NERO CHENXUAN HE
2018 - 2020 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE
GRADUATE THESIS SCHOLARSHIP PORTFOLIO
Nero Chenxuan He Email: hexxx589@umn.edu Phone(US): 651-233-0229 Instagram: @nerohe Website: www.nerohe.com
Nero Chenxuan He is an architectural designer based in Los Angeles, California. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities School of Architecture. Born and raised in Beijing China, He studied aboard in Copenhagen and worked in Amsterdam, Minneapolis, and Beijing. He participated in several distinct projects from skyscraper to an airport in Zaha Hadid Architects. In 2018, He as main designer working with Dream the Combine was one of five finalists of the prestigious 2018 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP) competition and won the final competition which allowed them to construct an architectural installation, Hide & Seek, in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. He is currently in the program of Masters of SCI-Arc.
2020 SPRING 3GBX
2019 FALL 3GAX
DS 5000 10 WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
DS 4000 09 TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
008 Design Studio Introduction: Enchanted Models
024 Design Studio Introduction: Strategy & Space
010 Design Studio: Totem
026 Design Studio: Flatten
CONTENT
VS 2701 A POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION 050 Visual Studies Introduction: Postconceptual Position 052 Visual Studies P. I Erase A Construction Document: Erase 062 Visual Studies P. II Build An Information Model: Failures AS 3222 DESIGN DOCUMENTATION 078 Applied Studies Introduction: Desgin Development 080 Applied Studies: Radical
DESIGN COMPETITION THE HOME COMPETITION 2019 108 Design Competition: Home Essentials 110 Home Essentials: Mine
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2019 SPRING 2GBX
2018 FALL 2GAX
DS 1201 2GBX GENERATIVE MORPH
DS 1200 2GAX COMP MORPH
124 Design Studio Introduction: Forms of Knowledge
172 Design Studio Introduction: Make Believe
126 Design Studio: Atrract
174 Workshop I Curisoity: Candy 180 Workshop II X-Ray Vision: Failures 192 Workshop III Curisoity: Borrowed
VS 4201 VISUAL STUDIES II
VS 4200 VISUAL STUDIES I GR
146 Visual Studies Introduction: Become the Internet
204 Visual Studies Introduction: Augmented Object
148 Visual Studies: Strange
206 Visual Studies: Deform
STUDENT-LED CHARRETTE HOMELESSNESS CHARRETTE
AS 3200 ADV MATERIAL/TECTONICS
160 Student-led Charrette Introduction: Homelessness Charrette
216 Appled Studies Introduction: Envelop Evolution 218 Material / Tectonics: Deform
162 Homelessness Charrette: Plugin HT 2201 THEORIES OF CONT ARC II
HT 2200 THEORIES OF CONT ARC I
232 History and Theory Theories Introduction: About Architecture
242 History and Theory Theories Introduction: Facts & Fictions 244 History and Theory Essay: Encode
234 History and Theory Essay: Unset
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ENCHANTED MOMDELS
Visual Studies Enchanted Models Instructor Tom Wiscombe Term Spring 2020 Team Nero He
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DS 5000 10 - WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
“
The thing about architectural models is that they are intended to represent things at anther scale. We accept that and imagine things that are much bigger, although we, of course, know that the model itself is a specific and irreducible entity that does more than just point at the “real” thing. Model kits, often from outside architecture, are a special kind of model. They have the dual quality of both being kits of parts that make a “scale” model, but the “set” is also crucial to the overall understanding of the thing. Further, beyond the set is the box, which is often as crafted and bespoke as the model kit itself, and designed to specifically pack, nestle, and display the parts inside. Other things accompany model kits as well, special decals, instruction manuals, and posters. The tototal experience of the model kit is somewhere in between all of these parts, and assembled together into something which both points at the final scale model which in turn point to the real thing, but it also exists as a cornucopia of parts and pieces that can be laid out like treasures on a table, a flat ontology of vastly different styles and scales of things.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2018 VS 2701 - POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION Syllabus
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DS 5000 10 - WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
Visual Studies Enchanted Models Instructor Tom Wiscombe Term Spring 2020 Team Nero He
TOTEM manuals are explored to speculate on how to extend model kit logic into a speculative exercise rather than one of reduction to parts. The model kit does not necessarily put together into a unified scale model, but rather define a space of affinities, which share a similar logic with natural history and art collections. This new process of dealing with architectural information would stimulate a new way of design.
Lippo Centre, an iconic architecture located in central Hong Kong, is taken as a base to create an alternative model kit. The kit, as a space for speculation about parts, containers, sets, collections, and related obsessions, would be examined from tiny to mega-scale, contemporary, and very old as well as attendant accessories and special editions. Continue graphics, instruction posters, and
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This is a model kit revealing the strange inner reality behind models and their peculiar ontological status. Odd scale, mixed resolution, toy-like qualities, and strange componentry are revealed when the kit is assembled as a collection of parts. 12
TOTEM
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TOTEM
One photo of Lippo Centre was taken in the nearby park. In the photo, it looks like two giant totem poles erected from landscape with three heads stacked on one and another for each pole. An Ostagram neural network process was used to combine the image of two totem poles with Lippo Centre for a hyper image as inspiration.
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TOTEM
Assembly instruction shows each head contains three parts: inner core, middle puzzled massing, and an outside totem face clip-on. The face clip-ons are all changeable, jumpping from one style to another. 17
DS 5000 10 - WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
Assembling Totem Face - Chinese Opera III: Decals from the face are organized on a vacuum-formed plate, which can be plugged back onto the totem face clip-on.
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TOTEM
Changing Totem Face Clip-on - Double Faced Base Chunk I: Clip-on faces could be removed and replaced from one to another. A dramatic shift in styles appears relating to a simple move.
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DS 5000 10 - WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
Throughout the study, one architecture is created with full of wonder and doubt, via the playful but also defamiliarizing potentials of models. This new design reveals three discrete heads sitting on one continuous mat. 20
TOTEM
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DS 5000 10 - WISCOMBE VERTICAL STUDIO
Lippo Totem Model Kit uboxing photo: Three discrete heads are placed as if they are vertically stacked through the plastic film where is located at one of two towers on the cover design.
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CANDY
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STRATEGY & SPACE
Design Studio Strategy & Space Instructor Peter Testa Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Jonathan Warner
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DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
“
The studio project for a rebranded Olivetti HQ outside milan Offers a platform to develop new ideas about how strategy and space relate to each other. Leveraging technologies prompts narratives for new types of objects and how architectural thinking may be recoded in multiple domains. Through relaunching and rebranding Olivetti, arguably the most significant design focused company of the 20th century, the studio inherits a vast archive of objects and designers from Albini to Sotsass, and Le Corbusier’s unbuilt project for the Electronic Calculation Center at Rho-Milan. This multibuilding complex provides a heterodox collection of types and forms as a starting point for a contemporary architectural project exploring syntax of multiple non-correleated objects. Olivetti offers an archive of found objects and set pieces to be approprated overturned, recombined, and recontexntualized in the design. Work in the studio will exploit new ways of seeing, re-seeing, and sensing using a range of sutdio specific imaging and animation tools to generate new objects.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2019 DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO Syllabus
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DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
Design Studio Strategy & Space Instructor Peter Testa Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Jonathan Warner
FLATTEN To reimagine Olivetti for the 21st century, we turn to the use of Le Corbusier’s plan for Olivetti as a departure point to resee. Throughout the project, pattern is used as the extraction of formal and representational systems. They address repeatable elements such as poche, structure, circulation, programmatic division, and spatial organization by reducing it down to its essential elements. These graphics are
extracted from Le Corbusier’s plan which is remapped onto themselves, forms they originate from, to achieve a literal sense of the object through the use of its spatial and graphic representations. This presentation addresses each of these issues through multiple modes of representation, which define each of these attributes.
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Original Olivetti HQ Designed by Le Corbusier: Olivetti HQ’s plan is mapped on top of the form. Each program contents an architectural pattern that could be enhanced by reducing the impurity and repeat the iconicity.
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FLATTEN
Pattern Frontal Projection Morph Moment: Frame 001
Pattern Frontal Projection Morph Moment: Frame 120
Pattern Frontal Projection Morph Moment: Frame 240
Pattern Frontal Projection Morph Moment: Frame 360
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FLATTEN
Each of the combined compositions is a moment where we could extract forms and graphics. Taking the frozen compositions as a given, we solve each cataloged object individually to develop architectural effects strictly to themselves to enhance and reorganize the effect on an architectural level. 31
DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
01: 02: 03:
Original Conduit (Designed by Le Corbusier in Olivetti HQ) Original Workshops (Designed by Le Corbusier in Olivetti HQ) Original Transportation (Designed by Le Corbusier in Olivetti HQ)
04:
Frontal Map Patterned Conduit (Pattern is generated from the repetation of the original structure.) 05:
Frontal Map Patterned Workshops (Pattern is generated from the repetation of the original program division and circulation.) 06:
Frontal Map Patterned Transportation (Pattern is generated from the repetation of the original program division and circulation.) 01
04
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FLATTEN
02
03
05
06
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Relief Model - Admin: Illustrating how one pattern (extracted from the original Olivetti plan - admin program) projecting from two directions (top and bottom) could blend onto the shaped form.
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FLATTEN
Relief Model - Transportation: Illustrating how one pattern (extracted from the original Olivetti plan - transportation program) projecting from two directions (left and right) could blend onto the shaped form.
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Removing the graphic quality of the object creates a new sense of how they could be seen architecturally. Through shadow, extrusion, and other manipulations of the preexisting graphics were able to remove the form away from the graphic quality and purely focus on it as an architectural object.
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FLATTEN
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FLATTEN
Light and shadow affect how you resee architectural visual information. Relief models are filmed with blue and red LED lights on the opposite side lighting up the model. One can see the model is partially flattened but partially 3 dimensional.
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ARTICULATED OBJECTS
DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
01. RESEARCH BUREAU 02. WORKSHOPS 03. CONDUIT Five distinct parts are articulated 04. ADMIN architecturally based on patterns 05. TRANSPORTATION
translated from 2D image to 3D form. Imagining each of these objects as separate buildings that exist in the same space opens up a new model for a company that inhabits a single location but can only 01 to be collaborative with outside sources enhance locality on a global scale.
04
Articulated Object 01: Admin
Articulated Object 02: Transportation
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05
FLATTEN
02 Articulated Object 03: Workshops
Articulated Object 04: 01 Bureau Research
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Articulated Object 05: Conduit
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05
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Articulated Form Associated with Pattern – Transportation: The form is extruded from the pattern based on possible programs that could be embedded in transportation building, such as train station, warehouse, retail, exhibitions, etc.
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FLATTEN
Articulated Form Associated with Pattern – Workshops: The form is extruded from the pattern based on possible programs that could be embedded in workshops building.
Articulated Form Associated with Pattern – Conduit: The form is extruded from the pattern based on possible programs that could be embedded in conduit building.
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FLATTEN
These architectural effects are more easily seen through the motion on the robot. Here is where the motion between the mapping planes reveals architectural form and still reveals a sense of flatness at two planes. 45
DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
Transportation Meets Ground TRANSPORTATION MEETS GROUND
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01 06
04 01. 02. 03. 04. 05.
Railway Infrastructure Pedestrian Access Vehicular Access / Parking Crop & Raw Materials Storage & Shipping COLLECTIVE FORM
06. RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE 07. PEDESTRIAN ACCESS 08. VEHICULAR ACCESS/PARKING 09. CROP & RAW MATERIALS 10. STORAGE & SHIPPING
05 10
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09
FLATTEN
A mega industrial and culture zone is created after joining five buildings together to its original form. From interior views, patterns from two directions also transform into architectural elements. It is an architectural and programmatic Conduit Meets Research Bureau archipelago on a building scale. CONDUIT MEETS RESEARCH BUREAU
02 08
03 08
Conduit Meets Admin CONDUIT MEETS ADMIN
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DS 4000 09 - TESTA VERTICAL STUDIO
Articulated Form Associated with Pattern – Research Bureau: 3D form reveals when the form is not seen from two pattern projection directions.
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CANDY
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POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Visual Studies A Postconceptual Postion Instructor Anna Neimark Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Cole Masuno Esin Karaosman
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
“
Architecture was excluded or perhaps self-excluded from this modern discourse. It seemed to emerge as an impossible medium, too multifaceted to provide any single set of techniques or concerns. The field’s diverse and changing forms of labor and material practices resulted in often competing conceptual mechanisms. So, while all the other arts were overhauled in the post-war period through a conscious effort toward self-purification, architecture singularly avoided the encounter with its own modernity. As academics took their cue from the medium of painting, concentrating on abstract modes of representation, professionals were not bothered with these concerns. This seminar will attempt to define a post-conceptual position in architecture. If conceptual work was to erase, to render blank, and to heighten our awareness toward certain fundamental and linguistic principles, postconceptual labor fills out those blank forms with the details of architectural production. A series of exercises will be studied that bring our attention to the particularities of such details: through language, craft, and material specificities.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2018 VS 2701 - POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION Syllabus
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Visual Studies A Postconceptual Postion Instructor Anna Neimark Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund
ERASED objects produced by the architecture and non-objects produced by the contractor. In order to make the medium of exchange between the architect and the sub/ contractor explicit, the study is to erase the material lines of a building, leaving behind just the notes, the centerlines, and any marginal text. After the treatment of the drawing, the non objects become objects.
Following the concept of faktura, the flat plane of painting and the painter’s techniques formulated for the painter questions that were unique to that medium. The labor of painting, its “operations and works,” became specific media that defined a limited and focused discourse. The primary concerns of anyone’s artistic medium were developed through the concept of medium specificity. In an architectural drawing, there are
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
A construction document is requested. With the idea of erasing is in the manner of drawing, its material lines are erased digitally and printed out on mylar. Then, the back of the print is taped marking where those material lines have been.
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ERASED
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ERASED
Apply quick-dry whiteout in between tapes to mark out the trace of those erased material lines. Till the whiteout is thoroughly dried, peal all tapes off. Flip the mylar print with its printed side facing up, then add a piece of white museum board at the back sandwiching the whiteout in the middle. Since the whiteness of the whiteout and the museum board is different, a white on white effect is created.
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Final Physical Drawing - Segment II: The fully physical drawing has been evenly cut into nine segments in order to reduce the authorization of its original construction document form.
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ERASED
Final Physical Drawing - Segment III: The mylar paper is not fully attach to the museum board at the back leaves a three dimensional effect to the whiteout mark which leaves a faint shadow to the museum board.
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Applying whiteout on the taped mylar drawing: The act of erasure with procedures is as valuable as the final physical drawing.
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CANDY
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Visual Studies A Postconceptual Postion Instructor Anna Neimark Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Cole Masuno Esin Karaosman
4WIDOW The project uses Joseph Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs” as a precedent: A chair sits alongside a photograph of a chair and a dictionary definition of the word chair. Perhaps all three are chairs, or codes for one: a visual code, a verbal code, and a code in the language of objects, that is, a chair of wood. Fundamental to this idea of art is the understanding of the linguistic nature of all art propositions, be they past or
present, and regardless of the elements used in their construction. Chasing a chair through three different registers, Kosuth asks us to try to decipher the subliminal sentences in which we phrase our experience of art. Here in this project, a window is represented through different media to question the viewer embarking on the fundamental processes demanded by conceptual art.
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Rear Window - A Digital Render Version of the Window
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4WIDOW
Rear Window - A Survey Drafting Version of the Window
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
The CNC formed version of the window is created by substitution and nomination, like the ship Argo (each piece of which the argonauts gradually replaced so that they ended with an entirely new ship, without having to alter either its name or its form). The assembled window and the render of the window also relate to the Cornell Box study.
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4WIDOW
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Rare Widow - A CNC Milled Foam Assembled Window
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4WIDOW
Rare Widow - An Assembly Drawing Version of the Assembled Window
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4WIDOW
The project examines and reproduces forms by relocating detail through the means of assembly. Building an information model displaces aspects of each window in order to exceed the representation of the nonobjective descriptive elements.
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
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4WIDOW
Sections of the assembled window and corresponding sections of the original window have been traced digitally. Due to the symmetrical nature of all sections, half of every section gets sent to laser cut on plywood in a 1:1 scale. Using woodblock printing technique, all sections have been recreated on paper by pressing each plywood twice.
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VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
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4WIDOW
Sections on woodblock printd show as negative. Pairing up the assembled window sections with the original window sections, it reveals the assembly joints and the limitation of CNC milling machine: depending on fixed Z axis designated vertical movement as well as the drill bits accuracy. 75
VS 2701 - VS POSTCONCEPTUAL POSITION
Exhibation Photo: Postcards repersenting the same window in different media are scattered on the table.
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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
Applied Studies Design Development Instructors Herwig Baumgartner Brian Zamora Mathew Melnyk Jamey Lyzun Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Gia Zhao Blake Minster Andrew Stone
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AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
“
Design development has revamped with an all-digital format that spans from digital markups to digital building systems simulations into a final video presentation. Building assemblies and components will no longer be represented in static drawings printed on large sheets of paper but rather in the format of dynamic animations of building assemblies considering multiple dimensions, including materiality, sequencing, cost, lifecycle etc. The way how we construct things and how we use digital information to build buildings today is undergoing a dramatic change. Overlaying of digital information onto the built environment to both facilitate the construction and have everything derived from a single database has been the status quo for automotive and aerospace industries for decades and is slowly finding its way into architecture. The primary part of our work will be an animated drawing set in the form of a multisegment video addresing: components, sizes, descriptions, energies, systems, vantage points, transparencies, materials, colors, scales, and so on. A point of departure will be the genre of multi-dimensional building information modeling.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2019 AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR Syllabus
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AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
Applied Studies Design Development Instructors Herwig Baumgartner Brian Zamora Mathew Melnyk Jamey Lyzun Term Fall 2019 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Gia Zhao Blake Minster Andrew Stone
RADICAL The concept design of the building is inspired by Laure Owen’s art work. This Atlanta Public Library is defined as a 27-story-steel, and concrete building includes programs as reading halls, meeting rooms, auditorium, lecture hall, reading halls, co-working space, gallery, reception, cafe, digital and physical book storage, and plaza landscape. In the structure design phase, radical repeatable geometries with different sizes
and spacings are layered by using different materials for structure and building envelope to enhance the design aesthetic from the concept design. For structural stability, the idea is to make the waffle-shaped back of the building as two major cores and then attach all the front massing tie back to the main core from the bottom to the top. In the end, the major structure becomes a tree branch shape.
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RADICAL
Environmental Analysis: Temperature-wise, July high is around 89 degrees, and January low is 32 degrees. Solar Radiation study indicates the design strategy.
01: Summer Solstice 7:00 - 21:00
02: Winter Solstice 8:00 - 18:00
03: Summer Solstice 13:00
04: Winter Solstice 14:00
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RADICAL
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01 03
02
04
01:
2x4� Light Gauge Metal Stub Frame 02:
Segmented, Heavy-Walled Structural Steel Tubingv
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03:
Champagne Anodized Aluminum Panel 04:
Champagne Anodized Aluminum Reveal 05:
Seating Assembly (per spec)
Steel frame and curtain wall construction allow for off-site fabrication of frame and envelope components. The steel and concrete in the floors are designed to act as a composite diaphragm. 86
RADICAL
Auditorium Detail: The envelope is structural independent of the steel frame, providing flexibility in weight, size, and configuration of the envelope system. The disadvantages are mainly due to additional costs associated with maintaining the curtain wall.
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01 02
01:
03
Structural Steel Pipe Assembly Attached to Primary Structure
04
02:
Stick Framed Metal Stud Access Floor Assembly 03:
05
Prefabricated GFRC Custom Panels System on Double Insulated Metal Stud Assembly 04: 05:
Modular Window Unit Integrated Gutter Assembly
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RADICAL
Fabrication of frame and envelope components is done off-site, making it easy shipping to the site and rapid assembly at the site. The access floor shown is advantageous in an environment that needs flexible interior layouts. 89
AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
03 02
01
01:
W-24 Steel Beams Attached to Primary Structure 02:
Concrete Topping Slab
03:
04
Framed Guardrail with Aluminum Finish 04:
Curtain Wall Envelope (with Shading Element)
05
05:
Conveying System - Escalator (per spec)
Curtain walls require additional glass and steel for completion. These materials can become vulnerable to weather elements. As a result, they require regular maintenance to keep their aesthetic value intact. 90
RADICAL
Reading Hall / Gallery Detail: Curtain walls can be a major cause of project delay. The installation of these structures may be delayed by unfavorable weather conditions. This could in turn lead to additional costs on labour and manpower.
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AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
01
02
01:
03
Clevis Attachment for Glass Spandrel 02:
04
Structural Steel Pipe Assembly Attached to Primary Structure 03:
Low E-coated Glass CurtainWall Envelope 04:
Light Pink Translucent Fabricw
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05:
Electronically Powered Kinetic Shading Device Attached to Wire Cable
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RADICAL
Kinetic louvers move in three dimensions to screen sunlight from any angle. Sun control and shading devices can dramatically reduce building peak heat gain and cooling requirements and improve the natural lighting quality of building interiors. 93
AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
LENGEND
Exhaust Fan
Exhaust Fan
10” x 10” Central Diffuser
10’’ x10’’ Central Diffuser
24” x 24” Central Diffuse
24’’ x24’’ Central Diffuser
24” x 48” Fluorescent Light
24"X48" Fluorescent Light
8” Recessed Can Light
8’’ Recessed Can Light
Fire Sprinkler
Fire Sprinkler
RPC Analysis: With the consideration of the kinetic louvres and daylight analysis, different type of lights are placed.
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RADICAL
Boiler Chiller Outside Air Duct & Diffusers Active Heating & Cooling: Active designs use a variety of mechanical heating and cooling systems which run on solar power.
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AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
Rainwater is collected and used after filtering. Greywater, and even blackwater, can be diverted and treated through a filter system and then further used to irrigate commercial landscape around the area.
01: Blackwater Collection System & Rainwater Reuse System: Toilets
02: Greywater collection System: Sink A
03: Greywater collection System: Sink B
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RADICAL
Rainwater Collection System Greywater Collection System Blackwater Collection System Rainwater Reuse System Environmental Analysis - Water Disposal: Rainwater collection in the building landscape work with the design appearing as geometrical forms.
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RADICAL
Types A, A-2, A-3, B&S Total Number of Occupancy: 2,359 People Max Occupancy Floor: 610 People 610 / 3 cores = 203 203 x 0.3 = 60’ (min. W of egress stairs) Width Between Stairs: 55”
Egress - Most Occupied - Auditorium: Type A-1 / 250 fixed seats / Total Time For Exit: 00:14:45 min
Egress - Overall Evacuation: Type A, A-2, A-3, B / Total Time For Exit: 00:14:45 min
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Assembly Group A-3 Reading Halls, Meeting Rooms
Assembly Group A-1 Auditorium, Lecture Hall
Group S-1 Moderate-Hazard Storage
Assembly Group A-1 Gallery
Assembly Group A-1 Reading Halls, Co-Working Spaces
Assembly Group A-2 Cafe Assembly Group A-2 Entrance
Fire Separation and Construction Type - Fire Zoning
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RADICAL
A fire simulation displays how fire protection works, including smoke exhaustion system and sprinkler system. An openable window behind the stage opens, and an exhaust fan above the ceiling operates. 101
AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
Acoustic Analysis - Acoustic Optimization - Reverberation
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RADICAL
Floor Carpet Tile Specification Classification for Use: Commercial - Heavy Use Product Construction: Tufted Loop, Nylon Fiber Dimensions: 500x500mm Total Thickness: 4.5-8mm Backing: Installation Color and Pattern: The vendor shall provide samples for selection. Must be flame proofed to meet at least Bfl - s1 Flammability Rating: European standard EN 13501-1 103
AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
01
02
Cost Analysis: 01: Concrete In-Site (20,222 qy)
$65,022,200
02: Structural Steel (21,255 sqf)
$112,550,600
03: Aluminum Substructure (35,000 sqf)
$38,000,000
04: Glass Single Curved (35,000 sqf)
$26,000,000
05: Glass Facade System (74,000 sqf)
$65,180,000
06: Mechanical Shading (1,000 units)
$150,000,000
07: GFRC Panel System 1 (129,000 sqf)
$25,000,000
08: GFRC Panel System 2 (101,000 sqf)
$20,800,000
09: Mechanical System (35,000 sqf)
$ 65,000,000
10: Fire Suppression (31,000 sqf)
$ 12,000,000
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RADICAL
03
04 05
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AS 3222 - AS DESIGN DOC GR
Fully Assembled Atlanta Public Library: To sum up, the total cost analysis is 579,552,800 USD.
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BORROWED
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HOME ESSEMTOALS
Design Competition The Home Competition 2019 Honorable Mention Project Tile Home Essentials Team Leader Nero He Team Haocheng Dai Yue Di Laure Michelon
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HOME ESSENTIALS
“
The Home remains the most significant architectural place we experience throughout our lives. Home represents safety, ownership, privacy, and stability. Home is where we can be alone and with people we care about most. Historically, the home has been a place of permanence. Despite how chaotic our lives are, we cherish the consistency of sleeping in the same bed and performing the same daily rituals here. Yet, new trends in digitalization and globalization continue to reshape realms of everyday life and alter our physical environments, including our homes. It is important to examine how we adapt our living spaces to these shifts. Through the ages, architects have continuously investigated the role that homes play in our lives. These investigations present us with new notions of home environments that are sometimes wholistic. HOME creates a platform to speculate the ways new technological, political, environmental and cultural changes can redefine the spaces where we live. What do you believe will be the future of home?
”
—— Excerpt from THE HOMELESSNESS CHARRETTE Handbook
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HOME ESSENTIALS
Design Competition The Home Competition 2019 Honorable Mention Project Tile Home Essentials Team Leader Nero He Team Haocheng Dai Yue Di Laure Michelon
MINE The homeless shopping cart is a concentration of human daily essential products. One’s life is built around this compacted aggregation. Using the cart as a carrier, daily necessities have been ranked by the frequency of use and stacked accordingly in or attached to the cart. Most of the carts have resources that are attached to the cart, such as cardboard and thick clothes or blankets. Meanwhile, other items are mostly consumable or
replaceable based on daily needs. Here, we are exploring a new typology of a homeless shelter: a motivation-based supply depot. Users could replace their supplies and activate housing units using their mobile furniture, which shaped like a cart to create and nurture their community. Thus, homeless people are offered choices within specific guidelines.
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HOME ESSENTIALS
Human and Cart Photo - Jack: Jack has his items partially out of his cart, and he uses his cart against his back while sitting on the ground.
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MINE
Architects inherently design and create a political product by imposing theirs, the clients, or society’s ideas on the design of a home. We are proposing an alternative process that becomes less political by tapping into the subconscious of the human mind.
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From this, we can find how lifestyle influences one’s subconscious wants and try to translate that into architecture. We are not here to solve the homelessness problem, but instead to study this as a methodology of home design.
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Human and Cart Photo - Willoughby: Willoughby is very organized that he has his items stored in different bags based on how often he uses them.
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Anthony was interviewed about his lifestyle, personality, and possessions within his cart, which acts as a “mobile home� or spatial product. People with a cart were chosen for this analysis because they have a clear idea of how many items they can carry and therefore give us a clearer window into their personalities, lifestyles, and disabilities. This analysis turns into a fetishization of taking apart the spatial object, cataloging its parts, reusing, and then misusing these objects into a type of proto-architecture.
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We begin to see the cart as a spatial object, which allows us to analyze and inhabit the object adjacencies and relations. Not to critique the form but to understand the layout and the sequence of the cart through simulation. Through speculation of a new building standard, we transform the spatial object in these overly simplistic but inherently clear moves. 118
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The process is about dematerializing familiar objects to see them as spatial objects, then to strip them of their original materials, apply new materials, and to call it architecture. The user has the opportunity to add floors, open spaces, change materials, and add wall openings. It is a game of operation.
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Worm Eye View Drawing of Jack’s Cart: X-Ray drawing technique illustrates the chart arrangement as a spatial object.
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FORMS OF KNOWLEGE
Design Studio Forms of Knowledge Instructor Damjan Jovanovic Term Spring 2019 Team Nero He Xin Liu
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In the west, the word ‘library’ has an ambiguous etymology. It can mean ‘a collection of books’ and/or ‘the spaces that house a collection of books’. This ambiguity stems from the fact that libraries evolved out of private and exclusive collections of stored knowledge, either by individuals or religious institutions. Prior to Gutenberg’s printing press in 1440, books were manually transcribed and only accessible to a select elite. This meant extremely low literacy rates and, moreover, a high rate of political control over society. After the printing press though, the library, as a ‘temple of knowledge’, evolves into its modern form as a public institution where books are no longer chained, literally or metaphorically, to the space that houses them. Contemporary libraries, however, are complex structures that have defined cultural expectations and evolved to integrate an expanding array of media collections and spaces for civic and democratic exchange. Rather than the museum, the public library has a civic edge due to the range of public spaces. This has replaced the metaphor of the library as a “temple of knowledge” with the “living room of the city”.
”
—— Excerpt from Spring 2019 DS 1201 - 2GBX GENERATIVE MORPH Syllabus
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Design Studio Forms of Knowledge Instructor Damjan Jovanovic Term Spring 2019 Team Nero He Xin Liu
ATTRACT The main challenge of creating a new library for the 21st Century lies in producing a new image of a building dedicated to preservation and dissemination of knowledge in the age of content. The idea of content implies a collapse of classically distinct ideas of medium and subject matter into an inherently malleable and diffuse new notion of a creative product that can exist in multiple states simultaneously without a
hierarchical precedence of either. This augmented library aggregation is a cloud of information attracted together. Shifting from the virtual into augmented space, the physical manifestation of the architecture becomes only one of many parallel realities: solid structure as a tangible interface; ambiguous hologram bashing for spatial configuration; virtual holographic as representations of information.
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Aggregation Catalog I Simple Geometries: Simple geometries are for generating occupiable and functional program space.
Aggregation Catalog I Bathroom Accessories: Bathroom accessories are here to create different platforms and furniture for human scale.
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No Physic Volume Bashing: Aggregate four catalogs, the overall form of the library is bashed by randomly generating objects in a cuboid.
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Aggregation Catalog III Machine Parts: Machine parts help to connect different objects from different catalog smoothly.
Aggregation Catalog IV Nature Objects: Nature objects are added to generate a higher resolution form of the aggregation.
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Axon in Site Drawing: The building seemly has its own life but also mimicking the sounding buildings which also act as a form of knowledge to the city.
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3D Printed Faรงade: The hologram facade is 3D printed and vacuum formed with color change holographic paint sprayed on and UV spray on selected parts.
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3D Printed Volume Model without Faรงade: It shows the program performance which enhances the idea of no hierarchy but endless, directionless and edgeless space.
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Library is such an institution where exists as a world within the world, mirroring and yet upsetting with what is outside. The architecture itself would be too loud to only act as a background, setoff for human activities. It is an aggregated living organ that has its own rhythm of motion. 139
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Architectural form is conventionally conceived in a dimensional space of idealized stasis, defined by fixed-point coordinates. A building generated by volume bashing is detached with designing through plan and section. However, plans and sections need to be produced as a communication tool.
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By introducing the augmented hologram projecting into the real world, a new drawing technique needs to be executed to represent this new approach to architecture. In these plan drawings, one can read the embedded tangible structural volume and bashing holograms.
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Volume Massing Study Model: This model presents occupied surface on the building, however, the question is are you inside or outside when the hologram facade is on.
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BECOME THE INTERNET
Visual Studies Become the Internet Instructor Damjan Jovanovic Angelica Lorenzi Term Spring 2019 Designer Nero He
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“
Content is an endless proliferation of objects and images without an original, with no regard to the referential, without an interest in the authentic. It is something like an endless landfill, accumulating to cover the last vestiges of modernity. Content infects, reprograms and makes obsolete classical modernist workflows based on clarification and abstraction. More importantly, content reprograms the cognitive and creative procedures of design, compelling us to construct new ones. It takes everything indiscriminately mixing between any genre and expression. It does not cohere, it does not explain, it does not want to be easy, clear or smart. Play is the only thing it responds to. The students utilize Platform Sandbox, a game-like software designed specifically for working with content. The source material from online archives, play with endless reconfigurations and produce an enormous amount of material. All material (images and videos) comes directly from the software, as raw, unfiltered expression.
”
—— Excerpt from Spring 2019 VS 4201 - VISUAL STUDIES II Syllabus
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Visual Studies Become the Internet Instructor Damjan Jovanovic Angelica Lorenzi Term Spring 2019 Designer Nero He
STRANGE When giving a platform and been told to do whatever, logic in design is weakened but stimulating possibilities of creations. Using Platform Sandbox as a medium of design, designers are required to acknowledge what is given and what are the constraints of this software. Objects from different genres are directly imported in the same interface. By mixing and matching, transboundary objects miss
the sense of origin through completely removed color, texture, and scale. In this design study, the theme “ceremony� is given as a starting reference. Through changing the software setting in Unity, new textures including still and dynamic ones are applied to the objects to form a new strange language of itself. The range of items is countless. The result uncovers how easy it is to drown in the ocean of information.
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Following the traditional architectural design method, objects can still be arranged in plan and section view. The result maintains a restricted symmetrical form. But objects are still treated very much as objects without spatial quality.
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Platform Sandbox Interface: Through 3D volume bashing with a little accuracy, dynamic objects can be treated as various textures.
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Final exhibition includes overwhelming images which also compiled in individual books. Overall students have produced 140GB of content: 30,000 images, 250 videos, and 53 Platform Sandbox apps. 155
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The Final Book Named as “Become the Internet”: Images in the book are sorted through different methods of construction the objects.
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HOMELESSNESS CHARRETTE
Student-led Charrette Homelessness Charrette Advisor Damjan Jovanovic Term Spring 2019 Team Nero He Xin Liu
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“
Design as a human right, not a luxury or a privilege. It is in this spirit that we pay attention to some of the most pressing issues of our moment and our city Los Angeles: homelessness. Los Angeles is an epicenter of shiting urban planning and housing issues, with homelessness surging over 40% in the past ten years alone. In a four-day period, SCI-Arc came together as a community of designers to contribute to the body of thinking on tackling this issue. Taking on the intense, collaborative format known as a charrette — a problem-solving effort involving the transparency and voices of all stakeholders — all 506 SCI-Arc students came together to affirm that design’s responsibility to imagine and shape new futures can be and should be in service of everyone.
”
—— Excerpt from THE HOMELESSNESS CHARRETTE Handbook
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Student-led Charrette Homelessness Charrette Advisor Damjan Jovanovic Term Spring 2019 Team Nero He Xin Liu
PLUGIN The homeless shopping cart is a concentration of human daily essential products. One’s life is built around this compacted aggregation. Using the cart as a carrier, daily necessities have been ranked by the frequency of use and stacked accordingly in or attached to the cart. Most of the carts have resources that are attached to the cart, such as cardboard and thick clothes or blankets. Meanwhile, other items are mostly consumable or
replaceable based on daily needs. Here, we are exploring a new typology of a homeless shelter: a motivation-based supply depot. Users could replace their supplies and activate housing units using their mobile furniture which shaped like a cart to create and nurture their own community. Thus, homeless people are offered choices within certain guidelines.
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PLUGIN
SOCKS
SNACKS
WATER
FEMALE HYGIENE ITEMS
HYGIENE ITEMS
FIRST AID KIT
BLANKETS
TOYS
PILLOW
FOOD & FRUITS
GARBAGE BAGS
User Guide: Multiple options of daily items loaded into a transformable cart.
DOG SUPPLIES
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A new type of dwelling that is in between of being homeless and housed is incubated. It is a new type of Airbnb with not only people moving but also their “mobile furniture� which is an epitome of their lifestyles moving with them. Users bring their lives to empty housing units and activate them with the idea of being part of the bigger community.
Moblie Furniture Unit Plugs Into A Housing Unit To Unlock The Door And Activate Electricity, Water, And Heat
Moblie Furniture Unit
Moblie Furniture Unit Plugin Track
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Chris
SUGGESTION 1: STANDARD KIT
Linda
SUGGESTION 2: FEMALE KIT
Chris & Lulu
SUGGESTION 3: CHILDERN KIT
Chris & Bobby
SUGGESTION 4: DOG
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User Guide: Different combination of item packages for different use group.
HOMELESSNESS CHARRETTE
By not imposing a specific and limiting dwelling and habitation model, the wills and lifestyles of homeless people are respected. This model produces incremental options for homeless people to select, handing power to residents themselves to create a cooperative sharing system.
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Plan of A Sharing Community: The community sited on top of retail stores in Downtown Los Angeles, especially occupying the abandoned space on Skid Road.
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MAKE BELIEVE
Design Studio Make Believe Instructor Florencia Pita Marcelyn Gow Natasha Sandmeier Angelica Lorenzi M. Casey Rehm Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Irvin Shaifa
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“
Make-believe — the action of pretending, feigning or imagining suggests that things may be quite different from how we perceive them to be if, only for a moment, we suspend disbelief. Contemporary cultural and political dilemmas regarding the status of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ permeate our daily interactions, whether mundane or extraordinary, and exert unprecedented pressure on architecture’ historical identity as the locus of the real. The stability and immutability of Vitruvian firmitas has effervesced into innumerous bits of data that congeal in myriad forms to comprise, describe and construct various aspects of our environment. Architecture is challenged to reimagine and make-believe; to invent the new stories that demand new forms, aesthetics and ways of being in the world. Through the design of architectures that respond to the question: “What if?”, we will perform acts of architectural duplicity that allow us to cut through the assumed real and discover the possibilities of the make-believe. Our focus is on the aesthetic dimension of architecture and the possible production of new modes of being in the world.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2018 DS 1200 - 2GAX COMP MORPH Syllabus
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Design Studio Workshop I: Curisoity Instructor Marcelyn Gow Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Irvin Shaifa
CANDY Scientific or artistic interest; connoisseurship. 10. A curious detail or feature. 1. Anything curious, rare or strange. Curio is defined as: sb. 1. An object of art valued as a curiosity or rarity. This project is aimed to create a bus stop by introducing photogrammetry software as a tool of design. Deformations have occurred. This form finding process generated mass and void for a bus stop with a builtin music hub.
Taking the cabinet of curiosities or wunderkammer of the future as a point of departure, this workshop will operate under the premise that collecting and curation will increasingly become ineluctable facets of the way we produce architecture. Perusing the OED, one finds that curiosity is defined as: sb. 1. Carefulness, Scrupulousness, accuracy; undue niceness or subtlety. 2. Desire to know or learn; inquisitiveness. 3.
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Though the photogrammetry software Agisoft, two parts from the Bradbury Buiding in Downtown Los Angeles have been scanned: a capital of one column at the entrance and a water pipe attached to the building with a plastic bag stuck to it. The placement of the combined printed object and gravity affect how the deformation occurs while pouring resin on top.
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Resin Dipped Test Model: After rescanning the piece, where resin gives the model a sheen creates holes to the model and add another layer of deformation.
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Design Studio Workshop II: X-Ray Vision Instructor Natasha Sandmeier Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Irvin Shaifa
FAILURES Thomas Edison once said: “I have not failed, I have just found 10, 000 ways that won’t work.� Failure is enviable. But we learn from mistakes. Architectural histories and theories have forever focused on narratives of individual, stylistic or intellectual, cultural success. Architects have long sought to escape failure of all kinds. However, the history of modern architecture is based on the failure and still on repeat. All
movements and styles are eventually superseded by their successors. Even architectural competitions are failure generators hundreds of entries in the competition are losers while one single proposal is the winner. This is a narrative about an architect failing from the beginning till the end through the physical and digital struggle of designing architecture. Here, failing is celebrated.
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The story begins with an architect designed a formal piece in one parking lot of Downtown Los Angeles hoping to create a new icon of the city. However, nobody seems to bother the architectural he created. He failed.
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Personal and office Instagram with multiple posts for publication purpose 02:
Rhino model with unresolved meshes
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The Instagram story shows recent choreographed sketch 04:
ZBrush model with an ongoing remesh process 05:
YouTube video clip shows CNN news attacking the architecture piece 06:
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ArchDaily reports on Bad Architecture Design
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Los Angeles Times newspaper reports on the shocking design
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3D Collage Model: Layer thought process shows the revolution of the architecture also the ideology no one else seems to care. It critiqued a struggled architect troubled by the complex nature of architecture career and media bombing.
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The video montage explains the architect’s daily struggle and frustration of his unsuccessful architecture design. In the end, pathetically, the wad up sketch paper shaped just like his design. 186
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The narrative displays an exhibition setting in “Museum of Modern Failure� which display two images of the architecture in different phases, one 3D collage model contains his thought process, one video clip of the troubled architect, and the wad up trash in the clip. 189
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Film Set Photo: Objects displayed on the table are well curated to illustrate the hardship of being an architect
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Design Studio Workshop III: Curisoity Instructor Florencia Pita Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Irvin Shaifa
BORROWED This project started with a process of digitally extracting pieces of façades at 10’ in height by variable lengths from selected buildings in Downtown Los Angeles using photogrammetry software. The selected buildings should exhibit diverse formal features, materialities, and textures. We will transform façade pieces into a series of curio objects whereby the objects can be understood both as a portion of
the original building from which they were extracted as well as a constituent of a new, redefined whole. A 22 story building for Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is created by coated and scanned a compound collection of curios. The verticality of a traditional tower has been interrupted by adding bigger objects and creating multiple cuts to shape and separate the tower.
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01-03: Façade Scaffolding Graphic Sign “100” Chimney (Caltrans District 7 Headquarters / Morphosis Architects) 04:
Parking Lot Ramp (One Santa Fe / Michael Maltzan Architecture)
05-06: Parking Lot Column Weller Court Entrance (Weller Court / Kajima Associates) 07:
Façade (Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center / Adrian Wilson Associates) 08:
Façade (United States Courthouse / SOM)
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Façade (Los Angeles County Hall of Records / Richard Neutra, Robert Alexander)
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Conceptual Faรงade Collage: Base layer includes traditional architectural elements to register human scale; other objects break the verticality of traditional tower design.
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Faรงade Scaffolding
Faรงade 07: Chimney
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Faรงade
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Parking Lot Ramp
Conceptual Material Test: Different shades of grey gradient from bottom to the very top and ease into a transparent crystal cap.
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Parking Lot Column Weller Court Entrance
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The tower can be dissected into five interlocked parts which somewhat follow the attached faรงade elements. Architecture as an object has the tendency of coming together also falling apart.
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Office Rental (Public Rental) 02: 02
Office and Open Patio (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority)
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Data Center (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) 04:
Event and Exhibition Space (Public Free Access) 05:
Food Truck and Mobile Shop Space (Public Free Access) 03
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Color has been sprayed while the tower is both assembled and in pieces to enhance the ambiguous of part and whole. Golden and copper color applied to call out “objects� on the tower which is related to the program inside.
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Physical Model: Resin gives the model a in between matte and shiny texture.
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AUGMENTED OBJECT
Visual Studies Augmented Object Instructor M. Casey Rehm Andrea Cadioli Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Gregory Kokkotis
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“
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real-world are “augmented” by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the natural environment) or destructive (i.e. masking of the natural environment) and is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment. The understanding of an augmented object is associated with two layers of reality: the real view and the digital view. With a fixed target, digital reality could be easily morphed from time to time.
”
—— Excerpt from Fall 2018 VS 4200 - VISUAL STUDIES I GR Syllabus
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Visual Studies Augmented Object Instructor M. Casey Rehm Andrea Cadioli Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Gregory Kokkotis
DEFORM By scanning a flower, a digital point cloud is generated with a color which transfers into a closed mesh. Having the flower deformed in four different ways, the model of the augmented object is set up as a tracking target. Anaglyph 3D Images of the target is created alongside with the textured model assorted in a material library to create the augmented attachment. The final result is to slice the target into different
pieces and have the ability to explode and restore them on the created App. Each piece has the deformed texture of the object on its cut sides. The visual study allows a new genre of design method generated through a workflow that mixes both the human version and machine version.
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Point Cloud Model: Missing points are made up by generating the mesh.
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Anaglyph 3D Images: Target model contains four different deformations.
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3D Printed Model: Testing target model could be scanned by the App.
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Rendered Augmented Model: Designed exploded model performence.
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Robot arm filmed augmented object performance. From the front view, the assigned texture is matching up with the background. 213
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Background Texture Design: Through the scripted process, the texture is generated out of the scanned point could.
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ENVELOPE EVOLUTION
Applied Stuides Material / Tectonics Instructor Maxi Spina Randy Jefferson Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Gregory Kokkotis Lourenรงo Vaz Pinto
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“
In this research, a significant portion of the model from the precedent study is created. Such portion should delimit a metonymic fragment from a whole; that is, a fragment that is representative of the predominant tectonic issues present in the case study, including Envelope; Interiority; Structure; Attachment/Joinery System; Systems; etc. Due to the nature of the sectional object, where to position the clipping planes to need to be carefully considered in order to argue for the resulting section and profile, and the specific relationship between tectonics and spatial definition. Using such models, construction, fabrication and assembly methods aligned with the materials and their technical limitations utilized within building systems are constructed. Such analytical scrutiny should be commensurate with the scale of representation. These should aid in the understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the system and material tectonics supporting it. —— Excerpt from Fall 2018 AS 3200 - ADV MATERIAL/TECTONICS Syllabus
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Applied Stuides Material / Tectonics Instructor Maxi Spina Randy Jefferson Term Fall 2018 Team Nero He Kristoffer Lund Gregory Kokkotis Lourenรงo Vaz Pinto
CRYSTALLIZE The Trutec is an office building in Seoul, designed by Barkow and Leibinger. This project is known for the visual clarity of the faรงade, but also the tectonic complexity of this curtain wall. The clear geometry of these glass panels allows for the creation of sharp aesthetics, achieved through variation of shape and inclination. The aim of this exercise is to break down this amazingly resolved faรงade, by introducing a second skin
layer, which does not interfere with its geometrical complexity. In fact, the additional layer shapes a secondary layer of glazing, able to increase the ability of the curtain wall to better control interior temperatures. The success of this intervention lies in breaking down the original intention of the architect to concentrate all the functions of the curtain wall into one single layer.
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Glass panel connection Three points connection Glass panel and floor plate connection 01
Stereoscopic four points connection Flat four points connection
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The secondary skin is made of glass panels supported on an aluminum frame. The frame duplicates the geometry of the existing faรงade and is attached to it. All the joints are placed on the orthogonal mullions and not the inclined CNC-cut frame of the diagonal glass panels, as the structural stability of the latter remains debatable. 224
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The success of this intervention lies in breaking down the original intention of the architect to concentrate all the functions of the curtain wall into one single layer. By separating the layers and assigning differen roles to them, we manage to use the interior glass facade purely for air and water sealing, while using the exterior one to control temperature and sunlight.
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Physical Model Sectional View: The double layered faรงade is attached to the floor plate which does not have any structural function.
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Double Layered Faรงade Drawing: Faรงade created a fuzzy edge of the building which makes the architecture seems like hiding in the fog.
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Double Layered Faรงade Detail Drawing: In every stall, the glass planes on the second layer could open or close.
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ABOUT ARCHITECTURE
History and Theory About Architecture Instructor Erik Ghenoiu Term Spring 2019 Author Nero He
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“
This course will examine in detail recent and historical texts on architecture, philosophy, literature, music, and art. Through these texts, a diversity of approaches to architectural theory and practice will be examined and interrogated within broader social, cultural, and historical contexts from the 1950s to the present. Through analysis of and critical writing about these texts as well as buildings and projects of the period, students will develop new vocabularies for contemporary architectural discourse. This course will trace a set of major themes that have defined much of architectural discourse since the Second World War. Some of these themes have emerged from within architecture, some from larger philosophical and cultural debates. Alongside this content, the course will analyze the writing of criticism and the essay form both through the readings and in the students’ own work for the course.
”
—— Excerpt from HT 2200 - THEORIES OF CONT ARC I Syllabus
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History and Theory About Architecture Instructor Erik Ghenoiu Term Spring 2019 Author Nero He
UNSET After the Great Cultural Revolution in China, a huge cultural dislocation results in a misunderstanding of cultural values. In the architectural realm, Chinese architects become either too conservative only mirroring traditional elements or too westernized that has little to do with the local culture. There is no such a thing, at least in mainstream architectural studies, as Chinese formalism which is
considered as against Chinese culture. Why is that? As a nation embracing Romanticism, not appreciating formally beautiful architecture is very obscure. In this essay, dynamic form set up as a possible future for the new Chinese architectural culture, three different augments have been made to justify dynamic form as the Chinese formalism.
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“Galaxy Soho” Digital image. Accessed May 4 2019. https://www.arthitectural.com/zaha-hadid-architects-galaxy-soho/.
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Architecture is always reflecting the civilization where it is located in. In China, people have always been zealous with an indigenous system of construction which celebrates the ingenuity of “making” retained its characteristics in all ages. From pavilions, terraces, to pagodas and towers, this obsession leads the form of architecture seems scripted that generated by the same cookie cutters set. Ironically, Chinese mainstream media applauses to this result as being loyal to the tradition. Although, modern China has been absorbing diverse architectural creations “breaking up the monotonous urban landscape, lending an identity to places which were villages only years before”, most of the “Chinese design philosophy” are westernized coated with oriental ideology. As one of the fastest developing countries, could a formalist architectural style be one possible representation of Chinese culture?
considered as flimsy once form is celebrated. However, put political propaganda aside, should China have its own formalism? If so, what it would be like?
When China officially formed as the People’s Republic of China, learning from Marxism was advocated by the government. People were diving into the idea of materialism and till now it is politically right to “holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions”. 1 It is on the opposite side of idealism. This fact leads modern Chinese architects including Shu Wang, Yung Ho Chang, and such to study materials as a base to design architecture. Form is never designed without the understanding of materials. Under the Marxist system, metaphysics is debased but dialectic is promoted. Logic is the word Chinese architects trying to seek through design process, and it is
Emotion is developing with dynamic form through traditional Chinese art. “East Asian writing on aesthetics is generally consistent in stating that the goal of ink and wash painting is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but capture its spirit. To paint a horse, theartist must understand its temperament better that its muscles and bone” which described the Chinese art ideology “意境 (artistic
1. Marxism." Wikipedia. March 10, 2019. Accessed March 12, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Marxism.
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”Xu Beihong Exhibition.” Digital image. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://www.artranked.com/.
conception)” celebrating the combination of emotion and form. It is unutterable but could experience by being engaged with the painting.2 Traditional Chinese wash painting contains subjects has a dynamic characteristic as running river, horses, swimming fish, shrimps, and growing trees. While painting, brush is soaked by ink and been pressed or dabbed on Chinese art paper made by plant fibers which is strongly absorbable. The movement of the brush on the paper leave light and dark traces. A clear tendency of motion is expressed through the finished drawing. Some intended blank spaces of the paper are left out todisplay a contrast between emptiness and solidness, and also, give out a plot of space for imagination of the moving subject to land in their head. In the development of traditional Chinese wash painting, all form in any drawing is merely a slice in time based on the two dimensional representational limitation.
This is very similar with the way of what can be captured with one’s eyes of a moving subject. It can only be described as: one only see the very second of the moving subject. As Greg Lynn would argue, “Although form is thought in series and motion in these examples, movement is something that is added back to the object by the viewer.”3 The trace of the motion only exists in one’s head which is fudged by one’s brain which add another layer of ambiguity only can transmit through emotions.
2. “Ink Wash Painting.” Wikipedia. February 06, 2019. Accessed March 12, 2019. https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_wash_painting. 3. Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.
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”Chinese Hieroglyphics. ” Digital image. Accessed May 4, 2019. blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6313b5780101ejur.html.
A POSSIBLE FUTURE FOR CHINESE ARCHITECTURE: DYNAMIC FORM
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An unstable form can carry emotions in Chinese language. Comparing with western languages, Chinese language as one presentation of its culture which can be defined as strong on emotion but weak on logic, which is proved by the popularity of Confucianism and Taoism (that has little to do with logic) compares to unheeded Mohism (ancient Chinese philosophy of logic). Confucianism advocated emotion over logic which consolidated dictatorship, but in an ideal modern society where people have free wills, emotion is deeply related to selfconsciousness. The free expression of one’s self-consciousness is one’s basic human right. Ancient Chinese civilization adapted symbols which based on pictographs and ideograms to represent concepts. Later on, it develops into logographic writing systems. Colloquially, Chinese characters slowly morphed from drawings of forms to simplified square-worded calligraphy. Each of the character have dynamic meanings based on which context it has been used. Only when characters form a sentence, people can understand the meaning as a chunk also have the ability to read between lines. Emotion is able to convey through only written form without reading aloud in such a fluid context. Architecturally speaking, one space represents Chinese culture should be able to influence people emotionally by having the resistance of being logically analyzable. Thus, the traditional stabilized architecture cannot fulfill this criterion. No matter how complex one stabled form can be, it still holds one fixed expression as one Chinese character, ambiguous and lackluster. If we develop on design language to oppose the Wabi-Sabi oriental style which seeking for “discreteness, timelessness, and
fulfill this criterion. No matter how complex one stabled form can be, it still holds one fixed expression as one Chinese character, ambiguous and lackluster. If we develop on design language to oppose the Wabi-Sabi oriental style which seeking for “discreteness, timelessness, and fixity” but follow the “multiplicity, change, and development”, one dynamic space could be the character of itself, not only just a setoff for human activities, presenting an overarching motion and mood.4 4
Form is freed from its boundary through the need of emotion expressions. “Architecture remains as the last refuge for members of the flat-earth society. The relationships of structure to force and gravity are by definition multiple and interrelated, yet architects tend to reduce these issues to what is still held as a central truth: that buildings stand up vertically.”5 Greg Lynn expressed the dogmatic fact of mainstream architecture design which reflects a similar outcome with modern Chinese architecture. In Forbidden City, urban planning is based on the protection of the imperial family. The super gridded plots and unified street enhanced the dictatorship. All palaces are extruded rectangle with tile roof facing north based on study of I Ching, Yin Yang, and Feng Shui which holds the believe of the cosmos is under a dome and the earth is not only flat but squared (“天圆地方”). It contains the suppressed emotion of revering
4. Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. 5. Ibid.
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the sky and the earth but also limited by a false assumption and a strong representation of social class. As technology is developed enough, form could be freed to express emotional needs through architecture without the rigid rulesets. “In February 2016, China’s State Council announced that ‘weird architecture’ that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly will be forbidden”.6 Weird architectures can be explained as those out of context that are not belong to Chinese culture. However, this culture is craving for a dynamic form to spread out emotions based on the representation of Chinese art, the development of Chinese language, and a new understanding of Chinese society. Instead of copying and following others blindly, China could intergrade Chinese culture into architectural design by introducing dynamic form to uncover its own Yayoi and Jomon.
6. “The Beginning of the End of China’s ‘Weird Architecture’.”The Economist. December 08, 2017. Accessed March 12, 2019.
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“ Harbin Opera House” Digital image. Accessed May 4 2019. http://www.huftonandcrow.com/projects/gallery/harbin-opera-house/.
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FACTS & FICTIONS
History and Theory Facts & Fictions Instructor Marcelyn Gow Tim Ivison Term Fall 2018 Author Nero He
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“
The main objective of this seminar is to provide a platform for students to do work on the territory of contemporary architectural theory in the interest of formulating their current studio production as well as future professional agendas. Currently practice is in the process of being actively redefined by shifting political, social, technological, and ecological paradigms. Taking as a starting point Sigfried Giedion’s characterization of transitory facts (sporadic trends) and constituent facts (recurrent and cumulative tendencies) as decisive in the shaping of architectural history, we will examine the complex terrain defined by the recent shifting of paradigms and attempt to discern the difference between constituent and transitory facts – and fictions – that are actively shaping the contemporary moment. Acting as architectural entrepreneurs, we will identify niches for future action and innovation. The seminar will introduce several contemporary disciplinary themes through readings and project presentations.
”
—— Excerpt from HT 2200 - THEORIES OF CONT ARC I Syllabus
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History and Theory Facts & Fictions Instructor Marcelyn Gow Tim Ivison Term Fall 2018 Author Nero He
ENCODE One definition of “beauty� in modern society is whether this object is instagramable or not. People are too obsessed with social media which started a craze of designing for social media with eye attaching forms and colors. Meanwhile, in the practical architectural world, the design is always limited by building code. If we consider social media as a platform providing Big Data in order to collect and predict design ideas,
we could easily break the constraint of the building code and make architecture design options not far away from Big Data management. Design for social media is shallow, but design with social media provides a possibility for the new experimental field of architecture. Design architecture with social media is the revolution of building code.
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FAILURES OF ARCHITECTURE
“The Women” 2018 MoMA PS1 Installtion Openning. June 28, 2018.
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molding and setting up the fundamental rules of architectures and cities go into the hand of people in charge, state agencies, and architects. In such a scenario, when power centralized in one hand, parametric urbanism founds it a place to thrive. Beautiful as it is, in parametric urbanism, one architect (or an architecture group) acts as the one and only sliding bar to utilize the number in digital design software, no matter how logical the process is in terms of data and information selection, the result can still be the basis and narrow-minded. Jan Gehl, a Danish architect, has studied “the borderland between sociology, psychology, architecture, and planning”5 which later proposed “Making Cities for People”. He used the data collecting method that normally being used in the urban design industry to observe and analyze how people interact in the city which later on published in his book Life Between Buildings in 1971. More than 40 years later, data collecting becomes more and more accessible to architects through different types of social media. Now, architects have the opportunity to know what the new trends are, and could even predict possible lifestyles according to what APP has been used frequently and what type of image has been posted and reposted. Architects could impair big “A” architectures and truly design architectures for people with social media.
The most logical, functional, and effective way to design one architecture might be designed only for infrastructure which “refers to the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or other area”,1 “including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function”.2 Put creativity and innovation aside, an architecture meets all basic requirement of a building code, “a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects”3, is the direct and most powerful response to fully embrace the idea above. If such a building code can be dissected into different computational logics draw from all kinds of social media to generate architectures directly respond to the current condition and fill in all requested needs, architectures could potentially step into a new era by meeting the notion of Smart City with instant feedback loops in order to create all possible solutions to introduce new lifestyle. Building codes need to be challenged on the level of its adoption cycle and power concentration to adapt to the current high-speed egalitarian society. A traditional building code, as rigid as it is, may not fits appropriately to all situations and has an inevitable delay to keep up with new basic requests. Take California Building Standards Code as an example, the code adoption cycle is three years and “changes made to each edition are based off proposals made by state agencies”.4 Clearly, the power of
There is a fundamental difference between
1. Infrastructure | Define Infrastructure at Dictionary.com. 2. O’Sullivan, Arthur; Sheffrin, Steven M., Economics: Principles in Action (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2003), 474. 3. Wikipedia contributors, “Building code,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia. org/w/index.php?title=Building_code&oldid=871218434 (accessed December 18, 2018). 4. “Codes”. www.bsc.ca.gov. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
5. Paul Makovsky, Pedestrian Cities: An interview with Danish architect Jan Gehl on how public spaces work. in Metropolis Magazine August/September 2002, Retrieved 16 October 2010 Archived 4 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine.
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They looks grandiose when the photographs are taken from the right angles but the plans are ugly, the volumes are out of proportions and the construction is cheap. The body culture reflects on the architecture.”11 Even worse, this phenomenon affects architects directly with or without the request of their clients. I relate to this notion from personal experience. After winning MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2018, our team has constantly struggled with comparing our installation work to Museum of Ice Cream since our stationary glamour shots are not as photo friendly as pink rooms. Once there was even an option with intentional redundant colors adding onto the design just to fit the current trend. It is this endless loop: people using social media and architects design for social media until a trend dies out, drags the development and possibilities of architectures.
design architectures for social media and with social media. The current celebrated way is the former and the result is not optimistic. Social media has been used as a platform directs architects design through perspectives for photography use, most of the time associated with a change of scales, popping colors, forced perspectives, and visual juxtapositions, to accomplish the publication and advertisement purpose thus gain a better profit. The ability to produce perspective renderings with four cropped boundaries seemly communicates with clients better especially for those who do not read technical drawings. But when this method acts as an unwritten building code for successful architectures and has been overpublicized in architectural websites as ArchDaily and Dezeen, this overly emphasized “building code” leads to manufacturing distasteful architectures. Calabasas as “the world capital of social media”6 hoards a lot of architectures for social media. They are designed in such a way that “the semiotics of the architecture had to be conveyed through photographs and films rather than plans and sections”7 because “artist-residents actively branded the city’s lifestyle as part of building their own brands”8 and “the relationship between lifestyle and city branding was taken to a new level”9, the social media level. When screenshot becomes the new plan “the constructions are a monstrous version of the typical American suburbia”10.
Designing with social media is a better way to utilize this inevitable technological advancement to create future architectures. Designing a future architecture prototype to respond a current need is not the news. Amazon retail store has been evolved from the traditional retail store to create an in-store customer experience that allows vendors to demonstrate their own showcases instore therefore to promote a future sales model. Disney World was also supposed to be “an experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are no emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems”12. The foresight and ongoing of
6. IAyr, Calabasas, 91302 (Yale University Press, 2018). 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid.
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“A machine for metropolitan bachelors...Delirius NY.” Rem Koolhaas “’Life in the Metropolis’ or ‘The Culture of Congestion”’, Fall 2004, http://www.ibiblio.org/istudio/r_koolhaas/reading_ koolhaas.htm.
a personal level. Nowadays, experiencing an architecture and a city can be classified into two parts: physical experience and digital phone experience. Map, bus schedule, reserve seats for movies, and apple pay, these APPs and many others determined the architecture or city is up to date or not. “The city as seen through the medium of that face oozes with living data to be touched and rewritten all over again. Interaction with this information is recursive; action taken with it on a micro level is itself new information that intern informs what everyone else sees on a macro level. In this recursion, the presence of the information, good or bad, can be directly disruptive to social behavior as people change their paths and decisions in the image of the actions and swerves of others they see indexed in their at-hand interfaces”.15 Because the APP service is repeatable, social media serves as a connector to generalize and classify a
architecture aspect above fit what a Smart City needs. At the same time, cellphone as a current technological advancement plays a big role in designing with social media. Although it was designed for private use, after it hooked up with the internet, all a sudden it becomes a tool to retrieve public communication and information. “If the first function of the city is proximity (to people, markets, goods, transport, information), the smart digital handset condenses the city itself into an extensible software and hardware platform”13. The accessibility of a cellphone truly makes “public and private” as “things of the past” to “privatized and publicized”14 on
13. Benjamin H. Bratton, iPhone City (John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2009). 14. Calabasas, 91302 (Yale University Press, 2018). 15. Benjamin H. Bratton, iPhone City (John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2009).
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’Museum Of Ice Cream MIiami, Fall 2004, https://tropicult.com/events/museum-of-ice-creammiami/.
personally customized data later bridge into the data cloud to analyze a current need and predict what could possibly happen architecturally to provide a better lifestyle. For example, the increasing needs for food delivery through APPs as Postmates and UberEat are at its peak. In this social media form, data as what is the popular restaurant choice, when the request for a certain restaurant is more active, what type of food package is easy to be damaged during delivery, average delivery time for each food delivery, etc. could be collected from the local user group. With this data analysis above, different proprietors could share a kitchen for food delivery base on the different time for the activeness of request. A future restaurant notion could be developed through the system that it frees most of the unused restaurant space to provide a better food delivery packaging program for several
restaurants while sharing one kitchen in the back of the house. A new lifestyle has been promoted from a spatial request through data generated with social media. Just as what Rem Koolhaas mentioned a seemly absurd scenario in his study of Downtown Athletic Club where men eating oysters in the locker room naked, the possibility for new programs is endless but intentional. WeChat architecture, Tinder architecture, YouTube architecture, and etc. could lead the next revolution of architecture. Collecting data from social media in architectural design could eliminate or reactive non-useable space. By computing collective database to form possible architectural solutions, all space should have the ability to be adapted and reused in order to fit in the fast respond mode, therefore, the idea of program metabolism can be introduced. One Wilshire, an
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office building located in downtown Los Angles, has been developed from almost exclusively occupied by law firms to become a hotspot for telecommunications. By 2013, One Wilshire was “one of the top three telecommunications centers in the world along with 60 Hudson Street in New York City and Telehouse in London”16 due to the need of high speed connected internet points. The change of One Wilshire shows the flexibility of architecture but also brought up the sale price to “$660 per square foot and it was the highest price ever paid for an office building in downtown Los Angeles”17. In this ideal model, space is not tagged by a certain program or even owned by a certain person or business group but only active by the need of its user. Architecture would only be reviewed as a space with fluid programs generated from the current need in social media.
accretions of architectural-scale components, arranged in Jenga-block configurations that stress the autonomy of parts”18. Undoubtedly, mathematical and computation design still provides some intermediate spaces that stimulate new programs which would only appear after the building is generated, just like unwrapping a Christmas gift full of good and bad surprises. “They are engaging with the worldas-it-is-becoming, not just with the world-as-itis” 19.The non-human process is mostly detached with what the general public is requested for now. However, the computational design has fuzzy edges that normally lead to a shapeless building which indicates a sense of ongoing growth that shares with the tendency of design with social media. With comparison, using data to generate new building codes seems more logical and self-explanatory. It introduces a new design notion without departure from current context which could also act as a buffer for the possible future of computational data architecture.
Design with social media is more approachable and appropriate for the current society than mathematical and computational design. In Gilles Retsin’s lecture, he illustrated his own interpretation of architectural history developing from the mass, surface, liquid surface, to point. And he predicted the next evolution which may or may not happening right now is data architecture. Throughout the work of computational architects as Casey Rehm and Gilles Retsin “the modular discreteness of individual bits of data is upsized to guide
16. Contributors, “One Wilshire,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ index.php?title=One_Wilshire&oldid=873793159 (accessed December 19, 2018). 17. Ibid. 18 Marrikka Trotter, The discrete Charm of the Glitch (AD Discrete: Reappraising the Digital in Architecture, ed. Gilles Retsin London: Wiley, forthcoming 2019). 19 Ibid.
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“The house sits on three neatly landscaped acres. ” Elijah Chiland, “’Kim Kardashian and Kanye West spent $20M renovating the home they just moved into”’, April 2019, https://la.curbed.com/2018/1/5/16856656/ kim-kardashian-kanye-west-hidden-hills-house
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Architecture is increasingly made by logic, especially in the western architectural education system. Architects are trained to design with a clear sense of progressive reasons and provide all answers to questions. In such a mindset, building code serves as the perimeter of the basic logic. It is tedious but also performs as the key to all fundamental architectural design. However, design one architecture to meet all the code is merely enough to challenge the current society or evoke future possibilities. Utilizing people involved in popular culture as the main audience, by adapting data from social media, building code can be smarter and more flexible. It is just like an open-source government in which all documents are been collected and review immediately. Thus it accelerates the shift in architectural design focusing on people.
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DESIGN WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
“Hide and Seek” 2018 MoMA PS1 Installtion Colored Mirror Option. June 28, 2018.
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NERO CHENXUAN HE
Nero Chenxuan He’s Portfolio is a living document and as such, Nero Chenxuan He reserve the right to revise, add or delete information in this portfolio at any time. Therefore, changes to the Nero Chenxuan He’s Portfolio may be distributed after this initial posting. Regular Updates are available at www.nerohe.com.