(2023-2026) What if a 6-week feasibility study became a single click? Algoma is an AI-native feasibility engine translating regulatory, spatial, and financial complexity into decision-making.

(2025-2026) What if you could collaborate with a world model? Atlas is an embodied knowledge graph tracing the hidden dependencies among physical reality, digital intelligence, and human reasoning.

(2026) What if you could speak to your brain? A study in anatomy and cognition. A user guides words to associated regions of the brain. Switch on colored regions to see how each part of the brain functions.

(2025-2026) What if AI could reason from opposing worldviews? As a prototype, Divergent provides a framework for constructing AI personas from psychological substrates and philosophy.

(2025-2026) What if a still rendering could become an interactive application? This R&D visualization project embeds real-time environmental controls into a single static image.

(2015-2016) What if machines combined to create a wine cellar? Primitive robots bring IoT technologies together with steel frames and motors to create a new cellar typology.

(2025-2026) What if a hedge fund could be fully agentic? A Multi-Agent consensus trading architecture generates, challenges, and executes investments through structured disagreement.

(2019-2021) What if humans could join the matrix? First volucap studio. Research mapped spatial relationships between tech infrastructure, human ops, and production workflow.

(2026) What if physical spaces were embodied with AI? This future vision of health explores human-synthetic relationships across the six activities of daily living in spaces networked for IoT AI embodiment.

(2018-2019) What if education taught youth to become builders? A new kind of classroom forms a knowledge playground where grade-schoolers can explore robotic fabrication and biology.

(2020-2021) What if car buying could be virtual and interactive? Research insights reveal user preferences for the future of EV retail, integrating digital configurators and augmented reality.

(2019-2026) What if we could build a synthetic atmosphere on Mars, extending life and civilization beyond Earth? Continued research into planetary infrastructure, interstellar logistics, and travel.

(2018-2019) What if physical narratives could have virtual dimensions? Narratives for Augmented Design in Architecture is a phygital exploration of authorship, graphic arts, and digital overlays.

(2022-2023) How might hybrid work modalities evolve traditional teams and workflows? Research collaboration with Harvard Business School and a Boston-based Fortune 100 company.

(2016-2018) What if Eastern and Western medicine could merge to create preventive lifestyle regimens? Developed, programmed, and designed a new women’s wellness brand in Shanghai.

(2010-2011) What if Earth’s ecosystem evolved a new synthetic ecology? Research traces urban morphologies to create new frameworks for education and closed-loop urban systems.

(2026) How might we classify emerging systems and their relationships? P2P is a framework for seeing the unseen in the built environment, traced from a single lot line to the planetary scale.

(2025-2026) What if the line between human and synthetic actors became indistinguishable? Symbiogenesis is an irreversible merger producing new, emerging assemblies in the built environment.

(2016-2017) What if buildings could filter air without electricity? Working with Serge Ferrari, this prototype, made of bamboo and CNC steel joints, features a living greenwall inside. Designed using CFD modeling, it tests passive filtration.

(2016) What if greenwalls could replace air filters and capture viruses? A controlled five-month experiment tracking PM2.5 and CO2 concentrations to measure the atmospheric efficacy of interior planting systems.

(2019-2022) What if a medical campus were a self-sustaining fortress? This off-grid, net-zero medical campus in Haiti uses passive cooling, earth-block construction, and solar power. Designed for hurricane and seismic resilience.

(2018) What if ceramic frit patterns could reduce energy demand and glare on a glass facade? Extensive research using computational modeling and analysis sought the optimal frit scale and pattern to mitigate solar gains on UIC’s lobby.

(2017-2019) What if customers could sense and feel a healthy microclimate inside every NIO House? NIO Houses incorporate air filters and living walls, tackling IAQ through active and passive measures, tracked on a digital interface.

(2022) What if rain could be captured in the desert and used for irrigation months later? Pavilions use stack ventilation and capture 274,000 gallons of rainwater annually in deep cisterns to water crops and fight malnutrition in Senegal.

(2012-2015) How might we reduce energy demand on a glass tower with a SW-facing facade? WPP HQ, designed at Gensler, utilized digital simulation to validate vertical louver patterning and the use of metal mesh for passive podium lighting.

(2011-2012) What if architecture could catalyze community and sustainability in Shanghai? The KIC Campus, designed at Gensler for ShuiOn Land is Shanghai's first LEED Platinum project and became AECOM China’s HQ because of its success.

(2025-2026) What if natural microclimates could passively cool buildings in the desert? As an Algoma project, this subterranean system of cool air, vegetation, and water creates passive cooling at a campus scale.

(2015-2016) How might two towers share the same river view on a site designated for a single building? Winning design for a developer competition. Integrating passive sustainability with complex site constraints along the Huangpu River.

(2019-2021) How might a home's layout change to align daily activities with the sun for lighting and passive heating? This residence explores the interplay between natural materials, light, and physical space.

(2011-2012) What if an office campus transformed into the center of sports and AI in Shanghai? A 2.12 million-square-foot, LEED Gold office campus in Shanghai designed at Gensler for Tishman Speyer. Leased to Nike, Henkel and Douyin.

(2019-2020) What if we combined a hospital and medical school within the same footprint in Haiti? Roof systems collect water while shading and drawing airflow to cool the thermal mass of the earth-block buildings.

(2020-2021) What if immersive interactions could create educational experiences for youth? This interactive climate museum by Envision Group showcases connected smart systems for clean energy products and infrastructure.

(2021) What if neighborhood communities never needed gas stations? This project consists of in-depth research documenting benzene exposure in neighborhoods and the proximity of petroleum-based infrastructure to residences.

(2013-2016) What if we could unlink economic growth from air pollution? This research documents the economic relationship between GDP trends, CO2 emissions, and the policy frameworks governing atmospheric quality.

(2015) What if altitude were nature’s own particulate filter? How might we reposition air intakes at the tops of towers to reduce the energy used for air filtration? Sensors measured particulate density at various altitudes.

(2016) What if bamboo could fly? Made from real bamboo woven together with recycled rebar, the pavilion is a parametric bamboo cloud floating atop a hill for the Suzhou Land Art Festival. Featured in Domus.

(2017) What if a wine terroir became a zero-carbon finish material? Earth blocks are fabricated into an interior finished wall and a natural acoustic motif to reduce the wine project’s carbon footprint.

(2022-2023) What if we followed a single tree from the forest to its use in a building? This documentary traces the mass timber supply chain from harvest and robotic fabrication to construction and replanting.

(2022-2023) What if Mass Timber construction costs more per linear foot but less at occupancy? Thirty research interviews and a co-authored Harvard Business School teaching case, 223-058.

(2013-2014) What if the excavated stone became the finish material we place back? This museum reused stone and recycled rebar, forming gabion vaults with framed openings to the original stone walls beyond.

(2015) What if the only material available were wine crates? What could we make? This hanging, hand-modeled installation imitates the flow of wine as it hovers, made entirely of recycled wine crates.

(2023-2026) How might the value and longevity of mass timber change the unit economics for residential development? Natural living spaces and a net-zero-carbon structure; an Algoma project in permitting.

(2022) What if forest economies could prevent fugitive carbon emissions from wildfires? Research on the co-benefits of forest economies to fund maintenance and sustainable harvesting.

(2021-2022) What if your site limits prevented you from building at ground level? A challenging, divided site combines timber and earth materials to create raised indoor and outdoor living spaces.

(2013-2016) What if the spaces in the world that once stored bullets now stored wine? Recycled wine cases form wine-tasting pavilions in a pre-World War II military bunker outside of Shanghai.

(2018-2019) What if the stripping away of a facade could reveal the passage of time? The Sheridan Residence in Chicago, IL, implements a low-carbon material strategy utilizing timber and terracotta.

(2014-2016) What if facades could be made of dirt? Terracotta was selected as a low-carbon material in this Shanghai project for Gensler. Tiles were custom-designed with NBK and manufactured locally.

(2021) What if a neighborhood’s character could be preserved at the ground plane while adding new housing in the sky above? A folding facade preserves GFA while aligning with Manhattan zoning restrictions.

(2017-2018) What if a one-million-square-foot abandoned train station could become a vibrant cultural hub? The greatest challenge was designing vertical circulation in a structure built for horizontal travel.

(2019) What if every material were reclaimed from the demolition sites of 100-year-old buildings? Inspired by historic tea houses, this speakeasy for Flask Group at WeWork reclaims history through materials.

(2018-2019) What if your facade embodied flavor rather than carbon? This project’s red-rock gabion facade embodies the terroir-to-table design philosophy as the cellar door's primary aesthetic and finish.

(2019-2021) What if you could revive a lost art form? Over two years, only 1 in 10 tiles survived the kiln's extreme heat needed to achieve a feathered blue. 1000 in total are host bottle and light.

(2015) What if the shape of a chair could enable more efficient use of material? Fabrication research exploring CNC machining using cardboard and fiberboard prototyping for carbon fiber furniture design.

(2018) How might a single block be used to hold a pavilion in tension? Composed entirely of multiples of three, the pavilion was designed and built for the World Entrepreneurs Expo in Shanghai, China.

(2019-2020) What if a light fixture could inspire ideas and collaboration? The Hive Mind Pendant combines a glass hive with an idea at its core to illuminate creative spaces for thinkers.

(2011-2012) What if a space’s height limit were only a construct of our imagination? A low space inside a bunker uses a mirror and lighting to create a moment of surprise. The lighting inverts when looking up.

(2018) What if car parts were used as furniture? Designed and manufactured as part of the national NIO House future series, the table draws inspiration from the NIO ES8's axle and brake pads.

(2019) What if the aroma and color of dried spices could become a space’s finish material? The Gabion prototype brings the dried spices used in a lounge’s menu directly into the entry wall finish.

(2017-2019) What if color could change perception and mood? A sensory dining experience is programmed to combine the colors and flavors of dishes with vibrant interior finishes and furniture.

(2014) What if, instead of holding a wine glass, you could stand within one? An installation at the center of this cellar lets visitors climb a secret stair to a suspended bridge and lookout with a new perspective.

(2009-2010) What if wallpaper could become wearable? Awards for Best in Show: Transformed Herman Miller Aeron Chair fabric in 2009 and vinyl wallpaper in 2010 into couture dresses with StudioV.

(2016-2020) What if a wine cellar could be both zero-waste and beautiful? Prototyping with the manufacturer explored how mirrored curved shapes could create a zero-waste bamboo wine cellar.

(2017) What if a wine cellar were turned inside out? Like a jewel box in the middle of a room, layers of secrecy hide a special wine collection behind a hidden door in a freestanding private cellar.

(2018) What if a flagship car showroom traveled the world? Modular manufacturing creates a traveling flagship store the size of a shipping container. Pieces roll and snap together.

(2015) What if you could create the feeling of infinity in 100 square feet or less? The installation uses more than 50,000 wine corks and required three separate fabrication teams due to its complexity.

(2013-2014) What if spaces designed for destruction became the storage place for good times? 550 wine lockers line the halls of a former war bunker. Wine lockers embed digital, app-connected keys.

(2018) What if structures were the conduit for light? Experimentation with acrylic fabrication and craft shaping to create continuous lighting without breaks, evoking a sense of futurism.

(2016-2017) How might diamonds represent a relationship's growth? The featured ring is part of a four-piece series. Birthstones at the base grow into a diamond vine and terminate in a feature stone.

(2012-2013) How might a triple-curved wine cellar be fabricated? A private cellar in Shanghai is fabricated as a triple-curved egg with a halo in the ceiling. The central sphere hides MEP.

(2019) What if rowing crew inspired the shape of a rack to hold grand cru? A new wine-racking system uses a curved form to hold bottles of various sizes for the artistic, avid wine collector.

(2017-2018) How might a stair become more than a means of travel? Designed for NIO, a suspended Archimedean spiral stair of glass and steel reflects the journey back when looking up.