Postdoc/Lecturer, Chair of History of Architecture & Urban Planning, Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, TU Delft, Netherlands
Kaiyi Zhu works at the interface of architectural and urban history, critical heritage studies, and environmental design. She is trained as an architect with an interest in in protecting and transforming historic urban landscapes, identity of post-colonial heritage, and design for sustainable development goals. Kaiyi obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, TU Delft, with a research project entitled "In the Name of Conservation". In addition to the project PortCityFutures (LDE) and the UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities, Kaiyi is also affiliated with the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) Centre for Global Heritage and Development and has become a member of the Our Collections Matter network (the representative of the Netherlands) from ICCROM since January 2023. Meanwhile, she was a research fellow at the China Academy of Art between 2023 and 2024, investigating bottom-up art practices in China and community engagement within.
Her research mainly focuses on architectural and urban history, transnationalism, interpretation of heritage conservation discourse and policy-making in China, as well as heritage practices in regeneration for Sustainable Development Goals. She possesses adept qualitative and quantitative research skills and has honed exceptional observational, communication, and textual analysis abilities through extensive fieldwork. She was honoured to have been selected for the IPHS (International Planning History Society) Spotlight in 2022. She also serves on the editorial teams of the journals Blue Papers and European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes.
Selected Publications
Zhu, K. (2023). In the Name of Conservation: Reflections on the Interpretation and Justification of China’s Urban Heritage Practices by Taking Shanghai’s Lilong Neighbourhoods as an Example. A+BE | Architecture and the Built Environment. https://doi.org/10.7480/abe.2023.02.6890
Sun, L., & Zhu, K. (2022). The Social Dimension of Urban Transformation in Shanghai: Population Mobility, Modernity, and Globalization. Journal of Urban History, 48(1), 213–221. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144220971820
Zhu, K., Ting, C-S., Lin, S-L., Hein, C. M. & Mager, T. (2021). Roundtable I: Water and Heritage. In U., Fatoric, S., Hein, C., de Maaker, E. & Pereira Roders, A. (eds.), LDE Heritage Conference on Heritage and the Sustainable Development Goals: Proceedings. Pottgiesser (pp. 513 - 515), TU Delft Open.
Zhu, K., Hein, C.M. (2020). Temporalities and the conservation of cultural relic protection units: legislative, economic and citizen times of the Bugaoli community in globalising Shanghai. Built Heritage, 4 (11). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-020-00012-8
Zhu, K., Hein, C. M. & Sun, L. (2020). Dynamic Heritage Strategies: Dutch Practices of Architectural Heritage Transformation in the Cultural, Economic and Historical Dimensions (动态的遗产策略:文化、经济、历史维度下的荷兰建筑遗产改造实践), The Architect (建筑师), 2020, (1): 22-31.
Zhu, K. (2019). Water Heritage in Asian Cities Symposium, 29 November – 1 December 2018, Shanghai, China. European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes, 2(1), 195-206. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2612-0496/9160
