2017 Steel Competition

Detroit oscillates between periods of prosperity and disparity. Tuning to the cyclical rhythm of the city’s pulse, the Public Factory expedites this transition, catalyzing a new era of re-growth.

It reaches this conclusion through its most significant precedent, the previous building occupying its site [the J.L.Hudson department store in downtown Detroit]. During the city’s first wave of prosperity Hudson’s was built, growing with the city and expanding twelve times, over several decades, to become the world’s tallest department store… before disparity hit and the site was demolished.

A blank slate now appears in the city center, at the advent of the city’s next wave of prosperity, the site’s second cycle begins! Like its predecessor, the Public Factory constructs through phases, growing with its city:

Phase One- a geothermal plant, housed in a concrete plinth, anchors itself to the site, harvesting energy from the earth to fuel further expansion phases.

Phase Two- the plinth grows a steel armature, grabbing onto the existing monorail-line paralleling the site, bringing in people from all over the city. Pedestrian paths slice through its mass, creating an axis of shortcuts.

Phase Three- with energy and people, the factory can now be assembled.  Using Detroit’s long history of industry and innovation as advantage, the building program employs, educates, and houses citizens, allowing them to participate in the construction process. The building grows with the city: A modern metabolic megastructure!

Phase Four- once it reaches its desired height, the tower grows a super-structural steel grid. It shifts its production capabilities and begins to manufacture modular-capsules, containing small live/work units. These capsules travel along the factory’s internal assembly line, before a crane embedded in the structural core installs them into the grid. As more units plug-in, the façade becomes a chart of re-growth, mirroring the people returning downtown.

Through these phases, the Public Factory will not solve all of Detroit’s problems; rather it helps expedite these problems to potential solutions, maintaining infrastructure and educating skilled citizens to be capable of facilitating future transitions.

Detroit grew and died from the factory, with hope that it may do so again-and-again…

Amongst the southern mountain ranges of Norway stands Trollveggen, or Troll Wall.  Peaking at 3556 feet, Trollveggen casts its shadow over a beautiful five-mile valley of river and forest. As the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, the wall delivers a climbing challenge second only to Mount Everest. With the prestige of the climb, however, comes the risk of injury, or even death. Summit Climbing Retreat aims to mitigate the risk of climbing by acting as an encouraging training refuge for the aspiring climber, and doubles as an iconic tourist attraction for the people of Andalsnes, Norway.

When gripping a rock, the friction of a hand against a horizontal surface provides traction (tension). The fingers compress against the horizontal surface while the thumb or palm set against the vertical surface (compression). By adapting the physics of a basic grip to the 70,000 SF of Summit Climbing Resort, it can touch Trollveggen only where necessary, preserving the site’s natural beauty.

By activating the unique qualities of steel, the Summit Climbing Resort expresses the action of climbing in its structure, program, and utility. Sitting atop four massive friction dampers, the wide flange steel beams hang bold and strong in their center, like the body of the climber, while the hands and feet connect small and tense to the dangerous gneiss façade of the Trollveggen cliff. Twenty tension cables, buried sixty feet into the bedrock below, allow the entire building envelope to teeter delicately over the edge; only touching the cliff wall with redundant seismic dampers below, all with a natural tendency to resist the earthquakes that plague the entire region.

Summit Climbing Retreat is the global icon for extreme rock climbing. The approximately 70,000 square feet of resort amenities are designed with a focus on training the aspiring climber for the most difficult ascents attempted by man.

Steel is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and hardness. In my winery project, I create the core structure of winery—steel space truss and steel supports and I use tensile cables to suspend all of floors of winery. Each steel in the steel space truss, is like a bone that can present the strength potential of steel completely. Due to the accumulation of central forces in this structure and the dispersion of forces on both sides, those suspended floors and the steel space truss together eventually form a shape of the winery, just like a “inverted pyramid”. The circulation of this winery begins at the top and spirals downward around a core, toward the wine tasting room, allowing varying degrees of interaction with workers at each floor level.

In addition, In my opinion, winery should be an interactive place for visitors. The production space of winery is a kind of static and stationary space, while visiting space is a kind of dynamic space. Winery’s production spaces can be interactive with visiting spaces and visitors can have interaction with workers. So, steel ductility and flexibility give infinite possibility for spaces. Thus, the potential of steel can be fully reflected.

This project is an exploration of place – making through surface and materials, and the dynamics of event and people over time. Events, festivals and people culminated into the cultural fabric of Florence, this project responds to that notion by deploying a series of temporary hotel units that sit upon a slightly less temporary ground, which is situated on a below grade infrastructure that allows these units and events to happen. This ensemble is kit of parts which is deployed across eight piazzas along the Arno river and Oltrarno, the hotel is constructed in a shish – kabob manner in which they can be multiplied, relocated or re-purposed. Each unit consist of a glass waterproofing membrane which is wrapped around a lightweight steel framework. Inhabitants have the option to expand their units to provide a balcony for themselves or a canopy for the locals. This is in efforts to intensify public space and circulate information of local artisan shops crafts, resistant and cultural centers.

Hotels can be considered both a self-contained world, an escape from the pressures of tourism and new experiences, and on the other hand, an extension of the town square, a public living room. It is the intention for every room to be unique and memorable. Each room should take advantage of its special location in the context, relationship to specific vistas, daylight, summer breeze, site amenities, unique architectural attributes, ect. Boutique-ness implies creating character rich settings, individualized either by setting, experience or theme.