ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of architect academics in China’s university-run design institutes. It discusses the significance and predicaments of the integrative model of production, teaching, and research in China’s current historical circumstance. The chapter argues that China’s university-run design institutes maximize the application of design intelligence in the wider society to accelerate urbanization and economic growth. Consisting of Liang Sicheng, faculty members, and students from the departments of architecture and civil engineering, the committee was responsible for the planning and design of the university campus buildings. During the Great Leap Forward of 1958, architectural educators were encouraged to engage with production by joining university-run design institutes, offering their professional services to society, and training students in real-life projects. Although those design institutes were shut down during the Cultural Revolution, they were reestablished in the late 1970s; since then, they have been involved in architectural production and become a formidable design force in the market.
