On April 21, the jury session for the 2024 “Tianzuo Award” International Architectural Design Competition for University Students, organized by The Architect magazine, successfully concluded at the School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The review was chaired by Academician Wang Jianguo—Professor at the School of Architecture, Southeast University, and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Meng Fanhao, Co-founder and Chief Architect of line+, was invited to participate as a jury member, joining a panel of esteemed experts including Professor Zhang Yonghe, Professor Ruan Xin, Professor Song Yehao, Professor Li Li, Professor Liu Yubo, General Manager Li Shaoyun, and Editor-in-Chief Li Ge.

The Architect Magazine · 2024 “Tianzuo Award” International Architectural Design Competition for University Students is co-organized by The Architect magazine under China Architecture & Building Press, Guangzhou Tianzuo Architectural Planning & Design Co., Ltd., Singapore Tianzuo International Design Company, and the School of Design at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Since its inception in 2012, the “Tianzuo Award” has attracted over ten thousand student participants from more than a hundred universities worldwide, growing into one of the largest and most influential architectural design competitions for university students in China.

This year’s competition theme, “Shrink Street,” was proposed by Yung Ho Chang — Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA), Founder and Principal Architect of Atelier FCJZ, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, and Professor Emeritus at MIT.

“In daily life, wide roads often pose a problem — even adults can’t cross an intersection in a single light cycle, let alone the elderly. That clearly indicates a design issue. As architects, we should care about urban design.

At the same time, recent statistics point to two major trends: first, China’s population growth stopped in 2016, which may impact urban demographics. Second, there’s the issue of urban transformation. Office vacancy rates have risen significantly, even in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai — a widespread phenomenon.

So what will cities of the future look like? How will they evolve? As architects and urban planners, how should we respond? And how should high-rise buildings in future cities be adapted? These are pressing issues.

That’s how the theme emerged — we’re asking students to explore how architectural design and programmatic content can be integrated, and how they can begin to take control and reflect on these questions through design.”

This year’s competition received 1,209 student submissions, with guidance from 425 instructors. A total of 486 valid entries were submitted from 161 universities and colleges across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, as well as countries including the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, and Australia. After on-site evaluation, 26 finalist entries were selected. The final list of award winners will be announced soon.

Meng Fanhao, Chief Architect of line+, has long advocated for bridging academic teaching with real-world practice, aiming to build an integrated platform for collaboration between industry, academia, and research. During the jury session, he remarked:

“Against the backdrop of transformation in both the architecture profession and architectural education, Professor Yung Ho Chang’s theme ‘Shrink Street’ is not a traditional, single-solution design brief, but rather an open-ended exploration that offers students an opportunity to engage with real-world practice. By encouraging students to examine the city through the lens of the street, the prompt inspires them to actively observe and participate in addressing real societal issues, and to respond with open, pluralistic architectural thinking.

At the same time, I was deeply moved by the students’ creative passion during the process of free exploration. I look forward to seeing more outstanding ideas from them in the future—bringing innovation and new possibilities to the architectural field.”