B.S Arch Undergraduate Portfolio
the Islands
Shu Meng
Georgia Tech
For the application of Master of Architecture I Professional Degree School of Architecture Yale University
01
A Parking Garage
02
A Photography Museum
03
A Community Center
04
A Machine
05
A Hotel
The parking garage is a ubiquitous building type found in downtown America. These stacked concrete slabs can span an entire city block as stand-alone utilitarian structures serving solely automobiles. It is one of the icons of modern urban life: utility, density, and convenience based on technology. But it’s dead. This poses the question: how could it be transformed into a lively public datum forming within the city?
01 A Parking Garage (2nd Year Studio)
the Parasite Architecture is not passive. It could be as active as parasitical.
Typical Strategy
Concept: the Parasitical relationship “By the fashions in everything from clothing to buildings, which give a reassuring illusion of cultural unity and vitality, we are encouraged to suppress the inherent difference and conform. But our culture is maintained at the expense of creativity that can emerge only from an imagination stirred by confrontation with every kind of experience and actuality.� ---Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction
Plan 01
Plan 02
Program The strategy to retrofit the half-empty parking garage is executed by introducing two types of public space: active space and passive space. The passive spaces are those where no direct activity happens, such as circulation cores, view platforms, entry lobbies, service space etc.
Plan 01
The aesthetic of collectivity is deceptive: underneath the mask of homogenization, people can celebrate the individuality in a place of intimate scale. Everyone,no matter who they are, has their own stage.
0
10 5
50 ft 20
The active space will host roller derby activities for the Dirty South Derby: Atlanta Roller girls and provide performance/exhibition venues in various scales.
Section
Plan 02
The microsecond the shutter blinks, the unseen becomes the seen, the unperceived dimension becomes the perceived, the usual becomes the unusual. In that microsecond, the moment of capture is forced to make its transformation into something visual, something no longer ephemeral. As a result, the fourth dimension is being depicted.
02 A Photography Museum (3rd Year Studio)
the Lapse
Time elapses, but the time captured in printed photos does not, and the time engraved in architecture does not.
Site Surrounded by apartment complexes,the site has great potential to form a strong connection between art and people. It strives to be not just a museum, but an institution containing artist studios and a lecture hall: a place not just to see, but to create. Its adjacency to Central Park and Atlanta’s lush urban green space sparked the idea of bringing outdoor nature indoors, celebrating one of the most frequently visited themes in photography: re-representing the usual as the unusual. Along with photographs featuring distorted nature, the surrounding green space would also be viewed in an unexpected fashion.
Urban Green Space NGO
Apartment Complex
Central Park
Program and Green Space
Restricted Access
Un-restricted Access
Separate Access
Massing Envelope
people going to the museum vs the general public
Offset 10’ from sidewalk
highlight programmatic difference
Bringing in Nature
indoor garden: abstract moment of nature green lawn: an informal park as a welcoming gesture to the neighborhood
Galleries for Professionals
To Nature 3 2 1 -1
To Nature To City
Lobby
View
inward and outward
Studio
Exhibition Lecture Cafe for studios
Programming
as galleries and as studios
04
03
05
*
07
06
01 09
00 Central Park 01 Inactive Storage 02 Loading Dock 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13
Lobby/Ticket Coat Room Restroom Lecture Hall (95 seats) Admin Office Outdoor Seating Cafe Studio Classroom Storage Exhibition Space for Studios Dark Room
14 15 16 17 *
Gallery A for Professionals Gallery B for Professionals Temporary Exhibition View Balcony Mechanical Room
02
08
00
Basement
Level One
Floor Plan
Floor Plan
10
11
11 05
14
05
*
*
12
13
15
16
17
Level Two
Level Three
Level Three
Floor Plan
Floor Plan
Reflective Ceiling Plan
65’-0” Roof
41’-0” Level 03
18’-6” Level 02
0’-0” Level 01 -9’-6” Basement
West Elevation
concrete steel reinforcement with anchor bolts isolation joint caulked and sealed
vapor retarder concrete slab sand gravel drainage base
rigid insulation piping
Detail-1
Longitudinal Section
DIDEROT: All right. Now what is memory? Where does that come from? D’ALEMBERT: From something organic which waxes and wanes, and sometimes disappears altogether. ---D’Alembert’s Dream I,by Denis Diderot, 1769
03 A Community Center (3rd Year Competition Studio Second Place)
the Canopy
Instead of being a narrative of encounter, composing a story, the canopy became an image, or several images. So iconic that the images will be engraved into one’s memory. Life does not rely on fiction, but on memory.
Site Analysis
02
03
05
04
07
08 01
Atlanta City Landmark
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
01.Adjacency
02.Scale
Church Georgia Aquarium Georgia World Congress Center Centennial Olympic Park Georgia Dome Philips Arena CNN Headquarter Mercedes Benz Stadium
06
Early Massing Model: to explore formal gesture of connecting
Program Proposal Learn
Social
Book Stacks
Computer Lab
Study Area
Children’s Area
Classroom
Events Space
Learning Kitchen
Dining
Urban Farm
Bar
Library
Restaurant
Program Adjacency Secondary Traffic Route
Community
check point
study area
outdoor
outdoor
farm
kitchen
back of house
indoor indoor
book stacks
comp lab
bar
main dining
children area
City Public Main Traffic Route Learn
Program
Direct Connection
Public Access
Social
Outdoor
Visual Connection
Restricted Access
It is permeable and open: permeable by nature, open to street and open to the sky. It is not meant to be a narrative of people of different backgrounds crisscross, but by housing all programs under two related roofs and inter-relate each other vertically and horizontally, it becomes a visible image of living and learning together, under the canopy.
Site Plan
01-a
01-b
09
03
07-b
07-a
02-a
++
08 02-b
++
10-a
06
04
10-b
05
First Floor Plan 01-a 01-b 02-a 02-b 03
Loading dock Back of house Main kitchen Learning kitchen Urban farm
Ipe Wood Decking
04 05 06 07-a 07-b
Restaurant Bar Restroom Event space: auditorium Event space: outdoor
Stained Oak Flooring
08 09 10-a 10-b ++
Info desk Restroom Classroom: w/ movable partition Classroom: outdoor Mechanical room
Polished Concrete
Z
G
Zoysiz
Grass
12-d
12-c
11
12-a
12-b
12-c
12-c
12-e
12-i
12-h
12-g
12-f
Second Floor Plan 11 12-a 12-b 12-c 12-d
Catwalk Admin office Info desk Book stacks Computer lab
Limestone Gravel
12-e 12-f 12-g 12-h 12-i
Stone
Study area Study area: outdoor Bridge Children’s reading room Restroom
Pavers
Corrugated Metal Roof
Section 01
Section 02
Section 03
When we study how mud cracks or how soap bubbles aggregate, how glass is broken, or how hair gets entangled, we see the same thing over and over: matter finds form. We’ve learned that matter is inert and needs to be shaped by external agents, but the reverse is true: matter is a pure agent and actively shapes itself.
04 A Machine ( 4th Year Research Studio Partner: Ishrat Lopa )
Analogue Computing
Matter is not passive. Material is not passive. Matter forms! Material forms! ...on its own.
Inspired by Frei Otto’s early research of balloon stacking and packing to incarnate the
foam structure, we implemented similar methods by filling the interstices between intenselypacked balloons with plaster to explore the light-weight cancellous structure.
I. Plaster Machines | Phase 01: Cubic Machine (1’ x 1’ x 1’)
Process: pack, seal, cast, de-mold
Machine 1.1: Homogeneous Stacking
Machine 1.2: Homogeneous Packing
Machine 1.3: Heterogeneous Stacking
Machine 1.4: Heterogeneous packing
Machine 1.1~1.4 aim to understand the basic Node-Leg relationship and irregular polyhedral network: four-legged, six-legged node conditions.
Photo analysis of details
Sketch analysis of nodal-leg relations
Four-Legged Node Each volume as dodecahedron, with 12 pentagons, 20 4-Legged Nodes and 30 legs.
Six-Legged Node Each volume as hexahedron, with 6 quadrilaterals, 8 6-Legged Nodes and 12 legs.
Diagram Documentation: polygon-polyhedron relation
Photo analysis of polygons
Photo analysis of polyhedron
Fn = net force exerted on the balloon; As = area of the polygon; Ac = area of the cross-section of the leg and the node
regular distribution
regular distribution
irregular distribution
homogeneous forces
heterogeneous forces
heterogeneous forces
I. Plaster Machines | Phase 02: Hybrid Machine
Process 01.Pack in bag, stack in box
02.Add rigid support on the bag
03.Cast plaster and de-mold
Packing
Four-Legged Node
Transition
Five-Legged Node
Stacking
Six-Legged Node
In the hybrid machine, a new type of nodal-leg condition emerges: at where packed balloons and stacked balloons meet, the machine creates a five-legged node to transit from node.
Photo analysis of five-legged node
a four-legged node to a six-legged
Machine 2.1
Machine 2.2
Machine 2.3
Machine 2.4
Machine 2.5
Interior detail study of human activities based on Machine 2.4-2.5
After studying the plaster model, we scale up the existing machine to 1”=1/4’ and translate the material from plaster to wood, making the design more detailed and architectural.
II. Wood Machines | Phase 01: Construct Balloon Massing
Final Balloon Massing: elevation views on four sides
II. Wood Machines | Phase 02: Material Translation
balloon 01
balloon 02
balloon 03
the Node-Leg in wood w/triangular section connected by wires
balloon 04 the Node-Leg in plaster
In the new material, the leg becomes a rigid, solid entity (wood-stick) while the node is understood not as an object but as a moment of connecting the legs by a flexible joint (wire).
hot glue dot
double-twined wire
1/4”inch deep hole
After the stacking base is secured by a six-legged node, the translation officially starts from the top and progresses downward to meet the base: as negative space in-between balloons got filled with wood sticks, we popped the balloons.
Process photo: South elevation
01.
02.
03.
04.
Final product: Elevation view
West
South
North
East
Study on Context Engagement
Study on Human Scale and Activities
Proposed Site: High-line, NYC Since the studio is meant to explore a certain type of structural methodology called “analogue computing”, which is based on the idea that under a specific rule-directed procedure, materials can interact in a way that the elements can collaboratively “find form.” The major focus is in pursuit of the structure and its spatial quality with the idea that this structure doesn’t necessarily need to prescribe specific activities like other architecture does, but is more open-ended. Nevertheless, we’re speculating and in favor of a possible relation between the interior space and installation arts. It is this suggestion of such a possible relationship that helps us finally specify our site location at Chelsea, at the street corner of 21st Street NW and 10th Ave, so that the structure would cantilever over the High-line, fully exploring its structural potential.
Why do we travel?
What are we expecting from travel?
We do not travel merely in pursuit of enjoyment: the enjoyment of environment, of sensual pleasure, or of intellectual interest. We travel in pursuit of exploration: an encounter with anything we’re not familiar with, anything that is challenging yet enlightening.
05 A Hotel on Milos island, Greece (4th Year Studio)
the Departure
Each building we visit or live in is a station we stop by. Our temporary engagement with such a station shall be physical and more importantly, intellectual.
Inspiration
Photo taken at Thera, Greece (2014)
Casa Malaparte depicted in film Le MĂŠpris by Godard (1964)
Site Plan
Facade Design Iterations (based on two critical yet typical sides) This series of design iterations is meant to explore how to maintain each tower as a singular massing while not compromising the view from hotel rooms, especially where private activities happen. To experience the landscape through physical exhaustion, Option 11, 12, 13 start emphasizing the presence of physical ascent and descent. 00
01
04
05
06
09
10
11
1
02
03
6
07
08
1
12
13
N W
typical tower plan
E
S
Material 01 Material 02 Window glazing Wire mesh screen N
W
S
14 Final Scheme: Unrolled Exterior Elevation Roof Deck +104.00 Level 08 +91.67 Level 07 +79.33 Level 06 +67.00 Level 05 +54.67 Level 04 +42.33
Level 05 +54.67 Level 04 +42.33 Level 03 +30.00 Level 02 +17.67 Level 01 +5.33 Sea Level +0.00
E
People use the staircase to approach the sea or sky. The enjoyment of walking with the rhythm of shadow does not interfere with the view through the window hindered.
privacy of people who are resting in the room. Neither is their
Unrolled Section: cut through staircase, from roof deck to level one
Section 05
Section 04
Section 03
Section 02
Section 01
Plan 01
Plan 02
Plan 03
Program A
Check-In
B
Leisure
00 Entry Porch 01 Front desk / Office 02 Storage 03 04 05 06
Sauna Changing room / Shower Lounge / Tea room Therapy / Message
--Yoga studio / Fitness --Bar / Wine cellar --Library
C
D/E/F
Eat
07 08 09 --
Rest
Total 16 rooms.
Outdoor dining Outdoor terrace Stair to the cliff Indoor dining; Kitchen
10 Writing desk / Tea room 11 Bedroom 12 Bathroom w/shower,closet 13 Terrace by the sea
Section 05
Section 04
Section 03
Section 02
Plan 01 Plan 02 Plan 03 Section 01
A
West Elevation
East Elevation
B
C
D
E
F
Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come Watching the ships roll in And then I watch ‘em roll away again I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll away Ooo, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay Wastin’ time I left my home in Georgia Headed for the ‘Frisco bay Cause I’ve had nothing to live for And look like nothin’s gonna come my way So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll away Ooo, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay Wastin’ time Look like nothing’s gonna change Everything still remains the same I can’t do what ten people tell me to do So I guess I’ll remain the same, yes Sittin’ here resting my bones And this loneliness won’t leave me alone It’s two thousand miles I roamed Just to make this dock my home
(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding