CITY ARBORETUM

Instructed by Julia Koerner

MAR. 2021 / M.Arch I 1st-year studio, winter term, UCLA AUD

The plan is strung by a circular path switching alternately between interior, semi opened space, and exterior throughout the site. On the other hand, the transparent envelope and the plants inside and outside of it illude people' s perception of what is the interior and what is the exterior.

The envelope of is fixed on a set of branch-like structures. While the columns bear the loads from the above, the branch-like structure and the cables atop take the moment. The Roof, Fabric structure and the walls are then attached onto the structure.

The core concept of this project is that the building and the plants are fitting to each other. Aside from the space that required artificial floors, the building spares most of the earth to the plants. On the other hand, the plants become the secondary envelope system that shades the building from excessive sunlight. Based on their geometrical properties, each plant could serve as a part of architecture. For instance, the wide and shallow canopy of Acacia could be the roof of the library, whereas the short, dense shrubs could be the wall that prevents wind and filters polluted air from the outside.

Extracting a chunck of the precedent, transforming it into iterations while remaining the same column-spacing (conducted

Examining fitness between the building and plants in each iterations

(conducted with Grasshopper).

STRUCTURE AND COMPONENTS (Tensile Structure was modeled with Grasshopper Kangaroo).