Shao Vivian Chen
Portfolio
Red Hook Community Center Bogotรก International Convention Center
M.Arch Cornell University B.Sc.(Arch) McGill University
2014
Fall 2010
Summer 2011
Of Ghosts and Goats
Spring 2012
Higher Harder Softer Lower Ninth Ward
Spring 2011
Reclaiming Roman Ground
Fall 2012
Red Hook Community Center Fall 2010 Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY In collaboration with Armando Rigau Critic: Branden Hookway
Red Hook After-school program
This project explores how the concept of the dialectic can be manifested in architectural form. Whether we were looking at two-dimensional graphic diagrams that had to be eventually transformed into architecture, or at the site of Red Hook, where what seemed to be a discredited neighborhood has become more and more gentrified, or at a program that proposes alternatives to legal offenders, all of our understandings of the design problem and its solutions were analyzed as a dialectical relationship.
Site: Red Hook
COMMUNITY FRAGMENTATION
INDUSTRIAL VACANCY
RECLAIMING THE WATERFRONT: SUCCESS + FAILURE
SITE: ABANDONNED SILO
Diagrams Generating Program
reception reception
reception
INTERSECTIONS
reception
learning
recreation
break room
learning learning
learning
CROSS SECTIONS
Least magnitute change
learning
ON
reception
break room break room individual learning
recreation recreation
meditation
LE
AR
NI
NG
RE
CR
EA
TI
largest magnitut
break room
RE
Least magnitute change
NI
SP E LE CI AR AL NI IZ NG ED
NG
largest magnitute change
ME
DI
TA
TI
ON
DI
coll. + sel.
selective
rigid
rigid + flexible
flexible
public recreation
room public +break private
private
unified
unified + singular unified
individual learning individual learning
open
meditation open + meditation enclosed
open + dining enclosed
BR
CE P
EA
K
TI O
N
recreation
collective
individual learning
meditation
individual learning
meditation
dining dining
coll. + sel.
selective
coll. + sel.
flexible
rigid
flexible
dining
private
private
singular
singular
unified + singular
enclosed
enclosed dining
private
open + enclosed
A Vocabulary of Cuts
CUTS
Section + Plan
Reception area + Plan
Bogota International Convention Center Professional work for Saucier+Perrotte Architectes Summer 2011 Competition entry
Rendering by Luxigon
View from plaza + Concept Sketch
Rendering by Luxigon
Astonishingly powerful in their topographic presence, the Cerros Orientales and Monserrate are defining features of Colombia’s landscape and Bogotá’s cityscape. Cradled between the mountains and the river, this stunning landscape gives the city its unique identity. The new architecture for the CICB is designed as a reflection of this majestic topography. The top edge of the horizon becomes a new conceptual level for nature within the cityscape, echoing the verdant mountains. The lower edge is the level of the actual ground of the Convention Center site. The building takes shape in the space between these virtual lines to become an architectural reflection of the landscape and geology of the city — a mirror of the topos of Bogotá.
Sketch by Gilles Saucier
Roof Plan + Sections
MEETING
MECHANICAL
FULL SERVICE KITCHEN GENERAL STORAGE
STORAGE BAKERY LRG MEETING ROOM / BALL ROOM
EXPOSITION 2
EXPOSITION 1
CATERING KITCHEN MOVEABLE SEATING STORAGE
EXPOSITION 3
EXPOSITION 4
P1 @ -4
LOADING STORAGE
P1 @ -7
0
MEETING ROOMS
GARDEN
FOYER
EXPOSITION
P1 @ -4 P1 @ -7
0
5
20
50
5
20
50
Site plan: Porosity at ground level + Front Elevation
01
Plans + Entry at Ground Level
03
Rendering by Luxigon
05
Evening event
Rendering by Luxigon
Each
main
volume
contains
the
essential programmatic elements for the Convention Center, and the zones where they intersect allow for larger functions to coalesce. The elevated pyramid essentially houses the large auditorium with its supporting functions (fixed seating, flat seating, fly tower, etc.) and materializes as a seemingly independent sculptural object that shapes spaces within the system of the prismatic volumes and delaminates to become the vertical circulation, a central stair into the main lobby.
Public Roofscape + Section through Auditorium
Rendering by Luxigon
OBSERVATORY
MEETING ROOMS FLY TOWER BALCONY
FIXED SEATING MOVABLE SEATING
FOYER
STAGE
MEZZANINE
LOBBY CLOAK
WC
RAMP TO PARKING P1 @ -4 P1 @ -7
0
5
20
50
Of Ghosts and Goats Spring 2012 Engey, Iceland Critic: Andrea Simitch Published in Association 5
Site: Engey
The site is Engey, an abandoned island in the Kolla Bay, north of Reykjavik, Iceland. The ruins of Engey are understood as traces of the past, but also as residual spaces to be appropriated in the present. The lines and volumes drawn by the ruins are extended and interpreted into constructions of conceptually folded surfaces that envelope the exposed site.
The new structures house a farm of Icelandic goats, a species that has been endangered in the recent past. The architecture aspires to make a productive relationship between the leftover ruins and the new farming program.
Excavations among ruins
Folded surface enclosures
Axonometric + Plan + Section
Cornell NYC Tech Campus Fall 2011 Roosevelt island, NY Critic: Peter Eisenman
Cornell Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island
This project looks to develop an urban campus through the
Colin Rowe Roma Interrotta Colin Rowe Rome, 1978 Roma Interrotta Rome, 1978
dialectics and oppositions found in Colin Rowe. Starting by looking at precedents that dealt with the idea of texture as a representation of city-scape, an interest was taken in solidvoid
relationships
expressed
sampled geometries
through figure-ground drawings.
sampled geometries
In the precedents illustrated above, one can read how the large, dominant voids that cut through the fabric are clearly different in their absolute figural geometry in constrast to other voids in the fabric. pieces rearranged around rectangular void
Axonometrics
negative voids cutting fabric
positive voids carving fabric
Process: Formal analysis + Parti transformation
figure-ground plan
precedent analysis & parti comparisoncombined diagram: showing voids, axes, figural solids, and figural voids
figure-ground plan axes and regulating lines
combined diagram: primacy of solids vs primacy of voids showing voids, axes, figural solids, and figural voids
composite buildings axes and regulating lines
primacy of grain solids variation vs primacy of voids
composite buildings large and small voids
grain variation repeating geometries
voidsvoids largefigural and small
figuralgeometries solids repeating
Plans
3 1
2
4
retail
laboratories
auditorium
3
9
auditorium
6
recreational centre
8
recreational centre
retail
7
9
laboratories
recreational centre
8
9
academic
laboratories
academic
academic
hotel + conference
hotel & conference
hotel + conference
8
9
social + recreational social & recreational
social + recreational
residential
residential
residential
level 0 showing entrances to level -1
plan +15’ 1:500
Voids
Voids
1
Higher Harder Softer Lower Ninth Ward SPRING 2011 New Orleans, Louisiana Critic: Shayne O’Neil
Strategy
August 30, 2005
September 7, 2005
August 30, 2010
The floodwall along the Industrial Canal was breached due to
disturbance to the water, and in turn, minimal disturbance to the
a runaway barge cut loose from the storm caused by Hurricane
unit. This formal manipulation combined with a density of units
Katrina. The destruction that took place in the Lower Ninth Ward
along this first row attempts to slow the water flow while keeping
raised questions about adapting structures to withstand future
the unit intact. The subsequent rows of housing units begin to
hurricanes.
increasingly displace the water, rather than plane, thereby mitigating its force.
This project takes a look at one city block, directly facing one of two rupture points along the Industrial Canal floodwall. Borrowing
Each unit is composed of a hard core and a soft shell. The hard core
from boat hull morphologies, the city block is made up of four
is a concrete blockhouse that contains the mechanical, electrical
rows of housing units. If hit with another surge of water, the first
and plumbing systems. The soft shell is the more vulnerable half in
row will behave as a boat would when it is planing- with minimal
which everyday living takes place.
Planing
Displacement
Boat hull profiles + Landscape Strategy
Landscaping strategy to produce a public space that cohabits the waterscape
Exploded axonometric + Site plan
Housing units
hard core + soft shell
ED OS OP PR
Islands
D AN TL WE
like typical shotgun houses, these units sit on islands raised from the ground two or three units per island
Automobile network - bridges
R TE WA
UE EN AV
bridges connect to existing grid at edges of site
OW FL
Pedestrian network - landscape
public park space built up and grown over time- see opposite page G IN IST EX L AL DW OO FL
Removal of hard surfaces
allowing water table to occur naturally
G IN UT RO RE
L NA CA
ED OS OP PR
AL RI ST DU IN
N DA UR JO OF E AV
Water Flow Under Different Conditions
Normal Flow
During major flooding
After major flooding
Axonometric with plans + Bird’s eye view from top of the floodwall
Detail section + plans + View towards floodwall
4
1
2
3
1 hand rail 2 roof cladding 3 5/16” glass; low-e coating 5/8” cavity 3/8” laminated safety glass T-section mullion 4 roofing 2” rigid insulation reinforced concrete composite steel deck steel beam
Reclaiming Roman Ground Fall 2012 Rome, Italy Advisors: Lily Chi and Caroline O’Donnell
10m
ll
Ma
re
One Site: Five Histories
de
Vi
a
Vi
a
ll
Vi
a
di
Ci
rc
o
Ma
ss
1
De
’I
mp
er
o
im
o
2
Given the dominant perception of Rome as a museum, and given the
The project proposes to look at five instances that have defined the history of
likelihood of an eventual new museum site developing at the Circus Maximus,
the site. The interpretation of the operative logic of each instance will engender
how can an architecture be developed by addressing not only the needs of the
a spatial occupation. The project seeks to explore how the wealth of histories can
dominant occupancy, but also by simultaneously addressing other readings and
inform an architecture that tries to reveal the multiple figures within the ground
histories of the site?
of Rome.
One Site: Five Histories
3
4
5
1 Ancient Circus Maximus 4th c. BC - 6th c. Spectacle then, spectacle now. 2 Mussolini’s Fascist Exhibition, 1937. Exhibit of Summer Camps and Assistance to Children: a new body 3 Topography. Valley in between the Palatine and Aventine Hills 4 Jewish Cemetery 1645. Anomaly in its landscape 5 Acqua Mariana 1122 - early 20th c. Life source of surrounding agricultural lands
Five Interpretations
Geometric manifestation of reading
Architectonic interpretation
Engagement with the site
1
2
Each of the five instances exhibit a distinct logic of occupation. The project does
2 The project proposes to house an extension of the Foro Italico university’s
not literally resurface each historical layer as a nostalgic formal presence. Rather,
facilities, to at once reflect the historical connection to the Fascist exhibition,
this is an exercise in recalling these layers by employing their operative logics to
and to bring in a constituency that would otherwise not have a presence in
produce spatial occupations that are relevant to contemporary Rome.
the city center.
1 The museum takes form as a box in order to frame the ruins, to present it as a
3 The project interprets the reading of the topography not as literal flooding,
precious artifact. Again, the operative logic of a museum is to enclose the ruins,
but as a way to understand points of potential porosity in
and provide a controlled access through and around them.
the site. This drawing traces the lines perpendicular to the topography lines, which indicate where water tends to flow, where external agents tend to breach the site.
Five Interpretations
Geometric manifestation of reading
Architectonic interpretation
Engagement with the site
3
4
5
4 The interpretation of the history of the cemetery proposes to extend the
5 If the canal operated as the life support for the farmlands surrounding it, the
idea of a productive landscape into the site, putting in place a demonstration
project proposes that the line of the canal is materialized as an infrastructural
garden. The demo garden would be sponsored by the nearby a UN institution,
spine that would allow certain events to take place. These ex-urbis events
the Food and Agriculture Organisation, as a part of a program that educates
would include festivals, concerts, riots, and protests that currently take place
about food security. The produce could be distributed to nearby soup kitchens
at this site. The line does not take physical form except as a track of power
that serve the homeless and minorities of Rome, which ties it back to the
points on the surface of the project, so that only when certain extraordinary
idea that this land once belonged to a community that was shunned from the
events make use of that spine does it manifest itself. This last occupation could
majority.
potentially cover the entire top surface of the project, depending on what event is taking place.
Close Encounters
10m
Close Encounters
10m
Plans
Five stories