stroll, dwell, narrate
Wang, Szu-Yi
王 思 懿
szuyiwang.com
szuyi.sywang@gmail.com
+31 6 5769 5341
Rotterdam, Netherlands
With working experience in urban research—starting from Taipei
Szu-Yi Wang (TW) has studied in Rotterdam and Amsterdam while developing her practice as an architectural designer, artist, and researcher for projects from site-specific subjects to intercultural dialogues.
She looks into intimate, flexible gestures toward spatial issues on various scales from the domestic space to the urban realm
She excavates the unique qualities of each project and develops them as her visual-cultural research tool. While contemplating the interplay between translation and transformation, she condenses her sensibility into methodologies, forms, and aesthetics. Among writing, drawings, and models, her works are poetic and narrative; they are her inquiries into more inclusive, multidimensional relationships between humans and nature, space and time, urban landscape & the environment.
Working Experience
architecture
Raumplan, Amsterdam
Architectural designer, 2024-now
Language
English
Intermediate | speaking & writing
Dutch Beginner
Mandarin
Native | speaking & writng
Education
Master Architecture (studying) Academie van Bouwkunst, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2022-now
Pre-master Architecture & Technology Academie van Bouwkunst, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2021
Master Interior Architecture: Research + Design Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. 2016-18
Industrial Design
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. 2009-13 Skill
Architecrtural & Spatial Design
Archicad, Sketchup, AutoCAD, Rhino
Visualization
Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign
Modeling & Paper Sculpture
Architecurtal, experimental, paper folding craftsmanship
Photography & Film Editing Photoshop, Premiere
Generative Drawing & Coding Processing, Arduino
Spatial Research & Writing Artistic research
Md-2 Architects, Rotterdam Assistant designer, 2022-23
Studio MAKS, Rotterdam
Freelance designer 2022, 2023 | assistant, internship 2018-19
Bladergroenschool, transformation school for special education, Groningen research, PvE
Villa Rhoon, transformation single house, Rotterdam SO, VO Baaibuurt, regional alternative planning with local initiatives | research Into the Woods, Ede | transformation hotel & mixed-use SO DR8888, transformation museum, Drachten competition
3 Renovation & extension of residential complexs, Rotterdam DO
Transformation of a single house (expansion & interior), Rotterdam DO
Transformation from retail function to a residential complex VO
A residential complex with 12 flats, Poland SO
Renovation of multiple appartments on one street, Rotterdam PvE
Renovation & extension of public library, Geneva competition
Architectual design in a historical garden, Austria | competition
Ganztagsvolksschule Dreyhausenstraße, Vienna competition
Extension Park Vijversburg modeling for EU Mies Award exhibition
Intergraal Kind en Expertise Centrum, Hoorn competition & research
Inside Outside, Amsterdam
Internship, 2020-21
Landscape design for a residential complex, Moscow | competition
Landscape design for extensions of public buildings, Brussels competition Urban reinvention for a public complex, Milan competition
Sustainable material research case studies & database
Curtain designs for housing mock-up, production
art & research
Studio Szuyi Wang
Independent researcher, designer, artist, 2017-now
Szu's work was exhibited in deSingel, Dutch Design Week, TENT Rotterdam, iii, and other institutions. Her projects have been kindly supported by Stimuleringsfonds (NL) and National Culture & Arts Foundation (TW).
Studium Witte de With, Rotterdam
Class of '18, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, 2018
design & urbanism
AGUA Design & CITY YEAST, Taipei
Designer, project manager, programmer, 2015-16
Clients incl. Taipei City Government, Taiwan Design Center, Yilan County Government, etc.
Zi Zhu (Hanzi building practice) research, installation 2023-ongoing Who wants to live in a world without magic? exhibition design TENT, 2021
Zi Yuan: A Spring Stroll (Hanzi garden) research, performance, installation | Motel Mozaique x DeVoedseltuin, Rotterdam, 2021 Wat Ik Je Nog Wilde Zeggen exhibition TENT Rotterdam, 2020-21
Drawing Out: Material Dialogues with the Boyarsky Collection exhibition deSingel, Antwerp, 2017
Non-reading Reading Group educational program organizing
Following Your Ears event organizing during Museumnacht010
Parent-child Market, Xinfu & Dongsanshui Street urban revitalization
Signboard Design Specification of Taipei field research & publication
Yilan Dream educational workshops for local teachers
Taipei Issuuuue, expo for 'World Design Capital' curatorial team
Bladergroenschool
Strategic transformation of a school for special education, invited by Mevrouw Meijer
2024 - ongoing
Type | school, transformation
Size | 3,000 m2
Location | Groningen
Office | Raumplan
Task | project designer—research, strategy, plan development, diagram and presentation making, visualization, modeling
Mevrouw Meijer is an idealistic organization that strives to improve the architecture of Dutch schools. They approached us to develop a spatial strategy for the Bladergroenschool, which provides special education with other professional organizations, in Groningen.
The school dates from the late 60’s and is due for an upgrade. We proposed a mixture of cutting-off demolition and child-scale additions to create a small ‘village’ with lots of space for nature. The large, impractically shaped H-building will be covered by a large roof, which results in two covered yards that function as the hearts of the separate age groups while bringing nature into the school environment. The smaller buildings will restored to their original intentions with pitched roofs and lots of daylight, as professed by the ‘Groninger school’.
It takes a village to raise a child. Transformation concept and strategy.
GRONINGER SCHOLENTYPE, DE BUITENSCHOOL APPELBERGEN, 1954.
Section Groinger school buildings
Section H building
Visualization exterior Groninger school buildings
Communication sketches: options for the materiality of learning courtyards, H building
Into the Woods
Interior transformation for a mixed-use venue—with short-stay apartments, workspaces, diverse events—in the woods
2021 - ongoing
Type | transformation, hotel, mixed-use
Location | Ede
Office | Raumplan
Task | floor plan development, visualization
The secondary axis introduces new dynamic to the eixsting space. Key plan ground floor (work in progress)
Visualization interior views
planning with mixed housing typologies
Bottom-up urbanism embracing existing communities and environment, with local initiative Het Baaibuurt Collectief
2024 - 2025
Type | master planning with 1,800 housing units
Size | 106,000 m2
Location | Amsterdam
Office | Raumplan x Buro Harro
Render | Parallel
Task | housing typology/quantity research, diagram and presentation making, visualization
Starting with our research on cooperative housing during ‘Architect in Residence’ (AiR) at ARCAM, we focus on the Baaibuurt, one of the last ‘urban fringe’ areas within the city ring road. Instead of conventional urbanism, what if this area becomes the city’s first cooperative neighborhood? We developed the alternative urban plan in close collaboration with local inhabitants Het Baaibuurt Collectief and Buro Harro (landscape & urbanism).
We presented to the municipality a provocative, strategic plan for 1,800 homes for the Baaibuurt—the same number they aim to realize through conventional ‘top-down’ urbanism, which would eradicate the existing community and nature. With six different housing concepts that allow a resilient way of living with water and nature, the alternative plan offers multiple answers to the challenge of future-proof living.
De Baaibuurt
Conceptual
Views ‘floating housing’ and ‘village on deck’
‘village on deck’
‘Quay residential and commercial’
‘Floating housing’
Villa Rhoon
Transformation of a family villa with a series of rooms
2024 - ongoing
Type | transformation, villa with extension
Location | Rotterdam
Office | Raumplan
Task | project designer—floor plan development, modeling
* This project shows how the designer develops concepts & workshop models
Villa Rhoon
Objects (= Wall elements) define transformation
The client (a couple) keeps the model to discuss with the families their transformation ideas.
Forms & materiality with existing/new structure study
Villa Rhoon
Courtyard House for/of Elms
—Explore the Domesticity among Trees
An housing proposal integrating the preservation of trees & the new living qualities for urban communities
2023
Type | housing, research on living with other species
Location | Mr. Visserplein, Amsterdam
To propose a new way of living in the conceptual housing block at Mr. Visserplein, the Amsterdam, the project works with the existing—the plot with five Dutch Elms—while excavating the context of the past to both recall and deliver the qualities of a courtyard vibe and the possibility of living with the trees. With the discussion of outdoor domesticity through case studies and analysis, the design is a strategic proposal for modern city dwellers, city trees, and urban planners. It is a study of living communities that interrelates qualities of outdoor domesticity, flexibility of dwelling units, and the relationship of proximity to nature—the Elms.
As we “yard” a piece of land for the trees, the trees hold & preserve our ways of living. The statement for living together leads to the focus on two subjects: the existing Dutch Elms x arborists (with families).
Verticality is the spatial quality derived from tree crowns, branches, and even cracks on barks and introduced in domestic living.
VERTICALITY
OF LIVING
Concept sketch
Top: courtyard of Leprozenhuis, 1663; bottom: Five Dutch Elms, 2023.
Left: Site plan, 1:1000 (with project ground floor) Mr. Visserplein, Amsterdam. Right: positions of the existing Elms
CASE STUDIES—LA CASA 1968, Frigiliana, Spain, Bernard Rudofsky & José Anatonio Coderch.
The outdoor PROCH separates the domestic into two zones/vibe. Private: personal, concentrating, resting & public: social, vital, active.
The PATIO, with morning/afternoon terraces, enclosed by rooms serves as an outdoor transition
The PERGOLAS extend from the central Porch into “the outdoor domestic”
The PAVED PASSAGES depart from the Pergola down to the pool in the east.
Model 1:200
Urban Factory: Streaming, Permeating, Looping
A transformational proposal: from an industrial harbor area to new educational factories for the neighborhood
Type | urban research & transformational proposal
Location | Maashaven, Rotterdam
The project is located in the area among recycling factories where people reach after coming out from Maastnnel in Rotterdam Zuid.
The proposal focuses on the changes in the urban fabric of the location (see maps of 1936 & 2023) and would like to call back the fragmental patterns and variating boundaries of the site and restore a more domestic, human vibe in the neighborhood.
Looking for a new vivid rhythm that could merge the industrial context and the quality of living, the design introduces educational programs in response to the future planning of an art campus. Through tracing the past facades—the domestic rhythm in the urban realm— and developing new elements of boundaries, the creative workspaces are open to the public and make a poetic statement for the industrial background intertwined with shared creativity and participatory activities. All facades become the ribbons of the new urban factories & continue their narrative in our daily rhythms/routines.
PERMEABILITY study & extraction as the strategy below
Facade Study & Concept Drawing—Tracing: the domestic rhythm in the urban realm
STREAM
Worm’s eye view (from the west)
URBAN WORKSHOP
URBAN ARCADE
Four-Folded Tennis Hall
Facade, 1:100
TECHINICAL DETAILS
Transformation from retail function to a resdential complex
2023 - ongoing
Type | housing, mix-used
Office | md-2 architects
Task | schematic design & development, drawings, zone defining, preliminary request document, 3D
* The following drawings were collected during VO phase.
H singel, Rotterdam
PART II
—Selection landscape research collages
VERTICAL SECTION OF HEDGEROWS
research collage Practice of Hedging
Research the ecosystem & food chains
Research local species of hedgerows
hedges in 2+ rows (to expand space for biodiversity)
TOOLBOX—the Typology of Hedgerows
hedges along the roads (to fly safely; noise reduction)
hedges as corridors (to fly alongside human passages) hedges with niches (to nest, to rest)
(to
with
Based on the study of bats’ navigating behaviours (such as meandering , up & down ) and the landscape condition of Erve Kiekebos, the hedging elements become a set of the landscape design tool.
The Lichenized Sculpture Park
The Lichenized Sculpture Park—collage: sculptures among the powerlines
Collage: sculptures along the polder & in the sky
Collage: sculptures under the power lines