Architectural portfolio FA2021

MADE IN SCI _ Arc LOS ANGELES CA

Copyright © 2022 Kazuaki Kojima

PORTFOLIO FALL - 2021

K AZUAKI KOJIMA

kazuaki.kojima0617@gmail.com Instagram @kazuaki0617.arc

STATEMENT

Kazuaki Kojima is a student in SCI_Arc MArch 1 program.

He is born and raised in Kanagawa, Japan.

He started his architectural education at Keio University at SFC along with various study subjects such as computer science, global governance, and multidisciplinary design.

Primarily profound dedication to the research on computational and algorithmic architectural design and practical structural design, including actual exhibition design, helped him to develop his critical thinking skills and architectural design sense to the higher level.

After receiving his Bachelor's degree in Arts in Environment and Information Studies, he decided to pursue his passion for architecture in different cultures because he wants to broaden his range of architectural philosophy and the way of design by exposing himself to the new stimulating and unique educational culture at here, SCI_Arc. This portfolio showcases his creative mindset and architectural sensibility through numbers of the projects he completed at SCI_ Arc from 2019 to the present.

Kazuaki Kojima M.Arch 1 Southern California Institute of Architecture 960 E 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

PORTFOLIO

FALL 2021

CONTENTS

Post War Tactics

8

DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark Fall 2021

Dual Natured

28

DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio Spring 2021

immeubles

48

DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio Fall 2020

immeubles

- Design Development -

60

AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project Spring 2021

Urban grotto

70

DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II Spring 2020

Lines, rooms, and the building

82

DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I Fall 2019

Fort Sumter

120

VS2772: Abstractions of War Fall 2021

Color as material

128

VS2636: Color Spring 2021

Structual Detail

142

AS2509: Details, Details...

Spring 2021

meubles VS4120: Strategies of Representation III Fall 2020

148

FALL 2022

Playing Letters

154

VS4101: Strategies of Representation II Spring 2020

The drawn line, Imaginig the line

160

VS4100: Strategies of Representation I Fall 2019

Athena House

170

AS3140: Advanced Project Delivery Fall 2021

Contacts, Liabilities, and Business Models

178

AS3130: Practice Environments Fall 2021

Hot stuff

186

AS3124: Environmental Systems Fall 2020

Various Systems

192

AS3100: Materials and Tectonics Fall 2019

Decentralized 3.0 - Digital Humanism

198

HT2729: Other Futures Fall 2021

Architecture Struggling in Digital Age

202

HT2121: History of Architecture and Urbanism III Spring 2021

Unstable Interiority

204

HT2120: History of Architecture and Urbanism II Fall 2019

Architectural Notation

208

HT2101: History of Architecture and Urbanism I Spring 2020

Stadium as an Urban Void HT2100: Introducition to Contemporaly Architecture Fall 2019

210

Kazuaki Kojima

PORTFOLIO

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Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Post War Tactics DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark Fall 2021

Course Description America’s longest war ended on August 31st, 2021. US troops, citizens and a select number of Afghani comrades, were airlifted “home.” Some will indeed go home, to the families and communities that await them.

Others will integrate into new hometowns, fading into the fabric of American life. But a small and semi-visible number of them will gather to fight another fight, this time on the home front. In the post war period, around the West LA campus of the Veteran Administration, the numbers of veterans are growing. They come to apply for benefits, to seek care, to receive therapy, to find housing.

But the administration is low on funding and notoriously bureaucratic about providing therapy and housing.

While the actions of a waning American empire touch us all as citizens of this world, the movements of power appear to exceed our expertise and influence as architects. But consider the post war spaces of the Veteran Administration Campus--its buildings, landscapes, and roads—which fall squarely in the architectural wheelhouse. There, the State is physically rendered in figure-ground relationships, programmatic planning, infrastructural integration and circulation, public space development and urban typology, historic preservation and building design, formal and material beauty, even decorative relief and symbolic representation. Everything is architectural there, already: but these are awkward products of public funding, not the smooth sites of corporate development. The question that we nwill tackle in this studio is: how architecture should represent the State today? How can such a seemingly forgotten— but majestic--patch of West Los Angeles refigure the role of government in the post-war? from the course syllabus fall 2021

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

9

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Detail of the Building / Detail of the Model

This project starts with formal documentation of the existing building on the campus, especially looking at the corner of the building. This building is located in almost the center of the campus. Its original function is unknown but currently vacant used as just storage.The main interest here was how ornamental elements, such as horizontal cornice lines and vertical grooves, appear at corner condition and how those elements bring two elevations together as the whole.

Then the geometry has been translated into the mill data.

This process made us consider the direction of the drill bits mill and the limitation of material thickness in relation to how milled parts come together afterward.

Top: West LA VA Campus map Bottom: Storage Building

10

Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

156 Vacant Storage

158 Vacant Storage

258 Mental Health Administration

199 Hoover Barracks 116 New Directions

66 Trolley House

13 Vacant Storage

224 Outleased Laundry

277 Mechanical Room

33 Superintendent Quarters 13 Vacant Storage 218 Administration Building

20 Chapel

23 Governor’s Quarters

500 Main Hospital

304 Eye Clinic/Polytrauma/Employee Health 507 MRI Facility

582 Liquid Oxygen Tank 501 Chiller Plant for Building 500 345 Radiation Therapy

Campus Masterplan (collective)

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

11

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The chunk model was derived from the top and bottom parts of the building. The models and drawings are not a representation of the original building but more abstract objects that allow us to examine and explore and interpret the various type of relationships of the parts and objects to the materials, scales, and milling process.

The drawing is printed on mylar sheets and painted multiple times with various types of paints. Layered paints and ink makes the drawing more like 3-dimensional thing rather than flat image. Working on physical models and drawings simultaneously helped us explore and develop ideas about the materiality of this project. Thick layers of paints conceal the scratches and rough area of the model and make it more abstract and flat, whereas the ink and paint on mylar sheets accumulate and intensify its thickness and make it feel more like 3-dimensional thing.

Top: Detail of the wall Bottom: Corner condition of the building

12

Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Diagramatic Axon Drawing

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

13

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Because of the nature of the CNC milling process and its restriction, the parts needed to be fit within a specific thickness. This model consisted of a series of thick surfaces rather than solid. In order to get a sharp and consistent corner, the edge of the parts is sliced into a sharp angle to get miter joints. Each part was milled separately, then assembled.

Top: Model parts before assembly Bottom: Corner detail of the model

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Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Shop Drawing for parts cutting

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

15

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Top: Model photo elevation 1 Bottom: Model photo elevation 2 - Right page Concept Model (over painted) 29”(h)x 10”x 14.5” Milled foam board,textured spray paint

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Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

17

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Diagramatic Plan Oblique

18

Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Shop Drawing for parts cutting

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

19

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Top: Model photo (assembly) Bottom: Model Detail photo

20

Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

- Right page Concept Model (sliced) 15”(h)x 8”x 5.2” Milled foam board

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Kazuaki Kojima

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

21

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Model photo Top view (with roof)

22

Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Model Top View (parking level)

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

23

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Master Plan

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Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

The project site was at the southwest end of the campus, which is a marginal boundary between the city and campus.

In terms of the building program, I propose social housing for veterans, including community shared space and surrounding landscape. I started with courtyard housing typology, but the overall massing strategy was derived from site conditions. North and east volume speak to the existing campus organization, which employs a large scale figure and strong axis. West and south volumes deal with smaller scale and fuzzy urban fabric. The massing reconciles the friction between campus and urban. Landscaping on the courtyard and surroundings are disciplined by the grid of architectural volume to produce a connection between the empty campus site and this housing.

In terms of the circulation system, elevators, and stairs located on the corner of the building align to the angle that divides the corners diagonally, just like I introduced the mitered corner for the midterm model. Pathways were extended from the corner to every housing unit. Each housing unit

Top: Model Aerial View Bottom: Model Detail Photo

has its own balcony space and privacy while having loose connectivity with neighboring residentials.

The site is sloping down from the campus side to the urban block. Thus architectural volume has shattered and reorganized as stepping down towards the city to fit the undulating surface. the corner of the building align to the angle that divides the corners diagonally, just like I introduced the mitered corner for the midterm model. Pathways were extended from the corner to every housing unit. Each housing unit has its own balcony space and privacy while having loose connectivity with neighboring residentials.

In this project, I have been working on different types of production and representation methods. Starting from documentation, 3d modeling in rhino, drawing, milling, spray painting, photographing, rendering, 3d-printing, This project is developing the formal and aesthetic strategy out of the process of going back and force between those agencies.

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

25

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Typical Floor plan

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Fall 2021 DS4000: Vertical Studio Anna Neimark

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Kazuaki Kojima

Ground level plan

The Architecture of the State: Post War Tactics

27

PORTFOLIO

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Dual Natured DS1121: Architecture as urban Design Studio Spring 2021

Course Description 2GB is the moment in the curriculum where students are asked to examine potential relationships between Architecture and the city as a way of making Architecture. The premise of this studio, clearly related to Koolhaas’ text, (now of the last century) is that when architecture reaches a certain size and scale it is urbanism. Clearly it is not 1995.

It is a COVID world and we are just living in it. This world is full of post-COVID myths of retreat, sprawl, and the idea that if people can be anywhere, they will choose the middle of nowhere. In this world can we double down on bigness and the robustness of the metropolis? With all the resources that have been poured into the formation and evolution of cities as our most advanced built organisms, bigness is no longer an amoral, or acontextual act, as argued by Koolhaas.

It is now an essential endeavor. Time will tell if the Green Archipelago Koolhaas theorized with his mentor O.M. Ungers, or containers of bigness as landmarks in a post-architectural landscape (server farms?) will come to pass. For now, one thing is for certain; cities are not disappearing.

Architecture remains. Infrastructure remains. Now what?

This studio argues that acts of bigness are essential in both form and content. Large buildings and existing generic urban shells can answer a need for new forms of urban density which can result in new forms of architecture. No longer urbanistically agnostic, very large architecture must now contain a myriad of programs, AND answer to the demands of the urban fabric and the vision of the city skyline.

It must be of the ground and for the sky. from the course syllabus spring 2021

Dual Natured

29

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Big Architecture x Campus Plan

The project was launched by researching “Big” building and campus plan. The precedent project for the “Big” building was Forum 2004 building by Herzog & de Meuron. Tracing and reconstructing the precisely measured completed orthographic set was starting point of the analysis. The essentials of the building that makes it the “Big” building were examined through the process of reducing the drawing set to the diagrams that describe how the architecture works in terms of functional, conceptual, formal, and environmental factors. This is the “flat mat” building as typology; tringle mat volume is lifted by concrete mass, accommodating circulation and auditorium function.

Initially, this building is designed for the international event called 2004 Universal Forum of Culture, held in Barcelona, Spain. After the event, this building functions as the Natural History Museum. The Swiss Architect Herzog & de Meuron won the competition. They describe that this project’s core idea was to “ convert the chosen zone into the most important and significant district of 21st century Barcelona.”

The site is located where the Avenida Diagonal intersects with the Cerda grid’s main street and meets the Mediterranean coast. Also, the site is part of the gigantic artificial ground over the seaside traffic. The triangle building volume is shaped and defined by the axis of the urban grid of Barcelona. To allow for the maximum combination of functions, maximum flexibility and spatial interaction were

Top: Volume diagram Middle: Structural diagram Bottom: Section plan

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

FALL 2022

Top left: Structural grid plan Bottom left: Second Floor plan

Kazuaki Kojima

Top right: Ceiling plan (ground level) Bottom right: Ground Floor plan

Dual Natured

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taken into consideration. The program are an auditorium with 3,200 seats, large exhibition areas, foyer spaces, small administration areas, and the restaurant, which are arranged horizontally. The project was launched by researching “Big” building and campus plan. The precedent project for the “Big” building was Forum 2004 buildhitecture works in terms of functional, conceptual, formal, and environmental factors. This is the “flat mat” building as typology; tringle mat volume is lifted by concrete mass, accommodating circulation and auditorium function.

National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) is the largest university in South America. Its campus, called “university city,” is as vast as 2500 acres and formed by over 2000 buildings.

Approximately 360,000 students attend, and 42000 academic staff work there.

Originally it is established as Real y Pontificia Universidade de México in 1551 by Carlos I, King of Spain, referencing Spanish university’s campus such as Salamanca University in Madrid. The school experienced temporal closure in 1865.

Forty years later, the project that aims to establish a national university in Mexico was approved in 1907. In 1933, the university acquired its autonomy, making the university independent from any political power and organization.

The construction of the central UNAM campus has started at around the 1920s. Several architects, Mario Pani, Armando Franco Rovira, Enrique del Moral, Eugenio Peschard, and Ernesto Gómez Gallardo Argüelles, participated in this project. Del Moral and Pani took the directive role to designate architects to the selected building. The campus includes over 40 individual schools and institutes, a Stadium, several Athletic facilities, few museums, and galleries while preserving natural resources. The whole campus is separated from the city to retain its autonomy not only in political meaning but also physically and architecturally.

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

Campus masterplan

FALL 2022

Top left: Hard scape & Soft scape Bottom left: Extended edges

Kazuaki Kojima

Top right: Circulation network Bottom right: Ephemeral grid

Dual Natured

33

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Top: Dissembled Forum building plan Bottom: Dissembled UNAM campus plan

34

Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Synthesis drawing - Forum 2004 x UNAM campus -

The next step was to produce a synthesis drawing by combining the Big building’s diagram with the plan of campus to develop a process of your choice to turn the diagram of your campus into a building typology. My synthesis strategy was breaking the plan into the smallest portion that hardly defines a certain space. Then merge those pieces and make a new configuration. Both pieces from two different precedents started to create an unexpected relationship between them still retain inherent figural quality.

Dual Natured

35

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New York City

As the starting point of The site analysis, the innermost circle shows the walkable area from the site, whereas the outermost is an area that you can get to by 10min bike ride.

In the next diagram, dark gray color shows residential, and light gray is commercial in terms of landuse. This demographic study shows the unbalanced distribution of the racial groups. Especially western districts are having a more white population while eastern accommodate Black, Asian, Hispanic mostly.

Top: Walkable & Bikable distance Middle: Landuse diagram Bottom: Demographic diagram

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Art as Plus Program

I propose an ART-related NPO as a plus program that may foster and facilitate mutual interaction between races, gender, and ages. Art NPO can share facilities and space with the Art school, and students will engage in the NPO. Quoting from their website, Art Start uses the creative process to nurture the voices, hearts, and minds of historically marginalized youth, offering a space for them to imagine, believe, and represent their creative vision for their lives and communities.Through consistent workshops with long-term partners, including youth organizations, schools, alternative sentencing programs, and residences for youth and families experiencing homelessness, art becomes the starting point of a larger life process, and the start of larger conversations about the future of our communities.

Regarding to the building program, it has a shorter residential tower, and a taller educational tower fits in this kind of J-form typology. Art NPO and Educational support, Administrative function occupy the bottom base that can be open to the public. These connect residential and educational parts visually and programmatically.

Top: https://www.art-start.org/ Middle: https://www.art-start.org/ about-us/#about-us1 Bottom: Programming diagram

Dual Natured

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Program diagram

Regarding to the building program, it has a shorter residential tower, and a taller educational tower fits in this kind of J-form typology. Art NPO and Educational support, Administrative function occupy the bottom base that can be open to the public. These connect residential and educational parts visually and programmatically.

The folding paper model explores the way to create 3d volume from 2d drawing based on synthesis projects. The figures printed on the surface extruded and create figural mass, contrasting to the plane J-form typology. The ephemeral grid derives from the precedent synthesis study also contributes to the whole building system as a non-standard organization.

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Top: Paper model photo Middle: Figures on the surface Bottom: Folded ephemeral grid

Dual Natured

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Dual Natured

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Dual Natured

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Dual Natured

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

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- Left page Top: Render in site context Bottom: Render in site context

Kazuaki Kojima

Then two ideas of creating space coming together into one architecture. Unified structural and cladding systems merged as the distinctive parts. This kind of duality is the core concept of my project. Expressive figural Crytal and orthogonal rigid Basket are nesting in one building. Crystal and Basket sometimes reconcile sometimes confront each other. Twin towers can be interpreted as a fourth and fifth silver tower; simultaneously, this building is an independent discrete architectural object. This project also addresses the duality of homogenizing to the site context vs. standing out as a heterogeneous object.

Left: Primary structure Middle: Secondly structure Right: Cladding system

Dual Natured

47

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48

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Spring 2021 DS1121: Architecture as Urban Design Studio

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Model photo

- Left page Top: Model photo in context Bottom: Model photo in context

Dual Natured

49

PORTFOLIO

50

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Fall 2020 DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio

Kazuaki Kojima

FALL 2022

immeubles DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio Fall 2020

Course Description The first term in the second year of the core M.Arch I sequence builds upon an appreciation of the discipline and knowledge of architectural production by focusing on the development of a project according to principles of Integrative Design. The studio is structured to support each student’s awareness of the issues involved in the design of a complex architectural project. Elemental spatial constructs and organizational systems are seen as resulting from and reacting to site conditions, program distribution, structural systems, building envelope systems and assemblies, environmental factors, and building regulations.

These influences are considered at once physical and virtual, permanent and ephemeral, situational and circumstantial.

Qualities of site, situation, and environment, as well as cultural contexts, are considered potential tools to challenge conventional approaches to architectural design.

This 2GA studio was organized in three sections — Russell Thomsen, Peter Trummer, and Devyn Weiser.

Within each section students will work on a semester long project. Sections will share a common schedule and deliverables. The studio will begin with Research of an architectural project, followed by Concept Design that culminates in Midterm Review. After Midterm students will have Workshops in Structure and Building Assemblies consultation with Matt Melynk of NOUS Engineering and Environmental Systems consultation with Russell Fortmeyer of ARUP. The final weeks of the studio will be spent on Design Development along with the production of technical documentation. from the course syllabus fall 2020

immeubles

51

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FALL 2021

Homogeneous vs. Heterogeneous / rationality vs. nature

This project explores architecture as the tension between homogeneous architectural rationality and heterogeneous shapes and geometry derived from nature.

This project was started by looking at found rocks with qualities of mass, shape, and materiality. They have been ‘shaped’ over time by various natural forces. When a rock is cut or chamfered, it reveals sharp edges and smooth surfaces; in contrast to the original, bumpy mass and texture, the cut reveals a silhouette or quality that we might not otherwise see. We might say that the rock is a found, natural object, and when we cut or shape it, it is becoming rationalized. I want to explore how to reconcile these two conditions.

I’ve also begun exploring the natural stone qualities as an aspect of resolution and tectonics. I’ve transformed the original shape and volume into different sizes of voxels.

The overall architectural mass is sloping into the ground.

The mass also has a visual relationship to the Vitra Haus and the Gehry museum in the background. Contextually, they share the same sort of massing strategy; a heterogeneous aggregation of volumetric parts.

The cut volume is translated into the smaller voxels while the larger, chunky volume is rendered as a rougher, lower resolution object. Series of vertical louvers cover the cut face in contrast to the rest of the whole. In addition, each voxel is replaced by various architectural frames, which make the appearance of the volume fuzzier.

This project addresses the dichotomy between architecture and nature. Nature is not rational; it is ecological, whereas architecture is a rational act. The system of voxels is a rationalized geometry of the natural shape. The mass is retained, but it is constructed as rational tectonics. This architecture is neither merely the imitation of nature nor the relentless implementation of architectural rationality but a combination of the two.

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Fall 2020 DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio

Concept diagram

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

This difference in resolution is fascinating as it allows us to perceive the object both as a figure with an obvious boundary and as an aggregation of the small parts, depending on the distance to the viewpoint.This scale-multiplicities and loss of sense of scale also contribute to its monolithic architectural quality. Here, It is difficult to determine the scene’s broad scale, making this architecture abstract and questioning its subjectivity.

This architecture is organized by the rigid grid system and tectonic units, which are homogeneous. However, aggregated volumes make us feel the natural and organic dynamism, which is a heterogeneous quality derived from natural objects.

Perspecive Render

immeubles

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Fall 2020 DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Structural frames and traditional architectural elements dissolve and merge into the fuzzy interior. The rectangular extrusions hanging down from the ceiling could function as the air duct, lighting, or mechanical space.

The skylight fills the vertical atrium space with natural light, providing efficient ventilation to the surrounding working spaces.

- Left page Top: Looking at Skylight Bottom: Looking at Courtyard

Bottom: Short section

immeubles

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Fall 2020 DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

immeubles

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Fall 2020 DS1120: Integrated Comprehensive Studio

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Kazuaki Kojima

Render (East Facade)

- Left page Top: Render (South Facade) Bottom: Section plan

immeubles

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PORTFOLIO

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Spring 2021 AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project

FALL 2022

immeubles

Kazuaki Kojima

- Design Development -

AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project Spring 2021 Collaboration with Christopher Pennino, Casey Pan, Jiyun Kim, Shuang Feng, tianze Wu and Yujia Fang

Course Description This course investigates issues related to the implementation of design: technology, the use of materials, systems integration, and the archetypal analytical strategies of force, order and character. The course includes a review of basic and advanced construction methods, analysis of building codes, the design of Structural and Mechanical systems, Environmental systems, Buildings service systems, the development of building materials and the integration of building components and systems. The intent of this course is to develop a cohesive understanding of how architects communicate complex building systems for the built environment and to demonstrate the ability to document a comprehensive architectural project and Stewardship of the Environment.

A series of built case studies will be presented by the instructors along with visiting professionals in the field who are exploring new project delivery methods. These case studies will be shown in-depth with construction photographs, 3D renderings, and technical drawings and details.

Pertinent specific topics for the course will be highlighted in each presentation, with a focus on the evolution of building design from concept to build form.

Students will work in teams, with selected studio projects from the Fall 2GA design studios used as a starting point.

The multiple animations and simulation modeling will be due, as a digital file submittal at every class meeting so that it can be discussed and developed. from the course syllabus Spring 2021

Project member Christopher Pennino / Casey Pan / Jiyun Kim / Shuang Feng Tianze Wu / Yujia Fang

immeubles

- Design Development -

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Spring 2021 AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project

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immeubles

Kazuaki Kojima

- Design Development -

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Spring 2021 AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project

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immeubles

Kazuaki Kojima

- Design Development -

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Spring 2021 AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project

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immeubles

Kazuaki Kojima

- Design Development -

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Spring 2021 AS3122: Design Development Integrated Design Project

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immeubles

Kazuaki Kojima

- Design Development -

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Spring 2020 DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Urban grotto DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II Spring 2020

Course Description The Urban Bathhouse expands on the fundamental problems of architectural geometry and representation developed in the previous design studio. The form and program of the project is framed through the disciplinary topics of typology, poche and projection as understood through the development of figure ground relationships of mass (urban block) and void (interior and exterior volumes). By studying the history of bathhouses, we have seen how the development of geometrically precise figural voids enhances the spatial experience of bathing as well as how a variety of large (rooms surrounded by Poche) and small spaces (rooms that occupy the poche) combine to elevate the architecture of the bathhouse.

Students are asked to produce iterative studies in a model form that primarily depend on two formal conditions: the notion of profile and the act of extrusion. By this we mean a horizontal or vertical cross-section curve or poly-curve projected along vertical - or quasi vertical - trajectories, or vice versa. There two components - curve and path -, central to the act of extrusion, should have serial qualities. In other words, their constitutive geometry should be regulated by some degree of repetition and variation. It is expected that extrusions will produce a set of carved spaces (figural void) from the block. A variety of techniques can be deployed when translating profiles to spatial systems such as; off-set, projection, rotation, subtraction, doubling, and scaling to name a few. Using these techniques and others, the student will create a specific set of spaces with in the constraint of the block to generate a spatial idea for the bathhouse. The student will explore positive and negative space and work through strategies of spatial volume, solid and void and figure-ground. from the course syllabus spring 2020

Urban grotto

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PORTFOLIO

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Axon Render

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Spring 2020 DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Aggregation, mass and void

The big question that we address was how we could design figural void and figural mass as architecture by controlling the specified type of three-dimensional modeling technique and geometry of the line profile. The project was an exploration in the field between rational modern order and indigenous chaos, simple legible figure and unreadable complex.

Achieving rich architectural spatial variations with relatively simple seed geometry and concise operations was researched.

The project started with the section profile of aluminum extrusion, which is a purely artificial and precisely constructed product. The extracted and simplified line profile is extruded along with one linear axis, just like aluminum extrusion itself. For massing volume, extruded volumes were aggregated. Since each axis of extrusion slightly tilted and rotated, unexpected shape and figure appeared on the plan, section, and elevation. The aggregated volume was excavated by deleting the parts of the original extrusion, which have the potential to be inner volume as figural void.

This bathhouse stands out and expressive while blending into the surrounding urban grid in terms of scale and boundary at large. As a result of the aggregative operation, the combination of thousands of unique shaped surfaces forms the cladding system and showing the different depth of each surface. Some of the aggregated volumes got cut by the boundary based on the property line of the site.

Urban grotto

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FALL 2021

Warm-eye Axon Diagram - Right page Elevation render

In the cut section, the secondary figure would appear inside of the original aluminum extrusion profile. The angle to the vertical cutting plane is a crucial factor because the difference in the cutting angle causes a drastic change in the figure that appears on the facade. It makes you imagine that another set of geometry is embedded in the original profile and may give you the clue of inferring the initial direction of extrusion and geometrical composition. In the elevation, the imaginary mirrored ground surface cut the building back partially: Still, some of the extrusion remains. By doing this, the depth and height of the structure will be emphasized.

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Kazuaki Kojima

Urban grotto

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Ground Floor plan

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Spring 2020 DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II

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Kazuaki Kojima

Second Floor plan

Urban grotto

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Interior render

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Spring 2020 DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II

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Kazuaki Kojima

Top: Long section plan Bottom: Short section plan

Urban grotto

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Roof plan

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Spring 2020 DS1101: Fundamental Design Studio II

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Kazuaki Kojima

Interior space is nothing like a rectilinear or integration of primitive geometry, but complex and interlacing shaped with fuzzier and detailed outlines. Every room, spatial volume, are unique and different, but share the same design language and architectural taste. The sizes and location of the interior volume are varied and inconsistent.

The main baths are located on the ground floor. The visitor approached through the main entrance on the left bottom and access to the distributed bathrooms that vary in shape, type, and size. The locker room, changing room, and lounge space are also dispersed around bathes and fit into the mass volume. The iconic stairs located in the center of the building and led people to the upper floors. Hotel rooms are distributed on the peripheral, floor slab, and corridor connects them and making the circulation. Each room has private baths or shower room. Semi-public lounges are created on the various location in the plan as well. Restaurant and outdoor lounges are on the rooftop floor. The guest can use the main stairs and elevator to reach there.

In the section plan, the spatial relationship between high and large void for the main baths, and relatively small hotel rooms and other functions is illustrated. Horizontal enclosure and vertical opening create dramatic lighting effects in interior view. Subtle textuwre derived from original profile geometry has applied to the interior walls.

Urban grotto

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I Fall 2019

Course Description This course is consisted of three set of projects that providesstudents with introductry design skills along with fundamental architectural sensivility.

Part 0 This part is an introduction to the description of form and space through measuring, drawing and modeling a line. The initial project will focus on the line as an object within the city.

Part 1 In this part, students start to think about a room base on what they learned from the previous section. A room will be defined by various type of lines which have an unique charactaristic, and distinct spatial qualities.

Part 2 The final project will build on the conversations and variations of the line within architecture. The architecture will develop by expanding our techniques related to abstraction, material and volume. Ultimately, the project proceed to design a civic building for the city of Los Angeles. from the course syllabus fall 2019

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Document, Construct and Fit Rescale, Refine and Develop

The project started form measuring the SCI_Arc building to get the sense of the scale of the building itself and architectural elements while understanding how the long structure composed and works as a school. Then students produced a simplified 3d-model of the building and trying to fit it inside of the imaginary cube by scaling down the parts of the building and folding them. This additional intervention on the volume works as an abstraction technique in the design process and affect the way of expressing its architectural ideas.

SCI_Arc Building

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Left: Elevation A ( Line drawing with center line ) Center: Top view ( Line drawing with center line ) Right: Elevation B ( Line drawing with center line )

Left: Elevation A ( Line drawing with hatching ) Center: Top view ( Line drawing with hatching ) Right: Elevation B ( Line drawing with hatching )

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Architectural drawing has expressed as 2-dimensional visual representations, including elevation, section, axon drawing, using the abstracted SCI_Arc building. The angle and position related to the bounding box were considered to represent the intention of the design decision in an explicit manner. Weight and type of lines were also adjected meticulously depends on things that the lines describe. Textures on the drawing and the physical model have added on the simplified and the differently scaled volume to express the unique virtual character and extra taste on the original condition.

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Top Left: Axonometric A ( Aligned to original bounding box ) Top Right: Axonometric B ( Aligned to deformed bounding box ) Bottom Left: Section A Bottom Right: Section B

- Next page Left: model photo Right: model photo detail

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building

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FALL 2021

Top: Small paper model ( trace paper ) Middle: Small paper model ( trace paper ) Bottom: Large paper model ( paper towel )

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

A room

As the next step, students moved to look at the spatial quality from the volume of the line in the previous section. They started to research different kinds of rooms designed by different architects throughout modern architectural history.

They studied how did the architects treat and think about the room in relation to the architectural discipline as the whole.

Based on the previously acquired aspect from the research, each individual was asked to start to design room. The start point was the material, various types of paper. Paper is one of the most curial materials working with an architect because it allows them to think and physically prototype 3-dimensional ideas in multiple ways. Creating partial paper boxes are excellent indicators of how a particular scale and type of material affect the behavior of paper boxes’ form.

Layered paper towel model with Mold

Lines, rooms, and the building

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A form derived from the material is dressing up with another material abstraction, which gives additional quality and aesthetic sense to the space.

The room consists of three types of partial paper boxes, which are a small box made of trace paper, same on a different orientation, and a larger box made of paper towels. These three are acting uniquely so that the room has designed to maintain that quality paper boxes have, at the same time, configure those to create a harmonious relationship with each other. The bounding box, showing the original geometrical condition of the partial boxes, has been converted to the visible frame that supports the structure of the room while emphasizing the deformation and deflection of each paper. Also, material-wise, each element got a distinctive way of abstraction, such as excessively thickening by 3d-printing and multiple layering while one of the boxes still maintains original trace paper quality.

Re-producing the specific shape of paper at specific status with different kinds of paper in different scales is necessary for “paper of abstraction,” but technically challenging. In order to re-create multiple layered deformed paper box precisely, a mold was made to help layering papers on one another and glue them together as abstracted thickened paper. The relationship between the mold and the paper model has directly transplanted to the room model, making another meaning of paper’s behavior and its potential. Ultimately, the room has fully developed to perform each inherent paper materiality and its spacial relation to the such as gravity, technical restrictions. On the center of the room, there is the mold as landscape, and marginal space is created between the mold and the up-lifting paper model. Three different kinds of paper models are functioning as sheds and generating space as blurred multiple boundaries.

- right page elevation render - page 20 plan cut drawing - page 21 section cut drawing

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building

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FALL 2021

Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

model photo elevtaion

- Left page Top: model photo detail 1 Bottom: model photo detail 2

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

The Building, The Architecture

The main focus of the studio at this point was on the materiality of physical models and their translation into other mediums like the digital model and drawings, especially on the texture of the paper towel and in-between space on this project.

The massing for the project is four boxes. These four boxes were created based on the type of program and activities that will take place there. From my midterm project, I made the mold to get specific shapes of the paper surface and became interested in the relationship between mold and surface. Also, I learned multiple sheds create ambiguous boundaries, unlike dividing space by solid walls. The massing brings detail from the midterm work by making the paper model of those and unfolding them. By doing so, the sort of in-between space was generated. This kind of space allows people to move around the program. For instance, you will see that this kind of in-between space can be staircases, light court, corridor, pathway, or outdoor terrace.

In the building, this massing strategy creates a unique circulation. People access to the classrooms or auditorium through this main entrance or backside (pointing the plan). The reception space is pretty open to the surrounding. This iconic stair leads people straight to the gallery and cafe—the employee and office worker access to their space through this stair or elevator. The program is organized by the idea of openness to the activities. The reception, auditorium, and classrooms, which are considered as a more public program, are locating on the ground floor. The office space, gallery, and cafe on the second or above floor require a more calm atmosphere.

The essential detail is this paper towel texture. Four kinds of paper towel texture have applied, the original paper towel, a thickened paper towel, a big and small 3d-printed paper towel. These textures are representing the paper towel materiality.

- left page Site Plan Drawing

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Model photo

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Ground Floor Plan

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Second Floor Plan

Lines, rooms, and the building

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FALL 2021

Top: Section Drawing 1 Bottom: Section Drawing 2

-right page Elevation Render

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Lines, rooms, and the building

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PORTFOLIO

FALL 2021

Top: Model photo elevation 1 Bottom: Model photo elevation 2

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Top: Model photo elevation 3 Bottom: Model photo elevation 4

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Top: Model photo detail Bottom: Model photo detail

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Fall 2019 DS1100: Fundamental Design Studio I

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Kazuaki Kojima

Top: Model photo material detail ( 3d print ) Middle: Model photo material detail ( 3d print ) Bottom: Model photo material detail ( 3d print and paper )

Lines, rooms, and the building

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Fall 2017 Undergraduate Thesis

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Urban Weaver Undergraduate Thesis Fall 2017

Abstract I believe that the existence of soccer stadiums will become more important to society because a stadium can unite people again through sport and group activities that encourage natural multi-generational human interaction. This project aims to redesign the traditional football stadium in order to solve several problems contemporary football stadiums have and contribute to vibrant societies and a sustainable world.

As a result of the meticulous research on Japanese football business and stadiums, a number of the problem has emerged. At the same time, I feel that by designing innovative stadium not only solve these problems, but also I can help the society and local community reach full potential.

J-league, the professional football league in Japan, established in 1995 and 40 teams representing each satellite cities are participating in the season of 2018.

As the J-league's articles of incorporation regulate, the league commission obligates all teams to have their own stadium and hometown as the foundation of their activities economically and psychologically. The Japnese football business is the ever-growing industry as an increasing the number of spectators in a football stadium shows.

A lot of local municipal is suffering from depopulation and lowdown in the local economy in Japan. J-league commission oblige everyteam to have their own hometown and home stadium. I see the stadiums as a key existence to revitalizing these satellite cities. As the teams are always with regional society, the stadium will be a core of local communities. The Stadium not only become as a symbol of the regional community but also intensify the identity of the towns and cities where people live in. Periodical football games at stadiums will stimulate the local economy as away team supporters visit the stadium before and after each game. This is also a good chance to meet new people and enrich the local community. Thus, in terms of commercial and human interaction, the stadium has massive potential, but quality and quantity of the stadium are still insufficient compared to Europian countries.

Urban Weaver

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Problematic Typology

In the modern sports world, political conflicts between nations tend to be projected into an international sports match. Violence between supporters during an international sports match, especially football becomes too critical to ignore. In 2018, The final of Copa Libertadores was suspended due to fighting between professional football club's supporters. After England vs. Russia at EURO 2016, there is a fight between both team fans. Thus, because of security issue, traditionally stadium has been designed to separate away team supporters from others which makes people inconvenient.

Moreover, away team fans can enjoy the game from a very limited perspective due to safety.

While the broadcasting services allow people to enjoy the game from multiple viewpoints, the seating in the stadium is fixed. If people can move and change their position even during the game just like free address workspace, they can enjoy the game more actively than under the current categorized seating system. With this free address seating system, for example, people can change their viewpoints along with the rapidly changing situation of the football games.

Safety and freedom are not contradicting concept.

Therefore one of my design targets is to create an architectural shape which fulfills both requirements. I believe that presenting a totally innovative system of soccer stadium will give a massive impact on not only the sports world but also the whole society. More people can enjoy watching soccer game more than ever this safe and free stadium.

Another problem regarding to architectural factor of stadiums is spatial space utilization. Basin like section has been considered as only one archetype for a stadium for a long time and system and spacial connection of the stadium itself has never designed since ancient Rome era. Basically, traditional stadium consists of tribune and backyard space such as concourse which is redundant and dreary space. By designing these spaces as a continuous one, the stadium going to be more efficient and be able to make these space more profitable when dormant period.

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Fall 2017 Undergraduate Thesis

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Kazuaki Kojima

Intertwined Shape

This conceptual model was inspired by the huddling soccer players before kick-off that represents the spirit of unity and supports each other. To address issues, I introduced this unique interlacing ribbon-like shapes to the stadium, instead of the traditional vase-shape tribune and concourse, in order to create a sense of unity in the stadium, while safely dividing the opposing teams.

The internal circulation is one continuous path, however, this is the flexible system because by controlling boundary on the circulation between two teams this shape can accommodate various ratio of supporters. Each ribbon is actually connected to the neighboring ribbon to create a system of continuous circulation.

This novel spatial composition allows people to move more smoothly before, during, and after the game.

The external circulation makes spectators move smoother and easier. This is not only pathway but also an attractive space where people can shop, eat, communicate, and relax.

These circulations give a positive impact on The local community and environment a lot more than just inside the stadium. In terms of economy, there would be more opportunities for local retailers targeting visiting away fans. Plus, natural human interaction within neighbors will be encouraged through the experience in the stadium. Atmosphere and mood will pour from inside the stadium and establish locals’ identity and sense of unity.

Urban Weaver

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Fall 2017 Undergraduate Thesis

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Urban Weaver

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Fall 2017 Undergraduate Thesis

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Urban Weaver

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Fall 2017 Undergraduate Thesis

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Urban Weaver

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Fall 2021 VS2772:

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Fort Sumter VS2772: Abstractions of War Fall 2021

Course Description In Chromatic Algorithms, Carolyn Kane discusses what color means in the digital era: “Whether through its ochres, its minerals, or its silicon graphic chips, color’s dirt and matter connects us, however reluctantly or ambivalently, to techniques and artifice, just as it does to metaphysics and theology, politics and ideology, and the depths and darkness of the earth, the world of chaos, eroticism, and Dionysian ecstasy […] Color must therefore be seen as something deeply historical, material and ideological, at the core of the always already Other that perpetually threatens to unveil and undermine the notions of truth, purity, origin and order that underwrite Western culture.” There is a joke that goes: “What’s red and tastes like blue paint? Red paint.” But, in fact, a different chemical produces red and blue, so they may not taste the same. Each color is, and always has been, a physically different construction…

Excerpts from Andrew Zago, Color Outside the Line and other notes on Color in Architecture, ProjectJournal 5, 2016

Color, as material, arrives to architecture with a thud. While my past visual studies seminars convincingly created the illusion of material color transmuted into an atmospheric condition (Color Outside the Line, Spring 2015), this seminar will instead fully embrace the material there-ness of color. Through a series of material exercises and experiments, each student will make and expertly photograph three dimensional architectural studies out of color pigment itself. Color will not be applied, projected, or printed, but, rather, will itself be physically shaped from the course syllabus fall 2021

Abstractions of War

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Fort Moultrie

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Kazuaki Kojima

N

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Abstractions of War

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Fall 2021 VS2772:

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Axonometric drawing

Abstractions of War

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FALL 2021

Fall 2021 VS2772:

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Abstractions of War

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Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Color as material VS2636: Color Spring 2021

Course Description In Chromatic Algorithms, Carolyn Kane discusses what color means in the digital era: “Whether through its ochres, its minerals, or its silicon graphic chips, color’s dirt and matter connects us, however reluctantly or ambivalently, to techniques and artifice, just as it does to metaphysics and theology, politics and ideology, and the depths and darkness of the earth, the world of chaos, eroticism, and Dionysian ecstasy […] Color must therefore be seen as something deeply historical, material and ideological, at the core of the always already Other that perpetually threatens to unveil and undermine the notions of truth, purity, origin and order that underwrite Western culture.” There is a joke that goes: “What’s red and tastes like blue paint? Red paint.” But, in fact, a different chemical produces red and blue, so they may not taste the same. Each color is, and always has been, a physically different construction…

Excerpts from Andrew Zago, Color Outside the Line and other notes on Color in Architecture, ProjectJournal 5, 2016

Color, as material, arrives to architecture with a thud. While my past visual studies seminars convincingly created the illusion of material color transmuted into an atmospheric condition (Color Outside the Line, Spring 2015), this seminar will instead fully embrace the material there-ness of color. Through a series of material exercises and experiments, each student will make and expertly photograph three dimensional architectural studies out of color pigment itself. Color will not be applied, projected, or printed, but, rather, will itself be physically shaped from the course syllabus spring 2021

Color as material

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FALL 2021

Stacked crayon model

Crayon model with hand

130

Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Top : Column parts of the model Bottom: Base parts of the model

Melted Crayons in pot

Color as material

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PORTFOLIO

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Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Left : Side view of “aedicula” model Right: Front view of the model -Left page Axon view of the model

Color as material

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FALL 2021

-Right page Photo of “False Door“ model

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Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Color as material

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FALL 2021

Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Axon view of Crayon model

Color as material

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FALL 2021

Top : Front view Bottom: Axon view

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Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Color as material

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PORTFOLIO

FALL 2021

Top : Binder added to the pigment Middle: Casting pastels Bottom: Pastels removed from mold

-Right page Model of Adolf Loos’s Dvořák mausoleum

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Spring 2021 VS2636: Color

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Color as material

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Spring 2021 AS2509: Details, Details...

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Structual Detail AS2509: Details, Details...

Spring 2021 Collaboration with Angelina Castagnola, Armida Saspa, and Zirong Zhao

Course Description This course is an investigation into the future of the architectural detail. Beginning with the question, “what is an architectural detail today?”, the course considered a range of critical positions on the issue, and tests their outcome through the design and fabrication of an architectural detail.

A number of contemporary architects, from Ben Van Berkel to Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaus have suggested that the relevance of the architectural detail has faded in favor of more subservient part to whole relationships. There is no denying that, given the simultaneous technological advancement and material development of our era, the idea of seamless continuities are on the horizon (if not at our fingertips) at least from the standpoint of constructability.

But, is that really the best we can do? Or might the future of the architectural detail belong to a more nuanced approach that draws from a wider range of definitions? In Edward R. Ford’s book The Architectural Detail, he identifies five widely acceptedapproaches to the design of an architectural detail: 1) Details as Abstraction (Ben Van Berkel, Zaha Hadid) 2) Detail as Motif (The Gothic, Frank Lloyd Wright) 3) Detail as Construction Logic (Tadao Ando) 4) Detail as Structural Expression (Prouve) 5) The Autonomous or Subversive Detail (Scarpa, Early Morphosis) Based on the five architectural detail definitions outlined By Edward Ford, each student will be asked to position themselves through the 5 categories - or to place themselves between more than one of them. Drawings from that position on the topic, students are then asked to design (and construct at full scale) an architectural detail. This year we looked specific at a scale of architectural work related to the human hand. from the course syllabus spring 2021

Structural Detail

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The handrail the Team designed derived from the contemporary forms of the building in context, National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, by Louis Kahn. The handrail in its modified form is intended to mimic the initial conceptual focus of culture and gathering the community of the people. The handrail is a signature element of the building as a whole.

The detail is a structural articulation or can be represented as sculpture in place. The geometry, materiality, and scale of the handrail embodies the building’s qualities.

The precise curvature of the parts of the modified handrail sets a dichotomous relationship to the building form, while embracing a modern structural relationship to the experience of the detail. The structural segments create a smooth tectonic application. The specific undulated metal and wood pieces align to each other. The metal that that hugs the wood falls off the underside as it meets the acrylic “core” that travels through the top and bottom of the handrail system. The acrylic serves as the base of the handrail. The immediate focus of the handrail is intended to be on the dark metal, where the light stained wood and robust arc is crafted as a place for comfort and ease to travel. The extension of the metal on the opposing side serves as an inclusive interlocking experience of materiality and function of the detail.

The ground is lit by an LED light that snuggly fuses into its own identified space at the opposing metal arc. Each differing material has its own role to the handrail and situates and nestles itself securely into the next material by a fastener. The different components must join with each other to maintain the structural integrity of the detail as a whole.

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FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Structural Detail

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FALL 2021

Spring 2021 AS2509: Details, Details...

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Structural Detail

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Fall 2020 VS4120: Visual Studies III

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

meubles VS4120: Strategies of Representation III Fall 2020 Collaboration with Casey Pan

Course Description The course will begin with a research assignment about the history and fabrication of manufactured objects. Each student will collect, curate, and present an in-depth analysis of one piece of furniture (or collection) from a selection of designers and architects.

For Project 1, students will consider the digital model space by manipulating 3D assets from the Magis Design collection and create new compositions using seminar specific scripts in Rhino Grasshopper Kangaroo. This playful procedure makes possible arrangements of parts through rigging and dropping in a user-defined environment. Vitra and Formica material catalogs will be used for texture mapping, shifting legibility between geometry and image.

For Project 2, the compositions are re-seen through the lens of motion graphics and action paintings to produce new perceptions, limits, and identities of the Magis Design collection. The parametric workflow creates a new collection of formal and visual objects through gestures of masking, slicing, filling, hatching, doubling. The original Vitra and Formica material is reformatted as a color and texture palette flattening legibility and familiarity in favor of iterative RGB relations. from the course syllabus fall 2020

meubles

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Fall 2020 VS4120: Visual Studies III

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

meubles

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FALL 2021

Fall 2020 VS4120: Visual Studies III

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

meubles

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Spring 2020 VS4101: Strategies of Representation II

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Playing Letters VS4101: Strategies of Representation II Spring 2020

Course Description Imaging a line asks students to consider the artifacts and affects that accompany a line when it is no longer a product of geometry (a connecting vector between two points), but is instead, absorbed into other formats. Students will work through scripting, texture mapping, photography, and rendering to produce a set of rendered composites.

Imaging the line will consider the conditions of background, color, pattern, simulated lighting and material, raster data and anti-aliasing in considering the status of the line as other than the notated connection between two points. These elements at once collapse the hard distinction between the line and its ground while also multiplying the layers of information described by it. This exercise will start from the point where exercise 01 left off, the photograph of the physical line model. We will work backwards to pull the discoveries in the physical model back into digital space including but not limited to material choice, 3d printed contours, lighting, background, and other elements in the scene. Once imported, these elements can be adjusted, manipulated, separated, and exaggerated to produce a series of images. Along with the model and material, other artifacts from the photo setup will be modeled to produce the entire scene and consider what it means to construct an image. from the course syllabus spring 2020

Playing Letters

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original letter f with annotations

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Spring 2020 VS4101: Strategies of Representation II

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Top left : Folded letter f on Folded grid Top Right : Folded grid Bottom left : Reduced letter f Bottom Right : Curled Reduced letter f

Playing Letters

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PORTFOLIO

FALL 2021

- Right page Colored render Top : intersection volume Bottom : axon of grid setting

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Spring 2020 VS4101: Strategies of Representation II

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

Playing Letters

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FALL 2021

Fall 2019 VS4100: Strategies of Representation I

FALL 2022

Kazuaki Kojima

The drawn line, Imaging the line VS4100: Strategies of Representation I Fall 2019

Course Description Imaging a line asks students to consider the artifacts and affects that accompany a line when it is no longer a product of geometry (a connecting vector between two points), but is instead, absorbed into other formats. Students will work through scripting, texture mapping, photography, and rendering to produce a set of rendered composites.

Imaging the line will consider the conditions of background, color, pattern, simulated lighting and material, raster data and anti-aliasing in considering the status of the line as other than the notated connection between two points. These elements at once collapse the hard distinction between the line and its ground while also multiplying the layers of information described by it. This exercise will start from the point where exercise 01 left off, the photograph of the physical line model. We will work backwards to pull the discoveries in the physical model back into digital space including but not limited to material choice, 3d printed contours, lighting, background, and other elements in the scene. Once imported, these elements can be adjusted, manipulated, separated, and exaggerated to produce a series of images. Along with the model and material, other artifacts from the photo setup will be modeled to produce the entire scene and consider what it means to construct an image. from the course syllabus fall 2019

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Top left : Detail drawing of the joint 1 Top Right : Detail drawing of the joint 2 Bottom left : Detail drawing of the joint 3 Bottom Right : Detail drawing of the joint 4

-right page photo of 3d-printed model

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Physical and Digital Image

Based on the studio conversation, take another pass at fitting your model into the cube. Pay specialattention to overlaps in projection and to your corners.Selectively rescale segments of your digital model. Following the in-class tutorial, you will scale a segment to thicken or narrow certain segments. These operations will change the length of your lineand will require you to extend and reconsider how your line fills the cube. Track and annotate thesescale shifts. The overall length of the center line should remain the length of SCI-Arc once scalesshifts are taken into account. We will expand our representational techniques to include axonometric drawings, sections,photography, and multi-media physical modeling. Clarify your approach to the fit. Select one or everal transitions a reinforce the geometric transition. It could be in dialog with, project onto, or challenge the line. Based on the studio conversation, take another pass at fitting your model into the cube. Pay specialattention to overlaps in projection and to your corners.Selectively rescale segments of your digital model. Following.

We will expand our representational techniques to include axonometric drawings,inforce the geometric transition. It could be in dialog with, project onto, or challenge the line.

Based on the studio conversation, take another pass at fitting your model into the cube. Pay specialattention to overlaps in projection and to your corners.Selectively rescale segments of your digital model. Following the in-class tutorial, you will scale a segment to thicken or narrow certain segments. These operations will change the length of your lineand will require you to extend and reconsider how your line fills the cube. Track and annotate thesescale shifts. The overall length of the center line should remain the length of SCI-Arc once scalesshifts are taken into account. We will expand our representational techniques to include axonometric drawings, sections,photography, and multi-media physical modeling. Clarify your approach to the fit. Select one - page 40 Model photo with background

or everal transitions a reinforce the geometric transition. It could be in dialog with, project onto, or challenge the line.

- page 41 Reconstructed render - Left page Zoom out render with background

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reconstructed “render of render”

- Left page exhibition setting

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Fall 2021 AS3140: Advanced Project Delivery

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Athena House AS3140: Advanced Project Delivery Fall 2021 Collaboration with Siu Lun Chan, Charles Allen, Catalina Lee, Hang Mun Choi, Ian Wong, and Lana Yuan as “Studio 960“

Course Description The course focuses on advanced methods of project delivery and construction documents incorporating digital technologies and investigating new models for linking design and construction processes. It introduces Building Information Modeling as one of the tools for realignment of the traditional relationships between the project stakeholders. Using a single unit residential building located in Los Angles, students will analyze and develop the architecture by creating a detailed 3d digital model and a set of 2d construction documents specifically tailored for the design challenges of a single unit residential project.

Lectures and site visits to fabricators and construction sites will further inform students of technical documentation methods for projects that are operating on the forefront of design and construction technologies to date. from the course syllabus fall 2021

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Fall 2021 AS3130: Practice Environments

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Contacts, Liabilities, and Business Models AS3130: Practice Environments Fall 2021 Collaboration with Siu Lun Chan, Charles Allen, and Cao Biao

Course Description Architecture is a comprehensive field of practice existing within dynamic, social, organizational, economic, professional and cognitive contexts. The course aims to equip the student with the knowledge, skill and judgment needed to fit an architect for his/her professional duties, and to understand how an office organization and a design project are managed for this purpose.

This course focuses on the organizational and managerial issues to carry an architectural design from concept to implementation. It explores principles and concepts essential to managing projects applied to a variety of design and project delivery cases. Each class contains a case study that describes the real experience of practicing architects and project teams. Cases focus on specialized practice, the role of the architect in new forms of project delivery, resolving design conflicts between the community, project team and the client, collaboration; making contractors perform, working in another country, and the use of new technology in design and management. from the course syllabus fall 2021

Contracts, Liabilities, and Business Models

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Contracts, Liabilities, and Business Models

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Spring 2021 AS3124: Environmental Systems

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Hot stuff AS3124: Environmental Systems Fall 2020 Collaboration with Christopher Pennino and Ji Cao

Course Description Every year is now the hottest year on record. Our cities trap heat and exacerbate harsh conditions for occupancy. Rampant development encroaching into impossible ecosystems turn to firestorms and then wash away. Coastal cities face near ruin. Our global political system sits idle, frozen in paralysis and focused on maintaining wealth in the hands of the privileged. Architecture can play a significant role in shaping humanity’s response to the needs of sustainability, climate change, and resilience. The performance of architecture—how it modulates energy and resource consumption and production, creates comfortable and productive spaces for people, and actively responds to dynamic environmental conditions—is increasingly its primary role in our cities, often at the expense of aesthetic and cultural criteria. But architecture can no longer strike a merely neutral balance in the environmental and physiological experience of the city, it must now actively and productively engage our stressed natural systems. The course will begin with an exploration of the constraints of climate, basic physics, and how the human body responds to climate, as well as the conceptual models that govern air, light, and sound in the built environment. We will particularly consider the way comfort has been defined in the context of systemic racism in Western societies and then exported as a global “standard.” Students will engage in a comprehensive analysis of site opportunities and constraints, including urban context and developmental patterning, historic fabric, soil, topography, ecology, and building orientation, underpinned with a comprehensive understanding of climate and weather. Each successive lecture will then build on these constraints to study how architecture has developed in response, with lectures devoted to site design and analysis in terms of the impact of various geographic regions. from the course syllabus fall 2020

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Urban Intervention

The project site is located at the Santa Fe and East 1st street, Downtown, Los Angeles. The site as it stands is dirty, cold, uninviting and lacks many modern amenities that would even make it useable as a rest stop as it is under the bridge.

However, this space still has the potential to contribute to the local community and neighboring environment by conceiving architectural intervention, especially focused on environmental factors. The site serves as both shelter from environmental/physical threats and a gateway of travel from the arts district to other parts of Los Angeles. Our design target is to Uses the area under the bridge both as a shelter for unhouse population and a way of travel. Thus Air Quality / Noise / Security / Vegetation /Sanitary Conditions / Lighting are the factors which we should concern about.

Design Concept - The partation prevent exhasut gas flow in to the pedestrian space and help to improve air quality.

- The partation structure also reduce the noise of car and echo.

- Creating space where people can spend time and socialize.

- Vegetation can be installed between loubers or partation.

- Laundry machines and power stations are availabe for homeless population.

- Lighting will be installed at the top of the structure.

Site location

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PV caliculation - Monocrystalline 330W Solar Panel * 10 = 3.3kW (DC System Size) - Standard / Fixed Roof mount / 14% system losses / 20 tilt / 180 azimuth - 5,361kWh/Year Load - Laundry machine 2.5kWh(one time) * 5 * 6 * 365 = 27,375kWh/Year - LED light 1340kWh/ Year - Phone charger 0.015kWh(one time) * 30 * 365 = 164.25kWh / Year Total 28780kWh / Year > 5361kWh / Year

This proposal seeks to alleviate the burdens of the local homeless population and serve as a spot where the community and city can provide direct aid to those in need. The site is reworked with a system of louvres to dampen wind in the tunnel and provide greater sonic comfort to the intended users. Additionally it allows us to recess lighting systems within and make sure that the site is properly lit at all times.

The site is made up of 9 individual pods that each contain a place to wash, charge devices and/or access city resources and get information regarding active city initiatives.

This proposal works a set of solar panels that jut out from the bridge and out above street level.

We intend that any proposal would additionally incorporate a heavy amount of greenscaping to reduce the urban heat effect and provide cleaner air Top : Sanitary station in niche Middle : PV panels bottom : Entrance view

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Top : Day time bottom : Night time

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Fall 2019 AS3100: Materials and Tectonics

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Various Systems AS3100: Materials and Tectonics Fall 2019

Course Description Imaging a line asks students to consider the artifacts and affects that accompany a line when it is no longer a product of geometry (a connecting vector between two points), but is instead, absorbed into other formats. Students will work through scripting, texture mapping, photography, and rendering to produce a set of rendered composites.

Imaging the line will consider the conditions of background, color, pattern, simulated lighting and material, raster data and anti-aliasing in considering the status of the line as other than the notated connection between two points. These elements at once collapse the hard distinction between the line and its ground while also multiplying the layers of information described by it. This exercise will start from the point where exercise 01 left off, the photograph of the physical line model. We will work backwards to pull the discoveries in the physical model back into digital space including but not limited to material choice, 3d printed contours, lighting, background, and other elements in the scene. Once imported, these elements can be adjusted, manipulated, separated, and exaggerated to produce a series of images. Along with the model and material, other artifacts from the photo setup will be modeled to produce the entire scene and consider what it means to construct an image. from the course syllabus fall 2019

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“Minka“, Japanese traditional folkhouse

Minka is a Japanese word suggests numerous types of

As the building materials, earth, wood, and stone come from

traditional farmhouses or folk house that build in all over

the same mountain and forest surrounding the village are

Japan. Since the Japanese mainland is stretching from north

mainly used. People were collectively taking care of trees

to south widely, various types of Minka have been evolved to

which will be structural materials, and normally they do

fit and adapt to the local climate, industry, social relationship,

not bring materials from anywhere else. From the aspect of

and so on. Minka is also recognized as a sophisticated

energy efficiency, Minka shows great performance in both the

integration of material and form.

construction period and normal times. For example, the deep eaves let the sunlight come in the interior space in winter,

Minka is constructed by local carpenters called daiku who

in contrast to shutting it out in the summertime. The walls

play roles as not merely builders but also plan designers,

molded by earth and stones from the surrounding area have

construction operators, and craftsmen. They work in a

the humidity control ability by taking in moisture inside of the

hierarchical group and every decision they make regarding

walls when it is humid, and vice versa.

architectural design is comprehensively considered from many points of view such as construction efficiency,

What makes minka great is the way that integrating human

functional requirement, and cost.

life and architecture into humble, functional, and beautiful form. Every functional space arranged carefully and simple

ndividually, Minka is a house of the family that owns it,

but beautiful details evolved through a long period and

at the same time a psychological symbol of the family for

descended knowledge over the generations. There is nothing

the people grow up and spend much time there. Aesthetical

to compare with this attitude which is living with nature and

characteristics usually appear in detail such as roof edge

thinking architecture as part of their life in the world.

ornaments. Collectively, they express harmonious and beautiful landscape because they were built with basically the

Construction materials are all native material such as earth,

same local material but each house have subtle differences in

wood, straw, reed, and stone. For the foundation, the columns

their form and distribution.

and posts supporting the above structure resting on the large flat stone. The whole structure system is wood construction

The very first type of Minka was born in Japan’s prehistoric

and some small wooden columns and beams are connected by

past. The foundation of this architectural style has emerged as

a thick string. For exterior walls, thick wood planks or layers

a shrine architecture called Ise style. This was the combination

of clay applied. For interior walls, thin wood bars and layered

of Shinto(Japanese vernacular religion) and simple Japanese

paper were used.

preference. Since that time, rice production is always in the center of there village life. Most people work for a few

The form of Minka is designed merely based on the functional

landowners. To maximize the rice productivity of the region,

reason, for example, the number of snowfalls, or the number

Priority has put upon the paddy field and houses were built in

of people lives. The builder didn’t care about architectural

a leftover area with limited materials. Almost all house in the

proportion but they are working on the unique measurement

village was poor and their life was hard excerpt ruling class.

scale which based on the dimension of the Japanese flooring unit, tatami. Because of this, the beautiful rhythm of the

Minka is strongly connected to the social system. For example,

materials and spans in both plan and elevation view.

members of the community of the village sometimes help

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each other to construct thatch roof or bark roof and maintain

Craftsmanship is found everywhere at Minka, the wood frame

the exterior. Thus, without supportive community members,

joint looks simple but it is really hard to cut and rut the wood

none of them is existing.

to connect the structural columns and beams.

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Minka has no decorative details because people have enough time and money to enjoy flashy ornament, but some parts of the building such as roof ridge ornament, detail of interior fittings and furniture are decorated with an intricate unique geometric pattern which is done by anonymous craftsmen.

Minka is mainly assembled by hand. Although construction methods may vary, basically the foundation is made of stones and clay. Columns supporting the primary structural frame are resting on that foundation. These are some variation of a complex network of beams which is overlaid by finishing material afterward. Then, Walls will be constructed and other details and interior finish will follow.

The construction cost of Minka is considered extremely low. In contrast to contemporary architectural production is described as scrap and build, the people were living in the Minka repairing and updating the building partially and gradually.

Using natural local material can reduce the transportation cost and environmental burden. Also, they know the strength of each material, so they made the core structural part super rigid for example with hardwood, made an exterior wall of roofing which requires frequent maintenance and likely damaged with soft, vulnerable and cheap. This is a clever strategy that when the building experiences natural disasters, the weak parts easily break and secure the strong structural frame. This also contributes to the low life cycle cost in the long run.

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“Shikiri“ partation - contemporary application

My proposal is introducing removable wall partitions that are made of wood from the local forest into contemporary architectural space. This allows people to appreciate the surrounding environment and feel it closer because furniture is an architectural element that is the closest to humans.

The detail, pattern, texture, and materials may have many variations that depend on its location, culture, and preference, just like each of Minka has slightly different details from others.

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Additional Facade, Another Layer

No matter how Minka is a beautiful and sophisticated architectural type, the numbers of Minka have been decreasing due to the change of the social system and the loss of technicians and the natural environment. However, Japanese vernacular architecture should serve not as a source of characteristic details, forms to be reproduced and simply duplicated, but as a guideline to understand the reconnecting of the essential elements of the architecture and surrounding environment. its location, culture, and preference just like each of Minka has slightly different details from others. This project may be the very first step toward reconnecting architecture and local authenticity which contemporary architecture lost and forget in the stram of rapidly evolved building technology and digital media.

original elevation drawing

Top : chunk render bottom : facade render

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Decentralized 3.0 - Digital Humanism HT2729: Other Futures Fall 2021 Collaboration with Siu Lun Chan, Angelina Castagnola, and Caylee Sacks

Course Description Other Futures looks backwards in order to look forwards.

We will take up certain central questions: How do our visions for the future reflect critical values of the present?

Whose voices are represented in designed worlds? What is the use value and importance of speculation in architecture, as well as art and literature? Can we use the very design tools of neoliberal and techno-utopian dreaming as an appa-

Exhibition curatorial workshop

ratus of resistance?

The class begins retrospectively with discussions about avant-guardist futures from Constant, Archigram, and Superstudio, among others, before launching into territories less explored by the discipline: Afrofuturism, Gulf Futurism, and Latinx and Sino futurisms. We will also explore ecological, feminist, and queer perspectives in our search for utopian counter-narratives and latent architectures. This course is structured around three curatorial workshops, in which students develop the skills to draw aesthetic and temporal relationships between thematic areas and individual works, articulate a critical position through reading, writing, and the development of an exhibition proposal. Course readings include architecture/art criticism and history, as well as science fiction.

This exhibition explores the changes that techism can bring about people in the generation of web 3.0. Artists and architects respond to the immediate future shying away from mega-corporations, blurring the line between human and machine.

Are you still buying from Amazon?

Checking out Dezeen?

How about Archdaily?

Drawing with your hands?

Disgruntled generations are seeking freedom through a new, analogue predicament.

Techism is a movement that reconciles technological innovation with the power of creation. Here art and technology

from the course syllabus fall 2021

produce work that informs and involving a digital form.

This technology of virtual creation through physical bodily motions is what we can digital humanism.

Although we are not yet wearing synthetics or mechanical prosthetics, the traditional ways that people have produced art have met challenges recently. The seemingly simple act of writing involves proper penmanship, (matter of complexity), and this process has already been replaced by typing on a keyboard.

We have moved from a typewriter to the keyboard, to Turing’s code cracker, and now VR/AR tech. The interface of human expression and creations has always run into

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technological shift. The digital disruption technology will continue to shape and revolutionize Humanism, to a state that it will no longer be recognizable, such is Digital Humanism.

Art is no longer limited to a sculpture or a picture hanging on a wall, architecture is no longer limited a physical presence of space, Techism may offer an escape from the rigid and centralized monopoly in many sectors, The power system debilitates human, school pumps out desk drones, office cubicles are designed like jail cells, and many consider this an acceptable future. Digital Humanism may be a fervent drea of escape, a fantasy but also a more graceful and rewarding experience for humanity.

The Art and Architecture featured in Decentralized 3.0: Digital Humanism will explore the possibility of Techism and its impact on the Arts and Architecture. The Digital Humanism in these paradigms and the work they reflect on human digitally, and philosophically.

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Architecture Struggling in Digital Age

In the late 1980s, the world started to shift

code conversion and MP3 format are the act of digitization.

to the information age as a post-industrial social model.

IT-driven services, such as UBER, Doordash, and Spotify,

Before digital and computers, most of the factory-produced

result from digitalization because those produce the new

products were standardized to maximize profitability and

system by taking advantage of mass data and computation-

efficiency. The concept of the digital, which is converting

al power in the form that fulfills the current market needs.

continuous values into discrete data form, is the most

Back to architectural context, the herald of CAD/CAM

dominant standard system in the present-day world because

allows the architect to convert the architectural shape into

it allows the computer to process the various types of vast

a digital format; however, presumably, we have not con-

information in many ways. The use of standardized digital

tributed to the architectural discipline by using the digital

platforms has not successfully established a particular

platform because we are producing the “new” form which

style in contemporary architectural discourse yet. Heydar

is actually can be achieved without digital technology.

Aliyev Center, which Zaha Hadid’s firm designed in 2007,

The Bezer’s curve, B-Spline, and NURBS,

can be seen as the crystallization of digital technology,

integrated into most of all virtual digital design platforms,

“style” of parametricism. This essay explores how we can

made us deploy free-form curves and shaped more than

acknowledge the awkward synthesis of digital technology

necessary in the design process. In Zaha’s Heydar Aliyev

and architecture and figure out how architecture virtually

Center project, obviously, the architectural mass is all

integrates the advantage of digitality through examing

about curvy 3-dimensional surfaces. The overall uniform

Heydar Aliyev Center as an example.

volume has two highest points at northeast and southwest

Heydar Aliyev Center is only architectural

respectively, and building skin warps these peaks and cul-

digitization, not digitalization. This might sound confus-

tural hall and other programs together. The representational

ing but, digitization and digitalization have a different

quality of draped fabric-like shell was intended to be like

meaning. Digitalization means creating new value, assets,

a 3D model in virtual space because the curved surfaces

and opportunities by reforming and transforming existing

were divided by the isocurve of the surface into countless

frameworks by introducing digital technology. In contrast,

panels that vary in shape and proportion. Emerged iso-

digitization suggests analog-to-digital data conversion in

curve as architectural elements emphasize how those soft

order to achieve high efficiency and rationalization. Greg

geometries are generated and then rationalized in virtual

Lynn’s examination and theory of the animate form could

mathematical space, but doesn’t related to any of the real-

also be another framework that legitimate this project.

ity; construction logic, material production, nor historical

The geometry’s overall expression is articulated as a

context. Parametricism cannot be a global standard because

soft, continuous, and fluid form that has not been seen in

it celebrates social transformation towards mass-customi-

architectural scale until that period. However, those formal

zation and individualization, but the difficulty of devel-

“newness” does not suggest the establishment of a new ar-

oping a parameterized model in digital design platforms

chitectural standard. Neither Schumacher’s parametricism

limits and restricts customizability in reality. Parameriric-

nor Lynn’s conception of animate form has not successfully

ity is not for everyone. Some people would love to wear an

been credited as the architectural style as the successor of

order-made cloth, but most of us like to have a standardized

modernism because emergent computer-aided forms were

choice of S, M, L, XL sizes at a reasonable price. Heydar

merely a result of the digital design platform’s affordance

Aliyev Center indeed showcases the possibility of what

and side-effects of its system.

digital technology, specifically NURBS, capable of, but

If you look at the difference between digitization and digitalization from a non-architectural perspective, that distinction might be more evident. For instance, ASCII

nothing more than that.

Fluid and soft form is not the unique characteristic of digital platforms; for instance, we can find rich curvy

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ornamentation in Rococo-style architecture. Fluidity and smoothness are supposed to be the one option in many of the typological possibilities, but designer tends to create a smooth and soft more than necessary. From my own experience, the student usually eager to use new functions and tools because they can achieve the superficial “newness” by simply using those new features, scripts, or toolkit. It immersed themselves in the sense of “superiority” because drawing and designing 3-dimensional curved surface in traditional orthographic drawing standard is quite tricky.

This is why the architects are biased against digital tools

ENDNOTES 1

Patrik Schumacher, Architect/Architectural theorist, has been tak-

ing design principal role at Zaha Hadid Architects since late 1990s. He argued the manifesto of parametricism following year of the completion of Galaxy Soho and

and unconsciously restrict their creativity using the digital

Heydar Aliyev Center because he was expecting that these projects are strongly

platform and its standard. In this sense, Heydar Aliyev

reinforce his claim. Schumacher, Patrik. “Parametricism: A New Global Style for

Center project can be interpreted as the result of that kind of motivation.

Architecture is also biased against digital

Architecture and Urban Design.” Architectural Design 79, no. 4 (2009): 14–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.912.

2

Gartner, research and consulting firm specialized in IT industry,

defines the term digitalization as “the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and for new value-producing opportunities

technology itself. Even after several decades since the

– “ in the glossary page in their website. This definition helps us to understand

first generation in digital architecture, digital design is

how non-architect react to the digital technology. See also the “digital” and “dig-

considered the peripheral study in the architectural school.

For instance, in the pedagogical framework at SCI_Arc, which I have been educated for these two years, classified

itization” in their glossary page for more clarification of the use of these terms.

Gartner_Inc. “Definition of Digitalization - Gartner Information Technology Glossary.” Gartner. Accessed April 15, 2021. https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/digitalization.

3

Greg Lynn situates the property of parameter as the one of the

algorithmic design and generative design approach into

three fundamentals factor in transformation of architectural design medium;

the elective seminars. In contrast, almost everyone is

from paper and pencil to the computer. He argues the forms in Computer-Aided

working on the core studio project using rhinoceros. Studio instructors rarely talk or discuss how to take advantage of digital technology in the context of orthodox architectural

Design is achieved as the result of parametrization. Lynn, Greg. Animate Form.

New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

4

AUTODESK, CAD software company dominating the market,

explain the Isoparametric curves as the curve which consist of U and V-value so that condition of surface can be simulate easily by changing the parameter; U

discourse, but in the seminar, the integration of digital

and V-value. “Isoparametric Curves.” Isoparametric curves | Alias Products | Au-

technology into the traditional architectural linage has not

todesk Knowledge Network. Accessed April 15, 2021. https://knowledge.autodesk.

been discussed really. In the educational institution, digitization, which is the use of rhinoceros in core studio work,

com/support/alias-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014/ ENU/Alias/files/GUID-4CCDF144-DB4F-4BEB-BA5A-E69CED27F4B9-htm. html.

5

Carpo points out that counquest of fluid form was brought by the

happened, but digitalization in architectural pedagogy has

specific notation of digital platform, and eventually states the second digital style

not materialized yet.

that characterized by distingulishable spline-base curvilinear design language.

Design tools influence designers’ creative process, indeed. As Carpo suggests, digital tools broaden

However, note that these formal traits are not unique to recent computer-aided shapes. Mario Carpo, The Second Digital Turn: Design beyond Intelligence (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017), 55-56.

the possible option of architectural form-making, but we are biased towards digital technology’s supremacy. We are celebrating the mere digitization of classic architectural

BIBLIOGRAPHY

forms by calling those “new.” Architectural digitalization ought to happen in a way that is taking advantage of digitized information and this data-fluent environment while being conscious enough about coexisting digitality and analogic. Even though digital technologies are popularized in everyday life, we still love handwriting, drawing, listening to live music, and meeting a friend in person.

Overcoming this rigid dichotomy is the key to establish the new architectural standard in 2021, beyond the current computer-aided amorphous.

Carpo. The Second Digital Turn: Design beyond Intelligence.

Cambridge: MIT, 2017.

“Definition of Digitalization - Gartner Information Technology Glossary.” Gartner. Accessed April 15, 2021. https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/digitalization.

“Isoparametric Curves.” Isoparametric curves | Alias Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://knowledge. autodesk.com/support/alias-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014/ENU/Alias/files/GUID-4CCDF144-DB4F-4BEB-BA5A-E69CED27F4B9-htm.html.

Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

Schumacher, Patrik. “Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design.” Architectural Design 79, no. 4 (2009): 14–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.912.

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Unstable Interiority

The child’s toy box is dumped out. The various figures

year as this exhibition;

were fluttered in the diagrammatic architectural drawing.

“Gropius wrote a book on grain silos,

The overall geometric composition can be described as

Le Corbusier one on aeroplanes,

multiple curvy-shaped contents in a rectilinear wrap. Each

And Charlotte Perriand - it was said - brought

shape in the wrap is unique, and none of them are not

a new

defined by primitive geometric language. There is no order,

object to the office every morning;

but just chaotic circumstance.

But today we collect ads.” 2

This drawing was completed without any colors,

Their interest in the advertisement focused more on how

and there are two types of elements in this drawing. Each

architectural expression attracts the general public by

line and edges look straight, but you will notice that lines

providing them with a favorable ideal future blueprint.

are subtly fluctuating, presumably due to hand drawing.

Since the advertisement’s primary purpose is to attract

Lines, which represent floor joints, are running on the floor

unspecified mass customers and eventually make them buy

and unevenly and roughly dividing the wall as well. The

certain products, their advertisement attention was against

lines are relatively perpendicular to the wall in the periph-

traditional architectural production, which has never required

eral area, whereas it gets curvy and intertwines around

promotion or advertisement. They design architecture as a

the atrium, which is at the center of the drawing. The area

mass-produced commodity rather than conventional haute

that represents the wall were filled with black ink. Most of

couture.

the right-angle corners has rounded and filleted to make it

of automobile or aircraft. The interior wall of the pavilion

drawing unstable.

consisted of repetitive molding units made of resin-bond-

Curvilinear contents are drowned as shells, and

ed-plaster.3 This technique and production method derived

most of them have openings. It is unclear whether the shells

from the car industry, one of the world-leading sectors in the

can accommodate people or not. Shapes can be classified

post-war era, was also the icon of consuming pop culture

into two categories, that are connected to the outer wall

imported from the United States.4 Along with the new con-

and independent ones. Whereas the former has a straight

struction technology, Smithsons also introduced aerodynam-

edge, the latter are more like free-form. Each shape keeps

ically optimized cars and aircraft parts into the architecture.

a certain distance from each other, but the spacing is never

People see this pavilion as not just the one that against the

equal or logical order. Thus, it isn’t easy to find a partic-

existing traditional straight brick wall but associate this

ular relationship between these shapes in an architectural

fluid-dynamic shape of the architectural wall with an icon

discourse at first glance.

of consumption culture and wealthy society. At that time, an

Architects Peter and Alison Smithson drew

204

The figures in the drawing could be the parts

smooth. Those equivocal use of the lines and fills make this

automobile was not just a wheeled motor machine used for

this diagrammatic plan for the exhibition called “House of

transportation, but also bore the meanings as the symbol of

the Future” in 1956, sponsored by an English newspaper,

cutting-edge technology, newness, pop-culture, and futurity.

Daily Mail. This exhibition can be classified as an adver-

One year later of this exhibition, John Mchale mentioned

tisement-oriented project rather than a practical housing

that many extensive forms came out of new technology,

units proposal because promotional events such as fashion

such as the automobile, the espresso cafe bar, and the movie

shows, cooking demonstrations, and presentations of the

influence the architectural form.5 This idea of linking the fig-

technological feature were held at the exhibition along with

ures to the design of an automobile and aero-dynamic parts

exhibition space.1 In this period, as their early career as

explains those mysterious figures’ logic. For example, the fat

young radial architects, they were also interested in the ads.

triangle with rounded corners is a carefully designed car’s

They wrote a famous quote for ARK magazine in the same

exoskeleton based on aerodynamic performance analysis.

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Kazuaki Kojima

Two hexagonal columns represent hexagon bolts, which are

ture has no fenestration on the rectilinear architectural wrap.

necessary joinery parts for car assembly. Figures consisted

For the residents of House of future, the only interactive

of an odd combination of the perfectly straight line and

outdoor space is the central courtyard.

distorted orval resembles in the rear window’s shape. The

Smithsons’ urban design theory is another reason

partial circle’s complex aggregation with different diameter

for the inwardness of this housing unit. Peter Smithson

represents the parts in the engine room that supports many

argues that new urban fabric is necessary to achieve a new

piping structures. The square with rounded corners can be

housing style.9 Thus, He intended to present just a piece

interpreted as a railing girder or metal sheet joint because

came out from Smithsons’ new urban formulation, a housing

the edge cannot be a sharp right angle. It is because these

cluster, not showing it as a single completed housing. The

parts are made by bending or welding metal. Those small

units’ external shape needs to be rectilinear because the units

parts generally do not require that precision. I also can’t help

are supposed to be connected to other units via each rectan-

to associate the wavy wall with the section of aero-parts on

gle’s sides. The outermost walls in this drawing are merely

the rear wing. These combinations of the fluid curve and a

joints and connection parts. If you imagine the arraying of

straight line are unexpected and atypical in an architectural

numerous units of House of future and clustering them, it

context but fairly orthodox and reasonable for the car design

will be a horrifying view; it must almost look like the radia-

realm.

tor coil in the heater or carefully constructed semiconductor Once we move away from the plan drawing and

substrate. Clearly, smithsons’ urban planning was treating

gaze at the picture of the pavilion’s interior, we notice the

the housing, the family, the people, and their life as just one

architects’ another implication of car or vehicle’s interior.

of the machine parts, which is inhumane. The urban scheme

Weirdly shaped space was not only the depiction of car

highly restricts interaction with the outer natural environ-

parts but also the car’s interior itself. Movable furniture has

ment and negates mass-diversity and individual dynamism.

been installed into the housing units as built-in storage.6

This kind of brutal modernist attitude towards

The idea of replacing the parts and units is inferred as the

humanism can be synchronized with the car manufactur-

same attitude as the car maintenance system rather than

ing process in the industrial factory in the post-war era.

repair work on architecture. Webster suggests the continuity

An automobile manufacturer divided their parts assembly

between these movable furniture units and Buckminster

process into thousands of small steps and assigned individual

Fuller’s practice around architectural mobility by pointing

workers to the specific work to increase productivity and

out the lineage of Dymaxion House(1927-29) and Dund-

efficiency. The introduction of the assembly line system was

un-Bovis House(1928). For example, Buckminster Fuller’s

not limited to the automobile industry. Eventually, it became

prefabricate bathroom units were probably done earlier than

a popular and convenient method of exploiting manual labor

Smithson’s installation at House of Future, but they share the

in other manufacturing industries. Creative independent

same ideology and formal characteristics.

craftsmen relegated to the assembly machines. They are

7

Interestingly picture of the House of future’s

forced to screw the same bolts to the exact same place on the

kitchen looks like the one of the camping car. Camping-car

same parts restlessly. Workers at the assembly lines were

is the one possible radical answer to the question regarding

suffered from lack of creative tasks and a sense of accom-

architectural mobility. Camping-cars are machines for mov-

plishment. Be treated as machine parts must be harmful to an

ing, but they are also machines for living. Both camping-car

employee’s mental health as well. The car’s body structure

and the House of future’s kitchen are shaped into geometry

and its components are still elegant and beautiful, but at the

with rounded corners to fit the car’s body structure and

same time, those products represents a mechanized world

resonate with the exterior design taste. Due to spatial restric-

that is dreadful and vicious.

tion, the camping-car has the gimmick to storage the table

Although the shapes and figures in Smithson’s

into the wall by folding it. Similarly, the House of future

drawing are obviously related to the machine, especially the

has a different type of storage inside of thick wall structure.

automobile, it is possible to give a totally opposite inter-

Owens illustrates this inward interiority by citing spaceship

pretation of those figures; the drowned figures could be the

8

design seen in science fiction movies, such as Star Trek. As

organism’s cell. Reyner Banham appraises House of future

he mentioned, the interior should be introverted because,

as it “reinforces practice which already exist in embryo.”10

for both cars and spaceship, the outside wall is a dangerous

Of course, he did not directly describe the drawing’s visual

high-speed space. This theory explains why the House of fu-

traits by the word “embryo.” Still, it implies its formal Unstable Interiority

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possibility of further expansion, like one embryo gradually

Kazuaki Kojima

equivocality and ambiguity make this drawing so unstable.

forms a complex body structure through the cell division

The figures and composition were no longer

process. In the drawing, every shape is incompleted, and in

scattered messy toys in a child’s toy box. They were carefully

the process of development, excerpt the recliner container as

designed and manipulated visual representation, enabling us

if every form is continuously moving and changing its shape.

to interact with the dichotomy of cultural and socio-econom-

Primitive rational geometry cannot explain any of these

ical discourse outside the traditional architectural field.

figures. In the container, most of the figures have no obvious directionality. Every figure is discrete from each other and keeps a certain distance from each other. Loss of directionality and spacing make the figures look like floating in the interstitial fluid. The central most giant orval-like shape is the primer cell membrane allowing the other two cell components to penetrate the membrane. These two cells have their inner components, which are small circles and freedom shapes. Several other components are still touching the giant figure. Thin lines surrounding each component, which might represent its outermost membrane, suggest those components are about to detach from where they have belonged.

As architectural space, those biological shape is comfortable for humans. Cell components are functioning as small niches or apparatus. All of these spaces are seamlessly interconnected like an animal’s organ. Intricate concave and convex are ergonomically resonated to human behavior even though it looks tight on the plan drawing. People would be moving around these figures freely. Apparatus units were designed to be movable and replaceable when it gets old or broken.11 This is architectural metabolism that ensures its biological sustainability. As the automobile metaphor explains House of future’s inwardness, the biological system also requires a closed interior. All biological cell need cell covering membrane, organs need a skeletal system, and human needs skin. House of future’s biological figural language allows us to sense its dynamism and equilibrium of the system simultaneously on multiple scales.

Inwardness is something that automobile interior

ENDNOTES 1

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 39. Chichester: Wiley.

2

Smithson, Alison, and Peter Smithson. 1956. “But Today We

Collect Ads.” Essay. In ARK 18, 49. London , UK: Royal College of Art. 3

Boyer, M. Christine. Not Quite Architecture: Writing around

Alison and Peter Smithson, 174. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017.

4

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 41. Chichester: Wiley.

5

Boyer, M. Christine. Not Quite Architecture: Writing around

Alison and Peter Smithson, 174. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017.

6

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 39. Chichester: Wiley.

7

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 41. Chichester: Wiley.

8

Owens, Gwendolyn. “Alison and Peter Smithson’s 1956 ‘House

of the Future.’” Essay. In Gastronomica No. 1, Vol. 1:21. Winter 2001. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

9

Smithson, Peter, Catherine Spellman, and Karl Unglaub. Peter

Smithson: Conversations with Students, 43. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.

10

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 41. Chichester: Wiley.

11

Webster, Helena. 1998. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work

of Alison and Peter Smithson, 41. Chichester: Wiley.

and interior biological view have in common. Former interpretation echoes the mass-production and mechanization of the architecture, and the Latter illustrates rich dynamism and diversity of the organic shape. Alison and Peter Smithson create the interior by juxtaposing two contrasting ideologies;

BIBLIOGRAPHY Boyer, M. Christine. Not Quite Architecture: Writing around Alison and Peter Smithson. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017.

Owens, Gwendolyn. “Alison and Peter Smithson’s 1956 ‘House

automobile vs. organism or machine vs. human. Architects

of the Future.’” Essay. In GastronomicaVol. 1, No. 1ed., Vol. 1:19. Winter 2001.

deploy this conflicting binary situation in various forms in

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

this diagrammatic plan drawing: straight lines and ambitious curves, Stable geometry and dynamic figures. The joint line on the floor mimicking the car’s panel joint or airplane implies its mechanized assembly process, while interlocking floating figures represent the organism’s cell division process.

It degrades and celebrates humanity simultaneously. This

Smithson, Alison, and Peter Smithson . “But Today We Collect Ads.” Essay. In ARK 18, 49. London , UK: Royal College of Art, 1956.

Smithson, Peter, Catherine Spellman, and Karl Unglaub. Peter Smithson: Conversations with Students. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.

Webster, Helena. Modernism without Rhetoric: the Work of Alison and Peter Smithson. Chichester: Wiley, 1998.

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Architectural Notation

Our visual culture was born when our precedents started to

Every image has a purpose. And the way of creating an image

document what they saw and felt. Drawing technique and

depends on its purpose, ideology, and religious belief. Both

visual expression has evolved over long history from cave

Belting’s and Scolari’s writing are discussing how the western

painting to VR and AR.

perspective effect on other cultures such as Arabian countries and China. By contrasting those visual cultures, it tells us that

First of all, we have to admit the fact that what we see with

there is no wrong way to depict the world and these are vari-

our eyes are different from what we see in the picture, pho-

ous ways of capturing the world.

tograph, or images on the computer screen. We perceive the world as an external object through sense-organs and con-

According to Belting’s text, the western culture accepts the

struct an image of the object from the provided information in

perspective as the symbol of privileged visual perception

the brain as a psychological image. The development process

since picture plane in the perspective art is a metaphor for the

of perspective drawing technique can be understood as the

presence of an observer (Betling 2011, 35). He also mentions

change in the way of observing the object and convert the

the Arabian painting developed abstract geometry rather than

psychological image into a tangible visual representation.

explicit figures. Arabians were perceiving the light dominates the world, so that they allow the internal sense to encroach vi-

The antique perspective was subjective as it was based on the

sual perception. In other words, the West unified the gaze and

fact that the human sees the image through a spherical retina

the eyes, but they differentiate those. The picture plane and

so that the actual distance to the object is not the same as it

vanishing point implies the subjectivity of the viewer where-

looks. On the contrary, perspective in n the middle age was

as the geometry suggesting pure mathematics and perceptive

objective and every straight edge of the object does not get

internal sense. Scolari describes how the Chinese oblique par-

distorted because of the invention of the vanishing point. The

allel react to the herald of the western perspective as a part of

vanishing point is where the edge lines converge, and it has

evangelization. He explains the reason for their reaction as

defined as an infinitive far point from the picture plane, which

their hesitation of changing the way of seeing which requires

is we never perceive subjectively. Probably, the Chinese pic-

a different mode of thinking (Scolari 2012, 348). In the Chi-

ture scroll can be situated in the middle of these. On the one

nese culture, man is the part of nature although a perspective

hand, it is a subjective visual expression because there is no

celebrates humanity and singular divine infinity.

vanishing point in the scroll and intricate each human detail was drawn. On the other hand, it is objective since the scroll

How about us? The most of visual images that we are consum-

system allows us to move our viewpoint without frame limita-

ing nowadays are not carrying the way of thinking or primi-

tion. If we see look closer to the scroll, it looks subjectively. If

tive sensibility. Images itself may or may not be perspective,

we see from a distance, it looks objectively.

but we just share them in the SNS and nobody cares about the depth of the visual representation. The world is becoming

The drawing technique reflects people’s attitudes towards

more and more connective and smooth, but getting super flat.

space. Especially architects design and communicate through drawing. Nowadays, drawing tools and techniques have developed rapidly, 3D CAD, BIM, VR, and AR emerged. Have they changed our way of seeing the external world? We must consider things that we might lose or we might get already.

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Reference · day on the Grand Canal with the emperor of China, or, Surface is illusion but so is depth / a film by David Hockney and Philip Haas · Erwin Panofsky, Sections I, II, & III in Perspective as Symbolic Form (1991): 27-66. · Massimo Scolari, Oblique Drawing: A History of Anti-Perspective (Cambridge: The MIT Press,2015), excerpts · Hans Belting, “Perspective as a Question of Images” in Florence and Baghdad : Renaissance Art and Arab Science (2011): 13-54.

Architectural notation

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Stadium as an Urban Void - Through the concept of JUNKSPACE and other discourses by Rem Koolhaas -

This paper is intended to explore the way that existing ar-

This ideology continues to the generic city which is found

chitectural theories and concepts help to understand the

in the S,M,L,XL. Here, he developed his theory as explain-

newly developed architectural project and the future of them

ing that globalization and overdriven superficial uniqueness

throughout the investigation of the author’s own undergrad-

deprive the architectural space of the authenticity of local

uate thesis project which tried to figure out the innovative

characteristics. According to him, the generic city is fractal,

spatial relationship of the archetype of the stadium. We are

an endless repetition of the simple structural module.Thus,

here specifically concerned with the architectural concepts

that is sort of a self-contradicting concept because as much

established by Rem Koolhaas - Junkspace, Generic city, Tra-

as you want extremity, it will be something generic and be

jectory, and Void - and how these concepts can be useful for

absorbed and adopted by the bigness, in other words, it ulti-

generating new architectural projects and situating them in

mately turned into the generic city. Although the neoliberal

the contemporary architectural discourse afterward.

economy empowered post-modernism and promoted heterogeneous formal generation, generic city ingests these differ-

Our first step should be considering koolhaas’ concept of

ence and make them homogeneous boring space by unifica-

Junkspace. He defines the term of the statement, “The built (

tion. Nowadays, pervading internet technologies and social

more about that later ) product of modernization is not mod-

networking services accelerate this current as encouraging

ern architecture but Junkspace.” He disputes current architec-

picture framing only the superficial architectural expression

tural practice by describing them as a banal endless dystopia;

as an image and making reproducing and duplicating them at

Junkspace. He explains the architectural instances of mod-

their fingertips.

ernization, such as escalator, airconditioner, and Sheetrock, make the architectural space homogeneous and continuous.

Koolhaas is suggesting the solution for these problems in

Although, there is no doubt about he warns us of the reali-

“Rem Koolhaas:: Conversations with Students” which is de-

ty of the whole built environment is turning into Junkspace,

liberately doing nothing with space and leave the boring part

his ironic expression on modern architecture in this article,

of the architecture alone not actively engaged with it utiliz-

as can be seen in the following quotation: “Junkspace thrives

ing a formalistic approach. To quote him, “Blankness is an

on design, but design dies in Junkspace” and “Junkspace is

important quality that is completely ignored, especially by

web without spider”. Throughout this essay, he seems merely

architects. It creates a kind of horror at its emptiness but it is

presenting the concept of Junkspace to criticize modern ar-

a very important thing to allow and to come to terms with.”

chitecture, not any solution or proposal for that. However, he

This is understood as the absence of architectural act or re-

mentions one important aspect of Junkspace: trajectory. Ac-

fusal of production which means the void will emerge as a

cording to Rem, it is wrong that understanding Junkspace as

result. Therefore, creating void space is necessary to make the

the flow of space because flows depend on a unique discipline

unique discipline of the trajectory which allows people to en-

of each trajectory. He also claims that it is the last tangible

joy the freedom in Junkspace. Nanba insightfully stated that

ways in which we experience freedom in the Junkspace. This

the relationship between generic and void can be interpret-

argument may sound contradicting, however, it will be clear

ed as a sort of figure-ground relationship. According to him,

by situating is the idea in a continuous flow of Rem’s archi-

they are in a reciprocal relationship because one cannot exist

tectural statement which began at Delirious New York origi-

without another. Void represents eternity, authentic identity,

nally written in 1978. In this article, he pointed out that 1930’s

and publicness as the absence of mercantilism. On the other

modernization makes the Manhattan bigger, taller, and denser

hand, Junkspace represents bigness, temporarily, continuity,

as elevators allow people to reproduce the limitless horizon-

and expansibility.

tal surface powered by the evoked desire of New York as the center of financial capitalism society at that time.

210

Having clarified Rem Koolhaas’s argument, I will introduce

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the design work to be criticized. Urban weaver is the design

Before jumping into the design review of this project, it is

project of football stadiums. This project aims to redesign a

valuable to consider the general stadium’s architectural sys-

new geometry for the traditional football stadium that solves

tem in the theoretical context that Rem Koolhaas asserts.

several problems contemporary football stadiums have. And

Stadiums are mainly the building host of various kinds of

eventually, it is expected to contribute to vibrant societies and

sports events. When we look back on the history of the stadi-

a sustainable world in the long run. The biggest idea of this

um, notice that the spatial composition has not been changed

design is updating the tradition of the stadium’s topological

throughout history since the Roman period. This means mod-

relationship. An iconic continuous circulatory diagram has

ern architecture has been failed to develop proper alternative

conceived not only as a formal concept but also as a structural

systems for that type. This is quite similar to the way that

strategy. This conceptual model was inspired by the huddling

he criticizes modern architecture in comparison with the

soccer players before kick-off that represents the spirit of uni-

Pyramid as saying modern architecture should have improve

ty and supports each other. This unique interlacing ribbon-like

them but failed to create something comparable to ancient

shape was introduced to the stadium, instead of the traditional

masterpieces. From other points of view, the stadium can be

vase-shape tribune and concourse, in order to create a sense

interpreted as a massive commercial space for the sports in-

of unity in the stadium, while safely dividing the opposing

dustry. Usually, a stadium is designed to maximize profitable

teams. The unique thing of this circulation is separating two

seatings based on sight optimization. Bunch of food stands or

groups of people, home team supporters and away team sup-

goods shops are installed along with concourse to attract peo-

porters, and make the stadium safer while unifying them as

ple. These characteristics obvious prove the stadium is driven

one to emphasize the enthusiastic atmosphere inside of the

by the sports entertainment market and capitalism and is made

stadium. This is well expressed by its plan drawing and struc-

to be space of consumption. They were definitely considered

tural diagram. While this project may look complicated, Un-

as Junkspace because they continue growing along with the

derstanding this architecture as a set of internal circulation

sports and entertainment market. The facade of the stadium

and external circulation clarify the spatial composition and

nothing do with the interior system, they are mere cheap icon

its meaning. The internal circulation is one continuous path,

of the specific sports team and they participate in the competi-

however, this is the flexible system because by controlling

tion of excessive facade design powered by technology boost

boundaries on the circulation between two teams this shape

and capitalism economy which resembles the situation in the

can accommodate various ratios of supporters. Each ribbon is

1930s Manhattan.

actually connected to the neighboring ribbon to create a system of continuous circulation. This novel spatial composition

With these issues in mind, we will now take a look at this

allows people to move more smoothly before, during, and af-

project specifically. Firstly observed the feature of this proj-

ter the game. The external circulation makes spectators move

ect is that the designer designed this stadium with an urban

smoother and easier. This is not only a pathway but also an at-

perspective as the project title cleary claims. Although this

tractive space where people can shop, eat, communicate, and

may sound obvious, in fact, most of the stadium that current-

relax. These circulations give a positive impact on the local

ly built has designed one closed colossal building without a

community and environment a lot more than just inside the

tangible connection with its building site and the local envi-

stadium. In terms of economy, there would be more opportu-

ronment because you will be able to realize the exact same

nities for local retailers targeting visiting away fans. Plus, nat-

shape stadium is a totally different city without any conflict.

ural human interaction within neighbors will be encouraged

Whereas the other stadiums, the site plan of this project in-

through the experience in the stadium. The atmosphere and

dicate that the outer circulation of the stadium is directly

mood will pour from inside the stadium and establish locals’

connected to the existing street intentionally. This means not

identity and sense of unity.

only this stadium has designed a site specifically, but also the

Stadium as an Urban Void

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designer made this stadium open to the public unlike other closed stadiums as private facilities of each sports franchise.

This effort of letting architecture intimate with surrounding is a likely valid solution to the problem that modern architecture has been driven by ever-growing technology and capitalism.

Nextly, this project can be understood as an example of an urban-scale void that Rem Koolhaas suggest as the solution to modern architecture. Introducing the perspective of the operation timeline of a stadium may help to make things clear. Even though the stadium is working as a typical Junkspace once or twice game-day in a week in general, we can see the stadium as massive void space in the city when nothing happening in the stadium because the absence of the function turns whole space turns the meaningless hollow. Here, we can assume that the designer makes this project accessible by a unique formal expression that has the sort of affordance to attract people and encourage them to get inside of the stadium. Only this spatial structure presented in this project allows people to recognize this urban-void and let them benefited. Lastly, in the facade of this project, there are some iconic ribbon-like pathway structures. These work as not only accommodate dramatic circulation but also an architectural component that controls the characteristic of the space. While this leaves room for various interpretations, it seems one possible experiment of the concept of the trajectory which is another something this project and Rem Koolhaas’s project has been trying to discover.

Endnotes

To sum up, this project, urban weaver, can be understood as

1 Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace.” October spring 2002: 175. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002

a possible remedy for the modern architecture that suffering

2

Ibid., 177.

3

Ibid., 179.

4

Ibid., 179.

restoring the public nature of architecture that modern archi-

5

Ibid., 179.

tecture has lost in the twentieth century.

6 Koolhaas, Rem. “The Frontier in the Sky.” Delirious New York: 82. New York, NY: The Monacelli Press, 1997

from the problem that Rem Koolhaas argues as the concept of Junkspace, Generic city, and Bigness. Perceiving stadiums in a state of inactive as a void space from an urban perspective, this project can be interpreted as something that represents

7 Koolhaas, Rem. S, M, L, XL. New York, NY: The Monacelli Press, 1997 8 Koolhaas, Rem. Rem Koolhaas Conversations With Students. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996 9 Nanba, Kazuhiko. “「ヴォイドの戦略」の可能 性-その同型性を通して [ The Possibility of “Void Strate-

gy”-Through its Isomorphism ] .“ Eureka 2009-06: 69-78.

Tokyo, JAPAN: Seidosha, 2009 10 Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace.” October spring 2002: 175. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002

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Model photo on urban background

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FALL 2022

Ver.04 - Jan 2022

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