This week, we sat down with Jieming Yan, SBE’s most recent PhD candidate. Jieming’s research explores how mixed reality can support better communication of building performance simulation results to inform sustainable decision-making. Jieming is supervised by Alexander Hollberg and Sanjay Somanath with funding from the Digital Twin Cities Centre.
First of all, congratulations on your PhD at SBE although it has been some months. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you first got involved with SBE?
Thank you very much!
I got my master’s degree from Chalmers and had an internship in a climate engineering company in Munich. Before coming to Europe, I was an architectural practitioner for vulnerable communities in rural China.
My start with SBE was… a pure serendipity: from an expired flyer in the corner seeking a student assistant for daylight simulation. Although the position had already been filled, the recruiter was very kind and referred me to other researchers. That small moment rippled and eventually started my journey. I remain deeply grateful to that colleague for opening the door to my academic path.
You’ve gone from student assistant to project assistant, and now PhD student — what has that journey been like?
As mentioned, it was serendipity. I’ve been fortunate to experience each stage and work on a wide spectrum of projects with many colleagues from different perspectives.
What I treasure most is the culture and environment at SBE/BT. I discovered the joy of doing research and playing the thinking game, which motivated me to pursue a PhD.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, what is “mixed reality,” and how does it connect to building performance simulations?
In a nutshell, mixed reality integrates the digital and physical worlds and enables interaction between them.
Exploring the connection to BPS will be part of my PhD, so the answers are still evolving. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but the simple answer is to transform complexand abstract simulated data into something people can more easily understand and interact with, maybe even without too much background knowledge.
What excites you most about working with mixed reality in the context of buildings and cities?
The most exciting part is also the most challenging one. XR/MR/VR/AR are fundamentally human-centered technologies.
In building science, we have many advanced tools, but they usually remain with expertcommunities. MR has the potential to translate complexity into intuitive experiences. This might become part of the design conversation rather than just technical output. In general, technology itself is an approach; the real question should be oriented toward humans and the environment.
What kind of projects or experiments are you working on right now?
I have been doing the user study recently. People are invited to test our AR tool, then we “measure” their experience and listen to their voices.
How do you imagine mixed reality being used in architecture or sustainability research five years from now？
It’s a tricky question, full of both imagination and uncertainty.
The first time I used VR was in 2017 for games, and I was shocked by the experience. However, I haven’t seen explosive development in years. There could be another tipping point for XR, but I don’t know when or how it will be. Maybe it’s now, or maybe it’s just a prelude for something else, like brain-computer interface. Five years in our current landscape is full of uncertainty.
What I am sure of is that XR/MR is only one puzzle for SBE or AEC. One question for me is whether it will transform our understanding of building design or urban planning, especially in the early stage, or whether it is simply a visualization tool.
What’s been the most fun or surprising thing you’ve learned so far as a PhD student?
Not being afraid of asking “stupid questions”. In other words, keep a “beginner’s mind”.
In architectural practice, my focus was always on problem-solving, but I did not realize that the problem itself could be a bigger problem.
While doing research in SBE, the ability to formulate questions and challenge the status quo seems even more important. In a sense, I saw the “troublemaker” spirit among some excellent researchers at SBE/BT/ACE.
And finally, when you’re not working with simulations or AR headsets, how do you like to spend your free time?
Sweden is a country caring much about health. I wish to exercise more and push my weightinto a healthy range during my PhD. Also, I wish to spend more time with my wife and parents.
Thank you to Jieming for taking the time to answer these questions and you can learn more about Jieming and his project in the link below:
Sustainable Built Environments 