[Vlog] Tsinghua SIGS & SUSTech Academic Visit in Shenzhen 深圳

Shenzhen 深圳 is often described through technology, entrepreneurship, and extraordinary urban growth. During this academic visit, I had the opportunity to experience another side of the city: its rapidly developing ecosystem of universities, research institutes, and international academic collaboration.

My visit brought me to two important institutions: Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (Tsinghua SIGS) and the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).

What struck me throughout the visit was how closely research, education, technology, and the transformation of the city are connected. Shenzhen is not simply hosting universities. It is creating an environment where universities can interact directly with some of the most dynamic technological and urban transformations taking place in China.

🎓 Tsinghua SIGS: Research Across Disciplinary Boundaries

At Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, I was welcomed by Prof. Pengyuan Shen and Haoxiang Zhan for a program combining academic discussions, a lecture, interviews, lunch with faculty members, and a tour of the campus and research environment.

Our exchanges focused on research and education at the intersection of buildings, energy, climate, and technology. One of the most interesting aspects of Tsinghua SIGS is its interdisciplinary character. Many of the challenges facing buildings and cities today cannot be addressed within the traditional boundaries of architecture or engineering alone. They require us to ask broader questions:

• How can building envelopes become active components of future energy systems?

• How can photovoltaics, energy storage, shading, natural ventilation, and mixed-mode operation be integrated rather than studied independently?

• How should buildings adapt to increasingly frequent heatwaves and changing climate conditions?

• How can simulation, monitoring, data science, and artificial intelligence support better architectural and engineering decisions?

• And how can international research collaboration accelerate the transition from experimental ideas to solutions that can operate at building and urban scales?

These discussions are particularly relevant in Shenzhen, where rapid technological development provides an exceptional environment for connecting building science with emerging energy and digital technologies.

🤝 Building International Research Collaboration

The visit was also an opportunity to discuss possibilities for deeper collaboration with Prof. Shen, Haoxiang Zhan, and colleagues at Tsinghua SIGS. Academic collaboration becomes most valuable when it goes beyond ceremonial visits. The objective is to create sustained exchanges involving researchers and students, joint research questions, publications, experimental work, and eventually larger collaborative projects. For sustainable architecture and building science, this type of international cooperation is becoming increasingly important. Climate change is global, but buildings remain deeply local. Climate, construction practices, energy systems, occupant behavior, regulations, and urban morphology vary enormously between countries. Working across these contexts allows us to test whether our methods and assumptions remain valid when they leave the environments in which they were originally developed.

🏫 Discovering SUSTech

The second part of the visit brought me to the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), another important component of Shenzhen's rapidly growing academic ecosystem. There, I met Mr. Umaru Mohamed from Prof. Christiane Herr's research lab. Our exchange provided an opportunity to discuss research connecting architecture, technology, sustainability, computation, and interdisciplinary innovation, while also discovering the university's campus and academic environment. SUSTech represents an interesting model for a relatively young university developing within one of the world's most technology-intensive cities. For architecture and the built environment, this context raises fascinating possibilities. Buildings are increasingly becoming interfaces between materials, energy systems, digital technologies, environmental performance, and human behavior. The traditional separation between architectural design, engineering, computer science, and environmental research is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. That makes interdisciplinary institutions particularly interesting places for the next generation of researchers.

🌆 Shenzhen as an Urban Research Environment

The academic visits were only part of the experience. The video also captures arrival in Shenzhen, informal discussions, campus life, movement through the city, and glimpses of the broader technological and urban environment. Shenzhen itself is an extraordinary case study. In only a few decades, it has developed into a major global center for technology, manufacturing, research, and innovation. This rapid transformation also creates important questions for architects, engineers, and urban researchers.

How can rapidly developing cities reduce operational and embodied carbon?

How can existing and future buildings remain comfortable under a warming climate?

How can renewable energy, storage, electrification, and smart controls become integrated parts of architecture?

And perhaps most importantly, how can technological innovation translate into buildings and cities that are not only more efficient, but also more resilient, adaptable, and supportive of human well-being?

These are questions that cannot be answered by technology alone. They require collaboration between architecture, engineering, environmental science, computer science, industry, policymakers, and the people who ultimately inhabit our buildings and cities.

🎓 A Note for Future Master's and PhD Students

For students considering graduate studies or research in China, Shenzhen deserves attention. Studying here means entering an environment where academic research exists alongside an extraordinary concentration of technology companies, start-ups, laboratories, manufacturing capabilities, and rapidly evolving urban infrastructure. Tsinghua SIGS and SUSTech offer two different perspectives on this ecosystem, but both demonstrate the growing importance of Shenzhen as an international research and education hub. For students interested in sustainable architecture, building technology, energy, climate resilience, computational design, artificial intelligence, or interdisciplinary research, experiencing this environment can significantly broaden the way they understand the future of the built environment. It is also an opportunity to encounter approaches to research and innovation that may differ substantially from those found in European universities. That difference is precisely what makes international academic exchange valuable.

🙏 My sincere appreciation to Prof. Pengyuan Shen and Haoxiang Zhan for welcoming me to Tsinghua SIGS and for the stimulating discussions, academic exchanges, and campus visit.

I also appreciated the opportunity to meet Mr. Umaru Mohamed and discover the research environment surrounding Prof. Christiane Herr's group at SUSTech.

Academic visits are relatively short. Their real value lies in what follows: new research questions, student exchanges, joint publications, experiments, and long-term collaborations. Shenzhen provides an exciting environment in which to build those connections. I look forward to continuing these exchanges and seeing where they lead. I will be back in Shenzhen in 2027.

📽️ Watch the academic vlog about the visit 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CJlIXOCVEM

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