Design with Nature Now: 2025 Asia Exhibition

The College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University and the Shanghai Yangpu Riverside Investment Development (Group) Co., Ltd., in collaboration with the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at Weitzman, present the Shanghai premiere of Design with Nature Now, the global survey of ecological design that originated at Penn for the 50th anniversary of Ian McHarg's landmark book Design with Nature.

The exhibition consists of three thematic sections.

Academic Tribute
Continuing the core content presented in the Taiwan and Nanjing exhibitions, this section pays homage to Ian McHarg’s ecological vision through Ian McHarg: The House We Live In and A Book of Days. Additionally, a unique layered installation within this section reinterprets McHarg’s iconic “overlayers” analysis diagrams, offering visitors a spatial and interpretive experience of his method for reading and designing landscapes.

Shanghai Practice
Featuring 15 design practices based in Shanghai, this section presents realized projects that address critical environmental and urban challenges—biodiversity loss, sea level rise, water and soil degradation, urban sprawl, and heritage conservation. These projects embody ecological thinking in contemporary urban-rural development. 

Youth Innovation
Showcasing the results of the 2025 CAUP International Design Summer School, this section centers on the regeneration of Fuxing Island through the lenses of digital intelligence, ecological systems, and humanistic values. The summer school brings together international students and mentors from China, the U.S., Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries in a two-week design workshop.