Urbanism is a consistently developing organism. Architecture is its meat and bone, recording the evolution of the city and narrating stories of the people living there. It is the carrier of local culture. Yet, as a tangible substance, architecture decays. Aging architecture loses the ability to serve new generations in the way it did the previous generations when it was newly built. The phenomenon of demolishing historical buildings and redeveloping the site for new high-rises seems to be the simplest yet the most crude way to serve the contemporary generations, but typically this mode is driven by profit and mostly disinterested in cultural inheritance.
This thesis delves into Beijing’s traditional neighborhood— the “Hutong”—proposing a “humble” solution for housing the increasing numbers of new residents. This humility derives from accepting the unique characteristics of the site and their inherent limits, which paradoxically forces the new buildings upward in order to preserve—and extend—the spacial properties of the Hutong and Si-He-Yuan. In this way, not only does the new highrise project become part of its context but also forms a unique landscape which echoes the traditional culture of Chinese architecture and landscape.
TH New (Hu)Tong 05. 15 - 09.15 Beijing, China
Instructor /// Wes Jones https://youtu.be/c527thXHx0w Video ///
Old Beijing City Scape
Site Plan As the source of Oriental Culture, Chinese Culture is famous for its profound and richness. Architecture is one of its important components, recording the evolving of urbanity, narrating stories of people and reflecting the internal logic and beliefs. Unfortunately, things happened in last century changes Chinese destiny. After Opium War, Chinese lost confidence to their culture affected by Western powerful armament. Since 1919, the New Culture Movement, creating a new culture based on global and western standards, critically shocked traditional Chinese Culture. After hundred years learning from the West, we completed the preliminary modernization, at the expense of our own culture. Now it is about the time to make a balance between them.
As a living example of ancient Chinese city planning, Beijing faces the dilemma of turning into a modern metropolis or preserving the traditional cityscape that may be archaic to the contemporary urban life. In contrast to the court life represented by the Forbidden city, Hutong is considered as the most typical cultural element of the city of Beijing. Following the fate of Chinese Culture, since the mid-20th century, the number of Hutong has dropped dramatically as give way to wide boulevards and high-rises. But good thing is, recently the remaining Hutongs has received attention from government and the whole society, a number of them have been designated protected areas. Although old neighborhoods survive today, how to revitalize them become a big challenge.
From 1966 to 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, the Beijing City Planning Office was closed down, resulting in the uncontrolled occupation and development of land.Large numbers of people drifted into the city during this period, sowing the seeds of today’s over-population in residential courtyards. As a result, Hutong area has to house the additional residents by dividing the court yard houses and building extension structure in the court yard. Since then, Si-he-yuan, which originally designed for single family, become to compound occupied by many households. The living environment is getting worse and worse. Gradually, like people say, “Hutongs are becoming the slum of the local, the haven of the wealthy, the theme park for tourists.”
In order to achieve the goal of preserving the Hutong Culture, bringing back the spacial qualities and experiences is the right thing to do. On the other hand, facing the population pressure, Hutong has to keep the current density. Now the problem is about where to create the extra living space. Accepting all of the limits come out of the site , new buildings have no choice other than going up to the sky.
Solution 1 Solution 1 Following the logic of old city planning, in order to bring out the monumentally historical architecture on the site, the buildings around them should be as low as possible. In this case, superimposing another layer on top of the context buidings seems to be a good idea. However, in this way, not only the nature lighting but also the traditional cityscape has been blocked by the new structure . This would be the last thing we want. Solution 2 Since our goal is preserving the Hutong area and the courtyard residences, we should keep the context as possible as we can, so that the land is extremely limited. A group of tower with footprints as small as possible naturally comes into being the proper strategy. Based on a serious of height limit (the Fobbiden City, the Drum and Bell Tower .etc. ), the extra living area needed is distributed to towers with various heights. Following the logic of the context, a unit with a courtyard would be one floor, which constitutes the high-rise by stacking up in a way exposing each courtyard to daylight. As for the circulation, because of the tight budget of floor area, only a core with one elevator and one safety stair can be built inside of the building. Therefore, double helix stairs wrap around outside of the building body are needed, which simultaneously increases the intricacy and evocatively symbolizes an image of traditional Chinese architecture. By connecting to some of the existing buildings, the new high-rise expands the lobby area without taking down any surround buildings for crows of residents dispersing. Just like the relationship between Si-he-yuan and Hutong, these stairs could also be conceived as extending Hutong space that wraped up the Si-he-yuan units in the sky. Not only the new high-rises project become part of its context but also forms a unique landscape which echos the traditional culture of Chinese architecture and landscape.
Solution 2
Future Beijing City Scape
The cultural property of architecture has to be conveyed by form. Yet form influenced by the underlying culture and construction technology. As a result, architecture shows features of times and regions. As this project shows, although the steel structure and high-rise building typology is a product of this age, the entire spacial experiences come out of the inner logic of the traditional Chinese residential neighborhood. Meanwhile, thanks to the modern construction technology, these towers add a contemporary color to the ancient cityscape. In the mixed condition - the ever-changing lifestyle, construction material and tectonics intertwined with the constant culture and ideology, what the architecture should look like and how to serve the new generation is a real challenge. This project might not be the best response, and surely not the only approach. As an experiment, it’s aiming to initiate the attention to the cultural aspects of architecture.
DS SCI-fi Urban Design 09. 14 - 12.14 Future
Driven by the interest of urbanism, in the 3rd year, I choose the SCI-fi studio which instructed by Wes Jones. Holding an idealized vision of a harmony society, started from the possibility of urban transportation evolution, our team proposed a future Utopian city section. In this studio, what I learned is profound. The architectural design and urban planning are so important and influential that might lead dramatic changes to human’s life.
Instructor /// Wes Jones Collabrate with /// Shao-Wen Tou Video /// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYNH-dertxE
to have a smooth mobility
in a metropolis?
Is it possible
architecture.
So that we could move around
completely free.
Is it possible to have a smooth mobility in a metropolis? Everyone wants to go fast...But, sometimes we should ask life to slow down in order to experience it. Could the metropolis be capable of condensing all the activities within densely inhabited blocks to foster social connections between people? Meanwhile be capable of releasing large open spaces on the outskirts?
What if there is no difference between vertical and horizontal mobility? So that we could move around completely free not only in the metropolis, but also in architecture.
DS Art Museum 01. 15 - 04.15 Los Angeles
Exterior Perspective on Silver Lake Blvd
This project is aiming to explore the cultural meaningness of different materials. Every material has its history and story, e.g. the brick, the brass, the red straw wall. Through the materiality and color how could a tangible architecture touch the spirits? How could a space calm us down in order to talk slowly?
Instructor \\\ Coy Howard Site \\\ Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA Video \\\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTk8Urcs7sQ
DS Housing Design 01. 14 - 04.14 Barcelona
Birdview Axonometric
Courtyard Perspective
Instructor \\\ Ramiro Diaz-Granados Site \\\ A traditional Cerda block located in southwesten area in Barcelona Collaborate with \\\ Eiko Tsushiya
120‘ 90‘ 60‘ 51‘ 39‘ 0‘
Overall Arrangement
Floorplates
Typical Cerda Block Analysis FAR:
3.4
Height:
120’
Volume Ratio: 0.48
Roof Deviation
Horizontal Arrangement
Lighting Facilities
Core 1 3 Volumes
Core 2 2 Volumes
Secondary Core
Massing Parti Diagrams
Core 3 3 Volumes
Core 4 4 Volumes
Core 5 4 Volumes
3D Subdivision
In order to bring the project back to the urban conversation, the massing was applied 7 different types of fenestration systems based on a 3D subdivision.
The voxel system, one of the seven fenestration systems, in a scale of 4’*4’*4’, so that the height of three units matches to one floor. The fluctuating sectional surface of this system creates windows and terraces.
West Perspective
Unfolded Elevation
Ground Plan
As the massing is consisted of a series of bars, some of them stay at the ground and some fly into the sky, which generates an open yet conservative courtyard, in the meaning of that the public can see through the courtyard but cannot walk.
Typical Floor Plan_8th Floor
By inspired from the concept of Tetris, the overall arrangement of the units is based on a module system. Each unit is consists of serveral blocks in 10’*10’*10’. There are 6 different types of units in this project, micro appartments, studios, one-bedroom appartments, two-bedroom appartments, penhouses, and live-works.
Each type of fenestration system has different affects to the units: various of ways to operate windows, different interior space and etc. However, no matter how weird they are, all the systems are matching to the interior floor and spaces.
DS U.S. Embassy Design 09. 13 - 12.13 Rio de Janeiro
Site Plan
1
4
2
3 8 5 7 6
1. Embassy Entrance 2. Security 3. Reception 4. Core A 5. Embassy Office 6. Kitchen 7. Conference Room 8. Escalator
9. Egress Stairs 10. Lounge 11. Core B 12. Theatre 13. Food Court 14. Auditorium 15. Stage 16. Black Room
17. Parking 18. Exhibition 19. Gallary 20. Sculpture Garden
Instructor \\\ Devyn Weiser Site \\\ Located beside the Copacabana Palace facing to the Copacabana Beach
1. Embassy Entrance 2. Security 3. Reception 4. Core A 5. Embassy Office 6. Kitchen 7. Conference Room 8. Escalator
9. Egress Stairs 10. Lounge 11. Core B 12. Theatre 13. Food Court 14. Auditorium 15. Stage 16. Black Room
17. Parking 18. Exhibition 19. Gallary 20. Sculpture Garden
1. Embassy Entrance 2. Security 3. Reception 4. Core A 5. Embassy Office 6. Kitchen 7. Conference Room 8. Escalator
9. Egress Stairs 10. Lounge 11. Core B 12. Theatre 13. Food Court 14. Auditorium 15. Stage 16. Black Room
17. Parking 18. Exhibition 19. Gallary 20. Sculpture Garden
Theatre Plan
Embassy Office Plan
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7 5 8
One thing needs to be mention is that the egress stairs are located around the courtyard in stead of the usual place like in cores, thereby avoiding dead ends in the building. Protected by the double-layer glass curtain walls(which also provides the day light for the office space), the egress circulation guarenteed enough time for people escape the fire.
7 10 5 9
20 4 16
9
15
13 14 10 12
9
1. Embassy Entrance 2. Security 3. Reception 4. Core A 5. Embassy Office 6. Kitchen 7. Conference Room 8. Escalator
9. Egress Stairs 10. Lounge 11. Core B 12. Theatre 13. Food Court 14. Auditorium 15. Stage 16. Black Room
4
17. Parking 18. Exhibition 19. Gallary 20. Sculpture Garden
14 15
18
11
20
19 5
17 Long Section
SLS model in context