Serena Zhang Architecture | Visual design
Toronto | Wuhan serenayuhao.zhang@mail.utoronto.ca +01 416-837-8569
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2021
SYZ selected works
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De-Vector 04 Down-Zoning, an alternative planning method 14 A Chaple, between two modern buildings 21 Mini Maze 24 The Corbel 32 RV Club 35 SymbiOASIS, the age of compromise 38
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Natatorium/ 19
/Instructor Steven Fong /With
Laura Xin Wang
/ Location Golden Mile, Scarborough, ON /Content 6
Column system
7 Plan, Climatic zones 8 Interior 12 Assembly pool, looking through buffer pockets
de-
Vector 2019, comprehensive design
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interior view, looking north from the pool
structual system diagram
The natatorium employes groups of load-bearing columns, post-tensioned shear columns, in additiion to shear glass curtain walls as structural system, to enable the form of a weightless roof floating on forests of thin columns. The volumn of columns throughout the space creates a transparent yet disoriented experience moving through programs.
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7200
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south facade, showing columns and the roof
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HVAC circulation and 4 climate zones
Swiming pools and gyms (NW) are seperated from the assembly areas (SE) by the strip of change room in the middle, creating a gradient of temperature and moisture zones. Buffering pockets with seasonal ventilation windows surrounds the wet programs, which improves the natural heating and cooling exchange.
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(zoomed in) sectional perspective, looking into the gym and change rooms
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polished concrete finishing, slopped to drain weather barrier 92mm metal stud @610mm o./c 89mm batt insulation 38mm corrugated metal deck, with 64mm concrete topping steel W sections steel HSS sections 2mm acoustic board 130mm drop ceiling gap 7.9mm gypsum panel ceiling
3mm aluminum sheet cladding 6mm single glazing glass 150mm fibre-reinforced plastic mullion 1000mm ventilation cavity 150mm fibre-reinforced plastic mullion 36mm triple glazing glass
fibre-reinforced plastic bracing pre-finished FRP window system galvanized grating natural ventilation grille 150mm rigid insulation compacted gravel 5mm ceramic tile floor finishing 75mm polished concrete screed 150mm rigid insulation 210mm concrete slab
150mm rigid insulation 400mm structural concrete wall 7.9mm gypsum panel finishing 75mm polished concrete screed damping pad 150mm rigid insulation compacted gravel
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1 concrete topping corrugated metaldeck steel beam+purlins structural steel column
2 roof membrane exterior sheating vertical z-girts batt insulation vapour barrier
detail, air pockets
3 roof membrane exteriorsheathing foil rain gutter insulation vapour-tight foil
4 aluminum sheetcladding single glazingcurtain wall sytem FRP mullion rigid insulation triple glazingcurtain wall sytem
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detail, indoor garden
concrete finishing sun shadingsystem drop ceiling
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Urban planning/ 18 /Instructor Roberto Damiani Lisa Rapoport
commercial residential institutional industrial
(part) deconstructed sectional diagram by land-use (part) density cloud
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Zoning 2018, parametric planning
/With
Dylan Johnston Kai-chun Kiu Bronwyn Austin Ahmed Jirjees
/ Location Golden Mile, Scarborough, ON
Mixed-usage planing is one of the essential methods of city-making to pump new fuels into neighborhoods in need of revitalization, which problems (e.g.solidified functions and use) are evident in traditionally planned single-use super blocks. The project deals with the revitalization of Toronto’s oldest industrial neighborhood, the Golden Mile, with its large industrial blocks, institutional structures, new public transport line and scattered social housings.
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deconstructed land-use cloud, with boundary of the studied area
This study considers citybuilding as a systematical design question, and propose an alternative of the traditional zoning method with a cloud system that: 1. sums the aggregate of the land-use needs of the neighborhood 2. deconstruct the aggregation into data points 3. re-distribute the data points according to centers of influences of factors to create a highly responsive mixed use community
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With suffiicient data, the deconstruction of land-use could happen on levels as large as urban planning or as specific as room-sized planning, taking the concept of responsive mixed-used into the ever-changing and ever-evolving daily livings.
reconstructed maps, of existing uses, and the development of a possible outcome
Depart from traditional zoning methods that categorize properties into usage blocks, this method takes the aggregated zoning mass of the planed area and then deconstruct the aggreagte usages into individual data points of different land-uses. As the data points are attracted to or repelled from factors of influences, (e.g. access to public transportation, demand for schools and commercial developments), the created community would be highly responsive to the changing needs of urban development.
cloud maps, of density, land-use and open space
This method considers a deconstructed alternative of zoning contemporary cities.
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reconstructed land-use model, sectioned layers of the examplar area
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2017, formal studeis
Chapel
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Instructor: Nima Javidi
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section, looking into the chapel
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host development
void reduction
circulation
This project creates a hidden chapel between the gap of two modern buildings. Spatially, a vertical void is generated from the intersection of the two elliptical pathways, which penetrates the host geometry and activates the poche space above and below, with a spiral stairs loops in and out of the circulation core. The perception of devine and humanity is blurred by the play of light and shadow.
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Kindergarten/ 18
/Instructor Adrian Phiffer / Location Univeristy of Toronto, Toronto, ON /Content 26 Composition 27 Form, and light studies 28 Plan 29 Interior
mini
Maze 2018, formal studies
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spatial composition
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sections, on selected blck
sky light studies, in classrooms
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This project creates engaging spaces for children, through the derivative of primative geometries. Primary programs (classrooms) are housed in the onion-shaped domes with skylights, shielded by polygonal volumns. Secondary programs reside in the poche spaces between the domes and the polygonal forms.
worm’s-eye section, classroom to assembly hall
(small) first floor, entry to assembly hall second floor, corridor between classrooms
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Cornor-lot House/ 19 /Ja Architecture Studio Nima Javidi Behnaz Assadi /Team
Kyle O’Brien Bobbi Bortolussi Graham Ogland Liam Thornewell Kaveh Taherizadeh
/ Location 52 Foxley St. Toronto, ON
Toronto’s narrow cornor-lot houses often finds itself in a peculiar predicament, rarely attempting to address its additional street-frontage with the backyard exposed to the street. Tasked with fitting 3 units onto a cornerlot with an existing Victorian building, this project the opportunity to propose a new type that is specific to this urban condition.
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Corbel 2019, urban typology
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elevation, street front
section, street side
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Within each of the interlocked units, each space—its use loosely prescribed through and object placed in a room— is stacked vertically across four floors and connected by a compact staircase. While this repeats in each unit, the corbel results in a plan that compresses as it extends towards the rear, adding spatial variety in each unit and from one unit to the next.
plans, basement to 3rd floor
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detail, facade
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The impulse to reconcile the misaligned side of the original building and setback front wall of its neighbour becomes a way to explore meaningful gestural figuration in architectural form as the mansard roof sitting on the existing brick base was extended to cover the new third storey and the rear addition. After this continuous surface wraps the front facade around the corner it steps back three times in order to align the new addition with the neighbouring building to the rear and register the break between the three nested units. As an abstracted extension of the original form, this corbeled massing strategy creates a continuity between the two street walls, conceals the informal character of the interior of the urban block, and anticipates further development within. section, basement to 3rd floor side elevation
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Shanghai Auto Expo/ 18 /Natural Build Yanfei Shui Yichi Su Yuanrong Ma /Team
Wenting Zhang Yuan Lv Jeffery Wong
/Location Boyuan Rd. Jiading, Shanghai
RV
Club 2018, pavillion
site plan
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section a-a
The pavillion sits in a RV campground at the north of the Shanghai Auto Expo Park. As the closed north facade blocks the city traffic, the south-facing façades open to the park. The pavilioin is supported by the steel structure, which is then wrapped by a Douglas fir system from the pitched roof to the walls. The upper part of the full height wall in the main space is built with perforated panels, which subtly connects the spaces on the two sides of the wall when light travels through, revealing the hidden steel frame inside.
section b-b
models, shell and structure
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diagram, wood (top) and steel structure
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This thesis investigates the area of the Chemainus River estuary in B.C. as the space of shared interactions. It tries to imagine how architecture, as an ecological medium, can contribute to re-initiate and transform living habitats, in the estuarine ecosystem that is challenged by the rising sea level. The project looks into the possibilities of an alternative habitat for all species to co-live in, in the form of artificially augmented nature that supports blue carbon sinks. The project is delivered as a 15-min film. Full film and details at: https://ageofcompromise.org/symbiOASIS 38
Thesis project/ 20 /Instructor Adrian Phiffer
symbi
OASIS 2020, the Age of Compromise
/ Location Chemainus Bonsal estuary, Crofton, BC
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site model, 1:2000 plaster and foam, 3’*6’
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site model waterway studies, on formation of the estuary. plaster and foam
site model waterway studies, on sedimentation patterns. plaster and foam
moisture-regulated terrarium, experiment on conditions of interior comfort. wood frame and bio-olsatic shell
What is the age of compormise? Our architecture today tells the story that we live in an era where comfort is invisible and presumed. This era will be short, however; we have to collectively adjust to it going away in the time of global climate crisis. The challenge here is how to work with discomfort, to consciously manage it, and even to make it desirable. Could it feel better to be uncomfortable? The answer lies in what it means to compromise.
Daniel Barber, After Comfort, in Log Magazine, issue 47
Compromise means first to have knowledge of our own realities and the realities of the others, and then to make a conscious concession for mutual benefit. It creates possibilities beyond the scope of both parties. Rethinking design with the understanding of compromise as a starting point, means to give agency back to ecology, to understand non-human as more than human, and to build structures as a way of fostering relationships between all beings. It means to be connected. Why ecology? Ecology means many things, but first and foremost, it is inclusive: it does not separate human and non-human, it does not identify what is “us” and what is “the other”. As Morton puts, “No being, construct, or object can exist independently from the ecological entanglement.” Ecology is about radical coexistence.
Timothy Morton, the Ecological Thought
Being ecologically aware means to realize that beings are all interconnected in some way, and it makes me think about the new potentials made possible if we could move past anthropocentric construct of boundaries. Tell me about the site The site Iworked on is the Chemainus-Bonsall estuary, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. The estuary as a self-contained, mesh-like ecosystem is explicit in addressing interconnections and entanglement, which are central notions of the ecological context. Human activities in the estuary also paints a clear picture of how we characterize spaces in a way that they are either exclusively anthropocentric, or they are the “somewhere else”. As the estuary is now more than ever challenged with the loss of coastline, shared resources and habitats for all beings, it’s forcing an inevitable transformation of our perspectives. The duality of the symbiotic relationship decides neither the “nature” nor the human body should be seen as the baseline for accommodating the other, which brings forward the necessity of compromise and the new possibilities it enables. This is the role of architecture as an ecological medium, to move past from the pursuit of comfort as a form of self-assurance, and to find meaning in unfamiliarity. The challenge is how not to preserve, how not to patch the revealed symptoms of global climate change up to our understanding of normalcy.
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prototype, with partial human accessibility based on water level 1:20 bambo, bio-pastic and mesh 10*10 units
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transformable skeleton, 1:20 bamboo 10*10 units, stretched up to 3’*3’
Tell me about your design The structure can be seen as an extended grid that grows and transforms with the ecosystem. It integrates into the ecology. The supporting structure is designed as a transformable scaffolding system, as an attempt to minimize impact on the landscape and also to initiate sedimentation under the structure, so that the estuarine ecosystem would have the potential to migrate inland as sea level rises. Form out of the equation here, because the ontology of form in an ecological context, has everything to do with the life of the form, with the constantly changing situation from which it emerges. The spatial structure is provided to all species in an identical way, it is up to them to detect and inhabit different spatial organizations embedded in the area.
the moisture-retaining shell on top could be an ideal habitat for algae species, who are efficient carbon dioxide traps, air purification systems, and also great food sources for migrating birds. Bird droppings, in turn, fertilize the soil, and promote vegetation growth.
It’s exciting to think about all the ways we co-inhabit with different species, and how the experience would reshape, not just personal expectations but also the collective cultural understanding of comfort and of what it means to dwell on the earth.
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Serena Zhang Architecture | Visual design
Toronto | Wuhan serenayuhao.zhang@mail.utoronto.ca 44 +01 416-837-8569