Tao Zhu is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Department of Architecture, and Co-director of the Center for Chinese Architecture and Urban Design, The University of Hong Kong. He received his Master of Architecture and PhD in Architecture History and Theory at Columbia University. As a scholar, his research focuses on contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism. He has published essays in AA Files, AD, a+u, Bauwelt, Domus, and Time+Architecture. His recent writings include the book Liang Sicheng and His Times (Imaginist, 2014), which examines Chinese architectural development in relation to Mao Zedong’s socio-political campaigns during the 1950s, and a chapter “Architecture in China in the Reform Era 1978-2010” for the book A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture 1960-2010 (Ashgate, 2014). In 2010, he received the first Architectural Critics Award from the China Architecture Media Awards organized by China’s mass media Southern Metropolis Daily in collaboration with eight major Chinese architectural magazines.
As an architect, his built works include Shenzhen Wenjindu Bus Terminal and two Hope Project Elementary Schools at Deyang, Sichuan and Wenxian, Gansu. He is currently designing several large scale urban and architectural projects, including the Block 2 of Shenzhen Liuxiandong New City District (under construction) and the South District City Renovation of Dafen Village (planning stage). He also serves as the City Construction Consultant for Chang’an, a major industrial town of Dongguan, Guangdong, to assist in its urbanization process through both academic research and design practice.