Yeh , Yin - Lin

Architect No#5587, Taiwan M. S. in advanced architectural design, GSAPP, Columbia M. Arch. National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Tel:646-492-9396 charimanyeh@gmail.com

Studio Projects in GSAPP, Columbia

1. Urban Filtration 2. The Screen 3. Ways to Do Vibrancy

Urban Filtration
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Studio Critic: Kate Orff Site Location: Jamaica Bay, New York

Urban Filtration
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Studio Critic: Kate Orff Site Location: Jamaica Bay, New York This project is a combination of a series of eco-restoration projects and a secondary water treatment system. Located in Brooklyn and Jamaica Bay, this project aims to restore parts of eco system into both the city and the bay by re-introducing several habitat-building species, while cleaning the water of the bay, softening the hard, unaccessible water front and arouse public concern toward the bay. This project tries to deal several problems in Jamaica bay: 1. Excess nitrogen level. 2. The untreated waste water from combined sewage overflow during storms 3. The Damaged eco-system in the bay 4. Erosion of the land-fills around the bay To improve the bay, this project is introducing a additional water treatment system performed by a series of eco-restoration projects: 1. Fresh-water marshes 2. Salt marshes 3. Oyster reefs

Issues: Excess Nitrogen Level Restoration of ecosystem Storm surge / sea level rising Prior Researches: Water Quality, Water Shed and Sewage Shed Oysters, Salt Marshes and Fresh Water Marshes Storm Surge and Sea Level Rising

Strategies: Restore water-filtering eco-infrastructure into the Bay and urban area Introduce semi-artificial wet lands into the bay and urban area to:
Accelerate natural wet-land-forming mechanism Decrease possible damage by storms/floods Reform traditional image of urban parks

Benefits: Cleaner water Healthier ecosystem Lower risk of major floods Diverse shore line condition

Technical means: Community rain/storm water reservoir Rain water recycling system Separated rain/gray water treatment system Semi-artificial salt/freah marches as:
Carbon sink Nitrogen filter Heavy metal catcher Natural habitant

Artificial oyster reefs as: Function Programs A local water treatment system devoted to treat:
Rainwater, storm water and gray water Out flows from water pollution control plant and combined sewage overflow.

Artificial wet lands and a semi-artificial wet-land-forming mechanism A series of urban parks and water piazzas

Positive side affects: Arouse local concerns toward the bay Recreational/educational values Help release pressures of current infrastructure:
Water treatment Water supply Sewage system Storm damage control

Nitrogen filter Water current damper Sediment catcher

Location:
The project is located near the water pollution control plant in ward 26, Brooklyn. It starts from Linden Blvd. and will be stretched into the periphery of Jamaica Bay. The site is full of different conditions such as urban areas, a canal, 2 landfills, a water pollution control plant, a combined sewage outflow and the bay area. Land Use:

Water Quality
Excess nitrogen in water is now considered one of the most serious problems in the Bay. Citizen Groups are now reaching legal statements with NYC to : 1.Sewage treatment upgrade 2.Marsh restoration 3.Enforceable limit on nitrogen pollution The United States Environmental Protection Agency now considers pollution from all sources, include urban storm water pollution, to be the most important source of contamination in our natural waters. More impervious surfaces mean more urban storm-water runoff, which causes increases in water quality impairment

Residential Mix Use Commercial Industrial Traffic Public Facilities Parks Vacant Lands

SITE

Water shed in the Bay

Surface Current (out)

Sewage Shed / Water Pollution Control Plants

From Water Shed to Sewage Shed

Instead of natural water shed, the water goes into the bay now fellow the man made sewage shed , which, is weak against strong storms, does serious damage to the eco system and increases the contamination problem.

Over-all Strategy:
Water Current:
The form of Urban Filtration project is representing the way water flow from the city to the Bay. The over-all strategy of this project can be broken down into 3 parts: 1. Urban area: Integrate existing park, streets and parking spaces into a rain water recycling and gray water treating system using fresh-water plants to treat water and restore the eco-system in urban area. 2. Estuary: A working water park that treats CSO & WWTP out flow while works as storm water reservoir as wel 3. In the bay: Restore oyster reefs into the bay that filter nitrogen and help forming new salt marshes.

INDUSTRIAL

MAIN STREET
COMMERCIAL

CSO (COMBINED SEWAGE OUTFOLW) & WWTP (Waste Water Treatment Plant) OUTFLOW
COMMERCIAL

RESIDENTIAL RESIDENTIAL

WATER TREATMENT PLANT

BELT PARKWAY

INDUSTRIAL LAND FILL

SHOPPING MALL

LAND FILL RESIDENTIAL

OPEN WATER
A salt marsh forming mechanism preformed by oyster reefs : Oysters can work as efficient nitrogen filter . The idea is to deploy oyster reefs in the bay according to the direction of ordinary current going out the bay to slow down the water , give further treatment and to catch sediments and help forming wetland habitats in shallow water. The salt marsh restoration project also help soften the hard edge at water front, reduce the natural erosion of landfills and thereby improve water quality.

WATER PARK A working landscape : Deploy marsh bed units into the channel while creating an artificial estuary to treat CSO (Combined Sewage Outflow) and WWTP (Waste Water Treatment plant) outflow. This area has a capacity to keep WWTP outflow in the site for two days and have additional reservoirs able to accommodate CSO water for three continuous day of average thunder storm so the water will be treated before leaving the site. The landscape serves as a park during ordinary days.

URBAN AREA
Feel the Bay in urban life: Introduce rain and gray water ponds with freshwater marsh plants, in-land vegetation, filtration sand bed and infiltration layers to reserve, treat and recycle rain water and gray water . The system also increase efficiency of current water treatment system, reduce storm damage and forms a net work of eco-passages in urban area. The system also serves as parks, plazas and parking spaces.

CSO & WWTP Outflow

The black water, after going through water plant, will be further treated by the freshwater marsh, the oyster reefs and the salt marsh of my project. And, during string storm, this project buffers the direct damage of urban flush from sewage outflow (CSO) and provide basic eco-treatment for all kinds of waste water before they go into the bay
CLEAN DIRTY ADDITIONAL CSO RESERVOIR DURING STORMS

Gray Water
Gray water system is a series of unaccessible pounds of fresh water plants which also work as habitats in urban area
RELEASED INTO CHANNEL CLEAN DIRTY

Rain Water
The rain water system are ponds, infiltration layers, filtration sand beds and freshwater marshes which also work as parks, passages, parking spaces and plazas. Most of these units are under ground and have functions other than to gather, treat and recycle rain water.

A Water Treatment System

This project is basically, an additional water treatment system in addition to current sewage system. This system treat and recycle rain water and gray water, and, give further treatment to outflows from existing water plant (WWPT) and sewage (CSO). The vertical scale in te section below is 10 times larger than the horizontal scale. This section shows the different slope between rain water and gray water system.
RAIN WATER SYSTEM GRAY WATER SYSTEM CSO & WWTP OUTFLOW WATER TREATMENT FACILITIES
IO N

T EC

LAND FILL BELT PARKWAY OYSTER REEFS MARSH PLANTS ELEVATED ROADS PARK ENTRANCE

AT E R G R AY W R R A IN WAT E

CSO & WWTP OUTFLOW

The vertical scale in this drawing is 10 times larger than the horizontal scale

Function Programs

Function Programs and Eco-Restoration Projects

Urban Filtration is a project composed by four different eco-restoration projects and has many other function programs Besides water treatment system.

Eco-Restoration Projects

Morphology:
This diagram represents the shapes of this project. The water treatment eco-units: in-land, intertidal or underwater, are changing shapes from land to sea. The gray water units get larger when the water get cleaner. The rain water units, in order to fit themselves in the over developed urban situation, are rectangular in shape at first, and then change into more organic shapes. The morphology of these units, is an architectural representation of the city gradually blend into the bay ans different kinds of water gradually mixes with each other and goes into the sea.

System Break Down:

This diagram shows how different kinds of water goes through the system and get treated by ether rain water units, gray water units or oyster reefs.
rain water recycle

gray water
rain water can be recycled without further treatment

black water

Evaporate

rain water

evaporate

recycle

surface water infiltration

rain water ponds serve as parks minimum water level over flow within rain water system infiltration layers serve as passages or parking spaces

RAIN WATER SYSTEM

infiltration over flow within rain water system over flow into the Bay

marsh plants

gray water ponds unaccessible to public over flow within gray water system

Sewage System Water Treatment Plants

over flow into the Bay

CSO & WWTP OUTFLOW TREATMENT

RAIN WATER PONDS GRAY WATER PONDS FRESH MARSH PLANTS OYSTER REEFS SALT MARSH PLANTS newly formed salt marsh marsh plant oyster reefs slow the water current down and help the forming of wetlands

filtration

gray water system forms a network of undisturbed habitants recycle

GRAY WATER SYSTEM

gray water ponds increase in size and have better accessibility when water get cleaner

oyster reefs

The Urban Area:

The rain water and gray water system has many different functions in the urban area. It create green public spaces, utilize parking spaces as underground reservoirs, and create habitats for small creatures. Through the rain and gray water system, people in the urban area can feel the bay even without seeing it, and, have more concern about our eco system.

Gray water channel hidden behind the trees

Rain water pound, accessible for public

Filtration sand bed beneath parking spaces

The Urban Area:

A typical view of a rain water pound in urban area

visitor center

The Water Park:

Streets are lifted from the ground so both citizens and animals can go across the streets safely.

administration

At the estuary, the outflows of rain water system goes into a large recreational park. Right next to this park is the place where the treated gray water and the WWTP out flow being released into the channel. This water park is a working landscape where people can have fun with the treated rain water, and watch the marsh plants treating the rest of their waste water.

marsh bed freshwater marsh CSO & WWTP outflow gray water ponds filtration layer rain water ponds park & playground elevated street

C SE

TI

ON

Accessibility:

Accessibility of the parks and the ponds differs from cleanness of the water in order to avoid citizens from exposed to contaminated ponds. Basically, rain water ponds are always accessible, while gray water ponds are not.
always accessible unaccessible only during severe storms accessibility varies with daily water quality monitering

marsh bed & plants

gray water pound

gray water pound

rain water pound

Spring in the Park

Winter in the Park

gray water pound

rain water pound

stor m reser voir / recreational area

passage

The Water Park:

gray water pound

ordinar y water route

1 2 3

During the Storms:

Normally, out-flows from gray water system and WWTP goes through pond 1~4 and get cleaner and cleaner before released into the channel. Pond 1~4 have a combined capacity 2 times larger then daily WWTP out-flow (maximum depth 1.5~2 m). During the storm days, pond A and underground reservoir B will be used to help keeping the CSO water in site so that no untreated water will go into the bay. Pons 1~4 and A, B have a capacity to withstand three continuous days of average thunder storm without letting untreated water into the channel.

stor m days water route

Bay Area:

In the bay area are oyster reefs restoration project that helps forming wetlands. Considering the constant lost of wet lands in the Bay, I basically developed a U shape artificial oyster reefs to slow down the outgoing flows. By the method the oysters and the marsh will have more time to clean the water, and, the suspended particles caught by the reefs are helpful in our course to restore the losing wet lands within the Bay.

Surface Cur rent (out)

surface current going out the Bay waterfront platform for big events water quality monitoring facility artificial oyster reefs ferry channel newly formed wetland marina

High Tide Low Tide

T he

in r ow

re g di

he of t tion

ree

CURRENT(OUT)

The Oyster Reefs

Live Oysters Recycled Oyster Shells Rocks/pebbles Metal Cages Piles

The Screen
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Studio Critic: Frederic Levrat Site Location: Amman, Jordan

The Screen
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Studio Critic: Frederic Levrat Site Location: Amman, Jordan

This project is an MOVING, INTERACTIVE SCREEN that works as a REAL-WORLD DIGITAL AGORA and a shaded park. Also, this project is designed to host the annual JORDAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL and accommodate permanent structures such as office and projection rooms for the film festival. Inspired by the ARAB SPRING movement, this project discusses the relationship between public spaces, social network and interactive media. Also, to explore the possibility of having a truly interactive structure that brings the issue of information sharing into another scale, and, how that possible future may have its impact to our cities The Screen is: An agora and a public space A real-world cyber space A social network at a specific location A film festival curated by the audience And, it is about: Form, space and screen Social networks and physical background Events, hosts and participants Images, audiences and points of views Public spaces, urban contexts and landscape Augmented Reality

Internet, Traditional Media, Public Spaces and the Screen

After being fed up with TV and newspaper, people start to search for information on the internet and go to public spaces to witness important events. However, neither the mass media, the internet nor our public spaces can work alone as an ideal information platform because they all have problems such as censorship on T.V., irresponsible information providers and flood of junk information on the internet, and, difficulty to collect relevant information in all kinds of public spaces. As in cases such as Arab Spring or Occupying Wall Street, we can see that exchanging information between the internet and public spaces create a reciprocation that brings some balance back to both internet and the public spaces. I came up with the idea of having that kind of interaction built in to the information platform itself. The Screen is a more direct approach: a combination of a digital agora and a public space. Its a real-world cyber-spaces where issues coordinate and compete with each other for the right to be displayed toward the public. This project brings sharing information into a different scale, thereby, addresses the issue of who has the right to be heard, and arouse dialogs between the city, the public and digital information.

Source Internet Unknown

Hours 24-7

Content Digital

Subjects Miscellaneous

Responsibilities of information providers Almost none

Public Concern By issues

Who have the right to provide information Everybody

The screen

Mostly locals

Daily

All

Local/not censored

Some

By issues

Registered hosts with a reasonable crowd Authorities

Traditional media

Authority

Scheduled

Digital

Censored

Huge

Huge

Public spaces

Locals Very limited

Unknown

Vocal Physical

Local

A little

By issues

Locals

Internet

Flood of irresponsible information Addictive Pleasure of being noticed Pleasure of being anonymous

The screen Censorship, fixed time table Difficult to find specific information Very limited sources Unpredictable times and contents

Traditional media

Public spaces

This Diagram shows the differences between existing daily information sources of ours. The Screen is trying to combine the advantages of a public space and the internet to create a new type of media the belongs to neither governments nor major companies, which runs as a public spaces of information, images and sounds.

A real-world Digital Agora:

In order to combine the functions of a digital agora and a public space, the physical space must have some ability to define the domains of each issues physically, thereby, to coordinate between subjects being shared and discussed within the space. Luckily, modern computers can easily recognizes people and modes of different gatherings simply by a well-programed camera. Im imagining the an interactive screen that recognizes its audience in terms of events, hosts, locations, types, scales and gestures of each person, and, according to these dat, provides digital contents to each event such as images, sounds and texts. Any host of an issue or an event should register to the screen in order to be recognized as an event, and, the screen will respond in real time according to the geometrical type and size of the events. When events move, the spatial settings move with them.

The way projectors assigned to different events (films)

The use of Hyper Sonic Speakers can avoid different sound tracks from interfere with each other.

Different types of events:

Other then just another citizen, possible hosts might include artists, merchant, protesters, commercial, public welfare, religious, as long as they register to the space, and, have a smart phone. The physical scape of the audience can further determine the space in detail.

This is a space recognizes events, hosts and scales of events using cameras. This space responds to events and give additional support such as larger space, images or sounds. Authorized hosts can move freely in this space and their spatial setting shall follow them.

The space will also recognize different gestures to better understand the flow, the direction and condition of the crowd.

In more complicated settings, the physical scape can even suggest the center points, the flow and the viewing angles of events.

In Jordan Short Film Festival, the screen can create a now type of viewing experiences of a self-curated outdoor IMAX, Curators as Event Hosts ; Audiences as Participants.

Through some setting, the events can be arranged in orderly fashions such as multi-centered events or deformed events.

Using half-transparent screens can bring in the possibility of augmented reality, also, by having the possibility of projecting outward it creates a whole new dialog between events inside the screen and the rest of the city. And, by lowering the default position of the screen, it is possible to create unaccessible boundaries for events.

Structural Experiment of a Moving Screen:

After some experiments, I found that I dont necessarily need a mega-structure that runs above everything. Actually, if I control the angles of all cables that pull up the screen with enough supporting points , the screen will still have almost the same ability of transforming and moving as I wanted.

View from the Citadel

View from the Mosque

The Site
The site is located in the historical center of downtown Amman, right next to the first circle. With a little help from the hilly topography of Amman, this is a spot that can be seen by most parts of downtown Amman. The site is basically a slope as steep as 25~45 degrees -a good shape of outdoor theaters, and, with a rich urban context. The religious center of nearby area, an important mosque, is located right below the site. Surrounding the mosque is a very busy street and a market. Also, the most famous tourist spots, the citadel and a roman theater, are also within walking distance.

The Screen
A moving tent structure supported by 20 mega-columns. The screen displays digital contents, interact with its viewers and provide suitable physical forms for all issues(events) on display.

Programs and Types of Seats The Audience

The Audience is a series of seats, stairs, slopes and platforms that designed for different kinds of events and viewing experiences. A still, man-made structure between the land scape and the moving screen.

The Audience: The Physical Scape of the Agora

Programs, types of seats, circulation and viewing angles

The Landscape
Inside the small pockets between the landscape and the audience are some permanent structures such as the office, a indoor projection room and some service spaces.

Viewing Angles

The Screen, the Audience and the Landscape

Basically, this project is composed by these three parts. The screen bares most the digital information, the landscape represents the situation of our physical world, and, the audience sandwiches between these two to plays the role of a public space combined with digital agora.
The Screen The Audience

The Landscape

At some points, the default height is lower than 1 meter so that the I can create unaccessible(private) boxes by programing the screen shape.

The Screen and Its Shapes

The screen is a moving, half transparent tent structure that displays images. The screen is hung evenly from cables attached to 20 columns, and, because all cables are controlled by computer, the screen can change into various shapes and interact with what ever events beneath it.

Minimum Heights

The Ideological Shape

According to ths crowd and the hosts shown in this diagram, the Ideal shape of the screen is like this: each events has a dome of various size, the rest of the screen is on default position.

Default Position
Because the screen changes its shape by being pulled up by cables, there will be a lowest position for every points on the screen. In order to determine that default position, the diagram at the right color coded the minimum heights required by each area on the audience. By that height study, we have the default position (the lowest position) of the screen. Default Position

The Structural Issue:

How ever, this shape is relatively not realistic for a tent structure. The tent is pulled up evenly all over the screen, but, is pulled down only in a few places in order to keep the integrity of the space under the screen.(The yellow dots in this diagram)

Sensing area:
The heart of the digital agora, in which all people will be recognized by cameras and activate the screen.

The Event Hosts:

Each events or issues being displayed onto the screen, should have at least one host. This person should register to the screen with a smart phone to control the digital contents being displayed. The screen will evaluate the scales and types of events, recognize the center points and change its shape.

Sensing Areas and Event Hosts

The Shape of the Screen

Considering the structural issues and tension of the tent structure, the ideal shape is modified into this realistic shape, and, this is hoe the screen is going to look like.

A Changing (Programable) Shape

As the crowd moves, the screen changes its shape accordingly. Looking from a distance, the project glows with different issues being displayed on the screen(01). Also, when one of the issue gets hotter and hotter, the screen changes its shape and forms a more dramatic space for that issue. (02) As in rendering 02, one of the issues have reaches the maximum height the structure system allows, it forms a huge dome looks like a majestic mosque. Besides the ordinary ways of form changing, the management can also release the shape controlling program of the screen as an open resource so that the screen can have a specific form as needed in some special events. The rendering 03 is one example of those shapes that is designed to be seen form the rest of the city.

During the Day:

Because of the lighting condition during the days, the screen basically provides texts and line drawn contents during the days. Displayed in front of the view of real Amman, these digital content can work as a piece of augmented reality. Beside the display of augmented reality contents, the project also work as a park that provide green spaces to Amman..

01 02

03

During the Days

01 .The Augmented reality in the digital agora. Displaying realtime news, guiding information of the city and shared text. 02. The scene below the audience, I created small pockets under the audiences to accommodate spaces like the caf, the service spaces, the shaded pedestrian streets and the office. All these spaces will be quite breezy comparing with the rest of Amman because the screen will be moving. 03. In order to create a dialog between the screen, the audience and the landscape, there are holes on both the screen and the audience. This move preserves existing trees on site and create chances for visitors to look at the scene above the screen.

During the Nights (Digital Agora):

During the nights, the project mainly works as a digital agora. People can bring whatever subject to the site to be displayed, and, the crowd will decide their volumes. There could be political discussions, digital arts, commercials, and so on. And, when an issue start to get over-heated, it grows and occupy the entire screen.

01 02

03

Jordan Short Film Festival

Besides the ordinary digital agora, the screen also hosts the Jordan Short Film Festival. Unlike the scheduled film festivals, this is a film festival curated by its audiences and worked like a scene park. Curators, or the event hosts register to the screen, pick a film from the list and find a quiet corner, sit down and watch the film, and, the screen will create an ideal out door IMAX screen for each of them. (Using hyper sonic speakers to provide sound tracks that will never interfere with each other). The rest of the viewers, can walk around the site and join any film as they like, or, go and register themselves as curaters.

Occupying the Screen:

Because the screen is half transparent, the projectors can project images both inward and out ward. In case of a really important issue, the crowd can go occupy the screen and make their statement seen by half of Amman.

Coordinate Between Events

Because the ideal location of the site, and the size of this project, the screen can be used to coordinate different events in the city such as new year parties, call-for-prayer, political gathering, and so on.

Section Rendering

Ways to do Vibrancy
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Studio Critic: Markus Dochantschi Site Location: Istanbul, Turkey Collaborated with Tin-Yu Kao

Ways to do Vibrancy
Academic project in GSAPP Columbia Collaborated with Tin-Yu Kao Studio Critic: Markus Dochantschi Site Location: Istanbul, Turkey

This project is an experimental method trying to integrate the entire workflow from URBAN PLANNING to ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN in order to create true, well-programed vibrancy in STREETS and PUBLIC SPACES. Ways to do Vibrancy is a project which is unique in its street-oriented planning method and its experimental zoning-on-the-facades technique. The combination of these two methods creates STREETS and BUILDINGS unlike any existing city, something totally new and never be seen before.

Vibrancy on the Street:

STREET VIBRANCY means that people are actually using and to some degree, living in the streets. VIBRANT, HIGH QUALITY STREETS are our best chance to improve, to UTILIZE and to give IDENTITIES to our over-crowded, globalized cities. The word Streets here refers to all streets, roads, plazas, parks and all accessible public spaces.

One of our section model

Hierarchies, Connections and Distances of Streets

Street types, guidelines of generating the streets and test on the site.

Programs and Zonings of Streets

Types, widths, mix-used streets and green areas.

Massing and Zonings of Buildings

Heights, set-backs and the zoning-on-facade method

Public Spaces and Infrastructures

Locations and densities

Design of the Streets and Buildings

What would our city looks like

Our method in this project:

In this project, we are testing an experimental approach as illustrated above. An integrated work flow from URBAN PLANNING to ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN. What we did is basically transfer our thoughts into design guidelines, test them on site and analysis the out-come while revise the design guidelines if necessary.

All vibrant, but different:

All streets, no matter how similar with each other, are different. Being the key to create truly vibrant street, these differences are the source of IDENTITIES, of SENSE of BELONGING that make people willing to spend time outside their doors, willing to USE, to maintain and more important, to DESIGN and to IMPROVE the streets. To create high-function, well-programed streets, one could not have the energy to design every details on all streets, therefore, in order to do so, one must start with a method that creates variety and yet have a certain degree of control of it. In other words, the streets must be zoned and programed.

A_R
A_R_Start A_Road A_R_End A_Joint
Residences Sense of Beloning Street Lives

B_R
B_R_Start B_Road B_R_End B_Joint

C_R
C_R_Start C_Road C_R_End C_Joint

Types

Guideline #01-1: Types & Connections

#01-1 describes street TYPES, rules of CONNECTIONS and basic CHARACTERS of each types of Streets. Basically, A streets connect to B streets, B streets connect to C streets and C streets do NOT connect to A streets. And, for the distances, You cant have an A street goes without any joints or intersections for more than 400m. Cant have a B goes for more than 200m and cant have a C goes more than 100m. The characters of all 3 kinds of streets are as the diagram at the previous page. Being more specific, A streets have more of their width dedicated to transportation.

Site Boundry

Street types and accessibility in Istanbul

C Class Roads

All possible connections

A_R_S A_R_E

B_R_S B_R_E

C_R_S C_R_E

Hierarchy, Accessibility and Characters of Streets

Hierarchy creates difference of accessibility, which create sense of belonging and thereby gives identities to all streets, encourages people to use them, and, creates vibrancy. In this project, we defined 3 types of streets by their accessibility (as shown in the diagram on the left) as the start point.

B Class Roads

Descriptions

A Class Roads
Transportation Accessibility Public / Regional

VT > 8m Maximum distances <400m

8m > VT > 4m Maximum distances <200m

4m > VT Maximum distances <100m

*VT= Net width used for vehicles or transportation *Maximum distance: Maximum distance without any joints or intersections

100m

200m 400m

400M

Important Distances Around the Site

Distance of Public Transportation: 400M

After having the types of streets, we started to research for the right distances to help build our grid system. Our site, is an abandoned navy ship yard located in an industrial district near on the other bank of Istanbuls historical center. Looking into average distances between public TRANSPORTATION stops and community MOSQUES, we came up with two numbers: 400M for public transportation and 200M for community forming.

Example #01-1
Following #01-1's descriptions of street TYPES, CONNECTIONS and Distances, there the streets should form a network as shown as the right. #01-1 does not control the form or shape of the street system, therefore, there can be geometric forms or organic forms, but, these street system will still have the characters, the hierarchy system and the similar density as described before.

SITE

Distance of Community Forming: 200M

Access Points

#01-1: Free

Testing #01-1-01 ~ #01-1-09:

After having guideline#01-1, we tested it on site, first we identify the entrance points of the site, and, step by step, we added knowledge into our grid system such as TOPOGRAPHY, PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, SCALES of DEVELOPMENT, TRANSPORTATION, and so on. After running these tests, we have our finalized grid system.
#01-2: Looping C-streets
Looping C-streets can increases the flow of all C-streets and prevent dead ends.

#01-3: Efficient block-divisions

Getting rid of redundant small alleys.

#01-4: Minimum Block Sizes

Creating reasonable block shapes for development.

Our Finalized Grid:

After running all these tests, we have considered these in our road system: 1. Hierarchies : Type A , B and C 2. Transportation : . Access Points . 400-200m distance of public transportation 3. Forming of communities : . 200-100m distance of neighborhoods . Minimum block sizes . Efficient way to divide blocks 4. Site conditions : . Topography . Exist urban fabric 5. Physical environment . Wind corridor / Water shed . Sun exposure / View

Topo

#01-5: Topography:
Having more efficiency in transportation and arranging building sites.

Wind Corridor Watershed

#01-6: Wind and Water

Having fresh air on streets and make it easier to arrange the sewage/water supply system.

Urban Fabric

#01-7: Urban Fabric

Make connection to existing urban fabric. Improve the existing disconnected water front situation.

Twisted Grid

#01-8: Twisted Grid

Use this twisted grid to simplify the geometry of the road system and have more a efficient shape.

Sun Exposure Views on Streets

#01-9 Sun Exposure and View

Make sure enough of our streets have sunshine and view.

Streets Need to be Zoned:

After having the shape of the grid, our streets still need to be programed and zoned in order to be designed and everybody can profit from it.

Government
Get investment on building streets Get help on maintaining and managing streets Rent income

Users / Visitors
Use the streets

Developers / Owners
Have a chance to control the quality of streets Have a chance to own the streets

Street Programs:
After studying the programs and their portions of the streets in Istanbul, we identified 6 different groups of street programs as listed.

Street Programs

Streets in Istanbul

Transportation

Guidelines #02-1: Street Programs

After the studies of street programs, we start writing guidelines to control the syntax in which we assemble street programs. We drew two diagrams to explain some basic rules of street programs such as PEDESTRIANs should not be sandwiched between two TRANSPORTATIONs, TRANSITs must have direct connections to both TRANSPORTATION and PEDESTRIAN... and so on.

Pedestrian

Green

Mixed Pedestrian

Mixed Green

Transit

Testing #02-1
And, we drew a series of streets, vertical streets and intersections to test our design guidelines, and, to find a way to ZONE THE STREETS efficiently. We came up with Guide line #02-2: All streets should be zoned in 4 different characters: TYPE of street, WIDTH, percentage of MIX-USED programs and percentage of GREEN area.

Guideline #02-2: Zoning the Streets:

All streets should be zoned by: 1. TYPES, which refers to the A, B and C types we talked about in guideline #01 2. WIDTH: The minimum total width of street, including double-deckers or vertical streets. 3. Percentage of MIX-USED programs: MIX-USED programs refers to MIXED PEDESTRIAN and MIXED GREEN ( MP & MG ) in guideline #02-1. 4. Percentage of GREEN AREA: GREEN AREA refers to GREEN and MIXED GREEN ( G & MG) in guideline #02-1

Testing #02-2: Trying to Zone the Streets on Site

According to our guideline #02-2, all streets should be zoned by their TYPES, WIDTHS, MIX-USED programs and GREEN area.

Testing #02-2-01: Street Width

Because the street types (which we already have) are trying to give characters to streets, the widths should further enhance these characters. A-streets are more about traffics, therefore, a simple analysis of traffic flow can determine the proper width of all Astreets. While, C-streets are more for those who live in the neighborhoods, so the widths of C-streets should reflect the size and population of each blocks.
C Roads Local Street Lives B Roads: mediating between A and C Block Size Accessibility
Connections, 050m~100m Connections, 000m~050m

A Roads Traffic / Visitors

A-Streets: Flow and Street Width

By Investigating into the sites access points, possible public transportation and traffic flow around the site, we quickly drew this diagram and use it to guide our width of all A-streets.

C-Streets: Block Sizes

Widths of our C-streets are determined by block sizes, service ranges and anticipated population.

Connections, 100m~150m

Testing #02-2-03: Mix-Used Programs

All streets are Zoned by minimum amount of MIXED PEDESTRIAN or MIXED GREEN programs (the MP and MG programs in guideline #02-1). In this testing, we are generating another zoning map which controls the minimum area of all MIX-USED programs on the streets.

B-Streets: Flexible
We use the B-street to mediate between A and C to allow some flexibility of design and planning.

Connections, 150m~200m

Study of Potential Connections

In order to do so, we started with a study of distances and connections between HYPOTHETICAL ATTRACTION POINTS which locate at all CORNERS and the WATER FRONT. The result of this connection study is a network that get denser at potentially busy or important locations. By the out come of our connection study, we drew a zoning map of MIX-USED programs.

Testing #02-2-02: Green Area

All streets are Zoned by minimum amount of GREEN or MIXED GREEN programs (the G and MG programs in guideline #02-1)
Percentage: The percentage shown here controls the minimum area of that part of streets covered by GREEN or MIXED GREEN programs. Actual G+MG Area x100% Minimum Street Width And, for 50% is a rather large portion, our zoning force many streets into double-deckers. Connections, All

Zoning Map of Mix-Used Programs

Like the green area zoning, the zoning of MIXUSED programs is presented by a series of percentages which controls the minimum amount of MIX-USED programs according to the minimum width of that street. Actual MP+MG Area x100% Minimum Street Width

Existing Green Area

Existing Green Area

Forming the eco-connection between land and waterfront These streets, as studied in Test #01-1, have a considerable degree of sun exposure, fresh air and view of the river, and, are more suitable for recreational uses and green areas.

From Streets to Buildings: Massing and Zoning

Streets need buildings. In most cases, buildings have more power to define a street than the street itself. Therefore, we must have control of the buildings to support the street vibrancy we are trying to create here. To support diverse lifestyles we create on the streets, the massing and zoning of buildings should be determined accordingly by the characters of the street in front of it. We decided to do the zoning on the building facades, because, FACADES ARE THE INTERFACE BETWEEN STREETS AND BUILDINGS. The MIXED-USE Percentage Determines the Buildings Program on the Street Level:
Again, PROPORTION STREET-LEVEL is a certain proportion of mixtures of different programs designed to have more vibrancy, more diversity and more dense while considering the concept of different time during a days. 50%

Proportion: Street Level

Commercial: 45% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 20% Office: 5%
MP + MG on Street 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% Proportion Street-Level 50% of total height 40% 30% 20% 10%

Guideline #03-1: How to Guide the Zoning of the Buildings According to the Street Zoning
Street TYPES Percentage of GREEN Percentage of MIXED-USE determines determines determines Building Heights Set-backs / Programs on the Top Programs on the Street Level

And, the rest of the buildings are zoned as PROPORTION MIDDLE, which designed to accommodate required residences and offices.

Proportion: Middle
Street Types Determines the Buildings Heights:
Types of the streets (the A, B and C types in #01-1) refers to accessibility and transportation. Generally, A-streets are capable to serve a greater population and with their advantage of conveniences in transportation, they are more likely to become business of commercial streets and have greater density of buildings. A Roads generate 30m-high faades along them B Roads generate 20m-high facades alone them C Roads generate 10m-hifh facades alone them The heights at the corner are combined number with all roads intersect at that corner, therefore, an intersection of two A roads generate a 50mhigh faade, etc.

Residential: 50% Open Spaces / Void: 40% Office: 11%

About Our Programs in Buildings:

As said above, all our programs are mix-used proportions fo different characters, and, to further create vibrancy, we did a simple study about the vibrant hours of different land uses. According to that study, we designated programs into the 3 different mixtures of zoning,

Proportion: Above
HOURS OF VIBRANCY WEEK DAYS EVENINGS RESTAURANTS RETAILS DAILY SERVICES ENTERTAINMENT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES OFFICE RESIDENTTIAL OFFICE STUDIOS SMALL UNITS HOLIDAYS NO EFFECT

The GREEN Zoning Determines the Set-backs and Programs on Top of Buildings:
The GREEN zoning is more about physical environment, sun, wind, air, water, view and is about out-door, healthy, eco-friendly, recreational atmospheres. Therefore THE GREEN ZONING is a perfect guide of building set-back. The skyline of a city is, another chance we have to create green area for the environments sake, for recreational use or for delightful city scape. In this project, we also use the GREEN ZONING of the streets to guide our upper part of city, for we find its quite relevant. G + MG on Street 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 40% What in here is a specific mixture of programs we called THE PROPORTION ABOVE, which is a certain proportion of mixtures of different programs designed to have more open space, better air circulation, better lighting condition and less dense. Such as larger 50% residential units, open spaces, recreational and cultural uses along with small units of restaurants, retails and service. 40% Set-back Angles +30 degrees +20 degrees +10 degrees +-0 degrees -10 degrees Programs on Top 50% of total height 40% 30% 20% 10%

COMMERCIAL

Commercial: 5% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 60% Office: 5%

Proportion: Middle
Residential: 50% Open Spaces / Void: 40% Office: 11%
LARGE UNITS

MID-SIZE UNITS

Proportion: Street Level

Commercial: 45% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 20% Office: 5%
And, besides the ZONING-ON-THE-FACADE method, we also took some other strategies to create vibrancy. 1. Force some of the GROUP 04 programs combine with GROUP 02 programs to avoid these area to become overly-quiet during evenings and holidays. 2. Force all GROUP 04 programs to leave the street level.

PUBLIC/OPEN

GREEN EVENTS CULTURAL

GROUP 01: VIBRANT ALL-TIME GROUP 02: EVENING/HOLIDAYS

Proportion: Above
Commercial: 5% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 60% Office: 5%

GROUP 03: NO EFFECT GROUP 04: DEAD AT NIGHT

Testing #03, Massing and Zoning of Buildings

So, We tested our massing and zoning tools on site and thereby, we got our first version of our master plan.

The Zoning of our Buildings

This model shows how we were trying to apply our zoning-on-facade method on to our massing model. The RED, GREEN and ORANGE colors refer to the different proportions of programs we talked about in the last page (guideline #03). And, some other colors in this rendering show the different types of infrastructures and public spaces we will talk about later in guideline #04.

Building Heights by Street Types

We calculated heights at every corners. As seen in this diagram, the highest point of our project is located at the center of our site, where we have 3 A-streets run into each other and created a nearly 100-meters high massing.

Set-Back Angles by GREEN Zoning

The Massing of our Buildings

This massing model DOES NOT MEAN THE ACTUAL FORM of our design, so, it should not be regarded as our master plan. It is, more like a REGULATION thing, a 3D model that controls the maximum volume of this project.

How the RED on facade reflect the RED on streets

How the buildings open-up accordingly to the GREEN zoning on streets

Guideline #04-1, Public Spaces and Infrastructures

Also, It is quite handy to use the STREET ZONING to guide the design and location of infrastructures, In this project, we put all infrastructures into 3 categories: 1. Public facilities that need specific locations such as schools or hospitals 2 . Infrastructures which should be integrated into networks and work together. 3. Infrastructures that need to be evenly distributed in site with a certain density.

Group 01,
School, Hospital and Cultural Center Facilities need to be located somewhere
SCHOOL WATER FRONT A Joints At least *1

Schools:
Schools dont need to be at the water front because the waterfront, is supposed to be a vibrant and noisy place by setting. And, a schools should br next to at least an A-joint so that itll have public transportation. And, the school should be next to a B-street whichs MIX-USED ZONING is less then 30%, therefore, the school will have a street quiet enough to place its classrooms. Schools should not next to C-streets because C-streets do not have enough capacity to handle the traffic in rush hours.

Hospital

School

Group 02:
Public Services, Bus Routes and Tronsportation
*PUBLIC SERVICES here refers to police, post offices, fire service and so on.... PUBLIC SERVICES BUS ROUTES Transportation Come with Bus Stops A Joints

Relationship with each other What kind of streets do they need What density do they need
At least*13 ( of all) At least*16 (2/3 of all)

B Streets At least *1 MP <30% C Streets HOSPITAL WATER FRONT A Joints At least *1 MP <30%

Hospitals
Hospital need quiet A-streets for emergency reasons

Stop at all PUBLIC SERVICE STATIONS A Joints Come with Bus Stops A Joints

At least*6 ( of AJs on boundery)

A Streets At least *2 MP <30% C Streets CULTURAL CENTER WATER FRONT A Joints At least *1 MP >30% G+MG >30%

Cultural Center:
Cultural center need vibrancy, therefore, the water front is quite suitable. A-STREETS with more than 30% of both MIX-USED ZONING and GREEN ZONING can support Cultural Centers quite well in terms of traffic, vibrancy and high quality open spaces. Transportation / Public Service Park

A Streets At least *2 MP >30% G+MG >30% C Streets

Group 03:
Parks and Emergency
PARKS LARGE A Streets or B Streets C Streets MID-SIZE SMALL EMERGENCY B Joints C Joints C Joints At least*2 ( of all) At least*4 ( of all) All of them 1

What kind of streets do they need What density do they need Additional Requirements
MP >30% G+MG >30%

Transportation / Public Service Park (Large) Emergency

Emergency:
EMERGENCY here refers to operation spaces of fire trucks and ambulances, which should be located at all C-Joints because a C-joint means a dead end of a C-street so, there will be an EMERGENCY space at all C-joints which connected to a nearest A-street. Transportation

Cultural Center

Must connect to A Streets

#04-2, Water Front Conditions and Street Zoning

In #04-2, we tried to make deign decisions on the water front according to our street zoning. The basic idea is the GREEN ZONING guides the softness of the edge and the MIX-USED ZONING guides the areas that allow human activities and possible temporary structures. The range of human activities and the areas that allow temporary or floating structures are determined by the MIX-USED ZONING on the riverside street.

Wetlands, inter-tidal areas or soft edges

The width of wetlands and soft edges are guided by the GREEN ZONING on the river-side street.

Area of possible human activities.

From Zoning to Architectural Design

After all the planning and zoning, we start imagining the architectural scale on site. After a quick testing, we found that our zoning method have great influence to our buildings in 3 major ways:

02. A 3-dimensional Network of Public and Semi-publc Spaces

Because of our strategy of three different mixtures pf programs (PROPORTION ABOVE, STREET-LEVEL and MIDDLE in guideline #03),this project forms a three dimensional network of public and semi-public spaces in the intermediate levels between different programs.

01. Buildings Sculptured by Zoning Model

The diagrams on the right show hoe the zoning model sculptures the buildings into diverse and dynamic forms.

03 Buildings Dialog with each Other Across Streets.

We zoned our buildings on the facades, and, according to the streets these facades are facing. Therefore, all the buildings have to dialog with the one across the street in terms of both form and function.

Proportion: Above
HOURS OF VIBRANCY COMMERCIAL WEEK DAYS EVENINGS RESTAURANTS RETAILS DAILY SERVICES ENTERTAINMEN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES OFFICE RESIDENTTIAL OFFICE STUDIOS SMALL UNITS MID-SIZE LARGE UNITS PUBLIC/OPEN GREEN EVENTS CULTURAL HOLIDAYS NO EFFECT

Commercial: 5% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 60% Office: 5%

Proportion: Middle
Residential: 50% Open Spaces / Void: 40% Office: 11%

Proportion: Street Level

Commercial: 45% Residential: 30% Open Spaces / Void: 20% Office: 5%
And, besides the ZONING-ON-THE-FACADE method, we also took some other strategies to create vibrancy. 1. Force some of the GROUP 04 programs combine with GROUP 02 programs to avoid these area to become overly-quiet during evenings and holidays. 2. Force all GROUP 04 programs to leave the street level.

GROUP 01: VIBRANT ALL-TIME GROUP 02: EVENING/HOLIDAYS GROUP 03: NO EFFECT GROUP 04: DEAD AT NIGHT

Reminder of Guideline #03:

At the end of GUIDELINE #03, we talked about how to mix all programs in buildings to create maximum vibrancy while still have control to the over-all density of the site.

Commercial Residential, Small Office Residential, large Circulation and Public

Guideline #05, How to Mix Programs in Buildings

As in GUIDELINE #03 and the diagram derived from #03 (above), all our programs in buildings are mixtures of different proportions with specific considerations. These guidelines will control the total density of the project and will define the overall strategies briefly. However, we still need more detailed instructions to finish this project in architectural scale, therefore, we did GUIDE LINE #05 to explain how the programs mix in our buildings.

Testing #05, How to Mix Programs in Buildings

Weve selected a few blocks to exam GUIDELINE #05. By adding programs by programs as shown at the left, we did these blocks by carrying out all guidelines without any modification to see the direct result of our methods.

Explainations
At least (1,2,3...) sides of this unit should connect to the streets Cant have residential units above this unit in a certain height Exceptions of the no-housing regulation At least (1,2,3...) sides of this unit should face the streets At least (1,2,3...) sides of this unit should face green or void areas Residentical, Large Residential, Small

Office Commercial

An Example Mixture of Guideline #05

Results and Analysis

After the design was done, we started to draw some analysis drawings to further understand the potential and weakness of our method.

Vibrancy Chart
The red areas marked in these renderings represent programs that generate vibrancy in the buildings or on the streets. For example, the MP, MG in Guideline #02 and commercials in Guideline #05 Besides the red colors, we managed to estimate vibrancy at particular locations such as every corners. EVENTS INFRASTRUCTURE OPEN SPACE BUILDING PROGRAM STREET PROGRAM TRANSPORTATION DENSITY

Green Areas
The green color in these drawings show programs that provide green areas to the city, public or private. These programs include the G and MG in guideline #02, Parks and Emergencies in Guideline #04, Large Residential units in Guideline #05

Programs
And in some drawings, we color coded all interior or exterior programs to understand how our buildings and public spaces work. SCHOOL GREEN PUBLIC SERVICE CULTURAL CENTER MIXED/COMMERCIAL TRANSIT BUS ROUTE

OFFICE RESIDENTIAL LARGE RESIDENTIAL MID-SIZE CULTURAL COMMERCIAL/RENTAL

Results and Analysis

After the design was done, we started to draw some analysis drawings to further understand the potential and weakness of our method. Building Zoning #03
Propor tion Above Propor tion Middle Propor tion Street Level

Street Programs from another Angle

Street Zoning by #02

B STREET TYPE 40% GREEN AREA 50% MIXED AREA

A STREET TYPE 40% GREEN AREA 50% MIXED AREA A STREET TYPE 40% GREEN AREA 30% MIXED AREA A STREET TYPE 40% GREEN AREA 40% MIXED AREA

A Section Through the Park (Street programs and Public Spaces)

Some Other Sections and Renderings

A STREET TYPE 50% GREEN AREA 50% MIXED AREA

Sequence Study of the Long Section

EVENTS INFRASTRUCTURE OPEN SPACE BUILDING PROGRAM STREET PROGRAM TRANSPORTATION FLOW DENSITY

Vibrancy Study by #03 & #05

Street Programs by #02 & #03

SCHOOL GREEN PUBLIC SERVICE CULTURAL CENTER MIXED/COMMERCIAL TRANSIT BUS ROUTE

Visualizations and Fabrications in Columbia

Max and Vray: Company Cafeteria in Ditzingen Parametric Modeling by Revit: Origami Facade Stainless Steal Mockup: Acupuncture CNC Router and Master Cam X: Stretch Shelf Grasshopper and 3ds Max: The Seed Cathedral

Company Cafeteria in Ditzingen

Some of my renderings at GSAPP Columbia Modeling: Rhino, 3ds Max Rendering: Vray for Max Post Production: Photoshop, After Effect

Renderings Using 3ds Max and Vray

Modeling: Rhino, 3ds Max Rendering: Vray for Max Post Production: Photoshop, After Effect Project: Company Cafeteria in Ditzingen

Render 01: Foggy Forest

Render 03: Interior Noon

Render 04: Interior Sunset

Render 05: Exterior Night

Render 06: Sunrise Roof

Origami

An academic project in GSAPP Columbia Exploring the possibility of Revit as parametric modeler Simulating the pattern of a folding paper

Origami
Origami is a project try to represent the pattern of a folding paper. Using Revit as primary tool, the project explores the way to materialize origami pattern into building facade while exploring the possibility of using Revit for parametric design. The digital model we develop not only represents the origami pattern convincingly, it also respond to changes such as size and shape. The family unit and the whole model was developed in Revit with parameters (formulas) represent the pattern of a folding paper. The project model built by Revit, has parameters that fit the origami pattern into all free form surfaces. The physical model was made by a 3D printed frame and a real folding paper.

The Family
The family shows the smallest unit of this Origami Facade. To represent the folding pattern, this family model contents a series of formulas that control the over all thickness of the folded surface. There are 4 highest points located on the 4 edges of the unit, the height of these points are controlled by the length of the edge, therefore, when the unit get smaller, these points get higher, just like the folded papers. The rest of this family will form a space truss.

The Project
After applying the family model we developed onto any surface, that surface will become a representation of the origami paper. By controlling the shape of the surface and the ways that surface being divided, we can have all kinds of our Origami facade. The elevation at the left shows how the individual units change their shapes when the over-all facade changes.

The project model in revit Origami

Our study of the pattern of a folding paper

The Physical Mode

This model was made by a 3D-printed space frame a and a real folded paper.

Acupuncture

A Collaborated Work with Richard Phan / Prathyusha Viddam Academic project, GSAPP Columbia 1:1 mockup using stainless steal

Acupuncture, 2011, NYC

A Collaborated Work with Richard Phan / Prathyusha Viddam when I was in GSAPP Columbia Acupuncture is an alternative medicine treats patients by manipulating needles in human bodies. This project, Acupuncture, is an add-on screen system on an existing building facade that represents the idea of acupuncture where the interior is treated as the body and the sunlight as needles in the right positions. Using Stainless Steal , we designed Acupuncture sun screen panels with the focus on the redirection and manipulation of light, the intent is to create a screen that is perceived as both an ornamental light screen from the street level and functional light texture on the interior. Through the treatment of the building as a body and the screen as the skin, sunlight is punctured the screen at strategic relief point to control light within the space. The redirected light from the punctures will then serve as display lighting for products displayed.

Noon Panel 10AM Panel 04PM Panel

Mockups and Lighting Tests

In order to make sure the structure and the lighting effects works as we wanted, we made a full size mockup and put it on a window very much like the angle on the site and tested the lighting effects at different times This photo was took around 10am in a cloudy day, when our 10am panel and our noon panel were catching light from exterior and our 4pm panel was blocking all the daylight.
12PM Panel 10AM Panel 04PM Panel Winter Summer

4PM 10AM Image: Lighting Test on a 1/4 Scale Prototype, Noon Panel

Stretch Shelf
A Collaborated Work with: Fei Hu / YooJin Jang / Xiaoming Zhan Academic project in GSAPP Columbia .

Stretch Shelf, 2011

A Collaborated Work with: Fei Hu / YooJin Jang / Xiaoming Zhang This is a shelf that stretches to adapt itself into all kinds of space, to have different shapes and to visualize the weights of whatever objects being put on it. Made by plywood and elastic connections, this shelf could be deployed quickly and easily for everyday uses.

Modeling

Fabrication, Assembly and Connection Details

Changing Shapes:
The Stretch Shelf changes its shape according to the ways in which it is deployed or loaded.

Rendering of the Seed Cathedral

3ds Max / Rhino / Grasshopper

Rendering: The Seed Cathedral

3ds Max / Rhino / Grasshopper

Projects Before Columbia:

Built Projects: Wenshan Dist. Apartment Built Projects: Huangxi St Residents / Bali Apartment 2nd International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam: Ocean of TW -from NoWhere to NowHere Taiwan New Landscape Movement Exhibition: Shezi Isle Water Community Under Graduate Design Thesis: The School of A Hundred Thoughts

Wenshan Dist. Apartment

Built Project, Taipei, Taiwan, 2007 Height: 35.35m (11 floors above / 4 floors under ground) Total Floor Area: 10158.31 Structure Type : RC Program: Residence, 50units

Residential area The market place that is actually a cliff The residential area that is too steep to be developed The roads which cant be built The school that was canceled

How the original urban plan fails in this area

A reckless urban plan

The site has the highest FAR in this region. Naturally, the client demand the maximum volume, which, is no easy task, because, according to this out-ofdate urban plan , its the only place that allows commercial use in the entire area. -That is, ironically, exactly why this neighborhood is so quiet. The original thought of the government is simple: they put an elementary school, a market place and some commercial together to create the center of this area. Unfortunately, they didnt notice the gradient of local topography , so, it ends up that the school, the market and even the roads were canceled because the land is too steep, and, the commercial spot, our site, becomes the most remote corner of the region that no business can survive there.

Wenshan Dist. Apartment

Taipei, Taiwan, 2007 Height: 35.35m (11 floors above / 4 floors under ground) Total Floor Area: 10158.31 Structure Type : RC Program: Residence, 50units Wenshan Dist Apt is a built project I took charge of in my previous job. its a real estate project located in the suburban area of Taipei City. It is an award winning project (Outstanding design and planning, Chinese Golden Stone Award, 2008), and, it is a certified green building. (Certification NO. CGB1702, Taiwan Architecture & Building Center, 2007, for: 1.Energy saving. 2.Water saving. 3.Wastes processing. 4.Greening)
Wenshan Dist. Apartment

SITE

The extra high FAR and extra strict regulation

As above mentioned, the site has extra high FAR then, However, it also locates in announced mountain region and as the result, we were forced to apply a set of extra strict regulations of hill-top residential in into our design. Unfortunately, under that kind of restriction, it is impossible to meet the maximum FAR which our client demanded. To increase the volume of the project, we put the case onto the Committee of Consideration & Control of Urban Design, asked for an alternative solution, and, after two years of struggle, the committee remit us from the height control.

The remote corner where no business could survive

<According to the combination of all the laws and codes, the maximum volume should be in the shape very much like a roughly sliced cake. Still 20% short in required FAR, and, there would be no chance we can create reasonable living units plan in that shape. Insulation zone of disasters, codes of urban design in mountain areas, Taipei City Height limit from primary road, central law of construction, Taiwan 21m height limit, regional codes of urban design

My position in this project: Project Leader What I did: Schematic design / Design development / Architecture permit application / Green building code evaluation / Detail design / Design drawings / Working drawings,... etc.,

After two years of struggle, We came to an > agreement with a 11 stories apartment. Height limit from secondary road, municipal law, Taipei Preserved area for sidewalk, local urban plan <Our proposal to the committee of control of urban design: to loosen the 21m height limit in the regional codes of urban design, so we can build a 14 stories apartment with much better physical environment

The volume & the restrictions

To coordinate the roof style with the height of the building.

The regional codes of urban design demands all roofs in the neighborhood must be slopes at with a uniform ratio between 2 ~ . This wont be a problem for other buildings because most of them are no more than 5 stories high, but, since we are designing a 35m high apartment, the proportion of the elevation might be a little awkward with a roof like that. To coordinate with the height, we decided to merge the style of gambrel roof and mansard roof.

A Giant House:
To mix in to the landscape of green hills and suburban residences, we decided that all features of high rise buildings must be neutralized. Therefore, we came up with the idea of the giant house. Through carefully adjusted geometric proportion, the apartment looks more like a huge house.

Looks smaller from front(from the road):

The hill in front of art of the building is a story lower.the site is steep. To avoid uncomfortable feeling created by the height of the building, the eastern part of the building is smaller.

A
A

Section A A

Detail designs alone side walk, 1/200

Detail designs at the car entrance, 1/200

Details at main entrance

Details on the roofs, walls, and penthouse,

This project require lots of detail design, especially at the roofs, Although Most of the objects are unified, the contractors had to build these parts in wet construction RC structure and the unified objects cant save them much effort. Considering the quality of the construction, we were afraid about the water-proof layer might fail, and, we gave up some details of the roof. Therefore, the actual building will be a little bit different from the drawings here.

Details of gazebo, 7th floor.

Some Other Built Projects:

Some more projects that I was temporarily in charge in my previous job. Huangxi St. Residences Bali Apartment

Some Other Built Projects:

Some more projects that I was temporarily in charge in my previous job.

Bali Apartment
A 26 stories apartment, Bail Township, Taipei County, Taiwan, 2007 ~ still in progress Award Winning Project (Chinese Golden Stone Award for Architecture -for out standing design and planning, 2008, Taiwan) My position in the project: Project Leader, Mar-May 2007 My contribution in this project: Development of the plan and types of units

Huangxi St. Residences

A 9 stories residential building for 17 units, 2007, Taipei City, Taiwan My position in this project: Project leader, Sep-Nov 2007 My contribution in this project: Development of architecture planes / architectural code consultant / architecture permit application

A government funded research project that went to the 2nd International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam in year 2005, A publication and an interactive installation. Guest Curator: J.M. Lin Architect. My contribution of the project: I led the student research team and wrote the first Chinese version of all essays in this project.

Ocean of Taiwan: From NoWhere to NowHere

To observe and document the coastline of Taiwan, we took a set of photos every 3km on the coastline and gathered a data base of photos and thereby start our research and analysis

A government funded research project that went to the 2nd International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam in year 2005, A publication and an interactive installation. Guest Curator: J.M. Lin Architect. My contribution of the project: I led the student research team and wrote the first Chinese version of all essays in this project.

Ocean of Taiwan: From NoWhere to NowHere

The project was originally a studio directed by J.M. Lin Architect, a guest instructors in the Institute of Architecture, NCTU., and I was in his class along with 7 other students . After Lin was invited to 2nd International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2005 , he also brought our project to Taiwanese Council of Cultural Affairs and eventually, The Ocean of TW became a government funded research project executed by Lin himself, a PM from Lins office and a team of 8 graduate students, and, I was the team leader of the students.

The Ocean of TW is a research project trying to give a full diagnose of disrespectfully treated coastal spaces around Taiwan and the possible spiritual/cultural background behind the strange phenomena. It is really weird that Taiwanese residents treat their coast line that way: Beaches are isolated from towns and full of garbage; Fishing ports are empty with neither boats nor fishes; Nuclear reactors, incinerators, high-ways, military stations, dams and highly polluting factories are all around Taiwanese coast line despite the fact that Taiwan is an island highly dependant on the ocean. unlike other Islanders around the world, Taiwanese treats their ocean like it is ugly and no one wants to go there. To inquiry into the details of these bizarre phenomena and their cultural cause, we designed a research process begins from both spacial and spiritual aspects . After these two subjects were independently developed and came to their own conclusion, we emerged the result and thereby formed our opinion toward the coastal spaces of Taiwan.

Documenting the Coastline

A diagram as our conclusion of the Taiwanese attitudes toward the ocean that caused the problems of our coastal spaces.
A Key Word helped us to fucus: the Mazu goddess

The study of Taiwanese spiritual attitude toward the ocean

Four Taiwanese characteristics Information about hundreds of Induce about the ocean Search from the internet different subjects Three Taiwanese attitudes toward ocean documenting in the field Images of about 200 different locations on the coast line organization built the possible relations between places identify special phenomena

The documenting of Taiwanese coastal spaces

Our conclusion of Taiwanese spacial phenomena at the coast :

A diagram as our diagnose of Taiwanese coastal spaces

We took a set of photo every 3km on the coast line

The diverse crossings over the line of obstruction

13 full stories to explain our point of view some on-going projects which may make difference about our current problems

Materials shown at the site of 2nd IABR, 2005

Structure of Our Research

In order to document the spatial characters of Taiwanese coastline, the phenomenon of detached, isolated, misused, deserted or unrespectfully treated waterfront, and find out, the cultural and social reasons behind thes e scenes, we designed the structure shown at the right: A research starts from both the field (spatial quality) and the internet (social and cultural back ground).

Exhibition Site

Seeking for a " low-sensitivity objectiveness

We usually cant keep an objective attitude in judging our own land. Emotional feelings often lead us into over-sensitive issues ether too complicated to be dealt or irrelevant to our concern. Therefore, we wished to start our search with an low-sensitive eye to avoid the limits that present idea may give us, and hoped that, we should find an interesting start of the research. The illustration above is a 17th-century European engraving: The Temple of the Mazu Goddess. Except the Mazu herself, the scene is no different from any other Western pantheon -This just cant bethe truth. Such an image is a perfect example of low-seneitivity objectiveness we were looking for -a subject being foregrounded by the eyes have not lived on this land before, the very start of all differences between Taiwan and Europe, the keyword from which we should begin our research.

A Key Word helped us to fucus: the Mazu goddess Four Taiwanese characteristics about the ocean Three Taiwanese attitudes toward ocean

The study of Taiwanese spiritual attitude toward the ocean

Search from the internet

Information about hundreds of different subjects

A Key word helps us to focus on relevant information

If you try to search the world wide web for information within the intersection of Taiwan and Ocean, you will find enormous amount of data. To focus on Taiwanese spiritual attitudes toward the ocean, we cant just use keywords as Taiwan, spiritual, attitude, ocean,...etc., for the outcomes will be ether too much or irrelevant. And, as we failed to find any research on this subject, we need the right keyword as a filter of information, a keyword that can perfectly reflect the Taiwanese spiritual attitudes toward the ocean, and, this perfect word shall be: Mazu. Mazu, sometimes known as The Mother Buddha, is the most worshiped god in Taiwan who known as the goddess of ocean, voyage, weather, protection and salvage. In our culture, her feminine image represent her love to all her people like a mother to her children and that extends her care of us to almost every aspect of our life. Anyway, Mazu is the perfect keyword of our research for it is totally spiritual, its mostly about the ocean, and its deeply involved in our everyday lives.

The Taiwanese Attitude Toward the Ocean

The future

re-thinking, innovation or compormise

A continental oceanic character

is our best description of present Taiwanese attitude toward sea

During our research, we read/analyzed a huge amount of data about Mazu and came up with several facts:
1.Thr worship of Mazu has a hidden cultural signification. The majority of Taiwanese were Chinese immigrants, and, as old descriptions of the casualties of migration from China to Taiwan: seven arrive, two die and one returns among ten, the ocean was dreadful to our ancestors, as a result, Mazu, who was originally a fishermans daughter who saved her own family and many others from shipwrecks, became the most important idol among the migrants. The fears of the sea passed down through generations and so did the worship of Mazu. 2. Successive political regimes attitudes towards Mazu cult and manners of dealing with it have mostly been respectful, which can, grab the people and take advantage of the social structure and human resources already set up by the cult. These regimes viewed Taiwan mostly as their colony, refuge or outpost and have the correct knowledge about how unwilling Taiwanese people would be to change their lifestyle. Centuries of uncertainty in politics evoked unique desire of stability among people, and, eventually, cultivated a relatively conservative society. Unlike most islanders around the world, our ancestors had less interest in voyaging, trading and exploring. 3. Several times in the history, Taiwan experienced different levels of blockage policies intended to keep the people from the ocean. Even till mid 20th century, the Taiwanese government still keep most of its coast line under strict military regulations in order to prevent possible attacks from China. 4. The belief of Mazu expended across Taiwan in an interesting pattern -the temples are related with each others as mothers and daughters. Ttracing the family trees of Mazu temples we managed to understand the pattern in which early immigrants developed their communities. Instead of growing alone the sea like other cultures might prefer, almost all Chinese immigrants went directly into land. Apparently, villages at the water front were just temporary stops rather than destinations to them. These people were farmers, the wanted land far more then sea. 5. Mazus transformation from goddess for going out to sea to Goddess for crossing the ocean to main deity and even on to goddess for protecting the realms, goddess of agriculture, goddess of getting into school reflects the reality of social changes and different needs of people. People slowly freed themselves from the primal fears and began the search of further stability.

Immigrants with a The past

continental character
over-sea immigration

Urge to escape form a small island

Four main Taiwanese characteristics and three attitudes toward the sea:
After inducing the facts that were mentioned above(and many other information that werent shown here),we came up with a conclusion of four main characteristics: 1.Original alienation from the ocean 2.Inclination of Searching for temporary stability 3.Discontent with the status quo (the desire of expansion toward the sea but still view it as a substitute of land) 4.A continental oceanic character is our best description of present Taiwanese attitude toward sea Other these four characteristics, Taiwanese also have three unique attitudes about ocean: 1.The policies of obstruction toward the sea. 2.Agricultural use of the sea 3.Diverse crossing over the lines of obstruction, which, is the most important spacial phenomenon at the coast line. (See the next page for further explanation.)

Diverse crossing over the lines of obstruction

Original alienation from the ocean

nt me on n vir wa en ai to n T ve the Mo her ot

The policies of obstruction toward the sea

Discontent with the status quo

(the desire of expansion toward the sea but still view it as a substitute of land) Unique phenomena found only in Taiwan Agricultural use of the sea

Possibility to turn into another character

The diagram at the right is our diagnose of Taiwanese continental oceanic character and how this character evolved through time.

Searching for temporary stability

A Key Word helped us to fucus: the Mazu goddess Four Taiwanese characteristics about the ocean Three Taiwanese attitudes toward ocean

The study of Taiwanese spiritual attitude toward the ocean

Search from the internet

Information about hundreds of Induce different subjects

Tourism:
Taiwanese people have a interesting thought about tourism: to use it as a promotion of local industry, to make their products sold better, or to bring fortune to local people. Most of these tourism are poorly planed and ends up fail because the tourist attractions are hardly attractive and the scenes are not delightful at all. The attitude of treating the sea as nowhere for decades has seriously damaged the possibilities for these spots to develop into a tourist site. continental character A continental oceanic character Diverse crossing over the lines of obstruction
over-sea immigration

The documenting of Taiwanese coastal spaces

documenting in the field

Images of about 200 different locations on the coast line organization built the possible relations between places identify special phenomena Our conclusion of Taiwanese spacial phenomena at the coast :

Aquaculture

The diverse crossings over the line of obstruction

Actual scene of our work We took a set of photo every 3km on the coast line 13 full stories to explain our point of view

Original alienation from the ocean

The policies of obstruction toward the sea

Fish port :
We have a lot fish ports and many of them are empty. politics liked to build fish ports as their achievement of their career, so.....

Discontent with the status quo

Industrial

Searching for Agricultural temporary stability use of the sea

The documenting of Taiwanese coastal spaces

For full and further understanding, we randomly took images along sea shore every 3km, after that, we organized these pictures, built connections among them, identified strange phenomena and inquired into possible reasons and subtle patterns behind these phenomena. Following are some examples of our work, the images were 3 in a set at one location, many of them provided us some clue about our diagnose of Taiwanese coastal space. Illegal oyster breeding farm oyster-breeding industrial tour boats 01 Embankment of the industrial park 01 old salt pans, museum of salt producing industry

Agricultural use of the sea:

Industries along the coastline include not only dynamic industry like fishing, but also static industry such as salt field and fish farms, which make use of the coastline and whichs production depends on the amount of area involved.

The line of obstruction: Tourism

The line of obstruction is a general phenomena we found everywhere in Taiwan. It refers to a series of objects the keep people from the real coastline, physically or mentally such as embankments, high ways that are difficult to cross, military bases, and so on. Because of these objects, people cant really feel the ocean as an existence in their lives. So, this line of obstruction is more like the real border of Taiwan. However, people have found various ways to go across this line of obstruction. With cheapest possible means, legally or not, these crossing satisfy different needs. Thus, gave Taiwanese coastal space its unique feather. Here is the diagram we produced as the most common pattern of Taiwanese coastal spaces. We called the pattern: The divers crossing over the lines of obstruction.

Tourism/aqua culture

The original Coastline

02 010302 03 The government planned a industrial park to promote local economy but no industry ever came. The empty park became a huge obstacle between local residents and the shore. However, someone managed to create an illegal oyster farm outside the embarkment of the industrial park. A roughly built passage 01 02 Tourism deck built by local government - a good design without visitors 03 02

03 This area was full of salt pans and people are kept away from shore by inconvenience. After the salt pans are no longer required, they tried to introduce salt-industrial tourism into the area. Facilities were built. The business of tourism is not quite successful but people from near-by finally start doing low budget recreations here.

Tourism/fish port Tourism

Induatrial

01

01

Tourism
01 0203 02 The island of wastes 02 03 03 This area is a massive lagoon once used as a military airport of hydroplanes that no civilians were allowed to go near. After the airport was abandoned, the locals found that its a perfect place of aquaculture - a massive lagoon with nobody around. The aquaculture here was so prosper that it seriously pollute the area and even formed a island of wastes. Now even the aquaculture business was gone. The government tried to change the lagoon into a tourist attraction for both the original beauty of the lagoon and the unique scene of the island of wastes. The visitors are few. 02

Aquaculture

01

03 02,03: The government set up fences and wires to keep people from the shore, but a surfing club ignores the fences, cut the wire and is running business of surfing lessons

Tourism/fish port Tourism

The Diverse crossing over the lines of obstruction

Images of about 200 different locations on the coast line organization built the possible relations between places identify special phenomena

Our conclusion of Taiwanese spacial phenomena at the coast :

A diagram as our diagnose of Taiwanese coastal spaces

23N 120E

Industrial zone of No.6 Naphtha Plant: The government sold the 9km coastline for 25,000,000,000NT$/per year Industrial park Fishing port Industrial zone No.6 NCP. reclaimed land from sea. For the inhabitants, 001 9km of coast, where they used to fish along, was gone, and, for the 002 government, tax revenue increases NTD 25 billion every year. Local fishermen protested hard against the industrial zone, and, the NCP Temporary Temporary promised to build tourism facilities to increase income for local fishermen, fishing fishing however, no visitor ever came. Eventually, the fishermen have to find port port somewhere else to make there living. Tourism ?? 003 004

The diverse crossings over the line of obstruction

13 full stories to explain our point of view some on-going projects which may make difference about our current problems

Industrial Zone

Bamboo rafts

Fighting for water against the earth Dong-shi township excessively pumped the groundwater for aquaculture and caused ground subsidence. In the yearly typhoon season, the sea water flowed back ward and washed away great amount of soil. The water break needed to be heighten every year.001 The inhabitants sit in their sinking homes and keep pumping water as their only way to make their living. The problem is not yet solved. The diagrams at the right shows how land subsidence got worse 004 by marking the areas in red circles.

002

003

Materials shown at the site of 2nd IABR, 2005 The contour of Taiwan defined Industrial profits and natural resources:
After our research, we found explanations of the strange phenomena around Taiwan such as the diverse crossing over the line of obstruction, agricultural use of the sea, special ideas of tourism, empty fish ports, and so on. Also, we studied the cultural background of Taiwanese attitudes toward ocean and concluded that it is a continental oceanic character At the end of our research, we came up with a full diagnose of Taiwanese coastal spaces, sorted the issues into 5 different types according to the most evident conflict that caused most the problems -the conflict between profit and natural environment. Hopefully, we wish this diagram can simplify our problems in Taiwan and help us to fix our coastal spaces in the future. C CD

005

006

DB

BA

AE

ED

DC

CD

+ Profit of transportation

+ Profit of tourism

+ Profit of industries

+ Profit from agricultural use -

Interactive media installation:

The photo is from the site of 2005 2nd international architectural biennale, Rotterdam: We had over 200 panels at the site, each includes an exact location and its high resolution panorama image. For further details and our analysis about a certain location, the visitors can take any of the specially marked panels to our interactive area, and, the sensors will identify the panel and the animes of that certain location will be projected on top of the showcase.

+ Natural resources -

Natural resource Industrial profit

LanYang River,YiLan

Sea-side road, HuaLian

FuGan fish port,TaiTung

KenTting national park, PingTung

DongGang fish port, PingTung

KaoShiung harbor

TungShih, ChiaYi

No6 NCP, YunLin

TaiChung harbor

HsianShan industrial park, HsinChu

KuanTu, Taipei

BaiSha bay, Taipei

PaTouZu fish port, Taipei

Profitable industries with overspent natural resources

Irrepairable environmental damages that also caused industries to shrink

The environment was ironically protected by unsuccessful development

Full of undeveloped natural resources

The profit and the damage it caused is coming to a dangerous balance

Shezi Isle Water Community

Academic project I led for an international workshop in Taiwan New Landscape Movement Exhibition (2004).

Shezi Isle Water Community

This is an academic project I led for an international workshop in Taiwan New Landscape Movement Exhibition (2004).

The subject and site of the project:

This project was inspired by a serious flood in Taipei months before Taiwan New Landscape Movement Exhibition. According to the subject of the workshop, our main issue is to generate new thinking about how Taipei City should face its problems with the flood. The site of the project is Shezi Isle, the lowest spot of Taipei, which of course, suffers the most from frequent flood. As marked green in the image above, Taipei was once a giant lake. After lake water found its way out of Taipei Basin, DanShui River and Keelung River took their shape. Shezi Isle is located at the joint place of these two rivers and a artificial flood way. Since our site has an embarkment lower then any other place in Taipei, apparently, the Taipei City views Shezi Isle as a buffer zone to decrease water level during serious floods. Now very few people live or work in Shezi Isle because only low density industrial use can survive there.

Taipei

Keelung river Shezi Isle Danshui river

Erchung floodway

Taipei juice:

Brain storming:

To bring up bold, unprecedented and experimental design to Shezi Isle, I asked my two team members for unusual ideas: anything about water, without any boundary, as long as it is wild. Here are 11 of these ideas.

When you have apples in water, it could be just apples in water, or apple juice. When you have Taipei in water, it could be just Taipei in water, or Taipei juice.

Use water as an important element in our architecture. Protect our safety by high rise buildings, waterproof cubes and pipes.

Men in pipes and water in buildings

Use porous underwater structures to keep everything safe and pleasant above the surface.

Citizens walk, live, work and play happily on water surface

City River

We share volume with water , not coverage.

Pump the flood to higher ground and we will have plenty supply of all water we need.

Build the entire city a few meters above the ground using mega-structures.

We can surrender our city to flood whenever it comes. All we need are emergency exits.

Secure important infrastructures with waterproof pipes.

Simply keep the flood out of our waterproof buildings. We may also have lovely lake views that way.

The Family Tree of Ideas

However, we cant develop our design before all these ideas been discussed, reviewed and integrated. So, we decided to start with the most origin and abstract one - The Taipei Juice . Start with The Taipei Juice, we sorted all 11 out by how sophisticated they are, how much they represent our interest as citizens, and how simple ideas help in developing of more sophisticated ones. At the next page you can see the family tree of ideasshowing how we faced the issue of this workshop and how we rationally selected our initial concept of our design.

Simple(Earlier)

2
0.Drawing the family tree of ideas

Complicated(Later)

1. What are there about JUICE..

Something for FUN Something for how we DRINK it

Issues:
Make people close to water Solve the problem of water supply

Create more space in which people may have fun with water Keep water resource within the city instead of in distant reservoirs

Something we MIXED with water Create more space for both river and people Something for SAFETY
Secure our supply and traffic system Share cubage in a 3D manner with river. Secure supply and traffic systems in waterproof pipes

Waters Position

3 The Family tree of ideas

Citizens Position

2. Outlining important feathers of our future design 3 . Tracing down the family treefor proper concept for our design. 4 .Identifying key elements and transforming them into architectural thoughts
Cubes: We can build our city with different kinds of cubes: waterproof boxes, permeable and semi-permeable structures, floating decks and others. Thereby, we can create interesting spaces interacting with water.

Cubes, Pipes and high rise buildings that hold water

objects uncontrollable by men but affected by water objects operated by men that help controlling water floating deck open space waterproof hyaloid box waterproof box permeable solid

Pipes: Pipes ensure the safety of the traffic and supplying systems, protect
important buildings and any other things cant be secured by waterproof boxes.

3.
Towers, landscapes and main streets
High rise buildings stand out from surface, huge pipes connect to other areas of the city, Living spaces at lower levels mix with water.

4.
5. Our basic proposal of Shezi Isle

waterproof pipes

permeable

saturated

solid

30m

10m 0m

wet

dry

5.

pipes

Cubes

About Shezi Isle,

Shezi I sle is where all the flood goes in Taipei. There are many tourism attractions about water around Taipei, and, it is convenient to go these places from Shezi Isle.

Our visions of the site:

Drawn form the previous page: Create more space in which people may have fun with water. Keep water resource within the city instead of in distant reservoirs. Share cubage in a 3D manner with river. Secure supply and traffic systems in waterproof pipes. Drawn from facts mentioned above: Control the water level of Taipei City during floods. C ollect and connect the snippets into a complete experience of water.

The Water Tower: Hotel & Indoor Water-Enjoyment Center

Airport Train station Old Taipei
Located at the town center as a land mark, this building can be defined as a water tower constructed by a service core witch covered in vertical pipe and water-proofed cubic units. Inside the building consumers can enjoy different kinds of water form quiet pools to wild cataracts by the difference of height and water presser The lower floor the wilder.

After a quick calculation, our project is able to:

Reserving water recourse: The reservoir Fei-Tsui has a capacity of 327,000,000(m3), support 3,280,000(m3)/day of water to Taipei. Our project can produce 250,000 (m3)/day Controlling flood The total area of the rivers in Taipei is 45,662,600(m2); The alarm height of water level is 6.7(m). Total amount of the flood is 305,939,420(m3) After our project built, it is going to contain up to 19,804,085(m3) of flood, lower Taipeis water level up to 0.4~1(m) during the flood. Create a water community for inhabitation, commercial use and recreation. Water and People live here happily forever after

Commercial: We are doing water as a fashion in the site. It encourage people consume for the Water-style and support the town financially. Town center: To create amazing land marks, new and fresh impression divided from old Water-cities like Venice Parking: We recommend visitors to park here and walk through the town and perhaps to try Boating . Water sports: Water sport is something you can hardly found in north Taiwan.

Town Center: The Water Tower

Programs

Residential Area:
This is how we picture the inhabitation area outside the town center. By the water, open to the water, and changes when the tides go up and down.

The tide goes up

Recreational
At the outer area of the site, the pipes will be reconstructed with the remains of old Shezi embarkment and form a new kind of landscape. Most of the open spaces will be preserved as everglades, only minimum activities allowed.

The tide goes down

Pipe system:
Drive ways, metro systems, walking passages, parking spaces and boats can be arranged in the pipe system.

A Hundred Schools of Thoughts

Remodeling Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall My design thesis in undergraduate

The Site:
I chose to remodel the CKS Memorial Hall in Taipei City for its current layout and building style is a perfect example of a combination of Confucianism and Legalists Thoughts. The building complex of CKS memorial hall is relatively boring, however, it has this huge piazza at the center of Taipei where all kinds of debates and protests take place. Its the perfect site for this practice.

A Hundred Schools of Thoughts

Remodeling Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
A Hundred Schools of Thoughts was my design thesis in college, which, is a project determines to do architecture as an art form and tests its limit in representing philosophic thoughts. besides transforming different thoughts in philosophy into forms and patterns, the project is also an exploration into architectural paradigms in ancient Chinese. A Hundred Schools if Thoughts refers to a special period of time in China approximately from 770~221(B.C.) when the entire China was involved in a non-stop war for over 500 years. However, despite the political chaos, the era gave birth to almost each and every important philosophies in China. These philosophies still effect lifestyles in eastern Asia deeply. According to Chinese history, the thoughts created in this era can be classified into ten categories includes: 1. Confucianism, 2.Taoism, 3.Mohist Theory, 4.Legalists Thoughts, 5.The Art of War, 6.Dialecticians Thoughts, 7. Agriculturists Thoughts, 8.Naturalists Thoughts, 9.Strategists Thoughts, 10.Others. In this project, I tried to generate forms and patterns in representations of these ten thoughts.

layouts:

Before doing the individual buildings, Ill have to start with a proper layout to coordinate all ten thoughts within one site. To do that, I tried to do layouts of different thoughts.

Mohists layout: Mohists are strict socialists, ascetics and rationalists. The are against all hierarchy in the society, and, they also hate music, social protocols and rituals. In Mohists layout, they eliminate the axis pointing to presidential palace and turn the building to face Taipei main station -the true center of Taipei. Also the CKS Memorial Hall will be gone for sure along with the opera house and the concert hall -Mohists dont need those. They might remodel them into more pragmatic uses.

CKS Memorial Hall Dialecticians

To Taipei main station To presidential palace

Confucianism

Agriculturists
Legalists layout: Legalists are people developing efficient ways for emperors to control their people and strengthen the their empires. They managed three was to control people: 1.laws and punishments / 2.techniques of using political power / 3. threatening prestige. These are perfect monument builders. Basically, they would agree with Confucianists monument because the hierarchy behind the orders and forms of confucianists monuments remind people the political power of the government.

Legalists

Feng-Shui

Philosophic Taoism

Strategists

Mohists

The Art of War

Naturalists

How ever, there are other ways to control the huge piazza around a threatening monuments such as 1.colonnades (like those in Vatican,) / 2.patterns in strict orders, / 3.messive towers at corners and entrances, / 4.sunken squares. Legalists like all proper layouts as long as they have the affect legalists want on the public, and, big is good, huge is better.

Opera House

Current layout: It is a classic layout of Chinese palaces combining Confucinism and Legalists. It has an axis pointing to the presidential palace; on the far side of the axis lies the major building. Other buildings are put symmetrically on both sides of the axis when buildings nearer to the main hall and buildings at the left (viewing from the main hall) be considered as more important. Confucinism and Legalists have a hierarchy for not only people, but also buildings and the specific form they are allowed to use,

Confucianism: At the left is the classic layout of She-Ji, the place emperors offer sacrifices to ancestors, and the order of buildings. The perfect number of Chinese cities and palaces is 3, 9 and the squares or multiplications of these numbers. The diagram of an ideal city of Confucianism is shown bellow.

Taoism: (Philosophic Taoism, not Religious Taoism) People believe in Taoism observe and follow Tao, the way in which the universe create and run itself. Taoists will never like the idea of massive memorial buildings, although they wont fight hard against them. The only right way to do Taoism memorial is to do nothing at all and let the city grow in its own reasonable way. And, the alternative ways are: 1.patch works of city context. / 2.something subtle implies the existence of Tao.

The Art of War: These are people who study military strategies hoping to end the war. Their thoughts have been proved useful at all kinds of wars: military, business, international issues, ...etc.. Although it is not about architecture, I derived a concept of use as little volume as possible to control the site and effect the surrounding as well. In my thought, the most important spot of the site is the traffic circle at the left -it controls the road from presidential palace and train station. Having control of that ring first and two other traffic rings next to it equal to have control of the heart of Taipei. After that, secure the traffic within these rings and build a outpost to support these spots, and, thereby control the whole site and the heart of Taipei as well.

Main Hall (Ming-Tang)

All together:
All together, and, it will look like this. to coordinate, I parallel the layouts of different thoughts to the ancient relationship of the philosophers whenever to solve the conflict: 1. Confucianism never yielded to Taoism 2. Confucianists and Moists never compromised to each other. 3. Confucianists worked with Legalists 4. Confucianism never yielded to military strategies. 5. Taoism never bothered arguing with anybody. 6. All philosophers respect (or learn from) Taoism. 7. Moists never yielded to Legalists. 8. Moists fought at battle fields against military commanders. 9. Legalists respect and learn from the art of war. 10 Military commanders took advantage from all philosophers. 11.Dialecticians caused no effect on anybody. 12.Agriculturists worked with Moists. 13.Stratagists observed and used anything available. 14.Stratagists tried hard to get notice. After adjusting the layouts by above mentioned principals, I did the master plane of all ten thoughts as shown in previous page.

Moists:

Buildings of Individual Thoughts:

After the over all lay-out, I looked into spatial precedents in the history and start to discuss and develop different forms of individual buildings that represent each philosophy.

Confucianism: To represent Confucianism in architectural design, I applied two of the most important features in traditional architecture in Confucianism: 1. the perfect form in Confucianism. / 2.the hierarchy of spaces. 1. The perfect form: In Confucianism, the perfect form is circle, which, can only used in honoring the heaven itself. Even gods and emperors cant use round shaped buildings. Instead of circles, The lower left are classical planes of Ming-Tang, the main hall in which emperors met their ministers and generals. These planes suggest the second-best form should be a square with 4 smaller squares at its corners. The CKS Memorial Hall is also using the same shape.

Since Mohists are strict socialists, ascetics and rationalists. Who are interested in technologies, mechanics and all useful knowledge, I made an assumption that their buildings might be produced in mass production in factories using recycled materials and can easily be disassembled, and relocated.

The Moists Building

CKS Memorial Hall Dialecticians

Confucianism

Agriculturists

Legalists

Feng-Shui

Philosophic Taoism

In temples of Confucius there are usually walls blocking the main gate which imply the world will have to cross a huge obstacle to reach Confuciuss wisdom. Although this is not necessary in other Confucianism buildings, I still decided to have this wall here in honor of Confucius.

Strategists

Mohists

The Art of War

Naturalists

The hierarchy system: In Chinese palaces they verified the sizes of gates and the depth/height of scenes behind the gates according to the hierarchy system of Confucianism. The visitors can feel the importance of particular buildings by sense of scale without further information.

Opera House

The Confucianism Building

The Cave

The Island

Taoism: The Valley Spirit never dies. It is called the mystic female. The door of the mystic female is the root of heaven and earth. Being interminable and seeming to endure, It can be used with toil There is a thing formed in chaos existing before Heaven and Earth. Silent and solitary, it stands alone, unchanging. It goes around without peril. It may be the Mother of the world. Not knowing its name, I can only style it Tao. With reluctance, I would call it Great. Great means out-going. Out-going means farreaching. Far-reaching means returning. Therefore, Tao is great. Heaven is great. Earth is great. Mankind is great. There are four greats in the universe and men are one of them. Man abides by earth, earth abides by heaven, heaven abides by Tao, and, Tao goes as its nature. -Lao Tzu. To represent the Taoism observation of our universe and the concept of Tao, I started with the places considered by Taoism priests as the best place to observe Tao: caves and islands. In the famous icon of Yin-Yang, there is black spot at the center of white and a white spot at the center of black. This is where the concept of caves and islands came from -a tiny piece of Yin within Yang, and a tiny piece of Yang within Yin. As a representation of the shape of Tao, my design have to be also representing Island and cave within a mixture of a mystic form.

The shape representing Tao

The island

The North Star The axis of universe The ladder to heaven

First, the Heaven

The interior To speculate the shape of Tao, I first studied the Taoism model of universe :

The cave / the axis of universe

The Gate of the Mystic Female World Mountain (Kun-Lun) Finally, the world we live in Then, the Earth The Cave

The Island

The Taoism model of universe came from ancient folk religions in China, which, were religions based on the worship of the North Star. In general belief, there is a world mountain surrounded by sea which is located directly under the North Star -at the axis of universe. The world in which we live itself is an Island. Considering the obvious preference about depth, profundity, vacancy and circulation, the true spirit of Taoism should lies in the vacancy instead solidity. The cave under the world mountain is the holy place of Taoism. Therefore, I decided that the shape represent the way in which Tao runs itself is somehow like a torus or a bagel as demonstrated at the left.

CKS Memorial Hall Dialecticians

The Taoism Building

Confucianism

Agriculturists

Legalists

Feng-Shui

Philosophic Taoism

Strategists

Mohists

The Art of War

Naturalists

Opera House

The different viewing angle produced by different height and the shape of the interface.

The Legalists: My design of the Legalists buildings is a combination of representation of: 1.laws, regulations and orders / 2.techniques of using political power / 3. threatening prestige. At the ground level of the main hall, I tried to create fearsome space with scale, lighting and stairs. At the upper part of the building, I designed a crooked passage to demonstrate the crooked sides in the use of political power. At the colonnade, I used the triangular columns to create difference angles of sight so that the people inside can see a wilder range than those from out side. At other areas I experimented the effects of differences height levels, viewing angles, scales and lightings.

The Legalists Building

CKS Memorial Hall Dialecticians

Confucianism

Agriculturists

The agriculturists: Since the agriculturists worked with Moists and share same views about art and architecture, I designed the agriculturists building the same way of Moists.

Legalists

Feng-Shui

Philosophic Taoism

The Art of War : (The military commanders) The Art of War was basically Taoism practice on battle field, which, eventually developed its own theories such as its unique explanation about regular strategies and odd strategies. The odd and regular relates to each other like both sides on a Mobius Strip: one comes to existence when the other goes beyond its reach. I designed the building of Military Commanders by rapidly changing shapes and blur the boundary between its interior and exterior. The Strategists: The strategists were people selling strategies to political powers. They basically worked like the military commanders. I designed the Strategists building the same style as Military Commanders. Only at the most noticeable spot in site.

Strategists

Mohists

The Art of War

Naturalists

Opera House

The Naturalists The Naturalists were originated from Taoism and are believed as teachers of many important military commanders and strategists. The knowledge of Naturalists are broad and here I only chose to represent the famous theory of five basic elements that formed the universe: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.