Yanlin Liu studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Munich for her Master's degree in Architecture and is right now the Ph.D.candidate here as well. During her studies, she joined gmp Architekten and KSP ENGEL Architekten, and after graduation, she joined Atelier Fanelsa and moved to Berlin. In general, she worked on a variety of projects ranging from small to large scale, such as the renovation of abandoned rural buildings in a village in Brandenburg, Gerswalde, a shopping mall in the vicinity of Munich, and a high-rise building for the headquarters of the China Academy of Building Research in Guangzhou.
Chengdu, China
+(49)15257533238
liuyanlin1024@gmail.com
Education
Technical University of Munich (Germany)
Ulster University (UK)
China University of Mining and Technology - Beijing (China)
Work Experience
Collaborator
Nov. 2023 - Jan. 2024 Berlin, Germany
KSP ENGEL Architekten Atelier Fanelsa
Collaborator
Apr. 2023 - Sep. 2023 Munich, Germany
Awards
gmp Architekten
Collaborator
Mar. 2022 - Aug. 2022 Berlin, Germany
Ph.D.
MA. Arch.
Erasmus
B. Arch.
2024 - till now
2020 - 2023
2019.1 - 2019.6
2014 - 2019
China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Corp., LTD
Collaborator
Jul. 2018 - Dec. 2018 Chengdu, China
International design competition entitled “Tactical Urbanism NOW! IV”, 2024
Golden Mention
DAAD scholarship for postgraduate studies in the field of architecture in Germany, 2021-2023
Awarded graduate of the city of Beijing, 2019
First prize for excellent bachelor thesis, 2019
the 6th. Architectural Structural Design Competition, Beijing, 2017 2nd prize
the 8th "TH SWARE Cup" Building Information Modeling Competition, 2017 3rd prize of "Special Award for Engineering Management"
China National Green Buildings Design Competition, 2016 1st prize
China National Scholarship, 2015-2016
Software
Rhino + Grasshopper
Sketch up
Autodesk Suite (Revit + CAD)
ArchiCAD
Adobe Suite (Ps + Ai + Id + Pr + Lr)
Render (Vray + Lumoin)
Spacemaker
Languages
Chinese - Native language
German - C1
English - C1
"If we let architecture start from space, we must admit that "space" itself is a complicated concept, mainly because of its broad meaning, which makes it difficult to define semantically. On the one hand, based on the theory of Sigfried Giedionrein, it is abstract and related to mathematics and physics. On the other hand, the concept of experiential space is developed under the strong influence of Heidegger and it mixes together one's memories and experiences in each place. Like Otto Friedrich Bollnow's view, each place in experiential space is essentially based on individual experiences and collective traditions, and this view is exactly the opposite of the mathematical meaning of space. That is, space is unique. In 1967, Hans Robert Yaos even posited an acceptance aesthetic. He believes that a book, even when finished, is only a half-product before the reader reads it.
Accordingly, if space is essentially an interactive phenomenon, architecture can be both a background and a participant in that phenomenon. In a sense, it is also a space for interaction. Space, then, is no longer nothing, but a web of relationships, a multiplicity of emergences, connections, intersections, and overlaps of various media in a complex place. These media are subject to constant qualitative change in the process of mutual interaction and transformation. They are both subjects and objects. They may or may not be alive and are all intimately connected to the definition of space.
Therefore, I hope to try some ways to escape the condition that stifles the senses, transform ourselves from bystanders to interactors, and build a situation through a positive connection with the world."
LIFE IS ELSEWHERE
Date: October, 2023
Prof.: Niklas Fanelsa
Individual project
Location: Christandlhof, Bayern, Germany
The development of urbanization has brought opportunities on the one hand and many challenges on the other. In particular, it has created imbalances in development between regions and between urban and rural areas. At the same time, in the post-epidemic era of continuous technological development, digitalization has greatly affected people‘s lives. Under this circumstance, especially with the emergence of digital nomads, new rural design may be able to provide more diverse ways for people‘s mechanized and routinized work and life, to feel the real world, while forming new communities, alleviating the imbalance of regional development, and bringing new vitality to the countryside.
The site is a small village in the Obenbayern region near Waginger See. Based on all the information of resources and the activities that could happen on the map. Three different locations are chosen to provide a variety of spaces and atmospheres for digital nomads, villagers, and even a wider range of people later to work and live in. These scattered architects could, at the same time, encourage people to explore this village more when they travel from different sites.
With changing perceptions, the impact of the epidemic, and digitalization, more and more people are choosing to become digital nomads. In recent years, the direction of population migration has begun to change in many regions. Therefore, by using this opportunity, there is a chance to increase the exchange of resources and knowledge between areas and attract more people to the countryside, creating new communities and thus providing development.
The second place is a relatively active place mainly for living. With this location, it can form different courtyards, organically following the texture of the village. It's divided into different smaller insulation units by walls out of straw bales. There's also a gradual transition in the living areas from private to public from south to north. With the use of sliding doors, people can share part of their space with the corridor to have different activities.
different insulation units
indoor and outdoor spaces
various degrees of private and public sharing
The last one is a workshop area for multi-purpose to foster collaboration among digital nomads, visitors, and local villagers. It provides a variety of amenities to support gatherings, meetings, and workshops. These spaces are ideal for those looking to network, exchange ideas, and explore new avenues of work. With a range of activities available, it's the perfect spot for digital nomads and local villagers to use and make meaningful connections.This location has been selected for its proximity to fields, woods, and water, providing easy access to many resources. The structure has parallel walls inside to give a hierarchy of the space. Moreover, the width of the platforms varies on different sides, giving a different sense of the environment.
In a way, the workshop is the incubator of the whole design and the first part to be built. In response to the agricultural development and ecological changes of the different seasons of the year, people have access to a range of different resources, and different activities are carried out accordingly. For example, they can participate in building construction processing with the workshop producing building materials.
In this case, to ensure the project's successful completion, a Gantt chartlike timeline is essential. The timeline allows one to understand the project's scope better. It helps to plan and schedule tasks appropriately and in the end, increases the chances of a successful outcome.
COLLECTIVE DOMESTIC
Date: February, 2021
Prof.: Stephen Bates, Bruno Krucker
Teammates: Louis Ernst, Hirotatsu Ohara
Location: Munich
In Europe today, more people live alone than within a family, and yet houses are predominantly planned for family groups. It shows a growing demand and need from both individuals and family groups for a wider range of options for those living alone, including the possibility of living in small collectives where resources can be shared, individual privacy can be maintained, notions of hierarchy and use can become much more subtle, and small communities can emerge.
München Clinic Schwabing (formerly Klinikum Schwabing) is a hospital opened in 1909. The corridor system in forms of reduced historicism with numerous outbuildings was built in 1904-1913 and 1926-1928. The hospital is surrounded mainly by residential areas and the entire hospital is enclosed by a wall that has little contact with the outside world. Thus, there is a real need for a new language capable of responding to the issues raised by changing household patterns and lifestyles. Both a need and a demand for a broader range of options for those living alone.
Different sequences to enter rooms and the reuse of corridors are needed to provide new opportunities to benefit the whole Co-op community. Staircases, along with different doorways and hallways, help create different sequences to enter a private space. People could even have the option of walking with a more private staircase enclosed by walls without being seen, or through a more communal space with the original grand staircase in each wing.
The zigzag shape changes the corridor near the private staircase to a kind of semi-communal area, while the part next to the entrance of a unit can be used as a threshold, or another room to each unit and a kind of semi-private area. Thus, the corridor becomes more of a series of rooms. And over time and with changing residents, this structure offers great flexibility and potential for both accessibility and function of the space.
A diagonal view from the corridor to the living room of a unit. The windows in this photo face south, which gives this room a cozy character. And the doors leading to different rooms are of different style to show hints.
A view from the corridor to show how the hallway becomes a kind of "hallrooms". The private staircase is hidden behind the original thick wall and the round window gives the room a special character. Together with the window next to the entrance of the unit, it shows a garden house atmosphere and interaction between rooms.
STAY "WELL"
Date: Februar, 2021
Prof.: Diébédo Francis Kéré
Teammates: Louis Ernst, Alice Benussi
Location: Fazao, Togo
The small village of Fazao is located in the central region of Togo in South Sara with a very low population density of about 2000 inhabitants. The whole village is located on a small hill with extreme scarcity of resources and great poverty. There is not a single public toilet in the whole of Fazao, and there is a great shortage of water. As a result, there is a big problem with hygiene. In addition, in the field of women and education, there are also serious problems. However, a certain amount of rainfall throughout the year is not fully utilized.
Because of the village structure, the scarcity of the building materials, the limited resources as well as manpower and the need to build in other areas of the Southern Sahara, a final modular building unit became the core of this design. These units can be built in stages at different locations as needed. They could be toilets, bathrooms, cooking and soap production units, and storage units for the storage and sale of cleaning and hygiene products. At the same time, each unit has a rainwater collection function. If the water is still not enough, a water tower unit can also be added.
Each unit collects rainwater through the pitched roof for hand washing and other purposes. The used water is used through canals to irrigate the trees planted next to each unit. The shade provided by these trees is also a place where people can gather. As the wind moves through the building, it simultaneously cools the interior through the water vapor.
Modularity
Products
meeting
Precipitation amount (mm) average precipitation days
Place
and Water
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL
Date: Februar, 2024
TerraViva Tactical Urbanism NOW! IV Competition: Golden Mention
Teammates: Bofan Zhou, Zishen Liu
Location: Shanghai, China
The first two decades of the 21st century have been accompanied by waves of infectious diseases, of which COVID-19 was the most serious. There is a scientific consensus that there will be more new viruses and infectious diseases, and they will occur more and more frequently. Thus, the question arises: When the next pandemic hits, are we ready?
Under the Chinese government's clearance policy, countless residential buildings and neighbourhoods have been blocked off by temporary steel plate fences, preventing the fulfilment of many basic daily needs and communication between in and out. China’s Zero-COVID policy is based on closed management of communities which are the smallest unit of administrative division. Infected people were moved to isolation centres in the suburbs, while contacts were confined within walls enclosing the boundary of the community. Those measures are consistent with Foucault’s model of power. After those harrowing experiences, almost everyone has been searching for ways to exit the crisis, hoping to return as soon as possible to ‘the world as it was before the pandemic.’
However, learning to live in lockdown might also be an opportunity to be seized. There is no outside anymore, and we need to find freedom inside. Can walls unite people instead of confining them?
The project is a new spatial tactic to deal with walls—it interacts rather than separates. A series of rotatable roofs with reflective mirror foil on the backside attached to the existing wall breaks the physical border through visual connection. The scaffolding structure extends inwards from the existing thin wall becoming a thick inhabitable wall to expand the limitation of daily needs. The flexibility of Scaffolding allows residents to build different spatial conditions according to their needs. Everyday objects such as abandoned furniture and discarded materials are found and collected within the neighbourhood and can be integrated into the scaffolding system in an improvised and creative way offering various communal, social and leisure activities. As such, the typology of a wall is no longer a space divider but a functional bottom-up infrastructure transforming the confined community into an autonomous common.
NOMADIC TABLE
Date: Februar, 2025
Antepavillion Protest Competition
Teammates: Bofan Zhou
Location: London, UK
‘That day, prised up a few floorboards from the living room of my old house. They had once been a floor; now they had become a table—or had they? Perhaps they had always been a floor.’
We should now realise that we need to spend time permanently studying the delicate balance between free artistic expression and artistic censorship. ‘Nomadic Table’ does not seek to offer an answer to the prohibition; rather, it serves as a direct physical point of reference—a tangible reflection on artistic expression and the rekindling of connections between artists. It is a space where those who respect artistic expression, and those who seek a place to express themselves, may gather to explore the issues together.
From the rise of salon culture in the 16th century to the present day, the living room has been a setting for the exchange of ideas and the sharing of knowledge. The herringbone-patterned floorboards, once prised from a private parlour, now imbue a long, continuous table with the essence of a communal stage.
The wind drifts over the Thames, lifting the corner of the fabric draped upon the rooftop. At the centre, the table remains—silent, steady, like the eaves of a house, waiting for its story to begin. In this moment, it becomes a theatre beneath a roof.
The performers step onto the tabletop; the curtain unfurls, outlining their silhouettes. On the other side of the curtain, a small gathering huddles around the extended table, engaged in discussion. It is modest in size, yet ample enough to hold a conversation, a debate, or even the reverberations of a protest. Performance unfolds in the foreground, debate ignites behind—the curtain both separates and sutures this striking juxtaposition, weaving them into a single, intricate whole.
Later, someone rises and gently pushes the table. It glides towards the edge of the rooftop. The wind catches the curtain, swelling it open, and with it, a more radical performance takes shape. This time, the table leans beyond the eaves, like a vessel poised to set sail—facing the river, becoming a public manifesto, a stage confronting the city. As night falls, light filters through the translucent fabric, casting shifting shadows. Behind the curtain, faint silhouettes emerge—silent omens, poised on the cusp of defiance.
One table, two layers of curtain, a few measured movements—and space is transformed, unfurling into entirely new possibilities. Upon this rooftop, our voices are no longer fixed, our discourse no longer confined. It is both a place of gathering and a tool in motion, gliding between the gentle and the radical, between performance and discussion— waiting to be pushed, to be opened, to be heard.
SCENOGRAPHY - FILM "DENKGANG"
Date: Februar, 2022
Prof.: Uta Graff
Teammates: Chenghao Zhao, Xi Meng
Memory, a kind of thought process, has its peculiarities. It is a time difference between the past and the present. Nevertheless, the space could be the same. It is the time that left the traces here-not only in the place, but also in the emotions. In this project, the architectural setting as a courtyard is done through the spaces in between passageways, staircases, and arcades. The balcony provides an intersection where memory and reality overlap. The atmosphere serves here as a metaphor for the emotions of the subject. However, the questions of who, from where, and to where remain unanswered and therefore endlessly memorable.
