Assistant Professor
Graduate Advisor for Urban Design
Liang Wang is an architect, urban designer, and educator. He is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining UT Austin, Liang has taught at The Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Syracuse University School of Architecture. Liang’s scholarship and teaching concern history and theory of urban form and design, space and politics of the superblock, architecture and urbanism in East Asia, as well as urban housing and collective living. His research work and teaching have been supported by Harvard University, Syracuse University, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the David Rockefeller Center, among others. In line with his research, Liang is the co-author of the book Chinese Modern: Episodes Backward and Forward in Time (Birkhäuser, 2022) and Urban Blocks and Grids: History, Technical Features, and Outcomes (Scholars’ Press, 2019). He is also the co-editor of the twelfth issue of the New Geographies journal Commons (Harvard University Press and Harvard GSD, 2021).
Liang is the co-founder of Commons Office—a research-minded design practice embracing a trans-scalar and trans-disciplinary approach to architecture and urbanism. Prior to founding Commons Office, he practiced internationally at Herzog & de Meuron, SOM, WW Architecture, and Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects, where he worked on multi-scalar architecture and urban design projects including the Skolkovo University in Moscow, Tanjong Pagar Center in Singapore, and the Anting Auto Town R&D Harbor in Shanghai.
Liang received his Doctor of Design degree from Harvard University. Previously, he completed his Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree with distinction from the GSD, where he was awarded the Urban Design Thesis Prize and the Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design. He also holds a Master of Architecture degree from Rice University, where he won the Morris R. Pitman Award in Architecture and the Fondren Research Award.
EDUCATION
- Doctor of Design, Harvard University
- Master of Architecture in Urban Design (with Distinction), Harvard University
- Master of Architecture, Rice University
- Bachelor of Architecture (with Honors), Harbin Institute of Technology
PUBLICATIONS
Rowe, Peter G., Wang, Liang, and Chen, Zhanliang. 2022. Chinese Modern: Episodes Backwards and Forwards in Time. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Wang, Liang. 2021. Cultivated Imaginaries: Superblock and the Idea of the City. Exhibition Publication. NY: Syracuse University School of Architecture.
Wang, Liang, and Mahdavi, Mojdeh. 2021. New Geographies 12: Commons. MA: Harvard University Press and Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Rowe, Peter G., Van Den Berg, Hanne, and Wang, Liang. 2019. Urban Blocks and Grids: History, Technical Features, and Outcomes. Beau-Bassin, Mauritius: Scholars’ Press.
Wang, Liang. 2019. The Chinese Block: Searching for A New Spatial Construct. Lulu Press.
Wang, Liang. “Environmental Crises and the Problem of the Scale: A Primer for the Planetary Imagination” in Anthony Acciavatti, Dan Handel, and Enrique Ramirez. ed. Manifest #3: Bigger than Big. 2021. p.257-260.
Wang, Liang. “Urban Design Under the ‘Human Scale’” in Time+Architecture (2021/01), p.4-5.
Wang, Liang. “The Chinese Block” in Time+Architecture, (2020/06), p.4-5.
