Anaelle Blin Portfolio 2026
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01 Stitching the Farm Core I Yale School of Architecture Critic: Can Vu Bui Fall 2025
This studio project addresses the Yale Farm as a site defined by disconnection and slope despite its proximity to campus. The design resolves these conditions through a Penrose-like spatial strategy, generating a continuous loop that shifts in elevation to foster connectivity across the site. Rather than imposing a singular monumental form, the building is broken into smaller interlocking volumes, forming a villagescaled composition that responds to the landscape and human scale with moments to pause and gather. A rule-based system governs plan, section, and roof geometry, ensuring that each module operates independently while collectively supporting a collaborative educational environment.
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Conference center
Green buffer
Gardens Observatory
Residential
Yale farm
Campus Laboratory
Site image
Solar study
Noise study
Topography and tree placement
Outside perspective
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Site plan
Box
Ring
Modules
Shifting horizontally
Shifting vertically
Sheared landscape 2 1
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Floor plan
Transverse section
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02 Layers of Craft Intersecting Pottery Traditions and Architecture
This project transforms the traditions of faience pottery-making in Moustiers-Sainte-Maire, France, into architectural space. I explored spatial typologies through massing studies, focusing on intersections and central courtyards. The resulting design is a three-story pottery studio that fosters creativity and connection. The first floor houses the pottery studio, where artisans shape their craft. The second floor serves as an observatory with pottery displays, inviting reflection and engagement. The third floor features two dwellings for resident artists, creating a space for living and working. This project bridges art and architecture, celebrating the craft’s legacy through spatial experiences.
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The site, perched on a mountainside near Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, offers sweeping views and a tranquil setting. Its natural surroundings provide an ideal space for creativity and connection to the region’s artisanal heritage.
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Roof
Platform
Courtyard
Skylight
Window
Platform
Stairs
Tower
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Third Floor
Second Floor
First Floor
Section
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Third Floor Dwelling
Second Floor Observatory
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03 The Central Connection Exploring Intersections in Space
This project explores the transformation of abstract art into architecture, beginning with an in-depth analysis of Zaha Hadid’s 1982 painting “The Peak”. Through diagrammatic studies, collages, and abstract models, I deconstructed the painting’s dynamic forms and spatial intersections. These explorations evolved into typological studies of architectural elements, such as tower, platform, and courtyard, each reflecting the principles of layering and connectivity derived from earlier phases. The process culminated in a design that integrates these findings, with a central courtyard and intersecting spaces at its core, embodying the essence of “The Peak” within an architectural framework.
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Zaha Hadid, Confetti “The Peak” 1982
Intersecting nodes
Grid lines
Three-dimensional forms are traced with grid lines
Clustered planar surfaces
Every individual surfaces in plan
Objects categorized by size
Diagonal gradient background.
Dimensional and planar objects
Object depth and color
This analysis began with studying a Zaha Hadid painting, extracting key elements such as points of intersection, gridlines, and three-dimensional forms. Through a series of diagrams, I explored clustered planar surfaces, object categorization by size, depth, and gradient backgrounds, translating the painting’s complexity into spatial and structural possibilities.
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Exploring dimensional objects, intersection points, and the grids they generate
A reinterpretation of the grid through horizontal and vertical structures
A composition created using objects and planar surfaces extracted from the painting
Arranging shapes from the painting around a courtyard as a focal point
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Building constructive collages and models allowed me to translate abstract compositions into imaginative spatial concepts. These exercises explore relationships between planes, volumes, and voids, layering the groundwork for creating dynamic and layered architectural spaces. Through this process I emphasize the importance of experimentation in transforming ideas into design possibilities.
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04 Toward the Stage Core I Yale School of Architecture Critic: Can Vu Bui Fall 2025 Midterm Project
This midterm project explores how architectural space can emerge from the analysis of human action and its relationship to context. Beginning with a still image depicting a social activity, the project extracts spatial logics of movement, proximity, and contact through diagramming and sequential studies, translating dynamic interactions into architectural form. These relationships are developed through physical models and sectional drawings that investigate how surfaces, boundaries, and thickness mediate between interior activity and exterior conditions. The final proposal synthesizes these studies into a compact architectural container, articulating a deliberate sequence of rooms that emphasizes negative space, human scale, and the reciprocal relationship between action, enclosure, and environment.
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“The Godfather” by Francis Ford Coppola
Ground This phase analyzes a single moment of human interaction to extract spatial relationships of movement, proximity, and exchange. Through diagramming and sequential studies, the dynamics of action are translated into architectural logic, emphasizing how space is shaped by bodies and objects in motion. Physical models articulate these relationships by framing negative space through surfaces that both support and constrain activity. 18
Bernd and Hilla Becher - Water Tower Diepholz
Section 1 iteration
Section 2 iteration
Section 3 iteration
Section 4 iteration
Ascent This phase draws from a water tower image to extract spatial principles of elevation, isolation, and controlled access. A series of sectional studies explores space lifted off the ground, where porosity is limited to minimal openings and the primary interior is reached through an extended vertical ascent. The stair becomes a spatial journey, emphasizing distance, anticipation, and separation between ground and the elevated room.
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Plan
Arrival This phase synthesizes diagrammatic centrality from the initial content analysis with the vertical progression developed in the water tower studies. Interlocking volumes radiate around a central, elevated performance space, translating the directional logic of the original diagram into plan and section. Circulation follows a continuous clockwise sequence, separating public and performer movement to choreograph entry, ascent, and exit. Limited openings, restricted to skylights and clerestories, reinforce enclosure and focus, allowing light to act as the primary external participant within the space. Section
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Public entrance
Seating wing 1
Seating wing 2
Seating wing 3
Utilities
Lounge
Public exit
Performers backstage
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Mapping Movement Unveiling the Aesthetics of Mechanical Motion
This project investigates the hidden geometries and dynamic motion within a planetary slider crank mechanism, a designed based on Franz Reuleaux’s principles of kinematics. By analyzing its mechanical behaviors through drawings and experiments, I explored the interplay of proportions, angular relationships, and their ability to generate complex patterns. This study highlights the fusion of precision engineering and artistic interpretation, revealing the unseen aesthetic potential of motion.
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Analysis
Defamiliarization
By dissecting its components, I unveiled cyclical geometries that trace an elegant interplay between linear and rotational motion, creating a visual narrative of the machine’s operation. The drawings highlight the circular transformations generated as the slider travels along its path, emphasizing the harmonic relationship between geometry and motion. This analytical process not only illustrates the mechanism’s inherent beauty but also reveals its potential as a foundation for exploring the spatial and kinetic possibilities of transforming mechanical principles into architectural expressions.
Through defamiliarization, the somersaulting patterns of the mechanism’s motion are extracted and reinterpreted. Three hand-drawn studies trace the primary joint’s movements and align them in cardinal directions to reveal the hidden somersault motion. These drawings transform the traced path into a metaphysical fabric, an imagined screen in tension, forming the foundation for a larger system governed by this dynamic rule set.
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Synthesis In the synthesis stage, the structural module from the drawings is transformed into a 3D form, creating a cohesive field condition. This configuration follows the arm’s cardinal paths, seamlessly connecting motion and spatial arrangement. The module’s scale reflects the machine’s anatomy, embedding its proportions and dynamics into the spatial system.
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Soap bubble and wire model
Pulled state
Pulled state axonometric
Transitional state
Pushed state
Transitional state axonometric
Pushed state axonometric 26
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The Hub In team collaboration
Our project focuses on stitching together the existing urban fabric to transform an underutilized industrial site into a vibrant community hub, designed to attract people and foster connection. The development includes adaptable units, where the original structures are preserved but offer expansion scenarios to support flexible use and growth. By blending functionality with inclusivity, the design aims to revitalize the area and create a dynamic, thriving space for the community.
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Railyard Baseball Pitch Industrial
Green Buffer Residential
Industrial
School
Suburban fabric
Green Buffer Canal
Site Image
Ground Floor Site Plan
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Ground Floor
The ground floor is designed to revitalize this underutilized area by fostering community engagement and connectivity. Featuring a diverse range of spaces such as an indoor gym, laundromat, restaurant, and deli, it offers opportunities for commerce and creates a vibrant community hub. Additionally, smaller courtyards for residents include outdoor vegetable gardens, a sports court, a playground, and green spaces, providing recreational and social areas that enhance the quality of life and strengthen community ties.
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Floor 3
Floor 2
Model
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Roots of Wonder Reimagining Early Education
This project reimagines the traditional kindergarten as a dynamic space for exploration, creativity, and holistic development. Inspired by the need to counterbalance technology oversaturation in early education, the design focuses on fostering hands-on learning through music, art, crafts, cooking, and technology labs. The interconnected spaces are thoughtfully arranged to encourage curiosity and collaboration, blending indoor and outdoor environments to create an immersive and nurturing educational experience. The design not only supports diverse learning modalities but also promotes a connection to nature, instilling a sense of wonder and community in young learners.
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the current model of education
Schools today face challenges like technology oversaturation, uninspired architecture, and limited outdoor play, which hinder creativity, physical activity, and social connection. Unhealthy food options and non-interactive classrooms further neglect student well-being and growth.
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the imagined model of education
The Matisse paintings, with their rhythmic, interconnected forms, inspired the conceptual foundation of this project. The dynamic interplay of figures evokes an organic ecosystem, where every element supports and interacts with the others. This notion of interconnectedness is translated into architecture, creating a spatial ecosystem where knowledge, play, and creativity coexist harmoniously. Each functional space is part of a larger network, fostering collaboration, growth, and a sense of community, mirroring the fluid and vibrant energy of Matisse’s art. 33
Site Plan
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Section
Floor Plan
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