CAD, GIS—the building automation and design industry has long relied on juggling these tools to design cities of the past and the present.
However, as technology advances and the call for smarter and more sustainable practices becomes louder, the status quo seems no longer enough. From fragmented workflows to manual data collections and static simulations, the industry's traditional practices pose significant challenges and inefficiencies that hinder innovation and drive up costs.
This is precisely where UX/UI designer Jing Qiang makes a difference in their work.
From the moment they sketched blueprints to the point where the spaces were built, Qiang incorporated innovative technologies such as generative design and shadow projection analysis to ensure cities stay sustainable despite development—redefining how humans create, interact with, and optimize the buildings of tomorrow.
Qiang's journey with sustainable design planning started 8 years ago when they built their foundation in architecture and urban planning. After earning a Master's Degree in urban design in 2020, Qiang pivoted their career to UX/UI Design—their focus shifted from physical space design to digital product design.
However, physical spaces still hold a special place in Qiang's heart.
"I still hold strong passions in the building industry, especially in how advanced technology can disrupt the traditional building industry and positively impact the environment and human lives."
This passion led Qiang to PassiveLogic, a company known for its innovative approach to autonomous building technology to tackle the world's largest sustainability challenges.
At PassiveLogic, Qiang blended the knowledge she learned in school and the experiences she gained in her past practice to design web applications and controller interfaces and launch products to the market. In the company, they bridged the gap between advanced building automation systems and their users, whether at the conceptual or principle level or in terms of terminology and mechanisms.
With her knowledge and expertise, Qiang co-led the Building Studio Project, a software enabling designers to generate principled building designs quickly. The project aims to be used at all phases of building design and implementation, whether validating designs for new construction and retrofits or having a living digital twin copy of the building after construction. As the primary designer in the project, Qiang kept the entire user experience and interface design in mind, ensuring users could never find using the outputs challenging to navigate.
Their dedication to making tools easier to navigate can be seen in the project's skeuomorphism-style animated view picker, enabling users to switch between global, city, and building views quickly. Qiang designed the view picker to be highly realistic and aesthetically appealing, making the interaction more satisfying and boosting user confidence.
Additionally, Qiang's contributions to the Building Studio project helped to optimize site analysis. The Building Studio's Site Mode feature stores and processes data in the cloud, allowing users to instantly generate a comprehensive site model without complex cross-platform data imports and exports. By automating the entire workflow, Qiang saved an estimated 5–8 hours per project. This allowed users to focus on the creative and strategic aspects of the design, empowering them to achieve higher levels of efficiency and sustainability.
However, efficiency isn't the only thing that separates the Site Mode feature. It's also an interactive loop for designers to test, validate, and refine the design.
Site Mode, a software generating the digital twin of the city, prepares all the information designers need in building placement. The feature allows users to:
- Quickly move the building around to test different orientations and locations,
- Know how the sun interacts with the building,
- Generate real-time analysis data to understand the effects of the surrounding terrain, foliage, buildings, and infrastructure on the design.
With these features, Site Mode empowers users to optimize performance, creating safer and smarter buildings for its occupants. As buildings consume more energy worldwide, Qiang's models and methods support high-performance designs that meet stringent efficiency standards.
In the same project, Qiang initiated 3D solar path diagrams that allowed users to visualize the relationship between geographic location and building performance. Site Mode's solar access and radiation analysis enabled designers to identify zones with significant solar gain that could increase energy consumption. With these zones determined, they can strategically position the building and its windows to optimize natural daylight during winter while minimizing heat gain during summer and reducing HVAC dependency. This data-driven approach allows designers to remain sustainable while pushing innovations and advancements in building smarter and greener urban systems.
With their efforts and contributions, Jing Qiang is significantly impacting the building automation and design industry. By introducing new ways to streamline workflows, enhance data-driven decision-making, and promote sustainable design practices, Qiang's work inspires innovation across the field. Her solutions help bridge the gap between advanced technology and real-world applications, pushing the entire industry toward smarter, greener, and more efficient building systems.
Qiang's creative solutions that make designers' lives easier and smoother have led to her winning numerous awards for showcasing innovation and sustainability. In 2024, Qiang won the iF Design Award—a prestigious award given to designers who merge innovation with sustainability and functionality—for their work on the Building Studio project, a crucial part of the PassiveLogic Hive Autonomous Platform. This award proves their passion and expertise bring forth ideas and designs beyond aesthetics.
Qiang also earned a LEED Green Associate Certification. This recognition, given to professionals demonstrating an understanding of green building principles and practices, equipped Qiang with a deep understanding of how energy modelling should operate, making their designs efficient and sustainable.
Reflecting on their career, Qiang stated that her knowledge and expertise aren't enough; empathy must also be at the forefront of her work.
They stated that their ability to empathize helped with their role, allowing them to perceive the world from the users' perspectives. With empathy, Qiang can identify pain points, desires, and expectations more accurately, pushing Qiang to embrace an intuitive, user-centric, and inclusive design philosophy.
In the future, Jing Qiang plans to change the building automation industry further.
"I'm fascinated about the intersection of building, design, and technology," Qiang underscored. With this fascination and their goal in mind, Qiang aims to explore how cutting-edge technologies enhance the smart management of complex building systems step-by-step.
"...my goal is to create intelligent, user-friendly products and tools that simplify complexities into seamless workflows, ultimately empowering professionals across the building and construction industry to achieve greater efficiency and impact in their work. I see full autonomy as the future of the building industry, and that is the direction I'm heading towards," they emphasized.
And indeed, that's where Jing Qiang's future will go.
As Qiang continues to merge creativity and purpose, they're bound to make more improvements in the building industry, addressing challenges and creating solutions for a more efficient and sustainable future. Their work underscores that technology, design, and the environment can mesh well together, not contradict each other.
With it, Jing Qiang is setting a new standard for what the future of building automation can achieve.
About the Author
Stacey Thompson is a Los Angeles-based writer specializing in sustainable designs and innovation. She focuses on individuals who believe the future is green and powered by technology, highlighting their work as a significant contribution to a sustainable tomorrow. On her off days, she tends to her garden and creates dishes from her harvested produce.
