The 9th Construction Season of Chongqing University, co-hosted by the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning of Chongqing University and the Yuzhong District Management Committee on Historical and Cultural Blocks, was held in the Hastin Avenue Traditional Scene Area located in Yuzhong District on April 16, 2022. Twenty-one teams from 7 architecture classes of 2021 of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, divided into the PP Board Group and the Wood Group by building materials, completed building of solid models within 8 hours. Students used their wildest imagination in every single piece of the material during the fantastic hands-on experience of dream building.
At the opening ceremony, Gao Lin, Deputy Head of Yuzhong District People's Government, Du Chunlan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Zhong Bo, Director of the Yuzhong District Management Committee on Historical and Cultural Blocks, and Qu Zhiqian, General Manager of the City-Industry Business Division of Chongqing Sunac Real Estate Co., Ltd., delivered a speech respectively. Weng Ji, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, presided at the opening ceremony.
Hastin Avenue is named after a legend about a green lion and a white elephant governing the river. It is closely associated with the memory about the old town of generations of Chongqing people. Students made bold attempt to integrate the profound cultural deposits of Hastin Avenue into their solid models and built creative models that featured antique beauty of Hastin Avenue.
The PP Board Group and the Wood Group were respectively on the east and west sides of the rostrum. Students set about building their models after the honored guests at the event issued the construction permit to the 21 teams.
The team members worked shoulder to shoulder at the construction site, and made ultimate efforts to make the models as close as possible to the scheme they had been improving for nearly 1 month. Moreover, they had to deal with some emergency situations and overcome difficulties encountered in the process. With clear division of work, the construction went on smoothly in an orderly manner. During the event, some visitors came up to have a close look, ask questions or take a picture. Specifically, the works, Cloud and Shadow and Under the Grain, attracted the most attention. Visitors said that the students injected momentum to Hastin Avenue. The construction site became a popular attraction in Hastin Avenue for visitors to take pictures.
After 8 hours of construction, 21 models were completed successfully by 5:00 p.m. Representatives of the building teams explained their design concepts and structural systems of their models to the judges successively, and briefed them on the entire process from scheme design to construction implementation. Many students said that the event had been interesting and challenging, and that they gained a deeper understanding of materials, composition and structure through the hands-on experience. The 9th Construction Season of Chongqing University was brought to a successful end amidst roars of applause and laughters.
The Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, the Faculty of Built Environment of Chongqing University, the Architecture Popularization Education Base of Chongqing University (National Scientific Popularization Base), Nanjimen Sub-district of Yuzhong District and Chongqing Sunac Real Estate Co., Ltd. granted substantial support to the event. This event was reported by China Xinhua News Network, Science and Technology Daily, Chongqing Daily, Chongqing TV Station and other national and local mainstream media.
The Construction Season of Chongqing University was launched in 2013 and has been held a number of times since then. With more than 1,000 participants accumulatively, this event has been drawing extensive attention from various sectors of the society. The Construction Season of Chongqing University is an innovative practice activity which is held by the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning in combination with the "material and construction" teaching section as part of the course "Fundamentals of Architectural Design", and is also one of the major achievements in course-driven education of Chongqing University. The School has been making efforts to deepen teaching reform, and explore education and teaching reform modes that have characteristics of the discipline and spur active social involvement. The Construction Season serves as a platform and an opportunity for college students to show their talents and apply what they have learned in class to social practice. The "course-based ideological and political education" of design practice course is carried out through selection of historical block sites, guide of traditional culture in scheme concept and nurturing of traditional architectural culture.
Photography: Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning
