MArch I Application Portfolio

Mount Putuo is an island located in Zhoushan, China. It serves as the spiritual center of the indigenous culture and the backbone of the local economy. Because of its rich history, breathtaking scenery, and fascinating myths, Mount Putuo has long become the most popular touristic destination among the four sacred mountains in Chinese Buddhism, attracting millions of visitors each year. The number of arrivals peaks in Febuary and August. To mitigate the overwhelming traffic on the island, Zhoushan Department of Transportation has decided to build another pier in the middle of Lianhua Ocean, West of Mount Putuo.

In addition to mimicing the shape of an island to fit into the context, this project also explores the manifestation of the idea of the three seals of Buddhism, namely impermanence, nonself, and nirvana.

IMPERMANENCE The site is set in the middle of the ocean. The ever-changing tide reminds the vistors of the inherent impermanence in all existence and beings. The experience is enhanced by an installation at the heart of the hotel component. More information can be found on page 14. Instead of having four detached units, the final design combines the main programs required by the Department of Transportation into one single entity, reflecting on the idea of “non-self” or “absence of separate self”.

NON-SELF While approaching the project from the Southeast, the visitors can see a shape that roughly resembles Reclining Buddha, which is often used to portray the state of Nirvana.

FORM GENERATION Approach by Water from the Southeast

Further simplify the shape by cutting off peaks.

The voxels differ in sizes according to program publicness. Public spaces are represented by larger voxels, while private spaces are represented by smaller ones. Assign programs and finalize the form.

NIRVANA

1.

2.

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This project takes Mount Putuo as a guide to its form generation. Contour Mount Putuo. Chop the bottom contours for a much less complicated, but altitude-wise more diverse shape as it is more mountain-like.

TYPE 2 is characterized by two rotating axes instead of one. Unlocking the bottom axis makes the generation of an entrance or exit possible. When two TYPE 2 units with a 90-degree angle of rotation are placed next to each other, it yields the widest gatewway for people to walk through.

Wooden sailboat dates far back in Zhoushan’s history. It had supported indigenous fishery and domestic marine for thousands of years until the 20th centry, in which metal irreversibly replaced wood as the dominant watercraft material. However, a few local carpenters and craftsmans passed on the tradition. The facade for this project is inspired by a model made by the Cens, a local family that are still making wooden sailboats today.

Simulating the rotation for TYPE 3 under a sinusoidal wave reaps an interesting result: groups of adjacent units with 0-degree angle of rotation would make ideal walls, while the rest of the units with rhythmic rotation angles make openings that bring in natural light and shadows in a dynamic way.

The ceiling is constructed by TYPE 1 units atop two sets of waffle slabs, which take the local tide charts as references to form their curves.

IMPERMANENCE

The ramp shape consists of two spirals: an inner spiral with a decreasing radius and an outer spiral with an increasing radius as the altitude increases.

While walking up the ramp, the visitors will experience a progressively expanding space as the path opens up at higher altitude until they eventually exit at the top of the ramp and immerse into the infinitely spacious exterior.

The installation, Moon Well, is inspired by a piece of Ci Poem by Su Shi, one of the greatest poets in ancient China, in which the beauty of the transient, imperfect, and “fragmentary” Moon is celebrated. With the regular rise and fall of the ocean’s waters (essentially caused by the Moon), the installation submerges and emerges, mimicking the lunar phases.

Additionally, the installation serves as a stabilizing structure support for the hotel rooms.

City & Eyes 3

After a seven days’ march through woodland, the traveler directed toward Baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with ladders. On the ground the inhabitants rarely show themselves: having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage.

There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis: that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact; that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence.

Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities.

PYRRHA

On the 6th of August 1945, the United States detonated the most destructive weapon mankind had ever made over Hiroshima to avenge Pearl Harbor on Imperial Japan. Despite the insanity of wartime and the unfathomable hatred between nations, US Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, along with a few scholars and architects were able to take the point of view as a member of the entire civilization and together they saved Kyoto, one of the most historically and culturally significant cities in the world, from the atomic bomb.

Mr. Stimson had visited Kyoto several times before the war broke out. Historians argued that he had personal reasons for sparing Kyoto from the bombings. What was it that Mr. Stimson saw during his visit that made him so protective of this foreign city amid a frantic world war? I believe it was Beauty. This project explores Masayuki Kurokawa's 8 manifestations of the Japanese aesthetic and tries to establish a memorial that commemorate the heroes as well as the victims from both sides of the war.

Inspired by the last standing Torii found in Nagasaki that survived the blast as well as the Golden Temple in Kyoto which was recognized as an iconic traditional Japanese architecture, this project rose from what were remained and responded directly towards the japanese aesthetics of 破(ha), destruction is creation.

When it came to such things as the shock of defeat or national grief, the Golden Temple was in its element; at such times it was transcendent, or at least pretended to be transcendent. Until today, the Golden Temple had not been like this. Without doubt, the fact that it had in the end escaped being burned down in an air raid and was now out of danger had served to restore its earlier expression, an expression that said: “I have been here since olden times, and shall remain here forever.”

It sat there in utter silence, like some elegant but useless piece of furniture, with the antique gold foil or its interior perfectly protected by the lacquer of the summer sun that doubled the outer walls. Great, empty display shelves placed before the burning green of the forest. What ornamental objects could one put on such shelves? Nothing would fit their measurements but something like a fantastically large incense burner, or an absolutely colossal nihility. But the Golden Temple had entirely lost such things; it had suddenly washed away its essence and now displayed a strangely empty form. The most peculiar thing was that of all the various times when the Golden Temple had shown me its beauty, this time was the most beautiful of all... Mishima, Yukio.

Imperial Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 2403 killed 1178 wounded

Pearl Harbor

Hiroshima

Nagasaki Kyoto

USA declares war against Japan President Truman authorizes the use of the Atomic Bomb

The Enola Gay drops Little Boy on Hiroshima

39000 killed 25000 wounded

66000 killed 69000 wounded

Hiroshima in ruin

World War II ends "

Nagasaki in ruin

Kyoto intact

Fatman dropped on Nagasaki

Architect Lin Huiyi Liang Sicheng

LEFT

RIGHT

MID Harvard Archaeologist Langdon Warner

US Secretary for War Henry Stimson

Nuclear Attack on Kyoto (avoided) FUSAMA 襖

The Temple of The Golden Pavilion

Isidora is a carbon-negative pavilion that “grows” from armour units on the breakwater. It develops a system that combines three different eco-friendly technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

During the design process, the armour units' geometry and their arrangements were determined first, whereafter, the pavilion was built on top of the aggreation. A genetic algorithm engine was used in both cases to help make rational decisions on the form.

Portland cement, the most commonly used ingredient for concrete, accounts for 5 to 8% of global anthropogenic

Biorock, as an alternative for concrete, is formed when a small electric current is passed between underwater metal electrodes placed in seawater causing dissolved minerals to accrete onto the cathode to form a thick layer of limestone that is 1.2 times harder than concrete.

Biochar is a carbon sequestration technology that turns biomass into stable solid carbon that prevents carbon from entering the atmosphere.

Algae photobioreactor converts carbon dioxide, wastewater, and nutrients into algae oil, oxygen, and electricity.

SECTION A-A

(armour unit layer) is inherited from Breakwater form finding process and is fixed in this genetic evelution.

City & Memory

When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dream: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.

Siblings

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