The studio responds to a nationwide phenomenon of potable water source contamination and the imminent need for increasing clean water access. The site is located in an industrial zone in Flushing, Queens.
Our proposal unites the industrial character and the neighborhood’s need for a public recreational space. It will serve as a water treatment plant, a water education and distribution center, and a multi-level public park directly serving people working and living in the neighborhood.
The facility utilizes a ceramic membrane filtration technique, collecting existing groundwater supplied to Flushing and filtering out pathogens and contaminants. The filtration method provides both treated water for recreational use and potable water for drinking on-site.
Design Studio 602
Spring 2023
Critic: Dorian Booth
Partnered Project with Aimen Arain
Contribution: Concept, Design, Drawings, Digital & Physical Model
The assemblage model uses found industrial machinery and components to explore a collaged part-to-whole system that inspired our final design. The pieces are blown out of their original scale and assigned various materials to create layers and enhance perceptive depths.
Physical Model
Snapshot of access to the rooftop recreation pool
Defamiliarized Assemlage
Ceramic Membrane Primary Filter System
Outdoor Terrace (Education Center)
Walkway
Restroom/Locker Room
Cafe
Public Lounge
Meeting Room
Staff Lounge
Collaborative Work Space
Chunk Model
The physical chunk model demonstrates the last stage of the ceramic membrane filtration process and its physical and spatial connection to the cylindrical public water filtration center. This stage creates clean and drinkable water available for visitor’s consumption. Furthermore, the filtration process also creates a sludge byproduct, which is also treated in this part of the project and sent to the upper levels as fertilizer for planting.
Visitors looking at the exterior treated water reservoir pool and into the water distribution center through the orange polycarbonate paneled wall
Terrace View
Chunk Model Detail
This detail illustrates the facade strategy of combining steel frame, polycarbonate panels, and surface netting connection at the roof of the wall section.
This detail illustrates the floor assembly, polycarbonate panel to floor connection, and surface netting connection at the bottom of the building envelope in this wall section.
Facade Close-up Vignette
1. Collaborative Work Space 2. Walkway 3. Outdoor Terrace (Education Center) 4. Enclosed Classrooms (Education Center) 5. Bar 6. Water Distribution Center 7. Under Water View Room (Water Distribution Center) 8. Compressed Air System 9. Treated Water Reservoir 10. Secondary Filtrate Tank 11. Feed Pump
NOSTALGIA
Elements of Play
Nostalgia evokes a sentimental longing and wistful affection for the past. The project explores the geometric properties and spatial potentials of a familiar childhood game - tangram. Each tangram piece was redesigned into a detachable composition of two geometries. Viewers can pull pieces apart and reconfigure the components of a two-dimensional tangram to make a three-dimensional sculpture.
Interlocking Mechanism
Tangram Reconfiguration
Design Studio 501
Fall 2021
Critic: Kiki Goti
Materials: 3/4” Birch Plywood, MDF, Spray Paint
Team Project
Contribution: Design, Fabrication
ALLEYS OF BANG
Songhyeon-dong Reimagination
Initial Site Plan Collage
Design Studio 701
Fall 2023
Critic: David Eugin Moon
Partnered Project with Aimen Arain
Contribution: Concept, Site Analysis, Design, Drawings, Digital and Physical Model
Alley and Site Connection Analysis
Societal refuge flourishes in the transient urban environment of Seoul through many forms. Alleys serve as intimate parameters for connection, allowing for escape from the commercial takeover. The concept of refuge is also prevalent in the bang (room) culture, popular in Seoul as it offers spaces for people to participate in designated activities. However, the bangs have been criticized for being isolating for its monotonous function and enclosed spatial condition.
With layers of hidden histories, the site currently serves as a public green space surrounded by different programS. The proposal aims to maintain its openness while providing a youth-center supporting pre-college teens in crisis and clusters of urban bangs open to the public. The idea of connections throughout the site paired with indoor and outdoor bangs is inspired by Seoul’s urban and architectural typology while adhering to the site’s existing function as a gathering space.
Madang (Courtyard)
Physical Model - Projector showing Potential ‘Bang’ Typologies
‘s Hidden History
The expansive Songhyeondong is now open to public as an urban green space following over 100 years of closure. During this period, the site went through multiple tenants and served drastically different roles. This series of axon diagrams explores the hidden layers of past, present, and future stories embedded in the identity of Songhyeon-dong.
Songhyeon-dong
Design Drawing - Elevation Oblique + Plans
BLACK CAT MARKET
Roaming Across Dimensions
The market is named after the site’s guardian, a black cat. She scavenges in the neighborhood, oversees daily matters, and occasionally interacts with visitors. Black Cat Market is a mixed-use gathering place featuring an evening/night market, a maker space supporting local artists and the surrounding manufacturing industry, and office spaces. The market space doubles as a public park for the neighborhood when not active during the day. The project negotiates the three dimensions of the site: the elevated rail park, the street level, and the underground, allowing the black cat and any visitor to the space to travel freely throughout the dynamic spaces.
A series of manual crafting and modelmaking techniques informed the formal development. The studio started with studying existing crochet stitches and inventing new stitches as a tool to understand neighborhood connectivity, site flow, and program organization. We then used paper-folding to create a repeating module to rationalize the organic diagrams generated from crochet stitches into 3D volumes. The physical modelmaking process also incorporated slip casting, which rendered precise formal and textual translations through its molding surfaces and cavities.
User Profile Collages
A Black Cat
An Artisan
Crochet Logic Program
Design Studio 502
Spring 2022
Critic:
Individual Project
Gisela Baurmann
Mid-Review Proto Model Assorted Paper, Slip Cast
Module Aggregation Watercolor Paper
Model-Making Catalog
Crochet Yarn
Crochet Stitch Models
Digital Collection Created by the Studio
Lattice Brickwork Color Resin Print
Architectural Module
Slip Cast
Lattice Brickwork
Slip Cast and its Plaster Mold
Market Stand Prototype Paper, 3D Print, Texture sampled from Untitled (2008) by Tara Donovan
Imaginary Crochet Stitch
Brick Lattice
Callowhill
Callowhill
Courtyard
Maker
Promenade to the Rail Park
Enclosed Market
Storage/Cold Room
Mechanical
Cut-away Section
Wax,
Fall 2021
O Oriens
Paper Pulp, 3D Print, Natural Dye, Bass Wood
Frolic
Z-Brush, Rhino
Deconstructing the Philadelphia Museum of Art DELAMINATION
Art history as a field of study traditionally focuses on searching for the absolute and a specific set of interpretations for art. The Philadelphia Museum of Art applies such a methodology in its exhibition spaces by separating artworks by region and chronology. The rigid divisions of the exhibition spaces in the Philadelphia art museum further justify such a curatorial practice.
The PMA extension proposal breaks the rigid order of art historical narrative set up by the PMA through its shifting and merging spaces. By delaminating the layered pieces from Nostalgia, the solid and void indicate their spatial potentials.
The texture on the facade is a magnified image of fibers in leaves. The resulting fritted facade deconstructs the reflective metal surfaces and prevents bird collisions.
The building is wrapped with a double-skin facade, highlighting this texture and porosity of the exterior architectural envelope.
Silver Leaf Gilded on 3D Print
Zbrush Texture
Fiber Image
Form Generation
Texture Development
Design Studio 501
Fall 2021
Critic: Kiki Goti
Individual Project
The curvatures of the geometries informed a fluid outer shell of the building. The interlocking logic is revisited in the interior space within the continuous external form.
The deconstructed pieces also created landscape elements integral to the architectural composition. The design conforms to the existing landscape and extend its path to the nearby bird sanctuary, allowing museum visitors to easily access the island and embrace natural sceneries.
The worms’ eye perspective dissects the model from below, composing a visual effect of what it would feel like to be inside the museum space looking upwards. The landscape topography and the connection to the nearby Fairmount Waterworks is also demonstrated through this perspective.
Reggie Zhao
Weitzman Visual Studies
Chunk Model Choisy
Brian DeLuna
Choisy
Chunk Model
Urban Housing for Food Lovers
The studio investigates a low-rise and high-density urban housing typology on a mixed-use and post-industrial transitioning neighborhood. The design proposes a residential community made up of 4 unique types of housing units with an incorporated public commons program surrounding food.
The project is located on the previous Blumenthal Chocolate Factory site in northeast Philadelphia, accompanied by residential row houses that imply an urban grid. The forces acting on the site, such as train, vehicle, and pedestrian movements, created a directional strip that became the building envelope.
Design Studio 601
Fall 2022
Critic: Brian Phillips
Individual Project
Form Generation Diagrams
Program Diagram
The project negotiates between the existing linear urban food system and a localized circular food economy. The model manifests itself on the site with the cohesion of steps from food production and preparation to consumption and composting. This public program is located on the site’s east side, providing a natural food productionconsumption axis. This food core will serve the residents and the surrounding neighborhood, increasing community access to healthy and fresh foods. Production Preparation/Distribution Consumption
Waste Recycle Residential Hybrid
Linear & Circular Food Economy
1. Eateries
2. Greenhouse
3. Community Garden + Compost
4. Food Hall (Existing Building)
5. Fresh Produce Coop (Existing Building)
6. Green Roof + Community Food Exchange
7. Resident Center
8. Food Distribution + Marketplace (Existing Building)
9. Rooftop Garden a-d. Housing
a. 1BD Apartment - 420sqft
b. Loft - 470 sqft
d. 2BD Apartment - 870 sqft
c. Live-Work Unit (1 - 2 BD) - varies
Public Commons
Visitors can access the ground-floor eateries with outdoor seating through the loggia, which actively engages pedestrians. Connected with the eateries is a community kitchen program that supports food education and vocational training. Behind the building are a community garden and a greenhouse growing vegetables for the community kitchen and neighbors. These programs form an axis on an accessible corner of the site, providing more dining options and community resources.
Model Chunk
Ground Plan
The ground plan shows the physical connections of the food programs on site. The eateries and community garden on the northeast corner of the area connect to the ground floor livework units through the strip. These residential units are designed to allow semi-public access to activities such as food shares, private cooking lessons, gatherings, etc. The back row units have a front-back division of the public and private space, and the side units have a bottom-top division. The existing L-shaped building will be converted into a grocery co-op, offering the residents in the surrounding neighborhood access to fresh produce on top of the produce from the community garden. The existing longitudinal building will become a conditioned food hall with indoor seating. The plaza opens up for food trucks and outdoor dining activities.
AN UNFOLDING CHAIR
Product Design with CNC
The chair's design process explores the limits of a 3-axis CNC Router. The chair is composed of four components: seat, legs, and two sides of a frame. Each component is made up of two sheets of plywood. With both sides of the plywood milled, the pieces have precise cuts and geometries that allow for accurate joinery connections. The seat and legs pieces in the middle are connected by dowels to tracks milled onto the frame, allowing the chair to be folded or flattened.
Half Dove-tail
Hinge Assembly
Extended Touch - CNC as a Design Tool
Spring 2024 - Architectural Association
Critic: Yoav Caspi
Individual Project
MESA OASIS
Botanical Archive on the Tidal Thames
Adjacent to the Tideway supersewer at Battersea Power Station, the botanical repository responds to an average of 7m tidal changes on the Thames through introducing river water into the site.
The archive includes a variety of programs housing seeds, live plants, and plant specimens: seed bank, vegetation display, greenhouse, research space, liberary, conservation, nursery, and a reconstructed tidal marshland. The experiential marshland hosts native plant species and corresponds to the early history of the site as a natural marshland and helps mitigate riverbank flooding.
The project also dives into mass timber construction as a sustainable building solution, utilizing a combination of CLT and Glu-Lam members to achieve stacked-arch structures and support wide spans. Timber is also applied on the facade, creating different degrees of porosity and privacy through the spacing of wooden battens. Locally sourced recycled bricks are used to construct a series of "towers" that give the archive riverfront presence amongst the south bank skyline and provides practical functions such as water cisterns, viewing decks, and light wells.
Mass Timber Structure & Facade - Archive Library/Reading Room
Cross Section - Tower Typologies
Planting Plan Overlayed on Ground Plan
Ground Floor - Experiential View
CRADLE
Community Hammock-Building
Louisiana Waterthrush’s Nest
Spring 2019
The project started with observing the composition of a Louisiana Waterthrush’s nest. Then I emulated the nesting process from material collection to nest building with my own hands. The process encouraged an empathetic view to understand birds’ dedication to providing a safe shelter for nurturing their offspring.
Cradle is a land-based community art project I conceived at the beginning of 2020. The design took inspiration from LouisianaWaterthrush’s Nest, an empathetic bird’s nest study and build project from the year before. Over thirty students, faculty, and staff from the community participated in this project’s making. We simulated birds’ energy and effort put into nesting and pondered our relationship with nature through the process.
The project’s construction took three months during a transitional time amid the pandemic. Nevertheless, it was an opportunity for us to engage in art making, be outdoors, and have some human interactions at a safe distance. Everyone’s effort wove into the hammock that invites community members to sit back and reconnect with the nurturing landscape.
Junior Independent Project + Senior Thesis
Spring - Fall 2020 - Washington and Lee University
Individual Project (Design & Prototyping), Community Engagement (Construction)
Critic: Sandy de Lissovoy, Leigh Ann Beavers, Christa Bowden
