Growing up in China during a period of rapid urban development, I developed a deep curiosity about how architecture shapes people’s lives. I was fascinated by how families adapted their living spaces, such as enclosing balconies to extend kitchens for better ventilation. The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the way people perceive and utilize space, and China’s real estate sector has since entered a period of transition. I believe architects will take more initiative to provide different groups of people, especially minorities, with tailored living environments bringing people more joy to life.
A a collective housing for Detroit artists, nurturing creatives living in underresourced neighborhoods.
Building New Types of Workers’ Communities In Detroit Cross Laminated Timber Visitor Center Theater + Extreme Sports Activity Center
HUB: Skate Out Of The Screen
Bagua Street, Shenyang, Liaoning, China
01 Growing Commons
“Growing Commons is about giving artists more than just housing; it’s about building the everyday structures—kitchens, gardens, clinics, galleries—that make creative life possible.”
Year: 2025 Winter Semester
Location: Detroit, MI
Type: Academic Group Project
Collaborators: Ngoc Minh Dang, Zeina J. Farhat
Instructor: Prof. Craig Borum, Prof. Claudia Wigger
Software Used: Rhino 3d Modeling, D5 Render, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Illustrator
Growing Commons is a collective housing project for artists in Detroit, designed to meet the needs of creatives in under-resourced neighborhoods. It consists of three mid-rise buildings that combine housing above with essential,community-oriented spaces below.Rather than treating housing as just shelter, we imagined it as social infrastructure spaces where creativity, health, and collective care intersect.
Each building centers on a different form of support. The Southwest one anchors communal life through a shared kitchen, urban farm, and vertical garden—spaces where food becomes a medium for connection and education. The Northwest houses a health resource center, with rotating clinics, wellness programming, and a rain garden for reflection. The Northeast one supports cultural exchange with a gallery and flexible art pavilion that invite performance, gathering, and celebration.
Together, these buildings create a network that supports artists not only as tenants, but as neighbors and community-builders. By embedding kitchens, clinics, and cultural spaces into the fabric of daily life, Growing Commons fosters shared care and strengthens the social bonds that make creative life and neighborhood resilience possible.
Physical Model Photo of the Site
Nighttime Render of Common Space
Ground Floor Plan
Section and Units Layout
Split Level IBIB Unit
ADA IBIB Unit
Studio Unit
IBIB Unit
Center
Split Level IBIB Unit
The split level unit provides more interest, flexibility, and perceived space than a flat, single-floor plan. It organizes living spaces vertically rather than on a single plane, creating a layered experience that feels more dynamic and spacious than a conventional apartment.
Balcony
Gallery
Section and Details
02 STRIKE HOUSING
Strike housing project proposes a worker community that fosters and supports strikes by caring of workers on strike and advertising ongoing strikes.
Year: 2023Fall
Location: Detroit, MI
Type: UMich Form Studio
Instructor: Adam Fure, Kevin Bernard Moultrie Daye
Software Used: Rhino 3d Modeling, Illustrator, Photoshop
Strikes usually end not because the workers obtain better working treatments, but because the workers cannot afford their livings during strikes. Strike housing proposes a worker community that fosters and supports strikes by caring of workers on strike and advertising ongoing strikes.
The project site is located in Detroit, and there are several existing houses and small commercial buildings on the site.The existing residential buildings are modified and utilized as temporary housing for worker families who are on strike and for those who have just relocated to the city. Permanent houses for labor union members who run the community are arranged near to each temporary housing facility. In such way, union members may provide helps and care for worker families living in temporary housing. To advertise ongoing strike movements and to create opportunities for other people to support the community, a series of programs are established along the street, such as gallery, broadcast room, donation booth, open stage for speeches, etc. Between the public advertising programs and the residential housing is a corridor to stimulate communications between worker’s community and people outside the community. The corridor meanders around the whole community, joining people together.
To advertise ongoing strike movements and to create opportunities for other people to support the community, a series of programs are established along the street, such as gallery, broadcast room, and donation booth. An open stage for speeches, performances, and assemblies activates the street as a civic platform, encouraging dialogue, solidarity, and collective expression.
Oblique Drawing of Strike Housing Community Layout
Ground Floor of Selected Area of the Community
Section and Details of the Community
03 THE HUB: SKATE OUT OF THE SCREEN
To regenerate the west side of downtown Ann Arbor, the HUB provides extreme sports enthusiasts with indoor skatepark, rock climbing walls, and theaters for audience to watch on-going activities or documented games.
Year: 2024Fall
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Type: UMich Institution Studio
Instructor: Jonathan Rule
Downtown Ann Arbor is the heart of the community’s artistic and cultural life, home to Ann Arbor public library, independent theaters, art galleries, unique shops, and a wide variety of restaurants. Surrounded by the University of Michigan’s central campus and other educational institutions, the area also serves as a vibrant gathering spot for youth and students.
This project envisions an indoor extreme sports center with integrated theaters for people to watch games.The HUB aims to provide a year-round facility for extreme sports enthusiasts while encouraging the broader community to engage with and experience the energy of extreme sports culture. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window, the design incorporates a unique feature: a “rear window” for the theater. When the theater is not in use, the screen can be raised, allowing audiences to observe athletes participating in activities like rock climbing and skateboarding. This innovative spatial arrangement fosters a closer connection between audiences and extreme sports, embedding the culture of extreme sports into daily life.
Physical Model Photo of the Site
Design Concept and Diagram
Inspired by the movie “Rear Window” directed by Hitchcock, the design concept starts with creating a rear window for the theater.
First Floor Plan
Theater 2
Rockclimbing Wall Changing Rooms
Office
Section and Details ROOFJOIST
Street View from Ashley St. showing the main entrance of the HUB
Rockclimbing Core
Park view from First St. showing the connection of indoor and outdoor skate park
04 CLEVELAND TOOLBOX
The project aims at designing a wood maker space in Cleveland, Ohio. Crosslaminated Timber is chosen as the major construction material.
Cross laminated wood has been a popular sustainable material currently, and I would like to display to the visitors the massiveness of engineered wood and the end-of-life usage of wood itself. The goal is to let visitors understand the process of making CLT through exhibitions, manufacture display, and hands-on workshop experience.
Through the process of making CLT from reclaimed wood waste, I found that making engineered wood is a useful way to recycle and reuse old hard wood products. However, there are labor intensive testing processes involved to categorize old wood parts, lying them with efficient configuration, and testing the strength. I also made the movable CLT wall system, because in this way those CLT panels can be reused again without any destruction of the parts themselves. In the next phase, I would like to find more ways to address the end-of-life stage of CLT.
Sketch Model of the Elevation View
The interior is designed as a clear and immersive space that reveals the materiality and lifecycle of cross-laminated timber. Exposed CLT surfaces emphasize the mass, texture, and layered structure of engineered wood, while exhibition, fabrication, and workshop areas make the production process from reclaimed wood sorting to strength testing visible and understandable. Movable CLT wall systems demonstrate reuse and non destructive assembly, reinforcing the project’s focus on sustainability, adaptability, and the end of life potential of engineered wood.
Assembly Catalog
Floor Plan (Entrance Level)
Physical Model
1.200mm CLT structural panel
2. Vapour control layer
3. 80mm insulation
4.Timber support for drainage
5.DPM
6.50x50 timber battens
7.Scottish larch timber cladding
20x120
8. 12mm concealed metal plate connection of structure to foundation
9.100mm screw
10.Polished screed floor 75mm
11.Insulation 65mm
12.Sand 50mm 13.80 x 25mm batten support
14.Insulation backed concrete board to create base
