Portfolio by Lulu Yang

PORTFOLIO Lulu Yang

01 OCEANWIDE CENTER

08 MOMENTS OF ABSENCE

02 UNION SQ APPLE STORE

09 n-BOX

03 5 NEUTURMSTRASSE

10 EDGE

04 OSKAR-VON-MILLER

11 PLAYPARK

The journey of seeking and defining identities.

CONTENTS

Foster and Partners, London, UK

Foster and Partners, San Francisco, USA

Wework, Munich, Germany

Architecture and Artistic work from 2006 - 2021

05 COOLEY

Studios Architecture, Washington DC, USA

MArch thesis, New York, USA

Architectural school in Dumbo, New York, USA

Wellness Center of Cranbrook, Detroit, USA

Competition of “play“, San Francisco, USA

12 LIULITUN

Professional work at VOA Associates, Chicago, USA

06 STANDFORD RESERACH CENTER

13 CROQUIS

07 EMBARCADERO YMCA

14 BREATHING LENS

Studios Architecture, Palo Alto, USA

Studios Architecture, San Francisco, USA

Art work

Photography work

What story can a back alley tell? What story can the back facade of a building tell? What was and what will be their identity? ... ... These are the questions that I attempted to answer for this project. A facade needs to respond to the entire design language, respond to the site history and condition, and be responsible for the new messages it tries to deliver. The back facade in this project carried on the integrated bay window concept, expressed in a more humble manner, which helped contributing to the cost saving in general. In contrast, the main facade was designed with the full intention and expression of elaborating the new identity.

OCEANWIDE CENTER Location: San Francisco Size: 2.1 million SF in total Type: Two mixed-use towers Phase: Construction Documentation Software: Revit, Microstation, Adobe Suite, Newforma Timeframe: 06/16-06/17 Role: part of the cladding team, worked with external and internal consultant to solve cladding design and engineer problems.

Professional work at Foster and Partners.

Oceanwide Center Lulu Yang

©Foster and Partners.

§ 1. The vision: an inserted identity Location, nature, climate, culture, history, present, and the future. What do you want to be if you have never ever existed? How do you want to be known? What is your identity, locally?

©Foster and Partners.

§ 2. The conversation with the ground Architects modify the identity of a city, a neighborhood, a street, a site and a specific element through changes of the sensorial experience carried out through physical architectural expressions. Namely, geometry, dimension, light and shadow, material, texture, color, and many others. In the end, it is the creation of a daily dialog with human beings. The listed elements above are the language to compose engaging topics and conversations.

©Foster and Partners.

©Foster andand Partners. ©Foster Partners.

Look, listen, observe what are the conversations on the ground that are already happening. Join the conversation, expand the topic, or create a new one. Respect every encounter, seize every opportunity.

©Foster and Partners.

©Flicker

©Foster and Partners.

§ 3. The conversation with the sky A taste of religious significance seems always associated with the movement of “looking up”. To some extent, it is seeking for a conversation with the “higher being”, defined by each individual. Architecture, especially high rises, through its physicality, geometry, and materiality carry the existence of humankind upwards, initiate and participate in a dialog with the sky.

©Foster and Partners.

It is always a dialog, isn’t it? The conversation, The negotiation, The modification, In its physical forms. Co-writing the history of human existence and evolution.

UNION SQ APPLE STORE Location: San Francisco Type: Retail Store Phase: Construction Documentation Software: Microstation, Photoshop, Indesign, Newforma Timeframe: 11/14-02/15 Role: Part of the team to deliver the project in DD and CD phases, focused on research, design, and construction document on the connection with the adjacent hotel; Collaborated with the structural engineer and consultants on the roof design and its construction documents.

Professional work at Foster and Partners.

Union Square Lulu Yang

©Foster and Partners.

Can architecture be a physical invitation to all? …... Blurring the boundary, between the internal and external. A closure, big, wide, transparent, and open. A place for all, An invitation to all.

©Apple

©Foster and Partners.

©Foster and Partners. ©Foster and Partners.

Can architecture be a physical invitation to all? …... Blurring the boundary, between the internal and external. A closure, big, wide, transparent, and open. A place for all, An invitation to all.

5 NEUTRUMSTRASSE Location: Munich, Germany Type: Architectural/interior design Phase: SD/CD Software: Revit, Adobe Suite Timeframe: 07/18 Role: Project Architect

5 Neutrumstrasse Lulu Yang

©WeWork

Sometimes architecture is about creating identities, But most of the time it is about inserting one.

The merging conversation starts with curiosity, spending time getting to know each other, Mingling and mixing.

©WeWork

OSKAR-VON-MILLER Location: Munich, Germany Type: Architectural/interior design Phase: SD/CD Software: Revit, Adobe Suite Timeframe: 07/18 Role: Project Architect

Oskar-von-Miller Lulu Yang

©WeWork

Form, light, color, All physical forms… A change of function can alter the entire perception. As an architect, what can be put where needs to undergo well rounded considerations. This is a responsibility.

©WeWork

The best way to test the success of a design, Is to simply observe… Seeing if each space of the building is occupied by the people and the activities that are designed to be, as well as any improvised usages.

©WeWork

COOLEY Location: Washington DC Type: Law firm office Size: 95,000 SF Phase: SD/DD/CD Software: Revit, Adobe Suite Timeframe: 06/12-09/12 Role: Site visit, Existing Condition Documentation, Part of the team working on from SD till early CD phases of the project.

Professional work at Studios Architecture

Cooley Lulu Yang

©Studios

STANFORD RESEARCH CENTER Location: Palo Alto Type: Tech office and research center Size: 116,000 SF Phase: CD/CA Role: Weekly Site visit, assisting the project architect with CA site documentation, and ASK review. Part of the team to deliver the CD set Software: Revit, Newforma Timeframe: 05/13-09/13

Professional work at Studios Architecture

Stanford Research Center Lulu Yang

©Studios Architecture

EMBARCADERO YMCA Location: San Francisco Type: Graphic Design, Renovation Phase: SD/CD Role: Lead designer for the historical staircase transformation by utilizing a bright graphic design Software: Revit, Adobe Suite Timeframe: 05/13

Professional work at Studios Architecture

Embarcadero YMCA Lulu Yang

©Lulu Yang

©Studios Architecture

MOMENTS OF ABSEN

- phenomenology of perception

ACADEMIC WORK : MArch Thesis Time Frame: 2013.09 - present (in progress) PROJECT: New York, USA INSTRUCTORS: Michael Mcinturf; Tom Bible

ABSTRACT

“Architecture is the art of mediation and reconciliation.” - Juhani Pallasmaa

Moment of absence Lulu Yang

Architecture perception in modern societies is concentrating towards the surface appearance rather than the content meaningfulness. The inquiry and urgency of how to understand and create architecture in a deeper significant way are emphasized. Pallasmaa mentioned, “The timeless task of architecture is to create embodied existential metaphors that concretize and structure man’s being in the world” . Perception – “physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience” is presenting the connection between spaces and mind. Experiencing architecture through the characteristics of light and shadow, texture, color, volume of spaces, and crafted details imprint more vivid memories and evoke thinking. Meaning arrives when we encounter these moments – where our “everyday life” has been translated into atmosphere and presencing in front of us. Architecture stands in between man and the life world as a mediation allowing people to see through the surface, and shining the “everyday life”. By analyzing our built environment and engaging into it, we not only receive what is manifested in front of us, but we also enrich the meaning by interpreting with individual experience, memories, and thought. Specifically, we explore how architecture embraces “the everyday life” and transcends into building language for people to communicate. The challenge of the thesis is to discover and illustrate the interplay of foreground and background relationships from the site, historically, physically, environmentally, and socialculturally, analyzing its logic and association with sensation, therefore to translate and transform perceptual passages into design, and to enhance the experiential space character.

The design process started by analyzing phenomenology presence of well known existing architecture, art works, through light and shadow, material, scale, forms, details, to see how those forces influence the building itself and people’s perception. Meaning is carried through the composition of background and foreground. People’s understanding towards things in everyday life is ruled by ritual understanding. Yet because of the “already known”, the beauty of the things may not reveal itself. These moments are called the “absent moments”. Reorganize the logic or the composition of background and foreground of the everyday elements, in order to revise experiencer’s perception, to re-recognize the moments of absence.

sample of art work by size

PAINTINGS INSTALLATIONS MEDIA ART SCULPTURES MODELS PUBLIC SPACE

CONNECTION

tranditional connection: seperate circulation with program areas, and

engaging

transparent - visual connection (introducing curve or other geometry)

extension

tension (exposed staircase)

transition and transformation

break + shift

overlay + replacing form and material

evolution + bridge + transformation

“You’ve got to bumble forward into the unknown.” - Frank Gehry

n-Box Lulu Yang

n-BOX ACADEMIC WORK : Design Research Studio TIME FRAME: 2013.01 - 2013.04 PROJECT: Architecture school SITE: New York, NY INSTRUCTOR: Dominic Iacobucci COLLABORATE TEAMMATE: Dru Furbee

DESIGN APPROACH Taking psychological approach on how architectural space affect human behavior. As a thesis research project, the studio has also required us to compose a firm as a business and present our project formally as if we are presenting to the client. The site, program, areas and etc. are completely defined by the students. For the first time, we got a chance to think about what is the most interesting architecture that we want to do. Eventually the conclusion is an Architecture School – the space that we are most familiar with. The design started by document behaviors of how and why people stay and active in our architectural building, as comparison to students from other majors, in order to be more familiar of what quality and nature of space does architectural student needed. The complexity of the site is another issue. The site located in Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York, adjacent to a warehouse and facing fantastic skyline of Manhattan. To solve the problem of connecting the new and the old, also apply our research with spatiality are the keys in this design.

EDGE ACADEMIC WORK : SEC Studio Time Frame: 2012.03 - 2012.06 PROJECT: Detroit, USA INSTRUCTORS: Tom Bible

DESIGN BACKGROUND The site located in Cranbrook Campus, Detroit, USA. A campus that has a long history of art and gathered a lot of architect work. Therefore, the first and foremost thing for the design is to respect the existing condition of the campus, found out that there are several important site forces that need to be consider: First is the axis on the campus. Second is the courtyard arrangement of the existing condition. Third is the John’s Lake on the north, creating a soft edge to the site, whereas the dormitories on the south side created a hard edge to the site.

Building is always the conjection point of soft edge and hard edge.

EDGE Lulu Yang

DESIGN STRATEGY

The design started from analysis the existing courtyard, from its shape to its relationship to the building, and the conclusion is that there are three types of architecture on the site. The first one is the tower part, the courtyard dividing and reshape the space between buildings, created a special pathway for people to experience the campus. The second one is the residential axis, which its courtyard are on the back side of the building, form its own privacy to each individual houses. The third one is the new type on the north side of the campus, started from Natatorium, which created a brand new language in terms of building and landscape, its existing on the campus is looking for a proper response to the new architecture language.

Everything is possible.

Playpark Lulu Yang

PLAYPARK COMPETITION : PLAY (designboom) TIME FRAME: 03/2013 - 06/2013 PROJECT: San Francisco PARTNER: Huan Qi

DESIGN STRATEGY What is the place for people to play? Playground? Park? Or some other places? How can we utilize urban passive areas and turn it into active and playful? ... ... Parking lot! This highly used place is commonly lack of character, with the general conception of purely utilized space. However, there are many potential in the parking lot that we think could be activated through architecture transformation. After define the question, we started analyzing all the activities that people are willing to do yet lacking of time or opportunities doing it, such as exercise, walking at the park, biking, climbing, etc. The design integrate technology to condense the parking area and make it moveable, so that the rest of activates could plug into the space. In all, to create a new typology of parking lot, or we shall call it Playpark.

Playpark Lulu Yang

LIULITUN PROFESSIONAL WORK :

VOA Associates. Co-op intern 12/21/2011-03/16/2012

PROJECT: Beijing, China PROJECT INTRODUCTION This project is a conceptual design of a 2.5 million square foot mixed use commercial project in Beijing, China. The design includes two high-rise office towers, one residential tower, retail, low-rise office, and parking structures. Verticality in Neoclassic style

DESIGN STREATAGE The design started from the view. Since the site is right in front of one of Beijing’s largest park - Chaoyang Park, the visual axis of the office tower becomes crucial to the project. The architect applies the site with Neo-classical style buildings, which provide a luxury and mystery feeling through the classical materiality and elegant proportion.

Liulitun Lulu Yang

ART WORK “My hand is the extension of my thoughts.“

CROQUIS Lulu Yang

CROQUIS

Life is the window of love.

Breathing Lens Lulu Yang

BREATHING LENS If you open your eyes, you are opening your heart.

If you open your eyes, you are opening your heart. Love every morning, Because it is the start of everyday, Every beautiful day, With love.