Yao Mi
Cornell University | B. Arch. | December 2019
Remixing the Ground: Urban Patching for Post-Demolition Communities Fall 2019 | Thesis | Leslie Lok + Angela Pang
This thesis is an urban landscape strategy that reactivates unused land in Beijing, China. In 2017, the city started a top-down eradication of unplanned commercial development, leaving residential communities devoid of basic commercial amenities and numerous empty spaces scattered throughout the city. I sought to develop a land-form architecture urban fabric that patches and reconnects the disrupted circulation network and urban activities of highdensity, high-rise residential communities in Beijing. A street system is woven into an organic landscape, shifting the ground to form space for recreational and business opportunities. It is my hope that this design process can be applied to other vacant areas that underwent similar trauma, respond to their own unique edge conditions, and become vessels for programs that enrich the lives around.
Busy vs. Quiet Fronts
Landscape Directs View and Movement
Noise Barrier
Meandering Roof vs. Linear Streets
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Ground Floor Plan
Longitudinal Section
Upper Floor Plan
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Basement Plan
Sunken Garden + Market + Multipurpose Room
Drive-Through
Internship Work Samples Spring 2019 | NYC | Gensler
Axonometric Collage
Rendered Floor Plan
Elevations with Materials
Digital Material Board
Internship Work Samples Summer 2017 | NYC | Design Republic
Acoustic Ceiling Panels Designed with Grasshopper
Rhino V-Ray Renderings
Custom Sofa Design
Fall 2017 | NYC | Slade Architecture
BYOA: Bring Your Own Air
Spring 2017| Building Technology Elective | Rychiee Espinosa Group Work: 5 Partners BYOA is an indoor shelter erected from thin steel members, 3D printed joints, and suspended algae. A network of tubes and air pumps supplies the algae with CO2 from visitors’ breath. Best Student Design-Build Project, ArchDaily, 2017
Gowanus Recovery Center
Fall 2017, NYC | Studio | Thomas Phifer + Gabriel Smith
Surrounded by factories, warehouses, and home improvement stores, this material processing facility challenges the traditional notion of large span warehouse or ‘big box’ building by offering bright spaces filled with sunlight, and a glowing beacon in Gowanus at night.
Entrance + Drop-Off Lane | Northeast
Flexible Co-Working Space
Barge + Park | Southwest
Tip Floor Waterproofing Between Pipes Co-Working Sealed Pipe: Air-Tight, Waterproof Heat Insulation Warehouse
Revolving Window: Ventilation
Barge Loading
Elevations
Large Pipe: Resting Space
Truck Loading
This collection and recycling center for construction waste is both a workplace and a sanctuary, with resting areas looking over the Gowanus canal. Material processing space houses tip floor, sorting, scrapping, repair, storage, and loading docks. Smaller rooms such as offices and lavatories are embedded in the mass.
Sections
Plans
The Library of Illusions: Spectacles Fall 2018 | Studio | RubĂŠn Alcolea
Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames’ immersive cinema in the 1964 New York World Fair IBM Pavilion, this device allows users to view their surroundings through unusual perspectives. One can observe objects in opposite direction of their gaze as they look into one of the four chimney-like structures with a mirror at the end. The center is a upside-down image created with two glass spheres as magnifying lenses.
The Library of Illusions: Space Nowadays, we visit libraries mainly to work individually in an environment where everyone is focusing on their own business, a practice I call “collective concentration�.
Sunrise: Detail
Mid-day: Create
Sunset: Relax
Studies have shown that certain colors enhance performance on certain tasks: red helps us pay attention to details, blue boosts creativity, and yellow is always associated with positive emotions. The walls of this box are full of windows with colored surfaces that alter the hues of light entering the space.
The Library of Illusions
Writing is an occupation that would benefit greatly from collective concentration. This is a writer camp where people come to a secluded island accessible only by boat to focus on their work and communicate with fellow authors. It is a library without books: two massive empty shelves flank the central staircase, and visitors build the collection of books and objects as they bring their belongings to the shelves. The colored windows appear carved and subtracted from the mass on the outside, but additive and lightweight on the inside. The third floor has lounge, guest rooms, and openroof courtyard. It is entirely hidden behind the top row of windows, invisible on the exterior.
Dock
Relax
Detail
Create
1st Floor
2nd Floor
3rd Floor