About Prof. Gu
Biography
Yvonne Yexuan Gu is a designer and scholar whose work bridges landscape, architecture, and ecology. She is the founder of 3h57m, a design and research practice that unites infrastructural modernity and bio-material ecologies to reimagine design in an era of climate change. Her work spans territorial systems and material innovation, positioning landscape and architecture as active mediators of environmental processes.
Her research has been widely published in journals such as Sustainability, Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, Journal of Urban Affairs, Bioresource Technology, Green Chemistry, and in the Handbook of Planning Support Science. It has also been supported by institutions including Harvard China Fund, Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
At Illinois, Yvonne teaches design studios and communication courses that emphasize the intersections of ecology, infrastructure, and representation. Her pedagogy draws from both landscape and architectural traditions, fostering critical inquiry and technical skills that prepare students to design with ecological and infrastructural awareness.
Yvonne has previously taught at the University of Cincinnati. She holds a Master of Architecture I from Harvard GSD and both a Master and Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.