U.S. Embassy in Gaza

profile of the torso and head of a young man with dark and glasses standing in front of a diagram
  • Alfred To, M.Arch.II 2015
  • Hometown

    Hong Kong, China
  • Class

    ARCH 7912 Design B: Topics Studio
  • Instructor

    Caroline O'Donnell
    Michael Jefferson

The studio interrogates and challenges the nature of an embassy building by conceptualizing architecture as a manifestation of behaviors. The US Embassy in Gaza draws inspiration from America's vulgarity: a glamour produced by excessive accumulations, with a single-minded goal of commercial growth. The project imagines that future embassies will also have corporate sponsors. American corporate logos are distorted and transformed into three-dimensional spaces for chancery programs, occupying a generic body of office spaces. Ultimately, the graphic meanings of the logos are eroded by the excessiveness. The embassy takes on a new identity beyond nostalgic sentiment of American corporations.

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