ZHANG_CLAIRE_PORTFOLIO 2026

ZHANG CLAIRE

2022 - 2025 SELECTED WORKS

CLAIRE ZHANG

ARCHITECTURE STUDENT

SUMMARY

Claire is currently a thirtd-year B.Arch student at Cornell University with interests in architecture and art, and sustainability recently. Characterized by her curious and observant nature, she think beauty exists in between the balance of rationality in the physical world and sensibility of the abstract and intangible. With a passion for design, she is ready to embrace challenges, collaborate with teams, and absorb insights.

REPRESENTATION

• Model Fabrication (hand craft, laser cut, 3D print, CNC routing, rokite casting, wood works, metal works)

• Drawing and Painting (acrylic, oil, watercolor, charcoal, pastel, colored pencils)

• Manual Drafting/Mapping

WORK EXPERIENCE

ARCHITECT/INTERIOR DESIGNER APPRENTICE

Ornare Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY

August 2022 - September 2022

• Assisted in the drawings of four project plans and presentation PPT

• Assisted in Albert Hotel’s renovation design with lead designer Jonas Valle

• Participated in indoor site visits/measurements and online meetings

• Daily responsible for receiving the office's visiting and record guest needs

ASSISTANT

KC Investment, Bergen County, NJ

August 2023 - October2023

• Family’s small business

CONTACT

845-6891991

cz392@cornell.edu

ARCHITECT/INTERIOR DESIGNER INTERNSHIP

GUANCE Design, Wuxi, China

June 2024 August 2024

• Assisted in the drawings and presentation PPT

• Assisted in developing company’s website and submitting projects to Archdaily

• Participated in indoor site visits/measurements and meetings

• Participated in competition design

ENGLISH (NATIVE)

MANDARIN CHINESE (NATIVE)

SPANISH (LIMITED) LANGUAGES

EDUCATION

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

August 2023 May 2028 (Expected)

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

SUMMER SESSION - INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE | GAME DESIGN MINOR

June 2022 - Aug 2022

RIVER DELL REGIONAL HIGHSCHOOL

August 2019 May 2023

COMMUNITY TECTONIC

SHARED EDGES

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

SPATIAL . .

REFLECTIONS IN GREEN

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

FORGED LAYERS

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

CIRCULATED GROUNDS

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

MOVEABLE FEAST

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

UNTITLED

ACADEMIC WORK, SEMESTER-LONG

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2025 Fall

SHARED EDGES

Neighborhood Pool

The site is situated at a dense residential area, accompanied by a slowly vanishing hiking trail near water that was hidden behind the lot. Inspired by Ithaca’s suburban, non-densified nature, the project trys to introduce a new facilities to the surrounding environment while preserving and blending into its pre-existing rituals - the three very distinct user groups: local residents, atheles, trail users.

Through a comprehensive integrative studio project, the proj -

ect is led by the design question: How can a natatorium act as a civic common that connects swimmers, neighborhoods, and trail users? This transforms the natatorium froms simply a sport facility into a civic common. The project synthesizes structural systems, envelope design, environmental performance, accessibility, and life-safety into a timber-based building embedded in the Fall Creek landscape, emphasizing layered public zones and environmental responsiveness.

Detailed Wall Section

Vertical timber screens enclose the pool hall, mediating between privacy and openness, preserving seasonal views - lush vegetation or snow-covered ground, while allowing ample sunlight into the space. The screened facade makes the project within visible to the community, drawing residents to walk over to the entrance walkway..

View of Entrance Walkway

The walkway extends through a garden, forming a transitional edge between the neighborhood and the building. Timber columns and vertical screens create a filtered threshold, framing views toward the vegetations while guiding movement inward, hence connecting the building to Fall Creek and the adjacent trail, integrating the center into the larger public realm.

View of the Social Deck for Community

The second-floor social deck arcs toward the neighborhood street, establishing another transitional edge between building and neighborhood. Framed by timber columns and glazing, the space offers a sheltered platform for gathering while maintaining visual connection to the surrounding community, transforming the building perimeter into a social threshold.

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2025 Spring

CIRCULATED GROUNDS

Local Food Pantry

The project addresses food access as both a spatial and social condition. Rather than conceiving the pantry as a purely service-driven facility, the proposal positions it as a civic anchor embedded within everyday life. The design is guided by the question: How can a food pantry operate not only as a site of distribution, but as a shared ground for gathering, dignity, and community exchange?

Organized through a series of layered thresholds, the build -

ing negotiates between public engagement and operational efficiency. Louder, high-traffic functions align with the street edge, while quieter spaces open toward gardens and interior courtyards. Circulation paths for visitors and staff remain distinct yet interwoven, allowing the pantry to function as both infrastructure and social space. Through sectional variation, budget restraint, and environmental responsiveness, the project reframes food support as part of the neighborhood fabric rather than a hidden service.

PLANTING

Nourishing the inventory.

LEARNING

Nourishing the mind.

GATHERING

Nourishing the community.

FEEDING

Nourishing the stomach.

The building acts as a sequence of interconnected volumes organized around courtyards and layered thresholds. Distinct programs are articulated through shifts in massing and roof height, clarifying circulation while maintaining spatial continuity with covered walkways, semi-open corridors, and planted courtyards—mediate between interior functions and the surrounding neighborhood. The parking area is designed as flexible ground, capable of supporting markets and community events beyond daily use.

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2024 Fall

REFLECTIONS IN GREEN

Botanic Center

Situated within the humid forest reserve of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, the project operates as a living laboratory for botanists, students, and visitors, investigating how architecture can amplify the atmospheric qualities of the forest, humidity, vegetation, filtered light.

Organized around an expansive unconditioned garden core, the building dissolves into its environment through curved glass enclosures and layered circulation. Conditioned in -

terior programs, like library, exhibition spaces, dining hall, laboratories, and residential suites, transition fluidly into experimental gardens, moss walkways, and courtyards. The unconditioned green zones act as the connective tissue of the community, blurring distinctions between interior and exterior while maintaining environmental responsiveness.

Circulation unfolds as a gradual revelation, where spaces are glimpsed, then discovered.

The Chair Inspiration: Jacques Famery, Kaleidoscope, 1968

Arch 2101: Architectural Interfaces

This project begins with a study of the Kaleidoscope Chair, a structure composed entirely of transparent acrylic sheets shaped through folding, bending, and hinge connections. Rather than relying on conventional framing, the chair achieves stability through curvature and tension, transforming thin planar surfaces into load-bearing volumes, simultaneously defining its interior cavity & exterior form. The concave curves carve out the inhabitable core, while the convex surfaces establish the outer boundary.

Arch 2101: Architectural Interfaces

Analysis Drawings and Diagrams revised independently by Claire Zhang, cz392, after the Pinup for Problem I.a.)

Chair Documentation Drawing (collaborate work with Jay Pae, jjp292) CHAIR DOCUMENTATION DRAWING

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2024 Spring

MOVEABLE FEAST

The House of Food Courses

The project reimagines the cookhouse as a spatial choreography of preparation and consumption. Structured around a five-course tasting menu, the project organizes circulation as a sequential journey, allowing diners to move through the stages of food production as part of the dining experience itself.

Open kitchens and circular island stations position cooking as a visible and performative act. Each course corresponds

to a distinct spatial condition: Soup - near an open kitchen where aromas gather and rise; Appetizer - a central island where chefs prepare dishes in full view; Salad - along semi-exposed pathways that weave toward natural elements. Rather than separating back-of-house and frontof-house, the design integrates production into the public realm. Through calibrated sightlines, controlled openings, and shifts in enclosure, the architecture engages taste, smell, and movement simultaneously.

Models

A series of models that tries to capture the spatial sequence of the two researched precedents:

Material: Concrete/Rokite, chipboards

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2023 Fall

FORGED LAYERS

The House of Food Courses

The project explores steel as a process of transformation rather than a fixed material. Beginning with research into extraction, the project translates the shift from solid to molten and back into abstract drawings that capture fluidity, compression, and accumulation.

Through cutting, folding, and interlocking layered paper, these drawings evolve into a three-dimensional material system based on insertion and overlap. The final phase ex-

tends this logic into a steel folly sited within an iron quarry, where identical units are stacked and interlocked to generate structure, circulation, and framed views.

Across scales, the project investigates how layering and transformation can become spatial and architectural strategies.

Location: Ithaca | Type: Individual Project | Time: 2025 Fall

“UNTITLED”

A Structural Model Study of

Meiken Lamwood Corp Head Office, NKS2 Architects