The Council Meeting of the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Urban Design Was Successfully Held

On January 18th, the third council meeting of the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Urban Design of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture was held in the Xicheng Campus. Song Chunhua, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Ma Guoxin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Consultant Chief Architect of Beijing Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd., Cui Kai, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of the Center, Honorary President and Chief Architect of China Architectural Design & Research Institute, Zhuang Weimin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Dean of the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, Jiang Zeting, Chairman of the Council of the Center and Party Secretary of the University, Zhang Ailin, Executive Director of the Center and President of the University, and Zhang Dayu, Deputy Director of the Center and Vice President of the University attended the meeting. More than 40 people including representatives of the standing council member units, members of the supervision committee of the center, and heads of relevant departments of our university participated in the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Zhang Dayu. Airui Global Translation provided stenography services for this meeting.

Zhang Dayu explained the change of the chairman of the center council. According to the regulations of the articles of association of the advanced innovation center, Jiang Zeting, Party Secretary of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, would serve as the chairman of the center council.

Zhang Ailin, Executive Director of the Center, gave a comprehensive report on the work of the center in recent years from four aspects: the achievements of the center construction, the system guarantee and fund management, the feedback of the mid-term evaluation results, and the main ideas for future construction. He mentioned that the center had gradually formed a high-level team led by international top talents with a relatively reasonable hierarchical structure, initially showing the achievements of talent construction. By setting up scientific research topics in the center, undertaking national-level scientific research topics and carrying out scientific and technological services, it had served the urban and rural construction development of the capital and the country, been recognized by all sectors of society, and supported the talent cultivation and discipline construction of our university. By holding major international activities, it had cultivated an international academic and exchange environment and demonstrated the international brand effect of the center. In the mid-term evaluation of the second batch of advanced innovation centers organized by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, the achievements of the center construction were highly affirmed by experts and passed the mid-term inspection with excellent results. Zhang Ailin also looked forward to the key work in 2020 in terms of scientific research, scientific and technological services, talent introduction and cultivation, international cooperation, and system construction.

At the meeting, representatives of each standing council member unit reviewed the process of co-construction and cooperation, reported on the jointly carried out topic researches, landmark achievements, and academic exchange activities, and expressed their hope to continue to strengthen cooperation, closely connect, cooperate innovatively, and achieve win-win development with the center. The participating experts discussed the key work of the center in the future and put forward many constructive opinions and suggestions.

Ma Hai, General Manager of China Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd., Zheng Degao, Vice President of China Urban Planning & Design Institute, Wang Yin, Chief Planner of Beijing Urban Planning & Design Institute, and other participating experts suggested that the center should conduct in-depth and detailed basic research on issues such as the future development of urban design disciplines, cultural protection, and environmental renewal. It should summarize, sort out, and condense the new trends of urban construction and urban design such as urbanization development at the theoretical and methodological levels to enrich the discipline system. They hoped that based on scientific research innovation, teaching and educating people, and project cooperation, the center would form cross-professional teams, jointly participate in tackling key research projects of the national "14th Five-Year Plan", form an innovative alliance team with the center as the research core, and deepen cooperation.

Zhuang Weimin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and member of the Academic Committee of the Center, pointed out that in addition to providing good project services, the center should also focus on basic research, norms and regulations, and post-construction evaluation of buildings. At the same time, it should do a good job in the selection and screening mechanism of scientific research topics to ensure the scientificity, efficiency, and pertinence of research results.

Ma Guoxin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, suggested that the center should continuously innovate the construction ideas, base on Chinese characteristics, rethink from the theoretical exploration and methodological levels, explore the innovative path of urban design with the characteristics of the center, and strive to achieve the transformation and development from "overtaking on a curve" to "overtaking on a different track".

Song Chunhua, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, emphasized that as the only high-end think tank in the field of urban design in Beijing, the advanced innovation center had a long way to go and was duty-bound to provide comprehensive services for the urban and rural development of Beijing and the country. The center should strengthen the macro top-level design, pay attention to planning, design, governance, and institutional innovation, and provide intellectual support for the scientific decision-making of the government. By using the "Belt and Road" Architectural Colleges Alliance and the center platform, it should strengthen international cooperation and exchanges to promote international development. He hoped that the center would actively pay attention to issues such as urban agglomeration construction, historical block renewal and protection, industrial building heritage, population aging, green and low-carbon development, and smart cities in the future to serve the high-quality development of cities.

Academician Cui Kai, Director of the Center, agreed with and thanked the experts for their pertinent opinions on the construction of the center. He emphasized that in the future, the center should be problem-oriented, strengthen forward-looking layout, produce strategic results, continuously develop and cultivate young talents in joint research and innovative practice, and coordinate and progress together. He said that with the high attention of the leaders at all levels of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the support and cooperation of the standing council member units, he was confident to build the advanced innovation center better and prepare for the next five-year construction cycle.

Jiang Zeting, Chairman of the Center and Party Secretary of the University, thanked the academicians and experts for their guidance and the contributions of the co-construction units in his concluding speech. He pointed out that the advanced innovation center should think about its future development with the orientation of serving the construction of the "Four Centers" in the capital. It should reflect "high" in terms of target positioning, innovation subject, innovation mechanism, and open sharing; reflect "精" in terms of task projects, basic research, system, and innovation means; reflect "尖" in terms of output results, talent gathering, playing a role, and having an impact. It should strive to play a greater role in the governance system of super-large cities, promote the development of the capital city, and promote the construction of the "Four Centers" in the capital. He emphasized that in 2020, the center should launch a batch of brand activities, set up a batch of high-quality awards, create a batch of influential results, continuously expand its social influence, integrate into the economic and social development of the capital, do a good job in the center's affairs, establish the center's image, make the center's voice heard, and make the center's contribution. He hoped that the center could, as always, unite with the co-construction units, pool their wisdom and efforts, create a front-shop-back-factory model, better find resources and build platforms, drive the school to comprehensively improve the quality of talent cultivation, form an innovative chain that closely combines government, industry, academia, and research, build a high-end platform in the field of international first-class urban design, provide an advanced technical support service system and a high-end think tank for the urban and rural development of the country and the capital, and make greater contributions to building Beijing into an international first-class harmonious and livable capital.

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