Cabinet of Curiosity - Xingyao "Yao" Wang

CABINET OF CURIOSITY

王星瑶

2016 - 2023

Selected Works

Cornell University, M.S.AAD

Syracuse University, B.Arch

produces inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures

Architectures inquire, provoke, and educate

When archived, they define, speculate, and inspire

Cabinet of curiosity

Practice

Theory

Matters of Waste

Upcycling against Consumption

Academic Work, 2020 Spring

King & King Competition: 1st Prize

Site: Syracuse, United States

Instructor: Daekwon Park

Team with: Raj Perival, Vasundhra Aggarwal

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

“Matters of Waste” is an urban mass-timber prototype for a resale marketplace, upcycling fabrication lab, and entrepreneurship residency that advocates for sustainable consumption and production practices at the scales of both the individual consumer and the construction industry. It responds to the waste culture in the country and the ubiquitous deteriorating conditions of unoccupied houses in the city of Syracuse. The intersected volumes host the programs for collecting, sorting, and displaying donated secondhand goods, while the glass box is an open workspace resembling the factory aesthetic for users to repurpose the goods using small-scale machinery.

The verticality and aggregational formality of the building is a critique of big-box stores that are omnipresent in the US and propagate consumerism rather than repairing and upcycling goods already owned. By visually and logically exposing the thorough process of refurbishment, the project aims to evoke more consciousness of the potentials of sustainable manufacturing, and it advocates for a more thoughtful consumption practices in modern times.

Upon surveying the sites of exchange of secondhand goods, informal spaces such as garage sales outside domestic homes, pop-up flea markets in parking lots, and donation centers, their open and informal typology was adopted into the design.

Secondhand goods can be refurbished, resold, upcycled, donated in donation bins, and aggregated, leading to the formal massing and program strategies.

distribution and popularity of thrift stores in Syracuse city informality of sites of exchange

scales of domestic under-utilized goods and the accordingly aggregational formal strategy

programatic massing accomodating the assembly-line-like process

drop off categorize transport upcycle

purchase

collect

three cores define functional zones to respectively serve as donation area, collection area, and private access

the facade is made from recycled polycarbonate, upcycled windows, and additional steel and aluminum bracing, and it is used for circulation and thermal tempering

While the residential level has louvres, the central volume uses double skin to form a climatic buffer space. On ground level, the upper cantilevered volume ensures minimum lighting in summer and maximum lighting in winter.

The façades also incorporate refurbished materials that are re-modified for standardized installation. Additionally, other materials include recycled plastic for façade and deconstructed bricks from an adjacent building.

Building systems such as the water harvesting system with geo-thermal aided hydronic heating, forced-air ventilation, and individual local packaged units helps mitigate the heat and pollution produced by the workshop space. The generated energy waste is collected by the energy recovery wheel installed in the fan unit to pre-heat incoming fresh air, reiterating the core concept of reusing what was the already used.

sectional demonstration of environmental strategy for natural lighting, ventilation, and form systems of thermal heating and building ventilation

The defined visual form and facade aim to create consciousness surrounding secondhand products and deconstruction methods, in opposition with demolition of old buildings for acquiring new building materials.

Through the creation of an upcycled facade cladding system and integration of energy recovery methods, the project aims to address the idea of reusing and repurposing through architecture.

Details of the prefabricated glulam-framed volumes, operable louvers in the residential roof area, and upcycled double-skin facade of the workshop space are highlighted

Call of the Wild

A Game from Ego to Seva

Academic Work, 2022 Spring

Site: New York City, United States

Instructor: Florian Idenburg

Team with: Lulin He, Xinyue Geng

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

A virtual and physical game about the politics of human activities in a post-anthropogenic era, Call of the Wild explores the shifting concept from Ego, Eco, to Seva responding to the planthropocenic politics through constant reversion of spectatorship of avatars. From the AR gaming design to its parallel interactive projection to the Gowanus area, gamification is an agency of engagement that subverts the traditional energy-consuming and ecologically devastating gaming industry into a sustainable proposal.

From the perspective of nature, the arena acts like a compost bin that becomes a habitation enabler promoting a symbiosis Seva relationship between the local ecological conditions and human activities. While it prioritizes the existing habitation system at its fetal stage in both construction and formal manifestations, this analogical compost bin also physically transforms through time. Therefore, it provides a ground for unexpected growth and an alternative vision of the gaming industry as a critique of the addiction to entertainment in the contemporary era that depletes natural resources.

“Gamification, the application of game design principles to a non-gaming context, has been used to promote proenvironmental behaviors.”

Douglas, B. and Brauer, M. "Gamification to prevent climate change: a review of games and apps for sustainability.“

community game about observing, collecting, competition, and participation arena site as a cultural and ecological hub

first floor adapting to possible future expansion and accomodating the internal cultivation-consumption-composting-redistribution system

Academic Work, 2019 Fall

WUPENiCITY International Competition: Nomination Award

Site: New York City, United States

Instructor: David Eugin Moon

Team with: Xingyu Guo

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

Situated at the end of Park Avenue, the water research complex is a response to locals' unawareness of aquaticrelated emergencies, such as heavy flooding, as well as the urban community’s exclusiveness and self-enclosure. Not only does the project reconnect the river with communal uses by energizing the underused land, it also highlights temporality of programs determined by tidal cycles and flooding imageries of the near future, thus producing a test field of a multi-purpose typology which could be applied to other endangered sites around New York’s waterfront.

The project resembles a city within the city that is selfsufficient in water usage because of its property of being a living machine to filter, store, and recycle municipal wastewater, and to produce freshwater that joins the main body of the river. The transitional zones, including the research center, temporary housing and ferry station, are united by diagonal structural members, a single architectural language functioning as platforms, partition walls, and envelops at the same time. In all, by adopting aquatic treatment system as a spatial thread, the mechanical nature of the project seeks to explore alternatives of the current and future built environment under impending crisis.

Temporary residential units make up a great portion of the design. The lifted modular units wrapped with ETFE membrane can be easily customized based on immediate needs, serving short-term visitors, such as families in transition

to new homes, artists and researchers in residency. The platform is supported by structural columns containing extensible pipes that supply water and electricity while adjusting to the flood plain.

four water treatment types that are utilized throughout the project based on different rates

conceptual collages experimenting with temporary housing and tidal cycles

site plan accompanied by mechanical diagram of the living machine

The project goes subterranean partially, avoiding interruption of the main traffic and showing a welcoming gesture to visitors. The diagonal platforms transform into water tanks as well as multi-purpose spaces for vendors, cafes, swimming pools, etc. based on program temporality.

block model testing formal strategy with subterranean volumes and elevated housing units

axonometric view of the overall planning

Zone 1

Zone 2

Zone 3 residence

entertainment

transportation + research

artificial river on underground floor for natural filtering and tubes for living machine system that utilizes vegetation as medium for filtering

showcase water treatment and the internal mechanisms

elevated temporary housing

curved partition walls constructing an exhibition hall underground to

artificial river running across research center

view from the underground space demonstrating program change based on tidal cycle

view from the meandering path overlooking the waterfront

Thank god that flood is over

Nice weather for a walk, honey!

It's ime to canoe, honey!

Dad! A river underground!

Let me get down for some food

Here come, New York!

Kaleidoscope

Art District Urban Renewal

ULI Competiton Entry, 2022 Spring Site: Oakland, California

Instructor: Mitchell Glass

Team with: Anwar Abazir, Jiaxuan Tang, Qianling Liu, Zhenrui Mei

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

Using art, music, food, and mixed local cultures as beads, Kaleidoscope is a thread aiming at integrating the Oakland community that has been polarized based on socioeconomic stature. The master plan seeks to create a sprawling hub that attracts artists, locals, tourists, and the city's underrepresented homeless population to demonstrate possibilities of cultural intersection and experience the artfilled, canvas-like streets. The development's paramount objectives are to provide equitable housing and economic opportunities, neighborhood connectivity, and homelessness rehabilitation programs to promote social justice on economic and ethnic levels.

Located in the heart of Kaleidoscope and stretching from Old Oakland to Jack London District, the Oakland Arcade, the former I-980 highway, has been redefined as an urban spine and regenerated into a continuous landscape as well as an integrative cultural corridor through participatory artworks. Beneath and around the Arcade are reconceived mixed housing, art-and-craft bazaars, affordable retail rentals, and community plazas to foster local businesses and regional economy, with the participation of the homeless population enrolled in the employment training program. Through a plethora of activities introduced, the planning proposal scrutinizes the reusage of urban dilapidation with financial feasibility, thus exploring the tension between the ideal and the real.

first phase developed at the cost of 1.4 billion dollars with a healthy levered IRR of 10.34% second phase capitalizing on the housing and retail demand generated by first phase and developed at the cost of 1.33 billion dollars with a levered IRR of 25%

Reef Social Condenser

Academic Work, 2019 Spring

Site: London, the United Kingdom

Instructor: Davide Sacconi, Jad Semaan

Team with: Aaron Cass, Jesse Valgora, Stephanie Michell, Vanessa Poe

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

Reef is a city that exists in the Greenbelt. Suspended above the suburban tree line, the building complex exists as a new modern-day city, and the ultimate social condenser that finds its ground in London. The city of London is at a loss for space, for the urban fabric has become full of people and programs, inhibiting it from evolving further. Meanwhile, the Greenbelt was created as a means to contain the expansion of the city of London, but the groundwork

infrastructure for the original Greenbelt was not upheld. In response to the incompleteness, Reef proposes a new contract for the Greenbelt, allowing a suburban construct to exist at the same time as the city does, floating above the natural world. The bar buildings slice through the sky, ignoring what is below it, and reframing how a new city can be viewed and utilized for the future.

collage as a visual and speculative tool to explore the nature of social condenser which responds to the big, the generic, the equitable, and the revolutionary properties in architectural imagery

The plane acts as an extendable object that sits above the skyline and runs throughout the Greenbelt. The plane is actually a bounding box, sandwiching the program inside the building. The top of the plane acts as gardens, parks, and green space.

The interior ramp acts as the environment inside the bars where there are no rooms, only areas. The removal of vertical walls eliminates the need for ownership. The built environment exists as a continuous fabric offering areas of congregation that ebb and flow.

The surface spontaneously mounds and peels, providing a variation of spaces. Activities that were once bound by walls are communalized in the continuous surface. The program is endless and begins when a need arises.

Columns serve as the only way in and out of the Reef. They are the tubing infrastructure that helps the Reef maintain itself. They carry supplies and goods to the new city from the Greenbelt, as well as any unwanted waste products created by the Reef.

Plane Ramp Program Column

Separated

Gathering for work, for sleeping, for socializing Migration into the floating Reef

Elevated artificial landscape both within and above the bar

Borders and Beyond Borders

Infrastructural Reciprocity

Academic Work, 2020 Fall, Thesis Research Site: Central Aisa

Instructor: Abingo Wu

Team with: Xingyu Guo

Role in team: Research, Design, Representation

Rather than presenting an overly simplified image of grand architectures as solutions, we shall mean in the first instance to de-engineer the ideal buildings into particles of a larger system that supports the construction of not only physical infrastructure, but also the cultural, spiritual, and virtual infrastructure that is situated in the pivotal point of this urbanism. To this end, this architectural thesis research design is a response to the growing concern of water crises as well as the border conflicts that are generated by the dispute over transboundary resource distribution. Central Asia, including Xinjiang, the western borderland of China, is an area that epitomizes the severe decline of water resources resulting from increased urbanization and population, thus historically having eradicated civilizations and provoked territorial confrontation between countries. The research centers around the hypothesis of resource redistribution in aquatic urbanism, and it culminates in regional planning strategies reflecting on the issue.

The research design examines this growing concern of water depletion and strategies for poverty alleviation. The development-oriented plan sees water as a catalyst of community cohabitation and offers the citizens in and around the border city, Khorgas, a speculative alternative living experience with the revitalized local economy under worsened aquatic resource conditions. In this narrative, the aquatic system foregrounds the reciprocity across the multidimensional borderlines between political entities, between cities and villages, and between artificiality and nature. With an infrastructural premise on a regional scale, and government-aided upgrading on a human scale, the 30-year plan experiments to help the city adapt to a new condition, and it helps every one of the households to achieve and even exceed moderately prosperous lives with stall and courtyard economy. The planning re-imagines a living typology consisting of both rehabilitation and construction that externalizes and monumentalizes the power of nature as a human necessity.

Past theories have envisioned models that address diverse urban issues in spatial, economic, and bioregional planning, which responds to the longdiscussed top-bottom relationship. In answering the water crisis through a neo-urbanism, the quadrant diagram recodes the development of border cities from an infrastructural and landscape perspectives which eventually establish links with the essential human mentality to address the social-political, historical, and cultural factors seen exclusively in a Central Asian context.

Envisioning not only an infrastructural network relationship in plan, the conceptual sketch also proposes a sectional stratification of future functions to showcase a broad vertical planning where the megastructure is zoned differently in levels of height ranging from subterrain to sky above 30,000 feet high.

The hydrological systems consist of prototypes of elements constructing a mass infrastructural network in both intranational and international level. It includes water resource exploration and conservation mechanisms, equitable resource sharing agreement between countries through the use of facilities, such as dams, as well as the proposed structural transformation on the virtual water trade.

The proposed urban environment exhibits a feature of city monumentality and a strong cults for water as a return of worship to nature. Although envisioned from a heteronomous view, the network still invites participation of more authors, because the bottom-up services and structures it constructs will outweigh building codes and rules.

The systematic mechanism of the network flows progressively. After atmospheric water vapor has been manipulated to reach to the dry land from the Indian Ocean with the help of atmospheric circulation and monsoon, it is extracted through condensation towers to offer municipal, industrial and agricultural usage in a loop. Lastly, treatment control will release treated water back to Khorgos river and compensate the drying Ili river.

From Fragments to Pile

Fragmented History: Symbolism

Other Works Travel Sketches, Studies, and Built Projects

1936-1945 Sachsenhausen

A panopticon and a factory

Academic, Individual and Professional Work, 2019-2021

Site: Europe, China

From Fragments to Pile

Fragmented History: Symbolism

A�er the world war destroyed much of Berlin’s early history, the city’s present configura�on demonstrates a much more contemporary approach to urban and architectural design under extreme poli�cal reign. The city was built not to be convenient for residents, but to propagate ideas. Thus, buildings can be seen as live sculptures and billboards, and each exhibits a strong poli�cal or func�onal inten�on in a straigh�orward way.

A�er the world war destroyed much of Berlin’s early history, the city’s present configura�on demonstrates a much more contemporary approach to urban and architectural design under extreme poli�cal reign. The city was built not to be convenient for residents, but to propagate ideas. Thus, buildings can be seen as live sculptures and billboards, and each exhibits a strong poli�cal or func�onal inten�on in a straigh�orward way. level.

Layered History: Narrative

When pieces symbolizing different meanings come together, the structure tells a con�nuous story city. Renova�on and reappropria�on of old buildings normally retain the original inten�on while adding on new values. As a result, individual historical moments are made into a pile, simultaneously reconsturcting a space respec�vely dedicated for a past tense and a present one.

Communist Power 1969 World Clock

Communist Power Berlin TV Tower

The World Clock suggests the prosperity of the na�on. It is placed in the center of the plaza, and the facade of the surrounding buildings are slightly �lted, possibly allowing for be�er views of this symbol from the traffic area.

The urban planning under communist rule in East Germany was very much utopic With iconic and symbolic structures erected in the city, the government made strong poli�cal statements. The tower marks the highest point in Europe at the �me. As a symbol of power, its height allows for an unblocked view throughout the city.

Communist Power Walls as Propoganda Posters

While the streets are narrow, the propaganda pain�ngs are placed on lower sec�ons of the facade. When the street is wide and open, the pain�ngs are put on high end of the wall for be�er viewing from the street level.

Communist Power 1969 World Clock

The World Clock suggests the prosperity of the na�on. It is placed in the center of the plaza, and the facade of the surrounding buildings are slightly �lted, possibly allowing for be�er views of this symbol from the traffic area.

The concentra�on camp under Nazi Germany is designed as a triangulized panop�con to reduce blind points for best supervision. Func�onality is outspoken in all scales, including the “L”-shaped crematorium which func�ons like a factory with a designed procedure of taking lives.

1936-1945 Sachsenhausen

A panopticon and a factory

The concentra�on camp under Nazi Germany is designed as a triangulized panop�con to reduce blind points for best supervision. Func�onality is outspoken in all scales, including the “L”-shaped crematorium which func�ons like a factory with a designed procedure of taking lives.

The original parliament building was built in mixture of mul�ple styles, such as Neo-classicism and Baroque, to symbolize the unity of Germany under the German Empire. The le�overs surviving the war freeze this idea and allow for addi�on made by Norman Foster. A glass dome replaced the destroyed one and is occupiable for a panoramic view of Berlin, again symbolizing the unity of modern

day Germany. The sharp contrast of material nevertheless pile together a drama�c yet con�nuous history.

1960s + 2015 St. Agnes/Konig Galerie

From a church to a gallery

Formerly a Brutalist Catholic church, the gallery makes full use of the previous nave as an exhibi�on space. The interior is mostly preserved the main space has double-height with a roughtextured wall, s�ll evoking a sense of holiness. In contrast with a church se�ng, the current exhibi�on features imageries of a dressed cucumber. The nonsensical nature of the sculpture, together with the tranquil quality of the nave space, draws a more drama�c effect than it would if placed in a modern gallery.

Before 1990s + 2019 Russian Embassy and Metro

Facist and Communist leftovers in Berlin

These building structures and graphic design done during the Nazis rule and the Cold War are s�ll visible in Berlin as part of its history. The contrast between the old and the new in reappropria�on and renova�on provide a visual link to what happened in the past. Through a glance, visitors are able to outline a story to understand the city through mul�ple perspec�ves.

Church Gallery

sketches on the palimpsest cultural identity of Germany found in Berlin deconstruction of National Gallery of Britain that demonstrates the manifesto of Post-Modernism in its spacial composition and elemental constituent (Team with: Kaixin Huang; Instructor: Davide Sacconi, Jad Semaan)

As the Generation Pandemic Thinks and Deduces - Design Society

Professional Practice, 2021 Summer

Site: Whittle Museum of Art, Shenzhen

Exhibition Coordinator: Xiaonan Li, Qiuyi Ye

Exhibition Design: Xingyao Wang

Graphic Design: Mansze Cheung

Exhibition Assistant: Weizhe Cheng, Yufei Jiang, Yuchen Hu

The exhibition on the reinterpretation of the Pandemic narrative through children’s perspectives was the opening show for education-oriented Whittle Museum of Art. Following the curvature transitional structures, visitors are guided by a continuous movement path acting as a thread through three distinct curatorial topics, each of which utilizes different modes of display. The exhibition introduces experiential fragments by juxtaposing sensory qualities of each scene, being either light or heavy, bright or dark, rigid or loose; Yet the three scenes are also integrated by the ever-changing shadows formed by colored films and the interactive content motivating public thinking that together render a vibrant and participative atmosphere in the space.

The first scene: About Garbage. On the environmental consequences of COVID-19.

The second scene: The Metaphor of Ship. On alternative narrative about historical disasters.

The third scene: Parable from Parallel Universes. On human emotions evoked by post-anthropocenic catastrophes

Miniature Series - Atelier Xi

Professional Practice, 2019 Summer

Site: Xiuwu County, Henan Province

Lead architect: Xi Chen

Team: Di Tian, Jiajie Huang, Jing Zhu, Lvbao Xu, Suying Cao, Weiguo Wang, Weijian Wen, Xiao Han, Xingyao Wang, Zhiwei Xu, Zhu Zhu

Role in team: interior design, construction material preparation

Although the commission asked for a 300m 2 public building to facilitate Xiuwu county’s culture and art education, considering the vast serving area, the team proposed to divide one building into a series of miniature facilities scattered around the county. Among these pavilions, the peach hut promoting agricultural sale and the ruin library facilitating students in the rural area are the first two being built. Body geometries are then extracted and applied in furniture and lighting design in smaller scales.

ruin library built on top of a dilapidated brick house becomes a facility for local school children

peach hut pavilion situated within a cherry field provides spaces for agricultural product sale extracted geometries for furniture and lighting pieces

Circulating Matters

2022 Cornell Biennial Entry, 2022 Summer Site: Ithaca, New York Professor: Felix Heisel

Design Team: Lulin He, Eduardo Teran, Xingyao Wang, Connor Yocum

Role in team: conceptual design, construction material preparation, test construction

The design represents an built outdoor installation that identifies the potential of a future, local circular construction industry in Ithaca, New York. The project directly reuses materials from the deconstruction of 206 College Ave (a 1910 residential structure that was slated for demolition and has been deconstructed instead), reactivating the material qualities and values of the building for the construction of the installation. The spatial design plays on concepts of circulation and circularity by reimagining a staircase as a multidirectional, spatial folly engaging with its materials’ past and future. The design aims to promote a design paradigm that begins from the uncertainties of local material availabilities, and foresees futurities of material and component reuse within industrialized reconstruction.

small-scale model of the original folly design folly construction process and final presentation

Biofuel NavigatorEnvironmental Sample Collecor

Involving QGIS and Python Mapping Access: https://data-work.net/new-page-5

This hypothetical study of drone design involves the application of QGIS and Python in determining the optimized outcome. NYC Environmental Collector Drones, powered by CO2-feeding algae biofuel, depart from municipal garages where collected CO2 emission help to charge the drones. Their job is to collect environmental-related data and physical samples in NYC parks and greenspaces that are assigned to each drone based on park-garage distances.

The drones continue to navigate closest dropoff points and are set to communicate with one another within a certain distance to exchange samples. The samples are eventually dropped off in research facility sites located by water features where algae farming provides power sources for the facilities to conduct further biological research.