We firstly invited Mr. Zhuang Weimin, the dean of the Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University, to have a discussion on the current situation of construction industry. Zhuang pointed out that in such a cooling-period, Tsinghua University is facing not only the challenge to put the theory into practice, but also the transformation of the whole collegial model, thus he furthermore talked about the methods and strategies adopted by Tsinghua University to cope with those challenges on its road of an ideological transformation.

The independent designer we interviewed this time is Liu Haowei, the founder of CAA. As a member of the young architectural firms that grow up in China, CAA always pays attention to the influence of space to people, pursues the quality in detail from a perspective of human nature and strives to develop the social value of architects and designers. In this issue, Liu shared his ten-year career experience as well as his unique vision for the city in the future.

The foreign firm practicing in China we select is Architecture-Studio from France. Architecture-Studio defines architecture and urban planning as: an art that is closely related to society and structure that constructs human life, which is fundamentally based on team work and shared experience. Only through communication and exchange of ideas among the team members, could individuals’ personal senses be transferred into potential collective creativity. Then, together with rene-henri arnaud, the chairman of Architecture-Studio, we talked about the importance of team work to an architectural firm that has remarkable achievements.