Portfolio - 10/21

Sterling Yun Design Portfolio

Northeastern’s Snell Library is a bit of an exlibrary at this point. We have librarians, we have tech resources and printers, we have meeting rooms, we have workspaces and reading tablesbut we don’t have a lot of physical books left.

When I was a freshman in fall 2018, I could go to the third and fourth floors and still expect to encounter that classic musty smell of a library collection. But during the pandemic, Northeastern took the opportunity to remove those shelves too, replacing them with progressively quieter work areas. Other university libraries have a similar scheme, but the difference is that they still hold physical collections.

The life cycle of a Northeastern book is quite sad as a result. You either were moved to Connecticut, to languish until some student gamed the abysmal search algorithm on the online catalog, or you were replaced by some e-book that Northeastern got from a subscription library.

Book moved offsite to CT

Book replaced by e-book

Book not replaced

Negative impacts on research

• Roadblocks to materials access

• Less spontaneous topical curiosity

• Topic bias through algorithmic sorting

• Students disincentivized to seek out materials

Book sent to disposal

• Pages recycled

• Cover and binding end up in landfill

Lost knowledge…?

Whether siloing off access to books or disposing of them entirely, Northeastern has made it harder to access the information that is at the core of any university library. This implicates the breadth and depth of student research too. As a PhD friend of mine remarked sardonically, “we all know you can plan out when your most creative thoughts happen.” We already have fewer departmental libraries than other schools - everyone from MIT to the University of Washington has a dedicated architecture library, for example - and now the core collection is being displaced from the building that we know as a house of knowledge.

What if we could draw attention to the information that is being disposed of or hidden away? The goal of Knowledge Base is to create a structure that inspires students to consider their academic blind spots. To interrogate the university’s role in knowledge curation and memorialize the importance of the book in promulgating and inspiring research.

Diagram 0.1 Where is Knowledge Going?

Sterling Yun ARCH 5115 Fall ’22

Book in Snell stacks Stacks replaced by workspaces

The studio’s overarching goal of contemplating waste material is manifested in two different ways in Knowledge Base.

The first is the void of the book’s contents. The act of disposing of a book implies that the information therein is no longer useful – that it is a form of waste. The second is the physical form of the book. The process of toughening a book to prepare it for library life happens after a book has already been printed and bound.

Library bindings are highly regulated. There are 78 pages of ANSI standards and even a trade group, the Library Binders Institute. Library binding companies usually take hardcover books, deconstruct them, and then reconstruct them again. Binders have to pay attention to how the folios of the book are sewn together and provide covers of buckram, a coarse cotton weave usually hardened in special PVA glue to ensure its durability. This process is a lot more materials-intensive than a normal trade paperback or hardcover.

Large (8×11in)

Medium (7×10in)

I was able to get Northeastern’s Facilities team to provide me with many of the books that were being removed from circulation. Before constructing Knowledge Base, I analyzed 124 of these books to see what subjects were represented and glean some other trivial information about them.

These texts are a representative sample of what university library collections in the social and physical sciences are like: various formats, some titles in foreign languages, and broadly categorizable into three sizes.

Small (6×9in)

With a collection of titles secured, I scoured Northeastern’s campus for sites that would catalyze the organic reaction I wanted.

My routine as an architecture student only takes me to certain sites on campus – studio, the art building, the student center, the library. I wanted a site that I was unlikely to visit, and thus a site where I could display this ‘forgotten’ knowledge to students who were also unlikely to encounter it.

In the middle of this so-called “antiarchitecture student” zone of campus, I found a site I call the Skybridge. It is characterized by a very interesting spatial layout: the only 45 degree angle I can find on campus, forcing people to squeeze into a narrow ravine of sorts between two tall buildings, spanned by a narrow walkway.

The Architecture Student’s Routine

The Anti-Architecture Student’s Routine

The Skybridge is the only outdoor area of campus where students walk over other students. Below the bridge is an exit from the Northeastern tunnel network, which creates an interesting feeling of suspension as you cross over the sudden chasm below you.

A side effect of the Skybridge site is that the lighting effects are highly directional. During the day, the southern sun casts north-facing shadows. At night, security lighting on the exterior of Mugar Hall casts west-facing ones.

This helps Knowledge Base take on two personalities. Encounters during the day could be quite different than those during the night, enhanced by the geometric projections created by the openings between books.

I experimented with stacking these books in different ways. I was inspired by Japanese art forms - the geometric appearance of origami and the structural elements of medieval craft joinery. I landed on this triangular formation where book covers could be interlocked in a highly structured manner without adhesive, leaning into the goal of minimizing additional waste.

As I extended the section of lattice that I had made, I thought about the formal possibilities of that structure. Could it curve or bend? What axis would it be viewable from, and what axis would it expand along?

I began experimenting with chipboard cutouts representing around 150 books to see what could be done with this form. It turns out that really interesting forms can be created through the flexibility of the book and the tolerances inherent to the process.

I created this mockup that could sit on a base and be pulled taut to do a sit-up. If I flexed the wall of covers the other way, it would stand up and arc over the bridge while being pulled tight by the cable, creating a sort of open-ended form I nicknamed the ‘beanstalk’.

But when I torture-tested the prototype in a worst-case wind condition, the interface didn’t hold up. The grooves I had anticipated books to sit in were too shallow, and the torsional rigidity of the prototype too low.

So instead I planned for Knowledge Base to be presented indoors, without wind loads, and with a heftier cage to support the lowest rows of books. Even then, construction was protracted and at times quite challenging.

Finding increasingly elevated surfaces from which I could work on the higher layers proved difficult. I also discovered that cables tying the arch back in shape had to be carefully tensioned.

The end result was an exhibit where I could convey the experience of walking through Knowledge Base, without the associated dangers of an outdoor installation.

the wild place

A new civic amenity infills the wild landscape near a historic Romanesque church outside Segovia, Spain, encouraging a connection to the rugged nature around it and the historic city that overlooks it.

The 12th-century Iglesias de la Vera Cruz is a key marker on the Madrid branch of the Camino de Santiago as well as the alleged former home of the Knights Templar. Now, it sits alone on the lowlands outside Segovia, perched precariously above a deep ravine inhabited by a combination of wild vegetation and domesticated animals.

We isolated the wood joinery techniques used in an unrelated precedent and multiplied them to create a seamless, fluid bridge that bridges the ravine. Disobeying our precedent’s linear nature allowed us to adapt its original program – athletic facilities for a small university – to a site and context it was not originally designed for. In doing so, we create a new civic amenity and gathering space in an unexpected location and provide a new opportunity to appreciate the history of our site.

Awarded the 2021 Design Excellence Award with Lina Grine, Martin Jitenski, and Nathan Robert at IE University, Segovia, ES

Iglesia de la Vera Cruz

Alcázar de Segovia

1. original linear

2. wall planar

3. volume cubic

diagram: martin jitenski

4. space subtractive

hiking path bridges the ravine sports gym precedent program

seating observation, refection

stairs circulation

A spatial exploration of Boston’s Southwest Corridor informs plans to suture the areas it divides.

This urban design project evaluates the legacy of the Southwest Corridor, a remnant of the highway-driven urban expansion of the 1960s. The lack of a formal identity for the corridor manifests itself in the secondary nature of the recreational space around the corridor and the lack of a prominent landmark or focal point. Miles of city blocks are ruptured by a void, depriving residents of a meaningful urban space in favor of a selection of interrupted directrices. Conceiving a landmark feature for the corridor and bridging its urban crevasse promises to spatially organize this underserved part of the city.

The urban plan and key structures establish a new formal identity, responding to the adoption of neoclassical and Brutalist idioms for other public spaces in Boston. An open-span pavilion with flexible program extends the ground plane both visually and syntactically. A complimentary structure provides a permanent home for the local African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program (AAMARP), a Black artists’ collective displaced from their existing home in Jamaica Plain. This main site is augmented with a supporting network of redesigned subway stations and a program to streamline wayfinding along the corridor.

Altogether, the complex creates a new civic and artistic landmark to empower and organize the surrounding neighborhoods.

Awarded the 2021 Third-Year Studio Design Award Presented at the 2021 Northeastern Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Exposition as “Collective Geographies: Designing for Roxbury’s Past, Present, and Future”

“We can analyze the corridor as a collection of topographical and geographical features [...] ese gurative obstacles make the corridor unforgiving territory, and demonstrate why the experience of navigating it needs improvement [...]

where a path goes over an obstacle or spatial gap

where the urban landscape comprises vertical visual mass

where a misleading form draws one away from public space

where an honest form invites people to stay and interact

where nodes of activity are created by intersecting routes

where an intended route of travel is unrealized

where the main route through the urban landscape leads

where subsidiary routes allow navigation around a space

where a constructed obstacle keeps one away from a space

[...] the transition zone is between the physically larger institutional structures characterizing the upper half of the corridor and the smaller, less organized housing of the lower half. is site near Jackson Square is imbued with symbolic signi cance, as it spans the border between these two halves and completes the sequence of green spaces nearby (sequence in white arrow, right).

“Pathfinding” 1.

Goals of this stage:

– New and consistent signage and lighting to create a uni ed identity for the Southwest Corridor

– Bridge “so boundaries” (cf. Urban Taxonomy) and establish a recognizable path through the landscape

– Resolves uncertainties about route designation (see inset, with multiple adjacent sidewalks)

– Preview end goals of the project for community by executing small-scale, minimally disruptive activation of the site

SSW facing, towards Jackson Square

– New and consistent signage and lighting to create a uni ed and estab-

– Resolves uncertainties about route designation (see inset,

– Preview end goals of the project for community by executing small-scale, minimally disruptive activation of the site

Goals of this stage:

– Construction of dual pavilions at Columbus Ave and Center Street (see inset) with new architectural styling

– Realize cultural and pedagogical importance of the project through public programming and displays

– Create more active involvement with the initiative through engaging and staging artistic groups

– Establish base for staging Phase 3 in signi cant but unintrusive manner

Street Sections

NNE facing, towards Roxbury Crossing

– Construction of dual pavilions at Columbus Ave and Cen-

– Realize cultural and pedagogical importance of the project

– Create more active involvement with the initiative through

– Establish base for staging Phase 3 in signi cant but unin-

Goals of this stage:

– Conclude lateral & longitudinal mapping of urban topography through more deep-seated changes to landscape

– Extend identity formation to Orange Line through new station headhouse design

– Unify two sides of the corridor through directional entrances and work from local artists

– Encourage urban exploration through signage highlighting neighborhood attractions and POIs

[...] by o ering itself as a new architectural direction while providing a sorely-needed continuity of program and experience, this project aims to break the tautological association between the corridor and the community in favor of a more self-de ned legacy.

Addressing the lack of a permanent Boston Public Library branch serving the city’s Chinatown, this project proposes a scheme that integrates site, structure, and situational experience.

The building’s assembly of three large volumes intersecting at a central core allows for each to project over the site, creating a visual center of gravity along the axis projecting from the nearby Chinatown gate. The open interior interrogates the relationship between served and service, foregrounding the presence of offices and other secondary spaces by prominently suspending them above the primary floors. Finally, the integration of the building on the site invites passers-by to experience the civic programming at the ground level, positing that space as an extension of the environment, and to follow the sloping lawn down to a below-ground gallery.

Conference rooms 3x

5 4

Lecture hall

Children’s section

Teen section

Meeting rooms 6x

Main stacks

Carrels & tables

Periodicals

Alternate media

Front desk & holds

3 2 1

Inside, each volume anchors a unique point in the spectrum of library facilities: periodicals and digital materials are arranged in the lowest volume, facilitating short interactions, while the children’s section is nestled within the highest volume, providing privacy for longer visits and younger patrons. While these primary oors (at le , blue) are linked by a prominent series of escalators, the secondary spaces (red) are only accessible through the elevators, reinforcing the hierarchy of space.

Apertures are de ned not as discrete units, but as a continuous band of negative space embedded within the otherwise opaque façade (above), tracking the circulation of patrons within. is framing is mimetic of the way in which the existing structure constructs the viewer’s image of Chinatown (opposite).

View from existing structure

Initial sketch

First massing model

Final model

The design of this conjoined double residence builds on a prior project, focusing on the process of adapting a self-contained concept to a specific context.

The final scheme emphasizes the contouring of the site topography through the breaking of the residence’s constituent parts into volumes staggered against the hillside. Aperture placement creates alternating areas of transparency and opacity, entering the architecture into a dialogue with its environment and inviting involved interaction with its form on the part of the viewer.

Interior spaces reflect the coordination of the aperture strategy, with common spaces situated in areas of phenomenal transparency, with private spaces in opposing, visually opaque ones. Those private spaces are located at the far end of each wing, while the adjacent common spaces are connected by a staircase whose presence demarcates the separation between the units. The overall effect is one that juxtaposes private and public space and clearly organizes spaces for each.

Awarded the 2019 First-Year Studio Design Award

Double House House 2 Plan Scale 1/8” = 1’0” Plan cut at elevation 18’0”

The precursor to the duplex project, this exercise emphasizes the duality of unified and divided space through a plan that separates private and shared functions but links them through a continuous circulation path. The spatial center of each half is a core containing the service functions for that half. Aperture construction reflects nodes and paths of activity.

Over time, the massing evolved to be more lithe yet more bonded to the land. The entry sequence mediates structure and environment through the second house’s raised profile, foregrounding an awareness of the landscape.

infra-structures

Responding to the social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, I organized a team to launch Northeastern Architecture’s first-ever undergraduate publication.

One often overlooked consequence of the pandemic was the loss of spontaneous in-studio interactions that architecture students used to take for granted. Few architecture schools emphasize the open, egalitarian nature of studio, and fewer yet encourage the mixing and mingling that is such a hallmark of Northeastern’s. Infra-Structures is a tangible, lasting presentation of student work that extends this ethos beyond the walls of our studio. The inaugural Spring 2021 issue, organized around the concept of ‘Responses’, addresses topics ranging from the School of Architecture’s new racial justice professorship to the impact of COVID on public engagement with city planning. Infra-Structures therefore examines the boundary between the theory and practice of architecture and promotes a healthier relationship between the School of Architecture and the community that it prepares students to effect change upon.

Underwritten by funding from the Northeastern CAMD Student Grants, Northeastern URF PEAK Experiences Award, and the Northeastern School of Architecture

Awarded the 2021 Douglas Haskell Grant for Student Journals from the AIA New York Center for Architecture

Editorial staff, 2021-2022: Jake Okrent, Nina Spellman (copy editors) Marie Davis, Olivia Ouellette (design editors)

mentors

Amanda Reeser Lawrence, Ang Li details

Softcover journal, 84 pp.

the housing it creates is only accessible to and benefting a very small percentage of Boston’s population?

The impact of Covid-19 is also important to consider. In many ways, the pandemic has the potential to change the course of Boston’s development. For the past year, Boston residents have been moving out of the city into the suburbs. Realtor Marie Presti claims it could take six months to sell all the properties currently listed in Boston. In the suburbs, it’s less than three months.14 Jon Dalzell of Isaac’s Moving and Storage says their company is seeing an uptick of people, mainly young professionals, moving to the suburbs, where working from home is more comfortable and spacious. While residents are looking for more space, many companies are realizing they need less space. Boston-based tech company Brightcove, located at 290 Congress Street, is the latest company downsizing, cutting its offce space in half as its employees continue to work remotely.15 Will the pandemic contribute to keeping Boston from growing taller? It’s possible that the decreased demand for downtown living and working space could lessen the need and desire to build taller in the future.

Interview by Sterling Yun

In the summer of 2020, American architectural education faced a reckoning, catalyzed by the broader public discourse on racism and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors caused many architecture schools to reevaluate their pedagogical approaches and shortcomings in their teachings of design and history. At Northeastern’s School of Architecture, the administration developed plans for a new tenure-track Assistant Professorship of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment.

The December 2020 posting began:

“We seek a candidate whose research and teaching examine the ways architecture, urban infrastructure, and/or public space intersect with issues of race, equity, and justice, with a focus on historically marginalized communities that have been underrepresented or understudied in the design or scholarly discourse of the built environment.”

Ahead of the release of the candidate shortlist for this new position, InfraStructures spoke with School of Architecture Director Dan Adams and Professor Sara Carr about the goals of the Assistant Professorship, as well as its context within the greater direction of the School of Architecture curriculum.

Who Selects Boston’s Books?

11

Why So Short?

Beginning with small-scale experiments at home, the students learned how to make bioplastics, working with different recipes and materials, and testing various natural dyes and drying methods. Some created bioplastic versions of household items, like straws and bowls, while others tested ways to scale these small experiments up and create an immersive experience that is fully biodegradable and recyclable. Eventually, the studio came together as a whole and synthesized their ideas into one installation, with three groups working towards the three pieces of the installation. One group was responsible for making the largescale bioplastic sheets, another focused on the multimedia aspects of the installation, making a soundscape and designing the lighting and projections, and the third focused on the design of the exhibition, displaying the work done throughout the semester and creating the overall layout. The fnal product isn t a solution, but rather the beginning of a new way of thinking about sustainability and circularity in architecture, and a challenging of the accepted ways of making that are no longer sustainable.

80 INFRA-STRUCTURES Spring 2022

79

The Last Ones Standing

The Search for ‘Modern China’

was born out of his mission to advance a Chinese architectural renaissance, which he elaborated in “An

Above Murphy’s unrealized scheme for Nanking, June 1929.

INFRASTRUCTURES.

by Molly Gagnon

by Marie Davis

by Sterling Yun

chinatown: community as colonial construct

By creating a community defined by yet sheltered from the white gaze, single-roomoccupancy hotels provided a way for Chinese immigrants to counteract the forces of whitecentered American urban planning.

As the maintenance of whiteness became a priority in the process of American municipal planning, Chinese workers had to turn inwards to create spaces of escape from the colonial gaze. SROs allowed for the density of residence needed to achieve social interactions befitting a community, while externalizing everyday activities to the Chinatowns they were situated in, creating a self-sustaining system that allowed Chinatowns to unify and thrive. Moreover, by modifying their programs to the needs of Chinese and later Japanese immigrants, SROs functioned as a reclaimed typology: a structure invented by white people, yet adopted by Asian immigrants and adapted to the specificities of our cultures. Though their role in the sociopolitical life of Chinatowns has declined in recent decades, an understanding of their historic importance is a prerequisite to understanding and influencing contemporary discussions on urban planning policy around these neighborhoods.

advisor Peter Minosh

details Research paper, 15 pages. 2022/12

Hing Hay Park and the historic Bush Hotel, Seattle, July 2019

Behind the conception of a Modernist architectural ideology lay the desire to identify and create architectural order. [...] But underneath the umbrella term of Modernism lay different approaches to understanding order as it applies to architecture.

[...] Le Corbusier sees order as the content of architecture, its raison d’etre; the goal of architecture is to order space. [...] it positions content as a prerequisite to form. In a computational sense, one must have a result – a scheme – in mind, and adjust it to fit the parameters one chooses to use. In contrast to this, Mies sees order as form – the rationalized, diagrammed, visible representation of a building’s substantive content, or program. The immediate consequence of this is that, in contrast to Corbusier’s formulation, form precedes content: it dictates both the presentation of that content and the substance of the content itself.

If, as Le Corbusier suggests, “an epoch creates its own architecture”, then the schism between these two visions propels an underlying spirit for Modernist creativity: the conceptual quest for a singular definition of the Modern moment.

advisor Amanda Reeser Lawrence details Research paper, 12 pages. 2020/04

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Le Corbusier), February 2019

I argue that new governmental incentives are necessary to promote high-density transitoriented development (TOD) within the urban areas of Tokyo, rather than outside of them [...]

Tokyo cannot afford to maintain its current state of decentralization. Rail stations make for an obvious, and empirically proven, set of nodes around which to increase housing density and thus reduce commute times. The implementation of greater positive incentives for transit-oriented development along key nodes would [...] directly lead to shorter commutes with less crowding in suburban transition zones. Additionally, spillover effects could be expected to materialize, including measurable physical health outcomes and economic benefits. Thus, the increased incentivization of dense transit-oriented development proposed here would put Tokyo on a more sustainable path of urban development [...]

advisor Thomas Vicino details Research paper, 10 pages. 2019/06

mapping regent st.

Morphology is a key component of urban planning and design. This map of London’s Regent Street and surroundings compares different data sources’ perceptions of ‘importance’. Using lists based on historical, cultural, and touristic value allows readers to see how and where those three variables intersect in a key district of a world city.

the spanish dispatch

Spending the Fall 2021 semester on exchange in Spain provided a unique opportunity to study the cultural and architectural heritage of its cities.

In the following sketches from Barcelona, Sevilla, and Granada, I isolate points of aesthetic and formal interest in an attempt to better understand the Spanish heritage of planning and design. In Barcelona, I paid special attention to its history of negotiating density and urban life, while in Seville and Granada I focused on Islamic approaches to decoration and spatial organization.

advisor Romina Marta Canna, David Goodman details Ink on paper, 2021/10 and 2021/11

Granada, November 2021

Franconia Ridge, October 2022

Kyoto, May 2019

Barcelona, October 2021

Sterling Yun

Portfolio rev. 01/23

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Mercado typeface by Ashley Tseng - thanks!