East Campus of Shantou University and Asian Youth Games Venue, Phase I

I served as one of the project directors and as Architect in Charge for the entire scheme. My responsibility covered the design concept, architectural planning, external form and spatial experience, and I held quality control across the full process, from early concept through construction.

A project of this scale required constant coordination across structure, facade, landscape, building services and construction teams, alongside ongoing communication with the client and the city stakeholders who needed the venue to succeed as both an event space and a long-term public asset. Holding the design intent steady through that many moving parts was as much a leadership task as a design one.

This role gave me direct experience of what it takes to keep a large public project coherent when technical complexity, multiple consultants and a fixed event deadline are all pulling on the same design.

The design concept brought together four ideas: Flying Waves, Landmark, Fluidity and Locality. Each addressed a different dimension of the same question, how to give the city a building that felt both new and recognisably its own.

Flying Waves draws on the region's marine culture, translating the rhythm of waves and reef light into the building's form. Landmark situates the project within Chinese culture and the spirit of the Asian Youth Games, intended to be read as a symbol of youthful energy. Fluidity uses continuous, flowing forms to connect the main functions of the complex, so visitors experience a changing sequence of space as they move rather than a single static image. Locality grounds all of this in the specific coastal site, considering how the building's form, interfaces and landscape sit against the ocean and the surrounding district.

The outdoor square system was planned as a layered set of public spaces rather than a single forecourt. It includes the main entrance square on the southeast side, a second-floor public platform that wraps around the stadium and gymnasium, an outdoor square connected to the conference centre, and a sea-viewing garden on the conference centre roof, reached by a walking route upward through the site.

Planting was kept modern and simple, using lawns, ornamental grasses and sparse trees to highlight the building facade and create an open, atmospheric landscape, with species chosen for wind resistance and salt-alkali tolerance to suit the coastal climate. The intent throughout was that the open spaces could carry many different scenes, people and activities at once, generating ongoing urban life around the venue rather than a space that only activates during scheduled events.

This project taught me that a building's civic value depends on far more than its form. The Asian Youth Games gave the venue its initial purpose, but its lasting value to the city comes from the everyday public life it now supports, the open squares, the campus access, the sea-viewing garden, used long after the event itself ended.

It also sharpened how I think about leading complex delivery. Holding one design intent steady across structure, facade, landscape, multiple consultants and a fixed external deadline required the same skills I now bring to service and public sector design work: clear communication with stakeholders, disciplined coordination across teams, and the judgement to know which details mattered enough to fight for and which could flex.

This project remains one of the clearest examples in my practice of directing a large, technically demanding project toward a human and civic outcome, rather than letting either the technical complexity or the symbolic brief dominate the result on its own.