At the end of the first semester of the 2025–2026 academic year, the Architecture degree programme of the XJTU-POLIMI Joint School presented an exhibition showcasing the work developed by students across all architecture courses offered during the semester.
The exhibition represented an important first moment of synthesis of the Joint School’s cultural and educational path. Its symbolic image was that of a spider web, used as a metaphor for a campus understood as an interweaving of cultures, knowledge, experiences, and methods.
The activities were conceived as a coordinated process across the different courses, capable of bringing together disciplines, architectural sensibilities, and diverse approaches within a cohesive and shared network. In this sense, the exhibition was not only an occasion to display student work, but also a visible expression of a method grounded in interaction, dialogue, and the collective construction of knowledge.
Alongside its educational dimension, the semester also included a moment of exchange dedicated to research, through a seminar involving Italian and Chinese faculty focused on the theme of urban regeneration. The seminar provided an opportunity for dialogue on shared topics and methods, opening the way to possible common paths of further study and research.
The exhibition and the seminar thus marked two complementary moments in the Joint School’s development: on the one hand, the presentation of the teaching work carried out by students; on the other, the strengthening of an international academic dialogue aimed at fostering future research collaborations.
The first-semester activities involved the joint participation of the following faculty members: Zhai Binqing, Andrea Gritti, Zhu Shanyao, Barbara Galli, Xu Yishan, Elena Fioretto, Zhao Yiqing, Maurizio Meriggi, Xu Yubin, Mariacristina Loi, Yang Hanzi, Angelo Lorenzi, Zhang Yuzhao, Cecilia Bolognesi, Li Meng, Luka Skansi.
