Bachelor of Design in Architecture, The University of Sydney, 2020 Master of Architecture, The University of Sydney, 2022
Kangcheng Zheng’s portfolio
[SPHERE]
Peter Sloterdijk considers the world as a foamy space filled with bubbles and orbs of different scales and qualities in his trilogy Spheres. The bubble is not purely a metaphor. According to Sloterdijk and his metaphor of the womb, it is an imaginative constitution of our very existence. In a relationship between a person and a building, one unconsciously tries to recreate the relationship between a fetus and its first place to exist - the womb to protect itself from the ‘outside’.
In an era of globalisation and digitalisation, these spheres mentioned by Peter Sloterdijk, construct our everyday life with a fluid reality. Architects, often without knowing, not only materialise this public sphere but also modify it unconsciously. When designers are making our design, we are dealing with the dreams of people who will live and experience these creations and spaces. These spheres generated by people and architecture propels me to ask and study the relationship between architectural ideologies and our life.
The sphere can be decisive, it presents the superficial desire of us. We might get lost when we are busy satisfying this desire of people. Here, architects have a similar job to philosophers, before solving any problem, it is important to redefine the problem itself, either in the realm of physical or digital.
AI, S urre A l IS m
A nd d A d AIS m
Do AI Dream of Electronic Sheep? The short answer is yes. AIs have learnt to with our mementoes, with our most obscene desires. Like Dadaism and Surrealism, the result of the Convolutional Neural Network often presents us with an uncanny scene of dislocation, juxtaposition, and transformation of symbolic images. By short-circuiting the AI, we can use the AI to embody architectural design with a higher degree of spontaneity and automatism to paranoically re-imagine an art space of torture and terror. As a result, the architecture of surrealist objects is a mediator to psychoanalyse and decipher our collective dream.
The AI can be considered as an Apollonian apparatus which presents divine shapes and forms from the dream (Traum), however, the poem input is on the side of Dionysus, an analogy to intoxication(Rausch). A dreamer following the principle of individuation can be seen as an apollonian, but if a dream is derived from the mementoes, it became part of the Dionysus choruses.
as it goes:
Art critic announced that art wend through metal, fire and bubble.
Artists sought hard romance in objects.
Gleeful audience settled as a Catholic school girl.
Let there be struggle into the limelight.
“My Battle My Participation and My Position in the Surrealist Revolution ‘Surrealist Object’ versus ‘Narrated Dream’ Critical-Paranoiac Activity Versus Automatism.”
Salvador Dali, The secret life of Salvador Dali
Mementos: Related Images stored on the Internet
Dislocation
Dadaist poems “short-circuit”
input
Disco Diffusion AI
A similar process of “The Paranoid Critical Method” to process the materials
Juxtaposition
Transformation
A reference for next image, but as if playing the popular game among the Dadaists - Decalcomania, AI can only see the last drawing without previous frames.
Image
“Paranoiac-critical activity organizes and objectivizes in an exclusivist manner the limitless and unknown possibilities of the systematic association of subjective and objective ‘significance’ in the irrational ...it makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality.”
Tristan Tzara, the great poet of the anti-aesthetic movement - Dada, pointed out that Dada is not a style but rather a state of mind. The question is: what is this state of mind? Why do some artworks like Fountain by Duchamp have this uncanny power (whether it is generated from its aesthetic) to undermine our perception of what is art?
Slavoj Zizek has a methodology for his critical philosophical reading, a process that he called ‘short-circuit’: Intentionally short-circuiting a theme through the lens of a ‘minor’ conceptual apparatus. It can dissolve the interpreted text, exploring its ‘unthought’. For example, it allows one to perceive theories of Lacan through the lens of Hegal. On the other hand, Salvador Dalí develops a critical system, which he called Paranoiac Critical Method(PCM): A conscious way of putting oneself into a delirium of interpretation. These two methods are crucial for us to study the rational and irrational aesthetics of Dadaism and Surrealism.
In a ready-made object montage, the work is in a state of what Zizek called “a reality in the virtual” which is “produced and generated by something, which does not yet fully exist.” In this sense, architecture as a sphere shares the same analogy as Dada artworks. On the other hand, Alejandro Zaera-Polo points out that “globalisation has propelled a set of spatial typologies primarily determined by the capacity to conduct flow. Architects have tried to engage with this borderless space, the ‘space of flows’ ......presenting an image of the world as a chaotically flowing magma. However, a new picture is emerging in the form of bubbles and containers of a liquid reality.” Such reality has the freedom to dissolve, reconstruct and mutate in all forms in different spheres. A question arises, in what way this fluid reality interacts with people and influence beyond its container?
Fg.3.2. Sketch of Salvador Dalí, The secret life of Salvador Dalí, Animation Viewer Clip-2 Portal Clip-1 Portal Delirium of interpre - tation: Invasion of the Symbolic realmDadaist poems are like somniloquies – ridiculous, fragmented and meaningless. However, it sometimes shows a rhythm of metaphor, symbolisation and prophecy. As the miserable fate of Cassandra, people will never take these somniloquies seriously. By inputting Dadaist poems, AI can be short-circuited to generate images that may potentially indicate how we perceive these somniloquies. The AI structure functions like a virtual museum without form.
Surrealist artists like Salvador Dalí, and Andre Breton used automatic techniques to embody art with a higher degree of spontaneity and automatism so they can play with this unconsciousness of humans. Dalí created the methodology - the Paranoid Critical Method to help him perceive reality based on a “delirium of interpretation”. As Dalí writes in Conquest of the Irrational, “Paranoiac-critical activity organizes and objectives in an exclusivist manner the limitless and unknown possibilities of the systematic association of subjective and objective ‘significance’ in the irrational ...it makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality.”
When AI is fed with fragmented poems, it will follow the order to produce irrational images based on photorealism. Just like a Surrealist artist, it aims to produce its precise art as mechanically as possible, representing a subconscious vision of the collective mind.
The museum, or a gallery, is a typical sphere of architecture. As a reactive matrix of the city’s cultural information, it allows different spaces and times in a city or a bigger collective being to be connected, examined, contested and represented. A heterotopic space such as a museum will require the process of gas terrorism to control the climate within the sphere. The cultural security of museums is archived ironically through this terrorism.
The air conditioning inside the museum is not only a thermal phenomenon but a representation of the inert atmosphere within. As Peter Sloterdijk states: “Humans create their own climate -not of their own free will, however, under self-chosen circumstances, but under found, given and handed-down ones. The museum refuses its visitors from modifying the public sphere and capture them with an exquisite container. Boris Groys points out that the story told by the exhibition in a particular order ensures that the exhibition space is always a narrative space.
Aesthetic is the skin and texture of the sphere. Instead of following a narrative, or a certain logic of aesthetic, a surrealist object offers its viewers a new way of looking at this membrane of bubbles, not only from the interior of the bubble but also from the “outside” of the bubble. The way we are having dialogs with the art and history needs to be changed for us to face the appearing social challenges. And it would not happen without the innovation of space. As Lefebvre argues, “To change life, we must first change space.” Architecture, as the collective dream of its viewers and users, is often designed as a narrated dream. Museum, as discussed above, can explore more of its potential if it becomes more than a matrix of fragments or a space of fixed narrative. This project will try to restore the autonomy of art and its observers through designing architecture as the “surrealist object”. One is encouraged to interpret with artworks, collections and architecture itself in this space of surreal objects and construct their individual connections with the signified topics: Art, City, History and so on.
“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.”
- José Saramago, The Double
LONG SECTION OF LIQUID REALITY: “ MUSEUM SPHERES, STRUCTURE, INMATE, ART GALLERY, PRISON.”
LONG SECTION OF LIQUID REALITY: “ AIR CONDITIONING, DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, BUBBLE, MUSEUM SPHERES, INMATE”
LONG SECTION OF LIQUID REALITY: ART CRITIC ANNOUNCED THAT ART WEND THROUGH METAL, FIRE AND BUBBLE.”
Inside the space of the architecture, each space is derived from the images presented by the Convolutional Neural Network. The AI embodies architectural design with a higher degree of spontaneity and automatism to paranoically re-imagine an art space of torture and terror. The forms of spaces are self-referenced, looped and repeated in the AI system. The architecture generated from it can be perceived as an alternative social sculpture, a surrealist object. The visitors entering the building unconsciously play the role of a psychoanalyst – the big Other of themselves. It allows the visitors to observe the aesthetic of the sphere from the outside. The space provokes its visitors, yet surfaces where discussions between the perceivers and artworks are created. Progressive iconoclasm is encouraged in the art space. Art can archive more than a reflection of the “unknown know” through this struggle.
On the other hand, visitors can fully merge themselves into these authentic paranoiac fantasies. Instead of seeking any answers from the building or the art, they can get lost in the chorus of Dionysus. It offers substantial insights from the inside of the sphere. Since the architecture is a translated, interpretated delirium of our own dreams, it could be our most personal delusions. Visitors will have a chance to decipher their hidden desires. The purpose of a psychoanalysis session is not to provide a precise answer to a dream. Sometimes, it just provides an opportunity to re-evaluate a sphere.
Multi-senses Museum
Whale and the Roman
The project is an architectural design experiment, that aims to explore and develop the potentiality of a museum space, for it to adapt to the usage of Blind and Low Vision community visiting the museum exhibition.
The musical and its stage has incorporated the tradition curation of historical artefacts with tactility and sound.
This project starts from the translation of a touch object series including a Roman head sculpture, made between 200 BC-100 AD, paired with a skeleton of Globicephala (pilot whale) from Pacific waters.
The artefacts are in exhibition Roman Spectre and Natural Selections at the Chau Chak Wing museum, the University of Sydney.
3D Scanned Portrait (Auditioning for the Leading Female Role) of Globiocephala sp from the Natural Selections
3D Scanned Portrait ( Auditioning for the Leading Female Role ) of Globiocephala sp from the Natural Selections
3D Scanned Portrait (Auditioning for the Leading Male Role) of Bearded man from the Roman Spectres
3D Scanned Portrait Auditioning for the Leading Male Role of Bearded man from the Roman Spectres
Audition and Actors in Full Make-up. Audition and Actors in Full Make-up.
Roman Spectres
Location: Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, performing from 18 November 2020 - 2026
The theatre company describes their vision as to reanimate the life in the vivid Roman world, from names and faces carved in stone to a contemporary reproduction of an old metropolis.
In their most loved performance, a headless statue of an unknown Roman guy is surrounded by 2000-year-old marble portraits. A columbarium-inspired facade is covered in tributes to nameless people who are grieved by their loved ones. The ancient city of Pompeii is explored via three time periods: life in the old city, the history of archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, and the pop culture reception of the story of Pompeii.
The company regards ancient Rome’s stone, marble, and ceramic relics as their iconic make-over, whhich showcases the empire’s vibrant multi cultures of the long-gone parents, children, freed people, and slaves.
Writes on the company’s web-page: “The ancient world’s broken and incomplete ruins are the ghosts of lives lived thousands of years ago. The headless figures, hollow-eyed faces, and fragments encrusted with the ground or sea that devoured them millennium ago are now headless figures, hollow-eyed faces, or fragments encrusted with the earth or sea that swallowed them millennium ago.” (Collections search - Museums - The University of Sydney n.d.)
Natural Selections: animal worlds
Location: Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, performing from 18 November 2020 - October 2023
The fame of the Natural Selections theatre company very much comes from their excellent skills in costume making. They specialize in featuring some of the most fascinating bird, animal, fish, insect, and invertebrate specimens on their costumes ---- which were mostly acquired by members of the Scottish Macleay family who came to Australia in 1826. A cattle egret acquired from Madagascar well before the species was first seen in Australia, as well as a magnificent display of Australian cockatoos, are among the specimens on display, demonstrating the classification systems developed by scientists to organize the vast number and variety of specimens.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, international trade moved animal specimens into museums and private collections all over the world. Early theatre troupes housed natural world marvels in spectacular cabinets, displaying unusual, hideous, and beautiful animals and minerals.
As global warming causes temperatures to rise by 1.5 degree Celsius, animals are facing uncertain futures. the Natural Selections theatre company is now providing scientists with critical base information, allowing them to detect shifts in distribution patterns and develop theories on species evolution. Their historic collections are critical for understanding how species respond to changing environments. (Collections search - Museums - The University of Sydney n.d.)
tAct le mAp of the humpbAck WhAle mIgrAt on
- The continents on the map are plated with plaster to highlight the difference between land and ocean.
- One would follow the 3D printed routes and press the buttons at each habitat interval to hear the whales’ stories.
Behind the Scene: Scenic Art - 1 (Interactive):
Behind the Scene: Scenic Art Interactive:
The Tactile maps are to be installed at the museum entrance, that aids the BLV audiences in finding the traffic to the theatre that locates at Level 1 of the space.
tAct le mAp of the trAd ng route of Anc ent romAn empIre
Tactile Map of the Trading Route of Ancient Roman Empire
Behind the Scene: Scenic Art - 2 (Interactive):
Behind the Scene: Scenic Art Interactive:
The Tactile models are to be installed in the theatre space, that aids the BLV audiences in reading the introductory storyline, as well as in establishing an understanding of the theatre space itself.
- One could also press the Roman coin to hear an extended description of Roman history, about their invasion of neighbours, also their communication of culture and economy with other countries.
The second model is composed for a symphony that the Romans and the whale sing together. It takes inspiration from a pan flute, that one could blow into the pipes and the pipes with varied lengths will sound in varied tunes.
Whispering Heads - Echoes of stories
The third model is a recording device embedded in a Roman head sculpture replica that is able to capture one’s whispers and replay it to the other Roman head and also other audiences.
Instrumental Device
Ensemble of whales and Romans
The forth model is a musical device whose sound reminds one of the clicking 52Hz rhythms of whales and also the lyre harp of Ancient Rome.
- The heads are whispering to each other.
- The audience can whisper into the heads, leaving their stories inside this matrix of fragments.
- Striking on the shorter chords, the audience will hear clicks and pulsed calls that are similar to a whale’s sound.
- The audience could strike on the longer chords to hear the Roman songs.
- The other audiences will thus answer to the second head about their own stories, in their languages and their time frame.
- Then the conversation continues on and on, with the whispers eroding away and entangling to become a new language that echoes and echoes in the museum space.
- The sound of whale skull resembles the songs sang by whales to communicate long distance under water.
- Audience can touch and play with the model to understand how whales swim and move.
- The sound of Roman heads resembles the pipe music used for military order giving in Ancient Rome.
- Audience can touch the sculptures to feel their forms, weight and textures.
- The sound of whale skull resembles the songs sang by whales to communicate long distance under water.
- This dialogue gradually blurs the definition of which language is used by the humans and which one is used by the whales.
The first model introduces one to the trading map of ancient Rome around 10 AD, in juxtaposition with a breeding and feeding map of humpback whales.
Symphony of Roman and whale
Acoustic Element Acoustic Element
Echo Tunnel Harmony Theatre
The form can induce reverberation towards the centre of the circle, rendering an theatrical atmosphere.
The tunnel is installed with concrete portal frames to enhance its ability to produce reverberation.
Muffled Tunnel
The interlocking spaces can maintain the acoustic qualities of two spaces.
Resonance Wall
The curved wall can bounce the sounds back while keeping the inner space enclosed.
Diffusive Fixture
The acoustic fixtures generate a cloud of acoustic panels that traps and absorbs sound.
Echo Vault
The echo wall can direct sound into the centre of the room, rendering an aural illusion of a whale’s song.
Acoustic Panel
The sound absorption panel can control echo and reverberation in a space.
CHARACTERS
GAWURA DELPHINIDAE, pilot whale Ms. NHM.1116
NAMELESS ROMAN BEARDED Mr. NM66.63
NARRATOR, headless Roman in toga Mr. NMR.998
BLIND YOUNG LADY, visitor I Ms. visitor I
HISTORY STUDENT, (seeing) visitor II Ms. visitor II
LITTLE BOY, (outside) passer-by Mr. passer-by
GERMANICUS JULIUS CAESAR, general Mr. NM62.685
CLAUDIUS, emperor Mr. NM64.325
TIME
The present. 2022 AD.
PLACE Sydney.
THE SCENES OF THE PLAY
ACT I
Ripple Theatre, next to the elevator entrance.
ACT II
Roman Karaoke, adjacent to the theatre.
ACT III
Underwater, surrounded by the karaoke booths.
ACT IV Whisper Gallery, outside the karaoke and underwater room.
ACT V Symphony Room, at the intermediate of the whisper gallery.
A
: Specimens of marine mammals, crustaceans, and fossils of marine invertebrates bloom in their vibrant colours above a crystal tunnel. Their forms are traced and etched on the tunnel’s inner surface, like jellyfishes glowing underwater. Ms GAWURA DELPHINIDAE sings from the neighbouring room, her voice passes through a circular opening fitted with thin drum membranes. The membrane vibrates with the whale’s song and renders her cadenza into a thread of ornamental vibratos.
The sound is contracted to be within the crystal tunnel. The voice is projected with an extended echo — it hits the sleek semicircular timber panel and bounces back and forth. The HISTORY STUDENT invites the BLIND YOUNG LADY into the scene.
vator. The theatre room is furnished with polished concrete wall, and white carpeted floor with bold pink edge lines. The sound of a reverberant pond rippling against rock solid concrete is heard — from under the feet of a headless Roman sculpture in toga robe. GAWURA DELPHINIDAE is singing in the adjoining room, her evocative and amorous voice long echoes in the theatre. The BLIND YOUNG LADY enters.
: Karaoke booths are in the choir room. A soft white carpet with pink edges leads from the theatre adjacent to the room. The room is dark at first sight, two rows of Roman head sculptures are displayed along the room’s left and right sides, with spot lights dedicated to each of them. Then one should realize the room’s brightness as it is lit by shimmering reflections of water refracted by a cylindrical glass tunnel. The end of the room where the tunnel is pointing at, is furnished with a sleek semicircular timber panel. And behind the panel, hides a karaoke recording booth. The BLIND YOUNG LADY enters, follows the singing Roman head sculptures with a handrail, and moves towards the recording booth.(Cheerful choir music plays, the Roman heads are showered in broad light.)
: The gallery is very dark. A white background noise of muffled whisper washes the porous walls of the long and narrow corridor like soft tide erodes into a cliff with years pass by. Acoustic panels in the shape of manta fishes are fixed to the ceiling, forming a cloud of them swimming and glowing with dim spotted lights. These fishes eat away any noise that is projected to the ceiling and the whispering tide is ceased. A couple of vibratos decorates the left hand side wall facing exterior of the museum — an amphitheatre. The vibratos are barely translucent and allow subtle sound into the gallery. These sounds find a row of Roman head sculpture replicas displayed on the other side of the gallery, and the two waves of soft noises merge into a whisper whose words are no longer decipherable. The BLIND YOUNG LADY and the HISTORY STUDENT enter.
: This room is constructed to be a concrete vault, which controls echos reacting to all faces of the room. Theatrical orange lights are given to the Roman head sculpture replicas on columns, scattered across the room. A ghostly skeleton of GAWURA DELPHINIDAE flys right under the ceiling, glowing in ocean blue. The BLIND YOUNG LADY and the HISTORY STUDENT enter the room through a spiralcase-like chamber. The whispers of unknown stories recede first, then a dark-toned choir emerges, but soon the lead is taken by an amorous whale soprano. When the BLIND YOUNG LADY and the HISTORY STUDENT reach the end of the spiral, magnificent symphony music plays.
A project that is not about building something brand new, but about adapting.
The project imagines a combination between the efficient urban hydroponic farming and the existing multistory car park building in Singapore’s residential HDB blocks through a modest reconstruction that however achieve a lot into a complex which also includes on the roof top of it. The second flexible community centre and the third, remaining car parking area.
With background research, three factors are fundamental to this adaption. The first is about food security. Because of the ‘30 by 30’ plan, Singapore government is eager to exploit more chance of urban farming in city.
The second is the car lite plan of Singapore. Car ownership will reduce a lot, ideally. This will make us rethink how can we adapt the infrastructure for cars into other function in future.
And another one is the inevitable problem of hotter Singapore. What can architects do more about this type of adaption and what potentials can be realized through architectural way.
Stomata acts as a portal between inside and outside : Absorbing CO2, releasing O2 and H2O, as well as transpiration effect. The design of pods is an analogy of the stomata. It penetrates the building and re-connects the relationship between inside and outside. On the other hand, in the scale of a city, the green buildings can be perceived as the stomata of the city fabric.
Underground Plan
