He Xi is a third-year undergraduate student in Architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, currently studying abroad in Barcelona. Her work focuses on the relationship between architecture and the urban fabric, with particular attention to modularity, flexibility, and the ways buildings engage with their surrounding context. Her recent project explores housing as a spatial threshold within the city—reimagining the building not as a closed object, but as a “gateway” that frames views, invites movement, and connects the street to the interior courtyard. Through a system of repeated openings and adaptable spatial organization, the project investigates how architecture can mediate between public and private realms. Approaching design as both an analytical and intuitive process, He Xi uses architectural representation as a way to test how structure, circulation, and spatial rhythm shape everyday experience within the city.