Ni ZHAN Portfolio Selected works 2020 - 2021
Content Academic works 01 Mob 02 Stranger 03 Provisional Love 04 "Jongnyangje" +
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Other works Undergraduate works Photographs Ongoing works
01 Mob "The majority of men, especially among the masses, do not possess clear and reasoned ideas on any subject whatever outside their own speciality. " Gustave Le Bon Due to the personal experience of intentional e xc l u s i o n , I s t a r t e d t o i nve s t i g a t e t h e phenomenon of school bullying and the formation of groups in the current society. The primary idea of analysing mob mentality comes from reading The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon. In this book, the author pointed out that the crowd is always dominated by considerations of which it is unconscious, and is characterised by lowering the intelligence. This triggered my interests in conducting analysis on mob mentality. Under a specific order, identities of individuals faded, people act for compliance to the leadership and keeping the sense of conformity. In the story, I construct the mob house, a place for manipulation and performance, revealing alienation and complexity in the modern form of interpersonal relationship. The class structure is hidden under camouflages, and the unconscious compliance to the mundane rules eliminates the desire of the mob to explore anything based on their own motivations. 2020.8 - 2021.11 Individual project Public architecture
Analysis of mob mentality in Confession (2010 film)
Analysis of mob mentality in the case of school bullying based on J.P. Guilford's Structure of Intellect (SI) theory (grey area) and plot analysis of Confession (2010 film).
Object
System
Plan
Section
Ground floor - Exhibition hall and stage
Third floor - Office
Second floor - Conference hall
First floor - Landscape bridge
Lower ground floor- Exhibition hall
Circulation
02 Stranger Renovation of Scape Bloomsbury The renovation project starts with an imagination of reforming the relationships between strangers. In modern forms of alienation, people see themselves through the eyes of others and see others as objects and things. It’s an act of looking, sometimes from the perspective of a voyeur. I aim to increase the contact between strangers through changing the way of looking. My strategies are using angled walls for the interior and a glass double facade for the exterior. By creating public spaces which dynamically stagger each other, I aim to create indirect observations between strangers, to promote communications through gaze. The new facade is inviting more vivid communication between the street and the interior. Through pushing outward the awning windows, residents will have a silent dialogue with the street. In parallel, this project reflects a resistance to the passive attitude of local authorities on developments in the conservation area. The current planning system reveals a great conflict of interests, due to the extreme passive attitude of planners towards innovative transformations and a compromise to the developers. While residents as the stakeholder of developments, usually have limited access to the planning process, the capital can gain benefits and flexibility from negotiation, seeking ways for approval. This project is a proposal for renovations inside the conservation area, considering both aesthetic and ethic values of transformations, seeking for a balanced way to gain positive impact on the historical character and enhancing living qualities. 2021.6 - 2021.10 19-29 Woburn Pl, London WC1H 0AQ Individual Residential
Current building and living experience Described by Camden council, “faced in red brick and stone, this building provides a strong sense of enclosure to this busy thoroughfare.” In fact there is a tedious status of non-contact between the street activities and most buildings in the conservation area. Apart from no communications on street, living in a student accommodation, neighbours are familiar strangers, even not as close as the sceneries from the window. Like a plane tree outside my window, as I was always in contact with, gave me a strange feeling of intimacy and calmness.
19-29 Woburn Place current Northwest facade 01m 5m
10m
19-29 Woburn Place current Northwest facade, 1:500 A strong sense of system and depressiveness of the current facade.
View of the plane trees from the window
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1m
5m
10m
Facade detail, 1:75
A memory of objects
A memory of the life inside the student accommodation - no communication between strangers
Design concept
Design strategy
Voyeuristic gaze Spaces that are partially concealed is a metaphor of the contact between strangers happens through voyeurism.
Elevators in the Lloyd's Building
Concept model. Spaces created by angled walls. Two strategies to change the way of looking
1. Angled walls: reform the relationship between strangers Spaces which are partially concealed by the angled wall become semi-public, enabling a short-stay or communications outside the private boundary. I aim to create indirect observations between strangers, to arouse their desire to gaze. 2. Double facade: reform the interaction between inside and outside The facade will use the same form of the interior. Distorting the grid will break the sense of rigidity, regularity and isolation, release a sense of freedom and vibrance. The original traditional bricks will be reused on the new facade, but the beauty of traditional materials will be demonstrated by modern means through adding a glass and steel structure outside to form a double facade. This is inspired by the light and simple style of holiday architecture in George II period, and envision a more vivid contact between residents and pedestrians.
The glass and steel structure detail
Isometric projection
Facade detail
Glass double facade Red brick
0 1m
5m
10m
Street view
Change of the private spaces In a single room unit, acute angles increase flexible undefined spaces. For rooms on the lower levels (first floor to the 4th floor), these undefined spaces are next to windows, enable the rest zone close to the outside and promote the contact between residents and pedestrians. As this is the destination of approaching to the outside from the room, the form of the window will be neutral, to make the sceneries uninterrupted.
For the upper level, modern and light materials are continued used to construct sky corridors under the concept of hanging gardens of Babylon. Rooms on the top two floors will have high public accessibility and comparatively low privacy. The studio rooms are attached to the public spaces. Using the same form of angled walls, these spaces will be allocated to have variable leisure functions. The partition of the room changes subjective to the room typology.
Ground floor
First floor
5th floor
7th floor Axonmetric drawing of room unit on different floors
Interior view from a single room on the first floor
Floor plans
First floor plan 1:300
0 1m
5m
10m
7th floor plan 1:300
0 1m
5m
10m
Interior view of the corridor on the first foor
Interior view of the public space on the 7th foor
Corridors
Interior view of the corridor on the first foor
C o r r i d o r s o n t h e l owe r l eve l will guarantee the privacy of the single rooms. The angled walls and orientation of doors will also create a sense of enclosure for the semi-public space. For upper level, the angled walls will use light materials, glass and coloured steel, to increase the transparency and communication between inside and outside. The sky corridor is more likely to be a courtyard to enable neighbours to gather.
Interior view of the sky corridor on the 7th foor
Northeast facade
Street view of the Northeast facade
0 1m
5m
10m
Northeast elevation. Demonstrate the relationship with the surrounding
Vertical section through the Northeast facade 1:50
Details of double facade
Northwest facade
Vertical section through the Northwest facade 1:75
Street view of the Northwest facade
03 Provisional Love Brewed Bali - Beach themed café design challenge
The story is about a U.S. sailor met a local girl who offered catering services on a tropical beach during shore leave. Attracted by the freshness and passion of the beautiful lady, with caffeine creating some subtle chemical reactions, the sailor seemed to be in love with this girl. They quickly became intimate with each other and enjoyed a fabulous time. Any loneliness was healed by the sunshine and shadow of the trees. Although these feelings were recalled when the sailor embarking on the boat home, the provisional “love” gradually became an eternal lyric staying in their memory. Our design is a translation of this tale, through analogy. The space we want to create is a place for people to be immersed in provisional c o m p a n i o n s h i p w i t h o u t u n c o n s c i o u s ly controlled by their desire. Instead, they can clearly recognise that they are surrounded by a variety of signifiers of love from the imaginary. 2021.3 - 2021.6 South Bali, Indonesia Group project, collaborate with Jun Yue Restaurant
Individual responsibilities: crude ideas and background analysis, concept, concept collage drawings, plan and massing, facade, the whole part of interior design, interior and exterior rendering, model making, photography
Crude ideas
Concept
The difference between desire and love Poetry and collage about imagination of provisional relationship.
Lovers are always situated in a maze, true love is like a chapel that can only be accessed at a particular moment. (The plan and section drawings in the collage is the Chapel of Resurrection by Sigurd Lewerentz. The design of this chapel inspired our initial design of the massing of the coffee house.)
Prototype Transformation Schwarzenberg Palais Vienna, Austria 1984 Hermann Czech
The architecture shell The surface treatment The furniture The loose objects
Provisional love
Jaques Lacan's love theory. Love as imaginary.
Desire is not a relation to an object but a relation to a lack, and this implies a continuous force that people are keeping looking for substitutes to satisfy their demand for the big Other “love”.
We c o n d u c t o u r c a s e s t u dy t h ro u g h anatomy, deconstructing the outline drawing of the image to four layers. Through analysis, we find that the collaboration between mirrors attach to the wall, mahogany screens and the c u r t a i n - s h a p e d f l o o r l a m p s c re a t e s an "Aura" for the semi-public space. We replace the vaults by more locallycharactered hipped roofs and add characters in the original image, trying to collage activities in this scenario.
Massing
Man
Site plan and first floor plan
Woman
Reference: Wayne Miller
The design initiative for the massing and facade of the coffeehouse is a metaphor of a man and a woman. When sailors met local girls during the shore leave, they acted like young lovers and enjoyed a moment of intimacy. But this relationship was not genuinely seamless, like this building, was split by a glass box. The glass box is not only a gap, but also a lock, representing kinds of entanglement.
The two buildings in a close embrace are neither representation of love nor pure desires, but the signifier of love and the verfremdung of desire. The plan of the site also reflects this. Behind the main block of the coffee house is “the secret garden”. The arcade diagonally cut into the woman’s part on the first floor and the clock tower at the end of the arcade imply the break of the imaginary of love.
West section We emphasize the contrast between the sailor and the lady’s part in the interior design. The decorations for the women's part impress feminine and imply romance between lovers. The concept for this part is more based on abstractions of the “Imaginary” of love. By contrast, the men’s part is for the presence of alienation. From the ground floor to the second floor, the spaces are designed for different social distances and increasing privacy. This is also imagined under an assumed timeline for the story. The ground floor is the start of the story where the sailor encounters the local girl. Both rooms on the first floor represent verfremdung happens in the provisional companionship. The second floor imagines the scenarios after the lovers leave apart.
The glass box represents the close but alienated state of provisional love, that closely holds the both, but separate them either.
West facade 1:20
Light-color coating PVC waterproofing membrane 20 mm cement mortar screeding 30 mm slope making layer 60 mm insulating layer 100 mm reinforced concrete roof covering
10 mm floor tile 5 mm cement mortar bonding layer 10 mm cement mortar screeding 100 mm reinforced concrete floor Gypsum ceiling
In the sailor's part , more red coating are uncovered, forming a double facade. Windows on the ground floor is smaller and less ornamental. White marbles decorated on the ground floor show a sense of hardness.
The lady's part uses fine coating and slender window frames to create a sense of romance. Meanwhile, the form of windows is more open, to show the curtain from interior.
White marble
White glass
Aluminium panel
Red coating on steel
Buttermilk paint on White paint on plaster plaster
10 mm coloured plastering 60 mm insulating layer Polymer mortar adhesiven 190 mm concrete perforated bricks 15 mm gypsum board
West facade model of the lady's part 1:50
South section through the ground floor interior of the lady's part
South section through the ground floor interior of the sailor's part 9
10
0
1. Clapboard
White-oiled-timber
5. Mirror
White-oiled-timber
3. Moldings
White-oiled-timber
7. Column
White plaster
2. White tile 4. Clock
Wave-shaped tile
6. Curtain
8. Table & chair
Blue lace
Western red cedar
1m
2m
5m
9. Ceiling
White-oiled-timber
10. Wall
White plaster
0
1. Bar
2. Partition
Aluminium
White-oiled-timber
Aluminium
3. White decoration wires on the partition 4. Sofa
White Leather
1m
5. Clapboard
White-oiled-timber
7. Chair
Blackened steel
6. Column 8. Table
Painted plaster
Blackened steel
2m
9. Ceiling 10. Wall
5m
White plaster
Dark red paint on plaster
Ceiling and the patio details
The section model of the lady's part 1:50
Ceiling and patio details in the model 1:50
Interior corner of the lady's part 1:50
Southeast view of the facade of the lady's part 1:50
Fragment models of the lady's part and the glass box 1:50
04 "Jongnyangje" + Conceptual design for waste management system in Seoul
Jongnyangje is the current waste management system in Seoul. Through the effort from the environmental professionals, we see the importance of the formation of a closedloop system for waste management and the possibility of "zero-waste" in the future. Based on social studies and policy research, I suggest the main strategy for the optimisation of the current waste management system i s " p ro m o t i n g u p c yc l i n g > re c yc l i n g > incineration". New facilities include new waste collection and reclassification centres, art centres and green market places at a district scale. Anaerobic digesters which c a n sys te m a t i c a l ly p ro c e s s fo o d wa s te and producing biofuel will be installed at neighbourhood scale. Through reducing waste and increasing waste-to-energy efficiency, Seoul can further approach to a low carbon economy.
2020.9 - 2020.11 Seoul Individual Research and infrastructure
A closed-loop system Government studies reveal that a large amount of combustible waste and recyclable materials has been disposed to the landfill, especially construction materials. 40% of landfill deposits were nonbiodegradable waste. Wood and paper wastes also take a high percentage.
To transfer to a closed-loop and zero-waste system, the priorities of waste treatment should be promoting upcycling > recycling > incineration. At neighbourhood scale, anaerobic digesters combined with urban farming sites are designated as on-site treatment for food waste while producing Biofuel, animal feed and organic fertilizer. At district scale, new waste collection and reclassification centres can guarantee effective separations of waste thus increasing the efficiency of downstream waste-to-energy plants. It is also essential to set up an art centre and greenmarket place to provide spaces for reproduction and trading second-hand products. The design of these public facilities are aiming to change citizens' lifestyles, to infiltrate the concept of zero-waste in daily life.
Jamsil-dong is selected as a pioneer district to test a proposal for the optimisation of the waste management system in Seoul.
Waste collection and reclassification centre
Re-classification and treatment process
Modular design enables fast installation and great flexibility for adapting to changing needs for waste management.
Function
Interior view of the waste treatment process Environmental art combined to the pavilion
Leisure and living areas for workers
The basic structure for waste collection and reclassification centre
E-waste and metal require less space for treatment and can be packed manually.
The treatment for recycled w a s t e s m a i n ly f o c u s o n t h e extraction and reclassification of small-sized waste like paper and will be automatically completed by machines. The product will be transported to the package zone through a conveyor belt.
Tr e a t m e n t f o r h a z a r d o u s waste requires sealed space, to prevent exposure to sunlight and air. Its package zone will also be separated from the others.
Anaerobic digester
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Recycled art centre & green marketplace
The artists' studio
Green market place
The basic structure for waste collection centre
The basic structure for green market place
Construction proposal
Interior of green market place
During the construction stage, light and flexible materials (plastic, steel and wood) from recycled construction wastes will be used. This will contribute to the formation of a closed-loop system to manage construction waste.
Green market place Axonometric view
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1m
2m
5m
Section of green market place
Waste collection and reclassification centre
1
Operation of the closed-loop system in Jamsil-dong The location of new facilities needs consideration on land use. Anaerobic digesters will be decentralised to locations next to retail and residential. Waste collection and reclassification centre requires great accessibility to the logistic web. Food waste will be manually carried to anaerobic digesters. The others will be collected by truck on schedule. The operation of the new system relies on public participation. Apart from the b uilt environ m en t sector, legislation also needs update, t o e n a b l e a p ro c e s s f ro m turning current voluntary actions to mandatory.
Selected work exhibited in the Bartlett Expo
Photographs
Other works
Recording Chinese citizen's life.
Hongkou, Shanghai, China 2021
Beijing, China 2021 Strategic planning for the crossing between Central London and the north west growth corridor
Master plan for Earl's Court Opportunity Area
Recording nature
Suzhou, China 2020
Other works Dive Dive is an ongoing collaborative project designed for the bath area for a vacation rental hotel. The primary shape and form of spaces comes from the moon. T h ro u gh b u i l d i n g re p l i c a te d tangent circles, we try to embody the beauty of artefacts and maths. We would like the users to feel the same tranquility of nature, in spaces created by regular geometries. To make the space absolutely defined by maths, small objects and key structures are at the intersection of tangent lines. Individual responsibilities: primary idea image, concept, plan and interior design.
Interior of the public bath
Plan and concept
Interior of the private bath
Ni Zhan Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Email: zcftnzh@ucl.ac.uk Tel: +86 15195610612 Address: Building 85, Haiyuehuayuan, Fangzhou Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiangsu, China 215021