Yuwei Yang
Education
University of Pennsylvania
M. Arch I | Philadelphia, PA | Aug. 2022 - May 2025
Washington University in St. Louis
B.S. Arch | St. Louis, MO |Aug. 2018 - May 2022
Brooks + Scarpa Architects
Internship | Full-time on site |Inglewood, LA | May. 2024 - Aug. 2024
Atelier Alter Architects
Internship |
on site | Beijing, China | May. 2023 - Aug. 2023
Upenn | 2024 SP | Instructor: Daniel Garcia | Teamwork |Design Contribution : Full Design Process
The project centers on the creation of a museum dedicated to celebrating and empowering the queer community and artists, situated in New York City. The proposed site is a triangular lot adjacent to the Stonewall Inn National Monument, a historic landmark commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising—a pivotal event in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Tangency serves as the project’s conceptual framework, embracing the fluidity, ambiguity, and diversity intrinsic to queerness. This approach seeks to challenge rigid boundaries and create a space where identities, narratives, and art intersect, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the queer experience
Drawing inspiration from precedents such as SANAA’s ethereal museum designs, Enzmann Fisher Partner’s dynamic orchestra house, and Sisan Lee’s evocative Stone Pagoda the project develops a distinct spatial language where forms interact through tangency without intersectin, creating a sense of tension and multiplicity.
The tangential relationship is thoughtfully applied across massing, materiality, program, and color, to foster a dynamic interplay of hierarchy, scale, and subtle expression.
The resulting architecture invites exploration through layered experiences, balancing bold, assertive forms with controlled, indirect gestures that engage with the site’s triangular geometry, historical context, and the diversity of its visitors. By weaving these elements together, the project creates a museum that is not just a space for art but also a living dialogue between identity, history, and expression.
The ground floor highlights the entry from the Stonewall Inn Memorial within a space shaped by tangency and doubles as an extension of the memorial for special events. On the second floor, a continuous floor pattern subtly guides visitors toward the archive space, while a ceiling rail system allows art pieces to slide in and out for display. The fourth floor features open galleries and smaller spaces tailored to various art mediums.
The primary materials used are metal mesh screens, fluted concrete, paneled concrete, and channeled glass. These materials were chosen to explore varying levels of translucency, revealing interior spaces while maintaining an introspective atmosphere. While the building’s form is bold, the materials create subtle connections to the context. Complementing the linear nature of the CrossLaminated Timber (CLT) structure, a vertical cladding system ensures cohesion between the façade and structural elements.
Upenn | 2024 FL | Instructor: Winka Dubbeldam | Teamwork | Design Contribution: Full Design Process
This project investigates the informal settlement of Villa 20, located in the southernmost, underdeveloped area of Buenos Aires, Argentina, characterized by overcrowding, flooding, and stark contrasts with adjacent wealthy neighborhoods. Through in-depth research, site visits, and community interviews, we identified the symbolic “wall of disorder” that separates Villa 20 from its surroundings.
Our design intervention seeks to dismantle this barrier by fostering collaboration between the community and external stakeholders. Water, a critical challenge due to frequent flooding, becomes the central focus of our design. By introducing water-related programs, we aim to address infrastructure issues while creating shared opportunities for engagement and cooperation.
The Water Treatment Plant incorporates a rain harvesting funnel, filtration tanks, wetland-based aerobic bacterial treatment, and water storage systems.
2. Education System
The Education Pathway weaves through the water treatment plant, offering residents an opportunity to learn about water systems and processes.
The education building offers classrooms and common spaces where residents can learn about water health and sustainability practices.
3. Care System
The care center offers primary healthcare services to residents
4. The Public Water Hub
The public water hub provides free access to essential amenities for Villa 20 residents, including public bathrooms, showers, laundry facilities, water fountains, and a communal kitchen.
Villa 20 faces critical accessibility challenges, with blocked vehicle routes preventing safe access to nearby facilities such as hospitals and schools. We address this by transforming an empty lot at the roundabout, elevating the motorway to create a walkable path underneath, connecting Villa 20 to essential services.
Adjacent to the site, we collaborate with a golf course by utilizing its topography to collect rainwater. This water is treated at our facility and returned for irrigation, creating a sustainable and mutually beneficial exchange
We explored three water sources: rainwater, greywater, and stormwater. Rainwater will be collected through a concrete funnel structure and purified into drinkable water. Greywater from our facility will be recycled for reuse within the building. Stormwater captured from the golf course and bioswale park will be directed to our treatment plant. The recycled water will be shared with stakeholders and also used within our facility.
The floor plan depicts the ground floor of the educational building, with a reception area serving as the threshold for entry. The pathway cuts through the funnel structure, corresponding to rendering III.
View to Public Space. The view captures a rainy day, with translucent materials illuminating the building’s ambiance. The funnel’s water engine is in action, harnessing energy as rain pours down.
Upenn | 2023 FL | Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier | Individual Work
Established in the 1950s, Farragut Houses stands as a significant public housing development in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, a district characterized by its historic cobblestone streets, 19th-century architecture, and proximity to waterfront including the East River and Brooklyn Navy Yard.
This adaptive reuse project, conceived on a district scale, aims to address the pressing community need to care facilities. By introducing diverse care programs, such as day care, foster care, and senior care to the Farragut Houses, the proposal also hopes to foster meaningful intergenerational interactions. Recognizing the shared need of both children and adults for secure communal spaces, the design proposes a continuous playground that transitions from indoor to outdoor spaces, spanning through street blocks and offering protection from traffic and weather.
Central to the project are two key densification strategies: connecting and terracing. These strategies not only increase the number of residential units but also create communal areas, effectively uniting three previously disparate blocks into a harmonious urban landscape.
The architectural design introduces two housing typologies: vertical mat housing and terrace housing. Vertical mat houses, characterized by their multistory configurations, cater to foster families, offering spacious dining and communal areas that exude a homely ambiance. On the other hand, terrace housings offer single bedroom apartments and studios for young adults. whether returned foster children, faculty, or regular tenants. A shared singleloaded corridor promotes social interactions, nurturing a sense of community as daily life unfolds.
Horizontal and vertical connections establish a seamless playground, uniting the once-seperated three blocks. The interplay of stepping elements with the terrain enhances the linkage to the urban fabric, evoking a sense of landscape within the city.
The material studies involved synthesizing multiple elements with distinct qualities and textures, such as plaster, rokite, liquid plastic, and synyhetic foliage.
Taking into account its closeness to the water, the housing material reflects the linear vertical texture reminiscent of the rock colomns of a seashore cave, imbuing the neighborhood with a costal ambiance.
The material’s color selection aims to harmonize with the original brick texture of the Farragut Houses, featuring an orange-red tone.
Housing Type I: Farragut Houses 2B1B Apartment 1B1B Apartment
Housing Type II: Terrace Houses 1B1B Apartments
5th Fl Detailed Plan
The Floor plan demonstrates how the vertical mat housing units assembles into a connected building system and linked to the existing Farragut House. Public common spaces including classrooms and reading spaces are revealed at the intersection areas.
The section reveals the imaginative material application of the building, featuring diverse textures and openings within linear systems.
Upenn | 2022 FL | Instructor: Anthony Gagliardi | Individual Work
Joinery, as opposed to uniformity, assembles multiple disparate elements together in an equal way. In this case, distinct spaces are juxtaposed between thick and thin, heavy and light, large and small, amplifying the unstable quality inherent in the ordering of spaces. Joinery becomes the keystone in establishing and expanding the relationships between elements. Instead of presenting uniformed spaces that suggest hierarchical importance, the exploration of joinery embraces instability and diversity broadening the traditional narrative.
The project aims to develop a new language of monumentality through joinery in the design of a Museum and Boat House. As much as a place for exhibition, museum spaces celebrated the union of people and culture from differing origins. In reflection of the traditional monuments that are created in favor of regular expression, the use of joinery as the architectural language aims to avert spaces with connotations linking to one authoritarian hierarchy by bridging and interlocking distinct elements. The building takes on the language of puzzling pieces that are plugged into a larger mass. There are two types of joining moments: positive and negative. The positive joineries are long bridges that pierce through the main mass to link the separated puzzle pieces together. The negative joineries are in between the masses and puzzle where multiple components come together, forming varied solid and empty figures. Dynamic actions can take place at these joint spaces where it allows people to enter, to pause, to look, and to contemplate.
Puzzling Assembly utilizes three elements: wood mass, paster mass, and wood dowels, to investigate new monumental form. Each of these elements cannot stand independently and need to rely on one another to achieve balance. The volume of the container is therefore accomplished through the assembly of plaster and wood pieces that are pierced by the dowels in a harmonic way. In this case, the wood dowels are frameworks, defining the directions and boundaries of the container of puzzles. There is a sense of controled precariousness inherent in this stable form.
Concerning monumentality, this project explored the creation of obscurity and depth of understanding from the lens of the viewer, evoking a sense of time through puzzling as the parts of the whole start to reveal varying figures through layers. Formally, this sense of puzzling was explored through a combination of figure mass, figure void and figure joint. Within this construct, Centri_Figure reinterprets the function of centering formwork, transforming its temporay qualities into a permanent integration of the design. In this case, centering becomes a driving force to inform the design decisions.
The scale and figuration of the site is analyzed in relationship to the boat house museum. The figural language displayed in the museum resonates with its surrounding and site in a broader scale, embodying the characteristics of the collective.
The design of the surrounding space of the Boat House Museum extend the language of joinery. Generous gathering spaces are bridged by pathways.
Programs on the ground floor level are public-facing. People enter the museum through the North East entrance and arrive directly to the public reception where they can purchase tickets, receive exhibition information, and check in their coats. A small cafeteria is connected to the exterior courtyard, and sitting spaces are extended from indoor to outdoor.
Cutting through the interlocking units. Dynamic interactions are revealed in spaces where multiple layers of elements come together.
Section Drawing
The sections reveals three main areas in the boat house museum: one of the three special exhibition units (c), the main gallery space (B), and a indoor auditorium (A).
Exterior Render
The view captures the museum from the riverfront at night, where soft light filters through the channel glasses, creating a tranquil atmosphere. A public platform at the water's edge offers spaces for engagement, while a floating boat parking dock adjusts to the changing water levels, seamlessly connecting architecture with the river’s natural rhythm.
WashU | 2021 FL | Instructor: Sungho Kim | Teamwork | Design Contribution: Idea Generation, Floor Plan, Facade Design, Landscape Design, Physical Model Making
In the Insvisible Man by H.G. Wells, 1897, the invisible man, scientist, devoted himself to research optics and refracture index so that he disapears in front of people.
Drawing inspiration from this novel, the project explores innovative methods to visually conceal a house situated on a urban street. The first strategy involves the application of a specialized lenticular lens material, akin to those utilized in military invisibility shields. This material possesses unique properties that allow it to negate images aligned with its pattern, effectively rendering objects behind it less visible.
The second strategy incorporates the use of native prairie grass in the landscaping. Reflecting St. Louis’ original prairie landscape, the tall prairie grass not only serves as an effective visual buffer but also benefits the environment with its deep root system that promotes water infiltration back into the soil.
The third strategy focuses reducing the house’s carbon footprint through the implementation of solar panels on the roof. The roof’s design is thoughtfully adjusted to optimize solar energy absorption, featuring a gradient of angles that resonate with the movement of the sun, thus, creating a harmonious blend of form and function.
I. A grided paper and a piece of lenticular lens with vertical pattern are set next to each other.
II. When the grided paper is behind the lenticular lens. Vertical lines that are parallel to the vertical pattern disapear. Horizontal lines are extended.
III. A standing person disappears behind the lenticular lens. A Bush expands behind the lenticular lens.
Section Perspective | The roof of the sohf tao;ritghaeo’ithaerotghaoia’t[saehr
The “Other Works” section of the portfolio showcases my professional skills and experience in architecture firms, along with my broader personal interests in
Brooks + Scarpa Architects
Project Type: Master Planing
Location: Saudi Arabia
GFA: 800,000 sqf
Status: Competition
Design Contribution: Analytical Diagram, Report Document
Brooks + Scarpa Architects
Project Type: Social Housing
Location: LA
GFA: 6,500 sqf
Status: SD
Design Contribution: Digital Modeling, Physical Modeling (3D print, Lazercut)
Atelier Alter Architect
Project Type: Furniture Design
Status: Manufactured
Design Contribution: Conceptual Diagram, Rendering, Publication Documents
Atelier Alter Architect
Project Type: Transportation
Location: Xinyang, China
GFA: 35,000 sqf
Status: Competition
Design Contribution: Reserach, Conceptual Design, 3D Modeling, Competition Submission Documents, Rendering`
Project Type: Office Building
Location: Philadelphia, PA
As a designer, I have a profound interest in materials and fabrication techniques, exploring diverse materials to shape my approach. I believe each material is unique and can inspire different solutions. I also integrate new technologies, like robotic arms and 3D printing, to expand design possibilities.
