Sungwoo Choi

SUNGWOO CHOI selected projects

2012 - 2014

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SUNGWOO CHOI 11 University Pl. New Haven CT 06511 sungwoo.choi@yale.edu | 1.314.603.4364

curriculum vitae

Education 2012 - 2015 2008 - 2012 2011 2004 - 2008

Yale School of Architecture M.Arch I Washington University in St. Louis B.A. in Architecture Santa Reparata International School of Art Summer Abroad Studio in Florence, Italy Phillips Exeter Academy

Experience 2012 - 2013 2012 2011 - 2012

Designer, Yale Vlock Building Project 2013, Yale School of Architecture designed, and built a 1500 sqft single family residence with YSOA Class of 2015 Assistant, Anoka Faruqee, Yale School of Art created base graphics for paintings using grasshopper and illustrator Teaching Assistant, Stephen Perdue, Washington University in St. Louis teaching assistant for sophomore design studio

Publications & Awards 2014 2013

2013 2013 2012

Retrospecta 2014, Yale School of Architecture published for 2nd year studio project Retrospecta 2013, Yale School of Architecture published for 1st semester studio project published for 2nd semester studio project published for urban design project Year End Show 2013, Yale School of Architecture exhibited for 1st semester studio project NAAB Student Exhibition, Yale School of Architecture exhibited for 1st semester studio project Regenerative Infrastructures: Freshkills Park NYC, Land Art Generator Initiative exhibitied & published for shortlisted entry

Competition 2013 2012 2012 2010

San Franciso Fire Department HQ Competition, ARCHmedium finalist Renewable Energy can be Beautiful, Land Art Generator Initiative 2012 shortlisted Transforming the Bridge, Cleveland Design Competition 2012 Entry Seoul Cycle Design Competition 2010, Seoul Design Foundation & Designboom shortlist

Skills Softwares Languages

Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, V-Ray, Maxwell, Maya, AutoCad, Sketchup, Revit, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Microsoft Office, Lasercutting, 3D Printing, Modelmaking, Visualization English(fluent), Korean(fluent), Japanese(conversational)

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table of contents

PROJECTS

Headquarters for CASIS Yale Building Project 2013 Narrow House Prototype Barcode House Prototype Dance Studio for Street Arts Headquarters for San Francisco Fire Department Installation in Freshkills Park

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Headquarters for CASIS

666 1st Ave. New York, NY ysoa | 1021b Critic: Sunil Bald published in Yale Retrospecta 2014

headquarters for casis

Speculating beyond the potential termination of the International Space Station, my proposal for a new headquarters for casis is a hybrid typology of office, laboratory, and gallery dedicated to research on space. CASIS Headquarters becomes an infrastructure in which various private sectors can occupy as tenants, taking advantage of facility once inaccessible to private sectors. The form is composed of vertical blocks that form the office and gallery and the horizontal blocks that hold the laboratory spaces. While the block retains its programmatic autonomy,

compound surfaces mediate the vertical and horizontal blocks in an unexpected way, forming open shared spaces that encourage collaboration among different entities in the space.

The shared spaces host a large swimming pool and an X-Y-Z cable system that recreate microgravity conditions for simulation experiments. As these facilities become prominent features of the building, the act of research becomes a spectacle for the public as well as the exhibited work in progress.

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headquarters for casis

Facing Page Programs bars interlock and create an open space for collaborative experiments.

Top Relationship diagram between CASIS and other entities

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headquarters for casis

Facing Page, Top Physical model.

Facing Page, Bottom View from park.

Top View from Tudor City.

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Top Ground level plan; lobby, workshop, & gallery Bottom Third level plan; lab, open office, & gallery

headquarters for casis

Top Fifth level Plan; lab, open office, & shared lab Bottom Seventh level Plan; labs, open office, & shared lab 2

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headquarters for casis

Facing Page, Top Physical model; view into shared lab spaces.

Facing Page, Bottom Physical model;filtered daylight illuminates the space.

Top Physical model; the massive pool is a spectacle that also allows the public to view into the research space.

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headquarters for casis

Facing Page Section along shared lab facilities.

Top Section along laboratory bar.

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headquarters for casis

Perspective of the shared lab space.

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headquarters for casis

Perspective looking up to the pool from lobby level.

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Narrow House Prototype

32 Lilac St. New Haven, CT ysoa | 1013c Critics:

Collaborators:

Alan Organschi Joeb Moore Trattie Davies Amy Lelyveld Peter de Brettville Hui Zhen Ng Meghan Lewis Thomas Friddle Hank Mezza

published in Yale Retrospecta 2013

narrow house prototype

A part of the Yale Building Project 2013, the team project was a development based on Michael Cohen’s initial proposal. Designed as a single family house prototype for narrow lots in New Haven, the house takes advantage of the long length to create an open shared space for the ground floor and a series of personal

spaces for the second floor. The rythmically placed bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor create two voids that allow light onto the ground level via skylight during the day.

Utilizing the Nooks as study spaces minimizes space wasted by hallways and maximizes personal spaces.

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narrow house prototype

Facing Page Physical model; two walls join to form the living space Top Initial Concept drawing by Michael Cohen

The initial concept of the house featured a space defined by two characteristic walls: a wet wall that held the mechanical elements of the house and a dry wall that held personal spaces. The developed design took advantage of the idea of two functionally different walls interlocking to create a rhytmically dynamic space that resulted in different spatial qualities on different levels, yet connected through the voids.

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narrow house prototype

Facing Page Physical model; exterior view Top Physical model; the nooks are seen as extensions of the rooms while its double role as the hallway encourages interaction in the space.

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narrow house prototype

Facing Page Ground level plan; Top Second level plan;

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narrow house prototype

Facing Page, Top Section through nooks; Facing Page, Bottom Section through rooms and voids; Top Section through rooms and bathrooms;

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narrow house prototype

Left Perspective; Livingroom daylit from skylights.

Middle Perspective; Looking up into the void; the void is filled with daylight during the day and glows with the bathroom lit up at night.

Right Perspective; the bathroom lights double as nightlight for the hallway.

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Barcode House Prototype

321 Dixwell Ave. New Haven, CT ysoa | 1012b Critics: Trattie Davies published in Yale Retrospecta 2013

barcode house prototype

The barcode house prototype dedicates the long narrow lot to an open living space that connects the front street to the backyard through a series of thresholds. The open first floor is utilized for communal living spaces while the bedrooms are tucked into a compact volume on top, setting the living room as the center of family life. A series of floating walls

that contain different programmatic elements divide the long volume into zones making each area more distinct. The walls also form a gradient, going from more opaque to more transparent towards the backyard, preserving privacy from the front porch while retaining openness from the backyard.

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barcode house prototype

Facing Page Axonometric; Analysis of Case Study House #8 as precedent study Top Axonometric; Concept study of house prototype; series of threshold walls define zones in the living space.

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barcode house prototype

Facing Page, Top Physical model; study models Facing Page, Bottom Physical model; view of model from back yard; the walls become more transparent towards the back of the house.

Top Physical model; massing model in context; the site faces an active traffic area and a quiet woodland in the back.

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Top Second level plan; Middle Ground level plan; Bottom Section through threshold walls;

barcode house prototype

Top Section and physical model; diagram of each wall with varying opacity;

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Dance Studio for Street Arts

439 W 13th St. New York, NY ysoa | 1011a Critics: Joyce Hsiang

dance studio for street arts

As a dance institution dedicated to the celebration of streetdance, a native culture to New York, the project positions itself as an urban infrastructure that connects the high line with the newly developing intersection in the meatpacking district. Imagined as a vault containing the arts of street culture, the entrance to the building is created from the distortion of the mass, facing away from

the street. One could stumble upon into the interior courtyard to find an outdoor theater for New York style street performances and a blackbox theater for more traditional performances. The robust volume is a crack within the city where its culture can find refuge,grow, and preserve its authenticty in its rawest form.

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dance studio for street arts

Facing Page Physical model; study models; Top Physical model; project in context;

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dance studio for street arts

Facing Page Perspective; the entrance is created through the cracks of the mass; Top Perspective; Th e building is meant to be read as an enclosed wall that is lifted on one side. One’s sense of being inside and outside blurs as the steps that lead to the highline can also lead to indoors.

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dance studio for street arts

Left Ground level plan; Middle Second level plan; Right Highline level plan;

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dance studio for street arts

Facing Page Section through varying interior spaces; Top Axonometric; the perimeter of the building is distorted by the shifts in the masses. Th e stair infrastructure slips beneath the walls, blurring the boundary between where building starts and street ends.

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dance studio for street arts

Facing Page Perspective; view looking up, from the perspective of a dancer in midst of a headspin; Top Perspective; view of the dance studio

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Headquarters for San Francisco Fire Department

Pier 30 San Francisco, CA

Archmedium Collaborators: Finalist

Joshua Choi Young-Tack Oh

headquarters for san francisco fire department

Inpired by Chief Dennis Sullivan’s (1893 - 1906) dream to equip San Francisco with a sea water firefighting plant that could have mitigated the disaster in 1906, our memorial celebrates the element of water.

Serving as SFFDHQ, it will ultimately be an addition to San Francisco’s Auxiliary Water

Supply System (AWSS), in tandem wit the city’s fire hydrants and cisterns. Sea water is processed through the fire stationand a central memorial space fi lls up with released desalinated water, allowing a variety of public use beyond firefighting.

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headquarters for san francisco fire department

View of the city from water hardscape.

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headquarters for san francisco fire department

Facing Page Top Ground level plan; Facing Page Bottom Second level plan; Top Diagram; Seawater is pumped up to the roof. Water is distributed along the roof which is installed with tubes for filtration and desalination. A portion of the water feeds directly into a water tank for firefighting. Th e rest drip into a hardscape that retains large amount of water and creates a public space before the water is returned to the ocean.

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headquarters for san francisco fire department

Facing Page Perspective: view of fire engine garage from gallery; Top Section perspective: detail section of water filtration system;

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Installation for Freshkills Park

Freshkills Park Staten Island, NY

Land Art Generator Initiative 2012 Collaborators:

Young-Tack Oh Joshua Choi Taylor Tso Jin-Hwan Choi Betty Liu Bomin Kim JongCheul Park

Technology Credits

Chameleon International Kyosemi Corporation

Shortlist

installation for freshkills park

Sustainable Energy, indeed, can be beautiful.

However, the beauty of a project supericially conceals a vital flaw of sustainable energy - the problem of inefficiency. Currenty technology for sustainable solar energy boasts an efficiency level of 15 - 20%. Th is means that a mere 20% of the total energy from the sun is converted into actual electricty. What happens to the remaining 80%? It is irretrievably “lost,” much of it dissipating as heat, if a panel were 100% efficient, there would be no heat given off.

The theme is “Inefficiency can be Beautiful.”

The project shows that energy is never “lost”; it is only tranformed into unusable forms.

By focusing on heat, we intend to visualize these transformations - our installations will illustrate the beautifully dynamic process of heat generation, affecting the landscape while providing enough electricty to power a small neighborhood.

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installation for freshkills park

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installation for freshkills park

Facing Page Commemorating the fossilized gas caps on site, our panels are distributed along the existing grid of the gas caps.

Top Th e form suggests to uncover a piece of land, and let earth grow over to demonstrat the natural healing processof the ground.

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installation for freshkills park

Facing Page Section of the solar panel module.

Top Cromyx reacts to diff erent temperatures and change colors accordingly.

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installation for freshkills park

Facing Page Perspective in 2012 Top Perspective in 2062

The solar panel’s transformative color changes are representatives of our current inability to use all of the sun’ radiated energy. Instead of converting this energy into eletricity, its usable form, our installations create aesthetic energy in the form of color. Our device thus serves as an artistic unit of measure for inefficiency throught the degree of color change. As the

future of solar technology advances and solar panels become more efficient, the ratio of usable to aesthetic energy will increase, one day, resulting in the complete disappearance of the color effect so that our field of once beautiful heat loss will ironically become colorless usable energy - the definition of efficiency.

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section title

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