Portfolio 2016 (Xinru Liu)

Liu Xinru

Work Selections from 2011- present rudimentary, passionate, playful

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Architecture Climate Change Musuem, Spring, 2015 RISD Providence Baseball Park, Fall, 2015, RISD Mayan Musuem, Spring, 2014, RISD Pop-up Installation on Pier 26, Spring, 2015, RISD Dancing House, Fall, 2012, RISD Dancing House, Fall, 2012, RISD

Urban Transition and Extension, Fall, 2013 RISD Macht Platz, Fall, 2014, TUM

Architectural Analysis Kenzo Tange Analysis, Spring, 2013, RISD Facade Analysis, Fall, 2015, TUM

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ARCHITECTURE

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Framing the Relationship Advanced Studio, RISD, 2015 Professor Anne Tate, Professor Nadine Gerdts

“Moving climate to the center of culture,

ethics, and public life� is the core mission of the Climate Museum Launch Project, The challenge of our studio is to unpack the complex set of issues surrounding climate change, develop architectural projects that will demonstrate resiliency, innovation, urgency and common purpose in understanding the role climate plays in our lives.

My project, collaborating with Evelyn Zeng,

is about creating a series moments that can frame the relationships among different contributors to Climage Change. We want to create a space that can imply the complexity of the issue meanwhile can communicate with the audience through its spatial experience. We aim to empower the visitors through initiating their scopes in examing the multifaced issue of climate change. Via the the strategy of view framing, moments of the concurrence and divergence are captured. This is a space that minimize the hierarchy among various topics while presenting the internal correlations among them.

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Landscape is also a big part of the project. How to introduce landscape into the musuem, both outdoor and indoor, is the major problem I studied.

Based on the sequence of the framed moments, we created different landscape experiences. From exterior to interior, the visitors will experience landscape and architecture weaving together.

Flood Zone Analysis

Redesign Proposal

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500 year flood

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storm surge, 100 year flood hurrican sandy

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1. urban forest

2. diverse wetland

3. salt marshes

existing

4. greenscape

5. canal street

6. varick street

redesign

Study of Urban wetland I

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Study of Urban wetland III

Axon drawings of landscape plan

Axon drawings of the elevated gallery space and the landscape

Study of Urban wetland II

Study of Urban wetland IV

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Model Studies

Concept

Geometry

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FRAMES

Exhibit Stratedy Large Frames Frame Relations Small Frames Frame Events

Framing NETWORK OF RELATIONSHIPS

Water Energy Infrastructure Agriculture

One main gallery for each topic.

Radiating out smaller galleries and penetrate into spaces of other topics.

Network of relationships SPACES

Large Spaces Experience of scenes (landscape scale) Small Spaces Experience of interaction (body scale)

Interlocking

Spatial translation

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Frame is designated with multiple roles in this project; fristly it’s the opening for movement; secondly it generates view frames such as windows; thirdly, it suggests correlation among the physically segregated spaces.

Mezzanine is the core for the interlocked frames, the concurrence of frames

Rendering of the entrance hall

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Rendering of the exhibit space

Experinmental persective visioning the interaction of the interior and the exterior space. (top right) Top view illustrating the framing of the site context. (top left) Experimental perspective of the proposed exhibition of extreme water environment such asflooding and steam. (bottom right) Experimental drawing on the proposed exhibition of rain water collection. (bottom left)

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Bone & Flesh Advanced Studio, RISD, 2015 Professor Friedrich St. Florian

Responding to the need of Providence as a

medium size college town, the studio is purposing to relocate the local minor league baseball park at downtown area. The challenge is to appropriate the program in limited land and to rethink the connection of the ball park to city.

My resolution, after examing the site, is to

maximum the public use of the ball park by creating multi-scaled pokect space along the pedestrian path with a modular system that can elevating most of the programmed space. This modular system is the bone of the project and all the programs are the flesh.

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Four diagrams explaining the function of the modular unit

Map of all possible paths in open space in the city center

Urban stratedy: rhythm voids

Core concept sketch model

Map of the visibility of the open space

Landscape concept_green loop 18

Visionary illustrations of how the modular will be occupied

Pedestrain path

Private driving path

Public traffic 19

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Pop-up Installation on Pier 26 Advanced Studio, RISD, 2015 Professor Anne Tate, Professor Nadine Gerdts

Simple, playful, however profound, the idea of this installation derive from seesaw, a game all about balancing. The installation is made of modularized metal and wood plates which are connected at the mid axis one to each other.

Walking through these plates is a process of self-reflection. The visitors will experience the fear of losing balance, the importance of maintaining balance and the easiness of such process for each individual. This process is aim to remind people the sensitivity of nature and the power of the individual in destorying the balance.

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Diagram of program mapping

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Diagram of height level

Diagram of mobile v.s. still

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Traveling Exhibit for Mayan Astronomy Advanced Studio, RISD, 2014 Professor Hansy Better

This project is part of the studio of Culture on Display. I was asked to first create a tool inspired by mayan culture and transforming the tool into a traveling exhibit.

My tool is designed based on the Tzol’kin calendar. Using thirteen and twenty as sacred numbers (13 joints, 20 digits), this tool uses the body to register/count time. The y-axis records the stretching and bending of the body, recording the numbers one to thirteen and pausing to celebrate the ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck. The x-axis records the 10 fingers’ placement on the dowel. Each axis’ cycle back and forth, interconnecting, reaching from the ground to the sky, forming the 260 day count.

Continuing from previous study on Mayan astronomy, The travelling exhibit of mayan astronomy exams closely the logic among different mayan calendars. The travling gallery itself is a sculpture displaying such logic while creating flexible exhibit space in vareis site conditions.

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This drawing demonstrates the Mayan’s use of the Tzol’kin (260 day) and Haab’ (365 day) calendars. The Tzol’kin calendar combines the numbers 13 and 20, which celebrate the 13 joints and 20 digits of the human body, to count individual days (separate from the concept of days and months). The Haab’ calendar is based on the solar year and is composed of 18 months of 20 days, and one month called the Wayeb’ of 5 unlucky days.

The combination of these two calendars forms a 52 year cycle (as opposed to the Western notion of century). These two measures of recording time celebrate the human body, and celestial events, linking Mayan’s conceptions of earth, sky and the cyclical nature of life.

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This traveling gallery can be assembled in different size according to the site.

This drawing illustrates the celebration of the Sun and it’s path in Mayan culture. The Maya built Architectural structures based on their recordings of the sun, moon, and other constellations and planets. E-groups form one typology of these structures and were built to record the solstices, indicating the coming of the dry and wet seasons.

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Culture on Display Advanced Studio, RISD, 2014 Professor Hansy Better

Culture on display is consist of two parts, a traveling exhibit of mayan astronomy and a new museum of mayan culture. The core idea of the design for both projects is unfolding musuem and open up the traditional tectonic of column and slab, by which generating a more dynamic and flexible exhibit space.

The new musuem of mayan culture is built upon the research of mayan astronomy, taking the idea that the cosmic and human are connected through the counting system of mayan calendar. Utilizing column as a basic element for constructing such cosmic-human relationship.

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The New Musuem of Mayan Culture Advanced Studio, RISD, 2014 Professor Hansy Better

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The ground floor plan of the museum is omnidirectional. The open floor plan, organized by columns of 1 inch diameter, allows visitors create their own path through the musuem, through which the distinction between inside and outside is ambiguous.

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The museum has three levels, undeground, ground and above ground. The underground space exhibit the past, the ground space exhibit temporary and the above ground space exhibit future.

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Bath House project at Fox Point, Providence Architecture Design, 2013, RISD Professor Manule

The site is located at Fox Point facing the lake.

Based on the site study of typography, neighborhood, circulation and climate, the project is addressing a way of generating liminal space between the urban context and nature by creating a continuous circulation in between.

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Longitudinal Section study

Cross Section study

Facing southeast, the bath house has a wide opening to light and view. This series studies exam how light would influence each program in the bath house.

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circulation path through the site

pools services offices public green

The connection among programs zone of access

private

public

zone of privacy private

New circulation generated by program

Pool Changing room& Restroom Ramp Private Sauna Stairs

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URBAN

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Transition and Extention Urban Design Principle, RISD 2013 Professor James Barne This project is built based on the intensive site analysis of North End and the four different coditions of how the site meets its boundries.

North End is full of dualities, so does the site of this project, which contains commercial vs residentail; enclosure vs opening; public vs private; flat vs slope; old vs new. The project focuses on addressing such dualities and tries to respond the analysis with four different treatments of the boundries of this residential complex.

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Study of build fabric of North End.

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Usage map

Fabric_size Map

Hot Zone Map

Fabric_width Map

Fabric_aggregation Map

Aggregation Comparison

Diagram illustrating the concept of transition

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Macht Plazt Advanced Studio, TUM, 2015 The project aims to initiate a connecting point among the semi public court yard space in the residential area south to the central station of Munich.

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Diagram_Connection

Diagram_Inner Courtyard

Diagram_Cultural Zone

Hauptbahnhof

Schwanthalerstrasse

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Green Coverage

Cultural Zone

the ground floor is commercial use

Front facade drawing, featuring the sound screen for filtering the noise.

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Upper floor are multi-family apt 1-50

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Making Space (in progress) Residential project in Munich

Creating a path through the sporadic inner courtyard of the site and generating a speical moment for cultural reflection.

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ANALYSIS

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Form Analysis of St Mary’s Cathedral, Tokyo Architecture Analysis, RISD, 2013 Professor Carl Lostritto Kenzo Tange’s St Mary’s Cathedral speaks a lot of the form. The dominating crossing-generated skin form bring the visitor to a liminal space by reinforcing the persective inside the form. However, there is another kind of system acting in this building as well. The cubic side buildings on the side departs the sculpting style of the main building.

This analysis is focus on the difference of the side buildings and the mian building. Either mediating or exagerating the difference in between in order to reveal the consequential spatial experience inside the whole building.

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Oblique drawing exploring the interior and exterior structure and the materiality of the surfaces.

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Rhino Model drawing Using the digital language to address the materiality and the structure of the building..

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Facade Study of Munich Building

Front facade

This building went through 3 renovation over 60 years.

The front facade remains the same. Facing the commercial street in Altstadt in the center of Munich, the front facade of this building is composed of millions of tiles, creating a strong sense of texture and pattern.

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Back Facade

The back facade is facing the inner courtyard and has totally different characteristics to the front facade. The pattern of the facade is much reduced and minimized.

Compared of using tile, the facde is painted with an atempt to mimic the front, however, carrying strong art deco style.

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Thank you