UAD wins the 2019 AR New into Old Commended Award

The winner of the 2019 AR New into Old awards, alongside two Highly Commended and three Commended buildings, for sustainable alternatives to building anew have been selected by the panel of judges, consisting of Roz Barr, director and founder of Roz Barr Architects, Hugh Strange, founder of Hugh Strange Architects, and Catherine Slessor, writer, critic and former editor of The Architectural Review, recently.  

Qingyuan Young Professors’ Club by the Architectural Design and Research Institute (UAD) of Zhejiang University was hailed as a Commended building. Barr remarked that the Young Professors’ Club ‘works within the ruins of an existing school to form a new cloister, delicately weaving a new language of forms around the thickness of the ruined walls. It has a rawness that responds to the past but offers a worthy addition to this hilltop setting’.

Qingyuan Young Professors’ Club is adapted from the former site of Qingyuan Primary School in Tonglu County, Hangzhou City. It will function as a scientific and technological base for young professors at Zhejiang University with a view to promoting cooperation between Qingyuan Village and Zhejiang University.

As the need for sustainable alternatives to building anew becomes increasingly urgent, the AR New into Old awards celebrate the creative ways buildings are adapted and remodeled to welcome new contemporary uses. Launched in 2017, the awards recognize the imaginative appropriation of existing structures, from innovative insertions to ambitious adaptations, that offer buildings a new lease of life.