neetha puthrancalifornia polytechnic state university, pomona

Charles H. Kim Elementary School

Koreatown, Los Angeles

Mount Baldy Residence

San Gabriel Mountains

Ellsworth Kelly Museum

Los Angeles

Anthro-Tectonics

Broadway, Los Angeles

Modular Paper Folding

Other Works

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barch candidate

Architectural Prosthetics

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Charles H. Kim Elementary School

Koreatown, Los Angeles

Charles H. Kim Elementary School is

located in the middle of fast-paced

Koreatown in Downtown Los Ange-

les. At a time when young students

are especiall ly impressionable, it is

important to set their stil l developing

minds apart from the confusing mes-

sages an urban neighborhood might

send. Charles Kim Elementary does

this by fostering creativity, discipline

and imagination in a place where

young students feel comfortable and

focused.

Charles H. Kim Elementary School

Koreatown, Los Angeles

Koreatown Elementary separates the program into classrooms and

support, providing a clean mental transition from areas of learning and

everything else. The classrooms are placed in a series of two arches that

open towards each other and a center courtyard while everything else

is placed in two bars that serve to easily move from one function to the

other. The arches are placed on the second level, and the bars on the

ffirst. The bar second bar melds into the curved form, providing seismic

and symbolic support and conneciton.

The curved form is only clearly apparent from the center of the project,

as it melds into the street facade. This serves as sort of a secret world

where the young ones can enter and be transported away from the

worries of life outside school. Being focused on learning and discipline is

important in these early stages of development, as bringing in fears and

worries from outside can interfere with the learning process.

Because of the intersection of two very different forms, an unique set of

seismic issues surfaced. The two arches became two 12 feet deep vie-

rendeel trusses that themselves could span great distances, freeing the

lower level and classrooms up. To attach these trusses to the buildings

on the lower level, a series of drag struts anchored the two dichotomous

pieces together.

“You can teach a student a lesson

for a day; but if you can teach him

to learn by creating curiosity, he will

continue the learning process as

long as he lives.”

-Clay P. Bedford

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Mount Baldy Residence

Mount Baldy, San Gabriel Mountains

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A B C D E F

Mount Baldy Residence is a summer home for a Japanese

fi lmmaker positioned in the San Gabriel Mountains of California.

The mountains are covered in snow for most of the year, and

wildfl owers for the rest of it, making scenery the largest driving

factor of the design. The summer home is a place to get away

from city-life and fully delve into nature. Mount Baldy Residence

is anchored in a ravine with a solid, foundation that symbolizes

the strength and safety of a home, and light airy body, giving

the home full access to the views down the ravine. The house is

separated from the landscape by concretem as if to keep it safe,

as a tree does to a nest. The site is accessed by a tight stairway

so the resident can experience compression and then fi nally

relief when up in the house.

Ellsworth Kelly Museum

Los Angeles

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The concept for the design of this museum arose from a quote by David Chipperfi eld, in which he

describes museums as miniature villages. In villages, as well as museums, wayfi nding and

discovery through the ability to meander are equally important. In this design, groups of program

are arranged in ways that communicate with each other as well as allow for different zones.

Program elements are nestled in their own space, becoming rigid, indestructible elements all

connected by a “third space,” which is essentially an interstitial space that allows visitors to soak

in a singular spatial experience (and the artwork exhibited within) before entering a different, [often

contradictory] space. Dichotomies and juxtapositions become the basis of the discovery and

experiential qualities of the design. Program elements vary from wide expansive spaces to narrow,

long and compressed spaces. They are arranged tightly as well as given room to breathe. I was

most interested in how these dichotomies and juxtapositions created tension and often drew or

pushed the visitor to certain place. With this, I examined different sorts of circulation, with narrow,

dark hallways, leading into brightly lit rooms or naturally lit courtyards; curved glass and straight

glass pushing against each other; and circles and squares existing in harmony as well as tension.

The visitor’s experience in this design, on the ground, was most important as they moved through

these contradictory spaces in a succession of zones. Geometrically, the design began as a trans-

parent box with similar, solid objects protruding from the top. As the program elements began to

be inserted into the solids, the objects began to shift to pair with like objects, creating open spaces

and tightly gridded spaces, with the administrative elements sandwiching and providing structure

to the transparent box, which in turn, holds together gathering spaces and gallery spaces, which,

being the most crucial elements to a museum, are in the core of the structure.

The Circle and the Square are a pair of two contradictory

and complementary parts that are placed in such a way

as to create tension with each other and provide a sepa-

ration in spatial experience from each other. The circlular

element and the cube are connected by a long orthogo-

nal plane that intersects both elements, therein affecting

the experience of both simultaneously acting as a median

between the two spatial experiences.

A visitor would come in through the cube at the ground

level, and would be presented with a relatively normal

gallery experience. Upon entering the planar element,

which becomes the stairs and opens upward towards the

sky, the visitor is presented with a viiew on every land-

ing on the the room they are heading towards, and with

each landing, a different view and different shape, much

like Ellsworth Kelly’s paintings in which the final shape is

completed by the mind. In this case the final shape is not

until actually entering the second gallery.

This provided the basis for the concept for the Ellsworth

Kelly Museum, in which, light, spatial experience and cir-

culation were studied and manipulated.

The Circle and the Square

Geometric Doubles

Narrative Placemaking: Anthro-Tectonics

Broadway, Los Angeles

Fast forward 50 years. Los Angeles has a made a push for pedestrianism and banned cars

within the city’s boundaries. The city’s population is healthier and happier. In 2014, people were

disengaged with their street, with the rapidly increasing scale of buildings, lack of urban relief, and

tangled lines of transportation. With cars gone and perceptions about the infrastructure constantly

changing, there becomes a signifi cant push for the human scale. The city begins to be reimagined

through the lenses of human experience and values and the result is a greater degree of satisfac-

tion with life. There is a push for “low-tech,” back to the basics solutions throughout the city and

especially on the main artery of Broadway.\

Since the street is no longer cut by the car, there is no need for the boundaries created by pedes-

trian only zones such as sidewalks. Buildings and spaces blend in and out of the street, creating a

fl ow of movement between the two sides that slow down the pedestrian and facilitate engagement

between the humans and their environment by providing spaces for interaction and relief.

The pedestrian (and those who ride their bikes in leisure) will travel at different speeds along

Broadway, stopping frequently and interacting with their fellows and their environment. The city

unfolds to them like a story board, and different views are presented to them at every bend, in a

bite-sized manner, easy for the human mind to relate to.

For those who need to travel from place to place more directly, there are areas at every hub

where they can retreat underground. Unlike the street at ground level, everything below grade

is concerned with effi ciency. As the individual travels deeper underground, movement becomes

more and more effi cient and less concerned with leisure or promenading. On the fi rst level below

ground the pedestrian and bikes are separated, converging at set points along the fl ow. There are

still points of engagement and places where the above ground and below ground boundaries are

blurred. The place is lit with light shafts, still retaining some connection with the sky and natural

light. The fl oor below it provides access to the light rail, which connects local hubs, in a predict-

able, grid-like fashion. Retreat one fl oor lower, and the individual can access the high speed rail,

capable of going 200 miles per hour, which connects Los Angeles with other prominent cities.

The plaza becomes a converging point for all these different systems, a hub of interaction, trans-

portation, engagement, health and community. There is a skylit dome at the center of every plaza,

providing light to the large intersections below. The skylight is a center of attraction at the ground

level, engaging Angelinos and pulling them towards the center.

One of the lasting effects of the age of the car is global warming. Scientists at the UN have all

agreed that the earth will get at the very least, 5 degrees warmer by 2114, even if everything was

suddenly made to be zero carbon emitting. One degree warmer is pretty signifi cant, and fi ve would

make the Los Angeles area uncomfortably hot at certain times and days. The underground spaces

would provide areas of relief from the heat during these days. There would be pods in which to

sleep, gathering spaces, shops for the essentials, and long term storage in case of disaster.

These underground spaces are usable everyday as space for urban relief and variable for previous

models of densifi cation where everything shot upward. Density is a huge issue in 2114 as popu-

lation doubled in cities in the past 100 years and since commuting more than half an hour is not

heard of anymore, all kinds of different people work and live in the city. These places provide relief

from density in that they separate functions.

The angled planes of the ground and walls move and they serve a dual function. They move to

absorb the impact of an earthquake on the structure, especially because most of it is underground,

and they move according to human needs. This is repeated throughout the street, as shades,

lightshafts and exterior rooms.

Modular Paper Folding

Fall 2009

This project was based on a series of modular paper folding studies and how they could be part of

a larger system. This module was chosen because of the undulating structure it created as soon as

it was part of a larger system. This project, therefore, is more about the overall system than each

individual module. The module I chose is something I came up with while taking a square piece of

paper and experimenting with it by creating different forms by folding and cutting the paper in dif-

ferent ways. When I had created a module that I was satisfi ed with, I created paper “skins” to test

out the system. That skin was varied in two ways and once we had a product we liked, a structure

was to be created. The fi nal result was based on creating a rhythm through the system and using

the repetition using the modules, while also keeping in mind the function of enclosure.

Other Works

Pine Avenue_Long Beach

Fall 2009

These sketches are some of my very fi rst at-

tempts at drawing streets, done in my fi rst year

of college. These particular ones are scenes of

Pine Street, Long Beach, which is the cultural

hub of Downtown Long Beach.

Chimera

Spring 2010

Hong Kong Skyline

ENVChina_BuiltFrame_Summer 2013

1000 Year Old Town_Artist

ENVChina_BuiltFrame_Summer 2013

Hong Kong is one of the densest cities in the

world, and most of the residents live in high

rise buildings, while many of the streets turn

into dimly lit alleys. This fosters a new kind of

culture.

Drum Tower

Summer 2013

The Drum Tower is the historic core of ancient and medieval

Beijing. Despite its cultural and historic signifi cance, it is often

overshadowed by the growing tourism industry in Beijing that

was spurred by the 2008 Olympics. The Chinese are often either

forced to, or by will catering to foreigners and slowly losing parts

of their culture, that for centuries, have been so meticulously

preserved.