Keywords

1 The Role Played by Design Studios in Chinese Urban and Architectural Design Education

Architectural education in China dates back to a specific date, 1927. In that year, in the Capital city of Nanjing, the first university course aimed at teaching the practice of architectural design was activated.

The institution that takes charge of this initiative was the National Central University (later Nanjing Institute of Technology), divided from 1952 in two different main high education institutes: the “generalist” Nanjing University (NJU) and the “technical” Southeast University (SEU). This last one, with its School of Architecture SEU-Arch, is considered as the heir of that tradition of the first School of Architecture based in 1927 within the National Central University.

Four are considered the founding fathers of modern Chinese architecture: Liang Sicheng, Liu Dunzhen, Yang Tingbao and Tong Jun. If Liang Sicheng (1901–1972) was the “inventor” (overall operative in Beijing) of historical Chinese architecture as field of knowledge, Liu Dunzhen (1897–1968) founded, as Japanese trained scholar founding the earliest architectural departments in China in 1920s at Suzhou Technical School, Tong Jun (1900–1982) became the leading expert on Chinese garden art, Yang Tingbao (1901–1982) was probably the greatest architect of all of them, crossing the twentieth century with a precise attention to the relationship between tradition and innovation. The last three are directly involved in the establishment of the Nanjing school, while the first one, Liang Sicheng, had a decisive role in the foundation of the Beijing School (at the Tsinghua University), as well as representing an intellectual figure who more than others had the merit, starting from the 1920s, of revealing to the world the existence of a historical Chinese architectural culture of a level and importance equal to the Western classical one.

The Chinese pedagogical model in architecture is imported, in a sort of global circle of references [1]. Many of the Chinese architects who trained in the first half of the 1920s did their studies either in Japan or in the United States. There, in particular, in Philadelphia, at Pennsylvania University, a French architect and professor, Paul Philippe Cret (1876–1945), trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon, was active. Most of the younger professor of late 1920s studied at “Penn”, where that French Master had brought the Fine Arts way to teach design. Thus, the Western method of teaching architectural design in Design Studios arrived in China from the US, at the foundation of the Chinese Schools of Architecture in late Twenties on the basis of a European eclectic model [2].

For all these reasons, the pedagogical system on which the Chinese architecture school is built is precisely the “beaux arts” one: an atelier in which a few students (a dozen at most) refer by imitation to a Master who guides them in dealing with precise and given design themes, strong in conspicuous collections of repertoires and catalogs from which to draw (“copying”, so exercising the main action of nineteenth-century art, or in the most extraordinary cases reinterpreting, through minimal scraps of minimal emancipation gain from a given model).

Nowadays, Design Studios still exist. In the work of students, the imitation of the Master’s design work in Fine Arts ateliers has been replaced by forms of discussion with teachers upon design works and the attempt of investigating more and more design questions (for example the urban contexts) by collecting data is one of the main phases of the work. The design process is defined as an incremental step-based process, which involves different stages: diagnosis of the context, envisioning exercise and development of a number of design options, selection of a design alternative and implementation.

2 The Role Played by Design Institutes in Chinese Professional Practice Ecosystem in Urban and Architectural Design

The Design Institutes are Chinese bodies governed by public law, responsible for the design of works, neighborhoods and urban settlements. After 1949, with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, collectivism radically transformed the work system, no longer oriented towards the market and capitalist profit, but towards effectiveness and efficiency, with respect to the functions to be performed. The old liberal professions are obviously overwhelmed by this revolution. The two main professions (those to which the European Union still today recognizes a special status today due to their necessity for people’s lives), those linked to the practice of medicine and architecture, are interpreted in the pivotal role of public utility and therefore it is decided that they be carried out within specific structures. In this sense it can be said that, at least initially, the design institutes (first located within local, municipal or provincial government structures, then also within public universities) are for architects, engineers and planners, at least in their conception and in their functioning, what the hospitals or clinics are for doctors and surgeons [3].

Following the first Five Years Plan (towards a collectivistic transformation of China), in 1952 the East China Industry Bureau Architectural Design Company, as the first Shanghai’s state-owned Design Institute, was established. From that moment, the Design Institutes will become the main actors of the architectural and urban transformation until nowadays in China Mainland.

Nowadays, even after the Chinese economic and commercial reforms of the 1990s, design institutes continue to occupy a predominant role in the panorama of Chinese professional practice. There are, as in the whole world, large and powerful private design companies, some of which are multinational in nature, and there are also small studios that offer a sort of brand of their products (with a large circle of real architects/artists with personalities relevant, often at the level of the great international star-architects), but the power of the public design institutes remains unshakeable: they are reliable, have important tools, human resources and skills, a great ability to deal with the public sector of which they are part, often (from within the universities where they are located) have the opportunity to experiment [4].

In China, Design Institutes (within universities or within municipalities) are the dominant subject in the professional environment, where they are the key between local government and developers (as, for example, in the key area of Yuzui CBD of Hexi New City with the interplay among urban infrastructures, ecological resources and high-rises in vertical dimension) [5].

The general framework described here should also be considered as a possible operational horizon to which a Chinese architecture student today aspires: the average student expects to work in a large company (design and development companies carry out frequent enrollment sessions within schools, directed at final year bachelor students), while he/she dreams of doing an apprenticeship that will one day allow him/her to open a business (his own or in a small group) as an independent designer. However, also considering the great difficulties of the Chinese national exam for the qualification to practice the profession which very few are destined to pass and which confers an almost purely notarial seal in the project validation/approval process, the best, most prepared and most disciplined students are immediately involved in the design institutes and saw operational careers of some interest opening up.

3 “Urban Morphology, Architectural Typology, Contemporary Settlement Patterns” (SEU Nanjing, from 2015)

The Design Studios “Urban morphology, architectural typology, contemporary settlement patterns” held at the School of Architecture in Southeast University (Nanjing, China) are working, since almost a decade (2015–2024), in strong connection with the Design Institute of the same University «Urban Architectural Lab» founded in 2006 as a part of the historic Architects & Engineers Co. Ltd. of the same university.

Design studios have not changed much in the century that has now passed since the founding of the architecture school in China, at least in a high-ranking public university like Southeast University and many others. Above all, the pedagogical structure has remained unchanged. There is always a very small number of students (from 6 to 12) who present themselves as a team. The teacher prefers to exercise his authority with a guiding role (through his projects and/or through its methodological approach), rather than becoming a trainer of students in a series/sequence of practices that can be used in a professional context. The type of project training is still firmly anchored to the evaluation of the formal, constructive and functional outcome of the project action, rather than to the enhancement of the student’s educational path read in the form of a design process (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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Studies on the transitional morphologies of the XiaoXiHu block in Nanjing (Qinhuai District), from the Design Studio “Urban morphology, architectural typology, contemporary settlement patterns” at SEUArch 2018 (Professors Bao Li and Marco Trisciuoglio), traditional typologies and their renovation (from Archive “Transitional Morphologies” Joint Research Unit)

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However, the themes are very current and similar to a lot of architecture schools around the world: the use of innovative technologies and construction systems, the dialogue with traditional forms and techniques also in terms of sustainability, the use of performance satisfaction metrics, the comparison with an elderly and weak society, the search for design solutions capable of developing the opportunities offered by digital devices, the question of heritage as element able to switch on fruitful connections between tourism and marketing.

The themes of urban regeneration have had a certain importance, especially in the last ten years. The innovative design studio named “Urban morphology, architectural typology, contemporary settlement patterns” was experimented in Nanjing from 2015. There, a favorable connection between the Chinese Southeast University and the Italian Politecnico di Torino created the conditions for joint teaching actions, based on a simple mission: using the standard morphological-based method that was characteristic of the Italian school of urban analysis and urban design to teach students how to read the settlement forms, the spaces and the urban objects of the Chinese city (including urban fabrics) and also to design accordingly [6].

This has allowed the conceptual tool represented by the Italian typo-morphological tradition to update itself by dealing with a new theme such as that of the Asian city, and the question of the urban regeneration of the Chinese city to find new possible approaches, not necessarily based on new urbanism practices. or of pushed gentrification, but ultimately oriented (as we will see) on protocols of innovative participatory forms directly played on aspects of urban form.

Thus, the first aim of the Design Studios is practicing fundaments of urban morphology and buildings typology in order to read the urban spaces and artefacts. The second aim of the Design Studios is using that reading activity in order to look for innovative design solutions for the contemporary city. The teaching activity is based on the reading of the Chinese city of nowadays and the work in the Design Studios is organized by weekly collective discussions about design development.

A series of more or less extensive areas (in any case at the scale of the urban project, between 1:200 and 1:1000, with in-depth analyzes at 1:100 scale), located in Nanjing or in other Chinese areas, have been the subject of the attention of teachers and students.

Without necessarily distorting the traditional pedagogical structure of the Design Studio, this experiment makes use of at least two important innovations. The first innovation consists in addressing real and not hypothetical issues, having them suggested directly by the Design Institute of the same university (therefore with the involvement of stakeholders both at the level of developers and at the level of politicians and managers directly operational on urban regeneration practices). The second innovation consists in hiring, alongside the usual dozen undergraduate students, about half of master students with the organization of three-person working groups, made up of two undergraduates and one master students, where mentoring by the older students becomes fundamental. Based on the concepts of TECTONICS, TYPOLOGY and TOPOGRAPHY, the Design Studio lets bachelor and master students together investigate on the interplay between tradition and modernity (through design activities as surveys, sketches, models, diagram) [7] (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
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Studies on the transitional morphologies of the XiaoXiHu block in Nanjing (Qinhuai District), from the Design Studio “Urban morphology, architectural typology, contemporary settlement patterns” at SEUArch 2018 (Professors Bao Li and Marco Trisciuoglio), detail of the entrance (from Archive “Transitional Morphologies” Joint Research Unit)

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The master students are not only more adults. It in a pedagogical system like the Chinese one (which is American-style 1+4+2, i.e. one preparatory year, four undergraduate years and two optional master’s years), they are often the ones already involved in work as an internship within the school and departments, able to develop, with the relevant professors, projects in preliminary stages intended for the design institutes, when not directly projects already being developed within the design institutes.

4 The «Architectural Lab» Within the Context of the Historical Architects & Engineers Co. Ltd (SEU Nanjing, from 2006)

It should not be thought at all that design institutes are anonymous professional bodies, capable of providing a low-quality service that is in no way comparable to that provided by large design companies or celebrated star architects. In the Chinese system, the reciprocal roles of architecture schools, renowned designer architects, the world of communication that revolves around design, public developers and local governments are very different from those in Europe (and, above all, the university has a pre-eminence of position which is still relevant today).

In this context, it is not uncommon for important practitioners, who are also professors, to set up their own professional studio within the same design institute. One of the most interesting realities on the Chinese professional scene in recent years has been the Urban Architectural Lab of the Southeast University of Nanjing.

The Urban Architectural Lab (UAL), founded in 2006, is based at and part of the Architects & Engineers Co. Ltd., the Design Institute of Southeast University (around 580 employees versus the 800 at the Design Institute at Tsinghua University).

The core members of UAL began the team’s professional activities in 2000 and after around 20 years of development, the team has now more than 50 members: 5 architects and faculty, 15 full-time architects, 30 among PhD students and master students.

It is a separate structure, more streamlined than the great Design Institute, and directed today by Han Dongqing, former Dean of the School of Architecture, well known Master of urban and architectural design [8].

The Design Institutes signed at 2020 around 70 projects (mostly in Nanjing), some of them are very important works, published on international journals as demonstrative. One interesting case for the SEU Design Institute UAL is the reconstruction in Nanjing, with a great symbolic intention, of the Jinling Da Bao En Temple (financed in 2015 by the investor Wang Jianlin of Dalia Wanda Group), the former Porcelain Tower, described in 17th century as one of the Seven Wonders in the World [9].

Being part of an academic environment (or the bridge between the academic world and the practice world), the activity of the Design Institute is often not only focused on design, but also on methodological investigations. In the last three years, for example, UAL made great efforts in linking ownership’s data with typo-morphological map in order to improve innovative participatory models, for the for the implementation of large and innovative urban regeneration projects.

5 The Southern Part of the Walled Center of Nanjing Between Real Estate and Urban Regeneration

Nanjing today still retains much of its Ming-era city wall (when it was Capital City of Chinese Empire). The southern part of the city in particular, called Qinhuai District and crossed from west to east by a navigable canal, still shows large parts of the ancient city, with its urban fabric made up of courtyard houses. Of course, much of the extension of this sector (which still constitutes a fifth of the surface area of historic Nanjing enclosed by the walls) is also irremediably compromised by the presence of functionalist building types built between the 1960s and the 1980s, by the presence of a series of road infrastructures that do not respect historical routes, by the looming heavy gentrification, especially of a commercial nature, which has significantly altered the urban spaces of the traditional city [10, 11].

For a first-level Chinese city, capital of the province of Jiangsu, the most technologically advanced of all the provinces of the People’s Republic, therefore with prospects of a lively city of the future, the theme of urban regeneration is urgent. Furthermore, the general conditions of the historical spaces and buildings aren’t at a level so sufficient to let inhabitants live in a safe and healthy way. However, the sense of community is very strong: every house, every small courtyard, every person tells stories about the places and the vivid daily life into them [12].

Over the last twenty years the local government has sequentially experimented with three different regeneration methods. A first phase, with an exquisitely commercial imprint, has reconstructed the urban fabric around the Confucius Temple (Fuzimiao) through an operation dictated by a pop culture of tourism and tradition. A second phase, suggested by unbridled real estate practices, razed part of the historical fabric to the ground (in Laomendong), moving the resident population to much more functional suburbs and creating very expensive and refined urban villas in the choice of materials, all immediately sold but all left irremediably uninhabited. A third phase, based on the direct involvement of citizens, has in fact invented almost from scratch a participation system which has borne excellent and clearly extraordinary results (for example in the case of the Xiaoxihu block) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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View of the regeneration project at Xiaoxihu, Nanjing 2023 (photo by Author).

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The stubbornly sought connection between the activities of the Design Institute and the activities of the Design Studio contributed significantly to the development of this third phase, after the local government asked SEU a help to find different design processes after the experiences of Fuzimiao and Laomendong.

In fact, for the first time, starting around six/seven years ago, the involvement of stakeholders, developers and local decision makers has intensified in the discussion of the outcomes (even partial) of the training activity conducted by the Design Studios. At the same time, the Design Institute entrusted entire sections of blocks to be redeveloped to some of the teachers directly operating in the same project areas [13].

In this way, on the one hand the approach of the Design Studio took strictly into consideration professional opportunities gradually proposed to the Design Institute, on the other hand the work carried out with the students immediately found a testing ground in entire passages of the real city. In short, an incredible virtuous circularity has been created between operators and students, under the guidance of designers/professors capable of keeping the world of study and that of the profession closely together.

6 The Regeneration of the Block XiaoXiHu as a Living Lab for Students’ Design Investigation. Coincidences

Within the context of a series of Design Studios, students analysed the pilot block of Xiaoxihu (very close either to Laomendong or to Fuzimiao) in order to demonstrate a more careful approach to what still exists (and what was existed) of the old town.

The design activity within the Design Studios (attended by mixed groups of Bachelor and Master Students) gave some first important guidelines and suggestions for the future uses of buildings and spaces and for the image of Xiaoxihu.

The final results of Design Studios were an important pre-figuration of the possible processes to reactivate ways of living in the block, with its internal spaces and its paths, so as to recreate the typical porosity of traditional fabric and daily life.

The system of images produced within the Design Studios and the results of the physical and social surveys became shared element of critical discussion in the context of the Design Institute, in a harmonious relationship of reciprocity where the two institutions, the didactic one and the professional one, have worked “shoulder to shoulder” (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.
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View of the regeneration project at Xiaoxihu, Nanjing 2023 (photo by Author).

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A first result was a real urban regeneration project nowadays almost completed, which won the 2022 UNESCO Asia Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation.

A second result was the improvement of the competences of students, thanks to the opportunity to work on real project in the connection Design Studio + Design Institute.

The more important result was the regeneration and the improvement of the urban social daily life of the Xiaoxihu block, through a mix of technical skills and investigation for innovation (Design Institute) and braveness, imagination and attention in design (Design Studios).

Xiaoxihu is today an important demonstration project in China.

The shared activities between Design Studios and the Design Institute helped a lot the scientific research: papers, books, seminars, international conferences, PhD dissertations were and are promoted, also deeply supporting the activities of the “Transitional Morphologies” Joint Research Unit (established in 2018 between Southeast University and Politecnico di Torino) [14].

Generally speaking, in China, the permeability between Design Studios and Design Institutes was until now not only advantageous from the point of view of both project training and the choice of specific design solutions to the detriment of others. Actually, it has allowed us to identify and develop important lines of research. One of these concerned, for example in Nanjing, the possibility of creating “augmented” urban typological maps with property and land value data deduced from the intersection of old land registers with a current survey of building structures and also of housing conditions. Another line of research prefigured, tested and then verified an innovative participation system based in Nanjing on the so called “diagram of the five actors” (local government, developers, designers, insiders and outsiders) and on the possibility of alienating part of the families’ assets in favor of activities of microeconomics to be achieved in the most complete respect of building types and settlement morphologies. The most recent line of research concerns, always in Nanjing, the monetary valorization of urban spaces and objects involved in participatory negotiation, imagining connections between urban morphology and urban economics.

All three of these shortly described three lines of research used, as a case study, the Xiaoxihu block, located in the Qinhuai District, characterized by the presence of some structures from the historical era and also by a very high number of modern compromises. For some years now, the block has been the subject of redevelopment actions which aim not only at the mere protection of the buildings placed under protection, but also and above all at identifying new, “transitional” roads to prefigure the urban settlement of the future.

As mentioned above, Xiaoxihu’s project won the 2022 UNESCO Asia Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. At the same time, the same block became the subject of some Design Studios also held in Italy, at the Politecnico di Torino. One of the purposes of the connections established between the Politecnico di Torino and Southeast University is in fact to mutually exchange experiences and solutions, again in pedagogy, research, urban design practice.