The symposium was co-organised by the Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) Research Group – The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and the Department of Architecture and Built Environment – The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). This symposium invites interdisciplinary approaches to rethink the relationship between people and their built environment, and the pathways towards urban transformation in China and beyond. It invited scholars, discussing contemporary urban challenges and pathways to sustainability. 

Embarking from the contextualisation of ‘disruption’ and ‘integration’, the symposium hopes to trigger new ways of thinking on China’s urban transformation in the past and for the future.

Due to COVID-19 outbreak, this symposium was held online. More than 40 scholars from China, Britain, Italy, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Syria and other countries participated in this symposium together.

The Head of the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Dr Ali Cheshmehzangi and the chief editor of Journal of Intelligent Building International, Prof Derek Clements – Croome delivered opening speeches.

The symposium was divided into four parallel sessions with different themes, ‘Social inclusion for liveable built environment’ moderated by Dr Jing Xie, ‘High performance buildings 1’ moderated by Dr Tongyu Zhou, ‘Urban regeneration, planning and design’ moderated by Dr Yat-Ming Loo and ‘High performance buildings 2’ moderated by Dr Wu Deng. Before the morning and afternoon sessions, Prof. Yi Chen and Prof. Tiziano Cattaneo from Tongji University gave keynote speeches of Preliminary Study on the ‘Evaluation System of Urban Resilience --- taking Shanghai as an example’ and ‘Re-naturing cities: a pathway to inclusive urban regeneration’ respectively.

In each session, scholars gave academic speeches on the content of their papers and communicate with each other in the Q&A parts to share their experiences.