Yilin Zhang
Syracuse School of Architecture
B-Arch, Year 2
yzhan652@syr.edu
The Living Cycle I
A forager’s hut where itsself is foraged
A Dynamic Bridge II
A Sports Center that showcases a life style
Overlay Pavilion III
A pavillion demonstrates how Wassily Chair is viewd
River to Residence IV
A residence that follows the river changing
The Living Cycle
A forager’s hut where itsself is foraged
The Foragers’ Hut is a dynamic architectural intervention situated in the biodiverse Nelson Swamp Unique Area. This project integrates the act of foraging into both food gathering and construction, creating a cyclical system where the building evolves in harmony with its natural surroundings.
Extensive site analysis revealed a diverse range of materials, including wood, stone, reed, clay, and cattails, each with seasonal availability and varying lifecycles. These observations informed the design’s use of the gabion box technique, a modular system where foragers gather materials to construct and maintain the hut. As organic components like wood and reed decay, they are replaced by new materials sourced from the site, ensuring the structure remains in continuous dialogue with the landscape.
The hut serves as a communal space for seasonal gatherings, offering areas for food processing, cooking, dining, and temporary residence. By blending material ecologies with participatory construction, the design emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature. It reimagines architecture as a living entity, where the building itself is foraged, maintained, and renewed by its community, seamlessly cycling with the rhythms of the environment.
Project type_ Studio project, Year 2, Fall 2024
Instructor_ Il Hwan Kim
Medium_ Wire, wood, stone, leaf, soil, clay
Software_ Adobe Photoshop, Rhino
Site Trial Exploration
Along the trial, I explored on how humans interact with this site and the available sources
Materials Mapping
This micro-scale mapping focuses on different materials around the site for constructions
Material Timetable and Installation
Based on the duration time, some natural sources turn into architectural languages
Living Cycle
RESIDENCE RESIDENCE COMMUNAL GATHERING SPACE
A Dynamic Bridge
A Sports Center that showcases a life style
Located at 223-225 E Water St, Syracuse, NY 13202, this project explores the role of enclosure in defining spatial experiences within an urban recreational facility. The design consists of programmatic blocks of varying heights, strategically arranged to balance public engagement and private security. A continuous, enclosed central volume houses essential private functions such as changing rooms and restrooms, ensuring privacy and accessibility. Circulation pathways are placed between this core and the surrounding recreational spaces, allowing seamless movement and continuous access to amenities. The adjacent activity zones, which require ample daylight, integrate staggered windows positioned at different heights to create a dynamic interplay of light and shadow while maintaining visual connectivity with the surroundings.
The massing strategy reinforces a hierarchy of openness and enclosure, responding to both programmatic needs and the site’s urban context. Taller volumes feature expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, maximizing natural light and framing views of the city, while lower blocks provide a more enclosed and intimate atmosphere. This interplay of solid and void enhances user engagement and ensures a responsive architectural solution tailored to the needs of a public recreational facility.
Project type_ Studio project, Spring 2024, Year 1
Instructor_ Nathan Williams
Medium_ Bristol paper, wood, board
Software_ Rhino, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Site Pano Collage
Around the site, there are mostly stores and offices, which presents a vivid life environment
Opening Collage
By connecting physical model photos, it shows the multi-perspective openings of the design
Sequence Collage
This collage demonstrates a consistent and dynamic experience inside and outside the building
Overlay Pavilion
A pavillion demonstrates how Wassily Chair is viewd
Inspired by Marcel Breuer’s Wassily B3 armchair—originally informed by bicycle handlebars that provided both strength and lightness—this pavilion translates the chair’s chrome-plated tubular steel and taut canvas slings into an architectural exploration. The intersecting steel frames become a key characteristic, creating rigid and steady connections that guide circulation and define spatial organization. To evoke the tension and overlapping of the chair’s fabric on metal, the pavilion employs changes in altitude, carved pathways, and voids, allowing visitors to engage with different perspectives of overlapping forms. A palette of contrasting materials—thick and thin, smooth and rough, concrete and transparent—echoes the dualities in the original design and shapes varied atmospheres as light permeates frosted surfaces. By combining these intersecting systems and tactile contrasts, the pavilion highlights Breuer’s emphasis on structural clarity, tension, and overlapping elements at an immersive scale.
Project type_ Studio project, Fall 2023, Year 1
Instructor_ Jordan Young
Medium_ Foam, foamcore, coroplast
Software_ Rhino, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Overlapping Diagram
By rotating and extending, this diagram explores the overlapping characteristic of the chair
River to Residence
A residence that follows the river changing
This project begins by examining the evolving relationship between human intervention and natural processes that shape the Oxbow Lake, as depicted in Kay WalkingStick’s painting “Thom, Where Are the Pocumtucks (The Oxbow).”
Through site drawings, analytical diagrams, and physical models, I traced the lake’s meandering course and revealed how water flow, sedimentation, and ecology intertwine with human activity over time.
Building on these insights, the design focuses on an artist-in-residence near the Oxbow Lake that embraces its unique geological history—shaped by centuries of shifting river flows, sedimentation, and human intervention. Adaptable and climate-conscious strategies enable the structure to respond to seasonal changes and potential flooding, transforming architecture into a living document of adaptation. By integrating sustainable practices and engaging with the shifting shoreline, the project showcases how built interventions can flourish alongside the forces of geography, history, and ecology.
Project type_ Studio project, Year 2, Fall 2024
Instructor_ Il Hwan Kim
Medium_ Wood, soil, stones, grass, board, acrylic, foam, string, bristol paper
Software_ Adobe Illustrator, Rhino
GROUNDWATER RECHARGE AQUIFER
PURIFICATION AERATION
Water Circulation Diagram
Sediment Diagram
The dark tone highlights the services while providing decks at the river-side, they connect left.
Plan the bright part presents the activity area. By connect the open gathering space with gallary on the left.
yzhan652@syr.edu
Yilin(Yolanda) Zhang