Michelle Lo ARB/ RIBA Part II
Selected Projects 2018 - 2020
How does one create a locus of community at an insular residential estate in London, without demolishing it completely?
An Incomplete Monastery Final Year Thesis, Adaptive Reuse
A strategic infill is made to a 1980s, post-Modernist estate at York Place, Battersea, named Plantation Wharf. The riverside site, at present, is akin to an ‘incomplete monastery’. Insular residential units, like monastic cells, are housed in disparate buildings. Redevelopment plans have proposed to increase private housing without adding amenities, thus perpetuating the impermeable character of the site. The project aims to consolidate this disjointed urban fabric by introducing educational and public uses to the estate, in tandem with its regeneration. Reflecting on the significance of the claustral garth as the symbolic centre of the monastery, the project challenges the notion of domiciliary horti conclusi by unifying existing back gardens as a communal green. A connective cloister is introduced, enclosing new collective programmes around the pre-existing private ‘cells’.
Year: 2020 Tutors: Takero Shimazaki (t-sa) Paolo Emilio Pisano Karabo Turner Thesis drawing of Plantation Wharf, Battersea as an 'incomplete monastery', summating references from term 1 and my ambitions for the final project.
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In Transformation Riverside redevelopment in Wandsworth
London
Wandsworth
Wandsworth is characterised by riverside residential developments like Plantation Wharf and Battersea Reach.
Plantation Wharf Undergoing piecemeal regeneration. Previous designs, proposed to build loft extensions atop the existing buildings that face York Place, increasing the provision of housing.
York Place
Homebase Undergoing a full-scale redevelopment. The existing retail warehouse is demolished and replaced by three residential towers, atop a podium building for the Royal Academy of Dance.
St Mary’s Ward
The River Thames forms the northern boundary of Wandsworth. A third of Wandsworth’s land area is occupied by residential use. The riverside, previously occupied by public utility and heavy industry, is now characterised by new and refurbished residential developments.
Residential developments, 2000-2019 Residential developments, 2010-2015 River Thames
Site plan, documenting as-found conditions of York Place at the beginning of the project. Even the courtyards are demarcated as parking spaces, clearly asserting ownership.
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Iconographic, Yet Insular Current site conditions I consider the site in Battersea, in its present condition, as an incomplete monastery. Isolated ‘monk cells’ and gardens, configured around an open space, are missing a connective cloister, or elaborated public spaces like the church and garth.
The historical fabric of Battersea was defined by its industrial development. An aerial photo of York Place from 1933 shows an imposing factory complex with a backdrop of low-rise terraced houses for workers.
Cell Cloister Garth
Church
Excerpts from my photo essay of Plantation Wharf, surveying a taxonomy of ornamental openings found on the site that are meant to evoke its industrial past.
Plan, Certosa del Galluzzo, Florence. In a Carthusian monastery, minimal private spaces are completed by more collective programmes
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A Junction between New and Existing Reuse, demolition, addition in detail
A
Ground floor plan, demolition and addition.
Against its tabula rasa development context, the project engages with existing buildings to create new spaces, in hopes of doing more with less.
A
The additional storey sits on a column, beam and corbel connection, using the existing buildings as a structural base.
Reuse Demolition Addition
Typical ground floor plan and section A-A.
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A Porous Back From separation to connection
At present, existing live-work studios form a thicket of brick between the courtyard and private back gardens, which are separated by walls from plot to plot. The intervention retains some studios at ground level, as well as introducing new cells above. The back faces of the forum are designed to be very permeable, giving glimpses through to the courtyard and beyond. Roofs are removed from some studios to form external stair gardens, are rendered white on the inner leaf to celebrate the original roofline. Windows with arched lintels are cut to form entrances.
View from an existing balcony at Cotton Row, facing the studios and shared green.
Brick walls that separate the garden plots are dismantled, leaving only a low parapet. Salvaged bricks are reused as pavers, connecting across the gardens to join existing paths.
Stone ledges that demarcate private lawns are broken up, allowing gardens to spill out onto the footpaths, softening boundaries of where one plot ends, and another begins.
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A Civic Front Infilling between old and new
At the forum, a cloister of brick-clad piers demarcate the public rooms. The new cells appear as a lightly floating facade, offset from the existing walls on one end, and raised on double beams on the other.
Molasses House, as found.
Timber columns, clad with brick, sitting on a concrete plinth that is cast amidst a palimpsestic ground.
View of the forum, facing Molasses House.
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How does one adapt successful moments from an architectural project to a new context?
Flemish Prototypes Exhibition at deSingel
Estranged from its original context, how does one translate the essence of an architectural project to new conditions? This is the question posed by Jan de Vylder, architect and curator of the ‘Re-Practice Re-Visit ReTurn’ exhibition at deSingel, Antwerp (February 2020 - January 2021). For my exhibition entry, Juliaan Lampen’s Kapel van Kerselare is distilled into ‘irreducible elements’, in order to create a new arrival sequence through an archway at Plantation Wharf, Battersea. Collisions - between context and transcription, between the secular and the spiritual - are interrogated through a sectional drawing and model. Two alternative realities are juxtaposed, suggesting how moments extracted from the chapel could be inhabited in a different context and create new tensions.
Year: 2020
Sketch plan and section on tracing paper, scale 1-50.
Transcription model as exhibited, scale 1-20, plywood.
Collaborators: architecten de vylder vinck taillieu Flanders Architecture Institute (VAi) Cass School of Architecture
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By simultaneously studying Kapel van Kerselare and documenting the Battersea site, irreducible architecture gestures from the former are extrapolated to the latter context.
Excerpts from the ‘Collisions’ booklet. Reference and transcription placed side by side.
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The intervention overlays an alternative spatial reality onto the archway, interrogating how moments extracted from the Kerselare chapel could be inhabited in a different context and create new tensions.
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How can we negotiate between scale and quality in densifying modern housing?
A Mansion for 1000 People Year 4 Project, Housing
Today, the city is in the midst of a revolutionary scale shift, as the demand for new housing is unparalleled. After several decades of under provision, as well as an underwhelming market-led planning environment, London’s 32 boroughs, together with the Mayor’s ‘Good Growth by Design’ programme, are charged with seeking opportunities to build housing in a dense, sustainable and qualitative way. With the aim of proposing an ambitious scale shift for housing at an outer London site in Tottenham Hale, the project interrogates how concentrated accommodation can make a good piece of city, through inventive Baroque compositions of recognisable urban forms. The result is a rippling mansion block, responding to the aquatic landscape of Hale Wharf in its massing and materiality. The mansion block is selected as a robust typology, versatile in its ability to adapt flexibly over time and persist within the ever-evolving fabric of the city.
Year: 2019
Departing from the post-war tradition of linear external decks, these ‘promenades in the sky’ are a mutated Baroque form that emerges from Palazzina San Maurizio and Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. A spatial crescendo-decrescendo wrestles with a delicate balance between exposure and enclosure.
Tutors: Stephen Taylor Theo Thysiades
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Design Through Making Model studies of type and city
Collective models testing scale shifts in housing
Research booklet documenting housing typologies in London.
A practice of precedent research and modelled studies was established during my time in this unit. The sketch models above are reinventions of Palazzo San Felice and Palazzina San Maurizio,
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Between prefabrication and tradition Photovoltaic panels supported on ballasted system
Contemporary facade accented
Anodised aluminium coping, 3 mm Proprietary insulation board, 30 mm EPDM waterproofing membrane Damp proof course
by modular faience elements
Bonded single ply membrane, dark grey Insulation, 200 mm High-performance insulation, 50 mm Marine-grade ply, 15 mm Upstand support with insulation, 100 mm Vapour barrier Foil-faced mineral wool insulation, 140 mm Vapour control layer with acoustic roofing membrane Profiled acoustic metal deck, 60 mm
Mineral wool insulation, 100 mm
Acoustic mass barrier ceiling fixed to acoustic hangers Perimeter steel I-beam Steel plate welded in position, 12 mm Resilient bars Suspended plasterboard, 2 x 15 mm
Glazed terracotta fin Spandrel panel with back-painted glazing
5. Vision panel with clear glazing
Glazed terracotta fin Vision panel with fritted glazing Tongue and groove flooring boards, 19 mm Plasterboard, 19 mm Mineral wool between battens, 25 mm Resilient composite deep battens, 45 x 80 mm Pre-stressed, post-tensioned flat concrete slab, 200 mm Spandrel panel with back-painted glazing
Light steel C-section joist, 142 mm D x 60 mm F Mineral wool between joists, 100 mm Resilient bars Suspended plasterboard, 2 x 15 mm
Spandrel panel with back-painted glazing
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6. Glazed terracotta fin
Inside
Silicon sealant
EPDM waterproofing membrane Tongue and groove flooring boards, 19 mm Skirting board over flanking strip Vapour control layer Damp proof course with weepholes at 450 mm centres Insulation, 100 mm Light steel C-section joist, 142 mm D x 60 mm F Granite upstand Insulation, 50 mm Damp proof membrane, overlapped with DPC Ventilated void Vibration and acoustic reduction plate
Plasterboard, 2 x 12.5 mm Acoustic hangers, 15 mm Vapour barrier SFS studs at 600 mm centres Mineral wool insulation between studs, 100 mm Sheathing board, fixed to Metsec frame, 15 mm Breather membrane Foil-faced rigid insulation, 100 mm Helping hand brackets fixed to studs through sheathing board Vertical rail system, fixed to brackets, 30 mm Horizontal rail system, 30 mm Glazed terracotta panels, 30 mm Outside
Laminated IGU, operable, 37.5 mm Laminated IGU, fixed, 39.5 mm
4.
The use of faience in the proposed mansion block seeks to emulate a sophisticated interplay between light, shadow and reflection with the riverside context of the site, using modern construction techniques. Faience is a cheaper alternative to carved stone as a facing material on buildings, as the same mould can be re-used to cast multiple modular units. The prefabricated faience panels are accented by thin, tapered elements, manufactured hollow, which makes them lighter than traditional clay bricks, and allows for them to be hung on a steel load-bearing structure using metal ties.
50 mm sand blinding with 300 mm consolidated hardcore, well graded High-density insulation, waterproof, 85 mm
Geotextile mat, fleece
Geotextile mat, fleece Porous boards, 60 mm Bitumen paint, waterproof, 3 mm
Drainage, porous pipe
Strip footing Lean concrete, 50 mm
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Riverine reflections of faience, dressing an accented facade.
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Professional Portfolio Architectural Assistant at Gensler
Michelle Lo
1 Residential New-Build, London Romford Garden Suburb
Gensler
Located north-west to the project site is the Gidea Park Conservation Area, where distinct houses and cottages were built as part of the Romford Garden Surburb(1910-11), based on individual designs from an architects’ exhibition. Our proposal draws upon this historical context of Gidea Park, particularly these characterful ‘exhibition houses’ and their boldy-articulated yet unassuming roof forms. Envisioned is a reiteration of the Arts and Crafts vernacular, a mediation between modern high-density housing and the suburban idyll.
2017- Ongoing Residential, New-build
Existing and Proposed Street Views Software used: Revit, Sketchup, V-Ray, Photoshop Gensler
Retained Sycamore trees
Retained Sycamore trees, cut back to site boundary Retained Leyland Cypress tree Defensible planting
Retained Ash tree
MATERIALITY Timber fencing Low brick wall
Defensible planting
Private garden Timber decking
Integrated carpark and driveway
New hedges
THRESHOLDS
Waste and recycling storage Low brick wall New tree
AMENITY SPACE
Defensible planting Private garden Private garden Gensler
New tree
Retained hedges
Cycle store Communal amenity space
Retained Hawthorn tree
Retained Common Lime trees, pruned back to 2.5 mm from trunks Retained Sycamore tree
Landscape Illustrative Plan Software used: Revit, Photoshop
Residential New-Build, London
Use of retained trees to mitigate visual impact of proposed scheme
Gensler
West Elevation
Gensler
East Elevation
Gensler
South Elevation
Gensler
North Elevation
Illustrative Elevations Software used: Revit, Photoshop
Residential New-Build, London
2 Grade II-listed Regeneration, London
Gensler
This project is a regeneration and re-development initiatives aimed at revitalizing Dorchester Court, a Grade II-listed residential estate. The proposed development consists of 1) rooftop penthouse extensions on the existing apartment blocks, and 2) re-development of the garage site into new-build townhouses. The project has been the subject of detailed pre-application discussions with planners and key stakeholders such as the Dorchester Court Resident’s Association, who have played a critical role in informing the design development. The proposed scheme seeks to achieve a considered level of development, well-integrated with the host buildings in its architectural expression and character, sensitive to locality in terms of siting and scale- an authentic synthesis of the old and the new.
2014- Ongoing Residential, New-build/Extension
Gensler
Gensler
Existing and Proposed Street Views of New Townhouses Software used: Sketchup, V-Ray, Photoshop
New Prunus avium Remove deadwood and generally crown clean existing Prunus avium
Rejuvenated planting Taxus baccata
New planting beds
Remove rubbing branches of existing Prunus spp
New motorcycle parking areas
New compost store Existing brick wall with new wrought iron railing
New brick and concrete entrance post and new wrought iron estate railing
New Prunus dulcis New refuse store New children’s
play area
New wrought iron estate railing
New wrought iron estate fencing and entrance gate New hedges behind new low brick wall and fencing New equipment store Gensler
New Prunus dulcis
Parking for caretaker
Parking for gardener
New loading bay
New cycle lockers
New electric car charging points
New rising vehicle barrier
Landscape Illustrative Plan Software used: AutoCAD, Photoshop
Grade II-listed Regeneration, London
3 Massing based on Modulor proportions
Residential New-Build, London
Gensler
The proposed scheme aims to regenerate the site, currently occupied by the Hero of Switzerland pub. The existing pub sits at the heart of the Corbusian Loughborough Estate in Lambeth. Attributing the ‘Hero of Switzerland’ to Le Corbusier, the team visited the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille to understand its design and success. What emerged from the project is a ‘new Modulor’, a mixed-used vertical development with a public house at ground level and 36 residential units above.
2016- Ongoing Mixed-used Residential, New-build
Gensler
Gensler
Proposed Street View Software used: Sketchup, Enscape, Photoshop
4 Hotel NewBuild, Morocco
Gensler
Gensler
2017- Ongoing Hospitality, New-build
Gensler
Gensler
Gensler
Proposed Views Gensler
Gensler
Gensler
Illustrative plan showing proposed landscape strategy in detail
Landscape Illustrative Plan (Site A) Software used: AutoCAD, Rhino, Photoshop
Hotel New-Build, Morocco
Gensler
BEFORE Image produced by external visualizer (incorrect coastline)
Gensler
AFTER My edit
Gensler
BEFORE Image produced by external visualizer (over-saturation and overcrowding)
Gensler
AFTER My edit
Visuals Editing Software used: Photoshop
Hotel New-Build, Morocco
Visualization
Part II and Freelance
Physical Model. Scale 1:5.
Visual of the interior view from the proposed “bespoke window”.
Tasked to propose a bespoke alternative to the “stock” bay window, one of the key architectural features of the London vernacular, we took upon the challenge of marrying the functional prerequisites of the window as a high-performance “wind-hole” with the aesthetic aspirations of architectural design. The proposed window takes into consideration the climatic and spatial contexts within and without -from a domestic interior of a Victorian terraced house, looking out onto a back garden in temperate London.
Postgraduate Fourth Year Technical Design Charette 2019
A Space-Shifting Manoeuvre During the 16th century, stairs began to gain independence as an autonomous, artistic entity. Freed from pure function, they transcended into the realm of l’art pour l’art. They often created their own facade in the front view of a building, its grand breadth and features extending into the ascent on the interior. Prompted by the precedent study of Langham House Close, this project challenges the role of the stair as a spatial device in negotiating dichotomic conditions, such as interior-exterior or publicprivate, by creating communicative thresholds. The proposed stair tower, adopting the singularity and openness of the Neapolitan staircase, puts a twist on Palladio’s illustrated precedent in the Four Books of Architecture.
A “Transmogrify of Thresholds”.
Postgraduate Fourth Year Studio Project 1 2018 Physical Model. Scale 1:50.
Studio trip to Naples: SanFelice’s staircases as monumental backdrops to a courtyard.
Freelance Visuals for a Dental Practice, 2019 Software used: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop
Freelance Visuals for a Sculptor, 2019 Software used: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop