戴
嘉 南
Selected Works University of Pennsylvania Master of Architecture I
JOHN DAI Selected Works
INDEX
01 RP-GT “Rail Park Geo-thermal Generator ” Museum of Exotic Plants and Artificial Micro-Climates Weitzman School of Design | Studio 602 | Spring 2019
02 LES-C^3 “Lower East Side Content Creation Collaborative” Innovative Reuse of a Historic Theater Weitzman School of Design | Studio 601 | Fall 2018
03 PSBCO.
“Parkside Brewing Company” Library with a Sustainable Financial Auxiliary Program Weitzman School of Design | Studio 502 | Spring 2018
04 ICONOCLASH Infrastructure & Monument Redesign of the Manhattan Bridge Landing Area Weitzman School of Design | Studio 701 | Fall 2021
05 BOUTIQ I Hybrid Form & Construction Fashion Buyer Store Studio Curves | Built Project | Design Lead | Spring 2021
4
URBAN
01 RP-GT “Rail Park Geo-Thermal Generator” Museum of Exotic Plants and Artificial Micro-Climate Site: Rail Park, Philadelphia. Building Area: 54,000 ft² Weitzman School of Design | Studio 602 | Spring 2018
The project is an exploration of the ambiguity and juxtaposition of urban and nature conditions. The outdoor building, which functions as a vertical extension of the park creates a sequence of visualizations of artificial climates powered by a high-performance Geo-thermal infrastructure. The building consists many enclosed “objects” that house a public institution which manages, monitors, explores, studies, educates and exhibits the (counter-factual) realities of an untamed ecology of the Rail Park in Callowhill neighborhood of Philadelphia. Transforming the building’s equipment and services into the artifice of nature. Different temperature, humidity zones are created as a result of the heat and steam pumping out of the geothermal structure. The exhibition manifests itself from the steam, condensation, mycelium and foliage enabled by the centralized nature artifice of geothermal heat. Occupants experience the exhibitions of micro-climates throughout the building as they ascend from the gentle ramp.
Unexpected Blossom? Would it be possible to let plants grow without its natural habitat? Cactus in the snow, lily pads in icy water, palm trees in winter, jungle plants in the city? Can we control the climate, at least on a micro-scale to curate these plants in an unexpected way?
Concept - Formal A series of formal studies of Floor - Column - Stair conditions are conducted to redefine these typical joinery conditions in construction. We are interested in continuous surfaces, smooths transitions, cavities, openings as well as inhabitable in between spaces.
Concept - Program A geothermal infrastructure has been established to heat, power, and humidify the rail park, which creates an local micro-climate at certain locations of the park, that allows for plants to grow naturally in an unnatural habitat.
Building Experience as a Sequence of Different Climates Using the geothermal tech extension, each planter has controlled temperature and humidity. Inside of the micro-climate zones has higher temperature than outside which enables the plants to artificially neglect seasons.
Insert
Cast-in-Place and Pre-Fab The Construction of the building consists the cast-in place concrete shell, and the per-fabricated vessels using a ship-building technique, which are designed to fit, that get “inserted” into the building using a big crane.
ck.com ca d-b cad-blo loc k.c ck.com om
-b ck.com ca d
-b
m
loc
cad-blo
k.c
om
ck.com ca d
loc
-b ck.com ca d
com
ck.com ca d
loc -b
om k.c
cad-block.co
m
cad-blo
ck.com ca d cad-blo
m
om
.c
ck
lo ock. d-b m cad-block.com d-bl caca m cad-b k.co dk.-bco ca lock.c om bloc cad-block.com cad-bl lock m cad-b cad- lock.c cad-block.com d-bloc ock.co om cad-b ca lock.c .co om m
m
cad-block.co
cad-block.com
cad-blo
m
cad-block.co
cad-blo
cad-block.co
m
loc
cad-blo
om k.c
om k.c loc ck.com ca d
-b ck.com ca d
-b
loc
k.c
cad-blo
om
cad-block.co
cad-block.co
-b cad-blo loc k.c ck.com om
cad-blo
m
cad-blo
m
cad-blo
cad-block.co
om
om k.c
ck.com ca d
-b
loc
m
cad-block.co
k.c
om
om .c ck lo com ock. d-b m cad-block.com d-bl caca m cad-b k.co dk.-bco ca lock.c om bloc cad-block.com cad-bl lock m cad-b cad- lock.c cad-block.com d-bloc ock.co om cad-b ca lock.c .co om m
k.c
om
cad-block.co
cad-blo
k.c loc -b ck.com ca d
ck.com ca d-b loc
k.c ck.com ca d-b loc
m
cad-blo
om
cad-block.co
om .c ck lo -b m cad occa add -b-blo locck k.c.c om om
cad-block.co
k.c
loc
d-b
ca
cad-block.com
om .c ck lo m d-b cad-block.co ca
m
c omad-b .c lo ck ck lo .c om d-b caca cad-b d-b lock.c om lock .com .co ck lo m -b m cad occa a k.c dd-b-b lolocck loc -b k.c.c d ca oomm cad-block.com
cad-block.co
cad-block.com
cad-block.com
m om .c ck lo -b m cad occa add -b-blo locck k.c.c om om
k.c
loc
d-b
ca
om .c ck lo m d-b cad-block.co ca
cad-block.com
c omad-b .c lo ck ck lo .c om d-b caca cad-b d-b lock.c om lock .com .co ck lo m -b m cad occa a k.c dd-b-b lolocck loc -b k.c.c d ca ocomam d-b
lo
ck
.c
cad-block.com
om cad-b
om
.c
ck lo d-b ca
lock.c omm o .c ck lo d-b m ca occa add -b-b lolocck k.c.c om om
cad-block.co
k.c
loc
d-b
ca
m
ca
d-b
lo
ck
.c
cad-block.com
om cad-b
om
-b cad-blo loc k.c ck.com om
m
cad-block.co
d-b
ca
.c
ck
lo
d-b
ca
lock.c omm o .c ck lo d-b m ca occa add -b-b lolocck k.c.c om om
k.c
loc
om
k.c
ck.com ca d
-b
loc
cad-blo
ck.com ca d
om .c ck lo com ock. d-b m cad-block.com d-bl caca m cad-b k.co dk.-bco ca lock.c om bloc cad-block.com cad-bl lock m cad-b cad- lock.c cad-block.com d-bloc ock.co om cad-b ca lock.c .co om m
m
cad-blo
-b cad-blo loc k.c ck.com om
cad-block.co
om
om
k.c
ck.com ca d
-b
loc
cad-blo
ck.com ca d
.c ck lo com ock. d-b m cad-block.com d-bl caca m cad-b k.co dk.-bco ca lock.c om bloc cad-block.com cad-bl lock m cad-b cad- lock.c cad-block.com d-bloc ock.co om cad-b ca lock.c .co om m cad-block.co
cad-block.com
cad-blo
m
lo
d-b
ca
cad-block.com
ca odm-b .c lo ck ck lo .c om d-b caca cad-b d-b lock.c lock m oom .co .c m ck lo -b m cad occa a k.c dd-b-b lolocck loc -b k.c.c d ca oomm
om
.c ck
cad-block.com
m cad-block.co
om
.c ck
cad-block.co
m cad-block.co om .c ck lo d-b ca
m
cad-block.com
cad-block.co
cad-block.com
lo
d-b
ca
cad-block.com
ca odm-b .c lo ck ck lo .c om d-b caca cad-b d-b lock.c lock m oom .co .c m ck lo -b m cad occa a k.c dd-b-b lolocck loc -b k.c.c d om ca oomm .c ca ck d-b lo om -b lo .c ck m cad ck .c occa a lo om k.c dd-b-b -b lolocck loc ca m cad d-bloc k .c d-b c occa a om k.com .com k.cad-bdd-b-b ca loc lo lolocck ck k.c.co d-b .c omm ca om
cad-block.com
m cad-block.co
cad-block.com
om
.c
cad-block.co
cad-block.com
d-b
m
ca
om
.c
ck
lo
m cad-block.co
c
ck
m cad-block.co om .c ck lo d-b ca
cad-b lock.c om om .c ck lo d-b m ca occa add -b-b lolocck k.c.c om om
k.c
loc
-b ad
lo
d-b
m
ca
cad-block.com
cad-b lock.c om om .c ck lo d-b m ca cca o a k.c dd-b-b om lolocck .c loc ca -b ck k .c d d-b .c lo om ca om om -b lo .c ck m cad ck .c occa a lo om k.c dd-b-b -b lolocck loc ca m cad d-bloc k .c d-b c occa a om k.com .com k.cad-bdd-b-b ca loc lo lolocck ck k.c.co d-b .c omm ca om
Nesting of Objects Within the Shell The pre-fabricated objects are designed to fit perfectly in the concrete shell. They connect to the building MEP which are integrated inside of the oversized hollow columns which conditions and ventilates these objects.
Details in Building Tectonics The building makes lots of small gestures such as the tangential wrapping of the concrete, the tight fitting of the windows and the shell, the flush edge of the glass surface and the concrete, the little gaps between different materials. A building should remain its resolution and sophistication even when zoomed in at details.
Long Term Growth The geothermal technology proposed in this project will continue to influence the rest of Rail Park. In the first phase the landscape is elevated and brought into the building, now the building extends its infrastructure out to the park.
Projected Phase 3 Park Build
Infrared Thermal Image
Micro-climate for Collection of Foreign Plants Using the geothermal tech extension, each planter has controlled temperature and humidity. Inside of the micro-climate zones has higher temperature than outside which enables the plants to artificially neglect seasons.
HOUSING
02 LES-C^3 “Lower East Side Content Creation Collaborative” Innovative Reuse of a Historic Theater Site:Sunshine Theater, New York City. Building Area: 50,000 ft² Weitzman School of Design | Studio 601| Fall 2018
Mobile devices and home theaters have shifted the paradigm of the cinematic production industry. Movie theaters are no longer the go-to destination for screen entertainment as movie are now accessible on the Internet, at home, and even on cellphones. Amateur level production such as short films, vlogs, streaming have gained popularity on new platforms such as YouTube. Comparatively to the evolution in the cinematic industry, the building industry is seeking new ways of urban living and community engagement. The project aims to re-examine the value of a movie theater and this design proposes a live-work environment for content creators. The housing component target Internet personalities, film industry workers who need temporary housing in New York that’s more personal and more cost efficient than a hotel, where they also have easy access to their peers and production space.
Content Creator Lounges Building Core
Film Studio / Edit Space
Recording Studio
Film Screening
Auditorium Open to Public
Live + Work Program Diagram The building mixes residential units and film shooting and editing space, allowing content creators to mingle with each other within the building, while having access to all the essential spaces needed for creation.
Unit Interrelation
Building Elements
A series of building detail and modeling technique studies were conducted as an exercise to generate eccentric forms that test the limit of traditional building construction, while a rule set of unit to unit interrelation is created to challenge the typical one against another strategy of building layouts.
Abstract Formation Diagram We studied biological forms and creatures such as monarch butterflies to observe their habitual tendency to form a cluster formation, and used these rules to create an abstract formation that eventually created a bank of vocabulary for the later integration of programs and structural elements in building construction.
Part to Whole While the overall building form is generated with the aggregation of a modular unit, the position of them allows the form to aggregate as it grows. In this condition, a residential unit is placed perpendicularly to the lounge right against it, following the “seated” rule set generated in the interrelation studies.
3D Unit and Lounge Plan The interrelation not only creates geometric clusters, it also guides the interior spatial layout. In this case the lounge and unit are blended into each other following the “head to tail” method.
Scale, Datum, and Shifting between the Old and the New From ground up, the building picks up the scale from its neighbors and the existing building through the floor lines and windows. It continues to grow and leans towards an adjacent park as it gets higher. A mid level terrace carves away the building mass, also perform as an indicator of separation between the existing building and the addition.
Building Section “Work” spaces are highlighted in gray. Not only can one have their modular living space, they also have direct access to all the public “work” spaces. With two realms interwoven with each other, switching from one two another is as simple as opening a door.
Content Creation - “Work” Space Interiors A cross-level open lobby/atrium space provides opportunities for residents to engage and collaborate with each other without intruding their private space. A film screening room gives the unique existing facade a different purpose. The signature “sunshine” sign is revealed in its mirrored form when the curtain raises.
Typical Residential Floor Plan
A Critical Evaluation of the Screen Entertainment Industry This project is much more than a simple re-purpose of the existing building. Rather, a deeper examination of the history it carries and the future of screenplay industry. The content creation hub proposal is a direct solution both financially and culturally as it adapts the new lifestyle and technology of its time.
Lounge Interiors The exterior building elements blend into the interior. The lounge on each floor behaves as a lobby for residents to mingle with each other. They are connected vertically on each floor and lead all the way down to the production/editing level below.
Unit Exterior
Unit Interior
FORMAL
03 PSBCO. “Park Side Brewing Company” Library with a Financial Auxiliary Program Site: Park Side, Philadelphia. Building Area: 50,000 ft² PennDesign | Studio 502| Spring 2018
In the age of digital publishing, a traditional library is losing its ground as a building type. Due to high maintaining and running cost of the building, difficulty to build a book collections, building a new library can be challenging. Given our site is a low-income neighborhood on the parameter of the city. An auxiliary financial model becomes necessary to make the building self-sustainable. As the site for the 1875 Philadelphia Centennial Expo, the neighborhood is full of secret gems of architectural designs. The project extracts the local building elements and compose them in a defamiliarized way that they resemble the neighborhood but entail a completely different story, aiming to create a building that seems alien, but yet very familiar to the neighborhood.
A Self-Sustaining Brewery - Farm to Ferment to Packaging Process
Library’s Book Stacks and Brewery’s Keg Storage = Same Typology
A Library that’s also a Brewery? It may sound weird how a library can also have a brewery program but they are indeed similar both spatially and organizationally. The reading room and beer hall are both open spaces with furnitures, catered for human seating; the book stacks and beer can stacks are both covered, often air and light tight storage space. The design intends to combine the two programs together without them interfering each other. The library fulfills the education purposes for the neighborhood, and the brewery becomes a financial provider for the library program, also could potentially draw people outside of the neighborhood to the area.
Defamiliarization Defamiliarization is the process of articulation and presentation of common items in an uncanny way. The urban studio discovers, and extracts building elements from the neighborhood and reconstructs them as architectural elements on the site. Individual items are aggregated and manipulated to resemble the neighborhood in a defamiliarized yet eccentric fashion.
Bas Relief of the Site With an interest in Mondrian’s paintings and Louise Nevelson’s sculptures, the site is composed as a high-low relief, in which the low relief performs as a landscape and the high relief translates into the architecture massing.
Materialization A historical column cap is applied in a weaving pattern, aiming to provide some soft quality to the supposedly solid element. The highly decorative Corinthian column cap are stacked and staggered, creating undulating surfaces on both the façade and the roof. Not only do the column caps become an interesting skin treatment, they also perform as the structure of the building.
Site Massing Relief The relief is transcended with the application of materials. Behaves much like a massing diagram, these masses are placed on the site with thoughts of geometry, building program and circulation.
Discrete “Shed”s The library, brewery and shipping/storage center are distributed into three different buildings. In play with the industrial nature of production, the defamiliarized skin form a shed-like external shell. Each building then have an internal volume for its core offices, auditoriums, etc. The unique in-between spaces then become beer hall or reading rooms for major human traffic.
Shipping, Packaging Center
Barley Field
Patterning The exterior skin pattern is so important for this project and how the “cabbage” turns the corner and transitions is studied relentlessly. AI-controlled digital image blending is used to study the possibilities for different pattern formations of the exterior skin. Left: Pattern from Material Study. Mid: AI-generated Patterns. Right: Final Physical Model
Brewery
Outdoor Beer Garden Access to Beer Hall
Library, Auditorium
Long Term Growth - A Promising Business Model This is a map for all the micro-breweries and beer distributors in the city of Philadelphia. The proposal captures the growing craft beer and micro-brewery trend and thinks the big image for long term growth. The success of this library - brewery will play a major role in the revitalization of the Park Side neighborhood. Auditorium
Reading Room
Stacks
3 “Shed”s+ 1 Field The site is proportionally divided with the extension of the city grids into 4 parts - for the purposes of the library, brewery, shipping center and the barley field. The buildings claim the edge of the site and the landscape creates pockets within the site.
Shipping, Packaging Center
Barley Field Beer Hall
Fermenting Room
Outdoor Walkway to Beer Garden Reading Room
Reading Room in the Library Building Light Penetrates through the seams of the exterior skin. The building also lifts up for views of the outdoor garden.
Library Model Exterior
Library Model Interior
Beer Garden
Street Edge
A micro urban complex is created within the site as a result of separating the programs and buildings.
36
SPECULATIVE
04 ICONOCLASH Infrastructure & Monument Redesign of the Manhattan Bridge Landing Area
Site: Rail Park, Philadelphia. Building Area: Urban District, 200,000 ft² + Weitzman School of Design | Studio 701 | Fall 2021
“No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts.” -Wallace Stegner This project explores new hybrid concepts for entertainment district and theatrical performance space, a new Broadway, through a series of hybridization both formally and functionally between infrastructure and architecture, urbanism and nature, observation and interaction, human occupants, and non-human objects. The concept of form itself is theatrical, it’s an aesthetic experience that involve human and human is an essential ingredient in the experience. In this adaptation of theater and infrastructure, we wanted to ensure humans are not only observing but also experiencing the architecture in which process a new hybrid object is created, one made of both human the observer and building the object.
Dichotomy & Hybrid The photo by © Klaus Frahm in his Looking Behind: The Fourth Wall captures a unique perspective from behind the stage. The stage is no longer the focus, and the audience become the performer. A triumph arch under Manhattan Bridge makes no gateway but a supporting structure. The rendering on the left provides a glimpse of what the entrance to the newly proposed theater district is like: One is on the subway, all of a sudden you find an arena under the bridge. The site has been excavated and people are seated alongside the foundation of the structure. The sequence begins here.
Hybrid Objects A new hybrid emerges via examining the shifting meaning of an architectural monument and exploring alternative ways of practicing architecture. Part of the research is to identify the existing weird, hybrid conditions that already exist in our world. Another part of it is further conceptualizing these objects and create something completely new to our knowledge.
Hybrid Form - Tectonic Nature What’s makes a theater iconic? What makes a structure monumental? Nature, infrastructure and tectonic architecture elements are hybridized in search of new architectural qualities.
A ‘Classical’ Building with No Base. An Object Nested Inside of the Structure.
Hidden Synthetic Nature within the Monument
Tectonic The main performer is indeed the audience in this building. A duality of human and synthetic nature begins as one enters this building. Man explores the building, enters the theater underground, yet never discovers the nature thats captured within.
Synthetic Nature To the hidden, growing synthetic nature behind the walls, humans are the performers of the play. Nature witnesses the movement in silence as they are in the backstage.
A New Hybrid Urban Artifact Suspended Under the Bridge
A New Theater Nested Under the Bridge - Metro Takers are also the Audience
Multiple Levels - Infrastructure - Structure - Foundation The building is a hybrid between the bridge, the structure, the juxtaposed annex building, and excavated ground foundation. Formally the different levels resonate and contrast with each other via material and tectonics, functionally each level caters to its unique entrance or viewing experience.
An E-Sports Arena - A New ‘Grand Theater’ of Twenty First Century
CONSTRUCTION
05 BOUTIQ I Hybrid Form & Construction Fashion Buyer Store Site: Suzhou, China. Building Area: 1400 ft² | 120 m² Commission| Built Project | Design Lead | Spring 2021
One of the important aspect of architectural design to me is building. Complex forms look the best when its built properly. This project was designed in winter 2020 and built in Spring 2021 during the pandemic when I took a leave of absence from school due to the travel restrictions. Studio Curves is an office I formed during this time and this boutique was the very first commissioned project which is quite special to me as I had to lead every phase of a design-bid-build project. It does turn out that the quickest way to learn everything is to just do it and make mistakes... Months later, now we are a profitable space design firm and built many other projects. The interest of project was to create this continuous surface between the floor, wall and ceiling. The geometry was realized via a series of ruled surfaces and ultimately tied together at a spiral stair. The design was well calculated that the workers are able to understand the logic and follow the proper dimensions to recreate the digital rendering in real life.
Steel Floor
80mm Steel Tube Profile Light Gauge Steel 3mm Wood Sheathing Dry Wall + Plaster Paint
Build up of The Ruled Surface Form
顶部连接隔层钢架
石膏板表面+艺术涂料
80*80mm方通
表面钉枪3mm厚阻燃木基板
MEZ LVL STEEL FRAME
GYP.BD + MICRO CEMENT
80X80 STEEL TUBE
3mm WOOD SHEATHING BOARD
LIGHT-GAUGE STEEL JOIST
STEEL ANGLE TO FASTEN WOOD FRAMING
轻钢龙骨吊顶
L型钢与木龙骨连结
石膏板表面+艺术涂料
18mm阻燃板搭建内芯 或直接使用轻钢龙骨
10号方通立柱
方通折弯拼接龙骨框架
轻钢龙骨隔墙
18mm PLY WOOD PANELS OR LIGHT-GAUGE STEEL STUDS BENT STEEL TUBE
GYP.BD + MICRO CEMENT
#10 STEEL TUBE COLUMN
LIGHT GAUGE STUD WALL
Graphic Representation Drawings were heavily invested in to create not only a beautiful illustration to convey to concept to the client, but also a viable reference during construction. 3D graphics / renderings / VR are all utilized in the construction phases as references and made the conversations much smoother.
Detailing & Documentation Part of the joy from this project is to detail and document the design. The project is not too large that it gets out of control but is complex enough that require quite a bit fine detailing. Directing the workers to field weld the spiral stair and build the ruled surfaces was extremely fun and seeing the result was really satisfying.
Rendering
Photograph
Build the Rendering? There’s a constant argument whether the rendering should be an accurate representation of the final product. In this project, absolutely. The highly articulated 3D model and precise representation of the geometry and detail was key to the success.
Form | Constructibility |Detail Design with constructibility in mind helps tremendously when it comes to drawings. Everything was planned out and drawn properly, and we were lucky enough to have an contractor that was willing to communicate. The project was finished at a high level.
Thank you.