Harrison Phan
Architecture - Model making
Software: Rhino, Illustrator
Skillset: Casting, 3D Printing, Airbrushing
Spring 2024 - Collaboration with Carson Somer
This project focuses on the relationship between architecture and the urban scale; reinforcing the ideology to remain cognizant of the existing environment and culture that a building contributes to. The project is both an adaptive reuse and an addition of a Graduate Design Institute to an existing civic building in Mexico City - the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social or the IMSS.
The IMSS’s main purpose is a government facility that provides assistance with public health insurance, pensions, and social security to Mexican citizens under the Ministry of Health. In relation, the ideology behind the Graduate Design Institute is to incorporate it with the existing building’s ideologies and program. Adding an institute that educates on designing for the purpose of public health, and providing spaces that assist and enhance the IMSS’s purpose. The addition therefore, is not a separate entity that surrounds the civic center, but the the cooperates as one harmonious unit.
The circulation strategy between the towers is driven by large ‘avenues’ that cut through the interior of the IMSS. Interior office spaces are reorganized and share the space with the graduate design institute’s program. The circulation paths also connect different programs within the design institute together and allow for intermingling between different fields of art.