Andie Zhou
Graduate student at New York University's Game Center.
Selected Works
game design
More coming soon!
architecture
Barrio Apartments
Tucson, AZ
This project was mainly concerned with the design of an affordable housing complex in Tucson's Old Barrio district. The building takes the shape of an inverted L - the long side consists of double height studio apartments, and the short side is split between communal living space and one-bedroom apartments. The remainder of the site is allocated towards an outdoor courtyard, with the shared spaces being able to open up towards it.
Bisbee Community Center
Bisbee, AZ
The site given for this community center project was a rather steeply sloped empty lot in the heart of Bisbee, Arizona, a small town known for its large artist and artisan population. Rather than contend with the slope of the site, most of the earth was removed, creating a void that the building nestles itself into. This resulted in the creation of a shaded courtyard, where the sheer height of the left side of the site casts a large shadow over the multiple floors of the community center even during the summer. As the focus of this semester was primarily the proper implementation of universal design, all spaces on all floors are easily accessible from a central circulation core, which contains an elevator bank and a grand staircase.
resourceXchange
Tucson, AZ
The Sonoran Canyon resourceXchange, a project set in 2030, serves as an example of a building designed to be an environmental teaching tool in both form and function. Public, teaching, and research spaces are integrated into a pair of buildings framed by a canyonlike facade and angled to better take advantage of environmental condition on the site. By designing the basic form of the building to benefit from and work with the environment, the Xchange draws one step closer to being fully entrenched in both the urban and environmental fabric of Tucson.
This project was a finalist in the Building Envelope category of the 2021 Richard Kennedy Architects prize.
entanglement
Cupertino, CA
This booklet consists of research, mapping, and preliminary design aspects of an urban retrofitting project located in Northern California.
The urban retrofitting project, now dubbed Entanglement, consists of a series of five sites: three in the master plan stage and two that are designed in-depth. The goal of this retrofit and redesign was to introduce "third spaces" - public areas that are not coded as the home or the workplace, but as areas that encourage casual social interaction - to suburban areas, which are often sorely lacking in this department.Due to the large size of the presentation, this project is viewable below in PDF form.
Full Portfolio
All work is separated by semester. Year 1 (pre-architecture) is not shown.
Fall 2018 - Spring 2019
All seven projects assigned in foundation year (pre-architecture) were more akin to exercises that served to teach important skills and aspects of architectural design. This was done to provide a better foundation for the more challenging, in-depth assignments in subsequent years.
Fall 2019
Project 1: The Collective Domain
The goal of this project was to create a civic shelter at one of four sites along the banks of Tucson's Rillito River and the nearby hiking trail.
Projects 2 & 3: The Domestic Domain
This project was mainly concerned with the design of an affordable housing complex in Tucson's Old Barrio district.
Spring 2020
Project 1: Shade
An exercise in the relationship of nature to architecture and how the former can inspire the latter, this project consisted of analyzing the proportions of a tree's shadow and fabricating a series of identical, interlocking modules from them.
Project 2: Shelter
Project 2 was a group project and was made up of two stages: the first stage consisted of analyzing the canopy of an existing structure (in our group's case, the Pulkovo Airport in Russia) and building an accurate scale model of the canopy's "modules".
The second stage built upon a group member's module from Project 1 and turned it into a shade structure.
Project 3: Threshold
Building on the transit exchange designed in Project 2, Project 3: Threshold had two objectives: to first analyze the proportional spaces present in Peter Zumthor's Therme Vals, and then to create a Sonoran Desert bath house using those spaces, keeping proportional relationships in mind while incorporating all the elements a bath house would have.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitating online crisis teaching, Project 3: Threshold has no physical model.
Fall 2020
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitating online crisis teaching, neither of the projects completed this semester have physical models.
Project 1: Community + Retreat Center (Bisbee, AZ)
The site given for this community center project was a rather steeply sloped empty lot in the heart of Bisbee, Arizona, a small town known for its large artist and artisan population.
Project 2: Science Learning Center (Mt. Lemmon, AZ)
This project was designed as an observatory sleepaway camp to supplement the Mount Lemmon Observatory’s day programs.
Above are the site and floor plans for the proposed building, well as a unrolled south-facing section cut with gradients indicating the amount of direct and diffused sunlight that each floor recieves.
Spring 2021
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitating online crisis teaching, this project does not have a physical model.
Dia de los Muertos Museum (Tucson, AZ)
This project's overall theme, inspired by the ideas behind Dia de los Muertos' celebration of death and the deceased, is that although the barrier between life and death is not as impenetrable and opaque as we think, it is ultimately something we cannot transcend. It is a cycle that will continue on with or without us, regardless of where we enter or exit it.
Fall 2021
resourceXchange (Tucson, AZ)
The Sonoran Canyon resourceXchange, a project set in 2030, serves as an example of a building designed to be an environmental teaching tool in both form and function.
This project was a finalist in the Building Envelope category of the 2021 Richard Kennedy Architects prize.
Spring 2022
The Placa de la Transformació (Barcelona, Spain)
This social housing project, located in the heart of Barcelona's Poblenou district, aims to preserve the circulation and connection between both bordering streets while providing housing and public amenities to the surrounding neighborhood. As Barcelona's city grid is oriented at a 45 degree angle with the top right corner of the site facing north, the building is situated in a curved L shape with its corner to the north; this allows every apartment as well as the adjoining plaza to recieve sunlight at all times of the year. The curved corner of the building contains six studio apartnemts and six 1-bedroom apartments, staggered in a way that allows air and light to permeate the curve from all directions. This eliminates the common "corner problem" that L-shaped buildings tend to have, as well as emphasizes the connection between both sides of the site. The existing wall, formerly from the transformer that used to stand on the site and subsequently preserved as a sign of the power of community organization, was kept to serve as a natural barrier between the quieter plaza and the more robust dining and play area bordering the site on the northwest.
Extras
ESSAYS
Research papers written about architecture and its applications through various lenses.
Architectura
A photography project that reframes Europe through the use of architecture as a frame.
rowhouse lamp
A side project undertaken for Fall 2022’s Design-Build class. The custom lamp was designed from scratch and uses reclaimed Douglas Fir beams from the university’s Old Main building. Its shape is intended to invoke the overall silhouette of a barrel cactus, a common sight in Tucson’s Sonoran desert.
Creative Writing
A variety of short stories written in my free time.
About
I have a bachelors' degree in architecture from the University of Arizona and am currently a graduate student at New York University's Game Center.I am endlessly fascinated by the effects architecture can have on digital media - particularly in the field of video games and virtual environments, where the crafting of spaces is just as impactful than doing so in real life. As a storyteller at heart, I aim to explore all the different ways the interactive medium of video games can cause a player to reflect upon themselves and their place in the world.
Contact
Email is preferred. I currently go by Andie - my legal name is Amanda.