Albert Li
Details
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College: School of Engineering
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Department: School of Engineering
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Campus: Bundoora East Australia
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albert.li2@rmit.edu.au
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
About
Dr Zhi ‘Albert’ Li has an interdisciplinary academic background, blending fine arts and engineering. His research focuses on designing and constructing innovative structures through topology optimisation and advanced manufacturing techniques.
Albert earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Environmental Design from Tianjin University, China, in 2018. From 2018 to 2019, he served as a core software developer, contributing to the development of Ameba, a Rhino-Grasshopper-based topology optimisation software. In October 2024, he received his Ph.D. degree from RMIT University with a thesis entitled ‘Interactive structural topology optimisation considering subjective preferences’. In September 2024, he commenced as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials (CISM), working under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Mike Xie, where he works on the ARC Laureate Fellowship project.
With a strong foundation in full-stack software development, Albert has created several impactful tools, including iBESO, VR-BESO and Legolizer. His achievements include the DNA Paris Design Award 2024, the third prize in the International 3D Printing and Design Competition in 2020, the DigitalFUTURES Coding Award in 2020, and the third prize in the National Universities Bamboo Design and Construction Competition in 2017. More details about Albert can be found at albertlidesign.com/about-me.
Media
Research fields
- 400510 Structural engineering
- 3301 Architecture
- 4005 Civil engineering
- 400501 Architectural engineering
Non-academic positions
- Software Developer
- Nanjing Ameba Engineering Structural Optimization Research Institute Co., Ltd.
- Nanjing, China
- 2 Sep 2019 – 20 Dec 2019
- Research and Development Engineer
- Shanghai Xie Yimin Structural Design Office Co., Ltd
- Shanghai, China
- 2 Jul 2018 – 2 Jul 2019
Teaching interests
Talks:
- Presenter, Exploring and optimizing innovative structures in virtual reality, IASS 2024 Symposium Conference, Zurich, Switzerland (Aug 2024).
- Guest lecturer, Digital design based on structural topology optimisation techniques (Chinese), School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China (Nov 2023).
- Presenter, Topology optimisation considering subjective preferences: current progress and challenges, IASS 2023 Symposium Conference, Melbourne, Australia (Jul 2023).
- Presenter, Interactive structural topology optimisation with subjective scoring and drawing systems, IDD Webinar (May 2023).
- Guest lecturer, Algorithm-inspired design: Computational design based on topology optimisation (Chinese), School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China (Oct 2020).
- Guest lecturer, Mesh-driven computational design (Chinese), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China (Dec 2019).
- Guest lecturer, Ameba: Computational design based on topology optimisation (Chinese), College of Design & Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China (Jun 2019).
Teaching:
- Tutor, Graduation projects for undergraduate students (Architecture), School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China (Oct 2023–Jul 2024).
- Teaching assistant, Digital FUTURES 2019: X-Form, DigitalFUTURES, Shanghai, China (Jun 2019–Jul 2019).
- Tutor, Tianjin University and the University of California, Los Angeles Joint Design Studio, Los Angeles, USA (Sep 2017–Dec 2017).
- Teaching assistant, Tsinghua Architecture Summer School Parametric Design Workshop 2017, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (Jul 2017–Aug 2017).
Research interests
Albert's research is focused on the following areas:
1. Development of structural topology optimisation considering subjective preferences;
2. Integrating extended reality techniques into topology optimisation;
3. Design and construction of complicated architectural surfaces.
Research keywords:
Topology optimisation, Computational design, Structural design, Extended reality, Advanced manufacturing, Robotic fabrication
