Yimeng Lucy Ding_Portfolio_2022 by Yimeng Ding

Yimeng(Lucy) Ding

Architecture + Urban Design Portfolio Spring 2022

B.Arch Candidate College of Architecture, Art and Planning Cornell University

Yimeng Lucy Ding

Contact: +1 (607)379 5368 yd294@cornell.edu https://issuu.com/ yimenglucyding

EDUCATION Cornell University

2017 - 2022. 05

Bachelor of Architecture Minor in Inequality Studies Courses: Architecture Design, Architecture Theory, Environmental Analysis, Visualization, Fabrication

Ithaca, NY

Tsinghua University

2020 - 2021

Study Away Program

Beijing, China

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES URBANUS Architecture and Design

Intern in Architecture and Urban Design Worked on City/Village Urban Design & Exhibition, Qianmen East Hutong Preservation, Jingui Village Regeneration, and Chunshan Highschool. Duties include: - Participated in the master planning and developed regeneration strategies for urban villages - Massing and concept iterations for high school design competition - Developed urban contextual and environmental analysis, housing design, and urban design visualizations

2020. 05 - 08 2021. 05 - 08 Shenzhen, China

Aedas

2019. 07 - 08 Hong Kong, China

Cornell AAP Facilities

2019. 01 - 05 Ithaca, NY

Architecture Intern Worked on Vanke Complex at Guangzhou South Train Station; Duties include: - Concept proposals and massing iterations for office and retail complex - Proposed facade shading iterations to optimize interior lighting condition - Organized design reports for and participated in client meetings

Drafting Designer - Created visualization of the university’s new Fine Arts Library for donor review - Designed sinages and furniture details for the new library

LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCES National Org. of Minority Architecture Student, Cornell Chapter

2019. 05 - Present Ithaca, NY

Cornell Chinese Student and Scholar Association

2017 - 2019 Ithaca, NY

Co-President - Led the design team for NOMA 2019, 2020, and 2021 student competition - Organized academic, social and professional events for minority architecture students at Cornell Treasurer / Host of 2018 Cornell Info Session in Pearl River Delta Area

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

SKILLS AND LANGUAGES

- Our Backyard won 2nd Place in 2019 NOMA Student Design Competition - Walled Garden exhibited in the “Global Studio” section of 2021 Seoul Biennale - 1st Place in 2019 Edwin A. Seipp Prize at Cornell AAP - 2020 Priscilla and Robert Joy Prize for Traveling and Research at Cornell AAP

Table of Contents Academic Work 01 Reverse the Heat

Page 03

Center of Community Organizing in Los Angeles, CA

Glass Odyssey

Page 08

A Circular Design Strategy for a New Public Building in Prishtina, Kosovo

Urban Periscope

Page 13

Music and Dance Academy in Rochester, NY

04 Our Backyard

Page 18

Social Housing Complex in Brooklyn, NY 2nd Place in the 2019 NOMAS National Student Competition

05 Walled Garden

Page 21

Artist Residency in Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

Professional Work 06 A Village with Thousands of Possibilies Mazu North Village Regeneration, New Village/City Act-hibition

Page 25

01 Reverse the Heat How does the Center for Community Organizing combine cooling and activism? Cornell University ARCH 5115 | Spring 2021 Instructors: Gesa Buttner Dias LA has been this place blessed with the warm, mediterranean climate, fostering a pleasant landscape which grants the city the luxury of outdoor all year round. Imagine a mild 78 degree day where people may gather on the street to have ice cream or play basketball together. Yet when there’s extreme heat, the warmth becomes a problem. Especially for the less-resourced community of South LA, where there is higher ground temperature(heat redlining), due to the abundance in asphalt and the lack of green infrastructure, such as parks, green streets and cooling facilities. The rise in temperature further discourages outdoor activities in a vicious cycle. Thus, cooling in south LA is no longer a summer occasion but an everyday practice that requires long term effort. The design for the Center of Community Organizing starts under the hope that the center will be this “go-to” place in the neighborhood on the many hot days. Given elements of the center, the cooling practices can be the core of community service, to get in touch and offer back to the community, which further triggers community interest in organizing and training.

Mapping Coolness Historically, people of Los Angeles seek escape in the imported object for cooling - ice. Currently in South LA, heat mediation heavily relies on community support, such as public facilities, cooling centers, and community fridges, to ensure the cooling of landscape and body, indoor and outdoor. Realizing the multiplicity of cooling practices around site, the center of community organizing learns from and supplements them, creating a system of cooling in south LA.

95°F 90°F 85°F 80°F 75°F 70°F

South L.A

SITE

ed t a r e n e G s s e ln ...How is Coo A? L f o e p a c s d n La d e t a e H e h t n o

SITE

Cooling map 1: Import and manufacture of ice

SITE

Cooling map 2: Community cooling strategies

Cooling Strategies The relationship between the center for community organizing and cooling is established through the manipulation of levels. The design tries to cool with basic building physics to reduce the energy consumption with air conditioning: to go down is to use the earth as thermal mass for the cool insulation; to go up with the elevated roof is to enable escape of hot air.

Operable roof and shading to maximize natural ventilation and encourage passive cooling

The “wind tower” driving a large amount of airflow

The manipulation of the ground plane utilizes the earth as thermal mass for the cool insulation and makes the community-engaging programs visually connected

Establishing the relationship between temperature, events, and time

The blighted rail right-of-w transformation from barren land to climate resilient am

way allows for the n and asphalt-covered menities

Re-roofing of the existing factory to allow for more natural ventilation

1:200

Model Iterations - The manipulation of the ground and roof surfaces becomes the main design strategy

5’

10’

1:500

12:00 - Indoor activities peak

10’

15:00 - Outdoor activities aftersc

chool

Overshadowed

30°C

26°C

Thermal comfort and illuminance level measured at 14:00 in July

A Cool Street

10’

Extreme heat exacerbates not only health problems but also crime rates, by reducing outdoor activities. In spirit of the “Great Street” initiative in LA, the outdoor space of the center aims to be a play street to encourage sport activities. Along the “street” are series of local cooling practices - market cafe, cooling center, water facilities - as the interface between the city and the center, cooling and activism.

From Cooling to Community Activisms By creating visual connection from the street to the meeting space, the center draws people in with cooling facilities and further engages them with community organizing and activisms. Now, the real heat in the center is not the temperature, but the community activisms happening inside out. By engaging with cooling, the center may reverse the vicious cycle between the heat and the lack of outdoor activities, and opens up to engage with the community on a daily basis.

Cooling activities become the interface of the center for community organizing and the community

1:100

10’

Interior view of the center. Different community activities are joined together through visual connection

A series of cooling practices situates along the outdoor street

02 Glass Odyssey How will the circular economy of glass affect the construction of public space in Prishtina? Cornell University ARCH 5115 | Fall 2021 Instructors: Peter van Assche and Curt Gambetta In collaboration with Joseph Appiah The project analyzes and proposes a circular construction of glass, and its potential for a new material culture and economy in Prishtina, Kosovo, as part of Kosovo’s architecture festival - Manifesta 14: Towards a Circular Economy of Materials. To understand glass’s potential, the first phase of the research focuses on the culture of materials in Prishtina, from how glass has been valued and used historically, changes in building techniques and skills, and the economic, social, and technical relationships between glass and other materials. The circular system will manifest itself through the design of a new performance center for Prishtina, whose publicness makes it the prime location for the demostration of the new material culture.public spaces in the city. Together with the design of intelligent material flows, renewing society’s intimacy with materials allows for designs that improve the way glass is organized, financed, adapted, and transformed in our built environment, now and in the future.

Glass’ Journey in Kosovo What intrigues us about glass is its almost infinite life cycle - the ability to be reheated and remanufactured as long as no impurities are added. Yet, the potential of the material is not fully achieved in Prishtina at the moment, as there lacks a formal recycling system. We also learn of the building culture of Pristina: Constructions tend to focus on interior and lack finishing or cladding. The system we propose aims to tackle both issues. The first step is to set up glass collection points in public spaces; Later, the glass waste collected will be collected, cleaned, and sent to remanufacturing workshops to be upcycled into cladding materials; Finally, the products will be used in building construction in Prishtina, to further incentivise a circular economy for glass. Existing glass system in Kosovo. The linear system ends with glass in landfills.

Proposed glass system in Kosovo. The circular system recycles and remanufactures glass into cladding materials which are used domestically or exported.

The system logic’s execution on the site of investigation, with recycled glass facade panels assembled on top of existing brick walls for insulation and decoration

A New Public Building for Prishtina The location of the site, in close proximty to Prishtina’s city center, make it an optimal space to showcase the potential of the regenerative glass recycling system we propose for Kosovo. Theater and perfomance education then becomes a clear choice of program with its ability to invite the city to participate and see the systems of glass and brick construction in action. We begin by identify the two most historically important existing buildings for preservation, to extend the industrial past as well as a demostration of how existing brick facades can be renovated with new glass products.

Site analysis

Program organization

Pedestrian connection

Spatial diversity

Housing

Sports Center

1 Design Studio

Main Theater

Classroom

Community Center

2 Experimental Theater

Library

Cafe/Bar

Ground floor plan

Rendering of the design studio. The recycled glass panels may work with existing bricks walls to create different visual conditions - transparent, translucent, or opaque.

Rendering of the experimental theater. The glass panels can also be used to dramatize interior atmosphere.

Sections showing the various glass and brick materialities

Given the catelogue of recycled glass products, a variety of performance spaces are proposed to accommodate the need of the whole city. With this system in place there can be cycle of assembly and dissembly within the structural brick walls. This system is then able can accomodate even more programmatic iterations within its “infinite” life-span.

“A Glass City” As the regenerative system gradually goes in place, more glass is being recycled and more glass facades are being produced. These products will not only be used in the construction of the performance center but are employed to clad the large number of self-built family houses in the city. The houses’ brick walls are usually left exposed with no insulation due to economic concerns. Now, glass is no longer a hazard in the landfill, but a economical, insulative, and decorative choice for a new facade of the city.

From a brick factory...

... to a brick and glass city

03 Urban Periscope How do the entaglement of water and music revitalize the city center...? Cornell University ARCH 3101 | Fall 2019 Instructors: Rubén Alcolea In collaboration with Zoe De Simone Our site sits in downtown Rochester, where the lack of exciting public structure encourages us to think of the academy as a public gesture to revitalize the city life with music. Inspired by ancient Greek outdoor theatres, this project begins with the concept of treating the city as the set for the performance, by creating an auditorium by the waterfront that engages with the city. The design of the music school thus originates in the concert hall: a place to display, share music and knowledge. Displaying the musical performance of the academy to be viewed from the rest of the city, the facades are conceived as spectacles to the city. The main facade, slightly angled toward the river presents slight bumps in correspondence to the practice rooms, mimicking the reflective, refractive and distortive properties of the water, generating a “periscope effect” - reflecting the outdoor musical performances to the city.

1”=160’

Site Plan

Step 1: Outdoor stage

Step 2: Pedestrian-friendly riverside

Step 3: “Musical” facade

Site photo collage

Rochester is the city that lives with the water. Its main water source, the Guinesse River, nurtured this industrial city to thrive in the golden days of water-powered mills and factories. Today, as the traditional fabrication industry dies down, the river seems to hibernate together with the declining city center. Along the river are traces of dynamic industrial activities in the past: right on our site lies the skeleton of the erie canal....Under such circumstance, our initial idea is to utilize the program - a music academy - as a public gesture to revive the waterfront with music.

Performance Area - VIEWED

Resting Area - VIEWING

The music academy creates continuity and permeability between the urban environment and the waterfront. By extending the site and placing the main theatre in the water, it was possible to extend the influence of the music academy to the public space surrounding the site. To emphasize the performances, the music academy is conceived to have the duality of performance and audience throughout the building, forming a “musical monastary”.

1”=50’

Long Section

N 1”=50’

12th Floor Plan - Music Lounge

1st Floor Plan

Day and night views of the music academy from the renovated Erie Canal

The academy further connects with the city by facilitating better walking experience. By the entrance is a public plaza leading to the park and library across the street; By the river is the outdoor stage for the auditorium, which can also be used as a pedestrian walkway during the day. During the night it becomes the stage again, where performance can be seen from the bridge.

Music performance Dance performance

1”=25’

Short Section

The undulated facade creates a “river spectacle” during the day, and shows performances during the night

For the front facade, different scales of performance spaces are stacked from large to small, alternating between music and dance. The facade also creates various effects throughout the day: reflecting the city scene during the day, and seeing through into the performance during the night, to create a spectacle that is enjoyable by the city throughout hours, throughout seasons. Section model showing the different facade materials and effects

04 Our Backyard Can intergenerational housing provides dynamic pubilc space for all? Cornell University Fall 2019 Advisor: Rubén Alcolea Designed with Cornell NOMAS 2nd Place in the 2019 NOMA National Student Competition Our Backyard is a intergenerational housing project located in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The goal of our design is to design a welcoming space for the community against the trend of gentrification that is prevalent in the neighborhood, by giving everyone in the community a large “back yard” that we can share. We started the project with a bottom-up scheme, gradually scaling up the communities of our design from individuals, residents and the entire neighborhood. Among all the wishes, we discover the need for share public space to gather, cook, perform and relax. Going off that, we also design our project with different scales to satisfy the need from individuals to the entire community.

The project started with questions at 3 scales...

...The solutions are: We used the existing house as the basic unit of our design. When lifted, the units aggregate to be housing; What is under these lifted blocks becomes public space. Together, they make “our backyard.” ·Student Housing

·Family Apartment

·Senior Apartment

·Afterschool Childcare Center

·Community Center

·Central Courtyard ·Stage ·Picnic Park ·Gym ·Restaurant

·Care Center ·Existing House

·Retail

·Community Garden

N 1”=64’

Our Backyard What do you think when you think of a back yard? When you open your door, it’s right there. You feel comfortable being there, and you can use it any way you want. We are taking this feeling of comfort and autonomy of a back yard and implementing in our design. Sometimes, the “yards” are not at the back; they become intimate “side yards” and huge “front yards”. The smaller yards maybe balconies where people sit, relax, watch people walk...; The larger yards may become courtyards, where pop up markets and sculpture exhibition can take place and attracts the whole Flatbush. It is yours. It is ours. That’s how it becomes “our backyard.”

1”=64’

3rd Floor Plan - The shared gardens between apartments become the second level of “backyard”

1”=128’

Axon of Housing Units - The balconies in each housing units become the third level of “backyard”

View from the central courtyard

View from the community center into the central courtyard

05 Walled Garden

How does one cultivate one’s garden? Cornell University ARCH 4102 | Fall 2020 Instructors: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ell richshausen, and Andrea Simitch In collaboration with Ruby Kang and Audrey Hioe Exhibited in the “Global Studio” section of 2021 Seoul Biennale Before the massive plague would force us into individual exile, our perception of solitude was that of a pleasant destination. “We must cultivate our garden” - a walled garden, as an inflexion of the landscape, is where one rejoins nature in the pursued seclusion to nurture the mind. The project is an artist’s residence high in the mountains, where the landscape becomes the very first “garden”, followed by a stone and a floral garden as one ponders further. The gardens are separated and centered by three identical volumes, whose abstraction humbles itself amongst the greater landscape. For the residents, the house is an impregnable shelter where they experience the changing light throughout the day, the seasons throughout the year; For the mountain, it is but a temporary monument, a passing moment in the meditative journey in nature.

Oblique drawing of the w

walled gardens, 93”x66”

Ground Floor Plan

Section A

Roof Plan

Section B

Paired visions of the jour

rney through the landscape

Professional Work

06 A Village with Thousands of Possibilities How do we reimagine Mazu North Village? URBANUS Architecture and Design New Village/City Act-hibition | Summer 2021

The project is part of the New Village/City Act-hibition, a new exploration on urban village regeneration through the format of exhibition and construction. Initiated by the government, the exhibition draws local village corporates, architects, and developers to collectively reimagine what is needed for urban villages’ next twenty years. The act-hibition focuses on six urban villages in Longgang, Shenzhen, to investigate their multiplicity of potentials in ecology, commercial, housing, tourism, and technology. Mazu North Village is the most massive and diverse village out of all six. Born out of the industrial past of Shenzhen, Mazu North is a village fostered by the numerous light manufacturing factories, which led to the village’s real estate development in the early century. Mazu North soon became an energetic melting pot of factories, housing, and temples, locals and new-comers, Mazu and pop culture. Yet, what used to be the boom now becomes the bane: as Shenzhen underwent industrial update, the factories gradually went out of business and are now empty shells. The dense apartments built for factory workers are also no longer adequate and need remodeling to envision an alternative future of the village. The goal of the project is to repurpose the manufacturing facilities and housing to stimulate sustainable, long-term development for the village. Located in between Longgang’s regional center, high-tech village, and high-speed rail station, Mazu North is on the margin of all these new possibilities. Realizing the diversity in historical programmatic context and existing regional resources, our strategy for Mazu North’ regeneration is to build on the hybrid functions of the village and improve its regional accessibility, to create possibilities stemming from its existing diversity.

Current programmatic nodes in the village

From “A Village with Thousands of Faces”...

What we found striking of Mazu North village during our visit is its highly pixelated land uses because of the highly divided property ow ship. The land use also presents different stages of development in the past four decades, from the farmland in the agricultural econo the manufacturing factories in the industrial economy. As many residents are descendants of Mazu culture, the village also preserves cultural buildings and events valuable to the region’s identity. The overall regeneration strategy recognizes the richness in land use, an further connects and updates the various nodes in the village.

wneromy to many nd

Proposed strategy to connect and activate the nodes

Housing Update

The “plank” apartments are a row of buildings guarding the west end of Mazu North. The apartments mainly house worker families w parents work in the remaining factories nearby. Two decades into development, the apartments have the highest unit density due to floor additions, and lack important facilities like elevators and space for community service like child care. The proposed solution is a structure that provides both reinforcement to the existing buildings and increase in future development space. Elevators and public fu are attached to the structure and create a skywalk spectacle.

Rules for FAR Increase 1. For historical buildings, additions can be made for operation purposes 2. For residential buildings, proprietors may trade in ground floor space for public use, and are allowed to build 1-2 floors more from the rooftop 3. Proprietors may update the building as public housing/commecial development, and are allowed to build 1-2 floors more from the rooftop

where the many floating unctions

Proposed housing update to improve public function and increase development area

... To “A Village with Thousands of Possibilities”

The possibilities of Mazu North go beyond the village itself. As a synergy of technology, ecology, tourism, and housing, Mazu North ch the monotonous zoning where work, life and leisure are segregated in major Chinese cities. One will not have to travel two hours on th to work, but will have the option to work, pray, shop, study, hike, and farm within 10 minutes walk from the apartment. The thousands bilities offered at Mazu North villages range across work, life, culture, and leisure, as a new hybrid model of a “city”, within the city.

Execution axon showing all regeneration strategies

hallenges he subway s of possi-

Skywalk chapel

Public transit hub

Main village entrance

Central park

The mixed edge of the village

02 Reverse the Heat How does the Center for Community Organizing combine cooling and activism? Cornell University ARCH 5115 | Spring 2021 Instructors: Gesa Buttner Dias LA has been this place blessed with the warm, mediterranean climate, fostering a pleasant landscape which grants the city the luxury of outdoor all year round. Imagine a mild 78 degree day where people may gather on the street to have ice cream or play basketball together. Yet when there’s extreme heat, the warmth becomes a problem. Especially for the less-resourced community of South LA, where there is higher ground temperature(heat redlining), due to the abundance in asphalt and the lack of green infrastructure, such as parks, green streets and cooling facilities. The rise in temperature further discourages outdoor activities in a vicious cycle. Thus, cooling in south LA is no longer a summer occasion but an everyday practice that requires long term effort. The design for the Center of Community Organizing starts under the hope that the center will be this “go-to” place in the neighborhood on the many hot days. Given elements of the center, the cooling practices can be the core of community service, to get in touch and offer back to the community, which further triggers community interest in organizing and training.

1:500 0

10’

12:00 - Indoor activities peak

1:500

10’

15:00 - Outdoor activities afterschool

A Cool Street

30°C

Overshadowed

26°C

Thermal comfort and illuminance level measured at 14:00 in July

16:00 - Outdoor activities afterschool