Resume - RouAnn Chen

ROUANN CHEN

ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

01

AIR ANGIN

John Koh Architect In the Malay language, Air: Water Angin : Air This building symbolizes the changes it has had over the past 45 years, catering to different situations and the residents in it.

The housing in Malaysia now-a-days are getting less and less affordable. Increasing cost of owning a home is beyond reach of many ordinary people, especially for the younger generation. Many still live below poverty line.

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AirAngin is rooted in the tradition of Chinese Genrational Family Houses, promoting family ties and linkage. A series of courtyards encourages family interaction while clusters of enclosed spaces allows for privacy and personal freedom. Air Angin is to be catered for three generations. The original resident: a couple, their children which have all grown up and their children’s children. It is designed in such a way that each room has it’s own living space to it: A living area, sleeping area, working table and bathroom. This enables each generation family to have their own living area witho ut having to step on each other’s toes.

When it comes to a family gathering, there is a public area for the three generations. The kitchen and the main living room is situated in the middle of the building, where everybody meets.

Further more, Air Angin is envisioned as a gallery house. The pavillion towards the back of the building will be used as a multip urpose hall.

On normal days, it will be used as a meditation area; while hosting a party, the pavilliion and the living room area will be transformed into a gallery, show casing the owner’s private art collection.

1. Back view of the house 2. Window bay frame in the entrace of the house.

3. Pavilion gallery.

4. View of house from the oposite road.

5. Extension of the pool, extending the house to the exterior 6. Kitchen area overlooking the Koi pond.

7. Extended garden with the pavilion and pool.

8. Gallery / music room with the owner’s art collection.

9. One of the bedroom extension with floor to ceiling window overlooking the gallery pavilion.

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02

WANAKA

John Koh Architect Wanaka is a prime example of the livespan of a residential house. The multiple repurposing of the house shows the different uses possible for the building apart from being a residential unit.

This project focuses on modernizing and extending the house without completely demolishing the entire building.

The 20+ year old house was bought by the owner.

The home is rented out as a family home for a decade.

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The house was then repurposed as a fully function office space for a few years, with some minor renovations to fit the function.

After the office moved out, the house was planned to be renovated to be rented out on AirBnB, while housing the site office.

Huge renovations carried out to add multiple bedrooms, each with on-suite bathrooms to cater to multiple AirBnB rentals.

The renovated house is then rented out as a whole after 2 years for a spa and retreat centre.

In this project, the material used was carefully, while focusing on repurposing and reusing of some original materials not only from the house itself, but also from the AirAngin project. The idea was not ony to save cost, but also to practice a concious choice of repurposing the materials instead of throwing away materials that are still in good condition, trying to reduce the carbon footprint of the project.

1. Back view of the house 2. New extension.

3. Night view of the common area 4. Garden with concrete paving, allowing events to be held.

5. Common room opening up to the greenery, extending the house.

6. Living area with reclaimed wood on ceiling.

7. Extended new room with reclaimed wood on ceiling.

8. New experiment on matte glass wall in toilet, creating silhouette from the exterior, adding to the interesting facade of the building.

9. Previous storeroom repurposed as extra bedspace for room to fit more people.

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03

ION D’ELEMEN GENTING CKPM INTERNATIONAL

I was hired as a project manager/ Architecture assistant in CKPM International. The company was involved in a hotel project with 7 block residential/hotel units on the mountaisn of Genting Highlands in Malaysia. I had the chance to work not only with the construction team, but also for the handover of the project to the hotel team.

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Since most of the project I have been working from the perspective of a project manager, I had the chance to work with different parties involved in the construction, from the architects to the engineers and the main cons to the suppliers. I also got to liaise with the hotel management team to ensure that their requirements and needs are met for the opening.

While travel to site 3 days a week, I had the opportunity to sit in Client Consultant meetings (CCM) on site weekly and also the weekly site walk with the architect, engineers and main contractors. I am also involved in building inspection and material testing before handover.

While liaising with different sector the involved party, I was lucky enough to learn about the ins and outs of the construction process, to the handover to the usage.

1. Rising block.

2. Site walk to the top of one of the building.

3. Starting construction of block.

4. Installation of fiberglass ceiling construction for banquet hall.

5. Sky garden overlooking the mountains.

6. Fire safety inspection with consultants.

7. Hotel room.

8. Bar and restaurant.

9. Hotel pool.

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04

&ARCHITECTURE MArch - FINAL YEAR

&rchitecture is a way of thinking about & practicing architecture. & (and) is a powerful little symbol - it opens out into the next step, argues for inclusion and demands to be concluded. Rather than starting from within the discipline and moving outwards, &rchitecture emerges from what already is different (in the world). &rchitecture is brought into existence through the participation in and inhabitation of material space by the subjects of the city. This is a key way of discovering what the power and potential of architecture is to create (inclusive cities and societies).

thesis question:

Can building infrastructure discourage social class separation and break invisible borders?

chapter 1 - methodology When deciding on my thesis, I was keen t explore a topic which i was passionate about.

Hence, i decided to focus on subtle acts of racisms which is a common issue in Malaysia. This issue is even more highighted in the housing scene; where rental spaces are made available only to individuals of certain races. In a large majority of rental listings on websites, there is a clear categorization of racial preferences to a point where some websites have filter options dependiing on the race of the rentor.

A fake AirBNB website was created to help increase awareness of this issue. AirBNB the chosen media as it was a common website used by people around the world. In this fake website, the racial profiles were widened to incite an impact on a larger audience group. The prejudice in the listings were also slightly exaggerated. When the website was released, there was a clear impact which triggered a response on those who saw it.

The website was continuously updated and showed to more people, especially back home in Malaysia where it is the norm. Since then, conversations on the issue was striked with individuals who were both for and against racial preferences in housing rentals.

Fake AirBnB Link

chapter 2 - exploration Following the feedback obtained from the previous website, a clear issue was highlighted. Therefore, I started exploring various possibilities in response to the website. The first hurdle was the inability to identify any difference in preferred architecture between the different races. However, as the issue was further explored, a clear sense of preffered architecture was developed between the deffirent levels of a deeply rooted income class seperation. the rift was further increased by racial differences which was more pronounced among people of different socio-economic backgrounds.

The first concept was to design a typical apartment that might discourage racial preferencing but found that when people are typically more keen to accept individuals of similar racial background when it comes to renting rooms. By exploring my target audience, it was found that most cases of racial discrimination happens to individuals to are looking to rent single rooms in a house. This is a common issue within the young adult commnunity who are looking to move away from home for their studies or are moving into the city for work.

The idea of creating a building where it allows individuals to rent a room without going through the tenuous process of surveying different houses was developed allowing the tenants to live in a place where they feel safe and comfortable, and easy to sign up without the hassle of dealing with agents or homeowners. I begun to delve different sites in the city centre, and came upon Sentul. It was discovered that Sentul has a huge potential of a new kind of housing project, the site is chosen.

Part 1: Rent-A-Bilik

Part 2: Park 12

Part 3: Community centre 1

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Tiong - Low cost residences Murai - Low Middle residences Helang - Upper residences Pipit - Mid High Residences Residencial Podium + Carpark Playground Park Square Park Playground

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Mini rockclimbing area Running tracks Covered basketball court Community Centre Park entrance Sentul LRT Station Highway Potential car park for visitors

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chapter 3 - application In studio 3, application of the theory is applied into the real world, bringing it to life. Moving on from studio 2, the original idea was to create an environment with diverse races and income classes. Some hurdles were deliberated and considered quite impossible to push for the extreme, seeing as there were also security boundaries to be considered by mixing up the huge gap of social class.

As a more realistic rendition, Rent-A-Bilik is designed, not only with the idea of merging the people in the building together, but also working on widening the community outreach, hence the park and the community centre. Materials and construction process were also considered during the design process.

The original idea was to create an environment with diverse races and income classes. mix up not only the different races, but also the different income classes. Some hurdles were deliberated and considered quite impossible to push for the extreme.

It is then decided to loosely split up different income classes to different buildings, but mixing people from different racial background together in each unit. The idea was to allow the people of similar classes to rent a room of their preferred price points, where it is comfortable for them. The site is designed to encourage the mix of different communities. merging them in different ways, from the smallest - the units to the entire site.

Units

Merging of race

Residential Blocks

Merging of income class

Community Centre

Merging of community

Park

Rent-A-Bilik Website Link

Car Park for the residents and the park visitors.

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The park could be accessed through different parts of the site. In the north wing, the park could be accessed through the car park.

Park square can be rented out anytime for events, such as concerts, weddings, night market or community cultural celebration.

The community centre and the slope in the east wing allows easy access to the park through the ground floor.

Merging of community and surrounding residence

rent-a-bilik The north residential blocks consist of 3 building blocks, each with different floor plans , whte the eat block’s residential unit sits on top of the community centre. As mentioned before, the blocks defer from each toher in terms of the services provided and also size and number of rooms per unit.

The process of the signing for rental is easy. The website Rent-a-Bilik (Bilik = Room in Malay) allows the renter to to choose rooms with different price points depending on their budget. Renters are also given the choices of different preferences to choose from before renting their rooms. Ren

Each block is named after indigenous names of birds found in Malaysia.

For more information, click on the link of the ‘website’ to find out more. In response to the fake airBnB website, another website is created to simulate how Rent-A-Bilik would work.

Rent - A- Bilik Link NORTH WING

EAST WING TIONG

The lowest priced units are deisnged where its living room faces the inner podium.

MURAI The low-midium priced units has its living room facing the city scape, while its rooms facing the inner podium.

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ELANG

Pipit, the high income units faces the park, with its living room and balcony facing the park, and the bedrooms facing either the inner podium or the cityscape.

PIPIT

The units on the east wing are midium-high priced, situated on top of the community centre. , for those who preper to not have the facilities of the podium. It has easier access to the community centre and the park area.

residential The section perspective below shows different colours of human silhouettes living in the blocks, consistiing of not only from different income class but from different racial backgrounds too. The building blocks itself are already mixed on the racial level, and the podium level allow everybody from different income group to come together as one.

low income

low middle income

middle high income middle income

high income

Typical pre-cast construction that will be applied to the construction.

The materials of the building mostly consists of concrete, plaster and paint. This lowers the cost of the building, while keeping the building easily maintained.

In return, planter boxes are built to allow a lush green facade, also breaking the repetitiveness of the concrete jungle in Sentul.

People of with different racial background but similar income classes merging together in the building level.

Gym available for the residences.

Each blocks also consists of its very own laundry services.

The podium consists of some recreational spaces, such as swimming pool, gym on each block, cinema, bbq spots and sports area.

Cinemas and BBQ spots are available to be rented by residents to host parties and events. Sports area are available to all residences in the buildings.

In the podium level, it can be seen that all income classes merged together around the recreation area built for the residences.

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units design Each unit is designed to mimick the usual floor plan of a apartment unit for a more home feel, and most importantly to avoid it looking like a hostel withthe long corridor of doors in the unit. The price point of the rooms influenced the features and facilities available in each apartments.

tiong - lowest priced unit Block 1 Maximum occupancy per unit: 8

murai - low-mid priced unit Block 2 Maximum occupancy per unit: 12 Queen sized bed

Double bed

Private Room

Private Room

Shared Bathrooms

Shared Bathrooms

Basic necessities in kitchen Housekeeping in communal area Housekeeping in communal area

elang - upper priced units

pipit - mid-high priced unit

Block 3

Block 4

Maximum occupancy per unit: 10

Maximum occupancy per unit: 14

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Queen sized bed

Queen sized bed

Private Room

Private Room

Ensuite Bathrooms

Ensuite Bathrooms

Housekeeping

Housekeeping

Personal grocery shopper Basic necessities in kitchen

Basic necessities in kitchen

community centre + park Pasar Malam

Pasar Malam [Night Market] is a staple event in the Malaysian society,. It is normally setup at streets which are temporary closed for vehicle and open to venders to set up their stalls along the street during evenings until late nights on weekly basis.

On certain days of the week, the park is opened up to venders to set up their stalls to set up for the night market. Food trucks would be able to access the site throught the carpark too, allowing more choices and selections for the pedestrians.

Park Square

The park’s square could be rented out for wide variety of events, from company celebration, to weddings to cultural events to concerts. Temporary structures such as tents and stages could be put up and constructed to cater for different events.

The site could be rented out to generate more revenue for the maintenence of the park and the community centre.

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Entrance to the park through the ramp and the commuinty centre

Cafe for the visitors to provide extra income for the community centre

Slide and swings lets children to interact with the site on a different level

Planter boxes are used instead of typical cladding not only to provide a green facade, but also to save cost on cladding work

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THE DESIGN

Barcelona Social Housing

BARCELONA SOCIAL HOUSING MArch - PS1

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CURRENT Hot Desking Area

Barcelona Social Housing Brief Breakdown Barcelona is on the verge of its second housing crisis in 10 years. A perfect storm of foreign investment, continued rises in tourism and the emergence of apps allowing booking rooms in the city at the touch of a button has led to rising house prices which has increased rent and consequently pushed the Catalonian people out of the city.

We were posed the question of: “How can we create new spaces of co-existence for the population where living is a right and not a luxury?”

Our task was to transform an abandoned office building from the 20th century into a habitable residential block fit for the 21st and beyond. Our site in the centre of the city has 8 floors plus a roof terrace totalling 10,000m2. of useable space. The ground floor is large enough for 1500m2 of retail space and the brief specified creating a roof terrace that could exploit its desirable views over the city.

The proposal had to encapsulate the holistic nature of Barcelona’s buildings, streets, sidewalks and plaza, whilst exploring a new typology for social housing in the city.

2050 PROJECTION Sport facilities for an active ageing population 2

CURRENT Fixed Commercial Units

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2050 PROJECTION Medical Centre 3

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CURRENT Flexible Commercial Area 2050 PROJECTION Leisure Space

4 Public Toilet 5 Accessible Public Toilet 6 Bed/ Bathrooms aligned 7 Living Rooms aligned

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8 Unprogrammed Communal Area 9 Bed- and Bathrooms aligned 10 Living Rooms aligned

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11 Unprogrammed Private Roofspace

Existing building and site context along Via Laietana, Barcelona.

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interaction Encouraging the interaction of the building and the streets, connecting the visitors and residents to the main street - Via Laielana. The design is created to allow a relationship with the plaza behind the building, Plaรงa de Victor Balaguer.

DRIVE Via Laietana

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SLEEP BATHE

Utility Areas

LOUNGE

VIEW

SOCIALISE

BREATHE

SOCIALISE

Living Areas

Courtyard

Enclaves

Green Curtain

Enclaves

SLEEP BATHE

LOUNGE

Utility Areas

Living Areas

VIEW Plaรงa de Victor Balaguer

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LOCAL FOOD MARKET & SOUP KITCHEN Degree - Year 3

Although the buildings’ man purpose is for a food market area. The idea behind the building has always been to give ChowKit a social intervention. The homeless individuals roam about in ChowKit. The intention of the building is to create a social awareness in the society around ChowKit, while helping the homeless get back on their feet.

The building is designed to be self sustainable, both financially and environmentally.

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programs

market Local Food Market The main attraction of the building which is the gathering of the famous local food around Chow Kit.

Food Kiosks

The area provides a space for the venders around the market near the building to sell their fingerfood from fried foods to local drinks.

Cafe

The area provides a space for the venders around the market near the building to sell.

non-profit Soup Kitchen While instilling a ‘donating culture’ the users are encouraged to donate some money, or donate physical necessities to the soup kitchen. Other than that, foods are also prepared here and distributed throughout KL City. An area is also provided for the homeless to eat in the building.

Help Centre Help centre is to help the homeless get back on their feet. Temporary clinics with volunteer doctors for free medical check up, volunteers to offer advices for the homeless that wants to get jobs, providing with key information and helping on job application. Spaces are also provided for training sessions. Homeless also can work in the building as mainenece crew.

Rest Centre This area provides a space for the homeless to rest. It provides showers, sofa and lounging area for them to sit and rest, also games to pass time.

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facade ventilation

Interaction of cafe and soup kitchen

Donations are usually invisible after one donate to a cause. Here, they can appreciate how their donations are put to work, right in front of their eyes.

Vertical louvres allow users to control the amount of sunlight into the building, at the same time encouraging natural ventilation. It also can be closed up to preven rain from entering the building.

A panel of green screen allows air to enter the building, creating natural ventilation, while filtering out the dirty city air. Right in front of the building is a busy street with monorial station and route right across the road.

Vertical louvres allow users to control the amount of sunlight into the building, at the same time encouraging natural ventilation. It also can be closed up to preven rain from entering the building.

The building is designed to function with natural ventilation, minimizing mechanical ventilation. Cross ventilation and stack ventilation is used to draw the hot air out of the buiding, causing some temperature drop in the building.

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lighting

roof features

Movable panels on top of the roof The design also focuses on reducing the cabon footprint of the building. By practicing passive cooling, it invites in natural sunlight and wind into the building.

Panel

The green area in the middle of the building not only provide aesthetics, it also helps cools down the building.

Pulley

Different light shadows create different feelings to the building

Each panel can be moved individually, creating different roof patterns while letting air in for natural ventillation and also shelter from rain if necessary. With different elevated panels, different light patterns is created.

Not only that, the panel is also doubled as light weight solar panel, and can be shifted to a better angle for more solar power harnest.

Light directing towards the back of the building and the soup kitchen entrace to provite anonymity for the volunteers and participants

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Close up of panels on physical models

Movable panels allow lightings into the building