Tuo Chen University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design SPECULATIVE REALISM / PRACTICE / DICHOTOMIES / CONTRADICTION / HYBRIDIZATION / METASPACE / PREFABRICATION / MODULAR / METABOLISM / PUBLIC COMMONS / FRAMING / LIGHT / SPATIAL EXPERIENCE/ GRID / LAYERING / SUBNATURE / SYNTHETIC NATURE / URBAN FARMING / ATMOSPHERE / COLLABORATION / PRECISION / RIGOR / VIBRANCY / EFFICIENCY/ BIM / IPD
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TuoEd.com
Education University of Pennsylvania Master of Architecture Certificate in Integrated Product Design University of Toronto Honour Bachelor of Art Architecture Design + History, Theory & Criticism
Work Experience SoBA Pickard Chilton Shanghai Tianhua Architecture David Chipperfield Architects Isozaki + Huqian Partners
Awards Three Year PennDesign Merit Scholarship 2020 Schenck-Woodman Award -HM Meyerson Hall Basement Competition - HM Suzhou Cangyuan International Competition - 2nd Place
Press Pressing Matters 9, 10, 11 PennDesign Year-End Show Exhibition
CONTENTS Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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ICONOCLASH - Infrastructure & Monument
Air Stoop
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Embedding Public Common Space Into Modular High-Rise Apartment
Invasiveness
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Matter Out of Place - A Food Center in Lower Manhattan
Hide & Seek in Frames
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New Brutalism in Framing - Museum Archive Extension
Sprouting Castle Ruins
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Tree Housing Module
Professional Works
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David Chipperfield Architects - West Bund Art Museum Shanghai Pickard Chilton - Sherwin-Williams Global Headquarter in Cleveland SoBA - Suzhou Cangyuan International Competition
Photography
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Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge ICONOCLASH - Infrastructure & Monument Design Studio V Instructor Ferda Kolatan Collaborator Hongbang Chen Video https://youtu.be/Dr5zngZn0yc
Manhattan Bridge. Landing with arch and colonnades (photo ~1915).
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Hybridization - Context Input
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Follies at Stourhead Gardens A folly serves as a garden focal point or eye-catcher, drawing attention to a desired view and encouraging visitors to explore Top view of two follies on Manhattan Bridge
The project is about providing a new type of 21st-century garden with follies on Manhattan Bridge. We choose garden with follies as our program because there are clashes between the fictional and the real, the historical and the contemporary, the natural and the cultural, already embedded in these two 20th century follies themselves. Today, the existence of these two past-monumental structures creates problems and contradictions to the site which no longer values their monumentality. The design intention is to turn the confrontation of these two icons into a contemporary garden, allowing visitors to wander among the nontraditional and unusual nature, colliding with the urban background.
Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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Axonometric chunk of the design Satellite photo of the existing site The follies are two iconic elements, the arch and the colonnade that once celebrated the spectacle of infrastructure in the early 20th century and the remnant concrete highway piece of the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX).
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The Arch and Colonnade Folly is intimate, lush, intricate, and tranquil. In contrast, the Highway Folly is bold and grand in a contemporary way that almost touches but still stands a distance from its neighbor. Visitors first drift into an enclosed dark and mossy planting space underneath the highway surface after they leave the first folly.
Top view of two follies on Manhattan Bridge (continued) An inside view of Folly I The spatial experience of the arch and colonnade folly is
Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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Inside the highway folly A dark garden experience brings a novel mix of nature and technological atmosphere to visitors Elevation of the highway folly
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A chunk of arch and colonnade folly The folly now can be seen as a planter for the garden Interior Render The old and the new meet inside the folly
Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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Car View under the folly Gap View from Folly I Folly I The backside of the folly is accessible through the new integrated arch for the public to enter the second folly.
The gap between these two follies is intented to be tensional. The end of the folly evokes a sense of questioning to its visitors, questioning the relationships between the bridge and the arch, the infrastructure, and the ornament, the precious and the mundane. The hybridized architecture flips the coin of the typical definition of these dichotomies through its spatial and formal powers to proclaim new contemporary aesthetics and culture.
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Views on both sides of the gap From the first render, you can almost see the Manhattan bridge in the background being intriguing to explore. An elevation of the garden On the right, the sectional elevation explains how the follies are related to different ground levels in Chinatown.
Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts. - Wallace Stegner
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Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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In a time when many of our societal values are being examined, challenged, and reordered, questions concerning the meaning of architecture, both as a material artifact and a representational device, become especially pressing. All architecture, no matter how utilitarian, communicate larger ideas through matter.
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Two Follies In The Garden Of Manhattan Bridge
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The city is a historical archive where these ideas collect over time and manifest themselves in built form. But as time passes the representational meaning of buildings diminish, change, even reverse, putting them at odds with contemporary needs and desires. This conflict caused by the monumental, iconic quality of buildings is evident in the wild clashes of styles and types in cities but also implicit in the ways we relate to our built environment, how we participate in it, and if we feel inspired or rejected by its architecture.
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Air Stoop Embedding Public Common Space Into Modular High-Rise Apartment Design Studio III Instructor Scott Erdy Video https://youtu.be/7jzW19uhgck
West Park Tower in West Philadelphia
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In Jane Jacobs’s book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she includes the stoop as part of her model of the self-regulating urban street. Here, the key problem with the existing high-rise building is that there is no intermediate space for social interaction as other street-level housing typologies can provide such as the front porch and a stoop space. Typical high-rise spaces are condensed and spatially monotonous that people just want to get into their private space or to get out of the building as soon as possible. You cannot feel the street vibe in this building. My aim is to bring back the idea of stoop from the street level as a social device for the high-rise apartment and a continuous stoop space will become the public common space as a strong vertical and horizontal bond to provide a dynamic street vibe for everyone.
Stoop as social device in American cities A stoop is a small staircase ending in a platform and leading to the entrance of an apartment building. Physical model - single occupant dwelling design My interest is not necessarily the inside of the space but how the outside of the unit interacts with the people and surrounded environment.
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Derivation from one unit to one cluster Spatial strategical diagrams The stoop-unit arrangement highlighted on the existing plan- half of the building being transformed into new units shown in yellow. The diagrammatic section shows how these pockets are distributed in the high-rise. Construction process & Common Space allocation Only half of the building will be transformed into public common
Air Stoop
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The strategy will give a continuous stratified street across all levels so that all the existing and newly added units on each floor can have the access to their common stoop space within the street. The arrows are pointing to the access of the yellow public common space from each existing corridors on each level. The existing corridors are shown in orange in diagrams at bottom left. And the two egress stairs are remained. And then the new intervention will be added to the existing corridors to connect each floor.
Transverse Section The gray areas are units and white is public spaces. The roof is open to public and is a continue stoop language from the bottom. Facade closeup of one cluster It shows one cluster of two new units reflecting the design intension of the facade to deal with the relationship for the parts and the whole.
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Aggregated facade render Illustrating the unit part-to-whole relationship Units Section On the left, the outside of the cluster of units becomes the public common stoops Interior shot From semi-private to the public common
The building sections illustrated how units are aggregated not only for themselves but also for the existing units. It is a win-win design that the old and the new units are benefiting from each other. On the right, you will have this great semi-private space where you can enjoy the publicity and sunlight immediately when you enter and leave your home. People who live here can choose to enjoy their private time and sunlight but also go outside of the glass box to walk around the public common space and also seeing public gatherings from an upper level.
Air Stoop
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Transverse Section Half of the building will be redesigned to serve the whole. You can see how the continuous stoop spaces can serve both old and existing units for the whole community in the air.
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Floor Plan F08 Floor Plan F06
1 Public Common Area 2 New 1BR 3 New 2BR Duplex
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4 Existing 1BR 5 Existing 2BR 6 Existing 3BR 7 Legal Aid
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The design takes advantage of the existing shafts for the MEP stuff so that public common spaces under the new units won’t be occupied by a full of huge columns. Meanwhile, the unit aggregation forms a sequence of public common platforms and stoops to allow the existing units to take a breath from the old condensed corridor. When the units aggregated, it creates the sense of fluid transition between each unit. And the clusters started to function as a small community.
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Air Stoop
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Entrance Render The continuous stoop shows a welcoming gesture and a visual implication of what kind of vertical spaces beyond ground for the public to explore Street view Site Plan
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Public Common Space Here is the moment when you entered the public common space and turned to the upper levels. On the left is a shop facing to the gatherings. People use the space to hang out like they are on the street. Here, you can meet your neighbors from other parts of the building and get to know each other.
Air Stoop
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Invasiveness Matter Out of Place - A Food Center in Lower Manhattan Design Studio IV Instructor Nate Hume Collaborator Hongbang Chen
Food & Farming Waste does not have any fundamental physical quality. Instead, it is a social category that we assign to specific types of social relations. In the book Purity and Danger, Douglas asserts that things, people and practices become dirty when they are “matter out of place,” So here, architectural spaces, elements, and materials that interlock and invade each other are matter out of places. These moments are when architectural invasiveness happened. Subnatural Aesthetics in Architecture Invasiveness tests the idea of how nature and urban invading with each can bring new aesthetics and new spatial experience to the building. And also discovering the relationship between city and nature in Manhattan.
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Drawing Reconfiguration The two drawings are the reconfiguration of ancient plan drawings. The old heavy-poached plan drawings is treated not as the study of program organizations but more as spatial devices to reconsider the relationship between the inside and the outside. Khan’s ancient building drawings Material study
“No form of life is inherently subnatural; rather, relative to architecture, life becomes subnatural when it makes us question the dominant social role of architecture.” - “Subnature” by David Gissen
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Herb Lab Food Waste Fermentation & Drying Space
Auditorium
Food Waste Dryer
Screening & Filtering
Conveyor Carrier
Mill Roller Herb Garden Walkway
Herb Hydroponic
Herb Garden Walkway
Atrium
Conveyor Carrier
Entrance & Lobby
Storage & Packing
Transverse section It derives from the concept drawing illustrating an assembly of spatial components interlocking
Invasiveness
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GFRC Panels (Grid) Channel Glass
GFRC Panels (Vertical Lines) Rusted Metal Panels (Golden)
Sunken Pocket Garden
Front elevation Testing the mixed materials reflecting the concept Physical model of the facade Different materials are laminated for achieve the aesthetics and design goal
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Roof I-Beam Skylight/ Ventilation Window Drainage Pipe Drips as Gardening Pockets
Herb Cultivation Area
Operable Window Hydroponic Tank Thickened Slab & Beam
Atrium Glass Wall Farming Robotic Arm Thin Soil Containing Wall
Steel Column Coumpoud Wall with Soil & Panels
Public Herb Garden Pre-cast Curved Concrete Wall Drainage & MEP Pipes
Invasiveness
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Top floor plan The moments when the inside meeting the outside and the people space meeting the mechanical spaces are when architecture and its invasiveness happened. From the plan drawing, these parts and figures have the tension or tendency to penetrate and interlock with each other. Space in-between now becomes a hollow gap and hallway where it acts as the mediator between spaces.
Invasiveness
1 Semi-outdoor public space
5 Walkway to urban platform
2 Meeting and co-working area
6 Food waste process space
3 Fertilizer and plan testing lab
7 Informal meeting area
4 Auditorium (lower level)
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Closeups of physical model of the top spaces The project redefines the public definition of usual and unusual programs. We reverse the warehouse and production line into a public peek and gathering place. Interior renders The fertilizer production line meets the herb garden The atrium Spatial interlocking happens here..
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Invasiveness
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A chunk for interlocked program (left top) Roof & wall details (left) For the building structure, a concrete core with steel frames and composite slabs supports the overhanging spaces on the top. Pre-cast colored GFRC and metal panels for mixed exterior finishes are used. Terra Cotta and tiles are mainly used for the interior spaces for garden and fertilizer’s humidity consideration. The cladding details show the how GFRC panels and laminated insulated jade glass are attached to the concrete and steel structure. Also some ways of planting on the green walls beneath the skylights are also demonstrated here. We designed the roof like shown image to facilitate the ventilation and also rain water collection for adaptive re-uses. Physical model The physical model reveals some of the inside spaces and also exposes structure skeleton from the similar angle.
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Invasiveness
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Air Gap Connection Metal Plate GFRC Panels Herbs Clip and Connection Bracket Farming Robotic Arm Horizontal Track System 10’ Span Concrete Block Robotic Arm Track Light Soil Container 24’’ Vertical Curved I Beam Rusted Metal Panels (Golden) Horizontal Suspended Steel Tubes R30 Rigid Insulation
Wall Section Main street elevation Cavities penetrating into the building as the public area
An urban facade/enclosure should not only imply the intention of the internal programs but also react to its contexts through its formal manifestation and material use – that can lead to a sense of phenomenal transparency. So our design of the enclosure challenges the urban context and the building typologies. Like here, figural cavities are punched into the massing as public accessible pockets for programs such as herb garden and exhibition spaces. These open cavity spaces are also acting as urban billboard facing to the main street. – Delancey st. you can see different interconnected activities happened along the cavities from the street level.
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Invasiveness
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Interior render Exhibition hallway showing a visual and spatial interlocking between skylight, the fermentation space and the auditorium space
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Hide & Seek in Frames Museum Archive Extension: A new understanding of framing under the “New Brutalism” Design Studio I Instructor Emmett Zeifman
Figure Ground Addition to the museum cluster with two different courtyards
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Curious Container Design tests the idea of the hidden artifact behind dense frames and how they are reacting with each other to raise the curiosity
Curious Cabinet Project “Rough Framing” - the first design-built exercise to incorporate individual’s interests into a team project.
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Hiding behind the dense frames from street view Choisy Drawing
The initial inspiration comes from the play of “Hide and Seek”. When people are curious to know something, they actively wonder and act to find things out. Museum archive as a building typology is the space for human curiosity. People come to seek for information 1and emotion finally leads to body motion. Thus, the idea of layering the frameworks is to slightly hide the artifacts in a way that it stimulates and enhances people’s curiosity at each moment of experiencing the space.
Hide & Seek in Frames
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Elevation 58’ Elevation 30’ Elevation 14’ Ground 0’
30°
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Hide & Seek in Frames
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Ground Floor Plan
The shapes and the layout of the columns are designed to be a hook device to not only raise people’s curiosity but also lead them to seek the hidden moments in the building. Specifically, the outer layer uses the repetitive slender columns to create a sensual moment of solid facade from the street perspectives and the inner triangular columns generate the diagonal viewpoints to make people turn and move. In order to accommodate the different floor heights of the two wings and the grids, there are some hidden
Hide & Seek in Frames
mezzanine floors and hidden rooms that need visitors to explore. The outer columns can be regarded as a modern extension of the original museum facade across the three faces. And the grid of the columns originates from the grid of the old museum. In addition, the T shape of the figure ground (the footprint) forms two different courtyards serving different functions. The left courtyard is intended to be more private and calm since the offices and administrations of the original programs were set to the left wing.
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A chunk of physical model Showing the main entrance proportion A closeup Between the extension and Penn Museum from the courtyard perspective Overall view of the model
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Hide & Seek in Frames
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Typical floor plan (left top) Study models of the spatial experience (loft bottom) Condensed narrow frames allows light to come through the exhibition corridor. Exhibition Corridor Standing parallel to frames gives visitors a half-solid wall for exploration of artifacts concealed in the gaps.
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Exhibition Corridor Auditorium Space Section
Hide & Seek in Frames
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Exhibition Corridor Facing the frames allow visitors to seek hidden artifacts and surprising spaces through gaps between the frame.
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Sprouting Castle Ruins Tree Housing Module Young Architects Competition 2020 Collaborator Hongbang Chen, Yushan Jiang, Tingdong Xiong
Photos of existing French Castle Ruins The Tree House Module is the projection of a desire for adventure, a spurt of creativity, reconciliation with nature. It is the media between built environment and the nature.
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Concept diagram & sketch Interior render from bathroom Design resonates the concept of eccentric circle
The design is comprised of half arches as the main structure to support an enclosed cylinder volume with the eccentric circle shape for its plan. The half-arch idea not merely resonate the unique formal features of medieval castles but also defines the space under the tree house module for various outdoor activities. Additionally, the crack is generated by the process of shifting the center of the circle in plan brings the geometry a tendency of growing and also evokes an image of the castle ruins.
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Interior renders Section Wrapping around the trunk, Module 1 provides a relatively playful interior space; whereas the structurallyindependent module 2 brings guests more immersive and tranquil spatial experience. The duo of the tree house module will be permutated and combined to generate a vibrant living community (hospitality). With comfortable living services and wild experience, the newly-growing tourist attraction will be vitalized significantly.
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Detailed chunk A Vibrant Tree House Community
Module 1 builds on the tree to embrace nature intimately. Guests will enter into this module though the guiding bridge that specifically designed in each site. Through shifting different circles the plan provide delicate living experience. One of the most open-viewing window brings a gorgeous natural landscape into the living area. It also poses a gentle welcoming to the guest from different places. Module 2 is elevating the occupants from the ground to provide an immersive and tranquil spatial experience. Guests will access the module 2 tree house via the spiral staircase from the ground. This module also follows the idea of shifting different off-center circles to create several living spaces. These unique planning strategies will create spaces that overlap and juxtapose with one and another. Overall, this module provides a comfortable shelter for meditation and self-reflection.
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Interior render Plan The interior and the plan reflects the idea of exploration and curiosity through its circular spatial quality. Exterior render
Sprouting Castle Ruins
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Professional Work: David Chipperfield Architects West Bund Art Museum Shanghai Project Leader Sir David Chipperfield, Libin Chen Diana Schaffrannek, Qianqian Zhang Phase Construction Supervision & Interior Design Information https://www.archdaily.com/928305/west-bund-museum-david-chipperfield-architects
Main Street Elevation Cavities penetrating into the building as the public area
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Metal Frame 金属框架 Metal Frame 金属框架 Metal Frame 金属框架
Lighting Track 灯轨 Lighting Track 灯轨 Lighting Track 灯轨
70% Metal Mesh 70% 金属拉伸网 70% Metal Mesh 70% 金属拉伸网 70% Metal Mesh 70% 金属拉伸网
Balustrade detail 扶手节点 Balustrade detail 扶手节点
Ceiling detail 天花节点
Metal Panel 金属板
Ceiling detail 天花节点
Frosted Glass 磨砂玻璃
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Grey Metal Frame 灰色金属扶手框
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Louver Panel 百叶板 Grey Plaster 灰色粉刷+涂料
Construction site photo
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Lobby atrium photo Ceiling detail Balustrade detail Interior elevation
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Ceiling photo from construction site Ceiling mesh details & hanging track system Ceiling render
Ceiling frame as secondary hanging system 天花结构作为辅助悬挂系统 Ceiling frame as secondary hanging system Ceiling frame as secondary hanging system天花结构作为辅助悬挂系统 天花结构作为辅助悬挂系统 Professional Work: David Chipperfield Architects
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Exhibition Hall 4 展厅4
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Photo of exhibition space showing artists using the ceiling system Ceiling layout & hanging track system diagram Service Lighting 服务光源
70% Metal Mesh 70% 金属拉伸网
Render of exhibition space
Exhibition Hall 4 展厅4天花示意图 Service Lighting 服务光源
70% Metal Mesh 70% 金属拉伸网
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Professional Work: Pickard Chilton Sherwin-Williams Global Headquarters in Cleveland Project Leader William Chilton David Brown, Nancy Clayton, Michael Hensley Phase Schematic Design Information https://corporate.sherwin-williams.com/content/sherwin/corp/corp-aem-sherwin/us/ en/media-center/building-our-future/building-our-future-news---updates/headquarters.html
Exterior Render Pavilion and Tower facing towards Public Square in Cleveland Downtown
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PLANS
Level 1 Plan - Pavilion and Tower
TOWER PLANS
Level 2 - Tower and Pavilion
BUILDING OUR FUTURE
14 September 2021
City of Cleveland Design Presentation
16 PROPERTY OF THE SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY | Page 31
Axonometric drawing Efficiently graphic standards are directly from Revit setups F01 F02 floor plan BUILDING OUR FUTURE
14 September 2021
City of Cleveland Design Presentation
17 PROPERTY OF THE SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY | Page 49
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Lighting design Intentionally to let “gap to gap” emphasizes the idea of extracting the real lobby and podium out as a separate pavilion.
Professional Work: Pickard Chilton
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CONTEXT MODEL
om the South
FUTURE
The back entrance of the pavilion Model shot of Cleveland’s skyline 14 September 2021
City of Cleveland Design Presentation
38 PROPERTY OF THE SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY | Page 77
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Professional Work: SoBA Suzhou Cangyuan International Competition Project Leader Ruo Wang Team Chuanzhang Li, Haiyin Tang, Zhexuan Liao, Zihao Chen Phase Competition - Second Place Contribution Design, Drawings, Diagrams
Aerial view Sitting in the vibrant and compact historical Chinese district in Suzhou, the project aims to provide a contemporary garden respecting the existing fabric of such a ancient city - a public breathing space to gather and enjoy.
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Water as spatial element in traditional Chinese Suzhou garden Diagrams of evolution Exploded axonometric view (right bottom)
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The exhibition center Entrance
Professional Work: SoBA
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Physical model Plans & Elevations
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Photography
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Philadelphia (iPhone 13 Pro) Washington DC (Ricoh GR III) Manhattan (iPhone 13 Pro) NYC Subway (iPhone 13 Pro) Manhattan (iPhone 13 Pro) Barcelona (Canon 6D) Morocco (Canon 6D)
TUO CHEN chentuo@design.upenn.edu (+1) 267-206-6518 TuoEd.com
Khaju Bridge, Isfahan, Iran Digital Sketch