Lectures Design Studios Capstone Projects
Situating Teaching in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), China
Urban design education today is increasingly seen as an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented endeavor, moving beyond conventional discipline-based curriculums. In the context of Pearl River Delta and the Greater Bay Area (GBA), the approach is seeing insights from various disciplines from urban studies, geography, landscape architecture, sociology, and history. The complexity of contemporary urban challenges demands a reconfiguration of educational models, where design becomes a tool not just for creation, but for inquiry and adaptation.
A key feature of this pedagogical shift is the implementation of international collaborative learning (Salama, 2015). Students participate in cross-border design projects that engage with global academic networks and think tanks, allowing them to explore spatial responses to real-world issues facing the GBA. These projects promote a hybrid mode of learning, combining theory with application, where design methodology becomes a core instructional strategy. This model encourages not only innovation in studio practice but also a long-term engagement with critical urban issues.
So far, teaching projects have engaged with a range of themes, including Mapping Megaproject Territories, Port City Territories, Water Heritage, and Delta Urbanism. Water is a key theme that threads across these explorations as both a medium and methodology for understanding urban transformation—linking ecology, infrastructure, and community practices.
Lectures
As part of our dissemination effort, the lab have organised lecture series in the GBA, including at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Harbin Institute of Technology scholars, designers, and practitioners from across the Greater Bay Area and beyond. These lectures create a platform for dialogue on water-driven urbanism, adaptive urban design strategies, and regional collaboration, contributing to a growing network of research exchange and collective learning.
2026
Water, Morphology and Design
A core vision of Liquid Territories is to empower students as active agency of urban transformation, to equip students with knowledge to navigate the social and environmental complexities in the Pearl River Delta. The lecture series plays a pivotal role in this vision, forming a shared space of learning, dialogue, and critical inquiry. The lecture is organised into 5 clusters: 1) Theories and Methodologies 2) Instruments and Tools 3) History and Legacies 4) Adaptations and Transformations 5) Typology and Morphology
During the first term of the 2025–2026 academic year, the lecture series hosted nine invited speakers from the Netherlands (TU Delft), London, and across China. The lectures introduced territorial and urban design methodologies, with a particular focus on Dutch traditions of spatial planning, delta thinking, and long-term infrastructural and environmental strategies, establishing a shared methodological foundation for students working across scales and systems. In the second term, the series turns toward comparative and global delta perspectives, expanding the discussion beyond the Pearl River Delta to engage with diverse planning cultures and case studies worldwide. It is within this broader, comparative framework that we are pleased to invite your participation in the lecture series.
The series is embedded in two courses led by Liquid Territories at CUHK throughout the academic year:
1. ARCH5110/6210: Delta Plug-ins
A Master of Architecture design studio teaching a mix of first- and second-year students, Delta Plug-ins explores architecture as agency within the urbanising Pearl River Delta. The studio invites students to adopt a multi-scalar approach, developing adaptive spatial tools that respond to systems such as hydrology, urban infrastructure, and regional governance.
2. Undergraduate Capstone Course 1: Live with Water – Sustainable Water Heritage at Sangyuanwei
This undergraduate capstone course brings together students from psychology, sociology, public policy, geography, and urban studies to examine Sangyuanwei, a historic water-based infrastructural system in the Pearl River Delta. Through field-based research and interdisciplinary collaboration, the course explores strategies for sustainable water heritage, aiming to inform future development and raise public awareness.
3. Undergarduate Capstone Course 2: Re-imaging Port City Territories: Promoting Social Equity through Port-driven Urban Development
The same course structured as above. This project explores how port development impact urbanization and promotes regional development across the Pearl River Delta.
2025
Mapping the Hong Kong Megaproject Territories
he
The
As part of our dissemination effort, the lab have organised lecture series in the GBA, including at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Harbin Institute of Technology scholars, designers, and practitioners from across the Greater Bay Area and beyond. These lectures create a platform for dialogue on water-driven urbanism, adaptive urban design strategies, and regional collaboration, contributing to a growing network of research exchange and collective learning.
2026
Water, Morphology and Design
A core vision of Liquid Territories is to empower students as active agency of urban transformation, to equip students with knowledge to navigate the social and environmental complexities in the Pearl River Delta. The lecture series plays a pivotal role in this vision, forming a shared space of learning, dialogue, and critical inquiry. The lecture is organised into 5 clusters: 1) Theories and Methodologies 2) Instruments and Tools 3) History and Legacies 4) Adaptations and Transformations 5) Typology and Morphology
During the first term of the 2025–2026 academic year, the lecture series hosted nine invited speakers from the Netherlands (TU Delft), London, and across China. The lectures introduced territorial and urban design methodologies, with a particular focus on Dutch traditions of spatial planning, delta thinking, and long-term infrastructural and environmental strategies, establishing a shared methodological foundation for students working across scales and systems. In the second term, the series turns toward comparative and global delta perspectives, expanding the discussion beyond the Pearl River Delta to engage with diverse planning cultures and case studies worldwide. It is within this broader, comparative framework that we are pleased to invite your participation in the lecture series.
The series is embedded in two courses led by Liquid Territories at CUHK throughout the academic year:
1. ARCH5110/6210: Delta Plug-ins
A Master of Architecture design studio teaching a mix of first- and second-year students, Delta Plug-ins explores architecture as agency within the urbanising Pearl River Delta. The studio invites students to adopt a multi-scalar approach, developing adaptive spatial tools that respond to systems such as hydrology, urban infrastructure, and regional governance.
2. Undergraduate Capstone Course 1: Live with Water – Sustainable Water Heritage at Sangyuanwei
This undergraduate capstone course brings together students from psychology, sociology, public policy, geography, and urban studies to examine Sangyuanwei, a historic water-based infrastructural system in the Pearl River Delta. Through field-based research and interdisciplinary collaboration, the course explores strategies for sustainable water heritage, aiming to inform future development and raise public awareness.
3. Undergarduate Capstone Course 2: Re-imaging Port City Territories: Promoting Social Equity through Port-driven Urban Development
The same course structured as above. This project explores how port development impact urbanization and promotes regional development across the Pearl River Delta.
2025
Mapping the Hong Kong Megaproject Territories
he
The
2022
2021
2021
Design Studios
2025-2026
2025-1016 MArch Advanced Architectural Design Studio
Studio Instructor: Jiaxiu Cai
Teaching Assistant: Yanyu Sun
This studio works in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) as a living, water-driven territory rather than a single site. The site is located in the West River (Xijiang) of PRD. We treat the West River Territory as a complex system of water, logistics, governance, industry, and everyday life. Instead of designing isolated buildings, students develop “Delta Plug-ins”: spatial tools and prototypes that operate across scales, from architectural fragments to regional infrastructures. The aim is to position architecture as an active agent within larger territorial processes, where it responds to seasonal flooding, port transformation, shifting industrial geographies, and forms of water heritage that continue to organise life in the delta.
Research Question
Following Han Meyer’s approach, the studio draws on Complex System Theory to understand the interaction between design and spatial planning in delta contexts (Meyer, 2014). Urbanization in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is seen as an interplay between local processes and strategic development shaped by multiple actors and stakeholders. In this planning-oriented context, we ask: Where do architects intervene in this multi-scalar and multi-actor process?
Architecture in the PRD is inherently connected to public authorities, engineering consultants, and communities. Students are encouraged to explore how architecture can position itself as an active agent within this network to produce systematic responses.
Phase 1 - Collective Mapping and Researching
Phase 2 - Collective Exhibition: relationships between Delta Plugins and the Collective Vision
Coming Soon....
CU-ASK
The CUHK Actionable Social Knowledge (CU-ASK) programme at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) promotes an approach to education that connects academic research with real-world social challenges through field-based, interdisciplinary learning. Emphasising experiential engagement, the programme encourages students to translate knowledge into action by working directly with communities, environments, and spatial conditions. Within this framework, projects developed in the Liquid Territories Lab, including Reimaging Port City Territories and Live with Water, investigate urban and territorial systems through site-driven research, integrating mapping, fieldwork, and critical analysis to address pressing questions of environment, infrastructure, and society.
The CUHK Actionable Social Knowledge (CU-ASK) programme at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) promotes an approach to education that connects academic research with real-world social challenges through field-based, interdisciplinary learning. Emphasising experiential engagement, the programme encourages students to translate knowledge into action by working directly with communities, environments, and spatial conditions. Within this framework, projects developed in the Liquid Territories Lab, including Reimaging Port City Territories and Live with Water, investigate urban and territorial systems through site-driven research, integrating mapping, fieldwork, and critical analysis to address pressing questions of environment, infrastructure, and society.
Re-imagining Port City Territories: Promoting Social Equity through Port-driven Development is a research and teaching project developed under the CU-ASK Programme in Faculty of Social Science at CUHK, led by Prof. Jiaxiu Cai and Yanyu Sun, in collaboration with four students from the Year 3 and 4 Urban Studies Programme: Shun Lam Wong, Yin To Leung, Chun Ho Chan and Chin Nam Tsang. The project investigates how port cities operate as complex socio-ecological systems shaped by the interaction of water, infrastructure, economy, and everyday life. At its core, it asks how port city territories evolve under shifting relationships between water, ecology, economy, and society. Rather than treating ports as isolated infrastructures, the project reframes them as territorial systems, where logistics, landscapes, governance, and lived experience are deeply intertwined. Grounded in the Pearl River Delta / Greater Bay Area (GBA), the research focuses on Gaoming District in Foshan, a third-tier, river-based city historically shaped by waterborne trade and agriculture, and now undergoing uneven development and transformation. This makes it an ideal site for examining the transition from industrial port landscapes to post-industrial and ecological futures.
Live with Water: Sustainable Development of the Water Heritage is a research and teaching project developed under the CU-ASK project at Faculty of Social Science at CUHK , led by Prof. Jiaxiu Cai and Yanyu Sun, in collaboration with Angeline Sudari from Year 2 Architceture Studies and Jiayuan Huang from Year 2 Global Studies. The project investigates how water-based infrastructures operate as living heritage systems, shaped by the long-term interaction between ecology, settlement, governance, and everyday practices. At its core, it asks how water heritage can be understood beyond static preservation, as an evolving territorial system embedded within contemporary environmental and socio-economic transformations. Rather than approaching heritage as isolated sites or monuments, the project reframes it as a dynamic spatial framework, where landscape, infrastructure, and community practices are deeply intertwined. Grounded in the Pearl River Delta / Greater Bay Area (GBA), the research focuses on the Sangyuanwei Embankment System and its surrounding villages, particularly Zuotan Village, where historical water management systems continue to structure daily life and spatial organisation. This makes it an ideal context for examining how inherited water systems can inform adaptive strategies for climate resilience and future territorial design.
(Cover photos by LEUNG Yin To and HUANG Jiayuan）
Student Profiles
“
The greatest takeaway from this CU-ASK project is the shift in my own perspective: I started perceiving water as an active component of urban development. In urban studies, we often prioritize the solid and tangible, like buildings, open spaces, and transport networks. This project made me realize that the fluid systems like water, are quietly shaping the city's form, and I should not overlook or underestimate it. Also, by working with peers from different majors and listening to people’ stories during site visits, it reminded me that urban planning is ultimately about people and their relationships with place.”
- TSANG Chin Nam (Janice ) , Year 4 Bachelor of Urban Studies
- TSANG Chin Nam (Janice ) , Year 4 Bachelor of Urban Studies
“My major in Global Studies focuses on world politics and global economy.
Through CU-ASK, I gained new perspectives on urban planning and mapping—novel experiences beyond my major—and collaborating with Angie from Architecture taught me design and visualization skills. Moreover, it was a precious opportunity to conduct field research and focus on real cases, making the learning experience deeply meaningful. The most enjoyable moment was during the Zuo Tan village field visits, when we interviewed and chatted with local residents. We once amid a heavy rain, a kind uncle invited us into his courtyard and offered steaming hot tea.”
- HUANG Jiayuan (Jessie), Year 2 Bachelor of Global Studies
“ In Hong Kong, waterfront industries, including ports and power plants, are generally located at a distance from residential areas or are somewhat isolated. Through this course, I had the opportunity to explore issues of industrial planning and the spatial conflicts that lie behind them in Pearl River Delta. The CU-ASK project also allowed me to work with students from other majors, such as architecture, which gave me a new understanding of spatial presentation.”
- LEUNG Yin To（Marcus), Year 3 Bachelor of Urban Studies
“This is my 2nd course of CU-ASK! Personally, I really like the field work that I have nerver done before. Going to Foshan, back and forth is the place i never went before, we went to old villages, sanshui, learning local life through ethnographic techniques is my fav part of this course:) Meanwhile getting to know academics people cross geographical boundaries through lecture series genuinely leveraged my interdisciplinary knowledge.“
- MOOLSRI Chayanisa (Inko), Year 3 Bachelor of Urban Studies
- HUANG Jiayuan (Jessie), Year 2 Bachelor of Global Studies
“ In Hong Kong, waterfront industries, including ports and power plants, are generally located at a distance from residential areas or are somewhat isolated. Through this course, I had the opportunity to explore issues of industrial planning and the spatial conflicts that lie behind them in Pearl River Delta. The CU-ASK project also allowed me to work with students from other majors, such as architecture, which gave me a new understanding of spatial presentation.”
- LEUNG Yin To（Marcus), Year 3 Bachelor of Urban Studies
“This is my 2nd course of CU-ASK! Personally, I really like the field work that I have nerver done before. Going to Foshan, back and forth is the place i never went before, we went to old villages, sanshui, learning local life through ethnographic techniques is my fav part of this course:) Meanwhile getting to know academics people cross geographical boundaries through lecture series genuinely leveraged my interdisciplinary knowledge.“
- MOOLSRI Chayanisa (Inko), Year 3 Bachelor of Urban Studies