Minquan Wang Selected Works 2018

Minquan WANGÂ

Selected works 2010-2018

Minquan Wang

B.Arch 2014, M.Arch 2016, Tsinghua University Post-Pro M.Arch Candidate, Yale School of Architecture

Spatializing The Non-Architectural Giuseppe Terragni’s Danteum took The Divine Comedy as its reference. The building brings visitors into Dante’s mythical trip through Inferno, Purgatory, and Heaven with pure geometry. This is an exemplary project showing how architecture can reflect something else without giving up on its own vocabulary.

My study has been a struggle between architecture's disciplinary core and external engagements. Today, it would be only bizarre and backpedaling to think that architecture should indulge in autonomy and wall itself off from larger social narratives. However, horrified by the prospect of the entire profession dissolving into technologies, sustainabilities, humanist patronizing, and politics, I cannot help but echo Peter Eisenman's lament that "We are still in architecture after all".

I rejoice at a cross-disciplinary architecture. But I would argue that architecture's cross-disciplinary engagements can only be potent to the extent that their agendas can be spatialized. Therefore, how the nonarchitectural problems can be distilled into protocols of space and form, became my particular interest.

That's what sent me on the bumpy journey leading to these works.

[01] Détournement of Allure

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Designing the GAME

Miami Beach Oceanfront Development

[02] THE SUN ALSO RISES

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Translating NARRATIVE

Museum for a Film

[03] EASY OFFICE

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Formalizing ABSTRACTIONS

Culver City Concept Art Studio

[04] UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

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Programming SCENES

Tsinghua X-Lab Institutional Building

[05]

IMPRINT OF SOUND

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Analogizing SENSATION

Interactive Installation

[06] CONTENTIOUS CITY

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Reconciling SOCIAL INTERESTS

Gloucester Harbour Urban Renewal Plan

[07]

BLUE HORIZON ESTATE

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Atelier Li Xinggang

OTHER WORKS

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DÉTOURNEMENT OF ALLURE Designing the GAME

[01]

YSOA Advanced Design Studio Instructors: Emre Arolat, Gonca Paşolar, Kyle Dugdale Partner: Istvan van Vianen Fall 2017

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YSOA Feldman Prize 2018 Nominee Site Location: Miami Beach, FL, US

Miami Beach Oceanfront Urban Development Miami Beach is among the ultimate tourism destinations in the US. The city has been remembered and fantasized for its seashores, bars, clubs, and tropical flair. What underlies all these tokens of Miaminess is its vibrant social life. However, consumerist developments have been gnawing at social life on the beach. Profit drives developers erect privatized luxury hotels and condos, chopping the beachfront into fenced bubbles. Since contributing to the urban life goes against their privilege and profit, beachfront developments are increasingly disengaged from the city.

The most pertinent challenge in our face is not to design good architectures with high quality urban spaces, but to ensure such spaces are respected and maintained as they are intended to by the owners. In other words: can we design a game in which publicness is anchored at the core of profitability, thus invite beachfront developments to play along?

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MIAMI BEACH: Paradise Lost of Public Life?

Miaminess means getting socialized.

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While the beach is the most striking icon of Miaminess, the current beachfront developments, mostly luxury hotels and condominiums, work against Miami Beach's public nature. They seclude the beachfront, erect walls against the city, and chew into the sand with hedges and fences. The beach has become the city's last defense of public life, side by side with the most concentrated band of consumerist privatization.

Voluntary Prisoners of Beachfront Hotels Self righteous developments transformed the beachfront into a heterotopic landscape. While people pay for rooms to enjoy Miami Beach, they venture into the city for social life, even when the Miaminess they are after is right outside. Within the invisible walls of social isolation, they became voluntary prisoners in their paid cells.

Why build up walls and look out for fun...

...When we can party at home?

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Preserve Two types of existing buildings are preserved: a. Registered historical heritage. b. Recently built high FAR buildings.

Public Program Public Circulation Street

Insert Public programs are inserted into individual blocks.

A continuous circulation penetrates from the street, connect public programs, and reaches the Halo.

Unite The Halo's programs attract the public. To share its extra visitors, hotel owners have to keep public zone open. Profitability keeps them cooperative.

The Halo

The Halo is a circular structure unifying six blocks. While being designed as a whole, the mix-use hotels are handed to individual property owners and operate independently, whereas the Halo is managed by a third-party public agency.

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EMBRACE THE GAME Instead of fighting Miami's beachfront development pattern, the project works with it.

Five mix-use hotel blocks each is an islands of varying tastes and lifestyles, manifesting the will of individual owners, whereas the Halo bridges them to achieve a unified gesture and experience. The sixth block, a former parking lot, is transformed as a performance park joining the Halo.

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Public Flow Ramps, stairs, escalators, and elevators lead people from the street all the way on to the podiums of hotel blocks, and further up to meet the Halo. Program attractors (retails, amenities, etc.) are spread along to keep the flow pumping.

Exhibition Hall Auditorium

Outdoor Theatre

Halo-Hotel Joints The Halo has its stand-alone program attractors to establish its own presence, not necessarily relying on the hotels.

While the public program attractors of the hotels are profit-driven, the Halo carries three non-profit driven show spaces. They are managed by the Halo's stewarding agency and cater to non-profit driven public events, such as lectures, talks, exhibitions, etc.

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On-Site Exploded View Each hotel block is designed with a cascading podium bringing pedestrian onto its top, and one or multiple guest-room towers elevated above.

2 10

The Halo is broken into several segments on different heights to fit itself onto the site, but the circulation maintains continuous.

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2

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1. Hotel Podium 2. Hotel Guest-Rooms 3. Performance Park 4. Beachfront Pool 5. Outdoor Theatre

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6. Atlantics Hotel 7. Casa Faena 8. Faena Versailles Classic 9. King David Tower 10. Beach House 8 11. Halo Service Shaft 12. Halo Multi-Functional 13. Halo Auditorium 14. Halo Exhibition Hall

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GROUND FLOOR: CONSUMERIST HETEROTOPIAS

The podiums contain most of the hotels' public programs (reception, retail, amenities, etc.). These are fully managed and operated on an individual basis, and configured to aim at commercial interest. From the ground floor, the project almost fully comply to the current model of development on the beachfront: profit driven consumerist heterotopias independently run by hotel owners.

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HALO: NEUTRAL UNIFICATION

The Halo unifies the individually operating hotels with neutral urban leisure spaces and show spaces managed by a non profit driven third party agency. The Halo's neutrality, reinforced by the performance park offering its independent access & program attractor, facilitates a steady public flow, making sure that cooperating with the Halo scheme stay lucrative to property owners. Public life is thus anchored at the center of profitability.

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Show The Visitors... And The City!

All the show spaces on the Halo are designed with maximum transparency. They are meant to show not only to the visitors within, but also to the city. Even though the content of the shows are not always visible to the people on the street due to distance, a vibrant backdrop with the awareness of "something is up" is enough to lure people in.

The entrance of the performance park sits on the focal point of the Halo. An outdoor theatre allows people to walk up onto the Halo as they enjoy performance events of the city, 16

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THE SUN ALSO RISES Translating NARRATIVE

[02]

Personal Work No Instructors Partner: Xiyao Wang Summer 2015

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Site Location: Kunming, Yunnan, China

Museum for a Film This project investigates the linguistic nature of space to tell a story. It exploits the interactivity of space to expand the narrative into the reciprocity between the narrator and the viewer, and challenges it with open readings.

A museum is proposed based on the film The Sun Also Rises by Wen Jiang. The Sun Also Rises unfolds with a non-linear narrative encompassing four sub-stories weaved between multiple characters. The director plays with misplaced timelines, tangling events, and illusions of causality. The film montages the story into a myth. Taking a structuralist point of view, this project embarks on a pure spatial abstraction of the movie’s narrative structure rather than its specific plots. The movie’s key scenes and narrative structure are translated into four spatial prototypes and two lines upon which the museum is developed. Visitors flicker between participants and spectators, thereby interpret the story through their own lenses.

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NARRATIVE

I. 2

EPISODE I. [MADNESS]

Scene 1: Mad Mom

Li

II. 1

Li found a CAVE mom built for him, set up like a marriage house, containing things she broke back home. The cave somehow speaks of the cause of her mom’s hysteria. Upon Li’s return, mom went missing.

After losing her shoes, Li’s mom lost her sanity and did crazy things around the village. In his futile attempt to make sense of mom’s behaviors, Li encountered only more ABSURDITY.

Liang is a teacher. He was mistaken as a perver and caught in escape. His friend Tang, his secre admirer Lin, and a strange woman gave him three confessions. They were trying to help, ye they made the event even more COMPLICATED.

Scene 2: The Cave House

deal with abacus

items

mug

Mom build

CAVE

mirror

mad acts

look for

picture frame find

lost

led by Friends & Admirers

Tang

Lin

Movie Party harass

C1

pervert

SOUTHERN CHINA, SUMMER 1976

EPISODE III. [GUN]

Staff

taken as

porcelain

Tang

Scene 3: Confessio

Liang

EPISODE II. [LOVE]

I. 1

C2

Stra Wom

C3

Confessions

EASTERN CHINA, SUMMER 1976

husband & wife

Scene 6: Affair

Scene 7: Tang's Struggle

Scene 8: Tang's Choic

Emotions

sexual encounter anger

shame sense

friend

Forgive

labor reform

Village

seduce

CAVE supervise

CHOICE visit

Beijing peek

Revenge

SOUTHERN CHINA, AUTUMN 1976

Tang was transfered to Li’s village with his wife to be reformed through labor. His wife showed unusual interests in Li. One day Tang found his wife in bed with Li in the CAVE built by his mad mom.

III. 1

Tang was infuriated, yet his sense prevented him from revenge. In such a PERPLEXITY he left the village and sought for help from a friend in Beijing.

III. 2

Tang realized that it was his faul to have treated his wife coldly. H planned to spare Li, but Li kep irrigating him unintentionally Tang was faced with the hard CHOICE between letting go o revenge.

III. 3

MOVIE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: 11 SCENES, 4 EPISODES, 4 PROTOTYPES, 2 LINES Eleven key scenes are selected to summarize the movie. They are grouped in four episodes, namely “Madness”, “Love”, “Gun”, and “Dream” in sequence, as the director himself named them. Each scene speaks of a situation in which the protagonists are placed. The eleven key scenes are thus categorized into four prototypes as “Shelter”, “Maze”, “Divergence”, and “Destination”. They allude to spatial conditions and provide a base for further translation.

The two lines linking the scenes are then mapped and compared. The Timeline follows the real time sequence of the story, reflecting the logics and causality of events. However, the movie itself tells the story by the Narrative Line, deliberately rearranging the events to construct a myth.

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rt et m et .

SHELTER

II. 2

II. 3

Amid the inquisitions, testimonials, and the stressful personal relationships, Liang melted down. He was eventually acquitted with an OPTION to write off everything and return to norm.

ons

However, traumatized by the system and the people around him, Liang ENDED his life. He hung himself under a colonnade.

Before suicide he gave his gun to Tang.

Scene 4: Liang's Decision

Cadre

MAZE

Scene 5: Suicide

Let go

Live on

Persist

Suicide

DIVERGENCE

aquit

CHOICE

ange man

lt He pt y. d or

EPISODE IV. [DREAM]

e

Reconcile

Kill

Scene 10: Two Girls At Crossroad

Scene 11: Finite

Li's mom Path1

travel together

Infidelity

FIN

CHOICE

Path2

Marriage

Tang wife

WESTERN CHINA, WINTER 1958

Tang’s anger exploded after all. He pointed his gun at Li and pulled the trigger. Their fates were CONCLUDED.

III. 4

I. [MADNESS]

III. [GUN]

TIME

e

Scene 9: Revenge

FIN

ce

DESTINATION

Time rewinds. Li’s mother and Tang’s wife were in their youth, traveling together for different causes. Li’s mother, already pregnant, was going for the remains of her dead lover, while Tang’s wife was heading to her marriage. Their road came to a DIVERGENCE.

IV. 1

II. [LOVE]

The two girls reached different ENDS. From the remains, Li’s mother found evidence of her lover’s infidelity, while Tang’s wife was greeted

by Tang and Liang with wild celebrations...

IV. 2

NARRATIVE LINE

IV. [DREAM]

TIMELINE

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SHELTER

MAZE

DIVERGENCE

DESTINATION

ABSTRACTION

TRANSLATION

PRIVILEGED VIEW TIMELINE

IMMERSED VIEW NARRATIVE LINE

SPATIAL TRANSLATION Each plot abstraction is translated into a spatial prototype, and developed into a twofold:

The lower part is an IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT in which visitors play the roles of the movie character. Overwhelmed by immediate perceptions, they experience the story arranged by the NARRATIVE LINE. The upper part provides a review of the scenes from a PRIVILEGED VIEW. This time they become distanced observers while other visitors lingering in the lower part become their subjects. Plots follow the TIMELINE to clarify the events.

ISOLATED SCENES 22

PRIVILEGED VIEW

IMMERSED VIEW

I. 1/SHELTER

Bowls, vases, pots,photo frame, and my abacus...All those things mom broke back at home! And this marriage bed...Did mom build this cave?

III. 3/DIVERGENCE

Our paths separate here!

LEAVE ME ALONE!!! ......

II. 1/MAZE

III. 4/DESTINATION

Where is my choice leading me to...?

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MAIN HALL

SESSION 2

SESSION 4

REDIRECTIONS

SESSION 1 SESSION 3

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I. MADNESS

I. 1-MAZE Li walks into a maze, its circuitous passage reflects the absurdity placed onto his life.

I. 2-SHELTER After a dark, uneasy passage, Li enters a huge spheric space. A bridge leads him to its center, where the niches around come into sight. From the objects within he realizes that this cave-like house is set up for him by his mom with everything she broke into pieces at home.

A narrow light beam from the top renders the cave as warm and secure.

II. 1-MAZE II. LOVE

Chased by many, Liang enters a narrow ramp. After an abrupt turn he examines the confessions of Tang, Lin, and a strange woman in three repeated rooms.

II. 2-DIVERGENCE Liang comes to a crossroad with two options. The tiring but gentle one: returning to normality through a staircase. The quick but hard one: ending his life by descending from a cliff.

II. 3-DESITINATION Each road leads to a chamber with a small enclosure inside, where Liang’s chosen destiny is revealed to him.

III. GUN FACADE

III. 1-SHELTER Tang peeks from the small opening at the bottom of the spheric cave. From the image inside he finds his wife in bed with Li. The oppressive surface adds to his anger.

III. 2-MAZE Caught between sense and anger, Tang left. In the circuitous maze he gets even more confused.

III. 3-DIVERGENCE Tang can choose the hard road to forgive Li by taking the long open ramp. He can also take the straight but gloomy path to kill him.

III. 4-DESTINATION

IV. DREAM

Whatever his choice is, the consequence awaits in a small room within the next chamber.

IV. 1-DIVERGENCE Traveling together, Li’s mom is going for her lover’s remains, while Tang’s wife is heading to her marriage. They reach a crossroad.

IV. 2-DESTINATION In a small dark cone, Li’s mom finds the evidence of her lover’s infidelity.

Meanwhile, in an expanding, skylit room, Tang’s fiancée is greeted by Tang with ecstasy.

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CHAMBER OF REDIRECTION Paragraphing II

I

Observation Point IV

Exhibition Hall

Chamber of Redirection

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III

PARAGRAPHING & REDIRECTION The Chamber of Redirection is where visitors’ routes are recoordinated to the sequence of the Timeline.

Bridges reach out of the chamber into the main exhibition sessions, cutting the scenes through, forming mezzanine-like observation points.

The observation areas also serve a “paragraphing” function in the museum’s spatial syntax. They separate scenes to create a sense of articulation and prepares passing visitors for the transition ahead.

GEOMETRY Grid, golden section, & primitives.

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SESSION 2 [LOVE]

IMMERSED VIEW PRIVILEGED VIEW

SESSION 1 [MADNESS]

SESSION 1 [DREAM]

IMMERSED VIEW PRIVILEGED VIEW

SESSION 3 [GUN]

NARRATIVE LINE I-II-III-IV

TIMELINE IV-I-II-III

DUAL EXPERIENCE: TIME AND NARRATIVE

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Visitors experience the museum twice. During the first tour, as directed by the Narrative Line, visitors take the roles of movie characters, bringing themselves into the plots and lost in the intense narrative. Upon finishing the first tour, they are led to the second tour as per the Timeline to review the story. This time they gain a privileged view of the circumstances they were set in moments ago, with other visitors still in their first tour putting up the "play". The dual experience facilitates a dialogue between "actors" and "spectators", allowing visitors to construct their own story.

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F4 PLAN 29

SECTION a-a

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SECTION b-b

SECTION c-c

SECTION d-d

SECTI

ION e-e

SECTION f-f

SECTION g-g

SECTION h-h

SECTION i-i

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EASY OFFICE Formalizing ABSTRACTIONS

[03]

YSOA Advanced Design Studio: Pita & Bloom Instructors: Florencia Pita, Jackilin Hah Bloom, Miroslava Brooks Individual Work Spring 2018

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Site Location: Los Angeles, CA, US

Culver City Concept Art Studio In the documentary Brillo Box (3¢ Off), when Andy Warhol is asked why he turned a common Brillo box into sculpture, he casually responded “because it’s easy to do”. Appropriation yields irony which is easily interpreted, but is paradoxically difficult to attain without an alignment of particular social, economic and cultural forces at play.

This studio investigated appropriation, misinterpretation, and abstraction as tools to generate formal agendas in the adaptive reuse of a warehouse building in Culver City into an Easy Office. Students were asked to hunt everyday items and curate them into a collection to express their sensibilities and obsessions, and convey it through collages. They then compressed the collection of objects into well thought ensembles, and dematerialized them with vacuum-forming. As levels of abstraction goes up, a formal agenda was extracted from each student's work, which was ultimated transposed into an office interior.

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Object Collection The studio initiated with collections of daily items to express a viewpoint, a sensibility or an obsession. My collection focused on streamlined industrial product with highly specific forms.

The sharpness, linearity and hinge in these objects implied a tension between connection and exclusivity.

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2D Collage The images of the objects were then composed into collages to inform a formal agenda. The collages here stitched together disparate objects following their intrinsic formal logic, forming a mechanical Frankenstein, where the individual objects fade away into a new collectivity.

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3D Collage + Vacuum Form Ideas gathered from the collages were implemented with real objects. The flattened silhouette as an approximation of original objects were actualized with felts. The 3d collage models were sent under vacuum forming. The result further defamiliarized the daily objects by compressing them into a dematerialized aggregation.

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Items from Initial Collection

Formal Statement This abstraction drawing, based on the tracings from the vacuum forms, is the distillment of the formal statement: the dialectics between constitute parts and a cohesive whole. The illusionistic manipulation of outlines and overlays opens up intentional misinterpretation of their 3-dimensionality, guiding the next stage of work.

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Developed Surface Drawing

Drawing for Misinterpretation

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The developed surface drawing transposes the formal techniques from the previous iterations onto an architectural site. Item collections from the site were added to the initial collections, and together composed onto the unfolded interior surface of a warehouse. This results in a "technical drawing done wrong". In trying to make sense of the paradoxical readings, geometric mutations were made.

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.00 00 77

Site Elements Collection + Initial Collection

Defamiliarizing the Objects The tracings of the collected objects were manipulated to disrupt their readings. Lines were taken and misplaced, making their geometries ambivalent, but still hinting the original forms. The linework eventually becomes neither recognizable figures nor completely meaningless abstractions, leaving the viewer hesitant to make an identification.

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A

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Ground Floor Plan

Spatializing in "2.5D" The developed surface drawing is built into an actual building in "2.5D". Against the drawing convention of generating 2D as the reduction from 3D, 3D forms here are constructed from a 2D drawing that implies a range of 3-dimensionalities without prescribing a fixed end. The formal statement is thus concretized into an office statement with spatial and programmatic agency.

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B

Section A-A

Section B-B

Section C-C

Office Statement The Easy Office project experiment materializes as a next-gen concept art studio in which both spatial specificity and synchronized action are allowed. It has two elements: 1. Figures: taken from the collection, defamiliarized into individual work spheres, each imposing an organizational order.

2. Approximations: occupiable surfaces approximated from the figures, non-autonomous and reliant on them take shape, either carrying an figure to extend its identity or cover one to obscure it, becoming the intermediate zone between various work spheres.

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Office Statement Cont'd T h e p l ay b e t we e n t h e f i g u re s a n d t h e approximations results in a versatile field that flickers between identifiable forms and fluid aggregations. Small squads of conceptual artists or freelancers find their temporary niches by their preferences and constantly shuffle as projects proceed.

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UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER Programming SCENES

[04]

Tsinghua School of Arch Undergrad Core Studio Instructors: Xiaoxi Cheng Individual Work Spring 2012

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Site Location: Beijing, China

Tsinghua X-Lab Institutional Building X-lab, an education platform in Tsinghua University, is wired with a maker culture with cross-disciplinary cooperations. The Lab gathers students from various backgrounds, encourages them collect fresh ideas emerging from campus life, and forge them into start-up success.

This project argues that in workplaces such as X-Lab that call for an insight into daily life, the need to step outside the boundaries set by professionals themselves overweighs internal compactness. To bring up interactions between the workplace and the campus, this project questions the cliche of visual transparency and direct accessibility with a radical programming model. Enclosed research spaces and open public terrains are juxtaposed, forming a sandwich section. Connections between each of the two series of programs are brought in to create intersections, thus lead to moments of encounters.

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PROGRAMMING STRATEGY

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LONGITUDINAL SECTION 48

BASIC MOVES PROGRAM INFILL

volume

public

Private

square & skating

auditorium & cafe

exhibition

enclosed programs

vertical connection

public intersection 1

private intersection 1

private intersection 2

public intersection 2

private intersection 3

public intersection 3

intersections compiled

INTERSECTIONS

site

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LAYOUT DEVELOPMENT

The previous manipulation method is applied to reach a sandwiching program layout between private programs within the Lab and the public terrains. The prototypes of the intersection spaces are then integrated into the generation process. They are further shaped in their interactions with specific requirements of circulation and function.

Faculty & Research 3500 sqm-20%

Archive of Student Work

d

Archive of Student’s work: 1330 sqm Meeting & Research: 900 sqm Open Library: 700 sqm Office: 530 sqm

Library

Terrain Exhibition 1420 sqm-08%

Archive Terrain: 180 sqm Terrain: 1240 sqm

d

c

Business Sector

1250sqm-07%

c

Open Discussion: 420 sqm Workplace: 250 sqm

Discussion Space Workplace

Auditorium & Cafe 1800 sqm-10%

Forum: 485 sqm Cafe: 420 sqm Cafe Open Seats: 245 sqm Terrain: 650 sqm

b

Auditorium Review & Exhibition

Design Sector

2750 sqm-16%

Studio: 1350 sqm Review & Exhibition: 830 sqm Auditorium: 320 sqm

a

Skating Field

b

Studio Workshop

2300 sqm-12%

Skating Field: 1000 sqm Terrain: 1300 sqm a

Engineering Sector

Research & Meeting

4600 sqm-26%

Workplace: 400 sqm Exhibition: 800 sqm Workshop: 600 sqm Office & Meeting: 540 sqm Logistics & Auxiliary: 700 sqm

PROFESSIONALS

PUBLIC

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Vertical Connections

Finally at the top. This floor is mainly occupied by faculty.

Also there’s a library.

Wow! So this is what the glass prisms are really for. I can see them working down there.

d. library

The archive got split in two by a roof terrain here. There’s an exhibition going on.

c. terrain exhibition

A man’s giving a speech down there. The archive of our work is right above his head.

d. light wells

c. discussion space

b. outdoor auditorium

b. lounge

a. skating field

a. studio

Look, there’s a skating field right outside our workshop!

Wanna have a try?

d

c

library terrain exhibition

a a

b

skating field

SCENES FOR PROFESSIONALS

Wow! A nice place under the auditorium. Guess we can leave the speech for a while...

Seems like a design studio. A review’s in session! Let’s take a closer look!

light wells discussion

d c

outdoor auditorium

b

The escalator passes through the floor for the business students.

Hmmm, a discussion space.

lounge/exhibition studio

SCENES FOR THE PUBLIC

The intersection scenes for students/professionals bring them into the public terrains, while those for the public lead them into the Lab. The paths for both diverge into an unfamiliar zone.

CIRCULATION / SCENE

left: studio level uncovered right: faculty level uncovered

The circulations of the public and the students/professionals within the Lab are both strictly controlled based on the previous spatial model.

The two user groups each has a continuous circulation, allowing them to travel between various programs unimpededly. Yet each of the two circulations diverges into the other’s programs when intersecting with them, creating disruptions and divergences in the user’s original experience.

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A WELCOMING STRONGHOLD The gaps between private programs, transformed into public grounds, allow daily life to infiltrate. However, against the cliche of visual transparency, the private programs themselves are deliberately designed as a stronghold, covered in a perforated metal skin with minor openings.

These intentions act as an metaphor of the self isolation of professionals and geeks within the campus of Tsinghua. They also express the ambition of remixing the daily and the academic not through visual appearance but through programming and spatial organization.

SECTION VAR

The gaps and voids resulting in a vac the project show private programs a 52

RIATIONS

s varies both horizontally and vertically, cillating experience. The sections of a continuous shift between enclosed, and open, public terraces.

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5m

10m

20m

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

5th FLOOR PLAN

6th FLOOR PLAN

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IMPRINT OF SOUND Analogizing SENSATION

[05]

Tsinghua School of Arch Installation Workshop Advisor: Lei Yu Partners: Le Li, Lu Zhang, Xiyao Wang, Yi Xu, Zijian Wang Summer 2013

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Digital Shanghai Exhibition

Site Location: N/A

Interactive Installation Sound is powerful, but intangible. Technologies can easily break sound down into digits and bring it back into waves and patterns, but the dry digital images they produce are nothing compared to the charm of actual sensory perception. Can sound be captured in images without disenchanting it?

This interactive installation proposes an engaging way of visualizing sound with physical images. An drawing machine, driven by motors and controlled by a terminal that receives and processes sound inputs through wireless sensors, produces eye-catching drawings at the tip of a pencil. The properties of these real-time signals, in relation with human behaviors, are translated into motion parameters, thus projected onto a continuously-evolving trace. The installation catches the slightest fluctuations in sound environments, thereby re-enchants the daily phenomenon of sound in a provocative way.

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Interplay Between Sound Sources The installation receives sound inputs via two remote sensors, which can be placed at different locations. The installation’s two processing modules, each linked to a rotating disk, modulate the drawing hand’s movement according to wireless signals from sensors. The interplay of the two sound sources therefore produce ever-shifting images.

Volume

Duration

Weight

Weight

Periodicity

Attractor

Volume

Deformation

Programming Diagram The sound inputs from remote sensors are analyzed in their properties (volume and duration). These properties, in addition to a manually evaluated weight factor (representing the importance of the detected area), are the independent variables for the processing modules. Each module then uses an algorithm to calculate them into motion parameters of the corresponding disk. The disks move independently while controlling the drawing hand together, thus influence the final curve shaping in synergy.

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Duration

Source1

Processor Module2

Module1

Disks Curve

Source2

INPUT Real-time Volume

Average Volume

Source Weight

Combined

Disk Velocity

Platform Location

Gear Ratio

Synergy

Periodicity

Attractor Location

Curve Deformation

Multi Features

OUTPUT Variable Control Three independent variables are collected from sound sources: The real-time volume, the average volume, and the source’s weight. They are related to the machine’s three parameters: the velocity of the disk’s rotation, the platform’s location on its axis, and the gear ratio. Ultimately, they together influence the shaping of the curve produced. The combination of multiple factors lead to unpredicted curve results.

Equal Velocities

Reduced Distance

v1=10°/step v2=10°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=1000

v1=10°/step v2=7.9°/step x1=-170 x2=170 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=3000

Varied Velocities

Increased Distance

v1=10°/step v2=7.5°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=1000

v1=10°/step v2=7.9°/step x1=-220 x2=220 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=3000

Varied Velocities

One Disk Moving

340mm

|v|=0.1/(1.002^t)

v1=10°/step v2=7.75°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=1000

v1=10°/step v2=7.9°/step x1=-170-0.09/(1.001^t) x2=170 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=3000

Increasing Velocity

Both Disks Moving

v1=10°/step v2=[10-2.5/(1.004^t)]°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=2000

440mm

|v|=0.2/(1.001^t)

v1=10°/step v2=7.9°/step x1=-170-0.19/(1.001^i) x2=170-0.10(1.001^i) g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=3000

|v|=0.1/(1.001^t)

Equal Ratio

Equal Velocities

v1=7.9°/step v2=10°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=3000

v1=10°/step v2=[10 - 2.5 / (1.0025 ^ i)]°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=1 g2=5 timesteps=2000

Varied Ratio

Velocity+Disk Location

v1=7.9°/step v2=10°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=3 timesteps=3000

v1=10°/step v2=[10 - 2.5 / (1.0025 ^ i)]°/step x1=-200-0.06t x2=200-0.02t g1=5 g2=5 timesteps=2000

Varied Ratio

Disk Location+Ratio

v1=7.9°/step v2=10°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=2 timesteps=1000

v1=10°/step v2=5.97°/step x1=-200-0.06t x2=200-0.02t g1=1 g2=5 timesteps=2000

Varied Ratio

Velocity+Motion+Ratio

v1=7.9°/step v2=10°/step x1=-200 x2=200 g1=5 g2=1 timesteps=1000

v1=10°/step v2=[10 - 2.5 / (1.0025 ^ i)]°/step x1=-200-0.06t x2=200-0.02t g1=1 g2=5 timesteps=2000

Output Simulation Before deploying the installation to real-life situations, a series of digital simulations using rhinoscript were conducted to test the program’s feasibility. Please consider them in comparison to the variables above.

Mathematical functions were used to simulate the changing sound environments (which proved to be more random in actual environments). The tests follow the variable control method and thus reveals the link between each pair of installation parameters and curve features.

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Installation Production The installation is made of laser-cut acrylic sheets, common CNC components, and hardwares. Digital control is based on Arduino, while remote signal exchange is achieved with zig-bee.

The motion mechanism mainly relies on two sets of step motors, one responsible for the rotation of disks, the other for the locomotion of sliding platforms. The disks are assembled using simple hardware connections. The sliding platforms utilize a combination of rod rails and lead screws. The gear is manually adjusted.

Hub

Arduino Board

Disk

M8

M3

Sliding Platform M4 Lead Screw Nut Lead Screw

Slide Bearing Rod Rod Support

Spring

Acrylic Rod

60

Coupling M3

B

M3

M10

Pencil

M3

Drawing Hand

Drawing Desk

Acrylic Rod

Spring

Hand Pivot

8mm MDF M3

Bearing Support

Coupling

Motor Support

Step Motor

M4

Chassis 61

CONTENTIOUS CITY Reconciling SOCIAL INTERESTS

[06]

YSOA Post-Pro Design Studio Instructors: Edward Mitchell, Aniket Shahane Partner: Istvan van Vianen

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YSOA H.I. Feldman Prize 2017 Recipient Site Location: Gloucester, MA, US

Gloucester Harbour Urban Renewal Plan The historic identity of Gloucester, a once renowned New England marine town, is under siege. Global capital is challenging its deeprooted sense of place while ruthless tourism development rapidly erases local fishing traditions. Rather than forced preservation that inevitably turns the city into a cultural fossil, this plan establishes the Gloucester Maritime Trade Campus as an anchor institution to empower Gloucester with social, economic and political impetus to firmly reinvigorate its identity.

The GMTC reshapes the shoreline with key nodes fusing traditional activities (fishing, logistics operations, boat crafting, and ship maintenance) with novel curatorial/educational practice. It brokers a zero-sum game between tourists, the local maritime community, business development and working class professionals. The resultant social adjacencies are never perfectly smooth, yet strives for a subtle equilibrium, preventing any single interest group from taking over.

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BLUE HORIZON ESTATE Atelier Li Xinggang

[07]

Professional Work 10/2015-04/2016 SD/DD/CD

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Site Location: Haikou, Hainan, China

Haikou City Residence Development Blue Horizon Estate is a commissioned project by BHG to Atelier Li Xinggang. The project is located in Haikou old town on Hainan Island, the southernmost corner of China. The client identified the residence as resort-oriented, and intended to capitalize on the island's scenic landscape. The project team thus embarked on a strategic placement of sculptural forms that not only orchestrate the views towards local landmarks, but also borrows from traditional Chinese garden making to shape the buildings themselves as beheld scenes. Each tower culminates with a "rooftop mansion", a specialized unit with autonomous layout, as the finishing touch of the garden analog.

In my six-month internship, I assisted in the development of the residence podium & tower with drawing and 3d modeling, and developed the rooftop mansions alone. The residence was in the process of construction document production when I left the team.

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Viewing and Being Viewed The residence towers are positioned in a cascading sequence to accentuate landscape focal points and maximize views. The residence towers borrow shapes from traditional rockery ("fake mountains"), while the rooftop mansions complete their narrative as a miniature landscape in which man dwell.

The residences and the hotel were designed as a coherent group, not only in that they work together to construct a picturesque form, but also in that they spectacularize each other.

Viewing and being viewed, are in constant conversion as people behold, visit, and dwell.

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Apt #1 Elevations

Apt #2 Elevations

Apt #4 Elevations

Apt #5 Elevations 91

RESIDENCE EXPLODED 92

Residence #1 Plan: F16.5

Residence #1 Plan: F16

Residence #1 Plan: F15

ROOFTOP MANSIONS The rooftop mansions are dependent on the residence towers in circulation, but have autonomous plans. It is comparable to a penthouse, but closer to a courtyard house space-wise. A one-story tall structure layer releases its plan layout from the tower.

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RESIDENCE SECTION 94

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OTHER WORKS [Thamrin Nine] Kohn Pedersen Fox NY Professional Work 06/2018-08/2018 SD

A supertall mix-use project in Jakarta, Indonesia with two towers and a podium.

During my internship, Tower 1 was under construction, Tower 2 was in DD, while the podium was in SD. I worked on the accurate 3d modeling of the podium and its facade development.

I also updated the 3d-model of Tower 1 and Tower 2 for drawing consistency and assisted in their drawing revisions.

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TOWER 1 TOWER 2

PODIUM

Podium Isometric

Podium Wall Types 97

OTHER WORKS

[Capital Cemetery Complex] Personal Work No Instructors Partners: Xudong Sun, Zijian Wang 2014 Summer Site Location: Beijing, China

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The Capital Cemetery Complex houses Beijing's deceased from 1935 to 2050. It archives the ashes, personal belongings, and citizen profiles of Beijing citizens as a re-imagination of the city's zeitgeist. The cemetery tells nothing beyond people's actual images. Sitting right next to the Ancestral Temple and the Imperial Archive, it protests against Beijing's authoritarian historical narrative.

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OTHER WORKS

[2022 Winter Olympic Village] Tsinghua School of Arch Grad Option Studio Instructors: Li Zhang, Jian Liu Individual Work 2015 Spring Site Location: Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China

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The accommodation cluster for 2022 Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic, to be transformed into a resort after the games. The project focuses on the dialogue between the resort and the fields, proposing an agri-tourism lifestyle. A density gradient is created from the northern boundary to the fields, structuring a hierarchy of spaces ranging from collective living to individualistic meditation.

[Pop-Up Shop]

(Photo credit: Eric Powell)

Tsinghua School of Arch Undergrad Option Studio Instructors: Terrence Curry Partners: Changyue Liu, Hui Zhou, Shiyang Lv, Tianyu Yang, Zijian Wang 2013 Spring Second Prize, 2013 Hafele Pop-Up Shop Competition

(Photo credit: Eric Powell)

The Pop-up Shop project responds to the challenge of mobility and capacity with a multi-folded transformable model. All components and merchandises are self-contained in the shop. Customized composite panels were fabricated to reconcile structural performance and aesthetics. The design, sourcing of materials, and fabrication through out were independently completed by the student team.

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OTHER WORKS [San Carlo Unfolded] Rome: Continuity & Change, Fall 2016 Critics: G. Knight, M. Brooks, S. Harby, K. Dugdale Individual Work 2018 Summer

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This drawing stitches together multiple views of San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane into one. It formulates a spatial narrative that flickers between up and down, in and out, rationalized construction and experiential survey.

[Paperfold] YSOA Computation Analysis Fabrication Instructor: John Eberhart Individual Work 2016 Fall

The assignment is based on paper-folding as a investigatory tool to explore form making. This project proposed a self-adapting paneling model that spontaneously fit onto deformed hexagonal grids.

[Casting The Fluid] YSOA Custom Crafted Component Instructor: Kevin Rotheroe Individual Work 2017 Fall

This project initiated with acrylic pouring art. The resulted images were scanned, traced, and modeled in the digital space. The digital model was then 3D printed into molds and ultimately casted into a customized concrete wall panel as the final deliverable.

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Minquan WANG 84 Howe Street Apt 609 New Haven, CT 06511 203-508-4375 minquan.wang@yale.edu

EDUCATION Yale University School of Architecture Post-Pro Master of Architecture Candidate

School of Architecture, Tsinghua University Master of Architecture Bachelor of Architecture

08/2016-12/2018 Available for Work: 02/18/2019

HONORS & AWARDS Nominee Recipient Recipient Recipient Honorable Mention Recipient Recipient Group Fifth Prize Second Prize Recipient Recipient

09/2014-07/2016 08/2010-07/2014

H.I. Feldman Prize 2018, Yale School of Architecture H.I. Feldman Prize 2017, Yale School of Architecture BIAD Design Scholarship 2015, Tsinghua University & BIAD BIAD Design Scholarship 2014, Tsinghua University & BIAD UIA-HYP Cup International Competition, UED Magazine Ni Tianzeng Scholarship, Tsinghua University Academic Distinction Scholarship, Tsinghua University Solar Decathlon China, U.S. Department of Energy Häfele Pop-up Shop Competition, Häfele Hardware Technology Sinopec Scholarship, Tsinghua University Academic Distinction Scholarship, Tsinghua University

WORK EXPERIENCE

KPF New York | Intern Thamrin Nine, Jakarta SD. Facade development, 3D modeling, drawing production.

AECOM Beijing | Intern Hilton Garden Inn, Wenchang SD. Facade development, 3D modeling.

NUO Hotel, Universal Studio Resort, Beijing DD. Drawing production.

China Architecture Design & Research Group, Atelier Li Xinggang | intern Lanhai Hotel & Residence, Haikou, China SD/DD/CD. Drawing production & design assistance throughout.

Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design | Intern Shanghai Labor Union Resort, Chongming Island PD/SD. Programming & site plan options.

Shanghai Eco-house Reconstruction, Shanghai SD/DD/CD. Facade & lobby interior design; detail drawings.

2018 2017 2015 2015 2014 2013 2013 2013 2013 2012 2011

06/2018-08/2018 06/2017-08/2017

10/2015-04/2016 05/2014-08/2014

SOFTWARE SKILLS

Design & Modeling Rhinoceros, Sketchup, AutoCAD, Revit Visualization & Representation Adobe Suit (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), Maxwell Render, V-ray, Indigo, Keyshot Programming & Parametric Design Rhinoscript, Grasshopper, Arduino

PUBLICATIONS

Minquan Wang, Istvan van Vianen. "Détournement of Allure", Yale Constructs, Fall 2017 Minquan Wang, Istvan van Vianen. "Maritime Thinkbelt", Retrospecta 40, Actar D. Minquan Wang, Liyang Wang, Istvan van Vianen. "Apertures", Retrospecta 40, Actar D.

2018 2017 2017