Fanshu Xu

Hound + Circle is an architectural investigation that translates graphic design principles into spatial experience, reimagining Josef Hoffmann's foundational theories. Located on Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the project deconstructs three core motifs—the grid, the houndstooth, and the circle—generating distinct programmatic zones that shape light, movement, and social interaction. The eastern elevation features a houndstooth brick screen, its patterning casting dynamic shadows across interior surfaces while housing public functions: a café and an elevated community garden where brick frame dissolves into organic trellises. Westward, the architecture shifts as circular geometries dominate, the brick density varying in response to solar orientation. Between these zones, a hybrid restaurant facade merges with both languages through a double-layer brick system, creating an interconnecting space. The rooftop extends the design with a wild garden and a circular pool deck which can view the shoreline. According to the design methodology, form and function are the result of the intentional conversion of graphic logic into built experience.

Hand-cast brick prototypes in resin, plaster, and wax become scale studies of opacity, texture, and structural behavior. These material tests inform the full-scale proposal's brick screen facades, where density and patterning shift to mediate between public and private zones.