Overview
Jierui is a PhD student learning in Welsh School of Architecture. Jierui gained his master degree in engineering in Anhui Jianzhu University, China. His bachelor's degree was gained in Soochow University (China), majoring in Architecture. He joined the Welsh School of Architecture as a full-time PhD student in April 2019.
His research field were informal learning space and university campus before the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, his research field is aiming at virtual design studio and social interactions within it for architectural discipline. There are two of his papers have been published to provide more recognition for his research. He owned an honorable mention solely in China Architecture Education/ TSINGRUN Award Students’ Paper Competition, which was held by The National Supervision Board of Architectural Education (China), in 2014. Otherwise, as a candidate, he got the first prize of an architecture design competition hold by The Civil Engineering and Architecture Society of Anhui Province in 2016. In 2020, he has attended four international conferences and made presentations related to his research.
Research
Research interests
Informal learning spaces; Virtual architectural design studio; Social interactions within design studio
Thesis
A study on how successfully social relationships within physical design studios are enabled within the virtual environment for architectural education
Since the end of twentieth century, virtual learning spaces has been perceived as promoting significant venues which strengthen the formal teaching and flourish students’ lives, learning and work. Specifically, this thesis focuses on the virtual environment implementation on design studio. There are several unique social interactions within design studio, while it is a controversy that if they can be processed smoothly when converted from physical into virtual environment, and this research is going to find out. Besides, due to the pandemic and requirement of ‘work from home’, it is a chance to research the setting and implementation of virtual learning spaces for different disciplines, such as architecture for this research.
Although research for virtual design studios has brought some achievements since the end of last century, most of previous studies taking efforts to research how to conduct architecture by means of such virtual learning systems were commonly theoretically or based on single project. Since the COVID-19 pandemic and universities closure, every curriculum, teacher, student, and institutions face the challenge of converting from conventional learning and teaching into distance learning and online education, so as for the discipline of architecture. In case of the challenges like this pandemic in the upcoming time, the construction and conduction of virtual design studios for architectural education is the crucial task for the future architectural education. Thus, in order to support the future research and provide the discipline with references of design and construction for developed virtual design studio, this thesis is researching the conversion of social interactions within design studio from physical to virtual environment at different architectural schools in the UK.