Mission
Yilin is dedicated to harnessing the power of computational design and technology to redefine the boundaries of architecture and urban design. He envisions a future where design and technology converge to create more efficient, sustainable, and human-centric urban environments. His mission is to contribute to the evolution of architectural practices, ensuring they are adaptable, resilient, and in harmony with the natural world. Through his work, Yilin aims to inspire a new generation of designs that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also socially responsible and environmentally friendly.
nyc_Transportation_Equity
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2023
Tags: Data Visualization, Python, Mapbox Storytelling, Grasshopper Interoperability
This project of Colloquium I in MS.CDP program, examining New York City's public transportation equity, using data visualization and analysis to explore distribution equality. My research, including using Mapbox storytelling and grasshopper data interoperability, highlighting the city's transit system challenges and efforts for equitable access.
Outlined Trees
Location: Wuhan, China
Time: 2021
Tags: Architecture Typology Research, Installation Design, Architecture Morphology Design
This is NOT a purely conventional architectural design project. It is an installation experiment that can be applied to the real site so as to guide the subsequent architectural design.
Architecture Heirtage Samples with Trees
Dynamic Photograpic Method in Heritages
China’s college campuses are often located in the places with lush trees and surrounded by mountains and rivers. Moreover, at the beginning of the construction of campus environment, most of them were designed and planned based on the theory of traditional Chinese landscape gardens. However, during the transformation and expansion process of modern colleges and universities, the new architectural forms and styles are rarely combined with the original design intentions, which makes the architectures on campus are getting rid of hybridity or genealogy of historical architectural styles.
Frame and Outlines of Trees with Buildings
The campus architectural typology in Wuhan University was derived from the modern improvement of Chinese traditional architectural style. My obsession is: How can the high-rise campus apartment architecture design inherit the existing modern architectural typology? This project attempts to decode the types of campus building through a suit of INSTALLATION DESIGN, and henceforth applies the research results of this installation to the preliminary architectural morphology design of the campus high-rise apartment.
Installation Instruction Diagram
Superposition method--installation near the site
After the installation is completed, the model needs to be moved to the site around the site(especially outside the site, not within the site or adjacent to the site range) to draw the outlines of the real street view with tremendous existing trees. The superposition results will be horizontally panned and scaled from the respective shooting spots. Various graphic results will be translated to the scope of the site. Through the outlines extracted from the graphic results, the spatial lines of the preliminary architectural block can be obtained.
Architectural Morphology Result Preview
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Emo_Plant
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2023
Tags: Machine Learning, Facial Expression, AR
In the Emo_plant project, I utilized machine learning and facial expression models from GitHub to create a simulated AR product. The camera detects human emotions in real-time, affecting plant growth in response, enabling users to make emotional regulations through interactive plant changes.
Hybrid of "Contrast"
Location: Wuhan, China
Time: 2022
Tags: Rhino, Grasshopper, Minimal Surface, Mixed Use Building, Historic Building
The conventional renovation design of historical building usually begins with repairing of the interior of the historical buildings, so as to ensure the stability of the buildings and try to ensure that ‘repair as old as possible’. However, Aldo Rossi’s (1984) viewpoint to the permanent characteristics of urban architecture heritages are dynamic in his book “The Architecture of the City”: the function of a sprawling city is changing so that the positioning of historical buildings naturally needs to change accordingly. At my project site – Bagong House – in the past, as an example of collective housing type within the concession area of Wuhan, it is the structure and room scale of the typical apartment building typology that makes the internal transformation extremely difficult. At present, the historical blocks around Bagong House are gradually being replaced by modern retail and service shops. Therefore, it is more necessary to take the most advantages of the particularity of these existing conditions because of the conspicuous architectural volume of Bagong House and the special spatial location at the remarkable triangular traffic fork.
Explosion Drawing of the origianl Bagong House
Generation process and final results of upper volume, minimal surface foundation and elevation
Adding new modern commercial building upon the historical building of Bagong House is the most direct design method in this project. The vertically extending building volume integrates the overall layout of the existing building heights, and the most economical support system is generated according to the existing building atrium scale.
Exploded Diagram of Modern part building and floor plans
South Elevation
Structure Drawing of additional building
This project does not adopt conventional strategies of interior architectural renovation, but consequently it completes the following advantage through the addition of new architecture. Firstly, the original building was preserved. Secondly, utilizing the innovative structure of Busan Film Center (built from 2005-2011) by Coop Himmelblau and Christoph Gengnagel, the vacant space of the atrium can be used as the base of the main supporting structure. Thirdly, the interior of the additional building is compatible with a small indoor square. Last but not the least, Elevation surface differ according to different directions, which echoes to the different urban rooftop landscapes from bigger scope.
Street Scape Render
Atrium Interior Render
Outdoor Render
Platform Render
If you are interested in this project, you can click on 'Portfolio' on the left-hand sidebar to view its details and drawings.
Bio
Yilin is a multifaceted professional whose expertise spans across architecture, computational design, urban design, and web development. With a rich foundation in both theoretical and practical aspects of architecture, Yilin brings a unique blend of creativity, technical skill, and analytical thinking to the table. His work in various architectural and urban design projects showcase his ability to integrate technology with traditional design principles. Yilin's proficiency in advanced design and visualization tools, coupled with his passion for sustainable and innovative solutions, positions him as a dynamic force in the field of computational design and architecture.
City_Objective_Perception
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2023
Tags: Data Visualization, Computer Vision, Python, Mapbox GL
In this data visualization project on Manhattan's income equity and objective perception of street views images, I firstly extracted 17,000 points on New York City’s street centerlines using Google's API to obtain street view images, which were then processed with the PSPNet algorithm for semantic segmentation. By calculating the ratio of categories like greenery and sky, I merged these data with street points, visualizing the correlation between visual street elements’ ratio and income levels in Manhattan through Mapbox GL, highlighting disparities with color gradient.
Education
Yilin has dual Bachelor of Architecture degrees from Wuhan University and University of Dundee, where he honed his foundational skills and theoretical knowledge. He also has a Master of Science in Computational Design Practice (MS-CDP) degree in GSAPP at Columbia University. This advanced study equips him with cutting-edge skills in computational design, further solidifying his role as an innovator in the architectural field.
Erosion & Reconciling
Location: Las Vegas
Time: 2022
Tags: Houdini, Rhino, Grasshopper, WFC Algorithm Design
This individual project is an economical tourist hotel architectural design based on the simulation of wind-erosion land-form and Waving Function Collapse (WFC) algorithm in Las Vegas. The cost of rooms accounts for most of the tourism consumption in Las Vegas, and the high cost of tourist rooms exacerbated the continued downturn after the outbreak of Covid-19. So the question is, why can’t we design some cheap hotels in peripheral areas? The unique local wind erosion landform is the main disadvantage that hinders the construction of conventional building here. Unexpectedly, there are plant communities with a certain scale growing at the bottom of the rock cliff. The location of plant growth harbors the possibilities of building housing under wind erosion land form. If the hotel can conform to the impact of wind erosion, it can coexist with wind erosion conditions.
Wind-erosion Process Simulation(Houdini)
When I compare the curves of the front surface and the behind surface before and after the tested cliff, it is manifested: the front surface presents unpredictable and irregular changes; The behind surface shows a gradual downward collapse along the wind direction.
Hotel Unit Type Generation
Tile Catalog of different unit types for WFC algorithm
Voxel Prototype, Manual Assembly and Simple Combination
Hotel Room Design(Taking T-Shape as an Example)
8*8 Aggregation Trial under WFC Algorithm
Human View Render
Human View Render
If you are interested in this project, you can click on 'Portfolio' on the left-hand sidebar to view its details and drawings.
Meta Tool
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2023
Tags: Rhino, Grasshopper, Scout
This project provides a different perspective for review/exhibition space management in GSAPP's Avery Hall by developing a spatial programming language with Rhino/Grasshopper/Scout( a website-based UI tool developed by KPF). By analyzing and optimizing studio review areas, my model adapts to varying academic needs, enhancing interaction and innovation. Utilizing Scout for data integration, I create an interactive platform, allowing users to explore and select the effective spatial configurations based on different metrics they want, showcasing a dynamic approach to architectural review space's spatial challenges.
Real Estate: Commodity of Undulating Value
Location: New York
Time: 2022
Tags: Rhino, Grasshopper, Wallacei, Wasp, Optimzation, Houdini
This project aims to design a digital estate visualization system demonstrating the value fluctuation from coincident economic indices. As space products, architectures cannot only accommodate human’s habitat, but also have the property of carrying transactions in commodity attributes. As the development of Manhattan tends to be saturated, the existing physical buildings also limit the re-entry of real estate capital into the market of the region. This project has designed a set of digital real estate visualization app that combines the changes of upper economic indices. Next to it, the vacant space above the Crosslands Transportation beside Hudson Yards is taken as an example site to generate a virtual Podium-Tower model for the future real estate investment and transaction.
Simulation of flow capital between estates(Houdini)
collage--Stable Architecture VS Undulating Value
The intention of capital is to regard architectures as a form of commodity, and more importantly, to regard architectures as life based products that has been held for a longer term while their reliability is visible to the public. Even though architectures are solid in the eyes of most ordinary people and are continuously needed by citizens. Architectures still cannot escape the undulating value as commodities in the overall economic environment. The stability of architectures is worth being questioned in essence.
Fluctuant Pricing Charts of Stararchitect Condos and Trump Tower
graphs demonstrating multi-objective changes during every generation
I extracted the outer contours of each typical apartment plan types and put it on the site for application. On the front site of Hudson Yard, a general high-rise outline of Podium-tower is designed first, and then small apartment blocks are parametrically generated from each flat type. It is generated by parameterized stacking with WASP (grasshopper plug-in) in the form of Podium-tower as the overall morphological constraint. Among them, the independent variables of parametric control are the scaling ratio of each plan and the change of the number of floors. These independent variable are introduced into Wallacei X (grasshopper plug-in) for multi-objective genetic optimization to control the posture generation of WASP in the previous step.
Generation Results of the Podium-tower
According to the comprehensive optimization results of each objective in the radar chart of performance assessment, the corresponding podium-tower options are selected for the next process.
Wallacei X & Evomass generated examples
Visual Interface Illustration
If you are interested in this project, you can click on 'Portfolio' on the left-hand sidebar to view its details and drawings.
Design Intelligence_AI in Design
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2023
Tags: Rhino, Grasshopper, Stable Diffusion
In this project, the integration of Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image algorithm, with parametric design in grasshopper, is explored. The project aims to enhance design efficiency and creativity by allowing architectural designers to produce dynamic design options and corresponding renderings through computational design in Grasshopper and image generation with Stable Diffusion directly in Rhino. This approach, utilized at the concept design stage, melds AI's rapid image generation with the flexibility of parametric design, offering a novel workflow for designers.
Self-Contained
Location: Dundee, Scotland
Time: 2023
Tags: Rhino, Photoshop, Vray, Residential Community Complex
Dundee is divided by its own reinvention. Plaudits from international lifestyle’s magazines and travel journalists contrast with statistics of extremes of unemployment, poverty and drug addiction. The city’s strategy for regeneration is likely to further polarize the social fabric of the city, with promotion of its first identity invariably involving the concealing, denial or cleansing of the second. This project will not be complicit in this gentrification process. Instead, we will imagine a different agency for architecture, where we can conceive new socio-spatial formation under different economic imperatives. We will consider a new compact waterfront, compressing the components of the previous abandoned attempt at a “social condenser”—housing, shopping, education, businesses, civic and cultural facilities—stretched along the artificial landscape of Dundee’s waterfront in new formations of social-space, realized in new architectural form. A second attempt at the future.
Full-length Master Plan
massing model generation of suburban park, urban lawn and two apartment building types
General Site Master Plan and Detailed Architecture Design Master Plan
graphs demonstrating multi-objective changes during every generation
apartment types for both Student Apartment and Social Apartment
View from the Sea
View from the Eastern Entrance Plaza
Ground Market of Social Apartment
If you are interested in this project, you can click on 'Portfolio' on the left-hand sidebar to view its details and drawings.
Urban Climate GAN
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2024
Tags: pix2pix-GAN algorithm, Python, Local Climate Zone mapping, QGIS, Grasshopper
This project explores the integration of AI in urban design, focusing on generating 3D urban morphology responsive to Local Climate Zones (LCZ) mapping. Utilizing GAN, specifically, pix2pix algorithms, the study leverages computational design to model urban environments adaptable to climate data, aiming for sustainable and responsive urban planning. The project combines data-driven design with innovative technology, pushing the boundaries of traditional urban planning methods to enhance environmental adaptability in city landscapes.
Urbancraft: Stakeholders' Symphony
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2024
Tags: Unity, C#, Game Development, Figma, Web Design
"Urbancraft: Stakeholders’ Symphony" envisions a serious game setting to harmonize the interests of community members, architects, and developers in urban design. Focusing on the trade-offs between environmental responsiveness and social needs, the project proposes an interactive tool/game. It allows stakeholders to engage in the design process, exploring different urban scenarios and their impacts, thereby enhancing understanding of sustainable urban development and facilitating collaborative decision-making in the face of climate challenges.
Vertical Equity
Location: New York, NY
Time: 2024
Tags: Revit, BIM, Rhino.Inside, Climate Studio, Parametric Design
NOMAD is a neighborhood in transition, which contains a mixture of retail and aging office spaces, but also some historic residences and hotels. After pandemic, there is an ongoing initiative to make the area more pedestrian friendly and to encourage the growth of retail. Our group has a vision of mixed use high-rise building for this project that caters to workers, tourists and local residents through creative office, retail and a hotel component. This is an academic project for the course: Rethinking BIM from GSAPP. As a result, the core idea for this project is to incorporate parametric strategy and building information modeling into conceptual and schematic design procedures by virtue of some software such as Rhino, Grasshopper and Revit.
Massing Iteration / Daylight and View Analysis
Programming Layout and Greenery Distribution
The design procedures contain three modules. Module 1 is to design an overall concept (program and massing) strategy by basin parametric modeling and data transfer through site and zoning analysis. Module 2 is to develop the building further to a schematic level, which includes floor layout, core location, basic structural framing/grids, circulation and facade design. Module 3 is to finalize facade design and complete sustainability and environmental analysis based on the whole scheme by Climate Studio plugin in grasshopper. It is required to use Rhino, Grasshopper and Revit throughout the project to achieve parametric design and building data transfer. There is a general workflow diagram demonstrating our parametric strategy and our thinking of BIM.
Facade Types for Different Programming
Standard Residential Plan and Daylight Simulation
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Garden Multiverse
Location: Suzhou, China
Time: 2024
Tags: Generative Design, Optimization, Path Simulation
Classical Chinese gardens have their own distinct aesthetic interest. Unlike the patterning of western gardens, Chinese gardens emphasize on the sense of experience and artistic conception. One’s own journey during the exploration creates the intricate visual and emotional changes that multiply the meaning of the garden culture, since there is no single way of exploring a garden. On above that, we want to challenge the subjectivity of scenery creation by using objective generative methods to obtain more possibilities. Therefore, we would like to seek a pivot point for landscape designers between the subjective creation and the objective aesthetic principles, designers can use it to generate more possible layout configurations and then use genetic algorithms to find the optimal one based on various needs.
Wenzhou Elementary School
Location: Wenzhou, China
Time: 2021
Tags: Schematic Design, SketchUp, Lumion, Indesign
This is a professional project. Under the guidance of a senior architect, I, along with two other interns, fully participated in the conceptual design and schematic design of an elementary school project in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China, which comprises 36 classes. My responsibilities in this project included creating analytical diagrams, designing massing models, and drafting the final floor plans.
Massing Iteration and Selection
Perspective Section Drawing
Spatial Concept and Overall Layout
The building complex consists of four interconnecting rectangular volumes: the teaching building, laboratory building, multifunctional building, and cafeteria-gymnasium. Each volume is relatively independent with mutual interference, presenting a sense of rational order. A two-story platform enhances the connection between four functional volumes.This platform, acting as a secondary ground level, offers rich spatial imagination and supports diverse activities. The campus, tied together by this "shared vitality layer," forms an organic whole.
Plan drawings
A Render
If you are interested in this project, you can click on 'Portfolio' on the left-hand sidebar to view its details and drawings.