Chronophobia Chronophilia


Instructor: Andy Ku
Program: Kindergarten and Elderly Home
Year: Spring 2019, USC
Studio: Thesis



The Architecture is composed of multiple layers of systems that intersect and stack in plan. From the floor to the roof, there are fabric installment grid system, track for movement of parts, column, circle booleaned walls for fermented, curved edges for floor to wall transition, dust collector, ring and hook system for fabric, water tanks and pipes, and more.

Within the flexible Elderly Children’s home is a series of activities and forms that measures the passing of time. Traditionally architecture is seen as a solid and rigid object that provide shelter and protection. In this project, the architecture ages with the individuals, and allows itself to evolve. While the fear of death ahd change often shifts people towards a perference for permanence, users must
come to terms with their changing environment. In the way individuals must keep in touch with their  bodies and homes, by washing their hair every so often, and vacuuming their floors, the effect of the environment over time allows us to experience the nature of aging. This may be true even in the modern domestic environment where machines and tools have become increasingly useful and less time consuming to perform activities that maintain consistent conditions. As children grow, and the elderly shrink, and as body function and sizes alter, this platform of activities will change together with its people.

The walls are filled with a pattern of fermented food that will change in color depending on the different phases of fermentation, and on the ceiling is a plastic tube that showcase the accumulating dust in the building. Fabric droops from the ceiling when wet clothes are hung. Gravity notifies the residents when they are ready to be worn. The accumulating water on rainy days will flow down to the ground level left to be evaporated. The operating vertical louvers exist to protect the exterior of the building from aging, but must be operated by the residents who must be waware of the wind direction that carries the corroding salt from the coast.