Xun Liu is Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. Her research explores computational design with a focus on generative AI, representation and digital media, data-driven methods, and environmental sensing. She investigates how emerging technologies can inform design processes, bridge quantitative analysis and creative practice, and operate across both architectural and landscape scales.
Xun holds a Ph.D. in Constructed Environment from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation, AI+ Landscapes: Deep Learning in the Generation and Analysis of Landscape Form, investigates the theories and applications of AI in landscape architectural design and research. She also holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design—where she received the Jacob Weidenman Prize and the Irving Innovation Fellowship—and a Bachelor of Architecture from Tongji University.
Before joining SALA in 2025, she taught at the University of Southern California and the University of Virginia. Her professional experience includes roles as a computational designer at the NYC Department of City Planning, landscape designer at Stoss Landscape Urbanism, and research associate at the Office for Urbanization at Harvard GSD. She leads xlstudio, which began as a small design practice and now focuses on AI-driven tools and methods as a technology-design consultancy.
Her work has been published in JoDLA, NeurIPS, Landscape and Urban Planning, Landscape Architecture Frontiers, etc., and exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale. She regularly lectures and hosts workshops internationally on AI-powered design, computational workflows, and responsive technologies.
Education
Ph.D., University of Virginia (2025)
MLA, Harvard GSD (2017)
B.Arch, Tongji University (2015)
Selected Publications
Liu, Xun. AI+ Landscapes: Deep Learning in the Generation and Analysis of Landscape Form. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2025.
Liu, Xun, Nandi Yang, and Runjia Tian. “Reinventing Planting Design in Landscape Architecture: A Generative AI Approach.” Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, vol. 9, 2024, pp. 202–209.
Cantrell, Bradley, Zihao Zhang, and Xun Liu. “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Landscape Architecture.” In The Routledge Companion to Artificial Intelligence in Architecture, pp. 232–247, 2021.