USC Architecture Xpo
This thesis aims to study the layering and liner relationships between multiple interacting volumes at a larger scale, and within those volumes itself at the micro scale, on a layered undulating topography. The study is done through the design of an exhibit space, while exploring various “purposeful” design moves in relevance to the context and the building typology.
Re-designing LAX International Airport by displaying expressive properties and individuality through utilizing intermediating elements.
Inspired by Lebbeus Woods’ ‘free spaces,’ this thesis creates an architecture that is truly shared: free for anyone to use and existing on public land. The idea of sharing has already greatly changed our society in the past decade, from the way we think about cars, work space, and even homes. This thesis is pushing our current idea of ‘sharing’ by questioning the need for ownership, how much space we really need, and by creating a series of architectural installments that provide communal space and support a nomadic lifestyle. One of the designs is a library of everyday items that allow visitors and locals alike to borrow material things—giving everyone the opportunity to own less and minimizing the amount of space needed to live. All of these structures blend into the background of Los Angeles by attaching to existing infrastructure, lightly touching public property, and mainly existing in the public airspace, becoming a part of the city’s fabric. Rather than being built by an entity, these structures will be built by members of a boundless community, aided by designs and construction documents published for anyone to use. Technology has allowed us to enter into a new renaissance: an era where mundane jobs and tasks no longer take up the majority of our days, one in which we can explore new creative endeavors and ideas and live more freely, but we still lack the infrastructure to support this. An open source architecture for shared structures in the public realm allows for a much needed void to be filled.
This thesis explores boundaries and penetrations between the interior and exterior. It borrows Francoise Bollak’s terms of engagement (insertion, parasite, wraps, juxtapositions, and weavings) as a methodology to probe Paul Rudolph’s techniques of cadence, contrast, and network. This approach has resulted in an understanding of the architectural envelope and concept of intervention.
During my analysis of Paul Rudolph’s Section Perspectives, I broke down his vast library of work into three categories: Isolated Connections, Entangled Connections, and The Embedded Network. When selecting these labels I looked to the Oxford English Dictionary—Isolated: “single; exceptional”; Embedded: “an object fixed firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass”; Entangled: “twisted together or caught within.”
This thesis looks at how to formally blur the lines between public and private spaces, much like Paul Rudolph explored in his projects. This new intervention represents the hierarchy and movement of networks featured in all of Rudolph’s Works—within the project shell and highlighting the tension between old and new.
A series of street folly. The wooden platform and stairs with geometry elements randomly to provide more possibilities for pedestrian. The people can find various interactions and functions meet their needs and have fun.
This project is about exploring a way of space generation method. trying to explore whether buildings can grow freely from a fragment. It collects certain architectural language from a specific building, but do not distinguish them by function or restrict by established meaning. But from the qualities expressed by the elements and visual connection. Find the reciprocity between elements in a geometric narrative way. keep language simple but rich in expression.
The city of Los Angeles in the year 2076 will be defined by the era of Carbon Assemblage . One way my re-design for the Bonaventure will respond is to Rectify atmospheric C02 from DTLA, reduce C02 footprint of the building users, and change our attitude toward designing a hotel that is also concerned with environmental issues related to C02.
The provisional liberates architecture from the apocryphal lineage of western liberalism and its origin stories. Making buildings that are “just enough” subverts the building as a machine for appropriating capital and reinforcing hegemony. One can see the scrappy problem solving of provisional architecture at Knot City, a commune in Palmdale, California. Situated adjacent to Los Angeles, the commune is a refuge for the non-metronormative. The buildings are both a tool for and an expression of the residents’ diverse needs and desires. Systems, in all senses of the word, are developed to allow unfettered evolution, exploration, and expression.
We all know that a city is built in the minds of its residents. Similar to society, a city constitutes something intangible, a bundle of inconceivably complex social relations, mediated by a shared idea. In their two drawing series LA To Be Done and LA Recalculated, the British architecture duo Smout Allen recognize the value of Los Angeles as urban scale laboratory.
I propose a conceptual cut of the city discarding everything between latitude 33.8 to 34.0. This causes the upscale residential neighborhood Bel Air to be adjacent to the industrial Pacific port district Long Beach. My resulting site is a 300ftx300ft hybrid of mountains and sea, of the spoils of globalizations and its imposing implementation, and of a reclusive ultra-elite and an exposed working class torn between their occupation in trade and their desire to use some of their fireworks on their trading partners.
Like Los Angeles, my thesis is a composite of disparate communities, united by the shared idea of a city. I construct an architectural-urban metaphor—a compressed conglomerate consisting of parts of Long Beach and Bel Air: Long Air, or L.A.
This thesis argues that designers must continue to develop skills of manipulating geometry with the software at hand. Machine learning technology and computational design innovate rapidly, and it is not hard to imagine that one day computers will dominate design decisions. However, most provocative architecture is predominantly designed by human intelligence. Architects must continue to advance their design abilities and think critically so that the design process can remain human.
The value of human creativity should continue to thrive while the technologies and tools keep advancing. Architecture should be produced by designers who can link human activity with the geometries that suit the space, not just those who operate computational software. This enables us to incorporate ideas that are bigger and more meaningful than data alone.
The LA River is rich with 2D and 3D geometries. The freeway overpass and the graffiti paintings on the wall create a vibrant atmosphere in contrast to the stark infrastructure of the river itself. This project aims to design a series of spaces that evoke a feeling of dynamism and test this thesis’ methodology by designing for a specific set of programs using found geometries and geometries transformed from 2D to 3D.