Xintong Yan - Portfolio 2021

Figurative Architecture An Architecture Portfolio

Xintong Yan Rhode Island School of Design

Content Artificial Forest Spine House Nightlight Library House for Two Makers Hybrid Tower Selected Drawings Resume

2020

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Providence, Rhode Island

The Forest Campus

World of Art

As the student, faculty and visitor part from the town's hustle and bustle, one finds the new campus of Rhode Island School of Design in the serenity of the woods, where the horizon broadens and the land embraces the waters.

The experience of navigating the artificial forest is like following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, one must go through a tunnel of the Museum where students, faculties engage with the historic and current art scene, leading towards a tower or underground world designated to their particular discipline.

An Artificial Forest

Material Poetics

Inside the exhibition spaces, the artificial forest appears not only around but also above the visitor. The use of mesh fabric veils the dense structure of mass timber but does not completely overrule the appearance of the wood.

At times, it accentuates the existence of the wood by exhibiting its footprint and shadow; other times, it blurs the vision and confuses the distant. Other surfaces in the space such as the white surfaces used as backdrops for artwork exist entirely independently from the timber frame.

The result is an unapologetically synthetic scenery that alludes to the logic of a forest.

The study on structure of the design is critically selective: a relationship between three-dimensional structure and plane surfaces. As a commentary on traditional mass timber designs, the limited use of timber surfaces is to reject the result of a interior space with overwhelming wood presence. The insertion of surfaces are seemingly autonomous from the construction of timber frames, but are in fact, completely dependent for its load bearing qualities.

Artificial Forest

Massing

2020

Spine House The house is the spine for its tenants, buttressing basics of life the spine is the backbone for its structure, holding up the organism.

--------------------------------In the vertebrae carries the essence of its being, what powers the functions of each organ.

Branching outwardly from the spine, a space and life can grow couragously.

---------------------------------------------Like a tree takes root in soil, a house roots in life.

------------------------------------------For first-time home owners, for families who seek to settle down, for generations to pass on to newer generations, A virtuous house makes a spine.

----------------------------------

Chicago, Illinois

Spine House

The northern wall thickens from eighteen inches to fourty two inches, becoming where fixtures reside. Embedding stairs, water piping, shelves and closets, the spine is where the occupant store and retrieve.

Stretching from the front to the back of the site, the rammed earth wall carves into the front and back yard.

By delivering rainwater to the front raingarden, it greets its visitors and by housing a built-in barbeque grill, it hosts its guests. Thus, recreational programmes can grow into the southern light.

Spine House

Gardens

Re-adjusting the contemporary philosophy of healthy living which involves the family’s active engagement with outdoor activities and healthy yardwork, the design of the house allows for three distinct gardens.

The raingarden in front of the house harvests rainwater autonomously and provides a seasonal picturesque view for the street front. The plants act as a screen to provide privacy for the front yard from its neighborhood.

The edible garden, fully enclosed in a greenhouse, can be used to grow and harvest plants all year round. Excessive soil from the excavation of site is used to erect a higher ground level from which a slender tree can grow into the second level of the house, bringing life into the house even during the harsh winters of Chicago.

The rear garden is an intimate and quiet space away from the active street for the family to tend to the plants as well as their needs for relaxation and socilization.

Spine House

Rammed earth provides outstanding thermal mass quality, conserving usage of power and fuel and remains reusable post demolition.

Constructed with soil excavated from site, the house reduces carbon footprint during transportation and construction.

A slanted roof efficiently reuses collected stormwater to irrigate an autonomous raingarden and reduces the risk of flooding in the wider Chicago area.

Rammed Earth

2019

Nightlight Library The Lamp burns sure- withinThose who long for insight.

It subtlely a gift sight bringsFor them who walk long nights.

To light the night Ever so brightly Is to illuminate Intellectuality

Providence, Rhode Island

Nightlight Library

The main stacks, where wisdom and knowledge are housed, is the light source of the lamp; being the most transparent, the centre of the building receives and emits the most light during the day and at night. The most private, special collection and offices are in the darkest part of the building.

The semi-private programs such as study rooms and computer labs are right next to the street, acting like the shade of the lamp for the main stacks.

Moving through the library, one can experience a shifting in scale of the spaces and positive and negative relationships at the connection of volumes.

From large to small, open to intimate, public to private, the structure shelters a list of modern library programmes such as open and closed reading spaces, special collection, auditorium, café and restaurant.

Knowledge Is Light

Nightlight Library

Connection With The City

Second Floor

First Floor

Basement

Nightlight Library

Open And Closed

2018

House for Two Makers

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On A Hill

House for Two Makers

Two Worlds in One

Upon entry, the visitors are introduced into a shared gallery space where a glimpse of both the papermaker and the globemakers’ creations are exhibited.

Through a staircase into the earth, the papermaker is brought into a stop in the papermaker’s paper exhibition gallery. As one navigates through the passage of the gallery, after a turn at the end, they find themselves in the papermaker’s embedded reading room where books are lodged into the Earth.

House for Two Makers

At the very top level, the globemakers’ workspace is uplifted by a central oculus that pierces through the ceiling and brings in light. As if at the centre of the world, the globemakers produce right under the oculus.

The individual living spaces can be accessed through two separate entrances on either side of the gallery. The two living cubicles face outwards and away from each other, providing privacy from the other maker and also an exterior view in the bedroom.

The dining and living rooms are separated by two glass screens with a staircase between them, making the space personal but also parallel.

On the other hand, the papermaker’s space is completely embedded within the earth and has an intimate relationship with the earth. As the earth nests the space, the sounds of the slow stream and the smell of the garden connect the papermaker spiritually with nature. Between the two worlds, fully enclosed by glass on all side, the ground floor enables a view around and parallel to the ground.

Three Visions

2019

Hybrid Tower

What differentiates a mixed-use and hybrid building? The best answer is a hybrid building makes no attempt at being mistakened for a mixed-use building; it does everything in its power to express its hybridity. Through and

through, it celebrates unapologetically its endogenous make-up of functions even though it appears incomprehensible to the outside eye. Meanwhile, it shyly mitigates its foreigness to the city by politely negotiating its exogenous forces: context, program, and systems. It wants to be a city within a city.

Boston, Massachusetts

Hybrid Tower

The circulation scheme is to create a vertical avenue with an experience similar to that of a horizontal street. As the entrance of the building stretches from the street level to form a ramp into the building, the circulation path becomes an extension from the streets on ground level. Circulation is not only between one program and another but also a space of public programs such as art gallery, auditorium, and classrooms.

Circulation and Program

With one program wrapping the other, two institutions are paired strategically to encourage communication across institutions. The most hybridization of programs happen on the “ground floors” elevated to higher levels of the building.

With programs across all three institutions, the floor contains the most public programs that are typically found on ground level such as cafeteria, shops and lobby.

Hybrd Tower

Two-storey residential units for cross generational living, Communal library

Cafeteria, Lobby for Residential units, Counselling services center, Community garden

Entrance from ground, Shared lobby for offices, Art gallery

Ground Above The Ground

The Hybrid Tower

Skeleton and skin

A megastructure is used to resolve the problem of the tallness. The structure comprises of a two-part system: a mega trussed inner core supporting an array of intensly trussed floors from which thin floor slabs are suspended from cables. The hanging system avoids the use of massive columes and allows for an entire floor plan to be free of major structural elements. This not only enables floor slabs to be ramps but also creates visual clarity across each floor.

The skin of the building uses a gradient of transparency while blending the volumes visually. The level of transparency is determined by the type of program although a combination of transparencies is used for each.

The cultural institution is enclosed with mostly solidity, whereas the educational institution and residential units are enclosed with mostly translucent and transparent materials respectively. As a result, the art galleries are darker spaces with occassional skylight corridors, the classrooms and offices are brighter and clear from external distractions and the residential spaces are the brightest and take advantage of the view of Boston at a great height.

2018-2021

Selected Drawings Include digital, hybrid media, charcoal drawings and travel sketchbook pages

Analysis and Redesign of Sogetsu Art Centre

Digital

Travel Sketchbook in Oaxaca

Watercolour, Guache and Ink

Day and Night on College Hill

Charcoal

xyan@risd.edu / +1 401 234 6786 / emilyyan.cargo.site

Xintong (Emily) Yan Education

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) RI, USA / 2017-2022 Bachelor of Architecture Bachelor of Fine Arts GPA 3.66 Roedean School, UK / 2012-2017

Skills

Software: Rhino | Vray, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom Modelmaking: Cardboard, Paper, Plexi, Foam, Wood, Lasercutting, 3D printing Other: Textiles (knitting, crocheting, weaving, embroidery), Analogue Photography, Darkroom Developing & Printing Language: Mandarin, English, Cantonese

Experience

Architectural Intern | East 9 Architects and Planners Singapore/ June-August 2019

Generated construction documents Designed interior & exterior details Created diagrams, illustrations and presentation boards Assembled material boards Construction Workshop | RootStudio Mexico, Jan-Feb 2020

Participated in earth material preparation for sustainable techniques including ramming earth and mud mortar Plastered two houses on site with handmade locally sourced earth and concrete mixture

Involvement and Awards

AIAS officer RISD Chapter Fall 2019- Present AIAS & NOMAS Peer Mentor Fall 2020 Honors Student Rhode Island School of Design / Spring 2018 & Fall 2019 Duke of Edinburgh Gold & Bronze Award 2016 & 2017 Business Manager Young Enterprise Company / 2017 Best Presentation Young Enterprise Final Conference / 2016

Thank you for your consideration!