Portfolio

Xiang Yin

Phone: 7342743866

Email: yinxiang@umich.edu

Education

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor Master of Architecture

Taiyuan University of Technology

Bachelor of Architecture

Experience

Ratio Architects

Prodessfional Designer

Spetember 2019 - May 2021

Ann Arbor, US

Spetember 2014 - June 2019

Taiyuan, China

Language

English Fluent

Chinese Native

Soft Skills

Spetember 2021 - Current Chicago, US

• Practiced in various types of projects, including K-12 education, mixed-use commercial, hospitality, residential, and etc. Project experience span from domestic to international locations.

• Participated in different phases of design, mainly in conceptual design and schematic design, periodically in design development and later phases.

• Focused on massing discussion, layout planning, material and facade study, proposal modeling, rendering presentation and graphic visualization, periodically participated in BIM technical drawings.

• Coordinated with in-house departments and outsource firms in design meetings.

• Participated in project sustainability analysis and evaluation occasionally.

• Explored the application of AI and machine learning in design process.

China Architecture Design & Research Group Internship

July 2019 - August 2019

Beijing, China

Teamwork Spirit

Optimistic & Stress Resistance

Proficient Design Knowledge

Problem Solving

Visualization & Representation

Communication & Coordination

• Practiced in the community reconstruction project in Beijing, China.

• Participated in all phase of design, focused on residential building renovation and housing type design.

• Produced technic drawings in AutoCAD under the guidance of project architects, created building models and housing type models, participated in rendering and visualization, prepared presentations for design meetings.

• Coordinated with structure consultants and interior consultants during all design process.

Publishment

AI and Typology: 3D Point Cloud Generative Adversarial Network Based on Tree Structured Graph Convolutions (TreeGAN) and Architectural Design

May 2023 CAADRIA

• The paper discusses a novel design approach that applies artificial intelligence as an auxiliary tool throughout typology research and architectural design.

• The method attempts to utilize neural network as a research tool to detect and identify features of a typical architectural type within the specific society context.

Software

Modeling & Drawing

Revit, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup

Rendering

Enscape, Lumion, V-Ray

AI Related

Midjourney, Stable Diffussion

Adobe Creative Suite

PS, AI, ID, PR, AE

Microsoft Office

Words, Excel, PowerPoint

Academic Project

AI & Typology

Type: Religious

Location: New York, US

Period of Work: 2021

Academic Project

The motivation to apply 3D Point Cloud Generative Adversarial Network Based on Tree-Structured Graph Convolutions (TreeGAN) as an auxiliary tool throughout architectural design could be found in the attempt to utilize machine learning to detect and analyze certain architectural types instead of the traditional research method in a human way. Conventionally, studying a series of typological documentation of architecture is the starting point for architects to form the design discipline for a certain architecture type. This concrete (documenting)- abstract (summarizing)-concrete (logic representation) process could be simulated by Deep Learning through a database that contains numerous architecture precedents. The process reveals the inherent hierarchical logic beneath the binary design thinking throughout numerous architectural narratives. This paper exhibits the key result generated by TreeGAN in a specific architecture type—churches, as the prototype of a design method with the application of TreeGAN to conduct a project in New York.

Project Workflow

The workflow starts with building a church database for gothic and modern churches and export them as obj models and point clouds PTS files. Then Tree GAN (3D PointCloud GAN) is used as a generator to output point clouds for our model basis. TreeGAN is a 3D GAN based on a tree-structured Graph Convolutions Network. Tree-GAN learns a latent space of features from the given input 3D models without labeling, and the trained model extracts the features to generate new models. Voxelization is applied for our model prototype generation after several tests of modeling and experiment with different epochs and seeds. The project combines AI and manual techniques to explore the church’s spatial adjustment, and uses 2D to 2D neural style transfer to do the ornamentation, and tesst the daylighting effect of the specific ritual space.

TreeGAN Training Results

Tower

Stained Glass Chancel Choir Audience Chapel Confessionary Apse Staff Room Chapel Lobby Catacomb Restroom

East Elevation

The Twisted Tower

Type: Residential

Location: Beijing, China

Period of Work: 2020

Academic Project

With the rapid urbanization and rising demand for living in urban environments, the housing agenda today is about pursuing community-level diversity, inclusion and engagement. In Beijing, people rush to the center of this city to find opportunities for their lives. This will make people, especially the youth, even harder to survive in dowtown because of the reduction of land resource and expensive housing price. Plus, with a relatively low household income and high single parenthood rate, people now face the difficult of work-life balance, such as raising children, caring for the elderly, and affording a high cost of housing. Seeking a “Missing Middle” type of housing in Beijing, the project encourages density, diversity and new domesticity based on the context of future urban development.

Responding to future housing demand and social responsibility, the project proposes a modualized household structure. Modualized living mode not only helps to reduce living cost but also give more attention to community diversity, flexibility and sustainability. The design creates interesting and unique communal spaces for people with different backgrounds to live, play, and communicate together. The units feature in private and co-living types, offering different privacy for future living. The project aims to encourage the future lifestyle of aggregating individuals and reintegrating generations in a afforable, diverse, and low emmision community.

The Earth Evolution

The City Evolution

Regional Strategy

The expanded buildings in the future will be modularized as small living units. The units will be gathered to a single residential skyscraper. The process will save the urban space and decase the high-rise building density. Land Shortage 1960 1980 2000 2020 Higher Housing Price Urban Environment Problems

Prefabricated

Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)

Short Construction Period

Low Construction Cost

Can Be Mass Produced

Environment Friendly

Energy Saving

Wind and Seismic Resistance

Penetrable Structure Reduces Wind Acceleration

1. Connect CLT.

2. Cut out windows.

3. Assemble maintenance structure.

4. Unit accomplished.

5. Build up framework.

6. Platform & core tube.

7. Load dwelling units.

8. Add other equipments.

Convert Severe Seismic Shaking to Slow Horizental Motion Seismic Resistance Structure

Whale House

Type: Cultural

Location: Taiji, Japan

Period of Work: 2019

Academic Project

The history of whaling in Japan could be dated back to 17th century, when whale’s meat and fat are critical surviving resources for Japanese people. With the blooming development of industrial technologies, Japanese sailors could reach out to further ocean areas and kill thousands of whales and dolphines, even hunting in the arctic area. The whaling activity has caused the cliff-like reduction of the whale species. Nowadays, responding to the International Whaling Commision (IWC), most of the countries in the world have prohibited or limited whaling activities, but Japanese government actually raised the finical aid to support whaling with the excuse of scientific research.

Taiji, a small town in central Japan, is well known as a whaling town and spearheaded the development of more sophisticated whaling techniques. In 1988, a ruling by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) caused Taiji to suspend commercial whaling. However, the town continues to hunt small whales and dolphins. Taiji’s annual dolphin hunt is a subject of controversy and the town faces continued pressure from protest groups. Inorder to against the whaling traditions of Taiji and invoke local’s concern of ocean protection, the Whale House museum is designed in Taiji. The statue-like building sits on the coast of Taiji Cove, not only to memorize the animals under the massing killing, but also remind people to reflect themselves for the tragedy happened in Taiji.

1.The moment of a whale leaping out of water.

2.The profile will sit on Taiji Cove for memorialze. 3.Sketch of a whale.

4.Frame and lines are extracted from the sketch. 5.Deform the configuration properly.

6.The feature of the museum is developed from the head and the fin of the whale.

7.The facade is created by combining the shapes toegether.

9.The

8.The footprint also have the pattern of a whale.

10.Mutiple routes for indoor and outdoor access.

coast rock is also a part of the outdoor space. 10.The rock plaza and the demolished whaling boat bring more outdoor experience.

Rock Plaza Whale House Whaling Boat Kart Track Main Road Parking Amphitheatre

Cairo House

Type: Hospitality

Location: Cairo, Egypt

Period of Work: 2023

Project Status: To Be Constructed

The historic Mogamma building’s exterior façade will be restored to its original condition with the addition of new Juliette balconies at strategic locations to enhance the original design. Exterior Masonry will be repaired or replaced with the addition of a new finish to match existing and original window will be replaced with energy efficient aluminum and low-e glass that matches the existing window profile and patterns. A new rooftop structure containing roof top pool, amenities and MEP services will be provided at level 14. Below Grade and independent of the historic structure a new basement level will be provided containing mechanical and loading that will service both the Mogamma building and the new Lotus Pavilion. This historic structure will be reborn as a hotel featuring guest rooms, services apartment and all the amenities found in a 5-star luxury hotel based on Egyptian standards.

The Lotus Pavilion is a newly constructed events venue and is located to the north of the Mogamma Building. Additionally, this building will contain a kitchen for banquets and the required support space for a variety of events. The design is expressive in nature with both the structure and envelope design containing fluid forms reminiscent of a lotus flower. The Roof structure and cladding will be an operable tensile fabric structure. Vertical walls will be a combination of sloped landscape, stone and metal panels with minimal impact on Tahrir Square. Visual impact will be further reduced by the venue being partially depressed below grade to elevation approximately 3 to 4 meters below grade. The gross area is approximately 2,250 square meters.

My major involvements:

- Layout Planning

- Facade Study

- Pavilion Design

- Booklet Visualization

Softwares:

- Sketchup

- Revit

- Enscape

1945 1949

1952 2005

Building Program

2019

The building was officially used for governmental adminstration. The government claimed the evacuation of its offices from Mogamma.

The offices were totally evacuated and the building was demolished.

The Egpyt king ordered the construction plan for Mogamma.

The construction of Mogamma was eneded.

The pavilion is a open lawn event space served via full basement of kitchen and support spaces. The six perimeter stuctures around the area provide circulation to basement level and event amenities (F&B, restrooms, etc.). The pavilion is connected with the front courtyard through a prefuntion zone and the pavilion space can be expanded to include front courtyard for extra-large events. The area has approximately 750 seats (seated banquet).

Co-Location

Type: K-12 Educational

Location: Indianapolis, US

Period of Work: 2023-2024

Project Status: Under Design

The Fieldhouse, strategically positioned at the central nexus of the campus, spans the Private and Public Zones of both Lower and Upper Campus. This pivotal location establishes the Fieldhouse as a convenient hub, linking various functions within its vicinity, including Upper Campus facilities, visitor parking, the service drive, and the Sports Fields on Lower Campus. The primary spaces within the Fieldhouse cater to shared athletic and art programs of both ISBVI and ISD, occupying distinct zones separated by the main entry and pre-function space on the uppermost level. The complexity of the Fieldhouse is notable, especially with the exterior concourse along its western facade. This concourse plays a crucial role as a connection between academic and athletic outdoor spaces, addressing a significant grade change from Upper to Lower Campus. To facilitate navigation, the concourse provides accessible routes through elevators, indoor and outdoor stairs, and platforms.

Composing of four levels, the top two levels of the Fieldhouse house main entry vestibules and a pre-function space with public amenities such as restrooms, ticketing, and concessions. This area divides the 1,000-seat Competition Gym and the 400-seat Performance Hall. To optimize space beneath the Performance Hall, athlete-centric facilities like locker rooms, restrooms, and training spaces are strategically arranged under the seating, where ceiling heights can be adjusted. The Wrestling Gym is conveniently placed for visitor access, accommodating higher ceilings. Below these levels are three parking garage levels accessible from the Lower Campus and Sports Fields.

My major involvements:

- Layout Planning

- Facade Study

- Booklet Visualization

Softwares:

- Sketchup - Revit

- Enscape

- Adobe Series

- AutoCAD

Guiding Concept: Knot

Secondary Pedestrian Road Campus

Preserved Buildings

New Buildings

Fieldhouse

Primary Pedestrian

Facade Material Study

R-Value Diagram

Vertical Metal Panel

Terra-cotta

Perforated Metal Panel Rock Brick Wall

Fritted Glass

Smooth Surface CMU

Horizental Metal Panel

Signia

Type: Mixed-use

Location: Indianapolis, US

Period of Work: 2022

Project Status: Under Construction

Rising from the southwest corner of downtown, sparkling and white, a new convention center hotel and ballroom will change the Indianapolis skyline. When complete, the 40-story tower will cater to convention-goers and create an anchor in the highly walkable Wholesale District. The hotel will activate an entire city block and define a new business-traveler experience, all while reinforcing the city’s position as a convention capital. Thanks to the hotel’s three ballrooms, including the largest in the state at 50,000 SF, Indianapolis will have the infrastructure to host two major conventions at the same time, keeping the city competitive as a first-tier convention destination.

The hotel’s sophistication also elevates Indianapolis to a new level for global business travelers. The scale of the lobby and grand staircase are unmatched in the city, creating the energetic environment that frequent travelers experience in world capitals. The swanky style flows all the way up to the Sky Lounge bar and lounge. The feeling of ambition is balanced by approachable human-scale engagement on the street level uninterrupted by the hotel’s vehicular traffic, which is routed into the middle of the block. This will be the tallest hotel in Indiana. As we emerge from a global pandemic, it will be a shining example of what the capital can offer — and become.

My major involvements:

- Tower Layout Planning

- Facade Study

- Rendering Coordination

- Booklet Visualization

Softwares: - Sketchup

- Revit

- Enscape - Adobe Series

EIFS surface: pattern responding to Signia tower.

Mansonary surface: material responding to Indy local building texture.