Sebastian Medina | MS.AAD | Columbia GSAPP

Sebastián Medina

Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design | MS. AAD

PREFACE

This book is a description of the analytical, experimental, radically speculative, and at times highly optimistic ideas I developed during the three terms in the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design (MS.AAD) program at Columbia GSAPP. The primary intention of this book is not to provide a specific answer to a current or future architectural problem. Instead, its purpose is to graphically communicate a critical approach that raises a series of questions and invites the reader to think and act differently.

The documented work provides a wide range of scenarios, from New York, to Johannesburg, to Los Angeles, and the process involved the use of a broad set of engines including computational and parametric tools, phone and computer applications, physical modeling and 3D printing, to name a few. The journey through the book starts in New York City with a project that uses this global metropolis as the laboratory to test multiple historic and contemporary visions as part of the design of an Aquatic Center. The focus shifts to South Africa on the second chapter which is made up of a narrative charged with social, cultural, and political concepts, which emerged from a weeklong trip to Johannesburg. The project speculates on the future of this African city by the year 2115 AD. The final pages are devoted to Los Angeles through an analytical approach to urban interventions and the redefinition of “the public space”. The project envisions the creation of a new reading of the city through the use of lines, and by choreographing the interplay between these lines and volumes to provide Chinatown with a new type of public venue.

Through every project in the book, every line in each drawing, every piece in each model, and every pixel in each photo, this book represents my transition as a designer.

From the moment I first set foot on Avery Hall, until now I feel like my growth as a designer never stopped. For that, I am extremely thankful to every faculty member whose name is embedded in this publication. Each and every single one of them pushed me to extreme limits and motivated me to think critically about the problems being addressed and to never stop experimenting. Never stop asking questions. Never stop speculating on the role of architecture and Never stop exploring all the possibilities at different scales and different time frames.

This book represents perseverance. This book speaks for the way I understand architecture. This book is a manifestation of my ideas and my method of representing them graphically. So I invite you to submerge yourself into these pages as I share with you the interests I have developed as a designer after one intense year working inside the walls of Avery Hall. Most importantly, I invite you, my instructors and all my colleagues to look through these pages but never stop formulating questions.

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CONTENTS ALL IN!

PROPOSAL FOR AN AQUATIC CENTER IN DUMBO BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

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INNER IMAGE FLUX

URBAN FUTURES | FUTURE ARCHITECTURES 6.0 IMAGING | IMAGINING THE AFRO FUTURE CITY JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

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INFRASTRUCTURES + INTERFACES RE-DEFINING PUBLIC SPACES IN CHINATOWN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

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ALL IN!

PROPOSAL FOR AN AQUATIC CENTER IN DUMBO BROOKLYN, NY

IN COLLABORATION WITH NICOLE MATER AND JASMINE HO CRITIC: PHU HOANG

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CONDITIONED AIR RESEARCH

Electromagnetism - Expansion vs Compression The project was generated by conducting extensive research and analyzing the behavior of Electromagnetism in the air around the area of the studio site. The research was intended to be empirical, experimental, or theoretical and conducted in iterations and investigated at multiple scales of the built environment.

Architectural research is frequently most productive when it studies events, strategies or phenomena at the margin and not at the center. For this reason, the research was carried to areas slightly beyond the site and was not limited to the obvious examples of conditioned air in architecture.

The process unpacked, dissected and revealed conditioned air research through diagrams that conceptually framed the constraints and operative strategies of electromagnetism in the air.

Finally, the research validated the unique expansive and compressive behavior of electromagnetism in the air under different temperatures which was communicated using analytical diagrams and parametric relational models.

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AM

PM

AM

PM

AM

PM

AM

PM

Electromagnetic Field Variations by Temperature Field Magnitudes 7AM 2PM

7AM Temperature 65.20 F 2PM Temperature 82.76 F

Module of Diferentiation

Field Pattern Based on Magnitude Measured

Observation: Electromagnetic Field is stronger under cooler temperatures

CONDITIONING FIGURE CONDITIONED FIGURE

CONDITION 1A

CONDITION 1B

[SIMULTANEOUS OPERATIONS]

CONDITION 1C

CONDITION 1D

CONDITION 2C

CONDITION 2D

EXPANSION

COMPRESSION

CONDITION 2A

CONDITION 2B

NEUTRAL CONDITION

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MISAPPROPRIATIONS OF THE STREETS OF NEW YORK Mischievous Activities and Behavior

An analogous relationship between electromagnetism and the street was unveiled by researching the historic misappropriations of the streets of New York. In fact, the research suggested that the street maintains the capability to expand and compress at different scales and levels depending on the activity taking place. The relationships were illustrated and utilized to invent new organizations, programmatic

relationships and spaces for the Aquatic Center. In addition, the transformative capabilities of the street brought up the possibility of combining a detachable building envelope and the idea of the swimmobile [dumpster pool] from the 1950s to dissolve the

program throughout the city providing different New York City neighborhoods with multiple compositions of pop-up programmatic conditions.

The possibility for program mutations was maintained through the introduction of a folding envelope system capable of adapting new

actions and misappropriations of the street to each neighborhood’s historic identity and current desire.

STREET

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FIRE HYDRANT

SLIP N’ SLIDE

DISPLACEMENT

DUMPSTER POOL

JOGGING

EXPANSION

DINING

SKATEBOARDING

STREET PERFORMANCE

FOOD CART/TRUCK

LOITERING

PERFORATION

DISSOLUTION

ATTRACTION

RETENTION

VOID

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RECREATION CENTERS

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DETACHABLE BUILDING ENVELOPE AND SWIMMOBILE

FITNESS CENTERS

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE POOLS

NETWORK OF EXISTING POOLS, FITNESS AND RECREATION CENTERS

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90°

120°

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CIRCULATION: TRUCK | PEDESTRIAN

WIDTH MANIPULATION

EMERGING PROGRAM ZONES

FORM AND SKIN SYSTEM

Program Diffusion and Building Mutation The FORM of the hub adapts to the need to diffuse the program throughout the city by using trucks [land] and barges [water] in order to take full advantage of the waterfront site. For this purpose, the metrics involved in the turning radius of trucks of different scales and the dimensions of barges were of extreme importance in order to maximize storage space for the dumpsters and to facilitate the rapid traffic movement, loading and off-loading, and the distribution of dumpsters by both land and water.

MOBILE PANELS

The framework and building skin system was designed by locating detachable panels in areas immediately adjacent to the truck circulation paths, allowing for the panels to be easily detached and immediately loaded on to the trucks or barges. Fixed panels occupy the rest of the framework, but their operability takes into account passive lighting and ventilation for offices, classrooms, fitness center, and other community spaces that are active all-year long.

SKIN

The constant movement of panels throughout the summer communicates a dynamic building that is constantly under expansion and compression allowing the user to experience it physically and visually in a different way every time they interact with it.

PATH OF OVERHANG

STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORK

30°

PATH OF FRONT WHEEL

60°

PATH OF REAR WHEEL

90° 30°

30°

60° 50

60°

FT.

MIN

.

2.5'

90°

13.5'

120°

20.7'

90° 42 24

FT.

9.3' MIN

.

FT.

7'

MIN

.

3'

120°

11'

21.7'

25'

5'

120°

15'

9.3'

8' 8'

150°

150°

PB

3.3' 8.5'

WB-96

BUS 180°

150°

21.7'

8.5' 8'

180°

FORM GENERATION

[TRUCK TURNING GEOMETRIES]

180°

CIRCULATION CIRCULATION: TRUCK | PEDESTRIAN

WIDTH MANIPULATION

EMERGING PROGRAM ZONES

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DUMPSTER POOL DISTRIBUTION

BY LAND

BY WATER WATER SOURCES

RED HOOK, NY [WATER SOURCE]

NEW JERSEY MANHATTAN

BROOKLYN

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LONG ISLAND CITY/HAMPTONS, NY [WATER SOURCES]

A

B

C

D

+ FOLDED SKIN

DUMPSTER

DISTRIBUTION BY BOAT

DISTRIBUTION BY TRUCK

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16

A

B

G

H

D

C

I

J

E

F

K

L

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In New York City, aquatic centers and pools have transformed throughout the city’s history. No longer used for hygiene [bathing], the pool is primarily used for fitness and recreation. The requirements of active urban lives have integrated traditional aquatic and fitness programs with commercial programs for socializing and entertainment.

The aquatic center typology has transformed into a privatized world in which the consumption of air has become a commercial activity.

By researching the existing aquatic and fitness centers, this proposal makes an attempt to address their private notion by making them accessible to the general public throughout New York City.

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[URBAN BEACH]

[SPIN CLASS | YOGA]

[PLAYGROUND]

[CLASSROOM | INTERNET CAFE]

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BUILDING ORIGINAL STATE

SUMMER: STAGE 1

SUMMER: STAGE 2

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SUMMER: STAGE 3

AQUATIC CENTER DUMPSTER PROGRAM PROGRAM

DRY LOUNGE SERVERY/KITCHEN CAFE STORE WET LOUNGE RECEPTION/TICKETING TOILETS POOL OPERATION OFFICE MANAGER’S OFFICE STAFF OFFICE MEETING ROOMS WET CHANGEROOMS LOCKERS FIRT AID WEIGHTS + CARDIO SPIN ROOM DRY FITNESS STUDIO

PROGRAM POOL HYDROTHERAPY POOL SPIN ROOM OUTDOOR POOL SPECTATOR SEATING LEISURE WATER POOL

DUMPSTER POOL

SPIN CLASS

URBAN BEACH

HYDROTHERAPY

YOGA

TOILETS

BEAUTY SALON

ICE CREAM STAND

KITCHEN

SHOWERS

CAPSULE HOTEL

TEMPORARY SHELTER

START-UP COMPANY

HYDROPONIC AGRICULTURE

BURLESQUE CLUB

HEALTH CLINIC

CASINO

DISPENSARY

HOOKAH BAR

COFFEE SHOP

BALL PIT

BILLBOARD

CLASSROOM

WORK SHOP

PLAYGROUND

PET ADOPTION SITE

HOUSE OF WORSHIP

TOOL LIBRARY

PUPPET SHOW

THEATER OR CINEMA

ART GALLERY

LIBRARY

TRAMPOLINE

LUCHA LIBRE

VIDEO GAME ARCADE

INTERNET STATION

HALF PIPE

FIGHT CLUB

FARMERS’ MARKET

SEED BANK

CONCERT

DJ BOOTH

RAVE

SPEAKEASY

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“ALL IN!” is beyond an Aquatic Center - it is the hub for a network of social activity, utilizing the streets of New York City as fair ground for urban play. Treated as a vessel for misappropriation, the dumpster becomes a program generator that is disseminated throughout different neighborhoods in the city. The envelope acts as both, a system of enclosure when attached to the building and as a public platform that adapts the program of the dumpsters. This results in an architectural solution characterized by incompleteness, constantly altering in scale and density as program units are dispatched and returned throughout the summer.

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URBAN FUTURES / FUTURE ARCHITECTURES AFRICA 6.0 IMAGING / IMAGINING THE AFRO-FUTURE CITY JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

CRITIC: MABEL O. WILSON with ZACHARY COLBERT AND CARSON SMUTS

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BAD BUILDINGS IN JOHANNESBURG’S INNER CITY BAD BUILDINGS NEWTOWN MARY FITZGERALD SQUARE

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JOHANNESBURG’S INNER CITY Defining “Bad Buildings”

Bad Buildings can be defined as high or medium rise buildings that are in mostly poor conditions and inhabited by vulnerable fractions of urban dwellers. They share the fact that their owners generally “owe large amounts in services and rate payments”, their reliance on “compromised ownership and management arrangements” and their non-compliance with municipal by-laws.

Not all Bad Buildings are the same. Some are previously vacant buildings that have been invaded by vulnerable urban dwellers or building hijackers. Others are non-vacant buildings that are managed by slumlords or that have also been hijacked. Others, on the other hand, have been abandoned by their initial landlords. Yet others are sectional title buildings or buildings managed by small-scale landlords who do not poses the capacities to maintain them.

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TENSIONS

“Bad Buildings” vs “Good Buildings” The research phase focused primarily on Newtown; a neighborhood with a rich history that offers a unique insight into the development of Johannesburg and modern South Africa as well as the key social, political, industrial, artistic and cultural trends that have come to be associated with Johannesburg’s evolution from a Victorian mining camp to one of the world’s major urban centres. During the 1990s, many key sites and buildings in Newtown were invaded by the homeless, while open areas next to the railway lines saw the rapid rise of informal settlements. It did not take long for the entire inner city to develop a reputation as a crime-ridden and filthy precinct best to be avoided.

In response, vital renewal efforts by the city took hold throughout the 2000s, with the mandate to implement capital projects that would achieve urban regeneration goals. The initiative included the rehabilitation of historic buildings that had been hijacked or deteriorated, with the goal to create new places of attraction such as museums, restaurants, dance studios, and other cultural and educational facilities that could potentially bring more visitors and investors changing the image of the inner city.

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NEWTOWN

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

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1. Mary Fitzgerald Square (1939) Repaved in 2000 2. Carr St. M1 Interchange 3. Nelson Mandel Bridge (2003, R120 million)

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4. Kippies Jazz Club 5. Metro Mall and Taxi Rank (2003, R100 million)

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6. Brickfields Residential Development (2005)

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7. Potato Sheds

5 8

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8. Market Theatre Precinct (1987) 1

9. Museum Africa (1994) - Previously known as the Market Building (1913-1974) 10. Newtown Park - Previous site to the cooling towers (1937-1985)

19 11

2

10

11. Worker’s Library Museum (1913)

14. Newtown Music 15. Dance Factory 16. Sci-Bono Discovery Centre (1906) 17. World of Beer Museum (1907) 18. South African Reserve Bank (1906-07) 19. First National Bank - Old mine site 20. The Bus Factory 21. Queen Elizabeth Bridge

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18

13 14 15

12. Anglo Gold Ashanti building (1927-1934) 13. Bassline

12

20

16

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The coexistence of “good” and “bad” buildings along with the corresponding socio-cultural groups associated with each type, has resulted in emergent tensions in Newtown and throughout the Inner City. Newtown could be described as a site par excellence where a diversity of individuals and groups are thrown together. A site of possible creative encounters as well as a site of anxieties related to this “throwntogetherness”. A site of anonymity as well as of potentially intense relations. These paradoxes and tensions are all inherently linked to and contribute to the proliferation of differences in urban settings.

These Tensions and Differences, carefully diagrammed using parametric tools, represent an urban condition that is present and felt through different forces that occur at the in-between spaces, the interstices, where different conceptions of the city can be speculated upon in order to produce much more hybrid logics and practices.

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SPACE | PLACE MAKING INSIDE THE “BAD BUILDINGS” Tracking Parasitic Behavior

This project puts forward the agency of vulnerable urban dwellers, recognizing their often harsh living conditions, and analyses how they produce space/place and how their production of space/place contributes to their capacity to survive and to “aspire”. The “Bad Buildings” exist as sites where urban dwellers navigate in order to leverage limited opportunities and to minimize constraints in equally multiple ways.

This encompasses producing space/place in peculiar, often un-institutionalized ways that partially work for them.

The main characteristic of urban dwellers is that they operate without clearly delineated notions of how the city is to be inhabited and used. They often “reterritorialize” parts of the city, using infrastructures, land and public spaces out of their normal or legitimate frameworks of circulation and use. It is highly similar to piracy or slippage in relation to urban spaces: space/place becomes malleable, not fixed in predetermined categories of usages and frameworks of meanings.

Bad buildings are constantly in the (re)making, as their internal spatial organization and their relations to their surroundings shift. Bad buildings can represent a base for economic activities which often do not comply with existing regulations. As a consequence, economic activities participating in the (re)making of bad buildings equally have to remain hidden. Bad buildings thus are sites that are difficult to read. They are inhabited by often invisible populations, performing sometimes invisible activities, while being managed in invisible ways.

This illegibility partially functions vulnerable urban dwellers, allowing them to access housing and economic opportunities in the inner city.

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[PARASITIC] BEHAVIOR

INSIDE THE BAD BUILDINGS

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[HOLLYWOOD]

UP TO 4 MONTHS

UP TO 3 YEARS

UP TO 6 MONTHS

10-12 WEEKS

[NOLLYWOOD]

SEVERAL WEEKS

FLUX ] [INNER IMAGE 1-2 WEEKS

UNDER 2 WEEKS

MINUTES

1-2 WEEKS

A FEW DAYS

LIVE

SECONDS

A FEW WEEKS

THE FUTURE OF IMAGE PRODUCTION | CONSUMPTION Inner Image | Inner Flux

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Architecture by its very nature is speculative. The process of making architecture conceptualizes ideas, typically in the form of delineations that indicate what is possible, what is imaginable for a particular place and time. This project tethers this imaginary potential to the engine of technology in terms of image production and consumption. It speculates on a reality by 2115 A.D. where urban dwellers begin to use their parasitic behavior [hijacking satellite signals] to establish a network of towers that allows immediate sharing and consumption of images. These webs of relations hold the potential of becoming formalized extending beyond both the area in the city where urban dwellers live and the city as a whole slowly changing the role of Bad Buildings as well as the activities that occur inside of them potentially establishing self-sustained communities with economic opportunities.

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INTERIOR DEVELOPMENT

UNDERGROUND EXPANSION

REAR EXPANSION

UPWARD EXPANSION

FRONT EXPANSION

BRIDGE CONDITION

EXPANSION

Parasitic Architecture

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Social Networks and socio-economic activities move beyond boundaries. Due to the necessity by the urban dwellers to be invisible to remain in the city, the proposal speculates on a scenario where the building initially grows from the inside out, becoming much taller as the system becomes accepted or formalized. This creates and argument for a parasitic type of architecture that starts out with a simple scaffolding strategy made with parts that can be easily accessed by urban dwellers eventually becoming much more sophisticated with the potential of expanding beyond its boundaries in all directions including onto adjacent buildings.

[BAD BUILDING] HIJACKING CONDITIONS

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EXCHANGEABLE ROOF PANELS EXTERIOR FRAMEWORK

EXCHANGEABLE WALL PANELS ATTACHMENT PIECES

TRANSMITTERS

METAL GRILL

RECEIVERS

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SCAFFOLDING

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THE FUTURE OF “BAD BUILDINGS” Network of Image Towers

Johannesburg has been imagined to be many things in its short 100-year history. Built over a river of gold, its terrain was initially characterized by exuberant invention and imagination. The brutal dictates of apartheid law implemented in the spatial planning of the twentieth century city and reinforced by a fortress-style architecture imagined a city that was inhabitable only by white citizens who were buffered by zones of colored residents in order to keep black residents peripheral - spatially, politically and economically. Today’s post-apartheid Johannesburg imagines itself as the poster child for the neo-liberal multicultural city whose explosive frictions are arbitrated in the jubilant displays of local pride at global sporting events like the World Cup [2010]. Recently, Johannesburg’s city government imagined and imaged its distinctive skyline as a “World Class African City”, however not everyone was persuaded to believe in the brand.

This project images and imagines Johannesburg’s role and legacy to the World through small manifestations of its own struggles; at the urban scale, but also through image production, at the scale of the individual. The imposing presence of Bad Buildings throughout Johannesburg, creates the possibility of a robust network that is constantly facilitating image production and consumption where each image could be considered a small pixel of a larger much more personal and unique image of the African City.

NETWORK OF PARASITE TOWERS

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INFRASTRUCTURES AND INTERFACES RE-DEFINING PUBLIC SPACES IN CHINATOWN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

IN COLLABORATION WITH DANIELLE GRIFFO CRITICS: DWAYNE OYLER AND JENNY WU with YAOHUA WANG

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CITY AS LINE

Analytical | Interpretive drawing

Lines exist in nearly every form in the city. From the linear entanglement of the freeway systems, to the flows of infrastructure between sites, to the structural systems of individual buildings, there is an inescapable linearity to the urban environment. These lines more often than not, are about connection and extension; continuity is essential to the way they operate. The project takes the position that the city is fundamentally a problem about the density of its urban components, the dialogues between these components, and the comparison and analysis of their resulting urban effects. A visual language was carefully generated by developing a new ‘reading’ of the city as a system of lines as an attempt to translate the characteristics of the site into linework that has the same kind of systematic, yet idiosyncratic legibility as the city itself.

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CITY AS VOLUME

Volumes Under Pressure As architects, much of our programmatic needs result in the seemingly contradictorily form of volumes. Unlike the line based systems, these volumes are typically about enclosure, separation, and containment. This project accepts this duality, recognizes the virtues of both, and seeks to find a dialogue between the two. The interest of the process focused specifically in the intersection [literally and figuratively] of those two systems as a different way of operating on the city. The approach is aimed at promoting the design of infrastructural systems and volumetric enclosures that have a similar set of ambitions. The ambition is that, through this dialogue, there is an activation of the social separation created between the two and the emergence of a new type of public space.

A series of study models explored specific architectural qualities that emerged from the analytical line systems: DENSITY | VOID | ERASURE | ROTATION STUDY MODELS [6”x6”x6”]: Plastic mesh coated with powdered sugar. Piano wire was introduced to control the behavior of the mesh; rubber blocks moving along the wire allowed to measure the intensity of the pressure.

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LINEAR SYSTEMS vs VOLUMETRIC ENCLOSURES Developing a Choreographed Massing Stragegy

The project involves the re-design of the Chinatown Metro Station [Line] in downtown Los Angeles, and the design of a new 30,000 square foot Art Center [Volume]. In this context, the project goes out in search of a more integral approach to the making of the linear systems and volumetric enclosures that typically operate with opposing objectives: one seeking to connect, the other to separate. The approach to this issue did not result in either integration or segregation, but instead in a carefully developed choreography between the two. At this critical intersection of line and volume, the opportunity arises for a tectonic argument to become an urban argument; one that recognizes the profound impact of the architect’s influence at even the smallest scales.

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MASSING MODEL [14”x14”X6”]: 3D printed plastic (PLA)

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TRANSLATING LINEAR LANGUAGE INTO VOLUME Analysis of the Public Intersection

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A1

A2

A3

A4

B1

B2

B3

B4

C1

C2

C3

C4

A5

A6

A7

A8

B5

B6

B7

B8

C5

C6

C7

C8

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POLITICS OF A BIG URBAN SPACE Elements | Effects | Organization

The building acts as a public vessel for art that negotiates a direct relationship to the urban transportation network. It holds the capacity to illustrate an interaction between people and the objects they encounter as they journey from the light rail platform to the ground. Conceived from the circuitous nature of the tracks and roads, the circulation within the framework allows for the coexistence of multiple itineraries and a multi-functional public space. There is no singular way to experience the program; the individual arrives on site from the street or the elevated rail and can choose to proceed directly to their destination or to navigate around the boundary of the property where they encounter an alternative entrance to the galleries. Depending on their orientation on site, a visitor passes through a series of partitions that gradually isolate them from the outside traffic but regardless of their point of entry or destination they are gently guided in a choreographed manner toward the primary structural gesture: The Vortex.

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SECTIONAL MODEL [12”x24”X8”]: 3D printed nylon (SLS)

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SECTIONAL MODEL [12”x24”X8”]: 3D printed nylon (SLS)

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Cities are typically massive, amalgamous entities driven by various forces. While a great number of these forces allow for the influence of the architect, that influence is often offset, diluted, and manipulated into a more palatable version of itself before becoming realized.

This project is interested in the development of urban strategies that recognize an architect’s strengths, and that foreground relationship of urban elements and the resulting urban effect over the clarity of the “urban organization.” It speculates on the idea that the more interesting investigations into the urban problem operate on multiple scales simultaneously, and in many cases, they begin by looking at the city from the inside out.

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URBAN STRATEGY

Inside-Out Urbanism

DN

Los Angeles is a city divided; a society stretched thin across a wide area that is segmented by social and political boundaries. The analytical investigations of the urban field conditions within and around the Chinatown site, formulated a deeper understanding of the complex moiré caused by coincidence and intersection. The initial linear strategies were used to measure and carefully observe the proportional relationships between streets, blocks, and buildings, mapping the places where space was distorted or erased by the density of lines. These discoveries influenced all variables that would come to inform the scale and precision of the design of a new Metro Station and Art Center in Chinatown.

Within this multi-functional space, the Vortex represents the manageable focal urban idea of the project. It is a powerful convergence point, where the roof collapses inward in a waterfall of thin structural elements that pool on the ground, generating ripples that create an urban influence through inhabitable seating. The vortex forms a twisting column of space open to the outside that allows light and air to penetrate the deepest part of the gallery; casting complex shadows across the concave surrounding walls with its intricately woven structure. On the exterior of the building, these same elements swirl across a continuous surface as it winds around and in on itself to create the interior volumes.

The approach of the project assumes that architecture’s greatest potential for affecting the city is in the formation of small-scale perceptual and tectonic ideas aimed at binding the work to a larger urban fabric.

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THE VORTEX CHINATOWN ART CENTER AND METRO STATION The project extends beyond the simple station typology to emphasize the building’s importance as a dynamic, multi-functional public space; not only an intermediate place perceived through quick transitions, but also a dramatic public space for the city.

Connectivity and traffic across the site were translated into a dense system of lines and structured to clearly delineate the pedestrian routes within the building, optimizing internal circulation and avoiding congestion. The resulting configuration is a three-dimensional lattice defined by an array of woven trusses simulating a Vortex [generated from the repetition and frequency of the station’s daily pedestrian and train traffic flows). The Vortex acts as the spine for the building’s circulation but its framework continues to weave through the station’s envelope making it strictly affiliated to its internal layout, translating the architectural concept to the exterior. Visually and experientially, the project represents a line-driven architectural language that presents itself as a new type of public space for Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles.