Wanqi Gao 2022 Portfolio

Wanqi Gao

Exploring the infinite possibilities between human and space through the perspective of expanded reality.

[ Education Experience ]

2022-2021 : Architectural Association - Master of science

[ Metaverse & Gamification ]

2021-2017 : Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts - Bachelor of Arts

[ Media Space & Interaction ]

[ Awards & Recognition ]

[ Shatin Settlement · Game of Life ]

-2021 Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts - Excellent Graduation Design / Distinction

-2021 Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts - Top 10 Honors Graduation Design

-2021 Asian Design Annual Award - Bronze Award

-2021 China Urban Environment Design Award - Bronze Award

[ National Scholarship ]

-2020 Chinese Ministry of Education - National Scholarship Winner

[ Lingnan Picturesque ]

-2020 The 27th Guangzhou Garden Expo - Silver Award

[ Rural Revitalization in Yongguang Village ]

-2020 Internet+ Student Innovation / Entrepreneurship Competition - Silver Award

[ Vanish in a flash ]

-2019 Beijing International Garden Construction Festival - Second Prize

Project 01:

MemoryCube Game

XR game platform based on community memory

Design

I. Pre-analysis: Community memory? Why?

①Overview: The power of community memory

②Filtering Core Users: Urban data cognition

③User Research: About Church Street Community

④Research and analysis on existing models

⑤Core user pain points sorting

II. Transform memory into interactive medium?

①Memory interaction medium: The MemoryCube

②How to let users create their own MemoryCube?

③User Test: Feasibility & Usability

III. MemoryCube virtual space interaction?

①MemoryCube APP Design: User Acquisition

②User Experience & User Interface Design

③Create/Edit/Save MemoryCube

④Multiplayer Interaction and Gameplay Design

⑤Project conclusion: Summary / Review / Prospect

Project Type: Team Project

Team Responsibilities: Project Lead / Virtual space scenes

/ Spatial Interaction Design / Game Design / Basic Coding / User Research and Testing / Feedback and Iteration

Time Line: 2022.3 - 2022.9

(All drawings below were produced by Wanqi Gao)

Video

I. Pre-analysis: Community memory? Why?

The power of community memory

Urban Cities are constantly developing, In this process, the disparity between the rich and the poor has brought about For marginalized/low-income communities, their voices

As designers, what

Memories are equal, and every vibrant community, poor or rich, has the medium that can generate spatial interaction, by building an equal and dynamic and voice to marginal communities

Spatial interaction concept drawing/

developing, changing and updating. about different voices and levels of attention among different communities. voices are rarely heard and their issues are rarely addressed…

what can we do?

the same unique and dynamic memory. If memory can be used as an dynamic virtual space interaction system, we can bring more initiative communities in the city.

② Filtering Core Users: Urban data cognition

London Community Reclassification

Reclassifying London communities by Income Level and Urban Location

In order to design a more accurate user experience, we need to find the most representative and conflicting fringe communities in London as a starting point. We used python and Gis to obtain a large amount of urban data from London, and finally focused on two types of data, "Income Level" and "Urban Location", to filter the core communities.

Finally, we have divided London's communities into six categories ranging from 'High Income-In' to 'Low income-Out'.

Six classifications of London's core communities/

Pyramid of community life demands

Low Income-In

Church Street Community

High Income -In Middle Income-In

Using the Pyramid Model, we found that low 'income-in' communities are in a very ambivalent state of need. Low-income communities are often ignored by higher-income communities due to their low average income and education levels, and have a very contradictory urban location and community Identity.

Through careful comparison and selection, we selected the most contradictory 'Low Income-In' community: the Church Street Community as the core user group and entry point for the spatial interaction design.

Filtering the most conflicted communities according to the Classification and Pyramid Model

Residential Areas

Commercial Area

Community School

Regeneration Area

Public Green Space

Church

Road

The Lively Street Market

Active market roads and marginalised Arab residents

As a result of the historical influences of refugees and colonialism, the Church Street community has developed a 'floating' cultural and community memory, which has prevented it from interacting with the surrounding community.

At the same time, however, it is this cultural and memory fragmentation that has led to the creation of an extremely vibrant street market in Church Street, which is the largest and most important outdoor market in London.

The contradiction and conflict between the vibrant Market Street and its marginalised Arab inhabitants inspired us a deeper study ......

③User Research: About Church Street Community

Future Shopping street

Residential Areas

Commercial Area

Community School

Regeneration Area

Public Green Space

Future high-class housing

Regeneration Plan: A Fancy community for whom?

Faced with a hard-to-change reality, can community memory become alive in a virtual space? If memory is used as a medium of interaction, can the residents of marginalised communities gain new power through it?

Once the community memory generates actual interaction and dynamic connection, it will greatly change the current contradictory status and embarrassing situation of the Church Street Community

In order to develop a more accurate spatial interaction design, my team and I conducted a survey and research on the existing memories of the Church Street community.

Precious memories in the community are rapidly losting...

[ The "replaced" residents and their precious memories...

Church Street residents being 'replaced' by regeneration plan...

and analysis on existing models

1. How are current memories collected?

+

[ Community Memories: How to store them? ]

2. How are current memories stored?

3.Current Memory Archive of the Church Street Community.

Our team has collated a memory archive of current Church Street Community and classified them by type of time and space.

We hung all the images we collected and invited residents and students to participate in our user testing. Through about ten rounds of iterations, we identified the shortcomings and problems of the existing model and used it as an entry point to sort out the current core pain points of the Church Street community (see next page...)

Core User Pain Points

User test on current community memory collection & storage methods

user pain points sorting

User research & interviews

Core User Pain points

About memory collection methods

About memory storage method

About memory interaction

[

Summary of Pain Points ]

Residents' memories were rapidly being lost and they had no means to protect their memories. The current memory collection methods are unsustainable, lack feedback mechanisms and enthusiasm from residents. As a result, residents' memories are unable to generate any possible dynamic interaction and are gradually replaced and lost...

What the core user needs is A complete interactive platform for collecting, preserving and presenting memories.

II. Transform memory into interactive medium?

①Memory interaction medium: The MemoryCube

In order to stimulate memory-based activity and communication within the community, I have translated the core characteristics and related features of memory and designed a medium for spatial interaction experiences: the MemoryCube, a unified medium through which players can create, play, communicate and challenge themselves in virtual spatial interaction.

Specifically, the MemoryCube is a visualisation of the community memories in people's minds. It consists of three components: memory images, memory descriptions and memory labels, and can be used to create rich spatial experiences based on the UGC model (User-generated content).

[ Memory Label ]

User's multi-dimensional label definition for a memory.

[ Memory Image ] + [ Memory Description ]

User-uploaded or AI-generated memory images + user-authored memory descriptions.

"Sounds great! But how do users create their own MemoryCube?"

to let users create their own MemoryCube?

Test: Feasibility & Usability

During the user test, we provided 10 participants with five types of memory labels and asked them to go through a simplified version of the MemoryCube creation process in three steps: provide a photo + memory description + labeling.

By analysing and comparing the participants' results, it was clear that the participants were able to significantly improve the accuracy of their written descriptions with the help of the memory labels, and that they were constantly inspired to add to their memory descriptions as they chose their labels.

Participants without the help of MemoryCube:

Average word count: 13.375

Average duration: 196s

Multiple share rate: 12.5% Level of interest：Low

When users do not have the help of a memory cube, they can often only describe simple and sentences, but not the full range of elements that are relevant to memory at the time.

Participants with the help of MemoryCube:

Average word count: 81.5

Average duration: 731s

Multiple share rate: 62.5% Level of interest: High

At the end of the interview, around 80% of the participants said that the memory labels helped them to recall their memories to a large extent, and that they discussed and exchanged ideas based on the final output. This made us realise the validity and effectiveness of MemoryCube in helping with memory creation and memory interaction.

After receiving feedback and optimising it, we began to integrate and design the MemoryCube as a complete spatial interaction system/gamification platform.

CONCLUSION:

The MemoryCube Creation Process we designed is effective in increasing the accuracy & richness in describing memories. And it can make people interested and start discussions based on it.

②User Experience & User Interface

In order to introduce the MemoryCube into the community smoothly and start the spontaneous spreading effect, we designed a set of mobile device based APP "installation and launch" process, by scanning the MemoryCube device, users will be brought into the MemoryCube interactive platform, and through an easy to understand process to quickly understand the basic concept, and quickly start the basic operation.

Users will see the MemoryCube for the first time in their lives through augmented reality technology on the app platform, and this immersive spatial interaction experience will lead them deeper into the game's spatial interaction environment, completing the process of basic communication and deep user transformation.

In the next step of the game experience, the user will transform directly from a viewer to an experiencer and creator, thus becoming an active part of the whole system.

Scan around to find MemoryCube

MemoryCube: Enter the Game

& Drop Memory Labels

02. Click UI to create memory labels (user can customize labels)

02: Click UI to create a memory label

03: Players add memory labels to MemoryCube

04: Creation complete, save to backpack

05: Players can take the MemoryCube out again and interact with other players' memories in game...

Connecting

Connecting ]

④Multiplayer Interaction and Gameplay Design

MemoryCubes connection based on same or similar Memory Labels

1 2

The MemoryCubes that the user has edited and created in the previous step can be linked together according to the memory labels, which will be the spatial interaction logic for the whole game.

Since the same or similar MemoryCubes can be linked together, this means that two MemoryCubes can actually interact with each other and have a real impact. By connecting each other's MemoryCubes, players will create a rich spatial interaction and discussion based on memories, building a virtual world of memories for the local community.

MemoryCube life time: Risk of Disconnection

In order to make the whole interactive experience more dynamic and diverse, the connections between MemoryCubes are not " one-and-done ", but have a limited life time. If a MemoryCube has less than 2 connections, it is in an unstable state and will lose its connections when its life time runs out, turning it into a floating 'lost memory'.

This challenge comes from the real community. The memories that really resonate with the community will take centre stage and gradually become the collective memory of the community, which over time will develop into a culture unique to the community.

Our team has mapped this process to the interaction in the virtual space. This means that players need to explore as much of the community's most resonant memories as possible in the game, create, connect, and protect it. In this way, the residents of the community are able to preserve and present community memories in a fun process with vivid representations.

Memory Tree: Community Collective Memory

As the game progresses, the MemoryCube created by the user will act as a virtual interaction medium. Ideally, as more and more players participate in the spatial interaction process, the virtual community will automatically form an aggregated and discrete state of memory distribution. In this case, the most important and core memories in the community will continue to attract new memories to join and connect, thus expanding and growing like the neurons of the human brain. As a result, the game will eventually form an equal and dynamic virtual space where multiple MemoryCubes coexist.

Busy Memory Tree interactions

Memory trees are naturally derived from user interactions within the game. As a result, Memory Trees in different virtual community locations will generate complex and dynamic memory interactions based on the user's real-time interactions.

MemoryCubes created by the user and connected to the Memory Tree become part of the whole and are automatically integrated into the life of the Memory Tree. Similar memories will travel/fly back and forth from tree to tree, stimulating richer and more diverse memory interactions, thus creating a dynamic and equally dynamic virtual memory community.

[ Church Street MemoryCube ]

[ Lission Memory Tree ]

Inside the Memory Tree: Wandering / Exploring / Shuttling

As shown on the previous page, when a MemoryCube group has enough connections, the player will be able to enter the inner space of a memory, travelling, exploring and navigating through the memories of different players. When the player is inside the MemoryCube, they can navigate between the memories of different players via the memory labels on the left side, which act as both a bridge to connect the different memories and a tunnel for the player to use when interacting in the memory's internal space. As players roam around the MemoryCube, they can add images, comments, likes and shares, as well as adding specific 'memory tags' to create new ways of connecting and travelling between different MemoryCubes, a spatial interaction that will allow players to be more active and autonomous in the nature of virtual space.

From game to reality: MemoryCube for all

As the game progresses, some particularly successful MemoryCube groups from the game will be included in the Community MemoryCube, which will be returned to the community as an output of the game. In order to reach a wider audience of all ages, we have put the interactive process of viewing the MemoryCube back into the app, so that gamers can experience it in the community based on the information in the app, thus spreading the MemoryCube to a wider audience of older people and children in the community. With the help of the app, these uninterested users will be able to engage with the system through real-space devices and traditional media.

This MemoryCube Group has been successfully added to the 'Community Memory Archive'!

Welcome Screen

Memory Archive

Memory Archive

Details

Memory Booklet

From game to reality: AR Memory Hub

Through these 'Memory Hubs' located throughout the Church Street community, a wide range of community residents will have the opportunity to express and preserve their community memories. Through workshops and daily collection, the memories expressed by residents in the real world can also be used as a source of data to be re-imported into the game as a new MemoryCube, thus creating a 'game - reality loop'.

Project conclusion: Summary / Review / Outlook...

Project 02: Memory Vault

Virtual memory and immersive experience based on artificial intelligence imagery

[ AALU Exhibition ]

This project is a tutor-led additional project. This project uses artificial intelligence (StyleGAN),generates corresponding virtual memories based on real human memories and fits the real and virtual memories to a spatial vector determined by a convolutional neural network (VGG19) to calculate the correlation between memories and translate this correlation into a unique new spatial dimension.

Players will interact in this spatial dimension imagined by artificial intelligence, exploring and generating a new immersive sense. I hope to use this project to think and imagine the future of multiple spatial interaction experiences in the context of Virtual Reality.

Project type: Team project

Eduardo Rico: Project Lead, Algorithms & Technique

Wanqi Gao: Concept, Interaction Design, Data Gathering

Julian Besems: Game Develop, Game Prototype, Coding

Huang Sheng-Yang: Machine Learning, StyleGAN, Data

Time Line: 2022.6 - 2022.7

Video

[Game starts with a collection of real memory images]

Memory Image]

[Real Memory Image]

01. Interaction start: Placing Real Memory Images into virtual space (Determine spatial relationships based on image correlations)

After collecting 10,000 memory images related to AA, we placed the image data into the Godot game engine. With the help of our teacher, we analysed the correlation between the real images through an algorithm and converted the correlation between the 10,000 real memory images into spatial coordinate relationships in JSON format, which were then imported into the game engine to form the basic virtual space interaction environment. The small map in the top right corner shows the relative positions of the 10,000 real memory images in the virtual space.

[Real Memory Image]

[Real Memory Image]

[Real Memory Image]

02. Interaction Process:

User clicks Real Memory to generate associated virtual memory

In the traditional worldview, memory is an invisible abstract concept that is difficult to actually communicate and interact with. However, after my tutor introduced us to StyleGAN, I realised that with the help of StyleGAN, a spatial interaction could be designed to simulate the process of memory generation and represent it quantitatively in a virtual space, creating a new spatial dimension through algorithms.

In this virtual space dimension, the player interacts with the virtual space through repeated clicks and selections and can reshape/define the virtual space in the process. This means that the user has the ability to create an immersive experience through interaction in the virtual space, and with the help of this interactive experience, the user will be able to create their own memory network.

These Virtual Memories are generated by StyleGAN from real memories. Thus after the player clicks on each Real Memory Image, the Virtual Memory Image associated with it will pop up.

51 [Click to generate Virtual Memory]

03. Interaction Outcome: Network of Real / Virtual Memory Interaction Paths

After the user clicks, a virtual memory associated with the clicked image will pop up around it, and the more times an image is clicked, the larger it will become. Through repeated clicks and selections, the user can discover the network of memory interaction paths they have left behind during the interaction process.

This type of spatial interaction actually gives the user a new immersive sense that did not exist before in the virtual space, allowing the user to create and select memories as if they were roaming through the brain, moving from neuron to neuron. By designing and creating a sense of immersion that is unknown to the user, the designer works with the user to create multiple interactive experiences in a virtual space in an equal and dynamic way.

User-Generated Memory Interaction Network

Human brain neurons

04. Follow-up: User Test and Analysis...

We exhibited this project at the Academy exhibition and invited the audience to have an interactive experience

VR experience in development... Stay tuned :)

The JSON file space coordinates saved by the game can be analyzed again based on user behaviour.

The memory network created by the user will be saved as a JSON file for subsequent Re-import / Analysis.

Project 03: AgingBetter CLT

Co-Housing Interactive Platform for the elderly

In London, a group of elderly women want to build a small community to live in together in order to have a more stable and secure retirement. To do this, they decided to set up an 'Old Woman Land Trust' to help them fulfil their dream.

However, they encountered many problems in securing ownership of the land and preparing to build their home. Due to a lack of knowledge, experience, energy and networks, it took 20 years for this group of elderly ladies to complete their dream and by the time the house was completed, the majority of the founders had passed away, not having waited for their dream to come true.

Is there anything we can do as designers?

Project Type: Team Work

Team Responsibilities: Project Leader /User Resarch / Pain Point Sorting / Existing Model Analysis / Web UI Design / Web UX Design

Time Line: 2021.10 - 2021.12

(All drawings below were produced by Wanqi Gao)

Project Video

According to Statistics, there are 7.9 million people living alone in the UK, who are likely not to own their own property. Affordable housing is used to ease the housing crisis, but only middle-income people under 40 years old have the qualification to buy one. As the aging society rises, the proportion of older women is almost twice that of men.

That said, older women living alone in the UK are experiencing a much more severe housing crisis than we might think.

This is a real case, Lasted for 20 years...

What is CLT?

CLT is short for Community land trusts, which is a democratic and non-profit organization that owns and develops land for community.

CLT is locally driven, controlled. The members elect a volunteer board to run the trust on their be half on a day-to-day basis.

20 years? Why?

We analyzed the entire process of the London Old Woman’s CLT project, which lasted twenty years, and discovered that the problem was in the way the project partici pants interacted.

For the London Olde woman CLT team, the most significant tasks in their work were:

1.Finding land and communicating with the government.

2.Finding funding and communi cating with banks, entrepreneurs and charities.

3.Finding designers, communi cating with them and ensuring that each member is satisfied.

4.Seeking developers and deter mining materials and construction methods.

From these steps, the main chal lenge for CLT was to establish an efficient mode of communication with all parties. Therefore, we started to think about the possibili ty of designing a complete website platform that would help old wom en communicate more smoothly with all parties.

Aging Better CLT?

We design our aging better CLT’s website as an engagement platform for old people. In order to make the process of the entire website more concise and clear, there are two main steps in this new form of CLT: Choose land and Case study. We treat this website as a method to understand old lady’s demands, and try to output it to designer,gov ernment and the developer.

Home Page

On the homepage, you can get information about who we are, our history, and the new CLT concepts. At the end of the homepage, you can start your CLT journey by simply clicking the button below.

Land for sale in London

Land suitable for 55+ living alone

Percent aged 55+ living in one person

Percent who feel unsafe after dark

Step01: Choose the land

This interface will help users understand the filtering process and details of the land for sale. By viewing the specific in formation of each land, user can select their favorite land as the future residential community.

The whole process is divided into three steps. Viewing existing lands for sale. Data filtering inappropriate lands. And voting for the most suitable land.

Finally, users will generate results, and get 12 lands suitable for the elderly to live. The platform will extract the surrounding environment of each land to help users view more details.

Distance between land & 24h hospitals

Land suitable for 55+ living alone

More information related to Land

Land base information and ownership information

Site

Step02: Understand the land

At this stage, we conduct an indepth evaluation of 12 sites. When users view site details, our platform will score the site based on different perspectives and provide information such as current plan, ownership and street view.Users can also compare the advantages and disadvantages of each land, then they will have a more comprehensive and objective understanding of each site.

As a result, we will be able to provide users with a vivid and visual representation of the land ownership relationships as well as the legal difficulties that may arise. With Aging Better CLT, we seek to fill up the knowledge gaps for older women dealing with these challenging situations.

Step03: Case study

Most elderly people do not have clear goals when thinking about their future lives.

We hope to explain the existing elderly-friendly architecture projects to the elderly in a simple and easyto-understand way.

Users will get the basic information about the project they chose and try to roam in it. In order to get an intuitive feeling of the project’s space.Once users find the space they like, they can click the button on the top right corner to learn more about it. To make the process easier, we use Tetris logic to help users understand the spatial form of the architecture. We analyze the project by dividing the whole buildings into different functional cubes, including living, private, landscape, and transport space modules.

Tetris game helps to understand the spatial composition of buildings

Step04: Draw / Graffiti to express demands

Afterwards, users will find the functional module of their previously preferred space and learn what kind of space functions it generally undertakes.

Drawing is the best way to explain ideas, and users can create some simple graffiti themselves more easily on this interface based on VR/AR drawing, and later share these ideas on social platforms.

Step05: Gamified experience

Depending on the space the user likes, a number of templates for space combi nations will be given to the user, who can choose their preferred combination and add it to their wish list.

Afterwards, the user can edit the template provided by the website and save the ed ited result again to their wish list. In this way we can create a simple and effective way to help older women share their ide as with designers, developers and gov ernments.

Finally, users can send these combina tions of spaces they like to the designer who will develop them into a complete design solution.

Step06: Share your ideas with the designer!

Step07: Get the final product!

Users simply need to log in to their account to view the full design plan based on their own combination of space modules.

By involving users in this process, we hope to help older people design a community that is self-managed and created, and ultimately get a home that is truly their own.

Project Conclusion & Future Plans

As a participatory platform for customised spatial interaction, we also want to explore the possibility of customised virtual space generation for a wider user group under the immersive experience of VR.

Perhaps in the open VR world of the future, every user's home can be interacted, customised and designed according to a similar logic and process? Let's imagine that future together!

Project 04: Shatin Settlement - Game of Life

Gamified engagement empowers urban regeneration

[ Undergraduate Graduation Design ]

In the south of Guangzhou, there is a very distinctive boatdwelling community of boat-dwellers who have lived on boats for generations, living by the water. However, with the recent expansion of Guangzhou's urban development, a boat-dwelling community called Dajian Village is facing the fate of being completely renovated and demolished. After the demolition, high density urban housing will be built on the site of the settlement and the original boat-dwelling life will no longer exist.

As designers, we hope to use the spatial interaction platform and algorithmic generative design to help the boat-dwelling families, who are disadvantaged in terms of money and knowledge. We want the boat-dwellers to be able to access the design automatically through a gamified interactive experience. The algorithmically-generated approach will help to protect and preserve the original water village life and culture.

Project Type: Individual Project

Time Line: 2021.10 - 2021.12

(All drawings below were produced by Wanqi Gao)

Video

Gamified Shatin settlement renewal process:

Spatial interaction platform based on Game of Life algorithm

The interactive platform will provide the user with a choice of housing distribution options. Users can design their future homes their Living Unit, Public Unit and Garden Unit. Through this gamified spatial interaction combined with the algorithm, the residents settlement will have a higher degree of ownership when it comes to renovation and demolition. Through the platform's integrated approach, it can also facilitate consultation and negotiation between government planning departments and village committees.

homes by customising residents of the Shatin integrated interaction

Design Prototyping & Testing

Every three seconds is a round, and the game will get each cell's life status by determining the number of neighbours at the end of each round.

Game Low-fidelity prototype develop： Based on Godot Game Engine

In order to verify the usability of the spatial interaction system mentioned on the previous page, I developed a low-fidelity prototype of the game product based on the Godot engine. The core mechanics, interactions and iteration rules within the design were initially presented and used as a basis for user testing and small scale iterations. The prototype tested and validated the core interaction mechanics by having the user click and swipe the mouse to create a corresponding life unit and by incorporating the rules of the game of life into it.

The longer the life unit survives, the higher/darker it is

Click/drag to create a new life cell

Demo Video

Ongoing research and study:

1. VR case study and in-depth experience:

1.Half-Life: Alyx：How to create a diverse and intuitive spatial interaction experience?

2.Red Matter 2： How does the VR spatial atmosphere interplay with the spatial narrative?

3.Beat Saber：How to leverage core VR technology and avoid shortcomings?

4.Quest2 OS：How do VR main scenes shape the emotional connection with users?

5.Fortnite×Travis Scott×Ariana Grande：VR spatial interaction + Game narrative?

2. VR related technology study:

1.UE5 VR develop: VR scene building, VR Mode, VR Hands, and VR UI interaction, etc...

2.UE5 Blueprint：Blueprint development skills, UI Widgets, Materials and Animations...

3.Unity VR develop： U3D XR plug-in framework, Unity Oculus package and core development modules, systematic study of U3D VR example frameworks.

4.Unity C#： Understand and learn the basics of C#, Focuses on the knowledge and underlying logic associated with the XR Interaction Toolkit API.

Wanqi Gao's Linkedin