This Student Dreams of Engaging the Public Through Design

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mily Zheng approaches architecture as an open system—one that invites participation and experimentation. An undergraduate architecture student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Zheng is a precise and inventive designer whose work bridges environmental awareness, material craft, and civic ambition.

Her project The Greenhouse reimagines the public library along Manhattan’s High Line as a porous, multilevel civic landscape. Organized around three publicly accessible plazas—at street level, along the High Line, and on the roof—the design dissolves boundaries between institution and city. The rooftop greenhouse extends the High Line’s ecological and social life while creating space for community-based learning.

Zheng pushes these ideas further in Read+Play, which transforms the library into an architectural playground built from a modular kit of parts. Columns, slabs, staircases, and concrete assemblies are left exposed, celebrating structural logic rather than concealing it. Vertical shifts and spiral stairs double as plazas and passive ventilation systems, reinforcing the building’s identity as both efficient infrastructure and democratic public space.

“Emily is a visionary designer and an intellectually curious thinker who excels in collaboration, consistently producing sophisticated and exquisite work,” says her nominator, Ryosuke Imaeda, lecturer, School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “She illustrates impeccable design details across diverse themes, ranging from environmental awareness and cultural heritage to traditional craftsmanship and technological integration.”

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