The 2023 Shanghai Urban Design Challenge (SUDC), a significant initiative in the collaboration between the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China and the Shanghai Municipal Government, was officially initiated on the afternoon of August 4, marking the beginning of global sign-up.
This challenge has undergone comprehensive enhancements to include a broader range of project and award categories, with the aim to establish a prestigious national-level urban design platform and become an internationally influential event.
I. Comprehensive Enhancements with More Competitions
The 2023 SUDC mainly includes 3 competitions, namely the Shanghai International Urban Design Awards, the Typical City Block Urban Design Competition, and the Micro Space Urban Design Competition. The Shanghai International Urban Design Awards seek to solicit urban design projects initiated and implemented in both domestic and foreign cities with an emphasis on “practical interpretation”. The Typical City Block Urban Design Competition endeavors to discover exceptional urban designs for four typical types of city blocks in Shanghai: urban renewal, green ecology, rail transit stations, and rural revitalization, highlighting “innovative insight”. The Micro Space Urban Design Competition aims to promote the concept of a “15-minute community life circle”. Centered on the theme of the “Six Arts Pavilion”, the competition collects remarkable designs in two categories: Universal Design for Six Arts Pavilion and Site-specific Design for Six Arts Pavilion, with a focus on igniting “sparks of thought”. This year’s challenge, comprising these 3 competitions, has a combined total of 56 awards distributed across 9 categories.
