ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO FOR UCL (AD)

PORTFOLIO

Xiao Zhou

B. Arch, Dalian University of Technology

The Application for the Programme, MArch Architectural Design, at UCL

Tel: 86-18742516007

Email: zhouxiao0310@126.com

For me, space is the core of architecture, and the creation of space is the key to architectural design. In Lefebvre's "Three Dimensional Dialectics of Space", space is both material and spiritual. In my opinion, when space is with spirit, culture continues in architectural language through spatial design, which is expressed in some projects of my portfolio.

LINGNAN CULTURE IN MEMORY

Lingnan Culture Museum

From May to July 2022 1 - 18

SHUTTLE BACK AND FORTH

Old Building Courtyard Renovation

From August to September 2019, (Second Semester of Junior Year)

Redesigning From September to October 2022 19 - 28

CONTENTS 03

IMMERSION

VR Gaming and E-sports Center

From March to June 2021 (The Second Semester of My fifth Year in University) 29 - 38

SURVIVAL SOIL

The Underground Peace Utopia

From July to September 2022

39 - 60

OTHER WORKS

From 2018 to 2021

61 - 64

LINGNAN CULTURE IN MEMORY

Lingnan Culture Museum

From May to July 2022

Instructor : Guoyu Wang

Instructor Email : gw327@cornell.edu

Location : Gangtou Village, Huadong Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China

Independent Study

Individual Work

The basic law of life is to forget. The continuous process of forgetting is not only a normal aspect of social life, but also a prerequisite for survival, both for individuals and groups. As long as memories are not represented and stabilized by an external medium, they are fragile, and die with the memorizer.

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman defined culture as "the transformation of the ephemeral into the permanent." In general, every culture creates ways to prevent the relentless and pervasive ongoing forgetting and to ensure the effective transmission and continued preservation of socio-cultural identity. As the material remains of culture, architectural language makes memory transcend its original context and has a chance to get a second life. Meanwhile, culture itself can also be continued.

[Site Analysis]

Gangtou Village is located in Huadong Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou city, Guangdong Province. With a total area of about 2.83 square kilometers, it is a traditional village with a history of more than 600 years. Sitting north to south, it is a typical layout of guangfu residential houses, in the form of a comb, known as the "comb layout". Surrounded by water on three sides, four streams converge in the south of the village, forming a beautiful harbor.

[The Relationship Between Culture, Memory and Architecture]

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman defined culture as "the transformation of the ephemeral into the permanent." In general, every culture creates ways to prevent the relentless and pervasive ongoing forgetting and to ensure the effective transmission and continued preservation of socio-cultural identity. As the material remains of culture, architectural language makes memory transcend its original context and has a chance to get a second life. Meanwhile, culture itself can also be continued.

[The Ancient Roadway]

This design uses the biological mechanism process of memory input to extraction to interfere with the spatial texture combination of ancient Lingnan settlements, so as to build a memory system framework based on architectural language under the background of Lingnan culture. In this framework, as long as the corresponding memory cue is given to stimulate, the memory retrieval process can be completed. To this end, local cultural elements and behavioral activities of Lingnan are introduced into specific scenes as clues, so that the experiencers can finally recall or associate the life scene of Lingnan, so that Lingnan culture can be continued to a certain extent.

3.Retrieval of Memory 4.Retrieval of Memory Memory Inactivation Locking in Core Memory Connections Between Core Memories

[The Reverse of Spatial Combination Form]

The spatial texture of Lingnan ancient villages is introduced

[Memory System Framework Based on Architectural Language] [Introduction of Cultural Elements]

Reverse the spatial texture of the ancient village Organize the spatial path of ancient villages (Makes the information relate to Lingnan ancient villages) (The whole image of the village began to blur) (Find out the memory focus of the village, namely public space) (Restore the original village scene to the maximum)

The spatial texture of the ancient village is misplaced

Reverse the spatial combination form of traditional Lingnan folk houses to highlight the importance of courtyard space -- an important memory place for public activities. And then give these places different themes to show lingnan culture in all its aspects. The original location of the old building is transformed into an open space, in which the damaged old walls become exhibits. Through direct sunlight, the texture of the old wall surface reveals the passage of time.

The Curve of the Gable

Internal Wall

Exterior Steel Frame

The Combination of Stair and Wall

The Combination of Steel Frames

Framed Flower Bed

New Walls in the Old Yard

Old Walls in the New Yard

[Structure and Rhythm]

Rhythm is an indispensable part of traditional Chinese architectural layout. The Gangtou village where this design is located has a typical "comb layout", which is a common residential configuration in South China. The architectural groups have a consistent orientation and neat alignment, which highlights the sense of rhythm in the layout.In the design, the combination of traditional rhythm aesthetics and architectural structure is adopted to explain the continuation of modern structure to traditional culture: for internal space, to assume the role of the internal structure of shear wall, different from the frame structure, shear wall has brought more purely spatial experience, at the same time, repeated shear wall echo gable combination of the traditional layout of repetition.For external structure, select rows steel skeleton used to simulate the Lingnan villages here in repetitive gables curves, show the rhythm of the blend of traditional and modern beauty; finally, the thin film is used for building envelope, showing the lightness of the building from the texture and light line.

SHUTTLE BACK AND FORTH

Old Building Courtyard Renovation

Academic Group Work With Jialun Feng From August to September 2019, (Second Semester of Junior Year)

100% Individual Redesigning From September to October 2022

Original Instructor : Jian Suo (From DUT)

Instructor Email : suojian2@yahoo.com.cn

Redesigning Instructor : Meng Li

Instructor Email : li.m.am@m.titech.ac.jp

Location : Zhongshan District, Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China

Academic Course Work

100% Individual Redesigning

The maintenance of life requires cells to remain active, Similarly, the continuation of culture also requires a certain degree of activity. If a historic site is not visited, people will lose the opportunity to understand its cultural background, which results in the loss of its cultural value. This design starts from stimulating the activeness of old buildings. By integrating three-dimensional landscape with old buildings, the rest people are attracted to shuttle through them, so as to increase the interaction opportunities between experiencers and old buildings, and give play to the cultural value of old buildings. It is an indisputable fact that the development of most cultures is more or less the integration of foreign cultures. The integration of cultures is also the process of human survival and development. However, the integration of cultures can be divided into two categories, one is natural, the other is imposed. Obviously, there is opposition between the two, in which the imposed culture is in obvious conflict with the local culture and weakens the local culture. As a former colony of Japan and Czarist Russia, Dalian has a strong colonial culture, In this design, I selected a staff dormitory courtyard in the Japanese occupation period as the design site for transformation, through the extraction of the facade elements of the old building, reflecting the original colonial culture, at the same time, introducing the traditional Chinese garden layout with the clue of shuttling, so that the "colonial culture" will be transformed into "natural integration culture", which will make the cultural integration more positive and more suitable for local residents in terms of sensory experience and cultural aesthetics.

[Site Analysis]

The site is located in Dalian, China, between two staff dormitories that were used during the Japanese occupation period and architectural form of the staff dormitories has strong colonial culture. In addition, the staff dormitories are still being used as apartments, with the middle area of the southern E-shaped building badly damaged and unoccupied.

[The Purpose of the Design]

The maintenance of life requires cells to remain active, Similarly, the continuation of culture also requires a certain degree of activity. If a historic site is not visited, people will lose the opportunity to understand its cultural background, which results in the loss of its cultural value. This design starts from stimulating the activeness of the old building, increasing the interaction opportunities between the experiencers and the old building, so as to give play to the cultural value of the old building.

[The Design Strategy]

Demolish the severely damaged building area and keep the old walls on both sides, so that the courtyard space is no longer crowded and passive, and the area around the old wall becomes the interaction space between people and the old building.

The landscape is used to attract people, and grass slope and greenhouse are added as the landscape core. Which emphasizes the axis of the landscape. In addition, green house can be used as the vertical traffic core of the three-dimensional landscape.

The three-dimensional landscape path is established. Thus, the interaction opportunities between people and the old wall are increased and viewing experience is enriched through various paths.

[Introduction of Cultural Elements]

Form an enclosed courtyard, the combination of plants at different locations in the courtyard, water features and the zigzagging paths between them reflects the aesthetics of traditional Chinese garden.

The arch element is one of the main forms of the facade, and the curve is the main form of the architectural details. The overall shape of the building reflects the characteristics of colonial culture.

[History Line of Development]

During the Japanese occupation, the single dormitory for the workers of the "Manchu Railway" proposed by a Japanese architect was described as the earliest "white-collar apartment" in northeast China.

After Japan surrendered in World War II, Soviet troops moved into Dalian and used two buildings as dormitories for soldiers.

After liberation, the building was taken over by the Dalian Port Company, and the surrounding people called it the "Harbor yard".

After China's reform and opening up, with the rapid economic development, people's material needs increased, the old residential buildings in the neighborhood had been replaced by a series of new high-rise residential buildings.

After the 21st century, the old residents moved out of the two old buildings in pursuit of better living conditions, but the old buildings attracted a large number of migrant workers because of the low rent.

The courtyard between the two old buildings is occupied by abandoned items, vehicles and temporary contraband construction, which results in a negative space, few people, and low overall activity.

[The Integration of Colonial Culture and Traditional Chinese Culture]

Colonial culture, as one of the cultures formed in modern China, had a great impact on Chinese native culture because of its external force. In this design, I extracted elements from the facade of the old building in the period of Japanese Colonial rule in the design site and presented it in the form of a frame, so as to show its original foreign cultural characteristics in a gentle posture and avoid the strong cultural interference brought by the heavy wall to the local people.

In addition, I used shuttling as a clue to introduce the layout of traditional Chinese gardens, and combined the frame units to form a semi-closed space courtyard, thus emphasizing the sense of twists and turns and the sense of hierarchy in space in the path of ancient Chinese gardens. In the design, the frame becomes the corridor in the courtyard and contains colonial cultural elements, realizing the integration of colonial culture and traditional Chinese culture in the level of architecture and planning, so that the colonial culture does not interfere with the local culture, but enables the local culture to develop to a certain extent.

Side Countyard

The Greenhouse The

The Falling Terraced Garden

The Landscape Ramp

The Structural Framework

[The Landscape Ramp] [The Side Courtyard]

[The Side of Street]

[The Falling Terraced Garden]

[Building Construction]

This design uses the steel structure as the main structural form, in form, the I-beam is more light, so it can be better integrated with the landscape, and highlight the main position of the old wall. In the construction, this design adopts the standardized structure module and connection mode, to ensure the construction speed and quality, and the connection mode is mainly bolt connection, which is easy to split the structure, providing the possibility of material recovery and reuse in the future.

[Rest and Recreation Node]

Heat-proof stained Toughened

Laminated Glass

Bounding Box

Boundary Keel

Glass Mat

Bearing Framework

The Welding Area

End Plate (weld)

Trapezoidal Steel Plate

Screw

The Welding Area

End Plate (weld)

Concrete Pile Foundation

Nut Screw

Angle Iron

T-style Steel (weld)

T-style Steel (weld)

Hollow Steel Tube

Screw

Nut

Nut

The Welding Area

End Plate (weld)

The form of rest and recreation node imitates the natural plant form, and it is one of the main landscape installations in this design. The main support of the structure is a combination of four curved T-shaped steels, which are connected to the basic structural units to form a joint force system, thus making the structure itself lighter and less requiring redundant structural support.

Nut

Screw

T-style Steel

Screw

Nut

Metal Embedded Parts

Screw

Hollow Steel Tube (with threaded)

[Basic Unit]

Screw

The basic units constitute the main three-dimensional landscape path of the design, and they are the skeleton of the whole design. In terms of overall layout, they enclose each courtyard space and provide the basic elements for the layout of traditional Chinese gardens. In unit form, it is derived from the facades of old buildings with colonial cultural characteristics. Through reversing the old building facade symbol, different types of unit forms are formed, which enrich the space experience and path choice. The structure adopts the standardized structure modulus and connection mode, which ensures the construction speed and quality. Moreover, the connection mode is mainly bolt connection, which is convenient for the separation of the structure and provides the possibility for the recovery and reuse of materials in the future.

Nut

With the rise of digital entertainment, video games have become one of the main ways of entertainment for people, At the same time, video games have also developed together with other related industries, which makes game culture become a new culture with rapid development in recent decades. There is no doubt that VR games have become the frontier of the entire game industry due to their best immersive experience and high technology support, and it is also the development direction of the future game culture. This design is the VR and e-sports game center of mudanjiang city, in the design, in order to increase the opportunity to interact with the game center, I dilute the boundary between indoor and outdoor space of the overall building, and use green landscape and open space as VR game venues, aiming to attract people's attention, increase their participation in the game, and immerse them in the game culture atmosphere, which is conducive to the development of game culture and related industries.

IMMERSION

VR Gaming and E-sports Center

From March to June 2021 (The Second Semester of My fifth Year in University)

Instructor : Jingming Qu (From DUT)

Instructor Email : 84307041@163.com

Location : Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province, China

Academic Course Work

Individual Work

In 1962, MIT student Steve Russell and several of his classmates created a video game, called Spacewars. It was the first video game that strictly had the basic characteristics of today's games. But video games were not serving the masses.

[History Line of Video Game Venues Development]

In 1971, the world's first arcade machine was born in an American computer lab. Arcade machine is a commercial game machine placed in a public entertainment place. And It was popular in the 80s and 90s.

In 1972, the world's first home game console MagnavoxOdyssey was born, marking the development of electronic games into a new era-Video games began to appear in the home.

[Site Analysis]

In 1994, Blizzard made his debut and Warcraft immediately became a global hit, which had made Internet cafes the main place for games.

With the development of technology, VR games are developing rapidly. Most of the current VR gaming equipment hardwares are too expensive for consumers, Thus More and more people are attracted to VR gaming venues.

Mudanjiang, a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Heilongjiang Province, is located in the southeast of Heilongjiang Province. It is a sub-central city of Heilongjiang Province, an important regional central city in northeast and eastern regions and an important open portal of Heilongjiang Province. Therefore, Mudanjiang has the advantages to develop emerging industries such as game industry, which also lays the foundation for the development of game culture.

[The

The whole site is defined as a landscaped park to attract the flow of people and emphasize the interaction between the site and the pedestrians.

Design Strategy]

The main landscape axis is set to connect the natural green space in the west and northeast corners of the site, thus forming the regional landscape system.

site of the project is located in Mudanjiang City. It is close to the Mudanjiang government in the south, natural green space in the west and northeast corner, a primary school in the east, and the rest is surrounded by residential apartments. The site is trapezoidal wide in the south and narrow in the north, and the terrain is relatively flat.

The field is vertically stratified. The space around the big ladder forms the VR game field, and the big ladder becomes the grandstand, so as to increase the interest of the audience and make them become potential players.

[Site-Plan]

The addition of grey space makes the VR game field space experience more diverse, thus enriching the players' immersive game experience.

Heilongjiang Province China

Mudanjiang City

The construction

1.

3.

2.

4.

[Section a - a]

[Section b - b]

[Section c - c]

SURVIVAL SOIL

The Underground Peace Utopia

From July to September 2022

Instructor : Guoyu Wang

Instructor Email : gw327@cornell.edu

Independent Study

Individual Work

The current world situation is volatile. Undoubtedly, the focus of world conflicts in 2022 will be the Russia-Ukraine war and the Military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. No matter who the beneficiaries of war have been, the toll on human life and culture has been irreversible. This design makes use of the attributes in undevelopment and security of the underground space to imagine the peace utopia in the future war period, explores the qualitative changes brought by underground space and bionic technology to human life, show different levels of space vision, so as to express contemporary people's yearning for a harmonious society in the future.

[Human Vulnerability to Sudden Crisis Events]

The human race is often put into a passive situation in the face of sudden disasters, and by far, wars and terrorist acts are slightly more harmful than natural disasters.

[Bionic technology apply to create a peaceful utopia]

[The Distribution and Scale of Underground Peace Utopias]

According to the volume of the human community of different camps, the appropriate scale of underground peace utopia is set up, and the path is provided to connect them, so as to construct a harmonious and ideal community with a shared future for mankind which is different from the world above the surface.

Protection

In the process of expanding foraging network veins, myxomycetes constantly weigh the cost, efficiency and strain capacity of the network veins according to environmental changes, and continuously optimize themselves to construct the best path. Their groups may interact with each other according to a few simple rules of behavior to develop such a complex and sophisticated system of pathways. In this design, the spontaneity of mycelium in external environmental changes is utilized to realize biological interference in human society by means of bionic technology, in order to cope with the passive situation of human beings in the face of war and terrorist attacks, and construct an ideal utopia of harmonious coexistence free from the disaster of war.

Slime Molds

Against the Dangers of War

[Ecological Center]

The mycelium at the top of the ecological center absorbs light, and the mycelium at the bottom absorbs soil water and other nutrients. At the same time, the mycelium provides light energy and nutrients to the plants inside the ecological center. The plants produce oxygen through photosynthesis and transfer it to the grain-producing area, human social area and human residential area through the mycelium. So that the whole region form a self-contained organic system. At the same time, the ecological center can serve as a buffer zone of war, which can prevent the spread of war disaster to a certain extent, and make use of the regeneration of mycelia and plants to provide a guarantee for the sustainability of underground utopia.

[Human Social Area]

The human social area simulates the dot, line and surface structure of a public square and provides space for human activities.

At the same time, the human social area is also the structural transition area of the underground peace utopia. The radial mycelium connects the grainproducing area with the human residential area, which strengthens the resistance of the underground space to the shock wave of war and stabilizes the whole structural system.

[Grain-producing Area]

Mycelia carrying light energy, nutrients and oxygen extend from ecological center to grain-producing area, providing essential conditions for the growth of crops. Like ecological center, grain-producing area can be used as war buffer zone to prevent the spread of war disaster to a certain extent, and the regeneration of mycelia and crops can provide a guarantee for the sustainability of the underground utopia.

[Human Residential Area]

Human residential area consists of two parts, namely the upper structure area and the lower residential area. The lower residential area is distributed with mycelia and spores, spores contain human life, and mycelia maintain the connection between individuals. As the outer area of the underground space, the human residential area is protected by the inner buffer zone of the underground space, and its security is guaranteed to the greatest extent. At the same time, according to the degree of war, the mycelium in the superstructure area will expand or contract, seeking a balance between residential comfort and residential security.

[The Variables Affecting the Overall Spatial Morphology and the Mechanism of Action]

Light intensity - Contrary to traditional microscopic mycelia, mycelia under bionic technology will gather in the direction of light to obtain more light energy, so as to carry out more energy conversion.

Level of War - As the level of war increases, the top structure layer expands downward, increasing the war buffer area and thus offsetting most of the war damage.

[The Influence of Dominant Factors on Overall Spatial Morphology]

1.Dominated by natural conditions (low level of war) - Mycelia are basically unaffected by war, and act normally after being affected by light.

Light Intensity: Strong to Weak - a to d

Degree

2.Dominated by the degree of war (high level of war) - Mycelia are not only affected by natural conditions, but also affected by war. Therefore, when the light intensity decreases, mycelia will reduce the degree of aggregation in the direction of sunlight outside the surface, so as to reduce the number of directly exposed to the surface, thus reducing the possibility of war causing damage to a large range of mycelia.

Light

[Ecological Center]

The mycelium at the top of the ecological center absorbs light, and the mycelium at the bottom absorbs soil water and other nutrients. At the same time, the mycelium provides light energy and nutrients to the plants inside the ecological center. The plants produce oxygen through photosynthesis and transfer it to the grain-producing area, human social area and human residential area through the mycelium. So that the whole region form a self-contained organic system. At the same time, the ecological center can serve as a buffer zone of war, which can prevent the spread of war disaster to a certain extent, and make use of the regeneration of mycelia and plants to provide a guarantee for the sustainability of underground utopia.

[The Influence of Light Intensity on Spatial Morphology]

When light intensity decreases, mycelia will carry plants toward the surface to gather more light energy, so that plants can grow normally.

Light Intensity: Strong to Weak - a to h

[The Influence of Plant Size on Spatial Morphology]

The mycelia leaves the right space for the plant to grow according to plant community volume.

Plant Community Volume: Small to large - a to h

[The Scenes of Ecological Center]

[Grain-producing Area]

Mycelia carrying light energy, nutrients and oxygen extend from ecological center to grain-producing area, providing essential conditions for the growth of crops. Like ecological center, grain-producing area can be used as war buffer zone to prevent the spread of war disaster to a certain extent, and the regeneration of mycelia and crops can provide a guarantee for the sustainability of the underground utopia.

[The Influence of Light Intensity on Spatial Morphology]

When light intensity decreases, mycelia will carry crops to the ecological center to obtain more light energy and ensure grain production as far as possible. At the same time, more peripheral space is left for food storage in case of severe weather periods.

Light Intensity: Strong to Weak - a to h

[Transport of Mycelium]

Mycelia carrying light energy, nutrients and oxygen extend from ecological centers to grain-producing areas, providing essential conditions for the growth of crops. In addition, the cavities in the mycelium also provide a route for grain transport.

[Human Social Area]

The human social area simulates the dot, line and surface structure of a public square and provides space for human activities. At the same time, the human social area is also the structural transition area of the underground peace utopia. The radial mycelium connects the grain-producing area with the human residential area, which strengthens the resistance of the underground space to the shock wave of war and stabilizes the whole structural system.

[The influence of ritual sense in public space on Spatial Node Morphology]

The more ceremonial the public space is, the more orderly and empty the space structure tends to be.

Ritualism: Weak to Strong - a to h

[The Scenes of Human Social Area]

[Human Residential Area]

Human residential area consists of two parts, namely the upper structure area and the lower residential area. The lower residential area is distributed with mycelia and spores, spores contain human life, and mycelia maintain the connection between individuals.

As the outer area of the underground space, the human residential area is protected by the inner buffer zone of the underground space, and its security is guaranteed to the greatest extent. At the same time, according to the degree of war, the mycelium in the superstructure area will expand or contract, seeking a balance between residential comfort and residential security.

[The Influence of the Degree of War on Spatial Morphology]

As the level of war increases, the superstructure area expands downward like an airbag, thus forming a larger buffer area to ensure the safety of the lower residential area. The mycelia and spores in the residential part gradually gathered at the bottom due to the expansion of the superstructure area, which reduced the comfort of human habitation and improved the safety.

The Process of Airbag Ejection

Spores in the human residential area contain human life. When the number of human individuals in the spores reaches saturation, spores will split, and some living individuals will live and reproduce in the newborn spores. On this basis, new human communities will be formed.

[The Scene of Human Residential Area]

Academic Works

Exploration of Construction and Materials

Work Program

1. Country Club

From March to May 2018

Individual Work

Panjin City, Liaoning Province, China

3. Office Tower

From November 2019 to January 2020

Individual work Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China

From September to November 2019

Group Work With Liu Hong Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China

4. Tree House In July 2018 Group Work Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China

5. Nanchan Temple In July 2019 Group Work

Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China

6. Parametric Construction

In July 2019 Group Work

Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China

7. Wings of Wind

The 8th Harbin Institute of Technology Construction Festival

In June 2017 Group Work

Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, China

8. Meishan Party School

From July to October 2021 Group Work

Meishan City, Sichuan Province, China

2. Design of Suzhou Gymnasium

Taken in 2018

Shanghai Municipality, China

Taken in 2018

Shanghai Municipality, China

Taken in 2019

Dalian, Liaoning Province, China

Taken in 2019

Dalian, Liaoning Province, China

The Bund in Shanghai

Yu Garden

Xinghai Cross-sea Bridge

Seaside Road

photography