sn Sydney Tran Nguyen selected works | 2018-20
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Program: Urban Planning + Mixed - Use Housing
DISSIMULATION: A series of formal investigations of interactive masses that operate between dichotomies of geometry and spatial tectonics.
MASTER SITE PLAN: From object to field studies, the site plan is derived from collaging landscapes that organize walkability lanes and massing clusters as a neighborhood zone.
The Social Network GOOGLE HOUSING CAMPUS /19
Advisor: Dr. Stephen Phillips
Finalist for the Blythe & Thom Mayne “Best Design” Award The Social Network is an experimental city campus that responds to the public and private clients of Google and LA Transitional Housing by reimagining the future of community engagement. This 100 mill. sqft. is organized into 8 neighborhood clusters, where social activity is distributed throughout each object cluster’s public interior. Each neighborhood is distinct in its formal configuration around interstitial voids that serve several communal spaces shaped by light: amphitheaters, atriums, co-working halls, balconies, and framed views to the People’s Park. By intermixing Los Angeles residents through livework placemaking and wayfinding, this campus intends to build trust and social sustainability to the existing community.
SYDNEY TRAN NGUYEN
(510) 599 - 3308 | sydnguyen97@gmail.com | issuu.com/sydneytnguyen
Location: Otay Port of Entry
Program: United States - Mexico Borderwall and Highway
BORDER DREAMS: ”Dreams are both immigrants’ domain and methodology; a way of being and a means of doing. To dream is not just an interactive event emerging when the mind rests and desires speak. Rather, it is an entire mode of being.”
Border Dreams, Digital Surveillance, & Data Landscapes THESIS RESEARCH /20
Advisor: Karen Lange
Recipient of Senior Thesis Award Border Dreams, Digital Surveillance, and Data Landscapes explores the technology-mediated perception of urban surveillance from the U.S. Mexico Border: new ways of seeing, understanding, watching, and experiencing cities and shadows in the information age. Spanning the disciplines of urbanism and data science, this project fosters an antidisciplinary dialogue between the two. What might we learn about the city using computer vision, deep learning, and data science? How might the surveillance and practice of urbanistic gaze inform modern applications of computation for cities? Most importantly, can we ensure that cross disciplines understand the city as it is perceived by im/migrants? The methods produce a mode of analysis balancing a comprehensive perspective at the scale of the city with a focus on the computational glitches, urban informatic systems, and data visualization of digital-surveillance among marginalized voices embedded in cities and borders.
SYDNEY TRAN NGUYEN
(510) 599 - 3308 | sydnguyen97@gmail.com | issuu.com/sydneytnguyen
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Program: Media Arts, Architecture, Technology, Computation
* Top-Left Photo for reference: courtesy of RAS Studio’s Machine Hallucination in NYC
Refik Anadol Studio - Latent Cinema Research RESEARCH INTERN /19
Advisor: Refik Anadol
Latent Cinema is a series of notable dystopian movies that aim to investigate the machinic landscapes and human to computer interactions in future public realms. As a research intern, I learned the power of dreaming and transforming humankind’s future with technology from Refik Anadol and team of designers, and engineers . My main role was collecting and analyzing large datasets for Latent Cinema research on 35+ sci-fi dystopian cities. From creating technical diagrams and presentations, I learned to reimagine future cities with art and science, embedding human stories and finding beauty in this world of data and information.
Computational Design Research RESEARCH ASSISTANT /18-19
Advisors: Dr. Umut Toker & Alvin Huang
Parametricism and digital fabrication are groundbreaking methods for generating design solutions that are critical for its adoption in design industries and education. As a researcher, I assisted Dr. Umut Toker and Alvin Huang investigate and prototype formal objects, facades, installations, and building mock ups. I helped explore generative design processes via Grasshopper scripting and digital fabrication with 3D printing, CNC routing, 3D scanning, microcontrollers and laser cutting.
SYDNEY TRAN NGUYEN
(510) 599 - 3308 | sydnguyen97@gmail.com | issuu.com/sydneytnguyen
Locations: France, Canada, & USA
Program: Arts & Culture, Concert, Mixed-Use Housing Tower
* Top Photos for reference: courtesy of Gehry Partners’ LVMH (right) and King Street Tower Facade (left).
Gehry Partners DESIGN INTERN /18
Advisors: Frank Gehry, David Nam, Igor Kitsen
Frank Gehry reminded me that “the model is the master” and taught me to design with feeling and heart. From schizophrenic sketches to large scale building prototypes, I had the opportunity to learn the process of drawing, model making, sculpture, community, and art curation with him, the partners, and design team. My primary role as a design intern was assisting the team in constructing large scale building prototypes including facade detailing, color, lighting, acoustic, and material finishes during the schematic and concept phases. I worked on several team projects, including the Louis Vuitton Maison LVMH in Paris and King Street Residential Towers in Toronto.
Podular Incubator URBAN FARM & FOOD LAB / 18
Advisor: Thomas Fowler IV
Located in the food desert of Hamtramck, Detroit, MI, Podular Incubator is an urban farm and agricultural food research lab. The form composed of a linear series of irregular pods derived by the genetic variation in crop biodiversity. Spatially, it was inspired and iterated from the interstitial voids and structural modulation of lemons at the micro and macro scale. The individual pods are fully operable business, education, and food research lab incubators through a closed-loop energy system for tree-based planting.
SYDNEY TRAN NGUYEN
(510) 599 - 3308 | sydnguyen97@gmail.com | issuu.com/sydneytnguyen