L. MICHAEL LU - PORTFOLIO

WORKSTHESIS

STUDIO 2010-2012COMPETITIONS

T H E C O N T O U R S T R A T E G Y :CIV IC OPERATIONS IN FORMAL L IMAMASTER OF ARCHITECTURE + MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN

E X U R B I A R E V I S I T E D :3 INTERPRETATIONS OF A HOUSE TYPOLOGYF L E X T H E E X U R B S S T U D I O , P H O E N I X A Z

P U M P W E R KM U L T I F A M I L YTR A V E L I N G S T U D I O : H O U S I N G , B E R L I N G E R M A N Y

N E B L I V E L AAECOM URBAN SOS: WATER , STUDENT COMPETIT ION

NEW OR L EANS SCHOOL O F MUS I CK I N G S P A N L E G A C I E S A R E B U I LT C O M P E T I T I O N

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U R B A N B I L L B O A R DS U N D E V I L A U T O R E D U X S T U D E N T C O M P E T I T I O N

4 W A T E R SAIA PHOENIX METRO CHAPTER CANALSCAPE COMPETITION

The following proposal defends the concept Open Source Infrastructure as an appropriate alternative for city building in thedeveloping world. In regions where piracy is prevalent and urban growth is defined as both informal and organic, a more punctuated and restrained form of public infrastructure is fundamental. If community participation is requisite in the installation of public works and are encouraged to expand upon and re-interpret designs unrestrained by copyright, an idiosyncratic urbanism ensues which is reflective of the community, advocates agency among the population, and strengthens local regard so often lost through large-scale government projects.

This Open Source Infrastructure will exploit the propensity toward bootlegging and bricolage in the informal world, not just as a strategy for the dissemination of design, but as a device to guide smart growth through incremental change rather than wholesale redevelopment.

A series of urban design initiatives and interventions are proposed at nested scales of both complexity and completion. At the level of the neighborhood, open spaces within the dense environment of informal settlements will be re-appropriated, streetscapes redefined but left incomplete, and locations for public amenity re-established. The hand of the designer is “light” in this case. The re-direction of urban slum growth is then guided by small homeopathic interventions in key city nodes, paths, and edges. Connections are made between and within these innovative, publically sponsored projects. The designs are transparent and encourage re-adaptation and re-invention by the community they serve. Through this series of sporadic but guided designs that are easy to replicate, readapt, and redistribute; sustainable urbanism is catalyzed and disseminated through the mechanism of open exchange.

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T H E C O N T O U R S T R A T E G Y :C IV IC OPERAT IONS INFORMAL L IMAMASTER OF ARCHITECTURE + MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN

* OUTSTANDING GRADUATE THESIS AWARD IN URBAN DESIGN

LIMA

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M E T R O P O L I T A N L I M A

P O P U L A T I O N8 . 5 M I L L I O N

P R O J E C T S C O P E

3 3 % O F P E R UI N L I M A

PARQUE INDUSTRIAL

PUMACAHUA

VILLA MARIA

MARIA AUXILIADORA

SAN JUAN

ATOCONGO

JORGE CHAVEZ

AYACUCHO

CABITOS

ANGAMOS

SAN BORJA SUR

LA CULTURA

NICOLAS ARIOLA

GAMARRA

MIGUEL GRAU

LIMA + TRANSPORTATIONS T R A T E G I E S

OPERATIONS

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HOMOPATHIC ‘SUTURE’

Nestled in the heart of the Kreuzberg District, Pumpwerk is a recent contribution to the low and middle income housing of West Berlin. Envisioned as a mixed use, mixed income community, Pumpwerk rests upon the remains of a relic pump haus and park in disrepair. The site is challenging. To the north, an overhead commuter rail hovers above a busy street. To the south, the Landwehrkanal lined with dense vegetation carves its way through the hard city edge. Both conditions inform the design. The envelope reflects the urban ecology. The north elevation is industrial, steel, and concrete; while the south facade is bucolic, natural, and wooden. However, tension occurs. Walkways of steel stretch from the railway to canal piercing through the dense canopy of trees. In turn, wooden walkways carve their way north into sidewalks of concrete serving to remind those who engage the site that both the natural and the industrial are ever present in the city. Boundaries are metaphorically blurred.

Pumpwerk is a mixed use development at the center of a proposed overhead railway park connecting two existing stops. The selected site rests at the midpoint. From above, the site is enteredthrough three steel walkways from the rail park. The first provides access to both multifamily occupant and visitor to the first floor market. The second extends through the park to a Biergarten at the canal’s edge and cantilevers over the water below. The last, although bisecting private space, is solely public and allows access to the Pumpwerk parkscape. The interplayof lines, grids, materials, uses, and incomes all serve as a Reflection of the complexity of Berlin and its history. Pumpwerk is a manifestation of conflict and concord in urban ecologies.

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CAPAS | LAYERS

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E X U R B I A R E V I S I T E D :3 INTERPRETATIONS OF A HOUSE TYPOLOGYF L E X T H E E X U R B S S T U D I O , G L E N D A L E A Z

The once explosive growth of exurban subdivisions in the greater Metropolitan Phoenix area has halted abruptly leaving dozens of communities largely uncompleted. Plummeting home prices, continued subprime delinquencies, and tight credit markets have led innumerable home builders to declare bankruptcy or simply ‘walk away’ from unfinished communities. As a means to address this pervasive issue, our studio was assigned the task of proposing new models of exurbia grounded in sustainability.

The following proposes a‘carbon neutral’ subdivision.The traditional North American house serves a base line for parametric modeling and shifts in shape according to sun and wind to capture energy. A third interpretation of the common house typology rests upon the cultural notion of sun worship. A series of single family dwellings chart the movements of the sun on both the longest and shortest days of the year. In order to further persuade cautious populations on the benefits of sustainability one may integrate green technologies with iconic house forms or simply imbue residential designs with a significance greater than that of the occupant. The result is permanence in architecture.

* DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD

* D3 HOUSING TOMORROW COMPETITION HONORABLE MENTION

SOLAR HAUS GNOMON HAUS

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Peru is an incongruous land. Within hours, one leaves the scorching desert coastline, crosses the world’s highest tropical mountain range – the Andes – and descends into the planet’s largest tropical rainforest. Nearly 33% of the nation’s population resides in Lima, its sprawling capital city. Spread among 43 districts, informal settlements congest the burgeoning megacity. Uncontrolled urban growth often leaves the population without the services required for survival. Villa El Salvador is one such district, with origins as a shanty town. The village of Lomo de Corvina, a recent addition to the district, has rapidly overtaken the towering dunes bordering the Pacific coastline. Low precipitation along the arid coast, compounded by the irregular flow of nearby rivers, has created extreme water shortages, especially for the most vulnerable populations. 36% of Lima residents live below the national poverty level, and the economic inequality between rich and poor districts is evident in the distribution of water resources. However, the coastal environment conceals a natural means to support the inhabitants of this dry and inhospitable landscape. “Fog harvesting”, using “sails” upon metal structures can help mitigate the challenges of explosive population growth. An engineered fog “sail” will improve the lives of Lima’s poor by supplying free water, condensed from air. The NEBLIVELA system, which builds upon earlier methodologies of fog “capture”, is designed to integrate with the existing fabric of Villa El Salvador. NEBLIVELAs represent a positive, life-changing, system for the people who, until now, have been resigned to live with much less.

* HONORABLE MENTION

Inspired by both the piano and the decibel, the New Orleans School of Music boasts Silverstorm and Bone White insulated Kingspan panels which gracefully dance upon its facade. Large rectangular windows serve to bring performance art into public view, and lightwells on the vegetated roof illuminate the inner core from above while providing evening light from below at night. The abrupt angles of the facade signal public entryways and encode the founding date into the building skin like DNA. The School of Music is a collaboration among private donors, city officials, and the Kingspan company. Both socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, the new school offers local inner-city youth a positive setting to observe, practice, and showcase their talents in music within a city ravaged by Katrina. The site was selected to highlight the city’s jazz heritage. The building rests across the street from Louis Armstrong Park, and the black-and-white color scheme represents the piano, a key instrument in jazz. Urbanistically, the building attaches itself to its context by the patterns of the panels repeating along the ground plane into its surroundings. In continuing the theme, the panels tilt at both 19.01 degrees (1901 being the birth date of Louis Armstrong) and 20.15 degrees (marking the institution’s build date of 2015). For Kingspan, this much-needed institution represents an opportunity to showcase the resilience and timelessness of its product lines and give back to broken, low-income communities. Insulated panels of varying lengths and depths form a topographic building envelope that reflects the dynamism of piano keys while also reducing heat gain. These panels are included at different thicknesses both to create interesting shadows and to follow the same language of the piano keys.

* WINNING ENTRY

MODEL

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Inspired by the combination of Old West architecture with the utility of roadside billboards, the new Sun Devil Auto, Van Buren, boasts a vibrant metal crown intended to draw the eye. The height of the perforated metal scrim acts to elevate the facade, creating the illusion of a larger more contemporary building similar in purpose to the ‘false fronts’ of the wild west mainstreets. Symbolizing the prioneering Western town, the false front is both synonymous with the artificial display of wealth as well as the rapid boom-and-bust expansions of early mining and railroad communities. 1,930 individual Maroon and Gold perforated panels line the outer edge of Sun Devil, while the abrupt bend upward rising to 19.78 degrees in turn encodes the founding date into the design solution. Below the tilted scrim, a return is made to the basic vernacular of Phoenix. Brick and mortar is revived and celebrated. A grey brick veneer is affixed to the existing facade to engender a clean and uniform light new canvas without the need for paint. Along the eastern wall, a solitary window is framed within a gabion grid. Mechanics operate while on display for curious passers by interested in the latest work of the famed eco-sensitive Valley autobody. At nightfall, a shift unfolds as the backlit perforated panels form a transclucent curtain revealing the hat’s hidden structure. A steel frame is unveiled and once again the face of Sun Devil Auto is transformed. At dawn, a corner tower is formed. Sun Devil Auto tilts it’s head up towards its neighbors and a connection is made. Everyday commuters immediately recognize 2nd and Van Buren as an iconic intersection.

* WINNING ENTRY


The intersection of Grand Avenue and the Grand Canal provides. opportunities to explore the nexus between the fluid Hohokam canal system and the infrastructural matrix of Metropolitan Phoenix. Thesite was selected based upon the deviation of Grand from the strict linearity of the city. Moreover, Grand Avenue hosts a variety of sectors vital to the function of Phoenix; similarly the canals serveas a lifeline to the Valley. Site design alternates between rigid and fluid forms, merging old and new, and organic and anthropogenic. Four sinuous built forms symbolize the ancient Four Waters canalsystem which gave rise to the city and the current canal system.

The surrounding condition is industrial, inspiring one to incorporate colors and materials akin to these sensibilities. Where possible revitalization, reuse, and restoration of existing buildings was stressed. At the project’s core stands a ranch market pavilion providing large spaces for gathering and festivities. Circulation through the site reflects the intricate juxtaposition of repetition of the rail and the sinuous nature of the canal.

Low-water use vegetation immerses the site, providing shade, but also enhancing and supporting wildlife to the area. Vegetation is supplied with harvested rainwater and greywater from buildings.Public transit is encouraged by extending the light rail along Grand Avenue. Solar panels on rooftops provide energy to the site and back to the grid. This center brings intricate systems and neighborhoodstogether functioning as a sustainable community and culture, while commemorating the systems we rely on to live, work, and play.

* HONORABLE MENTION

SITE SECTION

PERSPECTIVE

ELEVATIONS OPERATIONS

t h e W O M BP E T S M A RT D O G H O U S E S T U D E N T C O M P E T I T I O N

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WORKSTHESIS

STUDIO 2010-2012COMPETITIONS

T H E C O N T O U R S T R A T E G Y :CIV IC OPERATIONS IN FORMAL L IMAMASTER OF ARCHITECTURE + MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN

E X U R B I A R E V I S I T E D :3 INTERPRETATIONS OF A HOUSE TYPOLOGYF L E X T H E E X U R B S S T U D I O , P H O E N I X A Z






Rooted in the concept of a ‘mother’s womb’, this ecofriendly design solution introduces passive heating and cooling to the doghouse using water to cradle your pet. During a hot summerday, the water filled liner absorbs heat while maintaining the inside cool and comfortable. At night, the accumulated heat gradually radiates throughout the interior. The ergonomic form ofthe Womb is modeled after the postures of dogs both in motion and at rest. With three entrances, this redesigned doghouse provides heightened interactivity of the dog with its home.

The Womb is manufactured of recycled materials including neoprene and plastic (PET 1). A nylon and neoprene blended fabric lines the outer and inner shells of the structure. Made fromrepurposed wetsuits, mouse pads, and drink cozies, the liner provides added thermal protection from the elements while remaining breathable and easy to clean. The rigid plastic frame ofthe Womb is formed from recycled water bottles rescued from our landfills. Hundreds of bottles once destined for the dump are now sequestered in the form of a house for man’s best friend.

As a concept, the Womb is intended to be a self-sustaining doghouse. Beyond simply sheltering from the heat and enveloping in warmth during the evening, future models will house both foodand water in the shell of the structure. Pockets of dry food will provide additional thermal massing in addition to water. In the end, a dog will conceivably feed and drink from the shell itself insimilar vein as an infant nurses from its mother.

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L. MICHAEL LU - PORTFOLIO