About Me

Xiaomeng Yang is an architectural designer currently studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her work explores the evolving relationships between architecture, people, and context, with a particular interest in how design can engage with existing patterns of life, social structures, and ecological systems rather than treating a site as a blank slate.

Across projects ranging from public housing retrofit and shophouse transformation to the ecological reuse of obsolete infrastructure, she investigates the tensions between preservation and change, individual and collective life, control and freedom, and human occupation and natural succession. She approaches architecture not as a fixed outcome, but as a framework that can be inhabited, negotiated, adapted, and transformed over time.

Her process moves between research and observation, architectural and urban design, digital modeling, physical making, and visual storytelling. At every scale, she aims to create spaces grounded in what already exists while remaining open to future lives and possibilities.

Portrait of Xiaomeng Yang

Contact

Email
xiaomeng_yang@gsd.harvard.edu
Phone
+86 180-3052-6210
LinkedIn
Esther, Xiaomeng YANG
Instagram
@esther_xiaomengyang

Esther Xiaomeng Yang

Selected Works 2020-2026

Shophouse Metropolis

Elastic Intimacy through Shophouse Retrofitting

2026 Spring GSD Option StudioIndividual Work

First Houses

A Retrofit and Infill Model for Collective Living

2025 Fall GSD Option StudioPartner: Subin Moon

Evolving with Nature

Repurposing Oil Platforms through Ecological Succession

2024 Young Architects Competition: Iron IslandIndividual Work

Thresholds of Control

Transforming the Panopticon through Layered Visibility

2023 Archi-Hack Panopticon CompetitionIndividual Work

The Infinity Cube

Designing for Mental health in High Density Sprawl

2023 UIA-HYP Cup International Student CompetitionTeam: Yanting Shen, Yiwen Xu, Hanzhang Shen

Reinventing Oneself

Shelter for Women Victims of Domestic Violence

2021 Kaira Looro Competition: Women’s HouseIndividual Work