ARC 500 Professional Elective | Third Year 2nd Semester
Seeing Through Silence
ARC 208 Studio | Second Year 2nd Semester
The Folded Studio
ARC 208 Studio | Second Year 2nd Semester
Seeds of Belonging
ARC 307 Studio | Third Year 1st Semester
Healing Homes Collective ARC 307 Studio | Third Year 1st Semester
the Scene
01
Searching for Superpublics
Grand Concourse Research Project in Bronx, NY
March 2025 (In Progress) | Team: Claire Felicity Guo, Nicole Mihailovna Trubskyy
Instructor: Jaffer A Kolb
Our research explores the concept of “superpublic” spaces— public spaces that transcend conventional roles to become cultural and social anchors. The Grand Concourse, a 5.2-mile boulevard in the Bronx, exemplifies this idea.
Built in the early 20th century, it became a hub for immigrant communities, including Jewish, Irish, Italian, and Hispanic populations, who shaped its neighborhoods. Lined with Art Deco buildings, civic centers like the Bronx County Building, and parks such as Mosholu Parkway, it fostered public engagement and identity. The boulevard hosts major cultural events, including the Bronx Day Parade and the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Despite facing urban decline and gentrification, it remains a significant cultural artery.
DOMINICAN DAY PARADE
The Dominican Day Parade is a lively celebration of Dominican culture, featuring music, dance, and community pride while honoring heritage, fostering unity, and highlighting the contributions of the Dominican diaspora.
PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE
The Puerto Rican Day Parade is a vibrant celebration of Puerto Rican culture, featuring lively music, dance, and community pride while honoring heritage, fostering unity, and recognizing the contributions of the Puerto Rican diaspora.
AFRICAN AMERICAN DAY PARADE
The African American Day Parade is a dynamic celebration of Black culture, history, and achievements, featuring music, dance, and community pride while promoting unity, empowerment, and recognition of African American contributions to society.
The Pride Parade is a vibrant celebration of LGBTQ+ identity, history, and rights, promoting visibility, acceptance, and equality. It honors the struggles and achievements of the LGBTQ+ community while fostering unity, empowerment, and social progress.
Mayor La Guardia called it a “golden fortress,” with monumental sculptures still presiding over the vast terrace. Though many functions have relocated, the Bronx County Building remains a key civic center.
By the early 1970s, the hotel had declined from a prestigious landmark, once hosting high-profile guests with grand interiors, to a welfare hotel and abandoned ruin, now housing the elderly.
Once a prominent place of worship for the Jewish elite in the area, the temple is now repurposed into a Protestant church, reflecting the neighborhood’s gentrification. The building, designed in a white limestone neo-Classical style, stands on the southwest corner of 169th Street.
The Grand Concourse qualifies as a “superpublic” space due to its unique qualities. It physically and symbolically connects public spaces, civic institutions, and cultural landmarks, inviting both residents and visitors. As a hub for immigrants, it embodies cultural diversity and expression. Beyond its historical significance, the boulevard continues to shape the Bronx’s identity, serving as a timeless symbol of resilience and cultural evolution.
Seeing Through Silence 02
Prosthetics Center and Community Center in Kigali, Rwanda
May 2024 | Individual | Instructor: Yutaka Sho
The 1994 Rwandan Genocide resulted in the deaths of nearly a million people in just 100 days, leaving deep scars on the nation. Many survivors were left with disabilities, requiring the use of prosthetics and long-term rehabilitation.
This project envisions a prosthetic center that goes beyond medical services—creating a communal space for healing, destigmatizing disability, and fostering reconciliation through shared experiences and mutual understanding.
Ortho-Promed LTD
Kabgayi Hospital
Prothetics
Mobility
Inkurunziza Orthopedic Specialized Hospital
Orthopedics
Rehab Centre
Orthopedic resources in Rwanda are scarce and mostly concentrated in Kigali, forcing those living outside the capital to travel for treatment. To address this disparity, the building includes a parking spot at the entrance, enabling vans to transport patients from other regions to access needed care.
Gahini Rehabilitation Center
Rwanda Military Hospital
ORTHOPEDIC MEDICAL RESOURCE MAPPING
Brick is a dominant material in Rwanda due to its affordability, durability, and availability. Traditional clay bricks and handmade adobe bricks are commonly used in both rural and urban construction.
BRICK MATERIAL MANUFACTURING PROCESS STUDY
“Centre Orthopédique Sainte Marie” Rilima
Gatagara
I explored various brick stacking patterns to understand how different methods influence translucency. This experimentation informed our design approach, allowing us to strategically integrate varying levels of openness to enhance spatial experience and functionality.
Political freedom of speech in Rwanda is restricted, particularly regarding the genocide, with laws criminalizing denial and divisionism. We analyzed speech dynamics in surrounding spaces— homes, shops, companies, and parks—to understand varying levels of openness. Our design strategy orients the building toward communal areas where speech is more free, fostering dialogue, engagement, and a sense of inclusion.
1. Freedom of speech in residences is comparatively freer than in public spaces, where strict laws and surveillance limit open discourse.
3. Police significantly impact freedom of speech, often suppressing dissent through surveillance, intimidation, and arrests, limiting open political discourse.
2. Freedom of speech in restaurants is limited, with self-censorship common due to strict laws, surveillance, and past arrests of critics.
4. Protesting in Rwandan public is heavily restricted, with government regulations limiting demonstrations and dissent, often resulting in arrests or repression of activists.
The facade features bricks stacked with intentional spacing; larger gaps create greater translucency, visually reflecting the functions behind the facade. This design enhances light filtration and spatial perception, adapting to programmatic needs.
The ground floor features a milk bar fostering community interaction, while the enclosed third-floor meeting space reflects government censorship, symbolizing the need for privacy in discussions where free speech remains restricted.
Building Section
3F
The Folded Studio 03
Fashion School for Syracuse University in Tokyo, Japan May 2024 | Individual | Instructor: Yutaka Sho
The project envisions a fashion school for Syracuse University’s abroad program in Shimokitazawa, Japan. Rather than masking its foreign identity, the design embraces its distinctiveness while establishing a thoughtful dialogue with the surrounding urban fabric. The building’s form and spatial organization carefully mediate between global influence and local character.
As a landmark, the school fosters both prominence and connection. It integrates into the neighborhood by supporting community events, offering public resting spaces, and engaging residents through fashion shows visible from their windows. This dual role—an iconic institution and an accessible cultural hub—ensures the building’s relevance within its immediate and broader urban context.
The site is bordered by distinct urban conditions. To the south, a pedestrianonly commercial street serves as a key route for residents commuting to subway stations in the east and west. On the east, a major road with heavy traffic connects students to a school further north. The remaining surroundings consist of residential neighborhoods.
The project’s goal is to design a distinctive building that reflects its identity as a branch of a U.S. university. To emphasize its fashion school focus, we began form studies by folding paper, exploring how a single surface could define and separate multiple programs.
FORMAL STUDY MODEL
NEARBY CONTEXT ANALYSIS
Tram Station
Commercial Street Site
School Route Park
The building’s elevated first level forms a canopy, offering shelter for pedestrians commuting or shopping while also serving as a gathering space for community events, enhancing both accessibility and engagement.
The second-floor theater, enclosed in glass, allows nearby residents to view fashion shows from their windows, inviting passive participation and fostering a connection between the school and the community.
3F-2 PLAN
2F PLAN
3F-3 PLAN
3F-1 PLAN
PROGRAMS
3F-3: MEETING ROOM
3F-2: OFFICE
3F-1: STUDIO SPACE
2F: EVENT SPACE
1F: RECEPTION
Seeds of Belonging 04
Affordable Housing Apartments in Syracuse, NY Oct 2024 | Individual | Instructor: Jess Myers
Seeds of Belonging rethinks conventional apartment housing by addressing the lack of collective living often found in highdensity developments. While double-loaded corridors maximize units, they also create dark, compressed environments that discourage interaction. This project seeks to densify the site while encouraging community interaction through designed public spaces and shared programs.
To preserve memory and foster connection, two existing buildings are repurposed, while others are thoughtfully demolished. Salvaged bricks from the original structures are reused in public elements like pavings and benches, grounding the new development in its historical context. The result is a renewed, denser neighborhood that still honors its roots.
ORIGINAL SITE ANALYSIS
MIXED-USED
URBAN CORE ZONE DISTRICT
SITE
BOULEVARD
MIXED-USED
URBAN CORE ZONE DISTRICT
+6 LEVELS
A boulevard to the east inspired gathering spaces and a tree-lined buffer shielding nearby homes from noise and pollution. A diagonal path cuts through the site, improving access to the park on the south and encouraging community circulation.
Each building has dual programmatic faces. Outward sides support commercial activity like markets and barbershops, enriching amenities. Inward sides face a shared courtyard, offering a communal space that fosters rest, interaction, and a sense of neighborhood belonging.
CAFE MUSEUM COMMUNITY CENTER
Private spaces are placed deeper within each unit, away from the corridor, to enhance privacy.
Every four units share a doubleheight community garden that brings light and air into the oncedark double-loaded corridor and encourages interaction among neighboring households.
GARDEN MODULE
1 BDRM UNIT 3 BDRM DUPLEX 2 BDRM UNIT
Healing Homes Collective 05
Affordable Elderly Housing in Syracuse, NY
Dec 2024 | Team: Elijah Villarosa Ramos, Isaac Chin Instructor: Jess Myers
Located within the historically significant Pioneer Homes in Syracuse, this project engages a contested piece of land once slated for expansion by Upstate Hospital—a plan that was met with public resistance. The site’s complex past reflects broader tensions between institutional growth and community preservation, making it an important ground for reimagining urban development with sensitivity to local needs and histories.
In response, the proposal envisions an elderly care housing complex developed in partnership with Upstate Medical. Designed to address the rising issue of elderly isolation, the project emphasizes communal living through shared courtyards, adaptable spaces, and healthcare access. By integrating care with community, it seeks to restore trust, preserve neighborhood identity, and offer a model for dignified, connected aging.
COMMUNITY RESISTENCE
UPSTATE EXPANSION
3. East Adams Transformation (2025 —)
The East Adams Transformation Plan faces local resistance due to concerns over displacement, loss of identity, and inadequate community involvement. Some residents oppose Upstate Medical University’s expansion, fearing its impact on the neighborhood.
I-81 CONSTRUCTION
UPSTATE HOSPITAL
2. I-81 Highway Construction (1959 - 2024)
The construction of the I-81 highway physically divided Pioneer Homes from surrounding neighborhoods, leading to community fragmentation, increased isolation, and longterm socioeconomic and racial segregation in Syracuse’s urban landscape.
ORIGINAL PIONEER HOMES
1. Original Pioneer Homes (1938 - 1958)
Established in 1940, Pioneer Homes was Syracuse’s first public housing project, leading to the creation of the Syracuse Housing Authority and symbolizing a significant step toward federally supported, racially integrated urban housing.
The site supports elderly mobility with shaded paths and soft ground surfaces, encouraging walking and daily exercise to improve health in a safe, comfortable environment.
Some units are reserved for Upstate patients, allowing elderly residents with health issues to live with less stress while staying closely connected to medical care.
SOUTH SECTION
EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
COURTYARD PERSPECTIVE
2 BEDROOM APT
ELDERLY CARE UNIT
PROGRAM ORGANIZATION PUBLIC SPACE
Each module includes two elderly care units and two-bedroom apartments. The layout supports caretakers by improving accessibility while maintaining privacy for both residents and caregivers.
Elderly rooms feature slidable screen doors, allowing shadows and sounds to pass through. This helps caretakers monitor residents discreetly, ensuring safety without compromising privacy.
A shared courtyard provides a safe, semi-outdoor space where elders can enjoy nature and social interaction without the risk of wandering too far.
Behind the Scene
Set Design for student film [The Unbearable Weight] and [Youdouber] Dec 2023 - Mar 2024 | SD Crew: Wenjing Zhu, Hector Hsu
“Designing a set is like creating a world—one that lives between the imagined and the real, where space becomes story.”
