The event, organized by Dr. Eugenio Mangi and Dr. Ali Cheshmehzangi, was centered in connecting investigation, practice and teaching to identify challenges and opportunities of urban transitions at different scales in the Chinese context.

The first keynote speech, delivered by Prof. Tiziano Cattaneo from Tongji University, explained the concepts of transition, continuity and discontinuity in the urban realm by means of several examples of transformations in the Shanghai area.

Su Yimin, Founder and Director of SUn Architects in Hangzhou and tutor in the Vertical Design Studio, started from the scale of the dwelling to explain urban transformations that are undergoing in communities of the Jiangnan cities.

Eugenio Mangi, Ali Cheshmehzangi and Yanning Xiang explained the specific approach and the outcomes of the Urban Regeneration Project of the Sangjia Jiangyan Community in Ningbo. 

The last part of the workshop involved students from our three units of the Vertical Design Studio of the Architecture programme at UNNC. The final year undergraduate students demonstrated their ideas of Urban Transitions in two rapidly developing cities of Ningbo and Shanghai.

The workshop was a great chance to involve different stakeholders, including Government officials, research and teaching body, students from various universities, practitioners and the general public, in the debate about the transformation of the city and how - economic, social, cultural and environmental - sustainability can be addressed in the whole process. 

This half day work attracted 120+ participants from multiple stakeholders of the local and regional communities. The event was a great opportunity for the team to explore this very important topic of ‘Urban Transitions’, particularly in the context of rapidly urbanising China. The event also provided a great chance for the team to introduce the newly established research group of ‘Sustainable Built Environment (SBE)’.