Zhongjie Lin

Dr. Zhongjie Lin is an associate professor of architecture and urbanism at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a cofounder of its Master of Urban Design program. He is also a cofounder and principal of Futurepolis, an award-winning design practice of architecture, landscape, and planning. He received a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai, China.

Dr. Lin’s research focuses on contemporary architecture and urbanism in East Asia, eco-city, theory of urban design, and modern architectural avant-garde movements. He is the author of Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan (Routledge, 2010), and a coauthor of Urban Design in the Global Perspective (China Architectural & Building Press, 2006) and The Making of a Chinese Model New Town (China Architectural & Building Press, 2012). He has published many articles in periodicals, including Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of Urban Design, Journal of Architectural & Planning Research, Time+Architecture, Architectural Journal, and Urban Flux among others, and he wrote a few book chapters. He was a guest editor of Urban Flux for a special issue on Japanese architecture in 2012. His research projects and publications won two grants from Graham Foundation for the Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and he received prestigious fellowships from Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars, Social Science Research Council, Japan Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, and Asian Cultural Council, among other institutes. He is the recipient of the Architectural Researcher Centers Consortium’s 2011 New Researcher Award.

Dr. Lin directs UNC Charlotte School of Architecture’s China Programs, and has spearheaded the collaborations between UNC Charlotte and several Chinese institutions. He has lectured at many universities in the U.S., Japan, China, and Hong Kong, and was a visiting associate professor at Tongji University in 2012. He is a coordinator of China Green Building Council’s North American Chapter. He has also served in the planning expert committees of a few Chinese cities.

Dr. Lin’s current research focuses on China’s emerging new town movement. The current massive urbanization in China has resulted in an unprecedented construction boom and generated ambitious plans of new towns to house the swelling population and sustain economic growth. The country’s economic marketization and entrepreneurial governance also stimulated tremendous investments in advanced environmental technologies and encouraged eco-city experiments to explore future urban forms. Dr. Lin’s project concerns the planning and development of these model new towns in China, focusing on the reciprocal relationship between place-making and social development in this particular phenomenon of urbanism and its global influence.