Lucine Lu | Portfolio
When I talk about design, there are sparkles in my eyes. |
Next pages are my biggest sparkles. Enjoy !
Agriculture-oriented Master Plan and Complex
Oakland, United States
Master planning | Team with Yushao Wu, Jack Tam, Abby Happel Complex architecture design | Individual work UCB ARCH 201 | Fall 2022
Agri-Culture is inspired, designed, rezoned, and upgraded based on what we can see, feel, and experience in the Oakland, Produce and Waterfront district, which was mainly formed by three components, wholesale market, Broadway, and Oakland Inner Harbour. The goal is to build a cohesive and lively neighborhood and create a welcoming and interactive hub for residents and visitors while preserving the valuable history and culture of the existing site.
Most owners and workers at wholesale market are Asian and Hispanic, which inspires the idea of “Agri-Culture.”
Oakland has consistently ranked as one of the country’s most ethnically diverse major cities. The warm and lively color schemes for modular buildings come from the produce popular in the Wholesale market, as well as Asian and Hispanic cuisine culture, to provide an earthy and welcoming vibe. Agri-Culture is a sparkle and a model of cultural diversity in the city to serve locals and visitors.
Buildings from twelve blocks step down from the highway to the harbor to maximize the accessible views for residents and visitors. According to the traffic flow and business schedule, two new residential zones can serve the neighborhood better. The block I picked for in-depth development is a part of the market, beside the new-developed Green Way, and the first sight of Amtrak visitors.
Path Entry Waterfront Plaza Harbor
The classic American food, Club Sandwich inspires the building structure to achieve a clean exterior appearance and an airy interior feeling. The goal is to have easy access between indoor and outdoor vertically and horizontally with a focus on landscape and space. Left to right: Inspiration diagrams | Vertical layer diagrams | Horizontal layer diagrams for public and private levels
It focuses on the material transparency and program layers. The color schemes come from the produce popular in the Wholesale market and Asian and Hispanic cuisine culture.
It focuses on the materials and structural layers. The warm and lively color schemes provide an earthy and welcoming vibe and are created with the same ingredients as the soap model.
The new building is above the existing market, mainly for market owners and workers. The live and work apartment helps them avoid long commutes after the 12 am to 10 am night shift. The design is maximizing the open views for both public area and private apartment.
The design is maximizing the open views for both public area and private apartment. Such as having thin columns to avoid blocking views and separating the wet area (bathroom and kitchen) with dry area, to have flexible and open space layout for each unit.
Each building contains five components (layers), market, soil land, indoor forest, apartment, and roof garden. Besides residents who can access to all levels via glazing stair and elevators, the public also can take stairs and elevators to indoor forest and roof garden levels. They can pass through the apartment floors and enjoy the forest view from observation landing.
In order to have a clean façade and avoid the afternoon sunset heat, all units have windows with color shades, top and bottom windows are fixed and the middle one is openable for safety consideration.
The kanji characters 懐石 used to write Kaiseki literally mean “bosom-pocket stone”. It originated as a simple meal before Chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony). The idea came from the practice where Zen monks would ward off hunger by putting warm stones into the front folds of their robes, near their stomachs. Nowadays, Kaiseki evolves into a multi-course meal reflecting seasonality and is considered to be Japan’s top fine dining cuisine because it presents as a type of art form that balances the taste, texture, appearance, colours of food and dining environment.
Happa and Ishi mean leaves and stones in Japanese. They are essential elements of the environment, ingredients and tablewares for Kaiseki and Japanese tea ceremony and inspire the specialty drink and cuisine in Happa Ishi. By applying natural materials with Zen theories, Happa Ishi a secluded, exquisite and modest space for relaxing and dining.
Tourist Spots
Luxury
Luxury Apartments
SITE MAP
Happa Ishi faces the new Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), which has a robust Japanese temple impression and echoes Happa Ishi’s design. Diners will have Japanese cultural immersion through the dining experience, indoor decorations and outside views.
Vancouver has diversity in food cultural expressions, yet the Asian fine dining is devoid in the downtown area. Happa Ishi can fill this gap.
Tea ceremony, Zen architecture and meditating monks are derived from Japanese Zen Buddhism. Matcha and the kaiseki cuisine are specialties of Happa Ishi, which are outcomes of the tea ceremony and monks. The essences of matcha and kaiseki cuisine are leaves (happa) and stones (ishi), which form the restaurant name and inspire interior finishes. Wood, bamboo, pebbles and stone slabs are the primary materials and techo the Zen architecture and garden.
禅宗様·枯山水 Zen architecture & garden
禅 Zen
茶の湯 Tea ceremony
抹茶 Matcha
竹 Bamboo 盆栽 Bonsai
木材 Wood
葉 Leaves - Happa
懐石 Monk bosoms stones
懐石料理 Kaiseki cuisine
礫 Pebbles 石 Stones - Ishi
石板 Stone slabs
WESTERN DINING | BANQUETTE
Steel wires support upper shelves from concrete decking
Drop ceiling gypsum boards with paint
Solid wood frames match with plastic laminate used for upper shelves
1/4” glass panel with bamboo rattan interlayer
All exposed surface of upper shelves to be 3/4” plywood with plastic laminate
1/4” glass panel to be recessed into wood frames
Solid wood texture matches plastic laminate
3/4” stone slab supported by 3/4” plywood all around
Dining counter to be plywood with plastic laminate
Block as required (typ.)
Surface to be 3/4” plywood with plastic laminate
All exposed bar back surface to be 3/4” plywood with plastic laminate
Space for kitchen equipment
3/4” stone slab foot rest with block support as required
Central Core
Condo Elevator
Condo Elevator
Loft Unit
Additional Washroom
Auditorium East Core
West Core
Meeting Room
Study Room
Classroom
Executive Office
Two-way slab system
Food Court Shops
Column Foundation
Timber Skyscraper Challenge
San Francisco, United States
46 floors (above-grade), 9 floors (below grade)
Team with Yushao Wu, Jonathan Coles, Zesen Zhang
UCB ARCH 269 | Winter 2023
Mélange represents a plural model for the 21st-century tower. flexible, sustainable, and multi-use, it reflects the conditions of our contemporary through its eclectic program and variable form.
The project envisions a remixed urban character, proposing a model for the activation of vacant urban centers by providing space for working, living, relaxing, and gathering. Leveraging the simplicity and capacity of a variety of Mass Timbers, Mélange exists as a patchwork of warm, redfineable spaces that delightfully stack above its surroundings, providing a symbol of a more plural future.
A three-pronged core arrangement allows for global management of shear forces, generating an uninterrupted floor plate with full mechanical service. Sitting atop 75m Caisson foundations, the structure achieves a height of 200m.
Floors 34-46: Condo
A spatially rich collection of double-height condos occupies the uppermost portion of the tower with complete views of the San Francisco Bay, Headlands, and City.
Floors 27-33: Business Center
The business center serves as the primary social component of the project, containing a spa, gym, conference center, and auditorium with views that peak through downtown to the Bay Bridge.
Floors 5-10, 18-26: Office
The project’s off-kilter structural system creates a flexible and future-proofed work space capable of single-occupancy, multiple-occupancy, and co-working models.
Floors G-4: Commercial 1:650
The ground floor contains unique and warm retail spaces, enclosing a lobby with direct access to both public metro and bus transportation. It is located at the heart of San Fransisco, among Market St., Pine St. and Front St.
Small-Diameter Timber Louver, 2x6mm Float Glass, Knife-Plate Mullion, 75mm Glu-Lam Rim
Joist, 3mm End Plate, Mechanical Cavity
Bolted Cylindrical Moment Connection
75mm CLT Panel, Mechanical Cavity, 75mm CLT Panel, 25mm Air Gap, 10mm PlySubstrate, 2x 15mm Gypsum Board
Casa Ochoquebradas
Single House case study analysis
Duplex house roommates + sentimentalist
Single house with public facility roommates’ house + restaurant
Single & Duplex House Study
No Physical Site | 44 ft x 68 ft x 44 ft (Max.) Duplex project | Team with Jonathan Coles Single house | Individual work Course: ARCH 200A | Fall 2021
Through the study and analysis of the case study, Casa OchoQuebradas, insight into how the articulation of space generated and behaved. Finding the architectural terminology and have the first attempt for a single residential house to the assigned characters.
Then, work with a teammate to design a duplex for two characters by cooperating with the architectural language from the first design. The final attempt is to carry the same design terminologies with less than 25% minor change and 40% space reduction to redesign a single house for the initial residents and have a public facility attached by the side.
My assigned characters are roommates, two close friends who grew up and received education in different continents, became friends through traveling, and dislike cooking or dishwashing.
The Roommates (my characters) and the Sentimentalist (the teammate’s character) have different requirements for their living space, so we decided to make this project of opposites: social vs. anti-social, visible vs. hidden, order vs. disorder. The primary challenge is accounting for two radically different human behaviors with one architectural language. The formal logic of the project is developed from a subtracting operation. This is performed in a variety of ways, the range of which is positioned as a gradient between units to provide amelioration of their opposite conditions.
The subtraction creates outdoor spaces that define the articulation of their surrounding interiors. The position and orientation of these subtractions differs between the two units. When applied to the facade, the subtraction punches windows to create transparent interiors but is slowly altered to obscure the relationship between inside and outside. The angle of window opening and window size are from very illogical and exaggerated to logical and flat, which creates two different kinds of vibes and characters, one is hidden and highly private and the other is visible and open.
The ground floor of the apartment is a social and entertaining space for arranging parties. As residents don’t cook, the public side has a restaurant and bar, which is open to the public and serves as roommates’ kitchen and dining space.
The four-story living space is mainly connected by the tilted volume. It also creates a kissing point on the roof and a void space from the main building, which serves as the atrium at the front entry.
This project focuses on intersecting volumes, experimenting various-sized wall opening, and generating contrast of solid and void spaces for different programs to serve the residents and public users.
Chinese Culinary and Cultural Centre
London, United Kingdom
29570 S.F.
Individual Work
Thesis Project | Summer 2020
COVID-19 swiped around the world in early 2020, which forced people to quarantine at home and restaurants to close. I never thought about I have to cook everything that I am craving. Fortunately, getting ingredients for cooking my hometown food or ordering Chinese dishes (before and after quarantine) is easy in Vancouver. Yet, many who live aboard have limited access to traditional Chinese restaurants and markets. While making Chinese pastries and dishes during the quarantine, I realized how vital home food to myself, especially living away from the motherland.
Chinese people always say “民以食为天,” which is a well-known idiom means foodstuff is all-important to everyone. Meanwhile, food works as a bridge between different cultures. For these reasons, China Life has some primary facilities, like food courts, retails, and an urban farm, which provide traditional Chinese food, essentials and cooking ingredients to locals and Chinese who live in London. Other amenities, like a library, a language school and an event hall, support it as a cultural centre to boost interactions and communications among people with different backgrounds.
Chinese Markets
Notre Dame de France
Chinese Restaurants
Traditional patterns are inspired by Chinese characters or natural elements and common to see on windows, walls and floor. Many objects are significant to Chinese people’s life and culture, also being icons of Chinatown. Studying and inspiring from existing Chinatown would help understand its culture, function, environment and end user’s needs.
Siu Mai Section
Siu Mai Facade
Jujube Cake Section
Jujube Cake Facade
Twisted Roll Section
Twisted Roll Facade
Cornbread Section
Cornbread Section
By observing four traditional Chinese pastries from different angles, the architecture design is inspired by pasteries’ texture, structure and outline.
Featured Retail Space
Grant Stairs
Main Building
Visitors can see the grand stairs through the skylight at the centre of the urban farm.
