Vivian Xin Zhen

ViVian Xin Zhen 甄欣Work Sample

2015-2016

ViVian Xin Zhen 甄欣

[email protected]

217-419-9202425 S Stoneman Ave, Apt 27

Alhambra, CA, 91801

Seeking for a summer position as an ar-chitectural intern during Apr 25th, 2016

to Aug 26th, 2016.

EDUCATION

LEADERSHIP

EXPERIENCE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGNBachelor of Science in Architecture Studies Minor: Urban and Regional Planning

May, 2014GPA:3.65/4.00

CHINESE SCHOLARS AND STUDENTS ASSOCIATION AT UIUCExternal Vice President (2013-2014), General Assistant (2010-2013)

Urbana-Champaign, IL

• Hosted the visit of the Chinese consulter of Chicago’s to UIUC.• Connected Chinese Parents with the school during emergency situations.• Worked as Art Director of 2013 Moon Gala (Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival and introduce Chinese Culture) with over 1500 audiences per year (Involved in 2010, 2011 & 2012). • Initiate and host the fund raising for Sichuan Earthquake and receive a total donation of about $1700.

• Consulted of over 20 other activities. • Designed stage and involved in planning and organizing the “If you are the one” dating show, with over 600 participants.

GLOBAL CHINA CONNECTION President of UIUC ChapterActive Member of Guangzhou Summer Committee

Guangzhou, CHINA & Urbana-Champaign, ILAug, 2010- May, 2014

Summer 2011- May, 2014• Worked as space designer, and committee member of Guangzhou Chapter Opening Ceremony and Cocktail Party.• Reconstructed UIUC Chapter and reactive the chapter in campus.• Gathered fulltime, intern and volunteer opportunities in China for non-Chinese students who are interested in China.• Hosted seminars to discuss working, economy, political and culture differences between China & US.

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS Active Member of AIAS Illinois

Urbana-Champaign, ILFall, 2010- May,2014

• Best Architecture Award of pumpkin carving competition during Fall 2010.• Attended AIAS Midwest Conference in Fall 2010, Spring 2011and Fall 2011.

FREEDOM BY DESIGN Active Member

Urbana-Champaign, IL Fall, 2010- May, 2014

• Raised funding and prepared construction documents for projects in AutoCad and Revit for project of designing a ramp for a disable women in her house.

HONOR/ AWARD

Dean’s List, School of Architecture, UIUCEarl Prize Nomination Student Work Exhibition in Link Gallery, UIUC Grade 8 Piano certified and Grade 5 Music Theory with Merit

Fall 2013/ Spring 2014Spring 2013/ Spring 2014

Spring 2010Aug. 2007

SKILLS Computer: • Rhino (advanced) • Adobe Creative Suite (advanced) • AutoCAD (advanced) • Maya (intermediate) • Revit (basic) • ArcGIS (advanced) • SketchUp (advanced) • Grasshopper (intermediate)

Language:

RELEVANT COURSEWORK

• Social Behavior Factors for Design• Cross-cultural Study in Kitchen Design• Gender and Race in Contemporary Architecture• Mechanical of Material and Design Application• Theory of Steel, Timber and Reinforced Concrete• Social Inequality and Planning

• City Planning and Urban Life• Statics and Dynamics

• HVAC Technology• Lighting & Acoustic Technology• Photography• Ceramic Sculpture

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTUREMaster of Architecture

Expected Graduation: Sep, 2017GPA:3.60/4.00

• 3D Coat (basic) • 123D Catch (basic) • Keyshot (intermediate) • V-ray (advanced)

GRIFFIN ENRIGHT ARCHITECTSMay 2015 - Dec 2015

Los Angeles, CAArchitectural Intern

• Prepared information regarding design, specifications, materials and equipment. Create drawings and digital model for existing site.

• Involved with schematic design decisions. Produce plans, elevations, sections, digital model. • Created digital model and renderings with furniture layout, selections. • Produced construction documents. • Built physical model. • Assisted photograph of finished projects for media and publications used.• Generated and submit materials for AIA and other competitions.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE Los Angeles, CAFeb 2016 - PresentTeaching Assistant of AS3041: Construction Documents.

Spring Show, Sci-Arc• A House on Reservoir, Design Studio• The Cooler Side of Rainbow, Lighting Installation

May 2015

• Jewelry and Glass Art• Integrated Facade• Contemporary Architectural Theory

• Environmental System

by The Associated Board of The Royal Schools of Music

This project started with developing a grid sys-tem from a perfect cube by accepting the geometry primitive of the cube and play with the variation types of gradient of the frame. The prototype is changed into a horizontal form by considering the site is located in a park, and the program of the project is the presidential library which the major part of it is public space. The open museum plan allow all of the public spaces to locate at the ground level and free flow of circula-tion. It is also more accessible from the park. The initial frame design create a rationally integrated and well-proportional el-ement that can serve as the primary structure of our building and the expression of the structural eventually becomes the façade system as well. Since the site is not a regular geometry, a second system, which is the massing, is created as a tool to introduce the volume into the ground and out to the sur-rounding landscape. The massing also help to deconstruct the perfect frame system that creates unexpected moment in the interior space. On the other hand, the frame also tried to break out of the box to extend to the landscape that becomes a medium between building and natural elements. The massing strategy began with the most simply geometry: the rectangular boxes, titled them and put them into a cluster. While the titled boxes break through the ideal horizontal plane, a panel system created with the pattern of the frame layered on top of the titled boxes to create an illusion on the top that the plane is still continuous and flat. This creates double reading of mass and frame as a whole except for certain moment you can see the relief. A grand stair introduce the public into the en-trance from the side walk. The grand gesture also emphasize that it is an important public structure. As it was discussed before, the elevated ground level consists the main audito-rium, permanent and temporary exhibition space, museum gift shop and café. The office space and storage space are located at the lower level, accessible from two cores. Since the first level is elevated up. The office spaces in the lower level are still penetrated with natural lights. We imagined the building enclosed with a polycarbonate sheet as a translu-cent box inside the frame system that lessen up the reading of the frame.

Obama Presidential library

sCi-arC, Fall 2015instruCtOr: deVyn Weiser

COllabOrate With Carrie li

ground plan

physical model. wood, spray paints.

rendering

elevation

section

site plan

top: physical model detail. wood. left: physical conceptual model. 3d print.right: physical study model of grid and massing. wood.

(work in progress)

Group members:Sichuan chen, Carrie Li. Chongzhe Wang & Issy Yi

This project approach to design development as to challenge representation and search for relevancy of documentation, design and manufacturing. It investigates issues related to the implementation of design: technology, the use of materials, systems integration, and the archetypal analytical strategies of force, order and character.

design deVelOPment

sCi-arC, sPring 2016instruCtOrs:

herWig baumgartner & sCOtt uriu

COnsultants:mattheW melnyk &JeFF landreth

sectional render

sun-path diagram wind rose diagram psychrometric chart

egress diagram fire safety diagram

ada diagram hvac diagram

primary structure

secondary structure

In this light installation, our group experiments with various location and directions of the light source, intensity of it, different color filters, as well as distinctive materiality of the filters. We aim at creating a space that is lit with indiscernible lit sources, enriched with luxurious textures and mystified by subtle shifts of color as the viewer moves through the space, a long corridor. During the experimentation, we have dis-covered that the effects appear to be stronger and more perceivable when only certain sections of the full spectrum of light are utilized, such as purple blue green and yellow. In addition, only when the light source is placed above the fixtures, rather than on the periphery or by the side, would the experience throughout our space be more unified. Tinted spotlight coordinates with filters hanging from the ceiling impose a strong presence on the viewers. The fabric that we use is soft, translucent, and ephemeral. As the viewers walk through the space, they will necessarily have to interact with the material, not only by direct contact when it is hanging low, but also through the cognition of subtle change of light in the space. When the viewers are made constantly conscious of the change of light, the space is then transformed from static to dynamic.For this purpose, light emitted from the source is carefully handled through articulation of distribution of different pieces of fabrics. They may become a filter as a single layer or overlap with others to produce more complex lighting effects. In this process, we use the color spectrum from purple to green, and gradually shift the color from one to another with-out abrupt changes constructing a coherent but ever-chang-ing experience for anyone passing through our space. In his or her trajectory, light changes color as well as its intensity in a soft but unpredictable way, also spicing up the sensuality of the experience. Due to the draperiness that fabric has, we decided that it would be unnecessary to give it a well-defined shape but rather work out a hanging system with control points to take advantage of it. The structure that will be utilized is made up of strings hung across the hallway from above with controlling points on them. Different colored fabric would be fixed on to the string fixture.In this installation, our goal is to construct experience instead of objects. With the use of a unique color scheme, draperi-ness of fabric, and playfulness of displacing light with various levels of intensity, we are confident that the installation will transform the space in an unexpected way: from monotone to chromatic, from static to dynamic, and also from passive to interactive.

lighting installatiOn


russell FOrtmeyer & ilaria maZZOleni

electronic circuit

axonmetric diagram

exploded axon diagram

lOs angeles PubliC library

sCi-arC, Fall 2015instruCtOr:

andreW ZagO

upper level plan

facade study

sectionground plan

The site is located in Silver Lake at 2250 Silver Lake Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90039, and it is a slightly sloped, corner lot at Silver Lake Boulevard and Earl Street. The site is roughly 15,000 square ft. with a topographical off-set of roughly 7 feet with views of the reservoir afforded from the residence. Rather than working from a predetermined set of rooms and room sizes, formulating an architectural agenda that will dictate the specificities of the particular project is the main design strategy in this project. This project aim to be a speculative architectural proposal with a clear geometric concept, developed with details that support the larger idea. In the design, the goal is to retain the quality of the order and hierarchy, the change of scale, as well as the precision of geometry in the tessellation study above and bring them in tot the design of the house. By using a single modular and placing them with different orientation, a highly logical system is created. While a light rotation of the bounding box help to get rid of the universal feeling and boring repetitive geometry and potentially create new figures on the façade. It also takes advantage of the wall system and use one façade which has more closure to face the silver lake boulevard to define the corner. On the other hand, it also open more up to the back open area for possibility of courtyard house. In general, this project incorporates a mis-reading of the basic 3D gradient system while maintainingthe beauty of logical mathematics.

a hOuse On a reserVOir

sCi-arC, sPring 2015instruCtOr:

margaret griFFin

elevation

section

conceptaul model: 3d printaxon diagram

Weird nature

sCi-arC, sPring 2015instruCtOr: marCelyn gOW

COllabOrate With VinCent tO

The seminar will develop a contemporary atti-tude toward landscape in a post-digital context. The capacity of constructed natures to produce estrangements of the nat-ural and the synthetic will be a focus. The changing character of landscape in the context of technological innovation will be considered through close analysis of both historical and con-temporary precedents. The project will be accompanied by a series of texts that position issues germane to the concept of landscape historically and speculate on their contemporary relevance. The project will culminate in the design of discrete landscape objects as constituents of an urban park scape. First part of the project will focus on bringing qualities together in an uneasy relationship with an object in order to recast the role of nature and, more specifically, land-scape in the context of contemporary architecture. Begin by selecting three objects that could be characterized as being extracted from a ‘natural context’ and that display surface articulation and prominent features. These objects will be es-tanged through the process of photographic documentation.Second part of the project will focus on producing objects where the qualities of the thing break off from thething as a whole and seem partially distinct from it. This will result in a mass of strange features or qualities that are difficult to unify. The strange suggests something that is known or recog-nizable yet is detached from its usual associations, evoking Viktor Shklovsky’s description of how to “transform an object into a fact of art.” The site of the project was located along the LA River, which almost dried up and became undesirable area due to both climate and industrialization of the area. The purpose of this project is to revitalize this area and create new landscape for the neighborhood. The design take into consideration of gathering the discarded plastic that is already floating around on the LA river to potentially let them naturally create a sculpture like object in this designated area. Box-liked voxels are created according to the existing terrain, by digitalized the contour and recreate an extreme version of it. These voxels also help to gather and form the plastics. Sculptures of various sizes and shapes derived from other natural elements are placed on the site to allow different experiments for the pedestrian. People can sit, walk underneath or climb over these sculptures. In addition to design, this project also focus on the experimentation of model making techniques. The goal is to recreate the effect of randomness of biological amassing while under the control of sculptures that are specifically designed and placed on the site. The final model was made of ABS 3d printing, which provides the skeleton and structure of the model, and wax, to mimic the process of clustering. Multiple experimentation were made to test the results of wax, techniques includes: melting wax and pouring it into water; using laser-cut acrylic to provide apertures for wax to drip through; using steamer to partially melt the wax on the 3d print object and etc.

material testing

Rather tahn bringing qualities together in uneasy relationship with some inaccessible object, fission splits the usual relation between an accessible sensual thing and its accessible sensual qualities, because here, just as in cubist painting, a guitar or mountain or postman is broken into such a multitude of surfaces that it can no longer be identified with any mere summation of them.

Graham Harman - Weird Realism

physical model: 3d print abs with wax driping

proposed plan

objects fission: (from left to right) walnut, plant, taro physical model detail

site plan

(work in progress)

This project study the relationship of architec-ture to urbanism and more specifically of the architectural artifact as urbanism. The project is for a very large mixed use complex in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles, adjacent to the Los Angeles River, and is to be conceived in relation to the current plans for the river’s transformation. The site of the project is not a perfect grid. The proposing proposed a secondary grid system to reorganize the site, create a new network that superimposed on the existing site. The massing of the project comes from the existing Helsinki Railway Station. With controlled contortion, the massing started twisting and adjust itself according to the existing building. The landscape of the precedent building contort according to the massing, extend from the massing on to the existing building and further onto the site, suggest-ing multiple ways of entering the site as well as blending the new urban artifacts with the existing site.

big dumb building


eriCk CarCamO

site axon

exploded axon massing diagram

photomontage renderings

thank yOu !

for more information please visit

ViVianXZhen.COm