Thick-Skinned
UCLA - Architecture and Urban Design - Technology II - B.Arch 4th year 142 - Winter 2024
This studio looks at the scattered parking structures across Los Angeles that support its automotive lifestyle and re-questions their façade design by proposing a thick-skinned structure that inhabits program. Learning from maximalist designers, we will work with artificial intelligent models to speculate on the possible three-dimensional skins that will be added onto the building. We dive into the work of aesthetics through the writings of Sianne Ngai and speculate on spatializing an image through the writings of Karsten Harries. We then scrutinize Robin Evans’ translation of drawings into buildings and adapt it to our contemporary architectural image culture. The goal of this studio is to learn new techniques of designing through image making.
Thick-Skinned is a studio that introduces students to construction systems and materials in relation to design. We study parking structures as a building typology endemic to Los Angeles and its automotive lifestyle. Learning from maximalist designers, we compose concept art imagery that serves as style for our image style transfer AI algorithm. From the curated results we then speculate through drawing manipulations on how this 2D image becomes a 3D form capitalizing on the discoveries made by Karsten Harries on the Bavarian Rococo. Students venture into designing thick-skinned add-on structures for inhabiting interstitial program and how the new structure works with the existing one to support it.
Students work by UCLA - Architecture and Urban Design - B.Arch Seniors - Winter 2024 Students: Arshia Alenaddaf, Anel Alpysbayeva, Camila Bauza Severo, Kae Bocanegra, James Fu, Jocelyn Gonzalez, Rui Huang, Juliet Iacono, Soomin Kim, Oscar Meza, Ward Miottel, Jas Nagra, Phap Nguyen, Max Orroth, Isabella Premo, Nika Sadrosadat, Dyson Salleh, Stephanie Singh, Imogen Spence, Sydney Torres, Agatha Vance, Jane Wang, Beatrice Xu, Yushi Xu, Amy Zhang, Gavin Zirke