2017 China Prize
Urban Space with High Density—Study of Urbanization in India

Hanxue Wei traveled to India for three weeks in August of 2017, visiting high-density urban spaces in the most populated metropolitan cities in the north and in the south to try to understand the “complicated cultural and financial issues behind them.” Her itinerary also included the symbolic places of Varanasi, Agra, and Chandigarh.

Hanxue Wei
Tongji University
Department of Urban Planning

Jury
Peter J. Kindel (Chair)
Yichun Liu
Wenlei Xi
Ting Yu

China is currently experiencing the largest urbanization process in the world. The population of India will exceed China’s in ten to fifteen years and, without doubt, will be the next place to undergo large-scale urbanization. Never before have two of the most populous countries gone through the urbanization process at the same time.

The most obvious contrast between the two countries is that China is embracing urbanization while India is in the beginning of it. We regret the mistakes we have made while trying to improve, while India has so many opportunities in urban design. Can China see ourselves in India? What can we predict, avoid, and seize in the study of India? Or, what can India learn from China?

© Hanxue Wei.

Somf china prize hanxue wei 2017 04

© Hanxue Wei.

Somf china prize hanxue wei 2017 02

© Hanxue Wei.

Somf china prize hanxue wei 2017 08
Varanasi
Agra
Chandigarh
Somf china prize hanxue wei 2017 03

Hanxue Wei
Tongji University
Department of Urban Planning

Hanxue Wei

was born and raised in Lian Yungang, a picturesque coastal city in Jiangsu Province, central China. She received her Bachelor of Urban Planning degree in June of 2015 from Tongji University and began her Master of Urban Planning at Tongji in September 2015. She participated in a yearlong exchange program at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Urban Design department before returning to complete her final year at Tongji in 2018. With great enthusiasm about urban design, she plans to continue her design and practice in Shanghai, focusing on high density places and urbanization in the world.