Brian Po-Han Lin Selected Works

PO-HAN LIN

M. Arch 1 Candidate Columbia University, GSAPP 2016-2019

SELECTED WORKS 1

‘Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.’ -Italo Calvino

PO-HAN LIN M.Arch 1 Candidate, 2016 - 2019 Columbia University, GSAPP Contact: pl2621@columbia.edu

CONTENT 4 20 40 58 70 76 82 86 90

Graduate Two Walls Park for All Eight Worlds The Endless Library Pier: Drawing the Skyline Cabinet of Lost and, Sometimes, Found Four Screens Arcs + Angles Greenpoint Flex Theater

TWO WALLS:

A Sea of Voices, A Sky of Things

M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2018 INSTRUCTOR: BRAD CLOEPFIL & LUKE ANDERSON(ALLIED WORKS) ONE SEMESTER

The Ethical Activism of Story-Telling

The proposed “Ethical Space” finds the everyday workmen its inhabitants; it operates at all times, recording the stories of those that chance by and providing a stage for presentation. It is, in one way, a memorial, and in another, a museum. Ultimately, it is a space that breaks the endless cycle of working life, to provide a temporary peace of mind to its inhabitants. “In memory of ”, and, “a catalogue of memories.” Words and Objects find power in this space, as one finds each other.

Two “walls”, intersecting in the form of a X and connecting 25th and 26th street, act as amplifiers of these stories. The Object Wall, a wall composed of 16” by 16” concrete cubicles, becomes a lost-and-found of once-treasured objects. The Sound Wall, a wall perforated by openings in the shape of megaphones, becomes a wall that presents the stories of those who visited. Four rooms surrounding the two walls, inviting the listener— the daily passerby—to submerge in different conditions of experiencing these stories, from a sea of stories to a room of objects, and to a room of voices and finally, a room of emptiness.These experiences, hopefully, will lead to discovery: the discovery of others and the discovery of oneself.

Finally, the idea of a collective humanity is performed through the exchange and understanding of stories as the memorial builds upon these stories, unceasingly. It is about leaving a story behind while taking another with you. One object finds a voice as a person finds another. One’s tragedy might become another’s salvation.

Concept Sketch: Intersection of thick “walls” creating four story-telling “rooms”.

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Model: Light filtering through openeings of the walls and various spaces enhanced by the two walls.

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Concept Sketch: Diagram exploring different modes of reflection and reverberation of sound and light. The composition of the final plan is based on controlling the various “densities� of experiencing light and sound (objects and voices).

Concept Sketch: First concept sketch. The project is about a journey of discovery.

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Concept Sketch: Experiences within the ethical space, a conversation of exchanging stories between people.

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Concept Models: Early studies of different materials and forms.

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Site Model: The X acting as urban corridor connecting two streets.

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Plan: Typical level plan showing the passageways, access and intersection within the “walls�.

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Detail: Section of two walls and materiality.

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Section Perspective: View of Book of Stories wtih gabion walls and acoustic wedges at sides.

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Section Perspective: View of Book of Emptiness with floating acoustic shells and mirrors at sides.

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Model: Bird’s eye view of the Book of Stories with garden landscape.

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Model: (Top) View of project from south; (Bottom) View of central staircase from garden.

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Collage: Book of Voices with hanging reverberation panels at back and acoustic wedges at front.

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Collage: Book of Objects with kaleidoscopic experience and gabion walls.

Collage: Book of Emptiness from one of the meeting rooms.

Collage: Book of Stories seen from one of the entrances in the Wall of Voices

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Collage: Interior view looking at the streets and central garden at intersection.

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PARK FOR ALL M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, SPRING 2018 COLLABORATOR: WO WU INSTRUCTOR: NAHYUN HWANG ONE SEMESTER

The park as campus and community spine

Park for All is a reconfiguration and transformation of Sara D. Roosevelt Park, a linear park located in the Lower East Side, as a vocational school campus in collaboration with local neighborhoods and businesses. The Lower East Side, categorized as the last part of lower Manhattan under gentrification, faces the inevitable force of invading yuppies (particularly white ones). The neighborhood, originally packed with diverse immigrants, witnessed decrease in population of minorities throughout the years. With the desire to preserve the fabric that is composed of these vibrant people, the presence of a prominent educational system that represents the neighborhood becomes necessary. We wanted a campus that is produced by the people for the people-and Sara D. Roosevelt Park, with its linear geometry penetrating several neighborhoods, while acting as a bridge between each, becomes an ideal location.

Presently utilized solely as a sports park, the question we face is what is a park and a campus together. A campus, typically designed to be the negative space of ivory towers, is at its essence private and secluded.

A park, with Olmsted’s Central Park as a prime example, is often sought as public. The possible answer, say typology, say educational system, is eventually, a campus that produces the experience of a park; its schools (pavilions in this case) interacts with and is experienced by the visitors of the park; its negative space perseves the original recreational facilities and tiny niche clusters that produce the qualities of being at a park. Ultimately, the park becomes a campus; it is a community spine; a place and idea that is integral and inseperable from its people’s lives.

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Concept Collage: The bridging of small businesses in Chinatown as a network

Concept Model: Sara D. Roosevelt Park and the small businesses of Chinatown reimagined as a campus.

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2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan

Home-For-ALL

2014 Mae Lao Earthquake, Thailand

2013 Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines

Building Nine Schools

POST DISASTER EDUCATION Looking into three instances of Post Disaster Education in Japan, Philippines and Thailand, we evaluate the position of schools as playing a role in community-rebuilding.

The typologies often identified in these are prototypical buildings that are more pavilions than they are massive structures.The vernacular construction of each reflect the availability of locally sourced materials.

Active School Project

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A. BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

B.

D. BROADWAY T U A S RICHARD R.GREEN O B F Y WCAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING EDUCATION HE

RBAN

F

USINESS

SSEMBLY OR

BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN

CHOOL

OUNG

OMEN

THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN

C.

THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN

BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN

RICHARD R.GREEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING

RICHARD R.GREEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL RICHARD R.GREEN OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING

Cornell AAP NYC Studio

C. B. A.

D.

HIDDEN CAMPUS:VERTICAL Educational Institutions pervade New York City, in various types of presence.

Looking at the Standard Oil Building, which homes seven schools, the way in which education happens and activates its neighborhood in highly dense cities can be considered as a “campus”.

A.

D.

B.

E.

C.

F.

A.

RICHARD R.GREEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING

RICHARD R.GREEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

BROADWAY EDUCATION CAMPUS

THE URBAN ASSEMBLY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN

RICHARD R.GREEN HIGH SCHOOL OF TEACHING

B.

Broadway Education Campus

Knugenx Learning Center

D. C.

F.

E.

HIDDEN CAMPUS: HORIZTONAL Similarly in low rise neighborhoods, hidden campuses are formed by the presence of multiple (a system) of educational nodes. Cram schools in Chinatown are an example of these campuses, a system of individual for-profit schools that aim to benefit student testing scores.

Mencius Society of Calligraphy

Academy of Literary Circles

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From bottom to top: School of Entrepreneurship School of Construction and Applied Technology School of Urban Agriculture School of Culinary Arts 24

From bottom to top: School of Nursing School of Cosmetology School of Urban Manufacture School of Urban Pedagogy 25

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Plan: The School of Entrepreneurship, connecting to the adjacent school complex, transforms the second floor of the school as a shared space, acting as a catalyst and at the same time a bridge to the park.

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Section Axon: School of Entrepreneurship as a bridge connecting to the second floor of the adjacent school, a complex of two ESL high schools and one ESL middle school. The ground floor preserves the recreational programs at the same time adding new gathering spaces.

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Plan: School of Urban Agriculture as an experimental bed exploring the capacities of various farming methods.

The school becomes part of a park experience as one ascends from the subway station, paving to a vast greenery.

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Section Axon: School of Culinary Arts (left), School of Urban Agriculture (right) and School of Construction and Applied Technology (right) showing the underground connected to the park.

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Section Axon: School of Urban Manufacture (down) and School of Urban Pedagogy (up), with open space at cross-road intersection and diverse programs .

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Collage: View of waiting room of School of Nursing.

Collage: View of School of Urban Pedagogy with New Museum Idea City festival.

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Collage: View of skate park and School of Cosmetology

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Model: View of School of Construction and Applied Technology with different building experiments.

Model: View of School of Cosmetology with unique frame system unitilizing core walls.

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Model: View of School of Culinary arts with open kitchen and outdoor dining space.

Model: View of three sectional models and urban context.

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EIGHT WORLDS:

A MICRO URBAN AN ARCHIPELAGO OF HOUSES

M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2017 COLLABORATOR: KUAN HE INSTRUCTOR: ADAM FRAMPTON (ONLY-IF) ONE SEMESTER

Eight Worlds: A Micro Urban, an Archipelago of Houses

The project began with the interpretation that aging, whether it be that of people or of society, is a process, and not a state. Looking into the Metabolists of the 1950s as an understated influence, we are interested primarily in the flexibility of housing in this flux of aging, namely the capacity of addition and subtraction, or upsizing and downsizing.

Considering these factors as the essence of the design, we began with the “part”—the unit. Inspired by the typical row house unit, a typology capable of variation through one direction, its length, our units operate on a structural grid of 5meters by 5 meters, or 16’ - 5” by 16’ - 5”, where one dimension is always fixed to an axis as the other expands or contracts.

Thus, each unit—the micro (5x5), the studio (5x10), the one bed-room (5x15), and the two bed room (5x20)—is formed by one or more of the three smaller standard units, which we consider as the bare necessities of a house: the core unit, with a kitchen and bathroom, the clock unit, with a pivoting flexible wall, and the zero unit, with programmable open space.

Then, as we turn to the whole, the grid of the unit—the structure—extends from the unit scale to the whole site. Within this system, we divided the site, a mega block of lost scale, with a nine square grid, forming, at the scale of a larger “part”, eight blocks, with one block void in the center, each connecting the site to its context, each at a unique location and orientation. On the other hand, at the whole scale, the nine square grid is a microcosmic view of the site, consisting of nine blocks, with our site in the center. The morphology here naturally led to the idea of a courtyard, containing eight different worlds, eight parts, with the central courtyard uniting the eight to create the ninth world—the whole.

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Models: Massing model in cite context expressing the nine square grid.

Models: Massing model in cite context expressing the nine square grid.

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Study: Precendent study of site typlogoies reveal different uses of common spaces and different living habits.

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Plan: Ground Level.

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Plan: Typical Level.

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Models: Eight different typologies, partially under construction revealing the modular facade.

In furtherance, to concretize and justify the presence of eight worlds, we investigated eight typologies in reference to their suitability to the site’s various factors; demographics, light and air exposure, orientation, context.

Starting from the south-east corner going clockwise, the terrace, as the propylaea to the complex, the dormitory, for students, the duplex, for families in business in the neighborhood, the balcony, for single families, the micro-apartment, for day to night workers, the elderly housing, for elders, the single-mother housing, for single mothers in need of daycare and play-

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ground for their children, and, finally, to the courtyard that is the prototype.

As the typical house unit adapts to these different typologies, changes begin to form in and out of the units, through the capabilities and necessities of the aging body.

Programmatically, within each world, the ground level hosts different spaces that diversify the world and its residents from the others.

The third level, a continuous strip of open space, acts as the threshold that connects the residents of different worlds.

Perhaps, for us, the housing project is not to design as simply as eight different worlds but to design eight “parts” that together become the “whole”, each impacting another in symbiosis, each becoming a part of the other. It is, ultimately, eight worlds, at the same time, one—a micro urban, an archipelago of houses.

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DUPLEX WORK/LIFE UNIT

The Duplex Unit functions as an expandable and contractable live and work space. The adjacent lot, produced with the same modular dimensions, can become workspace for small businesses or additional living space.

TERRACE UNIT

The Terrace Unit operates as the park as home. With community plantable green space above, adjacent and under the units, the community here forms a linear park that is vertical in motion. Teeming encounters flood the block.

STUDENT DORMITORY

The Student Dormitory is an exclusively inward facing space. The central courtyard, housing a community library with an overhanging roof, serves the entire community. Horizontal strips of student-shared spaces allow interaction and activity.

MICRO APARTMENTS

The Micro Apartments are designed to accomodate workers, manufacturers who operate at various hours of the day. The unit is designed to include an additional member with a customizable wall facing the hall to showcase profession, or taste.

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SENIOR HOUSING

The Senior Housing function as metabloic units that occupy two to three grid spaces linearly, accomodating life from accompanied (m id) to singular living (late). The additional spaces are shared gardens with neighbors when unoccupied.

BACLONY UNIT

The Balcony Unit is a single family unit. The central courtyard is designed to be an experience upon entrance while being enjoyable by the community.

The idea behind is a community forming public space that defines the typology and its people. Balconies allow physical interactions.

SINGLE PARENT UNIT

The Single Parent Unit plays on the idea of a shared corridor by all units and a playground for each floor. Walls are designed to interact with children.

While one family’s parent is gone to work, the shared spaces allow survaillance of chaperones from other families to ensure safety.

COURTYARD UNIT

The Courtyard Unit is the most direct representation of the courtyard typology. The private and public, informal and formal spaces are separated by vertical louvers that allow only opposing interactions. The 30m span of the courtyard reveals the inhabitants only in silhouettes.

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Section: Two sections cut through the housing complex showing indoor spaces and outdoor spaces and the typological differences among the worlds.

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Elevation Perspective: The Eight Worlds under construction, constantly metabolizing.

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Perspective: View of central courtyard, the convergence of worlds.

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THE ENDLESS LIBRARY M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, SPRING 2017 INSTRUCTOR: MIMI HOANG (NARCHITECTS) ONE SEMESTER

Endless: The Library of the Present

“Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending.”

The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges (1941)

The Endless Library or, Library as endless space. In his short story, The Library of Babel, Borges conceived a library of the universe, a vast container of hexagonal rooms, each connected to another and each holding a collection of 410-page books written only in twenty-five orthographic symbols—including the comma, period and space. Of course, however, we are not designing a library which volume resembles to that of the universe. The endless library is a response to the status quo of the 21th century library, acknowledging the threshold on which the library stands: the present.

Ever since the beginning of the digital age, with each new invention—e-books, videos, images—a bookshelf is removed. As the desire of public collectivity grows, infesting libraries with new programs, a room of shelves disappears. The endless library, treating the past and the future as an in-between space that structures the present, presents a spatial condition in which the past and the future coexist.

Plan: Roof Level.

Plan: Underground Level.

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Plan: Ground Level.

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BOND ST. + FULTON WEST

DEKALB AVE. + FULTON EAST

FULTON WEST + BOND ST.

Concept: X-ray drawings of each persective on its corresponding street; the morphology is informed by this study.

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Models: Study models exploring material, circulation, form, and structure.

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Drawing: Axonometric showing the two sides of the library and their views.

Horizontally, the architecture of the library is two sets of planes: on the side perpendicular to Fulton Street, the planes grow in repetition with slight variations in spacing, increasing from narrow to wide in west to east orientation; on the opposite side, perpendicular to Dekalb Avenue, the planes run inversely. The inverse on the two sides of the building generates an experience in which the variation is existent but slight, as if almost nothing.

Linking the spaces together are eight sets of staircases, four on each side of the library running from the underground to the above ground. Expanding from each staircase, smaller landings for spontaneous reading and larger

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landings, for more collective engagements, teeth out to meet the opposing landings. The two sets of teething landings only intersect at five layers of the building; otherwise, they are intersections of the sightline, observing one another at various heights.

Drawing: Axonometric showing the change in the vertical axis of the library.

Vertically, the library is the container of the past and the future, spanning above ground and underground almost equally in distance, with the gradation from paper to pixels as the library grows taller. The structural, whitesteel column and beam grid follows the same path; from the thickened columns of the underground, bearing the load of books to the thinned columns of the highest level, the experience within the library is a journey of expansion—visually and physically, seeing the snippets of the city through widening apertures and experiencing the shift from smaller to larger landings.

The experience of the constant slight changes in the library, the constant reading of infinite reading spaces, all together an experience possible to deem endless, are all but the background of the library. With endless comes the acute realization of everything that is different: in the library, that which is different is the sightlines of people, and the intersection of these sightlines.

We may call books as the product of the past, and new technologies as the invented future. Yet, what is ever so present in library, the very members that activate its spaces, is its people. Find each other. What is the endless library, but the library of the present?

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Section: Long section; light and shadow, density of books and density of collectivity.

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Perspective: Exterior perspective of library, the reflective surface becomes a visual play of context.

Section: Cross section; density of books changes as library progresses vertically.

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Model: Final model of library.

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Model: Final model showing underground.

Model: Final model showing reverse side.

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Perspective: Underground library, the container of past.

Perspective: Above-ground library, the container of future.

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PIER:

DRAWING THE SKYLINE

M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2016 INSTRUCTOR: CARRIE NORMAN (NORMAN KELLEY ARCHITECTS) ONE MONTH

Pier X: The New York never built.

Visualizing the project as a panorama, influenced by the East River’s vantage point of being in-between Manhattan and Brooklyn and its capacity to provide the skyline of both. Particularly interested in Robert Barker’s panoramic drawing of Edinburgh, the project seeks to re-introduce the New York skyline by granting a view of the skyline once drawn by architects and visionaries, a complete different universe.

Compiling a total of nine unbuilt projects conceived in New York, ranging from Buckminster Fuller’s Dome Over Manhattan to Paul Rudolph’s City Corridor to Charles Rollinson Lamb’s Streets High in the Air, the visitors, the city’s wanderers, are invited to enter the world of the drawn, or imagined, skyline, finding themselvles within at times.

Each “project” is recreated through an anamorphic illusion, where there is only a single point the project is “realized.” Through this process, the visitors witness the project in three different stages as they progress a singular ramp. As they first approach, a set of abstract geometries greet them. As they walk towards the vantage point, the geometries form the shape of the project over the skyline beyond, creating an illusion and, in an instant, bring them into the multiverse where the project “is”. Finally, as they walk pass, the project is deconstructed once again, returning to its stage of abstraction, signaling the return to our current universe.

At the destination of the ramp, a pie-shaped platform expands into the water, acting as a space to digest the reinterpreted skyline. Oriented towards a strip of Brooklyn, a place less imagined in the past, visitors of the pier are invited to begin their own imagination of an unbuilt skyline; it happens, perhaps, in their mind, or, on the walls of concrete canvases. I hope, in some form, one will see the next Tower of Babel, a edifice known for its non-existence.

Site Plan: A museum on East River.

Plan: Visitors take a journey to see the various views.

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Study: New York Map documenting the location of nine unbuilt projects surrounding the site.

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Drawing: Section Axonometric showing the pier as an extension from the city to the water.

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Model: Anamorphic Illusion state, mislignment.

Model: Anamorphic Illusion state, project realization.

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Brooklyn Linear City, 1967

Welfare Island, 1961

Mcmillan, Griffis, and Mileto

Victor Gruen

Skyrise for Harlem, 1965

R. Buckminster Fuller, Shoji Sadao and June Jordan

Skyscraper Bridges, 1925 Raymond Hood

Dodger’s Dome, 1955

Norman Bel Geddes and R. Buckminster Fuller

From top left to right, Welfare Island (1961), Brooklyn Linear City (1967), Skyrise for Harlem (1965), Skyscraper Bridges (1925), Dodger’s Dome (1955)

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Hyperboloid, 1956

City Corridor, 1967

I.M. Pei

Paul Rudolph

Dome Over Manhattan, 1961 R. Buckminster Fuller

From top left to right: Hyperboloid (1956), Streets in the Air (Undated), City Corridor (1967), Dome Over Manhaattan (19

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CABINET

OF LOST, AND, SOMETIMES, FOUND

M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2016 INSTRUCTOR: CARRIE NORMAN (NORMAN KELLEY ARCHITECTS) ONE MONTH

Cabinet of Wonders: Find yourself lost

Located on the north-east corner of the intersection between Avenue A and 14th street, the project began as an exploration of the architectural drawing type: section. Examining sectional poche drawings of early castles and the section-driven designs of the contemporary architect Aires Mateus, the understanding of poche as a way to inhabit the IN developed.

What does it mean to inhabit the IN? What does it mean to be within walls instead of the space created by the enclosure of walls? What does it mean to be lost in poche?

With these interests in mind, the concept of niche came to mind.

No longer a mere crease or a crevice on the wall or, architecturally, a hollowed space to hold decorative sculptures and statues, the niche in the project becomes the carving-in of spaces by lost objects, people, program, and light. Constantly entering, exiting, re-entering and re-exiting various niches in the project, men and object find themselves equally lost and, perhaps, found at times. The “wall” in front is merely an illusion—it is at essence, a space carved out from a greater volume of wall.

Extending from the underground, the subway level, to ground level, and then to above ground level, the rectilinear volume of the project is carved to form staircases, light wells and, ultimately, the cabinet. Becoming voluntary prisoners of poche, we are lost in the struggle to only rediscover ourselves. The project title—inspired by 18th century cabinet of curiosities—is Cabinet of Lost and, Sometimes, Found; for that you don’t always find what you lost. Welcome.

Inhabitation of “IN”

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Plans: Under, ground, above-ground and interaction with context.

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Drawing: Perspective Section of Cabinet.

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Drawing: Cabinet of Lost and, Sometimes, Found in context.

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Model: Cast concrete as exploration of subtracting modeling and texture.

Model: Cast concrete of all volumes.

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Section: The interaction among underground, ground, and above-ground.

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FOUR SCREENS M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2016 INSTRUCTOR: CARRIE NORMAN (NORMAN KELLEY ARCHITECTS) THREE WEEKS

Four Screens: The Sublime is always imagined.

Four Screens began as a project on a corner across Union Square Park on 14th St. with its purpose to emphasize the greenery of the park. Like an oasis in the ubiquitious concrete jungle of Manhattan, Union Square Park, like every other park that intersects the city’s major avenues, is an entrance to another realm, a dimension distant from the city. But simply emphasizing the park through visual means is insufficient; the question is to seek to realize that other-worldly dimension in architectural means.

In Kirigami, where a piece of paper sliced with patterns become a three dimensional form, void is a means of becoming the whole. It is precisely this paradoxical relationship existent in the axonometric that inspired the core concept of fragmentation in this project.

What is beyond the visual? I believe it is imagination, the mind.

With imagination, the onlooker reconstructs a fragmented whole into a completely new image in his mind, a drawing reimagined based intimately on his experiences and memories. And in this case, when a visitor sees Union Square Park’s greenery in fragmented pieces, Union Square Park becomes more than a mere park in the concrete jungle.The scene imagined from a fragmented tree, potentially, even for a split second, becomes a forest. The forest manifests itself and develops further, paving road for the visitor to another dimension; all of this is done in the mind through imagination.

And that is merely one possibility.

With the project’s intention to invite its visitors to go beyond the visual and imagine the subliminal- very much like the mythical scenes protrayed in Japanese Byobu Art (Art of folding screens)-the form of it finds resemblance to screens. A corner is no longer two walls marking an intersection, or an end, but four screens establishing an entrance to the mind through fractals.

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Fractalization: The power of imagination.

Drawing: Imagination to move one from the city to nature.

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Model: Four Screens inspired by Chinese and Japanese Pin-feng (Byobu Screens)

Model: Four Screens unfolded.

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Drawing: Corner condition.

Drawing: Screens unfolded.

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ARCS + ANGLES M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2018 INSTRUCTOR: JOSH JORDAN ONE SEMESTER

From a Curve to a Line.

The project started from an interest in structural systems, long span to short span, and how these systems may be generated from a tile. The aim was to combine features evident in both architecture and tiles and achieve a coherence: three-dimensionally, the tile becomes structural and two-dimensionally the tile explores the geometry of tiling. From a corner to an arc, the first edition of the tile is a simple extrusion, finding scale as its primary changing parameter.

The second iteration combines two of the first unit, utilizing a type 1 pentagonal tiling strategy as a basis for the modular repitition. The arch-like form gives strength to the tile while the pentagonal unit becomes a sort of occupiable surface.The scale of the tile finds its place architecturally

Utilizing the second tile’s geometry, the final project is a framework of the module occupiable at human scale. The straight extrusions of y-drection frames allow the module to be fabricated with ease. The second layer (x-direction) frame adds stability. Additional membranes designed in the fashion of origami-folded at the straight contours-can cover the waffle structure to become a surface. .

Model: First iteration of tile, a pyramidic form generating spaces.

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Model: Individual units of first-iteration tiles.

Drawing: Imagination to move one from the city to nature.

Model: Detail of spaces created by tiling.

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Model: Process of tiling second iteration tiles.

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Model: Detail of wave geometry generated from tiled surfaces of second iteration.

Model: Side view of tiling process revealing an arched colonnade.

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GREENPOINT FLEX THEATER M.ARCH 1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP, FALL 2017 COLLABORATORS: JIAXIN LI, YVETTE LIU, CHASCE TANG ONE SEMESTER

A theater on four columns The Greenpoint Flex Theater was our team’s own take on structural efficiency and elegance. With a desire to design a space that is programmatically occupiable by its neighbors during off-times and function effectively as the proposed theater, we turned to Mies van der Rohe for inspiration: universal space.

The entire building, aside from four columns, each composed of another four smaller wide flange H sections, and a few cores, is completely flexible. The theater achieves, at a structural perspective, universal space.

Beyond these mandatory units of support, almost minimal so to speak, all spaces within the theater complex becomes programmable based on necessity. Interior and exterior are connected by means of visual and physical bridges.

Above ground level, the theater sits high in the air, as if a magical floating box supported by, Mies’ own phrase, “almost nothing.” This play of sight adds entertainment and curiosity to the project. Two balconies suspended from the roof gives access to 360 degree views around the theater, furthering the experience. To accomodate special performances involving the scenery of the site, one side of the theater is equipped with pivot doors that allow opening to the outside. The project, ultimately, was a rigorous investigation of details in order to create a whole.

Four columns welded to form one

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Rendering: Exterior view of theater showing the floating concrete box.

Rendering: Interior lobby rendering

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PO-HAN LIN M.Arch 1 Candidate, 2016 - 2019 Columbia University, GSAPP Contact: pl2621@columbia.edu