BUILD Q4 2019

55 Q4 2019 BUILD and culture to be successful. First of all, the architect should meet the needs of social development, use the best design to promote the development of economy and culture in the process of social development and create better urban space for people. Also, I think architects should use the technology they have learned and their sense of responsibility for social economy and culture to promote the development of contemporary architectural design along with the original design. B:What kind of clients do you serve and how do you approach them? CK: Most of my projects are commissioned by various local governments. These projects are also the most important projects in the various regions, such as the design of Lulang International Tourism Town, a convention center of Gannan Tourism Expo and the first prize winning projects of International tender such as the Zhuhai Opera House and Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarter. As a result, all my clients have high requirements for the design, especially for the cultural and artistic elements, which are also in line with my view on the humanities and modern interpretation of traditional architecture in architectural design. It is hard to be a profession architect, you have a tight work schedule and hard-working environment. At the same time, you take great responsibility and risk, because funds are given to you along with many possibilities for the final result. Ultimately, I think architectural design should be based on a humanistic value, a responsible attitude towards social economy and culture, an original design concept, and an artistic design from the perspective of protection and development of regional culture. Design is challenging. B:What role do your staff play in the success of your firm? CK: A natural process of my work involves support from my team. Since I am also a Professor of Peking University, there are more than 40 graduate students under my guidance, who can help me to complete theoretical research and preliminary research of a project, which is crucially important. At the same time, there are also professional designers at the China Reconstruct Urban Design and Research Institute, who design and deepen the projects on the basis of my initial ideas. In terms of project operation management, I also advocate the use of the chief designer responsibility system, which is leading consultant and chief designer. The chief designer should be responsible for the quality and artistic effect of the whole project. In practice, we often cooperate with dozens of design agencies at the same time. B: Do you have any plans for 2019 and beyond that you would like to share with our readers? CK: In 2019, we set up largest online international design alliance in China called “China Reconstruct International Design Alliance”. Our aim is to complete the best engineering projects in cooperation with the world’s best designers on the basis of internet thinking and online methods. We have more than 500 design institutions and more than 2000 registered designers. I hope that our platform will promote international design in the future and support the best designers and design institutions in the world to complete high-quality engineering projects. Personally, as the chairman of the Design Alliance, I hope to work with many entrepreneurs, bankers, designers and creative people in the future on our Alliance platform and provide the best consulting services for China’s rapid development of urban construction and large-scale public construction. Also, this year, we undertook a lot of large-scale urban design and architectural design projects, including the design of a convention center of the 2019 Tourism Expo in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu and the new city planning of The Future City of Qingdao. B: Can you detail any specific industry-based challenges you are facing now and may do in the near future? CK: Through the past 20 years of architectural practice, we have completed a lot of world-famous projects in town planning architectural design. However, due to the rapid development of China’s economy, culture and people’s demands for continuous improvement of their living environment, we are also facing many new challenges. These challenges mainly lie in the higher demands on architectural creativity. However, the current mechanisms and methods do not provide enough space for architects’ self-manifestation in design. That is why I am looking forward to a breakthrough in the near future. There is, however, a good phenomenon in the development of China in that it has been more and more open to the world recently, offering a chance for excellent architectural design and culture from all over the world to be introduced in China. At the same time, local architects also make continuous efforts in the sustainable development of Chinese architectural culture. B: Finally, do you have any further remarks to make? CK: The scope of one’s cognition and work is limited, so my future plan is still to be able to contribute more energy to the three architecture areas I am familiar with. The first is to continue to contribute and design projects belonging to Tibetan culture, which will lie in line with the future development direction of Tibetan architecture. The second direction is to continue to learn and summarize the experience of European town planning and Ancient Town revival, protect and utilize more ancient towns in China, develop them into tourism towns, and work on more important projects like Lulang International Tourism Town in Tibet and post disaster reconstruction of Shuimo Town in Sichuan. The third aspect is to continue to explore the theory of “garden city” put forward by Howard 100 years ago in accordance with our design theory of “green garden city” and “ecological aesthetics”, so that the successful experience of the development of “garden city theory” in Singapore, Japan and European countries can provide better wisdom and experience for the rapid development of urbanization in China today. The most important thing is to explore our ecological aesthetics in large-scale public buildings. As an architect you should always focus on the result, just like the practice of famous Chinese American architect Leoh Ming Pei, he integrates the excellent artistic elements of the East and the West into today’s architectural design, adheres to ecological aesthetics, and explores the future city and future architecture. Architecture is a long historical path of humanism. And here we are on this path today, promoting the architect’s humanistic values, the traditional architectural art and modern life combined with ecological aesthetics to evoke people’s inner harmony, harmony with nature, to let this historical path of architecture in China lead us towards a bright future.