design portfolio

WANG YU XUAN

Selected Work Sample 2019-2025

Master of Urban Design

University of California, Berkeley

wilsonyx@berkeley.edu | +1 5109180413

Wang Yuxuan Contents

2001.03.23 | Berkeley, Shenzhen, Shanghai

wilsonyx@berkeley.edu | +1 5109180413

University of California, Berkeley | Berkeley, USA

Master of Urban Design, GPA: 3.6/4

Harbin Institute of Technology(HITSZ) | Shenzhen, China

Bachelor of Engineering in Urban Planning, GPA: 3.4/4

Professional Experience

Chapman Taylor, Shanghai, China | Urban Design Intern

North Riyadh Conceptual Masterplan Competition in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

06/2024-05/2025

09/2019-06/2024

02/2024-06/2024

Fully participated to complete regional design strategy and conducted core design of block modules

Built model and drew analysis diagrams

International Consultation on Urban Design of the International Comprehensive Development Area of Baisha River, Qingdao

Designed for the core area

Responsible for modeling and analysis diagram

Shanghai Hongqiao International Central Business District Iconic Urban Regeneration Plan of CBD

Assisted site researches and to propose three new option scheme

Responsible for design of one option and assisted to complish other two options

Open Space Lab, Southeast University, China | Landscape Designer

Youth Creative Plaza Renovation Competition in Wulong District, Chongqing, China

Took charge of public space design and drawing

9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Shenzhen, China | Project Manager

Rural planning of Wangyu Village, Shenzhen

Conducted design scheme and led the whole design team to accomplish exhibition boards

Attended to arrange biennale exhibitions

03/2023-08/2023

10/2022-12/2022

Taizhou Urban Construction and Investment Development Group CO., LTD, Taizhou, China | Intern 06/2022-08/2022

International Agricultural Products Trading Center Planning

Engaged in pre-project planning and coordinated with project designers

Academic Projects and Awards

Berkeley Corridor Upzoning Research | Team Leader

Did mapping and typological research on street morphology and pedestrian's behavior in Berkeley

14th YUANYE AWARDS International Competition for Students | Second Prize | Key Member

Lucubrated the development mechanism of Shenzhen-shantou Cooperation Zone

08/2024-12/2024

08/2023-10/2023

World Habitat Architecture & Environmental Design | Second Prize | Team Leader 05/2023-06/2023

Researched Lefebvre's theory of spatial production and guided urban renewal practice Asian Digital Art Design Competition | Third Prize | Key Member 11/2022-01/2023

Discussed cultural transformation of Shenzhen through low-cost cultural space recycling SDGs Design International Awards 2022 | Finalists Award | Team Leader

09/2022-11/2022

Rethought educational space and conceived the integration of public art education and urban space China International Landscape Planning and Design Competition | Second Prize | Individual Work 08/2022-10/2022

Reflected on Chinese high-density housing and Proposed a healthier spatial form with mix-used function Campus Pavilion, Shenzhen, China | Built Project | Key Member 06/2020-07/2020

Designed and constructed a large spanning structure with standard industrially wood

Software: Rhino, SketchUp, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, V-Ray, Lumion, Microsoft Office, ArcGIS

Language: Mandarin(native), English(Fluent, IELTS 7)

Others: Photography, Sketching, Chinese Painting, Calligraphy, Cooking, Basketball

01 Northeast Riyadh Masterplan

Conceptual Masterplan Competition

Status: Phase-1 Design Completed June 2024

Location: Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Scale: 400 sqkm

Design: Chapman Taylor

My Work: Typology Design, Modeling, Analysis drawing

The project aims to creating a masterplan of distinct purpose and character that is fully integrated with Riyadh City. We propose a new mode of the suburban lifestyle for locals and a new net city structure is established, transforming to a pedestrian-oriented, decentralized andd self-sufficient city. The key design principles build on 15-min life circle strategy, breaking down the vast scale into inhabitable neighborhoods, serving with multiple urban functions and diverse landscape.

Framework - the Net City

Urban Units Typology

We established several urban typologies as a local tool for city plans and architecture design, including Wadi waterfront cluster, town center, innovation farming, TOD district, pipeline green park and typical residential area. Every unit covers and follows the principle of 15-min living circle, providing comprehensive services and public functions for people.

02 Baisha as a Catalyst

International Competition on Urban Design of the Baisha River, Qingdao

Status: Completed May 2024, Second Prize

Location: Qingdao, China

Scale: 512ha

Design: Chapman Taylor

My Work: Spatial design, Modeling, Analysis drawing

The design attaches great importance to opening up the connection between the city and the sea and improving the landscape environmen, highlight the environment charm of Baisha River and create an attractive neighborhood and sea star, improve city-level innovation and service functions, improve the living environment through urban renewal, focus on building a new spatial model of urban sub-center, and become a highland to attract innovation annd human resources in Qingdao.

Masterplan

The project built on the mother river of Baisha River as the ecological base, taking the runway park and green axis pointing to the airport as the main urban axis. Then, we introduce water into the city to activate the surrounding space and two TOD cores as the main development cores of the city. Thus, a structure of a belt, one ring, two axis and two centers is formed.

Design Strategy

For functions, we inherite functions of compound blocks, creating a dynamic street interface. Then, we try to extend tp open and enclosed figure ground from a traditional 'street-alleycourtyard' structure on the human scale.

A high-quality open and shared runway park

Terminal Building Commercial Area

A diversified and dynamic space for consumer and leisure experience

03 Rainbow Bridging

Shanghai Hongqiao International CBD Iconic Urban Regeneration Design

Status: Ongoing

Location: Shanghai, China

Design: Chapman Taylor

My Work: Concept, Spatial design, Modeling, Analysis drawing, Rendering

What kind of ideal future are we pursuing for Hongqiao? There are three guidances proposed in our project, including vertial connection, city-nature integration and urban theatrically to rebrand the Hongqiao. Thus, a new elevated pedestrian bridge is introduced to more strongly connect the Hongqiao Station and the open space system, improving local's and travelers' urban experience.

A new integrated lightweight pedestrian link bridge is provided with its rainbow-colored handrail representing the meaning of the 'Hongqiao' in Chinese. The bridge connects the platform of Hongqiao Railway Station and core commercial complexes with easier access to urban functions and traffic hub.

04 Public Generator

Youth and Creative Plaza Generation Competition in Wulong, Chongqing

Status: Completed, Second Prize

Location: Chongqing, China

Design: Open Space Lab

My Work: Concept, Spatial design, Modeling, Analysis drawing, Rendering

The site, located in the central area of Wulong New City, should be the vanguard of creating an open space for youth urban culture. In addition to satisfying the aesthetic and use needs of young people, Wulong should also demonstrate the innovative attitude of building a "youth development city", as an important node in the development of urban open space, carrying the expansion and guidance of vitality. The design reflect sthe international vision under the premise of considering the needs of the place, giving play to the advantages of landscape flexibility, elasticity and low cost, and carry out more meaningful and imaginative cultural exploration practice.

Multi-used Basketball Court

05 Coastal Vision for Shenzhen

Resilient Coastal Strategy in Urban Cores in Transition

2023 Fall HITSZ Urban Design Studio

Location: Shenzhen, China

Design: Individual Work Instructor: Liu Kun

Shenzhen has grown from a Chinese border fishing village to a global metropolis in just 40 years, oweing to four decades of continuous land reclamation. To specify, during these 40 years, Shenzhen has filled nearly 120km² of sea, and as a result has shown a periodic shoreline type and urban function.

However, continued reclamation has brought serious ecological problems, including sea level rise, frequent extreme weather change and ground subsidence. Consequently, the west coast of Shenzhen, the most prosperous and high-density urban area, is at risk of being submerged in the next 50 years. It can be a core issue of Shenzhen's long-term concern in the future of urban construction and renewal.

However, continued reclamation has brought serious ecological problems, including sea level rise, frequent extreme weather change and ground subsidence. Consequently, the west coast of Shenzhen, the most prosperous and high-density urban area, is at risk of being submerged in the next 50 years. It can be a core issue of Shenzhen's long-term concern in the future of urban construction and renewal.

Step 1: Assessment

Firstly, we reassess the urban value and ecological value of every plot, which leads to a new development orientation of coastal area.

Urban Strategy： Introducing a Coastal Urbansim Framework

A new coastal framework that adjusts the increasingly tense contradiction between rising sea levels and urban sprawl is proposed. The design project works on two scales and focuses on certain design strategies in different scales. The larger scale concentrates on Shenzhen's west coastline from the Pearl River estuary to Shenzhen Bay, applying three major strategies: ' Protect', 'Adapt', and 'Retreat-receive'.

Step 2: Regional Strategy

From Regional Framework to Local Design

Simultaneously, a new multi-purpose levee is introduced to safeguard the interests of the coastal public realm. Depending on the re-assessment of every plot's urban and ecological value, these regional toolkits can be implemented precisely to relieve the specific issues of local construction.

Step 3: Local Design

The smaller scale focused on a 120-acre urban area which confronted a transition from the industry harbor to an innovation community.

The selected site, Chiwan, is a decaying industrial port suffering from storm tides and water pollution frequently. Recently the government aspires to revitalize Chiwan as a model of coastal urban transition coexisting with water.

06 Suburban Gateway

Unique Publicization for General Suburban City in the US

2024 Fall UC Berkeley Advanced Urban Design Studio

Location: Soledad, CA

Design: Individual Work

Instructor: Margaret Crawford, Saeb Khan, Scott Elder

The highway suburb project is an opportunity to rethink about the dual structure of cities and rurals in the US. We noticed general suburbs usually featured by the strong highway systems crossing by, but without any benefits left. On the other hand, the only informative elements catching travelers' eyes are those billboards. As a kind of separated structure, it is used for advertisements of those big commercial or high-tech firms, instead of local publicization.

Thus, our proposal tried to take advantage of substantial traffic and traveles, introducing a giant billboard attached with a new and open retail complex off the 101 highway for publicization of local culture and festivals. A new functional block is formed to serve locals as a daily public space and the travelers, boosting economic growth, celebrating cultural heritage, and facilitating interaction.

Highway 101 is one of the busiest and most important regional highways connecting cities along the West Coast. Yet as we travel through Central California, we often overlook the existence of small towns and the unique landscapes along the way. The experience is often monotonous—empty valleys lined with generic billboards advertising brands like Apple or Coca-Cola. We know little about the agricultural towns, local Latino festivals, or nearby national parks. This lack of visibility weakens cultural identity and limits local economic opportunities. The disconnect between travelers and these communities results in a kind of disappearing local.

We propose a new architectural approach of reusing informational billboards as extensions of local public buildings. These structures could serve not only as cultural markers, but also as iconic landmarks that celebrate valley life, enhance visibility, and connect travelers to local stories.

Masterplan

The new retail development is designed to serve both local residents and travelers along Highway 101. It includes a youth hostel, a community center, an indoor climbing gallery, and an outdoor goods store. In addition, a three-story building will house a local food market, an educational center, restaurants, and bars.

The digital facade, made of perforated metal panels, is changing to advertise different events and information. It shapes a unique artificial landscape along the 101 highway, simultaneously providing civic spaces like markets, community canteen, and landscape platforms.

07 Creating on Site

Reimaging Daily Creative Space for Art Park in Gentrification

2023 Spring HITSZ Urban Design Studio

Location: Shenzhen, China

Design: Individual Work Instructor: Yin Yujun, Wang Yaowu

Most cities witnessed an industrial boom amid the early stage of development, so the same applied to Shenzhen. Because of the industrial transfer from Hong Kong, Shenzhen established a large number of industrial plants downtown in the past forty years. Currently, these areas are among an inventory of abandonment since the urban transition, all seeking temporary and permanent re-use.

The site I worked on used to be a decaying industrial area, which was transformed into a creative park at the push of the government and enterprises. Nowadays, excessive urban development enhances real estate value, making the high-end communities and super-scale infrastructure quickly occupy this cultural area, and the original artists and low-end communities have been expelled, replaced by elite class and expensive commercial blocks.

To counter this commoditization trend of space, this project takes a downtop method and emphasizes the significance of everyday life space for restoring ‘the civil right to the city.'

The Death and Life of OCT-LOFT

The OCAT Park was strategically chosen as a cultural core by the Shenzhen Government. With its geographical advantages and low-cost rent, the park was occupied quickly by grassroots artists, which helps keep its pioneer spirits of art for a long time. However, the enterprise in charge of operation introduced large amounts of retail which consequently drove out the origional artists. Enclosed by lots of high-end communities, the OCT-LOFT is losing its spirits of pioneer art and public.

Spatial Right in Creative Production

'Estabilish an Intersection of Creative Life'

Henri Lefebvre articulated the Right to the City, arguing that urban space should not be solely controlled by market forces, such as commodification and capitalism but should be shaped and governed by the citizens who inhabit it.

The OCT-LOFT is undergoing significant spatial commoditization, with main art spaces being controlled by capital while public activities are being excluded. However, the dialy space has shown a new growth potential in gathering the public and artists. Therefore, In opposition to the trend of spatial inequity, I proposed a call to reclaim civil rights and transform daily space into 'an intersection of creative life'.

Re-distribution of Rights in Art Events

At a fundamental level, we entitle artists and the public to engage in art space production in the early phase, by which more creative space will be preserved in the long-term.

From Art Events to Open Spaces

Redefine Spatial Rights

08 Street House Revolution

Reclaiming the Collective Life of Goungzhou's Traditional Residence

2023 Summer HITSZ Research Design Studio

Location: Guangzhou, China

Design: Individual Work Instructor: Hejie, Bianfang

Street house is a traditional house in Guangzhou, especially common in the old downtown featured by its long depth and narrow facade. After the Revolution of 1911 in China, Guangzhou witnessed an increasing population, resulting in an urgent need for housing space. Consequently, the residents spontaneously refurbished the building type of street house to adapt to the crowded lifestyle, like further lengthening the depth and transforming some public spaces like patios or forwards into private functional spaces.

However, to preserve the conventional characteristics of buildings and streets, the government prohibited any private alterations. Despite the regulation, the locals are still keen to ‘decorate their socalled territories’ with some tactical measures like encroaching on the pedestrian street or adding functions on the rooftop. This self-built process creates more time-flexible spatial forms but also leads to conflicts between the public and privateness.

To address this urban issue, this project provides a spatial method that residents can adopt to transform their houses initiatively. By extracting the traditional prototype of the street house, we depict a scenario of the new housing type that creates more public space and resilient functions.

Evolution of Street House Prototype

Self-building Unit Type

Co-construction of Tong House

The Spatial modules are separated by more flexible walls such as movable shelves or lightweight partitions, which define the functional areas while also being retracted at specific times to create expansive spaces for family collective activities.

Resilient Public Space

The first-floor areas are encouraged to offer additional shared amenities such as canteens or courtyards, which contribute to integration of street life and residential needs. To compensate, residents are allowed to increase their houses' FAR prescriptively.

Street House Revolution

09 Art Archipelago

Reimaging Richmond's Local Life with Diverse Art Practice

2024 Summer UC Berkeley Urban Design Studio

Location: Richmond, CA

Design: Group Work with Evelyn and Qingcheng Hu

Instructor: Pol Fite Matamoros, Andrea Gaffney

The ‘Art Archipelago’ project is a proposal to see the problem as a solution for the same problem. It suggests fragmented spaces as a positive urban reality instead of a negative failure and focuses on public art activities as the clue approaching the most vibrant Richmond local's life. Encouraging residual for art purposes, we try to take advantage of potential urban spaces like street corners, empty fields, parks and plazas and to establish several multi-used constructions and open spaces of community scale. With following the Parkway, the most important infrastructure of Richmond, those archipelagos reveal diverse types and public potentials, better aligning with local community's characteristics.

With its rich history and resource of culture, Richmond is a city of contradiction between post-industry trauma and individual art practice. Thus, we want to amplify the influence of art, as the most low-cost and creative tool to reutilize those urban spaces of low efficiency and to establishh a more vibrant archiipelago-shaped city.

From Fragmentation to Art Archipelago

Richmond is a coastal industrial city in the Bay Area that thrived during World War II due to its booming shipping industry. However, it experienced significant decline following industrial transformation, leaving behind abandoned factories and displacing many low-income residents. The city has long lacked coordinated investment and development, resulting in disordered urban sprawl and a fragmented urban landscape. On the other hand, the post-war period saw a surge of artists and studios, who repurposed low-cost industrial spaces as workplaces and creative hubs.

Our research focuses on uncovering these scattered art archipelagos and building a new productive system that amplifies local art's influence while transforming the fragmented city into a vibrant cultural destination. This bottom-up approach seeks to connect art forms—murals, public installations, music, and craft markets—with everyday life, encouraging greater public participation. Rather than relying on a rigid or linear urban framework, we adopt the concept of the archipelago as our core strategy, allowing art to grow in a more flexible, organic, and cost-effective way.

Flea Market as an Opportunity

After regeneration, a bigger and more frequent activity is proposed and the night market on the First Friday where artists, vendors and unemployed can have art creation including craft workshop and performance.

In a longer term, it becomes and icon of Richmond local and we will have a summer music festival in August so all artists and publics can participate for fun or inspiration.

Other Work

This project works on a fishing village in the Shenzhen-shantou Cooperation Zone where large capital is invested to promote urbanization, aiming to preserve the original features and local industry.

The Greater Bay Area is famous for its regional connection with an efficient infrastructure network. We believe Shenzhen and Hong Kong have become highly connected platforms. However, when we focused on a certain section of the megacities, we found highways, acting as bridges between areas, become barriers separating pedestrians on the two sides.

This project develops a smart evaluation of the historical street's spatial elements by employing semantic segmentation of street view images. Moreover, we analyze a typical facade witnessing abundant social transformation, which is invaluable material for studying urban history.

We designed and constructed a large spanning structure with standard industrial wood. This pavilion can not only provide rest places for passersby but also transform into a miniexhibition hall temporarily.