ERWIN SUKAMTORhode Island School of Designselected projects2006-2012

chang’an development

montessori twins

la meseta project

back to the nature

super towers

taksim square

louis kahn study

stacked townhouse

120 planks

related skills

CHANG’AN DEVELOPMENTSpring 2012

Real estate competition proposal consisting of residential, commercial and office programs located on Chang’An Avenue around Beijing’s second ring road. It also aims for LEED Platinum certification.

Beijing, China

BCG Capital Group

FORM Team

This project required the integration of public and private establishments within a 90,000 m2 total building area. After studying the owner’s original layout, the FORM team came up with the “Twisted Towers” proposal to idealize the owner’s personal aspiration and the company’s design characteristic.

Canonical architecture parameters such as maximizing south orientation and determining the role within the urban condition, shaped the project along with technological inventions and incorporation of business into design within our current zeitgeist.

What:

Where:

Client:

Credit:

25m 50m

By focusing on the physical separation between commercial and residential without creating an obvious design distruption, the commercial area is seen as a pinched ground, lifted away from pedestrian level. Public could gain access directly from the sidewalk into the commercial area, without having to disturb the privatized area, maintaining its exclusive value.

Inhabitants could overlook the cityscape and the river to the south from one of the four apartment towers, while commercial area is hidden within the garden landscape. The office tower is reachable by walking for those who prefer a work-home environment.

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B

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Section BSection A25m25m 50m50m

Shopping Area

Commercial Parking

Residential Parking

Office Building

Residential Building

5m 10m

South Residential TowersInterior Plan

North Residential TowerInterior Plan

Public Area

Private Area

Service Area

Elevator Core

Architecturally, the twisting concept gives a high identity to the project and to each floor plans. Each floor plans would be slightly different, with the location of spandrels and elevator core’s alignment as the grid overlay. We decided to give different possibilities of floor plans, some of which are shown here, to accomodate the different room sizes and real estate values.

In most of the examples, the floor plans are organized without corridors, except for the shared area inside the elevator core, where the fire exit and service elevator are located. Inhabitants gain access to their private apartment directly from the elevator. This is crucial to maximize inhabitable floor area and to increase security value of the apartment building.

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The building’s unitized curtain wall system is geared towards LEED Platinum certification. Low-E ceramic frit is applied on the exterior glazing to provide solar shading as well as visual treatment. With double-wall system, the curtain wall could act as an air-control ventilation system for cooling while providing further insulation. By coordinating with local supplier for pre-fabricated ‘cold warped’ panels, shipped flat and then bent on site, we add more LEED points for using locally available material.

Spandrel - solid white ceramic frit on super clear white glass

Silicone seal, concealed frame.

Double glazed super clear colorless glass.

Additional natural cooling system uses the advantage of the site being next to the river for geo-exchange heat transfer. It counts towards LEED points.

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Overall view of development

Street view of retail area - by Studio AMD

MONTESSORI TWINSSpring 2011

School intervention based on Montessori education system161 Garden st, Cambridge MA

Montessori education is a school system that emphasizes on students’ independence and freedom with a clear underlying structure. These traits could be translated directly into an architecture design. Starting as a classroom design by actual observation, I focused on the student’s non-chronological schedule and activities within a space.

Furniture could be stored within the thickened walls, adaptive to students’ schedule. Moveable translucent panels provide extra partition and privacy.There is always constant relationship between each classroom, with a shared area in the middle. The overall structure is constructed with lightweight wood material and translucent glass channel.

What:

Where:

brickyard building section

brickyard building elevation

Elementary building elevation

Elementary building section A

Elementary building section B

The two buildings are organized as one entity. The facades of the schools facing the arterial road are cantilevered viewing rooms that connect the two buildings visually. While the building’s most private zone is split by the main street, public entrances are tucked deeper into the neighborhood. Parks, gardens and playground areas then become a physical link where children can pass through. With this strategy, parts of the school spill into its urban surrounding, and parts of the city integrate the two buildings together.

Elementary building final model

Elementary building auditorium area

Brickyard building gymnasium area

LA MESETA PROJECTFall 2010

Orphanage and Learning Center Village with a vision of agricultural integration us-ing earthbag and other localized materials. It also serves as a case study for a large scale off-grid living.Purchased plot outside Tecpan, Guatemala.

Readily available on the building site, earthbag is cheap and easily assembled by unskilled labors. In the envisioned future, the village grows. Nature and buildings could weave through their in between spaces and create a coexistence between the people and their natural surroundings. Rather than interrupting, the project is knitting a mutual inhabitation, both for people and agriculture.

What:

Where:

The design process started with a focus on the seven family houses of the orphanage. A mother and nine children would inhabit each of these houses. The idea here is to create repeated form that could become continuous. When two utility room from two family houses are placed in adjacency, they can share the same water source or help feeding each other’s water line. The in-between spaces could be used for small communal gathering or shared garden.

The usage of earthbag as construction material necessitated the serpentine form of the walls to support themselves. This became a driving force to explore the geometry’s versatility.

Soccer Field

Guest House

Somos learning Center

Somos Village

Water Reservoir

Three elements of the village were em-phasized: Somos Learning Center, Somos Family Houses, and a communal Guest House. Soccer field and marketplace were also integrated in the public zone of the vil-lage. On the north side, at higher ground level, water reservoir would catch, store and distribute rain water to the village.

Somos learning Center

Bathroom + Garden

Bedrooms and sitting area

Shared area between houses

Learning Center, communal space

Shared garden area between houses and gazebo

BACK TO THE NATUREWinter 2010

Urban strip with a focus on greywater treat-ment.Abandoned I-195 highway in Jewelry Dis-trict, Providence, RI

This project addresses the future of urban lifestyle that minimizes carbon footprints and reinvents new life within the context of deteriorating post-modernism. By trans-forming a common, banal structure (an abandoned highway) into a constructed wetlands, the project also asks questions on mutual relationships between nature and people, adapted into the existing urban fabric.

What:

Where:

Greywater and collected rainwater from a building receives treatment through the constructed wetlands. After the treatment, cleaner water is reused in the building to flush toilets and laundries. Only blackwaterleaves the building through a separate pipe, and greywater is constantly recycled in the proposed loop of water treatment.

Wetlands IntegratedBuildings along the proposed water line would have localized wetlands and rainwater recycling system.

treated water

greywater/rainwater

blackwater wetlands

Direction of waterflow*Exaggerated Height

rainwater/greywater from residents

Water supply pond

An enclosed boulevard as part of the overall scheme. Cyclists can reach the upper level directly from the bridge.

Existing structure

The bridge continues to street level, transporting bikes and pedestrians

Existing structure Providence River

450’

South Water st South Main st

rainwater/greywater from residents

Bridge viewed from the sreet below

Bird-eye view of overall scheme

Treated greywater would then incorporated to hydroponics farm

SUPER TOWERSFall 2012

Conceptual project of zero carbon footprint urban model. Part of a sustainability book to be published in 2013 by FORM’s Partner-in-Charge, Kellogg Wong.

Inner Mongolia and various location

The abundant rare earth and coal mining industry has led Inner Mongolia to a state of economic and construction boom, sprawling new commercial developments and apartment complexes. However, due to the overly fast demand to modernize and capitalize the region, urban phenomena started to occur such as ghost towns and empty malls.

The Super Towers project occured not as a solution, but as an alternative response to the danger of urban developments without palpable vision of cultural and demographic conditions.

Rather than building horizontally like Masdar City, the super towers rely on stacked density, current technologies, and a mix-matched use, adaptive to their environment, to create a dramatic and futuristic living conditions with recycleable energy.

What:

Where:

FORM TeamCredit:

In a live-work environment, the towers could attach to an already super-dense cities to provide substantial housings and increase

employment rate while maintaining its sustainable criteria.

The Super Towers could co-exist with a nearby sister city without adding damage to its pristine environment.

In a countryside environment, the Super Towers would be self-sustainable, containing farms, small industries, recycling centers, and residentials. Solar panels and wind turbines would be some of the main energy sources. Relatively walkable distances designated for pedestrians and carbon-free public transport would reduce energy consumption and waste.

In many booming chinese cities, the “bedroom community” towers would not only become an alternative way of living, but also a beacon of mega-structure and advanced technology.

TAKSIM SQUARESpring 2010

Addition to an existing public square as a place of transit. It comprises of pedestrian accessible platform and a tram station.Istanbul, Turkey.

The word taksim means distribution in Turkish. The area was used as water reser-voir to distribute water. Now, it has become a public square where people, cars, buses, trams, and funiculars depart and arrive. The project analyzes Taksim Square’s po-tential to weave continuously the immense flow of people and traffic that collide in the site.

What:

Where:

Cumhuriyet Avenue

Taksim Park

Tarlabasi Boulevard

Bus transit stop

Republic Monument

Proposed pedestrian platform

Once water reservoir, proposed as tram station

Istiklal Avenue, 3 million people pass through in one day

The idea here is to provide immediate access for the stream of pedestrians from Istiklal Avenue while maintaining the sense of public square. Cars from Tarlabasi Boulevard will pass underneath the platform. The additional tram station will extend continuity from Istiklal Avenue to Cumhuriyet Avenue. The platform is designed to be as porous as possible, allowing multiple access from ground level. Pedestrians could also take an alternate route to Taksim Park.

Tram Station Second IterationPermeability happens on the ground level, platform, and mid-level.

The design focuses on porosity on both axes, created by careful placement of the columns. The platform is further carved out to illuminate the ground level.

elevation a

section a

section b

LOUIS KAHN STUDYSpring 2009

Palazzo dei Congressi, unbuilt project by Louis Kahn, 1968-74.Venice, Italy

This lasercut model served as a precedentstudy of an unbuilt project by Louis Kahn. Proposed as a congress building over a ca-nal in Venice, Italy, the model tried to studystructure, gesture, and experiential qual-ity of the project. The model is segmented every two structural supports to allow the camera to capture different point of views inside the building.

What:

Where:

Two steel cables were inserted on the top part as connecting pieces and to emphasize the gesture of tension structure, implying the building as a bridge.

STACKED TOWNHOUSEFall 2009

An urban model of a residential buildingFictitious urban parcel

In a dense urban fabric, the model of townhouse as a housing typology could be altered to improve land use. This project serves as a new housing typology that combines the idea of apartments and single-family townhouses. Each family occupies two floors with two balconies; one for public access, and one for private use.

The stacked townhouse alternates between public access and private balcony. Every stacked block that shares the same color is merged into a two-story unit.

What:Where:

In this fictitious neighborhood, lots are divided between 13 people in a design charrette. The design was changed and altered formally with agreements from each adjacent housing blocks. The goal is to maximize ground-level public access and allow light, view, and air to each rooms.

120 PLANKSSpring 2009

Installation for a Community GardenDavis Park, Providence, RI

Students were provided with 120 planks of 2X4s and restricted only with ropes as the joinery. With the restriction, a weaving method of the woods was incorporated in order to support itself, rendering the final form.

The tectonic of the structure responded to the slope of the ground and also infinitely modular. This method of weaving allowed us for fast construction as only minor adjustments and less cutting were needed. The overall structure was built from ground to finish within 9 hours.

What:

Where:

Not only visually inviting, theinstallation is also potentiallyinhabitable in the next level.

RELATED WORKSFall 2008

Series of studies and exploration with handdrafting. It began with observation and analysis of real objects and continued to readings of plans, sections, and elevations. The study became more complex with ana-morphosis and motion perspectives.

Le Corbusier - Villa Stein study (Garches, 1927)

What:

Analyses in drawings and 3D model of Royal Playhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally designed by Lundgaard & Tran-berg Architects in 2002.

Section

What:

Plan

Deconstructed Axons

thank you for viewing.

© 2006 - 2012 Erwin Sukamto

Rhode Island School of Design