Yifei Yuan

1. Core I: Times Square Billboard Garden
2. Core II: W • A • L • L - More Highschool
3. Core III: Courtyard House
4. Advance IV: A City Run By The Youth
5. Advance V: New York Industrial Dairy Farm Tower
6. Advance VI: Olkaria Geothermal Steam Pipe Hacking Train
7. 2GB: University of Curiosity
   
8. 1GB: The Diptych kindergarden
   
9. The Room As ...
10. Vertical Transportation & Structure
11. Desert Oasis
12. /æ/
    

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Courtyard House Course: CORE III STUDIO Year: FALL 2021 Instructor: HILARY SAMPLE Partners: MYUNGJU KO
This project looks at affordable housing in the upper Manhattan area with three strategies of units / aggregation, structures, and program / accessibility. It is an experiment to explore new possibilities for collective and multigenerational housing within the Bronx’s Melrose neighborhood, with a design focus of four lenses: health, race, social and environmental justice. Situated within an Urban Development Action Area, this city-owned property is to be developed under the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)’s Low Income Rental Program. Through site study, we realized the existing site is separated by parking lots, barbed wire, fences, narrow leftover space, and abandoned gardens. The existing buildings on site have enclosed courtyards and gardens, but not in desired conditions. There is potential to take advantage of the site’s existing strengths - courtyards. From our survey of the site, most of the courtyards have low Weight/Height index. If the width divided by the height is less than half, most of the sunlight cannot reach the courtyard enclosed by the building, creating a damp, stagnant air and a shady courtyard. Therefore we eliminate the courtyard with a low W/H index. Several small buildings, parking lots, and the Bronx documentary center are removed to connect courtyards and green space (Image 1: Existing Site Condition). The existing building’s courtyards are opened up and integrated into the site’s general landscape design (Image 2: Ground Floor Plan). 


We start with the design of a prototypical unit that explores the minimal. In a city that is already frequently at the minimum in terms of conditions like area, light, budgets, amenities, and proximity to fresh air, what is a minimal unit today? How is the minimum addressed in systems? The service Bar (Image 8). All the functional programs requiring water plumbing such as kitchen, bathroom, laundry, spiral staircase are crumbled into a 5’ x 35’ bar, minimizing the area for homework tasks and maximising the space for living and leisure. Circular balconies penetrate to the interior to create a semi-open area allowing the balcony to be read simultaneously as an open space on the balcony and as a small sunroom on the interior. The balcony can be privately owned with a fixed panel or shared among the neighbouring units by an operable screen door, invoking a sense of community (Image 10: Share and Private Balcony). The amount of service bar gives a variety of unit types - studio and 2 bedroom units with one service bar and 3 bedroom units with two service bars (Image 11: Apartment Unit Type). The double floor units interlock sectionally such as Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation to improve sunlight and courtyard view access (Image 6: Sectional and Plan View). We have 40 studios, 32 1-bedroom units, 18 2-bedroom units, and 10 3-bedroom units, adding up to 100 units in total.

We target the design with three major components: the courtyard, the promenade, and the balcony. The courtyard determines the general plan (Image 17: Small Courtyard and Bronx Documentary Center, Image 18: Large Courtyard in Summer, Rain, and Winter). The site is divided into a larger active courtyard for occupants activities and a smaller courtyard for Bronx documentary center. The ground floor holds the entrances to apartments and is more porous and open to the public for community center, and commercial programs with public space. The parking lot is pushed into the underground level. On the upper floors, we ensure each unit for access to courtyard view through arranging all units on one side of the promenade. All units could see one promenade, one private balcony, and one courtyard (Image 5: Cross Section). The promenade determines the massing (Image 16: Small Courtyard and Promenade). We wanted each unit to have its own small garden while enjoying one large courtyard. So we gave 5' of each mass for the promenade and 35' for the units.The promenade stretched across the site North-South and East-West to create a clear linear movement. It runs along the perimeter of the blocks and spreads the units across the site. To have airflow across both sides of the units, we place the service bar parallel to the units arrangement so each unit can have cross ventilation. The promenade connects to the major vertical circulation core including spiral staircase and elevator, which leads occupants to pocket spaces such as gym, community room, recreation room, and roof garden (Image 3: Major Vertical Circulation). The promenade also connects the units to the existing apartment building, transcending the new and old (Image 2: Forth Floor Plan). The balcony determines the facade. Facade operability is what gives each unit autonomy to navigate the courtyard and promenade. The façade is divided into two types. The one adjacent to the promenade is made with an operable folding door with mesh handrails. It is attached to the promenade and can be opened in spring and autumn when the weather is good. On winter or rainy days, it could be closed. This is an operable window that changes depending on the season and weather and according to the resident's tendency to use the facade (Image 19: West Facade With Operable Glass Screen in Summer, Rain, and Winter). The second type aligns on the side with the balcony, and consists of a 15’’ x 22’’ grid. It was made for metal panels, louvers, and glazed systems (Image 4: Facade And Balcony). Close to the side of the service bar are louvers and panels for privacy. The glazing system is fixed and not operable on this type of the facade.  

(Text written by Myungju and Yifei)

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