KA KIT CHIU WU_SoA
2016 - 2019 SELECTED WORKS
Ka Kit Chiu
(805)-284-8116 | kchiu9417@gmail.com | kkchiu.com
Profile A 5th year architecture undergraduate student minoring applied computer science in Woodbury University, School of Architecture. I’m originally from Hong Kong, an international city filled with skyscrapers. My childhood adventures in construction sites and traveling experiences in cities of unique urban landscape cultivated my curiosity about buildings into a lifetime passion toward architecture.
Narrative Every after noon in my old house, I need to move my chair a few inches sideway every half an hour to avoid the solar glare... Why is it designed this way? This question also has me wonder the relationships between architecture, space, and human. IMAGINE, walking into a space for the first time without having to puzzle out this confusion... That experience is what I pursue to share, a selfless design that responds to us.
Exploration From modular system, to computational design, then parametricism, the recent history of architectural design has now moved into a new period, A.I. Generative era. If a machine has a conscious mind, how would it value design? I’m interested in exploring how to bridge the gap between architecture and the application of computer science to address the relationships between architecture, space, and human, not as a replacement but suggestive insights and future alternatives.
C.C.C.S. | 01
LA Donut | 02
Between the Lines | 04
Symmetric Water | 03
ACS - Getty Installation: W.I.S.I.W.Y.G. | 05
01|C.C.C.S.|
Merced, CA Design Studio 5A//Prof. Jason Rebillot//Fall 2019
San Francisco
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I-5
SFO
Merced
SJC UC Merced 1 h 04 min Merced
Santa Cruz
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Los Banos
UC Santa Cruz 1 h 42 min
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Central Valley
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National Wildlife Preserves Park Water Reservoir
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The design intent focuses on making Center for Climate Change Studies relevant to the general publics: What does CCCS do? How can it be inclusive to publics? Thus, the building is organized into two interactive sections: research core and public spine. The core includes Climate zones, adjacent labs, open offices, and supplementary program such as a modular system, connected by interdisciplinary space institutes potential research collaborations, enveloped by living area along the facade adjacent to San Luis canal and the flex space adjacent to I-5 freeway.
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The public spine is a twelve-minute-walk journey of curiosity, through discovery, to responses. People begin with an introductory exploration in museum and a library that leads to the rooftop translucent bridge above research core. It vaguely reveals CCCS’ daily work. Finally, it ends with a recycling center, allowing people to respond this experience. Any wastes collected in the recycling center will be used to generate power for the entire building. We, as humans, in a vast space experience it as a landscape instead of an architecture. Under the existing topographic condition, “Landform building” becomes the massing strategy. It hides from the I-5 perspective but exposes its facade along the canal for natural lighting.
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PROGRAMS:
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1. Gift Store 2. Museum 3. Auditorium 4. Classrooms 5. Library 6. Clinic Center 7. Office Space 8. Lab (Dry/Wet) 9. Computer Lab 10. Storage 11. Climate Zones 12. INDRs 13. Residential Dwellings 14. Amenities 15. Flex Space 16. Recycling Center 17. Data Center 18. Power Plant 19. Loading Zone
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Modularity:
Public Public Flow
Dwelling Modules
Research
Amenities Modules
Research Flow
Research Modules
Enlarged Plan A
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02|LA Donut|
Los Angeles, CA Design Studio 4B//Prof. David Bruce Lee//Spring 2019
v.s.
Koreatown LA
Westlake LA
The site, La Fayette Park, locates awkwardly in between two grid systems and two communities, Koreatown and Westlake. Being sliced by the Hoover St. and the Wilshire Blvd, the fragmented park becomes a filler to an ambiguous space and discourages people from using it. The existing commercial tower at the northwest corner is integrated by a federal courthouse responsible for civil cases, but It further isolates the park due to its security standard. To make the park a successful focal connection of Koreatown and Westlake, “Street Food� sparks the design opportunity as a common ground shared in Asian and Latino food cultures, who contribute 90% of the overall population of the area. A new street, the LA Donut, is therefore designed to provide space for local vendors to sell and share their homemade food. A new hierarchy of programs imposed on its renovated ground has energetic events always happen at the bottom level surrounded by continuous sitting areas, enabling people to watch freely while having foods. After making the new street, canopies with unique forms are designed to provide public shading as commodity as well as an inviting gesture. It re-invites people, allowing them to head and to be heard.
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03|Between the Lines| FORM STUDY DRAWINGS
Los Angeles, CA Design Studio 3B//Prof. Ryan Tyler Martinez//Spring 2018
SITE DIAGRAMS
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MINI CITY
Team: Ka Kit Chiu Armen Janazyan
This project is designated to be the MoMA PS2 for PROGRAM DIAGRAMS housing the MoMA’s permanent architecture collection in Los Angeles. Its scale operates in between MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Given the primary purpose of a museum, this design questions architectural education by asking how people intuitively discover what it meant to be an architect and how we understand architecture as building, space, and experience. Lobby
Main Galleries
Auditorium
Parking
Service
Architecture initiates from conceptual diagrams and developed through communications between plans and sections for us to perceive three-dimensionality. Hence, conversations about the presented architectural space or idea is oriented around two-dimensional drawings. Thus, the idea, “Architecture lives with drawings”, emphasizes the ambiguity between 2D and 3D. Restaurant
Changing Galleries
The rectangular site, with a slope from one end to another, acts like a canvas for drawings. Shape and composition within a frame becomes the key for landscaping and massing decisions. The architectural volume is a series of intersection projections from TOP, FRONT, and RIGHT, with primitive geometries that progressively forms a cluster of masses. Finally, line works as the facade extending the pattern to the ground brings the site and the mass into one three-dimensional drawings. -Read between the lines, there is Architecture.
Lobby Main Galleries
Auditorium
Parking
Service Restaurant
Changing Galleries
FACADE SYSTEM
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BLACK METAL PANELS
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CONCRETE PANELS
PRIMARY STRUCTURE: 18X18 STEEL TUBE SECONDARY STRUCTURE: 14X10 STEEL TUBE
ROOF STRUCTURE: 36X18 I-BEAM
FLOOR SYSTEM SECONDARY STRUCTURE: 6” LW CONCRETE
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+76'- 6"
PRIMARY STRUCTURE: 24X18 I-BEAM
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-10'- 0" 25X25 CONCRETE COLUMN GRID
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04|Symmetric Water|
Los Angeles, CA Design Studio 2A//Prof. Anali Gharakhani//Fall 2018
In this project, a circular ancient architecture, Santa Costanza, is studied to archive its genetic geometric diagram, which later becomes a generative gene for new forms’ experimental modifications.
The plan of Santa Costanza has a reflected and rotational symmetry on the same axes extended from the center both horizontally and vertically. They ultimately guide all the columns and niches (the proportions) reflectively and rotationally. Lastly, an informative asymmetry to the central horizontal axis is added as a variant for its accessibility. As its current form is one of many possible geometric variants under the concept of symmetry, probable alternatives of its form and new masses would be discovered and proposed by manipulating its geometric origin. A new form is constructed by an additional translational symmetry, over-laying three identical diagrams with their circumferences intercepting the centers of their neighbors. After that, the selected form further develops its interiority by adding generative information derived from its genetic geometric diagram in order to transform the space into an aquatic center. Finally, this aquatic center is asked to be positioned into a specific site within the city of the Los Angeles.
Geometric Gene Transformation
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Translational Symmetryt of portions with rotational symmetry and reflected sysmmetry.
Diagram
Ka Kit Chiu//Anali Gharakhani//Arch 281//Fall2016 Ka Kit Chiu // Anali Garakhani // Arch 281 // Fall 2016
Tranformation Title: Rotational and reflectioned symmetries at the center. Ka Kit Chiu//Anali Gharakhani//Arch 281//In The Round//Fall 2016
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4th Floor 60’
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3rd Floor 45’
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2nd Floor 16’
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4th Floor Plan A Lobby 1500 sf B Administration Office 400 sf C Men Bath Rm 320 sf D Women Bath Rm 320 sf E Maintenance Rm 800 sf F Techinical Rm 600 sf G Equipment Storage 1500 sf
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Underground Garage -35’
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3rd Floor Plan A Lobby 1300 sf B Ticket Office 120 sf C Snack Bar 320 sf D Men Locker Rm 1200 sf E Men Bath Rm 320 sf F Men Shower Rm 560 sf G Women Locker Rm 1200 sf H Women Bath Rm 320 sf I Women Shower Rm 560 sf
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2nd Floor Plan A Diving Board Decking 600 sf B Gallery Seating 1500 sf
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The precedent, Santa Costanza, has one center that generates and guides all the symmetries. Its plan mainly consists of two parts, the ambulatory and the entrance chamber. The ammbulatory is sperial symmetric extended from the center. The entrance chamber on the plan becomes an addition piece of program. It constructs an asymmetry to the center horizontally, and also transforms the plan into vertical biteral symmetry. This project proposal analyzes the diagram and generate variants. By exploring different interpretation of symmetries, a form of fusion is born. Since Santa Costanza present its symmetries by ultilizing columns and niches as the portions, this project frist extracts the B niches and columns in the precedent, and combines them into one element. The niches results in pointing outward and support the entire the entire form as the columns of Santa Costanza. D Translational symmetry is influential in generating the diagram, which the original central axis is multiplied and re-arranged. After that, rotational symmtry and reflected symmetry take the dominant role of organizing the programs. Similar to Santa Costanza, this additional variants are arraged to create asymmetris, such as the snack bar, the ticket office, and stair cases. C the surronding landscape of LADT is retangular. This Unlike this project, the entire form of new form bring a sense of asymmetry to the city, Ramp to the underground garage is placed between the project and the building beside to serve as a transition from rectangular to roundness.
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40’ 1st Floor Plan A Pool 5625 sf B Life Gaurd Rm 900 sf C First Aid Rm 500 sf D Gallery Seatings 1200 sf
Ka Kit Chiu // Anali Garakhani // Arch 281 // Fall 2016
05|Getty Installation: What I See Is What You Get
Los Angeles, CA TECH 2705//Prof. Ana Herruzo//Spring 2019
This year, Getty Museum, invited us to design an instal-
lation for their event known as “College Night.” With the idea of connecting Getty’s mission statement and their art in a contemporary way, we want to create an immersive, interactive environment merging Artificial Intelligent and Visual Art. After studying precedents by digital media artists such as Refik Anadol and Sebastian Peschiera, we designed an experiential installation that creates interactive visuals, driven by multiple forms of human expressions, accompanied by text generated using Machine Learning algorithms trained on the art collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Essentially, this is a vertical video wall composed of three landscape-oriented screens with two embedded sensors on top. These two sensors obtain live data in three categories, “Number of people, Age, Emotion” from users’ facial expressions and body movements when they approach the screen. Through computer vision algorithms, these data are used to create real-time generative animations as a background and also inside users’ silhouette as a foreground. The integrated machine learning algorithm will also generate a content description in its perspective accordingly. Unlike any other paintings of their time, W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G will always be the avant-garde of its time.
Team: Ka Kit Chiu (overall art direction) Zane Zukovsky (software/hardware networking) Ben Luker - (playback system) Sungmin Lee - (interactive development)
Experience Flow Diagram
Hardware testing and coordination
Interactive visuals developments
Initial art boards created to communicate the idea serving as inspirations
Testing before Collage “Night”
Guests’ interactions and installation performance
Instances of the installation reacting to users Photos & Images credits: Ana Herruzo, Sungmin Lee, Haojun Hu