Yun Liu's research focuses on rigid boundaries between green spaces and other urban areas in Chinese cities. In Chinese cities, especially metropolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, there are still many rigid boundaries. These include walls, fences and roads, which weaken the conversation between green spaces and other urban areas not only by blocking sight, access and interchange of materials, but also by reducing contact areas between them by linear and rigid shapes. In addition, today there is little land on which people can design large and intact green spaces in the centre of cities. Instead, the efficient use and improvement of small spaces and boundary spaces could become a trend to renew cities.
Based on this background, Yun Liu's research aims to explore why these rigid boundaries formed, what influences these spaces brought to the urban areas and people and how to redesign those existing boundary spaces to disintegrate them and to make them more attractive, flexible and resilient to suit current urban spaces. These new boundary spaces could go beyond the restrictions of linear shapes and, like the patterns of moss, let the original green space grow outside and lead into other parts of city to acquire more interactions with urban spaces. This kind of landscape may have the potential to help people deal with many urban issues, such as flooding and pollution, and to create healthier cities in the future.