FACE-ADE: THE HUMAN LANDSCAPE

FACE-ADE: THE HUMAN LANDSCAPE, an interactive installation, transforms an iconic home facade from an opaque, private threshold into a translucent wall; an intimate ‘skin’ which reveals a human landscape. It explores the question, “How do domestic architectural symbols engage dialogue about identity and belonging?”

FACE-ADE features a home with a first floor, second floor and attic. Blurring the line between architecture and art, pigmented bio-resin wall studs, contoured with human profiles, rotate in a wood structure, invite the daily cycle of the sun, and simultaneously function like ‘exterior cladding’, when closed. Embedded with repurposed, diverse hair waste from individuals of all genders, ages, and ethnicities, sourced from New York City neighborhood hair salons, it creates a shared identity; a spatial symbol of tolerance and transparency. Hair in the installation consists of varied curly and straight, short and long, natural and dyed, healthy, fake and damaged. Using the intimate and regenerative layer of hair, it additionally invokes the facade we show in public, exposing the vulnerable, versatile costume of beauty. How do we reflect on the natural, manufactured or imperfect? Do we expose or hide authenticity, and consequently the visibility of open conversation?

The installation encourages viewers to contemplate concealed narratives and identities behind the facades in our neighborhoods. Who are our neighbors? The wall pigmentation gradually becomes more transparent, symbolizing a gradual revelation of these lives. By standing on both sides of the installation, seen through hair embedded components, it will seem as if visitors are wearing the hair of others. FACE-ADE is about thresholds, borders, home and the neighborhoods we live in. How do we see ourselves in others? How do we, with our differences, live together?

ASPEN ART MUSEUM

Aspen, Colorado

The first design of the Aspen Art Museum, prior to the design of NAAM, was located on an alternate site in Aspen, adjacent to the Courthouse. This design takes advantage of the site slope, and views to the park and plaza. The interior opens up to all views. A separate circular education and administration building links to the main gallery building. As Director for Shigeru Ban Architects.

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REVERENCE

New York, New York

A design proposal for a traveling photography pavilion of the praying mantis inside of its natural habitat, the work of of the artist and photographer, Zana Briski. The pavilion, sited in Central Park, New York City near the Museum of Natural History, features the beauty of the Mantis and educates its wisdom and historically sacred existence, unfolding the wild of nature in an urban condition. The project included a store and a café. As Director for Shigeru Ban Architects.

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SC JOHNSON & SON EXHIBITION AND VISITORS CENTER COMPETITION

Racine, Wisconsin

A master plan and structural design which integrates with the existing Johnson Wax Building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. New Buildings house a visitors center, café and an exhibition center for the historic Johnson plane commemorating the early Johnson voyage to South America. Light enters the pavilion through woven steel columns. As Director for Shigeru Ban Architects.

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LIDO

London, UK

Lido is a proposal for a re-interpreted Lido facility inside a park adjacent to the River Thames in London. Lido spatial fragments are dispersed and submerged into a pool of water, creating platforms for performance. Water levels are controlled for dry and wet shows. An L-shaped corner wall contains a vertical ampitheater with spectator seating for concert and fashion events.  With Dreamland.

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CENTRAL PARK AQUARIUM

New York, New York

The Aquarium, an architecture and landscape project, is conceived as a living gate and threshold into Central Park, adjacent to the existing zoo and lake at the Fifth Avenue park entrance. Recycled water, impacted by the park soil, creates a natural water plinth while generating a source for filtered water for the fish aquaria. It is an exhibition of both the natural and artificial water worlds. Three components-granite rock outcroppings, water, and reflective, folded glass panels form an experience of the pleasure of water in nature. The project elements are multipurpose spaces where interior and external spaces, event rooms, picnic areas, bars, walkways, and the fish aquaria became the partition elements of the space. The floor of the restaurant forms the canopy over the building entrance. It is an aquarium, viewed from above and below. Nature is viewed through the lens of a colored water and fish landscapes, day and night. The building is a park. With Dreamland.

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EL DORADO

A Visionary City

El Dorado is a visionary city proposal which attempts to capture and re-translate energetic memories of New York City. Based on personal dream vignettes of experiences in New York City, choreographic notations (rather than architectural drawings) inspire the design of mysterious dance sequences, which were performed interactively with energetic street patterns projected on the wall. Performed in London and Paris. With Dreamland.

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