Portfolio of Weiyu Xu - Depth by Xu Weiyu

Junior Architect Academic & Work Portfolio

WEIYU XU 1

788 Columbus Ave, New York NY 10025, USA

(718) 510-2775

wx2278@columbia.edu

SELECTED EXPERIENCE

Fosun Tourism Group Design and Planning Institute, Shanghai, China

Architecture & Urban Intern AUG 2020 - OCT 2020

Sustainable Tourism - Extension of Sanya Atlantis Theme Park, Hainan, China

• Fully participated in the early phase planning of the 2nd phase of Atlantis Theme Park in Sanya, China, which covers over 1,000,000 square metre (266 acres).

• Demonstated a thorough site and functionality research through case studies, massing sketches, water and policy research, and traffic study.

• Sorted programs with AutoCAD, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Rhinoceros. Utilized efficiency tools such as Excel, Illustrator, and InDesign to analyze precedents and collect basic data for the planning scheme.

Entertainment - Taicang Foyou Ski Center, Zhejiang, China

• Cooperated with engineer and operation teams. Overcame property operation and construction challenges by optimizing materials, area optimizations and re-organizing traffic flow.

• Developed the visual system for the ski center.

OPEN Architecture, Beijing, China

Architecture Intern OCT 2021 - DEC 2021

Retail+Rennovation - Wangfujin Foreign Language Bookstore

• Developed and supported the conceptural design by making series of section drawing.

EDUCATION

Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Master of Advanced Architectural Design MAY 2022 - MAY 2023

• HP in all Advanced Studios :

Summer - Adv Studio "Proxy Landscape" (9pt, instructed by Marco Ferrari & Elise Hunchunk).

Autumn - Adv Studio "Futurism Brazil" (9pt, instructed by Vanessa Keith).

Spring - Adv Studio "Decolonizing Museums" (9pt, instructed by Juan Herreros).

• Further developed design thinking in different skillsets and work-flow such as Revit, ArcGIS and Unreal Engine.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Design

Bachelor of Architecture

• Overall GPA 3.9/4.3, top 1%.

• Recepient of National Scholarship of China, 2018.

SEP 2017 - JUN 2022

• Nominated as Outstanding Graduation Design of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2022.

University Of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design

Certificate, Global Access Program

AUG 2019 - DEC 2019

• Recepient of outstanding scholarship for the Global Access Program.

• Research assistant for urban void space research in Beijing. Responsible for social media management and creating media content using Premiere and After Effects.

Office Zhu, Shanghai, China

Design Intern JUL 2019 - SEP 2019

Exhibition - Boating in Shanghai (Exhibited, Shanghai Urban and Art Season 2019)

• Focused on the visualization of Boating at Shanghai using AutoCAD and Illustrator.

• Achieved comprehensive experience about CMYK printing, proof-reading and layout design working with press and print manufaturing.

McKinsey & Company, Shanghai, China

Part-time Assistant DEC 2021 - MAY 2022

• Utilized data visualization tools to help present research results.

• Executed research, data mining, and analyses towards different industries, including real estate, retail, chemistry, medicine, e-commerce, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Global Knowledge Lei Feng, China

Curator & Podcast Host DEC 2019 - NOW

• Co-hosted Architectural Eye, an online podcast platform to popularize architectural knowledge, from Oct 2020 to May 2021.

PROJECTS & AWARDS

• "Tomb of Species", Nominated Entry, UNI Architecture Competition of Climate Memorial. (2018)

• "Earth in Bamboo", Fabrication research at Anji Earth Ramming Institute, Zhejiang, China. (2018)

“Architecture and spaces provide an in-depth vessel for urbanism, ecology and imaginations.”

WEIYU XU

In the city of New York where everything is about time, time becomes homogenized, unnoticed, extracted from the reality of our quotidian life. In this project, our research manifesto is using architecture fragments and ruins to articulate the temporality of history. It is a manipulation of time, an instrument of slowness and an alphabet of contradiction.

Archive of Time

Transforming the MET Cloisters into Instrument of Manipulation of Time

Instructed by Juan Herreros

In Collaboration with Valentina Jaramillo

COLUMBIA GSAPP 2023 SPRING

ADVANCED ARCH DESIGN STUDIO

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“...A

Marked red elements in the floor plan, the met cloister is exposing spaces rather than objects, which makes it unique and different from other museums. Fragments coming from different parts of europe are made into 4 gardens and 4 chambers. Which are articulated with new museum functionality.

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History of Homogenization and Displacement.”

“...A Fragmented Culture of Diversity.”

Behind the walls of a homogenized space, the current MET Cloisters has killed the diversity of a collections of architectural fragments that comes from different time. This project recoperates the power of the fragments and gives back the dignity of coming from otherwhere in time.

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Our main strategy is taking out all the fragments from the cloisters museum, and reconstruct the European monasteries’ historical typology, by articulating the spaces through a continuous circulation, giving an experience of slowness.

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“...A Practice of Peripatiticism.”

Through this approach the design this project tries to share the experience of introspection and socializatoin. Through the transitions of indoor and outdoor, we want to exaggerate the difference between introspection and publicness.

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“...A Dialogue between Indoor and Outdoor.”

Insistancy in contrasting situation. Everything is red is contrasting with the black. They are not looking for homogeneity again, its seeking the significance of architecture operation of contradiction, and understanding the geographical conditions where the museum stands.

Void of Contradiction 1.Fuentiduena Chapel 2.Langon Chapel 3. Light Box 4.Romanesque Hall Archive of Time 5. Cuxa Cloister 6. Amphitheatre 7. Library 8. Community Center 9. Procastinarium 10. Culture Center Ephemereality of Seasons 11. Bonnefont Cloister 12.Green House 13. Organic Eating 14. Verical Farming 15. Tasting Fair Timeless Dialog 16. Saint Guilhem Cloister 17. Introspecting light 18. Yoga Rooms 19. Garden of lights Flow of Time 20. Open Air Bath 21. Fountain 22. Sauna 23. Garden 24. Trie Cloister 25. Gothic Chapel 1. 3. 5. 6. 7. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. Elevate

Rotate Penetrate

Sink Terrace Slope Slope Reconstruct Slice Canopy

Cantilever Intersect

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“...An Archive of Operations.”

SPRING - Cuxa Cloister Autumn - San Guilham Cloister SUMMER - Bennefont Cloister Winter - Trie Cloister

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“...A Manipulation of Time.”

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“A Pivotal of Environment.”

‘The Metamorphosis’ is an absurdist novella by Franz Kafka. It used a metaphor of humans transforming into an insect to depict the alienation and exploitation of our egos and existence in contemporary society.

Inspired by the notion of transforming scales, this narration translates the social dilemma in Oakland into an urban-scale complex of social operation. The analogy compressed the social context into four stages of acts, endlessly performs the abstraction of dwelling, socializing, working, and producing.

OAKLAND METAMORPHOSIS

Gentrification and Alienation: Chapters in Dwelling, Socializing, Working and Producing

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY GRADUATE ACCESS PROGRAM 2019 FALL, CORE STUDIO

Instructed by Tommy Haddock, Shiyuan Chen Individual Work

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What is the metabolism that cities need in our time?

Nearly 50 years after the Nakagin Capsule Tower’s inaugration, Tokyo decided to dismantle it, as it has already become the redundancy of Tokyo’s continuous urbanization. This deign speculate on the possibility for architecture to adapt to the inevitable urban transformation, and give back to the society needs by changes of programs related to agriculture and food.

RECIPROCALITY OF METABOLISM

Individual Work

FALL 2021 CORE STUDIO

Re-Imagining The Nakagin Tower: A Hybrid Agriculture Complex Instructed by Yujun Mao SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY

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Water is everywhere. It is shapeless, but when it runs through different media, it takes the shape of the media and becomes the proxy for it.

Focusing in Jamaica Bay, NYC, our research and design project treated water as a proxy for understanding urban conditions. It consists of a study upon flow of water, and a series of small low-tech machine intervention for modifying and improving the coastal landscape.

(UN)SPONTANEOUS WATERSCAPE

Restoring Saltmarsh in Jamaica Bay, New York

Instructed by Marco Ferrari and Elise Hunchunk

In Collaboration with Jiyoon Hwang, Linda Deng

COLUMBIA GSAPP 2022 SUMMER ADVANCED ARCH DESIGN STUDIO

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WATER AS PROXY

Water is everywhere. It is shapeless, but when it runs through different media, it takes the shape of the media and becomes the proxy for it.

As long as the shape of the terrain forms a three-sided surrounding by barrier islands or peninsula, water will generate salt mash in the bay. This phenomenon also occurs in the Yellow Ocean between China and the Korean Peninsula, and the mexico bay. Highly populated, the urbanization process and industrialization in these area is threatening the salt marsh.

Our site, Jamaica bay in the southern coast of New York City, is a beautiful estuary in the long island, covered mostly by salt marshes. The ever-going process of degradation is caused by erosion, sea level rise and pollution, which are highly related to human activities. To understand the degradation, we have to understand human’s impact on the flow of water first.

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NYC WATERSHED

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SPONTANEOUS VS UNSPONTANEOUS

The categorization of spontaneous and unspontaneous is distinguished by the power source of water flow.

If the water is only moving because of gravity, it is a spontaneous water. On the other hand, if the water is moving because of an external force, such as pumping, collecting and blocking, then it becomes unspontaneous water. This outer force includes sewage catch basins, water treatment pumping and water dam. Different human infrastructure change the flow of water by aggregating, accelerating and stopping the flow of water.

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PURIFIER

Attachable to roof Awareness: Pollution before sewage.

BARRIER

Reduce soil erosion

Accumulate salt marsh boundary

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LANDSCAPE MACHINERY

Humans have been inventing machines to produce labour, profits and values. However, machines in our project are invented as imaginations for a different kind of labour on landscapes. Instead of exploiting the landscape, the ‘labour’ is actually a playful way for human and all species to experiment, interact with landscape.

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Aqua Dome is responding to the question by adapting to water environment variation throughout the year. Located in the north-west of Brazil, the site demonstrates a dynamic geologic and ecological environment. During the rainy season, the valleys among the dunes are filled with freshwater lagoons. The submerging and emerging actions allow the form to appear differently.

AQUA DOME

Spheral Form Research Based On Metaball Simulation

TEACHING FELLOW STUDIO, SPRING 2019

JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY

Instructed by Shuojiong Zhang Individual Work SHANGHAI

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Seasonal Features

Structural Analysis

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With the help of two climate devices and a series of buildings, the designs use different renewable energy systems. This provides sufficient energy for the carbon capture devices to capture carbon. The carbon bricks catalysis the growth of mycelium and thus helps in reforestation. The climate devices support a platform for research and study of climate change solutions for the present, future and beyond.

COLUMBIA GSAPP 2022 FALL

ADVANCED ARCH DESIGN STUDIO

THE ABOVE AND BENEATH Imagining 2180 Brazil

Instructed by Vanessa Keith & Andrew Homick In collaboration with Annet Kennady

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2180 GEOLOGY

In the geology perspective, overmining and shortsighted-policy of industrialization in the amazon forest not only damaged the land as itself, but also went into the demarcated indigenous territories. As land cover of agriculture expands into the deep rainforest, severe deforestation impact has been left upon the virgin forest.

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The amine resin is a humidity-swing carbon dioxide sorbent, which means that it absorbs carbon dioxide under the condition of ambient air, whereas it lets out carbon dioxide under the circumstance of humidity.

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Connecting with Carbon and Mycelium

Reciprocal Process Of Carbon And Soil

We designed two climate devices which benefit each other mutually. These devices are generally attatchable and deployable to both sites, making the whole process of carbon recycle omnipresent.

The energy will be generated by the solar and wind source. Afterwards, energy will be used by a carbon capture device which solidifies carbon for soil mineralization.

The devide expands the mesh maximize its contact area with ambient air. In this process, ambient CO2 will be drawn to and attached to the carbon capture network. As the device expands, rain fall is also collected throughout the process, and will be processed for both drinking and carbon collection purpose. The structure touches the ground with light nodes, which allow the device to be deployable at almost all circumstances.

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Click Image for Video

In the 15th century, Macau played a pivotal role in global trade, cultural and political exchanges, becoming one of the most typical colonial cities during the sixteenth century. This thesis focuses on the historical study of the colonial city and its trade patterns, and presents the development of Macau’s urban form at the end of the sixteenth century in the form of a virtual city museum (interactive game demo), with particular attention to the changes and interactions of public spaces related to trade and customs in the development of the city.

Individual Work

Instructed by Huaqing Huang

SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY

Bachelor Thesis Project

MACAU 1400 Virtual Urban Museum Demo

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SUPPLEMENT PROJECTS 045 ■

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Internship Work(OPEN Architecture)

Wang Fu Jin Foreign Language Bookstore Rennovation

Project Member: Hu Li, Huajing Wang, Xuanyu Liu, Ke Jia, Xiuyuan Chen, Weiyu Xu

Wangfujing is located in the center of Beijing and is one of the largest commercial streets in the city. The renovation of Wangfujing Foreign Language Bookstore involves the introduction of books to international exchanges, upgrading it from a single bookstore to a regional cultural center by reorganizing the flow, enhancing light with the same atrium, and integrating the structure from heavy to light.

We believe that books are the seeds of culture, so in the overall form, different holes are used to guide the line of sight and light, making the whole space permeable and light.

Original Massing

Renovated Massing & Functionalities

Section Model

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