Compressed Space

COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE COMPRESSED SPACE

Graduate Thesis 2022

Ji Cao

Content Provocations

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Past GT archives

p.08-13

Image

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Precedents

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Provocation workshop

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Integration

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Thesis Statement Today's compressed spaces have now become a spectacle in the realm of architecture. Compression at different scales is a warning that this phenomenon is happening in all directions.

The personal living space is one of the paradigms under the compressed space.

The compression of living space brings not only oppression and tension, but also may involve freedom and human rights. When the inherent environment cannot be changed, a change in the perception of space may be a way to alleviate this oppression.

This thesis changes the spatial perception of the occupants through the transformation of their personal living space, thus making the

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architectural space less compressed at the level of perception. Further, this project also uses this approach to construct the future residence and city.

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"OVEREXPOSED" by DS+R, 1964

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Provocations

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Past GT archives The Porject “downlifting” addresses

urban densification, instantiating the relationship between existing and new. The project serves the structural integrity of the existing and its resulting perception: two actors tangle their gravitational ambition, which results in the dissolution of their hierarchy.

First, a new compression structure is situated in the atrium of the existing building, occasioning minimal structural conflicts with the existing structure. Second, a tension structure wraps the extension around the existing to reinforce the small footprint of the central structure. “downlifting” is an attempt to link pragmatism with surrealism.

The design proposes an extension building for New York University on top of the existing Bobst Library in Manhattan. The extension comprises a design school with public amenities, private design studios,

All the work comes from Erik Fichter (MArch I) of GSD

faculty and fabrication spaces; a total of 280,000 sf. This one consists of heavy blocks that contain the required amenities and are wrapped by a curtain facade. The spaces in between the blocks are imagined to be open to experimentation to all students, just like the roof-space between the old and new building is intended to be a public park for students and exhibitions. Both heavy and light materialities together with the tensile structure enable readings of counterbalancing program blocks. Equally the existing library in relation to the addition enhances an ambiguous reading of “downlifting.”

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1. Physical Model

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10 1. Conceptual Model 2. Section Drawing

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12 1. Render Image

The density within the building is released in the vertical space. The hierarchy of space is shifted.

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Images Hong Kong has an extremely high urban

density. The huge volume of population and the extremely limited available land make the space between buildings compressed as much as possible. Behind these compressed spaces, human living behavior is also affected.

Homeless people have set up tents on the street, on corners, and in front of failing stores. Today, the problem of homelessness has become a pressing social issue in Los Angeles and across the United States.The growing homeless population and the forced encroachment on public space reflect the gap between the rich and the poor and the social system.

Also interesting to me was a set of photos taken in Tokyo, by Michael Wolf: when the trains were heavily overloaded, the way people were squeezed in the closed subway cars was one of the manifestations of space taming human beings.

Graduate Thesis 2022

Back Alley, by Michael Wolf

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16 1-2. Los Angeles Downtown Street View 3-6 "Tokyo Compression" by Michael Wolf

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Precedents "Man is the Measure of All Things."

-Protagoras of Abdera

Today human life continues through one

database after another. Human thoughts, actions, history, etc. are compressed into a single byte.

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Data Center

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Personal living space is divided to the point of barely making a living.

Large cities are often accompanied by high population density and uneven distribution of social assets

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"Tang Fang" in Hongkong

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Urban expansion is also an invasion of non-urban space. The social, economic and cultural changes brought about by this series of urbanization are spatial changes on a larger scale.

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City of Los Angeles sprawl mapt Abo

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Provocation Workshop Beauty is subjective feeling; it is the de-

sire for truth; the existence that provokes human feelings regardless of all obstacles; an absolute fairness and justice that beyond substance.

Reading is the best and most efficient way to learn history. Turning other people's history into one of your own.

Strangers are independent beings in this world that have not yet crossed your path, full of unknowns and caution.

Paradise is utopia. It is the perfect place that does not exist. Perhaps it is also the place where everyone wants to be.

It is a bottom-up, spontaneously formed space. It is a space that is excluded by the mainstream and has the ability to discipline itself. Each participant in the space is a formulator of the space, changing and expanding it. It is the eliminator in the hierarchy of space, the result of capital taming space, and the last place where capital goes.

The struggle for ownership of space returns to the caution with which it began in the face of strangers. The subsequent manifestation of class will enable the division of these spaces.

Beauty, however, is vividly revealed in these spaces. Human intelligence, the desire for fairness and self-restraint can make space vibrant and lively. But when the balance is broken, it requires a larger scale of regulation to sustain this vitality.

Spaces like this are not intended for anyone. It is a product of its time. Its foreseeable conflict is that in the near future it will once again become a profit-making field for capital, until the next set of spaces is born.

Graduate Thesis 2022

Downtown L.A street view

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Integration The compressed and encroached ar-

chitectural space is transformed into a spectacle. The change in space is brought about by the change in human behavior, psychology, and human activities. These compressed spaces obey the hierarchical setting of space, and are also the result of capital taming space. These conscious or unconscious changes of human beings are also silently outlining the contours of contemporary architecture.

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Nail household

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In order to explore the minimal possibility of personal living space, I use the space I live in as a sample for analysis. This is a studio consisting of a living room, kitchen and bathroom, and through this study, I selected the only space I needed for myself and reorganized it to create a new design.

From the analysis of compressed spaces at different scales, I am interested in how individual minimized spaces can be combined, arranged, and superimposed to become architectural or even urban volumes.

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The design of this apartment renovation in Madrid provides me inspiration.

This project exemplifies how to get a greater sense of spatial experience in a small space. The answer is to expand the actual usable space by folding and hiding interior elements. This allows the occupants to experience a more spacious living environment.

Project credits: Architects: Elii - Uriel Fogué, Eva Gil, Carlos Palacios Team: Elii - Pedro P. García, Alicia García Martín, Claire Laborde Developer: Susana Ciriza Construction: Dionisio Torralba Constucciones Carpentry: Alfredo Merino Caldas

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Position A

rchitects are able to change the inherent architectural space through different techniques and change people's perception of this space.

This change of perception is the helplessness and wisdom of people to the current situation of constantly compressed space. I believe that the combination of these individual living spaces will be the direction of the future development of the city.

This is both optimistic and pessimistic, optimistic in a sense that people's wisdom is the most effective solution to the increasing compression of space.

The pessimistic aspect is that, when it is impossible to change the physical conditions, people can only look to changes in the perceptual level to get relief.