Course: ARC 381
Instructor: Andrew Bako
Date: Winter 2021
Location: Vaughn Road Academy, Toronto
Group Members: Zhelun Li, Zhicheng Wang
Role: responsible for Modeling and drawings (plan analysis, food study, the explaination diagrams, plans, sections, exploded)
Duration: 3 months
The site of the chocolate chunk is on the Toronto nowclosed Vaughn Road Academy, and according to site analysis, there are generally residential buildings around. The purpose of this project is to finally transform food into a complete architecture by studying the properties of different foods. After analyzing many different foods such as jelly, steak, and liquid red wine, and testing the buildings they can form, the project finally used nut chocolates as the final building form. At the same time, because it is in a residential area, the project changed the building into a residents activities center.
The design concept of the site is to create potholes formed after heavy objects hit the ground, so as to reflect the heavy feeling of the building. Since the project finally chose the chunk formed by the free fall of chocolate on the ground as the building, the design of the site in this way can reflect the visual effect caused by the free fall of chocolate as a building and hitting the ground.
Plans show the spatial effect of the building interior. Because the relationship between nuts and chocolate is inclusion, chocolate integrates nuts into itself, so the chocolate building directly use nuts as the interior space, and explore the impact of an irregular space on the building.
According to our further exploration, due to the irregular space caused by nuts, people cannot predict the space ahead in advance when experiencing the interior of the space, which gives people a great sense of freshness. At the same time, the interaction between nuts and the new spaces created make the interior of the whole building more vivid.
Course: Summer Workshop
Instructor: Yichen Jia
Date: Summer 2022
Type: Individual Project
Duration: 1 month
The purpose of Dream Restoration is to restore people’s dreams through data generation and artificial intelligence. Usually people will face the situation where they forget the content of the dream after waking up, or they want to return to the scene in the dream, so this project designed an APP that can collect information when people sleep, and then use AI to create the atmosphere of the dream
These three parts respectively show the impact of the collected sleep information on the things generated by AI. The room will generate the overall atmosphere of the room based on the breathing rate. Generate the folds on the artifact based on the heart rate. Finally, the size and brightness of the dream are determined according to the sleep time and deep sleep time.
This mobile APP flow chart completely shows how to finally generate a dream scene by operating the mobile APP. During the process, users can choose their own assessment of the overall mood of the dream by communicating with Sandman, so as to help the mobile phone software locate the emotional direction of the dream more accurately. Finally, under the guidance of each instruction, a dream picture is generated.
In final design, in order to better help people return to their dreams, the final dreams generated by the APP can be generated in the form of 3D pictures, so that people can wear 3D glasses to experience their dreams more integratedly.
Course: ARC 201
Instructor: Maria Denegri
Date: Winter 2021
Location: Trinity College Tennis Courts, Toronto
Type: Individual Project
Duration: 3 months
The Pavilion is located in the Trinity College Tennis Courts of the University of Toronto, and the purpose is to build a place that can provide students with study or leisure. The project builts the final pavilion in three stages with the theme of rotation. The vertical rotation was initially explored using columns as the wall, and then the horizontal rotation was explored in the second phase through the rotated plane. Combining the exploration of rotation within space in the first two stages forms the final stage. This project uses the technique of rotation not only to visually reflect the upward rotation, but also to give people a feeling of continuous rotation in the space.
The first stage uses columns as the wall in order to push the rotation idea stronger. Let people perceive the rotation brought by the vertical direction in space.
Seven circles with radii of 4, 8 and 12 respectively. Then remove part of lines to create circulation and replaced the lines by columns.
Change the columns height from 0 to 2, 2 to 4 and 4 to 6 in order to create the vertical rotation
The second stage aims to bring the same basic architectural languages into horizontal spaces with only horizontal surfaces and a given base. Using offset technique to create horizontal circulation and connect with spiral staircases to give people the perception of rotate horizontally. Different rotation of semicircle from 180 degree to 90 degree
Model Photo
Rotate from 90 degree to 45 degree
Rotate the Semicircle with the smallest radius and fall on the pillar
Repeat the previous stepwith the medium radius
Repeat the previous stepwith the largest radius
use semicircle to create aisle so that all semicircle can communicate with each other
Using rotational stairs to connect all semicircle
The final Rotational Pavilion is formed by combining the vertical and horizontal space rotations in the first two stages. In this pavilion, people can not only feel the rotation visually, but also feel the architectural language displayed in space by following the rotating floor after entering the pavilion
Make a wall with two kinds of columns with each column rotated upwards by 0.25m and 0.5m respectively.
Turn the semicircle into the floors for circulation
Put them together
The first floor semiencloses the space with rotating glass
The Landscape around the building also refers to the architectural language of “rotation”, so that the pavilion can better integrate into the surrounding environment. The Landscape uses three circles with different diameters to interact with each other in order to form a connected path, so that people can not only experience the theme of the building inside the building, but also perceive the rotating relationship between the building and the surrounding environment outside.
The plans illustrate how people will follow the rotate circulation to perceive the space. Meanwhile, the end of each passage is connected with a rotating staircase or a rotating platform to allow people to interact with the space coherently.
The purpose of the sections is to show the changes in the vertical space, so that people can more intuitively feel how to experience the rotating architectural language when using the pavilion space. at the same time. The rotating platform connected by each channel can also be regarded as a separate space, in this space, in addition to the wall, the floor is also undergoing a direct “rotation”
Course: ARC381
Instructor: Nicholas Steven Hoban
Date: Fall 2021
Location: Berlin Bunker
When people stand on it, the space expands
When standing in the left and right channels respectively, the space in the middle channel is completely squeezed
Group Member: Linyi Song
Role: responsible for Modeling, rendering and drawings (site plan, sketch, movement drawing)
Duration: 3 months
The project is located in the Berlin Bunker. The venue is now a brutalism-style art gallery, which is very in line with the overall wild style of the mechanism. The purpose of this project is to explore the increasingly alienated relationship between people under the development of technology.
When two people use adjacent passages, the expansion of space by one in front of the other will form a new expansion space in the middle. For people in the aisle, whether the space in front of them expands depends on whether the people in the aisle next to them walk ahead
Diagram of Different Scene Display
Site Plan
No Interaction
Single Visitor in Side Tunnel - Expand Central Tunnel - Shrink on one side
When three people use the aisle, if the people on both sides walk in front, a completely squeezed space will be formed in the middle, and when the middle person walks in front, a squeezed space will be formed on both sides.
The project is placed in the right corner of the entire bunker space, because there are exits in the corner to connect the other two spaces, people can go out directly after experiencing the mechanism. The space where the device can stand is 2.8 meters high and 0.9 meters wide, the weight of the person presses down on the pedals and causes the supports on both sides to expand when someone stands on the device, The widest space for expansion is 1.2 meters. On the contrary, if someone passes through another passage at this time, the space they passe will shrink this tunnel space to a minimum of 0.6 meters. The diagram indicates how spaces going to change when multiple people use the mechanism. The first one shows that in the unused state, the mechanism will keep its basic form. And when two people use it, the right half of the space in front of the person in the middle channel will be squeezed because of the passing of the person walking in front of the side channel. When three people use the space, the space on the left and right sides of the people in the middle aisle will be squeezed by the people walking in front of the side aisle. On the contrary, if the person in the middle aisle walks ahead, the left half space or the right half space of the people in the two aisles will be squeezed respectively.
Space Diagram
Each individual unit of Mechanism can be disassembled into pedals, structural skeleton and connecting parts. For pedals, the scissor lifting system connected under the floor platform will slide and press down due to weight pressure, and connected the ground baseas as a support. The side of the pedal is connected to the T-track, it can drive the T-track to slide when the pedal is pressed down. At this time, the support on the side will also be squeezed to both sides, so as to achieve space expansion. Structural skeleton is wrapped by soft tube to protect people. The connecting part is a spring device, and the spring can be adjusted according to the height of the roof. The spring will pull the mechanism normally when no one is using the mechanism, and when someone stand on the pedal, the spring will also be stretched when the structural skeleton is pushed down due to the weight of the person pressing the pedal. After people passing by, the structural skeleton can be changed to its original shape since the spring loses its downward pulling force. Finally, the entire mechanism was hung on the roof by the hook.
Front Render
Therefore, this mechanism explores that with the continuous development of technology, even if the distance between people is very close, it seems that there is an invisible hand that pulls the distance between people.
Course: ARC465
Instructor: Anne-Marie Armstrong
Date: Fall 2022
Group Member: Xu Li, Yibo Wang, Hongxuan Wang
Role: border indexes, Swimming Pool Plan, disabled restrictions perspective
Duration: 3 months
The purpose of this project is to think deeply about the relationship between architecture and border by exploring the border in architecture. We studied the swimming pool and the gymnasium which is a scale larger than it, and further found that the unconventional Border in the space has greatly restricted the space and the people in the space.
The cross figures on both sides of the bridge echoing the T figures underwater, and help the swimmers indicate their divided lanes without a physical hard boundary.
When flags plugged into different holes on the ground, it could represent a variety of meanings to the swimmers such as the position of the ending area.
sectional perspective is provided to show the below water. It shows the signs changes in depth and different activities below water. The hollow space shown at cut surface at the bottom left, center, and right shows how water is going through the central bridge and inside the opposite walls of the pool via plastic lattices.
The four diagrams indicatefour divisions of the pool in different periods of a week.
The plan indicate two typical types of unusual borders which are sign border and invisible border with movement lines of people effect by the borders.
These four signs stand in the swimming area on the far right, respectively indicating the speed of different lanes and are arranged in order from fast, slow, medium fast and medium slow, so that people can find the swimming lane they want to go according to their own speed.
Lifeguard whistling and yelling at people who are crossing the boundaries in the pool. The position of a lifeguard itself, including the seating place, serves as the role of a indivisible borderline.
People jumping from the diving platform into the pool. The entire activity from its start till the end subconsciously creates an indivisible borderline in the surrounding swimmer’s mind.
There are two non-blocking borders in the swimming pool space, one is sign and the other is invisible border.
In one space, although the slogan does not directly prevent people from entering another area, due to its eye-catching and people’s general compliance with the rules, the slogan as a border restricts people’s use of part of the building space.
The other is the invisible border, such as security officers sitting on the shore to monitor people’s dangerous behavior at any time, and people who can’t swim will definitely enter deep water areas. Although there is no visual or physical obstruction, it still exists and prevents the movement of a group of people.
Training spaces form invisible boundaries when athletes take the gymnastics mat out or occupy the gymnastic wall-bars.
Site Plan
After entering a larger space, the form of the boundary also changes. The boundaries that exist at the Goldring Center at the University of Toronto are for different groups of people. We divided the crowd into seven categories: the public, the disabled, spectators, athletes, employees, men and women, and ourselves, and conducted an in-depth analysis of the restrictions on people in the Goldring Center for different groups of people, including the public, the disabled, employees, men and women, and ourselves.
This is an area that is accessible to the general public, but due to guards and access control, other than University of Toronto students and employees are excluded here.
This is an open three-story sports space, but since the upward space must be accessed by stairs, the upper space is excluded from the disabled.
Our Restriction Perspective
After going up to the uppermost space, since there are sometimes people attending classes here, there will be signs saying no entry during this time period, and there will be fences to exclude everyone except the students and teachers attending classes here.
This is the gate of the employee’s office. Except for the employees who can use the access control card to enter the internal space, everyone else can only be isolated from the outside and cannot use the internal space.
The men’s and women’s washrooms in the Goldring Center are shown here, from my perspective to see the women’s washroom and my imagination of another space due to the restrictions imposed on me by the men’s washroom. Men’s and women’s washrooms are separated and the two parties cannot use each other’s space is the limitation of gender in space for people.
Course: Competition
Location: Riverdale Park East
Date: Fall 2021
Group Member: Keyao Liu, Hongxuan Wang
Role: Modeling and Drawing(site plan, explodede diagram, perspective)
Duration: 1 months
This project intends to create a museum of emotions to explore the subtle relationship between space, weather, and human emotions. In order to create different architectural spatial forms, the design allows the natural lighting inside the museum to change to respond the weather. This causes emotional changes to the people who are in the space.
The museum is placed on a public baseball field surrounded by trees in Toronto's Riverdale Park East and adjacent to the Don River . The natural site setting brings a pleasant feeling. Conversely, a narrow, enclosed trail adjacent to the river creates an anxious mood. The museum’s design is inspired by these two contrasting spatial characteristics of the surrounding site. Both narrow and open spaces created in the museum allow the two distinct emotions perceived in the site’s natural environment and can be carried over into the museum.
Site Plan
Sunken Open Space
The structural inspiration of the project comes from the railroad and transmission towers located east of the site. The structure and materials of the museum indicate traces of the post-industrial era in the urban fabric of this buffer zone between downtown Toronto and the detached housing areas. Loads of the fabric transfer to the ground through cables and wires that connect to the six masts that penetrate the fabric. Six rows of trusses are stitched between the trusses under the fabric and concrete stairwells to hold them in place, and internal trusses support the large spans of the fabric.
Course: ARC1021
Date: Winter 2024
Group Member: Isaac Valle
Role: material test, model making, photography
Duration: 3 weeks
The adverse effect of rising land costs has affected and participated in the explicit gentrification of the Indigenous peoples specifically in Vancouver, where Anishinaabe artist, Rebecca Belmore expresses in her artwork, The Tower and Tarpaulin. Her art often symbolizes political, economic, and social issues facing Indigenous peoples in Canada. During her stay in Vancouver, she had witnessed an over-representation of Indigenous peoples on the street morphing shopping carts and blankets into the essentiality of everyday life.
This architectural concept draws from socio-political and economic challenges, symbolizing the resilience of Indigenous peoples through its design. The use of wooden dowels represents nature's elements, juxtaposed against a synthetic membrane to signify struggle and perseverance. The design aims to evoke emotions through spatial manipulation, using the dowel's density and arrangement over a tarpaulin to create intimate or expansive interactions. This setting is designed to make guests feel small amidst the grand movements of horizontal and vertical elements, emphasizing resilience through physical, emotional, environmental, and intellectual engagement within the space and its art.
We first made the Tower from the artifacts exactly at the ratio of 1:20. We chose to use red clay as the "natural material" in the middle, and then used wire and iron rings to simulate the shopping cart and roller.
We tried to use red clay for Tarpaulin, but because of its bulky nature, it was difficult to make the same folds as the original. We ended up using the sewn canvas to make the Tarpaulin and using the crayons to restore the artifact's original colors. Finally, Stiffen Stuff is sprayed to hold the material in place.
The elasticity of the first three test materials we used did not meet our expectations at all.
Pantyhose-dark shade Pantyhose-aersol sprayed
The elasticity of the second group of materials met expectations, but was eventually abandoned due to its easily torn nature.
The elasticity of the third group of materials has fully met our expectations, and we chose the last micro mesh with the best effect as the material for our final model.
Tarpaulin Artifact Image
Tarpaulin Artifact Model Making Process
Material Exploration
Sewing Hem Techniques
Tarpaulin Artifact Sketch Models
Tarpaulin Artifact Model Photos
Sewn Canvas
Pantyhose
Spandex 4-Way Stretch Nylon-small mesh 4-Way Stretch Nylon-micro mesh
Plastic Plaster Bands
Course: ARC386
Location: Singapore
Date: Fall 2021
Instructor: Fadi Masoud
Type: Individual
Duration: 3 months
The project graphically illustrate the content of liturature review of Singapore's population change from 1830 to 2021 with the prediction to 2050. The research unveiled through the literature review will inform the graphic content of three cross-sections which will represent the pre-Urban, existing and projected ecological conditions of Singapore's evolving.
Through further analysis, the population of Singapore from 1830 to 1950 generally showed a downward trend due to diseases and economic crises. However, from 2000 to 2021, although the government has vigorously encouraged immigration and childbearing to increase the population, the population is still slowly declining due to people's economic pressure gradually increasing with time, and the aging population is gradually emerging. Therefore, some literature predicts that the population will continue to decline in 2050, and the aging population will exceed 50% of the population, becoming a serious social problem.
Course: ARC200
Location: Singapore
Date: Fall 2020
Instructor: Sam Ghantous
Type: Individual
Duration: 3 months
The site is locate Northwest of the York.The project designed a detached house for this area by studying the house types and street characteristics in the site. According to the analysis, the buildings in this site can be divided into two housing types: detached house and apartment. Based on these two housing types and combining the characteristics of circle shape road, U-shape road, curveroad and S-shape road, four kinds of raise up detached houses were finally designed.
Course: ARC280
Date: Winter 2021
Instructor: Nicholas Steven Hoban
Type: Individual
Duration: 3 months
This project uses grasshopper technique to explore the fabrication in Design. The project explores the “breathing sense” of architecture, also known as the “breathing tower”. It uses hexagons as “air holes” to gradually enlarge or shrink the tower to achieve “breathing” feeling. These two towers are from the same script but chnaged three different variables.