SITE Lab: Spatial Innovation, Technology & Environment

SITE Lab investigates how design and technology reshape the spaces, systems and material flows of contemporary life.

Students and faculty posing for a photograph following an exhibition.

What we do - research areas

Digital Culture and Spatial Design

Computational dewsign and fabrication

Digital heritage and architectural archives

Materials and circular futures

Why the Lab Exists

The built environment is being transformed by rapid technological development, environmental pressures and changing patterns of urban life. Digital platforms increasingly influence how spaces are imagined and experienced; computational tools are reshaping design and production; and the need to reduce material consumption demands new approaches to construction, adaptation and reuse.

These challenges cannot be addressed within a single discipline or at a single spatial scale. SITE Lab brings together design, technology and environmental research to investigate how interiors, buildings and urban systems can respond to these changing conditions.

The lab provides a collaborative platform for developing and testing new methods, tools and spatial propositions, while critically examining the social, cultural and environmental consequences of technological innovation.

About SITE Lab

SITE Lab (Spatial Innovation, Technology & Environment) is an interdisciplinary design research lab at 91ɫ��Ƭ. It explores how spatial design and emerging technologies can contribute to more responsible, sustainable and adaptable built environments.

Bringing together expertise in architecture, interior design, computational design, digital culture and smart technologies, SITE Lab investigates how spaces, materials, technologies and people interact across interior, architectural and urban scales.

Through collaborative research, experimental design, industry and international partnerships, and research-led teaching, the lab develops new methods, tools and spatial propositions. These respond to contemporary environmental, cultural and technological challenges.

Co-Leads

Tracy Huang

Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture

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Nicole Gardner

Associate Professor and Discipline Director of Computational Design

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M. Hank Haeusler

Professor and Director of Arch_Manu

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Research Projects

A collaborative digital heritage project preserving and reinterpreting the architectural legacy of Shoei Yoh through archival digitisation, 3D scanning and a digital spatial archive.

Research areas: Digital heritage and architectural archives; Computational design and fabrication

Project overview
The Shoei Yoh Digital Archive documents and reinterprets the work of internationally recognised Japanese architect Shoei Yoh, an early pioneer of digital methods in architectural design.

In 2019, Yoh deposited the archive of his architectural practice with the Faculty of Design at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. Since then, researchers from Kyushu University and the School of Built Environment at 91ɫ��Ƭ have collaborated to digitise the collection and document selected surviving buildings through LiDAR and 3D scanning.

The online archive brings together newly digitised drawings, digital model files, photographs, project notes, architectural publications and physical models. It currently presents material relating to six projects completed between 1979 and 1994, alongside scan data from selected examples of Yoh’s built work.

In addition to providing a searchable and downloadable repository, the project explores new ways of engaging with architectural archives through a three-dimensional exhibition environment described as a Spatial Archive. This enables archival material to be encountered spatially, supporting new forms of research, interpretation and public access.

Outcome: Digital Archive –

Project Team – 91ɫ��Ƭ: Nicole Gardner (Lead); Matthias Haeusler, Jack Barton, Kate Dunn, Tracy Huang, Daniel Yu

Kyushu University: Dr Masaaki Iwamoto (Associate Professor); Dr Tomo Inoue (Associate Professor); Yu Momoeda (Architect and Lecturer)

Partners: Kyushu University, Environmental Design Global Hub | eghub; Masaaki Iwamoto Laboratory for Architectural Theory and Practice; 91ɫ��Ƭ Design Futures Lab; Yu Momoeda Architects; Doq

Funded: Australia-Japan Foundation Grant 2020–2021 – Revisiting Shoei Yoh: Digital Preservation and Architectural Archiving

Gallery: Selected imagery from the Shoei Yoh: A Journey of Light symposium (AIJ Hall, Tokyo, 7 September 2024), presented in partnership with Kyushu University, the Window Research Institute, the Canadian Centre for Architecture and 91ɫ��Ƭ – see the gallery below.
An exhibition and international symposium examining Shoei Yoh’s experimental architectural practice in the Kumamoto region and exploring how archival digitisation, 3D scanning and spatial media can support new approaches to architectural heritage.

Research areas: Digital heritage and architectural archives

Project overview
Presented at the Australian Design Centre from 30 November 2021 to 2 February 2022, the exhibition traced the development of Shoei Yoh’s experimental design practice through five buildings completed between 1979 and 1994. It highlighted Yoh’s early engagement with material technology, computational analysis, non-standard timber structures and digitally informed architectural design.

Archival drawings and photographs were presented alongside newly produced 3D scan animations and digitally fabricated parametric models. The exhibition also marked the public launch of the online Shoei Yoh Archive, which situates digitised archival material within an immersive three-dimensional environment derived from scans of the Naiju Community Centre.

The accompanying Digital Cultural Heritage Symposium extended the exhibition’s questions beyond Shoei Yoh’s work to consider the emerging field of digital cultural heritage. Presentations examined architectural archives, the documentation of buildings still in use, digital investigations of construction records and the role of spatial technologies in preserving and interpreting architectural knowledge.

The symposium brought together researchers and practitioners from 91ɫ��Ƭ, Kyushu University, the University of Queensland and architectural practice. It concluded with the panel discussion, “What is the future of the past?”, chaired by Nicole Gardner, followed by the official launch of the Shoei Yoh Archive.

Together, the exhibition and symposium positioned digital preservation as more than the reproduction of historical records. They demonstrated how archives, scans, computational models, exhibitions and public discussion can generate new ways of accessing, analysing and reinterpreting architectural heritage.

Project Team – 91ɫ��Ƭ: Nicole Gardner (Lead); Matthias Haeusler, Jack Barton, Kate Dunn, Tracy Huang, Daniel Yu

Exhibition Catalogue:

Digital Cultural Heritage Symposium:

Outcome: Exhibition and Digital Cultural Heritage Symposium

Media Coverage: Links to articles and media coverage to be added.

Partners: Kyushu University, Environmental Design Global Hub | eghub; Masaaki Iwamoto Laboratory for Architectural Theory and Practice; 91ɫ��Ƭ Design Futures Lab; Yu Momoeda Architects; Doq; GRID

Funded: Australia-Japan Foundation Grant 2020–2021 – Revisiting Shoei Yoh: Digital Preservation and Architectural Archiving

Exhibition gallery: Installation views from Revisiting Shoei Yoh at the Australian Design Centre (30 November 2021 – 2 February 2022), including digitally fabricated parametric models and the immersive 3D scan environment derived from the Naiju Community Centre – see the gallery below.
Research-led Work Integrated Learning bringing together students and researchers across international partners.

Project Team – 91ɫ��Ƭ: Tracy Huang

University of Tokyo: Seng Kuang (Associate Professor and Director of the International Architectural Education Platform); Toshiki Hirano (Assistant Professor and Director of the International Architectural Education Platform)

Kyushu University: Masaaki Iwamoto (Associate Professor)

Partners: University of Tokyo, Sekisui House – Kengo Kuma Lab; Kyushu University, Environmental Design Global Hub | eghub; Masaaki Iwamoto Laboratory for Architectural Theory and Practice

Gallery: Students from 91ɫ��Ƭ, the University of Tokyo and Kyushu University collaborating on a hands-on timber construction workshop in Japan as part of the Research Led Work Integrated Learning program – see the gallery below.
An exhibition drawing from the archive of Japanese architect Shoei Yoh to showcase, for the first time in Australia, a selection of his early interior architecture projects and his explorations of light as matter.

After studying in the United States and returning to Japan in 1964, Yoh established the Yoh Design Office in Fukuoka City in 1970. Early projects such as Cafe Solar + Air Service (1970), Boutique Jolie (1971) and Shoemaker Cornelia (1971) incorporated architectural elements – furniture, floors and walls – that emitted light, conveying a sense of “lightness” and marking the beginning of Yoh’s fascination with transparency. His work is unified by the theme of “light”: spaces and objects that interpret light poetically while drawing on optical principles, from the Coffee Shop Ingot (1977) to the Stainless Steel House with Light Lattice (1980).

Dates: 6 July – 4 August 2024
Venue: SASA Gallery, Kaurna Building, Level 2, Fenn Place, Adelaide SA 5000

Exhibition Team – 91ɫ��Ƭ: Tracy Huang, Dr Nicole Gardner, Associate Professor Matthias Haeusler, Daniel Yu, Maeghan Doherty

Kyushu University: Dr Iwamoto Masaaki, Associate Professor Inoue Tomo

In collaboration with UniSA Architecture Museum: Dr James Curry, Dr Julie Collins

Funded: Australia-Japan Foundation, Grant Number AJF2023208

Gallery: Selected views of the Light Matter(s) exhibition – see the gallery below.
A Tokyo showing of Revisiting Shoei Yoh, subtitled From Timber to Computation, tracing Shoei Yoh’s pioneering movement from timber expression to computational and digitally informed design.

Dates: 3–8 September 2024
Venue: POST Architecture Books, Tokyo
Hours: Tue–Sat 12:00–20:00; Sun 12:00–18:00 (entry free)

Presented in collaboration between the Kyushu University Shoei Yoh Archive and the School of Built Environment at 91ɫ��Ƭ (University of New South Wales), and funded by the Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – Australia-Japan Foundation Grant 2023–2024, “Sustainable Material Futures: Computational Design for Timber Architecture”.

Gallery: Installation views from the Revisiting Shoei Yoh Tokyo exhibition – see the gallery below.

Grants

2024 – New Colombo Plan Grant co-led by Tracy Huang and Raffaele Pernice: “Sustainable Futures: Urbanisation lessons in Japan”

2024 – DFAT Australia-Japan Foundation Grant led by Tracy Huang: “Sustainable Material Futures: Computational Design for Timber Architecture”

2021 – DFAT Australia-Japan Foundation Grant led by Nicole Gardner: “Revisiting Shoei Yoh: Digital Preservation and Architectural Archiving”

2019 – DFAT Grant led by Scott Hawken: “Beyond Industry 4.0: digital fabrication and design in Timber”

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Publications

Iwamoto, M., N. Gardner, T. Inoue, T. Huang, and H. Tanaka. 2025. “From Digital Turns to Digital Transformation: Lessons from the Proto-Parametric Design of the Glass Station Project by Shoei Yoh.” Proceedings of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia.
Huang, T., S. Maalsen, and J. Fredericks. 2025. “The Built Environment and Social Media: A Semi-Systematic Review of Architectural and Design Disciplines.” Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research.
Huang, T., J. Fredericks, and S. Maalsen. 2023. “Interior Media Architecture: Using Social Media as a Tool for Data-Informed Design Solutions.” Proceedings of the 6th Media Architecture Biennale Conference, 28–37.
Gardner, N., M. H. Haeusler, D. Yu, J. Barton, K. Dunn, and T. Huang. 2022. “Revisiting Shoei Yoh: Developing a Workflow for a Browser-Based 3D Model Environment to Create an Immersive Digital Archive.” CUMINCAD.

Awards��

Best Paper Award

The team of A/Prof. Nicole Gardner, Tracy Huang, Prof. Hank Haeusler and Daniel Yu, together with collaborators from Kyushu University – Masaaki Iwamoto, Tomo Inoue and Hanano Tanaka – were awarded Best Paper at the 31st CAADRIA (Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia) held in Tokyo, Japan. Their paper, From Digital Turns to Digital Transformation, examines Shoei Yoh’s Glass Station (1993) in Oguni, Japan – an early and influential project that integrated computational design processes within a broader architectural and technological shift in Japan during the early 1990s.

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