Digital, Physical by Nix Liu Xin

2017–2020

Application to Master in Design Studies (Mediums Domain) at Harvard Graduate School of Design

Digital, Physical Drawing Writing Render Image Model Video

Architecture Animation Filmmaking Photography Photogrammetry Mixed-Reality Robotics

Xin LIU

Architecture Speculative Architecture, 2019

02—Augmented Library Aggregation Speculative Architecture, 2018

Make-Believe Trilogy

12—Coexist

16—Curiosities

22—Engagement DTLA Experimental Art Film, 2020

28—All At Onceness Interior Architecture, 2020

38—Painted Room Interactive Architecture, 2020

Phygital Supermarket Trilogy

42—Three Supermarkets

46—Phygital Shopping Cart

50—Phygital Supermarket Worlds Commissioned & Office Work Music Video, 2020

54—Burberry Monogram World 3D Animation, 2019

55—Peugeot Automation Factory

Media Art & Design VR, 2019

56—Long Day’s Journey into Night VR Video Art, 2017

57—Liverpool Waterfront Moments Photography Series, 2018-2019

58—Ordos: Cities and Deserts Architectural Game, 2019

59—Become the Internet Technical R&D 2017

60—Procedural Drawing Shader 2020

61—SCI-Arc Virtual Robot House

Manifesto

Stay curious. Stay humble.

Xin Liu is a designer and director who works between architecture and time-based media. His practice centers around the influence of digital and physical on shifting the boundaries of the design of spaces and objects.

He is currently freelancing and running the studio BIGFLATNOW. His collaborators include Burberry, Wallpaper, NYLON, and Microsoft. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) where he also worked as the teaching assistant for graduate and undergraduate courses; as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with Honors degree from the University of Liverpool where his graduation project was awarded the Sheppard Robson Jicwood Prize. Previously, he has worked at Testa & Weiser in the U.S., Sheppard Robson in the U.K., and Tianhua in China.

He is traveling around the world examining the notion of both natural and built environments, individual experiences, and emerging techniques.

Recognition 2020 - Winner, CGarchitect 3D Awards (Student Film) - “Phygital Shopping Cart” 2020 - Exhibitor, Creative Code Art Festival, NYC - “Three Supermarkets” 2020 - SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis Scholarship 2019 - Exhibitor, Lianzhou Foto Festival - “Liverpool Waterfront Moments” 2019 - Exhibitor, Infinity Festival Hollywood - “Augmented Library Aggregation” 2019 - SCI-Arc Continuing Student Scholarship 2019 - Nominee, CGarchitect 3D Awards (Student Film) - “Augmented Library Aggregation” 2018 - Ten Selected Awards, Hsinta Ecological Power Plant Conceptual Design Competition 2017 - Winner, Sheppard Robson Jicwood Prize - “#IMadeLiverpool”

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01. Architecture / Speculative Film

Augmented Library Aggregation Mixed-Realities and Architectural Interfaces

Academic Work Spring 2019

Role Designer, Director, Film Production In Collaboration with Nero He

Recognition 2019 - Nominee, CGarchitect 3D Awards (Student Film) 2019 - Exhibitor, Infinity Festival Hollywood Video Link vimeo.com/331634391

Advisor Damjan Jovanovic

What if architects are designing multiple layers of realities instead of only the physical space?

Library as Information - Multi-layers of Realities As Robert Venturi mentioned, architecture is a communicative medium. Our design, the augmented library aggregation is a cloud of information contains multi-layers of realities. As we shift from the virtual/real dichotomy into augmented space, the physical manifestation of the architecture or city becomes only one of many parallel realities. Our occupation of space no longer matches its built form. We need to be progressive in the design of man-made structures with the understanding that the built environment is just one among many layered realities. In this library, there are three layers of realities: the first layer, solid structures, which provides tangible interface; the second layer, ambiguous objects bashing, which influences the spatial configuration; the third layer, virtual holographic, which is directly representing information. All these layers have interactions with people, by either tangible or intangible ways. Therefore, in this project, the notion of the fixed ideal space is replaced by a temporal, dynamic and interactive construction of reality.

Volume Bashing as Formal Devices

project. Each program within is a world of itself made by the bashing of objects sourced from the various catalogs. This chaotic bashing process is able to create unlimited formal features which are dynamically changing, resulting in endless spaces without directions, without boundaries. This library aggregation contains the very old to the up to date version of itself.

Scalefulness Volume bashing operation also results in scalefulness. In large scale, objects become the architectural space containing human activities; in middle scale, objects are acting like furniture; and in small scale, they become pixels in order to locally generating aggregations.

Organization We speculate the future library would be a collective of science and humanity. The user group can be divided into humans and machines. Only interfacial machines would have been seen by humans and engineers, interfacial humans, who can manipulate interfacial machines to make the adjustment and upgrade for all machinery systems. Programs varied from a temple with monks to stimulation studios with holograms which contain all library types from the origin to the possible future. The collision between old and new enhance the heterotopia identity of the library.

Endless Greg Lynn mentioned: “Architectural form is conventionally conceived in a dimensional space of idealized stasis, defined by fixed point coordinates” which we could easily discover by opening up any of the mainstream architectural software. However, as a new way of design, volume bashing is the formal device for this

Monolithic Building in Context 2

AUGMENTED LIBRARY AGGREGATION

Royal Library by Claude Nicholas Ledoux

Forms of Knowledge

Catalogue of Objects 4

Form is Content Sourced from Daily Objects

XIN LIU

High Density Aggregation of Objects as a Formal Device 5

AUGMENTED LIBRARY AGGREGATION

Library

Event

Data Center Reading Rooms

Forum / Stage Cinema / Auditorium

Gallery

Future Experience

Exhibition Hall Botanical Garden

XR Platform Immersive Theater

Office

Leisure

Admin / Rental Office Meeting Room

Cafe / Bar Roof Balcony

Circulation Elements Places

Institute

Maintenance

Research Spaces Reading Room

Engineering Room Control Room

Programmatic Organization 6

Circulation

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Solid Structure

Objects Bashing

Holographic

Tangible Interface Physical Reality

Ambiguous Interface Spatial Configurations

Virtual Interface Presentation of Information

Objects Bashing Objects Bashing

Configuration Effector - Scale Objects Bashing

Scale objects down

Configuration Effector - Scale Scale objects along the normal direction of the solid structure surface

Configuration Effector - Rotation Rotate objects from one direction to opposite direction

Three Layers of Realities Creating Different Spatial Interfaces 7

AUGMENTED LIBRARY AGGREGATION

Plan I

Plan II

Reading Data Center

Gallery

Axonometric Section I Architectural Drawings Including All Layers of Realities 8

Section II

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Augmented Physical Model - The Original Status The model is mainly 3D printed with PLA material.

Augmented Physical Model - The Augmented Status The surface of the model is painted with UV ink to create augmentation effect under ultraviolet light.

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AUGMENTED LIBRARY AGGREGATION

Reading Rooms

Data Center

Gallery 10

XIN LIU

Forum

XR Platform

Cinema and Auditorium 11

02. AR Architecture / Animation

Coexist Academic Work Fall 2018

Role Designer, Animation Production

Recognition 2018 - Exhibitor, Ctrl+Z Motion Design Party

In Collaboration With Manying Wang

Video Link vimeo.com/301813603

Advisor Angelica Lorenzi Natasha Sandmeier

Urban-scale personalized augemented spaces.

We were asked to use a “hole” to X-ray architecture. But what is a “hole”?

In our opinion, the “hole” is not subtraction, but connection; the “hole” is not demolition, but creation; the “hole” is not empty, but occupying.

Our site is Walt Disney Concert Hall, only those people who have tickets can enter it and enjoy the music. The function of the concert hall is separated from the public, especially those people who are walking around the building. So we want to transform the facades into a couple of hole stages to make the building as a performer for the public in the world of augmented reality.

Coexist of Real and Virtual World

Coexist of Spatially Overlapped Holes on in AR We want to experiment with spatial forms primarily in the AR world.

So we made our hole stages base on the form of original facade and created deception on it. For instance, different hole stages and objects occupy the same position; same drum kit with different appearances; same instruments in overlapped different holes. That’s the second meaning of the title - coexist.

Coexist aims to turn Walt Disney Concert Hall into a series of “Hole” stages in the world of AR to connect its function performance to the public. These stages are created by extruding, elongating and hollowing the original organic facade surfaces with music instruments dancing in them. Therefore, the fictional world and the real world, as well as adjacent stages overlap with each other which are two layers of meaning of the title COEXIST.

The form of the building is a series of organic surfaces. Every piece of the façade is a stage which can be used to show the performance. As the music plays on, the façades of the building will be extruded, elongated, hollowed and stages appear. The instruments and activities will fly out of the building creating connections between inside and outside. People with mobile devices can enjoy the same performance in their personal aligned perspectives. Therefore, the fictional world and the real world overlapped with each other, this is the first meaning of the title coexist.

Real vs. Virtual 12

COEXIST

VIOLIN VINYL

FRENCH HORN DAFT PUNK

TRUMPET GUITAR

CELLO

Coexistence of Real and Virtual World

PHONOGRAPH BASS

PIANO

SPEAKERS

Every piece of the façade is a stage which can be used to show the performance. As the music plays on, the façades of the building will be extruded, elongated, hollowed and stages appear. The instruments and activities will fly out of the building creating connections between inside and outside.

There are various hole stages for the visualization of different musical instruments.

Instruments become the performers performing in the hole stages. Users can see either personalized or shared performances.

Coexistence of Overlapping Holes Disney Concert Hall’s covex volumes are transformed to concave holes. Hole stages are created based on the form of original facade.

Visual deception of spatial coexistence is created by having distinctive contents in holes which occupy same space. For instance, different hole stages and objects occupy the same position; same drum kit have different appearances across different holes; same instruments can be seen in overlapped different holes.

Multi-pass Compositing Layers 4. Object Outline - light effects 3. Object ID - hole masks 2. Hole Render Images - foreground 1. Building Render Image - background 14

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Exhibition at SCI-Arc

Animation Frames From real world to virtual world and vice versa.

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03. Architecture / Photogrammetry

Curiosities Sampling and Recreating Academic Work Fall 2018

Role Designer In Collaboration With Manying Wang

Tools and Techniques Photogrammetry ZBrush 3D Printing Spray Painting

Advisor Marcelyn Gow Florencia Pita

Customized workflow coupling unrelated physical and digital techniques creating new formal expressions.

We started by thinking of what is the originality of a work of architecture? What is the relationship between context and building, function and form, space and vvv? In this design, we took the buildings from DTLA as sources to create a new design.

The form of the design can be divided into solid and frame part. The frames are mainly acting as circulation cores. Regarding the solids, there are two layers of information: photogrammetry facade from DTLA and surface colors.

First, we investigated and scanned building facades as assets of the new design. The reason why we did this is that we want to bring feelings and experiences and recombine them at a new place, in a new way, with new functions to create a new story.

To blur the original form and identity, these photogrammetry facades are cut, deconstructed, reconstructed, and masked with offset outlines of the original buildings, creating some interesting moments. For example, this staircase, which came from a park is new combined with the facade of the Broad Museum. People sitting here will have a direct view of the downtown, even its original building the Broad Museum. For example here, two arches on the different axis are aligned with each other.

by different means, giving people a journey-like experience to explore it with their memories of DTLA. These surface features, both formal and color, are not only exterior appearances but also part of the interiority. Take the example of this plan, the negative surface of this facade from a syncretism work of architecture became an indoor climbing wall. It allows people to have body contact and a closer view of the architectural features which they can’t reach if it is the original building. Regarding the of the blocks, they are organized not by merely stacking but intersecting, which also contributes to the blurring of the original identity and the making of new integrity.

In summary, whether it is the deconstruction of the original building or the re-application of new materials, the building itself becomes more and more difficult to distinguish. What is new? What is old?

What is coping? What is creation? What is the facade and what is space? Let’s find the new possibilities of creating a place in its ambiguity.

The surface color is partially related to the functions. These two complementary color sets represent two types of functions: one is open to the publivc while another is dedicated to private users such as hotel guests or people working here. These analog color gradients look similar but are slightly different. They are assigned across different blocks to blur the identity of the original facades.

Therefore, the building can be read at various levels of details and

The Tower 16

CURIOSITIES

01. Photograpmatry of Facades in DTLA

03. 3D Printing

02. Digital Model

04. Spray Painting Palette

Workflow From physical to digital, then to physical.

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XIN LIU

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CURIOSITIES

Spray Painting of Single Model Unit with Masks

Model Details 20

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04. Architecture / Code

Engagement DTLA Discrete Architecture with Animated Textures Academic Work Fall 2018

Role Designer In Collaboration With Manying Wang Advisor M. Casey Rehm

Tools and Techniques Processing Photogrammetry Cinema 4D Video Link vimeo.com/307822788

Future designers invent new tools or write custom scripts for innovative design.

This project is a high-density LED housing for young artists in DTLA which acting as an interface between the city and individuals.

It is located in a narrow gap between the Broad Museum and a residential apartment, the Emerson LA. Currently, there is a small plaza. Because of the rising rents and the commercialization of artwork, it is increasingly difficult for young artists to live and work in downtown LA. They have to live far away from where the rent will be cheaper. Only artworks by famous artists can be shown in downtown LA such as the Broad Museum. So we designed a highdensity housing system with a dynamic LED façade.

building can be self-grown from a single unit and can adapt to limitless possibilities in the future. The dynamic textures are created by manipulating the building façade from context. Each texture is controlled by three layers of information: diffuse color, reflectivity, and bump strength. They are projected to the building in the same direction as the façade of the source building. So the continuity is created across different building parts.

In summary, this project provides a bottom-up system partially created by artists for artists, and partially created from the city for the city.

High-density modular housing units allow buildings to be produced and assembled faster and cheaper. This will greatly reduce the rent and attract more young artists.

The LED facade is a dynamic interface that not only shapes the interior spaces but also displays young artists’ work for the public.

It redefines the relationship between architecture and city, the limitation of interior and exterior spaces, the boundary of publicity and privacy, as well as the connection of daily life and public display. While there are no artworks on the LED façade, the dynamic texture becomes a manipulation of the context, which allows the building to successfully disguise in the urban environment. At the same time, it neither conflict nor harmony with the context.

The component is created by rotating three same units along the XYZ axis, which means the geometry is completely symmetrical.

They can be connected with each other no matter the directions.

They can form different spatial compositions to fulfill different functions by rotating and moving. Such a mechanism ensures a

Interior View 22

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ENGAGEMENT DTLA

Geometry of a Single Unit

color

reflection

color

bump

The Emerson LA - North Facade

reflection

color

bump

The Broad - East Facade

reflection

The Broad - South Facade

Manipulation of Contextual Facade Images with Customized Processing Script 24

bump

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Manipulated Textures Applied to XYZ sides of the Unit

Orthographic Views

Meta-Units 25

ENGAGEMENT DTLA

High-Density Modular Housing As the dynamic texture becomes a manipulation of the context, the building is able to successfully disguise in the urban environment. At the same time, it neither conflict nor harmony with the context.

Continuity Across Units in Different Directions 26

XIN LIU

ALL AT ONCENESS

05. Experimental Art Films

All At Onceness Novel Representation of Architecture and Objects

Academic Work Spring 2020

Role Designer, Director, Film Production In Collaboration With Jessie Pan, Leo Wan

Tools and Techniques Cinema 4D Rhinoceros Virtual Robot House

Advisor Devyn Weiser

Phygital substances and materialities blurring the boundary of digital and physical.

By tweaking the way an object is represented and viewed, the reading and interpretation of the object can be shifted or changed. In this project, we curated twelve architecture formal assets from Florence, Italy as source. Then these objects are reinterpreted in various novel ways to explore the potential of architectural form via four experimental art films.

This project includes One Assets Kit and Four Experimental Art Films: . Formal Possibilities . Phygital Models . Endless Section . Worlds In Worlds

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Curated Assets There are 12 curated architecture formal assets from Florence, Italy.

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ALL AT ONCENESS

Experimental Art Film I

Formal Possibilities Various Ways to Bring 2D Drawings to 3D Objects

Step 01. 3D Object to 2D Drawing

Step 02. 2D Compositional Drawing on a 4x3 Grid 30

Video Link vimeo.com/400055363

XIN LIU 01. The model is directly extruded from the canvas to certain heights based on the original color. From bottom to top, they are purple, green, blue and orange. It has the highest resolution so all details, such as thin lines and hatches are extruded.

02/03. Two types of digital filters, pixelation, and blur, are added respectively, resulting in different tweening effects between views and tiles.

04. Some surfaces with different colors are moving up deliberately and transparent blocks are extruding following them. In the end, the camera moves up and the 2d composition reveals.

05. The object touches the canvas. The camera moves around it and ends on the top view, resulting in an anamorphic optical illusion.

View matches.

06. The original graphics are extruded and obliquely inserted. From the top view, it creates a new composition with offset graphics.

01. Extrusion Tweening - Hi-Res

02. Extrusion Tweening - Pixelated

03. Extrusion Tweening - Soft

04. Extrusion of Visible Surfaces

05. Match View

06. Offset View

Step 03. Formal Possibilities to Bring 2D Drawings to 3D Objects 31

ALL AT ONCENESS

Experimental Art Film II

Phygital Models

Video Link vimeo.com/410502283

Models Between Physical and Digital.

Plastic Model Digital Rendering

Phygital Materiality Blu

Four Models All At Onceness

Digital Shooting in the Virtual Robot House

Composition of Four Mo

Four phygital models are comb 32

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Tweening Model

3D Print Model

Flat Model

Digital Rendering

Digital Rendering

Digital Rendering

urring the boundary of digital and physical

Flat Model Digital Rendering

odels at Once

bined together, creating a visually aligned, yet non-correlational phygital model which is impossible in the physical world.

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ALL AT ONCENESS

Experimental Art Film III

Endless Section Architecture, Sliced.

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Video Link vimeo.com/410504248

XIN LIU

Endless Section is a sectional viewing device. While the camera is moving forward, each time it cuts to four very different model parts, but the section keeps the same color, creating a homogeneous sectional silhouette from heterogeneous parts. With such a simple combination of motional tiles and camera, almost countless sectional drawings can be produced.

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ALL AT ONCENESS

Experimental Art Film IV

Video Link vimeo.com/410502967

Worlds In Worlds From Objects to Architecture. From One World to Another.

World Level 0 / SCI-Arc Robot House

World Level 1 / Patio 36

World Level 3 / SCI-Arc Robot House II

World Level 2 / Fictional Flore

ence City

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Worlds In Worlds is a fairy tale speculating on the notion of nesting worlds based on the same model sources in various configurations.

World Level -1 / Isometric World

World Level -2 / SCI-Arc Robot House III

World Level -1 / Isometric World

World Level -2 / SCI-Arc Robot House III

World Level -2 / SCI-Arc Robot House III 37

07. Architecture / Interior Design

Video Link vimeo.com/408355021

Painted Room Digital/Analog Workflow Creating Ornament with Painting and Fabric Techniques

Academic Work Spring 2020

Role Designer, Director In Collaboration With Yuting Zhu

Tools and Techniques Acrylic Paints Cinema 4D Redshift Renderer

Advisor Florencia Pita

Renaissance of traditional analog painting in the post-digital age.

Painted Room explores the transformation process from analog painting to digital painting and how it can change the reading and affect the design of spaces and objects. At first, We explored color combinations and stroke shapes with acrylic and other traditional analog paints in the physical world.

Then the brush strokes were photographed as digital image samples. Next, we used computer render engined to reproduce and manipulate the texture of the original brush strokes in the digital world. These digital brush strokes were assigned to a baroque style room and furniture to imagine a room made up of paint strokes. For the 3d animation, the background canvas is 2D but the foreground is 3D, producing a dynamic painting illusion. During this process, the original information carried on the analog paint stokes has been shifted, challenging the traditional dualistic relationship between analog and digital.

Room Interior 38

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PAINTED ROOM

Brush Strokes Study with Analog Arcrylic Paints

Procedural Shader to Bring a Photo to a 3D Brush Stroke 40

Photographic Sample of Brush Strokes

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Collection of Digitally and Spatially Painted Furniture 41

08. Phygital Supermarket Trilogy I

Three Supermarkets Hybrid Compositings of Emerging Physical and Digital Mediums and Techniques

Academic Work Fall 2019

Role Designer, Director In Collaboration With Jui-Cheng Hung Fateme Jalali Yuting Zhu

Tools and Techniques Volumetric Video Photogrammetry Robot Arm Motion Control Greenscreen Shooting Cinema 4D Redshift Renderer

Advisor Peter Testa

Recognition 2020 - Exhibitor, Creative Code Art Festival, New York City

The world’s first virtual space design that combines robotic cinematography and volumetric video.

Three Supermarkets is an infinite loop film with a shopping cart riding across multiple coexisting fictional supermarkets. As the first episode of the Phygital Supermarket Trilogy, this film explores the hybrid compositing of the emerging physical and digital mediums and techniques.

The production process of the design and the film uses industrial-grade six-axis Staubli robot arm as shooting equipment, green screen shooting, volumetric video capture, photogrammetry, Cinema 4D Mograph, Redshift shading & rendering, 2D/3D compositing, and other custom build techniques and workflows. Familiar but neglected objects, such as apples and snack bags, were scanned as either static models or animated model sequences from the physical world to the digital space. Then their scale, form, and look were manipulated with digital techniques to compose three interlocking “supermarket” scenarios with different visual styles, which are running endlessly.

Coexistence of Three Worlds across the Portal Doors 42

THREE SUPERMARKETS

Polygonal Model of the Store Shelf

Abstract Wireframes from Volumetric Captures

Hand-Craft Polygonal Model

Photogrammetry of a Snack Bag

3D Scanned Snack Bag with Stone-Like Materials

Dynamic Glass Surfaces from Volumetric Video

2D Greenscreen Video of a Snack Bag

Layered 2D Greenscreen Videos

Polygonal Model of the Store Shelf

Assests Created with Multiple Mediums and Techniques 44

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Customized Volumetric Video Capturing Setup at Robot House

Greenscreen Shooting Studio at Robot House

Exhibition at SCI-Arc 45

09. Phygital Supermarket Trilogy II

Phygital Shopping Cart Miniature Scenarios in a Shopping Cart

Graduate Thesis Summer 2020

Role Designer, Director In Collaboration With Yuting Zhu Advisor Thesis: Peter Testa, Devyn Weiser Theory: Marrikka Trotter

Tools and Techniques Cinema 4D After Effects Recognition 2020 - Winner, CGarchitect 3D Awards (Student Film) 2020 - Bronze Medal, Momentor Styleframes II Video Link vimeo.com/436558535

Miniature architecture scenarios made of familiar and trivial everyday objects.

Phygital Shopping Cart is the second episode of the Phygital Supermarket Trilogy.

The main character of the story is a shopping cart (or a trolley). In a shopping cart in a supermarket, we designed six miniature model scenarios, which can be organically combined in a shopping cart. Each miniature scene contains a miniature version shopping cart to tell a short story, and each scene embodies a technology or design method which we explored with Cinema 4D and Redshift Renderer. We selected the most familiar, unremarkable, and most overlooked object in life (that is, common daily necessities in supermarkets), and explored these familiar objects through a unique workflow we developed with Cinema 4D and Redshift rendering technology. Things were explored on the playful side, either enlarge the size or manipulate it with Effectors in order to take a look at what magical effects will burst out. Therefore, in each mini-model scene, in addition to the narrative of the story, a technique is also expressed. As title sequence is used as the format of this film, we use the text on the screen to introduce the story and design techniques of each scene.

The Shopping Cart 46

PHYGITAL SHOPPING CART

Farm - Boolean In a farm covered with LEGO blocks, apples are bitten off by blueberries.

3D Cinema - Displacement The iPhone becomes a mini theater. Video and flying texts on the screen are extruded out based on moving displacement maps.

Playground - Painting Brush Strokes Floating painting brush strokes are smeared into various slope ramps to create a playground for small shopping carts.

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Cafe - Voronoi Fracturing Lay’s potato chips bag becomes a building, where the inside is a cafe, and the big potato chips become a table for mini shopping carts.

Disorder Shelves - Mograph Cloner The shelves in the miniature supermarket are disrupted by a mini shopping cart!

Mixed Realities - Multipass Rendering Differnt realities can be percepted by differnt visual sensory systems such as human and bird 49

10. Phygital Supermarket Trilogy III

Phygital Supermarket Worlds Interactive Architecture

Graduate Thesis Summer 2020

Role Designer, Director In Collaboration With Yuting Zhu Advisor Thesis: Peter Testa, Devyn Weiser Theory: Marrikka Trotter

Tools and Techniques Cinema 4D Rigid Body Simulation Soft Body Simulation Video Link vimeo.com/455380249

Responsive architectural forms as spatial interfaces.

By merging digital techniques and physical objects in playful and unexpected ways, Phygital Supermarket Worlds explores the possibilities of interactive architectural form at the age of post-digital and challenges the legibility and representation of everyday objects.

The convergence of digital and physical occurs in both geometrical and textural levels, as well as, in the architectural levels, and cinematic levels throughout the representation of the project. An object is able to be digitally “animated” while keeping the illusion of tactility. The same kit of object assets taken from the supermarket are re-combined, re-represented, and reinterpreted in different ways to compose five distinct worlds — Snack Bar, Farm, Warehouse, Food Store, and Cafe — around the supermarket ecology.

Phygital Supermarket Worlds defamiliarizes our relationship with everyday stuff and disintegrates objects and their representation in novel ways.

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I - Elevator Frame Structure

II - Dynamic Void Space

Voronoi Fracturing / The frame structure transforms following the position movement of the elevator.

Boolean Substraction

III - Responsive Table Boolean Intersection / The shape and position of the table follows the movement of objects or characters.

IV - Motion Package Graphics

V - Adaptive Shelves and Storage Units

Video Texture / The package design is an animated media rather than a static picture.

Recursive Subdivision

Speculative Prototypes of Interactive Architectural Interface 51

SNACK BAR

FARM

WAREH

FIVE DISTINCT WORLDS

Motion Package Text

Manufactured Landscape

Fluid Simulation Form

Elevator Structu

Motion Paper Textures

Section

Section

Section

Responsive Thick-Thin Frame

HOUSE

FOOD STORE

CAFE

Adaptive Storage Unit

Dynamic Void Space Based on Characters’ Position

Anti-Gravity Force

ure

Section

Section

FIVE DISTINCT WORLDS

Dynamic Boolean Substraction

COMMISSIONED & OFFICE WORK

11. Music Video

Burberry Monogram World Poolside Party Where Fashion Meshes with Music, Art, and Technology Commisioned Work 2020

Role Director, Designer, Production

In Collaboration with Burberry, Nylon China

Video Link vimeo.com/453484035

Credit Director: Liu Xin Presenter: Xuan FENG / Li Baojian Producer: Cai Xiaoli Executive Director: Deng ss Executive Producer: Mo Mo Cinematographer: Cai Fengyu Gaffer: Wu Xiaogang Set Design: Liu Xin / Zhu Yuting 3D Animation: Liu Xin / Zhu Yuting Matchmoving / Roto / Compositing: Zhu Yuting Colorist: Philips Shum Singer: Victor Ma / AI Hechang Composer: Victor Ma / Kevin Shin / AI Xiaoice Lyricist: Victor Ma / AI Xiaoice Arranger: Kevin Shin

Architectural Interpretation of Burberry’s New Monogram Burberry’s new monogram designed by the famed Manchester art director and graphic designer Peter Saville is reinterpretated architecturally across different scales from large buidings and swimming pools to small suface materials.

Behind The Scenes

Greenscreen Shooting in Shanghai

Virtual Dancers with Motion Capture Data

Architecture as branding content.

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Motion Tracking & Compositing

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12. Architectural Design / 3D Animation

Peugeot Automation Factory Visualizing the Future Architecture for Automated Assembly Pipeline Office Work Summer and Fall 2019

Role Director

Supervised by Peter Testa, Devyn Weiser

Factory Pipeline

X-Ray of Gyropods 55

MEDIA ART & DESIGN

13. VR Film Set Design

Long Day’s Journey into Night VR A 2000s Dreamy Outdoor Karaoke Courtyard Scene in Southern China Rural Area Academic Work Fall 2019

Role Lead Designer

In Collaboration with Amparito Martinez Kidus Hailesilassie Zihan Gao Richard Cottrell

Advisor Alexey Marfin

A Rural Courtyard In South China In Around 1998 To 2003. It’s cold and foggy from the outside. There are warm lamps at the center. Colorful neon lights makes the scene psychedelic and dreamy. An outdoor Karaoke with Eurodance music. It features the song Paisley Galaxy by Kelly Chen.

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Youtube VR Link www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im90BziK1OY

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14. Video Art

Liverpool Waterfront Moments Video Collage of Urban Spaces Personal Project 2017

Role Artist

Medium Single channel video, 3 min

Recognition 2019 - Exhibitor, Lianzhou Foto Festival Video Link vimeo.com/204711420

Through the form of video collage, the waterfront in Liverpool, England are deconstructed and reconstructed in 2D motion images.

This process not only, to a certain extent, corresponds to the original geological spatial relationship but also involves juxtaposition and misreading. In addition to collage, time is also introduced, so that viewers have a perception of the content and intensity of the activities happened at different locations in the waterfront area, in real time.

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MEDIA ART & DESIGN

15. Photography Series

Ordos: Cities and Deserts A Visual Essay on a China’s “Stillborn” City after a Decade Personal Project 2018-2019

Role Artist

Recognition 2019 - Featured in Underscore Vol.05 Money

Part I - Cities (Center Plaza, CBD, Government HQ) Urban painting rather than urban planning.

Ordos Kangbashi is a new city which was planned and built based on international standards on the barren deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia. It has world-class architecture, international scale stadiums, and brand new housing. However, this new city soon gained negative reputations as a representative of such as ghost town, or stillborn city. The earliest reports about Ordos Kangbashi may be two stories by an Al Jazeera reporter and a Time Magazine photographer respectively in 2009. After then, this new city soon became a shining example of phenomenons in China such as housing bubbles, bankrupt developers, and local government staff artificially boosting GDP in order to get promoted. Most of the coverage is regarding its lack of people living in the new city; the planning of the city center which is not for human scale; as well as deceptive tricks while operating the city such as commercial office buildings whose facade which have lighting effects are completed resulting vibrant impressions on evening from a distance while its interior is merely brutal structure. At that time, the Ordos 100 project lead by Ai Weiwei and one hundred international architects was also at the center of public opinion. It was supposed to build one hundred different houses, but finally, only five building structures are at the deserts as a result of the negative economic situation of the developer, which was a local water treatment company.

After a decade since the first report that called it a modern ghost town, and since the beginning of the Ordos 100 project, I visited the city for a few days and noticed a hybrid and contradictory situation not as pointed out by previous reports as a typical dead city. There is a substantial population there, as well as a considerable number of daily tourists who were visiting public buildings such as the Ordos Museum by MAD. At the same time, numerous area in the city looked “perfect” but had a little number of people in the “image.” The city is more like an urban painting rather than urban planning. The facilities and infrastructures, even the amusement park rides looked brand-new, but they were randomly scattered because nobody was managing or operating them. The CBD area, where weeds have grown from the seams of plaza tiles, and skyscrapers only have facade completed, had an office of a Chinese bank which was operating. The reasons, economically, politically or culturally, behind these situations are complex. This photograph series is as a documentary of the phenomenal after a decade as an update. It consists of two parts: Cities, which focuses on the “urban painting” and city life; and Deserts, which focuses on the topic “architecture without context” through examining of Ordos 100 project.

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Part II - Deserts (The Ordos 100 Project by Aiweiwei and Other Architects) Architecture without context.

XIN LIU

16. Architectural Game

Become the Internet Collecting, Sampling and Mashing Academic Work Spring 2019

Role Designer

Individual Work

Advisor Damjan Jovanovic Angelica Lorenzi

Tools and Techniques Unity 3D Platform Sandbox

This project utilizes customized game-like software to “play” with endless reconfigurations of model assets downloaded from internet, and produce enormous amount of architectural accumulations. All material (images and videos) comes directly from the software, as raw, unfiltered expression.

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TECHNICAL R&D

17. Research & Development

Procedural Drawing Shader Personal Project 2017

Role Creator

Tools and Techniques Cinema 4D

All of these illustrations and diagrams are rendered directly from Cinema 4D.

Procedural Drawing Shader is a series of shader presets to quickly generate architectural illustrations and diagrams from any 3D models. It is based on Cinema 4D’s material and rendering system and have a customized intuitive UI for easy control of the style parameters. It can determine the various lines types such as outline, inner line, normal line, contour, wireframe, and intersection line. The surface colors can be influence by light sources or view angles. As it’s fully procedural, it not only can improves work efficiency, but also generates animated drawings and diagrams.

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XIN LIU

18. Research & Development

SCI-Arc Virtual Robot House Personal Project 2020

Role Creator

Tools and Techniques Cinema 4D

Since COVID-19 interrupted my plan in the last spring studio, instead of shooting models with physical robot arms, I developed a 1:1 Virtual Robot House with full inverse kinematic controlled Robot Arms in Cinema 4D to mimic the physical operation. In addition to the robot arms, there are also rigged lighting equipments with intuitive UI for users to control the light color, intensity and direction.

I shared this Virtual Robot House setup with classmates so they can use it on demand.

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Copyright © 2020 by Xin Liu

Xin Liu

Designer, Director

www.liuxin.studio liuxinstudio@gmail.com