Dr Duanfang Lu

Title: Dr
BArch (Tsinghua University)
PhD (University of California, Berkeley)
Name: Duanfang Lu
Position: Senior Lecturer
Location: Room 559, Wilkinson Building (G04), 148 City Road, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Phone: +61 2 9036 5383
Email:

Expertise

Modern Chinese architectural and planning history, contemporary architectural and urban theories, modern architecture and urban development in developing countries, housing design and neighbourhood planning

Profile

Duanfang Lu is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She holds a BArch from Tsinghua University, Beijing and PhD in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked as an architect, architectural and urban historian in China, the United States and Australia. She held a visiting academic position at Harvard University in 2008.

Lu's research interests include modern Chinese architectural and planning history, contemporary architectural and urban theories, and modern architecture and urban development in developing countries. She has published widely in these areas. Her authored book Remaking Chinese Urban Form (Routledge, 2006) provides a significant new perspective on the intertwined relationship between modernity, scarcity and the built environment by examining the development of the work unit (danwei) as a primary urban form under Maoist socialism. The book has been reviewed by nine journals and adopted as required reading at many universities. Her article 'Travelling Urban Form' received the Best Article Prize in 2006-2007 from the journal Planning Perspectives and the International Planning History Society (Citation). She has been a recipient of prestigious awards from US Social Science Research Council, UC Berkeley, the Getty Foundation and Australian Research Council (Discovery Project, 2007-2009). She serves on editorial boards of the journals Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review and Architectural Theory Review, and on the advisory board of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments.

Lu teaches architectural theory, history and design at both graduate and undergraduate level. She serves on 8 doctoral committees (5 as principal supervisor) and supervises honours students doing research regularly. She led a Teaching Improvement Fund program which aimed to build a strong research culture through Faculty-wide workshops and social events in 2006. She co-organised an international symposium on 'People in Place in People' in Sydney in February 2006, which attracted 124 scholars from 31 countries. Since 2008 she has delivered conference keynote speeches and invited lectures in the Department of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Department of Geography at Guangzhou University, the Institute of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Melbourne, and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Lu is Principal of GZ Architects (co-founded with Gang Gang) and has extensive experience in architectural design and neighbourhood planning. She won the First Prize in Bao'an Central Area 'Green Axis' Complex Design Competition, Shenzhen, in 2000 (with Gang Gang). Her work was exhibited at the 2002 Bay Area Architectural Computer Graphic Exhibition in San Francisco. Most recent design projects include Zijinchanghe Residential Complex (270,000 square metres, Beijing) and Xindao Holiday Residential Complex (100,000 square metres, Beijing).

Courses Taught

Contemporary Architectural Theories (Graduate)
Architecture and Urbanism in Asia (Graduate)
Architecture, Globalisation and Urbanisation (Graduate)
Architecture, Place and Society (Undergraduate)
Design Studies 1A – History and Theory Module (Undergraduate)
Design Practice 2A (Undergraduate design studio)
Design Practice 2B (Undergraduate design studio)
Design Practice 1A (Undergraduate design studio)

Selected Awards

2008	Best Article Prize in 2006-2007 from the journal Planning Perspectives and the International Planning History Society
2007-2009	The Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant
2007	The J. Paul Getty Fellowship from the Getty Foundation (awarded from submissions worldwide)
2006	The University of Sydney Teaching Improvement Fund grant (with J. Gero, R. Pizarro, G. Hill and D. Cabrera)
2005, 2006	The University of Sydney Research and Development Scheme grants
2005	Australia-China Council Australian Studies Competitive Projects grant (with M. Bin [CI], E. Blakely, and Z. Bing).
2005	The University of Sydney International Development Fund grant (with G. Moore [CI], W. Julian, and E. Blakely)
2001-2002	Chancellor's Fellowship for Dissertation Research, University of California, Berkeley (one of 13 awarded from all advanced PhD candidates at UC Berkeley)
2000	Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, University of California, Berkeley
2000	First Prize in Bao'an Central Area 'Green Axis' Complex Design Competition (with G. Gang), Shenzhen, China
1999-2000	U.S. Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship

Selected Publications

Authored books:

Lu, D. (2006) Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949 - 2005, London: Routledge.

Click here to download the flyer.

Contents

1 Introduction: Socialist Space, Postcolonial Time PART I: China Modern 2. Travelling Urban Form: The Neighbourhood Unit in China 3. Work Unit Urbanism Part II: Urban Dreams 4. The Socialist Production of Space: Planning, Urban Contradictions and the Politics of Consumption in Beijing, 1949-1965 5. Modernity as Utopia: Planning the People's Commune, 1958-1960 PART III: Shifting Boundaries 6. The Latency of Tradition: On the Vicissitudes of Walls 7. The New Frontier: Urban Space and Everyday Practice in the Reform Era 8. Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

Contemporary Chinese urban space is viewed as the product of socialist modernization and Third World scarcity. This volume is an insightful analysis of the urban built environment in the context of a transforming political economy within material constraints. The narrative has a rare insider's perception and understanding. In the fields of Chinese development and architecture, this is an essential addition. - Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

In her study of the work unit as a socialist concept, living and working environment, and fundamental element of the distinctive morphology of the Maoist city, Duanfang Lu illuminates both space and society. Her nuanced interpretation of the work unit, based on extensive research and utilizing a sophisticated theoretical framework, makes a major contribution to our understanding of the socialist production of space. This book is an important benchmark in the study of Chinese urbanism and urbanization. - Margaret Crawford, Harvard University

With extraordinary detailed first-hand fieldwork and archive search, [Lu] depicts space production in both socialist and reform periods... The book has two outstanding strengths: its sensitivity to history and keen observations of spatial details. It traces current urban forms to historical tradition and related many seemingly irrelevant forms to the common logic of space production... Overall, this is a truly benchmark work in the study of Chinese urban form. - Fulong Wu, China Information, vol. 21, no. 3, 2007

Remaking Chinese Urban Form is a work that anyone interested in the question of China and urban planning must read. Yet, in many ways, it is also much more. Bursting with new ideas, the author takes the reader on a barnstorming tour of issues and problems that have afflicted Chinese architecture and urban planning over the last fifty or so years. ... I was left with an impression of both detailed archival scholarship and rare imagination in the field of China studies. - Michael Dutton, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, vol. 18, no. 2, 2007

Lu's discussion of the architectural and social history of the work unit is a major contribution to Chinese architectural history. ... It must be emphasized that this history would otherwise be out of reach for the visible foreigner in China, as non-Chinese scholars would almost certainly be barred from many of the relevant archives and spaces discussed in this important new book. - Johnathan A. Farris, Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 67, no. 1, 2008

Edited books and journal special issues:

Lu, D. (forthcoming) Third World Modernism: Architecture, Development, and Identity, London: Routledge.

Lu, D. (ed.) (2008) 'Rethinking Architectural Spectacle', Architectural Theory Review, vol. 13, no. 2 (Click here to see the flyer).

Wu, F. and D. Lu (eds.) (2008) 'The Transition of Chinese Cities', Built Environment, vol. 34, no. 4. (Click here to see the flyer).

Journal articles and book chapters:

Lu, D. (2009) 'Entangled Modernities in Architecture', in G. Crysler, S. Cairns and H. Heynen (eds.) Handbook of Architectural Theory, London: Sage (in press).

Lu, D. (2008) 'Unthinking Spectacle', Architectural Theory Review, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 125-29.

Wu, F. and D. Lu (2008) 'The Transition of Chinese Cities', Built Environment, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 385-91.

Lu, D. (2007) 'Architecture and Global Imaginations in China', Journal of Architecture, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 1-23.

Lu, D. (2007) 'Third World Modernism: Modernity, Utopia and the People's Commune in China', Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 40-48.

Lu, D. (2007) 'Yuwang de jiaoyu' [The Education of Desire] (in Chinese), Shidai jianzhu [Time + Architecture] (in Chinese), no. 5, pp. 22-27.

Lu, D. (2006) 'Travelling Urban Form: The Neighbourhood Unit in China', Planning Perspectives, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 369-92.

Lu, D. (2004) 'The Latency of Tradition', in N. AlSayyad (ed.), End of Tradition? New York: Routledge, pp. 210-30.

Lu, D. (2000) 'The Changing Landscape of Hybridity: A Reading of Ethnic Identity and Urban Form in Late-Twentieth-Century Vancouver', Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 19-28.