portfolio of Yichuan Li

01. Boot-scooting samba embassy of the republic of texas

Location: Brisilia, Brizil

Partnership：Individual Instructor: Neal robinson

Time:2022 Fall

02.

Museum of Folk Houses

a museum with people living in it

Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Partnership：Individual Instructor: Daxing Yu

Time: Spring 2020

03. The Dan on Li River

A Floating Community

Location: Yangshuo, Guangxi, China

Individual Project

Instructor: Independent

Time: Summer 2018

04.

Gemstone

a Mosque for Women

Location: Guilin, Guangxi, China

Individual Project

Instructor: Independence

Time: Fall 2019

05. Slope Diversity Homes

A Community Celebrating Diversity

Location: Detoit, MI, US

Teamwork（1/3 design）

Instructor: Lars & Christina

Time:2023Win

01. Boot-scooting samba embassy of the republic of texas

Location: Brisilia, Brizil

Partnership：Individual

Instructor: Neal robinson

Email: rbneal@umich.edu

Time:2022 Fall

Dexas will hold a referendum on independence after that. This studio assumes that Texas finally gained independence and became the Republic of Texas. And designed an embassy in other countries for the Republic of Texas. Brasilia is a stage for the world's architects, and each building is like a wonderful dance. When Texas gained its independence, what kind of dance would be performed on this stage in Brasilia?

The proposal draws inspiration from the country dances of Texas, translates and reorganizes the dance movements, incorporates the culture of Texas cowboy boots, and dances the opening dance of the Republic of Texas on the international stage of Brasilia. This dance will showcase the environmental, cultural and economic characteristics of Texas, and announce Texas as an important player on the international stage.

From Cowboy dance to space

Texas is famous for its cowboy culture. The dance and cowboy boots in cowboy culture are also very distinctive. After studying the specific actions of line dance, I reconstitute its actions into a new dance, and take the space formed during the movement of the heel of cowboy boots as the modeling source of the scheme

site plan

The embassy region is in the southwet of Brasilia while it is facing the lake on its soutest side.This area is a downhill slope to the southwest, with a good view of the lake. Each country’s embassy tries to excel in the architectural arena that is Brasilia. There is also a row of empty space in the southwest area reserved for the new embassies.There are roads on both sides of the site. At the same time, Brasilia is a city designed for automobile transportation. It is necessary to drive to and from the embassy. So I directly introduce the car into the embassy, which can facilitate the users of the embassy to travel between different functional spaces.

space of second floor

windows

space of first floor

windows

floor floor

structure system of second floor Truss Padlock columns

road system of second floor

stair cases

parking space

structure system of ground floor

road system of first floor

groud and space structure system road system

First floor plan

The first floor is the opening part of the embassy. A series of spaces for entering the embassy are arranged in the first floor.

Second floor plan

The second floor is the area where employees live and work. You can drive up to the second floor. The second floor is also connected to the first floor by elevators and stairs.

your

continue

Drive into the embassy and you can see two forked roads. The left side leads to the staff area on the second floor, and the right side is the public area. After driving to the embassy, I saw the shoe shining shop first.

After polishing

shoes,

to drive back and come to the visa hall. Park the car outside the visa hall and you can go in to apply for a visa.

In order to give the visa officer a good image, I decided to wipe my shoes first. Shoe shining shoe seems to be the service agency of the embassy, but it is actually the intelligence agency of the embassy. The shoeshine person will have a casual conversation with the customer and obtain information at the same time.

After completing the visa and driving forward, you can see the barbecue shop and experience the authentic Texas barbecue.

02. Museum of Folk Houses a museum with people living in it

Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Partnership：Individual

Instructor:Daxing Yu

Phone: +86-13925035310

Email: yudaxing@scut.edu.cn

Time:2020Spring

A museum is to be built in an old part of Guangzhou, situated in the middle of a residential area. It is the most suitable museum to show the life of the residents, the culture of the region, and to solve the local housing problem. The site is surrounded mainly by longhouses, high-rise residences, and Liwan Lake Park.It was historically a Ling Nan garden in the 18th century, built by the merchants who gained great wealth from monopolizing overseas trade. After the decline of this monopoly, the gardens were sold out and turned into ponds and woodlands, which were gradually developed into communities of long houses. Going towards contemporary time, the local government hoped to replace all the long houses with higher residential buildings. However, opposed by part of local citizens, not all of the long houses were demolished.But conservation also poses problems, as people have moved away from longhouses because the form and space do not suit modern needs. Many longhouses have been abandoned. At present, only elderly people live in longhouses anymore. In the design, I hope to find a new form to form a longhouse community with the advantages of both upper floors, which can really keep people in the community and retain the living temperature of the longhouse community, thus showing the living life in the residential museum.

Urban Fabrics of Guangzhou

As one of the oldest commercial cities in China, Guangzhou has a diverse urban fabric. Among them, the most representative ones are: Lingnan waterfront gardens, longhouse communities, and modern apartments. They represent the historical traces of Guangzhou's development in different historical periods

Collision of Various Fabrics

Located in downtown Guangzhou, the site witnessed the collision of various urban fabrics. It was historically a Ling Nan garden in the 18th century, built by the merchants who gained great wealth from monopolizing overseas trade. After the decline of this monopoly, the gardens were sold out and turned into ponds and woodlands, which were gradually developed into communities of long houses.

Going towards contemporary time, the local government hoped to replace all the long houses with higher residential buildings. However, opposed by part of local citizens, not all of the long houses were demolished.

A typical long house community

Emerging in the twentieth century, the long house community is an adaptation to the local climate and high-density expansion of the city. With small width and large depth, the long house community can maximize traffic space and prevent from strong sunlight to keep cool in the summer. The long houses will have vents in the roof to solve the ventilation problems caused by the one-way open windows.

Circulation of Long Houses

In the orthogonal network of main roads in Guangzhou, there are several two-meter-wide stone alleyways inside each block in the east-west direction.

The east-west alleyway is flanked by one- to three-story long houses with open doors and windows facing the alleyway.

A Collage of Long House community

the long houses are 3-5 meters wide. They open to the south or north side of the alleys and connect to various stories with internal staircases

Transportation Space

Neighbouring the complexity of several conflicting urban fabics, this project aims at responding to its surrounding communities. The traditional longhouse typically has a horizontal traffic space which receives plenty of sunlight. People love to communicate in the traffic space as their lifestyle. However, in a tall building with higher density, this traffic space will have to rotate 90 degrees to vertical, which no longer provide positive outdoor space for the residents. As an idea of solution, I try to design a spiral space outside the building which ascends to the top, giving people another choice of commuting and communication.

Structural Development

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LINE

Roads

Rooms

Supporting Structures

Typology

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STRING

ARCH

The center of the building creates a large atrium through the arch structure. The atrium is conceived as a reference to the way traditional longhouses are ventilated through vertical patios. Each occupant opens a window to the atrium, while the traffic path looks inward through the arched openings on both sides. activities may take place.

Within the atrium of the building, Liwanchung River slowly flows through. On both sides of the flowing water, people are enjoying live Cantonese Opera while having their flowing meals.

The building's traffic corridor becomes an incubator for community activities. It connects every family unit through its flexible form. The families will find it convenient to participate in joyful activities with the neighbours from below or upper floors. This idea aims at improving the negative traffice space of the traditional high-rise buildings.

The terraces set back floor by floor, avoiding the building's volume from looking overwhelming. At the same time, these terraces provide space for petite gardens, pocket squares and other inspiring possibilities.

03. The Dan A Floating Community

Location: Yangshuo, Individual Instructor: Independent Time: Summer

Dan is the meaning of egg in Chinese. As the egg contains the yolk floating inside it which never comes into contact with the egg shell, that in the late Yuan Dynasty, a defeated army fled here and chose this way of life to escape pursuit. As centuries went by, these Dan The goal of this project is to trace back this unique lifestyle and

on Li River Community

Yangshuo, Guangxi, China

Individual Project

Independent

Summer 2018

shell, Dan is often referred to as the name of boat dwellers who spend most of their time on water and do not often go ashore. It is said Dan people have left abundant heritage of water life, including boat dwellings, community organizations and their special aquaculture. and to revive the water communities in a slight yet powerful way

The “Dan” on li River

The boat-dwelling people, or the 'Dan' in Chinese, are the people who live on the water with boats as their home. Mainly distributed in the south-eastern coastline of China, Dans spent most of their lifetime on the water.

This project looks at one of the Dan's communities alongside Li River in Guilin City, where a lot of boat-dwellers celeberate their unique Dan community lifestyle.

The Development of “Dan”

Guilin City

Daxu Town

Xingping Town

Yangshuo County

Pingle County

The population of boat-dwellers was very large in the early 20th century. scenes of Dans parking by the riverside could be viewed from old photographs. After the founding of PRC, the private-owned boats were collectivized by the government and integrated into public-owned fisher teams under the administration of the People's Commune. WIth this integration, the production of fishing ramp up rapidly, resulting in many boat-dwellers returning back ashore to live. Many fishing boats became abandoned, with some still resided by the remaining Dans today.

The Family of “Dan”

A Dan's family usually consists of three to five members. They dine and live on the boats. The family usually raise poultry and fish on the boat for a living. In addition, they make extra income by performing traditional fishing activities to the tourists. They inviting tourists on board and sell asquatic products.

The Location of “Dan”

In Yangshuo County, the Dan people live near Li River, the most important river going across the county. The waves are usually gentle here and the place serves as the main ferry place of the city. Every day, a lot of people communte across the river.

The Boats of “Dan”

A Dan's family will have several boats connected each other as a fully functioning home space. These boats would typically divide themselves as residential space and poultry storage space. As the tourism in the city blossomed in the last decades, there are also special designed boats for tourist attraction and sightseeing.

Cooking

Carrying Passengers

Residence and Work

Storage and Children

Chicken and Duck Farming

Cormorant Breeding

Transporting

Usage During Tourist Seasons

During the peak tourist seasons, the unique culture of the Dan's community can become a resource for tourism income. The Dans are able to carry tourists for a scenery view on boats. The community itself also becomes a scenery in the tourist photographer's lenses. In addition, the Dans can sell food and souvenirs to passengers on the large cruise ships when passing by.

Type 1

The ship unfolds along the arc, forming a semi-enclosed inner court

Type 2

The boats are close to each other side by side, making it easier to get around between passes

Type 4

The ship unfolds along the arc, forming a semi-enclosed inner court

Type 5

Boats are crossed and lined up on the water, forming numerous inner courtyards

Type 6

Boats cross the shoreline, forming numerous water gardens that open to the shore

Bigship trveling river floating population of traveling

Structural typology

By analyzing the basic way of combining the boats of boat-dwellers, I came up with several basic units of fishing boat arrangement. At the same time, in order to explore the way of combination between these units, I designed a program in ghpython to explore the way of dense laying of squares and triangles. The results generated by the dense tiling were filtered and then combined with the basic units to form a variety of options available for filtering. From them, I selected several combinations of spatial structures that can meet different usage requirements and are applicable to the different living needs of fishermen.

Add a square

Add a triangle

Add the necessary

Night

At nights, three seperate courtyards can be formed between the fishing boats. The boat dwellers can open the window inward and enjoy the scene of their private courtyards.

Morning

In the morning, the boat-dwellers can rotate their boats slightly, making the inner courtyard a semi-private space, ready to open to the community.

Afternoon

In the afternoon, the "dan" people can stretch their boats completely, letting the boats freely move around.

Evening

By the end of the day, "dan" people retrive their boats and re-integrate them to form a larger flat space within the family. A space for family meal and entertainment is then created.

Guilin is a city of mixed religious culture. Muslim descendants live in the city and universal educational system did not customize for them and gradually diluted their well. Their culture has undergone great changes, accepted the ancestor worship

04. Gemstone

a Mosque for Women

Location: Guilin, Guangxi, China

Individual Project

Instructor: Independence Time: Fall 2019

and congregate with the Han people. However, as the city developed rapidly, the Muslim group were gradually marginalized. The their own ethnic identity.On the other hand, the Muslim group in China is marginalized from Muslim groups of other countries as worship advocated by Confucianism, and evolved into a distinctive Muslim women's mosque. In this project, I take a stab at this group by designing a mosque for women in Guilin City.

02 1277CE

Guilin Islamic region

During Kublai's war to destroy the Southern Song Dynasty, a Muslim general led a large army to capture the Southern Song Dynasty's Jingjiang Province (now called Guilin City) in 1277, and at the same time, the city of Guilin expanded to the south and east, and six mosques had appeared in the area expanded during this period. This indicates that the expansion of the city in that period had a lot to do with the presence of Muslim armies.

During the political movements in the 1970s, many mosques were destroyed. Not until the reform and opening up in 1978 were the remaining remnants returned to the Muslim communities. An interesting fact could be found that during the process of reconstruction, the Muslim communities did not simply build mosque buildings, but also hotels, restaurants and office buildings for economic purposes, leaving only a few rooms for pure mosque space.

This project attempts to reconstruct the Guilin Mosque in order to spatially reflect this phenomenon and the history behind it.

03Yuan Dynastys

Muslims who fought with the Yuan army settled and built mosques throughout China

04 ming & qing

After the Han Chinese regained power in the Ming Dynasty, they adopted a strict policy of Sinicization against the Muslims and prohibited their internal intermarriage

05 thrive of Mosque for Women

Faced with the dangers of Sinicization, Chinese Muslims realized the importance of women's mastery of the teachings. Gradually, a large number of women-run mosques exclusively for women, unique to China, were built

Mongolian invasion of the Middle East

Muslims joined the Mongol army to invade the Southern Song Dynastys

Islamic Graphic Patterns

Islamic art has a very distinctive character. Its most striking feature is Islamic motifs. Islamic motifs are defined by two main elements, a monolith that is repeated, and a frame that reproduces the monolith. Both are very important for the final effect of the pattern.

There are many attempts to transform these patterns into space in modern architecture. Most of them are initiated on a flat surface. In my design, I try to develop in another dimension, the non-planar space.

If the section of the volume is cut through non-orthogonally, the results of the space will be very intriguing.

Give up the model of pushing from two dimensions to three dimensions in order to truly explore the potential of three-dimensional spatial relationships

how to find the possibility of three demetion cube?

two-demetion sections of three-demetion cube

When a plane is used to cut a 3D orthogonal mesh, the cross section will no longer appear orthogonal as the position and angle of the plane changes. And the non-orthogonal grid obtained by this method can all cover the dense paved frame in the Islamic pattern.

three-demetion sections of four-demetion cube

By analogy, when a four-dimensional orthogonal mesh is simulated by the computer, a face(a three-dimensional surface in four-dimensional space) could be used to intercept this four-dimensional mesh. In this way, a three-dimensional section in four-dimensional space is created. This three-dimensional cross-section is transformed into a three-dimensional block in three-dimensional space, and these blocks will have the same characteristics as each other without gaps

four demetion cube

the chosen one

change units in a particular cube

After selecting a spatial structure prototype and shuffling its repeating blocks, it is possible to generate various spatial units, as in the same way how a simple unit could be transformed into rich patterns in the Islamic graphic designs.

Type2

Type5

Type8

Type3

Type6

Type9

Type12

Type1

Type4

Type7

Type10

Along the street façade, there are four entrances, two of which are into secular spaces.Behind the other two entrances are spaces for religious services

On the top floor, the two spaces are visible but not accessible to each other. Completely different activities are taking place in each of the two spaces.People can slowly walk up the ramp to the top of the building, with an entrance back into the building at any time during the process

In the religious space, the stairs provide a suitable place for the imam to preach.The spatial form of the building evades the original centralized mode of sermon delivery. But as the speaker turns to the left or right, she may become an audience for another lecture happening on the other side.

In the secular space, people create mini markets to exchange goods. Small bookshelves transformed from the stairs provide people with comfortable reading space. The random grooves of various scales in the room also show the possibility of various activities.

05 Slope Diversity Homes

A Community Celebrating Diversity in Architecture and Lifestyles

Location: Detoit, MI, US

Partnership：Teamwork（1/3 concept design, 1/3 plan drawing 2/3 detail design）

Instructor: Lars & Christina

Time:2023Win

The SLOPE DIVERSITY HOMES project aims to address several critical issues in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, such as an aging population, high housing prices, and lack of socialization leading to weak community relationships and a sense of identity. To tackle these problems, the project prioritizes the diversification of community residents by creating affordable, sustainable, and functional housing units that foster communication and build relationships among residents. The project proposes smaller single or double units and larger units with 5-8 private bedrooms and shared large kitchens and living rooms. This design approach provides different types of housing units to meet various residential needs and preferences, creating a diverse mix of residents. Additionally, the project includes several secondary design strategies, such as integrating courtyards and gardens into the design to provide a warm and comfortable outdoor environment, and arcades and galleries on the ground floor to increase public spaces in the community. By promoting communication and building relationships among residents, the project aims to create a stronger sense of community identity, fostering a greater sense of belonging and pride in the community.

Our three-person team used the Revit workset to work together to draw the left and right buildings, furniture, structure, and

Second Floor Plan

The blue ones are 1B1B units, which are designed for people who want more privacy and are willing to pay more rent. The yellow ones are various shared units. People will share the living room and kitchen, which is more affordable. It is also suitable for people who are more willing to socialize.

For the prefabricated assembly design of the exterior wall, the relationship between the balcony and the sloping roof has been designed in a large scale.

CLT structure with kalzip & wood facade.

Other works. A suspension structure

Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Partnership：Teamwork(100%Program Design,50%Node Design,20%Model Making)

Instructor:Yiqiang Xiao

Time:2019Fall

A team of four of us collaborated on designing the nodes for the coach terminal structure. Our research focused on suspension structures, and we built large-scale models of the nodes to refine our designs.

Other works. bamboo pavilion

Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Partnership：Teamwork（group leader, 60%Team Organization, 10%Program Design, 5%Construction）

Instructor:Guanqiu Zhong

Time:2019

In the summer of 2019, I had the privilege of leading a group of students in the design and construction of a beautiful bamboo pavilion for the villagers of Changqi, providing them with a shaded gathering place and demonstrating the practicality and sustainability of natural building materials.

bird view of the finish project

I am working with other students during construction

view from the village

view from the basketball playground