Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 Named Gold Winner in Mixed Reality at the 2025 French Design Awards
The International Awards Associate (IAA) announced Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 as a Gold Winner in Mixed Reality at the 2025 French Design Awards. This prestigious accolade celebrates outstanding, innovative achievements in global design that set new standards for creativity, functionality, and cultural impact. This year, the awards received over 2,000 entries worldwide, including submissions from leading brands and independent designers.
Yiqi Zhao stood out with their innovative project, The Holo Flower Brain, a real-time data visualization interface that poetically visualizes daily brain events. Thomas Brandt, IAA spokesperson, praised Zhao’s work as a pinnacle of design innovation, inspiring the global design community with their unique vision and relentless pursuit of excellence.
Yiqi Zhao, a Product Design Lead at Meta, is renowned for her work in AI creation for spatial computing across Meta Quest lines, mobile, and other wearables. Zhao recently joined an esteemed panel of global XR Design Challenge judges. According to Zhao, a successful XR design should be intuitive, tell a compelling story, be visually stunning, solve real-world problems, and be accessible to all users.
Photo courtesy of Yiqi Zhao.
posted February, 2025
Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 Won Three 2024 DNA Paris Design Awards
Yiqi Zhao MDes ’20 recently won three Gold awards at the 2024 DNA Paris Design Awards, an accolade honoring the work of international designers who improve our daily lives through practical, beautiful, and innovative design. One project in particular, The Holo Flower Brain, was completed at the Graduate School of Design in 2019 with mentorship from GSD faculty member Allen Sayegh, Design Critic and Senior Interaction Technologies Fellow.
“The Holo Flower Brain offers a unique tool for visualizing and understanding brain activity, providing new avenues for art studio therapy and self-awareness, which can help alleviate the mental health crisis,” said Holy Minoza in a press release for New York Weekly. Zhao’s achievements underscore the transformative potential of AI and mixed reality in design, inspiring designers to explore the convergence of technology and artistry. Zhao celebrated her awards at the 2024 Paris Design Awards Ceremony held at the Espace Niemeyer in Paris, France, on Friday, October 25th.
Photos courtesy Yiqi Zhao.
posted November, 2024
Kenneth Hasegawa, AIA MArch ’20 Rejoins ELS Architecture as a Principal
Kenneth Hasegawa, AIA MArch ’20 has rejoined ELS as a principal to launch its newest studio in San Diego. As part of ELS’ leadership, he is working to broaden the firm’s coverage in San Diego and Southern California. Kenneth is now leading the design on the new master plan and aquatics center for Memorial Park in Santa Ana. He has collaborated on notable ELS projects including the Legends Aquatic Center at UC Berkeley, Uytengsu Aquatics Center at USC, and Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo.
Prior to rejoining ELS in May 2023, he helped shape prominent cultural, residential, and higher education projects at Michael Maltzan Architecture in Los Angeles; Kengo Kuma & Associates in Tokyo; and PARA Project in New York. He holds a Master of Architecture degree with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he was awarded the Araldo A. Cossutta 2018 Prize for Design Excellence. He also received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, with a minor in Sustainable Design.
Follow ELS Architecture+Urban Design on Instagram and LinkedIn
posted March, 2024
Jessica Yuan MArch ’20 Wins Airlie Prize for “Slow Render”
Jessica Yuan MArch ’20 has been named the winner of the Airlie Prize with her poetry collection Slow Render, releasing April 2024. Teeming with maps and histories, journeys and landscapes, Yuan’s collection weaves together worlds with tender and incisive lyricism. Told in three parts, this book unveils as it journeys, slowly rendering into landscapes of childhood warped by memory. These poems wrestle with images of spatial order and disorder within the city, the planet, the home, and the body. From expansive world building sequences to the tight interiority of room sized sonnets, Yuan’s poems interrogate how our environments are imagined, constructed, represented, and lived in. With piercing and visceral language, Slow Render sings of longing and belonging in this stunning, unique collection.
Follow Jessica on Instagram.
posted February, 2024
Sarah Cowles MLA ’05 and Ben Hackenberger MLA ’20 Firm Ruderal Featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine
Ruderal, a design firm founded by Sarah Cowles MLA ’05, with landscape architect Ben Hackenberger MLA ’20, was featured in the April Issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.
The article, written by Jessica Bridger MLA ’09, describes the context of Ruderal’s studio and field practice in the country of Georgia, from gardens and master planning to the planting plan for the Tbilisi Urban Forest: “As Cowles adventures further into the wild, wild west of Georgia’s landscape-driven international development, Ruderal gets deeper in the reality on the ground, in all its tourism-driven, developer-funded, NGO-engaged mix of terrible and glorious. Many designers avoid this unglamorous, common reality of actual development and global practice, losing the world to stay in the confines of the safe, and dream of idealized projects. In contrast, Cowles is out on the range, getting things done.”
Ruderal was founded by Cowles in 2019 to support and train a new generation of landscape architects in the Caucasus. Based in Tbilisi, the firm pursues a wide range of projects in the Black Sea region and Central Asia as well as in Europe and the United States.
Follow RUDERAL: @_ruderal_
Follow Ben Hackenberger: @bhackenberger
posted July, 2023
Vaissnavi Shukl MDes ’20 Awarded Graham Foundation Grant
Vaissnavi Shukl MDes ’20 has recently been awarded a Graham Foundation grant to advance her project Architecture Off-Centre. Architecture Off-Centre is a podcast highlighting contemporary discourses that shape the built environment but do not occupy the centre stage either in the architecture curriculum or in professional practice. It features conversations with artists, journalists, policymakers, lawyers, educators, and cultural entrepreneurs, whose work is deeply engaged in comprehending and mitigating the current challenges of civic life and whose scholarship contributes to the ever-expanding discourse of architecture.
The podcast currently spans over four seasons with 37 episodes and guests from over 12 countries, with at least 50% identifying as women. With this production grant, she aims to make the podcast content more accessible to a global audience by publishing interview transcripts, providing resources for detailed research and inviting guests from varied backgrounds.
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posted July, 2023
Three Alumni Win the Architectural League Prize of New York 2022
Three alumni have been named winners of the 2022 Architectural League Prize of New York. The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, lecture series, and exhibition organized by The Architectural League and its Young Architects and Designers Committee. The winners’ lectures and installations provide a lively public forum for the discussion of their work and ideas. These winners will create installations of their work onsite at a location of their choice or in a digital format to be presented in an online exhibition on archleague.org, opening June 14th, 2002. This year’s theme of the League Prize: Grounding.
Congratulations to:
Francisco Quinones MArch ’14, Departamento del Distrito
Maggie Tsang MDes ’19, Dept.
Isaac Stein MLA ’20, MDes ’20, Dept.
To learn more about each winning project, please visit:
Dept.
Departamento del Distrito
Visit here for the full list of 2022 Awardees.
posted May, 2022
Seven GSD Alumni Elevated to AIA Fellows 2022
Nine GSD alumni and faculty have been elevated by the 2022 Jury of Fellows from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to its prestigious College of Fellows. The honor recognizes architects who have “achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.”
The GSD congratulates:
- Prof. Ricardo A. Alvarez-Diaz AMDP ’20
- Mr. Hans-Ekkehard Butzer MArch ’99
- Kenneth Harold Luker MArch ’96
- Prof. Kiel K. Moe MDes ’03
- Mr. Anthony C. Poon MArch ’92
- Mr. Steven Rajninger MArch ’92
- Mr. Mark P. Schendel MArch ’89
The GSD also recognizes Associate Professor of Architecture Faculty member Mr. Eric Howeler was also selected as a fellow this year.
For the full list of 2022 Fellows, visit the AIA website.
posted April, 2022
Timothy Carey MArch ‘15 and Laura Greenberg MAUD ’20 named winners of 2021 Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant
Timothy Carey MArch ‘15 and Laura Greenberg MAUD ’20 have been named as one of the five winners of the 2021 Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant. Administered by the Center for Architecture, AIA New York, this grant is a national award intended to further the personal and professional development of an architect in early or mid-career through travel.
For Carey, his proposal entitled “Some Assembly Required: Performing Arts Architecture and the Idea of Audience” focuses on the shifting relationships between the performing arts building, the concentrated “audience” of previous eras, and the dispersed “public” of the present-day – brought about over the past century by the technological means to consume culture outside of the auditorium. While the discourse on the performing arts building often details attempts to “crack open” the typology, during the COVID-19 shutdowns these institutions were suddenly only able to address their dispersed public. Carey’s research will investigate how those aspirations might be reframed and reevaluated following a time of crisis for the building type. This research extends the work that he originally developed in his thesis (with advisor GSD Professor Grace La) and for which he has gained further significant professional expertise in practice.
For Greenberg, her proposal studies public school closings that have become common in certain US cities as populations decline and disinvestment compounds. Closings tend to disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities, eliminating associated educational and community benefits. Her proposal, “School’s Out” explores equitable re-use strategies that prioritize community input and retain public benefits from former public school sites. The project will focus on district-scale processes (how re-use decisions are made, who is involved, how information is communicated transparently, etc.) and building-scale outcomes. Laura Greenberg will travel across the American Midwest and Northeast to examine the transformation of former public schools.
posted March, 2022
Sarah Cowles MLA ’05 and Ben Hackenberger MLA ’20 firm Ruderal awarded the Landezine International Landscape Special Jury Award 2021
Ruderal, a design firm founded by Sarah Cowles MLA ’05, with landscape architect Ben Hackenberger MLA ’20, has won the Landezine International Landscape Awards Special Jury Award for their project “Arsenal Oasis”. This is a public landscape in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. The jury recognized the project for its “newfound and unique roughness reflects a relevant dialogue between what was, what is, and the suggestion of what ought to be. The project addresses wider spatial issues in Tbilisi and will hopefully act as a catalyst to spark positive change regarding neglected areas in the city.” Ruderal was founded by Cowles in 2019 to support a new generation of landscape architects in the Caucasus. Based in Tbilisi, the firm pursues a wide variety of projects in the Black Sea region and Central Asia as well as in Europe and the United States.
Follow RUDERAL: @_ruderal_
Follow Sarah Cowles: @ditch_daily
Follow Ben Hackenberger: @bhackenberger
posted December, 2021
Yoni Angelo Carnice MLA ’20 Researches the Work and Legacy of Demetrio Braceros at San Francisco’s Cayuga Playground
When Yoni Angelo Carnice MLA ’20 first visited Cayuga Playground in San Francisco, he was struck by a wooden sculpture of a woman dressed in the traditional Filipino Maria Clara gown, with a graceful elegance that reminded him of his grandmother. The distinctively personal atmosphere of the park stayed with Carnice, and later became the basis of his year-long research project, “Eden of the Hinterlands: Reclaiming Asian-American Garden History,” under the Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design, sponsored by the Garden Club of America and the Landscape Architecture Foundation.
Before coming to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Carnice worked in ecological restoration and climate-based policy work. “I was doing very regimented invasive plant removal, and planting native plants, in a more binary way.” He sought a more fluid, holistic approach to landscape architecture. His time at the GSD and his experience at Cayuga Playground, which “weaves landscape narratives, plants, and architecture together in a beautiful way,” was a revelation. Located in the Outer Mission district, it is an unexpected, idiosyncratic gem in a city dominated by “mow and blow” parks. And it is largely the work of one man, Demetrio Braceros, a Filipino immigrant who became Cayuga’s gardener in 1986.
Read the full story on the GSD website.
posted August, 2021
Soledad Patiño MAUD ’20 Wins 2020 LafargeHolcim Next Generation Awards
The LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction awarded Soledad Patiño’s MAUD ’20 project “Transitioning infrastructures for sanitation equity” as the first prize in the Next Generation category for Asia Pacific. The proposal was developed as part of a studio and research led by Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87, Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization. It was conducted at the GSD during 2019 and aims to bring social and economic legitimacy to waterfront settlements of Mumbai through a new network of sanitation and community infrastructure.
The international LafargeHolcim Awards recognize exemplary sustainable construction projects and visionary ideas from nearly five thousand submissions by applicants around the world in 2020. “The project suggests new multipurpose infrastructures,” said the jury. “These give rise to new dynamics of water, waste, and energy management within the community, that offer a high potential in generating sustainable businesses and a strong basis for circular economy models”. Read the full press release.
You can find Soledad Patiño on Instagram @solepatino_
posted June, 2021
Team of GSD Alumni Selected as Finalists in Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Design Competition
A team of Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni is selected as one of the three finalists in the Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Design Competition held by the San José Light Tower Corporation. The design team named CO-MILIEU includes Qinrong Liu MArch ’20, Ruize Li MArch ’20, Yuting Zhang MAUD ’17, Evelyn Cheng Zeng MArch ’18, Vincent Zishen Wen MLA ’19 and Qiaoqi Dai MLA ’19 along with a lighting design group led by Yutong Jiang MDes ’21 and Sijia Zhong MLA ’21. The goal of the competition is to build an innovative iconic world-class landmark for San Jose and Silicon Valley. With an inverted void tower and blurred pixelated matrix, the team’s proposal, “Nebula Tower,” envisions a soft, dynamic, and adaptive contemporary landmark that works as a nebula incubator for new artistic possibilities and celebrates Silicon Valley’s history of technology innovation. Through the medium of light, Nebula Tower recalls the collective memory of its home to build a bridge between past and future. Inspired by the diverse geographical characters along the bay area, the proposal reimagines the Arena Green as a common ground where the natural realm and urban fabric are enriched by their interaction to embrace the co-living of diversities and utilizes innovative adaptability that can secure a sustainable future for San Jose – culturally, environmentally, and economically.
More information about the “Nebula Tower” proposal and the upcoming public meetings of Urban Confluence Competition are available on the competition website.
posted March, 2021
Cohort of GSD Alumni Selected as Finalists in “Reimagining Brooklyn Bridge” Competition
A team including five GSD alumni have been selected as finalists in a competition held by the New York City Council and the Van Alen Institute to reimagine New York’s Brooklyn Bridge as a friendlier experience for cyclists and pedestrians. The design team includes Wendy Wang MLA ’14, Cy Zhang MLA/MLAUD ’20, Vita Wang MArch ’19, Jeremy Pi MUP ’19, and Minzi Long MAUD/MDes ’20 along with designers Shannon Hasenfratz and Andrew Nash.
The team’s proposal, “Bridge X,” reimagines the upper and lower decks for greater pedestrian and cyclist access, to make room for vendors and small businesses, and to offer new modes of engagement with the bridge. The proposal uses digital tools and design interventions that enable visitors to engage with the bridge in new ways, while the bridge itself evolves in response to public feedback and adapts over time. The team submitted their proposal via Wang’s ScenesLab, which she founded as a platform for experimentation and research.
More information about the competition and the “Bridge X” proposal are available in an article on the GSD website.
posted August, 2020
