USC Architecture Xpo
Stations serve as static transit and transition spaces en route to a destination. This thesis emphasizes the socio-economic role of public transportation and envisions the transportation hub as an active destination. The transportation hub is a public space, an architectural instrument to enable and facilitate social interaction.
My project aims to connect a building, specifically a clothing factory, to its purpose as well as to the natural world. To do this, I display the material or product being transformed to connect the user to the industrial process it undergoes as well as to the natural world.
The thesis takes commercial lifestyle as an example to exploit the spatial interactions of signage graphic arts.
Based on the present consumeristic urban context, signage and advertisment have become the facades of the streets continuously conveying information to people. The Signgae Spectacle project creates experience of neoned local commerical life.
By turning traditional signages and slogans into 3D forms, the thesis practices translating graphic design into space design and exploring how visual stimulations create the spectacle to promote consumption.
Airports are unique transitory spaces that exist outside national, political, and economic borders. This thesis aims to build on the neutral identity of the airport and consider it a “third place” destination for global citizens. The project proposes a visa-free, duty-free, and discrimination-free zones within Dulles International Airport where security, customs and social regulations are relaxed or eliminate in order to encourage global interactions, scientific research, and contentious political conferences. In the midst of a global pandemic, this third place would also function as an ideal quarantine space where individuals can stay without entering the country.
In the past, architecture created buildings under the assumption that they will last in theory forever. This idea has led to creating buildings that materially last a long time but societally need to be destroyed to make way for new types of architecture. By the end of their life, they are basically large, organized liter piles that can only be put into landfills. But by considering life cycles of materials, we can start constructing buildings that can be easily deconstructed, reused, and biodegraded. This will also allow for a technological update that would have been harder to do in the past. As technology innovates faster and faster, the architectural construction process has not kept up. This creates outdated building the minute they are built. Architecture needs to be more adaptable to new innovations. By using wood and Mycelium prefabricated components, we can create adaptable buildings that can update with our ever-changing technology and societal needs.
Inspired by photography, murals and film shots, CONVERGE focuses on patterns, perspectives, and urban experience. It challenges the typical design process based on plans or sections. Instead, CONVERGE starts from user’s eye level views of the city. The project aims at providing an interactive spatial experience for the public and reducing the distinction among road, pedestrain and building. It emphasizes spatial hierarchy through a series of perspective views created by 2D graphics at the linear site.
This study aims to develop a data-based design preference prediction model that performs design preference prediction based on design preference data of a specific user or group of users. The developed prediction model can function as a design guide for expanding client engagement, facilitating comprehensive information sharing, and inducing efficient communication during the architectural design phase. By conducting a preference survey, this study first addressed the challenges of constructing a reliable design preference dataset. Then, within the configured dataset, the study utilized statistical and machine learning algorithms to create design preference prediction models, explore the significance of each design parameters that have a significant impact on the final building design preferences, and infer the accuracy of predicting users’ preference data.
The thesis analyses the embodied carbon of different timber structural systems, and also addresses the impact of carbon sequestration and transportation of materials on the embodied carbon footprint of timber structures using the Embodied Carbon in Construction (EC3) tool.
In most architectural design projects, the clients and architects are the main members of the designing process. Architects and clients unescapably spend a large amount of time deciding design agreements due to misunderstandings about the clients’ requirements and preferences. The objective of the proposed research is to develop architectural design guidelines based on the use of advanced machine learning algorithms. Unlike the current architectural conventional design process, advanced sensing technologies provide information based on the clients’ reactions, such as physiological signals and psychological factors. Architects’ concept design might provide more opportunities to achieve the clients’ satisfaction.
The research follows a data analysis approach using large amounts of existing building data to explore the relationships of building components and it’s impacts on energy usage. Using both statistical and machine learning techniques, building components are ranked according to their energy consumption impacts.
Prioritizing these critical components, a more tailored building energy guideline is to be formulated. Models are simulated using building simulation software to validate this argument.