Hugh Ferriss's moody, mysterious dream towers were always strangely more appropriate to the film noir landscape of Los Angeles than they were ever at home in the infinite grid of New York.

This thesis starts with a collection of Ferriss-inspired forms and silhouettes and proceeds to mine their as-yet-unrealized potentials through various transformations -- copy, scale, rotate, slice -- before setting them down in LA.

It observes two issues shaping the development of the metropolis. The increasingly crowded urban living environment with issues of access and justice have become difficult to ignore.

Meanwhile, the power of FANG company has become considerably impactful to all aspects of urban living. This thesis addresses these concerns by combining hyperdensity with mega-scaled outdoor areas and multiplying the “grounds” we can occupy and share.

The results become a series of architectural surprises: buildings nested within buildings rather than straight interiors divided from exteriors, mute exteriors without reference to the usual “human scale” of windows, doors, and balconies, and strange, playful relationships to the ground plane and the surrounding city. In this case, downtown LA becomes the ground to feature in the group of towers.

Density is dramatically increased, the horizontal orientation of the existing context is challenged, and green spaces, plazas, and other areas for public life are multiplied above and below the single datum of the city’s existing pedestrian surface.

Instructor: Tom Wiscombe

Partner With Deepak Agrawal

The project started with studying Hugh Ferriss’s drawings from his book ‘The Metropolis of Tomorrow’.

Sketches from his book focus on his imagination of an ideal city of the future with skyscrapers placed well apart from each other, broad avenues, and a coherent organization of building typologies.

As explained in the book, few of the towers by Hugh Ferriss are chosen which are futuristic skyscrapers of the buildings in New York.

The concept of a mega-building is that it can house cities within itself.

OBM Expansion adopted the whole model kit to the site. Forming an office complex to create a striking new silhouette in the city.

The proposal transforms the towers of the kit and the existing ground plane into the roof of the building. The base of OBM Headquarters is derived from the geometry of Hugh Ferriss’s buildings. The base of the OBM extension merges with the existing structure like a spaceship uplifting the complete office level.

The project considers the Hugh Ferriss mega-building as a shell, and the interior is treated with inner liners to add a dual effect to the structure. The inner liners enhance the structure as it creates a more dynamic circulation in the office space. The design expresses the uniqueness of each element of the building while weaving them cohesively.

Instructor: Dwayne Oyler

Partner With Ziao Zhou

Imagined as part of a re-occurring investigation, Throwback takes an in-depth look at once popular materials that may not have fully reached their full architectural potential.

With a single material serving as the subject for each semester's investigation, the objective of the seminar is to explore fresh design takes on the material and an exploration (at real scale) of the fabrication methods necessary for inventive, experimental, and subversive applications.

The materials explored intentionally look to some of the least fashionable subjects - glass block. Each of these materials had its heyday, finding their way into architectural projects along the way- but never fully reached their full design potential.

The class begins with independent research that looks at precedents for the material's use. How, when, and where was it used? What are its limits? How is it detailed? What are its structural properties? What material affects does it have that were not fully exploited? What are the variations on the product? Was its typical application re-imagined in any way?

Instructor: Lucy Mcrae

Partner With Amparito Martinez

If human embryos can be edited, many scientists, ethicists, and policymakers fear a future in which babies are genetically engineered for traits that have nothing to do with preventing devastating medical conditions.

In a world where perfection can easily be achieved through genetic modification. The need to keep human agencies are essential to the development and preservation of humanity. the concept of self‐

indulgence and artistic expression allow genetically modified humans to express their individuality.

Art is a way to change, it is a way to respond to these internal and psychological forces. If these internal psychological forces are superior and strong, how will that change the way we self‐express? How will that change the way we experience art?

CRISPR very likely will happen. Where we will be able to deliberately design the human body. If that is

the case, this act was considered an act against humanity

In November of 2018, the first known case of CRISPR was presented to the medical world. In 2018 is the first known case twin girls that were genetically modified. Traces of humanity were being lost with

CRISPR technology advancing rapidly.

We are human, which means we are emotional, vulnerable that equal to an expression of our own individuality. Art is an expression of what makes us human and what allows us to create things that illustrate a way of thinking and feeling. Art is an expression of what feel, and in this case, it is fear.

Whatever, this art piece might be, it is a creation of our own expression. It is a construct of our own emotions, imperfections, and vulnerabilities. By taking these human agencies and qualities we formulate a way of creating and see what things could be. It also means that not all things will be equal because everyone has different human traits, some more than others. This is the only direct contact you can have before the physical form is created or illustrated. It is through these human qualities that create that contact. It is only after that contact has been made where you can create or form something out of it.

Forms of Knowledge

Instructor: Elena Manferdini

Partner with Kenji Lin

Contemporary libraries, however, are complex structures that have defied cultural expectations and evolved to integrate an expanding array of media collections and spaces for civic and democratic exchange. But this shift in rhetoric is also manifested in a shift in architecture and its attendant aesthetics. The idea, of the library as a ‘living room in the city’, has continually gained traction since the watershed moment of OMA’s Seattle Public Library. A central proposition of this studio is that strong architectural projects, at the scale of the city, are not only of interest to other architects but are a necessary and currently missing catalyst for new urban vitality.

Our proposal tries to refine the Central Library of Atlanta into a co-existing information container where encourages not only economic exchange but also emphasis the unique experience of acquiring knowledge. As the 4.0 world focuses more on the virtuality and immersive experience, new technology, and new materials become the representation of architectural language.

• Published in the book “Visual Communication for Architects and Designers”

• Exhibited in SCI-Arc San Francisco Exhibition & 2019 Spring Show

What is creativity in the age of content? Content is not data, information of knowledge. Content is how all of that exists online, melted together in the regime of software. It is an endless proliferation of objects and images without an original, with no regard to the referential, without an intense in the authentic. It is something like an endless landfill, accumulating to cover the last vestiges of reprograms and makes obsolete classical modernist workflows based on clarification and abstraction. More importantly, content, reprograms the cognitive and creative procedures of design, compelling the construct, new ones. It takes everything, indiscriminately mixing between any genre and expression. It does not cohere, it does not explain, it does not want to be easy, clear and smart.

Play is the only thing it responds to. The students utilize Platform Sandbox, a game-like software designed specifically for working with content. The source material from online archives, play with endless reconfigurations and produce an enormous amount of material.

All material(images and videos) comes directly from the software, as raw unfiltered expression of content.

Instructor: Casey Rhem

Partner with Yifan Wang

Architecture has historical methods of an interface. The physical material of the building mediates the internal and external systems of exchange, whether a medieval city wall is separating domesticated interior from wilderness or curtainwall reconciling fluctuating foreign climates with stable interior environments. The Synthetic Residence explores the production of synthetic wildernesses in urban voids within downtown Los Angeles. The complex structures are generated in response to scanned meshes of the urban context — the bottom-up logic driven by color and non-human agenda.

 Within this new context, we utilize architectural forms and programs to introduce modular living unity for the human occupants.

The aggregated components are generated from scanned flowers, scripted materiality. The forms are voxelized through three different architectural elements,  sitting on top of the crossroad in South Figueroa Stree. The projects explore articulate complex three-dimensional architecture through interactive and algorithm design logic.

Instructor: Angelica Lorenzi

Partner with Yifan Wang

Today we live in a world entirely dominated by the production, proliferation, and consumption of images. Image literacy is, arguably, one of the most crucial skills we need in order to go about our daily lives, distinguishing the real from the fake, the authentic from the artificial, the relevant from the frivolous. This workshop requires walking a tightrope between conditions in order to challenge our contemporary means of architectural representation, and begin to construct unique attitude towards the critical reality.

Choosing the South Broadway of Los Angeles to start with the design, where are full of contradictions and strange abutments. Taking the design from curiosity workshop, we choose the Grand Central Market to place our design. Squeezing the design object on top of the fish shop adjacent to the market place, we want to create wired juxtapositions between the ambiguous and the market place. We call it modern Levithan, which is created accidentally by human production. The market is one of the crowdest places in Los Angeles. The waste, trashes are produced daily cause invisible hazards day by day, and eventually forms a strong power to fight against human in the apocalyptical era.

Instructor: Florencia Pita

Partner With Yifan Wang

"Architecture is challenged to re-imagine and make-believe, to invent the new stories that demand new forms, aesthetics, and ways of being in the world. Starting with a process of extracting visual and physical information from the Bradbury Building."

The workshop challenges the conventional way of perceiving reality. The project focus on the aesthetic dimension of architecture and the possible production of new modes of being in the world. The workshop develops at a small scale which focuses on a transformation of the existing building components.

Using the real objects inside the Bradbury Building as our prototypes,

we transform the photogrammetry scans into a realistic bus stop, the bus stop became the medium for reinterpreting the detail. The play of scalelessness could create an abstract design outcome based on a conventional basis.

Parametric Weaving Installation Design

Instructor: Wendy Teo

Partner with Xin Liu

The design is a public space device located in Borneo, which combines the concept of local, regional weaving materials and dance in southeast Asia. Attempts to explore the possibility of weaving in different dimensions. This design also proves the possibility of combining traditional culture with parametric design. At a given scale, from a point thick, like a tree trunk, the central activity space is formed. The weaving of threads is in a negative area, and the lines of different colors form the woven continuum above. Now the logic is perfect. By changing the control curve, different suitable forms can be obtained according to various site conditions.

Local tribe dance forms the eight installations, which are placed across the whole island in the specific location. The idea is to transform the local conventions to a modern representative language in an island context.

Local tribe dance starts with a leader elder using spear gun as a sign. The first movement is tribe leader freehand dancing and gradually involving a local shield. The second movement performs more drastic which leads to a competing position. The third is the female transition to gentle the dancing rhythm. Eventually with man response for the final chapter.

• Published in book “EXACTING FANTASY” published by Tsinghua University

• Nominee Award in Spacial Weaving_Small Scale Parametric Design

• Participate in the Borneo Art Festival Season

Robtic Arm Installation

City Installation, Shanghai

Instructor: Xin Wang Nan Jiang

Team: Zhu Guanqi, Zhuoran Quan, Guanyu Zhao, Chao Tu, Jing Chen, Tingting Jiang, Xiaobo Qian, Zhi Li, Ruiqi Ni

There is a debate between traditional production and digital production. CNC bending machine has become less flexible compared with robotic arm for designers. The robotic arms would efficiently help design to create more fearless design outcome. This workshop was an experiment to the nature of steel by engaging robotic arms as the production assistant. By precisely folding the steel sheets into shape and assembly them up, this workshop was the first attempt to light-weight parametric steel structure.

Swimming pool

UoL

Is there any possibility to integrate playing and meditation space within a unique pool design case?

The location of the new pool is alongside the marine lake in West Kirby. People could overlook the Dee Estuary in a coastal town on the Wirral peninsula. It is a small town which is famous for its beautiful scenery and unique island landscaping. Various water sports take place here which is a perfect place for people to arrange a relaxing swimming pool to improve the overall quality of West Kirby. In order to cooperate the liveliness of the site, the proposal combines some associated spaces, notably an outside lido pool, since it is currently popular across the nation. The uniqueness of the project is a combination of playing area and meditation space. To be specific, spa design is feature thinking. A balance between dynamic and static activities are integrated within the design work, which tries to emphasize the importance of balance.

UoL

Instructor: Richard Dod

Is there any possibility to integrate connection human skeleton a concrete building?

The site is a city block on the edge of Falkner Square, alongside Liverpool Women’s Hospital. It is recently announced that the Royal College of Physicians is to commission a center of excellence in Liverpool to serve the north of England. This will be their first newbuild since Lasdun’s tour-de-force, and they intend to build on the success of their recent past. In additions to the learned space, exhibition space is dominant as a reflection of the need to embrace new thinking and science in professional practice. On the other hand, the intention was to encourage the general public to visit their premises and engage them through this exhibition rather hide than hideaway behind the closed doors of an elitist establishment.

The proposal tries to build the connection between medical learning institution into a gallery exhibition space, letting people to enjoy being learning or working in the space they stay.

The helix is an metaphor of solid and void. The medical physician itself acts as the solid line to phrase the interior narrative. Furthermore, the landscape and exterior shelters create functions as the void side of the design concept, gently introducing people enter the building.

It seems everything we do at the moment is “filtered” - once, twice, or in many ways. Formally and texturally, “Filtered" elicits thoughts of many layers of fine detailed mesh, multi-layered semi-opaque synthetic materials, murky reflections, and bundles of particles. At the same time, “Filtered” brings up issues of politics, post-processing, and applying particular filters to images and ideas.

Filtered, will dive into techniques through four different digital mediums; ZBrush, Maya, C4D, Realflow, and After Effects and AR. “Another” is a work of developing virtuosity in multiple mediums, move across platforms and mix work developed at different resolutions in 2D, 3D, and animation.

Developing into several short clips, the work is experimenting with ideas of precise and intentional unruliness, mixing rustication and delicacy, and how formal legibility is affected by layering, filtering, rips, wrinkles, peeling, and fuzz.