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F O L I
Ching Huen (Brittany) Leung Selected Works 2017-2020
CHING HUEN (BRITTANY) LEUNG Brittany is an architectural designer from Hong Kong. She likes observing everyday life phenomena and lingering between reality and fantasy. Skilled in conceptual design, graphic production and research, Brittany strives to pursue potential solutions towards inhabitations and spatial sensibilities with great curiosity and tenacity.
EDUCATION
CONTACT
Syracuse School of Architecture I Research Intern 2019-2020 • Assist with research on Strangers’ Co-habitation: an atlas of collaborative housing typologies at the rise of sharing economy Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture I Professor Jiong Abingo Wu • 3D modeling/graphics on churches I Professor Anne Munly • Model-making for Building Practice Exhibition I Professor Kyle Miller
cleung04@syr.edu +1 (646) 388-0348 issuu: https://issuu.com/ brittanyleung/docs/oma_ a4_portfolio
SKILLS Rhino/Vray AutoCAD Sketch Up Adobe Suites • Photoshop I Illustrator • InDesign I After Effects Unity 3D/VR ArcGIS Microsoft Office Physcial model-making
Syracuse University I Syracuse, NY I USA Master of Architecture (Advanced Standing)
2018-2020 December
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign I USA Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies
2014-2018
Escola Tècnica Superior d’ Arquitectura del Vallès I SPAIN International Immersion in Barcelona
2017-2018
EXPERIENCE
Syracuse School of Architecture I Teaching Assistant Aug 2020-Present • Introduction to Architecture course I Joseph Godlewski Fisher Center NYC I Event Assistant Summer 2019 • Helped organize and promote architecture-real estate lecture series by checking-in attendees/guests, assisting to set up events and documenting events through photography and posting on social media The Village of Global Warming Exhibition I NYC Summer 2019 • Participant I ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles] I Independent School for the City (Rotterdam) I Hot Air Gallery
INVOLVEMENT Alpha Rho Chi Professional Fraternity for Architecture & Arts 2016-2018 • Professional Chair I Fall 2016 Bridges International UIUC 2015-2018 • Student Leader I Fostered social connections and engaged in meaningful dialogue with international students
Architectural handrawing
National Organization for Minority Architects (NOMAS) • NOMAS Symposium Design + Impact
LANGUAGES
AWARDS
English I Fluent
The King + King Architects Leadership by Design Competition 2019-2020 • Honorable Mention I Partnered with Margaret Mary Frank
Cantonese I Fluent Mandarin I Native
2016-2018
Chester V. Long Scholarship 2017-2018 • “Preference to those students with interest and talent in the inter-relationship between Architecture and Art and the use of art in architectural design.”
Contents
Material Disaster Relief Shelter I Stripscape
01
Restaurant I Pathos & Logos
07
Social Reading Space I A Room with a View
11
Arch Outloud Home Competition I Post-Covid Housing
15
Urbanism & Research Research/Exhibition I Bangalore Water Market
19
M. Arch Thesis I Manifested Tectonic: In Search of Theatricality
25
Stripscape
Site section with corten-steel strips embedded in the ground
Our concept addresses the way and the rate at which materials erode over time due to the increase in sea level rise. As the land erodes, Corten steel becomes exposed indicating a measure of time. The strips hold the shape of the built up land as the rising sea level eats away at various soil types, from sandy soils at the shoreline to clay inland. The building is made up of what appears to be three buildings on the first floor that are connected on the second floor. Each entrance opens up to a larger program that relates to the context. The form is derived from the metal strips that organize the building from landscape to roof.
Instructors: Julie Larsen & Mathew Celmer Spring 2019 East Boston I USA 01
The circulation on the first floor is jagged, allowing for pockets of retreat from the larger spaces for disaster relief. The second floor circulation is a more clearly defined directive towards the main program, an auditorium for the storm water ‘ritual.’ Teammate: Margret Frank Role of production: site plans, collage, renderings, detail section & elevation, single-bay axonometric diagram, physical models.
Plan collage, inspired by Parc de la villette, OMA
An artificial landscape is first created as a negotiation between resiliency and playfulness. Steel strips are embedded in the ground at a ten foot structural bay increment that either embraces or directs the rising sea level on our site in East Boston. They act as indicators for rate of erosion and time markers, as well as retaining walls for water to breach into the land.
Site Plans I Before Storm & Storm-Surging responding to 2030, 2050 & 2070 1% annual flood
Three cisterns are placed in relation to the current and projected high tides and are used as generators for energy and a spectacle as the surrounding landscape is built up around them. 02
The circulation on the first floor is jagged, allowing for pockets of retreat from the larger spaces for disaster relief. The second floor circulation is a more clearly defined directive towards the main program, an auditorium for the storm water‘ritual.’
Preliminary form & program exploration 03
2 1
roof construction 1 2
seconary beam tertiary beam
1 4
2 3
floor / wall construction 1 2 3 4
metal floor joist framing steel column shear wall bracing light steel framing
1
2
Views towards the landscape & cistern 3
4
10 feet
The building form is derived from manipulating strips of the landscape model. Flipping the strips upside down, a series of beam are established holding up the shape of the building. Addtionally, a roofscape is formed, allowing access during normal days.
FOUNDATION 1 2 3 4
PRIMARY BEAM PRIMARY LANDSCAPE METAL INTERMEDIATE LANDSCAPE METAL PILE FOUNDATION
34 feet wide pilot project
21 feet wide 5 feet deep power 20 swiss homes avg. swiss home sq ft 1066 x 20 homes 21,320 sq ft SOURCE: Dhakal, Subash, Susan Nakarmi, Pikam Pun, Arun Bikram Thapa, and Tri Ratna Bajracharya. "Development and Testing of Runner and Conical Basin for Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant." Journal of the Institute of Engineering 10, no. 1 (Aug 3, 2014): 140-148. doi:10.3126/jie.v10i1.10895.
Basin
34 feet wide 6 feet deep power 2070 slr +36 inch whole building sq ft 26,560 x 3 cisterns constant water flow 1 cistern power whole building
(1) power entire building (2) back up generator / community use
In two instances, the primary beams separate the building into sacrificial zones that allow the building to completely open up during pleasant weather; the cafe and the aerial yoga studio.
6 feet deep
water pumped to valley filtered water used for hydraulic garage doors hydraulic elevators radiant floor heating
Landscape model laminated in opaque & transparent strips
Massing model 04
Zinc Panel Roof Cladding
HVAC Tertiary Beam Secondary Beam
Pre-fabricated steel members assembled on site!
Corten-Steel Cladding
Composite Metal Decking
Rigid Insulation Primary Beam
Primary Foundation Beam
Section axon showing assembly of structural members
1:50 structural model I Collaborated with Margaret Frank 05
1.
2.
4.
3.
4. 5.
ive vegetation
ion to falls bituminous seal
eam
toughened glass + 16.5mm cavity
ndow surround, removable for reglazing
e columns
ion
Conceptual sketch for structural connection
H 3� INSULATION ON THE SIDE
06
Pathos & Logos
1: 50 model collaborated with Jesse Han
Located next to a historic reservoir, which now houses the university’s library, this project seeks to be a small scale restaurant that would be a proper assertion to its urban context.
There is also an expression on the material and construction aspects of the bricks that are being used, bringing in light, warmth and pleasure into the restaurant.
Refering to the grid of the library columns, a linear scheme is developed, where the catalan vaults have the same rhythm throughout the “served” and “servant spaces”.
Teammates: Iris Alonso & Jesse Han Role of production: site plan, detail drawings, visualizations & physical model
Instructors: Alejandro Lapunzina & Faculty at ETSAV-UPC Fall 2017 Barcelona I Spain 07
[Exclusivamente para uso académico]
Inspired by Louis Kahn’s theory of “served” and “servant space”, a central corridor is used to maximize the efficiency of circulation and to create a clear division of the utility spaces and dining area.
Site located next to library Deposit de les aigues
[Exclusivamente para uso académico]
08
0.4m
0.4m
DOUBL 50/270 6 mm to 12 mm 6 mm to in alum
0.2m
3m
3m
4m 3.1m
3.1m
1m
1m
Facade & Section detail with Spanish bricks construction
cm
14 6cm
cm
29
m
7c
cm
15
“Masonry is a “structure that remains visible in its surface and works through it...It is the artistic characteristic of masonry that provides the ethical and aesthetical resonance that legitimises many things.” Andrea Deplazes 09
0.6m
Playing with the rhythm of the vaults , the bar and group room are then oriented towards the garden on the ground level to celebrate the iconic chimney with respect to its historical context. [Exclusivamente para uso acadĂŠmico]
10
A Room with a View
Situated on a dock that resides on the lake, this reading room is about Emotion and Space. Mood is used as a potential medium to explore the metaphysical states of people in space. Playing with both the spatial constraints and indeterminacy of a nine-square configuration, the abtraction and expression of emotion is very much like the composition of music. Instructors: Abruzzo Bodziak Architects Spring 2019 Syracuse I USA 11
A series of mutually inclusive reading and viewing rooms create certain atmospheres. The dialogue generated between “reading” and “viewing” is achieved through circulation, effects, and framing. Combining materiality, lighting, and spatial conditions, viewing rooms are like events and are without hierarchy, allowing for people to find their own paths in space and time.
Villa Malcontenta, Andrea Palladio & Villa Garches, Le Corbusier, Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, 1976
Concept sketches on light conditions & atmospheres
“...suggest less than the traditional narrative of the loss of sanctity of the public and private spheres but rather that the distinction was becoming irrelevant in the face of new forms of sociality that were performative.� Sylvia Lavin 12
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3
3
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1 2 3
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Entry Elevator Reading Room
6
4 5 6
Viewing Room: Natural Light Viewing Room: Artificial Light Restroom
enfilade
primary/direct
intermezzos
secondary/indirect
“a sentiment is not something that I own, but instead the sentiments that owns me.� Tonino Griferro 14
Post-Covid Housing
A home for the future where life is remote. We envision this housing model to be a new ecosystem that encourages a sustainable co-living lifestyle and promotes new possibilities to home life. We developed typologies wherein the shared spaces can have negotiable use and character. The most private spaces are your own and shared spaces can be shared or rented for private use.
Arch Outloud Home Competition Fall 2020 15
A home which accommodates the needs of people in the future where you work from home, study from home, use delivery systems for shopping, getting groceries and food. Teammates: Jeeshau Yu, Sravya Sirigiri Role of production: plan diagrams, axonometric section, exterior rendering.
Typological variations
Our design responds to an idea of home that is adaptable and resilient to remote life offering facilities to accommodate human needs at one stop. This home is an apartment unit consisting of nine vertical neighborhoods. A playful and flexible housing typology offers different combinations of apartment layouts within ranges of privacy/collectiveness. 16
Massing iterations
Shared areas
Pocket spaces in between levels are used for co-living spaces that hold a sense of connection and belonging though residents are isolated. Residents have access to their own unit through private circulation in each vertical stack, as well as through common circulation to access the shared area. 17
18
Bangalore Water Market
*Exhibition model I Collaborated with Akhil Arun
Bangalore city is located at the edge of the cauvery basin. As the citie’s water resources deplete, the city is forced to extend its dependence on natural resources on the cauvery river basin. Researching water scarcity, pollution, supply, and water infrastructure in Banglore, this speculative project is aimed to express architectue as a polysemic language that negotiates between reality and imagination.
Abandoned water tank is used as a signifier framing people’s cultural habits, and lake is seen as a common wealth, as well as a socio-ecological landscape that brings the community together. Teammate: Akhil Arun Role of production: research, axonometric diagrams, axonometric section, visualization of the oblique plan, physical model
Instructor: ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles] Summer 2019 Exhibition: Village of Global Warming I New York I USA 19
Mapping Banglore city with its historical tanks (artificial lakes built by emperors for storing of surface drainage)
Natural cascading tank system
Topographically, the city has slopes towards east and west with a smooth ridge running north to south. Rainfall over the ridge area gets divided and flows east or west. When it comes to the storing of surface drainage, there are nearly 50 tanks, both small and large, within or just outside the city of Bangalore. 20
Top Soil Weathered Zone Fractured Zone Bedrock
Ep 1: Cauvery Basin
Ep 2: Shivana Balancing Reservoir
As the cities’ water resources deplete, the city is forced to extend its dependence on natural resoruces on the cauvery river basin. The diagram above shows a constructed system that allows bangalore city to pump water from the cavuery river.
100 km
KRS Reservoir on Cauvery
Arkavathi Source
Cauvery Source Nelamangala Tumkur Road Mysore
3.T.K Halli Pumping Station Peenya T.G Halli
Bangalore City
KRS Reservoir
State Border
2.Shivana Balancing Reservoir
Regional water supply system & diagrams 21
4.Parallel Transmission Piplines
Ep 3: Pump Station
Ep 4: Transmission Lines
Current lake system in Bangalore is being polluted due to the unadequate uses. Water distribution within the city is gentrified and is causing inequality in disconnected communities.
Local Water Tank
City Pumping Station Domestic Tank
Illegal Borewell
Shallow Aquifier
Cavuery River water
Deep Aquifier
Local water supply system 22
Proposed water tank typology embedding social-economic programs & rainwater harvesting strategy
Village of Global Warming Exhibition photos, courtersy of Syracuse Architecture NYC 23
Social-ecological lakescape I Collaborated with Akhil Arun
“Place is distinguished as “the immediate environment of the lived body—an arena of action that is at once physical and historical, social and cultural” Casey, E.S (2001) 24
Manifested Tectonic: In Search of Theatricality
Inspired by both Artaud and Hartoonian’s implications of theatricality, this thesis is aimed to explore the potential state of Tectonic through aesthetic, performative and philosophical means. Concepts like theatricality and spectacles are permeating our society since late capitalism. The meaning of tectonic that rooted in the origin of Architecture has also come a long way from the classical period. Theatricality, namely a gap between reality and its representation, has never been more appropriate under such context.
Advisor: Hannibal Newsom Spring 2020 M.Arch Thesis, Syracuse University 25
Treating building elements as set pieces on stage, improvisations are generated by both signifier and participants. Theatricality is here used as a communication tool that mediates fictional scenarios and everyday experiences, in order to grasp the uncanny residues/gaps between reality and fiction. It synthesizes the roles of people and objects in a theatrical play through “a sense of humor, a sense of laughter’s power of physical and anarchic dissociation.” (Artaud, The Theater and Its Double)
Publication: https://surface.syr.edu/architecture_theses/470/ Exhibition: https://cleung591.wixsite.com/manifestedtectonic
In this catalog, a series of architecture elements are used as apparatus to generate possible scenarios between those elements and people. Treating the elements as disembodied objects, the intention is to boost an imagination and thinking freed from the physical boundaries and limitations of the traditional drawings. It also presents us with a focus on the process of design, where forms and uses in architecture are not taken for granted as in an integrated whole, but rather an anonymous detail in which can be worked through.
“The hierarchy and degree of definition of spaces, their relative size and location, and the sub-architectural apparatuses of each space (furniture, appliances, media devices)-all of those are defined by and in turn give definition to the social and psychological narratives that influence the behaviors (encouraged, allowed, discouraged or forbidden) associated with each space.� Mark Rakatansky Tectonic Acts of Desire and Doubt
26
Theatricality is a condition of being and ‘inauthenticity’ was its virtue. It is through gaps and slippages in reality and fiction, and in truth and effect that people are able to unleash forces for many potentials that are otherwise repressed in consciousness. Staging objects on familiar streets, this intervention questions the potential agency in terms of citymaking and the narrative-making of the city. One’s engagement with his/her surroundings is an active dialogue between his/her personal identity and the built environment.
“Bakhtin draws on the phenomena of carnival and folk culture, especially its humour, the grotesque, satire and parody, to reveal the revolutionary potential of laughter itself. Laughter stands for the mechanism that dissolves the contradictions of authority and sociality in the public square.”
collage staging tectonic elements in different contexts 27
Writingplace: Investigations in Architecture and Literature
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