Xinyi Ding Portfolio by sxjhxhm

XINYI DING

37-34 33rd St, long island city, 11101

646-644-8043

dxyf7c@gmail.com 2021-2023 selected works

CURRICULUM VITAE

EDUCATION

Cooper Union

M.S. Arch

Core Courses

Sep. 2024-Dec. 2025(expected)

GPA: 3.79/4

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

SITP-Railroads Running through My Hometown

Organized and wrote an essay on the history of Wuhan's development as it relates to the railroads.

Grad Design Studio I, Proseminar, Grad Seminar in Urban Studies, Grad Sem Theory, History, Criticism, Graduate Sem in Technologies

Tongji University

B. Arch

Sep.2018-July.2024

GPA: 4.48/5

Case Study of the First Generation of Modern Chinese Architects

Researched on information of Robert Fan and visited existing his architectural works, wrote essays under guidance of Feng Qian

SITP- Research on Internet Behavior of Post-00s Undergraduates (Leader)

Thematic Design Studio, Architectural Design, Architectural Criticism

HONORS AND AWARDS

Tongji University Third-Class Scholarship

Kohler Bold Design Rising Star Award

Exhibition of Architectural Design in Developing Countries, Bronze Award

Yearbook of Ethnic Arts and Crafts, Silver Medal

INTERESTS

Digital Drawing, Travelling, Exercise

Tongji University Third-Class Scholarship

Tongji University Second-Class Scholarship

LANGUAGE

Mandarin, English

ARCHITECTURE CLUB ACTIVITIES

Calendar of Campus Architecture Design

Calendar of Architecture Concepts Design

Led the process of social research and essay writing, organized and assigned research tasks, designed research questionnaires

INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE

TJAD Original Design Studio

Participated in the landscape renovation project of Yangzhou section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Completed the renovation design for the Pump Pit Art Space and expected to follow-up on construction process.

SOFTWARE SKILLS

Modeling

Diagram

Photoshop

Sai2

Illustrator

InDesign

Rendering

Enscape

D5 render

Others

Procreate Zbrush Unreal Engine

Technical

Drawing

AutoCAD

PROLOGUE CONTENT

Factory and Home

The reborn of a dense urban village

How to Find a balance between urban renewal and extensive demolition? The renovation of the old houses and the new infrastructure show the answer.

As cities continue to improve their infrastructure, how can we balance the new environment with the original culture? How to maximize the preservation of the urban character while promoting people's living experience? The architecture is constructed in the past and regenerates in the moment, reflecting the site specific culture

While displaying the folk art and agriculture tools, the resistance to the disaster also improves as an important part of the village history. 01 01-06

Folk Art Museum after Landslide

02 07-11

An agrarian culture of coexistence with disasters

Lane Park

Li-long architecture (lanes and alleys), and urban landscape

The li-long neighborhoods need urban renewal, and the city needs more greenery for people. Then the park complex appears. 04

The Tech-Xapiri

Yanomami in the rainforest, and new technology

They are Yanomami People in the Amazon Rainforest. They can co-work with the automation system while keeping their original and tradition nature spirit. 03 12-15

16-18

05 19

Home of Old Friends

Friends, neighbors, and the bonds and boundaries among people

discuss the boundaries of interaction in a house. The neighbors who are nodding acquaintances. The close friends who have been familiar for years. The family members who are connected by blood.

06 20 Other Works

The commercial complex, folk art museum, and digital drawing

Factory and Home

Urban village/Renovation/Dense dwelling

Design: Xinyi Ding(individual project/academic)

Instructor: Mia Hsu

Year: 2023

Location: Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

Type: Residence, Factory, Community Service

What can we do for urban villages? How to promote the neighborhood with keeping its original relationship? In the renovation of Hua'an Li Neighborhood, I try to get a balance between demolition and revolution.

Most buildings of Hua'an Li have their extra part, Illegal buildings consisting of containers. It's because the managers want to expand the scale of their factories by increasing housing while minimizing the cost. As a result, the containers, with low price and short construction time, began to appear quickly.

Working Path

Roof (For containers)

At the beginning the roofs used to be empty, but soon the added containers filled them.

The factory usually doesn't have specific warehouse. The workers often put goods on an empty space near the stairs.

Office

managers

As the ground floor changes into parking place and warehouse rooms, some workshop rooms are also replaced by new public space:

Elevators

Pantry

Courtyard

The working and homing path of workers is then changed, and the dormitories are divided into different places to serve different workers.

The bottom of the building is factory with several office rooms. The layout sometimes varies by the scale of the factory and the composition or relationship of the workers.

To save money, the dormitory rooms served free for workers are filled by 3-5 bunk beds, with 6-10 people living in.The narrow dormitory rooms always don't have toilets and workers need to use public restrooms.

Greenery

The roof gardern is open to workers and residents. They can put plants or vegetable there.

Dormitory

For some migrant workers who changes their work and residence very often.

The pantries are set every other floor, serving for workers both on upper and lower floor. The balcony can also lead to the elevator.

The office room keeps a good view with staggered balconies and a window toward the courtyard.

The workshop space is cut by the public space and greenery can be seen in all corners. As a supplement, the number of floors in the building increases.

In the middle are single dorms with restroom shared by room on both sides.At the ends of the corridor are family rooms for young couple(2 people) and family with child(3 people), and the public sharing space.

Chance with the metro gap

The new infrastructure leads to demolition of an arrow of buildings, naturally creating a wide and empty gap between crammed houses.Now the gap is going to be landscape and transportation roads.

DEMOLISHED BUILDINGS

As manytenants work in delivery, takeout and food service, the neighborhood provides related employment. The buildings are located along the main road, following the demolished houses contours.The hanging staircases and green roofs make them part of the public amenities.

NEIGHBORHOOD-COMPLEX

Living and working with urban transportation infrastructure

The landscape is set according to the old building contours as an echo to the old neighborhood. Though the buildings are gone because of the infrastracture, people's memory of them should be reproduced.

Section

The original houses and metro

Contours

Contour Greenery

The renovated houses maintain sufficient practical space to accommodate thousands of migrant workers. With the work centers, most native residents work more conviniently.At the same time, the flourishing landscape above the metro speads.

The railroads become a distant scene. The towers on the street connect busy factories. The houses are still dense but no longer crammed. The original and renovated neighborhood stand still.

Reunited Home Gardern

Folk Art Museum after Landslide

Landslide/Folk Culture/Mountain Structure

Design: Xinyi Ding(individual project/academic)

Instructor: Mia Hsu

Year: 2023

Location: Lichuan County, Hubei Province, China

Material:Steel, Stones, Brick,Glass

Type: Exhibition, Public Service

In a village among mountains, with heavy rain every summer, a landslide broke houses of several residents. Their resistance to disaster also forms parts of their culture. The architecture records the culture spirit , and helps to reinforce the foundation to resist the flood next time.

Laowuji Village is mainly inhabited by Miao and Tujia people, who used to make a living by farming. Meanwhile, fishing is also an important source of food. At the beginning of the 20th century, commerce was developed due to the convenience of transportation. There were many businessmen from different places. Therefore, villages and towns rose.

Due to the village expansion, the residents built new concrete houses. The new building is located above the historic building, with a height above about 4-5 meters.

With the development of the society, and due to the lack of urbanization, the development of villages has gradually lagged for a long time. At the same time, it still has to deal with various natural disasters,mainly flood and landslide caused by the percipipation. Today,there is still an old street with well-preserved historical features and primitive stilted buildings, making it distinctive.As a result, and also in order to increase economic income, some residential houses have been transformed into homestays, which is expected to develop tourism.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW Live with Disasters and Folklore

Every summer, there will be heavy rainfall that lasts for more than a month.The water level of the Yujiang River also changes due to precipitation. At this time, the height of the river continues to rise, which may submerge some historical buildings. In 2020, the highest water level exceeded the warning water level by 0.81 meters, causing a concrete residential building to collapse as a whole.

STEP 1

A Line Between History and Houses

The historic buildings of the village are built along the old streets, while the new houses are along the highway. The new buildings will be built between the old and new ones, to resist the collapse of heights and to renovate damaged buildings

STEP 2

Reinforce the Mountain

In the original site, the historical building is easy to be flooded because of its low position, but not easy to collapse. This is because they have flat stone foundations. In the Folklore Museum, the buildings will be part of the structure that strengthens the mountain, and exposes these structures to demonstrate their importance.

STEP 3

Under the Eaves

In the life of local villagers, the eaves are a basic element that often appears. Almost all historical buildings have overhanging eaves, which constitute the characteristic style of local buildings. The space under the eaves can not only keep out the rain, but also an important public space for communication.

The historical buildings are arranged along the 1km long old street. It is down along the mountain, and the historical buildings are gradually trending down,which makes some of them are easily bothered by flood. After the construction of the highway, local residents built new houses along the road. Most of the building gaps are less than 0.8m.

Museum in the Gap

The historic buildings constructed along the old street, while the new houses lays around the highway,leaving a long gap between them, which usted to be undeveloped mounds.As a result,the old and new architectures had little connection in the past, except several staires and roads to help the people living downside get to the highway.

To link the two architecture groups, and create a set of space serving for people both upside and downside,the museum is situated between them as a line.Meanwhile, it displays a trasformation of style from old to new ones.

A LINE BETWEEN HISTORY AND HOUSES Original Different Arrangements

Historic buildings often connect to each other to resist floods or landslides. It also strengthens the structure and makes them more stable.

The new buildings don't connect. It optimizes the fire resistance, but makes them more likely to collapse after a disaster.

Most of the buildings serve as exhibition houses. To minimalize the damage to the mountain, there's a small angle between the axis of historic buildings and the museum.

Local Structures

Stone foundations in traditonal buildings help to keep them stable.New buildings only have simple rammed earth foundations and concrete piles, without reinforcement in order to reduce costs and construction time.

REINFORCE THE MOUNTAIN

Traditional buildings use stone foundations to keep the building on a level foundation and allow drainage through the gaps. Newly built concrete buildings are mostly built on slopes, while the foundations are concrete piles and rammed earth, which are easily damaged when water bodies erode.

On the Slopes

From the newly built concrete house,it's obvious that buildings can easily fall down due to the weak earth.

To make the museum itself stable,as well as enhancing the whole mountain earth around, all the buildings are constructed on stone foundations. In adittion,compared to the traditional foundation,it includes steels to reinforce, and emphasize the importance of the foundation.

Near the riverside, there's a single building, displaying seasonal exhibitions and providing a landscape room.

The steels shows the river level, including its normally highest level in summer and the warning level that can cause disasters.

Rammed earth foundations

Stone foundations in Traditional buildings

Traditional foundation New foundation with rammed earth. When water goes up, it brings earth away and the house falls down.

submerged by the river when a flood comes

Near the River

Foundation Progress

In the original building, tiles were laid on the wooden slats, and there were many eaves, forming a sheltered space. Villagers usually hang crops and grains under it to dry them.

Some villagers remodeled their original old buildings and started operating homestays.Because it can promote wages in a distinct way comparing to farmwork, more and more people choose familiarly, transforming the historic street to a homestay street today.

In the past, the first floor space is like a living room, mainly gathering the whole house together. The most important element in gathering is the fireplace, which is generally used by Tujia and Miao people there. The second floor usually contains bedrooms, often the young couple and their old parents.The southern room is always reserved for old people, for they are more warm and with more sunshine.If the couple have children, their children often sleep in the third floor.

The third flood, often the highest room, besides probabe bedroom, is always used for sunning grains.They often get thegrains and other corps such as maize and red pepper dried on the floor or under the eaves,while storing them in the north room.

To get new buildings integrated into the architecture group, the original buildings get different reserving and renovating work, while the new ones trying to form a familiar atmophere with them.

The reserved historic building gets total protection, without any change in structure or materials.

The renovated ones get new structure or plan layout, by which obtaining roles to display the arts objects.New built exhibition houses get harmonious with them ,by using eaves creating street landscape similar to the past.

Between the concrete houses and wood historic buildings are the new built exhibition architectures,with similar eaves and structure,but totally new materials ,reserving gardern and landscape corridors surrounding them.

In order to avoid dull experience in the exhibition, there is a pavilion without solid roof, exposing its strtucture .Both villagers and visitors can enjoy beyond the structure roof,

and

as well as stroll along the corridors to the half reformed historic buildings, also an exhibition place.Their daily life is also a part of the folk art,displaying how the customs formed.

Renovated House

Due to the flood, the house near the river and also in the lowest level has got severe damaged in wood structure.To get it renovated and give it new life, there is a steel framework supporting it inside,hanging corns there to show the daily life.

Monuments among the Mountain

Together with the architecture and exhibits, visitors can experience the folk culture and witness the history of the village's confrontation with disasters, as well as tangibly touch the environment that has improved with advances in architecture structure.

The totally new buildings in the highest level mainly display small farm tools, such as baskets sunning grains and tool sets polishing rice.

Through the corridor the visitors walk from the new steel exhibition into the renovated wooden house,admiring displays of different time.

The street keeps its historic style, with many original historic buildings and the remaining structure exhibition.

The half renovated historic buildings mainly show large devices widely used in the past but not so useful today,such as the waterwheels for irrigation.

This exhibition in gray space shows the steel construction reinforcing the mountain,where also are dried corps hanging here.

Lane Park

Lanes and Alleys/Urban Renovation

Design: Xinyi Ding(individual project/academic)

Instructor: Yiru Huang, Yong He

Site: Shanghai, China

Year: 2023

Type: Commercial Block, Public Service

The old li-long community is always too dense and narrow to have greenery.To improve the landscape of the community, and create an old and young friendly park, with enough space for community service and commerce, the main park rises up, show landcape in different layers.

Many famous people lived with gardern houses, while there was little trees in streets.

The greenery issue was first concerned highly with economic developing. More parks were built in different places. Nowadays,

With the increasing demand for urban development and greenery, more and more cities choose to integrate the functions of infrastructure with the social and cultural needs of the city through the construction and improvement of landscape.

Concerning the lack of greenery in the site, and the need of strolling in a park from the residents nearby, there comes a concept of city park in the shape of a belt.

To save the space for practical use like service and commerce, most of the greenery is rised to the second floor and down to underground, but its area is amplified. The greenery corridor creates multipled space for walking and running, and put landscape in different layers.

Landscape History Development

Landscape Urbanism

Second Floor Plan

Underground Floor Plan

Ground Floor Plan

Although there are abundant green landscapes in high-end residential areas, they are all blocked by walls, making it difficult for pedestrians or residents from other places outside to share them.

GREEN BELT AS THE CITY PARK

The motorway here is a oneway and narrow street ， while the tall building on the left makes the walking experience more cramped.

Although there are trees on both sides of the road, they are relatively sparse.

On the north side of the site, the sidewalks here are narrow and lack greenery. People often crowded with bicycles parked on the roadside and walked close to the entrance of the lilong houses.

RENOVATED

The visitors would first attracted by the floating grass ,and walk among greenery, even though when they go down to the underground plaza, which is always dull and opressive but now is released by continuous landscape.

The greenery in the west is squeezed to shape the path. So it looks like closely surrounded by grass and trees.The extending grass also goes up and connects with the ascending slope. They are the extension of slope on the ground.

In the second floor the slopes continue to squeeze the path, but they goes thinner too. The smaller slopes hug closely beside the historic building, making the floating floor an artificial grove.

LANES BETWEEN THE ROOF

The residents in the last century had meal in front of their house instead of narrow room, meanwhile chatted with neighbors. Those customs deliver from generation to generation, and residents nowadays still keep similar living habits, which makes the grey space, especially the courtyard and the lanes , particularly important in li-long.

Extension of the roof

The different buildings need to be connected by a huge green belt,so a roof with lanes for people to walk in appears, with its lanes surrounded by inclined grass. Those slopes imitate the roof of the historic buldings.

Sinking of the courtyard

To create more greenery, the gap between the houses and the serving building sinks down to underground, adding a new courtyard providing similar space with those in li-long.

Variation of the roof

The roof connecting buildings creates a corridor with shadow beside the library. However, it also blocks sight above the sinking courtyard. To release the courtyard, the corridor gets more narrow to decrease the shadow and the edge of the roof goes up, reducing the stress from the roof.

Layers of Space

The house of high density often has long depth, laying the living room and a relatively private room. Some li-long house have courtyards, which become grey space between the street and a interior room. If there's no courtyard, the door or low windows can be windows of a store, attracting pedestrians.

Along the street Through greenery Among green slopes

The Courtyard

Current road in the north of the site

The old care and community dining hall

The dining hall of the community service center provides convinient and healthy food.Those people nearby, such as students after class, their accompanying grandparents and the office workers can get convinient meal there.And it would be a boisterous and lively gathering place.

The park replenishes the greening gap caused by large areas of high-rise residential and historic buildings

Community dining hall

Community Dining Hall

Green belt in the city

Flea fair in the community square

The Tech-Xapiri

Yanomami/Rainforest/Automation

Design: Xinyi Ding, Xuejiao Ma, Yue Qi, Jiayu Sun, Jinglei Xu(team project/academic)

Instructor: Hadin Charbel, Joris Putteneers

Year: 2023

Type: Dwelling, Community Combination, Religious Temple

The self-preservation of the Yanomami for survival draws our attention. A long history of illegal mining has led to a series of ecological damage and the disappearance of culture.The word Xapiripe means Spirit in their culture. Our project explores how to use technology to protect the living environment for yanomami people.