Portfolio Agency

Board Game, at MIT, 2019
In collaboration with Cloe Yun Wang; photography by myself; exhibition design by Jeff Landman

Is architecture education becoming a commodity?

This board game examines portfolio preparation agencies - businesses that specializes tutoring services to prospective architecture students, with high admission rate to elite institutions often promised. Over the past decade, these agencies have proliferated globally, reflecting obscured forces shaping contemporary architectural education.

Surveying several prominent agencies in China, this project maps their operational models, target demographics, and the pedagogical norms they help institutionalize. In response, the board game serves both as an informational representation and a critical provocation - creating space for discussions around structural inequalities, social privilege, branding, plagiarism, and the packaging of “education” as a consumable asset.