Graduate Application Portfolio. Admitted to Columbia GSAPP, UPENN MSDAAD, UCLA M.S.AUD, RISD Mdes In

Architecture Portfolio

Jianing Yang

2020

Selected works 2014-2020

01 Endless Library

Design Studio | Spring 2017 | Sci-Arc Instructor: Herwig Baumgartner Partner: Siying Chen (contribution 40%)

The idea of our project is a massive massing with legs on bottom, so it can create a large volume at the top but have more void space at the bottom. Through a vertical combination of transformed primitives, the building is separated to three main parts with three cores inside. Because of the large column and legs, the ground is designed to provide entrances and exits in both lower level and level 1. As you can see the main entrance at level 1 can bring a large amount of visitors in and out. At the lower level there’s an auditorium, cafe, gift shop. People could easily reach from the ramp.

The main vertical transportation which includes the escalator and a core is in the middle of the building. And there is a staircase in each part of the building. On level one there’s a lobby and exhibition spaces. Open reading spaces are located surrounding book stacks radially on other level two and three. The reading rooms follow the building geometry. Offices are at level four. Facade is mainly made from FRP(Fiber-reinforced plastic) and glass. FRP has considerable flexibility in terms of design. The light weight of the material allows for easier transport and installation. Glass glazing parts are in between FRP panels which could bring daylight to all the reading rooms and public spaces.

Architecture of primitive

Frederick Kiesler. Endless House. Project, 1950–60. Exterior view of the model, 1958

The figure is originated from the plan of Endless House by Friedrick Kiesler

A relationship between primitives was established by vertical combination.

Further transform the primitives to produce figures which share similarities with each other.Trim and cut the massing with curved surfaces to create more united exterior surfaces, while keeping original features such as the gaps. Break the massing into pieces and shift each parts to create` new

Artifciality in Built Enviornment

The idea of our project is a massive massing with legs on bottom, so it can create a large volume at the top but have more void space at the bottom. Through vertical combination of transformed primitives, the building is separated to three main parts with three cores inside. Because of the large column and legs, the ground is designed to provide entrances and exits in both lower level and level 1. As you can see the main entrance at level 1 can bring a large amount of visitors in and out. At lower level there’s a auditorium, cafe, gift shop. People could easily reach from the ramp.

Plan extrution Bottom scaled Waist scaled Twist waist Combined Trimed

Programmatic Organization

Exterior is made of 3D print PLA and resin material. Interior is using styrene sheets and 3D print escalators.

1/4 Section model

1/4 Section model

Exterior is made of 3D print PLA and resin material.

Interior is using styrene sheets and 3D print escalators.

02

Shufed Enflade

Thesis | Spring 2019 | Sci-Arc

Instructor: Peter Testa

My thesis serves to challenge persistent museum architectural tropes, (such as void to solid) and to subvert traditional gallery of space (Interior vs. Exterior) in order to find new figural and architectural transformations. The project amplifies the relationship between room and wall in order to rethink the classical enfilade organization of a museum. In turn the building appears to have multiple architecture elements not limited to the space of one single typology, rather making space ever-changing to the loose fitting aggregations that create intersections, collisions or joins two or more room types together. The movement within the museum is not room to room like a typical museum space but rather room to corridor, the corridor and the room are now conflated.

The enfilade is about regulating universal experiment where behold universal values by breaking the enfilade out and shuffling in its special condition and creating a possibility for multiplicity of its experience, multiplicity of views and multiplicity of interpretations both its space and its contents that feels more in keeping with the program inside a museum.

Geometric Study of Glyptothek Museum’s Plan

Glyptothek museum in Germany which is a neoclassical example of enfilade architecture. All of the spaces in that museum is layout in enfiladed.

Form Study

broke these long axis out and starting treat this rooms that was supposed to be strong along next to each other as individual spaces and began to literally shift and slide and reduce thickness figural possibilities.

Ground Plan

The museum project is a unique opportunity because It’s on this boundary condition. One side faces the garden, on the other side interface with the urban grid. And to take something as formal and resolved as the enfilade and messed it up a bit, allows its finer grained relationship on both sides.

Primary Building Element

My form is derived from the room using Glyptothek’s plan parts and putting it together in new arrangement. The poche is manipulated to define the interior space. I have further developed the use of this concept, favoring a plan modeled more closely as an innovative interpretation of enfilade, whereby the space of the wall begins to resemble the infrastructural space of the circulation system within the museum. Hybridization between enfilade and corridor is allowing for circulation around and between the individual galleries. It is about sequence, connection, and adjacency.

Mushroom

Zig-zag

Butter

Corridor

Shunt

Acne

Skewer

Gun

Loose Fitting

Infinity

Corinthian

Islam

Pool

Fuzzy and clean

Soft Turn

Escher

2nd Floor Plan

Visitors can have different experiences among the enfilade, corridor and terrace. In this project its significance gets magnified. The actual path a visitor might take to pass from one room to another, or from one part of the facility to the next, or even what can or cannot be seen from specific standpoints. The museums terrace allows the supplemental circulation, creating a space for visitors to quickly circumambulate the museum’s floor plan along its outer periphery. It allows each exhibit room to be closed without affecting the larger circulation network. The staircase at the center, which is a continuation of the horizontal of the plan, penetrates the whole width of the extension. It passes through the central enfilade of rooms and runs the whole length of the extension.

Exterior

Exhibition room where architecture becomes part of the show. The exterior follows the orientation of the plan. The positive space is enclosed in the exterior terrace space. The negative space shows in their interior which smooths the inside and outside.

Exterior

The exterior follows the orientation of the plan.

Exhibition Room

Visitors can have different experiences among the enfilade, corridor and terrace. In this project its significance gets magnified. The actual path a visitor might take to pass from one room to another, or from one part of the facility to the next, or even what can or cannot be seen from specific standpoints.

Section Model

Terrace

The museums terrace allows the supplemental circulation, creating a space for visitors to quickly circumambulate the museum’s floor plan along its outer periphery. It allows each exhibit room to be closed without affecting the larger circulation network.

The section follows the plan’s poche which appears to have multiple architecture elements not limited to the space of one single typology, rather making space ever-changing to the loose fitting aggregations that create intersections, collisions or joins two or more room types together. The movement within the museum is not room to room like a typical museum space but rather room to corridor, the corridor and the room are now conflated.

Original sculptures from Glyptothek museum

Exhibition room where architecture becomes part of the show

Interior View of Exhibition Room

Section Perspective

1/4 Section Model

Reforma Tower

Design Studio | Fall 2017 | Sci-Arc

Instructor: Maxi Spina

Partner: Jason Chie-Sheng Huang (contribution 50%)

Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, the solution for architecture that is unable to produce transparency through actual geometry would be materialism. Along with the article Politics of the Envelope written by Alejandro Zaera Polo, “It is at this level that the discussion of the qualities and structure of material organizations - such as difference and repetition, consistency and variation, flexibility, transparency, permeability, local and global and the definition of the ground - that architecture becomes political.” We started thinking in which way we could adapt different materials in our project and also create a system that the make the building “recognizable.”

The project challenges the contemporary skyscraper which is curtain walls of glass. We used the building envelope to form the massing which we started picking the continuous Z shape figures from the grid that defined by our precedent building, Sears Tower, then push out or in the figures to form an incremental steps from a full elevation view, and it finally became a subtle twisted cuboid building. When it comes to the material choices, we used different materials which has different transparencies to fill the figures with different quantities, i.e. the most pushed out figure would have 80% of transparent panels and the most pushed in figure would have 40% transparent panels, to reinforce the visual effect that exaggerate the twist in the massing. The thick columns between panels make different lengths of shadow throughout the building to strengthen the effect that the building itself is no longer just a cuboid.

1/32 Elevation Panel Corner Condition

Physical Model

Hotel Elevator Shaft

Office

Retail/Office Elevator Shaft

Fire Stair Shaft

Mullion

12” Post-tensioned Concrete Slab

Structural Wall

Common Space

Section Chunk

Ten Floors Level 27-37

Tectonic Chunk

Floor 30 has a common space. The flexibility of office space is essential. Provide the flex boundary between private and public that a space can be adjusted. Its use can change to the time as to requirements of the circumstances. It is not just a space for circulation. It is actually a social space, a space people bouncing to each other. It is a glue that blind whole company together. I set up paces along the facade where people from the different floors can meet up. Main public bathroom is sitting next to the core. People will easily get access.

Hero’s Journey

Design Studio | Spring 2018 | Sci-Arc

Instructor: Natasha Sandmeier

Partner: Jessie Ye Xiao (contribution 30%)

This project gave us a chance to explore different qualities of a city. We came up with the idea that Los Angeles is always sunny and warm. The snowing situation seems really uncommon for this city. We started thinking about the possibility of Los Angeles and people’s living conditions. Is the warm, sunny southern California the best living condition of life? What if one day Santa Monica beach is full of snow? For people living their life under artificiality and plasticity, does texture not matter to architecture anymore? When the norm changes, how does it influence architecture? In other words, with all the environmental changes and discoveries in outer space, we want to explore how architecture and cityscape respond to such changes, weather, technology or gravity. The project is completely fictional yet related to our life.

In the hero’s journey, Hero was born as knowing Los Angeles’s cold and snow. After he saw the map and all those sunny and shining scenes, he got curious and wanted the find where’s the city that looked similar to his but different weather. Deja Vu is the feeling from the Hero that situation currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past. All the worlds are similar but there’s no turning back for the hero to his world. The journey has an open ending.

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

ORDINARY WORLD EXTRAORDINARY WORLD

We haven been through dark times, but I don’t feel this darkness any more. feel hope. More positivity than despair. --

Demna Gvasalia

In the late Middle Ages, after the Black Death, it was a period of time of soaring culture and art which also gave birth to the Renaissance. The order will be wiped out after the baptism of disaster and there will be a new outlook. Now is the time hard not to make the comparison. World is parallow and life moves in cycles. Do you think the choices that you make is something you want? Or have you aware that you have chosen the arranged choice?

Today’s hero is the architect. Architecture is the way.

At a time when the practice of architecture is broader than ever, the word ‘architect’ has been appropriated and bastardized by nearly every other discipline -- from software architect, to enterprise, asset, and even management architect. As others steal our label, we on the other hand, are exploring an ever-wider range of disciplines and activities we now call architecture.

All of which should lead us to ask the urgent questions today: What exactly is an architect today? And what kind of architect am I?

This project is a laboratory to explore, invent, manufacture and design our own architectural identities of a city. You are the hero to control the quality of the city. The physical site of this project is Downtown Los Angeles. We came up with the idea that Los Angeles is always sunny and warm. The snowing situation seems really uncommon for this city. We started thinking about the possibility of Los Angeles and people’s living conditions. Is the warm, sunny southern California the best living condition of life? What if one day Santa Monica beach is full of snow? For people living their life under artificiality and plasticity, does texture not matter to architecture anymore? When the norm changes, how does it influence architecture? In other words, with all the environmental changes and discoveries in outer

space, we want to explore how architecture and cityscape respond to such changes, weather, technology or gravity. The project is completely fictional yet related to our life. From the ordinary world to the extraordinary and back again, you will speculate on every aspect of its landscape and landmarks. Whether designed in the form of a hyper dense megalopolis, a vast bleak desert, or a tiny room operating as a microcosm of a much larger world beyond, the spectrum of your site is almost infinite. The site is limited only by your imagination

In the hero’s journey, our hero experiences three scenarios, Plastic LA, Snowy LA and Orientated LA. Hero, the reader, is a curious person who lives in a snowy world similar to LA. He/she takes on a journey of finding the real Los Angeles. In a storm, Hero hides in front of a bookstore, where displays a LA traveler’s brochure. Hero picks it up and sees there’re so many fascinating versions of his world. Although the store seems closed, when the hero tries to look inside, the door opens slightly.

This project gave us a chance to explore different qualities of a city. We came up the idea that Los Angeles is always sunny and warm. The snowing situation seems really uncommon for this city. We starting thinking is there other possibility of Los Angeles and people’s living condition. Is the warm, sunny southern California the best living condition of life? What if one day Santa Monica beach is full of snow? For people living their life under artificiality and plasticity, does texture not matter to architecture anymore? When the norm changes, how it influences architecture? In other words, with all the environmental changes and discoveries in outer space, we want to explore how architecture and cityscape respond to such changes, weather, technology or gravity. The project is completely fictional yet related to our Life. Deja Vu is the feeling from the Hero that situation currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past. All the worlds are similar but there’s no turning back for the hero to his world. The journey has an open ending.

ORDEAL, DEATH, REBIRTH

Precedent Study Blade Runner’s Los Angeles

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film depicting genetically engineered replicants that cannot be visually distinguished from adult human beings. The genetically engineered replicants of human beings are manufactured by Tyrell Corporation which is also a very powerful company of the time. Although the use of genetically engineered replicants is outlawed, the manufactured replicants are exclusively utilized for dangerous work on colonies located outside the world. The film combines technology, looming mega buildings, and noir atmosphere of Metropolis. Throughout the film, cop cars and aircrafts fly over the city’s airspace and on the streets. As depicted in the film, LA city is lively, disordered, and heterogeneous. Women and men dance to techno-beats, smoke, and portray their sport retro fashions. The film celebrates cultural dynamisms and social vitality of LA city’s urban life in similar

ways that the urban LA city life is depicted today. Unlike the modern-day city of Los Angeles which is characterized by more diverse populations, the sci-fi version of the city of LA in Blade Runner is characterized by lots of Chinese people and Chinese influence. The sci-fi version of the city of LA in Blade Runner portrays the futuristic LA city, the city’s architectural design and filming. The film shares some common characteristics with modern day LA city in both filming and architectural design. However, not all architectural design and filming characteristics of the sci-fi version of the city of LA in Blade Runner are similar to those of the present-day LA in both filming. The differences in futuristic sci-fi version of the city of LA in Blade Runner and the modern LA city are evidenced by some of the architectural designs, filming, people’s lifestyles and film technology.

My Hero’s Journey

The look was Shinjuku and the feel was Mike Davis’ City of Quartz, a megalopolis dominated by Haves tricking Have-Nots into shooting each other. Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard was one in a long line of LA shamuses tripped up by wealth and beauty, from Marlowe and Gittes to Rawlins and Bosch. PHOTOGRAPH: WARNER BROS/EVERETT COLLECTION

Bookstore is the threshold.

Snow globe is the hint.

Scenario 1: Snowy los Angeles

I was curious about who lives in a snowy world similar to LA. He/she takes on a journey of finding the real Los Angeles. A cold and snowy Los Angeles is the last thing that I could ever imagine. The roads were slippery and it was evidence from the marks on the tarmac that vehicles experienced challenges moving through the snow. The city appeared the same but I discovered that the buildings were designed to withstand accumulation of snow during a cold season. Winter was already here and I noticed what the architects anticipated during a cold season. The roofs of low buildings could be seen to have been constructed to withstand heavy snowing. They lacked excessive dormers and valleys. Obstructions were limited.

In a storm, Hero hides in front of a bookstore (image on the right), where displays a LA traveler’s brochure. Hero picks it up and sees there’s a sunny version of his world. Map says for any questions; one should contact the bookstore. Although the store seems closed, when the hero tries to look inside, the door opens slightly (image at the bottom). In the back of the bookstore, there’s blue light coming through a mysterious door. Hero goes to the door looking for answers.

CLOCKWISE: BOOKLET SNOW LOS ANGELES SKYLINE THRESHOLD THE BOOKSTORE

LEFT: BOOKSTORE INTERIOR

RIGHT: HINT THE SNOW GLOBE

Scenario 2: Oriented Los Angeles

Behind the door there’s a bright room with gravity from all directions (image at the bottom). Stairs are going into different directions and objects are sideways or upside down. I walked out of the door and I stood on the streets in awe. I wondered how human beings are able to do the structures that seem to defy the rules of gravity. The buildings seemed to be connected and supporting each other. In some cases, parts of the building are curved and hang in the air. I was wondering whether this concept has been existing all this time. Maybe I wasn’t keen enough. Everything seemed to be in the right place. There was no obstruction, lighting was perfect and accessibility was also kept in mind when designing and constructing these buildings.

I walked back to the only open door and entered the world with gravity in six directions. I learned about the mechanics of this world with the brochure and uses the map to locate the bookstore in this world, continuing my journey of finding the sunny LA. I wanted to take it all in. By now, I knew there was no limit in the world. Anything was possible.

CLOCKWISE: BOOKLET ORIENTED LOS ANGELES SKYLINE THRESHOLD THE BOOKSTORE

LEFT: BOOKSTORE INTERIOR RIGHT: HINT THE SNOW GLOBE

Scenario 3: The Plastic Pink

Once again the bookstore is closed but not locked. I walked in and there’s pink neon light shining through the back door. I thought maybe that’s the new threshold that takes me to another world. Behind the back door, there’s a room full of mirrors and neon lighting. There’s a small scale city model that looks similar to my city. I found another booklet in the room. The door from which I came in has disappeared, but another door is next to the model. Through that door the hero enters into a dark and artificial city where everything is under pink light just like the model. The city is hyper reflective, lifeless and full of plastic buildings. Everything on the map also changed to pink and neon lights.

The plastic pink was also toned down by huge and dark skyscrapers. They made the city look like something from a dystopian story. It was confusing. Why create so much hope using color but still add designs that are scary? Maybe they were meant to remind people about reality and to have achievable and unrealistic dreams. Maybe this was necessary for Los Angeles residents, I thought. The journey was not done. I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. I used the booklet and tried to find the way back to the bookstore again.

CLOCKWISE: BOOKLET PLASTIC LOS ANGELES SKYLINE THRESHOLD THE BOOK STORE

LEFT: BOOKSTORE INTERIOR RIGHT: HINT THE SNOW GLOBE

I entered the store and walked directly to the back door.

I was overawed by what I was looking at. All the experience has locked in the snow globes and there’s no way back.

05

Los Angeles Walled City

Visual Study | Fall 2017 | Sci-Arc

Instructor: Alexey Marfin

Partner: Vivian Zhen Xin

Primarily set in the mid-twenty-first century in the fictional American city of Los Angeles, otherwise known as . In alternative history, the former generation of Chinese immigrants form a tightly knit community that its culture, economy and politic is isolated from the American society. Yet because of their distance from the Chinese mainland, this group of people does not catch up with the modern day Chinese culture. Inspired by the Kowloon Walled City, the short film explores a possible future of Chinatown Los Angeles being a time capsule for Chinese immigrants. All scenes are shoot in Los Angeles.

https://vimeo.com/195074639

DURING INSTALLATION, EACH PRE-ASSEMBLED COMPENENT WILL BE RAISED INTO PLACE AND SECURED TO CEILING STRUCTURE WITH METAL ANCHORS AND STEEL CABLE.

SITE INSTALLATION

ACOUSTIC FELT CEILING DESIGN

B1 B2

ELEMENT TYPE B

SINGLE FELT CONE CONE TO CONE RIVET ATTACHMENT CONE PANEL

Section Drawing

Installation Design

Super-massive Black Holes

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

FALL 2018 | BAUMGARTNER+URIU ARCHITECTURE (B+U)

Location: Los Angeles, California

Program: Acoustic Ceiling Installation

Material: Aluminum, Wool Felt

Architect: Baumgartner + Uriu

Team: Garrett Santo, Ke Li, Yiting Hsieh

Model: Jianing Yang

Diagram: Jianing Yang

Feasibility Study

GCF Girls Club

PROFESSIONAL

Location: Los Angeles, California

Program: Recreation Center

Team: Lehrer Architects

Michael Lehrer, principal

Nerin Kadribegovic, principal

Michael Lehrer, Nerin Kadribegovic

Model: Jianing Yang

Furniture Design

Inside-out Chair

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

FALL 2018 | BAUMGARTNER+URIU ARCHITECTURE (B+U)

Client: Ennso Furniture Group

Size: 23” W x 40” D x 36” H

Completion Date: 2018

Material: Aluminum & Leather

Architect B+U, llp Herwig Baumgartner, principal

Scott Uriu, principal

Team: Garrett Santo, Ke Li, John Lin

Photography: Jianing Yang