student projects

Iokian Li, Chris Gomez, Sangwon Kim, Hanwook Kim

Unfamiliar Reality allows the user to parametrically alter a space in real time by using VR controllers. The project seeks to challenge common notions on the physical environment by applying unusual rules to a well-known space, a room inspired by the last scene of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The space surrounding the user reshapes and responds to his/her movements. Light, color and sound contribute to a continuously morphing physical environment, adding depth and layers of interaction.

Tanya Makker, Constantina Tsiara, Lydia Kontozoglou

The Iceberg project aims to create an experience where the players feel the impact of global warming. Ice is melting, icebergs are shattering due to climate change. The player tries to survive but by doing so he ends up destroying the world even more.

Sidharth Ramamurthy, Ming-Ya Hsu

Utopia Dystopia is intrigued by the common theme of division in class systems. This project breaks the boundary to narrate a discovery of what true Utopia is.

Xiaonan Wang, Hsin-Yu Chen, Luna Chen, Siqi Wang, Shireen Khan

An exploration of everyday domestic objects through space & scale. Through the simple operation of scaling, objects such as toasters, chairs, ovens & spoons are given a whole new set of dimensions, that are spatial & interactive. Taking cues from historical precedents such as the still life cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso & Marcelo Moreno, a new 3-dimensional environment is generated. Still life paintings that are flat and 1- dimensional are made 3-dimensional by the introduction of depth, which begins to act as a host for everyday objects to exist. This new environment is further manipulated through very simple operations, keeping the core elements of the paintings intact. This environment becomes the dwelling place for essentially any domestic mundane objects: household appliances, buildings & building parts, animals, food, etc. The intended playfulness & explorative nature of this project allows it to be highly adaptable for diverse objectives, such as a gaming environment or simply an interactive VR environment.

Evan Burch, Mickey Chi Li

Sound Pavilion is a virtual reality project focused on the integration of sound and space. We created an architectural space featuring instrumental senses. The design goal of Sound Pavilion is to create a tool that improves on traditional musical instruction by incorporating visual and physical engagement. The project is composed of a series of curved structural chimes, rotated around a central podium, which gradually increases in size to correspond with different musical notes.

The project could be used to help players understand chords by enabling them to see a colorful aura around the corresponding notes of a particular chord when hitting a chime. The Sound Pavilion can become a powerful tool for teaching music to visual learners. Visual learners can sense chords’ compositions by mixing the colorful vibrations, taking advantage of the phenomenon of synesthesia. Additionally, the open sky becomes a canvas for players, who can compose art alongside their music.

Zhe Zhao, Shuang Yan, Cui Wang, Jie Chen

Jing Qian

In a virtual world, motion and sound effects are meaningful means to guide people. However, gravity still causes restrictions on flexibility and motion possibilities in architecture. The visitors of a space in VR will only see part of that space, and may still feel lost and disoriented according to their location in a flat architecture and vision field. To address this problem, Monumental VR creates a combination of anti-gravity motion and sound effects in a new virtual reality world.

Yang Liu

The Unreal project evokes memories of San Francisco, bridging past and present. By bringing back the buried ships dormant under the land-filled city center, and exhibiting historical photographs of the city in different platforms and formats, the project provides an unique and fascinating historical and architectural tour that starts with the reinterpretation of the Transamerica Pyramid and the urban space that surrounds it.

Based on The Vessel designed by Thomas Heatherwick, we designed a futuristic office complex with a similar complex flow, with intricate spaces and high flexibility of use. It also has a special sunlight blocking system so that the natural light intensity in the room is always comfortable. Through VR technology, users can experience the changes of light and shadow in this virtual office and a day in the life of people working in the future environment.

This project started from manifesto to re-build a memory of the Dresden Bombing and re-shape the surrounding environment of the tragic site. From the historical narrative to contemporary socially engaged voice, it raises historical awareness and recovers what has been lost through visual and aural languages as well as spatial experiences. User experiences in this multi-sensorial virtual architecture space include a variation of Daylight Factor, a contrast of solid and void, a red-colored reflection pond representing the blood of people, a contrasting materiality with black and white color schemes, and the rumbling sound resembling bombing. We together build from the ruins as the beginning of light — rebuilding, regeneration, and rebirth of humanity.

This project develops a chocolate factory within an existing parking garage, and a new residential portion at top. Lightwells doubling as mechanical spaces allow for the concept of the typical large chocolate factory to be included in this tight space. The experience I’d like to explore in this course is the distinct lighting conditions in the differing spaces we’ve created, as well as showcasing the overall experience of chocolate making.

In the context of sea burials, the relationship between sea and land is similar with the relationship between death and life. And the sea burial ground itself can be seen as an invisible wall between life and death. Different programs in the whole sea burial ceremony, such as waiting, farewell, cremation, are integrated into a linear space with certain narrativity. By harnessing different environmental factors (lighting, smell, sound, view, etc.) from both sides of the project (city vs. ocean), this project aims to create a series of sensory containers where the players can feel the fluctuation of emotion.

This project is a complex of art studios for artists before they become famous. It is a renovation project that makes a huge abandoned gas tank into a building. This gas tank could rotate and rise driven by air pressure in it. So after rotating up, this tank could have an additional space for exhibition. The logic of the design is simple, to insert some new structures hanging the studios along the inside surface of the tank, and form a circulation for the visitors to go up, see all the studios and enter the hidden exhibition space. Due to the need of stable and neutral light and the need of displaying their art works for potential buyers, the windows are facing toward center and share the diffuse light from the central opening on the roof of the tank.

This project is located in the Mission District, San Francisco. It is a multi-program building containing performing space, art studio and community centers. The site is relatively small, with a dimension of 80 feet by 80 feet, thus the spatial layout is very compacted where daylighting strategy is important to light the inside. The largest move is the central atrium enclosed by glazing and shading, which provides daylight to most parts of the building. The shading panels, on the one hand, screen part of the daylight, also reflect the light into the space on the other direction of the atrium. Meanwhile, a round beam will be cast to the ground at noon due to the shape of the atrium like a spotlight, reinforcing the idea that creating a public performing space for the neighborhood on the ground

Welcome to COLORSPACE. This is an experiential journey through 3 of Josef Albers; 2-dimensional color studies, exploring our perception of relative color. Each study is spatialized as a series of long hallways, which are called ‘study halls’. The study halls are connected at their terminuses via grey vertical shafts that you can fall through — there’s one at the end of this hall. After you fall through the shaft, turnaround 180 degrees. Click on the audio button to hear about what you are trying to perceive in each study. Then proceed through the hall. After the final shaft, walk towards the forms in the distance to learn each study’s secrets. That’s all for now. Proceed to the first shaft, and have fun!

This project aims to make a metaphorical surgery to solve the freeway dilemma in downtown Oakland by inserting a machine-like building at the intersection of Broadway and I-880 freeway.