Portfolio 53 Columbus Avenue Apt. 201 San Francisco, CA 94111 nancymei.25@gmail.com 415.260.5519
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Introduction
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Mulford-Marina Branch Library, San Leandro
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Salt Ponds, Redwood City
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S.T.E.M. Center, San Francisco
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“The Street”
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Form
p.40
Other Design Work
nancymei.25@gmail.com 415.260.5519
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EDUCATION
HONORS ’
EXPERIENCE ’
SKILLS
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‚ �  � � ”  A library is more than just a building for books, but a place that inspires, a space to gather, and a connection to the bay, to city and the San Leandro community. This library strives to connect people with the environment and nurture different types of reading styles.
p.4 Mulford Library
�’— Section Perspective
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The building form is “shifted” horizontally pass each other to create transitional spaces between neighboring areas and the library. These spaces include the public courtyard, the landscape garden and water feature at the entrance, and the Marina Viewing Deck as the destination. Connecting these two ends is the central access band created by merging the two general zones in which the bottom engages horizontally with the site and the top engages with the northern edge of the site. This “shift” also creates an interlocking structure that encourage exploration of other program areas along the access zone. The primary direction is along the horizontal axis of the site paralleled with Fairway Street, the busier and more active road. Building systems such as rainwater, storm water, access path and structure follow the primary direction.
MARINA VIEWING DECK
YO
p.6 Mulford Library
Plan and Longitudinal Section Diagrams and Rear Pespective
OUNG ADULT’S
ADULT’S
FAMILY’S SERVICES
CIRCULATION
LOBB
MULTI-PURPOSE ROOM
0
4’
8’
16’
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The sloped roof form creates an incremental height change in the structure, responding to one’s progression along the access zone, from entrance to the destination. Furthermore, the fold and the slope of the butterfly roof capture rainwater down the central access zone to the entrance water feature, where the rainwater collection system is located underground. The water is then used for on-site landscape irrigation. One of the goals is to integrate the public program with the library program and still maintain access to the public community facility when the library is closed. As people arrive from the sidewalk or the parking lot, they are greeted by the water feature and landscape gardens before arriving at the entry courtyard. This public courtyard is connected to three spaces, the multipurpose room, the bookstore café and the main entrance to the building. The community/public facility is located at the building entrance. One would arrive at the general lobby before accessing other parts of the building. The library and the community facility is separated with a transparent/translucent partition that allows light transmission and visual connection between the two areas.
p.8 Mulford Library
Site Analysis and Structural Diagram Childrens’ Room and Mezzanine Reading Room
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Mulford Library
Wall Details Diagrams and Sectional Model
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”  ƒ Œ’ ”� “ †’’ ƒ  � Œ ” ‚ “ The difference between floating and not is thinness, manifest as layers of material marked by time. Thinness is a reality; sea level rise is an opportunity. Our proposition is an event, a flood that marks the rise of the water’s zero by one half centimeter. We can also think of thinness as representing the circus of layered programs that exist on the site today: where jails, yacht clubs, amusements parks, and industry coexist, creating unexpected and clamorous associations. We studied thinness as a reality as well as a tool for of representation. The drawings and models which resulted from this study produced forms and spatial relationships that inspired physical and actual propositions, taking advantage of water’s rise. In the same way parades inhabit the space of the street transforming our understanding of a city, the proposed boats and subsequent landscape alter our perception of the gained water space that is a result of global warming. The flood is not feared but addressed. The event is a test.
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Salt Ponds
�’— Section Drawing of the Salt Ponds, Redwood City
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The morning of the event is strangely quiet, like the sound of sea level rise. The noise of preparations is a memory. What remains is a slowly rising hum of anticipation. Sometime between 9 and 10 am the reservoir begins to drain. The rush of water is slow, perceivable only as a rise. The floating begins as a dampness at your feet. The first boat to float does so quietly. The second boat to float plays a simple melody, recognizable to the residents of Redwood City. The event escalates over the course of 1 day.
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Salt Ponds
Day Axonometric Drawing of the Flooding Salt Ponds Night Axonometric Drawing of the Flooding Salt Ponds
A flee market of boats are floating by midday, selling and serving their offerings. Boats that function as transportation, and repair begin to float as needed. As the sun sets, residential boats are floating, mimicking their occupants’ habitual commutes home. The party begins when the sun is set. The last boats to float do so with a bang.
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Sea level rise is an event, slow and disturbing. We ask ourselves, “What happens when we push fast forward?” In forcing the response we invite the spectacle. Our solution begins with conversion, adaption, and a flood, a model for urbanism that follows is thin, flexible, expanding, and celebrated. p.16
Salt Ponds
Concept Model Axonometric Model Axonometric Drawing
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” ƒ � ” „ The S.T.E.M. Center provides courses and workshops to students focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This project strives to provide indoor-outdoor spaces that allow integrated experiences of the center and of curriculum. The stairs, punctuate and weave in and out the two wings of the building, encourage an interactive and exchange of the inside and outside programs and offer a change of rhythm when traveling through the spaces. Structural connections found in San Francisco inspired the form of the building. The study models explored the interlocking, interlacing, interlinking, and aggregation of parts, which are then rotated, sheared, and scaled. The volume of the site is used to trim off protruding portions and draw the boundary of the building. A 10’x10’ grid is superimposed onto the form. Structures, mechanics, water, circulation, and program and furniture layout follow the grid system.
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S.T.E.M. Center
�’— Diagram ƒ’Œ “ –‘ƒ Ground Plan “ –‘ƒ Second and Third Floor Plans
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p.20 S.T.E.M. Center
Study Models Unfolded Diagrams
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ƒ‘ ”ƒ“ ƒ � � ” „
Technological discoveries have extended and reshaped the way we experience the physical environment, and they have changed our visual surroundings partly through rebuilding the physical environment and partly with visual tools that allow us to view the visible world through different lenses, discerning things that were previously too small, too fast, too large, or too slow for us to capture or comprehend. Streets are generally defined by the “edgeâ€?, where the sidewalk meets the building facade, and dividing what is on the street and what is inside a building. But does the street end where the building is? I believe our perception of the street could extend beyond this “edgeâ€? and into the spaces behind the façade.
p.22 THE STREET
�’— Columbus Avenue, San Francisco Site Map “ –‘ƒ Slit Scans
In this thesis, I explored digital tools to reflect and represent the dynamic environment of the street in order to thicken that edge intertwining both the exterior and interior. To understand our experience of the street, slit scanning was mainly used to study the static and the moving. It is a technique that is used to create static images of time-based phenomena; thin slices of pixels are extracted from a sequence of video frames and integrated into a new image.
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� �’š” –‘ƒ   � Š‰ˆŽ �
These representations/drawings attempt to capture colors, direction, rhythm and movement. Peeled and pulled apart, layers of these drawings are reimagined three-dimensionally for spatial qualities for interiors to deepen and extend our experience of the street and create an exchange between the inside and outside through form, color, material and projection. p.24
THE STREET
�’— Elevational Slit Scan Drawing ƒ’Œ “ –‘ƒ Ground Floor Plan “ –‘ƒ Elevation
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’��š” ’   � ™ŠŽ �
p.26 THE STREET
�’— Elevational Slit Scan Drawing ƒ’Œ “ –‘ƒ Ground Floor Plan “ –‘ƒ Elevation
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’ “ „ ŽŽŽ �
p.28 THE STREET
�’— Elevational Slit Scan Drawing ƒ’Œ “ –‘ƒ Ground Floor Plan “ –‘ƒ Elevation
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p.30 THE STREET
Building Model Building Model
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p.32 THE STREET
Light Projection Study Facade Study Models
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Form
Interior: Visiting Artist Studios Exterior: Visiting Artist Studios
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p.36 Form
Photo of La Muralla Roja, by Nacho Alegre Desert House by Jim Jennings
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p.38 Form
Villa V by Chris Collaris Architect Muromi Renovation by Rhythm Design
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p.40 Other Works: Furniture
Rocker Lounge Chair Interior Partition Screen
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