Intern Spotlight: Anna Tsao

Anna is entering the final year of the BArch program of the Architecture Department at the National Taipei University of Technology, where her academic work covers a variety of residential and public programs, including research on public space surrounding spiritual buildings.

At Ruderal, Anna focused on the digital modeling and environmental analysis capabilities of various Rhino and Grasshopper plugins, including Groundhog, TopoKit, Ladybug, Honeybee, and Bison. Prior to joining Ruderal, she interned at 將琢 Architecture/Interior firm.

BH: Since you spend many of your summers in Tbilisi, you are quite familiar with the landscape of Georgia. Tell me about your favorite landscape in Georgia.

AT: I love Tbilisi because it is the fusion of old architecture and new structures. As you look at the urban area you can see there are different levels of park and nature designs within it.

BH: Tbilisi is certainly a city with many different built and living types. If you could change one thing, what would it be? 

AT: I love the hippodrome as it was when the vegetation grew spontaneously [before reconstruction began in 2021]. The future design concepts and image are making too much effort intentionally. There’s a lot of concrete, structures, etc.. From my perspective, it could be maintained the way it is now, and that would be more friendly to the city.

BH: I think many people in Tbilisi would agree. You mentioned before that you have an interest in urban space. Do you have any research projects that you want to share?

AT: My research title is Church and urban interface plaza/front yard/courtyard/multi space in Taipei. Basically I visited most of the church architecture in Taipei and drew a figure map, analyzed each site individually, and then compared the differences or similarities between each of them.

BH: Great, we’ll include a couple of images from that project. Do you have a favorite part of design school or the design process, is it the analytical stage?

AT: It’s when a new project comes in we have to find the problem and then integrate the solution and the design, in the end presenting a beautiful visual project.

BH: That makes a lot of sense; but you’ve been working on a lot of technical research with Rhino and Grasshopper this summer. Have you been able to integrate that with your vision of the larger project? 

AT: My favorite part about working on QLA was learning the different aspects of the project that could work to increase geodiversity.

In the beginning, I thought Rhino Grasshopper would be difficult and it was. However, learning and working in Ruderal increased my confidence in using the software.

BH: We certainly have a lot of integration to do with our projects this summer! Anything else you’d like to share about yourself?

AT: I love skateboarding (longboard). I have been skating for almost 10 years for fun, that's all.