Tongji CAUP

🔊 Lecture Announcement: Incorporating Architects

👨‍🏫 Lecturer:
Aaron Cayer


⏰ Time:
18:30, April 1, 2026

📍Venue:
The Bell Auditorium, Building B, CAUP

📚For architectural inspiration & cutting-edge insights: Architectural Intelligence

Architectural Intelligence is a peer-reviewed journal for original research papers focusing on the three future scenarios of smart habitat, virtual habitat and space habitat, and emerging digital technologies in the whole lifecycle of architecture, including design, simulation, optimization, construction, operation, and inhabitation.

The journal sees design thinking as the interface between advanced digital technologies and the built environment, and embraces all forms of intelligence in architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture. Meanwhile, it initiates a series of dialogs crossing civil engineering, environmental engineering, computer science, social science, and other relevant disciplines to generate new knowledge and new techniques.

🖋️Editor-in-Chief
Prof. Philip F. Yuan
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🤝Societies and partnerships
Tongji University
DigitalFUTURES

📮Journal Contact
Email: [email protected]
Website: springer.com/journal/44223

📄Submit your manuscript
https://www.editorialmanager.com/arin/default.aspx

We are ranked 12th globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Architecture & Built Environment. 🏆👏🎉

After a long day of giving lectures 🐱💤

☀️ field trip

Reconnecting across borders, building a stronger future together 🌍🏛️

Check the image to join us in mapping the Tongji × TU Berlin alumni network and shaping future collaborations 🤝

Lecture Recap: Neuroscience, Architecture, and the Problem of Space 🧠🏛️💡

Lecturer:
Sergei Gepshtein
gepshtein
Professor of Cognitive Science
University of California San Diego
President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture

For architects, space is the substance of design. The sciences studied space extensively too, but for their own purposes, which didn’t lead them to address the architects’ question: what space is for a person moving through a built environment.

When architects tried to articulate their own understanding, they sometimes reached for scientific terms, such as ‘field’ and ‘force,’ because those terms pointed toward something they recognized in their experience.

Meantime, two traditions within science were arriving, independently, at the idea that experienced space is not a system of coordinates but a field: one, going back to the physicist Ernst Mach, holds that this field originates in the nervous system; the other, going back to the psychologist James Gibson, holds that it originates in the environment and is revealed by movement through it.

As we bring these scientific traditions to bear on what architects had been trying to articulate, new concepts emerge that could not have arisen within either discipline alone. Not science applied to architecture, and not architecture translated into science, but a new perspective that enriches both: an understanding of how the space around a moving person is structured for perception and for action.

📖✨ The work is unfolding. It can only continue as a collaboration of scientists and designers.

Wuzhen “Internet Light” Conference Center · A perfect blend of ancient water town charm and cutting-edge technology✨

Principal Architect: Philip F. Yuan
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Key Info: Built for the World Internet Conference, this venue integrates traditional Jiangnan style with modern architecture.

Total GFA: 25,751 ㎡ (Main Hall: 19,466 ㎡; Control Center: 6,285 ㎡), constructed in just 6 months (Mar-Sept 2019).

Highlights: Precast tile roof echoing Jiangnan water town aesthetics, cable-stayed beam structure (max span ~50m), and prefabricated construction for efficient building.

Where ancient Jiangnan poetry meets future tech

Digital FUTURES CDRF 2026 The 8th International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication
✨: Circular Intelligence
📄: Published by Springer l indexed by El, SCOPUS, CuminCAD

The deadline for full paper submission is approaching. Authors who have not yet submitted their papers must submit the complete manuscript via the EasyChair website prior to the deadline (March 29, 2026). To mitigate risks of network congestion, early submission is strongly advised.

Note:

When submitting your full paper to EasyChair, please create a new submission so that you receive a new ID number. Author names and affiliations should be ommitted from the pdf submitted to facilitate the blind peer review process.


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2025 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation

Award for New Design in Heritage Contexts: Yong an village

The project of Yong’an Village demonstrates a sensitive and context-responsive approach to poverty alleviation through a clearly articulated new architectural language rooted in local expressions. In this project, different topographical settings within a mountainous region were selected to seamlessly integrate the Mountain Village Hub and Rural Academy, articulating the spatial logic of Bai vernacular settlements through contemporary reinterpretations of the “three courtyards with one screen wall” prototype. These adaptations are rooted in spiritual and socio-cultural traditions, rituals, and practices. Constructed with locally sourced materials such as dry-stacked stone, rammed earth and straw-reinforced, the new, the work demonstrated the careful levelling and colourization complementing the alpine canyon setting, allowing the structure to sit lightly within the landscape, while the judicious use of digital technologies and parametric supports both construction efficiency and the precision of the final design. Undertaken by Tongji University with an extremely limited budget that exemplifies a notable non-commercial effort grounded in social responsibility.



ARCHITECT/DESIGNER/CONSULTANT: Philip F. Yuan

Discover the “Heart of Yong’an” in Nuodeng Town, Yunnan

A transformative rural revitalization project led by Tongji University, Professor Philip F. Yuan. This Mountain Village Hub, completed in 2021, harmonizes Bai cultural heritage with contemporary design, utilizing local stone and rammed earth for a sustainable communal space. Adjacent, the Yong’an Rural Academy enhances educational opportunities while preserving traditions. Both projects have earned national and international recognition for their innovative approach to rural development and cultural conservation. ✨

Project Spot 🔍

Project Name: “Ruixue” Multi-Functional Pavilion, Tianfu Agricultural Expo Park

Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Total Gross Floor Area: 1,836 m²

Principal Architect: Philip F. Yuan