Originally from Shanghai, China—a city shaped by meandering streets, waterways, and vibrant public spaces—Jiayu developed a sensitivity to the changing spatial and material qualities of urban landscapes. Her work brings together systems thinking, close observation, and visual representation to explore how places change over time and how people experience them.
Her design and research experience spans adapting infrastructure, regenerative landscapes, speculative urbanism, and public spaces. She works through mapping, geographic sections, drawings, and interactive storytelling to reveal the histories and evolving ecologies of place. She is also interested in how plants can serve both as subjects of observation and as tools for imagining and representing landscape qualities.
Jiayu has collaborated with COGdesign, a nonprofit organization supporting community-led green space design in Boston, where she developed a growing interest in plants and community-based landscape practices. She is currently a researcher at Auburn University, focusing on natural infrastructure and resilient coastal landscapes.
Drawing, dancing, and cooking are also part of Jiayu’s creative practice. Through sensory and embodied experiences, she explores color, texture, movement, and rhythm. These ways of seeing and experiencing the world also shape how she observes and makes landscapes.
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