ADC1
Alternative Desert Cities 1
Zhao Urban Plan

Alternative Desert Cities 1

Urban plan illustrating various stacked housing canopies attached to towers above Phoenix by student Yuchen ZhaoUrban plan illustrating various stacked housing canopies attached to towers above Phoenix by student Yuchen ZhaoUrban plan illustrating various stacked housing canopies attached to towers above Phoenix by student Yuchen ZhaoUrban plan illustrating various stacked housing canopies attached to towers above Phoenix by student Yuchen Zhao

RELATED RESEARCH IMAGES

RELATED PROJECT IMAGES

OTHER PROJECTS

Utilizing built form as a strategic carrier of culture in opposition of the status quo, the Hellinikon project links the disconnected suburban mountain communities to the east with the sea to the west while splitting the Hellinikon International Airport and Olympic Park into distinct zones.
The Urban Test Object (UTO) serves as a large-scale intervention that accelerates our relationship with the future city. Rather than solving issues like density, infrastructure, or access, the UTO heightens awareness of the rapid urban transformations shaping our future.
The Miami Beach House is constructed as a series of platformed spaces that continuously step upward within a tropically climatized shell. Continuing the structural experiments of the Metabolist movement, thirteen modular concrete platforms branch from two vertical cores.
The CART live/work housing prototype adds a vertical profile to downtown while converting an underutilized public path into an urban gesture by introducing of a specialized food cart zone in New Haven. The CART residents would rent and appropriate the moving space as a means of expanding their zone.
QTCT is tasked to blend these two identities onto one site—a give and take relationship between beach ambitions and urban necessities. QTCT is a sampling of two worlds: on one hand it is the embodiment of the language of the beach and on the other it is a detailed and exacting built urban space.
The Butterfly Theater is a living pavilion—part sculpture, part habitat, part playground. It takes inspiration from the elegance of flamingos and the presence of butterflies in Miami Beach, transforming the park’s open center into a place of movement, color, and quiet spectacle.
Coney Island will remain a MUTANT appendage at the farthest shore of New York City. Coney is an agglomeration of all of its histories and should continue to simultaneously move each agenda forward. Coney will continue to evolve through mutations— this vision will accelerate its hybridity.
Framework: Inverted Square Pyramid (FW:ISP) reimagines the traditional pyramid by flipping it upside down, shifting its focus from the cosmos to the people. The structure’s apexes become seating points within a flexible, interactive framework that encourages public engagement and play.

OTHER RESEARCH