PORTLAND ↔ SHANGHAI · CMU MSCD '26 → HILOS STUDIO
Tianle Chen 陳天樂 — Gen AI / ML Engineer & Computational Designer.
Vision-based AI tools at the seam of generative ML and the design process. Hover any tile in the scatter below to read its summary; click to open the case study.
Selected work
15 of 15 · 2023—2026
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3T3D — A Vision Transformer Based 2D-to-3D Model for Architectural Design
CAD-MLLM: Unifying Multimodality-Conditioned CAD Generation with MLLM
Semantic Canvas — Interactive Latent-Space Design Tool for AI-Augmented Footwear Design
Design the Ambience: Expanding Realities Beyond the Screen with StreamDiffusion and MediaPipe
Fiber-based Experimental Models — Parametric Pavilion with Topological Column and Kinematic Canopy
CMU MSCD · 2025—2026
Semantic Canvas
A latent-space design instrument: type two words — casual, formal — and a shoe library rearranges itself by meaning. Drop in an image and it finds its place. Generate variants in-place. A passive Gemini observer reads the brief and offers insights without interrupting.
The thesis claim: a designer's own words are a better basis for navigating generative possibility space than the mathematical artifacts of t-SNE or UMAP. The site you are reading is itself a smaller version of the method.
RICE UNIVERSITY · 2021—2024 · 8 PROJECTS
Architecture.
Studio work from the Rice B.Arch — typological studies, site-specific buildings, and coastal and urban research — in drawings, models, and renderings.
The computational-design pieces (parametric pavilion, membrane form-finding, generative urbanism, robotic wire-bending) live under Projects — they are computation, not built architecture.
View architecturePORTLAND · 2026
Designer turned engineer.
I recently completed my MSCD thesis at Carnegie Mellon — Semantic Canvas, an interactive latent-space tool for AI-augmented footwear design. I work as an ML/AI engineer at HILOS Studio, shipping production tools that translate computer vision and generative models into the daily workflow of footwear designers.
Before CMU, I trained as an architect at Rice — parametric form-finding, ceramic hollow columns published at IASS 2024, and four years of studio work across NBBJ Los Angeles, EID, Pure Architect, and ECADI. Architecture taught me to design for systems, not screens; ML lets me build them.
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