portfolio
CONTENTS
HINGE & WEAVE (art foundation)
AMERICAN DREAM (reuse/master plan)
COMMUNAL
THREADS
(mass timber co-housing)
BIENNI-L (pop-up pavilion)
CLOUD-COLUMN CITY (urban speculation) spring 2024
january 2024 fall 2023 october 2023 spring 2020
HINGE & WEAVE
comprehensive design for a local art foundation
Work
type: student, individual
Faculty: Gesa Büttner-Dias, USC
Corita Kent (1918–1986) was a Los Angeles artist, activist, and educator. The Corita Kent Foundation preserves her archive and carries on her work by engaging local communities in art programs.
Unlike a typical museum, the Corita Kent Center aims to be an extension of the neighborhood. Public and private areas are connected by a shared circulation strategy: a central elevator core (“hinge”) accommodates functional needs, while a winding indoor/outdoor ramp (“weave”) leads patrons and staff alike from a ground-floor café through to the lobby, galleries, offices, and terraces.
As a comprehensive design exercise, this building responds to a range of conditions, including environmental forces, zoning constraints, parking requirements, structural feasibility, MEP integration, and accessibility and egress codes.
axonometric view (southwest)
Tall CLT panels in ceiling reflect warm light through upper gallery
Steel exterior/interior ramp: 1/13 slope, 84” min. head height
Gallery w/ roof access
Beams sitting on top of girders create zones for MEP along ceiling
CLT floor panels do not intersect load path, preventing shrinkage
L3 Enclosed gallery
Exterior timber members clad with weather-resistant siding
Terrace, reception
30’ typical span aligns with below-grade columns
Parking, mechanical
materials overview, section “chunk” model (1/4” = 1’)
Concrete egress stair core (1/3)
L4
B1
L1 Café
L2
1. reception/gift shop
2. outdoor terrace
3. security office 4-16. offices (various)
8. public lecture hall
Daylight Autonomy:
% of occupied hours (9AM–7PM) that a minimum of 400 lux is achieved at viewing level (5’)
Glare Autonomy:
% of occupied hours (9AM–7PM) that area is free of glare
mezzanine/reading room
ramp, 3rd-floor gallery
entrance/café terrace
section perspective
Massing responses to site conditions:
• Operable windows oriented to prevailing winds for passive cooling
• South-facing overhangs minimize solar gain in summertime
• Open space protected from traffic/street noise on Vermont Ave.
site analysis diagrams
THE (AMENDED) AMERICAN DREAM
historic preservation and mixed-use community plan
Work type: competition, group (with Ernest Tse and Gregor Tillman)
2nd Place, USC Architecture Guild Design Charrette
Over the course of a one-week charrette, our team produced a proposal for redeveloping the former Lincoln Heights Jail into a mixed-use public market and work space. A new Metro stop serving the adapted jailhouse also presented the opportunity to create a new walkable residential community. Various housing types, including co-housing, townhomes, and convertible lofts, are integrated with access to gardens and the natural landscape.
We identified equality, freedom, and individuality as core components of the traditional American Dream. In our proposal, these ideals are expanded to encompass equity, “freedom from”, and community.
top: site overview bottom: perspective, plaza and transit hub
Studio
Bird Habitat
Single Loaded Apartments
Ed P. Reyes River Greenway
Courtyard Townhouses
Daycare Center
Small Grocer on ground floor
Forum
Co-Housing on Uppper Floors
Community Garden
Pier Over Tracks
Metro Station
COMMUNAL THREADS
modular co-housing with cross-laminated timber
Work type: student, group (with Toby Yang)
Faculty: Hadrian Predock, USC
This project targets mostly young workers and is situated in a dense but low-rise neighborhood near central Los Angeles.
Residents live in modular bedroom units and share other spaces with progressively wider circles of neighbors. A living room and two bathrooms are shared between groups of five, while each kitchen and courtyard accommodates ten residents or more.
The anonymous hallway is replaced with a continuous interior “street” anchored at each end by public spaces: a resale shop and a gallery/market hall, both meant to support local economic activity.
In a moment marked by scarcity and shortages, sharing is a necessity. More than just space, we might also share our time and resources with one another; communal living offers a way of life that is not just affordable, but resilient.
axonometric view (northwest)
modularity diagrams
longitudinal section
ground floor / site plan
living “pod” model (1/4” = 1’)
BIENNI-L
public pavilion in a repurposed traincar
Work type: competition, individual
Honorable Mention, Spectacular Weekend Competition
Competitors had 48 hours to deliver a proposal for a pavilion located in the Chicago Loop to serve as part of the 2023 Architecture Biennial.
A decommissioned 2600-series “L” car offered a small footprint and ready-made shell ideal for this purpose, while also expressing the character and history of the city.
The short lifespan of the pavilion presents an opportunity to give back to the city. Once the biennial closes, the train car can serve as a pilot for a new type of public space to populate the central business district.
top: site, axonometric view (northeast) bottom: plan
1980s-2020s
2023
Exhibition space
Future
Small business/ Public amenity
CLOUD-COLUMN CITY
lofty speculations on urbanism
Work type: student, individual
Faculty: Aura Venckunaite, UIC
Selected,
UIC School of Architecture Year-End Show
Cloud-Column City is an urban environment that pushes Modernist pilotis to their greatest possible extent with a compacted canopy of buildings set high above the ground. The city is no longer organized by a horizontal grid of streets but rather by a vertical grid of “cores,” inside of which are all the necessary utility lines, circulation, and structural support for the buildings above.
The variegated underside of these buildings produces a cloud-like effect at ground level, where the landscape is transformed into an endless field for recreational activities. Greenery is kept in round-the-clock artificial daylight by hanging lanterns. Pedestrians benefit from the extremely close arrangement of buildings; getting across town is literally a walk in the park. Here–in a garden hidden beneath a vast work of architecture–it never rains, it never gets dark, and one can never truly go “outside.”
axonometric cut-away view
As a precedent assignment, I drew and analyzed a quarter-quarter (40 acre) section of downtown Los Angeles.
downtown los angeles, axonometric view
cloud-column city, axonometric view
schematic section
section detail