at the same height as human genital areas, which has a certain metaphor that refers to gender differentiation. This layer consists of three or four condoms in each unit. As we enter in, walk, or even push the condom units, the middle layer can be formed by our actions. And the bottom layer is the condoms with the gravity provided by water to set on the ground. In such a way, by applying the condom’s characteristics on a pavilion, we discovered the new interactions between condoms and people and made the pavilion adaptive to the surrounding environments.

Fall 2020

Condom Cloud

Fall 2020

Alternative Chair

Spring 2019

Exploring the Curvature of the Body

Alternative Chair

To design a chair is a similar task to the design of a building. A chair is the smallest functional space for people to sit. A deep understanding of the shape of the body is extremely important to design a good chair. The original concept of this chair is an ancient Chinese character of the word “sit” because Chinese are hieroglyph words so that the word “sit” is actually a small drawing of a person sitting. The curvature of the chair is generated from the word. When people are sitting, their backs should never be straight so, determining the best curve to support a human back and spine comfortably is another goal for this project. Through many iterations of mockups and failures, a solution resulted. The finished chair is not only beautiful in its aesthetic qualities, but it is also a perfect companion to the human body.

I use a lamination technique to define the curvature of the chair. Lamination is manufacturing a material in multiples so that the composite material achieves improved strength and stability. And the curvature itself adds strength to the material too. The leg of the chair is only one inch thick but is strong enough to hold a person’s weight.

Spring 2019

Give me a minute, please!

Fall 2019

Kwong Von Glinow Office Work

Give me a minute, please!

The theme Design a Better Chicago acknowledges that our city is constantly evolving: it is never static and it never stops imagining a better version of itself. The question we asked ourselves when given this site was: what more can we give to this site as architects” We proposed a design that offers time and space, titled “Give me a minute, please!” Robert Burnier’s largest structure of his 2018 series “Black Tiberinus” anchors itself to the Riverwalk foundation piles. At 19’x19’x31’, the sturdily held nylon mesh and rope artwork gracefully play out soft movements of color and shadow within the structural framework. We approached this structure as a “found object” on the site, with the ambition to extend the use of the existing wartwork.

Fall 2019

Smuggling Architecture Exhibition Models

Fall 2019

Kwong Von Glinow Office Work

Smuggling Architecture Exhibition Models

The suburban housing accounts for about half of the housing in America, and of that 98 percent are made from builder’s home plans. So, it’s really an unclaimed territory for architects. For the exhibition, our office is transforming floor plans from their builders’ home design books. Doing so required studying the floor plans of some of the architecture’s greatest minds. We turned into these floor plans to three models which displayed at the Swiss Architecture Museum.

Fall 2019

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