Yuxuan TU portfolio

YUXUAN TU | WORK SAMPLE March 2 Student, UC Berkeley

Email: tyx94@berkeley.edu Tel: +1-5105415319 Mailing address: 2119 University Ave, Apt 201, Berkeley, CA 94704

PROLOGUE

There are two ways for us to live in the city, the first is easy and for many: accept it and become such a part that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize the underlying reasons behind it, let them argue, give them meaning. In my eye, the reality of architecture and urbanism does not lie in something that will be; it’s what’s already there, and the confluences formed by the contradiction through reading of the context, the underlying social process and the urban scenarios. After all, "Architecture is by definition a chaotic adventure."

This portfolio selects four of my representative works in these forgoing fields. With reflection on my observations, I propel myself to ask: how to how to mediate monumental scale with ordinary life; how to create nature with articulation; how to bond with alienation; and how to trigger new experience with historical context. It's an exciting process of production to turn the juxaposition of contradictions into narratives, and the methodology behind is worthy of my lifetime to explore.

01 THE CIVILLIAN'S CASTLE Renovation of Jingkou water lock

02 THE ARTIFICIAL NATURE Tourist centre of Mt. Dagu

03 THE (UN)FOLDED CITY Urban design of Jiangxin Island

04 THE (IN)VISIBLE GALLERY Renovation of palace complex of Turin

OTHER WORKS

01 THE CIVILLIAN'S CASTLE

November - December, 2015 Solo work Instructor: Kai Gong Program: culture center Site: Zhen Jiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China

Zhen Jiang is a port city owning its development to transportation on water. The Jing Kou waterlock in this case is a vital water conservancy project at the cross point of Jing Hang cannal and the Yangtze river.

With onland transportation taking over the city, the Jing Kou waterlock is hidden in a decorative urban masquerade, fading out of the local people's life. In trying to revitalize the site, an open castle for the civilians is proposed around the water lock as a laboratory of fun.

MEMORY AND REVITALIZATION To revive the memory of this site, the new culture centre should be a scaffold for all the fun we could have today. A structure model that is of high capacity and openness is proposed to accomodate various programs, acting as a socially interactive machine.

BC210 Military provision

18C Commercial shipment

20CWater conservancy

Axonometric concept layout

LABORATORY OF FUN

Terminal 1F

Gymnasium 2F

Exhibition 3F

Library 4F

Multifunction 5F

FLOAT

BREATH

SINK

IMMERSE

FLEET

1.deposit 2. waiting room 3. reception 4.office 5.warehouse 6.retail/restaurant

1.reception 2. trainning area 3. office 4.ping-pong room 5.classroom 6.trainning room 7.playground

1.exhibition area 2. office 3.storage 4.show room 5.outdoor exhibition

1.reading area 2. book collection 3. conference room 4.computer room 5.office 6.reading garden

1.reception 2.tea break area 3.auditorium 4.makeup room 5.office 6. lighting room 7.viewing booth 8.outdoor theater

Plans and sections

MONUMENTAL AND ORDINARY Four core tubes support a steel truss at the top, and cables are fixed to the truss to enable the large-span structure. This structural model enables the interaction of all kinds of activities, and offers diversed choices of circulations.

The memory of the water lock and the city is now renewed by the spontaneousness and fun from ordinary life.

Top view

ENCOUNTER AND INTERACTION

View from atrium

“Hello,what's your name?"

"Have we met before?"

"Can I join you?"

"We met on the first floor!"

“Wow!How did he got up there?"

“Cool! The box is floating in the air!"

“We are approaching the water lock!"

"Let's play some pingpong!"

"Hmm... a good place for river view..."

"Finally I could get some reading done..."

"Where did they rent that boat?"

“Some one is moving quickly in the box..."

“Take the elevator and join me in the viewing booth!"

“I could also use some quality time in the library..."

“Let's rent a boat too! It will be fun!"

"Looks like a table tennis competition...Let's check it out!"

View from riverside

02 THE ARTIFICIAL NATURE

April-May, 2014 solo work Instructor: Sunan Tu Program: tourist centre Site: Dandong, Liaoning, P.R. China “Dreamland� timber structure competition, excellent design

As city dwellers, people always prefer order over chaos. Nature, on the other hand, is where chaos takes place. Although trees in nature are never perfectly aligned, we could still find peacefulness and tranquillity walking through a forest.

Located on Mt.Dagu in Dandong, a city in the very north of China, the site invites people to run away from city life and to find their inner peace. The ambition of this project is to use timber structure in an articulated way to create a sense of informality as an interpretation of nature.

INTERPRETATION OF NATURE According to Guoxi, a famous Chinese painter, there's three states in landscape, 高远 (overwhelm), 深远 (profound) and 平远 (vast). In this project, I tried to use the structural virations to interprete these states as a dialogue with the surrounding environment.

The tourist centre is proposed on a hermitic site, presenting three elements: the mountain, the valley, and the paddy field. Dividing the volumn into three units, each of the elements is reponded with rise and fall of the roof. By adjusting the span and height of each unit, the three units begin to flow into each other, and the informality of nature is represented.

高远

深远

平远

OVERWHELM

PROFOUND

VAST

"Xishanxinglv", Fan Kuan

"Zaochun", Li Tang

"Jiang'anwangshan", Ni Zan

Mountain

Valley

Paddy field

Nature-chaos

Structure-order

Space-randomness

View from paddy field

STRUCTURE LAYOUT

Roof beam

Space truss

Interlayer

Columns and beams

Glazing system

Construction layers

1. reception 2. waiting area 3.deposit 4.office 5.exhibition 6.tea room 7. reading area 8. media room

7

8

Interlayer plan

6

5

1

2

3

4

Ground floor plan

Longitudinal section

1:50 Structure model

STRUCTURE JOINT DETAIL

3 4 5

1

1

2 2

1

2

3

1. bundle 4*50*50 2. wood screw M4 3. penetrating tie beam 24*50 4. penetrating tie beam 12*50 5. cut out 6*50*50

1. wood screw M6 2. tie beam 24*50

1. top chord 400*150*2 2. wood screw M6 3. wood cleat 500*90*150

1

2

1

2 1 3

2

4 1. cast-steel shoe 2. inclined strut 150*400*2 3. wood screw M4 4. hinged joint

1. wooden block 415*300*150 2. bolt 1-M16 washer 68

1. steel junction plate 400*400 (bolted to top chord) 2. wood screw M4

2

2

1

2

1

3 1

3

1. longitude beam 100*300 2. Fixing brakets to support platform

1. primary beam 150*300 cut out 50*150*150 2. bolt 1-M16 washer 68 3. wooden block 415*300*150

1. wooden block footing 2. wood screw M4 3. light box 100*150*300

ARTICULATION AND INFORMALITY Variations in span and height of the three units lead to the disalignment of columns and irregularity of roof, which exude a sense of informality that was once the privilege of nature.

View from tea room

LIGHT AND STRUCTURE

9

6

7

8

5

4 3

2

1

1. Primary wood structure bundle 4*50*50; penetrating tie beam 12*50 bolted to the bundle; penetrating tie beam 24*50; top chord 2*400*150 2. Ceiling Brich faced polywood strips pre-cut to taper from 100mm to 80mm wide 3660*12 (Each strip arrived with intermittent blocks pinned and glued on the back. The next piece is pinned and glued to the previous one through these blocks.)

3. Purlins 50*50 Attached to top chord by wood bearer 4. Fixing cleats Folded mild steel cleats 310*60 bolted to purlins to support roof panels Internal 5. Roof: Small drips channel cast into cill to channel rainwater to roof edge and avoid staining of leading edge.

6. Roof light window Aluminium channel bolted to fixing brackets at top and bottom of rooflight openning. Four double glazed sealed units make up each roof light.

7. Fixing brackets Mild steel angle brackets bolted to top chords to support roof panel cill, glazing cill chanel and lighting bar.

8. Fascia Birch faced plywood fascia t12 pinned to softwood battens behind.

9. Lighting bar Lighting with welded lugs for bolting to roof beam Fluorescent strip lights fixed in recesses above and below roof light window

Cut away section of roof

View from entrance hall

( "wall rider", photograph by Fen Weng )

03 THE (UN)FOLDED CITY

May-June, 2016 group work Instructor: Xiaodong Xu Collaborater: Zi Chen, Abneiro Langa Concept: 80% Development: 50% Drawings: 100% Program: urban design Site: Jiangxin island, Nankin, Jiangsu Province, P.R. China

“Folding Beijing�, a Hugo award winner, is a science fiction novel about a difficult trip that a disadvantaged social being took to the world that upper class share, which raised an avalanche of public reflection upon the folded city in today's China.

Nanjing is also a folded city, and Jiangxin island is the outmost layer of this city.

Massive private housing development relieved the pressure of housing, but the mega blocks and poor mobility of the city is depriving people in Jiangxin island of employment opportunities and their sense of belonging.

In this project, I tried to propose a new model of pedestrian-oriented city in hope of unfolding the interspace of the city.

LET'S GO BACK TO SREETS!

SITE

1) PUBLIC INTERSPACE In today's Nanjing, privatization divided the city into fragments of "mega-block", and this phenomenon resulted in the unhuman interspace along the streets. active time

metro line traffic pivot

on-ground

existing road

residence office

pedestrian way

commercial centre

bus station

If we no longer distrubute the function within blocks, but disperse them in parallel strips, a new interspace could be formed, and concentration of a single function could be avoided.

alienating interspace

mixed interspace

underground

TYPE

VOID

BOUDARY

CIRCULATION

2) BUILDING MORPHOLOGY After the Reform and Open Up policy, Chinese unit is gradually replaced by row housing in its failure to densify. But as related people no longer live together, the weak relationship in a neighborhood can't incubate a colorful street life.

Chinese unit

row-housing

Confucian moral order

multiple layered

collectivity

socialist ideology

monolayered

isolation

The public-rental housing, provides an opportunity to revive the loss bond. If we customize the housing plan to different groups of people, the collectivity in Chinese unit may be revived again.

the folded city

the unfolded city

STREET AS PLAYGROUND

STREET AS ATRIUM

STREET AS CORRIDOR

Conceptual scenarios

THE UNFOLDED CITY

3456-4608 people 1792-2688 people 1386-2772people

Family apartment SOHO Single apartment

Public space Office hotel office kindergarten nursing home commercial restaurant cinema exhibition library Street as corridor Street as atrium Street as playground

Pedestrian terrace Surrounding buildings

Programmatic Layering

PRIVATE

Single

Share with friend

Single Couple working at home working at home

TYPE A Family apartment

Couple

SEMI-PRIVATE

Nuclear

Three generations Nuclear working at home living together

Study

Kid's play

Small office

Barber's

Socialize

Artist's

Tailor's

Small Restaurant

TYPE B Single apartment

TYPE C SOHO

BOND WITH ALIENATION As the infrastructure system became increasingly important, the city of Nanjing today is greatly defined by transportation (like motor cars, underground, over-ground and wide roads), which lead to the vanish of street life.

For the revival of street life, proposals are made on the programmatic distribution and housing plans.

1) Programmatic strips are distributed crossing the streets from east to west, arranged according to the levels of publicity formed by the dominant elements that are already on the site(the metro station, the wetland park, and the surrounding buildings), forming maximized permeability between programmatic mutations.

2) By using a basic modular unit, we could cater to the specific needs of different people, and the outcome is the possibility of related people living together, and the collectivity that is allowed to occur.

Retails

Family apartment

Public space

SOHO

Public amenities

Single apartment

Office

Section perspective

MIXED INTERSPACE 1. metro station 2. restaurant 3.supermarket 4.retails 5.community centre 6.sunken plaza 7. bicycle renting spot 8. activity centre

8

7

6

3

2

1

4

5

Ground floor fragment plan

ENCLOSE

RELEASE

INTERSECT

DIVIDE

Master plan

ENCLOSE

RELEASE

Family apartment

Office

"My classmate is coming back from school! We can play football in the streets before dinner!"

Bird view

"After sitting in the office for so long, such a vast park for pedestrians is our first choice for lunch break!"

INTERSECT

DIVIDE

SOHO

Single apartment

"We are becoming more and more familiar with our neighbors, maybe we can even start some business together!"

"Public realms are connected by layered streets, making it easy for us to socialize through sharing!"

04 THE (IN)VISIBLE GALLERY

September-October, 2015 Solo work (Italy joint studio) Instructor: Marco Trisciuoglio Program:gallery Site: Plaza Castello, Turin, Italy

"la galleria", a type of double-sided corridors, serve as connections between different buildings ,in this case the Royal Palace and the Queen's castle, now both seats of important museums.

Rather than thinking of this type as a frozen mechanism that leads to repetition of physical integrities, I tried to rethink the meaning of this type in contemporary environment, and how it could shape and be shaped by the experience of people.The goal of the project is dualfold--To connect again, with minimum disruption to historical context, and maximum ways of looking that a gallery could offer.

CONTEXT AND TYPOLOGY Palaza Castello sits at the core of baroque urbanism of Turin. To show respect to the historical context and provide new experience for today's visitors, the new gallery should be visible from inside, and invisible from outside.

first built 1600

torn down 1680-

burnt in half 1660-1680

?

21C

OUTSIDE -invisibile

INSIDE -invisibile

INSIDE OUT parallel corridor China

INSIDE -visibile

OUTSIDE -visibile

OUTSIDE IN

galleria Italy

View from palaza Castello

INVISIBLE- west facade

VISIBLE- longitudinal section

INSIDE OUT Today's visitors expect an experience that is more than the enumeration of exhibits, which can only be triggered with their presence at the gallery.

When people enter the show rooms of the gallery, a scripted relationship is formed between them and the exhibits. As we play with half of the box, the relationship ranges from conceal, hint, to reveal. Ultimately, when we combine two half boxes together, new relationship is established between people on the two sides of the gallery.

Conceal

Reveal

Hint

Prototype

Variations

obstructed

hindered

shadowed

leaked

uncovered

guided

staged

invited

exposed

Geometry

Combination

conceal+ conceal

Sequence

conceal+ hint

conceal+ reveal

hint+ hint

reveal+reveal

hint+ reveal

View from east corridor

View from west corridor

Unable to see

Uncertain to see

See without meeting

"The painting is lit up from the other side.

"The painting is staged just in front of me.

"The painting is pulled away from me.

I wonder if there's a person looking at the painting just like the way I am."

I wonder if there's someone else in this room, searching for it in vain."

I wonder if she knows someone is looking at her."

Unable to meet

Uncertain to meet

Meet without access

"The paintings are placed in different rooms.

"The paintings are hung in dark coners.

"The paintings are everywhere in this room.

I wonder if I enter the room again on the other side, will she still be here?"

I wonder if she would talk to me, or she just came to see the painting."

I wonder why she is staring at me. Maybe I am one of the exhibits too."

OUTSIDE IN To balance the strictly symmetrical facade of the Queen's palace, the gallery is enveloped by glass screen, providing a parnorama of the city within the corridors. At the same time, it gives the gallery a subtle feeling of existence in the hierachical context.

The articulation of solid, as one of the main focus of Baroque architecture on the plazza is contrasted with the variations of spaces within the gallery.

1:200 Site model

TOP OF ROOF BEAM H=20.350 HIGHEST LEVEL H=GL+20.740 SKYLIGHT WIPED DOUBLE GLAZING 16.8 AIR GAP t6 GLASS PANEL t8

ROOF: DRY ROOF WATER PROOFING INSULATION PANEL (FIRE RESISTANT t35) WATER PROOF SHEET t1.5 PURLINE 150*150

ROOF BEAM H=3000 CEILINIG: LOUYRE LAYERS OF POLYCARBONATE t6 FRAME 25*19

GLASS SCREEN TEMPERED GLASS t8 PLANTED MOLD HIGH INTENSITY ALUMNIUM+WEATHER RESISTANT POLYESTER COATING

UPPER LEVEL H=GL+7.700

FLOOR DRY RAISED FLOOR H250 PROFILED STEEL PLATE YX 130-275-550

BOTTOM OF UPPER LEVEL H=7.450

Construction Detail

"Someone is approaching the Queen's palace.

"Some one is resting by the fountain.

"Someone is look Citta

I wonder if he has seen the monumental stairs in there."

I wonder if she is expecting someone else."

I wonder if he is drink at a

king at street a.

"Someone is passing under the gallery.

"Some one is taking a photo of the gallery.

thinking of a bar."

I wonder if she is puzzled by the shadow down there."

I wonder if she would come inside."

“ ...From here, after six days and seven nights, you arrived at

Men of various nation had an identical dream. They saw a woman running at nig her. At last they decided to build a city like the one in their dream. Each of them l so the fugitive can n

--Calvino, Invis

t the invisible city. They tell the story of its foundation like this:

ght through an unknown city. They ran after her, but no one ended up catching laid out the streets in their memory, but spaces and walls are twisted and turned, never escape again. "

sible Cities

OTHER

Academic works

Industrial design

Professional work

1 1

2 2

1. Community centre for the old personal work 2. Recreational Business District team work

"bookAbook" bookend design competition personal work

Solar-powered villa work belong to Neo Design inc. contribution: design, modeling

WORKS

Watercolor

Calligraphy

1.Tranquil

"Lotus"

Photography

1

2

2.Fantasy

"Exodus" Time-lapse Photography Confucius Temple, Nankin