AAD_SU21_012

Janice Yuan Chen Graduation Portfolio | Columbia GSAPP 2020-2021

Table of Contents

Challenage the System of Capitalism

01

Impossible Structure as Social Scaffold

02

REFAB Factory

03

Oxygen Bar & Food Therapy at Cananea

Architecture is the art yet beyond art.

Architecture is the science yet beyond science.

Architecture is not the solution, but the driving force on the way to a better life.

Architecture should restore the initial image of people’s life.

It can be used as a weapon against the broken systems, the system of capitalism, the system of texitle recycling, and the system of mining extraction.

Upgrade the System of Texitle Recycling

Remediate the System of Extraction

Productive Uncertainty

Impossible Structure as Social Scaffold West Side Yard, Hudson Yards, New York, NY, USA GSAPP Adv. V | Fall 2020 | Prof. Marc Tsurumaki Individual Project

Manhattan has been a foundation of extremely juxtaposition of wealthy and poor. During the Coivd-19 pandemic in 2020, the hotspots are at the communities where the immigrants, minorities and poor live. While the luxury residential buildings are empty out, people from bottom are struggling with their rent. As an epitome of the New York City, Hudson Yards is such a symbol of how developer and government act as rule changer and game player in their exclusively ultra-rich world, which is overlooking real new yorker’s need and this attitude intensify this uncertainty that lowerclass already faced.

The West Side Yard adjacent to the eastern yard is still on its way to come.

Hudson Yards is this kind of realization of the impossible structure but benefit less than 10% of the population. We witness its hayday and halt within just one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Is there a model for the future of New York City? This untouched land is given back to the community who is ought to get benefit from it. The project seems to have tight relation to the current public health event, but is a response to the overall existing condition in New York City.

Productive Uncertainty

From Jobless to Homeless Half of immigrant and half of undocumented workers have experienced Covid-19 job losses Source 1: James A. Parrott and Lina Moe | The New Strain of Inequality: The Economic Impact of Covid-19 in New York City Source 2: NYC DOH data / Liena Zagare Image: A woman with a food donation returns home to the Queens neighborhood of Elmhurst, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by coronavirus in New York City. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Source 1: New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/upshot/who-left-new-york-coronavirus.html Source 2: Business Insider// Andy Kiersz, data from US Census Bureau https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-income-maps-2014-12 Image: Dan Menchini, owner of of U Santini Inc., has seen a rise in people moving during the coronavirus outbreak, July 24, 2020. Hiram Alejandro Durán/THE CITY

Percent of Residents Gone on May 1st

Endless City

Initial critical research on NYC under Covid-19. As governor Cuomo ordered nonessential workers to stay home from work starting on March 22, we start to see people leaving the city. New York City has lost over 40% people. Most of them fled out are highly educated, wealthier and white. While the wealthy escapes, the low income and people of color have nowhere to go, but work and keep the city running under a high risk of getting infected. The projective drawing Endless City shows this social circulatory through symbolic narrative. It is a city at a state of constant change and never-end circulation.

Productive Uncertainty

Concept Tactic Drawing While the luxury residential buildings are empty out, people from bottom of the society are struggling with their rent. So, these beautiful but obsolete residential high rises work as a natural support core to allow the gird system to grow. The underlying diagonal structure inspired from plug-in city growing out from the existing building provides the platform for the affordable residential plug-ins. As this growth happens overtime, all the elements start to interweave and adapt to each other. We can see this whole system work as a social glue that connect the standard housing and luxury rentals.

Productive Uncertainty

This map, made using records obtained through FOIA, shows Hudson Yards qualifies as a distressed urban area under the EB-5 program, namely by linking the luxury development to public housing projects in Harlem.

Mark Byrnes/CityLab

HARLEM

TARGETED EMPLOYMENT AREA 5

6

HUDSON YARDS

7

4

3 1

2

1

56 Leonard Street

2

8 Spruce Street

3

152 Elizabeth Street

4

520 Wset 28th Street

5

VIA 57 West

6

432 Park Avenue

7

53 West 53rd Street

The site is located at the end of highline, making it important to be connected to the rest of the New York.

The market favors the rich, but they are the group of people can abandon the market easily.

The lack of the housing projects and big green open spaces leads us to see the midtown Manhattan area Zoning New York’s Supertalls is an evidence of city code’s update to better regulate aeries for the super-rich. In order to buy EB-5 visas at the lower rate, immigrant investors must put their money behind projects in areas with high unemployment in a “targeted employment area” (TEA). The state included Harlem as part of TEA in order to get the investment, but at the Hudson Yards. While Hudson Yards ate Harlem’s lunch, this wonderful developer project is unlikely to be affordable to the unemployed citizens in Harlem that EB-5 is designed to serve.

10 6

Productive Uncertainty

Reproducible Modular Frame

Hard Connectivities Soft Green Belt

Housing Grid

Offcing&Commerical Grid

Educational&Cultural Grid

24ft x 24ft x 10ft(H)

72ft(3*24ft) x 144ft(6*24ft) x 12ft(H)

24ft x 24ft x 24ft(H)

Reproducible Modular System Frame The platform as a piece of new landscape

Circular railyard park/train station

The end of Highline

Landscape Trajectorial System Base

West side yard is an active railyard with over 30 trains. Eastern yard is treated quite dominant with heavy construction. The gesture on west side yard would be gentler and let the new landscape adapt to the existing railyard condition.

The planning and development is based on the reproductive Modular System and Landscape Trajectorial System.

INE

Productive Uncertainty

HL HIG

W

HOUSING COMPLEX

TH

30 E RE ST

LOUNGE

T

RAMPS 1:20 PUBLIC / PLANTED

STAIRS PRIVATE / PROGRAMED

3 AT 6 R PIE RK O T VE VER PA A H I 11T SON R HUD

GYM

EXHIBITION

OFFICE/ COMMERCIAL COMPLEX

AUDITORIUM

THEATER LAUNDRY ROOM

ATRIUM SCHOOL ENTRANCE

GYM

ROOF GARDEN

OFFICE ENTRANCE

LOUNGE MARKET

LOBBY

STAIRS / SEMI-PUBLIC / PROGRAMED

GYM

ROOF GARDEN

ATRIUM

THEATER

CAFE RAILYARD PARK

Endless Circulatory System

JEVITS C / 11TH ENTER AVE SPORT FACILITY

EDUCATIONAL/ CULTURAL COMPLEX N

RAMP 1:20 / PUBLIC / PLANTED

AUDITORIUM

PIE R RIV 84 A T ER PAR HUD SO K

RAILYARD PARK

3 AT 6 R PIE RK O T VE VER PA A H I 12T SON R HUD

Productive Uncertainty

The monolithic architectures at Hudson Yards are walls to the people. The new office tower intends to welcome more start-up companies that are no way to get an office in the Hudson yards. The school is proposed from the developer, which also adapts to the modularity in architectural form.

Offcing&Commerical Grid 72ft(3*24ft) x 144ft(6*24ft) x 12ft(H) Educational&Cultural Grid - K-8 School 24ft x 24ft x 24ft(H)

Office Module Open Offices allow agile Real Estate and flexible and easy lease.

Productive Uncertainty

Office Module Open Offices allow agile Real Estate and flexible and easy lease.

ules

O

Mod e c ffi

Educa�onal Mudule Mul�-func�onal and outdoor accessible Type 1 Individua l

study

Type 2 Group Stu

dy

Type 3 Group Ta lk

Mudule

nal and outdoor accessible Type 1 Individua l study

Type 2 Group Stu dy

Type 3 Group Ta lk

Type 4 Auditoru m Hall

Type 5 Free Talk

Type 4 Auditoru m

Hall

Type 5 Free Talk

Educat io

n Mod

ules

Productive Uncertainty

Housing Complex is designed to criticize how subsidized and affordable housing is redefined by the developers. The housing complex here is run by the community and is pre-fabricated with housing frames and new tenants have six units to choose from, and three of them are subsidized units with cheaper rent and relatively small space.

Housing Grid 24ft x 24ft x 10ft(H)

Ini�al move-in Temporary Public Elements Inser�on Collec�ve Space connects different familys

Jean and Emma: New College graduate young professionals working as entry-level graphic designers

6

idized Unit

ants

3

Productive Uncertainty

Phase I

1B/Studio Unit

A�er the applica�on approval, the tenants would meet with the consultants and architects to pick and customize their housing units.

24� x 24� x 10 9x3x3 Sarah: A single working mother taking care of her one-year-old son and elderly mother

2 1

3B2B Subsidized Unit

Collec�ve Space Inser�on Elements

5

3B2B Duplex Unit

3B3B Duplex Unit Permanent

24� x 24� x 10 6x3x3

Housing Grid Units 24� x 24� x 10� Housing Block 6 x 3 x 3

4

2B2B Subsidized Unit

24� x 24� x 10 3x3x3

Mr. and Mrs. Green: A middle-aged couple with a husband working as parking lot a�endants and wife working as a part-�me cashier.

New tenants would interview with the board in terms of their lifestyle and habit. All the income and personal informa�on is confiden�al to ensure the subsidized unit tenants feel comfortable and be treated equally.

Temporary

Jean and Emma: New College graduate young professionals working as entry-level graphic designers

Final Phase

5

3B3B Duplex Unit

Perman

Micro-Community is formed Permanent Element Inser�on

Jean and Emma: New College graduate young professionals working as entry-level graphic designers

6

idized Unit

ants

6

2B2B Subsidized Unit

Collec�ve

Collec�ve Space Inser�on Elements

5

3B3B Duplex Unit Permanent

Phase II

4

2B2B Subsidized Unit

The board is formed by the exis�ng tenants Pre-screening new neighboors only based on lifestyles maintaining 30% subsidized units

Mr. and Mrs. Green: A middle-aged couple with a husband working as parking lot a�endants and wife working as a part-�me cashier.

New tenants would interview with the board in terms of their lifestyle and habit. All the income and personal informa�on is confiden�al to ensure the subsidized unit tenants feel comfortable and be treated equally.

Temporary

4

2B2B Subsidized Unit

Mr. and Mrs. Green: A middle-aged couple with a husband working as parking lot a�endants and wife working as a part-�me cashier.

New tenants would interview with the board in terms of their lifestyle and habit. All the income and personal informa�on is confiden�al to ensure the subsidized unit tenants feel comfortable and be treated equally.

Tempor

r

6X3X3 3X3X3

24� x 24� x 10� 6x3x3

PHASE II

24� x 24� x 10� 3x3x3

9X3X3

PHASE I

The adaptation of the modularity The flexibility allows architecture to grow happens in two scales, both in unit scale and building scale.

Productive Uncertainty

PHASE III

24� x 24� x 10� 9x3x3

Productive Uncertainty This mixed-use development of low-rise and modularity would challenge the fact that skyline is only owned by the wealthy. The modular system is favored for its fluidness and diversity in form, also indicting the inviting altitude of the site. The central concave in the complex maintains the best visibility to the Hudson River and allows the whole site to breathe.

Housing Complex Section BB

Commercial + Educational Complex Section AA

The monolithic architectures at Hudson Yards are forming this verticality as a wall to the people. We don’t want exclusiveness leading by the established firms, we need a ground for small business to grow. The new office tower intends to welcome more startup companies. The school is proposed from the developer, which also adapts to the modularity in architectural form.

B

A

A

B

Housing Complex is designed to criticize how subsidized and affording housing is redefined by the developers. While developers got lucrative tax credit and other benefits in return of building mixed-income residential towers, people are either waiting in long line to win the housing lottery, or had hard time fit themselves in the community.

Productive Uncertainty Perspective from Housing Complex

Productive Uncertainty

Perspective from Railyard Park

The Factory

REFAB Factory

02

REFAB Factory gathers the momentum of existing circular economy stakeholders in NYC and makes Bush Terminal a hub for the circular economy of textiles. The factory collects pre- and post-consumer waste, creates jobs through mending, artisanal upcycling, dyeing, and material-tracking, and gives the garments a second life as respun fabric for local designer studios, like Madein-NY campus, and recycled insulation for adjacent warehouses, and so on.

As a model of intermodal shipping, warehousing and manufacturing complex, Bush terminal witnessed its heyday in the 1920’s. There is a huge leap from sweatshop condition to this fetishization of industry. We aim to redefine an intermediate new model for the garment industry

Bush Terminal, Brooklyn, NY, USA GSAPP Adv. VI | Spring 2021 | Prof. Mimi Hoang Partner: Charlotte Yu

TEXTLE DYE PRODUCTION

TEXTLE RECYCLING

Material sourcing for the garment industry is extractive and wasteful, with 18,000L water used to produce every KG of raw cotton. Traditional dyeing also uses 50L of water per KG of fabric, polluting vital waterway.

Only 12% of clothing is recycled, and most are downcycled. Natural and synthetic fabrics use different recycling technologies, and certain fabrics such as elastane are unable to be recycled.

An analytical section/ plan of the Hat Factory, built in Germany in 1921, reveals the contemporary hat-making operations and the health hazards that accompany such operations, mitigated but not fully prevented by the then-innovative building. Still, hat factory is successful in how this rational plant adapted to the functional needs of the factory a dynamic complex.

REFAB Factory

STEINBERG, HERRMANN & CO. HAT FACTORY - BY ERICH MENDELSOHN

REFAB Factory

Our biggest constraint is physical work space to scale our programs and expand as a community resource exterprise.

Deadstock fabric is also challenging to work with, as we cannot anticipate material and quantity.

- Tessa maffucci, Strategy Director of Custom Collaborative

It is complex and challenging to build up a circular supply chain that can test, iterate, and scale, especially in NYC. - That Suits You

Clients and even industrial professionals lack awareness of not only post-consumer waste, but also the problematic postindustrial waste on the production side of the fasion industry.

- Camille Tagle, Founder of FABSCRAP

Rethinking the Linear TAKE-MAKE-WASTE Approach in Garment Industry The conventional garment manufacturing industry operates under a linear TAKE-MAKE-WASTE approach. Fast fashion prompts mass production in poor conditions, chemical dyeing drives water pollution, and pattern-making contributes to fabric waste. 20% industrial water pollution globally is attributable to the dyeing and treatment of textiles. Looking at the end of life of textiles, 73% of clothing ends up in landfill, and only 1% is recycled into new garments.

The Circular Economy for Textiles in NYC According to the DEC, over 6,700 jobs would be created state-wide if each NY resident recycled one additional pound of textiles per week.

REFAB Factory

REFAB FACTORY adopts a circular “Take, Make, Reuse” attitude.

The REFAB FACTORY is a new industrial model that offers good working conditions and no harm to the environment. A circular economy of textiles also has an economic benefit creating over 6,700 jobs state-wide if each resident recycled one additional pound of textiles per week.

The factory is located between a DSNY station and the SIMS municipal recycling facility, which provide reused clothing from residential households and plastic bales respectively. It is adjacent to the Made in NY campus, which receives much of the fabric produced at the factory. It also provides recycled insulation for warehouses between first and second avenue.

REFAB Factory

Proto-Buildings

Variations on the column-shaft was a starting point for our proto-buildings. We aimed to explore the potential for these columns to convey air, water, power, people, textiles at different stages of recycling or reuse, while also acting structurally and organizing space. Eventually, bits and pieces of all these experiments made their way through to our proposed factory. From our cylinder type proto-building, we develop our building on a grid of circles on plans and cylinder extrusions from the elevations.

REFAB Factory

REFAB FACTORY rises out of the existing pier, with a scallop-shaped lower level that attenuates waves. The spatial organization responds to the layout of cores, which store textiles, transport products, support vertical circulation, and convey the elements.

REFAB Factory

Fabrication Cluster

Crafting Cluster

REFAB is organized into five clusters.

The mass timber filigree exists both on the facade and in the interior. It conveys textiles through its thickened surface and the structural facade’s material expression speaks to renewal. Interior volumes increase in size in the higher stories, finding their expression in the facade. Floorplates cross over each other, allowing for visual and physical connections between production and relief spaces. The same level might host a progression of spaces from small to large, both in area and in height. The diversity in floor plate size is partially attributable to REFAB’s many atria, which are all double height except for the cores, which connected from bottom to top.

Synthetic Cluster

Natural Cluster

Plastic Cluster

The factory emerges out of 5 layers of stacked cylinders, increasing in size as building height increases. Not only is arrangement structurally self-supporting, it also allows for a fluid dispersion of cores for the vertical transportation of air, water, and people, as well as visual connections from one floor to another. CLT pillars arise from the site’s existing timber piles, offering ample daylight on all sides.

The proportion of the discrete smaller relief spaces and the continuous large production space changes floor by floor. A gradient of small to big, human to machine is projected to the façade.

REFAB Factory

The REFAB FACTORY - A New Industrial Model

REFAB Factory Ground Floor Plan

REFAB Factory

A

B

B

5th Floor

A

A

Section AA B

B

3rd Floor

A

A

B

B

A

Ground Floor

Ground Floor Plan

Section BB

Ground Floor Plan

REFAB Factory 3rd Floor Plan

REFAB Factory

Collection + Sorting

1

2

1

The diagram renders the starting and ending moments of the life of a T-shirt in REFAB. T-shirt is carted out of the synthetic storage core into an adjacent shredding area, where it is poured into melting vats. The melt spinning area receives melted polyester strands and converts them into tops.

In operation, the textile units operate horizontally. However, in storage, the textile units such as polyester tops are positioned vertically.

Textile Fabrication

2

Fabric Mending Worker - Amy: Since working at REFAB FACTORY, I have started taking free pattern-making classes with other workers who have an interest in fashion design.

I feel more connected to my work now and have been able to sell some of my own designs, too.

Ground Floor Plan

REFAB Factory

Student from Brooklyn - Thomas: Our class visited the REFAB FACTORY for a field trip this year. We brought our own Tshirts, and got to dye them with natural dyes in any colour combination we wanted. It was also cool to see the workers preparing the natural dyes from the products in the dye farm outside. I want to work here when I grow up!

REFAB Factory

Founder of A Small Circular Economy Startup - Catherine: It used to be complex and challenging to build up a circular supply chain that can test, iterate, and scale. However, at REFAB, I get to meet with potential partners organically. I’ve made many more connections since moving my business here.

Melt Spinning Worker - Martin: Conventionally, melt-spinning happend in a very dark and tight space. Here, I love seeing my coworker downstairs as I monitor the melting vat.

3rd Floor Plan

REFAB Factory

Warping Worker - Dave: Each thread top that we cart into the thread storage area has a smart material tag with its contents and previous lives. To think about it, the storage areas in the factory are actually rich with information about people’s relationships to their garments.

This material history is retained downstairs, where we transform threads into sheets of fabric.

3rd Floor Plan

Extractive Taskscape

Oxygen Bar & Food Therapy at Cananea

03

The physical configuration of the Cananea mine pit implies social aggregation in human society. While miners work under a hazardous condition that destroys their health, in particular the lung and respiratory system, the extracted products go through a network of manufacture and become advanced medical instruments that diagnose and treat diseases in a much more efficient way.

Health becomes a commodity. Technological apparatus is our new intimacy, in that our born bodies interconnect with exo-bodies made from the products of extractive taskscapes. Our project envisions an oxygen bar that brings back mineral products and their advanced uses back to miners and their families’ daily life, through activities such as breathing, eating and socializing.

Cananea, Sonora, Mexico GSAPP | Summer 2020 | Prof. Jorge Ambrosi + Gabriela Etchegaray Partner: Denise Jiang

Extractive Taskscape

GOLD

COPPER

World of Extractions Starting from the 11 elements the studio researched, which includes Lithium, Copper, Silver, Gold, Crude Oil, Salt, Coal, Zinc, Stone and Sand, Natural Gas and Iron.

This drawing shows their extraction methods, world reserves, flow of trading routes, interrelated industries and market values. The flow lines are following trading routes of the top 3 producing countries to top 3 importing countries for each element.

Extractive Taskscape

Extraction in Mexico & US border The second panel demonstrates the geographic relationship between mining sites and primary infrastructures. The infrastructures include the energy resource and network systems. These satellite images quickly give an idea about what extraction method has been used, how this method has changed the landscape, the metropolitan areas, and the roads.

Extractive Taskscape

Extractive Taskscape Map of Demand Products of copper and gold actively contribute to the basic human needs as technology advances and the capacity of production increases.

Health becomes a commodity that is the trade between the mining communities and public demand. By synthesizing two bodies, we seek to compare two populations.

Extractive Taskscape

Map of Demand By comparing life expectancy, wage, working conditions of the two and their relationship with these products, we can see that the mining community is disassociated with the products they produce. We intend to reverse this trend in our project.

Extractive Taskscape

Map of Network While Copper and Gold minerals actively contribute to a rising yet less informed field -- advanced medical technologies, how ores become products in our daily life remains intangible to most. The distribution of the two minerals from the mine site to the end users revealed that the flow of funds, information and consequences remains opaque.

The extractive taskscape extends into every other industry and continuously contributes to the social aggregation and medical advancement. In our project, we look for potential for bridging the gap between the health services and those who contribute in producing them.

Extractive Taskscape

Map of Conflict By discovering the history of mining related strikes and conflicts at Cananea, Mexico, and revealing the network of agents in such incidents, we understand the taskscape from the ground level and then to the human body.

The early mining activities associated with colonialism put miners at an unequal position, and resulted in riots and protests. The riots never stopped. Group Mexico’s acquisition of the Canaea mine continued the longexisting poor working conditions. Although Grupo Mexico responded to the health issue, work-related disease and violence continue to hunt the mining communities.

Extractive Taskscape

Area Plan The oxygen bar is located at the bottom of a deserted hill that interconnects residential areas, the river, and the Cananea mine pit and tailing dam. It is at the center of the mining-related bodies that maintain the best accessibility from different entities.

Extractive Taskscape

Site Plan The public program is positioned facing towards the community and the research is situated more towards mine site.

Extractive Taskscape

A Gesture of Dig&Fill The mining taskscape is a metaphor and another application of pushing the frontier, pushing the edge of the earth to exploit the new layers of information. The mining extraction is taking away from the earth, leaving a big void on the ground. The physical configuration of the Cananea mine pit implies social aggregation in human society. Taskscape embedded in the mining industry is an energy exchange and health trade.

The oxygen bar is for residents and workers in Cananea, in a near-future setting when human beings are more dependent on external apparatus for their health conditions and damaged respiratory system as a result of the mining extraction. The bar brings mineral products and their advanced uses back to miners and their families’ daily life, through activities such as breathing, eating and socializing.

Extractive Taskscape

Extractive Taskscape

Architecture as Apparatus Following the same spatial logic, the copper panels shoot out from the landscape and form a roofless pavilion that holds the oxygen tower, individual cubes, oxygen bar, and reception. The architecture is part of our exo-body that facilitates the production and activities. The guests can interact with their oxygen toolkits and the oxygen tower by learning their lungs and their breathing patterns.

Extractive Taskscape

A Gesture of Take&Give The project by Natalia Mendoza and Miguel Fernández de Castro, the Absolute Restoration of All Things, elaborate this “take and give” relationship by returning the land to its former mining form and returning all the gold extracted from it. By placing the cube formed by the extracted gold minerals in the center of the pit, they reveals the inequity in values and the unbalance in the relationship of figure and ground, dig and fill, and take and give.

The kitchen lab takes a larger area compared to the bar area because the precious products and applications require a large amount of effort in the taking and producing.

Extractive Taskscape

Extractive Taskscape

Food Menu

Oxygen Menu

Operative Manual

Extractive Taskscape

Oxygen Bar Brochure All the panels are included in the Oxygen Bar Brochure at a 11 inches by 6 inches handy size.

For the best experience, people can customize their oxygen tool kit set by following 3 steps, choosing the prongs, devices and flavors. Guests can make their own pancakes with ingredients that are rich in copper. We remind our guests that these foods actively contribute to the health of different organs in their bodies.

Ware Lounge

Extractive Taskscape

The Hat Factory | Erich Mendelsohn