Chuchu Qi a.k.a. Chuchu
selected works [architecture]
Concrete as Container
Artist Residential Design
Critic: Kelley Murphy
Fall 2021 | Core Studio
St. Louis, MO
Situated in the Grand Center Arts District in St. Louis, this artist’s residence emulates its environment by embedding into the ground, carving a pathway that connects the courtyard with the entrance at the basement level. The form reacts to the surroundings by responding to the grid of the site while also introducing convex and concave curvature, providing a dynamic space for the public and for the two artists who live and work there.The program presents enormous potential for innovation through programmatic overlaps and flexibility where varying degrees of shared and private space paired with the temporality of the residents allow for multiple configurations.
Local Art as Context
The project sited in an infill lot in the Grand Center Arts District, which houses the Pulitzer Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum, among other smaller galleries and art-focused institutions. The design is interested in architecture that is designed through the careful alignment of two distinct sets of constraints: the abstract ordering device of a geometry and material qualities inspired from the introductory casting exercise and the specific local requirements of the project, such as the artist residence and gallery program and context of Grand Center.
Boolean as Iteration
The project begins with a material study involving the close investigation of the relationships between cast units. These studies will be mined for their potential as generators of tectonic, spatial and aesthetic strategies that can appear across scales from the architectural detail to the building.
