I

A TOWER OF A CONJOINED PAIR

A Mixed-Use Tower that Lands in the Shore of Downtown Boston.

Site: 266 Atlantic Ave, Boston, MA 02110

STU 1323 - Instructor: Moshe Safdie and Jaron Lubin
May 2022
Individual Work

The project is about a pair: One smooth, one rough. One translucent,
one opaque. One office, one residential.

This is the site near the harbor. Next to the greenway and the IM Pei
towers. The two towers are facing east and south. The residential tower is
facing the sea, and the office tower is facing the city. The pair start as giant
racks, with various objects slotted in on the rack. each tower gains an easel-
like side. The facade gains an occupiable thickness, which then becomes
structural, spatial, and operational.

It is structural, as the three pairs of mega columns form the picture

frame of the two towers, all leaning back, like frames on an easel. The rectilinear
structural grids become the slots of a cabinet, allowing other systems to waive
within. The 'easel' is leaning on an external steel truss system in the office
tower and an internal concrete shear wall system in the residential tower.

The towers have a rhythm, a scaling logic behind their forms. They
become animated like a mathematical sin graph. Jumping from superhuman
object scale to tangible nook and crannies. Geometry repeats across the
sections, bringing different social spaces across different scales together in
relatable geometries. Triangular on their sides and rectilinear at their fronts.
Geometry demarcates space, and space becomes ornamental.

1. Geometries Demarcate Space 2. Atlantic Avenue between Milk Street and East India Row 3. The Conjoined Twin
Unfold Elevation / Digital The Resi Facing East / The Sea, while the Office facing South / The City Physical Model / Museum Board

The Double height rooms are split level, connecting two floors at once.
allowing multiple floors to be interconnected in an alternating manner.

The rooms have opaque shaders flipping down to turn the booth into
a top light-only church-like space.

5. Sketch of an Office Double Height Meeting Booth

1. Office Section 2. Residential Section

3. Office Section Detail 4. Residential Section Detail 6. Sketch of the Office Lobby

A home is a place that provides
refuge and prospects.

On the opposite side, I wish to

spatially and physically tie the towers
together to provide refuge and prospect.
The space is where the inhabitants of the
two towers congregate, as well as them
with the city's traffic in large.

The paths of the two towers

weave together on the ground plan, as the
massings are lifted up to be a canopy, the
junction becomes the center of the sunken
water garden. The water garden also
diagonally connects the street corner to the
in-between of the Pei tower. The amenity
programs are located in the canopy,
forming nine stories high platforms that
line up the view with the rooftops of the
westside across the greenway.

F 48

Ground Plan F 20
 3. The View to the Office Tower from the Ground

1. The View from the Sea to the Residential Tower

2. Study Models
 II
A STATE WITHIN A CAPITAL
A Library and Housing Complex That Provides Public Space to Its Urbanscape.

Site: Washington District of Columbia

STU 1303 - Instructor: Scott Cohen
December 2021
Individual Work

A traditional statehouse is opened up at a hinge. The interior hallway

becomes an exterior plaza. A line becomes a plane. The bichamber rectanglar
plan is being cut at a slant, so it can produce two chambers with different
sizes, larger one for the house, and smaller one for the senate.

The House chamber, Senate chamber, and rotunda are receiving

consequences from the cut. The central rotunda is receiving the most direct
impact. The cut rotunda is no longer an opaque object, but an overt half that
becomes ambiguous in its boundaries. It now can be enclosed to form a joint
meeting chamber for the representatives.

DC becomes a state, and at the same time it becomes a city. Hence it

will need a state hall and a city hall, governing the same territory of Douglass
Commonwealth. A rectangular state house and a city hall with a foreshortened
rectangle are cut in half, and spliced together. Together they become the new
state, with a state government and city government sharing the same section.
Then, the halves unfold themselves along a line, forming a conjoined twin of
“city-state”.

The house and senate also become corresponding parts of one

another, physically separated but formally matched. Each completes one
another to become a whole. Because of the section cut, the poche also
explodes open that one can enter. The poches become hallways and servant
spaces, as the larger chambers and rooms become served spaces.

1. A Hinged Pair of Sections 2. The Phantom Opposite

Diagrams / Digital Physical Model / Basswood
1. The house and senate also become corresponding parts of one another, physically separated but formally matched. 2. Two Sides of the State Capital
Diagrams and Plans / Digital Physical Model / Basswood
1. In the section, The floors are all straight in the front when cutting through the chambers. The floors are all ramped in the 3. A view from the rotunda balcony. 4. A view from the senate exit.
back when cutting through the poche. The poche spaces are sloped to give a unique spatial and circulatory attitude. 5. A view from the house exit. One traverses through the billowing backside of the poche.

2. The state program fragments are halves which unfold out to populate the perimeter of the V, reassembling themselves
along the lines.

In the L’Enfant grid, New York
Avenue from the white house, and New
Jersey avenue from the US capitol, intersect
in a northeast region of the national mall

The new state capitol will mark a

diamond at the crossing. A void larger than
any other public squares in the city but
smaller than the mall.

One can see the state mall as an

equivalent counterpart of the DC mall,
a condensed reflection of the federal L.
Just like the imaging of an eye, the mall is
projected inversely onto the V shaped wall,
the retina of the city. Then, characteristics
are defined: exterior vs interior, the world
vs the room. Most importantly, in order for
the twinning projection relationship to be
successfully established, the state diamond
needs to return a corner back to the city, so
the foci is now located within the city.

1. In order for the twinning projection relationship to be successfully established, the state diamond needs to return a corner
back to the city, so the foci is now located within the city.

The house and senate also

become corresponding parts of one
another, physically separated but formally
matched. Each completes one another to
become a whole. Because of the section
cut, the poche also explodes open that one
can enter. The poches become hallways
and servant spaces, as the larger chambers
and rooms become served spaces.

2. In this manner, The twinning projection relationship also forshorts the federal cross into its original L shape.
3. The two Ls in relation. The federal mall is plates on a table cloth, the state mall is a
boundary making the void.
 III
A HOUSE IN PAIRS
Model of the Brugge Diptych for Jon Lott

Site: Brugge, Belgium

Research Fellowship - Employer: John Lott
Summer 2021
Commission Work

1. Four faces of the Brugge Diptych 2. Interior View of the Brugge Diptych
Physical Model / Basswood Physical Model / Basswood
 IV
A CONFERENCE WITHOUT WALLS
A Library and Housing Complex That Provides Public Space to Its Urbanscape.

Site: Central West End, St. Louis

ARCH 411 - Instructor: John Hoal
December 2019
Individual Work

Located at a historically important intersection, this library and

housing project aims to react to its surrounding street conditions. In the front,
the project interrupts Lindell boulevard's setback wall of apartment blocks.
On the sides, the project completes the retail stretch of Euclid Avenue with
restaurants and reacts to York Avenue's residential conditions with housings.

The community library starts from Lindell Boulevard and wraps

around the corner to stretch along Euclid Avenue. The Library elongates
its shape, separating into community programs that can be operated on
different schedules. The library segments take the shape of scoops to let in
diffused northern light, which becomes a way to mark all the public programs.
The residential towers complete a residential courtyard with a hotel across the
street. The courtyard is populated with platformed playgrounds and sandpits
for the children to play outdoor in shade, with benches surrounded for the
parents to oversee. In the winter, the children could sled down the slope at the
south side of the loop. The complex programs are organized with the idea of
two intersecting loops. One organizes the circulation and composition for the
library programs, the other for the residential programs.

2. Painting, Representing the Intuition

1.
Painting / Acrylic on Canvas

3. 1. Residential Composition

2. Library Elevation
5. 3. Library Plan & Section

4. 4. Plan Study

5. Dual Loop Scheme

6. 6. Sectional Skylight

7. 7. Monumental Front

8. Stepped Landscape
8.
 venue
Argyle A
6.

5.

Eucl
id A
venu
e
York
Aven
ue
4.

3.

2.

Eucl
id
Aven
ue
York
1.
Aven
e u
S2

S1
ard
Boulev
Library Loop Lindell
Physical Model / Foam Core and Butter Board 1.Children's Area on the Elevated Platform 2. Reading Staircase 3. Outdoor Café 4. The Navel of the Library Loop 5. Computer Lab 6. Meeting Rooms
 venue
Argyle A

5.

4.

Eucl
id A
venu
e
York
Aven
3.
6.

ue
2.

Eucl
id
Aven
1.

ue
York
Aven
e u

ard
Boulev
Residential Loop with Library Lindell
Physical Model / Pink Foam Core and Butter Board 1. Entrance to the Residential Loop 2. Conference 3. The Navel of the Residential Loop 4. Skybridge 5. Dog Park 6. Van Eyck Inspired Sandpit and Children's Playground
 Tracing, Representing the Translation of Intuition
Diagrams / Ink on Traces
1. Pink Foam Casts Red Shadows, Marking the Public Spaces
Overall Modell / Pink Foam Core and Butter Board
2. Diffused Light floods in the Six Scoops of Light Wells
Sectional Study Model / Foam Core and Butter Board
3. A Study of the Space within the Library
Sectional Study Model / Foam Core and Butter Board

Layer 2: Residential Cores Layer 3: Community Loop Layer 4: Residential Loop

1.

Layer 5: Library Enclosures Layer 6: Conference & Navels Layer 4: Internal Circulations

2.

3. Layer 7: Residential Towers Layer 9: Tower Skybridges Layer 6: Profile Studies

1. At the interior of the Library, Diffused light washes on the curved wall.
Drafted Perspective / Graphite on Bristol

2. On the Library’s Facade, Children Peek out from the Low Windows to Watch the Street. 3. On the Promenade Through the Residential Loop, Public Space Extends in Distance and in Height. A Streetlike Space with a Character.
Drafted Perspective / Graphite on Bristol Drafted Perspective / Graphite on Bristol
 V
A FORTRESS OF CROSSING GRIDS
A Research Complex Designed with a Focus on Plan Strategy.

Site: Cortex District, St. Louis

ARCH 312 - Instructor: Pablo Mayano
May 2019
Individual Work

In the proximity of an iconic grain silo, this concrete research complex

comes complete with a complex mix of programs: laboratories, classrooms,
office spaces, meeting spaces, program-specific service spaces, and an
exhibition hall, approximately thirty thousand of square feet combined.

The project started with an investigation on the organizational

strategies of the three precedent architects: Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn,
and Santiago Calatrava. A series of collages were made in an attempt
to layer the three grid systems together. The predecessors’ heavy usages
of geometry and grid in spatial planning were reinterpreted. Various
methods were used to explore the ideas and form-making methods of
precedent architects. Small casts of ultra-high-performance concrete
were made to explore the formal possibilities of this versatile material.
Spandex was stretched over a framework, then concrete was poured on
to the surface. Volumes were formed in the gaps of the crisscrossing grid.

In the design process of the research complex, the casting strategy

of the concretefacts was taken as a spatial planning strategy to derive an
organizational method of programs within a crossing grid.

Precedent Collage Precedent Collage 2

Collage / Printed Bristol Collage / Digital

Ultramoderne
Sculpture / Cast Iron
 1. Spandex Tiles
Molds / Spandex, Basswood & Wire
2. Concretefact Tileset
Casts / Plaster
3. Spandex Cicada
Mold / Spandex, Basswood & Wire
4. Silverliner
Cast Sculpture / Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC)
5. Totem
Cast Sculpture/ UHPC with Silica Sand
6. Apollo
Cast Sculpture/ UHPC with Play Sand

1.

2.

3. 4. 5.
6.
 3rd Floor Plan

2nd Floor Plan

Various Plan Study Models & Site Map Ground Floor Plan
Physical Model / Basswood on Cardstock
 Elevation Drawings

1/8’ Sectional Model

Physical Model / Basswood and Plywood
 VI Site

A NIGHTMARE OF MIESIAN MODERN

A Form & Facade Reimagination of the Classic 860-880 Lake Shore Drive.

Site: Lake Shore Drive, Chicago

Seminar ARCH 407B - Instructor: Sungho Kim
December 2019
Individual Work

The Seminar's objective was to take the classic Lake Shore Drive
Residential Towers and transform their facade. Inspired by the classic
modernist idea of a "free plan", this project aims to transform the facades of
the original towers with "free elevations". New Public Programs are "hanged"
on to the existing framework on the elevations. Their forms all follow the
original grid. Ribbings with varying thickness are added on to accommodate
the load of the new programs.

The course uses 3D Printing as a means to iterate models at a level of

complexity that is hard for handcrafting to achieve in a limited time frame.

An Array of Iterations
Physical Model / 3D Printed Facades on Cardstock
 VII 1. Midterm Model
Pysical Model / Basswood & Wire
2. Final Model Detail
3. Final Model Detail

A FLIGHT WITHOUT WINGS 4. Final Design Model

Pysical Model / Basswood & Wire
A Flying Machine Designed with a Focus on Joints.

Site: Forest Park, St. Louis

ARCH 112 - Instructor: Elisa Kim
May 2017
Individual Work

The project reimagines a flying machine by combining the aerial

qualities of both the pressurized water rocket and the giant squid. The propulsion
method of the water rocket along with the maneuvering method of the giant
squid were integrated into the iteration process, becoming a product that aims
to take off like a rocket but stably recover down like a giant squid in its hunt.

Numerous joints were made to connect different materials (basswood,

plastic, mylar, piano wire, and rubber) and various planar surfaces. The
modules were made with the intention of weight reduction and expandability.
All the parts were designed with extra surface areas all taken out, only left with
integral edges, forming almost a gothic-cathedral-like structural language.

2.

1. 3. 4.
 VIII
A DIVISION WITHOUT EDGES
A Gradient of Working Conditions Brought by a Spatial Disruptor

Site: 103 Waverly Pl, Washington Square Park, New York

STU 1201 - Instructor: John May
December 2020
Individual Work

The modern office building typically consists of an open plan, an

instrument of cost-saving and efficiency. As all spaces are rendered self-
similar, one ends up with no choice of space. This project wants to challenge
the generic office space. A spatial object is created to disrupt and mediate the
spatial relationships and qualities across all the floor plates, thus creating
spatial varieties accommodating different human needs, which translates to
the freedom of choice.

The Object is not overt, because it doesn’t remind one of its formal
and spatial coherence through traces of its initial geometry, as it is never
transformed from a prism or a cylinder. Rather, the coherence is understood by
perceiving a common logic of how the parts stack and expand upon themselves.
By tilting the axis of the entire grid, the project also lines up with
Washington Square Park, an unavoidable urban context at the South corner,
and the typical New York inner block courtyard at the North corner. Thus, the
building reacts to the context with its two alternatingly recessing corners.
Sectional Wormeye with Extended Geometry
1. Programmatically, the object generates a different combination of platforms,
pathways on each floor. It is a blender that mixes the floor plates’ spatial relation-
ships vertically.
2. The object doesn’t have a facade, as its exterior is in its stomach.
3. It’s formal logic is based on a singular module that stacks and flips, as from the
outside it reads as an assemblage of components. Yet from the inside it reads as a
carved or a casted object.

1. 2.

1. 2. 3.

The Corner of Washington Sq West and Waverly Place. Southeast Diagram

1. Site with Adjacent Contexts 2. The City Scale Public Park at the South Corner, and the Inner Block Courtyard at the North Corner
 S3 S2

One could only understand the building by traversing through it multiple times. There is a mystery in the sections. The object both compresses and expands, fragments and connects.
 2.

1. Social or individual. Sunlight or artificial Light. Compact or spacious. The building offers a diver-
sity of spatial and lighting conditions without bifurcations.

2. Looking at the southern corner across the CLT object. A canyon like space that’s been carved out.
A Solidity made from the paper thin. Balconies and sunrooms are hung alternatively as an occupia-
ble membrane, mediating the inside and outside.
 3.

3. The articulated structures make a partitioned and fragmented space. The object could also wrap
in reverse to form specific spaces, which remind one of an intimate attic, or the belly of a ship.

4.

1.

4. The viewer’s perception of the rectangular axis is constantly challenged and destabilized by the
two systems in collision, rendering the space complex rather than overt.