Luohu District is the earliest urban district in Shenzhen. Most of the middle and primary schools in the district were built in the 1990s and have been in use for over two decades. With the urban development and population surge, people are also having higher requirements for education. Faced with the new education development trend, the old academic buildings, obsolete supporting facilities, huge amount of potential safety hazards and seriously undersupplied school places are far from meeting people’s needs.

As response to the district party committee and district government’s action plan of “identifying and making up defects for people’s wellbeing”, the Design for Tomorrow - Open Call of Luohu District for Campus Design Concept(s) (“the Open Call”) is hereby launched to change the generally poor construction and design of primary and secondary schools in Luohu District.

Design Principles

In consideration of the high-density built urban area in Luohu District, this Open Call, by soliciting campus design concepts, invites excellent architect offices and architecture expert teams from renowned domestic colleges and universities to profoundly interact with the education circle and citizens, discussing how to innovate and upgrade the architectural spaces and environment of new schools within an intensive land use context, and in doing so, enhance the design innovation, set up a new benchmark of campus design and improve the overall campus design expertise in the district.

The design principles include:

1. Ensure intensive land use, reasonable layout, flexible and diverse spaces in consideration of the schools’ actual needs;
2. Attach importance to the practical functions of campus buildings and use reasonable and economical structures and materials;
3. Ensure modern and concise architecture styles to reflect the culture of schools;
4. Foster ecological, environmental-friendly and comfortable campus environments to enhance the learning atmosphere;
5. Ensure students’ health and safety in light of the characteristics of students’ learning and living;
6. Pay attention to the relationships with surrounding urban environments to ensure smooth transportation;
7. Provide advanced and future-proof solution in consideration of the future trend of education;
8. Maximize the school places to ease the pressure of short supply.