Portfolio 2016

MENGFAN SHA PORTFOLIO

2011_2016

CONTENT >> THE EDGE Surface and edge

>> FOLDING CITY Tr a n s f o r m a t i o n a n d f o r m

>>SUPERSTACKER Sustainability is new

>>BED STRIPPER IN THE SPACE Body and space

>>PERSPECTIVE CHEESE Perspective is everything

>>INTERLOCK, LOCK Contemporary frames

>>WHEN IT’S ARBITRARY Form and presentation

>>WALKING IN MY MIND Th a t i s m e a n d m i n e

<<<THE EDGE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <Professor Zaneta Hong> <2015_Academic Wor k_ STU 1111> <Positioned at Boston Harbor, the site is located between a group of newly constructed residential housing and ICA. The project is aimed to put it focus on mediating the relationship between land and water, surface and edge. <Starting from the idea of generating an urban green field that would provide the residents with varied but fluid spatial experiences by using wavy walkways. Initially inspired by Jack Evens Boat Harborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long seaside walkway, my project is defined by long wooden walkways. Extending from the wooden sidewalk, the wavy walkways divided the big space into habitable smaller spaces. The wave walkways provided people with different perspectives for the surrounding. Therefore based on the height layout of the walkways, the planting scheme was laid out to filter people from the street and a strategy of enveloping the occupants to convert their focus smoothly from walking to look around.

The wave wood paths worked together with trees d i v i d e d u p t h e s p a c e o f t h e s i t e u p i n t o d i ff e r e n t areas and let people experience the water front in d i ff e r e n t w a y s .

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<<<FOLDING CITY>>>>>>>>>>>> <In collaboration with Jieun Doe> <Professor David Lieberman> <2014_Academic work_ARC314>

<Located at the intersection of Bloor St. west and Bathurst St. where close to the major commercial center in downtown Toronto, Honest Edâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s has lost its old charm as a bargain center- both in form and concept. <Starting from the idea of a fluid transaction from the streets, the ramps outline the sloped floors that invite visitors to dwell, read, play and shop. Folding up the streets was our initial design concept for its defining form. The ramp had to be wide enough to accommodate cyclist and pedestrians alike. The façade strategy of spaced out cords envelop visitors from the outdoors without obstructing the connection to the streets. Interior divisions are formed with a similar strategy of loose and tight openings making the complex a dynamic mediating community building. <All the work presented in this section is from my individual part of this project and self initialized.

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<structure model>

Bloor

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<With a study in urban commercial building pattern within Toronto, the building is planed out as collaboration of commercial boulevard and complex. We see the possibility of a different future of community/commercial building held in the folded city. Liberty is important. The structure has to be a design that accommodates freedom of the future. Flexibility of program and movement of visitors is a priority.

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<Front view section from Bloor st.>

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<Rendering of the intersection of Bathurst st. and Bloor st.

CIRCULATION

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FLEXIBLE AREA

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1. Free shopping area 2. Gym 3. Bookstore/reading room 4. Children day care 5. CafĂŠ/sitting area 6. Maternity center 7. Open space/ concert space 8. Sitting space

Contemporary city is about temporality. And the vessel of the ever changing is architecture. As a major concept, the building has no determined program but divided into perpetual and flexible areas.

Thus we provided a set of temporary program that would be changed easily.

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Green Space

<MAIN BUILDING STRUCTURE First we had thought of moving walls that would give the visitors a fluid experience. While it was an idea for the freedom of visitors to enter and exit on their wish, it was effortful to shop on inconsistent levels. Intuitively, folding of the slab became our solution. The folds provide clear area distinctions while naturally keeping the fluidity of visitors shopping experience.

Adaptive Walls

Free Platform

Retail Space Bridging Marvishi Village Major Ramp

Initial design

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The ramp would active the commercial energy embeded in Marvish village. The ramp extension would link up the Marvish village area located behind Honest Edâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, which would form an open patio on the roof.

The area marked out is grouped up by four cafe/restaurants.

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<<<SUPER STACKER>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <In collaboration with Jieun Doe and Zainab Al-Raw> <Professor Aziza Chaouni> <2013_Academic work_ARC313>

<As a city of immigration, affordable housing is playing the leading role in solving housing problem in Toronto.

Sterling loft is the ideal location for our affordable housing units due to its strategic location, availability of workspaces for our clients as well as its spaciousness. The existing pool of resources available at the site includes a large amount of empty and underused spaces, a diverse population, functional live-work units and low rent. <The site allows the immigrants to work from home through the available gallery and studio space. In addition, immigrants will be able to integrate into the environment easily due to the diversity of the inhabitants and the strong sense of community. The new condominium development at the edge of the junction poses the threat of demolition of Sterling Lofts. We hope to make Sterling Lofts more attractive to the upper Junction and to the residents of the new condo development through sensible design strategies in order to make it economically sustainable. <Collaborated with group on the physical model, yet the other works presented in this section was from my individual part in this project.

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For new immigrants, it is important that necessary resources can be easy to reach. Junction accommodated many relevant resources within one hour radiance.

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<The units are designed for: 1) Caterer 2) Artists couple 3) Family of four 4) Family of eight 5) Art student looking for a roommate. <The combination of work and live in the units would activate the area and increase the mobile population drawn to the simple but handy resources like cafĂŠ. And these changes would further stimulate the art and its relative business within this area.

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8 USABLE STUDIO

SECOND FLOOR

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HORIZONTAL CIRCULATION

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“Walk around this building, and you’ll meet A CLOWN, ADANCER, A TATTOOIST.... we had to fight hard and go to court numerous times to KEEP THIS PLACE STANDING” -Plaster Artist

“There’s a dance studio? I lived here for a while and I had NO IDEA.” -Random Neighbor

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“I have been working at this AUTOSHOP for a long time now. I commute from Missisauga” -Autoshop Worker

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“Everything should stay the way it is even the rubble over there... Sterling’s DISTINCT ATMOSPHERE can’t be stripped away by the NEW DEVELOPMENTS.” -Artist Couple Neighbor But I wouldn’t mind a CAFE opening...

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FILM OR ENING O D UT RE R O SC

ACE T NESAPMAARRKEEA CE SPACE E E GR -FL CNIC RMAN -PI ERFO -P

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<Mr. Edgar often gets his morning coffee from Ivan’s kitchen café next door. And then stay at Ivan’s patio for a while for a casual morning chat with other costumers

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<Mr. and Mrs. Campbell did their last check on their gallery when they left their place this morning. And feeling happy about everything went the way they wanted.

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We intend on utilizing existing functional structures with minimal intervention on the site in order to preserve the rich history and cultural identity of the building. Sterling Loft is a spacious building with vast roof spaces and uninhabited units. We intend on taking advantage of these empty spaces in order to accommodate our clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; living and working conditions. We plan on increasing the green space around the building and assigning it to our tenants to create a sense of entitlement that will ensure the maintenance of the space.

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<<<THE BED STRIPPER IN SPACE>>>>>>>>>>> <In collaboration with Zainab Al-Raw> <Professor Katy Chey & Maria Denegri> <The premise of the project was to explore the dynamic relationship between space and human body through a study on a body related activity. The project included three main parts: analysis on the motion of making the bed through plan and elevation of forearm movement, construction of architectural space generated by the motion, and a photomontage of the death memorial of this fragile space which was also a further personal thinking on the relationship between body and space. The process of making the bed involves a series of ‘effective’ moves, which is the moves involved in cleaning up the bed, and a series of ‘in between’ moves, which is the motion happened in between the effective move. <All work presented is self-reconfigured with individaul touches and personal responses.

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<By filtering out the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;in between movesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the construction of the space of essential left more imagination on what is not presenting within this expanded space. The sequence became the stage that plays off the tension within simply moves. <As a further expanded thought, I believe the art of a space craft is a construction of relationship between body and body, space and body as well as space and space. The relationships are loops of breaking down and reconfigure- new rise from the old, life rise from the dead- so as city.

PAD & PAD TUCK THE SHEET

AERATE THE SHEET

FLUF THE PILLOW

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START END

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<Personal Response>

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R. I. P Bed Stripper 2013~2014

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<<<THE PERSPECTIVE CHEESE>>>>>>>> <In collaboration with Haoyi Zhu> <Professor Katy Chey & Maria Denegri> “You are what you eat, you are what you see.” <City is a cheese and people only bite their own parts. How people take the bite is determined by how people take the perspective towards their surrounding. How to manipulate views and perspectives is a major consideration in contemporary design. <This project was an analysis of Nishizawa’s Moriyama House. Moriyama House proposed a live composed by perspective and a social relationship involved with forced communication. Under the clean rigorous surface, social relationship intended in Moriyama House is far more dynamic and crazy than it seemed. Three parts composed the project: drawing and analysis, modeling the relationship and new understanding towards city. <All the works presented is self-reconfigured with personal touches and reflection.

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LOW PRIVACY

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<We named the social relationship constructed within this community as “grey link”. It is a forced communication constructed through the composition of views, which is swinging between positive openness and awkward exposure- residences’ lives are exposed under each other’s perspective through gigantic windows

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A day in Moriyama House

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<<<INTERLOCK AND LOCK>>>>>>>> <Proffessor John Massey> <2014. Individual Installation (on-going)>

<In Chinese saying, people who filled with strength and integrity of spirit are often called as “steady squares”. By matching human units with cubes, I would say people are never more like them true selves than before in contemporary age. We are all “steady squares”. Technology distanced people while left people with space to breathe and be oneself, which made the real relationships even more precious.

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<People have their special sharped edges and personal frames, which mean every collision and fusion of the cubes is the special bond that would not happen easily while the dynamic flexibility of the chained cubes presented the possibilities of these contemporary relationships. I would say they are the true beauty of the age. <The project is intended to be a public installation. Composed by three-interlocked cube frames, public is allowed to push it open and around.

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I can not tell you how the island really is â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I have no idea- I can state only the facts as I perceive them. You must be satisfied with this or you must travel there yourself sometime, and see these beings in the natural environment, for the place is utterly subjective.

-Charles Avery

From my sketch journal, (originally in Chinese) 2011-2013

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<<<WHEN IT’S ARBITRARY>>> <individual works>

<My interest in architecture initiated from my random impulse in creation and traveling. Reviewing the record of these creations and experiences is the best approach to understand the essence of these inspiration sources. The sketches presented in these two pages are from my past sketch journals. Since not drawn at the scene but recalled afterwards, they are illustrations of my perception, which is interesting when compared to the real construction and see how different they are from original buildings. <I believe observation is where inspiration and creation initiated. <This section consist two projects: “Rhythm and Motion” and “Fold and Unfold”. By looking into the essence of the objects, both projects helped me generate a certain aesthetic attitude towards form in architecture while presented my analysis of the original objects.

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<RHYTHEM & MOTION <Instructor Katy Chey <2012 <The project is an exploration of the dynamic potential of the linear motion of the drawer slides. By looking at the negative space that would be twisted by the motion of the slides, the simple motion of â&#x20AC;&#x153;pull outâ&#x20AC;? has been broke down into three stages: the first movement period during which the first piece of the slide moves; the movement period where second piece moved together with the first piece; the second movement period where the first piece all moved out and stopped its movement and only the second piece is moving.

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<The motion of â&#x20AC;&#x153;pullâ&#x20AC;? chained the space within drawer slides with the space around. The sequence of the motion gesture presented in the model enlarged the essence of the movement and showed the special invisible smooth rhythm embedded in the plain mechanism motion while revealing its potential in becoming a real physical space.

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<FOLD & UNFOLD <Instructor Katy Chey <2012 <The premise of the project is to break down the folding processes of several origami and recombine them together to generate a new form. With the process of fold and unfold, causal relations are constructed within this folded space.

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you are a butterflower you are a mammal you are a molecule you are a woman mouse you are a mouse you are different from me you are nothing you are the king you are a pollen you are full of pain you are the cerebellum you are like you you are normal you are a friend

I will become like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; -Pipilotti Rist

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<<<WALKING IN MY MIND>>>>>>>>>>>> <Individual Works>

<Art are absent points of peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind- attractive, seductive and stimulative because of its unknown and unpredictable nature. The process of producing art is a formation course of a chaotic idea competition.

Due to my personal favor in anti-conceptualism, by linking, grouping, stretching and eliminating, the artwork itself may have no specific meaning but would contain gigantic information web and generate its own energy field. <This section is composed by varied thoughts on life, art, architecture and city laid in my art practices. Like what Rist said in the poem: They are like them, they are normal, they are friends, and I will become like them.

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<CITY AND ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CREATURES <2014 (on-going public installation model) <Material: plexiglass and model figures <Architects lay their will in their works. The evolving history of city is a combination of wills from generations of architects. With destruction, restoration, renovation, repaired, city is a land with sophisticated and complicated characteristic constructed by generations of dedicated architects.

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<City and Its Creatures is my perception on city-Layers and layers of Humanity casted under shabby transparent boxes presenting its special dynamic energy; people wandering in between with their eager in differentiating and resembling themselves with what is existing. <It is an ongoing public installation project initially originated from my 2-month countrywide traveling experience in China. As a country where I born and raised, I never expected how contemporary Chinese cities would diverge in culture and habit in whole while showing extremely resemblance in detail components (Architecture, Highways, landscape design, etc.)- Just like humanity.

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<TRAVELING JOURAL-MY PIXALS <2014 Traveling with Tingyu Xiao <Photo- Thoughts and Reflection (original photo from both Xiao & I) <What is the position of BEAUTY in architecture?

I always keep record when I travel. Sound record, photo, writing fragements... anything. It is my fast food memory, which I believe somehow would enlighten a method that art and beauty could be embedded in architecture and city.

Beauty of a city is remembered by its delicate touches. When looking over my traveling journals I found it interesting that I never really describe a scene as a whole.

Frist day in Spain, I wrote, “Went to the steps today. Light shined through, the cornice looked beautiful under it ... by the way I liked the boots the girl in front of me is wearing. ” “I was tired to think whether I can catch up with the friend in front of me. Shadow crossing the fences, they were beautiful” -Milan (maybe) “Wow ant-holes on the ground…. the armrest of the house is beautiful” -Florence …And so on, well, except that you can see I am a random person, more importantly, you can tell that I perceived cities and their beauty as fragments. Therefore the true art of architecture would be entailed in the delicate small touches of these fragments that trigger beauty.

Just touches, nothing big but are the very essential that would define peoples’ perception of architecture and city significantly.

Well, this might be one position of art in architecture as well.

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<Knot At Heart, And Somewhere Round.

<Instructor Catherine Heard <2014. 11 <Installation <Material: Plastic food wrap, model figures <In Chinese metaphor, mental burden is called “Xin Jie” which means “the knot of heart”. “Knots” pumping through the vessels, twists all feeling of hurt into unexpected uncatchable sorrow-the perfect description of mental pain- which made this metaphor one of my favorite in the language. As a start, I didn’t try to construct a metaphor of any kind, but since I started the simple action of wrapping it just seemed impossible to stop and then the result just suddenly reminded me the metaphor of “Xin Jie”. <After continuous action of wrapping, which is really a comforting process, it came out in a heart form. And the wrap goes wild into the space I began to wrap around. It became a celebration of obsession and anxiety.

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<Illusion (part1) <2013.2 <Professor Sue Llyod <Inkjet Print <With this series of photographs, l looked in depth on the relationship between light and physical spaces. As the most flexible component within architecture , lights has it special charm in creating gaps and lose points of building interiors.

Spotlights have their strange power in distorting spaces . And somehow by directly shooting at the light source, the confusion about what is the space around the light spot increase gradually. And this confusion is where makes people stop and think, imagine and meditate. <I was amazed by peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reaction towards this series, one of my friend told me that she starred at the photos and felt a strange feeling of settlement out of the uncertain space around. I see the resemblance between religion and light since they both provide people with feeling of peace and settlement out of something that is actually hazy which seem have a strong connection with cosmic and generally unknown. And I believe that is one of the major reason people consider light as sacred.

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>>Painting <2014.6 <How we define painting in contemporary term? Frequent experiments in materiality and new mediums are leading painting art towards a new direction. I tried to tear down all the color composition in this painting and let the essence of the action of painting to present itself through pure materiality. <”Painting” provided a rethink on contemporary painting.

Stretch bars and canvases are the very essential yet unchanging elements in painting and I believe they always stand for things far more significant than their utility. Stretch bars and canvases define spaces of focus while left themselves out of focus. The dynamic composition of the stretch bars and canvases lock viewers’ perception on the materials that have always been ignored. >Lost Point <2014.6 <This is an experiment of attention manipulation. When seeing a color block pattern and color string pattern at the same time, viewers’ attention would often go directly towards the string pattern which stretch more into the space which releases more emptiness around. <I bleached red off the intersect points of the string pattern in order to create a sudden pause within the viewing experience. Yet later this sudden out of focus became the point of focus- people start to spend more time on the blank spot than any other areas of this work.

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3 min body study series 2011

THANK YOU