About
Leyuan Li is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to beginning his tenure-track appointment, he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the same institution and has taught at Rice School of Architecture and the University of Houston.
Li is a recipient of the Art Omi Architecture Fellowship and the MacDowell Fellowship. His research centers on the agency of the interior as an infrastructure of care, confronting injustices embedded in urban landscapes. Through curatorial projects and public installations, he examines the ecological, political, and social dimensions of contemporary living crises. His work has been featured in Dezeen, PLOT, The Architect’s Newspaper, and New York Review of Architecture, and exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the History Colorado Center in Denver, the 9th Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Shenzhen, and the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennale.
Li’s teaching is closely aligned with his research. In design studios, students investigate overlooked concepts, elements, and conditions within domestic and public interiors. He has been invited to lecture and serve as a critic at institutions including Cal Poly, Cornell AAP, Ohio State University, Nanjing University, Syracuse University, and Rhode Island School of Design. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and creative work, including the ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award (2024, 2025), ACSA Creative Achievement Award (2026), ACSA/AIAS New Faculty Teaching Award (2026), and ACSA Faculty Design Award (2026).
Li studied at the University of Cambridge and Nanjing University before receiving his Master of Architecture from Rice University. He practiced internationally at OMA and SOM before founding his design practice, Office for Roundtable. His recent projects have been widely published and have garnered multiple honors, including an Honorable Mention in AN’s Best of Practice Awards (2025).
Research & Creative Projects
Leyuan Li, in collaboration with JXY Studio, Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen Is Your Living Room, Fei Art, Guangzhou (2024).
Leyuan Li, in collaboration with History Colorado and CAPU, Where is Denver's Chinatown, History Colorado Center, Denver (2024). Photo by Jesse Kuroiwa.
Leyuan Li, Balchen, 9th Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Shenzhen (2022). Photo by Wenhan Dong.
Leyuan Li, Your Kitchen Is Your Dining Room Is Your Greenhouse, 9th Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Shenzhen (2022). Photo by Wenhan Dong.
Leyuan Li, Room City, Rice School of Architecture, Houston, TX (2020).
Leyuan Li, U Showroom, Guizhou, China (2020).
Leyuan Li, Slash Cafe, Haikou, China (2020).
Courses
Denver Low Rise: Common Ground (Graduate Design Studio II)
Representational Workshop II
Research
My research agenda focuses on the intersection between the urban and the interior. It investigates the medium of the interior as the infrastructure of care to confront the injustices of our urban landscapes, examining ecological, political, and social issues in relation to living crises, especially around food supply, affordable housing, and neighborhood displacement.
Historically, the regime of the interior has always been positioned non-relevant to the discipline of urbanism and inferior to the major canon of architecture. Mainstream discourse has foregrounded architecture’s entanglements with social and environmental systems of the urban environment, relegating interiors and interior objects to a separate, minor realm of attention that downplays the architectural and urban effects informed by these often-overlooked elements—the elements that define the inner space of the built environment and the most immediate habitat around us.
To confront such a dilemma, my research explores the instrumentality of the interior and its qualities and attitudes towards spatial, territorial, social, and political care. Through exploring the interior outwards, it addresses its impact on the life and form of the city at every scale, shedding light on the uncharted interior territories where the relationships between culture, city, community, gender, race, and health are socially defined and materially constructed.
Publications and Presentations
Publications
Li, Leyuan. “Balchen.” In Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation, edited by Andrew Kudless and Adam Marcus. San Francisco: Applied Research + Design, 2023 (forthcoming).
Li, Leyuan. “Balchen.” In Urban Cosmologies—The 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, edited by UABB. Shenzhen: UABB, September 2022.
Li, Leyuan. “Balchen.” Art and Design Magazine of China, December 2022.
Li, Leyuan and Erar, Ekin. Architecture Writing Workshop, Issue 2, February 2023.
Li, Leyuan. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.” PLAT, Issue 11, 2022.
Li, Leyuan. “Disco Kroger.” New York Review of Architecture, SKYLINE # 75, 2022.
Li, Leyuan. “100% Affordable 5 WTC.” New York Review of Architecture, Issue 28, 2022.
Li, Leyuan. “Room City.” Paprika!, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2022.
Exhibitions
“Your Kitchen Is Your Dining Room Is Your Greenhouse” Solo Exhibition, Design Trust Gallery, Hong Kong, 2023 (forthcoming).
“Drawing Codes” Group Exhibition, University of Houston, TX, 2023 (forthcoming).
“Balchen” Solo Exhibition, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, Shenzhen, China, 2022.
“100% Affordable 5 WTC” Group Exhibition, Citygroup Gallery, NYC, 2022.
“The Singular Point in 90s” Group Exhibition, BUCEA, Beijing, China, 2020.
“Artistic Utopia” Group Exhibition, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2016.
“Investigate It” Group Exhibition, OCT Contemporary Art Terminals, Shanghai, China, 2015.
