U.S. Embassy in Gaza
![Portrait of Alfred To profile of the torso and head of a young man with dark and glasses standing in front of a diagram](https://aap.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/styles/work-portrait/public/TO_portrait_270x270.jpg?itok=3DlC5YUM)
- Alfred To, M.Arch.II 2015
Hometown
Hong Kong, ChinaClass
ARCH 7912 Design B: Topics StudioInstructor
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.