NICKSON CHAN UCLA Class of 2021 Master of Architecture
Content
ACADEMIC WORKS 4
PREFAB CO-HOUSE
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SACRED JOURNEY
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STEEL CURTAIN
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TERRAIN TERMINAL
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OLD/NEW LIBRARY
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INSIDE OUT
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JOINERY RE-INVENTION
Profile
Nickson Chan is a recent graduate who received his Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles. With active involvements in waterfront development and projects of various scales in commercial, residential and hospitality, he has experiences with schematic design, design development, as well as construction phases. Leveraging his past exposure to business development, he believes a thorough understanding of stakeholder needs would contribute to humanistic spatial experience for users and the community. His works had been exhibited in Los Angeles for an annual exhibition organized by AIA LA and ACLA. He has taught in UCLA as a teaching assistant for courses on building structure and technology, with a focus on rendering and animation.
Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN Instructor: KAYEON LEE Site: 686 SOUTH ST. ANDREWS PLACE, LOS ANGELES, CA UCLA AUD401 FALL 2020
PREFAB CO-HOUSE 4
Design Process: Elevation
Elevational continuity
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Dodecahedron
Flattening
Stacking
ARCH&UD 401.4 Advanced Topics Studio | Fall 2020 | Mid-term Review
Design Process: Plan
Randomizing
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December 16, 2020 | Nick Chan
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Design Process: Massing
Courtyard
Tightening
Honeycomb
As a starting point for the massing strategy, dodecahedron serves as the basic geometry with an underlying design intention to challenge the common rectilinear convention of many prefabricated architecture.
Stacks of dodecahedron are then tightened with the addition of derived forms for an optimised hexagonal grid, on which gaps in between units allow for circulation and encounters.
Optimised
Design Process: Massing ARCH&UD 401.4 Advanced Topics Studio | Fall 2020 | Mid-term Review
December 16, 2020 | Nick Chan
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Balco
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Balco
Balco
ARCH&UD 401.4 Advanced Topics Studio | Fall 2020 | Mid-term Review
Balco
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Cube
Spatial Opportunities
Polyhedron
Cube
Spatial Opportunities
Polyhedron
2-Bedroom
Studio Loft
Studio
2-Bedroom
Studio Loft
Studio
ARCH&UD 401.4 Advanced Topics Studio | Fall 2020 | Mid-term Review
In a 2-bedroom unit, balcony naturally becomes an outdoor space framing the urban view while a spiral stair occupies space that would otherwise be unoccupiable.
Rectilinear quality of conventional prefab housing is being challenged by introducing new geometries and leveraging them as spatial opportunities that foster a cohesive housing community in LA. December 16, 2020 | Nick Chan
December 16, 2020 | Nick Chan
Conceptual Diagrams
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Co-Housing Hallway
Three types of apartment units, including lofts, 1-bedroom units, and 2 bedroom units, and various shared space are designed to maximize the variety of interior space usage, incorporating balconies and stairways in the form of dodecahedron and other derived polyhedrons.
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2-BR
STUDIO
COMMUNAL AREA
LOFT
STUDIO
Plan
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Balconies as a Secondary Cable System
Assembly of the steel-framed structure enables repetition of components, with cast-connex as a node for joining multiple beams at repeating angles. Surface infills are timber and glazing panels. They are reused in all modules thanks to the commonly shared dimensions.
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Mass Timber
Steel Connectors
Cable Connectors
Glazing
Steel Frame
Exploded Prefab Components
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Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN Instructor: BEN REFUERZO Site: ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO, JALISCO, MEXICO UCLA AUD401 WINTER 2020
SACRED JOURNEY 10
Each year two millions of people set out on their pilgrimage through Jalisco, along the 117 kilometres of Ruta del Peregrino. The route leads them from the city of Ameca, to the town of Talpa de Allende with the shrine of the Holy Virgin of Talpa.
A site of the sacred space is selected at Espinazo del Diablo, where the Swiss architects HHF designed a spiral lookout point in 2008. At that point of the route, pilgrims would already have completed the most challenging phase of their journey, requiring a place that would fulfill their physical and spiritual needs.
From pre-design research on spiritual practices and sacred geometries, a symbolic overlap of two circles of the same size is found to be an inspiration to the project and highly relevant to the existing circular lookout as well as the topography involving a downward slope from the main trail.
Site Images (Credits: HHF Architects / Iwan Baan) & Conceptual Sketches
Existing Projects along the Pilgrimage Route
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Lookout Point above the Oculus
As an addition to the existing viewpoint structure, the project retains and reinforces the initial purpose of looking out by introducing water as a foreground of the broader view, creating a dramatic effect as compared to the typical landscape along the route. 12
Water flows along brushed metal sheet structure, on which acoustics and lighting effects are produced around the oculus. Greyish concrete wall surfaces of the underground chamber would be partially painted with reflections from the brushed metals, giving life to the mysterious space.
Solar Study of the Oculus
Under the Oculus
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Site Axonometric
When being inside any of the three solitary space, one would feel calm to reflect on their journey so far, without distractions that would be present at the route. Special attention is given to designing the light and shadows projected on the interior walls, as indication of the passing of time. 14
Light and Shadow Studies
Perspective Section & Plan of Solitary Space
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Floor Plan
Exterior View
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Right above the artificial concrete mound, the oculus opens to the sky, intending to be provocative through light and acoustics, while providing opportunities for pilgrims to interact with the nature in a different way. Orienting towards the central water feature, the chambers are for contemplation. One would step on the staggered concrete seating and approach the symbolic mound. Between the two chambers is an enclosed gallery space displaying artifacts and artworks dedicated to the journey.
Perspective Section
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Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN Instructor: NARIINEH MIRZAEIAN Site: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, CA UCLA AUD415 WINTER 2020
STEEL CURTAIN 18
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32’-6”
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roject een a he
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Broad Art Center
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Sculpture Garden
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Theatre Arts
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Arts Library
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Architecture
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Music
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Royce Hall
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Fowler Museum
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Dance
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Site Diagram
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Ground Plan
The School of Arts and Architecture (SOAA) Innovation Hub is a campus building of which its major purpose is to facilitate and make available a variety of flexible and reconfigurable spaces for interdisciplinary collaboration and entrepreneurship. It fosters a lively think tank and also performs as a nexus for gatherings, special events, and various media functions. With elevated porosity as a common theme and a deliberate pedagogical constraint, organizational components must be brought together in novel ways. Sustainable design approaches need to be fully integrated into the steel-frame building. Its envelope and form are put into play with the broader context, including an existing Richard Serra sculpture on site and a redesigned landscape. 19
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An innovation hub here is considered the backstage of SOAA. Based on that, this project explores the notion of duality being behind and in front of the curtain, between a structurally sculpted mass and its articulated facade reading, as well as the differentiation of inside and outside. The quality of it being a hub is exemplified beyond the interior by activating the immediate ground plane and enhancing connectivity among scattering department. The adjacency to the Broad Center is addressed with bridge connections which can only be seen from behind the building.
South Elevation
East Elevation
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Level 4 Plan
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For the interior, the perpendicular pair of cores not only serve for vertical circulations, but structurally and organizationally, they are also the basis for suspension of linear floor plates in between them. Floor plates shift from level to level to create a spatial experience of indoor terraces and vertical transparency.
South Section
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Building Chunk
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Rendered Chunk
Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN (in collaboration with NORA YANG) Instructor: GEORGINA HULJICH Site: CHANNEL ISLANDS HARBOR, OXNARD, CA UCLA AUD414 SPRING 2020
TERRAIN TERMINAL 26
This studio addresses urban issues ranging from climate, to infrastructure, to civic context, to district plan, and to programming, through topics and binaries of edge, figure, ground, mass, landform, forces, flows and functions. Imaginary waterfront landscape of the Channel Islands Harbor peninsula is reconfigured for a ferry terminal and a waste management plant. Large-scale reformulation and smallscale design development prioritizes distinct form over formless ideas of landscape urbanism. Site Plan
In light of a remote instruction mode during Spring 2020 amid a pandemic, deliverables of this project is screencentric, primarily in a video format. Narrative of the video is developed around a fictional exhibition at the Oxnard Waste Plant, and a timely architectural response to the changing environment in terms of landform and sea level. Virtual Exhibition Plan
Link to Video: https://youtu.be/LZGFr5GFiUk
Video Screenshots
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Departure and arrival are organized underground to liberate the ground level as a leisure space for the public. Existing waste plant operates on the upper level, in isolation from the terminal programs. Trucks carrying the marine waste would unload on that level, and afterwards, return to the sea platform via the bridge for a continuous loop.
Floor Plans
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Rendered Sections
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Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN Instructor: KATY BARKAN Site: SILVERLAKE, LOS ANGELES, CA UCLA AUD412 WINTER 2019
OLD/NEW LIBRARY 30
Amid the rise of internet, libraries of today is gradually losing its identity as merely a place for books. Instead, the typology has evolved into an inclusive environment for both quietness and collaboration. Against this backdrop, this project centers on exploring the distinctive characteristics of an old library and a new one, and attempting to reactivate the old through program and circulatory means.
4/F Plan
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Co-existence of the two programmatic agenda (i.e. the old and the new) takes place within a homogeneous truss system, to diffuse the initiallyclear boundary between the elements of two distinctive family. A range of programmatic differentiations approaches in a single structural bay is thus produced, determining vertical distribution of old and new programmatic elements. The project begins with an exploration of organizational possibilities within one structural system and ends with an open and multi-symmetrical space with high transparency across levels. Since an exclusive entry is required for the auditorium visitors, a monumental stairway is proposed to allow separate access.
Elevation - West
Section - East
Section - South
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Right behind a long stairway is where the old library situates, which includes the Popular Collection, Main Collection, Children Collection and Community Rooms arranged symmetrically about the east-west axis. The new library space starts to unfold itself from the 3/F onwards, with a Coffee Bar and eight Group Study Rooms spanning above the exterior open space. The 4/F houses two contemporary space, the Study Zone and the Technology Zone, which are arranged on two symmetrical floor slab about the north-south axis, as well as the Auditorium. A sunken lower level of the Auditorium is allowing more floor area by leveraging the triangular form at pointy tops of the trusses, reinforcing the unique language of this project.
Exploded Diagram
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Having studied precedents including Jussieu Library by OMA and Mirador building by MVRDV, questions such as spatial relationship between few objects populating a section void and interior elevations are thus raised. Multiple objects are nesting inside the gym space, while interior views become dominant as compared to the exterior ones. Axonometric sections here have become a critical device to interrogate the hidden spatial organisation and three-dimensional section quality as represented as elevations.
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Inside-Out: Plan Diagram
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Inside-Out: Plan Diagram
Inside-Out: Axonometric Sections I Scale | 3/64” = 1’-0”
Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN Instructor: CLAUS BENJAMIN FREYINGER Inside-Out: Axonometric Sections I CA Site: DOWNTOWN, LOS ANGELES, Scale | 3/64” = 1’-0” UCLA AUD401 SPRING 2019
INSIDE OUT 34
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It is explored in this project the effects of putting objects into a container, speculatively a reading of objects, space between objects and container, as well as faces of the container as elevations inside all the time.
Zig-zag stairs for enclosed programs Straight stairs to the pool
With a homegeneous and repetitive exterior envelope featured by the extension of floor plates on every level, the project aims to bring the focus of elevations from the outside to the inside. Internal stairs to yoga space
Straight stairs for open programs
Straight stairs to the exterior
Interlocked stairs for yoga ball
Circulatory Diagram
Circulatory Diagram
139’-4”
115’-4”
83’-4”
72’-0”
56’-0”
45’-4”
35’-4” 30’-0”
16’-0”
0’-0”
Transverse Elevation
Short Section b-b Scale | 1/16” = 1’-0”
Transverse Section
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130'-0"
11'-0"
11'-0"
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4'-0"
11'-0"
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4'-0"
4'-0" 1
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d 35'-0"
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35'-0"
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4'-0"
11'-0"
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Key Plan 1 - Gym Level 3 to 4 Scale | 1/16” = 1’-0” 11'-0"
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35'-0" 35'-0"
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4'-0"
11'-0"
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130'-0"
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11'-0"
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4'-0"
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Study Models (3D-printed)
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Plans
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Straight ramps without parking space are incorporated into the hybrid system such that certain levels can be skipped, providing the flexibility for programmatic needs of various scales.
139’-4”
115’-4”
83’-4”
72’-0”
56’-0”
45’-4”
35’-4” 30’-0”
16’-0”
0’-0”
Long Section c-c Scale | 1/16” = 1’-0”
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Longitudinal Section
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Academic Work Sample By: NICKSON CHAN (in collaboration with MAHA BENHACHMI, PHILLIP BROWN, YUFAN WANG)
Instructor: JULIA KOERNER UCLA AUD220 FALL 2018
JOINERY RE-INVENTION 38
Starting with research on traditional joinery, the Kawai Tsugite joint, the re-invention was achieved through a decomposition process. Three fragments can be joined together in a ring-like system, re-creating the partand-whole relationship. Configurations are made possible for architectural and non-architectural application.
Re-invented Joints
CNC-milled Joints
Reinvented Joints
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Contact at nicksonchan@g.ucla.edu