Zibo Zhou C o l u mbi a Gs a p p M S.A a D 2 0 1 8 W o r k S a m ple
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NOTES ON
MODEL
As an professional model maker for exhibitions and competitions, I believe making and crafting is crucial to design process. Not only is model the most tangible way of perceiving a designed space, but more importantly, model is a testing ground, a process of constant re-evaluation in making. In the digital age when time and efficiency are valued the most in the field of architecture, when 3D printed model can be sent with a click of
a button, crafting seems to be gradually neglected. Yet I want to call attention to models. Crafted models are never a mere representation like 3D printed models, they are artifact of art due to the imperfections, modifications, and traces of human hand. Therefore, throughout the years, I have been making models as an inseparable part of my design process, and I would like to keep the tradition of crafting with future projects.
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From top to bottom, then left to right: 1. House of Constellation design model, 2. Body apparatus experiment on chest support, 3. Wavehill Academy design model, 4. RainShine House study model, 5. Lloyds of London faรงade study model, 6. Chinatown Library design model 7. RainShine House Structure study model, 8. Light Pavilion form study model, 9. Light Pavilion Exhibition model
RhythmIC CITY City Inside A Building for Residents in Barrow, Alaska P art ner: J i e H u a n g Rhythm is normal, every living organism follows a rhythmic pattern. The animals sleep, pray and reproduce; bacteria grow and died in a cycle; and us human sleep at night, eat at regular intervals, and social in daytime. We developed a 24-hour cycle to reinforce that rhythm with which the urban infrastructure and the social constructs all operate based on that same rhythm. But
is it the best case? In fact, we all have different rhythms, architecture student, for instance, do not go to sleep the same time as most of the people do. Thus, why can’t a society operate in different rhythm rather than the 24-hour cycle? In other words, an independent social construct that operates in its own rhythmic system. This project serves to test this idea of a rhythmic city.
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Sharing! An Envisioned School for Constant Sharing P art ner: N i k a M o Sharing is critical to studio culture in architecture school. Whether through conversation (verbal) or observation (visual) or making (physical), sharing entails an exchange of information that enables student to learn from each other. Yet sharing has always been implicit within schools: the architecture of schools, in particular, inhibits collective
sharing in a larger scale. The problem lays with the division between studio spaces and collective program space, that the conversation in one space is only limited to the audience of that space. For this project, I investigated ways in which schools can magnify its sharing capacity and to provide an constant sharing environment.
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Necropolis A Hybrid Tower of Gondola Station and Vertical Cemetry P art ner: D a v i d S a k u m o t o For many megacities, especially New York City, the ceremonial practices revolving around death has been suppressed to the minimal due to issues regarding money, land usage, population density and urban life styles. As a result, the rituals of yearly celebration and commemoration of death, common to many rural residents, are almost nonexistent or suppressed in an urban environment. Moreover, New York City cemeteries are facing a ‘gridlock’ of cemetery shortage. With 60,000 New Yorkers
die each year, the urban cemeteries that harvest horizontal land for graves and cremation niches, are expected to be full within 50 years. In response, a new vertical cemetery — the Necropolis — is proposed to mitigate the current situation. Integrated with a gondola system, the Necropolis provides not only sufficient burial spaces for a century under current death rate for New York City dwellers, but also a public urban hub where people can travel while celebrate and commemorate death.
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The cemetery and infrastructural programs are treated as “slow” and “fast” architecture respectively. The “slow” architecture represents the dense program of cemeteries where city dwellers commemorate the death of loved ones
through ceremvonial practices from their individual respected culture. The “fast” architecture represents the major transportation hubs for the skytram that arrive and depart.
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Du al Performa 2 World Trade Center Performing Arts Center P art ner: D a v i d S a k u m o t o At the moment when Frank Gehry’s winning design was rejected for the World Trade Center Performing Arts Center, and REX architecture’s early proposal of the “illuminated cube” was questioned for its over simplicity, the dual Performa2 serves to provide an alternative for the Performing Arts Center. Situated within the World Trade
Center complex, the design is position to confront architectural icons such as WTC Memorial and the transportation hub known as the Oculus. With the fusion of three performative spaces and two performative installation pieces, Dual Performa2 challenges the conventions of stage, theater and concourse through design.
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graduate Dormitory Brooklyn, New York P art ner: D a v i d S a k u m o t o The Graduate Dormitory, adjacent to the Pratt campus on Myrtle street, is a housing complex composed of an eight-story slab building containing individual unit for students, and a two-story mat building with family units for faculties. With the bottom two floors cut back from the other floors, the slab building and the mat buildings forms an entrance where it opens directly to Pratt campus, a gesture that invites student into the dorm. As the main concept of the project,
the folding governs the design at three different scales: the faรงade, the unit and the configuration of the mat building. In order to maximize natural ventilation, the slab building is made as narrow as possible with single loaded corridor. Generated from the paper folding and highdensity foam milling studies, the faรงade is designed to provide shading during summer and capture sunlight during winter.
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The east faรงade facing street has modular windows that correspond to the functions of interior; while the west faรงade has continuous openings that enable penetration of sun lights that illuminate the corridor. The mat building in
comparison, has triple and quadruple bedroom units which all faces toward the courtyard. It provides privacy as well as individual entrances to each unit. As a solution to efficient unit planning within the zoning envelope of the site, the mat
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building allows less units and more space within the slab building, which consequently enhances the natural ventilation and sunlight penetration of the single unit.
Rowing Boathouse Manhattan, New York P art ner: D a v i d S a k u m o t o Adjacent to Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan, New York, the boathouse is a private property owned by the Columbia University for its rowing team. In addition to its main purpose of boat storage, the building also provides weight training room, an eight-person rowing practice tank, a multi-purpose room, two classrooms, four offices, and shower rooms with lockers for its student, coaches, staffs and occasionally community visitors. Interestingly, the site enclosed by the old Columbia boathouse, is also shared
and accessed by local communities. Therefore, instead of forcing local residents to walk around the building, the new design marks the public entry through a bold movement: integrating public pathway with the building in which the former penetrate through the latter. In doing so, it not only creates a convenient access to both the boathouse and the site, but also creates a public space shared by both the Columbia students and the local residence. The staircase links the pathway with the site, which provides seating areas for both relaxation and public-private interactions.
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- T ha nk yo u f o r yo u r t i m e Architectural Work Sample zz2493@columbia.edu Zibo Zhou